The Wrestling Thread

[CrappyMike]

Anyone on here been north of the border for any ICW shows? They're getting rave reviews across the wrestling press, big shows coming up with Sabu and Colt Cabana in Edinburgh and Rhyno coming over in October. Excellent atmosphere ringside aswell, its almost like the old ECW cult style audience too.

I have been hearing a lot about ICW lately, never been to a show though. I've definitely got to go eventually, I just need to find time. If rhyno is coming over in october I will probably find time in october

[Kanwulf]

I think I would love to go to a PCW show at some point. They always seem to put on great shows with top overseas talent too.

[Matty_the_Emo_Slayer]

I'm pretty sure Adam Pearse will be starting in a storyline in TNA this thursday

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaW1KORI2Nc

[herzeleid]

Apparently there were about 200 people at the live taping last night, oh boy!

[Andy Hall]

shit

maybe they should just relocate to the UK

[Matty_the_Emo_Slayer]

Yeah. I'm sorry to say it because I've defended TNA loads over the years, but they're going down the shitter and soon. And mostly it's their own fault.

They've taken too long before jettisoning Sting. This was obviously to facilitate him being the first entrant in their HoF (which looks like it will have all of 2 members before they fold), but why couldn't they let him go to WWE for his retirement run BEFORE they set him up then induct him at a later date? Kurt Angle's plan was obviously to follow suit and have a retirement run in WWE. Again, why not let him do that and bring him back to go in their hall of fame after? If those 2 guys had gone 2 years ago they'd have alleviated so much pressure on their main event bottleneck. Jeff Hardy's another one. He'll put himself in a wheelchair before he's able to return to WWE. When you botch your finisher own 50% of the time (or 100% of the time in the case of Sting and the Scorpion Deathlock) really you ought to start thinking about stopping stinking up TV time that could be better spent on people in their prime.

When it came to trying to create new top stars more often than not they got it wrong. James Storm? Not on the same level wrestling-wise as the rest of the roster, one-dimensional promos and only appeals to Southern fans. Not what you need when you're trying to expand nationally. Chris Sabin? Don't get me wrong he's a phenomenal talent and the whole recovery angle was good, but he's not the guy you should put a belt on when you're clearly in financial difficulty. AJ Styles' heel persona? Way too drawn out. Assuming he's booked to win the BFG series that's like what- 18 months between starting the storyline and the payoff? Ken Anderson? Using former WWE main eventers as your top stars is one thing, using their outcasts is another and it just makes you look like a joke to WWE fans- the people you're trying to attract to boost your ratings. Bully Ray? If he'd have become world champ at the height of his tweener run he could've steered the sinking ship, but since then he's been an awkward babyface and then a full-blown heel, and suddenly has lost the ability to win by wrestling. Great booking guys.

At least with Austin Aries and Bobby Roode they got it 100% spot on.

The storylines that made sense and had potential they rushed and the ones that were shit to begin with have been drawn out for too long. Joseph Park? Do TNA even have a payoff for this in mind any more? And yet the August 1st warnings storyline doesn't even get a build-up on the TV show, meaning only fans who follow them on Twitter are aware of it. I have them on Twitter and I only even found out about it because I was tweeting live during RAW on Monday! Crimson's undefeated streak was a great idea. What should we do with it? I don't know. Who cares. If we can't think of a good payoff for it let's just have him lose to James Storm in a squash match, send him back to OVW (which have you watched recently? if those are the stars of the future we might as well stop watching now) for over a year, let him have 2 more matches then just fire him.

As for the rest of the booking over the past few years it's been pretty much this; so and so comes to the ring, so and so is angry and calls out other so and so, so and so brawl, Hulk Hogan comes out, says something incoherent, Tenay announces them for the main event, main event builds into next PPV main event, world title changes hands, heel turn happens during main event or straight after, heel faction rules the company for the next year in a completely non-ripping off the NWO manner. Bring in some bad actors for terrible soap opera storylines and you're good to go.

They repeat old WCW storylines ad nauseam and wonder why they have a 1.1 rating for Impact. WCW Nitro lost the Monday Night Wars, remember guys??

