TNA Slammiversary preview

With Slammiversary approaching this weekend, TNA are facing, arguably, the most important moment in their history since they debuted on Spike TV last year. With WWE positioning ECW as the new third wrestling brand in North America, TNA has lost it's comfort zone and will have to work hard to prevent itself from losing ground to WWE just as they seemd to building some momentum. After the car crash that was ECW's debut on Sci-fi, TNA need to capitalize on this and put on a genuine alternative to WWE that ECW failed to make the most of this week. So here are the 5 things I think TNA need to do at this weekend's pay per view to make the most of ECW's failures.

1. Action not promos
ECW's TV show started with a 10 minute promo. As did Raw. And Smackdown. How does that make ECW different to WWE TV? Answer, it doesn't!! So in order to make themselves different from WWE, they need to put on the X Division guys, give them 15-20 minutes and let them tear the house down. Start the show strong and give the fans a really strong wrestling show.

2 a). Make the most of new stars
Despite promising fans a 'new breed' of ECW talent, the ECW show focused on WWE stars and older ECW names like Sabu, Mick Foley and Terry Funk. The problem is, that all 4 of those men are over 40 and hardly the future of the business. On the flipside, TNA have Chris Sabin, Jay Lethal, Alex Shelley and a whole host of other new names that are under 25 and can put on a fantastic match if give the chance. Add to that established talent like AJ Styles, Chris Daniels and Senshi and you have the kind of exciting action that WWE buried in a battle royal this week instead of giving the chance to shine.

2 b) Samoa Joe
In a side note to this point there is, perhaps the most important name not mentioned thus far, that TNA need to make a big deal about this weekend. That man's name is Samoa Joe. He is their future star and their next great homegrown star. He is being brought up into the heavyweight division where he is more than holding his own and his match with Scott Steiner has the potential to be the match everyone is talking about on Monday morning. Just so long as Joe is given the win and Steiner plays his role as star-maker. Joe is the antithesis of the WWE mould of muscular big men who can't wrestle a great match and would have been a natural fit for ECW back in the day. However in 2006 he probably would have been given a stereotypical gimmick like Umanga onn Raw, instead of being given the chance to shine as he is in TNA. Future matches between Joe and Sting, Christian Cage and Jeff Jarrett are should earn TNA some hefty buyrates and make for some great marquee matches. However, they need to continue to build Joe up to make sure that they get as much hype and buzz coming into those matches as they can. Slammiversary is the start of that build.

3. Allow the former ECW stars a chance to shine
Tommy Dreamer was the heart and soul of ECW. He was the star of last year's One Night Stand and occupied a prominent position at this year's show in the semi-main event. So what did they do with him this week on the TV debut? Put him in a battle royale with a bunch of jobbers. The same with Justin Credible. Former ECW champ, punked out by Kurt Angle in a matter of minutes. TNA have on their roster the most dominant tag team in ECW history in the Dudlez/Team 3D. They have the best talker the company ever had in Raven and they also have the first and last ECW champs in Shane Douglas and Rhino. TNA need to push these guys and remind any ECW fans not happy with the WWE's vision that these guys can work in an unrestricted environment on pay per view this weekend and every Thursday night on Impact. At the TNA house show, Matt 'Spike Dudley' Hyson tore up a WWE contract, which at first seemed like a very daft thing to do considering the state of the business. However in hindsight it looks like one of the ballsiest moves a wrestler has made this year and as such he and the other ECW alumni should be rewarded for pinning their colours to TNA's mast.

4. Have clean finishes
Terry Funk and Sabu managed to finish a match bleeding and wrapped in barbed wire at ECW's Born to be Wired. Tazz and Bam Bam Bigelow finished a match when they went through the ring. So why did Rey vs Sabu end in a no contest at One Night Stand? ECW fans were quite justified in their 'bulls**t' chants as this was not what ECW was about. At the same time, TNA have been very guilty of over-booking their shows in recent months and that needs to stop. Clean wins and losses do not hurt a wrestling promotion (just ask any Ring of Honor fan) and they need to address this sooner rather than later. Hopefully the arrival of Jim Cornette as the new face of TNA management will help reverse this trend and bring a good 'old-school' mentality of sensible, logical booking with clean wins and losses. If they establish that, then when they do want to do a screwjob finish it will mean more as the fans won't have seen it on every show - at least not every TNA show! They'll probably still see it on Raw and Smackdown every week!

5. Respect the intelligence of your fans
Zombies? Aliens? Vampies? OK, so wrestling can be a bit corny and hokey. But when the rest of the show was bad, this just came across as the icing on the case and became a calling card for anyone who wanted to ridicule ECW and wrestling in general. Part of ECW's success in the mid 90s was in providing an alternative to the high camp of the Ultimate Warrior or Papa Shango in the WWF. TNA need to avoid this like the plague and put on the kind of exciting, athletic wrestling that helped the business boom in the late 90s and made wrestling cool once again.