RedJed

I missed the part where anyone said "you're going to a better company" in that angle they taped last night. Also, nobody knows yet IF he is even leaving, this is WHY they did the angle as they did....in case he leaves, which for all we know, can be explained that Christian states that he is mulling to take the WWE offer because he had to join the MEM and wants out because of that. If he decides to not leave (and keep in mind his contract expires sometime this month so who knows what will happen) then this is a ready made angle they can follow up on. And DCH, I doubt that if he goes back to WWE, Christian will mention either of those examples in why he left. It will probably just be a null and void issue. And one more thing, nothing reeks of burial here to me. Now if he got punked out by ONE of the Mafia, I could see it, but he got beat down by 5 of them. I'm missing how that's burying a talent. On a total side note, I can see now the general idea this MEM/Originals storyline will probably go. The Originals bite off a little more than they can chew with the "old guys" but Foley kind of motivates and teaches them the way of the business, so to speak, and ultimately I would think that leads to the long term idea of the Originals going over. I still am a bit confused in what role Jarrett will play long term also.....I hope its not as the "savior" for the Originals, although I'm betting that's the plan.

Yeah Jingus, not sure where you are basing your assumption that most wrestling fans are republican, as everytime they did the Obama/McCain videos on Raw and additionally, when I went to Raw live in Minneapolis, the reaction was negative towards McCain and the other way towards Obama. I would tend to think most fans are liberal actually. And I don't get these lame-duck olive branches to "celebrities" that TNA does. I get they think it will make mainstream news IF it was ever to go down, but hasn't time shown us that this company never capitalizes on these things, even if they actually happen?

They did a Daniels/Sting program for like a month late last year I believe. When Daniels returned with his new "beardy look" Yeah, and it wasn't anything too impressive either. The guys just didn't gel nearly as well as one would expect.

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. At least nobody is fooling with Umaga, its not like they are TRYING (apparently) to have him be one, if not THE, top babyface in the company. Comparing Umaga to Joe is way off base, IMO.

Well it has to be said, for those of us who saw the ppv last night, I don't know how anyone can say Joe ISNT being uber-buried. I'm still baffled how Joe was looking strong there, extremely strong as a matter of fact, and then instead of overcoming the odds, he loses to a f'n low blow of all things. Talk about taking the wind out of the sails. After the Bound for Glory burial of sorts, Joe needed a big win here and instead comes up short again. Couple that with the promos that Nash has been doing lately, basically going over the fine line of the kind of promo that just basically kills the person he's talking about when he downplays his abilities, and then when the match happens, he beats him with a weak ass finish to just prove he was right. Nash is notorious for shit like this for years now, basically doing the same kind of shit HHH would pull off and on for years himself against guys who really needed that rub badly, and instead got the exact opposite. I always had a bad feeling that once Nash/Joe would happen, some shit like this would go down, and sure enough......Nash proves the critics correct.

One match I failed to mention, yet another example of a solid match context but a lame duck finish....the tag title match. The Machines Guns looked good in there and hopefully we get more of this feud.

Yeah, they did do a knock-up job with the new Impact set, and with that, the production they do in the HD broadcast feed (thankfully I get Spike in HD) is really top notch. In the HD feed to, they do a nice job with the acoustics in the arena as well in translating it to the audio soundtrack, hard to explain but it's very good.

I would have to think that something went astray with the idea of Scott Hall doing a run-in tonite during Joe/Nash, it would have made more sense in that match for him to run out and give Joe a low-blow after Nash couldn't do it himself. Instead it just made Joe look shitty (surprise surprise) when he was kicking out of a ton of solid near falls from Nash, and then doesn't kick out to getting a low blow? WTF. Lazy booking 101. Same story they are also trying to tell as they did with Joe at BFG with Styles not pinning Sting when he could have won the title, and instead tried a second time for the same move and then because of that, lost the match. Exact same finish in an essense of Joe/Sting, which is unexcusable if you ask me. More of same lazy booking, trying to hammer down the point, I guess, that the "kids" got some more work to do before they beat the top dogs. What gets me more than anything is that Nash, especially, should not be getting the push treatment as strong as he is, as this is just killing Joe in how they are booking this. If there is a bigger picture to Nash/Joe (and I'm sure there is) the way they are booking this, its guaranteeing that Joe isn't even going to get a true rub by the end of it, when he's so cut off in the knees by Nash beforehand. I'm sure there is no coincidence that stuff like this happens when the booking before it should have signaled Nash would have gotten his ass handed to him. Particularly, that promo Nash cut on the last Impact, coupled with the way this match was laid out and done, really was extraordinarily demeaning to any idea of protecting Samoa Joe at all. All in all it made Styles and Joe look less than stellar after both putting on really strong matches otherwise. There should have been much more protecting these guys in terms of just how the actual finish was done, as enough was given to the rest of those matches to make them both real good matches, but with really counter-productive finishes. Booker/Christian was a boring match for sure, and Angle/Abyss went above anything I expected. Really strong match there, I thought. The opening X division match was also real good. All in all a decent show though, could have been great if it wasn't for some of those finishes. Ironically enough, the biggest thing I took out of the show was the deal with Scott Hall and ICP. Was this planned? I'm interested in hearing the backstage story of how a possibly drunk Scott Hall shows up with ICP backstage earlier during the ppv, someone determines he is unfit to play his role on the show, and then he leaves the backstage with them and instead of leaving the arena as a whole, they go in it for themselves and head into the front of the cameras. Then again the company didn't try to take them out of there right away after it happened, but it was clear that the announcers had to have been told in their headsets to not talk about them, and for the cameras to try to avoid shots of them. If it wasn't for Bashir flipping out a bit on them after he had a bottle thrown at him, there was no interaction with any of the other guys and the ICP/Hall guys. At first I thought these guys were going to show up as a new faction that was more anti-TNA than anything or something (which would make sense in the context of the main storyline, since the disenfranchised/disgruntled TNA guys that don't want to "take a side" could be put here.

