The Ghost of bps21

There was a story that oone of the writers also didn't know he was on the roster when Kazarian brought him some character suggestions. He thought he was an indy talent just working that show.

I finally got a chance to watch this week's show. Alex Shelley is awesome. That's what I've taken away from my hour.

"Why did Heyman have to call in to report this 'producing' after the fact? Nobody at wwe bothered to call Heyman or watch videos or basically do any research on Joey's announcing style?" This is rhetorical, correct?

I think the point is she'll end up with Barney.

That's a good read. I can only hope that A: He means it when he says he'll put people over (And I don't have any reason to believe otherwise). B: TNA management asks him to put people over (little iffy on this one). As long as Joe chokes him out at some point...I'll be happy. Kind of want to see Sting/Abyss too. I think that would be good. Oh...and I've always wanted Sting/Raven too. Just because both gimmicks are good...or at least were years ago.

Styles calls all the moves. That's not the WWE style of commentatin. The WWE style of commentating is to talk about the story of the match. Since the story of WWE matches is usually Snitskys foot fetish or Shelton Benjamin's mama...that's why the commentary is terrible.

I don't have a Nielsen box...so what I watch doesn't matter.

I can believe that AJ won...but the fact that this was the first year they didn't let you see the current results when you voted...AND the fact that Joe is in a contract dispute with only a little over 4 months left on it... I just wonder.

That award had to be fixed.

