The Official TNA / Impact / GFW Discussion Thread

[Hyde Hill]

Is that supposed to be sarcastic?

 

Anyway, rumor mill says that TNA is a green light on moving to Monday nights in the near future, being live just about every other week. The speculated time slot is 8-10pm or 9-11pm. I would assume those are EST but the article didn't say.

 

Nope as International/Intercontinental etc isn't associated with world as closely, other name could have been (North) American. But that is assuming you want to use it as a midcard/uppermidcard title open to all styles/weights.

 

What time slot is RAW EST? As if I was TNA I would preempt them by an hour.

[CQI13]

RAW is 9-11 EST (unless they do the 3 hour one, which starts at 8).

 

It would behoove TNA to start from 8-10.

[thepeopleschamp]

I think TNA is doing a good thing going head to head with WWE because the at least it might push Vince to pick his product off the ground and do better because right now its just not working for anyone over 11 It is getting a little bit better I watch both WWE and TNA like TNA a little more than WWE right now and I want this to lead to Monday Night Wars pt.2 it could only help if TNA does it right.

[jwt13]

TNA will hold Lockdown in St Louis according to Dixie Carters twitter

[Stennick]

Nice Elimination Chamber and Lockdown here in St. Louis could be a fun year.

[CQI13]

I remember they held it there a few years back (when Scott Steiner pulled off the Frankensteiner, was it not)? Hopefully they break even.

[sabataged]

I remember they held it there a few years back (when Scott Steiner pulled off the Frankensteiner, was it not)? Hopefully they break even.

 

 

I went to it last time around. The ticket cost be $18 and I was less than 20 rows back or something like that. It was a nice little show they have lethal lockdown with team christian vs team angle I think.

[Stennick]

Yeah I bet tickets are going to be cheap (not worried about it selling out) so I'll go just so I can say I saw them live.

[sabataged]

Yeah I bet tickets are going to be cheap (not worried about it selling out) so I'll go just so I can say I saw them live.

 

It was a good show. They play to the crowd a lot more than WWE ever does on TV. Plus being at the Family Arena it's not so spaced out like Kiel is. I'll be there depending on what date the show is. I tried looking it up but can't find a date for it

[alden]

I did not think i would ever hear anyone call that one a good show lol. Remember that was the one with team 3d vs lax in a electrified cage match *shutter*

[nucleardonkey]

I gotta say the more I see Abyss the more I love the new character. What's more dangerous than a 6'8 350 pound guy who thinks he's still a child? I really wish they'd give him something more than just a quicky segment here or there.

[cappyboy]

I gotta say the more I see Abyss the more I love the new character. What's more dangerous than a 6'8 350 pound guy who thinks he's still a child? I really wish they'd give him something more than just a quicky segment here or there.

 

I don't know how new I'd say the character is. He's been playing it for the better part of a year now. But he does play it well.

 

And while I'm here, allow me to say two things about Tomko.

 

1: He really shocked me tonight. I never expected to be impressed by anything Tomko did. But I gotta say that powerslam he gave Angle was pretty darn sweet. Nice and fluid and a really good snap on it. It's still not much to recommend him on but every journey starts with a single step.

 

2: Is it just me or has he put a few "vanity pounds" on? I pretty sure I saw the beginnings of some fat on him. Nothing significant enough to take away from his impressive look but enough that he might want to work them off.

[Stennick]

So I caught the last five minutes of tonights show.

 

1. Why was Nash and Foley fighting in a hardcore match?

 

2. Why did Hall and Waltman attack Nash?

 

3. If Hall didn't wrestle at Genesis because he didn't ilke the way he looked in tights, how does he ever expect to wrestle it doesn't look like that gut has gone down any in the last month.

 

4. Is Bischoff a heel making Jarrett wrestle matches against heels that put him against the odds? And if Bischoff is a heel and Hogan is a face? I just don't understand but I'm sure its because I don't watch the shows.

[Hyde Hill]

Bisschoff (, but sometimes makes "good" executive decisions,) is a heel and so are waltman and hall, Hogan is caught in the middle and mainly a face, so is Nash but he is more a heel but not sticking up for Hall and walt as he doesn't agree with their actions and he wants to remain employed. It's really not that hard sometimes but it is confusing if you don't watch regularly and that is a problem if you want to attract new viewers. Jarrett is a face again after the whole lawyer thing which was prolly used to make up for the mistake during the live show where Jarrett outfaced Hogan when it was supposed to be the other-way around.

[cappyboy]

So I caught the last five minutes of tonights show.

 

1. Why was Nash and Foley fighting in a hardcore match?

 

Two reasons.

 

1: Because Bischoff was trying to punish Mick for sticking to his guns and stating publically his distaste for having to associate with Easy E.

