TNA thoughts

I don't usually watch TNA, but as the wife is away for the night, I decided to put myself through an episode of Impact. And what i've seen has been pretty awful...

Opening match, AJ wins the Global title from Rob Terry. No problem with that at all, AJ is a damned talented wrestler. Within 10 minutes of the end of the match, though, they air a promo, running down the Top 10 contenders. at number 10 is Rob Terry... introduced as the Global Champion. is the promo guy not watching their own show? Surely they could have redubbed it, knowing that Terry was going to drop the title?

Taz and Tenay going over the Mick Foley returned / ECW angle. The mystery of why Taz wears glasses was finally explained! Tenay was clearly reading from a script in front of him, on the desk. At least you couldn't tell what Taz was looking at.

Jeff Hardy vs Samoa Joe. Potentially, a huge match-up. To all extents and purposes, a dream match that wouldn't have looked out of place on a major WWE PPV. Now, it's nothing but a filler match between a lacklustre Joe and a Jeff who's catching his brother up in the pie stakes. But, to emphasise things, Jeff is No 2 on the Top 10 contenders list, and Joe is Number 4. I've written before about TNA giving away PPV level matches for free on TV, but in this case, that's not my issue. What was particularly shite was them playing a phone call from Eric Bischoff during the damned match! These are supposed to be 2 of the top 5 guys in the company, going by the rankings. and yet, a phone call from Eric Biscoff who's not even in the arena takes precedence? How are guys supposed to get over and be taken seriously as viable challengers, when they're presented as being lower down TNA's priorities than a guy who's not even there?

Knockouts division... now seems to be full of bleached blonde, failed porn star lookalikes, with no real genuine quality workers. Could someone explain the difference between this and WWE's divas?

MCMG vs Beer Money. Streetfight. In itself, an okay match. But having it as the first of a Best-of-5 match series between the two teams seems a really strange decision. MCMG win the belts, at long last. Beer Money, instead of getting their rematch get an entire series? I think the better way of doing it would have been for Beer Money to hold the belts, and drop it to MCMG at the end of the 5 match series?

Dixie Carter... has a magnificent rack on her.

This ECW angle. I'm trying to see what TNA will gain from it. For a company who keep saying they want to challenge WWE, who moved to Monday nights to do so are now promote a PPV for a company who now longer exist, haven't existed for about a decade, and don't have anyone who can make a difference in wrestling any more. People always say that Triple H hasn't adapted his character in years, but neither has RVD. Rhyno, dreamer, Raven, Richards... none of these can offer anything from an in-ring perspective, and Dixie has decided to give them a PPV instead. It just seems utterly pointless. I can't imagine the ECW fans of old buying the PPV in high numbers, and the rumoured main event between Jerry Lynn and RVD is not a big seller at all. The most obvious way I can see to 'save' the PPV is to put Abyss in the main event against RVD in some kind of street-fight type match. Jerry Lynn is a decent performer, but he's virtually a nobody in the grand scheme of things.

I watched TNA(or any wrestling) for the first time in months last night and thought it was as stupid as ever, a phone call in the middle of a match between two of your biggest stars?? really, did nobody learn anything from wcw??

Thought is was pretty dull to be honest, and the only thing I could think with the whole ECW is that all the "ECW" guys in the ring are better known for other stuff, or have been in TNA before(for years in most cases), which kinda takes what little interest i would have in that story away.

Tommy crying AGAIN!!! was pretty funny though, mans one soft bitch.

Would anyone else slip Dixie Carter a length or have i got a problem??

She'd defo get it!

Am I the only one that cant stand wwe at the minute? I think tna is the much better show at the minute as I find it genuinely exciting.

Horizon wrote:

Am I the only one that cant stand wwe at the minute? I think tna is the much better show at the minute as I find it genuinely exciting.

TNA this week was crap. I normally enjoy TNA and try to ignore the stupid things but it was so dull this week, I actually fell asleep. RAW was much better than iMPACT! this week.

It was a pretty poor show compared to other shows. It was meant to be a show of answers. To me it was a show of more questions.

Why was Brother Ray wearing a 'LAX T-Shirt?
Why did Jeff Hardy attack Samoa Joe after the match?
How long has Socal Val had a blocked Nose? Is it flu or simply a blocked nose?

TNA is still good they keeping getting better over the years it is good for the wwe also it makes vince work a little harder to put out a better show to make sure he stays on top but so far he is not worried about this at least to Tna gets better ratings than him

Horizon wrote:

Am I the only one that cant stand wwe at the minute? I think tna is the much better show at the minute as I find it genuinely exciting.

