Corey_Lazarus

...these kids don't get that black metal is one big joke from London, do they?

TNA should hire me and Mike as consultants. 'Nuff said.

Of course it's amazing. TNA wasn't supposed to survive into 2003, but they did because Panda liked the promise they saw in the product. Why Panda stayed on board when the product turned to utter shit I'll never understand, though...

I've always like the "pew-row" pronunciation, personally. At least when differentiating between Japanese promotions and American promotions.

Well, those results further prove why I've stopped watching TNA, so I guess I'll skip this one too, and go back to watching the TNA DVDs I have...ah, back when TNA didn't completely suck...

I've never seen the point to any dress code stricter than "no shirts with foul language" ever. If I'm going somewhere, I want to be comfortable, regardless of the length of time it takes to travel there. They could easily say "try to make sure your clothes are clean," or at least just say "no sweatpants that look like they were bought from a thrift shop, assholes," but yeah. And where does this whole "shows they have respect" thing come in? I never, EVER understood how dressing up somehow displays respect. If anything, I think it shows disrespect. Dressing like you'd usually dress shows a lot more respect, as it brings a personal aspect into the encounter, thus showing that you respect it enough to make it personal. Hell, half the reason I never tried out for any sport in high school (even though I could have probably outwrestled most of our wrestling team, and given a good check to most of the hockey players) is because I hate dress codes (that, and I had extremely long hair for the first two years of high school, a mohawk for the third year, and started growing my hair again senior year). Yeah, I'm rambling. Mmmmmmmmmmm...cherry kool-aid...

So....rundown of the show, please? I want to know if I should actually shill out the $10 and order a replay or not (just to see the X-Division Invitational, since those are usually entertaining).

Only TNA matches worth a damn this year have been Ultimate X2 and the first America's X-Cup 8-man (Team USA vs. Team Mexico). Also notable is Team Canada vs. Team Mexico from the second America's X-Cup, and some of the Abyss/Styles matches were swank as all hell. Pretty much anything involving Simon Diamond/Pet Kinney, Glenn Gilberti, Sonny Siaki, Johnny "I Fucking Suck" Swinger, Jeff Jarrett, Monte Brown, and Chris Harris is pretty much utter shyte in my book, too.

TNA "jumped the shark" at two points: 1) The finish to Raven/Jarrett. It's not even that Jarrett won, it's that he won while making Raven, Perry Saturn, Justin Credible, New Jack, and The Sandman all look like complete shit. Now, say what you will about Credible, Sandman, and New Jack, but you DO NOT MAKE HIGH-PROFILE TALENT LOOK BAD. Sure, Credible isn't a HUGE name, but he does carry the fact that he is a former ECW World champion. Ditto for Sandman. New Jack is known for his character and the balcony dives, Saturn for his suplexes and overall awesomeness in the ring, and Raven? Too obvious. In one match, Jarrett made five people look like jobbers. One of them was TNA's only other certifiable main-eventer aside from Jarrett, and the other four were solid upper-card talents. To shrug off all of the punishment given to him in that match was something even HHH wouldn't have done, something even Hogan wouldn't have done. 2) The signing of Dutch Mantel. Mantel comes in, changes the entire direction of the product, modifies characters to be completely different than they were before (even as a face until then, AJ Styles was still cocky and arrogant, and he suddenly became some Ricky Steamboat-like squeaky-clean babyface; don't get me started on how Jarrett went from everyday man with a meanstreak to egomaniacal showboat with an entourage to protect him), killed the X-Division (Michael Shane, 'nuff said), nearly killed the tag team division (Redshirts didn't even start acting like a team until a few weeks before they split up), and took the biggest draw they had (Raven) and put him into an undercard feud (vs. The Gathering). TNA should get rid of the weekly PPVs. Maybe with commercial breaks, the matches won't seem to suck as much, and with one big show a month (or preferably every two months) to build to the storylines wouldn't be all over the place all the time. Hell, I'd even order a TNA 3-hour PPV if I knew the matches would get more than 10 minutes and wouldn't be all about overbooking (since you'd have the weekly shows to do the overbooking; even Russo knew that during the start of the Attitude era).

