The Katz Files – Arnie Katz
My Weekly TNA Notebook
The Kingfish Arnie Katz wrestles with some of the major issues raise by the 9/24 episode of TNA’s weekly TV show.
The Knockout Tag Tournament
The trouble with the Knockout Championship arose due to TNA’s policy of taping several shows at a time instead of working live like WWE does with RAW.
Factions in Action
Is TNA building to a feud between The Main Event Mafia and the World Elite? It makes a twisted kind of sense from TNA’s standpoint. They dropped the ball in the faction feud between the MEM and the babyface group, so they are tempted to go back to the well again to match the World Elite against the MEM.
Honestly, it’s not a terrific idea. Among the reasons:
* If they couldn’t build an exciting feud using their top face talent, why should it work any better with second-rare heels as the opposition>
* The World Elite are, mostly, not over with the fans. Some of them, principally Young and Bashir, have been hot in the past, but TNA cooled off. A feud won’t work if the fans don’t care about the combatants.
* Both are groups of heels. Without babyfaces, the fans have little or no rooting interest.
* The basis of the feud, as it now exists, is repellant. One faction is mindlessly anti-American and the other hates foreigner. You might not expect a group with a Samoan and a proud African-American to be against immigrants, but that’s the way they’re playing it.
They could’ve started to fix this with Booker’s rant on the 9/24 iMPACT. Instead, Booker raved about “Mafia Rules,” which won’t impress anybody.
Morgan & Hernandez
TNA has two rising stars with top-of-the-card potential, Hernandez and Matt Morgan. They teamed the pair on the 9/24 episode, but the Creative Committee ought to be working on feuding them at the end of what should be a very temporary and short-lived alliance.
One reason to break up the duo sooner, rather than later, is that showing them together really dents Hernandez’s gimmick. He just looks so small next to The Blueprint.
In the eventual feud, Hernandez should be the face. Not only does he seem innately more likeable than Morgan, but the size difference gives Hernandez a rare opportunity to play underdog hero.
That’s all for now. I’ll be back Sunday with a fresh installment of the Internet’s fastest-rising pro wrestling column. I hope you’ll join me then and, please, bring your friends.
— Arnie Katz
Executive Editor
Crossfire4@cox.net
(9/28/09)