For what its worth, I thought the last 2-3 weeks of TV has been really strong, and way more productive and solid than I ever expected it would after the lackluster ending of Bound for Glory. The Main Event Mafia stuff is real good, and there is good direction set as a main storyline for the company, which I haven't hardly seen ever in TNA history before. I dont know how that will translate into the ppv tonight, as they could easily do some bad booking decisions to screw up what good they are doing right now, time will tell I guess. A good example of a retarded booking move would be for Hall to show up tonight and cost Joe the match against Nash, if Nash already had Joe's number during the match. Anything else other than Nash getting his ass kicked almost that entire match is inexcusable if they are going with a finish like that.

That was one of the better episodes so far this season. But I'll be damned if Wyatt isn't dead.

I thought it was hilarious, yet not anything near the level of the Askewniverse films, in terms of wanting to check out the flick again anytime soon. Stuff like Clerks, Mallrats, Dogma.....they are those kind of films you could watch multiple times and they still hold up, and I don't see this being the same thing as those. But I still laughed a ton, don't get me wrong. Fuck me running, Elizabeth Banks looked hotter than the Georgia asphalt though, great job by her. It was pretty funny to see Traci Lords back as a pornstar also, and Katie Morgan.....well.......she fit the part well, of course. What was kind of weird was that my friend and I were in a 3/4 filled theater, both cracking up like crazy, and the rest of the crowd, for the most part, was basically silent. I don't know if the language was too over the top for them or what, that would be my guess though. Seemed like more of an older crowd (30 plus) versus college types, etc. Needless to say, I hate going to a flick where you feel like you have to hold back from laughing in fear of dirty looks from others. Talk about awkward. We actually had someone close to us tell us to "shhhhhh" because we were apparently laughing too much? Fuck that shit.

That actually is true (referencing the Albert Lea location).......or it has to be at least partly because I had a friend who, about a year or year and a half ago, actually worked with Saturn on some industrial contracting job in Owatonna, MN, which is about 30some miles from Albert Lea. So he's just stayed local to this area all this time. Weird he'd end up here of all places (I live about an hour from these locations) but it makes sense if he wants out of the spotlight. This is about as hokey dokey as you can get, full of farmers and the like. You should send Meltzer that Wiki link and he could track down who wrote it, etc.

How can a guy look like HHH's bitch when he basically had the offense in a good 80 percent of that match?

Compared to Jeff Hardy, who came out good in his loss to HHH, Jericho, to me, did get buried it felt like. Just have some feeling he's just going to fade off of the title picture now much like Punk did when he stopped as champ. Quite frankly, it's bullshit if thats what happens. He should really win the title back relatively fast, and really do the job out to a guy who really NEEDS the title. Batista and Cena aren't these guys. And frankly, Batista/Cena doesn't need a title attached to it, whenever that goes down again. My guess is they won't waste time and just do Batista/Cena for the title at Survivor Series. Wasn't really impressed with much at all of that main event, all the run-ins at the end was convuluted as hell. Austin's appearance meant nothing, really. I thought Hardy/HHH, Show/Taker, and Bourne/Hardy, though, were all really solid matches.

There was no burial of Hardy there, so what was so bad about that match? He looked great in there, and they were adament of making a point that Hardy will have another title shot soon. It's justified since the last two HHH/Hardy matches have been really strong stuff and it warrants more of the same, with an eventual result of Hardy finally getting the belt (although chances are that HHH won't be the one to job to him if he ever gets to that point of being given the belt). Hardy looked better coming out of that match (and the No Mercy match) than most who work a ppv title match against HHH have had in the past who have jobbed to him, that's all I know.

