TNA - The Need for Speed

At the Genesis tapings that begun 2014, Dixie Carter's Total Nonstop Action promotion announced that it was pressing the reset button.  The Aces & Eights Invasion angle, along with pretty much everything introduced by Eric Bischoff, was finally over and it was time for new storylines and characters to take their  place.  Most notably, Dixie's heel boss character assembled Team Dixie around new champion Magnus, her Chief of Staff Rockstar Spud, and her storyline nephew Ethan Carter III.  Initially booked strongly as a heel faction, it faced an almost immediate challenge from a new mystery hostile investor, who had already signed tag team the American Wolves behind Dixie's back.  It turned out this was MVP, back in American wrestling after a long spell in Japan.  At Lockdown in early March, Team MVP wrestled control away from Dixie, and their leader installed himself as the new storyline head of TNA, banishing Dixie from the programme for good.

Or so we thought.  At the end of Impact this week, TNA trailed the return of a revenge-seeking Dixie Carter next week with the hashtag #wrathofdixie. The rate things are going at, there'll be time for at least two more ownership changes before Bound For Glory.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, storylines are picking up so quickly inattentive viewers are suffering from overload.  After being a goody-goody face for a couple of years, the return of Angelina Love persuaded Velvet Sky to brush down her Beautiful People heel persona; they're now feuding with Madison Rayne and newcomer Brittany.  Kenny King's back with a new gimmick, a hyper-confident Las Vegas playboy feuding with MVP, while The Great Muta paid a flying visit to Lockdown and ended up loaning his Wrestle-1 prodigy Sanada to TNA; he's captured the X-Division title and is now in a program with Mexican high-flyer Tigre Uno.  And I haven't even mentioned Willow, the world's least mysterious masked wrestler; it's obviously Jeff Hardy using a ridiculous shrieking voice while waving an umbrella around and looking for vengeance against those who screwed Hardy out of the World Championship at Genesis.  And that's not all....

If nothing else the promotion is living up to its name, but in truth it's all too frantic.  There never seems to be a chance for stories to bed in before they move on.  The MVP vs Dixie storyline should have unfurled over a series of months, but it was all played out as soon as it got to a PPV.  It's hard to care much when the promotion values velocity over satisfying long-term storytelling.  Maybe Aces and Eights went on too long, but it had a coherent long-term story arc, helped turn Bully Ray into the world's best monster heel and had a real conclusion.  Ken Anderson's funeral ceremony for the faction was quite brilliant.  However, in the current mania for change, Bully Ray is now....a face?

Basically, TNA is making a lot of good decisions now.  In particular, even low ranking characters get clearly defined characters and storylines; random WWE-style matches don't happen now.  Talking of the low midcard, one of the things I've enjoyed lately is a series of film vignettes in which Knux, now also a face, returns to his native community and re-connects with his estranged family only to find a local economy ravaged by the floods.  These have been strangely heart-warming and, best of all, they've been low-key and understated.  I enjoy the calm of this angle, and hope it unfolds patiently.

Overall, I like a lot of what TNA's doing but it's trying too hard and is pushing too much at once. If they stepped back and  looked at what's working they could have a more focused product.  Streamline the show and slow it down, and it would be so much more satisfying.

The other thing they need to do is to get Gail Kim back on TV; this must now be their number one priority.  I don't care how they do it; she could tangle with the Beautiful People, help channel Dixie's wrath or just divorce her husband and move to Peterborough....it really doesn't matter.  Just get her back onscreen!