dorianb

Lol, It'll probably be the same thing, just replace "Nash" with "Taker." They'll probably just let U-Manga fall by the wayside and look un-monster like on his way to "future endeavors." I don't think they care anymore.

I hate that Burke got released, but I'm not surprised at all. I really like the guy's smack talk in the ring and while he was coming to the ring, but he tended to suck ass in the ring at times. That debacle with CM Punk during that 3 way was horrible. He had hard times before that with Punk and other guys during his ECW time. But even through all of that, I'm sure he's one of those "revolving door" guys that could probably come back after a little "seasoning" elsewhere. I remember seeing him on tapes I had of OVW and he had that crowd loving him, so he definitely has charisma. Dykstra/Doane's release surprises me too. He seemed to be a perfect candidate for a breakout push after leaving a faction. I guess it was not to be. It's not all bad for him though, he got to screw Mickie James for quite some time. Lucky Bastard lol. What were some of the backstage problems he had?

I can't see them making Christian anywhere near a full time main event guy. Even when he was getting more attention in WWE towards the end of his stay there, they still jobbed him out ferociously to Batista on Smackdown. He'll probably be brought back in a attention filled return feud going into a PPV and after that it'll be back to being the CLB again and wrestling for the IC title or if they really want to screw him, the hallowed ECW championship lol. And on the flip side, I would've really liked it if Jericho came back in TNA instead of this WWE run. TNA sucks ass at keeping things interesting, but I think with a guy like Jericho, if you let him just go out and do his own thing, it could be very fresh and entertaining. He's kinda teetering that line between interesting and uninteresting right now in WWE, even after the sudden title change. He seems restricted in this WWE run.

Lol, I'm sure you guys still have very interesting stories to tell. I'm no superstar, that's for sure lol. I just lucked out and got a pretty good (and somewhat painful lol) opportunity.

Before I even begin, I just want to say that I am not trying to disrespect Samoa Joe at all in this topic, I've had the honor to have wrestled him and he is a class act guy without a doubt. I read an excerpt on a website recently (can't remember which site) of an interview with Terry Funk. In the interview, Funk called TNA a "graveyard" for guys that have come there. It got me to thinking about Samoa Joe and how he's seemed to lose some of the steam he once had in wrestling. What I mean by that is, a few years ago when Joe came into TNA, it was quickly viewed as a shot in the arm for the company. People expected great things from Joe with his style in the ring and he delivered. Then after a while, they got Rhino, Christian, Angle and other guys and they began to put him on the back burner. Joe was pretty much made to look like a killer at first. The Chris Daniels/AJ Styles feud was awesome, with Joe beating Daniels to a bloody pulp and carrying the towel with Daniels' blood on it. Joe was an aggressive monster. Once Angle came in, one blood producing headbutt seemed to shift the aggressive tag right over to Angle. They made Joe more traditional, and Joe just isn't a traditional wrestler in any way shape or form. They had him cut regular long-winded TV promos instead of the short and sweet promos they had him cut when he was being pushed as his normal aggressive self. The night he won the title, I felt (and it's only my opinion) like Joe was made to look a little weak in the match, probably not on purpose or anything, but with Angle coming out in his MMA gear and working a more stiff/legitimate MMA looking style as opposed to Joe still working like it's a wrestling match, hurt Joe more than helped when he won. His title reign was weird because they put him in a traditional spot again. Long-winded promos with him chasing Sting, randomly cursing out Nash without ever just slapping him around like he could. They made him look weak and sometime clueless, like he never had any killer instinct or never came into battle alone and anyone that's paid attention to him knows he has that and doesn't necessarily need any guidance. To me, the way he's been handled seems to be taking a toll on him. He doesn't seem as crisp as he once was. That could be because of the matters I stated before or the fact that he doesn't work nearly the amount of fast pace matches like he did when he could work ROH much more frequently. He's having to work guys like Nash and Sting instead of guys like AJ Styles or Chris Daniels. On the Impact where he wrestled in the 3 man gauntlet Nash set up for him, he was more winded in the end than I had ever seem him before and I've watched him go a long time in the ring. My question to everyone else is: Do you see the same change? If so, why do you think he's changed? What do you think they should be doing with Joe right now? And of course anything else you want to add. I just was curious as to what everyone else thinks about him.

