Professional wrestling thread

I'm hoping he fucks around with everything else and has the good common sense to leave Joe-Angle alon ... hell, who'm I kidding?

Ideal booking: some sort of draw that sets up a stip match (Iron Man, 60-minute time limit, something like that). Everything seems to be pointing to Angle beating Joe, and even if it's not clean, I don't think I'm on board with that one. Do TNA fans have the patience to sit through an hour-long ROH type of match? And does Angle have that kind of stamina anymore? I'd still pull the trigger on it. Shame they had to flip Joe back to being a heel, though.

 

TNA Genesis PPV results:

Kurt Angle over Samoa Joe
NWA World Heavyweight Title: Abyss over Sting by DQ, Abyss wins NWA title
NWA World Tag Team Titles: Latin American Exchange def. America's Most Wanted
Christian Cage over AJ Styles
Ron Killings/Lance Hoyt over Austin Starr/Alex Shelley
X Division Title: Christopher Daniels over Chris Sabin
Naturals over Sonjay Dutt/Jay Lethal
Voodoo Kin Mafia over Kazarian/Matt Bentley/Johnny Devine
Pre-Show: Eric Young d. Robert Roode

 

SPOILER ALERT













Without seeing the show myself, from a storyline perspective I think they did Angle-Joe as well as could be expected. I didn't want Joe to lose here, but it's not like he can't be Joe without an undefeated streak (he's lost to damn near everyone in ROH at some point, including Jay Lethal and Austin Aries/Starr, and it hasn't hurt him a bit there). Plus they let him turn back again a bit by offering the handshake and having Angle blow him off. A rematch, and you know there'll be multiple ones, should go longer than the 13 minutes they got tonight and probably will result in a 50/50 crowd.

I like the LAX angle; they're the hottest heels in American wrestling right now. They're so hot, they've turned three heels face in the last two weeks (America's Most Wanted and Petey Williams). ... I don't know about the Styles-Daniels split tease, but they're better rivals than friends, so maybe that'll work out. ... This whole Voodoo Kin Mafia thing is retarded squared -- like anyone is going to take the rantings of Billy Gunn seriously. It'll only get over because the target (WWE and DX) is so ripe. ... I'm curious and a touch confused about this Robert Roode buildup towards naming a new manager (which was well done) only to have him constantly down her throat after he loses twice. Let Traci shake her ta-tas and give Roode at least a moderate push before all this shit starts. ... And lastly: winning the world title on a DQ is LAME. It's all the indecisiveness of a DQ or run-in finish, only it does an even worse job getting the winner over (Abyss, the monstrous monster, can only beat Sting because Sting kicked his ass with too many weapons). Russo-riffic.

 

With it being a Suvivor Series match, couldn't they bring in Hogan, have Flair, Rhodes and Slaughter all out quickly and let Hogan beat all of the Spirit Squad? That lets Hogan hog the spotlight, the only thing he does well, and he's able to send a message to Big Show that he wants to wrestle him at Wrestlemania 23?

 

I suspect Hogan wouldn't want the insinuation that he's a "legend" and not a main eventer. Plus I wonder if WWE wants to deal with him and his creative control anyhow. The last two wrestlers he had a program with (Shawn Michaels and Randy Orton) jobbed to him on a PPV, then came out the next night on Raw and made the kind of remarks that implied that they're just glad they don't have to be around him anymore. They won't set up Hogan-Big Show until the Rumble at the earliest; maybe he'll distract Big Show in the main event after TBS says he's surpassed Andre as wrestling's giant, since I think that's the planned direction.

 

Hogan-Big Show. ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

http://www.baronvonraschke.com/

 

If it'll get the ECW belt off him, I'll gladly allow that to be the "I'm going to take a piss, get another beer and/or go to the merch table" match at WrestleMania.

Also, the WWE merch tables need to sell the Mr. Kennedy shirt.

 

I think, based on reading Wrestling Observer info second-hand, that Big Show will likely lose the belt at December to Dismember in the Elimination Chamber (that way he doesn't have to lose one-on-one with like RVD). Then he'll take the next couple of months off and start what would probably be his final program against Hogan, the theme being that it's been 20 years since Wrestlemania was in Detroit, and that's where Hogan slammed Andre in front of a million billion humans. So they're going to try and reprise that.

Apparently Big Show is hurting pretty bad, not quite to the point Andre was at the end of his career, but his phsyical condition is deterorating, and Show doesn't want to end it like Andre did, barely able to move (according to Meltzer's obit of Andre, he had almost no feeling in his legs during the Hogan match at WM III). Plus he thinks he has a decent future in comedy, which would be a lot easier on him phsyically even if he became a 7-0 Chris Farley.

 

Anyone see the Joe-Angle match from last night?
I just watched it. I can't believe they were only given 13 minutes to do a match (despite having 35 minutes of pay-per-view time left). That's basically a TV match! Anyway, the match was OK. A little too much brawling for my taste. I really think TNA blew it by having these two men truly hate each other, instead of making it a match just to see who the better wrestler is. There's so much more these two men have to offer in the ring. If I want to see talent wasted, I'll just continue to watch WWE shows.
Fortunately, it appears that this isn't the end of the feud. There's still time to make this right.
As for the ending, as long as the feud's continuing, I don't have a problem with it. I know a lot of people didn't think Joe (TNA's biggest star) should lose to Angle (someone from WWE) in their first matchup. But, it's Kurt freakin Angle. He's still the best. And you don't bring him in to job him out in his first match. Put him over, elevate his star even more, and then have Joe beat him in a rematch.

But, then again, it's Vince Russo booking all this, so who the hell knows where it's going. LOL

 

Joe is the type of character that can absorb a loss without it hurting him. The ROHbots still adore him and he once lost to freaking Jay Lethal. His character can take a tapout better than Angle, particularly since this is his second match with the company.

Meanwhile, you can tell Russo has his hands in the cookie jar with the way the belts have been treated:

World title -- changes hands on a flaky DQ after Sting and Abyss beat the shit out of each other, breaking multiple rules in the process before the ref calls Sting on a misdemeanor.

Tag titles -- changes hands because TNA management unilaterally decides beating up a woman and threatening to burn an American flag is grounds for pulling the belts. Any time a title change takes place outside the ring, outside of an injury or departure, is grade A bullshit fresh from the farms to your doorstep.

X title -- flips from Senshi to Chris Sabin to A.J. Styles to Christopher Daniels in, what, a month?