TNABaddboi

I swear Rhino and Abyss faced each other last Impact.....2 weeks ago at most. It's almost like all they do is wrestle each other on TV. I guess it's better than them alternating squashing jobbers every week, but still... And oh yeah...it's 4 minutes til midnight and they have yet to explain what the hell the KotM match is. If you started watching TNA when they got to Spike, you don't know what it is, or why it happens at Slammiversary only, for that matter. New viewers probably just associate the name with Jarrett and stop caring, despite it being a pretty cool gimmick.

More matches, per PWI:

TNA X-Division champion Samoa Joe will be undergoing physical therapy on his knee for at least the next three months. Joe has already started therapy under famous sports therapist Tommy Chao in California and is starting to be able to put some weight back on his leg. He is expected to take time off from his independent and international bookings in order to help rest the knee, but not miss any ring time for TNA events. Another update:

From Mike Johnson:

Since I've been drawing a lot of comparisons between Joe and Steve Austin's original lonewolf babyface gimmick, I'll draw another parallel here. Austin didn't wrestle a single match between August and November of 1997 (the Owen piledriver) and probably did more to get over in that timespan than he did in the previous year. Hopefully, if Joe has to miss any ringtime, his face will still be all over Impact.

Here's an update from Mike Johnson:

Saw this on another board: thoughts?

TNA really needs to speed up their DVD turn around time. I don't have PPV access, but I'd love to see this show just to see Jarrett eating the Muscle Buster (I'd like to see LockDown too, for that matter). But since they are just now releasing Final Resolution, its going to be awhile before I can...

Well it's almost showtime, so here's the OAO thread. Here's the official preview:

It's Thursday, so it's time for the OAO Impact thread. You know the drill: preshow thoughts, midshow remarks and post-show and ratings rants go here. Here's this week's preview: Well this week it looks like its Christian's turn to play the "convince the casual viewers to stick around til midnight" role that Sting played this week, while AJ, Daniels & AMW get to wow the UFC action fans early, a la Joe and Daniels a few weeks ago. Should be interesting to see if that formula works as well as it did on the Thursday debut (and last week to a lesser extent). Anyway, I am intrigued by the Christian/Shelley match-up. It makes just as much sense as the Sting/Young match a few weeks ago, and I hope Tenay and West play up why the match is happening. And I'm sure the tag title match will be a replay of the New Year's Eve match, only this time about half as long. I wonder what they're possibly doing with Nash. This interview should make that a little more clear, but I really hope he's the new DoA, instead of starting his rumored X-Division angle. Anyway, it should be a good show. Thoughts?

Ratings news, from Meltz:

Why were you surprised? Joe's probably been the most over guy on the roster since the 3 way feud with AJ and Daniels started...I'm just glad it looks like are finally gonna stop fighting the crowd and let him be the Goldberg-ish kick ass and take names face.

An update on the Nash/X-D angle, from the latest Torch report on TNA:

From a UWF press release sent out today: credit: PWInsider.com I remember it being rumored awhile ago that they were looking at Atlantic City. Should definitely be an interesting weekend for TNA...

New match for the PPV: credit: TNAWrestling.com

Ratings, from PWI:

To TNA's credit, for one week anyway, they played the storyline perfectly. They set Nash up to be delusional before even mentioning the X-Division, so its not just "I'm big and your not" and then Tenay and West reacted perfectly to him calling the division filler by calling him crazy instead of wondering how the little guys would ever compete. Of course, the "its 2006, not 1996" comments would have worked better coming off the segment that featured AMW, Daniels and Styles instead of Jarrett, Sting and the Steiners, but that's neither here nor there. It'll be interesting to see where this goes from here.....I'm assuming the jobbers will be squashed, or attacked at random, then Jerry Lynn will be offended as a founder of the X-division and will challenge Nash. Nash will put Lynn on the shelf to establish himself as a heel and then AJ will defend his former partner's honor and beat Big Kev. I'd love to see Joe kill Nash, but since coming to TNA, Nash has been talking about wanting to work with AJ, so that has to be where this is all going. As for the rest of the show, I thought the tag match was pretty good and the main event was too. I liked that they didn't have Christian squash Shelley....I almost wish they would have had him cheat to win to set up a title defense on Impact one week. Christian was pretty entertaining with his Rock imitation, and I got kick of him throwing to commercial mid-match. AMW and Daniels and Styles should have a kick-ass with about 15 minutes and no commercial breaks, so the PPV rematch should be great.

Well we're a couple of hours from showtime, so I figured I'd go ahead and start the discussion. Put your before, during and after thoughts about the line-up, show and ratings right here. Here's the official preview: Well it looks like TNA has learned that Joe = ratings...lol. No seriously, its good to see another X title match on Impact, as it was the only title that hadn't been defended even once on TV since the move to Spike. In fact, I can only remember 2 X-title matches on free tv at all...AJ defending against Kazarian on the 2nd Impact ever and then defending against Kid Kash about halfway through the FSN days. I wouldn't want to see them do title matches every week, but every once in awhile, why not? It makes Impact seem less like an informercial and more like an event. Anyway, vverall, I'd say this looks like a good show. Shelley's interaction with the rest of Team USA has been great so far, so I'm really looking forward to seeing more of that and I'm very happy that Christian and Abyss are continuing their feud. It's been developed nicely so far....and could really benefit from taking some of the spotlight from Jarrett and Sting. But I digress....I'm hoping for a good show tonight. Thoughts?

I'm glad they decided to show the "Xplosion X-clusive" match this week, since pretty much no one outside of Florida gets Xplosion. As I was watching, I kept thinking how much better it'd be if they just streamed Xplosion (and taped more than one match for it). It'd give them a chance to flesh out the undercard and run angles for the PPV matches that always seem run together. Sure it wouldn't be seen by as many people as Impact, but if they treat it like a B and show clips of what happens on TV, it'd be better than the two options they have now: either cramming everyone into 1 hour each week or ignoring half the roster. Anyway, as for the rest of the show, I'd seen clips of the AJ/Joe match before on youtube, and since they clipped it, it didn't do much for me. Eric Young's promo was absolutely fantastic and the Knockouts preview was ok for what it was. Hopefully they continue to fine-tune it and eventually use it in the way I just described.

Here are tonight's spoilers, per PWI: Thoughts?

it's not my point, it's meltzer's point. I just thought it would spark some discussion, so i posted it.

take this for what it's worth, but Meltz posted this perspective on TNA's ratings: thoughts?

I agree....any audience growth is good for TNA. And three of the last four shows hitting the 1.0 mark (which they did once in their first four months on Spike) is clearly a good sign. I also think that they are going in the right step with the house shows and DVDs in stores. To think of where they are coming, I think they are moving in the right direction. The next step is moving the PPVs out of Orlando (even if they leave Impact there). After that, its finding that extra hour of TV time. Anyway, no complaints from me about Thursday's number.

credit: PWI I'll so be watching for that AJ/Joe match. The fan cams I saw of it made it look really good. Showing standout matches from the house shows is a good way to make the show worth watching if they aren't gonna tape original content at the tapings.

Ticket update, from Johnson: