PeterHilton

Here's the thing (and I hate that I'm starting to sound overly negative because I'd love to see TNA succeed) : you made a lot of great points, but everything you've said that's a problem FOR YEAAAARRRRRRSSSS. It's not like this stuff all just cropped up because of the new regime. Too many angles and too many convoluted and pointless plot twists? See almost every episode since Impact went to two hours. What's the point of The Band vs Nash and Young? See What's the point of The Maffia vs The Frontline. Pointless Jarret story that no one cares about? See Pretty Much TNA's Entire Existence Even the good stuff...like 'the Hernandez/Morgan break up' has been repeated ad nauseam. TNA has it's tag teams break up and feud constantly and BOTH guys were already in a position to main event LAST YEAR. (you pushed them down the card to move them up the card???wtf??) It's so frustrating. So incredibly frustrating.

Here's the worst part: The show peaked with the first quarter-hour with a 1.31. the show dropped consistently throughout the remainder of the show with the final quarter-hour drawing a show-low .93 rating. For those who don't remember, the final quarter hour featured a world title match between four of TNA's 'hottest young stars' (AJ/Pope/Wolfe/Abyss) and a bloody brawl with Hogan and Flair. So no one is getting over. Not the names. Not the young guys. Try reading the recaps sometime to get an idea of how much of the show is dedicated to skits and angles: they are just giant blocks of text with a two minute match to break things up every once in a while. The booking is bad. I fully expect for the Monday night move to produce a nice bump for the ratings, but it won't match the 're-launch' from a few months back. And if they can't keep the momentum in the following weeks- no matter how many RVDs and Jeff Hardys they add - it won't matter.

Yeah...that's horrible news for TNA. I saw that. But honestly, nothing much has changed even with all the changes. TNA has ALWAYS had talent. But the storylines have also ALWAYS been painful to follow. They brought in a crapload of 'names' but haven't really done anything to tak advantage of them. The Flair/AJ partnership and the Anderson/Kurt feud are the only thing that has been presented in a clear and understandable manner. Everything else? Same hot mess as before.

BWAHAHAHA...wut?? It's TNA. It's going to be a hit or miss clusterf--- of overbooking, with several turns, a few big name appearances, and at least one match so good that it will make you wish the WWE would let their own workers go w/o all the restrictions of working a "WWE style." I mean ..don't be surprised if you see a match that net fans will call a free tv MOTY candidate, but the show ends with Hogan turning on Abyss and forming a 'new nWo' with Nash, AJ, Flair, Foley, and OJ.

Well this wouldn't keep happening if TNA didn't have such a WCW in its dying days feel.

I believe he's saying that no matter what Fred Savage does, he's 'Kevin Arnold.' No matter what Bill does...he's going to be 'Who's next Goldberg.' I see the connection. I think one of the main reasons Goldberg can't bring more to the table is that he never wanted to. I saw a ton of interviews with him at his height of popularity and later whn he started appear in movies and you could just tell he didn't have the passion for the business that others have. The very definition of a guy who went into wrestling because his 'real career' fell a little short.

I think you're giving Bill too much credit or Brock not enough. Goldberg could be carried to a watchable match...but he's nowhere near Brock in the ring. Great look, great persona, decent amount of charisma...the gimmick was great but that monster push wouldn't have worked if Goldberg didn't play it so well. I agree with Hyde though; Bill Goldberg really isn't bringing anything to the table if he goes to TNA. Of course...that didn't stop them from signing some of those other 'names' on the roster.

Ah..I misread.

Wow. Either you know nothing about Vince McMahon or you didn't watch the E during the InVasion. Pretty apparent they went out of their way to prove the the WWE wrestlers were better than the WCW "stars" they brought in.

I have a new favorite youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/scotthalltv Scott Hall is a mess, but at least he owns it.

Batista gave a really really good promo that probably came off so well because there was a lot of truth there at it's heart (not that Dave is jealous but he's clearly been in Cena's shadow and as a competitive professional, that would bother him at some level) Also..I personaly REALLY really liked the Angle/Anderson stuff. Very effective Face/Heel interaction imo

Love the show logos. Any chance you're going to use your special effects trickery on some of the bigger CVerse companies?

Yeah...no. I'd have to agree with lazorbeak on this: Mickie James was in a total rut, was boring as hell, and her character had been reduced to 'generic good guy who gives the fans high fives.' The McCool storyline is the single most interesting thing she's done since she was Trish's stalker.

More annoying is that the crowds wre practically BEGGING Beth Phoenix to jump in and take both Mickie and Michelle out and then the writers completely wasted that heat by having her join McCool. Beth could be the most over female on both shows and would even be entertaining as a 'unified' champion...not sure why they haven't pulled the trigger on that yet.

