Impact Wrestling

Scott,

I finally got around to watching Impact today, and agreed that the reality-show type segment was a nice change of pace. And I got to thinking… what if they took it further, and turned Impact into a fake-reality show about producing Impact Wrestling?

"The show" would always be in kayfabe and never acknowledge the fake-reality stuff. And "backstage", friends are enemies and enemies are friends. The faces care about the wrestling and the company, the heels don't care if they legit hurt guys and are always checking their messages to see if "Hollywood" has called yet. We'll hear discussion about how the match we haven't we haven't seen yet is going to end.

The interesting thing of the experiment would be how the fans in the arena react… if, for example, they take the guy who's the biggest dick "backstage" and push him as the hero of The Show, would the fans boo him because they he's really a dick, or would they play along and cheer him wildly? Either way, you've got story fodder, because the cheers could change his outlook or could make him a bigger dick, or you've got the producers trying to figure out or make excuses about why everyone is booing their hero.

However, the more I think about it, the more I realize it would take a brilliant kind of writer to keep the show feeling balanced and not abuse the plot device of characters "going off script" during The Show. It's probably too ambitious an undertaking, but I doubt TNA has anything to lose at this point.