...So, TNA had a show the other day...

Double C

...and it wasn't awful, but it was far from good.

At least one cool thing happened

Angle put Lethal over clean. It was a great match too. Apparently Angle was furious that Lethal was later used as one of them guys who goes to the ring to calm down someone who is going mad (Joe in this case) and was subsequently dumped out of the ring. A stupid move by TNA's creative :eek:

F*cking Team Pacman got the titles after Angle turned on Sting for not hitting Karen in the face. Yeah, that makes sense.

Storm and Rhino had a decent match going but the ending was lame and seemed very rushed. Roode bet Kaz. Harris bet Goldust inverted. This match got about two minutes and what a bad two minutes they were.

The tag clusterf*ck was enjoyable-ish. Guys like Homicide and Sabin were eliminated early. To my shock and considerable delight, Shelley survived to the end along with Styles, resulting in the MCMG's v Styles and Tomko. Thankfully Styles and Tomko won, meaning they will have to job to Team Pacman at Bound For Glory, rather than Sabin and Shelley.

Joe and Christian was going grand til Joe nailed the ref. Now, the whole show Tenay was saying how the ref's were given leniency for this show, yet Joe still got disqualified. Joe continued to kill Christian after. At least we'll get a decent feud ender next month.

Impact gets 2 hours!

Angle made Abyss tap.After the match Mitchell (now called James Vandenberg!!!!!) appeared on screen. Then a very WWF circa 97/98 thing happened, a sharp implement cuts through the canvas and a hand came through, pulling Abyss "Into the Abyss" as it were. Now if that doesn't get ratings, what will :rolleyes:

No former WWE champion, although

Rikishi was at the Impact tapings :mad:

TNA on the up and up :rolleyes:

Mr.Nice Guy

I only bothered to watch the Angle/Lethal match as I heard it get rave reviews. It was very good but I read someone give it four stars which I think was a bit too generous.

I just can't stand that Black Machismo bullsh*t. It would have been funny if they'd done it as a once off, kind of like the time Big Show used to impersonate wrestlers in 2000. I recall him having a match against Angle on PPV where he came out as the 'Showster' and impersonated Hulk Hogan and did a f*cking brilliant impression. Even so, you didn't see WWE make this his gimmick as that would have been retarded. This Black Machismo stuff is like a good joke strung out for an unmercifully long time until it becomes painful.

I didn't bother watching the other matches on the card as I read there was a lot of hokey stuff and I've no interest in this Pacman fiasco.

As for Impact going to two hours I don't see this as the solution to their problems like some fans do. If you f*ck up 60 minutes of TV why will you do better with close to 120 minutes? It could mean even more nonsense.

Unless they fire Russo the show will continue to stagnate.

Fozzy

I only watched Rhino vs James Storm and Kaz vs Bobby Roode. Rhino's match was alright, Kaz's was very good. I'll give Angle vs Lethal a look, but nothing else interests me really

At least they seem to be trying to make Joe look like a monster now, but I'm not sure how good his next match with Christian will be, as Matt Morgan will be the ref and he could mess things up. A lot of stuff on the show doesn't sound great, especially the stupidness of having Pacman asa tag champ

Bubs101

I thought the card had 4 good matches. Thought rhino storm and the tag jamboree were quite good and Angle vs. Lethal and Roode Kaz were very very good. Pacman was a sham but apparently that was just to set up a world title match for bound for glory between Angle and Sting

Double C

I must give Kaz and Roode another viewing, I skimmed through it first time around. I just haven't gotten into anything he's done since Team Canada split. That could well have something to do with Eric Young always being involved. On that note, bring back Team Canada! We need Scott D'Amore! And Petey needs something to do. And Eric Young needs to be likeable again.

Two hours of the current Impact would be just awful to have to sit through but it's what they have been asking for so they better not f*ck it up. It can't be hard to get a decent show out of that roster with two hours tv time.

Bound For Glory looks very good so far,

Angle vs Sting, Christian vs Joe, Abyss vs this new guy, Team Pacman vs Styles & Tomko (shame AJ will be wasted here, still, he's the matches only hope for something good in this match, unless Tomko literally kills Jones). We'll probably get Lethal vs Daniels too, which is always good.

rizzla

I thought it was an excellent show. Tag title opener was alright, ending stunk but with non-wrestlers (who aren't allowed to wrestle) they mad it work.

