RedJed

I checked it out last night and it was a pretty eventful show, albeit a bit hard to believe at times, with the twists and turns that were going down. I may be way off here, but is Whistler and Gretchen working alot of people, possibly including even The Company itself? I'm wondering what past they have, and if they are actually a couple. And Whistler is using the other girl for whatever reason.

What a weird mixed bag this ppv was. But a few steps up from last month's lackluster ppv, but nowhere near BFG or other better TNA ppvs from the last year or so. I probably enjoyed this more than expected since I got really baked prior - a new tradition I may take up with TNA programming as a whole since there is so much unintentional humor on these shows right now, it's so bad it's funny at times, when it comes down to it. The real highlights of this ppv to me was some of the ridiculous moments outside of the matches themselves, oh and Kong/Kim as a whole, as well as the damn entertaining Ultimate X pseudo-buriel of the match itself. Some of the backstage segments on this show were particularly booked like the committee got drunk and went from there. The Eric Young/Storm stuff was pretty out there, and didn't quite get what the deal was at the end.....what did he spike the funnel with anyway, or did he just add more booze? And then the AJ/Karen Angle segment, Karen kisses up on Styles for 10 seconds and he goes in the bathroom stall to jerk off? The ODB cameo right before that though was gold. The single most hilarious moment of this show was during Kong/Kim, when Kong teases an attack on Tenay and West. Tenay totally freaks out, making these over the top weird facial expressions, in anger of Kong "stepping on his foot". As far as that match itself, it was really good and worth going out of your way to see. Crowd heat was once again strong, and I thought the finish really worked well in that I didn't expect that happening, really. The Ultimate X match was pretty crazy, which is in the context of both plenty of bad and good parts. Johnny Devine took three really brutal bumps in this match, two of them being stiff drops on his head, particularly. Plenty of other somewhat create spots here and there, too. Lets just say the right people worked hard. The match turned more into building heat to the final confontation with these teams at the next ppv, which right there is good and bad, exactly. The rest of the show was pretty forgettable. Joe/Nash has really gone fizzle already. Neither guy got hardly anything of a response in the tag title match, but Styles and Tomko are clearly guys who are getting over with the crowd. I would guess the next thing is Nash v. Joe at the next ppv, with Joe hopefully going over. Christian v. Angle - I don't know what it is, but I just have never been into matches with these two against each other. With that said, this one was probably one of the better matches they've had together, but I just was really not into it.

Well, its ironic TNA booked his character as a tweener who was extremely playing the "disgruntled at TNA management" card lately and then he jumps to WWE......classic shit there.....unintentional humor

Could sleeper of the year be considered Wild Hogs? I didnt hardly expect anything out of that one, and even made a point to avoid even seeing it on DVD when it came out, just didnt sound interesting at all. I caught some of it just recently finally and actually liked it surprisingly. So it must have had a hell of a good word of mouth or something? But for that to be number 11 for the year was something. Probably my favorite film out of the major hits of the year was Bourne Ultimatum. Least favorite? I wasn't too thrilled with Pirates for some reason, and loved the other two of the franchise.

Either that or HHH will win the elimination chamber. Otherwise, I give Hunter all the props in the world for making a point of trying to be as strong of a company guy right now as possible.

