Socrates

Does anyone know when Neville vs. Zayn airs/aired? Not sure if I've missed it.

The number 1 contenders match was last week. So last NXT of November.

I can't stand it. It's fell from my weekly routine of things to watch and did so about 4 or 5 weeks ago. I think the last episode I watched fully was the one before BFG.

Just really shit tv.

Has been better the last few weeks, but the build to Bound for Glory was indeed totally terrible.

Anyone who doubts the awesomeness of NXT need know one thing - the future barnstormer between Cesaro and Regal was put in motion by an announcer stepping on a flag by accident.

 

I fucking love NXT.

This.

Loving NXT right now. One hour is perfect. I like the fact that certain guys don't wrestle for a few weeks as it makes it a big deal when they appear. The matches are good. The stories are simple. Really really enjoy it.

Quite enjoyed Thursday's Impact. Like Spud's role. Liking EC3 heeling it up. Loving Zema Ion as the Bro-Mans DJ.

TNA are overall doing a really good job of creating pretty good heels. Need some solid faces though.

Pretty much everything they did made sense on Thursday. Which is a nice change.

Bobby Heenan's commentary in the final minute of the Goldberg vs Hollywood Hogan match at the Georgia Dome (and in the immediate aftermath) is one of the under-appreciated pieces of wrestling commentary ever. Fantastic, emotive call.

It's absolutely brilliant. Heenan was just a great announcer. He played the heel sidekick better than everyone, and then when he was a WCW face announcer against the nWo he was awesome. Used to hate how he'd often miss an hour of Nitro in favour of people like Larry Zbysko. Just no.

My bad. Didn't know.

We have the Authority booking two handicap matches for the PPV. AJ Lee jobs again. Tons of Funk vs Woods/Truth again. Del Rio loses to Sin Cara. Bryan gets abducted but is back no bother. Big Show gets a concussion angle, but is back the week after.

What the hell is going on?

Sounds like it might be worth watching bits and pieces of TNA at the moment then.

I'd go as far to say that it's been ok the last few weeks. Not great. Not even good. But it has gone from being a chore to watch to something that's decent with fewer "WTF?" moments.

Does it feel like to anyone else that Cody Rhodes and Goldust have already lost the massive momentum they had built?

I wasn't too bothered about the rumoured plans of a break up and feud with a match at Wrestlemania as they were so massively over when they got back, but they've been a victim of this even-steven booking that seems to be going on. Remember a few weeks ago on Raw where they jobbed to the Real Americans for literally no reason?

Their mixed together music is awful too.

It's becoming a little too easy to just throw them into these big tag matches and do nothing else with them.

I actually watched the ending of that match only this morning. Taker's return still is my favourite ever. Just came in and ruined everyone.

Oh I love that bit of it. It's just that Shawn comes back in, misses all the interference, the disqualifies The Rock because of the tombstone about 10 seconds after the clock runs out. Bit crappy. But thought the match was really good. And yes, do love the Undertaker coming in and destroying everyone.

I ended up watching the Rock/HHH Ironman match from Judgement Day 2000 last night. There was so much I enjoyed about it. I loved the fact that there were falls on simple things like a sleeper and a DDT. I thought as a match it was better than the Bret/Michaels match to be honest. I may be alone in this, but I thought it was excellent. Of course, the finish was a bit stupid (and poorly executed as the time had ran out) but overall thought it was very nicely put together.

Wasn't a great episode, but there was some little things I liked. Roode and Sabin kicking Velvet Sky from the Thanksgiving table was some good heeling. Zema Ion as the Bro-Man's DJ was more entertaining to me than it really should have been. Glad to see Rockstar Spud. Joe not giving Angle a beer, the D-Lo bobblehead and Tenay keeping Brooke's shorts were pretty funny in the funeral, although as said above, wasn't as good as the funeral for Team 3-D with Jarrett, Abyss, Team Canada etc.

Pretty much expecting the finish to be Orton and Cena at the top of the ladder, and falling off to the floor at the same time with each other's belts.

 

Lead up to the Rumble where the winner faces off in a triple threat unification at Mania, or alternatively faces the champion of their choice early on the card, after some "politik" where the last person they eliminated faces off against the other champion. Main event being winner of A vs winner of B in a final match, sort of like a twist on X where Yokozuna defended twice in one night, but Bret had to face Owen earlier so both men had two matches.

I kinda like the idea if they do the shitty finish at TLC, but rather than the Rumble runner up, make one of the Elimination Chamber matches in February a number 1 contenders match. Gives you the same result for setting up 4 men going for the unified title at Wrestlemania.

It's about time they unified the belts. It served a good purpose with the brand split, but with that gone and the main event scene being kinda boring, it makes total sense to have a proper world champion.

I've only been watching NXT maybe 4 or 5 weeks. Have to say I've been really enjoying it. Sure, there's some shit on it, but overall I like it.

Enjoying Aiden English and his singing. Just something different that you watch the first time and think "what the fuck?" and then it's fun. Entertaining.

