By Mike DeRosenroll, Torch specialist

The Case for Gabe Sapolsky to book TNA

In part one of last weekend's Bruce Mitchell Audio Show (available in the Torch VIP audio section), Bruce Mitchell and Wade Keller talked through a hypothetical list of bookers to lead TNA creative if Jeff Jarrett leaves in the wake of his controversy with the Angle family. One of the candidates that Bruce talked most highly of was long-time ROH booker (now Dragon Gate USA booker) Gabe Sapolsky.

During his run as ROH booker from 2002 to 2008, Sapolsky won the Wrestling Observer's Booker of the Year award four years in a row (2004 to 2007). As Bruce pointed out, it shows how dysfunctional the wrestling business is when someone like Sapolsky likely will not get a chance with TNA because the fact that he did his in ROH well enough to make him a political threat to the current TNA creative team.

This is a very wishful scenario, but suppose Sapolsky was able to overcome the political roadblocks in his way and Dixie Carter gave him a chance. Of all the experienced bookers out there, I contend that Sapolsky would be the best choice for TNA because his booking style in ROH is the most transferable to TNA's current creative structure. People in TNA should not be threatened by Sapolsky, they should view him as a good choice because adapting Sapolsky's ROH booking style to TNA would be the least disruptive of the leading options being talked about.

Let's look at the main elements of TNA's creative approach point-by-point:

(1) TNA Runs Pay-Per-View Quality Main Events on Most Episodes of Impact

TNA gets passable ratings on Spike TV, but the company is not successfully turning those TV viewers into PPV buyers. One of the reasons for this is that Impact routinely features PPV quality main events with their top stars. TNA seems to feel that they have to offer these TV main events to hold their ratings, even though this undermines the incentive to buy PPVs to see the top stars settle their feuds.

ROH is in a similar situation to TNA in this respect, and Sapolsky has proven he can thrive in that situation. To survive financially, ROH needs to draw people to its lesser shows with good main events while still building up to their "big shows" where the major feuds are settled. ROH's big shows are analogous to TNA's pay-per-views and the pressure to sell tickets for lesser ROH shows is analogous to the pressure for TNA to draw TV ratings.

Sapolsky thrived in this situation with ROH because he has shown the ability to book episodic shows that build on each other while still delivering exciting chapters in the middle of the stories. (As Bruce pointed out in the audio, ROH DVDs watched in order are just as episodic as a television show.)

On top of this, Sapolsky is excellent at booking what I call interlocking feuds. For instance, while C.M. Punk and Samoa Joe were having their legendary ROH feud in the second half of 2004, each was also embroiled in other feuds at the same time. Punk was feuding with Ricky Steamboat when the Joe feud started and was also in a tag team feud with Colt Cabana against Dan Maff and B.J. Whitmer. Later, he was embroiled with Generation Next while still feuding with Joe. Meanwhile, Joe was at the height of a brutal feud with Homicide when the Punk feud started and, toward the end of the Punk feud, started a feud with Mick Foley. Meanwhile, Steamboat entered into a rivalry with Foley. Maff and Whitmer aligned with Foley. Austin Aries of Generation Next emerged as a challenger for Joe's title. And so on, layering stories on top of each other in a logical way.

Interlocking stories in a way that makes sense takes skill, but Sapolsky has four Booker of the Year awards that say he can do it. Bringing him in to book TNA in the same way would open up many good options for TV main events while still saving the big matches to draw on PPVs. The interlocking ROH feuds I described above set up things like a Joe-Punk-Homicide three-way match (Scramble Cage Melee, August 2004 in Boston) and a Joe-Punk-Foley in-ring segment (Weekend of Thunder Night 2, November 2004 in Elizabeth, NJ), each of which could easily have headlined a TV show if ROH had been televised back then.

Sapolsky was also able to draw out the Joe-Punk rematches by spinning them off into their separate feuds while their issue with each other simmered in the background. This compares favorably to how TNA blew through the first Kurt Angle-Samoa Joe trilogy of matches in just three months.

(2) TNA Runs Many Undercard Angles

TNA and WWE are at two extremes when it comes to how they use their undercards. Kevin Dunn of WWE has a rule that viewers should only need to remember three things per show, so the WWE undercard gets little attention and few angles. TNA is the opposite. Their undercard is so full of angles that it tends to overwhelm the viewer. Ideally, there would be a happy medium where the undercard would get attention and be used to build up new main eventers. Most TNA undercard angles do not elevate anyone and sometimes distract unhelpfully from the main event angles by going overboard (think Jim Mitchell trying to set Abyss on fire or Dr. Stevie kidnapping Lauren).

On the spectrum between Kevin Dunn and TNA, Sapolsky's record in ROH puts him closer to TNA but closer to the happy medium than TNA's current approach. Thus, Sapolsky would fit in with TNA but could help them do a better job of elevating lower card wrestlers. His track record of building up undercard wrestlers into main eventers in ROH is outstanding. C.M. Punk, Nigel McGuiness, Austin Aries, Jimmy Rave, and Jimmy Jacobs are leading examples and all were helped by good mid-card angles that lifted them to main event status. TNA would benefit greatly if Sapolsky came in and was even half as effective at building up new main eventers for them as he was in ROH.

(3) TNA Features Many Stars on TV Who Work Few (or No) House Shows

Sapolsky's strengths described above - interlocking angles and effective use of the undercard - would go a long way toward helping TNA overcome the fact that many of their top stars do not work house shows. Building up mid-carders into bigger draws would help attendance at house shows, while interlocking feuds would reduce the current disconnect between house shows and television storylines.

Bruce mentioned in the audio that he recently attended a TNA house show in Winston-Salem and only one match on the card had anything to do with current TV angles. For example, if Beer Money were booked into interlocking feuds with LAX (who work house shows) as well as Booker T and Scott Steiner (who do not), Beer Money could face LAX at house shows while Booker and Steiner would still have a major act to feud with on TV (not to mention the creative possibilities of involving LAX with Booker and Steiner).

My one major disagreement with Bruce Mitchell's analysis of Sapolsky was his claim that Sapolsky was not strong at character development. I believe this is just wrong. To prove my point, I am going to devote my next three ROH Classic Feuds columns to feuds that showcase great character development. Another feud that featured great character development that I have already done a column on was the Punk-Steamboat feud, which you can read about here.

PWTorch VIP members have first-look access to all of Torch ROH specialist Mike DeRosenroll's ROH-related blogs in the VIP Forum. His blogs are posted under the M2_Jay screenname.

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