More live toughts from Impact courtesy of PWInsider: My wrestling year began on Tuesday night with the first TNA Impact and Xplosion tapings. You can check the full results at this link. Here are some thoughts and observations about the tapings that gave us the final pieces of the puzzle for the Final Resolution pay per view on January 15th. The Team 3D promo after their match with Buck Quartermain and Lex Lovett did a great job to show how important winning the NWA Tag titles is to them. While the match was not ‘officially’ announced until these tapings, I think a lot of people expected to see Team 3D get their shot at the title at the pay per view. It was interesting to hear the crowd reaction to the promo when Team 3D mentioned their prior World Title reigns. During the Jeff Jarrett/Team Canada/America’s Most Wanted interview in the back where they talked about the Sting tribute, you should definitely watch the way that Eric Young reacts during the segment. It was also the next step in the Jackie Gayda/Jeff Jarrett angle. While I was definitely critical of the segment that aired on New Year’s Eve, they did start to build on the angle this week. It was interesting to see how the angle has expanded beyond only Jeff Jarrett and Jackie Gayda. It will be interesting to see where the angle goes and how it affects some of the alliances in the company based on the second taping. I was wondering how they were going to use Homicide based on what has been said about Homicide’s shoulder. I was a little surprised at how short the match was. While I was not surprised at the interference by I thought it would have been Kip and BG James, but they did get involved after the match ended. Homicide definitely got a great reaction from the crowd, and I would assume that it is from his reputation in other companies. The interesting thing about Homicide will be to see how his heel run is perceived by fans in Florida who might only know his work as a face in his other Florida work. I really enjoyed the segment when Roderick Strong, Alex Shelley, and Austin Aries confronted Larry Zbyszko in the back. Since Aries was a ‘face’ prior to this taping, this segment did a great job to explain why he would team with Roderick and Alex. While he is not wrestling at this time, it was good to see Jerry Lynn, one of the X Division pioneers, be the one to tell Alex, Austin, and Roderick to win some matches and they will get on the pay per view. While I was a bit shocked at the ‘first fall’ of the Ron Killings/Bobby Roode match, and a little more shocked at the ‘second fall’ for how quick Killings was able to defeat Roode, I was surprised that they did a ‘third fall’ during the show. But with Bobby getting some revenge with the victory in the third fall, it could be interesting to see if they add this match to the pay per view or extend this feud to a future Impact. While I was watching the match unfold, my first thought after the rollup victory in the ‘first fall’ was ‘Chris Benoit/Orlando Jordan’. The second fall made me think ‘Maven/Shelton Benjamin from last January’. The ‘third fall’ separated this match from the other two and made me want to see more from these two guys. Ron Killings was over as part of the 3 (or 4) Live Kru and he continues to be popular with the crowd in Orlando so it looks like the split of the group will not hurt anyone. During the Samoa Joe interview, they did a lot to build on the tension between Joe and Shane from the previous interview attempts. I didn’t expect to see Joe cut a promo, but it was well done and it personalized the feud for their match by mentioning Daniels’s injury and how he couldn’t hold his son. While this match did not need anything other than the fact that Christopher Daniels and Samoa Joe would be in a match, it did a lot to get people who might have been on the fence about how good this match should be at Final Resolution to want to see this match. The six man tag match of Austin Aries/Roderick Strong/Alex Shelley versus A.J. Styles/Christopher Daniels/Chris Sabin might have been the best non-pay per view match that I have seen at a TNA show. It was great to see all six men get in offense and it is definitely a match that needs to be seen by any fan of the X Division. I know it is weird to say about a match that was taped on January 3rd and will air on January 7th, but this is definitely a match of the year candidate. TNA had a lot of great X Division matches in 2005, and they did a great job to start off 2006 with such a lofty standard to match. When I heard about the Sting Tribute, I did not know what to expect and did not have high expectations about the segment. Prior to talking to some people before the show, I didn’t expect the ‘tribute’ to like the ‘Team 3D Funeral’. For some reason I didn’t put 2 and 2 together. While it was not as good as the ‘Team 3D Funeral’, it was still a good segment. Eric Young as the ‘Surfer Sting’ was great and along with Alex Shelley, his gestures and mannerisms are the best in TNA. Chris Harris looked so much like the ‘Crow Sting’ that the resemblance was scary. James Storm came to the ring dressed in a chicken suit along with cowboy boots and got some interesting comments from the crowd. Monty Brown as ‘New Sting’ was interesting considering he came out in golf attire. I know that my preference is to see more wrestling than talking on the shows; this segment did a lot to build interest in the main event at the pay per view and exceeded my expectations. I think the ‘Mr. TNA’ segment with A.J. did a good job to build his match with Tanahashi. I assume they are going to air footage of Tanahashi similar to the video package that they did for Jushin Liger before the Bound for Glory match against Joe. When Shannon Moore was being chased around the ring by A.J. Styles during the Samoa Joe/Cassidy Riley match, I know that I was humming the theme song from ‘Benny Hill’ Moore entered into the ring. I thought it was interesting to see Joe go after A.J. when he got into the ring. While I didn’t expect the feud to end with their match at Turning Point, it lays the early ground work for their rematch. Since Christopher Daniels was at the announce position during Joe’s match, I was not surprised to see him get involved when Joe tried to give Cassidy the Muscle Buster on the chair. The Team Canada versus Chris Sabin/Sonjay Dutt/Matt Bentley six man match was also a good match and I thought that they might try to set something up with Sabin, Dutt, and Bentley against Strong, Aries, and Shelley. With Alex Shelley coming to ringside during the match and costing Sabin, Dutt, and Bentley the match, maybe we will see that match at Final Resolution. I am not a big fan of matches with too much interference, but with the interference in the Americas Most Wanted versus Rhino and Christian Cage match, it was still a good and entertaining match. In addition to building the main event tag match at Final Resolution, they also built on two more matches with Abyss giving Rhino the Black Hole Slam; and the Team 3D and America’s Most Wanted match. After the last tapings, my opinions of Final Resolution might have been lowered, I am definitely looking forward to the pay per view now and there are some potential matches that I might not normally be as interested in that have me interested. With the reports that Sting was backstage at the show, I thought he might have appeared at the end to help out Christian. Even though he did not appear, the comments he made did enough as the build for the pay per view since some people might have figured that they can see him on free television, they don’t need to buy the pay per view. It was also mentioned in reports that Norman Smiley was there on Tuesday. Some of us were trying to figure out who Norman could face if he was going to wrestle. We were hoping that he would have faced Joe only to see Norman try the ‘Big Wiggle’ and see how Joe would have reacted to it. There are a number of vocal fans in Orlando who will hate anything that Jeff Jarrett does and they do not hold back when Jarrett is on the mic. I know that there are many times when I cannot hear what is being said in the ring when I am about six feet from the ring. I know that there are other people around me who are unable to hear the promos in the ring or from the back because of the crowd. It gets frustrating at time because the promos are setting up something for later in the show or something for the next episode of Impact that is being taped that night. As a result, something that happens later in the show might not make sense at the taping, but it does after you watch Impact on television. While the fans are entitled to say what they want, they might want to try to listen to what is said instead of simply starting ‘boring chants’ for Jarrett the second he walks out with the mic before saying anything. While not every fan in Orlando is like that, because the chants are so loud it makes it sound like everyone is reacting that way to Jarrett. The same thing happened during the ‘Mr. TNA’ segment with A.J. Styles. While A.J. is still one of the most popular wrestlers in Orlando, there are a lot of people who are fans of Joe and appeared to feel that Joe deserved the award. With the same base of fans at the shows each week, the biases of the crowd are obvious. I know that there are people on message boards that think that TNA ‘has’ to leave Orlando because of the crowd but I think that is just as wrong as some people who think that the vocal members of the Orlando crowd voice the opinions of the entire crowd. I know that I disagree with a lot of the things that are chanted and done by the crowd, but they are entitled to do what they want as long as it is something that violates any TNA or Universal Studios policy.

