Post by Talon Thorne on Apr 16, 2008 19:19:13 GMT -5
TNA 101
March 24, 2008
By Talon Thorne
Hello TNAddicts, ROHbots and WWElites, it is I your teacher, Talon Thorne (stole that catchphrase). After a grueling week your favorite has returned. Here’s the column!
iMPACT! Report Card
“Strange Bedfellows”
March 20, 2008
Action
-The opening tag team contest between Steiner and Petey vs Kaz and Eric Young was okay. The Petey Williams initiation reminds me of what Shane Douglas did with The Naturals. I like how Eric Young is only Super Eric in his feud with Black Reign and Rellik. It is easy to understand that he fears them the most in TNA and needs Super Eric to overcome it. Also did you notice Don West coyly made a remark about how Rellik is killer spelled backwards. I think they just say that to take a shot at Internet Fans!
-The Tomko vs Rhino match was too short. It also didn’t need the interference of AJ Styles. I liked that Earl Hebner was going to reverse the decision when he saw AJ hiding under the ring. After the match Team 3D jumped Christian Cage and Rhino. Kevin Nash came into the ring, Team Tomko cleared the ring and minutes later Kevin Nash was in the ring looking to get rid of the heels (sarcasm). TNA has repetitive segments where chaos ensues then Jim Cornette comes out gets mad and makes a match.
-The Xscape Qualifier was WAY too short. Sonjay played the heel by faking an injury and rolling up Homicide. Homicide showed their true edge by attacking Sonjay after the match.
-AJ Styles’ special guest was Karen Angle, who had new entrance music. The match between Booker T and AJ Styles was a PPV Caliber Matchup wasted on a horrible match. The match was too short, ridden with interference and had a weak finish.
-The Women’s Match was okay. It was announced that the fans would get to vote on who would challenge Awesome Kong for the Knockouts Title next week on the Live Episode of iMPACT! Velvet Sky was wearing a thong during the match. ODB won with a running Powerslam
-The MMA match was okay but I want to see a wrestling match at Lockdown between Joe and Angle. Angle was intense and this Sparring Contest made him look like a badass.
-The Main Event was okay but ended in a No Contest. The after match fallout was interesting hyping the return of Sting
Entertainment
- The Homecoming of Sharmell was okay. Booker T and Sharmell vs Robert Roode and Payton Banks in Six Sides of Steel at Lockdown! Robert Roode is such a good heel.
-Does anyone else notice how AJ is starting to stick up for himself. It’s progression towards when he becomes a heel. Team 3D are AJ Styles’ and Tomko’s partners in Lethal Lockdown. I love Team 3D, they are great heels.
-They mentioned that iMPACT! would be live next week right after the opening match.
-I REALLY liked the sitdown interview between Christian Cage and Rhino. It was funny to hear Mike Tenay try and act tough by saying if Christian tries anything he won’t be on his interview set again. The interview felt very real and this is what TNA needs to be about.
-The second date between Jay Lethal and SoCal Val was okay. Same as last week except that Black Machismo didn’t want to spend a lot of money.
-There was some real emotion in the Booker T interview but he must be hanging with Kurt Angle behind the scenes as he comes off as arrogant by calling himself a Living Legend.
-The Roughcut Segment was good. Kip comes off as the ass while BG comes off as the good guy. BG has a pet pig?
-I enjoyed the Angle interview. He was focused on Samoa Joe and delivered an intense promo.
-I liked the MMA Fighter’s comments but would have liked to see Joe actually training.
-Team Tomko had an interesting interview where Brother Ray kept on trying to take away AJ’s tag title and where Brother Devon stole Tazz’ catch phrase. Hmmm
-I am enjoying the Consequences Creed Vignettes. He will be returning on the iMPACT! before Lockdown. There is a good chance he will be in the Xscape Match at Lockdown.
-Can someone please tell Tenay and West to shut up during Promos and heated attacks
Six Points of iMPACT!
1) Team Tomko beats down Team Cage and the midcard face roster; Sting to return next week!