In some sort of salvation after watching the TNA ppv last night, I ordered the new ROH ppv right after it, and WOW - talk about night and day in comparison to Turning Point. ROH outdid themselves once again, and in a good way. This show was right up there with Driven as one of the most solid ppvs of the year top to bottom. In some ways, it may have even been better than Driven, and thats saying alot. Every match here was entertaining as hell and pretty darn solid. The opener was McGuiness v. Marifuji v. Hero v. Claudio - very solid opening match, probably around the *** 3/4 mark. Everyone showcased their talents completely. This is the best match I've ever seen Claudio, particuarly, work. Then the show went to a three match series between No Remorse Corps-Resilience, which overall delivered. Romero/Cross was pretty much a spotfest, but still was fun (***), Richards/Aries was real good (*** 1/2), and the last bout of Strong/Stevens was all kinds of awesome (*** 3/4). The matches built well into the next one during this three match series. Incredibly entertaining. Then went to Morishima/Danielson, match was way better than I had read it being, even with the weird finish. Solid **** for an extremely dramatic build, solid hard work from both, leading to a finish which was a little odd, but made sense to build things the way they have gone to currently. Danielson also cut a hell of a shoot-esque promo about his love of the sport earlier in the show that impressed me as well. Then came the ladder match w/ Briscos/Steen and El Generico. WOW - insane all over the place match. Could see some not enjoying it as much as some because of the hardcore spot-tastic element, but I thought it was tremendous. Another solid **** effort here. The post-match angle was super strong as a whole w/ The Age of the Fall, it is too bad for whatever reason that ROH didn't air the whole after-match stuff, as the Jimmy Jacobs promo after they went off the air was one of the most memorable moments I've seen all year in wrestling (with Jacobs cutting a great promo while being covered in blood from one of the Briscos hung upside down above the ring). Regardless, the point got across here that this new faction meant business, and leads in very well into what will be ROH ppv #4 in January (which I can't wait to see). Definately recommend everyone to check this out when you get a chance.

On the subject of Jake Roberts, I saw him in a very "medicated" state about a month ago (Nov 17) at an indy show in Duluth, MN. Might as well repost some of the thoughts from that when I posted it in another folder here back then. Went to an indy show in Northern MN over the weekend and Christy Hemme, Rikishi, and Jake Roberts headlined....just some randomness from that night that I might as well post here.... (Random talk about other parts of the show I took out) And then Jake Roberts - you can imagine the story here. He was hanging around the vending area clearly intoxicated/fucked up on something pretty much right as the show started. Didn't really interact with many people much, just kind of walked around drinking, etc. He was supposed to be in the main event of the night but the promoter ended up putting him in the last match before intermission, clearly concerned he was going to continue to get messed up and be in no shape to perform. As it went, Roberts came out to the ring VERY loaded, did his usual crass sexual manuerisms and everything (if anyone saw Heroes of Wrestling ppv, this was almost a rehash of what he was like) and worked about a 4 minute match, if even that. Just an awful and embarrasing sight to have to witness. There was a follow up "apology to the fans" message from the promoter later on, explaining that Jake showed up at 4pm already really wasted and he felt he had to make the decision to get him out there ASAP because of that. The company even rented out a snake for Roberts to use for the show (I guess he either doesnt have or can't travel with the snake anymore?) and since he was so blasted, they refused to let him bring the snake out to the ring with him. On top of that, the promoter docked Roberts pay by twenty five percent because of everything. Weird night for sure at the local indy show. -------- To follow up on my post, I talked to some people involved with that indy show since then and I guess Roberts was an asshole to pretty much all of the roster, definately did arrive to the show way late, when he got there he was already drunk/high, and immediately just wanted to go back to his room before the show started, which everyone thought meant he was going to sober up. Nope....he came back a few hours later even worse than before, and like I saw myself, he was literally wandering around the building in plain sight, still keeping to himself, but still continuing to drink. When he refused to stop drinking, thats when they made the call to get him out there early. They would have totally taken him off the show completely but he was demanding to get paid given the expense of coming up there already. So they put his match on earlier than expected, it was a complete mess of such, and they pretty much demanded he leave the building after they paid him (and only paid him 75 percent of the agreement). All things said, from what I witnessed and then heard about this incident, it doesn't surprise me he ended up going to rehab. He was looking haggard and just totally gone more than I've ever seen him, and that covers alot of ground.

