I Feel Sorry For The TNA Locker Room
by Bob Bamber
Having watched back the footage from last nights Pay-Per-View the only thing I can do is put my head in the palm of my hand and just sit in silence. I’m truly amazed at what happened.
For anyone who missed it (and Wrestlezone have been running extensive coverage in the aftermath) Sting and Jeff Hardy went ahead last night – but the match last only 60 seconds (most of which was Jeff teasing throwing his shirt into the crowd. A couple of punches and a Scorpion Deathdrop later, and the match was over.
Before the match Jeff was ‘all over the place’ (to put it kindly) – he looked dazed as he made his way down the ramp, and even stumbled on the ring steps as he made his way into the ring. There was noticeably a lot of stalling before the bell rang. Jeremy Borash doing his best to drag out the announcements for as long as was humanly possible to fill time. Eric Bischoff then came out to change the match to a no-DQ (presumably to communicate how the match was now going to finish). After the match had finished, the crowd began chanting “Bullshit”, Sting followed by saying “I agree, I agree”.
I cannot believe, that anyone who can call themselves the promoter/agent/president of a wrestling company can do that to its fans, and to other members of its roster. Lets forget everything else for a second, and simply say that it’s legitimately dangerous to send anyone out to the ring in that manner. Regardless of how short the match is going to be. Wrestling is quite like a dance, it needs two people to make it successful. If one person is not in the state to perform, they can put the other in serious jeopardy by even being out there.
And to the fans, the one’s who paid to see this show. It’s not to say that’s a huge number – but even if one person pays for the show, you owe them a complete main event. I’m sure everyone reading this would agree – I’d rather see Sting vs any fit and healthy member of the TNA roster, than Sting vs Jeff Hardy in a 20 second match. Whoever it is, provided they are a trained wrestler – it would be better. Would it have killed them to have setup Chris Sabin vs Kurt Angle at the start of the night in a Number One Contenders match – with the winner facing Sting at the end of the night. Or better yet, use the Number One Contender match you already have on the card (give it a definite result!) and have them face Sting.
But the people I really feel sorry for are the other TNA wrestlers. Sting for a start having to be put in that position, but the rest of the roster too who have to associate themselves with a company capable of doing these things. I did an 80 minute interview with Magnus last week – which you can listen to here: http://bit.ly/hcr30W, and he is a guy that TNA should be throwing their momentum behind. Young, talented with a big future ahead of him. And he’s not alone, TNA has a roster stacked with so much untapped potential. But their chances are being ruined at the top by people making clueless decisions.
Lets hope that serious lessons are learned from what happened last night, and swift changes are made, namely suspending Hardy until he can go through a full rehab program. If he can’t, then you should cut him loose. For the three reasons I’ve given above he shouldn’t be allowed on shows in the state he turned up in last night.
If you have any response to this column, I’d love to hear it. You can email me on [email protected], and you can tweet me at www.twitter.com/bobbybamber.
While I have this forum to speak, I would like to say on behalf of all readers of Wrestlezone that the people of Japan are in our thoughts after what happened last week. I know it’s not much at this time but I just wanted to say it.
