TNABaddboi

My favorites from the early shows are Week 3 and Week 7. Week 3 was the first show in Nashville (but from the Municipal Auditorium and not the Fairgrounds) and had a very good tag team title match between Jerry Lynn/AJ Styles and the Rainbow Express and had a decent little ME between Scott/Brian Christopher and Jeff Jarrett and a heel Truth (then known as K-Krush). Week 7 featured Truth big title win over Shamrock, in a match that was more spectular for the moment than the work, but it also featured a strong Jarrett/Apolo match (Apolo's best work in TNA, IMO) and a great, great 3 way X-title match between Jerry Lynn, AJ Styles and Low-Ki that saw Low-Ki become the 2nd X-Champ after a great finish.

The show after the first anniversary show is generally regarding as being excellent until falling apart for the ME. It had the awesome AMW/XXX cage match, the beginnings of the D'Lo Brown/AJ Styles feud with a great impromptu brawl between them and match between Kazarian and Sabin, I believe. Don't hold me to that last part though. I also really liked the show from Dec. 16, 2002, when XXX was formed. It featured the best promo JJ has done in TNA, IMO, where he turned down Russo's overtures to join SEX, it featured a decent little spotfest in a X-Division Gauntlet match, it had a great holy S*** moment in a suprise appearance by the Road Warriors and it featured a hell of a ME in a Six Man tag match with XXX against Amazing Red and the SATs. In fact, I've liked both of their "go-home" to Christmas break shows, because the Dec. 17, 2003 show was very good in my eyes too. It featured an energetic JJ/Sting match, a good brawl with AMW and Gilberti and David Young, a good tag match between D'Lo & AJ Styles and Simon Diamond and Johnny Swinger and a cage match between Raven & The Gathering and Abyss & The Redshirts.

If this is true, I can't say I didn't see it coming, but it is still a huge loss to TNA as Kash was an excellent heel on a roster short of charismatic workers.

This was a decent show...not the best one (that's a toss-up between Episode 1 and 4), but far from the worst (def Episode 2) IMO. I liked that they made Shamrock seem like a big deal and legit threat to Jarrett's reign, which is something they didn't do with Truth. The problem with Shamrock is that he's only gotten over in the past as a monster babyface, ala Goldberg, but eventually he plows through all the heels and there's no reason to care about his matches. The only difference between Goldberg's WCW Title reign and Shamrock's NWA Title reign was that GB has the streak as a way to add heat to his matches. Shamrock didn't, and thus fizzled much, MUCH more quickly. But I digress. I wish they would have played up the history between Shamrock and Truth though, to give Truth some more crediblity. And I wish they would have showed highlights of his promo from the PPV because that promo did more for the Truth's career than any single thing TNA has done with him since he cut the promo with Steamboat the week before he defeated Shamrock. I liked that they didn't open up the show with a multi-man X match. This singles match just felt more important, and still featured the high-spots to get the crowd going. The 6 man was decent, but didn't blow me away. D'Lo still seemed a little off, though not as much as he did after the chairshot on Wednesday. The Naturals stealing the belts was a good way to put heat on Wednesday's match. I'm growing very tired of the Monty/Abyss weekly squash. They really don't need to have a squash match every week. Once or twice a month, max. That time could have gone to one of the other matches or maybe to a Jarrett promo so he wouldn't have had to ramble on during the ME. The X-Division tag match was very good and this pairing of Kazarian and Shane seems interesting. I must admit that I miss the coolest guy in the world bit though. I wonder who's gonna play the face when they eventually split over the title. The ME was just kind of there. I liked the guys involved (yes, even James and to a lesser extent, Konnan), but it was just hard to follow the match with Jarrett's yapping. I like that Team Canada went over to rebound from jobbing to Team India (TM The Voice) on Wednesday. And the post show stare off was great, though once again all the focus was on Shamrock/Jarrett when there's enough backstory for this to be a really good three way feud. In fact, if they are going to change the title this week (which I'm sure they are not), I'd like to see in come down to Shamrock and The Truth, that way they can play up the history big. And Rodman was absolutely worthless. If he was being uncooperative they should have sent his ass home and said that Abyss ate him.

Sounds like Rodman wasn't worth the hassle at all. Glad TNA is getting some more mainstream press. First, Newsday, now this. Classy move on TNA's part to pay for Styles to get home. Stuff like that will go along way toward keeping workers happy. And glad Skipper is getting the airtime in his place, because he deserved a nice spot as well. And Johnson is right on in the bonus match situation. If the company acts like the match in the ring isn't important, fans are just not going to pay attention to it at all.