2) The Christian Cage/Rhino sit-down interview
3) Kurt Angle’s Sparring Session
4) Sharmell Homecoming
5) Roughcut Segment #3 (This says a lot about this show)
6) Consequences Creed Vignette: Prepare to face the Consequences
Armchair Booking
- There needed to be way more advertising for the Live iMPACT next week. The build should have begun last week and we should have seen commercials hyping the Live episode. I do like TNA calling this the biggest iMPACT in history but they have done so much overhyping in the past that it means little. I also see a problem with loyal TNA followers as no hardcore wrestling matches have been announced.
-How would Sting’s music appearing tell the announcers he was returning the following week? It doesn’t! Mike Tenay and Don West should have wondered if he was going to be there tonight.
-There were too many matches but not enough wrestling. With seven matches on the show there should be no reason that this episode of iMPACT has less wrestling then past episodes. I would limit there to be four to six matches per show with 40-55 minutes of wrestling per show (including commercials).
-Commercials hurt the show again this week as commercials cut out a big portion of short matches, which they shouldn’t have. Commercials should only air during the two longest matches, only if these matches are over 11 minutes in length. Unless the match is a squash it should never go less then two minutes. Every other match should be longer than 8 minutes with a nice 13 or more minute main event. (Air time)
-Booker T vs AJ Styles should NOT have happened tonight. There was no reason for the match and no build for it. Put AJ Styles against someone lower on the card and save this match for a show with hype. The Booker T/Robert Roode stuff was accomplished during Sharmell’s Homecoming.
-They should have aired the history between Rhino and Christian Cage before the Interview between them. That way unknowledgeable fans will be caught up on the history between the two.
-There was too much interference on this show. The opening tag match had interference, the AJ Styles vs Booker T Match had interference, so did Rhino vs Tomko and the Main Event. Matches need less interference. TNA did tone down the comedy a lot this week which was good.
-The Xscape Qualifier was way too short and shouldn’t have ended like that. It made #1 Contender to the Tag Titles, Homicide look like a fool. I like how LAX beat down Sonjay after the match however.
-I think by removing the Booker T vs AJ Styles match you could have given this time to the other matches on the show. Lesser character were spotlighted more which is good but guys like AJ Styles were spotlighted too much. AJ interfered in two matches, participated in a backstage interview and was also involved in a match. However much I like AJ, that is too much AJ for one show.
-Since LAX won the Tag Team Contendership they have lost two straight weeks in a row, that is not good business.
Grade: C
Overall Thoughts: After a few weeks of good shows I felt TNA really slipped here. There were no above average matches and no real highlights to the show. Booker T vs AJ Styles (which is a PPV Calber Match) had no advertisement whatsoever and was a forgettable match. The highlight of the show was the last minute of it where they teased Sting returning. Unfortunately for that as well, Tenay and West somehow knew Sting was coming back next week. For once the Creative Side of things was way better than the wrestling side of things but the Wrestling on this show sucked!
Show Rating: 1.0
Wrestlemania
I will not be ordering Wrestlemania this year!
To be quite honest nothing at Wrestlemania interests me. There might be one or two excellent matches but I could care less who wins or loses. The show seems very predictable. I don’t care about most of the wrestlers on the show.
As a matter of fact there are only a handful of characters in the WWE that have me currently interested in the WWE Product. Santino Marella, Mr. Kennedy, Matt Striker (fellow teacher) and William Regal. To me these are the only characters who have actually progressed. A big problem with WWE is that they don’t progress their characters. Triple H is the same Triple H he has been since 2001. John Cena is the same, so is Shawn Michaels. Randy Orton was interesting when he was kicking people’s heads in. WWE doesn’t make up for their lack of progression with storylines, which they have little of. What is worse is that they have only mediocre wrestling at best.
That is what I love about TNA. They have progression of characters from top to bottom. TNA has storylines. Even when TNA had weak storylines back in 2005, they had excellent wrestling to fall back on. WWE doesn’t have that.
