Post by Talon Thorne on Apr 16, 2008 19:11:57 GMT -5
TNA 101
Feedback and the iMPACT Report Card
By Talon Thorne
As a way to get you the readers and my scholars into the groove of reading TNA 101, I thought I would cement this column on this site here at TNAWrestlingNews.com by posting multiple articles. I hope to keep my columns fact based or informational but will occasionally shoot my opinions. This is one of them. Next week is my first PPV Report Card as well as the Report Card for this week’s edition of iMPACT!
Recent Epiphanies/ Thoughts
• TNA 101 will be doing a monthly Report Card for all the TNA PPVs. Unlike all the other news sites who break down PPVs with 5 Star Systems and with negative attitudes going in, I will unveil the first ever Grading System. Who better to give actual letter grades than a certified teacher? To me letter grades are easier to comprehend than those star ratings. And for those who are fans of the star rating system, just understand that A+ is the same as a 5 Star Match. I however am much more lenient on criticism and grade on a curve.
• Special Thanks to Newton for the recent plug of my debut column. By the way have I informed you readers that you can read “The Professor’s Position” every week on TNAWrestlingNews.com.
• On TNA doing horribly in ticket sales for the Against All Odds PPV: There should not be a major concern over this. The biggest fault with the Internet Wrestling Community is that they commonly base their opinions of a company on behind-the-scenes information rather than that of a show. Remember fans, you aren’t meant to know what goes on off the camera. What you need to know is that TNA will either sell tickets at a lower price once the PPV comes really close and/or give away tickets/seats to fans while upgrading the ones already purchased by the fanbase
• I will let the fans decide if they want me to write a progress report on TNA iMPACT! every week. Remember I grade the shows in a positive manner unlike those guys from 411.
• What an emotional Superbowl! The ultimate underdogs, the New York Giants defeat the unstoppable Patriots in a last minute upset. The story for the Superbowl was a perfect one. The only thing that would have made this memorable moment even more memorable is if the Patriots defeated the Colts in the Semi-Finals rather than the Chargers. It would have been cool to see Eli accomplish what his brother Payton couldn’t. This was a very good Superbowl nonetheless.
Responses to my feedback:
One of my policies on this column isn’t to name the people who gave me feedback unless you want me to. Therefore the feedbackers will remain anonymous until further notice.
1) my name is ******. i live in the u.k. i am a huge fan of tna wrestling. i am commenting on tna bringing good talents. i consider that tna is interested on old, already-pushed, former talents, such as the ones fro wwe. every other matches on tna is perfect, but some stars such as black reign, and vkm should never be seen in tna, as viewed from many fans. i am writing this to you because i believe you work for the company and you will listen to me as a fan. many viewers including me wants tna wrestling to sign this talents: brian Danielson, nigel mcguinness, kevin steen, pac(from pwg), super dragon, chris hero(make a better hero of him), claudio Castagnoli, the briscos, kenta(not kobashi), cima, shingo, mistico(please if you people can have your heads examined and sign this talent beefore he signed with the wwe), jack evans, el generico, miko satomura( a good japanese woman talent), human tornado, roderick strong , gabe spolsky(best booker)
i have just yesterday spoken to someone with this same coments, and you should also listen please. signing most of these talents will bring more explosive 'impact' to tnaw. furtherly, the more tna signs old 'rejects', the more they are weighing tna down. please make dixie to listen to these fans carefully.
now deciding my 'new championship' opinion. i have a good 'holy' idea on what championships that could be introduced. these are:
toxic championship( a hardcore type championship)
super x division or middleweight championship
macro tag team championship( a sixman type division)
maybe this is interesting but if not contact me.
May the Good Lord
bless you as you listen
to these comments.
Sir, thank you for the feedback! I do not and have never worked for TNA Wrestling, however if I did, I would immediately erase this e-mail on grounds that you were insulting me by saying I needed my head examined. Those who do not understand something often start throwing insults at it. As for your ideas, yes, some of those names should be looked at by TNA. Many of the stars you named are currently under contract with Ring of Honor. Remember it takes more to be successful as a wrestler than just pure wrestling ability. As for the championships you believe TNA should create, I think are unnecessary and badly named. I won’t even get into the religious part of your e-mail because I don’t want to bring bad attention to myself.
2) Good Column, I think you should clarify the background you have in wrestling to give the readers a sense of where you come from.
