There are two components to a really, really good swerve. One is that you don't expect it when it happens. Two is that you should have seen it coming but you don't. We're not talking about blatant hints, but subtle hints. You look back at the best swerves and you notice things. Even if you don't notice it, the swerve still makes sense.
Vince Russo has always had a way of mastering the first while completely effing up the second. That's why it's not surprising that at Slammiversary, Samoa Joe, who got a penis tattooed to his face and bought a knife just so he could terrorize the Main Event Mafia for the last three months, climbed the ladder to grab the TNA World Championship... only to hand it to Kurt Angle, the leader of said MEM. There were no subtle hints. There was no context. Samoa Joe had spent months threatening, assaulting, kidnapping and terrorizing members of the MEM, and he turned to join them.
Now, I know, Russo isn't the only guy in charge in TNA (which is a problem in and of itself). However, Dutch Mantell and Jeff Jarrett clearly are following the Russo model of "swerve first, ask questions later... or maybe never" with their booking trends for as long as I can remember. This lack of internal logic is one of the big reasons why TNA lags behind a WWE that could be doing better (although RAW did a 4.5 last night... which is either a blip or a sign that maybe the WWE is turning a corner).
Internal logic. That is not a term you apply to a fed like TNA. This is a fed that thinks pushing WWE castoffs over guys they can claim as original is a good idea. This is a fed that allows the same kind of backwards, glass-ceiling booking that ruined WCW. This is a fed that employs people like Don West, Jeremy Borash and Mike Tenay to get the talent over when they couldn't get a chocolate cake eat-a-thon to fat people looking to get off their diets. This is a company that has to book the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia instead of even the Spectrum, and couldn't even get a decent crowd in one of the best wrestling cities in the country.
TNA is a fed rent asunder by its own shortsightedness, and it starts at the top. It starts with the people ideating things, coming up with the angles. There needs to be a sound logic when it comes to what the wrestlers do or else they come off as morons. Granted, people like watching morons, or else shows like The Simple Life, Jon and Kate Plus Eight, The Real Housewives of New Jersey and The Hills wouldn't be as popular as they are, but there's a difference between watching morons do moronic things and then people having their intelligence insulted by people doing things that don't make any sense whatsoever.
Having Samoa Joe join the people he's been committing borderline felonies against for the last three months falls under the latter. It's a damn shame too, because I've seen Joe in action. He's got a certain charisma about him that could make him an asset to a fed, a la Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels in the mid-'90s for the WWF. AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Kurt Angle and Joe could anchor solid competition to the WWE right now as the more athletic fed. Instead, we get nWo rehashes and the morons who fall in line with what they want.
You could say that I need to wait and see, but TNA's track record doesn't give them the benefit of that doubt. This company is in serious need of an enema in the front office and a reboot with the talent they have. They are not the market leader, and they are attempting to usurp that market leader by imitating their worst aspects, amplified a thousandfold. It's a model that doesn't work in the real world... why is it continually allowed to be implemented in wrestling? It's more baffling than why Samoa Joe would hand Kurt Angle the TNA Championship at Slammiversary.
