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CALDWELL'S TAKE
CORNER CUBE MONDAY 6/9 - Slammiversary PPV just OK; flawed by run-ins to highly-competitive matches Jun 9, 2008 - 2:57:51 PM
Updated daily from the corner cubicle, Torch columnist James Caldwell's weekday blog focuses on hot topic current events and other items of interest from around wrestling.
Updated Monday, June 9, 2008
Last night's PPV was just an OK show in my estimation. There was some good, some bad, and some just plain all right. But, for one of TNA's signature PPVs of the year, "just all right" wasn't the ideal takeaway after the show ended. Comparative to WWE, last night's PPV was equivalent to the Royal Rumble, considering TNA books the King of the Mountain gimmick match every year on this show.
One of the key issues on the show was the crowd being hot early, then slowly fading away as the matches dragged and the over-the-top gimmick segments fell flat. The blame doesn't fall on the crowd, however. It's a two-part problem related to TNA's writing.
The first part was obvious in the Team 3D vs. LAX match. The crowd wanted the Dudleys from WWE and ECW. What they got was the watered-down TNA version called Team 3D.
It's a central theme to this company that instead of creating new personas for familiar wrestlers, TNA simply plays off the past without much added to the present. We're starting to see that with Booker T in his heel role. It was great two weeks ago when Booker had a unique edge to his character. Slowly, but surely, we're seeing the addition of some King Booker mannerisms that became very played out at the end of his WWE run.
The other theme was the classic WCW issue of the audience not reacting during a match because they were waiting for the run-in. It was like every main event on Nitro where the fans facing the hard camera had their heads turned toward the entrance ramp to see who would be interfering, rather than focusing on the action in the ring.
On this PPV, the run-ins started in the opening match when Rhaka Khan interfered at 13:00 in 16-minute match. It continued all the way to the semi-main event when everyone was waiting for Karen Angle to interfere, which happened at 22:00 of 23-minute match.
If fans are conditioned to wait for the run-in, they're not going to care about what happens before the run-in. As a result, these 16, 13, 23, and 20 minute matches tended to drag on the PPV because the seed was planted that the first-half action wouldn't matter or factor into the result of the match.
The solution isn't necessarily sprinkling in a surprise finish at 2:00 in a decently-advertised match. The solution is simply having a winner and having a loser in the majority of PPV matches. One guy was better than the other guy this night.
But, when the writers have to justify their position in the company by creating elaborate storylines culminating with storyline-heavy PPV matches, we get the Slammiversary PPV. It's the formula PPV - a slew of swerve finishes featuring the crowd-killing stream of run-ins at the end of highly-competitive matches. TNA could have done better than just delivering an OK show on a signature PPV.
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