The Pounce would be more believable if, like others have said, people didn't just sell it like any other old shoulderblock. Also, I really do think that making it a shoulderblock from the front or the back would make it a LOT more believable, and also easier to sell. It's hard for wrestlers to sell a shot from the side, because unless they cartwheel or spin around quickly, it looks like absolute shit. Also, Brown should be given the Roaring Elbow, IMO. Sorry, I just mark HARD for that move, and if Brown did it like Masato Tanaka does (where he follows through with the elbow directly into the pin), then I think it'd look swank.

A. Take a bottle of beer and break it over the fucker's head. I can drink the beer in it first, and then break it over his head. Plus, dipping his head in nacho cheese? I don't wanna get nacho cheese on my tights the next time I'm powerbombing the asshole.

Saying you'd rather pay for for 8 hours of TNA than 3 hours of WWE a month and picking out the better parts of TNA than having the whole of WWE is like saying you'd rather go in for a haircut once a week with a little bit taken off at the time than getting it all done at once. Sure, you might not like it all when you're done with it at once, but at least you won't have to walk down the street embarassed from people staring at you because half of your hair is down to your shoulders and the other half is short and spiked. Yeah, that analogy didn't quite work well, but you get my point, right? Why sit through 8 hours to find the 3 hours of decent shit when you can get 3 hours altogether that will probably be just as good, if not better? Also, DK, I think it would be a safe bet to say that pretty much anything involving XXX or Jerry Lynn or AJ Styles from 2002/first half 2003 is better than Orton/Edge.

The problem with the lack of fans for TNA is that other promotions are doing what TNA does, only better and for less money. $40 to see a month's worth of TNA PPV, that's around 7.5 hours, just isn't worth it to most wrestling fans. And no, using "fans" in a general sense is NOT void, since this entire post and the question asked in the first post is about the fans and why they don't feel excited by the TNA product. The reason a lot of people won't see TNA is due to the fact that the $40 they could spend on four episodes of TNA could be used to buy a couple indy tapes, and with the average quality of shows from promotions like Ring of Honor, IWA Mid-South, and Pro Wrestling Guerrila, is it any surprise that your average internet fan would rather view those than a product that insults them (as TNA's does)? Say what you will about the impact of the internet on WWE, because it's true that the internet fans have very little impact there, but TNA's entire market is the internet fans. And in order for TNA to live up to the motto of "wrestling like you've never seen it before," which I believe they have used (either that or something incredibly similar) to market Xplosion and Impact and even the PPV, they need to offer something you cannot see anywhere else. Can you see cruiserweight spotfests in other promotions? Yes, as RoH has a Scramble Tag match on nearly every show. Can you see a person in the main event scene that most people think shouldn't be there in other promotions? Yes, as until recently, Triple H has shown no reason to be in the main event for WWE's Raw brand, and neither has JBL for WWE's SmackDown brand. Can you see two aging hardcore icons battle it out in other promotions? Yes, as CZW and IWA Mid-South run deathmatches and the sort frequently, and will often get bigger-name talent to participate. The real question is: what does TNA offer than you can't get from another promotion that will cost you less money and prove to be the better choice? Nothing. And that is why I truly feel TNA's crowds are dead, because after two years of being jerked around with direction changes within the company, wrestlers they want to be pushed jobbed, and match quality ranging from "damn good" to "absolutely dreadful," many of them couldn't give a fuck about the product anymore. I know I don't, I know Mike doesn't, I know Magus doesn't, the Nashville crowd doesn't, and the Orlando crowd soon won't (especially considering their shows are pretty much just jobber shows to hype the event that the Nashville fans will see). The only real hope for TNA is to go back and see why they became popular amongst wrestling fans in the first place. Once they figure this out, they need to capture that spark again and harness it.

I think it taste similar, considering Sprite is lemon/lime, and Pepsi Twist is lemon. Also...how doesn't Vanilla Coke taste like Cream Soda? Cream Soda is vanilla-flavored soda. Vanilla Coke is vanilla-flavored Coca Cola. Voila.