Paige looks like she'll be great. Divas matches on Raw and Smackdown very rarely entertain me, but having seen Paige wrestle just twice she's got amazing potential. Hope she keeps the anti-diva thing going when she inevitably goes to the main roster.

That fan match in the street is fucking hilarious.

What I also find strange about it, despite the Cincinnati thing, is that they think they'll get ratings by advertising a football player on Impact. A football player that people outside Cincinnati don't care about. While they're competing with Thursday Night Football.

I do understand the local pop, but it just doesn't make any sense.

As if it was just Pacman. That's funny as.

People were convinced "it'll be something else. They're not that stupid."

Oh yes they are.

So. Daniels and Kazarian got in the face of Pacman and some other Bengal, who then jumped the guardrail and body slammed them.

That's just what we wanted. Two random NFL players to take out the only tag team anyone cares about.

Awesome.

Pacman Jones?

TNA has this wonderful knack of making you expect the worst when it reveals a surprise is coming, and yet someone manages deliver even worse than you'd ever imagined.

It'll be someone shit.

 

 

No way! i mean name one time TNA have hyped up a returning star or a huge surprise and its turned out shit!

"Kurt Angle is coming to TNA"

That was amazing when that video played at the end of a PPV. They hyped it as a big surprise, and that was the only one that really delivered. Christian going to TNA was quite cool too, but if I remember rightly everyone felt that it was 95% sure it was gonna be him.

But I see your point. I named 1. And I think that's all I can name in 12 years.

Impact was mostly enjoyable last night I felt. The videos hyping the men in the tournament was good. I think we all knew Magnus would win the Gauntlet, but then they actually did the finish well. And Bad Influence were great backstage as always (although their promo in the ring wasn't their finest).

But too many shitty finishes to the matches, and the Kurt Angle thing is uncomfortable. I do understand why they're doing it, but I have that horrible "boy who cried wolf" feeling about it.

I found myself mostly enjoying Impact for the first time in a few weeks and not just rolling my eyes at the stupidity. Even though as always there was some.

Was I the only one desperate to see Seth Rollins pull that out the bag at the end? What a bunch of unlikable babyfaces.

You knew he'd lose to Bryan, and they couldn't have him mow through both the Uso's with the tag team match coming up, but I would have liked him to get it to 3 on 1.

Overall was great to see the Shield look strong while winning clean over and over again, despite the obvious earlier beatdowns setting it up.

Especially loved Rollins just destroying R-Truth.

''This is a crazy industry,and a lot of people are going to go to hell....but Virgil Runnels is going there first''

 

".... and that's a shoot, brutha!" Yeah, I hate that.

Just a preference of mine, and I like the idea of using real names at certain points, but then I only like it when that wrestler has a proper character name rather than a stage name if that makes sense? Like how they constantly call Goldust Dustin at the moment I'm good with that. But Dusty Rhodes is supposed to be a name.

I know it's a silly pet peeve, but I'm just of that opinion.

Plus as with a lot of things in pro wrestling, they are currently running the risk of doing it to death.

Yeah for an angle like this, you need people who can really turn chicken shit into a chicken sarnie. I thought Dixie (for her limited experience and lack of instincts) did as good as she could possibly do in the position she was put it. You weren't going to get any better from her, but you could certainly get a lot worse. I didn't think AJ brought it at all. He always seems like such a whiny little bitch everytime he opens his mouth. But if you did the same shockingly horrendous idea with two great promos, you'd be more inclined to believe they could drag logic out out for. For example, if they'd have given Punk and Heyman the same storyline, they'd have tried to force logic out of it. They would have hit key lines and expanded on them. Not AJ and Dixie, though. They just assume everyone knows the far end of a fart and speak in one sentence bullet points. Just the idea of this pair carrying a feud is mind boggling.

Agreed. I enjoyed it, despite their limitations, but am absolutely 100% sure it'll just get worse and worse from here and fast.

AJ's thing about leaving one of the band of brothers standing wasn't good, as you know Samoe Joe, Daniels etc were part of that band, but weren't relevant to the topic, so conveniently forgotten in this instance. The thing about the two year paid vacation wasn't good either, as he could have made some real examples, but didn't hit on the key points. Also the bit about not working with a contract "despite what the internet says" was stupid. I assume they're gonna go with a "AJ must win at Bound For Glory or he's gone" angle. Which all that does is make the likelihood that he wins the title at BFG go from 95% to 100%.

The promo itself was rather good for what it was I thought . Styles and Dixie had their best promos in a while (not that that's difficult) and as a one off I quite enjoyed it.

But the problem lies in what Ian is saying. It goes nowhere after this and will end up counter-productive. It's hard to make an angle like that work anyway, and when it comes to TNA they've got almost zero chance of making something positive out of it.

The only way they could make something positive out of it would be to actually bring back some of the guys Styles was talking about. But we all know that can't and won't happen.