The amount of talent they've wasted is shocking. Matt Morgan should've been world champ 3 years ago. He's going to spend the rest of his life never been counted where he should because someone couldn't get their shit together. Nigel McGuinness had his life ruined because of the same reason. Joey Ryan, Christopher Daniels, Christian York... all completely misused.

Most of all they failed because they didn't realise their margin of error was so much lower than WWE's. The Claire Lynch storyline could've happened on RAW and they'd have realised their mistake, dumped it the next week and then made a joke about it in 10 year's time. People see that on TNA and their likely to stop watching in disgust and never go back and it's because of shit like that their won't be a 10 years time for them.

Also- Rob Terry, Robbie E and Jesse Goderz. There really just is no excuse for the past 3 years of that shit. Watching reruns of WCW Thunder is more entertaining than that.

One positive thing I will say, the Knockouts division has been pretty good recently. They've made the most out of some bad wrestlers and let the good ones have the best matches they've had in years. But fuck Dixie Carter up the arse with a rusty chainsaw. Since they let go Taeler Hendrix without even giving her a chance on TV she's revealed that Dixie told her she was too fat to be on TV. Are we looking at the same woman? What do you want her to do to lose weight, get a breast reduction? Cut off a fucking leg or something? If she's fat then Mickie James, Velvet Sky and ODB are fucking obese.

/rant

/TNA

RIP. God only takes the mediocre.

[x-tempus]

Daniels is still great though, him and Kaz make for a fantastic pair - and having seen the spoilers for next week it just gets better

they need to get rid of these Bellator guys, might be a bit of marketing but they surely cost more than some of the really good talent who don't get used

[Matty_the_Emo_Slayer]

I would say that for King Mo as no one who doesn't watch Bellator knows who he is, but Rampage Jackson is a former UFC Lightweight champ. I know that and I don't even watch MMA. Plus he's got a good amateur wrestling background so if TNA lasts long enough he might be a good decision creative-wise as well as business-wise.

The whole idea of bringing in guys from MMA is hardly novel though. Remember Ken Shamrock? Dan Severn? Tank Abbot? Even Don Frye wrestles in AJPW now. It'd be quicker naming 90's UFC cats who haven't done pro wrestling than the ones who have almost.

I love Kaz and Daniels too, but the problem isn't that TNA don't have a talented roster. Their roster is almost as good as WWE's. It's the fact their TV show sucks, which isn't surprising given the fact none of the writers have a background in the wrestling industry as far as I know, their executive producer ran what was at one time the biggest wrestling tv show in the world into the ground and all the execs above him have no clue about the business either.


As for a permanent move to the UK I actually thought the same thing a few days ago, but I don't think it would work. You don't make most of your money from live events (WWE make a lot though by the fact they do 5-6 shows a week, not 2 like TNA), you make it from TV viewers and PPV buys (and merch- which you need people to actually watch the show for.) Having only a couple of hundred people at TV tapings wouldn't matter if the show was high enough quality for more than 1.1 million Americans to want to watch it every week then throw their wallets at the merch table when it comes to their town (or in this day and age, go online.)

Sure if they moved to the UK they'd have 12 to 15 thousand people on every episode of Impact for about a year til they've been to every big town in Britain 10 times and the novelty wears off, but unless they make the TV show better it would be for nothing. Moving to the UK would probably only damage TV ratings in the states as well.

[herzeleid]

One bit I picked up on during that long accurate analogy of things, Ken Anderson wasn't reeeeeally a cast-off. I mean, he was let go, but he was still really over and really popular when he was. It was one of those out of the blue things. By all accounts he's pretty lazy though and doesn't seem to have a whole lot of passion.

[Matty_the_Emo_Slayer]

What worries me about how this will affect the business in general is that WWE has never really admitted the existence of TNA so I think a buyout, invasion storyline or taking it over as a third brand is pretty much out of the question. And because they've never admitted on air another big company exists they likely will make any TNA homegrowns go through the developmental system. I don't buy HHH saying they don't need anyone from their roster except for Sting, but I think WWE will be very picky about who they take. Plus, with no competition they'll be able to take way more liberties with pay and treatment of their roster.

