The Wrestling Thread's got...needs - Part 216

[TheCommissioner]

jut realized that all the titles are on the line tomorrow night

 

[sweetre15]

So I got a little Nostalgic today and was watching Austin Aries matches but while doing that I decided to revisit this match:

Man, this to me, was the last special thing that happened in TNA. The perfect Storm of a red hot face (Aries) going against a hot heel (Roode) and the icing on the cake was that not only were they charismatic and good on the mic but they were both great ring workers.

It was a rare moment when everything happens perfectly in wrestling and since their feud/match, TNA hasnt had a moment like that since.

All in all, the ringwork, selling, face/heel psychology etc was all on point that night.

4/5 star match IMO

 

[Dr. Evil]

IMO, the WWE Performance Center is the best thing to ever happen to Matt Bloom because Tensai/Big T or whatever wasn't working and he was probably going to be released, but somebody (probably Triple H) thought it was a good idea for him to become a trainer. He doesn't have to worry about getting fired as long as he does his job.

 

[TheCommissioner]

IMO, the WWE Performance Center is the best thing to ever happen to Matt Bloom because Tensai/Big T or whatever wasn't working and he was probably going to be released, but somebody (probably Triple H) thought it was a good idea for him to become a trainer. He doesn't have to worry about getting fired as long as he does his job.

he's a big part of the reason I love Breaking Ground so much, he gives a s**t

 

[TheCommissioner]

look who is all sorts of ******** over AJ Styles

http://impactwrestling.com/aj-styles/

 

[Pink Ranger]

he's a big part of the reason I love Breaking Ground so much, he gives a s**t

He's got good commentator potential too.

 

[MMMMM...Pancakes]

Those NFL/WWE logo mashups are great Dr. Evil, but @ Chicago Big Show.

 

[Dr. Evil]

Those NFL/WWE logo mashups are great Dr. Evil, but @ Chicago Big Show.

I laughed at Stone Cold Steve Houston

 

[Warhammer]

The WWE HOF is already full of awful people:
Jimmy Snuka - beat a woman to death with his bare hands
Mike Tyson - convicted rapist
Abdullah the Butcher - knowingly infected other wrestlers with hepatitis
Donald Trump - Donald Trump
Hulk Hogan - racist
Steve Austin - woman beater

And that's just off the top of my head

 

[Hunter Rider]

 

[Dr. Evil]

Triple H at tonight's Evolve event:

 

[runawayboulder]

I love how Triple H once admitted to not knowing who Punk was when he first came to WWE and now he's all over the indy scene scouting talent.

 

[MMMMM...Pancakes]

I love how Triple H once admitted to not knowing who Punk was when he first came to WWE and now he's all over the indy scene scouting talent.

To be fair, he was a full timer back then.

 

[Kane52630]

Good times.

 

[NDX]

Good times.

I always seem to enjoy commercials like this.

 

[The Apocalypse]

look who is all sorts of ******** over AJ Styles

http://impactwrestling.com/aj-styles/

Yawn. 1 of 50 wrestling fans still even care about TNA.

 

[Dr. Evil]

Yawn. 1 of 50 wrestling fans still even care about TNA.

TNA is so irrelevant in the mainstream that if you ask who Dixie Carter is, a lot of the mainstream folks will say "the late actress from Designing Women"

 

[Wylie Times]

TNA is so irrelevant in the mainstream that if you ask who Dixie Carter is, a lot of the mainstream folks will say "the late actress from Designing Women"

They did it to themselves, people were genuinely rooting for them for a LONG time but they keep making the SAME mistakes over and over again, the biggest of which was continually derailing AJ whenever he got on a hot run.

 

[Team Andino]

Yawn. 1 of 50 wrestling fans still even care about TNA.

That's way too low, I'd say even 1 in 250 is still too conservative a number.

 

[Keyser Soze]

They did it to themselves, people were genuinely rooting for them for a LONG time but they keep making the SAME mistakes over and over again, the biggest of which was continually derailing AJ whenever he got on a hot run.

