Interesting read...What I put in bold, is so true, imo!
KELLER: The TNA Title Contender system has screwed up TNA's propaganda campaign, but is Dixie Carter savvy enough to get the message?
[Show spoiler]May 5, 2010 - 3:47:40 PM
By Wade Keller, PWTorch editor
I often rip on TNA for having low-IQ booking on a regular basis. It seemed to be on display again on Monday in several instances. I wonder, though, if it wasn't high-IQ sabotage instead, a mix of pouting, political posturing, and push-back.
They spent two weeks building up the TNA World Title and their new title contender system. In one show, they damaged both. RVD's first title defense against the fans' choice Desmond Wolfe was treated with no fanfare. Why? Because fans didn't answer the poll correctly. Wolfe wasn't supposed to win. He's a heel. Why would fans vote for him?
In TNA's bubble, they couldn't imagine how hundreds of thousands of TNA fans could vote for someone they (management) have never heard of, who "has never drawn a dime," who wasn't part of the Nitro-Raw era, who hasn't worked for WWE, who is under six feet tall, and who has been jobbed out on TV by them for the last few months for all of those (lousy, self-destructive) reasons.
So, in response to fans voting "the wrong way," they tried to show them. They put Wolfe in a match with almost no hype or build up and had him lose in three minutes. That'll teach the fans to mess with the "vision" Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, Vince Russo, and Ed Ferrara have for TNA, right?
Wrong.
TNA fans are voting for Desmond Wolfe in huge numbers once again this week. Jeff Jarrett was positioned at the end of Impact as the heroic babyface attacking the heel Sting, who turned on TNA, physically handled Dixie Carter, but also loves TNA and loves pro wrestling (yes, his character is a total mess). Jarrett, if TNA booking was resonating with fans, should be leading the voting or at least be among the top five... or at least be getting more than one percent of the vote. But he's not.
In a humiliating poll that should confirm with empirical evidence what people have been saying for years and ratings have shown for years - that is that Jeff Jarrett is not a main event star and he is holding TNA back when TNA gives him valuable TV time over younger stars that fans like more - Jarrett is getting 1 percent of votes. Wolfe is getting 33 percent.
As I'm typing this, Jarrett has 837 votes compared to 25,664 for Wolfe. Seriously, that should send a message so loud and clear to TNA that their entire political structure determining who gets pushed and who does based on factors that have nothing to do with what will work in 2010 should be thrown out. Jarrett should man-up and admit he's not the answer in 2010 and step aside and insist he not get pushed as a top star.
So far this "fan voting" system is destroying the entire propaganda machine within TNA that has snowed Dixie Carter for eight years and held TNA back from becoming a 2.0+ weekly rated show. Therefore, the people who are in power who are in denial or have reason to stick with the status quo approach even to the detriment of the company are working to destroy the "innovative" title contender system they themselves set up.
Hogan, when he announced at the start of Impact that Wolfe got the title shot, didn't even acknowledge it had anything to do with fan voting. Ooops. How'd that slip his mind? Two weeks ago, this fan involvement was "all that." Bischoff was hyping it as a big deal. Two weeks later, having seen the against-the-TNA-narrative results of the first poll, they're already begun downplaying it.
They'll come up with some reason that this poll doesn't matter, some reason to throw out this fan voting system, some explanation that they use to try to keep themselves in power pushing the same people in the same way that led to a total utter humbling failure since Jan. 4, especially on Monday nights since March 5.
Dixie has the evidence she needs that what's going on isn't working. It's not just a rejection of Jarrett and an embrace of Wolfe. Abyss is also stuck at 1 percent with merely 605 votes, fewer than Jarrett. He's Hogan's boy, the "big guy" he chose to be the centerpiece babyface of his vision of TNA. Obviously a mistake. Even A.J. Styles is flopping with 1 percent of the vote and less than 1/25th the number of votes Wolfe has received. Styles isn't working as a heel. He's trying his best and giving it his all, but he's miscast, and fans are rejecting his Nature Boy Jr. character. Plus, he's had his chances. Wolfe hasn't.
Meanwhile, Matt Morgan and Mr. Anderson, two relatively fresh faces in TNA, are in the top mix of vote-getters behind Wolfe.
I'll admit I'm surprised by how few votes The Pope is getting. He's at just two percent of the vote, but it seems this voting block is savvy enough not to vote for wrestlers who aren't healthy or active. Pope is injured. Kurt Angle has only two percent of the vote and Hernandez just one percent, and they're both out of the mix, too. Angle is on hiatus and Hernandez is in exile in Mexico selling a storyline injury. Maybe these fans are voting for people who are active, healthy, and able to actually get a title shot. Why Hernandez is even on this list when he's portrayed by TNA as being out indefinitely defies reason. Same with Angle being included.
Hogan and the current regime don't like this voting. That's why in two weeks the entire vaunted contender system already began to get downplayed this week. That's why Hogan "forgot" to mention it when he announced Wolfe's title shot. That's why Wolfe was booked to lose with little fanfare to RVD in three minutes. That's why when Wolfe lost, no big deal was made of it, as if to send the message this was expected and Wolfe is a loser and you fans who voted for him should have known better.
The fans don't care, though. They're voting for him again. Can TNA really write off these results of just a small minority of fans? These are their fans, sent to their website by the TV show. This isn't PWTorch.com readers poisoned by my points of view being drilled into their heads each week. This isn't some small group of "smart-ass fans" who disrupt TV tapings. This is a significant percentage of TNA viewers trying desperately to send a message to Dixie Carter. Is she open to receiving that message? Is she savvy enough to see the games being played and the b.s. explanations she's being given to try to push back against the message that their own poll and the disastrous ratings this year are sending?
http://www.pwtorch.com/artman2/publi...le_41123.shtml
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