10 Guys That Could Save TNA

1. Gunner

GUNNER TNA During last year€™s €˜Feast or Fired€™ edition of Impact Wrestling, Gunner won a shot at the World Heavyweight Championship (which was, at that time, held by Magnus). In hindsight, it seems fairly obvious that Gunner€™s victory was only booked in order to become the catalyst for his program with tag team partner James Storm (which resulted in a jealous Storm turning heel against his former partner and culminated in an excellent €˜I Quit€™ match at this year€™s Sacrifice PPV). However, what was slightly unexpected about the whole €˜Feast or Fired€™ debacle is that the fans immediately and without hesitation took to Gunner as a championship prospect. A series of vignettes, designed to highlight his military service and his dedication to the business overall, also revealed that Gunner (when not pratting around pretending to be a viking) was actually surprisingly erudite and genuinely interesting to watch. The fans bought into it wholesale and Gunner received an extremely enthusiastic response from the TNA faithful. In addition, Magnus did a fine job of putting Gunner over as a potential TNA kingpin (until the dastardly James Storm scuppered the whole thing, of course). In our view, Gunner is ready now to become TNA€™s biggest and brightest star. Although he isn€™t a technical master in the ring, Gunner can more than hold his own with anyone he€™s booked against. In addition, although he isn€™t a one-man catchphrase machine, he is able to project an intensity and brute physicality that one might expect of an experienced MMA fighter or monster heel. Essentially, Gunner actually has the potential to be TNA€™s Hulk Hogan, that big, larger-than-life star that becomes synonymous with the company he works for. Think €˜80€™s Hogan for the second decade of a harsh new century€™, and you€™re getting there... He has a likeable, babyface dependability to him, but there is a darkness that is both appealing and intriguing. He is a mountain of tattooed, badass muscle, but still seems like he€™d be the kind of guy you could chat to in a pub on a lazy Sunday afternoon. If Gunner was booked strongly enough (and given a lengthy World Title run to cement his new position) we reckon he could solve most of the company€™s problems almost overnight. - So, those are our thoughts. Who do YOU think TNA should hire/use better?
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I am a professional author and lifelong comic books/pro wrestling fan. I also work as a journalist as well as writing comic books (I also draw), screenplays, stage plays, songs and prose fiction. I don't generally read or reply to comments here on What Culture (too many trolls!), but if you follow my Twitter (@heyquicksilver), I'll talk to you all day long! If you are interested in reading more of my stuff, you can find it on http://quicksilverstories.weebly.com/ (my personal site, which has other wrestling/comics/pop culture stuff on it). I also write for FLiCK http://www.flickonline.co.uk/flicktion, which is the best place to read my fiction work. Oh yeah - I'm about to become a Dad for the first time, so if my stuff seems more sentimental than usual - blame it on that! Finally, I sincerely appreciate every single read I get. So if you're reading this, thank you, you've made me feel like Shakespeare for a day! (see what I mean?) Latcho Drom, - CQ