Monday, June 3, 2013

We Want Hosses

A hoss in name only?
Photo Credit: ImpactWrestling.com
Here’s the thing. I was playing some Extreme Warfare Revenge the other night. Yep, I still play it over a decade after its latest update, but hey, there’s nothing else like it. WWE ’14 needs a booking option. Anyway...

I was looking at my roster and trying to figure out who my hosses would be. It was then that I actually got to thinking about the hosses in TNA, or the lack thereof. TH picked up on my reference to Hernandez when he posted the pic on my previous blog entry, but am I wrong?

Matt Morgan is really the only guy on their entire roster with any kind of size, and he is not only misused, but he still doesn’t scream hoss to me. Morgan is billed as a seven footer, but I’d rather face him than Big E Langston or Mark Henry. Is it the way that WWE has built these monsters?

It’s probably a little bit of both. Henry and Langston are just ginormous men who could probably bend steel with their bare hands, and that has something to say for itself. But building big men is one thing that they still do well in the land of giants. Although Sheamus should have never defeated Henry in a bullrope match, there are very little other missteps as far as making me believe that Mark Henry is the baddest dude on the planet.

Yet, TNA has gone as far as feeding their only big man to Sting, of all people, in recent weeks. Sting - the fifty year old guy that only wrestles bi-monthly. And for a title shot nonetheless. That’s not how I make people fear my monster.

I don’t think I’m asking for a lot here. The hoss is a staple in wrestling. Workrates are great, but sometimes you have to have a guy that just destroys people. I guess the first step would be to actually hire the guys. Hell, do like WWE does and just hire the biggest dudes you can find and then train them to wrestle. You can teach wrestling. You can’t teach size. That’s the reason you have Ohio Valley Wrestling.

Then, once you have them trained enough to be on the main roster, book them like they actually mean something. Punish a heel for underhanded activities by booking him against your monster face. Put the odds against your white-hot face by pitting him against your machine-like heel. You can use them to put guys over. Kane and Mark Henry have taken their fair share of losses. Just don’t book them because you don’t want to bury anyone else on the roster in favor of your over-the-hill “Icon”.