When Kevin Nash and Booker T. participated in WWE’s Royal Rumble pay-per-view last Sunday and rumors began swirling about Sting going to WWE, it became obvious that TNA was going to have to come up with a Plan B for its ‘They’ story line.
Before those developments, all signs had pointed to the mysterious ‘They’ being revealed on Thursday night’s Impact as The Main Event Mafia – the former TNA faction that had been composed of Sting, Nash, Booker, Kurt Angle and Scott Steiner.
Having booked themselves into a corner and with an immediate solution needed (it had been heavily advertised that ‘They’ would be revealed on this week’s episode, which was taped Monday), the TNA creative team went with a scenario that has a major logic gap, but may actually be better for the company in the long run than the original plan.
“They” turned out to be Fortune, who revealed themselves during the main event for the TNA world title between champion Mr. Anderson and Jeff Hardy.
After a ref bump, Matt Hardy, Rob Terry, Gunner and Murphy attacked Anderson. Fortune’s A.J. Styles, Beer Money and Kazarian (Ric Flair was not on the show) then hit the ring to seemingly join in on the beat-down, but instead they went after Immortal and helped Anderson score the victory. Angle, Steiner and Crimson joined Fortune in the ring after the match.
Of course, the major problem with all of this is that it makes what we have seen previously make absolutely no sense whatsoever. Two weeks ago, Crimson nearly choked Styles to death as he warned him that “They are coming.” And last week, Fortune brutalized Angle and Crimson at the end of the show before Steiner made the save.
And speaking of Steiner, how does he fit into all of this now that there is no MEM?
Hopefully the TNA creative team learned a lesson from this experience, which is: Don’t put a story line on TV – especially one in which you promise a big reveal on a specific date – before you have the major players under contract. It’s pretty basic stuff.
However, as I said earlier, TNA’s blunder may end up being a blessing. I certainly prefer Fortune – a quartet of home-grown TNA talent who are all in their primes – as the company’s top babyface faction over the long-in-the-tooth MEM.
Fortune versus Immortal also makes sense from a story line standpoint. It’s believable that longtime TNA guys Styles, Beer Money and Kazarian would resent Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff coming into the company, making major changes and bringing in outside talent.
There is a glaring problem, though. When Thursday night’s show ended, Fortune, Anderson, Angle, Steiner and Crimson were all standing in the ring together, and you have to figure that Rob Van Dam will be with them going forward. On the Immortal side, you have only non-wrestlers Hogan and Bischoff, along with the Hardys, Jeff Jarrett, Terry, Gunner and Murphy. Suddenly, Immortal seems pretty mortal. Abyss better make a speedy recovery.
On another note, it will be interesting to see whether Flair sides with Fortune or with Hogan and Bischoff.
Other thoughts on Thursday’s show:
Styles was really good on the mic in the final segment. And how great was it when the fans chanted "We want six sides" after Styles talked about Bischoff and Hogan making changes that were not for the better? ...
The potential was there for the Jarrett family segments to be really good, but they just didn’t do a whole lot for me. The feud between the Jarretts and Angle has been OK so far, but I had really high expectations going in, so I think it’s been a bit of a disappointment. ...
TNA had promoted that there would be a resolution on this show to the legal battle between TNA president Dixie Carter and Hogan over control of the company, but instead we were informed that there was a continuance and the case will now be decided on March 3. Was that supposed to be a rib on Jeff Hardy? ...
The Anderson-Hardy match was decent before the ref bump, although it wasn’t quite “pay-per-view quality,” as Mike Tenay said. ...
The verbal exchange between Anderson and Hardy before the match was good. Hardy seems a lot more comfortable cutting promos as a heel than he did as a babyface. ...
Bischoff did a nice job putting a positive spin on Nash and Booker choosing to go to WWE rather than return to TNA. ...
The Mickie James-Sarita taped fist match was nowhere near as good as I thought it would be. Both are talented workers but for some reason the match just never clicked. I also thought it was odd that in a match in which the object was to win by knockout, Sarita kept threatening to punch James but never followed through. ...
The three-way X Division match — which was part of the ongoing series to determine the No. 1 contender for Kazarian’s title – was not as good as last week’s. In this one, Jeremy Buck prevailed over Jay Lethal and Douglas Williams. Since Max Buck won last week’s three-way and was sitting in on commentary for this one, I was pretty sure his brother Jeremy was going to win. Max, by the way, did a decent job on the mic. ...
I thought it was funny how Bully Ray cut a long promo about how he finally had a partner that he could trust in “The Pope” D’Angelo Dinero, and then as soon as Devon and Samoa Joe came out for the tag match, Dinero ran away from Joe and left Ray alone to fight Devon. ...
Bully Ray spitting beer (or whatever that was) on Devon’s teenage sons was a good heat-getting move. ...
The opener with Ink Inc. defeating Gunner and Murphy was decent. ...
The Eric Young segment – like most Eric Young segments these days – was awful. Does anyone besides Vince Russo really find the Young character funny? ...
Why is Samoa Joe’s new sidekick dressed like Kato from “The Green Hornet?”
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