Following 3 matches where great. The crowd was hot, which is a rarity when it's held in the iMPACT! Zone.

Black Reign vs Harris was a dud, glad it didn't last long.

Angle vs. Lethal was a cracker too.

Tag Team Gauntlet thing was a bit of a laugh, Elix Skipper took one mad crazy bump (not intentional).

Christian vs. Joe was great, ending was a bit messed up but at least it extends there fued.

Main Event was a let down, perfectly acceptable wrestling though, with alright psychology. Abyss didn't sell the ankle/leg all that well.

Fozzy

Impact sounds like it was really bad this week. Reading through a recap of it there, so little of it makes any sense at all

Bound for Glory

it's the return of the Reverse Battle Royal. How anyone can have any faith in TNA is beyond me. Words escape me

the flananator

Is this weeks Impact up on Dailymotion yet?

ec18

reverse battle royal?

Double C

Yep. Exactly what it says on the tin. Its a race into the ring. Sh*te in other words.

Fozzy

Last year's Wrestling Observer worst match of the year, and fully deserved

Mr.Nice Guy

Fozzy wrote:

Impact sounds like it was really bad this week. Reading through a recap of it there, so little of it makes any sense at all

Bound for Glory

it's the return of the Reverse Battle Royal. How anyone can have any faith in TNA is beyond me. Words escape me

They can't be this dumb, surely? No one can be this stupid. I struggle to believe people can be this moronic.

It does sound like an atrocious episode of Impact this week if the Wrestling Observer report on it is to be believed. Just look at how angry the guy who watched the show was. Here's his final paragraph:

I hated this show more than any other edition of Impact ever. I find it hard to believe this company isn’t being sabotaged from within. Who could have booked this and found it entertaining? Stipulations are just thrown out with no buildup or meaning. The announcers barely played up Abyss’ career being at stake. If they don’t care, then why should the fans? When I’m on my deathbed, I’m probably going to look back at how many hours of my life I wasted on garbage like 1999 WCW and 2007 TNA and feel really angry. Does anyone associated with the creative team ever sit down and wonder why this group has been a money pit for five years? Has anyone ever built a reputation based on a modicum of success more than Vince Russo? Exactly what credentials does he bring to make anyone believe this company is going in the right direction? This show will go down with the spring 1999 Nitros as among the worst shows in the history of wrestling. There wasn’t one thing on this show that made sense. Not one thing. Abysmal.

I'm considering watching it just to marvel at how bad it is.

Mr.Nice Guy

Mr.Nice Guy wrote:

I just can't stand that Black Machismo bullsh*t. It would have been funny if they'd done it as a once off, kind of like the time Big Show used to impersonate wrestlers in 2000.

I think this is the best thing in TNA at the moment. Normally i wouldnt be a fan of somthing like this but its actually very entertaining . I hope he keeps it going for a bit. It would be great to see Macho Man coming in as his manager or somthing like that. 2 Macho Men HAH what a sight that would be .

Double C

Impact spoilers below....





Yep, this show sucked just a little more than recent episodes.
Why Abyss was concentrated on Angle, instead of even referring to what happened at the end of the PPV is beyond me. That didn't make sense. Abyss putting his career on the line in a submissions match with Angle didn't make sense. Having the submissions match in the cage didn't make sense. Letting Daniels beat Lethal clean in a non title match (when the rest of XXX were outside doing nothing) didn't make sense. Having Black Reign on a tv show doesn't make sense. The rat doesn't make sense. Calling it Misty and referring to it as an Arctic Fox doesn't make sense. Although he did provide a "lol" moment for me, when he's being introduced, he's "from the deepest darkest corner of his mind"

The reverse battle royal is happening, but in fairness, the first 4 guys in the ring have a match after and the winner gets a title shot so it's not THAT bad.
And we're getting LAX vs XXX in a Ultimate X match and that's cool by me.

But yeah, worst. show. everrrrrrr.

Mr.Nice Guy

I just watched the Abyss/Angle match. My God that was a train wreck.

Bubs101

TNA's pay per views are still miles ahad of WWE's. I don't think Abyss showed up in the main event

Vince135792003

Bubs101 wrote:

TNA's pay per views are still miles ahead of WWE's.

