By Shane McKinkley, Torch specialist

"We are aimless
And the target is an empty wall
We're out of patience
With smiles that cut across our face
No complaints
But I wish I had my top of my brain"

-"No Complaints" by Beck

"Nacho, nacho man!
I've got to be a nacho man!"

-"Nacho Man" by Vince McMahon

I turned on ECW Tuesday night. The Miz vs. Tommy Dreamer? I think the turning point for me was the ECW when newly crowned champion Jack Swagger wandered around the arena looking for his lost belt. Before ECW got a fresh injection of new talent (noticeably Christian), ECW looked to be just biding its time until the draft with a potential Swagger vs. Dreamer feud ending with Dreamer winning the ECW championship at One Night Stand, retiring, and ECW having a championship tournament.

The above was purely speculation. I'm not in the creative meetings nor do I have an inside source. I had also no idea that TNA would take the "Sting to lay down" and turn it into an awkward, cheap tease for Impact. But more on that later.

ECW made me pay for assuming that it was going to be another drab night with Christian coming back. ECW reminds me of a Triple A baseball team. You have your collection of old timers (Finlay, Mark Henry), your working stiffs, and your oddballs meant merely to excite the crowd (Boogeyman). Boogey's act is old. I mean, I'm easily amused by those frisbee dogs at halftime shows. Boogey's main progression as a wrestler since 2005 has been getting Snitsky's rotten teeth. Matt Hardy had a successful run as ECW Champion. ECW is all in all a solid show.

According to the Smackdown vs. Raw 2009 videogame, Boogeyman faces Undertaker at WrestleMania. The storyline I enjoyed most in that game was MVP's "Better-Than-Utopia" feud with John Cena.

Like many, I assumed that the star power Christian gathered in TNA would translate over to WWE. In a sense Christian is bumped down to the farm system of baseball to prove that he belongs in the big leagues (Smackdown, Raw). Seeing Christian in ECW first brought up the name "Braden Walker" in my mind. Braden Walker had a knock knock joke and a singlet. That was it after hearing reports about how he was going to be brought in at a high level (credit to slam.canoe.ca for pic).

More rampant speculation: Christian can still be the one who tried to kill Jeff all this time. Unless they plan to bring back Lita as Matt's evil girlfriend. Or maybe it was Jeff's real girlfriend. Or Brutus Maxipad. The more speculation there is, the more it shows that the fans are emotionally involved in the product. They care about what happens and think about what will happen. By contrast, there isn't a whole lot of speculation in TNA nowadays. I'm wondering if Joe and Styles will ever be brought up as true top stars.

The main point of tonight was to get people interested in ECW again. New faces as well as welcomed old talent are what ECW needed.

ECW VERDICT: In The Middle Of Absurdity

Speculation is fun to do as a wrestling fan. You'll find that the more passionate fans are, the more vocal they tend to be. That's why internet writers are usually smarky cynics. Cynicism is a way to keep the product honest and not to be swayed, not to be fooled. Inevitably this leads many people to feel that the internet wrestling writer is biased. "You just hate TNA and love WWE. Triple H is gay, you're gay, everything is gay gay gay" might be one response on message boards, albeit with a staggering amount of spelling mistakes and juvenile swearing (I kid).

Wrestling sites like PWTorch.com exist to create and encourage discussion amongst wrestling fans. No one really has a secret agenda to bring down WWE, TNA, or any other wrestling organization. Much like watching a struggling football team, fans know that with key improvements several nagging flaws that both WWE and TNA face can be eradicated.

Now back to the subject matter at hand.

Impact...It was about time for the show to start. My DVR can only record two shows at the same time. "Die Hard 2" and "X-Men" were playing at the same time. Impact was also during the same time slot, so I would have to give up one show. I gave up on "Die Hard 2" and tuned into Impact to see what was going on. Sorry, John McClane. Looks like you're going have to fight those terrorists by yourself on this one (credit to impawards.com for pic).

It's just me, but I wish the "Legends" belt was named something else. It sounds prestigious but hearing A.J. talk about how he's ready to become a legend bothers me. I just don't care for the belt, but A.J. vs. Booker is at least intriguing, if stale.

TNA shows the "Sting vs. Angle vs. Team 3D" match uh-again. It makes sense. Because the first time was to hype up the Sting-Angle tension, the PPV match was to do nothing, and the third was put into place to put this Sting-Angle tension into overdrive. And apparently TNA can't be bothered to push this feud with new matches. Rushed? Yep. TNA trips over themselves getting into MEM dissension because I can only assume that MEM is their meal ticket. Looks like they have already given up on Frontline.

