Paid Members JLM Posted January 5 Paid Members Share Posted January 5 (edited) Grizzled Young Vets are great. Zack Gibson is a fine heel promo and they’re a really strong team in-ring. One quality I like about them is what I also like about FTR; they operate like tag team specialists, treat the tag team titles as the most important prize and appear to always have a gameplan centred around teamwork. They always seem to be genuinely working together and communicating to try and win the match, and are in perfect sync with each other like the proverbial well oiled machine. One spot of theirs I like is that Drake, on the outside, will anticipate Gibson being whipped into the corner by an opponent, and so will pre-emptively run to that corner and lay across the ropes, theoretically lessening the impact for his partner. I love it when tag team partners help each other out like that, rather than only working together for their double team finisher. Gibson does your more methodical heel stuff, working a body part and wearing the opponent down and antagonising the crowd, Drake is faster paced and has more flashy offense, does a bit of high flying. Happy to see they’ve been signed, hope they do well and totally agreed with @Shy Dad that TNA feels like a great fit. Edited January 5 by JLM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted January 5 Paid Members Share Posted January 5 14 minutes ago, garynysmon said: Having a rich archive is a good thing but its not always a bright idea to remind your audience just how much better you used to be. Ah, fond memories of the build for Mania XI where every episode of WWF Superstars featured old clips of past Manias while even the prospect of Pam Anderson's jugs jiggling only gave them enough confidence to book the Hartford Civic Center instead of a big arena. The best being a shot of Hogan squaring up to Andre in front of (actual attendance disputed) at Mania 3, with Gorilla's tongue in cheek voiceover stating "It was a decade ago! WrestleMania 3!" to try and highlight how long ago Hulk Hogan was the man. Even though it was only 8 years ago since Mania 3 and merely 2 years ago that Mania had last ended with the Hulk waving the belt around. Japes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted January 5 Paid Members Share Posted January 5 25 minutes ago, garynysmon said: While clearly it makes sense to showcase classic TNA now, for a while now I’ve found the over reliance on archive material to be to the detriment of modern day weekly TV. There was a point they had a terrible habbit of filling 10-15 minutes of the weekly TV show with ‘classic moment of the week’. While maybe a good idea on paper, I always thought it made the current stuff look weak when you panned from a packed soundstage with the best sound and lighting featuring the biggest names of the day, to a dimly lit hall with nowhere near the star power. Having a rich archive is a good thing but its not always a bright idea to remind your audience just how much better you used to be. I may be wrong, but I always assumed the archive stuff was only the international broadcast, filling space that was used for the ridiculous amount of ad breaks in the US? I think TNA have actually carved out a pretty good niche for themselves right now, and I hope they don't over-stretch and over-spend. They're far enough removed from "lol tna", and have been around long enough, that (as this thread shows) there a lot of people nostalgic enough for old TNA content, and that brings them to the current product with a lot of goodwill, and because they're not currently trying to be world-beating WWE rivals, I think the audience are more willing to overlook and forgive the weaker parts of the show (Tommy Dreamer) so long as they still get good wrestling and a solid TV show. Even with WWE and AEW signing up half the wrestlers in the world, Impact is a great spot for people that neither company necessarily has a spot for right now, and provides an opportunity for younger or less experienced wrestlers to work their way up, but also for people on the way out of WWE or AEW to take a gamble on reinventing themselves. Guys like Josh Alexander, Steve Maclin and the Motor City Machine Guns could be great in AEW, but could just as easily get lost in the shuffle, while Impact allows them to be stars. Someone like Joe Hendry has, seemingly, a lot of creative freedom around his gimmick that he wouldn't get elsewhere. Veterans like PCO and Rhino probably aren't getting picked up by a bigger promotion, but still have a lot to offer, and Impact gives them that opportunity. Impact also feels a bit more like what AEW used to be, in terms of "Forbidden Door" stuff where just about anyone could show up - even just at Hard To Kill you've got AEW, NJPW and AAA-contracted talent as well as free agents, and whoever the big signing is. I love that there's a promotion with that kind of "revolving door" approach outside of their core roster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Blog Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 3 hours ago, JLM said: One spot of theirs I like is that Drake, on the outside, will anticipate Gibson being whipped into the corner by an opponent, and so will pre-emptively run to that corner and lay across the ropes, theoretically lessening the impact for his partner. I’m fairly sure that this is an old Funk brothers spot. Similar to this Polo Promotions would always tag each other really lightly, with the idea being it won’t potentially injure your partners hand if you tagged them too hard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinity Land Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 They have been unveiling the new belt designs ahead of the relaunch. I've liked the look of those released so far (X Division, Men's Tag, Digital Media, World Title). Although could have done without the reminder Tommy Dreamer is some how a champion in a decent sized promotion. This is the new look TNA World Title. