TNA General

[forehead7]

Taz is now fine it seems. Back on announcing duties. What a bizarre piece of nonsense.

Good to see Roode with Bad Influence. Also thought what he did to Magnus was inventive, something I thought TNA were incapable of. His character has suddenly been rejuvenated and hopefully he can go on. Before he got with Aries, he was dull as f**k, so hopefully being with the best tag team in wrestling will be good for him. I can't see how it won't. Their plan is a good one.

If there was any doubt that Bully won't be winning the title back on the Hardcore Justice Impact, it was announced that if he doesn't win the title then he can never challenge for it ever again.

I'm not bothered about the Knockouts match, but the other 4 matches look tremendous, the ladder match especially. Yet as good as this will be, it will all be on free TV. Why not have this sort of stuff on PPV, and build it up for a while? No wonder no one buys their PPVs when they have shows this good for free. They really would be as well just scrapping PPVs if they're going to continue putting on free shows like this.

Also it's glaringly obvious that Ortiz will cause Jackson to lose the pinfall in the 10 man tag match.

Aye, I'm not sure what the Tazz thing is all about, just something to try and explain why he was off tv for a couple of weeks?

I agree, Roode with the Bad Influence should be good, although Aries was fantastic - those three had good segments when the two tag teams were feuding so I'm hoping for more of the same. Glad they didn't break them up over that match but then I'm disappointed it didn't go on longer cause what we did see was great. And yeah, Roode's actions were smart - that's good writing right there.

TNA have clearly just removed the PPVs to cut costs, they're still having World title matches and PPV quality cards between the PPVs. They can dress it up however they want (giving the fans good free matches etc) but it won't change the fact that the PPVs don't feel any more important now they're 4 months apart - if anything they feel less so since the match quality isn't so different with these free special episodes of Impact every month or two.

Doesn't help that the "PPVs" they've put on to replace them are largely average and there's a lot of it which is worse than your average episode of Impact. I didn't even finish the Reunion One Night Only show, I'm not sure you can dress it up as a Reunion episode when so many of the guys are current roster members. King, Velvet Sky, Gail Kim, Morgan (was at the time), Park, Bully, Devon, Hernandez, Kazarian, Daniels, Hardy, Aries, Roode, Storm, Angle and Joe. Can't remember who was in the Gauntlet, I know Anderson was who's another current guy. Even Petey Williams, Sonjay Dutt and Homicide from the other matches have returned a couple/few times over the past few months so aren't exactly massive returns.

Yup, can't see past Bubba regaining it and Ortiz costing Jackson. We all know that the wrestlers only get fired when they ask for their release or their contract lapses so there's no chance of anyone but Jackson getting punted.

[BullyWeeAaron]

Apparently Dixie Carter has postponed the 5-on-5 match until the week after because Kurt Angle has went to rehab for his DUI offence.

[forehead7]

Apparently Dixie Carter has postponed the 5-on-5 match until the week after because Kurt Angle has went to rehab for his DUI offence.

I just read that, I also read that both this week's Hardcore Justice and the 22nd taping will be taped on the same night. Seriously, wtf.

[Shuggie_Murray7]

I've steered well clear of TNA since just after Hogan and Bischoff arrived.

It just checked it out for the first time in a long, long time and, well, Chris fucking Sabin? What?

Also, their X Division title is a horrendous looking rip off of the old IC title.

Edited August 13, 2013 by Shuggie_Murray7

[forehead7]

There's a rumour going about that Brooke Hogan's been fired, it's on F4W but not much else other than they're saying they've got a couple of sources and it was known on Thursday.

I guess we'll need to wait and see what develops but that's a shocker if true. I'd be very interested to know who did it. It ain't gonna be Hulk and I doubt Bischoff would want to f**k with Hogan. I always figured that Hogan and Bischoff would be in Dixie Carter's ear and pretty much be telling her how to run the company. And the way it's been run over the past 2/3 years would show that she doesn't know the wrestling business too well.

Hardcore Justice was decent.

Ladder and table matches were good, surprised about the ladder result but it makes sense.

Cage match was pretty shit. The ending was obvious.

Also read the spoiler for next week;

Styles joins the MEM, turning back to his babyface (music and everything /fap) and pins Devon who is forced to leave.

[DA Baracus]

There's a rumour going about that Brooke Hogan's been fired, it's on F4W but not much else other than they're saying they've got a couple of sources and it was known on Thursday.