And could have started a slow build into going into singles primarily for him. He's due for it - I enjoy LAX but they arent doing shit with them anymore, so why not break them up? Both guys are at the point where I think they would be much more better as singles. TNA has dropped it so much with Cide it isnt even funny. Speaking of another name in this thread, I always thought a Killings - Homicide feud would have been gold. Too late for that now. Or hell, they could have given LAX v. Truth & Consequences a go, but that didnt even get to happen. EY as the pick decided by Jarrett doesnt surprise me in the least. Young buddied up to Jarrett years ago and they are close friends. It's the equivalent of Bischoff pushing DDP in a sense. If 3-D put the X division over and leave, I really can't dog on them much anymore. Damn. I don't think the E would take them back, though. But I would like them to do something substantial if they are leaving, and if they truly put over the X division strong, I commend them. Time honored tradition so to speak. With all of that said though, if they left TNA and didnt get a job back in WWE, they can work indy shows for the rest of their career as far as I'm concerned, and I'll gladly enjoy not seeing them on a national promotion anymore. Their act just has grown stale to me, and have for years, to be honest. If I was a TNA wrestler, I wouldn't be motivated by an indirect "don't leave TNA, WWE sucks and you dont want to go there" montage of speeches by disgruntled ex-WWE guys with a chip on their shoulder against how they left said company prior. I would take it more as a joke more than anything since their opinions on the WWE isn't exactly, well, unbiased. And it's not really the best idea to just basically tell your workers that the same reasons why they say WWE isnt worth going to seems to be the same shit here - miserable locker room and politics playing its part in things.

Damn, ECW has really just turned into a glorified version of Sunday Night Heat, Velocity, etc. While the in-ring action at times on particular shows has been decent, ECW currently has basically nothing for storylines other than a very non-developed feud w/ Punk v. Henry and BDV. I can't even really call that a program since it seems thrown together just for a filler ppv match. I know this is beating a dead horse but it's really pathetic to see what the show has become. At first it was a WWE filtered version of ECW, I felt. Heyman was doing what he could with what he was given to do, and we saw brief glimpses of old ECW, examples like Holly/RVD comes to mind. The "rules" of ECW were played upon intially with most matches pretty much being given anything goes/extreme rules, or in the least that we wouldnt get that typical "WWE style" that, when played upon three seperate shows a week, gets old fast. As Heyman fell out of grace, the show turned into a lost identity that was filled by it becoming the Bobby Lashley show. Week upon week of ECW at this point (approx. a year ago up until around Mania) was pretty brutal to watch some weeks. Some of the exact same shit one would expect WWE to make out of their ECW product happened. Nothing "extreme" was really occuring, they got rid of no-dq matches for the most part and alot of really bad ideas on who they felt represented ECW and whatnot were pushed hard here. In no time, the show clearly became WWE's C show with no really advantage or unique identity to stand out against Smackdown or Raw. It was clearly, at this point, that it became a true "C" show that was hardly must-see. Around the springtime, things seemed to start to click from a booking standpoint, even though at this point we all knew what to expect here and it wasn't anything like the old ECW. Most of the old ECW "originals" either left the show, left the company, or were severly de-pushed, with the exception of a few. New blood though was brought in here and there to make the show more of a feel of what ECW, in theory, always was - a place to showcase talent that they have a plan to push, likely up to the other shows. But it was a nice balance of everything for a good while, good wrestling, decent storytelling, and each show seemed very tight and cohesive in its presentation. They put a guy with a ton of upside with a title run (of course Punk), so no complaints there. Now, the last few months has seen this show turn into randomness central. Punk hasn't had anything close to a program with basically anyone but Morrison all year, with a little small dose of Miz. This should be a no brainer, you need to constantly have a suitable challenge to a champion (actually this in theory should apply to every belt in WWE, but the main three world titles should be a given) to make people CARE about the champ. Then they apply the Smackdown merger in essense and damn near any ECW talent that was going somewhere before the merger have all but been eliminated from damn near even showing up on TV at all. And we get Smackdown lower card talent all over this show, and on Smackdown, you get your random ECW appearance here and there. In a nutshell, manueving a Smackdown/ECW "talent exchange" could have and should have made for some great feuds, storylines, and whatnot, even from a simple standpoint of ECW v. Smackdown, but we have not seen anything close to the potential a move such as they did could have made. Anyway I kind of went on a tangent there, but just really getting annoyed with the direction of this show, or the lack thereof. ECW is basically consisting currently of a roster of not even a handful of people they just want to showcase as the brands stars - Punk, Miz, Morrison, and Kelly. You need a yin to the yang. Again I go back to the fact that you can't really create stars without suitable competition against them. Bringing in Smackdown low card guys to "put them over" and as vice versa, bringinig in your random Smackdown higher level guys to squash other ECW roster guys is just a bad formula that makes this show ultimately pointless and just continues to emphasize not just now little the company cares for ECW, but also brings back the fact that Smackdown really is treated in much less regard than Raw. If they aren't going to actually do any cool matchups with Smackdown v. ECW, I'd rather see them pull back away from this "talent exchange" shit and just get a bunch of the lower card guys from Smackdown and Raw, get a new ECW roster more cohesive, put together three or four good storylines on this show, MAKE THE SHOW ECW RULES FOR EVERY MATCH TO MAKE THIS SHOW STAND OUT A BIT (and that doesnt mean every ECW match has to be some hardcore street fight, as I understand WWE doesnt want to ruin the hardcore gimmick when needed for some of their other feuds to blowoff a program, etc), and go from there, it certainly can't hurt at this point. You got a title in the CW belt that is basically defunct and why not bring that title over to ECW to give them some sort of uniqueness. Create a television title as a secondary belt as well. I dunno, just throwing some thoughts out there on the brand as its just going nowhere fast. ----- Regarding tonight's show, I liked the effort Yang and Moore gave in the tag match, but otherwise, this show was about Sunday Night Heat level as you get. That women's match was awful, the opener was an effortless squash, and then you had Batista/Burke, which went absolutely nowhere and should not be treated as any "main event" by any stretch of the imagination. Pretty much the highlight of the show was a good Shelton Benjamin promo. Speaking of him though, they keep talking like he's going to do something to make him stand out on this show, but what the fuck? Far from that. Tonight's show just left a very unsatisfied feel for me by the end of it, maybe it was HOW it ended (Batista squash). There is no fucking need for having that Burke/Batista match on ECW whatsoever, much less as the last match of the show.

