The Buzz

I believe, and I could be wrong, that they've both been with the company since the beginning so more than likely they've been rewarded over time for being there and helping the company grow with a large paycheck. Whereas the two knockouts are relatively new to TNA, although I do agree they should be knocked up in pay. Edit: Nevermind I thought the referee you were referring to was Rudy Charles who is only making 100 grand. Earl Hebner is a famous referee, which is probably why they offered him that much to sign. Once again the Knockouts should be well above both referees. Reading some of these payrates, it's no wonder why TNA has had so much trouble making money over the years.

Only recognize Sting as real estate Steve?

Business is about to pick up, heres to hoping they leak the final episodes like last year.

I'd like to see Tomko brought in, and would love to see Abyss apart of it if he'd return to his roots some. I'm usually pretty wide in taste when it comes to movies or wrestling, but I just can't stand his current character. I'd like to see the originals consist mainly of Tomko, Samoa Joe, Matt Morgan, Styles, and maybe a returning Christopher Daniels.

I know Test changed his middle name to Test I believe. I think I've read where a few others have changed parts of their names so that the could use a previous stage name. I'm just having trouble remembering who exactly.

WAR LESNAR!

Sting and Hart always had my favorite manhattan drops. Michaels looks cool, but he telegraphs it too much. .

I've been catching up on some past Randy fights to prep up for this fight. I still think that barring Randy catching Brock with an onslaught from the bell that could throw off the rookie, Brock takes it with a tko on the ground.

I'm hoping this becomes a series of dvds. If ECW can see two reunion shows, a ppv, and three best of dvds then maybe it can happen.

Source: www.PWTorch.com - The people that were most upset about Scott Hall being at the Turning Point show were Kevin Nash and Samoa Joe. The storyline they wanted to get over in their match was that Joe took everything Nash had and still kicked out and was likely going to win if not for the low blow and Nash's feet on the ropes. Nobody has ever kicked out of two Nash powerbombs except The Undertaker. Nash and Joe worked hard on their match, even screening an old Sgt. Slaughter vs. Pat Patterson match for ideas. There is a feeling that because the fans were expecting Scott Hall to run in at any second, it really took away from the match. Nash and Joe didn't need Hall to get over their angle and TNA nor the two were not going to build a storyline or a match finish on the unreliable Scott Hall. The joke backstage was that Hall took a full year to show up for his scheduled pay-per-view appearance and there are still a lot of hard feelings towards Hall within TNA for missing last year's show. The storyline for Nash and Joe now is that Nash will refuse to fight Joe again because he beat him already while coming across as a bit of a coward. No pay-per-view rematches are in the works for the two right now but they are set to face each other multiple times on the upcoming European tour. Eventually the storyline will be that Joe gets TNA management to give him another match with Nash after Nash doing everything he can to avoid it. The idea is that Joe builds up outrage that he took everything Nash gave him and could only be pinned after a low blow and a tainted pin.

"Also...Sting fucking rules right now. I've always liked Sting in the, hey...it's Sting kind of way. But I just dig his promos, I dig his suit, I even dig him as Champion. You know they're gonna turn on him when things start going poorly, and he can get his last big face run...and I think it's going to work. I thikn they've figured out that he should be left as the tweener out there. Let people cheer, let the minority boo...when the time comes for him to move back to superbabyface Sting I think the crowd will be there, and they'll care more about him than they have in years. Hell...I'm pretty sure they already do. Sting is the man."- The Ghost of bps21 I agree with this statement big time. But of course I'm the huge Sting mark on the board. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes out of this angle. At the moment I have no clue who will dethrone Sting as champion, which is a pleasant surprise for once after his overly short reigns the last two years.

I must admit that I mostly like relatively mainstream music. Metallica, Everlast, Megadeth, Black Label Society, Staind, a lot of classic rock(Beatles, Lennon, Skynyrd, Aerosmith, etc.), and quite a bit more. So over the years since I started visiting these forums and this board in particular I would hear about how so and so is great, and I'd check them out and think that they really weren't worth the listen. However, I finally gave in and listened to some random tracks of Tom Waits off the internet and I have to say I think he's one hell of an artist. Although seeing him in Wristcutters made me more interested in trying his music out for whatever reason. I'll have to start checking out some of the suggestions for him next time I'm out at fye.

