NWA-TNA began in 2002 as a promotion with enough financial backing to easily overshadow most of its competition in the United States. The only obstacles that stood in the way of the organization amassing nationwide appeal were a lack of national television time as well as a Southern and conservative slant in the shows’ booking.
TNA has since gone onto gain a weekly primetime television timeslot on cable television. However the tendency to book storylines that appeal more to a Southern or conservative United States’ audience than a national or global audience is still strong.
With TNA’s rise in popularity some movements were bound to be made in order to give the company greater universal appeal. Country music stars such as Toby Keith and NASCAR drivers such as Sterling Marlin and Hermie Sadler no longer take up time on TNA programming. Instead less and less time has been given to celebrities and when time is given, the celebrity usually has further reaching appeal such as in the case of Major League Baseball player AJ Pierzinski.
The slant has instead moved into the company’s longer lasting storylines with the most recent example being the situation surrounding the Latin American Exchange.
Since forming almost a year ago, LAX has had impressive matches against the likes of Christopher Daniels and AJ Styles, America’s Most Wanted and the Naturals. With experienced Mexican wrestler Konnan acting as the group’s mouthpiece, the threesome is a formidable combination.
Despite all of their accomplishments however, the skills of LAX have been overshadowed as of late by reoccurring threats by the group to burn the American flag. This has worked as a political commentary on the controversy surrounding flag desecration, which has existed for centuries, but has only recently reemerged in the public eye. Reason for this occurred as a result of the United States Senate narrowly rejecting a Constitutional amendment on July 27, 2006 that would have prohibited flag burning.
Political commentaries can and have worked in professional wrestling. Countless examples throughout the past few decades can attest to this fact. The Iron Sheik, Ivan Koloff and Nikolai Volkoff were all political commentaries to an extent. However, the problem first and foremost with political commentaries in wrestling is that they create a schism by saying that one viewpoint is wrong while another is correct.
The reason that gimmicks such as the Iron Sheik worked is that the promotion that this wrestler worked for at his popularity’s peak, the WWF did not tour places like Iran at the time. Though the gimmick in hindsight may have been culturally insensitive, the schism created by the gimmick was one that divided fans who either supported the right to be an American or did not. Touring American cities throughout most of the year night in and night out, audiences generally went with the first point-of-view making the Iranian Iron Sheik an effective heel.
The act of flag burning, unlike many heel gimmicks of the past creates a much more complex schism. Instead of simply being for or against one broad concept, fans may have varying stances on flag burning.
For example some may believe that people should have the right to burn American flags, but that burning the flag in itself is immoral. This makes both the heel LAX as well as those billed as faces appear as heels to viewers with this belief. Alternatively other spectators may view flag burning as a noble way to express descent with government functions. This flips the entire story that TNA is trying to tell upside down in that LAX will become faces and their opponents will become heels to a portion of the audience. Finally some fans may be apolitical in which case the more in-depth TNA goes with politics in this storyline, the more fans will be turned off by it.
As may be expected TNA is promoting the conservative viewpoint on this issue as individuals such as Jim Cornette, Petey Williams and most recently Kurt Angle have been supported as faces by the announce team. This runs similarly to supporting the votes cast primarily by conservative leaning Republicans and Democrats, who voted to prohibit flag desecration earlier in the year.
If TNA went in the reverse direction of this storyline and turned LAX into faces that only wanted the right to burn the American flag, but never actually burned it, a similar schism would exist. The benefit of this would be that TNA could appeal more to liberal audiences. The counterpoint to this is that these new audiences are untested so that TNA may not gain any supporters, while alienating their base.
It is important to note that TNA’s focus on political commentary overshadowing their wrestler’s performances has become irritating to even the most adamant of TNA fans. This was most apparent when LAX was threatened to be stripped of the NWA World Tag Team titles at TNA Genesis 2006. Despite taking place in Orlando, Florida, the home of the iMPACT! Zone, the decision was heavily booed.
To advance in this storyline and continue to receive positive fan support, the in-ring capabilities of LAX and their opponents must be highlighted. LAX’s next scheduled opponents, Petey Williams and Kurt Angle are more than capable of bringing a good match to the table, enabling attention to be shifted from politics towards the actual matches. If this move is made than LAX may continue to garner attention rather than having fans become ex-LAX supporters.
TNA has gone a long way in terms of establishing a national audience over the course of four years. By holding onto cultural and political ties, both of which have nothing to do with in-ring performance, the organization may plateau in popularity.
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