The belt means something, but not enough to carry it's own life anymore. It doesn't really put a wrestler up to another level anymore because of how many titles are out there now and the fact that there's not much suspension of belief by viewers anymore and they know it's fake. CM Punk is a good example, the belt made people pay some attention to him, but it didn't automatically make him a top guy, it took a long time for the crowd to catch on, and they never fully did. That's why it was so easy for them to put him back out of the main event scene and into the tag division. It used to be a time where a guy got the belt and it instantly told the crowd, "this is who you will love the most," or "this is who you'll hate the most." That dynamic isn't there anymore. People don't fall for that and it takes away from the belt. It truly is just a prop that only means something to the guy being given the title from a career standpoint, and the hardcore fans who are happy a underutilized worker finally got the chance to run with the ball.

When I said that the belt was like a flag, I meant it as being a representation of that company, so it made it mean more because both rival feds had a world championship.

I've never understood why people who know pro wrestling is a work would worry about the credibility of a belt anymore. It has no real value in this day and age unless you are a young kid who knows no better (and that isn't meant as an insult). Belts used to mean something when there were other feds like WCW, but that was only because the belt was like a flag that could be stolen and crapped on if a champ jumped ship.

That was one of the weirdest title changes I've seen lol. When Jericho hit the floor, it was the most awkward time ever until the show went off. It seemed more like Jericho retained the title more than winning it that night. The match seemed to be worked to look that way. Plus Jericho stiffed the hell out of Batista with that hook twice. That B.S. spot at the end must have pissed him off because he did not pull those punches. The whole thing was just awkward, almost had me wondering if Jericho winning wasn't planned or something. Batista just sitting there threw me off and Jericho not really celebrating threw me off as well. Even Lawler and Cole seemed nonchalant about the title change. Weird.

I kinda screwed up what I meant about injuries or suspensions, I didn't just mean new guys but I typed just new guys because Bourne was on my mind. But I really just meant in general. Some examples I can't think of off the top of my head are: Kennedy's injury during his money in the bank storyline D.H Smith looked like he had something going for a second then he got suspended Regal after KOTR Undertaker after Mania 23 Jeff Hardy every time he gets close to maybe getting the title lol RVD with the Ohio incident and of course Evan Bourne I'm sure there's many more examples out there over the past few years but I can't remember right now.

I just watched it and I swear I saw nothing stiff at all from Saturn. The 2 worst things were the slam into the steps after bell landed on the floor and the super kick which just looked snug but probably wasn't. It just looked like Bell threw a couple bad arm drags, and Saturn knew they looked bad and just wanted to take the heat back but slipped on the kick to cut him off. He threw him out of the ring to get himself together and slow the match down. It looked like it was Bell's fault that he landed tight on the floor, he went out straight-forward like a tope or something and hooked his feet, in stead of turning more to the side. It happens all the time when a match seems to go off course, it has a very good chance of going downhill because both guys start to go off track with the intentions of taking over for a sec and getting it back on track. It's like the CM Punk/ Elijah Burke botch fest. A spot got messed up so they both tried to take over the match to get it back on track but they kept botching because neither let the other take over. It was Saturn's match and Bell was a fall guy. I've seen much worse in terms of jobbers getting beat up. In fact, I remember seeing Saturn be a lot rougher with guys on Metal/Jakked back in the day. But the Steiners used to be so much worse with jobbers back in WWF lol and jobbers got the crap kicked out of them in the NWA telecasts looking back at them now.

I hope the Raven lawsuit works, but I have a feeling it won't ultimately, I hope I'm wrong though. The biggest pipe dream is a union, but in the end, a union would be the death of most small indy feds, because there would be no way most indy promoters would be able to pay a universal payment to workers. It would have to be a substantial minimum amount that we would have to be paid, and places would fold really fast. A lot of places have a hard enough time paying the measly amounts they pay now. The only fed that could survive that of course would be WWE and then jobs would be few and far between because they couldn't fire talent for any reason they wanted to. It sucks, but wrestling seems doomed to always be a B.S business to guys who aren't big stars.

