2010 Pro Wrestling Thread

I feel like this was the last Raw before the real Mania promos begin.

Loved the HHH fast-forward explanation of the Sheamus feud though. That was epic.

Also, what are the odds McMahon and Hart actually sign the contract and one of them doesn't get attacked? Given that Austin is in the ring, I reckon Hart'll take his cast off, whoop his butt and Austin ends up stunning McMahon.

 

I was flipping back and forth between the two, but I did like HHH's promo about how he was unbeaten and thinking he was so great entering his first WM, then at WM, he got squashed (by the Warrior), and had to climb all the way back to the top (minus the mention of marrying the boss's daughter).

 

The Warrior's no sell of the Pedigree was epic.

 

A few years ago, I found a video of the HHH-Warrior match in its entirety, set to the Benny Hill song. Good fun.

 

Ratings from last night are in, according to Meltzer.

Raw -- 3.4
Impact -- 1.0

So a much-rumored RVD debut, the return of Jeff Hardy, the return to the ring of Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair and a Sting heel turn gets you THAT? Given how bothered they were when their last batch of Thursday taped shows dipped below 1.2, I can only imagine what this is doing in Orlando. It doesn't have to mean Armageddon, but it's an awful first chapter.

 

Jericho's tweet on RVD's debut was on the money ... unbelieveable they hot-shot RVD's debut, Sting's beatdown, then the Hogan save all in a 3-4 minute span.

RVD did get a HUGE pop though ... he could really excel in TNA, if given the chance.

 

Russo and Bischoff have never really been about delayed gratification, excluding the one-year Sting absence. I like them trying Sting out as a mega-heel for the first time, but hopefully they won't continue to make people change from heel to face to heel in a two-month span like they currently are doing.

 

Thing is, I kinda see where Sting's character might be going -- loyal icon that gets ignored for a fleet of flavors of the week. And sure, beating the shit out of a major debuting name is a way to illustrate that point. But they could have built to that a bit more -- have him attack Hogan, then go after a few more new guys (Jordan, Morley before he left), THEN RVD (or Hardy) to set up the "fuck you TNA for ignoring me in favor of the free agents" angle. But nothing to do about that now.

 

They need to realize that Hogan and Flair may draw curious fans initially, but they need to build up the guys that have been their base (Styles, Joe, Daniels, Abyss, etc.)

Problem is, Hogan and Bischoff are in nearly every segment, and, while I liked the Flair mentoring Styles thing, having Styles try to imitate Flair (even wearing the robe) is a little too much.

I would have liked to have seen Flair manage a Horseman-style stable with Styles, Wolfe, and maybe Morgan and Hernandez, to try to take over TNA.

Instead, we're getting the same Vince Russo stuff that helped lead to kill WCW. It's like they're stuck in 1998 again.

Sting becoming a heel might have been shocking, if it hadn't already happened two other times. I'd rather him be a tweener, where he just beats the shit out of everyone.

 

If they were going to pull Flair out of retirement, they could have built the angle better. They could have had Flair refuse to wrestle, say he signed a contract to be an adviser to Styles, not to get in the ring. Have him keep interfering in Styles' matches while saying he went out right and isn't coming back just so Hogan can have another shot at glory. Let Styles win some matches clean, too, but Flair come in and help with a beatdown afterward. Then, you have a match between Styles and Abyss with the stipulation that if Styles loses, Hogan and Abyss get Styles and Flair. Flair tries to interfere, but Hogan stops him and Abyss wins, so you get last night's match. Makes it more of the old-school matches where Jim Cornette or J.J. Dillon were forced to wrestle with the Midnight Express or the Horsemen.

I agree with Baron, too. I'd rather see Flair managing a stable of young guys, like Styles, Wolfe, and the Motor City Machine Guns.

On another note, did the Pope get his title match and I missed it?

TNA had two big names coming in last night, and they gave more time to Hogan and Flair than either of them. Hogan-Flair is an undercard match these days; you can't build an entire program around those guys. It should have been a way to get people to watch, but not the centerpiece of the show. Same with Sting for the most part. You have to find a way to use these guys to build other wrestlers without putting them in the ring, or while majorly limiting their ring time.

And Baron's right too in that you don't make the young guys have to be copies of the older guys; it cheapens what Styles has done over the years to build himself into a legitimate champion. Basically, what TNA is saying is that Styles wasn't good enough to be a real champion without becoming an imitation of Flair. Maybe they're building for a face turn at some point, with Flair trying to make Styles too much like him and Styles casting it all off and telling Flair to go screw himself. But right now, it just looks like they' re making Styles a punk like they did back when he was a stooge for Angle and Christian. And they make Abyss look like a punk without Hogan's ring. I hate what they've done with his character. He's gone from being "The Monster Abyss" to being "The Mentally Unstable Abyss who wants to be Mick Foley and is just a giant child" to now being "Abyss, the guy who used to be a Monster and can be a Monster again, but only while he's wearing Hulk Hogan's Hall of Fame ring." Let these guys stand on their own and stop being dependent on fossils to get them over.

