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Joe Babinsack Looks At TNA, Sting and RVD

Posted: Mar 15th 2010 By: CMBurnham

It is painfully obvious how much the professional wrestling product has changed

It is painfully obvious how much the professional wrestling product has changed in fifteen years. It is also painfully obvious how entrenched decision makers are, in the belief that they are promoting to the same ten million fans that existed a decade ago.

Both the WWE and TNA are guilty of that error, but even ROH and the bulk of the independent scene cater to a mentality that the formulas, approach and sensibilities established by the height of the cable TV wars are the proven path of success for the industry.

And yet the creative efforts today pale in comparison.

At the height of the success of the NWO, a proven invasion angle played out to perfection, but ultimately without an endgame, one figure emerged to capture the emotions of the long time fans, and the dynamics of the Hogan/Hall/Nash dominance, and the patchwork of legends, fanbases and regionally established traditions that the whole angle was founded upon.

That figure was Sting.

As the lone holdout to the NWO domination, Sting was the embodiment of traditional fans and their hope for someone to stem the tide of the invasion. Sure, the NWO was triumphant, but the establishment of a super-cool, disrespectful and mean-spirited heel faction, wrapped in a veneer of the ?tweener? and pretending to be everything that professional wrestling wasn?t, was doomed to over-reach, and doomed WCW to its destruction, based on dynamics alone.

But Sting?s character played out at the time, to build up one of the biggest matches of the era, and to capture the faint and fading hope of fans that someone would stand up to the bullies.

That, my friends, is part of the established emotional dynamics of professional wrestling itself.

If the heels dominate, and cannot be bested, what is the future of the company? History, in the form of Buddy Rogers and his crew, bore that out in the 1950?s. Having a faction of cronies around to squeeze the life out of the fanbase, to suck up the profits, and to bleed a promotion dry?

ATM Eric anyone?

WCW was well on its way to what would happen a few years later, but Sting was there to draw a line in the sand. And while the crashing waves of coolness, of an ever-increasing heel faction, of an irresistible force of legends and in-their-prime names that captured anyone of interest from WCW?s past, well, that was the perfect enemy, if only one man would stand up.

This wasn?t the Millionaire?s Club and the Young Blood, this wasn?t TNA?s abortive and all but foolish recreation of last year, and this wasn?t a trite and tired attempt to put up a half-hearted effort of an impotent face faction.

Heck, it wasn?t even the death-throes of AWA and the emergence of the cult figure known as Jake ?The Milkman? Milliken to capture sentimentality of fans who knew it was almost over, so enjoy it while it lasts.

But Sting didn?t just stand up one day and beat people down with a baseball bat.

This wasn?t a one night stand, a sudden turn of events, nor a blink if your dare to miss it moment.

Sting wasn?t the same wrestler by the time he appeared fully on screen. Gone were the day-glo colors, the iconic image of a scorpion on his gear, and event the spiked hair and cartoonishly painted face.

No, Sting captured the essence of the era, and pushed it further. ?The Crow? was a cathartic comic book story made into a movie, featuring the rising star Brandon Lee, and was steeped in an awesome display of gothic darkness, storyline and real life tragedy, and soon to be iconic imagery that would inspire various wrestling gimmicks for years.

For a while, Sting was a ghostly figure, shrouded in darkness, obviously observing the reality of WCW, obviously dismayed by it all, obviously being affected by it all.

While I don?t know who?s to credit for the storyline, the look and the unveiling of the storyline, this period of time was an investment in the character, an investment in the ultimate confrontations, and a work that resulted in an awesome payoff for the company.

Sting versus Hogan.

WCW?s lone avenger against the power that brought about its ruin.

Meanwhile, at or around that same era, and centered mostly in the City of Brotherly Love, another angle was unfolding with a heated passion.

Rob Van Dam had emerged on the scene in Extreme Championship Wrestling. He was making a name for his high-flying, high-impact and high-ly egotistical attitude. Striding to the ring with Pantera?s ?Walk? stoking the crowd, RVD proved himself to be the whole ?F?N? show.

But the storyline that cemented him wasn?t a spectacular dive or a table crash or, really, just one moment.

It began, that?s for sure, with a lack of respect, and the refusal of a handshake.

But this wasn?t a one night stand, either. This was a confrontation that had to happen, but one that would play out over many months. This was an investment of time, effort and stroking of emotions. It was the crafting, by truly creative individuals and a mastermind behind the scenes, of a match that everyone wanted to happen.

So much so that it would launch ECW into the PPV era, and perhaps save the company from itself, from its completion (and, as we know today, from the purse-strings of a higher power.) And yeah, there?s probably some other lines converging in here, whether it was Tazz or Sabu, and concerning Sabu and his unfortunate contractual situation, but the essence remains the same: establishing something that people want to see means establishing it and drawing out the storyline, so everyone ?understands? it and everyone tells their friends about it, and thus it grows instead of diminishes, and thus it becomes meaningful and not meaningless.

Would ECW capture the clamor of its fans without doling out the disrespect, heightening the desire for the physical confrontation, creating a ?you must want to see this? match?

####

But last week, what did TNA do with two historically proven characters, two guys who have captured the interest of the fans through multiple promotions, through multiple eras, and who still have ?it? when you consider ?it? to be that certain connection to the audience?

They rolled them out with little advance warning, put them in a match that lasted 9 seconds, and completely blurred the primary angle with enough secondary angles that there?s no way in hell that anyone could care about what happens next, because for one, there is no followup that can tie up all these loose ends, and for another, because there?s no faith in TNA?s current creative department to even begin to think that they may attempt to make an effort of it.

When the NWO played out, at least there was a few years of establishment, before the lack of ?what?s next?? began to crumble the concept.

With TNA?s Monday Night ?debut? as a serious competitor to the WWE, we established the lack of ?what?s next?? before the show even ended.

And even there, the debut of Rob Van Dam was dissipated, because he couldn?t even re-appear at the end of the program, because someone obviously realized that debuting Jeff Hardy at the end of the program made much more sense.

As if setting up Hogan/Flair, Hogan/Sting, Sting/RVD and ? as an afterthought ? feebly establishing Abyss and A. J. Styles as credible current and championship level wrestlers wasn?t enough of a train wreck!

Today, in TNA, it?s not just that they expect that name value is going to drive viewership, it?s that they simply cannot comprehend the reality that the wrestling business has changed, that the ten million fans who watched ?once upon a time? are no longer bothering to participate.

More so, even though the internet age has sped up communications, I just don?t see how fans today are that caught up in wrestling such that they?d immediately text their friends or even jump on the phone to tell someone to turn on Spike.

Time is needed to establish things.

I mean, wasn?t that the concept of the ?water-cooler? focus, to get people talking the next day, to get people to want to watch the show the next week so they could see it first hand? But the problem is that the fans aren?t at the water-coolers. That fanbase needs to be rebuilt.

This isn't the professional wrestling world that existed in the mid to late 1990's. ECW is dead. WCW is long forgotten. That ten or eleven million is at best a third, arguably a half. People who watched religiously now don't care, and the same tired formula, and the same frantic hotshotting is keeping the old fans away, no matter what lies and deceptions and self-delusions Creative comes up with.

Legendary names still exist, but they shouldn't be wrestling in the ring; those that can be wrestling in the ring, should be doing so with a purpose, not just an unadvertised appearance.

There is an economic concept call the law of diminishing returns.

Today, we?re seeing that in action, as TNA chases fans that have already long left the business

Tags: WWE, TNA, Sting, WCW, ECW, Ric Flair, A. J. Styles