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ROH TV June 24th 2015

This week's ROH was taped last month at Global wars, meaning that it reflects none of the results from this past Friday's PPV--normally I'd mock them mercilessly for this amateur hour move but ROH was FUCKING AWESOME this week, so they get a pass.  Shinsuke Nakamura, The Bullet Club, RPG Vice, and Kazuchika Okada are our special New Japan guests this week for the final crossover episode.  There is a crazy amount of wrestling in this week's episode so let's get started with...

"Mr. ROH" Roderick Strong vs Shinsuke Nakamura
This is one hell of an opener.  Nigel compares the streamers Nakamura gets to...the falling of cherry blossoms.  Is that like the only thing you know about Japan Nigel and you just wanted to force the comparison?  Feeling out process to start with Roddy working the arm.  Roderick tries a snapmare but Nakamura cartwheels to land on his feet!  Strong gets a one count of a dropkick.  Strong tries to hook a Bow and Arrow but Nakamura's limbs prove as lanky as they are charismatic and he fucks it up--he does roll right into a headlock and covers it pretty well though.  Olympic slam gets two.  Nakamura rolls to the apron and suckers Roddy in for some knees to the head.  Nakamura takes Strong and sets him up on the barricade for a running knee into the crowd as we fade to...

Comercial

Back with both guys in the ring trading STIFF forearms--Strong even gets busted open.  Nakamura gets dumped and dropped by a baseball slide.  Shinsuke ends up in the corner where he takes a jumping knee and and a running elbow.  A beautiful double knee backbreaker gets two.  Strong tries the Stronghold but can't hold it as it is reversed into a sleeper.  Right When it looked like Roddy was going to power out of the sleeper Nakamura hit a back-stabber.  Strong dodges a Bomaye and Shinsuke goes up.  Roderick brings him back down with a jumping knee and a backbreaker on the top turnbuckle that earns a two count.  Nakamura knees out of a suplex and gets a diving knee (that I thought was a bomaye live but the announce team *really* undersold it if it was).  Nakamura can't make the cover and both guys are down.  Nakamura rises fist but his Bomaye attempt is turned into the stronghold.  Nakamura makes the ropes to break the hold and they start trading those stiff forearms again.  Strong gets the better of the exchange and nails a Sick Kick to set up the End of Heartache which gets a near fall.  Strong hits a bunch of strikes and tries for the End of Heartache again but Nakamura slips out and rolls thorough to hit the Bomaye.  It only get one!  Roddy fires back with a Jumping knee but his Sick Kick is cut off with another Bomaye that ends his night at 17:05

Rating:**** This match was edited a little for time, but what we saw was great.  Roderick Strong continues his career year with another "Strong" performance and Nakamura is one of the greatest wrestlers on the planet.  Some of the spots were a little rough around the edges but this is just about the best wrestling one can expect to find on free TV.  telivising a loss right after Strong earned himself a title match on Friday isn't the best way to build his credibility as a challenger, but the loss was to the King of Swagstyle himself--That shouldn't even count!

"Unbreakable" Michael Elgin vs Gedo
Gedo is the head booker of New Japan and an accomplished Jr. Heavyweight. Elgin gets a hometown welcome of crushing apathy.  This guy had nuclear heat in Toronto this time last year, and now he's got nothing.  Elgin bullies Gedo around with his power and dares New Japan's head booker to try and shoulder tackle him.  This goes as well as you'd expect and Elgin backfists him.  Elgin plants his feet and Gedo can't Irish whip him so he just pokes the Canadian in the eyes.  Elgin swings wild and gets poked in the eyes again.  Gedo can't make anything of his advantage and gets Samoan dropped for two.  Elgin misses an elbow and Gedo escapes to the apron for a moment, but Elgin pulls him back in with a delayed suplex and gets a near fall.  Elgin goes up for the twisting senton he tries every match despite hitting it maybe twice in his career.  Gedo predictably prevents being turned into an Okonomiyaki by rolling out of the way while Kelly Kelly plugs the PPV that already happened.  11/10 promotion there ROH.  Some punches, a jawbreaker, and a superkick get two for Gedo.  They trade reversals until Elgin gets an O'conner Double Stomp.  Bucklebomb into the Elgin Bomb finishes at 8:58

Rating:** This was really more of an extended squash than anything and this deep into the taping no one in the audience gave a damn.  Still, it was serviceable, and Gedo must have been happy because he booked Elgin as a competitor in the G-1 tournament which starts in July.  As one of the few who still likes Elgin it makes me sad to see his Torontonian star sink faster than Rob Ford's political career did.  I maintain hope leaving for a couple months to wrestle in Japan will do something to revitalize Elgin's stalling career. 