I'm thinking this might be two weeks worth of taping Impact here possibly.... I would think each of those gauntlets gave a title shot to each winner at the next ppv or something. Just seems to possibly make sense, but who knows. That's going to be a redundant part of the show, though - three gauntlet battle royales in a row?!! Maybe they will be spread out through the show, or I suppose its possible they could do one gauntlet match throughout the next three shows? I'll say it again, I'm just not feeling Christian as a babyface at all. He was one of few very strong heels in the company who was doing just fine, as is. Booker, out of the blue, picking Christian is pretty weird. As for what they are doing with Styles, who knows. He'll probably ending up joining Christian, and turning babyface from that, and then maybe in short time, Christian goes back heel and works a program with him after this Christian/Angle deal (which probably will be the main event of the next ppv, or maybe even a four way for the belt w/ Angle/Tomko/Styles/Christian.) And they pushed the button on a Nash/Joe feud it seems. That might work, might not, but at least they are following up from the ppv, when, be that if all of that was a shoot or not, got some buzz going on something out of the ordinary in the storylines. How that program will be handled will at least be interesting. My guess is that Nash will be expected to put Joe over strongly, and he had vocally before always said he would love to work against him AND put him over, so we'll see how politics play in this one.

Yeah he did a post-match interview on the WWE site that all but said he's not ready to come back yet, so that appears to have been a one time deal, for now. Sunny and Melina would make a great little pairing as a sexy heel vixen teacher/student duo kind of thing. In due time, you turn Melina on Sunny (who would go face) and there ya go.

