Impact wrestling thread - It's a Don West tribute thread now!

[FireBrand]

2 minutes ago, garynysmon said:

Yeah, strange they left in the pre-show but cut those out. Must admit, I never fully appreciated how much Don West represented the voice of TNA until now. What were they thinking replacing him with Taz?

 

Not sure if you liked him or not but it's deffently like Schiavone for WCW, you hear his voice you know it's WCW. Don West is Imapcts vocal I.D, it does the company the world of good. I really hope they are thinking of using West in some capacity, I'd like to see him in the Mean Gene role if they are not going to use him as the colour guy.

[Buzz Lightyear]

Amped shows are being released!

 

[garynysmon]

1 minute ago, FireBrand said:

 

Not sure if you liked him or not but it's deffently like Schiavone for WCW, you hear his voice you know it's WCW. Don West is Imapcts vocal I.D, it does the company the world of good. I really hope they are thinking of using West in some capacity, I'd like to see him in the Mean Gene role if they are not going to use him as the colour guy.

Oh, most definitely a Don West fan!

I'm guessing his commitments as the General Manager of a minor league (Baseball?) team in Washington state, I think, would rule him out of a full time gig though.

[garynysmon]

1 minute ago, FireBrand said:

 

Not sure if you liked him or not but it's deffently like Schiavone for WCW, you hear his voice you know it's WCW. Don West is Imapcts vocal I.D, it does the company the world of good. I really hope they are thinking of using West in some capacity, I'd like to see him in the Mean Gene role if they are not going to use him as the colour guy.

Oh, most definitely a Don West fan!

I'm guessing his commitments as the General Manager of a minor league (Baseball?) team in Washington state, I think, would rule him out of a full time gig though.

[PowerButchi]

DeAngelo Williams was not only the man on my fantasy teams all these years, but he's won the Dr McCarver prize for best first time wrestler ever. The Steiner match was shit hot too.

Edited July 3, 2017 by PowerButchi

[Glen Quagmire]

As someone out of the loop of TNA/GFW/Impact Wrestling for a while, what was Lo Ki doing wrestling in a suit?

[PowerButchi]

It's a homage to the game Hitman I think. He got pelters for doing the same on an NJPW show without telling them.

[Glen Quagmire]

Thanks.

[Really Big Shoe]

Most likely they cut out the video packages for time constraints.

[westlondonmist]

9 hours ago, Buzz Lightyear said:

Amped shows are being released!

 

They are doing it on PPV. Who would pay for it?

[garynysmon]

Well, its more intriguing than the waste of time One Night Only PPV's they currently do.

The company's first house shows seem to be at small Baseball grounds, which is exactly what GFW did when trying to get up and running. I'm sure I read they were sold shows, so maybe the profit margins aren't great but its means no financial risk for the company. They'd sell 10x more merchandise if they had Don West back on the road though, scaring people into buying tat with DJZ's face on it.

[BomberPat]

13 hours ago, garynysmon said:

Yeah, strange they left in the pre-show but cut those out. Must admit, I never fully appreciated how much Don West represented the voice of TNA until now. What were they thinking replacing him with Taz?

As with all things TNA, it was a case of sacrificing long-term planning for short-term success. Especially around that time, having been in the company a long time and built up a role as a recognisable part of the brand meant fuck all the moment you could be replaced by someone from WWE came along. I can't think of another promotion that spent so long consistently making their own guys look bush league the way TNA did for years.

I'm going to check out this PPV, which will be the first TNA show I've watched in years outside of the Broken Universe stuff. It's been getting great reviews everywhere, and sounds like a company getting back on track, even if a large part of that is Jeff Jarrett hitting the reset button wherever possible.

The problem, for me, and I'm going to assume a lot of other people, is that even if this is the best show they've ever produced, it's unlikely to get me on board the Impact hype train. Because how many second chances has this company had by now? I want there to be a viable "second" promotion to WWE, but TNA/Impact/GFW need to stack up more goodwill from their fanbase than probably exists in the world to make the majority prepared to give them a chance without thinking that at some point, inevitably, they'll let us down again.

[westlondonmist]

@BomberPatIn all fairness how many second chances have WWE been given over the years? While some of their programming has been good over the past 15 years there has also been shit with those years. Their inring stuff is pretty good (as a whole probably some of the best it has had as to putting on shows with no bad matches), but WWE failed to make me want to watch reguarly anymore and I have myself decided not to give them more chances unless no other promotions give me something to watch. I like Impact as an easy 90 minute(if you record and fast forward through adverts) watch with fun characters (although people like Adonis suck donkey balls), a fairly decent inring product. When I want some amazing matches I'll usually spend time on New Japan World.

[BomberPat]

You're right, but I think with WWE it is a case of goodwill. They've been around long enough, and people have invested enough in it, that they'll mostly - rightly or wrongly - forgive them at the worst, in the knowledge (or hope) that something better is coming along. I don't think TNA has consistently built up that goodwill, does that make sense?

[Carbomb]

But WWE have had years to give people plenty of great stuff, as well as numerous iconic moments; they've built up a very high level of trust and goodwill towards their brand. TNA on the other hand have sabotaged themselves so many times; they've probably shovelled out just as much shit as they have good stuff. Furthermore, the good stuff hasn't been astronomically brilliant or iconic in the way, say, Hogan vs. Andre, Hogan vs. Warrior, Steamboat vs. Savage, Snuka off the cage, Bret vs. Austin, Hogan vs. Rock, etc. was. And every time they've done stuff that could've been genuinely awesome, they've had a tendency to fuck it up royally by the time they got there.

WWE has at least had enough cycles of good and bad to prove they can get people back into wrestling with some really great stuff eventually. I was off wrestling for a long time until the Shield vs. the Wyatt Family, and NXT got made into a mini-promotion. I'm back off it now, but I'm willing to give it a chance if I hear enough good reports. I don't have that attitude towards TNA any more, I'm afraid; they're going to have to do a lot more to tempt me back long-term.

I saw a chunk of Slammiversary; it wasn't bad, although I wasn't particularly invested in the main event (but I'll admit that's largely because I haven't seen the build). I was kicking myself for missing half of the JB/Parks/Matthews/Steiner match, but what I did catch looked like fun.

That intergender tag and Knockouts match, though - those were just bollocks. Richards and Edwards, it seems, still haven't learned how to work. They're terrible. It says something when the best worker you have in the ring is Angelina Love (and she was up to her usual standard). I like Rosemary, but Sienna is just dross. What the hell is she?

EDIT: First part of this post was in response to wrestlondonmist.

Edited July 4, 2017 by Carbomb