WWE.com NXT Preview
http://www.wwe.com/videos/check-out-wwe-nxt-this-thursday-at-9-pm-et-only-on-wwe-network-26990756
Randy Orton Update
Orton is scheduled to make his return at the 1/17 house show in Abilene, TX.
Credit Dave Meltzer, Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Update on NXT at WrestleMania
Right now the plan is to have some NXT matches take place at WrestleMania weekend, most likely as part of Fan Axxess.
Credit Dave Meltzer, Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Kayfabe Commentaries Releases 1999 ECW Timeline as told by Rob Van Dam
Click on the link below to view the trailer, which runs for almost seven minutes.
And don't forget to vote in the 2nd Round of Place to be Nation's "Greatest Song of the 90's" tournament. Click on the links below to vote for up to four songs in each bracket:
http://placetobenation.com/greatest-song-of-the-90s-tournament-pool-round-two-group-aa/
http://placetobenation.com/greatest-song-of-the-90s-tournament-pool-round-two-group-bb/
http://www.wwe.com/videos/check-out-wwe-nxt-this-thursday-at-9-pm-et-only-on-wwe-network-26990756
Randy Orton Update
Orton is scheduled to make his return at the 1/17 house show in Abilene, TX.
Credit Dave Meltzer, Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Update on NXT at WrestleMania
Right now the plan is to have some NXT matches take place at WrestleMania weekend, most likely as part of Fan Axxess.
Credit Dave Meltzer, Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Kayfabe Commentaries Releases 1999 ECW Timeline as told by Rob Van Dam
Click on the link below to view the trailer, which runs for almost seven minutes.
And don't forget to vote in the 2nd Round of Place to be Nation's "Greatest Song of the 90's" tournament. Click on the links below to vote for up to four songs in each bracket:
http://placetobenation.com/greatest-song-of-the-90s-tournament-pool-round-two-group-aa/
http://placetobenation.com/greatest-song-of-the-90s-tournament-pool-round-two-group-bb/
They won't him do MMA.
ReplyDeleteAh, another person that doesn't even watch the shows or any current wrestling that lets others make opinions for them.
ReplyDeleteThat main event clusterfuck, as described, is easily a month or two of television condensed.
ReplyDeleteSeriously. If a guy is wearing a mask, it should take a few weeks to find out who the guy is. Why else wear the mask?!
And for EY's turn to be meaningful, we should be given a reason for it before hand and a reason to care. Which should take another few weeks after we find out who the masked people are. I don't really remember Young and Roode being tied at the hip before the channel hop, so why should I care?
Reno was a Power Plant scrub who was in the Natural Born Thrillers with Sean O'Haire/Mark Jindrak/Chuck Palunbo/Mike Sanders and part of a very confusing fued with Big Vito (first it was Reno was the bad guy because he was hitting on Vito's sister, then changed to Vito and Reno were brothers themselves).
ReplyDeleteOulett was in WCW in 96-97 (WWE before that) with Jacques Rougeau as The Quebeccers. He came back in 2000 as part of Team Canada and Lance Storm gave him the SHIT title (and gave the 100kgs and Under title to Elix Skipper)
Devon Storm (Crowbar) was a jobber on WCW Saturday Night (when nWo had their own segment) and Nitro as a tag team with Ace Darling called "The Extreme" back in 97-98 sometime I think then when he came back in 99 they paired him with David Flair and Daffney and had the 3 of them acting like nut jobs. Last time I saw him was the early days of TNA where he was in James Mitchell's New Church stable.
I thought she was kinda annoying in WCW, but I became quite the big fan of hers during her TNA days.
ReplyDeletewho was the one that had the saskatchewan hardcore intl title?? s.h.i.t?? thats my vote.
ReplyDeleteehh on second thought screaming norman smiley was the fuggin man!
ReplyDeleteThey did that with Aces and Eights with the very slow reveal.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Roode and EY were tagging and shown as super close friends on TV for the last 3 months or so on TNA TV.
ReplyDeleteHe might get killed!
ReplyDeleteThat would have worked really well if we didn't have a huge gap and weren't trying to relaunch everything just short of a clean slate.
ReplyDeleteBut we did and they were.
Still rushed and hollow and I think hurtful to Eric Young. I actually quite like him as a worker and personality. But this kind of heel turn just ends up putting you behind.
Three weeks is about the max you should do a mystery man angle. And then things should change a lot once the mystery is resolved.
ReplyDeleteAs opposed to Aces which seemed to run my whole life, where the only thing that really changed were masks coming off.
Aces had a solid start, then degenerated into TNA's Patented Same Old Shit.
ReplyDeleteI think he's just a douche that can't portray likable in any way.
ReplyDeleteI punched out at the Knockouts battle royal so I didn't even make it to Lashley/Roode.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't a good wrestling show first and foremost. But larger scale than that, the reason I watched TNA last night (first time I've tried watching a full episode since '06) was I was under the impression that they were going to do something of a relaunch, or at the very least a reintroduction/reinvention of the show. I don't know if that was my mistake in how I interpreted things, or they kind of advertised that and just didn't come through.