 

2: Because Bischoff was taking advantage of Nash's recent history with Foley to extract a favor from Big Sexy

 

2. Why did Hall and Waltman attack Nash?

 

No clue. Hopefully they will answer that next week.

 

3. If Hall didn't wrestle at Genesis because he didn't ilke the way he looked in tights, how does he ever expect to wrestle it doesn't look like that gut has gone down any in the last month.

 

Dude, this is Scott Hall you're talking about. If you could find two unpickled cells to rub together anywhere in his body, I'm not sure they'd even be willing to associate with each other. And I'm positive neither of them would be in what now passes for his brain. The last time those cells functioned we were all still concerned about the Y2K bug.

 

4. Is Bischoff a heel making Jarrett wrestle matches against heels that put him against the odds? And if Bischoff is a heel and Hogan is a face? I just don't understand but I'm sure its because I don't watch the shows.

 

No. Believe me it's not. I've been trying to make sense of the Bischoff/Hogan/Jarrett relationship since Mr America arrived in TNA. I've been faring about as well as the alien computer in some early sci-fi movie after it's been asked to divide by zero. Bischoff + Hogan + Jarrett is the very definition of not computing.

[sabataged]

Two reasons.

 

1: Because Bischoff was trying to punish Mick for sticking to his guns and stating publically his distaste for having to associate with Easy E.

 

2: Because Bischoff was taking advantage of Nash's recent history with Foley to extract a favor from Big Sexy

 

 

 

No clue. Hopefully they will answer that next week.

 

 

 

Dude, this is Scott Hall you're talking about. If you could find two unpickled cells to rub together anywhere in his body, I'm not sure they'd even be willing to associate with each other. And I'm positive neither of them would be in what now passes for his brain. The last time those cells functioned we were all still concerned about the Y2K bug.

 

 

 

No. Believe me it's not. I've been trying to make sense of the Bischoff/Hogan/Jarrett relationship since Mr America arrived in TNA. I've been faring about as well as the alien computer in some early sci-fi movie after it's been asked to divide by zero. Bischoff + Hogan + Jarrett is the very definition of not computing.

 

The Jarrett/Hogan/Bischoff thing is confusing but here is my take on it.

 

They started of they were going to make Eric and Hulk the faces and Jeff the heel. But fans crapped all over it. Hulk they can cheer, Easy E...never ever can the fans bring their selves to cheer for the guy. So basically I think it is going to end up like this. Bischoff is the heel obviously. He has The Band doing his dirty work. Hulk is trying to remain neutral. He will keep getting mixed up in the situation as he has allegiances with Eric but wants to stay the good guy for the friends. Their are time he is going to look like he is turning heel (Screwing Angle) but he will continue to play the "It wasn't me card". Eric will continue to try and bash Jarrett and screw him over repeatedly to make him look like the bad guy. But after it's all said and done Hogan and Jarrett will end up being the faces trying to save TNA together side by side against Bischoff as he is "destroying it". Uneasy alliance or whatever. Hell I would be surprised to see some sort of stable like Foley, Hogan, Jarrett and Sting vs who ever is on Eric's side by the time this all comes together.

[Stennick]

Sab you just made that make sense please apply for their head writing job. I would watch every week if you wrote their shows.

[cappyboy]

The Jarrett/Hogan/Bischoff thing is confusing but here is my take on it.

 

They started of they were going to make Eric and Hulk the faces and Jeff the heel. But fans crapped all over it. Hulk they can cheer, Easy E...never ever can the fans bring their selves to cheer for the guy. So basically I think it is going to end up like this. Bischoff is the heel obviously. He has The Band doing his dirty work. Hulk is trying to remain neutral. He will keep getting mixed up in the situation as he has allegiances with Eric but wants to stay the good guy for the friends. Their are time he is going to look like he is turning heel (Screwing Angle) but he will continue to play the "It wasn't me card". Eric will continue to try and bash Jarrett and screw him over repeatedly to make him look like the bad guy. But after it's all said and done Hogan and Jarrett will end up being the faces trying to save TNA together side by side against Bischoff as he is "destroying it". Uneasy alliance or whatever. Hell I would be surprised to see some sort of stable like Foley, Hogan, Jarrett and Sting vs who ever is on Eric's side by the time this all comes together.

 

I hope you're right and something like this comes about. It would make for a really good salvage job on TNA Creative's part. Because trying to make Jarrett the heel so abruptly after the last year plus of battling Angle and then whole MEM scenario wasn't going to fly. Even if it might have been Jarrett's natural state prior to that. Folks had gotten too accustomed to cheering for him to just go "Okay, he's whole now. We can go back to hating him."

 

I have my reservations about Hogan/Bischoff seeing how much the base would appreciate this. Sounds a little TEW to happen in reality. But we've see some really oddball stuff over the last decade or so. So I guess it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility.