I will do just that. I have been watching wrestling for about 11 years now. WCW was the company I originally watched. When they went under all I was left with was the WWE. Since 2001 I have followed the WWE but only order the big four PPVs each year. I was ecstatic when TNA came onto the scene in 2002. To be quite honest, I never liked TNA as much as the WWE until 2005. I have ordered all of TNA’s PPVs since the first 3-Hour one. My knowledge is beyond just what I watch. I have studied DVDs, bought merchandise, read reports, read books, read magazines and talked to my closest friends who are older and remember the older times of wrestling. To this day I watch everything TNA, all WWE TV and have purchased Ring of Honor’s recent PPV DVDs. (More on Ring of Honor to end the column)
3) I think you failed to mention the World’s X Cup in your list of match types for TNA
The World’s X Cup has never been a match type. It is a tournament. In the future I will write an Informational Column on the Tournaments and Yearly Traditions of TNA. Some readers may have confused my mention of the Fight For the Right Tournament Match in my last article. When I mentioned the FFTR Match I was referring to the Reverse Battle Royal into Gauntlet Match seen for the past two years in TNA.
3) what in your educated opinion does TNA need to do to improve the booking/writing.
Now Mr. Luker that is a good question. In a future column I will definitely get in the nitty gritty of TNA’s Booking. Until that happens I will offer an easier solution. Two words: Consultation and Editing. To me Vince Russo is one of the most creative men in the wrestling business, when in a controlled atmosphere. His biggest problem is the execution of his storylines and concepts. TNA needs to hire consultants for the creative team. Add some fresh new ideas to the booking team from guys currently in TNA and some not. Mike Tenay, Terry Taylor, Scott D’Amore are just some names in TNA who could offer great consultation for TNA. Add in the ideas of many of the stars of TNA. These ideas could add a new view to the creative direction for TNA.
The other half is editing. TNA desperately needs to hire an editor. To me the best candidate is Jim Cornette. The editor would not attend booking meeting but would look over and edit the final script. He would check for many things like logic, continuity, simplicity and fresh ideas. I could definitely get into this more but I will save it for a few weeks.
Four Major News Stories of the last week:
After the critical success of “Global iMPACT” there is talk within TNA to move the booking to become more serious and focus on athletic personalities and competition.
I am not against this. I would love to see a hybrid of the Athletic/Competitive Direction for TNA and its current direction. To me two things stand out about this that I want to see. More wrestling and a more serious product. It would be like TNA 2007 mixed with TNA 2005.
There has been talk of giving the TNA Knockouts there own show on Saturday Nights. This show would consist of photoshoots, matches, interviews and much more.
While I like the Knockouts and want to catch as much TNA as I can, I am not high on this idea. To me the Knockouts don’t deserve more attention than any of the other three divisions. However I would like to see a secondary show, possibly the airing of iMPACT!. It could have Xplosion Xclusives including matches and segments. It could air right after the iMPACT! Replay and go for one hour.
Rumors have sprung up about TNA making every other iMPACT! live starting as soon as March. The idea would be to move the tapings to Thursday and Friday, film one live episode then tape the following week’s episode
Getting iMPACT live would have been my show goal of 2008. This is a major step towards that goal and could be better for ratings. I have a train of thought that makes me believe that the ratings would be higher if spoilers didn’t leak on the internet. Unfortunately there are many setbacks to a Live Show. TNA would have to be top notch with its production which sometimes challenges the company. We will see how this story develops.
Reports have stated that Raven is finished with TNA or is near finished. Despite contrary viewpoints on this, there is little disagreement that Raven’s role in TNA is just about done with.
If the news of Raven and TNA parting is true, then my opinion is very similar to Newton’s. (His opinion can be viewed on his most recent column). To me Raven had his time in the spotlight and he benefited from it. I think for what is best for TNA and not for what is best for a wrestler. Raven is a very talented worker and I wish him the best of luck in the future.
iMPACT! Report Card- “Boss…or Partner?”
January 31, 2008
• I have mixed feelings about the opening segment. I liked the overall promo from Team 3D about how if God was a heel he would be in Team 3D. What I didn’t like is a few things. What exactly are the stipulations of the Team 3D and Devine vs X Division Match? I thought if the X Division won then there would be a 275 weight limit to the X Division. I guess by what the announcers said then Team 3D would have to get down to 275 to compete in TNA.
• The Rock N Rave Infection vs Petey and Steiner match was okay. Once again partners feuded in a match. I like Petey’s new look. I think Lex Luger wore something like that in the 90’s. By the way did anyone else not see Steiner turning on Petey? At least they explained why he would do such a thing.