He was still technically a part of the show, they just didnt vote in the match he was a part of.

Ninja Turtle Eve huh? Ummm ok.... So we get Austin and Khali doin something, I'm guessing. Hopefully its not a start to a build to Mania.

Michael Cole trying to explain what a shaman is was hilarious....."sort of a prophet of sage." WTF?!!

I laughed my ass off at Kelly Kelly's heavy sexual innuendo of fucking anyone who votes for her in the costume contest. Or at least that's how I took it. Kind of surprised Cryme Tyme/Miz and Morrison got the vote for the tag match.....I thought it was going to be the Priceless match for sure. So far I've been entertained enough by this show, Hardy/Bourne was really strong stuff. The diva promos are so abysmal that they are great unintentional humor.

Just saw Choke while spending some time in the Twin Cities this week.........words can't describe how damn hilarious this was.

TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH Samoa Joe vs. Sting -If Sting has his gameface on like he had the past two Bound for Glory shows, I would expect this match to really deliver strong. It will be interesting to see how the two's styles mesh, but given that Angle/Sting was really good last year, it will probably be a similar style of match such as that was. I expect Joe to go over, and then the two do the handshake thing after the match to kind of go full circle with the storyline. Nash may play a role in this match as well in attacking Joe after the match, with Sting providing the save (since that has always been Sting's issue pretty much, that guys were unfairly attacking others after the match has already ended). I have thought that even though the "shades of grey" issue has been super heavy with these two, that the storyline has been good and it has built well. Particularly, I thought the backstage segment they did on last week's Impact, as well as the contract signing angle, pretty much put a solid final hype to the match. GRUDGE MATCH Jeff Jarrett vs. Kurt Angle Special Enforcer: Mick Foley -I'm looking forward to this match even more than Sting/Joe, just to see how Jarrett can work (especially against a workhorse like Angle) for not having a single match for a good 16 months or more. One would think Foley's role in this will be to build to a program with Angle after this, so I would expect some controversy in the finish. Jarrett more than likely will go over. THREE-WAY MATCH Booker T vs. "The Instant Classic" Christian Cage vs. "The Phenomenal" AJ Styles -It took them up until the last minute to actually put some heat on this match, with the Christian pseudo-turn on Styles on the last Impact. The pairing off of a heel, face, and tweener is good though, and I would expect a pretty solid match from these guys. More than likely we find out what is in Booker's briefcase in this match when he uses it on Styles or Christian to get the win. Your guess is as good as mine as far as what is in that briefcase, but curious if it might have something to do with Lashley? That's a total random guess. MONSTER'S BALL TNA WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Champions Beer Money Inc. vs. Team 3D vs. The Latin American Xchange vs. Abyss & Matt Morgan Special Referee: Steve "Mongo" McMichael -The match itself probably won't be very good, but weapons and blood should be prevelant. Beer Money should probably retain going by how things have been booked. Mongo interacting with Team 3D and Abyss might bring some unintentionally absurd moments. TNA X DIVISION CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH Champion Sheik Abdul Bashir vs. Consequences Creed -I could see a title switch here, since they have been building Creed up for months now to lead to this. TNA KNOCKOUTS CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH Champion Taylor Wilde vs. Awesome Kong vs. Roxxi -Another title change is likely here, but can't decide if it will be Kong or Roxxi. Given they have been trying to push and promote Roxxi alot on Impact, I'm thinking she gets the belt here, and it leads to a feud with Kong. THE RETURN OF THE STEEL ASYLUM (AKA THUNDERDOME) MATCH The X Division superstars battle inside the steel dome to try to escape -I've said this weeks ago, but I can see this match simply designed for Suicide to show up and win it. KNOCKOUT BIMBO BRAWL Special Referee: Traci Brooks Rhino, Rhaka Khan & ODB vs. Beautiful People & Cute Kip -This will be your token shitstorm and clusterfuck of a match, would expect this one to open the show. Poor Rhino deserves better than this, and ODB and Rhaka Khan as a team is about as random as you get. They will probably try for alot of comedy here, and I would expect alot of it to be really flat. -------Thoughts on the show tonight? They are saying TNA is probably going to break their attendance record tonight, which was previously at this year's Lockdown.

The Knoxville segment was a fun mess, and Batista did a hilarious mistimed botch spot with Michaels (it was when Michaels was whipped to the corner and he was running towards him) that had to have most of the lumberjacks grinning at that shit. Sadly, that were about the only things that I found good with Raw tonight.

