TNA Hires Ex-WWE/ROH Writer Dave Lagana

[It's Damn Real!]

http://www.prowrestling.net/artman/publish/TNA/article10021295.shtml

Former WWE creative team member Dave Lagana has joined the TNA creative division as the Director of Creative Writing. "I leave Ring of Honor Wrestling to tackle new challenges," Lagana wrote on his website. "I’ve accepted a position as Director of Creative Writing with TNA Wrestling.

"My duties will be to focus solely on the development of new wrestling shows beyond the Impact Wrestling show. I’m excited to see what the future holds and thank everyone for the support over not only the last nine months of this site but through my entire career." To read the full blog, visitIWantWrestling.com.

Powell's POV: Lagana was with WWE from 2002 to 2008. Paul Heyman wanted to bring Lagana and Gabe Sapolsky with him to TNA when he was negotiating with Dixie Carter. TNA would also be wise to use Lagana for his social media knowledge. It's worth noting that Lagana worked with Bruce Prichard while both men were in WWE.

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Admittedly, I know nothing of who Dave Lagana is or what he's done, but I figure this is a substantial signing that's probably worth the discussion over his signing.

There's been a lot of shifting done backstage in TNA's creative department of late with Russo stepping down and Prichard's promotion, so the fact that they're now adding a "Director of Creative Writing" sounds to me like another step in the right direction.

Thoughts? Concerns? Criticisms?

 

[The Dragon Saga]

Pretty good signing for TNA. I know bits about Lagana and he regularly posts blogs on iwantwrestling.com. He speaks a lot of sense and uses as much logic as he can when formulating his replies or opinions on topics, he did a great blog around the time of the CM Punk promo and said that it was one of the best decisions WWE had made in a while.

Also agree with the sentiment that this is another step in the right direction. With all the backstage shuffling I personally see Hogan now as more of a character, and I don't think it's fair to say he has much creative control within the company; which means people can stop blaming him when things go array, as guys like Prichard and Lagana know better than most what they're doing.

And in other positive news, Mark Madden will be pissed because he despises Lagana. And one thing everyone knows about Mark Madden, is that Mark Madden dislikes anything or anybody who actually talks sense. Good sign.

 

[sabataged]

He has a podcast that is pretty good. I think it is called I WANT WRESTLING.

I have listened to it a few times and I think he knows what he is doing.

 

[Deexter Jorgan]

Lagana is moreso a wannabe hollywood writer who has had a steller career in wrestling as a writer.

For those of you who don't know the majority of Lagana's career prior to ring of honor and his IWantWrestling podcast was in the WWE, he helped build the ECW brand prior to its demise and was used to build characters such as Punk, Viscera, Jomo and The Miz and breath new life to them under the WWE's ECW brand, he was involved in alot of the brand sucesses prior to being let go for aledgedly leaking WWE's creative idea's to the internet.

I don't know much of Lagana's wrestling experience, i do know that he has a love for the produt and is much like us a mark who has a rather large internet presence.

The key word here though is sucess, he has had more sucess with WWE's ECW brand than Russo did with his entire WCW/TNA run so whatever happens i do believe TNA will be better off with a creative mind that has trained under Paul Heyman and has had experience in the WWE's environment, whether we love this idea or hate it at least TNA is shaking things up and bringing in a fresh perspective to the company.

Kudo's to Dixie Carter on this one.

 

[This is the return of WTM]

This a good move, but one question I'd like to ask was where does I Want Wrestling.com go from here?

 

[Cracka Jack]

I'm a big fan of his site, his podcasts in particular, so I'm hoping that doesn't stop anytime soon. From hearing him speak with other former WWE creative guys, he seems to have a good idea of what he wants a product to be and where it should be going. If he's heavily involved in what we see on Impact each week, then I expect to see some improvement in the show. According to writers he's worked with, he's good at writing for long term storylines instead of what's big right now, which should be a nice change of pace for TNA. His statement, though, makes it seem like he won't have too much direct involvement with Impact and will instead focus on other shows. I don't get Xplosion in SoCal, so if TNA makes more shows than that or decides to air it here, I'm willing to give it a chance. Overall, this has the potential to be a great signing for TNA, depending on how Lagana is used.