Not to mention whenever I talk to casual fans they bring his name up fondly still. He's one of those guys that people will never forget. I'm also sure the younger kids have probably seen him on TNA in passing or in WWE DVD, 24/7 commercials. When I was a kid, even before I bought the apter mags and what not, I watched wcw and wwf. I'd even watch smokey mountain and ecw if it was on. When you're a kid and a mega wrestling fan you have probably atleast seen the only other televised competitor. I could be wrong though.

How much longer until Sting gets booted from the Mafia for not getting his hands dirty in the "war". I personally see him dropping the gold to Angle after being kicked out of the Mafia.

I thought it was said that he tried to kill himself and was resting in a hospital somewhere after the roast incident and subsequent bar incident. Was this debunked as fiction?

1. Sting-I wish TNA would have used him like this from the get go when he had the heavier schedule of his first two years there. His promos are probably some of the best he's ever done and in my opinion are almost the best promos in the business right now. In the ring he's not quite as intense as his younger years, but he works smarter now and I can only recall two matches in his TNA career that I really didn't enjoy. The bonafide casketmatch he had with Abyss and the Angle/Nash vs Booker T/Sting tag from last year. 2. Chris Jericho- Remember when I said Sting was almost cutting the best promos imo, well Jericho is the guy who IS cutting the best promos in the business today. His ring work seems about the same as it's ever been, but his character and promos seem to have a new fire to them. 3. CM Punk- Even though he's achieved success during his run in WWE, he's got this underdog vibe to him that may just be apparent to me because I've watched him grow from the undercard of ROH to being a major World Champion. 4.Batista- I think that this guy is one of the more underrated performer on the WWE roster when it comes to having good matches. He hit a point the last year or two when something clicked, probably from working with the Undertaker. Since then I think he's been pretty solid in all of his matches, and the matches with CM Punk were very interesting to watch. 5. AJ Styles- The two people in the current TNA main feud that stand out most to me are Sting and Styles. Both have kicked their game up a bit thus far for this rivalry. Angle, Nash, Steiner, Booker T, Joe, etc. have been good to watch, but they are kind of just doing what they always do as far as their performance. Styles has held top gold before, but I think when he dethrones Sting either Sunday or sometime in the near future he's going to possibly have a career year in 2009.

Apparently there will be some sort of Best of Saturday Night's Main Event dvd released in February 2009.

I always thought Palumbo had enough charisma and talent to be a solid mid to upper mid-card player who could be plugged into job in main events when needed IF he was given the right direction and time to let it happen. I thought the same about Val Venis before he basically became a jobber. Everytime Val was starting to elicit a good response whether boo or cheers, they pulled the plug. London should do fine between the indys, ROH, TNA, Japan, and Mexico.

I'm really hoping they can end this year with a cliffhanger and carry the prado storyline into the next season. I think Jimmy is doing a great job as Prado, and with seasons 4 and 5 already being picked up by Showtime why not end a season messy for once rather than all wrapped up.

Its funny I always thought Shane Douglas did a great job at making the belly to belly look like a good finisher. Thats one of the few things he still did well even in his TNA days imo. Danielson has personality and to an extent he has that ability to carry himself like a star that few have. I can't say that he's never been bland, but he's got the tools when he wants to use them. I will say this out of all the supposed workhorses of the last 20 years, Danielson is one of the few I won't skip over his match if I'm watching a dvd with him on it. As far as workers who I thought were labled great that didn't come off as great....Maybe like a Mike Quackenbush, Michael Modest type guy. They both always came off as being solid in a few areas, but were lacking the overall package.

A few posts back someone mentioned that Cena, Triple H, and Batista didn't look smaller or whatever since the Steroid testing. I personally have thought that Batista is a tad bit leaner then he used to be. He's still huge but he looks a little smaller lately. Am I alone with that?

I will say this, even though I thought it was cool that Sting has stood his ground with the current angle, him standing there doing nothing looked stupid on the Las Vegas impact. He should atleast orchestrate who does what in the beatdowns in the ring if he doesn't want to physically get his hands dirty.