I guess we'll need to wait and see what develops but that's a shocker if true. I'd be very interested to know who did it. It ain't gonna be Hulk and I doubt Bischoff would want to f**k with Hogan. I always figured that Hogan and Bischoff would be in Dixie Carter's ear and pretty much be telling her how to run the company. And the way it's been run over the past 2/3 years would show that she doesn't know the wrestling business too well.

Hardcore Justice was decent.

Ladder and table matches were good, surprised about the ladder result but it makes sense.

Cage match was pretty shit. The ending was obvious.

Also read the spoiler for next week;

Styles joins the MEM, turning back to his babyface (music and everything /fap) and pins Devon who is forced to leave.

Hopefully she has been. She offers nothing and her hiring was a brazen example of nepotism.

Re the second spoiler;

How utterly boring. TNA really are in a massive rut. They've admitted defeat with AJ Styles, which is fair enough, but to just turn him babyface and erase everything that's happened over the past wee while is indicative of how massively incompetent their 'creative' department is. Surprised to see Devon go though. As irrelevant and crap as he is, there are more irrelevant and crap members in Aces & 8's (i.e. everyone else save for Ray and Anderson).

[forehead7]

Re the second spoiler;

How utterly boring. TNA really are in a massive rut. They've admitted defeat with AJ Styles, which is fair enough, but to just turn him babyface and erase everything that's happened over the past wee while is indicative of how massively incompetent their 'creative' department is. Surprised to see Devon go though. As irrelevant and crap as he is, there are more irrelevant and crap members in Aces & 8's (i.e. everyone else save for Ray and Anderson).

I'm in two minds, on the one hand yeah, it's a massive f**k up. But on the other, AJ is best when he's face and I'd much rather them halt this and them not try to ride it out or anything. It probably means that he'll go on to win the BFG series. AJ vs Bully has the potential to be great. (as their Last Man Standing from a while back was)

I agree about Devon though, fucking weird. Any of Knux, Briscoe or Bischoff should've went before him.

[DA Baracus]

Aye I suppose it's good that they're just getting AJ back to being AJ.. No 'Mini Nature Boy', no 'Brooding Teen'; just AJ Styles, high flying, tough TNA to the core. He won't find a better 'gimmick' so they may as well just stop trying. The big problem of course is how stale TNA is; it's just the same guys fighting each other again and again.

Anyway, Hardcore Justice was enjoyable. Ladder match was excellent with an amusing ending, but one that actually made sense. Same with the table match. The main event was pretty dire though. What's the point in cage matches any more? They don't stop interference and they happen so regularly as to be stripped of all meaning. Also whilst the match itself was alright, the finish was right out of the end days of WCW. Two refs bumps, interference and a 'swerve' turn that absolutely everyone ever knew was coming but they insisted on anyway. Garbage. Although Bully as champ is no bad thing since he's a good heel champ. Sabin's reign was one of the worst ever. He won the title after getting annihilated then cheating, proceeded to cry about his knees etc when he was champ, then dropped the belt on his very first defence.

Still, at least Bad Influence and Roode are a tremendous pairing, with a good storyline that actually makes sense. Also did Jeff Hardy suffer from a face paint malfunction? It seems like he applied it too late and it was still wet. He had to wipe it off with a towel after he ran his hands over his face during his entrance only to find them smeared with green paint. Amusingly when he threw his paint covered towel into the crowd, the guy that caught was clearly seen on camera looking at it in disgust before dropping it.

[TheGreenMonster]

AJ Styles is out of contract with TNA next month and has posted a message on his facebook page saying " Where do fans want AJ Styles to be ?, TNA ? WWE ? ROH ? Japan ?, Lots of options. Tough decisions. "

[Meathead]

If AJ Styles is still as good as I remember him being then WWE should be throwing money at him.

[DomDom]

He's got a young family so I'm surprised that he's even considering Japan.

[forehead7]

I hope he goes to WWE. Imagine some of the matches we could see, Ziggler, Bryan, Punk, Cesaro (I'm aware he'll have wrestled the latter three in ROH/elsehwere before). Ooft.

Hopefully guys like RVD and Christian would be able to big him up if there's any doubts in higher ups minds about him out of the ring, in-ring should speak for itself, he's still fantastic.

[DA Baracus]

I don't think AJ would go to WWE. They'd f**k him up massively. He'd be sent to developmental and made to change his name. That would be a massive slap in the face to him. Plus he's comfortable with TNA and makes a very good amount of cash judging by his Batman like motorbike and Bruce Wayne like mansion he lives in.

Mind you he's done all he can in TNA.

On the topic of AJ, his change back to 'The Phenomenal One' was ludicrous, but the crowd loved it. He was the most over guy on Impact.

