The Way I See It: Pacman Jones
For those of you too cheap and/or lazy to call me long distance at 317-592-9401, here is my hotline commentary from last week’s Indy Wrestleline Tuesday report on Option 2.
Make sure to call tomorrow to hear me rant and rave about a bunch of local Indy indy guys that you’ve probably never heard of. At least it will be funny…
Hello there, wrestling fans! This is Russ Ray and this is “The Way I See It,” a weekly soapbox for me to vent about the state of the national, regional, and local pro wrestling scenes.
First of all, I’d like to thank the Midwest Insider, Adam Simmons, and the Weekend Warrior, Randy Klemme, for welcoming me back after a year-long vacation. Hopefully we’ll all have a lot of fun during these segments and maybe rattle some cages along the way.
So, topic #1 for me this week: Pacman made his live TNA debut last Sunday at the Hard Justice PPV. Can Frogger and Space Invaders be far behind? Heck, why don’t they just throw in Donkey Kong while they’re at it, and it’ll be the nWo all over again! It’ll draw tons of money!
Oh, by the way, longtime TNA wrestler Ron “The Truth” Killings also returned in the most meaningful TV time he’s had in at least 6 months. But, who cares when they have Pacman, ahhhhhhhhh… glorious Pacman, whose mere presence will double ratings. Well, maybe not, if last week was any indication.
Look, nobody bought that PPV to see what Jones was up to since he got kicked out of the NFL, and even if they had, what were they expecting him to seriously do on TV? Beat up some strippers? Spit on somebody? Throw piles of cash at exotic dancers? Pop a few caps into some innocent bystanders? Smoke some weed?
I mean, yeah, he’s a circus act, and these are things that he’s alleged to have done, but what is TNA expecting to do bringing in the guy? Their hands were tied from the get-go because he’s not allowed to do anything physical on-camera, so all that publicity went to him and Killings getting in an argument, and then Jones was found “beaten up” backstage. Wow, what a mystery. It’s like “Who shot JR?” all over again.
My point is this: at the same time this was going on last weekend, Terry Taylor had to go around and do damage control because TNA started making budget cuts again. Christy Hemme and Lance Hoyt were told that they weren’t being flown in for the PPV, but not to get upset because there wasn’t heat on them… they were just trying to save some money.
Makes sense in theory, but the timing of it was terrible. It makes TNA look like they spent money they use on real workers to bring in a guy that can’t have any real impact on the product because he can’t wrestle and he can’t get physical with anyone. They would have been better off hiring Alex Trebek to be the guest ring announcer.
It was ludicrous to bring in Pacman Jones thinking that: A) TNA would appear favorably in the mainstream press (especially after it took such a beating after the Chris Benoit murder-suicide), and B) people would care about Pacman at all. His name these days is as big of a punchline as Barry Bonds. He’s a waste of money and a waste of space, because the time they spent trying to get the storyline with Pacman and Killings over could have been spent on a host of other guys.
I’m not sure how they got the Truth back, as he seemed pretty adamant about his release, except maybe TNA was planning on suing him for not fulfilling the rest of his contract. Still, there were a lot of guys that they could have used without going outside the company and getting someone who doesn’t want to be there to work a storyline that’s so mainstream.
Then again, that’s TNA’s main problem. They want to be the alternative to WWE, but then they act like a bunch of bottom feeders running after Vince’s cast-offs. Well, good news… maybe Basham and Damaja didn’t work out, but I hear that La Resistance is available now. Maybe they can bring in Rikishi and Scott Taylor so we can have that Too Cool reunion that’s long overdue. Or, maybe they can bring back A-Train so we can have a T & A reunion.
TNA is more like WWE than they would care to admit. Too bad they’re more like the WWE of five years ago than the TNA of today we would all like to see.
Don’t forget to call back for Option 1 today with the Wrestling Update with Adam Simmons and call Option 3 for what’s-his-name. Also, check us out on the internet at www.themidwestinsider.com. You can also read my columns at www.shotgunreviews.com. Also on there is the link to my blog.
I’m Russ Ray, and that’s the way I see it.