What they've been doing with Bischoff and Jarrett and Bischoff and Foley is ridiculous, too. This isn't helping build anyone. It's just taking up time that could be used for Beer Money or the MCMG or any of a bunch of other guys.

TNA wasn't going to be a big challenger to Raw last night. They knew that. But those ratings numbers have to be worse than they expected. If they really wanted people to tune in and stay tuned in, they should have built it up like a pay-per-view. Every match should have been announced beforehand, with them throwing in RVD-Sting as a surprise during the show. They also need to do a better job getting guys signed more than a week before the show. There should have been teasing RVD's return with viral teasers the last couple of weeks, kind of like the WWE did with Jericho. A lot of wrestling fans check out stuff on the Internet, but not all of them do. You can have some guys come in as surprises and it works (Jeff Hardy, for instance). But if every big signing shows up as a surprise, it starts to lose its shock value, and you lose the advantage of having people tune in to see their debut because no one knows they're going to be on the show.

 

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

and Yes.

Everything that is wrong with TNA is included here. Not much to add.

 

I believe Pope's title match is at Lockdown, the PPV after Destination X. Why they'd set that main event up first is anyone's guess, because it takes the wind out of the Styles-Abyss contest at the coming PPV.

If Wolfe continues to hang around Styles and Flair, I could see them creating a Four Horsemen-esque stable rather easily. Styles as Flair, Wolfe as Tully, maybe Beer Money as the Andersons (I don't see MCMG as a good personality fit) and Flair as Dillon. Or if they follow the newer 4H template, Wolfe as Barry Windham, someone like Eric Young as Arn Anderson, and Matt Morgan as Sid/Luger.

I had some hope for Styles as the third incarnation of the Nature Boy (not acknowledging the Buddy Landell character in the timeline), but now that I've seen it, Flair would have been better off passing that torch to someone else. Actually, Pope would have been perfect -- he already does promos in the Flair/Dusty style and clearly has the personality and presence to pull it off. But they've got something good going with the street Pope deal, and the fans love him, so no sense fucking that up. Pope could use a better finisher, though.

Abyss is a confusing thing, though I appreciate they're at least trying with the Hogan rub. Maybe they'll unmask him and radically change his look. And anything's better than the whimpering mess he was booked as the last few months. But it's still way off.

The only way I can see this Bischoff-Foley-Jarrett angle paying off (and this is highly unlikely), is if they created a second show to take TNA's old Thursday night slot and separate Hogan/Bischoff TNA from Jarrett/Foley/Russo TNA. Yeah, yeah, brand split, but they have a better basis to pull it off with. Jarrett and Foley (and Sting) are fed up with all the changes Hogan and company have brought in, all the next guys and the four-sided ring and whatnot, so Jarrett somehow wins half-ownership of TNA and recreates the original version (six-sided ring, more stipulation matches, stays in the Impact Zone) while Hogan and Bischoff keep with their vision of TNA, which takes on a new name (four-sided ring, TV on the road). Let wrestlers switch between the brands and don't have them compete directly so much, but offer two distinct directions. They have the roster depth now that they could do it, but can they get TNA to offer two slots (especially if this 1.0 is the beginning and not an abberation)?

In defense of the Sting turn: The first time they tried it was 10 years ago, they dropped it weeks later. They didn't really push it as hard as they needed to, then gave up when it was obvious the fans weren't reacting. Sting did get the negative reaction this time, even if it took hitting Van Dam with a bat 50 times. The second time, he was kinda sorta a heel by association, but I don't think he ever stopped slapping hands with fans or working like a face. He just hung out with Main Event Mafia guys and fought faces instead of heels. But he rarely if ever participated in mass beatdowns, so he was sorta in between.

I could do without so much Flair and Hogan (in particular, I cringe watching Flair on TV because I'm pretty sure he's going to die on live TV, and I don't want to see that). But I also get why they're pushing them so hard, because they're trying to get casual fans who gave up on wrestling years ago back into the picture. I'm torn on Hogan's Randy the Ram impression; it's nice to see him not be The Immortal Hulk Hogan who feels no pain and can take on the world with one 24-inch python tied behind his back. The vulnerability is compelling, and the ring-passing scene with Abyss was actually pretty cool, all things considered. But enough with his cronies, particularly Brooke and Bubba, who add nothing to the equation.