I'm like a billion percent certain it's going to close. Cena vs Batista for the title with McMahon and Bret at ringside? those two are going to have to dig waaaaay deep to put on anything close to what HBK/Taker and Edge/Jericho should deliver but I fully expect the last real image of this year's Mania to be Hart with Vince in a Sharpshooter while Cena celebrates with the fans.

Good episode of Raw right here Batista/Cena exchange is solid. I would've lost it if Cena said, "Dave, maybe you'd be a bigger star if you stayed healthy longer than 3 months"

From what I understand, it's an hour long episode of Epics centered around the X Division (like an episode of Forensic Files probably) followed by Impacy.

Mostly agree with you. I just think the downward momentum was so bad that I'm not sure Russo did anything more than hasten the descent. He was awful...but really even if the booking was great they were so upside down financially that good booking may only have extended the life of the company a year or so. Don't know..it's an interesting what if.

I'm sorry but that is completely wrong imo. And the ending of that book is a total cop-out. Bischoff did do it. Russo did do it. The booking did actually cause WCW to go out of business. You can't blame a TV executive for making a sound business decision. It wouldn't have mattered who was in that position; the fact that WCW had lost more than half their viewing audience, was losing more than a million dollars a week, and had buy rates that were dipping below a 1 means that any TV executive in their right mind would've taken heat for NOT cancelling the show. The people running WCW were responsible for giving TBS and AOL/TW all the reason in the world to kill the company. If WCW was still turning a profit, still getting good ratings, and still doing good PPV numbers then no one at Turner would've been able to justify cancelling the show, bias towards wrestling or not.

That's way too onesided. In general you make a great point about the marketing and research side of things, and the fact that the WWE has access to a ton of feedback that we, as your basic internet wrestling nerd, wouldn't but let's face it....they have not beeen infallible. The WWE has made mistakes before on who to push and who is over. Wrestlers have had their pushes derailed by backstage politics, which wouldn't happen if it was as simple as "if people want to see somebody, they're going to use them." (and the opposite is true too: wrestlers with good relationships in the company had jobs loooong after anyone cared whether or not they were on the roster) It's just too easy and the writing team has proven themselve to be far too inconsistent to say something like: well Charlies Hass was released which therefore means he must not have been worth putting on TV. Hell, from a traditional wrestling perspective it's not a good idea just because having a seasoned hand like Charlie around to work house shows and dark matches with the younger guys would be as valuable as having Finlay or Regal on the main shows; maybe moreso becaus Charlie is closer in age.

Love Monty too. Another guy who got shafter because Jarrett wouldn't give up his spot.

How? I mean..yes there were corporate considerations that may have changed the product, but I find it hard to believe that AOL/TW had anything to do with driving the nWo into the ground, botching Sting/Hogan at Starcade, wasting Bret, wasting Goldberg, burying the midcard talent, burying Flair and the Horsemen, incomprehensible booking, etc. All those things had more to do with WCW's failure than anything Time Warner did.

You're right about this particular misquote, but Eric in general comes off as a self satisfied prick who refuses to admit a single mistake any time he talks about the WCW/nWo era. I mean..when he's asked about 'losing' the Monday Night Wars he inevitably comes back with some variation of 'Turner/Time Warner lost the war' or 'if it hadn't been for corporate policy' or 'there were decision made that were out of my hands' yada yada yada So I've completely stopped caring about his perspective on things from that time period. He had a big hand in taking the hottest, most popular, most talent laden wrestling company in the history of the industry and running it straight to sh*t. So he loses all crediblity by blaming that failure on AOL?Time Warner.

To be fair though, it's not as if the WWE has ever treated Jericho as a bonafide, franchise level, let him run with the ball, main eventer either. He's treated FAR better than he ever was in WCW, but his character is more of a storytelling device for the top faces to play off of and a transitional champion. Never quite gotten that Triple H/Rock/Cena treatment though..

Beyond that, I don't see how Christian could've been completely happy with his run in TNA. He was another victim of Jarrett's propensity to focus the shows on himself regardless of what fans actually wanted to watch. Christian won the title, had a mini-feud with Monty Brown (on his way out of the company) then spent two months in a feud with Abyss that was definitely portrayed on TV as being 'less important' than the JJ/Sting mega-feud. So Christian was RED HOT when he signed with TNA, even HOTTER when he won the belt a few months later, and then nothing more than a subplot a few months after that when JJ wins the title back (because he was never really booked as THE man in TNA) and then he really is nothing more than a footnote a few months later when he turned and helped JJ beat Sting for the belt. At least if you're a jobber to the stars in the E, you're making more money and jobbing to bigger stars than Jeff frickin Jarrett.