Anyway, you have a new show on a new network with a potentially new audience and they picked up exactly where they left off. Ok, if you're going to do that, explain some things during the broadcast like why James Storm & Abyss are in the stable, why Angle & MVP are complaining about the TNA board, why "Roode/Lashley III" is important and why I should care about it. I'll give them a pass on the X-Division, because they've never been able to explain what the X-Division is other than its guys who work a lot of fast spots.
More than anything it just showed me that they don't really understand how to present this to their audience. Which would be fine if it was a good wrestling show, but it wasn't. And that would have still been passable if it was good storytelling or booking to set up future good wrestling shows, but that was atrocious.
This should have been so simple. Here's Bobby Lashley! Here's a video package of why he's important. Here's Bobby Roode! Here's a video package why he's important. Hey, remember Kurt Angle? He's a legend! And he's with us! Remember great wrestling action? Here's the X-Division! And just run basic matches. Instead, swerves, disputed finishes, non-existent backstory reveals to give the new audience any clue what it was watching.
It was a failure IMO. I really don't see myself watching it next week or beyond.
The sad thing is if WWE had Kurt Angle, they'd make Angle feel important as they would build up to his return match. In TNA they just shoehorn him in the opening match.
ReplyDeleteWithout a doubt.
ReplyDeleteIf Angle came back this month, he would have immediately been thrown in with either Rusev or Lesnar and they would have touted Angle's legitimate tough guy status, amateur accomplishments, him legitimately being one of the best in ring guys of the past 15 years, and established him as an instant threat to either guy.
Now they may have buried him quickly after that point, for his past sins and transgressions against the Holy Father of Sports Entertainment, but the intro would have been done right.
NorMAN SmiLAY should run away with this one. Literally... run away screaming.
ReplyDeleteMA MA MA MY SHARONA!
ReplyDeleteI know we give WWE a lot of shit and some of it deservedly so, but at heart they at least know how to book and build to a big time match.
ReplyDeleteEven though Sting hasn't hardly been on tv, WWE has done a better job building up Sting as a big deal than TNA has ever done for the past 10 years Sting has been with the company.
I liked this episode enough to watch. The only thing that turned me off is at the beginning you could say there were more American Wolves in the crowd than fans and wouldn't be far off.
ReplyDeleteThis "match" begins and ends with the BIG WIGGLE!
ReplyDeleteI never cared for Daffney, but I liked Crowbar. His Gordon Solie imitation is one of the few things I remember fondly from the last couple years of WCW. (I still didn't vote for him, though, because Norman Smiley in a tux doing the Smack My Bitch Up dance with a line of Vegas showgirls is also on that list.)
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSvYzpC1czI
ReplyDeleteI'll bet The Sandman did, for one.
ReplyDeleteI was always impressed by the LHW title win of Pegasus Kid.
ReplyDeleteWhatever happened to him? I wonder if he's still hanging around.
Bring a few more of the sandbags from the left side of the wall and put em on the right here.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty much with you. It certainly wasn't a disaster and commentary being average is miles ahead of what I'm used to from TNA. The ending I can almost forgive because it's TNA. Then hotshotting some big heel angle is normal for them.
ReplyDeleteThis show was not perfectly fine dude, sorry. Comparing it to the garbage WWE has put out doesn't give it a pass, nor should it.
ReplyDeleteMeng feeds bison jerky to his kids, and Kibbles n Bits to his mother-in-law. He can also piss clean through a Kevlar vest.
ReplyDeleteI thought the Aces & Eights angle and the explanation video packages with Bully Ray was some of the best stuff TNA has EVER done. It kinda went downhill from there.
ReplyDeleteTNA kicking off a brand new era by...having all the same matches they had in 2014.
ReplyDeleteOne of the rare times I'd say it'd be a good idea to reboot, dump all the titles, and start all storylines fresh.
I was really torn with meng big vito and screamin norman
ReplyDeleteNorman or we riot!
ReplyDeleteOr protest passively.
So much talent, so hard to choose....
ReplyDeleteIs this even a question? Norman Smiley in a walk.
ReplyDeleteIt was going well until Hogan and Sting got involved.
ReplyDeleteI also no longer see the value in pushing Bobby Roode. They are not cross promoting with Bellator anymore so all the Lashley and King Mo stuff has no inter-promotional purpose and he is long forgotten from his WWE run that ended way back in 2007.
ReplyDeleteno they don't need to wait to show how they are it would have been stupid to have them walking around with those masks all the time. EY and roode have had issues as well as being friends as having a grey area as far as jealousy goes for the title.
ReplyDeletethey never said they were relaunching the product i don't know where the heck that came from they've been advertising roode-lashley since they went off the air in november as well as angle-mvp.
ReplyDeleteno if they had better guys under those masks they had potential they just werent the right guys outside of maybe doc i mean seriously Knox bischoff and Brisco just weren't any good. D-lo for crying out loud? They may have been better off keeping them under the masks everyone knew who they were
ReplyDeletethey built up this match a couple of months ago with their matches and the fallout
ReplyDeletewhy the hell would they do they were putting on incredible shows a few months ago especially the new york shows why woulld they reboot everything that is a stupid idea as it gets.