Worryingly for TNA, the second most over guy on Impact was Daniel Bryan.

I thought Chris Sabin had a point when he said the MEM didn't have his back. I thought the MEM was set up to stop shit like that happening and to stop Bully Ray from holding the title? Aces & 8s have interfered in every single WHC title match Bully Ray has had; it was, shall we say, a safe bet that they would get involved with his match against Sabin. Yet aside from Rampage, the MEM were nowhere to be seen.

Talking of Rampage; his suit last week was ridiculous, and his punches on the recent Impact were comical.

Edited August 26, 2013 by DA Baracus

[DomDom]

Why would changing his name and being sent to developmental be a bad thing? If anything, it'd improve him, which given how good he is, would be incredible. Nobody is above it, and if anyone thinks they are, then they don't deserve to be there anyway

[forehead7]

I don't think AJ would go to WWE. They'd f**k him up massively. He'd be sent to developmental and made to change his name. That would be a massive slap in the face to him. Plus he's comfortable with TNA and makes a very good amount of cash judging by his Batman like motorbike and Bruce Wayne like mansion he lives in.

Mind you he's done all he can in TNA.

On the topic of AJ, his change back to 'The Phenomenal One' was ludicrous, but the crowd loved it. He was the most over guy on Impact.

Last time he was offered by WWE, they were gonna send him to developmental and that's why he refused. But this time he's in a different position, he's getting on in his career, he's got 3 young kids now and the way TNA is just now, I can see him wanting to jump ship. He'd probably still be on a fair wage in the WWE midcard compared to TNA's main event.

I read that TNA are of the opinion that if they can get a few guys for the price of one AJ then they might take the former.

I fucking loved it as well. I knew it was happening but I still got mad goosebumps when it did.

The rest of the show was awful though, so many of the matches were fucking awful. Not sure what it was but they were all ridiculously slow. Everything was just so obvious like Tessmacher coming out and Aries turning on Daniels.

Did anyone see the Joseph Parks guy in the crowd? I thought it was actually Parks at the start until he had his match and the guy was still there.

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

BrookeTessmacher dressed as a slutty biker chick is the best thing that's happened in TNA for years.

[Christophe]

Did anyone see the Joseph Parks guy in the crowd? I thought it was actually Parks at the start until he had his match and the guy was still there.

aye seen that guy at the Hardcore Justice thing which was the same taping, weird choice to fanboy

[Meathead]

Just to hark back to the point about AJ Styles, why would WWE bother sending him to development? He's 36 now and has been wrestling for years; it's not like he needs to hone his skills. He's been referenced on WWE.com before in a top 10 list of wrestlers who've never competed in WWE (he wasn't actually on it because of the dark matches he had there but they still mentioned him at the start) so they're obviously well aware of his ability. They'll also be aware that a large proportion of fans will already know who Styles is; I'd bet if they debuted him in a 'wrestling city' like Chicago he'd get a huge pop.

[forehead7]

Just to hark back to the point about AJ Styles, why would WWE bother sending him to development? He's 36 now and has been wrestling for years; it's not like he needs to hone his skills. He's been referenced on WWE.com before in a top 10 list of wrestlers who've never competed in WWE (he wasn't actually on it because of the dark matches he had there but they still mentioned him at the start) so they're obviously well aware of his ability. They'll also be aware that a large proportion of fans will already know who Styles is; I'd bet if they debuted him in a 'wrestling city' like Chicago he'd get a huge pop.

I think they just like guys to get acquainted with the WWE style. They probably wouldn't ask him to go there for very long if at all, I'm not sure whether they asked Daniel Bryan to go there but he requested to go there (he wasn't 36 though). AJ's a good enough wrestler and seems adaptable that he'd pick it up quickly.

Yeah, he'd be fucking huge if he turned up at one of the big cities, at a PPV or Monday after a PPV.

[Meathead]

I think they just like guys to get acquainted with the WWE style. They probably wouldn't ask him to go there for very long if at all, I'm not sure whether they asked Daniel Bryan to go there but he requested to go there (he wasn't 36 though). AJ's a good enough wrestler and seems adaptable that he'd pick it up quickly.

Yeah, he'd be fucking huge if he turned up at one of the big cities, at a PPV or Monday after a PPV.

Yeah, don't get me wrong, I can definitely understand why they'd want to give him a couple of try out matches before he had a Raw/PPV match. I can't help but think they'd kill the initial buzz surrounding him debuting though if he did it in front of a couple of hundred people on NXT instead of thousands on Raw or at a PPV.

Edited August 27, 2013 by Meathead