TNABaddboi

From PWI: I gotta say I think this is a good move. Seeing the show in a different atmosphere really helped make BFG feel special. At the very least, BFG, LockDown and Slammiversary should be outside of Orlando this year.

TNA has announced a house show in Birmingham, AL in January. I don't know if this is a front show or not, but it's not in conjunction with the UWF like most of their shows are. Anyway, here's the press release: That's only about 2 hours from where I live, so depending on the card, I might take the trip.

Preview: Discuss: This looks like a decent line-up. Of course, the matches will probably be all 2 minutes long, so I'm not getting my hopes up too much. But if they formatted this show like they did the ones when they were streaming them online, with 4 five or six minutes going to each match and the main going 10, I'd be very happy.

I thought this was a pretty decent show. The angles were all pretty solid and actually given a second or too to sink in, for once. My only major beef is that the Storm turn seemed like a big enough deal to close the show, but didn't. Going to commercial and coming back for the Christian promo was a mistake I think. The Storm turn almost immediatiely made me think of HBK putting Jannetty through the barber shop window, and next thing I know, they're at a commercial. I wonder how long it'll be before Gail Kim turns on Harris too, though. The Angle stuff was pretty intense, and established him a bit as heel, but I hope they hold on the third match for awhile. The Angle/Joe series really should have headlined shows outside Orlando, when they could have drawn a paid gate.

Preview: Discuss: This main event is taking the blowing PPV main events on TV things to knew extremes. That's like the next six months worth of main events in one match, and it probably won't even bump the numbers, because as far as I know, they haven't promoted it. Anyway, I hope Petey and Homicide get more than 3 minutes. I think they could have a great little tv match with 6 or 7, and since they've got a little mini-story going on, maybe they'll get some time.

While there were a couple of instances I would have liked to see them do differently, I agree with Invader3K that the 2 hour show was one of the better paced Impacts ever.

Meltz says they did a 1.0

Preview: I'm actually looking forward to show a little bit. I'm really intrigued by the tag title match. I think LAX will get a great rub from working with Angle and Petey will too. And unlike last week, when I think they gave away too much with Christian/Angle, I think it's a pretty good TV main event. It wouldn't really work on PPV, but it seems like a big deal on Impact. I'm sure we'll get a run-in ending, but still, if they give them 10 minutes (and no commercial, which I know is wishful thinking), I'd be happy. I also liked that they backed themselves out of the corner of stripping LAX of the belts. Actually, it adds to Konnan's character to have "proved" TNA was trying to discriminate against them. The rest of the stuff is just kinda there for me, though I am interested in seeing where they go with Christian/Tomko and the stuff with Sting and Abyss is already infiinitely more interesting IMO than anything they did with Sting and Jarrett.

I can't believe they put a commercial break over LAX's intro! That's one of the most unique things in TNA and a big part of the reason they got over. Also, the story of Samoa Joe coming to replace Petey played well into the Joe watching Angle's back story, but it would have been more effective if Angle played face-in-peril longer. Imagine the pop Joe would have gotten had he run out after say 8 minutes of Angle taking the LAX beatdown. It would have been insane. I'm glad they didn't pull the trigger on the title change though. I was afraid they would have, because we all know Russo loves the wacky tag champs who can't stand each other (remember Austin/Shaw Michaels or Austin and Mick Foley?), but for once, a cop-out finish used by TNA made sense. If they are going to feature LAX's lawyer so prominently though, they should probably give him a name. Either way, I'm glad they didn't do the change, because A) they've had too many in the past month or so, B) LAX is too hot to stop their momentum and C) Kurt Angle doesn't need to be involved in the tag scene for long. Other than that, the Sting/Abyss/Christian deal is shaping up to be pretty interesting, though i think Cornette's character would have had better credibility if he took Christian out of the match for setting up Sting. Christian is moving very nicely into the top heel role though, and I'm sure it won't be long before they put the belt back on him. Everything else on the show was blah.

I was thinking that the first rating shows there wasn't as much UFC crossover to TNA's audience as people though, as the people watching most likely tuned in at 8:59 or whatever. It wasn't a blowaway rating by any stretch, but it was still an important point for TNA to prove and obviously Spike's pay attention. I'm wondering how long it will be before they get the extra hour. They seem to get a better deal with Spike every six months or so, so maybe around LockDown? It's about time they got serious about taking the PPVs on the road regularly. I think they need to at least do the big shows from new locations, to make them feel special. BFG didn't feel like anything they've ever produced, just because they were in front of new fans. I'm digging the faux-Canadian Stampede idea with LAX too. Put them in the main event across from Kurt Angle and almost anybody and book it! Hell, if they could find a smaller arena in Monterrey, I'd say have the show in Mexico. 4,200 is not much more than they drew for BFG, and that crowd looked huge just because I'd gotten so used to seeing them in front of 900 people. Thanks for posting these!

I think they were trying to sell the story of the referring giving Sting multiple warnings before pulling the trigger, so they could say he was so far removed from his principals that he didn't pull back when he had the chance. The problem with the way they did it though is everything you mentioned. Even if they let all those things go, Sting should have been DQ'ed for putting Abyss through the barbed wire, not shoving the ref. So at least you wouldn't say "he got away with all that other stuff, but they nail him for this!"

NFL Network isn't available in nearly as many homes as Spike TV, so TNF won't have nearly as big an effect on TNA's ratings as a compelling MNF game has on Raw's. The NFL put games on the network to convince more providers to carry it, but even if that plan works, it won't happen until next season.

Preview: Discuss:

IIRC, PWInsider put it at 0.8.

Info about the Mexico show, from Mike Johnson...

AJ's been quite effective as heel at least twice in TNA, though his second big run was ruined by Russo. Granted, it was during the weekly PPV days, but I'm just saying don't count him out. I don't know if you were watching TNA then, but AJ played the cocky young punk better than Sabin is playing it now, and Sabin's doing a pretty good job at it.

IIRC, they didn't have a falling out. Cornette got sick of D'more interfering in matches and disbanded Team Canada and they all went there seperate ways. Tenay mentioning that last night would have been helpful, though. I agree. Petey's got a pretty high profile match, tagging with the biggest star in the company in a tag title match against the hottest act in the company. That beats just about anything they've done with him since he lost the X-Title in that UX match with AJ and Sabin.

Looks like we're getting an AJ/Rhino feud...

AJ's been a face since 2003.

Aren't spoilers supposed to be kept in the spoiler thread?

Ok, I know the show is two weeks away, but they're taping it tonight and Mike Johnson says they want to make it PPV quality, so I figured I start the discussion on it. We already know about the cage match and Angle facing the tournament winner. What else do you guys see happening? Is it a bad idea to give away Angle's first match on TV? How big is this show for TNA? Will you read the spoilers?

Even more, from Mike Johnson:

Glad to see they were being realistic about the rating expectations for once.

So who's betting Russo pulls a KotR '98 at has Sting beat Abyss for the title on Impact? (As if Abyss needed any more reasons to be compared to Kane)

Abyss might not be champion long enough to find out. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Russo replays KotR 98 and has Sting beat Abyss on Impact.