Pitty you can't say the same about their tv.

I've seen about 4 reports ripping the show this week and heard a 10 minute rant on figure four by Dave Meltzer too. I must see this show.

Bubs101

The reason their shows are so bad is that 1 of the main purposes of shows is to plug their PPV. The WWE have a segment with the Mcmahon's getting about half an hour of TV time building up 1 angle for a PPV and that's just one one of their 3 shows, two of which have 2 hours.

TNA have 1 hour for PPV's that tend to have more matches than a WWE one. For Hard Justice, they focused on the Team Pacman angle and Karen Angle, probably because it was in Kurt's contract and they want to branch out of Florida and with their show in ATL needed to raise their profile with Pacman jones. The Rhino-Storm story was great but got about 15 minutes max in brilliant promo's to hype it up. Roode and Kaz could have had a decent love triangle storyline but they were only on 2 shows between the PPVs. Christian and Joe had a good story behind their feud, but again no time to build it up due to TNA trying to get it's roster on TV.

Most daming of all was that THERE WAS NO STORY FOR THE MAIN EVENT. Abyss and angle had 2 alternate stories running at the time with little interaction between the 2. How is someone gonna get excited for a PPV main event with no real beef between the stars

Fozzy

Maybe I missed something, but I don't think I get why Angle and Sting are feuding. It's because Sting didn't hit Karen, right?...

Bubs101

More likely due to the Angle slam and the los of the tag titles

Fozzy

But Karen's the reason that they lost the tag titles, no?

Bubs101

I think the point of it is is that Karen is manupulating Kurt which is leading to bad results for him, in other words, Kurt doesn't know it's her fault. I could see him losing to Sting because of Karen at Bound For Glory leading to a face turn when he gives her the anklelock. TNA like finishing their matches with something other than the champ in the ring

Double C

Is it a good idea putting te belt on Sting though? If he does get the title I could only see him holding it for a short period, i.e there will be another title change soon. I'm really think TNA need to have a long term champion, be it Angle, or preferably Joe, but they f*cked that one up already.

Bubs101

I think they might be give it to Sting with a view to give it to Joe. Not so sure Angle would be willing to lose a title match to Joe considering the matches they've had. Not convinced Sting will win but I do think they will do something massive for their Atlanta show though

HorseRadish

Pacman in Atlanta should be fun with his past misdemeanours there.

Double C

Hopefully we'll get new tag champs at least. Atlanta is AJ's hometown and I don't think it would go down too well with Pacman going over him.

If Joe got the title, who is there for him to feud with? They have done him with Angle and Christian already so that leaves this Judas Messias fella and he hasn't had a match yet so we don't know if he's good or not. They could turn him heel but I'm really not a fan fo Joe as a bad guy. I would like to see Rhino and Joe again. They were booked for a PPV last year but Monty Brown got lumbered into the match too and it sucked because of that.

I'd say the long term plan (if they have one ) is for Angle to keep the belt, turn face as you say, and then feud with Christian for a sustainable amount of time.

DerekSmalls

Spoilers


Abyss vs The new guy at BFG will be a monsters ball, possibly including Rhino.....Meh

Bubs101

brilliant spoiler warning but it's your first post so I guess it's not important. Why would they include Rhino in this Angle, his current one is the best one TNA have.

Double C

Yep, Storm and Rhino has been great so far, there's no point in ruining two feuds by doing that.

I don't get the Monsters Ball. Are they still doing the thing where the contestants are isolated for 24 hours leading up to the match with no food and water?

Yes, I called them contestants.

DerekSmalls

Bubs101 wrote:

brilliant spoiler warning but it's your first post so I guess it's not important.

Oh boo ****ing hoo. It did the job, didn't it?

Double C

Relax man.

Mr.Nice Guy

DerekSmalls wrote:

Oh boo ****ing hoo. It did the job, didn't it?

Clearly it didn't. :rolleyes:

Bubs101

kenton bomb has a new username

Vince135792003

Bubs101 wrote:

The reason their shows are so bad is that 1 of the main purposes of shows is to plug their PPV.

Every time I watch an Impact I think to myself that they're even lucky to be getting 30,000 buys each month. I couldn't careless though. I used to care but I gave up along time ago on TNA.