It's cool that jingus is in wrestling as well, I was never questioning whether or not he knew what he was talking about. I was more or less trying to say that it is low, but it's not really that unexpected and it could be a lot worse and it is worse in a lot of places. Everyone has a choice to wrestle or not and in the end, people make that choice and work to hopefully make more money. Now this could maybe all change if everyone came together, but that's about as impossible as impossible is lol. And it's not the promoters' faults, it's the workers for letting it be this way and the promoters are just having their pick and making all the rules and whatever little money there is to be made.

At the end of the day, all of these guys in TNA signed a contract to work there. The opportunity always outweighs the BS in wrestling, believe me. I'd wrestle for free to get a shot in WWE ( of course I'd eventually want to get paid if I made it lol) and I know they're crooked as hell, but who isn't? Pro wrestling is a business built from the premise of scamming people. I'm sure you already know that this is a shady business and I definitely knew it before I got into it, but I still get surprised at some of the stuff. But,even if TNA's contracts isn't enough for every wrestler's full living expense, it's still better than what gets scraped up and handed to you in most indy feds. You have to be a super merchandise pusher like Colt Cabana was to make some decent dough in the indys. TNA guys get leverage from being in a national promotion and can easily ask for 10 times more than the average indy wrestler can. When the fed I wrestle for brought Samoa Joe in, he easily made over $1,000 dollars and it wasn't even a huge crowd, plus he let the promotion have the money made from the seminar because he had to cancel the first time he was scheduled to come in on the day of the show. And the parameters that they put on worker's appearances on tv for other companies is just being smart. No point in letting them mug for other promotions' (ROH lol) cameras when they can see them Thurdays on Impact. It seems unfair and it is, but they're guys getting much rawer deals in the indy's. And since we were talking about "pay your dues" trainers, I know of an indy promoter/ wrestler/ trainer that doesn't let his trainees get any of the money they make working shows for a year. Some people think thats fine, but whatever lol.

It never seems to fail. Everytime a new guy comes in and has some success and is making a steady rise in the WWE, either the injury bug or the wellness policy hits them. I really hate that it happened in this instance because it's someone I actually know and was genuinely excited to see him not only get on WWE tv but also get some sort of push. Me and a lot of guys around here figured he'd get lost in the shuffle because if his size, but he's so crisp in the ring, he looked to be overcoming that. And now this happens. I hope he is able to recover quickly from this injury and I hope any time off doesn't make WWE forget about him. He is doing such a great job. And that Palin video is great the truthiness.

It's really not that bad for the TNA guys because in the end, most of the guys that get booked at other feds end up doing a Q&A gimmick or a seminar, along with polaroids and merchandise and they make that money TNA gets right back. Plus a lot of indy guys use an agent-like person anyways to set up bookings for a fee. there were guys that got booked through Bill Behrens that weren't a part of TNA when Behrens was there. It might seem crappy on the surface, but I've seen a few TNA guys get booked at the fed I wrestle for and leave with a very nice payday when it's all said and done. Also, some trainers/promoters have far worse financial practices and they tell you it's "helping you pay your dues."

I think the majority of WWE crowds don't even know that CM Punk ever wrestled in ROH, TNA, IWA-MS, or any other place he's wrestled over the years. I even think that most crowds haven't even heard of those companies. ROH haters may be saying "I told you so" right now, but they are at a big time advantage right now because it looks bad for ROH. I read somewhere that ROH almost went belly up earlier this year because Cary wanted to stop funding. ROH is/was trying very hard to succeed, but I think that just like everything else, they ran out of steam. ROH is losing steam for the same reason they picked up steam and that is their style. The ROH style doesn't appeal to the average fan most of the time. I went to quite a few Chicago Ridge shows traveling from St Louis and I remember being amazed by the show. "Vendetta" had Bryan Danielson vs Roderick Strong and it was amazing to me, but in the end, the match was close to an hour. That's way too much for the average fan to endure, hell, it's almost too much for a hardcore fan. These types of matches are what ROH is all about, but because of that, they will have a hard time trying to bring in casual fans and if they cut match times significantly, they will risk losing their hardcore fans. Those hardcore fans with their ticket sales and DVD sales helped take ROH from red ink to black ink, but in the end, those fans may be tired of ROH or just wrestling in general. It can't last forever and I don't think ROH will have enough money to book venues, produce shows/PPVs, honor wrestler contracts, and other expenses for much longer.