I am not feeling bad about missing Wrestlemania this year because Lockdown is coming in 3 short weeks and that is a PPV I am ecstatic for.
Konnan suing TNA
Konnan to me is very much like Chris Benoit in that I have different opinions about him as a professional and as a person.
Professionally I thought Konnan was an okay worker but was excellent on the mic. He helped get LAX over which I what they needed.
As a person I hate Carlos Ashenoff. He is suing TNA for being racist yet he is actually racist himself. He calls TNA fans southern hicks and on a few occasions I have heard him to refer to someone as a cracker. This lawsuit Konnan is suing TNA over will take many years to work out, in the end I hope it bites him in the ass.
It should also be noted that Konnan hates me as well for calling him out on him being a racist. All he talked about was Rusty Trombones and how I live in my grandma’s basement. He could never answer why he didn’t leave TNA earlier since it was so racist there.
Kurt Angle’s Recent Comments on Betweentheropes.com
If you haven’t checked out this interview, then I suggest you do so because it was very interesting.
To sum it up Kurt Angle said that TNA Management has been adjusting to the two hour format on Spike TV. Complaints on the TNA Product such as tons of unclean finishes, too much comedy, too much interference and not enough wrestling has been addressed at TNA Creative Meetings. Angle said TNA will be moving towards fixing that and in the process move TNA to more of an MMA-type atmosphere.
Kurt Angle also hinted at Bobby Lashley coming to the WWE and he and Samoa Joe having an MMA-Style Match at Lockdown, which will also be the PPV where the new TNA direction will start taking form.
In my opinion there were both good and bad things that Angle said. I would like to see Bobby Lashley come to the WWE. What I don’t like is the move to an MMA Style. I am a wrestling fan, not an MMA Fan. If I wanted to watch MMA I would watch UFC. MMA fans aren’t going to tune onto TNA when the real thing is right next door. I would like to see TNA be more serious, tone down on the comedy, give more wrestling, give more clean finishes etc but I don’t want them to change their whole company into an MMA ripoff. I might be going overboard on what Kurt said but if the sparring session with Angle from this past week was a prime example of what TNA will be about, I don’t want any part of it (actually I do if that’s what was decided). I am a fan of storylines and comedy. If TNA went MMA then Vince Russo would be a waste. Just fix your problems and give me more wrestling and advertise your big matches and gimmick matches ahead of time and you will have an excellent product.
As for the MMA Match Angle and Joe will be having at Lockdown, where is the advertisement for it. Common fans will be thinking they will be having a wrestling match. I can accept an MMA Match as long as it has build but if not then no. An MMA match has closed fists, knockouts, time limit rounds and referee stoppages. This will be an interesting angle for TNA.
TNA going Live
TNA is depending on putting over the TNA Product to get people to tune into next week’s show as opposed to selling the Live aspect of it. TNA never even referred to TNA being Live until this past week, however they have been saying it will be the Biggest iMPACT ever. I don’t know about this but I don’t think TNA has advertised enough for the show to get it past a 1.3 rating.
The show could be good not knowing what will be happening going into it. Sting will be returning, the fans will choose the challenger for Awesome Kong’s Title and Kurt Angle will be sparring against AJ Styles and Tomko. Finally the main event will be huge and commercial free. I am excited for this show and hope it meets the expectations for both TNA and Spike TV.
State of TNA Address
I will be doing a semi-annual state of TNA address sometime in middle or late April. This will be my biggest report ever that will be split into two columns. I will be talking about both the business and creative sides of things. From progress reports on TNA’s characters to Ratings Progress and my Creative Evaluation. These two columns will likely be my biggest yet.
ROH vs TNA War of the Words
Originally this week was going to be part two of the war of the words but the TNAddict didn’t send in his response to the ROH-Bot. I will be giving him one more week to do so, then the fans will be able to vote on the winner.
12 million a year
I have just been informed that Dixie Carter recently reported that TNA makes more than 12 million dollars a year for the past three years and TNA is currently MAKING A PROFIT. Congratulations to TNA. I guarantee ROH doesn’t make half that much a year.