[UkWrestleFan]

Surely if they wanted to turn Double J heel they should've just have him beat the crap out of somebody who TNA love...Sting. They still could I suppose.

 

But really, who knows what's going on in TNA these days.

[Blackman]

ROFL. Been watching some impact episodes.

 

WTF man, what's up with the recycled gimmicks? It's like watching a rerun of WWE years ago.

[jesterx7769]

Just watched last nights impace (DVR) and I was pretty dissapointed. Didn't understand the AJ/Pope match at all, I get that it hypes up Pope but is it worth the cost of making your CHAMPION look bad? Pope wasn't even on last week! Nice to see Joe back though (way to keep him off the air the past two weeks)

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Waltman & Hall= big waste of time and money. Even if people recognize them they'll just say "wow scott hall looks like my fat drunk uncle"

 

Tag Match= meh.

 

Womens match= good storyline but dont really care about it and Angelina's t*ts look awful (sorry, I know Im supposed to like the bigger is better idea but come on they are bigger than her head and look realy really really fake, at least Velvets look alot better)

 

Abyss= totally hate how they are using him and it pains him. I want Abyss f'in sh*t up, run down the ring and black hole slam Bischoff onto a pile of tacks come on!!!

 

After such a big deal about Double J last week, why was he not on this week? Same with Lashley.

 

Mr. Anderson= seems to be alright so far, he gets alot of heat and isn't an old timer so thumbs up.

 

Nash/Foley= I liked the concept but the match came off awful, the spots looked really slow and bad (the hockey stick and picture just to name two) I like the idea of Nash being on tv more than Foley and I know its been said over and over but should two guys over 50 really be main eventing? I get they bring name value but was anyone actually excited for that main event match?

 

So all in all nothing special but maybe they wanted this to be a dull week before they pick it up for the PPV. Whole show just comes off as a car crash, way to many people, too little time, and it seems their segway for EVERY segment is something with either Hogan or Bischoff

 

oh and p.s. why no Wolfe? He could have atleast had a 30 second promo talking about how he qualified.

[Blackman]

lol, going through the TNA booking style is an exercise in 'find the errors'.

 

Finished watching last week's episode and the best segment was actually... a segment! What's up with that TNA? how about upping your match-angle ratio? Mr. Kennedy... err.. Anderson or whatever. His segment was the best, closely followed by the X-division tag match. But they're just over-emphasising Hogan, Mick & Flair. Oh well.

 

I'll watch this week's episode and if that one sucks as hard as last week's, I'm quitting this mindless waste of bandwidth and time.

[cappyboy]

Just watched last nights impace (DVR) and I was pretty dissapointed. Didn't understand the AJ/Pope match at all, I get that it hypes up Pope but is it worth the cost of making your CHAMPION look bad? Pope wasn't even on last week! Nice to see Joe back though (way to keep him off the air the past two weeks)

 

I don't know I'd go quite as far as you have here. But I will say the show felt a little WWE in its layout this week. Segments were thrown on in entirely the wrong order and it hurt the overall feel of the show. I've seen a lot better out of TNA in the last year or so. But I've seen worse shows as well.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Waltman & Hall= big waste of time and money. Even if people recognize them they'll just say "wow scott hall looks like my fat drunk uncle"

 

I guess I can see this. They are most interesting by the association to Kevin Nash. The juxtaposition of Big Sexy trying to help keep them afloat while trying to be true to his relationship with Hogan is pretty good stuff. But you aren't kidding about the fat drunk uncle with Hall. And the sad thing is that in order to have the torn Kevin Nash you gotta have Hall around. Independent of Nash though, forget it. I'll deal with Waltman in a pinch. I've never had the antipathy for him many segments of the audience have. But Hall really needs to just disappear and go dry out.

 

Tag Match= meh.

 

Are you kidding? It's scenarios like the tag match this week that finally brought me around on Team 3D. Whatever I may have felt about them in their primes or in WWE, Bubba and D-Von have rocked my socks since they started being the elder statesmen of TNA's tag scene. The hard-fought bonds of mutual respect they have formed with Beer Money and now apparently Hernandez and Morgan have helped make them more supportable and watchable as characters than I have ever known them to be in previous stops.

 

Womens match= good storyline but dont really care about it and Angelina's t*ts look awful (sorry, I know Im supposed to like the bigger is better idea but come on they are bigger than her head and look realy really really fake, at least Velvets look alot better)

 

Again, it seems we couldn't be further apart in perspective. I'm loving this Return of Angelina storyline. Her having gone from leader to replaced in The Beautiful People and learning to see her former friends as the rest of the roster does has been good TV so far. And I love the mutual respect thing she and Tara were doing after all the grief Angelina and the Beautifuls put Tara through when she debuted. I very much want to see where this will take Angelina's character. Will she eventually re-unite with Velvet and Madison? Will she ultimately learn to appreciate Lacey Von Erich or finally destroy her? Or will this view of how the other side sees her former clique result in a lasting reformation for Angelina?