Weird that Killings is gone again - once again, misused upon being brought back again. They even signed Consequences Creed and still let him go? That makes no sense, those two on a team would have been ok.

What a very odd lineup of thrown together matches here. Overall, the booking just baffles me. This sounds like some weird TNA parody show, or some e-fed card lineup. Styles/Kaz should be fun though (retarded stip though, we already saw Styles as a turkey, lets not get repetitive here), but the cage match teams make little sense. Why in the hell is a match that is thrown together like that meant to be put in a main event slot and with a cage gimmick? Ugh, the booking of this show here gives me a headache. ALOT of missing names here on the show, and I'm not feeling them play to that Joe "shoot" from the ppv. Not unless they want to actually do Nash/Joe. Otherwise, nobody is going to give two shits about it. And we still have little to no idea of what is going down at the next ppv, which, when this will be aired, I believe is about two weeks and a few days away. So we get Ultimate X again, this time with MCM v. 3D? The gimmick matches rehashed over and over for no good reason is getting old. TNA doesnt grasp the idea of compelling storylines at this point whatsoever. The most heated feud is based off a belt being taken hostage for fucks sake. Seriously, just about everything except the Knockouts division in this company is the drizzling shits right now. Various workers and supposed "stars" are floundering left and right here. Not shocking in the least to hear nothing for follow up with the title shots for the case winners, and/or where they are going with Chris Daniels. I would assume we get backstage segments with Christian, Angle, etc.

I dont know what it was particularly about the past Impact, but it all came across to be horribly rushed in most of the show, very scattered in the booking more than I've seen Impact before under the two hour banner, and generally I just wasn't very entertained. A clear example of just throwing something out there that should have meant more was Senshi v. Daniels with Skipper as the ref. The second bait and switch on the cases thing was ridiculous and really didn't make much sense what the fuck Cornette's point even was. The guys came to the arena WITH the cases, wouldnt they have opened them up by then if that was an issue? And not even going to go into the ladder match for the X title that wasn't even on the line in the match, more for who gets to actually HAVE the X title in their possession. Its just a weird angle that really is goofy as shit. Shouldn't Cornette enforce Lethal gets his belt back instead of having a ridiculous match to determine who gets to walk around with it, but yet not be considered champ? I hope to never see this angle repeated again in any way shape or form in any other organization, period.

Easily comparable to ECW ONS 05 for all of the sheer nostaligic factor all night long. Really fun to watch, shows like this can't even be put in the same category as a normal weekly show, for numerous reasons. If I had my druthers, I would have loved to see Sid for sure (debuting as Kennedy's bodyguard is a GREAT idea), Stacy Kiebler integrated with Lita and Trish, Sean Waltman showing up out of the blue during the brief DX part, and at the end, I thought Cena and Rock would have been an awesome touch to all of that. Of course the ultimate ending would have been Austin getting Vince back up, and introducing Bret Hart, who would come out as a one night only thing to deck Vince. But regardless, I still enjoyed the shit out of this show. The end was a bit anticlimactic, and honestly expected some huge surprise at the end, but it was not to be. But the beer bash at the end was somewhat fitting, if not predictable, though (see ONS 05 with the same general premise for the end of that show too). Boy, HHH sure had camera time tonight for sure. Opening segment was all kinds of quirky fun. Will be interesting if anyone who kind of came back tonight will be getting any long term deals. One would guess that RVD has resigned perhaps (send him to ECW, stat) and I would actually love to see Sunny get another chance in the big time, she's definately back to being pretty easy on the eyes again. I would love to see Bischoff back full time as well, there is a ready made feud with him managing someone against Jericho. Jannetty looked burned out and really didnt work that great of a match. I'm sure he'll be gone again and back in a year for another job to random jobber feuding w/ Michaels. So Hogan v. Khali at Mania? I would personally rather see a Mick Foley heel turn on Hogan, but hey.....

That may be the only salvation to it.

