Ask anyone from the mid to latter part of this century's first decade why they got into TNA Wrestling and the answer is likely to be the X Division. TNA tapped into something special with its cruiserweights (and some not so cruiserweights), to create arguably the most exciting title division in professional wrestling at the time. Of course, this led to the Samoa Joe/AJ Styles/Christopher Daniels feud over the title, the pinnacle of TNA for many. What happened? Hogan and Bischoff came in, and the X Division was relegated to curtain jerking and irrelevance. Now the division is reserved only for generic cruiserweight action, spots after spots after spots with little in the way of psychology. This misses the point of what made the division so spectacular in the first place. It wasn't just matches full of flips and flops, but it was a collection of diverse and exciting workers whose styles meshed beautifully. As well as Joe, Daniels and Styles you had men like Frankie Kazarian, Petey Williams, Low Ki, Chris Sabin and more, revolutionising mainstream professional wrestling. TNA must return to what brought it to the dance in the first place.
Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.
