What’s the difference between last night’s Wrestlemania and a given episode of Impact?

Two hours.

I watched Wrestlemania 27 over a friend’s house, and I was disappointed, as it was a show that hardly captured my attention. I don’t understand how people who know that TNA exists can claim that WWE is better than TNA when WWE is pretty much making similar mistakes to TNA, possibly even more so than TNA.

You know how people complain about Immortal’s extra long promos in the beginning of each Impact? Well, Wrestlemania starts off with 15 minutes of The Rock talking about nothing. Don’t get me wrong, I love The Rock, but he didn’t really say anything. At least with Immortal’s 15 minute promos in TNA, they’re trying to convey an idea that is supposed to feed into the storyline. Rock makes one shot at Cena and then plays to/with the crowd for the rest of the promo. I guess that’s one of those things where “you had to be there” to fully enjoy it.

You know how people complain about how TNA overbooks their matches? Well the World Heavyweight Title match, which was also the first match of the night, features Edge (Champion), Alberto del Rio (Royal Rumble winner), Christian (man in Edge’s corner), Brodus Clay (man in del Rio’s corner), and del Rio’s ring announcer (how did del Rio earn his own ring announcer?) There was also a match that had John Morrison, Trish Stratus, and Snooki on one team and Dolph Ziggler and LayCool on the other team. There was also a match involving The Coore going against Big Show, Kane, Kofi Kingston, and Santino Marella, which ended faster than it takes an intoxicated Jeff Hardy to lose to Sting. Just to be clear, my point here is that someone booked an eight man match to end faster than a mistake… just saying.

You know how people, like myself at times, complain about TNA’s seemingly pointless angles? Well Cody Rhodes and Rey Msyterio had a pretty solid match, but do you know what started that feud? Mysterio hitting Rhodes with a 619 that apparently disfigured his face. I guess I’m supposed to ignore the fact that the 619’s been hit on countless other stars with not much of a big deal placed on it. Should I mention pointless backstage segments dealing with Peewee Herman or Snoop Dogg that added nothing to the show and were only there because it’s Wrestlemania?

You know how people complain about TNA having too many old people in the ring? Wrestlemania had Jerry “the King” Lawler work a match, and not a very good one. It was against Michael Cole, and ended with him losing via a reversed decision. He’s pretty old, is he not? Undertaker just cannot go like he used to. Ric Flair is definitely doing better ring work than him at this point, and I’m glad that Sting didn’t go to WWE to wrestle Taker, simply because Sting would probably be the one carrying that match.

You know how people say that Impact has about 9 minutes of wrestling? Well, yeah… that’s actually been a pretty truthful statement as of late. But when TNA gets to the PPV, most of the talking stops, the wrestling begins, and the matches are overall decent. This is less than what I can say for many of the matches of last night’s Wrestlemania. Let’s take the scapegoat that everyone likes to make fun of known as Matt Hardy. He may not be main event material, but I enjoyed his matches against AJ Styles and RVD more than I did any match last night that wasn’t CM Punk vs. Randy Orton, which I felt was the match of the night. Mysterio vs. Rhodes was solid, but still slow and predictable. Edge vs. del Rio was slow and overbooked, and I don’t see why del Rio is so hyped. Miz vs. Cena was as good as you would imagine it (it also ended in a count out, which was a decision that was reversed by the Rock, only for the Rock to screw John Cena).

In the end, I feel like WWE is a robot that makes calculated decisions without risk and TNA is a silly human that tries to be cute but ends up making silly mistakes. Say what you want about Hogan and Bischoff wanting to hog the spotlight, but I feel like TNA as a whole is at least trying to put on a show. Interestingly enough, I didn’t watch TNA last week because something within the first 15 minutes put me off from caring about the episode until Christopher Daniels showed up in the main event. After having watched Wrestlemania though, it really shows me that things in TNA could actually be much worse than how I feel it is at the moment. It also shows me that there is a sliver of potential for things to get better in TNA, unlike WWE, which looks like it will continue to be the stale wrestling entertainment product that it is for a long time.

Mark’s Blog