TNA does the right thing for the wrong reasons

Last Thursday on TNA Impact, we got the payoff to the latest “They” saga. I say it was the latest payoff because this is their second “They” saga in about three months. Perhaps the writers thought paralleling the two was a witty idea, but it just seemed redundant.

Their original plan was to bring back the Main Event Mafia (as evidenced by the return of Scott Steiner), but that feel through on Sunday when Kevin Nash and Booker T made their returns to WWE (not to mention the rumored arrival of Sting to WWE). When this fell through, TNA decided to accelerate their already in place stroyline of turning Fortune babyface to combat Immortal.

Now, we can all sit around and poke holes in the story (which includes Crimson choking AJ Styles), but I would rather look at the positives than the few negatives. TNA is finally getting to the mission that they undertook during the 2008-2009 Main Event Mafia story. They are pushing their homegrown talent as babyfaces and giving the fans true TNA stars to get behind.

Maybe TNA will finally get their priorities in order and get back to the last time they were actually experiencing growth; in 2005 when they pushed their X-Division stars to the main event. It is a company in need of something truly new. The show as it currently is looks like someone put WCW 2000 in a blender and pushed purée. With Eric Bischoff and Jeff Jarrett being prominent figures on the show, all we see is the same old thing we saw in WCW and from Bischoff in WWE from 2002-2006.

Would the Main Event Mafia have provided the same boost of excitement that Fortune can? Not on your life. Even waiting for the Fortune turn might have been a bad idea. They would have been the primary whipping boys of MEM until Immortal eventually won the feud. We may have a couple weeks of poor TV because of the Fortune turn, but after the initial explanation phase, we could have a hell of a feud.

Going into TNA Lockdown this April, we may actually have two quality teams feuding in a logical setup for the Lethal Lockdown match. It may look an awful lot like a replay of last year’s team Hogan vs. team Flair Lethal Lockdown, but it will be homegrown talent fighting as babyfaces against the invading heels.

If TNA continues to do the right thing, they may finally get around to correcting their failures from the Main Event Mafia angle two years ago. This is a prime opportunity for a reset from about a year of failure. Best of luck to TNA and I’m very much looking forward to seeing Fortune become the number one babyface force.

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