Santino is actually treated like a joke though, Taylor isn't. We're actually supposed to like Taylor, even though she has pretty much killed a division to the point where I don't care about it, and yes, like others have said, she is getting shoved down our throats, since she has no memorable offense or finisher, yet she keeps winning. Yeah, the time was right at the ppv for a title switch. Her run is overkill at this point. She gets a modest applause from the crowds, but it's simply that she's a cute chick and nothing more. She really hasn't shown me anything worthy of her holding the belt since she won it. Granted, the story that led her to the belt and the way she worked THOSE matches, I did like.

Dave Penzer as the normal ring announcer is even worse if you ask me. If Borash is just the guy to announce the main events, I can handle that, at least they take Penzer out for those. Like I've said before, they need to throw Don West as ring announcer, I think. Even if he has to do double duty as ring announcer and still as color man, I think that's alright. I have no idea who the guy was, but whoever did the intros for Abyss/Mesias barbed wire massacre match (which was taped in Orlando while the rest of the ppv was in Memphis or wherever) was awesome, surprised they haven't used him more.

I guess the reasoning for Nash hitting Joe with the bat and not Sting was that Nash was trying to make some point to Joe that he would be the one to fuck him over if he kept up his "disrespectful ways", since he wouldn't listen to guys like Sting and Nash and just would continue to beat a guy when he's beaten over and over, and that Nash was the guy who was trying to teach him not to do these things way back when. Tenay and West somewhat explained this, albeit not well, after the finish. That was actually part of the match that I liked.....that the writers paid attention to detail on this storyline, as Joe kept going overboard on the beatdown until Sting was almost knocked out (bordering on copying how WWE has done the KO finish a few times recently) and the reality was that, if he was a smart, focused, and "respectful" champion, he wouldn't have kept going with it and just would have ended the match cleanly and without going overboard. That goes back to the question of if the company is acting trying to slowly build Joe as a monster heel, as this same story keeps happening, Joe keeps doing the same thing, and now this time it finally cost him, and one would think he will snap completely now. Whatever the case, the Nash turn, that we all expected for months now, probably happened at the time it shouldn't have. It could have/should have been done last month or the month before or the month before that, and it would have probably made the story more intriguing as we got the Bound for Glory here. Joe would have "learned the hard way" about continuously showing no mercy to his opponent by Nash turning on him, and by the time his match with Sting would have occured, he would have learned, and took it to Sting convincingly, but would have beat him cleanly and fairly without a heel-like attack, mocking attitude, etc. Ultimately, this "respect" story of Joe and Sting should have climaxed here, and it definetely did not, with the Nash turn. It seemed silly that TNA could have killed two birds with one stone here, and still have done the Nash turn, but then had Joe kick out there (which really needed to happen even IF Joe wasn't going to win, as Nash's bat smack was weakly done, and then a simple death drop after ALL of that dominance Joe did? Again, it smells like Joe is going heel) and then from there, overcome the odds and make Sting still tap out clean. So he would have learned his lesson, but still was able to bounce back immediately to show his dominance. They invested all of these months (which were a struggle to do so in the first place given how Joe has been booked) in Joe just to end it like that.....pretty sad because given the fact of how he was booked as champ before this match, one would have thought, almost guaranteed, the payoff would have been to Joe to finally "prove himself" and beat Sting clean and fair in the middle of the ring, followed by a respect handshake by both guys, and even Sting raising Joe's hand in victory as a way to put him over as the guy who is TNA's cornerstone. It seemed so simple and effective, that of course the company had to go the complete opposite direction which harkens back to past things of this nature before. So we still might see Joe finally "getting it" and overcoming the odds, and coming to perhaps some understanding of respect with Sting, but I don't think Joe will be the guy to beat Sting for the belt. Chances are, instead, they are going to try to stick to this no rematch clause, to further infuriate Joe into snapping and going full heel and basically not being chum-chum with anyone on the roster, borderline Steve Austin type of role. I'm really thinking, as far as the title situation goes, this is leading now long term to Styles v. Sting, and Styles finally getting the belt again. And then it will slowly lead to Styles v. Joe, and by this time Joe will have gone full heel, based off this storyline. Then again trying to predict the logical means to things right now is probably a bad idea. Overall, the ppv last night was not bad though, but definately was dissapointing because of the ending of the show, as well as a few duller spots than I imagined in the undercard. The workrate was strong in the matches that you expected, like Terrordome, Monster's Ball, Angle/Jarrett, and Joe/Sting. But the X division and Knockouts title matches were really not that good, and should have been better. I did enjoy the larger than normal crowd though, and that they were one of the hotter crowds I've seen in TNA history, that means alot to the overall enjoyment of the show, too. So the show felt like a big deal, had a bit of a Mania-like vibe in terms of TNA at least, but that finish to end the show really put it on a real sour note all around.