Sting vs. Angle next week in an empty arena match? Not sure why exactly Sting vs. Angle needs to be in an empty arena. "Sting and Angle are going to get it on...in an empty arena! Yeah!" Um, no. It's wacky. It's somewhat creative. It's pointless. And it's on the next Impact. I'm hoping for a good trick up TNA's sleeve in this empty arena match. I hope, you know, that the plan is not just "Sting and Angle fight in an empty arena because we're desperate for ratings and will throw any gimmick match out there."

And it's not like the audience in the Impact Zone ever really played a huge part. Sometimes the crowd gets involved during wrestler's promos, but generally in TNA the audience feels canned. Perhaps it is because TNA likes to use previous audience reaction shots (where they tell them "Go crazy, and the craziest will receive a backstage pass!"). There's nothing in TNA like when a wrestler does a long promo and the arena is silent.

If TNA did decide to go with Sting laying down at Against All Odds (I brought it up for discussion during the ABSURD AOO preview), it could have made sense with Angle and Sting swerving everyone to feel one thing (Sting has too much respect for the business) but then going with the heel outcome (Sting passes the torch to Angle). Instead we get a paper tiger in Sting as champion. Deluded Angle is always entertaining.

It's known that wrestling shows are planned to have a "main tease." In this case, will Sting lay down? It's just annoying to me how the rest of the show teases the main tease. "Guess you'll just have to wait and find out." Guess what? I don't. Like my happiness depends solely on finding out if Sting is evil or not. Uh huh.

Jeff Jarrett comes out? Doesn't it seem like TNA just wasted their "returning stars" card? Joe and his video packages? Wasting time here. Joe's gonna...kill all of his momentum. At least it did for me.

Maybe that's a trick to watching TNA. You're supposed to ignore the storyline and character developments, because most of the time they are absurd and don't go anywhere. Sting vs. Angle feels rushed and like it was written on a napkin. The added benefit of knowing that next month this could be forgotten in TNA.

Steiner does another round of "Joe is fat" jokes. Next week, Joe does "Steiner can barely move" jokes. Good times. It is impressive that Steiner did the Frankensteiner. What isn't impressive is that he is beating up essentially a jobber in the ring. Next week, Tenay and West gush over the fact that Steiner can touch his toes.

I caught Petey vs. Steiner. According to internet reports I knew that this was Petey's last match in TNA. So it might be worth checking out. Then I heard Don West say something like, "You know, a lot of people ask me, Don West, why are you in my bushes? Second, they ask me why does Petey keep dressing up like Steiner? It's because he knows that it makes Steiner mad. He gets his goat. Petey has the gall to do that? It just infuriates Steiner." That was the general gist of the message. TNA had their announcers explain that Petey still dresses up like Steiner because it makes Steiner mad.

Ok...

No one dresses up like the person who sent them to a hospital. Booker during his announcing duties talked about how Petey dresses up like Steiner because Petey has a man-crush on him. And most importantly of all, this explanation does nothing for Petey or for the product itself. Petey is going to be let go. And even if he wasn't, his stay in TNA has become a sad joke.

Basically, TNA tried to cover up their stupidity with a bland analysis from their announcers. This is why not a lot of characters and storylines stick with TNA fans. For the time of a MEM video package, there could be a short Petey interview talking about how he feels about Steiner. Or better yet, Petey Williams coming out as himself and not "mini Scott Steiner." But that is how it works in TNA. TNA expects that they can cover up mistakes with announcers telling their coddled audience some absurd character explanation that is infuriating.

In watching wrestling, fans expect that they have to suspend disbelief. I can handle poor storylines, illogical character development and random wrestler pushes only to be dropped the next month (Rhino, Team 3D). Every wrestling organization manipulates and plays the crowd, but TNA has that rare gift where they seemingly go out of their way to show how seriously flawed their product is.

This is my own opinion. Many people feel different about TNA. Some are loyal and prefer it over the WWE product. I understand that reasoning. Some have been following TNA since its inception. It's akin to me calling your baby ugly. Maybe it is perhaps I didn't follow TNA during its time in Nashville. Maybe it is perhaps I didn't catch Impact when it was a 1 hour show. That does not matter. As a fan, time after time again I am convinced that TNA has no clear-cut idea in where's it is going. No overly strong future plan. No apparent attempt to fix some of its most glaring problems.