I think it's good that they are considering moving the PPVs from Nashville, since IMO, they burned that crowd out a long time ago, but I'm not sold on doing BOTH Impact and the PPV from Universal. Moving it to a different location in FL would be a great move for them as it would reduce travel costs, but doing 2 shows a week at Universal will probably burn that crowd out faster than they did in Nashville. And if they let them in free like they do Impact, they'll lose all gate revenue and if they charge but keep Impact free, people will just go to Impact and the PPV attendance will be really low. So I'm not sure this is a smart move. Either of the proposed FX timeslots are good for me, but I'd be more in favor of Monday's at 8, because if they show any life at all, they might get that extra hour later on down the road and run the old Nitro slot of 8-10. Tuesday would be cool too, but I really like them being on Mondays, because as people have said in other threads, Mondays are wrestling night to most wrestling fans. Glad Shamrock and Vito will be on Impact. Good to see storylines continue from show to show. And I'd think Rodman will do something with Fairplay, and not JJ, but I could be wrong. I figured that had something to do with Lynn/D'Amore running so long. But they should have given 5 of those minutes to Styles/Hardy and 5 to Jarrett/Killings IMO. Jerry's book should be very interesting. I'll definitely read it.

You know, it just dawned on me that TNA has fixed the slots where Impact was screwed the worst. They weren't on in Philly at all, and they got picked up on 2 week trial that performed so well, it was made permanent. They were on at 4 am in DC and now they will be moved to the ions better Saturday at midnight slot, mirroring the Philly market and they were on in New York on Tuesday at 2:30 in NY, which was the worst slot of all in the biggest market in the country and now they have that in the regular slot. So TNA deserves some credit for working to fix this and so do the fans who made enough noise with their local stations to pressure them into doing something.

I think Kash's days in TNA might be numbered and that's a problem, because he's a great, great heel. Hopefully Rodman doesn't stand them up tonight.

I thought there was some time of hand stamp or pass or something. But I remember reading this a while back.

I thought I'd read that they had worked out a deal where you could go directly to the Impact tapings for free. Maybe I am mistaken.

Yeah, there is a greater chance for fan turnover, but at some point, you'd hope that they are drawing people to the arena who came to see TNA. Those people will be more likely to react to things other than the high spots. I may be in the minority, but I like the PPV entrance way better than the Impact entrance way. The overall presentation of Impact is better, but just the PPV entranceway is great IMO. The only thing I would change about it is to put the video wall behind the entrance way so we see the wrestler's videos as the enter the arena.

I replied.

I got this DVD in the mail yesterday, and I must say it is very well produced. I haven't finished it yet, but the presentation is much slicker than the Best of the Title Matches DVD. I watched UX2 and the first round of the Super X Cup and I enjoyed the matches. I have a new found fondess for Chris Sabin. Once AJ is out of the X-Division again, he should get the AJ-Style God push. He's great. And they sent me 2 copies, so I have any unopened one for anyone looking for it. I'll sell it for 20, so you can even save a few bucks, shipping not included of course. If anyone is interested, PM me.

Yeah, having separate sets would help. And I do think they should try to do something like that (Tampa and Orlando) if they move to FL permanently. I'm sure they could dress up one of those venues MLW used to use. That'd be the best plan.

It's actually supposed to be moving to the normal slot of Friday's at 3. I don't know when the move will take effect though.

This is good for TNA. If they're going to bring him, bring him in regularly will be good. They can't afford him to work the Sting schedule. It would make them look bush league.