"Rainmaker" Kazuchika Okada and RPG Vice (Rockey Romero and Trent Barretta) vs The Bullet Club (AJ Styles and the Young Bucks)
Okada and RPG Vice are all a part of the CHAOS stable, whose members have had continuing issues with the Bullet Club.  Okada's most recent IWGP world title reign was ended by AJ Styles and RPG Vice recently lost the IWGP Jr. Tag Titles to the Young Bucks.  We cut straight to commercial after entrances and miss the awesome moment where each guy in the ring got individual chants from the audience INCLUDING Red Shoes the referee who got the biggest pop of the whole TV taping for posing on the turnbuckle.  The constraints of an hour long program I guess.  The match opens with Aj and Okada feeling each other out.  They trade two counts off victory rolls and both the Syles Clash and the Rainmaker are both blocked. Nick Jackson and Trent are tagged in respectively. They have a crazy sequence that ends with Trent? turning a springboard DDT from Nick into a Northern Lights suplex.  Tag to Romero and RPG Vice double team Nick for a near fall.  Trent is tagged back in and he starts egging the crowd on by runngin back and forth on the apron until Matt comes across the Ring to superkick him (#superkick counter:1).  Matt gets tagged in and the Jackson brothers hit a neckbreaker/backbreaker combo that in turn sets up a springborad forearm from Styles.  I don't know of any trio that triple teams better than these three Bullet Club members.  Matt spits on Okada who has to be restrained by the referee.  Nick is tagged in so he hits a senton before tagging in AJ.  Trent finally looks to fight back until AJ casually suplexes him into the corner.  That looked like it sucked for Trent.  I empathise with the aching in Barretta's neck and back as we fade to...

Commercial

 We return with Trent fighting off all three Bullet Club members and driving Nick down hard into the mat with a double stomp.  He tries to make the tag but Matt Jackson pulls his partners down of the apron before he can!  Some Chaos erupts at home and I miss CHAOS getting the hot tag but Romero is a house of fire catching both Young Bucks in a double hurricanrana.  Okada is tagged in and he scores a two count against AJ following a flapjack, DDT, and basement European uppercut.  AJ tries his springborad moonsault inverted DDT but Okada counters.  AJ fires off a snapmare but Okada shows some freaky athleticism and frontflips to land on his feet.  Nick Superkicks Okada to the floor (2) and things get to fast to call again.  Ultimately it ends with RPG Vice hiting a Knee based Doomsday device on the floor to incapacitate Nick Jackson.  Syles and Okada are left alone in the ring and Styles connects with a Bloody Sunday but the Styles Clash is reversed into a tombstone Piledriver, no cover because the tombstone is just the set up for Okada's real finish, the super deadly Rainmaker LARIATOOOOOO.  Said super deadly Rainmaker misses the mark however and Nick makes the blind tag and takes down Okada who tags in Romero.  Nick hits Romero with a springboard facebuster before sliding out to moonsault onto Okada outside.  Bucklebomb/enzugiri combo and a hangman senton set Romero up for the finish but Trent makes the blind tag in the process of the Young Bucks delivering More Bang For Your Buck, and he blocks the move by german suplexing Mat of the top rope mid move!  Okada comes in from off screen with a diving elbow drop for Matt.  Okada misses with the Rainmaker again and Styles comes flying in to take him out with a flying forearm. Rocky gets superkicked into a sunset bomb (3) but before AJ can finish with the Styles Clash Okada hits one of his famed perfect dropkicks to break up the move.  Now all six guys are in and trading shots.  The Bullet Club hits three superkicks (6), one for each opponent, which chases RPG Vice but Okada no sells and hulk's up some fighting spirit!  Okada fights all three opponents untill they hit a triple superkick (9) to end his night.  Trent ends up being the last unlucky bastard in the ring alone with the Bullet Club.  An assissted tombstone, Meltzer Driver, Double Superkick (11), and then finally a Styles Clash kills Trent dead at 17:25