I've seen it twice now...and there's so much that I'd like to say...but will wait until others have seen it too. I'll just say..everyone go see it.

Well...that's going in my sig.

Alright...from the Impact Spoilers we know some stuff...from the TNA site we know some other stuff...from the Bank shot on the TNA site we know some more stuff...and from PWInsider.com we know who AJ is facing at the show... Here's where we are: Christian and Sting vs. Jarrett and Monty Brown (announced on the stuff taped for the 1/1 Impact) X title: Samoa Joe vs. Christopher Daniels (announced on the site) NWA Tag Titles: AMW vs. Team 3D (announced in the Bill Banks column) Abyss vs. Rhino (announced in the Bill Banks column) Raven vs. ? (announced on the site. If Raven wins he gets a title shot, if he loses he's fired) AJ Styles vs. NJPW's Tanahashi (PWInsider.com audio update) That leaves: -The entire B and C teams of the X division (Sabin, Bentley, Williams, Strong, Aries, Shelley, Dutt, and Shannon Moore who I forgot about until Zack mentioned him. That just proves my point about Impact) -The New Age Outlaws/4 live Krew crap - The left over part of the roster of Team Canada and the Diamonds in the Rough and Hoyt/Naturals.

I still haven't really forgiven WWE for what they've done to RVD. Is the guy a good worker? Not really...but Cena and Batista have been slotted at the top and they blow (And Batista is OLD). He's the ultimate example of not striking when the iron is hot...but instead throwing as much cold water on it as you can to try and prove it was never hot to begin with. ...Just because he wasn't a WWE creation. If you go back to Invasion (where they had him beat everyone...but never win the title) the crowd was hotter for the guy than Rock or Austin or anyone for that matter...and there was certainly a money program with Austin that they never really got around too. Hopefully with the steroid testing WWE will start to look at him like an asset and not just crap on him. Chris Masters is about to get a whole lot smaller after all.

Not to reflect on 2001... But WWE dropped the ball so hard on RVD... What are you rushing back to return too? Honestly? 4 minute jobs to the Masterpiece...or getting paid to sit at home? HMMM... HMMM...

Crosby is the biggest crybaby, diving bitch that I have seen in the NHL in a while. I'm glad we swept those assholes.

At least they finally figured out what was wrong with him. He's been out a long time and they didn't know. He's got the same thing that's keeping Dumont down until March. It sucks because he's my favorite Sabre...but they haven't exactly missed those guys in the lineup.

Not putting the title on Brown on that Impact has lead to the apathy of the title picture for ONE YEAR since then. So...yes...he was ready. Then Dusty Rhodes fucked it all up.

The problem with Impact is that they are trying to do 4 angles during one match. Because that's all they have time for. With twice as much time...they could have less things going on and not only would the matches be better (if only for that simple reason) but the actions would have more (pardon the pun) impact.

It's also another one of those months where the "Main Event" shouldn't be the last match on the card. Joe/Daniels should end the show. The Tag Team title match could even do it if Team 3D were to win the titles (which I don't think they are). But instead...

I know I'm the only one...but if Raven is FEUDING WITH ZBYSZKO (which...he is) then the blowoff to the feud should be Raven vs. Zbyszko. Let's face it...a Raven match at this point isn't going to be good anyway. So at least it makes sense...and would get crowd reaction.

You know...I may be the biggest, blindest most loyal TNA fan around here... And I have to say that I just plain don't like Impact. They need another hour so bad it isn't even funny. The 2 hour special they put on...that's more along the lines of what will help them get a TV audience. The 1 hour show is so frantic and fast paced (not in a good way) that nothing ends of meaning anything. Now...their ppvs I love. But I've never been a fan of what they've done on TV (either on FSN or Spike) save for that 2 hour special...and even that was just because of the good matches. That didn't have storyline of character development either come to think of it. I did like the Team 3D funeral sketch. And I've enjoyed some of the Christian/Monty promos and actually heel AMW for some reason...so I don't think that it's a question of whether they can write some good TV. They just don't have the time to do it. And thusly their best angles (Samoa Joe killing Daniels leaps to mind) happen on the ppvs...and they just reference back to them on TV. If the product on TV was more like it is on PPV (and they have enough talent to have that work) I think it would be more successful.

Sabres win again. No superstars and very few olympic picks. I guess we'll have to settle for 51 points on December 26th.

I don't buy the whole amateur wrestling background making someone a "better mind" for pro wrestling. Pro wrestling is fake. It doesn't even loosely resemble what is done in amateur wrestling. The anklelock? Seriously? I really want the Joe vs. Angle thread so we can see how many people would pick Angle...and then we can laugh at them.

Bin Laden's Snub in 2001 is like Citizen Kane not winning best picture at the Oscars. It makes the whole process useless.