This show was a mixed bad IMO. There was some good and some really bad. The opener was a nice little tag match and did a long way toward re-establishing the tag division, which TNA is clearly trying to do. It's been a while since we had a tag match that felt important without involving the champs or the number one contender's spot. And while I question them jobbing Team Canada, I don't mind it too much because they weren't squashed. Just puts over the competitive nature of the division. They planted the seeds of dissension in Team Canada, which is good, but I think it's too soon. I would have held off until they lost the belts before I made any kind of move like that. The title promo was a microcosm of the whole show, in that it was both good and bad. The Truth showed more fire here then he had in the FOUR shows leading up to his title match and went a long way to make people care about his title chase. That promo really should have been done on Impact to help get more people behind the Truth. It just proved what I've been saying all along, that The Truth is a fantastic talker (it's his main attribute), so there's no way in hell that Russo and BG James should have been talking for him up to this point. His promo was soooo good that the mark in me came out for a minute and I was pulling for him to get the belt, but of course, I came back to planet reality. I also liked that JJ let the video do his talking for the most part, because Jarrett tends to ramble on the mic. I liked that they didn't draw the decision out until the end of the show because we already waited a week for it. Also, while the Gauntlet doesn't make much sense, I like that they're bringing Shamrock in a high profile position. You could see that they are going to have to do some work rebuilding Shamrock because he got no response. He pretty much bitched the Elite Guard by himself, further making them look like chumps. And this segment was soooo long. D'Lo versus Monty was bad. They didn't really have time to get anything going before the cheap ending and they just didn't look to mesh together while they were in the ring together. Maybe they both had off-nights, I don't know. I think D'Lo may have been a little out of it after one of those bumps, because he just didn't look like himself. The NYC match was just terrible. The fun stopped after the bell rang. Gilberti and Swinger do a good job as buffoons, but there is just no chemistry between these teams and this feud just WILL NOT DIE. I do like how they're going to make Vito the leader of the NYC and have him toughen them up. That's a nice spot for him on the card, and Vito and Swinger are a much more exciting team than Gilberti and Swinger. And I have a feeling that Young is going to end his streak by beating a referee, which is pretty funny if you think about it. IMO, Watts/Abyss was waaaaaaaaaaayyyyy better than it had any right to be. It wasn't a great match, but it wasn't as bad as the match that proceeded it. Of course, I thought this was going to be the blow off of this feud, but it too WILL CONTINUE. Grrrr. And one thing I realized as they kept showing shots of Watts' wife. How in the hell am I supposed to feel sorry for him if he wouldn't be in this situation if he didn't CHEAT ON HIS WIFE. That's a very un-babyface like move, don't ya think? They did another bait and switch and they need to be careful with that. If they didn't plan on the Kash match, they shouldn't have promoted it. Simple as that. That said, the 6 way was great. They had some cool spots, like Kazarian hitting the Wave of the Future will Styles hit the Styles Clash. I actually bought a couple of the near falls as I thought TNA might surprise us. And the post-match brawl seemed contrived. I have no problem with Team Canada running in, but you mean to tell D'Lo and Monty, for instance, who were in the same locker room for an friggin' hour, suddenly decide they can't stand the sight of each other and start fighting it out, at the same time everyone else in the locker room has the same revelation. Maybe its' just mean, but it was a bit much. And the end pissed me off. They ended the show with Shamrock headed to the ring to confront Jarrett. I hate that. Something should have happened before they left the air, even if it was something as simple as security breaking them apart. A good cliffhanger ending is me wondering what is going to happen next week. A bad cliffhanger ending is me wondering what is happening after the camera's stop rolling, because 9 times out of 10, they're not going to show me that AT ALL. So all in all, it was a middle of the road show. It wasn't great, but it wasn't the GAB either. TNA needs to step up their game though, overall. IMHO, they haven't delivered a complete broadcast since the Deadly Draw show in May.

Sorry I didn't remember the thread. I just was on there and noticed the changes. It can be deleted.

He didn't look bad at all, but they worked a very safe match that was designed for Hardy to look good. Time will tell what he can deliver in the ring.

Exactly. Hardy brings them attention in a way that most of their signings don't (other than Raven when they brought him). He gets people who wouldn't ordinarily be discussing TNA talking about it, which will help product awareness

I think the point that people are making is that Hardy will bring instant buys, just like people who said they never considering order a TNA PPV until they signed Raven, and they check it out. Even though I think he'd make a great hire too, a guy like Kanyon doesn't have that built-in fanbase and would thus have to be built up, as you said.

C'mon....saying wait til he's advertised to have a match, or at least APPEAR on the show before you use that show as evidence of his drawing is a reasonable request IMO. So let's say you're a Jeff Hardy fan. You've never seen or heard of TNA 'til you heard that's where he was now wrestling. You look at this preview and you say, oh they haven't signed him yet. Are you more likely to order and read the report and say oh, they did him and then order when he's guaranteed to be there. I'm just saying to be practical. If it was somebody that you didn't hate, I think you'd see the logic in it. And I'm no huge Hardy fan at all. I just think he'll help TNA more than he'll hurt.

I think you should wait until he has an advertised match before you start counting the bump, or lack thereof. He's not promised to be there tonight, even though he most likely will be. They've just promised an update. This is kinda like when they did the drawn out interview with Sting to have him have a presence on the show without paying him to be there.

Now this isn't really a fair assessment b/c the RoH audience is entirely different than the TNA audience. RoH audience is a purely workrate crowd, while TNA's is more a mixture of spotfests/SE. Hardy was booed mercilessly at RoH, but he got the loudest reaction every in the Asylum this past week ('cept maybe Sting's first appearance and I think he may have outdone that), so if you're going to go by audience reactions, it'd probably be better to go by the audience he'll be wrestling in front week after week instead of the audience that he probably will never go in front again.