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

[IANdrewDiceClay]

Not as bad as James Storm losing in his home town, leaving for months returning with a 20 point head start in the BFG series and still losing, but bad nonetheless. I dont get this AJ Styles character at all. That hair makes him look like a lad that would get bullied in Byker Grove and they make him wear a t-shirt. He looks like a proper indy wrestler. And he's eliminated a lot of his most exciting spots for a more methodical style, with has dumbed his matches down. There's no advantage at all with this version of Styles.

Edited July 5, 2013 by IANdrewDiceClay

[Vamp]

To be fair Styles is another of those guys who's literally done everything in TNA. I presume they tried to change him up a bit. The problem with that is the only purpose AJ really serves at this point is he can be fun to watch.

[Mr Butternut Squash]

He's got a great entrance though.

[pgi86]

Ever wanted a wrestling-themed slot machine game? Well, there you go:

 

TNA Launches First Ever Online Slot Machine Game

TNA IMPACT WRESTLING has become the first ever professional wrestling organisation to launch an online slot machine game. The game features ‘The Icon’ Sting, Olympic Gold Medallist Kurt Angle, TNA Knockouts Champion Mickie James, Bobby Roode and Velvet Sky. Play now and for every

Edited July 5, 2013 by pgi86

[Mr Butternut Squash]

They had started getting a nice feel for the pace and flow of storylines when they were in the Impact Zone. That seems to have gone to shit since the PPVs dropped and they went on the road. There's also too many guys on the roster that pop up one week only to disappear for ages and you don't get to know or relate to many of the blokes that fill the screen.

 

The main problem for me personally though is that they have no 'draw' on the roster that I look forward to seeing. None of the interesting guys are doing anything interesting. There was a brief period last year where Aries went heel and was proper sleazy winding up Brooke and it looked like he was on the cusp of having a star making feud with Hulk. He was somebody I would want to tune in to watch but they slowly pulled him into the background. Same with Bully Ray when he was feuding with Joseph Park, long before he got neutered by the Aces and 8s rubbish. Sting/Joe/Hulk/Angle and the like take up too much time, are stale beyond belief and have nothing compelling left to do. If guys like Aries, Roode, Jessie and Kenny King were getting more mic/story time I might give a shit about TNA. Jay Bradley is somebody who I'm interested in but they'll fuck him up as well. Most of them guys only seem to appear once a month. Where the fuck has Robbie T gone? They're doing alright by Magnus I guess but he's not exactly somebody that inspires excitement.

 

Anyways, whilst I'm moaning, for fucks sake . .

 

<-- click on 'spoiler' to show/hide the spoiler

What do they see in Chris Sabin anyway? What are his positives? Looks bored, wrestles boring, can't talk, looks like shit. Why is he pinning Aries in a match that involves bloody Manic or whatever his silly name is now? The crowd couldn't give a shit about him and his sob story either

 

[close spoiler]

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Edited July 5, 2013 by Mr Butternut Squash

[Ross18]

Maybe it's just me. But I don't really get all this moaning.

 

Last nights episode was very good and had a great main event. Can't complain at all with any of the show or the matches. The show have been consistant for ages. Maybe im just living in some sort of TNA bubble, but I've been enjoying it a lot more than WWE for years now.

[d-d-d-dAz]

The main event probably was great.

 

But, it appears you've missed the point, the one thing no one is 'moaning' about is the match quality.

 

It's all the other shit that seems to be dragging them....actually, no. Forget it. Just read the thread. Pay particular attention to Ian, he's very good. Ignore Loki, he's too happy for his own good.

[Ross18]

I've read all the posts in the thread.

 

Maybe did miss the point with my post. Just getting frustrating that there is positives, but this thread is mostly focussing in all the negatives. But suppose wrestling fans do like to complain more than praise, myself included on occasion.

[Slapnut]

Great line from Tazz in this week's episode regarding the Main Event Mafia:

 

Tenay: Tazz are you concerned?

Tazz: No I'm not but yes a little.

 

The delivery was absolutely hilarious.

[Mr Butternut Squash]

Great line from Tazz in this week's episode regarding the Main Event Mafia:

 

Tenay: Tazz are you concerned?

Tazz: No I'm not but yes a little.

 

The delivery was absolutely hilarious.

 

YES! The way he threw in the "yes a little" just as they went to a break like nobody would notice was perfect.

 

Fuck you haters, Taz is adorable .

[IANdrewDiceClay]

*Disclaimer: my account hasn't been overtaken by Fin Martin*

 

Nothing wrong with liking TNA. I like Impact every other week. But I've watched TNA for years, though and this last year has done me in with them. When you have no faith anymore, its hard to enjoy them. They've finally chucked me off the good ship Carter this last year. I think it was re-signing Mr Anderson and letting Alex Shelley go which really made me check out. I remember we all used to slag Russo off for not letting things play out, but this bunch is the exact opposite. They cant see when something isn't working and keep it going.