Rating: ****1/2.  This was incredible.  I never cease to be amazed by the seamless teamwork of the Young Bucks, and AJ Styles has managed to tap into their wave length every time they've wrestled as a trio.  Innovative offense, near perfect timing and execution, a killer finishing sequence, eleven superkicks--I don't know what else you could ask for out of a Six man tag really.  I usually refuse to go above **** for multi-man clusterfuck matches because of their inherent preference of spots over storytelling, but you can't argue with wrestling this crisp.

Final Verdict: Far and away the Best episode of ROH TV on Destination America thus far.  There were actually no angels or promos on this episode as it was the only way to fit in all the wrestling.  A wholly satisfying conclusion to the New Japan crossover, this episode is worth seeking out immediately.  The only minor critique is that the Elgin match was a little long for what it was, but it never got boring.  While it is frustrating that ROH couldn't address the results of Best in the World this week, the show was of far to high quality for anyone to be seriously upset given that things will be back to normal next week.  It was announced at Best in the world that Okada, Nakamura, and Kushida will be returning to ROH in August, so it seems that New Japan talent may be appearing more often in ROH than we thought.  This can mean nothing but good things for fans of either product.

I'll see you all next week as we find out what the Fallout will be from Best in the World.  It's the beginning of the Jay Lethal era, and I couldn't be more excited.
  


Comments

  1. This was unreadable. Way too many grammatical errors. Proof-read better and learn the rules of grammar or just quit writing.

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  2. Hopefully Nakamura returns with the Intercontinental title.

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  3. Did anyone see the Reddit post that Davey Richards and Bobby Lashley are scheduled for the main event of a CMLL show the same night as Slammiversary?

    https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/3asarg/davey_richards_and_lashley_scheduled_to_main/

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  4. I still kinda like JJ but upvote because I do appreciate a well done burial

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  5. Yeah, Meltzer reported it but subsequently corrected the report. They are meant to be at Slammiversary now

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  6. I love Meltzer, but I must report this scoop from Todays Observer before Bayless beats me to it in the daily update: BREAKING TNA NEWS:

    "At press time, all sorts of things were happening but hadn’t happened yet, but it was very possible a story could break imminently."

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  7. I'll seek this show out. Sounds great.

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  8. Have it on my DVR thanks to fine folks at NESN. I actually have a reason to watch NESN this summer (you suck, Napoli).

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  9. I've never really watched RoH before and it was some real quality wrestling - they just do everything technically well. Only thing for me was that the 6-man almost seemed too showoff-y at the end with the guys trying to come up with the craziest finishers and then doing a bunch of them in a row to the point where I was rolling my eyes. To paraphrase My Cousin Vinny "I think. I get. The point."

    Is that par for the course for RoH though? Where they don't save anything for the next match? Maybe I'm just too conditioned to WWE style. I guess if the TV show is basically a bunch of exhibitions and not building to anything then why not...you might as well go out and do everything you can.

    Also the commentator who screamed SUPERKICK every time got obnoxious really fast.

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  10. Since PPVs are Friday now, and the TV goes out first on most Sinclair stations on Saturday night, there's no way for them to send out the tapes in time for syndication from Saturday TV tapings that wouldn't be massively cost-prohibitive.

    In other words, as long as they're on Destination America on Wednesdays, the post-PPV TV show is always gonna be a generic episode. If PPVs were Sunday, the Saturday Sinclair TV would say "Watch the PPV this Sunday!", then the PPV would air, then the Wednesday Destination America showing would say "Watch the PPV this Sunday!" and there wouldn't be one. Basically, unless they made Wednesday the first airing, replayed it Saturday and moved PPV back to Sunday (and Sinclair rightly gets first dibs on TV since they own it), this is the only way they can do it.

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  11. Don't all rings already have a hole?

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  12. Jarrett is a 16 time world champion.