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 Nice. I’m actually interested in TNA for the first time in years, so this reboot has done its job in this household. Shelley is a great face for the new fed - someone who I’m genuinely surprised never got a shot in WWE or AEW, and a really good wrestler. I hope Hard To Kill presents their product in the best light, and they manage to get a crowd and production setup that makes things look a bit bigger time than in recent years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeverYield Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 (edited) Recently watched Alex Shelley in some old IWA Mid South matches, he's a brilliant wrestler in my opinion, been a solid worker everywhere hes been, and those new belts look fire. I loved TNA back in the day, it's still had some cracking moments as iMPACT, for me I'm personally excited and rooting for TNA in this rebranding to come back and do well, I'll be watching. Edited January 10 by NeverYield Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members garynysmon Posted January 10 Author Paid Members Share Posted January 10 (edited) They've already sold 1,000 tickets for Hard to Kill and their Vegas shows tend to have a sizeable walk up crowd (probably comps to be fair), so you'd expect there to be around 1,500 there on Saturday. The Palms is a nice looking venue, so they'd have to totally shit the bed for it not to look nice and lit up on TV. Edited January 10 by garynysmon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted January 11 Paid Members Share Posted January 11 I love that Alex Shelley is getting a kind of "thank you" run while he's still good enough to stand up as one of the best in the business. He'd have been a great fit for AEW, and I'm kind of amazed he only got the one-off throwaway match there, but him being TNA Champion just seems right. One of the upsides to NXT and AEW signing up a lot of top independent talent is that it forces promotions to look again at guys like Alex Shelley who had become part-timers, or else seemed a bit like they were part of the furniture because they'd always been there, and Shelley's really stepped up to the plate. He's also somebody who just has fingerprints everywhere - not just the influence of the Motor City Machine Guns on modern tag team wrestling, but how directly he worked with younger talent; Okada is the one he most famously looked out for when TNA just didn't give a shit about him, but more recently there was a small group of independent wrestlers that he just made it his business to get bookings, to mentor, and to help out in every way he could, and he's never needed to do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Lorne Malvo Posted January 11 Paid Members Share Posted January 11 (edited) 3 minutes ago, BomberPat said: He'd have been a great fit for AEW, and I'm kind of amazed he only got the one-off throwaway match there, Bloody hell, I completely forgot MCMG had an AEW PPV match until now. Like you say, amazing that they only had one match there and bizarrely were on the heel team. Edited January 11 by Lorne Malvo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 He turned up in NXT for that one tag match with Kushida, and got treated like a big deal. I'd be surprised if WWE didn't offer him a deal at that point but he was part-time only at that stage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedRooster Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 I suppose in the grand scheme of things it's insignificant - but his Paparazzi Production stuff with Kevin Nash are still among the best wrestling comedy skits I've seen, and it almost certainly influenced some of the stronger things we saw in the coming years from other companies. I've always been a big fan of Shelley. 6 hours ago, Lorne Malvo said: Bloody hell, I completely forgot MCMG had an AEW PPV match until now. Like you say, amazing that they only had one match there and bizarrely were on the heel team. Honestly, even with that reminder I don't remember it. It doesn't even seem to have made his Wikipedia page. Even after looking at Cagematch to see what the match was, I have no recollection of it whatsoever, or how it came about. Given that it featured Jay Lethal, I may simply have skipped it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chili Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 Loads of time for Alex Shelley. Kevin Nash adores him and for a period in 2006 he was probably my favourite act in wrestling with his weedy little gobshite hanging around the bigger bully routine they had going. Delightful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidzero Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 Looking forward to the ppv Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JLM Posted January 11 Paid Members Share Posted January 11 (edited) The MCMG match in AEW was at All Out which, as some may recall, was slightly overshadowed by a certain gentleman eating some muffins after the show. They looked good in the match and there was briefly some chatter about them facing FTR in a proper tag match which I am very sad never amounted to anything. Edited January 11 by JLM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.