2009 Running Pro Wrestling Thread

The Rock did indeed layeth the smacketh down on Hogan's rooty-poo candy ass -- including TWO of me at 'Mania -- the former People's Champ never returned the favor to Mr. Bollea.

RB

 

It's TNA, it doesn't need plausible reasons for anything.

I was given an annual pass to Universal Studios Orlando for my birthday last week. I'll be venturing to the Impact Zone real soon...wish me luck.

 

That. Could. Be. Fucking. Hilarious.

BB, I want your presence felt at that event.

 

TNA has become a joke. You've got some great wrestlers in the promotion, but the booking reduces them to jobbers. Not that the WWE hasn't been accused of the same thing, but the idea that Kevin Nash, Sting and Scott Steiner are part of a major faction is ridiculous, at least in the way they're booking it. Sting doesn't want to be a true heel, so that ties the hands of the bookers somewhat. (If not they could do a great angle where you put Sting with a crew like Beer Money and Matt Morgan and have him keep the title purely based on outside interference; he'd still be washed up, but the storyline would be him paying off these guys to help him keep his title.) The idea that Samoa Joe's next two major opponents are first Steiner then likely Nash is absurd. The guy has skills, even if he hasn't been able to show them off lately. He had some great matches with Angle. The only two in the Main Event Mafia that can still go are Angle and Booker T, and Booker has gotten lazy. Hopefully they do right and have Styles take that ridiculous "Legends" title and destroy it.

And all the MEM crap overshadows matches that can be good, like the Motor City Machine Guns (heterosexual life partners that they are) against Lethal Consequences. And even the X Division gets crappy booking with a character like Suicide coming in randomly to save some guy's butt. It's really sad.

You know, with WWE taking a PG turn, there's going to be a niche open for a company that appeals to more "mature" ideas of wrestling, like ECW did in the 90s. And I don't just mean boobs. I'm talking good, solid matches with bouts of bloody mayhem thrown in when it calls for it. ECW forced WWE and WCW to go "extreme" and if a company played its cards right, it could do the same now. And it may have more success than ECW did because there's only one major company to compete with instead of two. Sadly, TNA won't be that company because 1) Spike, despite crude, stupid shows like "MANswers" handcuffs TNA on certain things (you'd never see Stephanie get RKO'd on Spike, and that's a classic moment), and more importantly 2) no one in the front office at TNA could book a solid run of shows anyway.

I'm amazed TNA is still running, and I'd bet if it doesn't improve, it loses it's Spike deal when the deal expires and Spike starts pushing MMA harder. If Spike wants to keep pro wrestling, it might be better served to ditch TNA and sign up ROH if it wouldn't bust ROH's HDNet deal. Let TNA fold and the wrestlers from there move on.

 

I don't know TNA affords to keep all of these wrestlers and still make a profit. One thing is the Impact Zone saves them money because they record most of their shows at one place. They don't really use much pyro or special effects. Still, guys like Sting, Angle, and Nash have to be extremely pricy.

The only MEM member who can still work is Angle. Booker, as you said, has become lazy and even really stunk it out for the most part in his last few years in the ring with WWE. If they were smart, they'd relegate these guys to midcard status, dump useless "talent" like Nash and relegate the others to midcard status. They really, really need to build new stars. Even dying days WCW did a better job of elevating guys to main event level, which essentially says it all about the promotion.

 

I saw that Robert Roode has re-upped with TNA (he's a solid worker who deserves a TNA solo title run) and the company let Sonjay Dutt go (his contract was set to expire) this past week. Dutt's another talented guy who would be a good addition in WWE (perhaps ECW) IMO.

 

Roode is a good re-signing (I expect him to break apart from Beer Money fairly soon to begin a climb up the card), but I have to wonder about some of TNA's other movies, particularly releasing Petey Williams and Sonjay Dutt, two of the guys who the company should be building around. Williams, one of the hardest-working and most promising stars on the roster, is dumped because of a sour relationship with Jeff Jarrett. Dutt, an innovative young wrestler who was starting to get over as a heel, was let go despite a strong following in India.

They have to start elevating these guys and making Styles/Joe look better...Sting, Nash, Angle, Steiner are not going to be around forever.

 

Roode IS staying with the company. One way to salvage the MEM angle is to bring Roode into the fold and groom him as a world champion contender, meaning he'd beat one of these top guys and be seen as something special. Then again that's what the Samoa Joe-Angle stuff was supposed to do and the Styles-Angle stuff was supposed to do.

 

My bad. I was thinking this was about Williams/Dutt. I edited my post.

 

Dutt is good but way too small for what WWE is looking for right now. Juice aside, so is Petey Williams.

 

I wouldn't be surprised to see an Orton/HHH double turn at some point, especially now that HHH is aligned with the McMahons and Orton is already getting cheered by half the crowd.

Hogan isn't going to be at Wrestlemania. The only one saying he's in talks with Vince is Hogan, who "works" with every word out of his mouth. With Austin already coming in, no need for Hogan.