 

Here's what I want from TNA. Not saying it would work, because I'm not in the trenches with them, but it would certainly make me enjoy it more:

-Get out of these large arenas. TNA isn't meant to be in large arenas. If they were meant to run the same arenas that Raw does, they'd actually have people going to the venues. Run smaller venues. ECW's One Night Stand PPV showed that if you have good production (which TNA does) you can light that building up to look belting. It wouldnt be like the Impact Zone either, because its acoustics are much better and you can see what looks like a sea of people all around the hall. And tell people you are in those arenas because you want to be there. Tell the audience that we are in this gritty little shit hole because we want to be here. This is where wrestling was meant to be. Wrestling was born in halls with rabid crowds (which places like New York, Chicago and Philly would attract). Its also much cheaper and you'd fill it. And for PPVs go to the big venues. It would make the PPVs stand out from the small setting you have on TV.

 

-Have a bit of imagination and change the setup a bit. I'm not talking about a giant statue of liberty above the ring or anything, but a bit of canvas art or a change of ring aprons wouldnt go a miss would it? They have that same generic black and red "TNA" ring apron for their version of WrestleMania as they use for a house show in an empire. Its not that expensive to get a new set of ring aprons. Even have some logos on the barricades like Ring of Honor and NXT do. Changing the colour scheme up wouldn't be bad either. Its like watching Smackdown most of the time. They should use a colour WWE doesn't use. Like black and orange or even blue and orange (like they WWE had back in the day). Just to make the arenas look a bit more colourful instead of the black, blue and grey they use every week.

 

-I'd get rid of the pair of spanners they have sitting calling the action every week. I passionately hate the announcers in TNA more than anything in wrestling to be honest. There just has to be better than this pair. Mauro Ranallo was available when Strikeforce died. He'd have been great to replace the joker they have on the headset now. Jeremy Borash blows Tenay away when he commentates. Borash is passionate about the company and a mark for the wrestlers, so he'd try to get them over (unlike Iron Mike). He's better than Tenay. Michael Schiavello is doing the odd indy date commentating for promotions like FWE and stuff, he's way better than Tenay. Tenay is horrendous these days. He isn't even bearable now. His faux shock voice is rotten, his facial expressions are horrible and he's well past the point of caring. Fuck knows why he's still there. Tazz should go as well, but he's just re-signed so thats not happening. There are so many people better than Tazz around. Loki and pgi86 would be better than Tazz, because they like TNA. Tazz doesn't like TNA. He just jokes around all the time, not giving a fuck about anything thats going on. I like comedy in my wrestling, but not from my commentator. He's Michael Cole 2011 level bad when it comes to getting his own agenda across. Ron Hed is there in OVW who is great. Colt Cabana is doing announcing now and people like him. He'd be worth a punt. He might be a joker, but at least he'd be motivated. Steve Corino's better than Tazz. And he wears a lovely yellow jacket. Is Superstar Graham still around? Bruno Sammartino's worked for WWE in the last few months give him the headset. That Mexican from XPW is on Facebook. I'd rather listen to him.

 

-Get rid of a lot of baggage that doesn't matter and replace them with some new folk. Its at that point now where the WWE stars really make no difference to TNA, so why are they earning more money than people who do more work? If anyone can justify why Mr Anderson is still making a living, they should be making millions in wrestling, because everyone seems to be in agreement that he's not no value. People like Devon need to fuck off, the likes of Matt Morgan need to be told where to go. If they got rid off all this shite cluttering up the roster and replaced them with fresher names who nobody has ever seen before people might invest in the characters a bit more. Back in the mid-90s there was WCW, who had Earthquake, Haku, Ed Leslie, Kamala and Hacksaw Duggan cluttering up the midcard. nWo or not, that roster wouldn't have been making many people watch if Hogan turned heel in 94. When the nWo hit the screens, Nitro was filled with Benoit, Guerrero, X-Pac, Rey Mysterio and all this ECW, New Japan and AAA talent. A hot product is only as hot as its roster. If TNA want to be like WWE so much, they should try and do what WWE have done for the last few years and invest in experience talent at indy level and build them into something using your production values and then putting them established names on the roster. Actually make some people instead of recycling AJ Styles every 3 months or turning Joe heel when he changes his shorts to a darker colour. The difference with TNA and WWE is, TNA can set up agreements with international companies. They could fill their X division with guys from AAA. They've had Tanahashi and Okada working for them in the past and did nothing with them. WWE would like both of them, but they are settled and are big names in Japan. TNA could get them every couple of months to do one program and send them on their way. Like Liger used to do. You could bring in Tanahashi, build him up as something huge using footage of New Japan and then put him against Angle and the match would live up to the hype. Shelley you could bring back. You could have MVP, Morrison and Masters come in. Steen might be a fat motherfucker, but he's an awesome promo. And they have Samoa Joe walking around, so weight obviously isnt an issue. This roster TNA has cant be as good as it gets. There's so much talent around.