I actually tried to watch their show from Thursday to see how comically bad it was. Even to look at it that way didn't entertain me. They have no clue.

Bubs101

But their pay per views are consistently better than the WWE's. Hard Justice was better than Summerslam and it's only a precursor to Bound for Glory while Summerslam is their 3rd biggest PPV

Vince135792003

Bubs101 wrote:

But their pay per views are consistently better than the WWE's.

First off, they've been hit and miss on ppv this year in contrast to other years, in my opinion.

Secondly, lets assume undeniably every TNA ppv show is great. Well how the hell would you be able to tell that their ppv's are worth paying 30 dollars with the crap they have put on tv over the last 12 months?!

You negate the value of good ppv's with poorly produced tv shows that don't persuade people that their product is worth shilling out 30 dollars for.

Fozzy

Bubs101 wrote:

But their pay per views are consistently better than the WWE's.

They don't give people a reason to buy the ppvs though. The Reverse Battle Royal is a big reason not to buy this ppv! After the amount of criticism and bad reviews that match got last year, why don't they just stay away from it? And how many gimmick matches have they got on the next ppv now? How many of them actually make sense? I am kinda surprised that most of the people who put up with the tv show don't spend any money on the ppvs though

And DerekSmalls, take a look at my sig and you'll get on fine

Bubs101

Well I watch it all for free (on a site which I just posted on vids thread) but I can see your point. I think the reputation it's built up for consistent pay per views is worth something and most TNA fans in the US are die hard. Also, despite impact being crap since the turn of the year, ratings are still soaring so the people watching cant think it's all bad

Double C

Bubs101 wrote:

kenton bomb has a new username

I wonder if he's anything to Biggy.
Maybe if you say his name in the mirror three times he'll appear!

Vince135792003

Bubs101 wrote:

Well I watch it all for free (on a site which I just posted on vids thread) but I can see your point. I think the reputation it's built up for consistent pay per views is worth something and most TNA fans in the US are die hard. Also, despite impact being crap since the turn of the year, ratings are still soaring so the people watching cant think it's all bad

You've got to look at it from this perspective. If I was a tv viewer in the US watching Impact (whose not an internet guy), do they do a good job in persuading me to give them my cash for a ppv? The answer is consistently they do a poor job in doing this.

There's a reason why TNA's ppv business is based around a die hard audience. It's really simple. They do a **** job at tv at converting viewers to ppv buyers (hardcore audience people).

If you have 1.5 million viewers every week but only 30,000 buys on ppv a month, thats piss poor.

And there ratings aren't soaring. They'll do between a .9 and a 1.2 every week and have done so for the last 18 months. Maybe you can argue it's climbing little by little but it's nothing to write home about and when your not converting viewers to ppv buys does a 1.2 versus a 1.3 in tv ratings matter all that much? Of course not.

Bubs101

I thought someone posted here that it was closer to 1.9 but I could be mistaken. I think that your argument is based around a shockin impact and an announcement of what was a shocking gimmick for Bound for Glory but one of the last 2 impacts was brilliant (I can't remember which) and there was only 1 gimmick match at Hard Justice which was pretty enjoyable. Impact may have deteriorated but I don't think the WWE have the bar raised too high. The same thing happens on Raw every month. Cena gets pounced upon by a heel, Cena gets wronged by said heel but he saves the day in the PPV with a last minute STFU or FU. Wouldn't see him put Lethal over. TNA still has the ability to surprise you, which for me is one of the best things about wrestling. The last time the WWE genuinley shocked me was when Nitro won the title but that was only because of Benoit

Vince135792003

Bubs101 wrote:

I thought someone posted here that it was closer to 1.9 but I could be mistaken.

Your mistaken. They'd have to increase their rating today by about 70% to get to a 1.9.

TNA still has the ability to surprise you,

I can't argue with you there. If its not Kurt shouting at his little daughter 4 weeks after the whole Benoit tragedy, or reverse battle royals, or the return of TEST, or Jay Lethal losing 5 days after his biggest ever win or the debut of a disgraced footballer at a time when wrestling is under the micoscope, its something else. They're full of surprises.

Anyone who enjoys TNA fair enough. They have some great wrestlers and if your able to leave business aside and get through alot of the rubbish they throw at you, some fine wrestling is to be seen. I just can't.