I'm with you on this on even though this weeks TNA was rubbish and the only thing I watch WWE for is the Nexus.

tim157 wrote:

TNA is still good they keeping getting better over the years it is good for the wwe also it makes vince work a little harder to put out a better show to make sure he stays on top but so far he is not worried about this at least to Tna gets better ratings than him

I don't believe this mate. TNA has never been on the radar for Vince in my opinion. The only reason WWE programming has picked up recently is because the company has realised the current stars are getting old and newer talent is being pushed through making the shows interesting and fresh. I doubt its got anything to do with TNA getting 1.2 and 1.3 ratings.

Geronimo(Jamie Thurtle) wrote:

tim157 wrote:

TNA is still good they keeping getting better over the years it is good for the wwe also it makes vince work a little harder to put out a better show to make sure he stays on top but so far he is not worried about this at least to Tna gets better ratings than him

I don't believe this mate. TNA has never been on the radar for Vince in my opinion. The only reason WWE programming has picked up recently is because the company has realised the current stars are getting old and newer talent is being pushed through making the shows interesting and fresh. I doubt its got anything to do with TNA getting 1.2 and 1.3 ratings.

Not forgetting, of course, the 8000 PPV sales...

just wait for flair to get back and tna will be good again. 2 weeks (1 set of recordings) without him and the show has lacked quality promos. The matches have been shite on impact for a while but it hasn't stood out cos of the promo work, without it, the show really drags. This is transitional phase again though, no rivalries really. With angle just fighting whoever, sting away, rvd having the 3 way then slight abyss interest, anderson just about starting rivalry with morgan. The most advanced rivalries are currently knockout and tag. So the show will obv not be great

matches shite, but getting better, but still too many nothing matches, is what i mean. Tag and the odd 'big matchup' have been good.

Sexton Hardcastle wrote:

just wait for flair to get back and tna will be good again. 2 weeks (1 set of recordings) without him and the show has lacked quality promos. The matches have been shite on impact for a while but it hasn't stood out cos of the promo work, without it, the show really drags. This is transitional phase again though, no rivalries really. With angle just fighting whoever, sting away, rvd having the 3 way then slight abyss interest, anderson just about starting rivalry with morgan. The most advanced rivalries are currently knockout and tag. So the show will obv not be great

Does this not show a real lack of long-term planning then? That TNA are going to have a couple of weeks of nothing really going on at all, while they decide who's going to feud with who?

And any company that is hinging on the return of Flair to 'be good again'...

Grecian wrote:

Sexton Hardcastle wrote:

just wait for flair to get back and tna will be good again. 2 weeks (1 set of recordings) without him and the show has lacked quality promos. The matches have been shite on impact for a while but it hasn't stood out cos of the promo work, without it, the show really drags. This is transitional phase again though, no rivalries really. With angle just fighting whoever, sting away, rvd having the 3 way then slight abyss interest, anderson just about starting rivalry with morgan. The most advanced rivalries are currently knockout and tag. So the show will obv not be great

Does this not show a real lack of long-term planning then? That TNA are going to have a couple of weeks of nothing really going on at all, while they decide who's going to feud with who?

And any company that is hinging on the return of Flair to 'be good again'...

I think this is because Hulk or Bishcoff was booking at one point and now Dreamer is booking (something like that).

It makes no difference who's booking, Dixie Carter should have made sure that they had something in place to continue storylines. You couldn't ever see Vince sacking someone on Raw, and then saying 'you know what, we'll just put out a crap show out this week while we figure out what to do next week.'

If Dreamer is booking, then he should be familiar with the product and what's going on to actually book something that continues the top-line feuds.

To be honest, I didn't think that on the whole it was a bad show. There were a few annoying things like the Bischoff call during the Joe vs Hardy match, but at least the match went on for a fair bit afterwards. The end promo was really poor though and really killed the show.

I've actually enjoyed TNA more over the last 3 or 4 weeks than I have for quite some time, with the focus shifting more to the in ring action as opposed to having a couple of 5 minute matches and a hundred 2 minute promos. This is exactly what TNA should be focussing on as they don't have many great promo guys, but they do have a lot of excellent wrestlers.

imo last 2 weeks been poor, but before that it was the best it has been.

its not a stable company, they will change last minute for anything.

im still perplexed about this "announcement" do they even know what it is, didnt JJ tease he would be making an announcment at the last ppv, then didnt?