2012 Pro Wrestling Thread

The problem with the WWE in this case is that they brought in a guy who the fans recognized, and tried to shove him down fans' throats as a different character when the fans knew who he was.

Once in a while, it can work, like Umaga (the former Jamal of Three Minute Warning), if the wrestler can be believable. In Tensai's case, no chance.

 

I don't even mean those guys so much as I mean Angle, Hardy, Christian, Booker T, RVD and even some of the less prominent WWE alum with good upsides, such as D'Angelo Dinero, Matt Morgan and to a degree Shannon Moore and Brian Kendrick. The gap in prominent names between the two organizations isn't that big. It's even narrower in terms of talent. But any upticks in the ratings will be very slow to develop; try as everyone will, there's no magic bullet that gets them to 2.0 inside six months.

 

The problem with TNA is that they keep relying on the old names to deliver the ratings instead of creating and building their own guys.

It's 2012, not 1996. I'm not interested in seeing Hogan, Bischoff and Sting anymore. It'd be fine if they brought in ex-WWE guys as a one-off to build up their own roster, with a few guys/gals (Angle, Anderson, Dudleys, Mickie and Tara) to enhance their own group. But when you spend half your show on retreads, it gets tough to watch.

 

It also worked for Rikishi, because he bulked up and changed his hair color, plus there was a masked period as the Sultan in between Fatu and Rikishi. But it's hard to pull off and it takes an awful lot to work to make happen. WWE probably gambled that enough time had passed that they could bring him back and have him be a blank slate. Not so much. Maybe if Albert had grown hair?

 

http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/quicknews/article_62078.shtml

Vince McMahon is coming back to Raw next Monday to "evaluate John Laurinaitis's job performance"

Prediction: Laurinaitis is put on probation, Vince is on every week to keep an eye on him and to take credit for whatever ratings increase may occur.

 

Oh yay, more Vince.

 

In fairness, we really haven't had much Vince in the last two years after Nexus took him out. Few one-off appearances and that short heel run where he tried to screw CM Punk last summer and ended up getting fired by Triple H

 

VINCE IS ALIVE?!?! I thought his limousine exploded!

 

Chris Benoit killed his family and himself to bring him back to life.

 

You mean this didn't happen?

 

But it looked sooooo real:

 

You just were imagining it. Just like we all were just imagining a computer was the GM on Raw.