Telling Too Many Stories In The Ring

TNA continues with the same booking scheme when it comes to the title reign of Mickie James. She faces off against two heels, gets beaten down, the heels start to break up, Mickie overcomes. There are even more heel pairings on the sidelines for TNA to continue this.

This is all holding Mickie James back, in my opinion. Not just her character, but also potential match quality. Match quality is not determined by how good an individual wrestler is alone. Who are they going against? How much time is given to the match? Is there any story the workers must tell that may take away from overall match quality? People may not understand what I mean by that last one. Let me give an example from this past Raw, just to also show that TNA is not the only company that does this. Remember that CM Punk vs. Kane match? It was definitely not match of the night. It was not a botchfest or full of sloppy or awkward spots, but it was not that awesome. Why is that? CM Punk is definitely a strong worker in the ring. That is an understatement. Kane is no slouch. In fact, he dominated most of the action. The match was not given too much time, but I have seen shorter matches in the WWE that were more exciting. The match suffered in quality because of the story being told. Not just the finish, which consisted of CM Punk walking out to sell the idea that he couldn't handle Kane and didn't even need to win this match, since he would be leaving the WWE and already had his title shot. The way they were able to get to that finish was through the story of the match itself. As I said, Kane dominated. That created the whole story of the match, from the start, through the bulk of the action, and to the finish.

Back to Mickie James. Go back to her recent match with Winter. They fought all the way from the backstage area to the ring. Just when the action was getting hot in the ring, Angelina interferes, Winter wins, and that is all. Two problems here. First, not enough time given to the match. Second, the story between Angelina and Winter influenced match quality. Let me go back and correct myself. Angelina getting involved really is no big deal. Storyline has to get furthered. The real thing I do not like was how short the action was. Nevertheless, both of these factors still had a major influence over the match you saw last week. Given more time and a cleaner finish, you may have had a better match. I strongly believe that.

This week, 6-person elimination tag. Let me give TNA some credit. If that was a WWE diva match featuring many women, the majority of women would not have even seen any legal time in the ring. I have even seen some 2-on-2 diva matches where at least one woman was never tagged in at all. Miss T., Tara, Mickie James, Madison Rayne, Angelina Love, and Winter all saw some time in the ring. There you see a little trouble right away. First, Miss T. and Madison are not the greatest workers in the ring. They did not do too much wrestling, but that still impacts the match. Second, given the amount of time the match was given, having so many women also impacted the action. Did each woman really get to show their best? Or just a few spots and storytelling each? After Miss T. and Tara were eliminated, then the real storytelling took over this match. Angelina and Winter turned on Madison, unhappy that she stole a pin. They let Mickie eliminate her. Winter and Angelina then teamed up on Mickie for the rest of the match, having her beat at one point. But Winter refused to let Angelina get the pin. Mickie managed to recover and beat Angelina, then Winter. Mickie eliminated all three heels. As a Mickie James fan, excellent! But I can understand how many would not like this. You tune in for total-nonstop action, but you get storyline advancement in the ring taking the place of wrestling action.

Of course, only a moron, or the average pro wrestling critic, would blame Mickie James for this. Since I would like to believe I'm more of an analyst than a critic, I understand more that there are some things that are just out of her hands. Match time? Advancing the storyline TNA is pushing? She's doing what she has to. One way to fix this would be to give more time for actual promos. Separate wrestling from storyline development more. That would improve KO matches a lot more. Of course, I am still waiting for TNA to develop better storylines for Mickie James. Take better advantage of that charisma she has.