    Chew on that one for a bit

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  13. Not a ring. A ring!

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  14. The TV show isn't usually a collection of exhibitions, it's just that the New Japan guys have no stories in ROH so the month they visit is storyline light. They often do hold something in the tank. The Six man was the main event of a 4-hour tv taping so they went all out and gave it a crazy main event finish.

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  15. Also, showing off and doing movez and flips for the sake of movez and flips is basically the Young Bucks gimmick, so there's that.

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  16. Bloody hell. When did taping TV become so difficult? TNA can't get their head round a proper schedule either

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  17. Or just quit reading. Also, "proofread" is one word; no hyphen is needed.

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  18. Makes sense - thanks for clearing it up. I'll continue to give the show a shot.

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  19. It's unfortunate but they don't want to give away what happens on the PPV in the internet world, so you can't tape it until after--so the only way to have a proper post pay per view episode would be to shoot it live, which ROH can't afford.

    At least for ROH it is only one week and they purposely didn't book any champions on the show.

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  20. I'm still confused... I have no idea where the rumors started based on those tweets. It still doesn't seem like a merger though, just a bad publicity stunt that makes TNA look worse than usual.

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  21. I think the only thing that was inexcusably amateurish was Kevin Kelly trying to sell the PPV after it happened.

    They knew when they taped this when it would air, how hard would it be to shill the replay instead?

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  22. I forgot, unless I missed it, there was no ROH codeline this episode!

    Hopefully never to be seen again.

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  23. I could never get into Roderick Strong. I guess he's technically good but he's a black hole of charisma including his ring work. None of his high spots make me want to cheer, he's like the anti-Cesaro where his spots just make you get crazy excited. I haven't watched ROH in a long time though, has he improved?

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  24. Can you provide a link to discovery's statement to this? I must of missed it.

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  25. I'd say he's been sneakily improving for awhile, and then he turned Face last December and has been on a tear since.

    I never would have thought I would be on board with Strong back in the main event but his matches have been of really high quality. He's still the same Roddy he just has better timing I think.

    Still has a charisma ceiling of Dean Melanko however.

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  26. Even Dean had this kind of "Mad Dad" aspect to his character and his facial expressions that made him fun to watch. Him getting back at Jericho in their feud definitely showed he could be charismatic against the right antagonist. Roderick just seems like a 30 something white dude with a big puro tape collection. I will cautiously give him another shot when I catch up on these ROH shows.

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  27. I mean, yeah, don't get your hopes too high, he's still Roderick Strong, so if you don't go for Ice-man technician he won't be your cup of tea. I'd like to think he's good enough to at least carry his end of the match against a wrestler you do invest in however.

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  28. Thanks to NJPW World and the recent Global Wars crossovers, I've recently seen my first Gedo matches... dude is boring as hell and I never want to see him wrestle again.

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  29. You're not the first to make this observation.

    At least he books himself to lose constantly, so there's a solace.

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  30. I saw his WCW matches and thought he was a perfectly average worker. I never really got the Scott Keith Gedo meme.

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  31. I've never seen Gedo and thought "he's technically bad"

    I've also never seen a Gedo match and thought "this is really good"

    He more peaks at "Really OK"

    This is based on his current workrate, I can't comment on his prime based on my limited data set

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  32. I think the saddest thing based on what I've seen out of the recent NJPW boom is what a goddamn boring worker Jushin "Thunder" Liger turned into. Time makes fools of us all but dude has no go anymore.

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  33. I also think the Scott Keith meme started with him watching the Super J Cup 94 and Gedo's matches being a considerable "cool down" from the much faster pace of the rest of the card and then just turned into a Gedo hate fest whenever he popped up. IIRC. This is of course Scott's blog so he can jump in and correct.

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  34. I was at this show (and Global Wars the night before.) We had 7th row aisle seats for GW and 4th row seats for the taping, and the 7th row seats were far superior. We ended up standing in the GA section after the Liger/Castle match.

    Four hours was way too long to be at the taping but they kept up the quality pretty good.

    The finish of the six man was total overkill. I know the Bucks gimmick is that of spot monkeys who fly in the face of any sort of wrestling logic, and it just annoys me to no end. They're awful.

