New TNA Regime Throwing Company in the Gutter

If you haven't seen TNA Impact from last night, you may not even want to bother. While I do not necessarily dislike the new storyline of Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff tricking Dixie Carter into signing over her President position to Hogan and the new Team Hogan "Immortals" faction joining forces with Ric Flair's Fortune faction to attempt to take over the company, I think the TNA writers are forgetting why so many people love TNA in the first place. It's simple, really, there's a lot more wrestling, a lot more action, and a lot of really, really good matches than WWE usually has. Well, that was until last night. The only two matches that had a pinfall finish was a joke match between Tara and Madison Rayne and a five-on-one handicap match. The joke match was so Madison Rayne could win the title as payment for helping Tara get back into TNA. Tara literally laid down and let Madison pin her.

And,the five-on-one handicap match between Fortune and the Pope? I mean, come on. This is stupid. Yes, I thought the writers were going to let Pope pull off an upset for a second, but then, the outside interference came in and ruined that thought.

Samoa Joe's match with Abyss looked like it was going to be a good match until it ended with disqualification when Abyss hit Joe over the head with the ring bell (although, I did find it humorous that the referee told the guys to ring the bell before Abyss even had put it back on the table).

Finally, the RVD vs. Mr. Anderson match was looking good and I thought that maybe they would end it on a good note. That didn't happen as Eric Bischoff came out and pulled the referee to the back so Jeff Hardy came in and beat on both wrestlers, basically ending the match (which went into TNA's second show after Impact).

I looked on my DVR to see when the wrestling matches actually did start, and it wasn't until half-way into the show that a match actually happened. Everything was talking up until that point, with Hogan introducing his new faction, Kurt Angle talking and then getting beat down by Jeff Jarrett, and probably something else that was too stupid that I can't remember. I don't mind the interviews and everything connecting the storylines together, but over half a show with only talking and no wrestling seems a bit ludicrous to me, especially with the company that is being watched because it usually has more action and more good matches than the other major wrestling companies out there.

I'll watch TNA next week so see if anything's changed, but if not, I'm not watching it again until it goes back to the way it was. I think a lot of other viewers will probably feel the same way, and if TNA isn't careful, it may end up going the way that WCW eventually did, which would be a shame.