Kurt Angle will obviously be back in WWE at some point, but I think he'll have to sort out his drink problem first as he got arrested for drink driving last week again.

Jeff Hardy and Anderson (and possibly Chavo) could return to WWE straight away but where they'd be put I don't know. TNA have no problems letting Hardy work permanently injured but I doubt WWE would. Could Hardy even pass WWE's medical these days?

A Duddleys return is possible but WWE would only want them as a team I bet. I can't picture WWE using Bubba/Bully as a singles heel, at least not for one of the major titles.

AJ Styles is the obvious pick for a TNA homegrown to make it big in WWE, especially because of the money potential in a feud with Punk. The only thing I can think of is that he would need a "guardian angel" like Jim Ross to really push for him. I don't think McMahon would like him for the simple reason that McMahon hates people from the south. He seems to make an exception for Texans (Austin, Taker, Michaels, Henry and JBL), and people from big cities in the south (Flair- Charlotte, Goldberg- Atlanta) if they've been a top star elsewhere before, but aside from that with the exception of Psycho Sid and Jack Swagger nobody from any of the hillbilly/redneck states has ever gotten above the mid-card. For Swagger that was because he had Jim Ross on his side. I don't know who Sid had backing him, but someone backstage must have had his back for him to get to the main event.

For that same reason James Storm doesn't have a hope in hell in WWE. McMahon won't like him and he won't get over with Northeast/Mid-West fans.

Of the Knockouts Tara (or Victoria I guess), Mickie and Gail Kim should all be accepted back pretty easily. ODB would be awesome in WSU/Shimmer but Velvet isn't tough enough for that and probably has too much ego. For her it's developmental or nothing.

Daniels is too old for WWE now but would be awesome again in ROH and might finally win a world title. Hernandez is too old too so I could see AAA being his retirement home. If Chavo doesn't go back to WWE then the same for him.

Despite how killer another Samoa Joe vs Punk feud would be I think Joe would choose the ease of huge payoffs for a run in Japan over the bother of having to go through the bureaucracy of WWE to maybe get a top spot there in the future.

Austin Aries and Bobby Roode would be in the trickiest position where they are more than capable of walking straight into the WWE main event picture and in all fairness too good to have to go through the developmental, but WWE wouldn't be able to bring them in immediately without admitting TNA was legit competition to them.

Magnus, Eric Young, Gunner, Sabin, Kenny King and Kazarian would all end up in NXT. Wes Brisco too I suppose, but his future in WWE would be limited because they have used the "second generation competitor" gimmick far too many times already.

[CrappyMike]

Kurt angle is in rehab as we speak so he is getting help. I suspect spike may be paying the mma guys, as Tito Ortiz and rampage Jackson have a fight coming up and they will want to promote it as much as possible, although having two mma legends, and let's be honest they both are, can only help TNA IMO. I would say TNA appeals to the same sort of demographic as mma, mostly males in their late teens and 20s. Anybody expecting TNA to pack arenas at this point is delusional, I don't think they are in as much trouble as people think. And don't bring up the wrestlers they released, they have 1 weekly TV show at 2 hours with adverts, they didn't need all those guys doing nothing.

[herzeleid]

[CrappyMike]

To be fair, they kept him on for a long time, getting paid a lot more money than people who were doing the same job they had him doing, and not really doing as good a job as the others. Not a great move releasing him, but he'll bounce back and that was one thing that would put them in trouble.

[Matty_the_Emo_Slayer]

"You will ALWAYS have a job here" -Dixie Carter.


I'm not bringing up the fact she said that to say that it was wrong of her from a purely business perspective to have let him go. Obviously in that sense it was probably the right move. But, the fact that all integrity Dixie had seems to have disappeared in recent times is one of the signs that makes me think that TNA is indeed a sinking ship.

[Andy Hall]

WWE have offered AJ more than 1 contract over the years and he's turned them all down, A J doesn't want to work for WWE because his style would have to be changed, same for Samoa Joe