My god, what a frustrating set of spoilers from the last two nights. Where to start? Well, my main gripe is we apparently now have Christian back as a face, which I really disagree with. He makes a great heel, why fuck with that? All for the sake of a Christian/Angle feud that I could give a shit about, I guess. And AJ/Christian would be sooooo much better with Christian still as a heel and slow building a Styles face turn (although I am liking him as a heel right now, which is why I said slow). Then the briefcase stuff. I'm all for surprises, but are any of the options they went for GOOD surprises? Petey gets a world title shot, this is a waste of time as its not going to get the guy anything out of it. Williams has been so horribly misused for so long that he should have gotten an X title shot, and if they really want people to give a fuck about him, have him even win it from apparently Devine (from the last tapings) and start rebuilding a push. Having him work a match with Angle really isn't going to do much, even if he looks good against him. IE see Kaz's "push." So VKM get a title shot against Tomko/Styles huh. Again, this is nothing even worth thinking about as worthwhile. James should have been the guy fired probably, with him and Lady James doing some sort of revenge on TNA angle, since they have been bitching about the company in storyline for months now. This would just, ya know, MAKE SENSE. Steiner gets an X title shot against Devine. I'm not even going to comment on the ridiculousness of this. So we get more Scott Steiner/Team 3D crap probably. Steiner should have been the guy with the world title shot. And so now they "fire" Daniels? Shit, I feel sorry for this guy, he's stuck in what will probably be a nonsensical renegade angle with him now. How many times have they tried to repackage and push Daniels only to go half ass? I'm sure this will be the same. It's too bad he really wasn't just released, he would be better off, I think. Daniels, in theory, should have been the guy getting the tag title shot, and then with Senshi gone, and lets just assume they kill off anything for Skipper (might as well just let him go too since XXX is only 2/3 now) and have Daniels form a new team with someone else, lets say Raven, and just use that tag title match as a start of a build to Daniels turning on his tag partner and starting a program with said partner. I'd love to see a Raven/Daniels feud - both guys are horribly underused, so might as well try to give them spots here. To comment on the rest of the show, nothing else here really grabs me. Roode v. Booker continues to "heat up" and Kaz is stuck in a really unfortunate spot to succeed being paired off with Black Rhein. I would much rather see Kaz-Roode brought back to forefront (and if they are serious on pushing Kaz, which is questionable at best, why not give him a substantial win in a blowoff with Roode?) and have Black Rhein do a short feud with Booker T, playing upon their past. Again, I guess it just makes too much sense. Honestly, the only things I am looking forward to here is the women's tag match (nice to see them put over the hot blondes team) and Judas Mesias returning, albeit in what sounds like a very uncreative spot for a return. Finding it a bit odd that there is no Samoa Joe presence here also. So what the fuck is even an idea on the next ppv lineup? My best guess... Christian v. Angle somehow (maybe something goofy like Styles as the ref?) Devine v. Lethal and/or Steiner? 3D v. MCM again Tomko/Styles against VKM(?) Rhein v. Kaz Booker v. Roode ODB v. Kim v. Kong(?) LAX v. Rock/Rave Connection Even if they added Nash/Joe into there to try to follow up on the mess from Sunday, I'm still not anywhere close to excited for that lineup.

Well hot damn that ending. Irony in football. They wuz close! Pretty convinced the Pats are going unbeaten this season after tonight.

It was all their own stupid mistakes though, so maybe its not they choked but they screwed themselves over, for sure. Brady was razzled there bigtime those last few minutes and if Baltimore would have just loosened up a bit and not called the most inane timeout I've seen in awhile, they could have kept control.

Fuckin look at this nonsense. Ohh, we get a replay of the Bart Scott meltdown incident with officials flags

Jesus Baltimore, just enough. Crazy fucking worthless penalties.

Hahahaha who the fuck throws officials flags into the crowd???!!!

And just like that.....

OM FUCKING G......holding on Balt - unbelievable

Oh snap says Brady