TNA: Too Heel Based?

[Rusty]

I've been thinking of this topic for a while now. The Main Event Mafia has been dominating TNA at the present moment, but this thread isn't for discussing that faction. Even before the Main Event Mafia formed together, heels like Kurt Angle, Kevin Nash, Booker T and Beer Money were always getting the upper hand. Now, before you jump the gun please realize I am well aware that wrestling companies need the heels the get the upper hand more often as it establishes them as being the "evil" guys.

But every single week on iMPACT, guys like Kurt Angle and Kevin Nash always get the upper hand. Even if they lose a match cleanly, they'll always beat their opponent up after the match is finished. After a while, it makes the product seem repetitive and extremely boring. Take Bound For Glory 2008 for example, Sting who is a heel, won the World Title against a babyface Samoa Joe and the biggest TNA Pay Per View ended with a heel holding up his newly won TNA World title. This is something that rarely ever happens in the WWE.

I'm not saying TNA has to copy the WWE, but I am saying that it would be nice if the faces get the upper hand a little more, especially on pay per view. Remember the Angle/AJ Styles feud? Angle beat the crap out of Styles almost every single week, and that's why it wasn't very good or memorable.

So do you agree with me in saying that heels get the upper hand much more often than what they should, or do you believe heels should get the upper hand every 9 out of 10 weeks and should always look dominant?

Please list reasons for your response.

 

[Uncle Sam]

Definitely too heel based. I mean, apparently - according to Marty - there are no clean cut heels or faces. That's bullshit thought. Sting might have a think before he wraps a chair around AJ Styles' skull and tease a face turn, but he's still a heel. Same goes for the Motor City Machine Guns.

But yeah, I've often thought TNA is too heel based. Normally because it gets motherfuckin' old fast when you have the heels beat down a face at the end of iMPACT!. Occasionally, the faces might chase them away but AJ Styles is usually left flailing around like a fish out of water in a puddle of his own blood. Dull. The last beat down I gave a shit about was the Christian Coalition battering Abyss.

Problem is, when TNA does faces, they're all really boring, with really black and white moral backgrounds, which they all share. At least there's conflict between the heels.

Let's just put it this way: TNA is shit.

 

[Spine Line]

I've been thinking of this topic for a while now. The Main Event Mafia has been dominating TNA at the present moment, but this thread isn't for discussing that faction. Even before the Main Event Mafia formed together, heels like Kurt Angle, Kevin Nash, Booker T and Beer Money were always getting the upper hand. Now, before you jump the gun please realize I am well aware that wrestling companies need the heels the get the upper hand more often as it establishes them as being the "evil" guys.

But every single week on iMPACT, guys like Kurt Angle and Kevin Nash always get the upper hand. Even if they lose a match cleanly, they'll always beat their opponent up after the match is finished. After a while, it makes the product seem repetitive and extremely boring. Take Bound For Glory 2008 for example, Sting who is a heel, won the World Title against a babyface Samoa Joe and the biggest TNA Pay Per View ended with a heel holding up his newly won TNA World title. This is something that rarely ever happens in the WWE.

I'm not saying TNA has to copy the WWE, but I am saying that it would be nice if the faces get the upper hand a little more, especially on pay per view. Remember the Angle/AJ Styles feud? Angle beat the crap out of Styles almost every single week, and that's why it wasn't very good or memorable.

So do you agree with me in saying that heels get the upper hand much more often than what they should, or do you believe heels should get the upper hand every 9 out of 10 weeks and should always look dominant?

Please list reasons for your response.

I never actually thought about this but now that you mention it you are right. Beer Money have now been TNA Tag Team champions for 134 days which is a whole lot of matches that 9/10 matches Beer Money have probably won. Another example in Awesome Kong with the Knockouts Championship, she's been champion for quite a while now and even when she wasnt champion she won near enough every match she fought.

Maybe it is too heel based at the moment because they are making the MEM and the heels look better than the Frontline and the faces so it looks better when the Frontline eventually come out on top of the whole 'respect' angle.

Its quite shocking how I didnt even realise this until you mentioned it.

 

[Gutter Phenomenon]

I agree with that until TNA can form better faction to compete with MEM. Something on the lines of Jarrett, Styles, Joe, Cage, and Rhino. Those two factions could have some good feuds, and all of the respective members could compete for both the World and Legends titles.

As for the tag division. It would be nice if Beer Money would lose, but at least there are some decent face teams to compete i.e; Abyss & Morgan, Lethal & Creed, MCMG, Team 3D, and LAX.