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  35. Seems to happen to guys when they hit 50

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  36. Young Bucks gimmick is that they are conceited show offs, so yea that's what they do.

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  37. He's 50? He must have been older than I thought in the Superbrawl 92 era.

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  38. I never understood him either. What the fuck was his WCW character? A guy with shooting glasses who carries an acoustic guitar and calls people "slapnuts." What..... is he? What does "slapnuts" even mean? What does any of it mean?

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  39. I believe there are only two tiers of tickets, Front row and general admission.

    Best seats I've had other than ringside have always been GA, the floor sucks if there are people in front of you.

    I would get the bitching if Trent kicked out, but he got pinned. It was overkill, like a fatality--nothing was cheapened, they could have pinned him after the first assisted piledriver.

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  40. Oh, and if there isn't a deal that's going to happen between TNA and GFW, then LOLTNA for letting JJ get free promotion for GFW.

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  41. Well, it didn't really start based on those tweets, just gathered steam because of them. Some people got tipped off to expect big TNA news and put 2 and 2 together, and in this case actually got 4.

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  42. Merger? Just take EC3 and put out a DVD box set of X Division stuff and be done with it.

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  43. Wasn't this taped before the Destination America deal put the spanner in the works with regards to Sunday PPVs? I'm sure they knew when it would air on Sinclair, but I don't think they knew they even had Wednesday night showings when it was taped.

    I mean, I'm not going to say it didn't come across as amateurish, but I think it'll be more telling how they handle it for the next PPV since they taped those episodes with everyone fully aware of the Wednesday showings. I *think* the next post-PPV show is gonna be the AJ & Joe vs. Addiction episode, so I just get the feeling they're gonna load up those episodes and hope nobody notices/is sympathetic to the situation.

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  44. The Pay-per-view was on Friday.

    The Sinclair showings were after the ppv as well.

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  45. AverageJoeEverymanJune 25, 2015 at 9:25 AM

    you could tell he had nothing left after 2013.

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  46. We will always have that unspeakable awesome picture of a shirtless Nap smoking butts down Boylston St. But this season, GTFO.

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  47. If Henandez is back in TNA that means he can't stink up Lucha Underground, so that's good.

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  48. Bram is actually one of the best thing in TNA

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  49. I just checked and he's 50 on the dot.

    Means he was 27 in 92.

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  50. I know it was on Friday, I specifically said they were on Friday. What I'm saying is when they taped the TV that aired this week, the Destination America deal hadn't happened.

    In other words, when they has the New Japan crew over taping this batch of TV, they were still running Best in the World on a Sunday, and this show would have aired on Sinclair BEFORE that. The DA deal meant PPV got pushed ahead to Friday, meaning the same episode, already taped with commentary, was initially intended to air as a lead-in, not a fall-out.

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  51. JUST LET IT DIE ALREADY, DIXIE

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  52. Except I'm pretty Best in the World was never intended to air on a Sunday...

    Last week had the go home segment.

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  53. He broke over 60000 guitars but never drew a dime.

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  54. CruelConnectionNumber2June 25, 2015 at 1:32 PM

    "And now, here are Jeff Jarrett and Karen Jarrett of Global Force Wrestling." Seriously? That's your reaction to their appearance? Emotion!

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  55. Jarrett has probably had a ROFO or ROFR for TNA in writing for over a decade.

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  56. DA (or another channel) starts carrying GFW Impact in September.

    The TNA name is gone, the titles are rebranded, Dixie Carter is gone, and the six-sided rings gets a new color scheme.

    It's not as convoluted as you might think.

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  57. Dixie Carter might as well completely give it up and let Jeff Jarrett handle things and merge TNA(and all of its talents) into Global Force Wrestling,as well as causing both Don Tony(/Anthony DeBlasi) and Kevin Castle to drop over from a coronary(upon this news).

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  58. WON reported last month that Jarrett has been talking to CMT, Spike, Fox Sports 2, & WGN America.

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  59. I mean, he's right. He's writing on a well-known wrestling blog, he should at least be professional enough to proofread his content.

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  60. "Talking to" and "having a deal" are two separate things entirely though.

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