• According to the announcers, from this point forward, titles won’t change hands on a Disqualification. That explains the Canada Controversy. I don’t like the change but it is no big deal.
• I wasn’t that interested in the Kip James vs Hernandez Match. Why is it that Salinas looks so very *friendly* personty all the time? Is it because TNA zooms in on her breasts during LAX’s entrance. So Kip James fires Roxxi Laveaux erupting a feud between Kip and BG…HMMM
• I like how at the beginning of the show, AJ finally stuck up for himself.
• TNA could have made more match time if they made AJ referee in Jim Cornette’s Office. For the first time ever I hear an “AJ Sucks” chant. Poor AJ
• I liked how Tomko stuck up for his little buddy AJ against Kurt Angle in one of the backstage segment. It was a feel-good moment.
• The Judas Mesias squash was good but I wish Judas had a little more intensity.
• While I liked the James Mitchell Promo after the squash, when did Judas Mesias become James Mitchell’s son? Two weeks, two sons. I guess Mitchell adopted him recently to feud with Abyss.
• I think they could have cut out the Knockouts 3-Way Match. The Awesome Kong Promo built up for the Women’s Title Match at Against All Odds. All the 3-Way did was allow Angelina Love a little momentum when ODB needed it. If they would have cut out the 3-Way and the AJ Styles/Jim Cornette in-ring segment, we would have had at least 12 more minutes of wrestling in the 5 matches we had.
• I enjoyed the Six Person Mix Tag Match pitting Robert Roode, James Storm and Payton Banks against Eric Young, Sonjay Dutt and Miss Brooks. Apparently now Jackie Moore is Jacqueline. The match had some good action but like every other match needed more time. I wasn’t surprised that Booker T returned to kick Roode’s ass.
• Why wasn’t Christian Cage seen until 3 minutes before the closing of the show? He is involved in the main event of Against All Odds but he is playing a background character. I wish he had a more prominent role on iMPACT! this week.
• Samoa Joe returned to his badass self this week at the Contract Signing. Apparently TNA is doing everything to sign Joe to this 5-year contract including giving Samoa Joe everything he wants. This all got ruined when Matt Morgan threw a pen in the face of Joe prompting Joe to put Morgan through a table. Cornette was furious at Morgan for once again screwing up. He should just fire Morgan from Management and make him into a full-time wrestler.
• I have mixed feelings about the Shark Boy segment. I liked how he developed his character more but am not too behind the actual Stone Cold character. If TNA did something creative like say that Shark Boy thought he was Stone Cold after so many hard blows to the cranium that would be interesting. I really like Slick Johnson as he is a good personality.
• The main event was focused around AJ as referee. The match was too short but had some good action in the 8 minute match. Tomko got one of the biggest wins of his career by defeating Angle with Christian’s help. Tomko didn’t know Christian helped him.
• It looks like Christian wants Tomko to bury the hatchet with him.
The Good
• Good action for the little match time we got
• The development for Tomko
• Some good build for some of the matches for Against All Odds
• The Contract Signing made Joe back into the badass we all want him to be.
• The Awesome Kong/Raisha Sayid Promo was good
• For what its worth, the Shark Boy beatdown was a solid segment
• Bullet Bob and BG’s Backstage Promo
• I enjoyed how Tomko stuck up for AJ and how AJ finally stuck up for himself.
The Negatives
• Not enough wrestling with only 28 minutes.
• The Kaz Promo (We seriously are going to see a “Rat Trap on a Pole” Match next week)
• The announcers tonight (What are the rules for the X Division Street Fight at Against All Odds?; Why go to having titles not change hands on a DQ?)
• Same old negative stuff (Overuse of concepts; not explaining storylines well enough)
The Grade: C-
The Rating: No rating reported
Overall Thoughts: I thought the show once again had a good game plan. Too me there was too much going on however. We got about 28 minutes of wrestling. Too me the Awesome Kong Promo could have accomplished everything for the buildup for the Women’s Championship Match. The AJ Styles In-Ring Segment, the multiple backstage segments and the Women’s Match could have been eliminated for less matches but more wrestling. There was good and bad about this show but to me it was underwhelming.
That’s it for TNA 101 on TNA Tuesday. Thank you for joining me once again. Hope to hear from you. Please email me at Talon_DR@yahoo.com or post your thoughts on the forums as I will be scanning them. Until next time, Nuff Said!