Moving onto the Knockouts. I would say that the Knockouts is more diverse than the divas. Kong is basically just a bigger Beth Phoenix, and she has legit face competition. Hemme, ODB, Val, Wilde, and Roxi can all go for the title.

Finally, the X Division. Right now, there are four people left in the tourney for the title. Young, Shelley, Sabin, and Kiyoshi. I think it would be in TNA's best interest to have Young walk out of Genesis holding the belt. With all the heels in the X Division, a good face definitely needs to have the belt.

 

[Mengus-Guido]

can anyone tell why one earth anyone would think Nathan jones started in WWE, i remember years back in Australia Jeff Jarret came to Australia with Vince Russo and Bret Hart and they were in NWA, i remember seeing Nathan jones smash the hell out of Disco Inferno. so why does the post on the wrestlezone website say "another former WWE wrestler" when it was the same guys running TNA now that founded Nathan in the first place and it was WWE who poached Nathan from them, and now its making out that its them same guys who founded him in the beggining and trained him who are the ones poaching him. bit unfair and i thought i should atleast say something because its annoying when theres so many people out there believing wrong information. especialy concidering TNA have taken enough WWE guys that its embarrasing to see it say "an other former WWE" like TNA cant bring up anyone themselves

 

[klunderbunker]

Very well thought out Rusty, and you're right. Wrestling is based on a very simple theory: the heels dominate for a long time, but in the end, the good guys win. That's the way it's always been and likely the way it always will be. In the end, Frontline wins the war and the MEM breaks up or fades away. However, if Frontline gets no victories, why should we care? This is the case with any feud at all. This is a prime example from boxing. Too Tall Jones was boxing a 5 round fight. With 5 second to go in the fight, no one had scored a knockdown. His opponent connected with a huge right hand and Jones went down and out cold. The bell saved him though, and since in this particular fight the referee was the judge as to who won, he immediately raised Jones' hand, despite him being out cold. His opponent scored the big punch at the end, but Jones had dominated earlier in the fight. It doesn't matter if the face gets the final win. The judges, or in this case the fans, will remember what happened leading up to the end just as well if not more than the ending itself. If a heel scores 5 wins and the face scores the final win alone, to me the heel dominated the feud. That's defeating the purpose. Let the faces have their time.

 

[MisterRob]

To me it seems that the Main Event Mafia are dominating and the Frontline are being buried. Not only have they lost every single match it seems on the last few major PPVs since this storyline has taken place, but the Frontline storyline has seemed to have shifted away from the actual young guys, which defeats the entire purpose of the storyline in my mind. People can say that the young guys aren't established, aren't enough of stars to compete, so they're tossing older names like Rhino and Team 3D in there.. but since when is Rhino a star? Since when does he draw? They've buried him for so long, done nothing with him for so long, that he has no star value to draw from anymore and AJ Styles and Samoa Joe both have more credibility and star value then him currently. TNA seems to be nothing but the heels show, and this storyline seems to have lost its purpose because its pushing the Main Event Mafia and not doing a good job, in my mind, of developing the stars of the future that this storyline could do. If the young guys don't have "names" then this is the perfect time to give them names, to develop them into stars, and I think TNA's horribly failing at that right now.

Do people think the majority of fans are rooting for the Frontline?

Yes, the heels should get the advantage and continue to win up until the end of the war when the faces, the Frontline, win the entire war at its finality. But the battles in between are still important, and having the heels win every single match and not throwing the faces anything, even small victories for the fans to get behind and find something to keep faith in the young stars and continue to root for is booking for failure. People will get bored. They have no reason to get excited.

And whatever happened to the theory that TNA didn't have heels or faces? Riiight.

 

[silrock316]

I don't think so, my only issue with the heels is there really isn't a top notch face to grab attention from people outside that may not watch as much as they would if TNA had a face alla Sting in the nWo days and Stone Cold during the McMahon war. There is no one in the frontline that gets me excited about it, so I find myself rooting for the heels more.

 

[ad21k]

There is some truth to this, TNA losing Cage is a big loss for them. He could have been the leader/moouthpiece of the frontline as he's a proven draw, and by far more entertaining than anyone else they have. Styles has potential but isn't quite there yet, Joe is just plain stale. Then you look at the mafia, they have Sting and Angle, two of the best wrestlers ever. Therefore I will agree TNA lacks a main event face.

However in the most part TNA fans are morons and cheer the heels almost whatever because they think it's cool.