ReplyDeleteNow, if Barbarian had found the belt in the trash...
ReplyDeleteWhat incredible shows? You mean the gimmick matches they ran with guys who were washed up for the last ten years? Hardyz vs. Dudleyz; that wasn't played out in 2001.
ReplyDeleteThats why I said it wasn't a clean slate. It was just a relaunch that was focused around a few major things. If they weren't ice cold before they went off the air, they are now.
ReplyDeleteThey did a major disservice to everyone involved with their booking. It's too much too soon.
I used to hate Smiley. I never understood his popularity, either.
ReplyDeleteCrowbar/Devon Storm was great. One of my favorites in that era of WCW. And yes, Normal Smiley should absolutely win.
ReplyDeleteCrowbar. Only for Daffney.
ReplyDeletegreg is a strange TNA defender. IMPACT last year were largely bad shows with a strong main event.
ReplyDeleteThe matches themselves were fine. But the ending of the main event combined with the terrible lighting and camerawork (has John been getting pointers from Kevin Dunn on how to make a show look worse?) overall ruined the show.
ReplyDeleteAnd where was Bram, Gunner, Magnus and all these other supposed future stars? You'd think for a reboot you would focus on the guys who have potential instead of the guys who are either past their prime or at the very end of their prime.
Being better than the last few months of WWE is not an accomplishment worth celebrating.
ReplyDeleteThey're both bad for different reasons. WWE has a bunch of competent, repetitive matches with nothing standing out as memorable . TNA has some better, unique matches mixed in with horrible ones. WWE storylines make no sense and tread water for months and now years at a time with no development. TNA storylines make no sense and run on hyper time fast forward.
It's all just different flavors of crap.
It was pretty sad watching Angle, MVP and Abyss who looked slow and way out of shape.
ReplyDeleteJosh Mathews sounded like he was half asleep and it looked like 12 people were in the pitch black arena.
ReplyDeleteEvery match was a dark match.
ReplyDeleteAwesome show, can't wait for next week. Too many people here seem to WANT to hate TNA. Impact and LU are the most entertaining US Wrestling shows right now.
ReplyDeletePretty much everything since June. You know all those events with mutliple "this is awesome" and "TNA" chants?! If you didn't realise that the Hardyz/3D/Wolves matches were at once welcome nostalgia and putting the Wolves over big time, then I'm not sure you should bother watching anymore. Stick to NXT maybe.
ReplyDeleteYep the opening match for their debut on a new network...Geez.
ReplyDeleteTNA storylines are the best in wrestling. They actually have endings.
ReplyDelete"But I don't get all the hate."
ReplyDeletePeople want to fit in. TNA's been the best television show for a long time now. NJPW and NXT have had strong supercards, but as far as week to week television, Impact's been blowing everything away. Unfortunately people like to believe that it is the same product as 4 years ago.
I have no interest in seeing either Hardy again, ever.
ReplyDeleteWinning the WWE US title just means that you are going to be disappeared.
ReplyDeleteJust finished the show and it wasn't that bad. The opening video was really awesome with the heel and the face taking separate bus to go to the event and facing off in front of the building. EC3 is one of their best heel, he always has a lot of heat on him, and can interact really well with the crowd, he is a natural.
ReplyDeleteJames Storm's Revolution is also an intriguing faction and look like what should have been the Wyatts (recruiting wrestlers and terrorising people) but Sanada and Manik would have been better as the Tag champ.
I agree with your sentiments, but you know what? People have been saying this about TNA million times in the past as well. This is nothing new.
ReplyDeleteAt this point and especially after their "re-boot" on DA, it's obvious TNA doesn't know how to do things a different way.
In their entire existence, they never came up with anything innovative and were always just looking at what the WWE does and if they can incorporate some of what works there into their own product - the evil owner, Eric Young winning his belt at the same time Daniel Bryan did, the lighting of the arenas, usage of wrestlers released from WWE, copying of the MITB briefcase (Feast or Fired), etc.
Hoping for a change now is futile IMO. You either like what they present, or you don't. End of story.
IMHO, the debut at DA has no chance of gaining any new audience. The TNA hardcores that are able to watch it will and that's it.
The production value looked like complete shit. I can not believe people try to put a positive spin on it. Compared to their new look, any Impact in 2014 looked like a WrestleMania. And I'm not kidding here. No set worth mentioning, everything covered in black (arena, ring ropes, turnbuckles, ring aprons, entrance way). Sorry, but this looked worse than ROH.
On SPIKE, they had roughly a million viewers each week, on DA and on their hyped debut no less, they had 260,000. I know about the households issue, but that's brutal.
And they do things the same way as before. No drastic change despite being forced to take such a huge step back. Sorry, but TNA is either going to die in 2015, or they're going to remain on a level that is probably even below ROH at this point.