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TORCH QUESTION OF THE WEEK Reax #1: The case for Angle, Joe, and Hernandez as TNA champion Nov 7, 2007 - 8:56:43 AM
For this week's Question of the Week, we asked Torch readers who should be the long-term TNA champion to carry the company. So far, responses have ranged from Kurt Angle to Matt Morgan, with readers going for my darkhorse "let's see what he can do in a singles run" pick of Hernandez. You can still contribute! Click on the "Contact Us" link above and send me an email with your response. To the responses...
Trevor Dumais, Torch reader: TNA needs some one to anchor down the show. Right now, it's a complete mess with wrestlers all over the roster with no purpose. TNA needs a strong champion with a history as well as a future. Kurt Angle should remain champion with strong defenses and a new attitude, not that crappy baby act he has been doing. After another 2 or 3 months, Angle should have the feud ending encounter with Samoa Joe. Give Joe the title win and then have a long reign as a fighting champ. Re-live his best days and have a revolving door of contenders each month. Since Impact has no clear divisions, have the shows be Number One contendership events where Joe sits back and watches, looming over his opponents. The fans want Joe, and if TNA wants anyone to defend it, they need to change the company from the top-down.
Nontas, Torch reader: The first thing that needs to happen is TNA needs to care about its Title, just like you stated in your last article about its use as a prop instead of the goal of the competitors. However if it was valued it should still be on the waist of Kurt Angle. He is still their biggest name in the company with Sting. They have booked their two matches so far match terribly. They could have an Austin vs. Rock feeling to them, however they are making a joke of this feud. (Sorry, just a bit of an aside.) Angle is already immensely popular, so when someone beats him for the belt he will be instantly over, like Samoa Joe, or how about Hernandez (this guy is awesome). Can you imagine the angles if they put the belt on Hernandez with sidekick Homicide and the LAX crew? That would be sick. That’s where I would like to see TNA go.
Sam Clarke of Glasgow, Scotland: There's only one man who should be the current TNA World Champion and main focal point of the company and that's Samoa Joe. Despite the fact that the Title should have been put on him last year and despite the fact that they allowed him to be chewed up by Angle, Joe is still over. Not just with the chant monkeys in the Impact Zone but also with the wider wrestling public. Joe has a marketable look and style, he's a millon miles away from the 'roided up look that wrestling in general should no longer be encouraging. He's got a wrestling style that can cross over into the MMA world with his array of great kicks and his choke submission. Joe can also work with anyone on the roster from Abyss to Senshi, he can make smaller quicker wrestlers look like a million bucks (see his ROH matches with CM Punk) as well as hang with some of the bigger guys on the roster.
Joe is something we don't have a lot of in wrestling these days, he's unique, he's marketable and more than that he's good. He can cut a great promo as shown in his feuds with Scott Steiner and Kurt Angle, plus he has that aura of a real bad ass. TNA need to turn him heel, give him the belt and let him run with it for a sustained length of time. He made the ROH World Title respectable and put on great match after great match during his run, this is just what TNA needs right now. Plus he's never worked for WWE and so doesn't carry that stigma of being a cast-off like Cage, Angle and others do. Joe is the only homegrown TNA star capable of carrying the belt right now, just remember how good it was when he was X-division champion and how great his matches were with AJ and Daniels. Joe is the only choice for TNA to build the company around for the next few years in my book.
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AND NEW FOR 2009! Monthly "Vintage Audio Torch Talks." We are releasing for the first time ever audio versions of our text Torch Talk updates, the historical first series of insider interviews ever. Wade Keller's newsmaking in-depth interviews with wrestling's biggest names are now being made available exclusively to VIP members. But you must be a member each month, as these are not archived, so they are replaced with a new one each month! This debuted in January 2009 with a 68 minute interview with the late "British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith. Who's next? Hulk Hogan? Eric Bischoff? The Rock? Goldberg? Jeff Hardy?
