TNA: If THIS is the rub Nash is giving to Sabin....if I were Sabin, I'd GIVE IT BACK

When yesterday started it was a decent day. And then I sat down and watched part of TNA's show, and began to have other thoughts as well.

Let's start with the Kevin Nash/Chris Sabin angle.

You know, when this whole angle started, I actually didn't think it was such a bad idea. Here was Kevin Nash, looking for ANY WAY back into the TNA mainstream after his heart scare a few months ago, offering to help put over the X Division. He wanted to play the big, cowardly heel, who says that ::ahem:: Size DOES Matter, at least when it comes to wrestling. He wanted to go out and put over someone from the X Division - when it was first planned, it was AJ Styles - as an eventual giant killer.

The first two interviews were funny, driven, and well thought out, and it looked like this angle had real potential, especially if Nash, notorious for protecting his own ass while in WCW, was sincere.

As the development of the angle went on, TNA changed it around a bit. AJ moved up to work with Christopher Daniels as a tag team, feuding with AMW, so it was decided that Team TNA captain Chris Sabin would become the beneficiary of Nash's planned angle.

Now, on paper, this was a better than average, if not brilliant, plan by TNA's (usually lacking) standards. Sabin, who has been with TNA longer than anyone else in the division except AJ and Daniels, and more than anyone in the X division with the possible exception of Alex Shelley, has been working hard, trying to come up with something that will move himself up to the next level. Someone who can step into those big to fill shoes as AJ's successor as the leader of the X Division. Lately, he's stepped up his already-intense game with some spectacular high flying moves, and given himself a new haircut (and a somewhat laughable bleach job) that once it grew out a bit actually WORKED, revamping and refining his look. His airtime, however, has been lacking - for some reason TNA can't comprehend that you can't build a character personality without promo time, as this is one of their biggest all around sins - although he's trying to make the best of what time he's being given.

Now, he was going to benefit - and according to TNA it would be HUGE - from getting the "rub" from Kevin Nash's plan.

Like I said, this was a pretty good idea....ON PAPER.

In its execution, like so many other windows of opportunity in the past, TNA has completely BOTCHED the angle.

Instead of looking like the underdog fighter, every match since last month's pay per view has only served to weaken Sabin's character (what TNA allows him to have of one, that is) even further. The result of the angle has seen Alex Shelley, who is acting as Nash's X-Division connected lapdog, get most of the rub, and Sabin get very little, if any.

And then...on this week's "TNA iMPACT", they had a stunt that COULD have completely turned the angle around. It had a bit of potential - JUST - but still, it could have been something that would have had the fans FURIOUS at Nash and had Sabin coming out looking stronger than ever before...

And, as always, THEY DROPPED THE BALL....what else is new?

Instead of producing a killer angle that had long legs, it not only horribly undercut Sabin, who now looks weaker than ever, it completely undermined the ENTIRE X DIVISION.

Here's what happened, courtesy of Richard Trinofo's weekly iMPACT report on PWInsider. Com:


We are back with the latest "Paparazzi Production"’ from Alex Shelley. This time Kevin Nash mentions "Humiliation 101" and how it is in the bag. Kevin mentions the old body bag. Nash says that they pull something out that the fans have not seen in two weeks. Nash asks Alex and Johnny what they think and they applaud.

Don and Mike wonder what it meant when it said "to be continued tonight..." ’ While Don and Mike talk, we see Kevin Nash come out along with Johnny Devine and Alex Shelley with a shopping cart with a body bag. The body bag is rolled into the ring and Nash gets on the mic. Nash says that there is hot news. He says that he caught Osama bin Laden. Nash talks about how they are going to split the money three ways with Shelley and Devine getting six million each. They open the bag and it is Chris Sabin with his hands tied up. Shelley and Devine kick Sabin while Nash watches. Jay Lethal comes out and he fights off Devine and Shelley. Shelley, Lethal, and Devine leave the ring while Lethal checks on Sabin.

Now, BEFORE it aired this week, I wrote to Richard after reading the taping spoilers and asked him for more details on the angle. It sounded weak but intriguing. We have been corresponding since then about the angle. And we're both disappointed with it. So is my lady, who's done theatre work and who thought the entire bit was just LAME with a capital L. I can't speak for Richard, but my lady and I were REALLY disappointed. Here was a golden opportunity and once again, TNA's absolutely incompetent booking team totally missed the boat.

For some unknown reason, said TNA bookers thinks this angle is giving Sabin the rub....but I've got news for them...it's having the EXACT OPPOSITE EFFECT. If anyone is getting a rub from this angle, it's Shelley...which is good, but NOT what's intended.