 

Also, bring back Jeff and Karen because they are better than anyone they currently have and sign Scarlett Bordeaux for me to wank over.

 

-They need to stop being different just for the sake of it and need to put a bit of thought into what the end game is. Stuff like a biker gang storyline when you haven't got any idea what the lineup is going to be as you are doing it, really needs to stop. The angle was horrendous after a few months and yet its still going today. The Claire Lynch thing speaks for itself. Having all matches be Triple Threat rules in the X Division isn't very inspired. It actually detracts from the matches. And when you only have about 4 people in the division, whats the point? The ReferEYE cam wasn't much good either. The building up Bobby Roode to win the belt and then turning him heel isn't very clever. Murdering James Storm isn't the best idea I've ever heard. The audience cant possibly have any trust in them finishing anything.

 

I think TNA is drastically in need of something new happening. There's just no buzz about them anymore. Like people (fans and wrestlers) have accepted they will never do anything other than what they are doing, and probably end up doing worse. The whole format needs to be turned on its head.

Edited July 5, 2013 by IANdrewDiceClay

[Loki]

The main event probably was great.

 

But, it appears you've missed the point, the one thing no one is 'moaning' about is the match quality.

 

It's all the other shit that seems to be dragging them....actually, no. Forget it. Just read the thread. Pay particular attention to Ian, he's very good. Ignore Loki, he's too happy for his own good.

 

Great contribution

 

Can't argue with much of what Ian says above. And yet, week in and week out it's a watchable show.

 

I put this to the dddd-az's of the world - if you don't enjoy something, don't watch it. I don't watch WWE because it's not consistently good enough to put the time aside for. TNA, despite the many faults Ian's described, is enjoyable, so I watch it. So does Ross18, and he's entitled to do so and say so in this thread.

 

If you just read this thread, you might conclude that TNA is the drizzling shits, and yet actually the tv is good. So Ross' observation that wrestling fans tend to focus more on the negatives, than the positives, is spot on I'd say.

 

It's easy to get obsessed about the minutiae of the backstage/business aspects of TNA or WWE, but it's all 2nd hand knowledge. We're all just speculating, even Ian/Meltzer. I've been privileged to work for a couple of big corporations over the years whose products attract large fanbases, and I can tell you that most of what is written on the internet about such organisations is utter bullshit. Pure speculation endlessly recycled as fact.

 

So I prefer to watch the product, and if I enjoy it then it's done its job. TNA might go down the drain next week, but if it does those speculating on its demise here are no more prescient than those who've been calling time on the organisation for the last 10 years. As it is, I expect it to continue with its mix of success and failure in the same vein as it has done for years, and honestly - that's ok.

[hitman89762000]

They should have thrown shit loads of cash at heyman and kept dirty dutch and let them do the booking.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

I've been privileged to work for a couple of big corporations over the years whose products attract large fanbases, and I can tell you that most of what is written on the internet about such organisations is utter bullshit. Pure speculation endlessly recycled as fact.

Wrestling is a completely different animal. Whether its the writers or the wrestlers, information always gets leaked and more often than not it always comes out to be true. And in TNA's case it always ends up coming out as true in a lawsuit. To retain any kind of power, the workers want people to know when they are getting fucked over. And in regards to TNA, they publicly speak their mind. Whether its Kevin Nash, Scott Steiner, RVD, Ric Flair, Vince Russo, Awesome Kong, CM Punk, X-Pac, Dutch Mantell, Road Dogg, Christian, Konnan, R-Truth, Daffney, nobody leaves TNA and talks about them as a thriving organisation who they all want to work for. Most of the information that gets out is the wrestlers who talk about having to sleep 6 to a room because the are so poorly paid. There's speculation and then there is top wrestlers not showing up for work because they haven't got a contract anymore.

 

And speculation or not, I can only judge what I see on the TV shows. And its the same show they always do, with the same characters. That's not speculation or news. Its opinion. The shows are really boring. And that's not wrestling fans being negative. WWE's been awesome throughout 2013. There's so much to look forward to as well, which is what wrestling should be.

Edited July 5, 2013 by IANdrewDiceClay

[Loki]

There's a difference between that and actual understanding of their situation though Ian. Most people on forums like this, and most dirtsheet writers, don't actually have a clue about how businesses are actually run.

 

As I said, it doesn't really matter that much to me whether TNA is the bestest place in the world to work, or the black hole of Calcutta. God knows WWE has been an awful work environment over the years, as WCW was, as ECW was. It's wrestling - it's a sleazy, violent, fucked up world. This cannot be a revelation to anyone surely?