TNA Tries Using T&A

Is it even a competition anymore?

Here's my rant for the week.

When Vince McMahon first accused the TNA product of being "tawdry and bloodsoaked action", I laughed. I laughed because this was the same McMahon that put his corporate stamp of approval on such creative masterpieces as Mae Young giving birth to a prosthetic hand and the Katie Vick storyline. I laughed because it was only in the last couple of years that the WWE product has made a format change to appeal to the younger, PG audience. I also laughed because I never considered TNA's product to be tawdry in the slightest. Confusing? Absolutely. Full of holes? You bet. Spotlights on the wrong people? For sure. I never once thought of TNA's shows to be trashy.

That was, until last night.

In the desperate ploy for a ratings jump, the injured and limping TNA iMPACT! program produced the biggest pile of balls that professional wrestling / sports entertainment has seen in years. Yes, it was worse than the Jerry Springer Guest Host edition of Raw. Believe me.

Between Jeff Hardy meaning ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, Orlando Jordan's Lady Gaga gimmick ripoff, and quite possibly the trashiest segment I had the displeasure of watching, the TNA Knockout's Title Belt In a Box... thing, I was ready to stab my eyes out with an icepick. That was, until I realized there was a better show on the USA network. I'm not even going to go into the nitty gritty details, but when you have a segment where a TNA Knockout is forced to take their clothes off because one of the boxes tells them to do it? You're tawdry. When your Women's Championship belt changes hands because someone opened a box on a gameshow? You're tawdry. When you resort to lowbrow gameshow crap to increase your ratings instead of actually showcasing the people you spent TOP DOLLAR for, you're not only tawdry, you're stupid.

Here's the best part: Their ridiculous attempt to draw more viewers to the show by flaunting Knockout Boobies did NOTHING FOR THEIR RATINGS. TNA drew the average ho-hum 0.9 that they always have, except for the post-Wrestlemania week when they drew a 0.6.

This is what makes me so mad. TNA, I WANT YOU TO BE SUCCESSFUL. We want competition! I wish you would put a superior product out, because it would force everyone else to step up their game! But when you actually allow your cameras to record the garbage that you put together last night, you're tawdry.

And you're doomed for failure.