TNA gets SOOOOOO many opportunities to make real killer angles, and they just seem to have butter on their fingers 24/7. I can no longer count the number of times they have dropped the ball on just about everything. They could have made this work, in exactly the way Nash said he wanted it to work when it first started, but so far, everything they've done has served only to weaken their newly appointed ( or would that be anointed?) X Division leader. I mean, even the body bag thing this week COULD have worked, if they'd put a little thought into it and had been a little more aggressive about it. I mean, if they had went about it right with this whole "body bag" angle, it could have been much more effective. But let's take a really hard close look at this - if Chris Sabin, a smaller but pretty muscular and agile guy, can't break free of what appears to be a single strand of black plastic electrical tape wrapped lamely once or twice around his wrists, which are in front of him, even while "half-suffocating" from being in the body bag (according to the announcers, at least) , then how can he POSSIBLY hope to beat even perennial TNA Job Squad members Shark Boy or Norman Smiley, let alone a top notch X competitor like Alex Shelley or , God forbid, a "monster" like Kevin Nash? It makes him look hopelessly WEAK.

And WHY is it just Jay Lethal coming to his aid? I know Lethal is his tag team partner, but really, Isn't the WHOLE X Division (with the exception of Shelley) PO'ed about what's happening to Sabin? Don't they realize Nash is making ALL of them - the ENTIRE X DIVISION - out to be fools? EVERY X Division player - faces AND heels - should be coming to the ring...and they should have one or two who are always out to either force Nash back into the ring where they can get at him, or chasing him out of the Impact Zone. Every X Division player, regardless of their personal feuds and angle orientation, should be out to aid and protect Sabin from Nash and Shelley when the situation gets out of hand. Why? Because no matter how they feel about each other, they are ALL X Division players, and Nash's war is supposed to be with the whole X Division. That way, Nash looks even more like a blustery coward - which is what I thought the point to this entire angle was. Sure, Tenay and West are TRYING to sell him that way anyway, but it's not working, because Sabin is looking weaker and weaker with every confrontation that has happened since the last PPV.

As lame as the whole angle was, it COULD have been saved. Let me describe a scenario for this week's angle that TNA could have used, one that would have made a killer angle, if only they'd given it a little more thought and a little more logic. If done properly, it could have continued to make Nash's "cowardly heel" character grow, and also served to greatly strengthen Sabin's now-precarious position.

Point one - Instead of just one lame pretaped bit, do several mysterious pretaped bits to be shown throughout the show. One bit has Shelley stalking Sabin with his camera, the second bit has Sabin being surprised and jumped by someone, possibly Devine, or something along those lines. Cut the "pretaped" footage while Sabin is still fighting with whomever jumped him. THEN throw in the bit they did with Nash, Shelley, and Devine. Imply that all of this went down much earlier, perhaps as much as 24 hours earlier. Nash then makes the whole Body Bag announcement. Make two things clear - that they have already filled the body bag, and that someone is inside of it, and that it's lying on a bench, table, or on the floor of an area of the arena where no one would be likely to stumble across it.

Next, book the rest of the angle to END the show with. NOT in the center of the show, where it gets wasted, but the very end of the show, so that the last shot of the week's angle is the last shot you see as Spike changes programs. Play it out pretty much as they did, except the body bag is not moving around nearly as much. It's still moving around, but not like it was on the show this week, often flopping around like a fish.

Next, do something ELSE TNA has difficulty with - have some GOOD CAMERA WORK, without missing the money shot as usual. Have a camera close up on that body bag when Shelley and Devine open it up. Because when they open it up to reveal Sabin, we see a Sabin that is in FAR WORSE condition than he was on the actual show. As they dump Sabin out of the bag in this scenario, things are much worse off for him.

1) Sabin is NOT dressed for the ring; he's in his street clothes, implying that he was grabbed by Devine and Shelley when he wasn't prepared, so they could take advantage of the surprise element.

2) Sabin has been beaten to a bloody, swollen pulp - make with the bruise and scar make up, people. Realistic as possible, please (though I realize this is TNA we're talking about, and it's going to be practically IMPOSSIBLE for them to do something this intricate in a believable manner...)

3)Sabin hasn't been moving around much in the body bag because he can't - in addition to being beaten up and sore (Mike and Don can get hysterical selling "internal injuries"), he's trussed up pretty tightly...maybe a modified hogtie, where he can completely stretch out, but still have his wrists, bound BEHIND his back, also bound to his ankles, which are also bound. You could truss him up even more if you like. Maybe dried blood, which had come from his nose, is streaked down across the duct tape over his mouth. It becomes immediately obvious that Sabin, normally someone who could protect himself, had no way to even try and yell for help. Hell, there's plenty of things you could do and you could do it however you want to do it, but for pete's sake, make it believable - which this week's show WAS NOT - because the whole point is to drive it home to the viewers that Sabin is/was completely helpless. Make sure the camera gets the mixture of the fire of anger, and the fear of the situation he's managed to get himself into in his eyes (he CAN do it - he did it this week, but the angle killed it). THEN Have Nash do his best "JBL" imitation, taunting Sabin a little bit more, claiming to be an "unstoppable monster" and slamming the X Division, as Shelley and Devine work him over some more.