B. Throw him into the crowd Nothing like getting the fans into a match like getting them into a match.

ViciousFish, could it just be that the TNA crowds are so used to being disappointed that they don't get excited anymore? Whenever they (the fans) want a worker elevated, that worker gets jobbed to Jarrett in a usually embarassing manner (I'm sorry, but guitar shots are not credible anymore, especially when people can take three chairshots in the same match, and I'm pretty sure metal hurts more than plywood). It's really no secret that TNA's average match quality is poor, and has been since Mantel joined the company, and it's also no secret that the moment a face gets over, he gets jobbed to fit the wants of the bookers instead of the wants of the fans. See: Lynn, Jerry jobbing to nearly every other worker on the roster, despite being one of the most over workers in the company.

Q: Is TNA to blame for the dead crowds? A: When your product goes from good (January-February '03) to great (March-May '03) to average (June-September '03) to terrible (November '03-February '04) within one year, yes. I hold TNA directly responsible for the lack of fan enthusiasm, specifically since they do not push who the fans want to see in the way fans want to see them pushed (Raven, Styles, and Truth should all be vying for the World title still, and should be permanent main-eventers), do not give any reason for less-established wrestlers to be liked, and limit what the workers can do moreso than WWE does (TNA has no real move restrictions, but they told X-Division workers to slow down their matches and tell a story, but tell them to make most of their offense highspots, which are COMPLETELY contradictory instructions, and it's obvious the main event wrestlers need to tone down their style so as to not show how boring and generic a wrestler Jarrett truly is). Unless TNA realizes that the only way to be a force to be reckoned with in this industry is to provide a product that casual and hardcore fans can both enjoy, they will not be successful.

Thus far, my indy MOTY is Adrenaline vs. Sabotage from NECW in March (I forget the event's name) in Framingham. HEATED match, and even though I think Chris Venom of Adrenaline and DC Dillinger of Sabotage both suck, Brian Fury (Adrenaline) and Eddie Edwards (Sabotage) are good enough (with Edwards being insanely awesome) to make the match memorable. I don't know. It's not even that this match could stand up against any of the other indy MOTYC's listed here. It's just I loved this match so much because it was heated as hell, and showed the hatred the two teams had for each other (both teams were cheating out of their ass, and Adrenaline are the old-school faces, and action was completely non-stop for the whole bout, with only some minor Ricky Morton work done). ***1/2 easily, and I'd recommend ANYBODY get a copy of that show, as the main event (Maverick Wild vs. Antonio Thomas) was also ***1/2.

No offense, TD, but I don't remember you saying any show was below average. You usually say "I don't know why you're being so harsh, I thought it was a good show." I'm glad for not ordering if they botched a MADE feud like Raven/Sabu like this already by putting it on first WHEN NONE OF THE OTHER MATCHES HAVE AS MUCH HEAT GOING INTO THEM BESIDES KASH/STYLES.

Oh, right. You just take Swiggy's jizz on your face.

It was more or less JR saying it in passing some time in either mid-99 or late 98, but I know it happened.

So it's Mountain Dew that tastes like Sprite...riiiiiight... I don't get the infatuation with taking your product and making it taste different. Pepsi Twist? I had it when it was called Sprite, with the difference being that Sprite tastes a lot better. Vanilla Coke? In my day, we called it Cream Soda, and it didn't taste like ass. Mountain Dew Orange? Why not just get a fucking orange soda, jackass? I have turned into a bitter old man at the age of 18. Ain't it great?

So, basically, a bunch of lardasses that don't know how to lose weight without resorting to a fad diet are bitching because people are noticing they're fucking huge? Pussies. Hit the gym.

Bloodhound Gang's "The Bad Touch" was a hit for a month or so when it was released, and it's blatantly about sex. Lyrical content does not matter. Otherwise I doubt the song "I Touch Myself" would have been considered a pop hit.

Who managed J-E-double-F J-A-double-R-E-double-T as Tennesse Lee...