The Ten Percenters, The Apologists and Common Sense

The center of the controversy
Photo Credit: ImpactWrestling.com

Ever since Eric Bischoff first took to Twitter to blast those criticizing his product as "Ten Percenters", those fans have taken to the term as a unifying label. These fans have stood by their right to vocalize their displeasure for Impact Wrestling's product, despite the shouting down by Bischoff, Hulk Hogan and other various people within the company who haven't taken well to the criticism. However, what happens when Impact Wrestling becomes a good product? We're beginning to see that right now, at least I am. Personally, I've enjoyed Impact in the last month, and like I wrote earlier this week, James Storm winning the World Championship was a legitimate feelgood moment. Even though Bobby Roode had failed in his attempt to win the Championship at Bound for Glory, there was reason to believe that the Ten Percenters were being given some attention.

But then, the spoilers from last night's Impact tapings in Macon came out, the chirping started up again. Bobby Roode turned heel and won the World Heavyweight Championship from his now-former tag partner, and the Ten Percenter Twitterverse, goaded on partially by Gabe Sapolsky (feeling jilted by Bischoff ragging on paying customers), flew into an outrage. How dare they hotshot the title! They're doing things too fast! Why did they turn Roode heel? The only thing more vociferous than the complaining towards Impact's way was the counter-finger wagging by other fans who supported the company's decisions, pointing out, haughtily in some cases, that the title feud was now between two Impact originals and the focus was as much on guys the Ten Percenters wanted as there was on retreads. The battle has been getting contentious. I laid out an outline on Twitter earlier, but here it is again, more fleshed out and tweaked a bit that I hope will add a bit of perspective on this debate.

1. The Ten Percenters Have the Right to Complain about a Company They Care about - This is obvious. People complain because they care for the most part. Moving on
   
2. Trolls Invariably Exist, but It's Not Fair to Lump the Ten Percenters in with Them Automatically - I feel like this is a tactic used by the counter-Percenters, at least the most extreme ones. They paint all complainers as people who've hated TNA from jump. Granted, there are people out there who are trolls and who do nothing but bash Impact at every turn. But the thing is that these trolls exist in every form for every company, genre, fandom, medium, whatever. They don't represent the fans who honestly want change because they want to see good wrestling Thursday nights. Anything else is dishonest as fuck.
3. Eric Bischoff Is an Ass for Glibly Dismissing His Fanbase. - But I already went over this.
4. Meanwhile, It Is More Than Fair to Question Gabe Sapolsky's Vigor in Attacking Bischoff/Impact - Remember how shameless and transparently shilling-for-ROH I Want Wrestling was? Yeah, it was pretty bad to see Dave Lagana tweet during RAW that he wanted wrestling when the show was 85 percent wrestling matches, and usually good ones too. On the surface, it seemed like Lagana was only interested in wrestling when it was promoted under the ROH banner. Well, Sapolsky also has the ulterior motives when calling out Bischoff. He books a pretty lucrative indie wrestling company, one that would stand to gain a bit of business from poaching fans from Impact. So yeah, there's more than a reasonable doubt that the only reason Sapolsky is so vocal is that he's in it for the extra DVD buys. That being said, I feel like his message here about how to do good customer service is way more valid than any generic "I want more wrestling guise!" platitudes that Lagana ever spewed out, but at the same time, the skepticism is warranted.
5. Judging Spoilers Before the Results Air Is, and Has Always Been, Asinine - This is pretty much THE maxim in pre-taped wrestling. The biggest bad moment that actually played off okay on TV was Randy Orton defeating Christian for the World Championship days after Christian won it in an emotional match. We all bitched, and while I still contend the decision was bad, the match was phenomenal and at the time, that cushioned the blow. To be completely fair to Impact here, the spoilers to me don't sound bad at all. Then again, that will take me into my next point, but here's the overarching point - complaining about spoilers without seeing how they play out is dumb, because often times what plays off on screen is way better than what some shitty writers describe happened for the Torch or whatever dirtsheet is printing the results.
6. Rapid-Fire Title Switches in and of Themselves Aren't Terrible - I don't understand the smark obsession with long title reigns, I really don't. If we are to believe that title matches are to be earned by guys who deserve to be in them, then why should we be horrified when those challengers end up winning those matches? To me, length of reign isn't as important as the integrity with which the matches and the title changes are done. Give me a good story, and it'll supersede everything. Give me matches that are worthy of having the highest Championship in the company affixed to them, and I'll buy them. So far, what we know about the story between Roode and Storm is that it has a chance to be good. Why should we care if the title is passed around like a hot potato if the trappings are compelling?
7. Finally, Accentuate the Positive - Complaining about something that we care about is our God-given right. We don't have to sit back and take bad programming, or eat up flaws in otherwise good programming just because the people in charge tell us it's good. That being said, we need to ask ourselves why we care about the thing we complain about from time to time. When there is a company or a producer that we latch onto, then of course we feel an obligation to want to see it get better. So yeah, that's why the complaining is valid. That being said, is there an inherent value in loyalty to one producer of content? It's entertainment, it's non-essential, so I'd say no. So it just wouldn't make sense to continually stick with a company that continues to put out shit. That being said, I doubt that the Ten Percenters really think that the entire show is shit. So why let that perception pervade the public postings? (holy alliteration, Batman) Entertainment is there to make us happy, and when we let one bad aspect of the show dominate our outlook of it, it shortchanges the other things that are working for us. There's so much other shit bogging the collective minds of people down, why let the entertainment piss us off? I think that people would be better served to accentuate the positive along with voicing concerns about what isn't working. Is this a evocation of a warped fairness doctrine? No, I would never advocate that people have to be positive as a price to be negative or vice versa. That being said, I feel like people might end up being happier in the long run if they focused on things that made them happy. So rather than dooming and glooming about how rushed the main angle is, maybe we could all fall back on Austin Aries, or the Daniels/Styles feud or whatever else they're doing right. After that, maybe even the negative stuff would feel like it was less than a life-and-death thing.