I do seem to remember something really similar about 18 months ago, where Raven brought a bound and gagged Sonjay Dutt to the ring, also in a bag of some sort, in an attempt to get to Sabu. So they DO know HOW to do this kind of thing...but I digress...

Anyway, back to this week's angle. Instead of just one person, about a minute after revealing Sabin, tied up in the bag, Nash, Shelley, and Devine get the surprise of their life, as EVERY SINGLE PERFORMER from the X Division come out of BOTH Ramps. Give it a minute before some of the guys - say Shark Boy and Matt Bentley - take Shelley and Devine out, leaving Nash trapped at ringside, with both of his regular exits cut off by the rest of the Division - and AJ and Samoa Joe, who are blocking the entrance ramps at the top. As Nash finally manages to escape with several X guys on his tail around the outside of the announcer's table, cut back to the ring, where Petey Williams, Jay Lethal, and Jerry Lynn are working to get Sabin untied. Make it clear to the live audience and the viewers at home that Kevin Nash has thrown down the gauntlet and lost - the X Division - ALL OF THEM - have now declared WAR on Kevin Nash.

Had they done things THIS way, they would have set the stage for a battle that could have lasted all summer long without any lagging storylines, finally culminating in a final Nash vs Sabin match in September at the Unbreakable PPV, where Sabin would have at long last vanquished the evil "giant". Again, wasn't that the original point of this angle?The rest of the summer would have been Nash and his X Division biatches against the rest of the X Division. During all this, AJ and Joe slip out of the X Division unnoticed and move back into the heavyweight battle, further concentrating the angle to Sabin, Petey, Sonjay, Matt Bentley, and the other members of the Division.

I really think it could have been THE angle that TNA has been looking for, and a battle that would have generated great ratings....


BUT NOOOOOOOOOOO.....


Okay.....granted, this takes things to extremes, but it would have been WAAAAAY more interesting than what they did. They could have fixed what they DID do with an in-between piece showing Shelley and Devine waylaying someone in the men's locker room, not showing who, and just having the noises of a fight coming from the locker room. If Sabin had been beaten on just a little bit, the lame-ass binding might have worked. And it was extremely important - which they missed - to see him get jumped, because that would leave a little believablity room. But they didnt, and seeing as Sabin still seemed pretty clear headed when he came out of that bag, NO WAY do I believe he couldn't have freed himself BEFORE they opened that bag.

All I know is that the idiot bookers in Florida (it's such a pity, I used to have a TON of respect for Mike Tenay, at least) need to FIX THIS ANGLE NOW. Before they completely destroy Sabin's career. And the rest of the X Division with it.

It would help if Kevin Nash would stop OVERACTING as well...Kevin, you're too over the top - pull back just a tad, ok?. And, hey, Johnny Devine....under NO circumstances are you supposed to mug to the camera that SHOULDN'T be there....YOU are the cameraman, remember? Go look at tapes from the early NWO to see how to do this kind of thing RIGHT...

Hey, but what do I KNOW....i'm just a FAN...and all fans want to be bookers, right? Hey, i'm just trying to make it a bit more believable...not because I'm trying to tell you how to do your job, but rather because I CARE about TNA, it's long term health, and also about Nash, about Shelley, and especially about Sabin...

OK, that's my rant about the Sabin/Nash angle. Now, on to a few other things bugging me.

Another Note to TNA bookers: Punishing Andy Douglas for refusing to cut his hair in this day and age only makes the petty people running this business look bad while stroking their own egos for the percieved power they have. But the fans know the TRUTH - that today's fans DO have brains and CAN tell who is a heel and who is not, and the length of their hair DOESN'T MAKE ONE BIT OF DIFFERENCE - NOT ONE DIFFERENCE AT ALL. You know WHY? Because most fans are NOT what the wrestling industry both believes them to be and makes them out to be -- STUPID. So GROW UP, you morons...

I despise that TNA has been tending to follow the same paths as WCW and ECW before it, and I feel for the people in the entire industry. I really do. All the fans want - all the fans have EVER wanted - is to be taken seriously, thought well of, and maybe even RESPECTED. That's why we offer up these kinds of critiques - only to have them ignored and laughed at. It's only because we care.

And while i'm at it....Hey Spike TV? You need to grow a spine....you're NEVER going to even be a player in the wrestling game until you turn TNA loose. TNA Needs TWO HOURS on LIVE TV, Tuesday Nights from 9 to 11 PM. The ex-ECW wrestlers on the TNA roster are mad as hell about Vince McMahon's bastard version of ECW....it's time you let them loose and let them KICK VINCE'S ASS....

It's time someone in TNA, WWE, and everywhere else to get a friggin' clue...stop treating the fans as the ENEMY. We're not. All we want is decent angles that make sense. The Nash/Sabin segments on this week's show DID NOT WORK because they MADE NO SENSE and cut the rug out from the person you're supposedly trying to build up: Chris Sabin.

Is THAT any way to book an angle? Whoops....I forgot, this is professional wrestling....OF COURSE IT IS....

Idiots....

*****
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