Nitpicking? Sure. And mistakes will happen. But TNA has that special knack of continuing blindly with stupidity and explaining the storyline development using illogical arguments, like it was all part of their master plan. I want to see them succeed, but they are lazy in even fixing the little things (and in many cases, making them worse).

Man. Mick Foley. I admit it. I gushed over Foley coming to TNA. Had the crazy notion that it was going to be Foley vs. Angle. I didn't care that Foley looked really out of shape. I just wanted to see this match up. Wanted WWE fanboys to check out TNA when Foley vs. Angle was on PPV. I tuned into Impact to see what Foley did. But the crap just kept piling up. His "retirement." Owning Frontline all by himself. Guest Enforcer/Ref/Announcer for whenever TNA feels they need to get more PPV buys. Nowadays...he's simply just another one of the guys. It's quite a feat for TNA to turn somebody who was once big news into a non-factor into my decision to watch Impact.

Perhaps TNA will do an "Ultimate X" match preview, akin to their "King Of The Mountain" preview. Never understood this idea of giving the PPV match on TV.

Motor City Machine Guns are enjoyable to watch. If LAX is supposed to be this great tag team, how come they never get air time?

Could be a way to get more people to TNA's website with them showing the videos that people send to ODB. Obviously there would be some graphic ones. But many of them could be quite funny.

But then again, I'm assuming that this ODB's contest is real.

Brutus Magnum: "I'm angry. I want competition." Uh-huh. This is going into kayfabe territory, but if you wanted to get competition, what you do is you attack somebody backstage, in the ring, whatever. Why are you spending time with ODB? At least you get air time, I suppose. Too bad for you, Brutus Magnus. TNA's got no competition for you.

Yes folks. We have the Angle-Sting storyline. We forgot to show fans the main parts to this storyline. But just believe what we tell you. Good gravy, man. WWE even showed visual proof of Mike Knox winning some doohickey battle royale to be in the elimination chamber. And it's not like you didn't have time. How many interviews with Sting, Angle and Team 3D have viewers seen in the past month? Angle vs. Sting. More matches and less soap opera drama. Eh, no.

But nuts to that! Total nonstop angle! You can mark me down as a Kurt Angle fanboy. Oh, Kurt. What can't you do? (credit to z.about.com for pic).

"Family Guy." "Lost." Maybe that's how TNA connects with their viewers. Have a big demented janitor talk about shows that tickles the writers's fancy. Since we're name dropping shows, can you have Abyss talk about "Robot Chicken?" "Pardon The Interruption?" "WWE?" Wasn't there an Abyss-Morgan feud here? Why is he talking to some quack again?

Watch TNA! We use unprotected chair shots to the head! We love to do it to Abyss! This frankly doesn't make a lot of sense. Chair shots are one thing, but a board with barbwire on it is another. Why not protect your wrestlers and use somewhat less damaging weapons that can have the same effect, like a cooking pan, a kendo stick, a microphone, or water guns? Chair shots in the '90s was akin to the steroid era in baseball. Some fans got to see the results of such deadly behavior, but the fans didn't have to deal with the painful consequences that arose from such actions. The wrestlers do. Their families do. And what's the point of unprotected chair shots from the head? To get a pop from the crowd? To prove how tough Abyss is?

Mick Foley comes out to talk about his book. "Remember me and Terry Funk? Remember our matches?" Talking about random things that don't relate to the product shown. Great. I half-expected Foley to whip out his book and give his cheesy thumbs up. I can imagine why old wrestlers want to come down to TNA. They can get air time and hardly wrestle at all. They usually don't need to be bothered with "logic" or "sense." I'm here and I'm talking about meat hanging off my fingers. Remember my time as Dude Love? Ow, have mercy! Good times. Good times.

I wouldn't be surprised if this show wasn't written out ten minutes before the show started. It was just bad all around. MCMG were nice, but the rest of the show was lazy and sloppy at all fronts (planning, booking, execution, announcing, etc.). Sting vs. Angle is somewhat intriguing. Joe and A.J. Styles have come back to seek their vengeance...in boring ho-hum feuds that they were in before they were taken out by MEM. Maybe if things don't pan out for Joe and AJ Styles this time around they could be taken out again by MEM (now at that point split into two sides, Angle's corporate faction vs. Sting's good guy group). Of course, that's all assumption.

IMPACT VERDICT: Very Absurd

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com

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