 

I'll agree on the physical assessment of the sporting goods department boobies. But that's the only place where it looks like we can agree here.

 

Abyss= totally hate how they are using him and it pains him. I want Abyss f'in sh*t up, run down the ring and black hole slam Bischoff onto a pile of tacks come on!!!

 

Okay. The last part I couldn't argue with. But I love the current character Abyss has. Guys his size have been monsters forever and will be in the future. But sometimes it's good to see those guys stretch beyond that easy mold. The comedic Big Show, Kane dealing with career mortality, the child-like Abyss. Roles like these stretch the abilities of the talents involved. And while there will always be a place for monsters in wrestling. But the fact Abyss running down to the ring and Black Hole Slamming Bischoff onto a pile of thumb tacks would have to come as part of sticking up for Mick Foley doesn't strike me as necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes the good guys gotta have those guys you don't want to mess with needlessly as well.

 

After such a big deal about Double J last week, why was he not on this week? Same with Lashley.

 

Good question.

 

Mr. Anderson= seems to be alright so far, he gets alot of heat and isn't an old timer so thumbs up.

 

Meh. I don't get Anderson. I never have and I doubt I ever will. He just comes off as one of these guys who's risen far above his actual ability. He seems like he should be headlining some syndie company with the stature of a Ring of Honor. Not a regularly placed national promotion like WWE or TNA. Which means the whole name-holding shtick that allows him to get all this heat just alienates me rather than make me care what he does.

 

Nash/Foley= I liked the concept but the match came off awful, the spots looked really slow and bad (the hockey stick and picture just to name two) I like the idea of Nash being on tv more than Foley and I know its been said over and over but should two guys over 50 really be main eventing? I get they bring name value but was anyone actually excited for that main event match?

 

An example of what I was saying earlier about the WWE-style show formatting taking away from the sum of the show's part. How this main evented over Styles/Pope is beyond me. At best, this should have been the first half of a double main event with Styles/Pope and the relevation of Joe cashing in his Feast or Fired shot at the PPV ending out the show.

 

I'll go you one better. I loved the idea of this match with the way they merged the Bischoff/Nash relationship with the recent Nash/Foley history. But this in no way should have been the finale. The combined shockers of the world champion losing a non-title match to an up-and-coming challenging and getting a PPV challenge from a long time friend turned enemy should have over-ridden this even with all the story positives. And I will include the picture spot in that. Mick hesitating over waffling Kevin with a treasured memento is beautiful character development. But there are two flys in the ointment here.

 

The first is how much more compelling and immediate AJ's situation is from a competitive standpoint. And the second is that the "assault" by Hall and Waltman smells like a set-up. Like Nash set up a phony breakup of The Band. I can't keep but think he's trying to compel contracts for his thug buddies so he can get "revenge" on them. Thereby killing the drama that would otherwise be.

 

 

oh and p.s. why no Wolfe? He could have atleast had a 30 second promo talking about how he qualified.

 

Good question on Wolfe. He's an awesome character and that would have built up the King of The Ring-ish tourney at the PPV by giving him to gloat about his place in it. I'd have liked a little promo from him as well.

[Hyde Hill]

Attendance for the UK part of the Tour from 411 mania quoting the WO:

 

- Here are the attendance figures for TNA's recent International tour:

* 1.16 – Dublin: 2,500 (Sell Out)

* 1.17 – Dublin: 2,500 (Sell Out)

* 1.20 – Manchester: 5,000

* 1.21 – Birmingham: 4,000

* 1.22 – Glasgow: 4,100

* 1.24 – London: 8,100 (All-Time Company Attendance Record)

 

Credit: The Wrestling Observer Newsletter

 

Paris was apparently 2.500 (after being cancelled the first time, I couldn't attend on the new date, grrr,) and Glasgow was 1.500.

 

Pretty decent all-round imho and showing growth from the last time they went to the UK.

 

Edit: On Impact this week pretty decent show apart from the ending, agree they need to work on the formatting which has always been their problem. Stuffing too much in in too little time and in the wrong order. The storylines themselves are pretty good though atm as they are at least unpredictable for the most part and the predictable ones are being executed well. Still a bit less old folks on my tv would still be nice, they where so getting it post BFG and now this.

 

PS Rating was a 1.2 rounded up so a big drop from last week. (Relatively)

[jesterx7769]

Seems like we agree on most of it Cappy, I said I like the women's storyline, I just dont like Angelina and never really cared for womens wrestling (sorry movement people) so its hard for me to enjoy the matches and sit through the same catty promos they all do (although Tara's wasn't bad despite its lack of charisma but at least she wasnt b*tchy)