You'll find there are none who have more contempt for TNA than those who used to be diehard fans. I followed the company since its beginning in 2002, and from 2005-2008 I was a dedicated fan, watching every Impact and all the PPVs and posting on fan message boards, buying merchandise and the toys and the crappy video game and going to see them live, really emotionally invested in the TNA product and in its success.

And that's such a thankless, demoralising position to be in. Defending the product against the "haters" became harder and harder when they kept making the same mistakes and taking two steps back for every one step forward, the talent neutralised by truly moronic booking. Never have I seen a company with such shame and hatred for its own identity, its own history and its own fanbase.

I think by the time they botched Samoa Joe's long-overdue title reign I had checked out as a fan, but I dutifully watched until about 2010, where Hogan and Bischoff stamped out any residual love I had left for the brand. I specifically remember the last episode of Impact I watched, and when I stopped watching: a shamefaced Mike Tenay announcing TNA were "returning home" to Thursday's after the colossal failure of going live Monday head-to-head with Raw. I never watched another episode of Impact after that. Since then, the only investment I've had in TNA has been in following the few great wrestlers they had left, and rooting for them to get out and get the platform of a real wrestling company. This past year seeing Samoa Joe and now AJ Styles make the leap to WWE has felt very good.

 

[Lead Cenobite]

Tony Schiavone blocked me on Twitter. I'm totally dumbfounded here. Could it be that referencing his "greatest night in the history of our sport" line rubs him the wrong way?

 

[sweetre15]

You'll find there are none who have more contempt for TNA than those who used to be diehard fans. I followed the company since its beginning in 2002, and from 2005-2008 I was a dedicated fan, watching every Impact and all the PPVs and posting on fan message boards, buying merchandise and the toys and the crappy video game and going to see them live, really emotionally invested in the TNA product and in its success.

And that's such a thankless, demoralising position to be in. Defending the product against the "haters" became harder and harder when they kept making the same mistakes and taking two steps back for every one step forward, the talent neutralised by truly moronic booking. Never have I seen a company with such shame and hatred for its own identity, its own history and its own fanbase.

I think by the time they botched Samoa Joe's long-overdue title reign I had checked out as a fan, but I dutifully watched until about 2010, where Hogan and Bischoff stamped out any residual love I had left for the brand. I specifically remember the last episode of Impact I watched, and when I stopped watching: a shamefaced Mike Tenay announcing TNA were "returning home" to Thursday's after the colossal failure of going live Monday head-to-head with Raw. I never watched another episode of Impact after that. Since then, the only investment I've had in TNA has been in following the few great wrestlers they had left, and rooting for them to get out and get the platform of a real wrestling company. This past year seeing Samoa Joe and now AJ Styles make the leap to WWE has felt very good.

Man, like in my review above, I thought Aries and Roode at Destination X was the last time I felt I saw somethig truly special in TNA because it really felt like it was Aries' time as well as Roode's. I also enjoyed both their title reigns and I feel that if they were completely given the ball to run with, they could have been the Rock and Austin of TNA with Styles in late 2000's HBK role while building on their knockouts, X, and Tag divisions. But no, they not only deplete and downplay the X division, tag division, and Knockouts divisions to accomodate Hogan's interest but that terrible Aces N Eights angle ends up taking over the product for far too long. Then that terrible heel Dixie Carter angle ends up not being much better. If TNA would have done what ROH and NXT are doing they would be in a much better place right now....Nevermind that they should have let go of Russo instead of lying to Spike TV executives about him and keeping him involved secretly.

A lot of stuff like that turn me from someone who was interested in TNA's progress to someone who watches every now and again but no longer truly cares what happens with the company or it's product.

 

[TheCommissioner]

the only thing TNA has done right in the past several years has been EC3 and even that got messed up recently by putting the title on Matt Hardy of all people

 

[Dr. Evil]

They did it to themselves, people were genuinely rooting for them for a LONG time but they keep making the SAME mistakes over and over again, the biggest of which was continually derailing AJ whenever he got on a hot run.

I wanted TNA to succeed so that the WWE can step up their game.

 

[TheCommissioner]

I wanted TNA to succeed so that the WWE can step up their game.

same here, I felt at a certain point their talent roster was a bit deeper than WWEs