Interview with Sting by The Sun I found on gerweck. Sting: Give me some respect HE’S the current TNA world heavyweight champion, an icon of the wrestling business and simply one of the greatest grapplers of all time. Yet Sting feels he is not shown enough respect – both by the young guns of his current group and the business as a whole. Below, in another world exclusive SunSport interview, the Stinger talks about his true feelings behind TNA’s current old school v new school feud, why he’s never gone to the WWE despite many attempts by Vince McMahon to hire him and how he definitely plans to retire by the end of 2009. You are currently the leader of TNA’s faction of veterans against newer stars like Samoa Joe and AJ Styles. How much of the storyline is based on real animosity between the two sets of stars? A huge part of it. When I came back to wrestling, after WCW folded, I did have a choice. There was WWE and there was TNA. I would have probably gone into the WWE if it was about money. I came here very humble, believe me. But I wasn’t welcomed with big, wide open arms from everybody. I didn’t know it was going to be that way, but it was. It would surprise you if I named some of the guys that didn’t receive me that well. You’d never guess. There are a lot of the young guys that want us ‘dinosaurs’ to move out of the way, once and for all. And you know what? I can sympathise in some ways. I can. When I was a young Sting, back in the day when it was Ric Flair, Macho Man Randy Savage, Hulk Hogan, Dusty Rhodes, The Four Horsemen and all those guys, I had those moments of frustration. But I still always respected what they did. So yes, there’s a lot of realism in this story. So do you feel there is a lack of respect sometimes towards veterans in the wrestling business as a whole? That was starting to happen back towards the end of the WCW days when wrestling exploded and became so mainstream. There’s a mentality out there, guys that just believe that it’s a matter of coming up with some weird personality to grab attention and then they can be a pro wrestler. But there’s a lot more to it than that. A lot of them came in expecting the big contract. It was like: “I have arrived and I want to sign on the dotted line for the big bucks. I want to fly on the jets and have the limos come pick me up and I want people to ask me for my autograph.” Those are the guys right there that I think just don’t have the respect. When I started we drove all over the place. It was 300+ days a year, sometimes you were wrestling in front of a few hundred people for a $50 payoff. For a TV taping I got $25 when I first started. When you are working that much and working in front of small crowds you’re learning the craft. And one thing you are learning is respect for who went before you. You mentioned the old days of WCW, and there is an interesting parallel with what we are talking about here at the moment. They had the New Blood v Millionaire’s Club angle which was met with a lot of criticism. Do you think this is a fresh take on it and will it work? That’s a really good question. I’ve never heard it asked quite like that, it makes me even think. I don’t know. Only time will tell. I do believe it’s different. We do have the past, whether or not you are the younger generation or you are my generation - old school, new school, whatever – you’re still going to look and remember what happened with WCW. Even me. I’m not pointing the fingers. I was part of it. I was in with the whole bunch of us, and what happened, happened. Nobody wants that to be repeated. You are famous for being probably the one top wrestling star of the last 25 years never to have worked for the WWE. Did Vince McMahon ever try to sign you? Yes, I was really close at least three, four times over the years. A few times in the early 1990s, when I chose TNA and once at a real key moment when WCW had overtaken WWE as the No1 group in wrestling. And I was pretty much at the peak of WCW, in their peak days. I forget how many weeks in a row WCW beat them in the ratings wars but it got really bad for WWE - WWF at the time. That was a key moment, and I was really close to jumping. What stopped you going to the WWE? There was always something in me that thought that Vince McMahon wanted me more to undermine WCW than he wanted me as a talent. I just always believed that. I saw a lot of guys from WCW that went to WWE and that happened. Anyone who made it to a higher level within WCW and then tried to jump over – it just didn’t work. The other thing was that WCW ended up giving me what I wanted in my contract. We truly believe that Sting is up there with Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and Steve Austin as one of the greatest of all time. However you rarely feature highly in polls and Halls Of Fame. Do you think not working for WWE has harmed your legacy in the wrestling business? I’m not going to try and cover it up – there’s no question that is the case. WWE are a worldwide, huge, massive machine and always have been. The guys that have had any kind of run up there are now recognised all over the world. If there was something missing in my career, that would be it. What do you think is the one step TNA needs to take where you can get to the level to go head-on with WWE? The only thing I can do is look back on track record and what I have seen work in the past. And what I have seen work in the past was names. When Lex Luger jumped ship he was set to be on WWE Raw, but there he was on WCW Nitro. That created such a buzz. Then soon after that Scott Hall and Kevin Nash joined WCW and this momentum just built and built and built. With Kurt Angle, and now Mick Foley, I believe there are going to be more people watching TNA. The other thing I’m hoping for is a bigger commitment from our channel Spike TV and seeing them even further step up to the plate. I hope I don’t get in trouble for saying that – this might be the last you see of me on TV! After the big Ric Flair retirement this year, people were saying that Sting would be the next to hang up his boots. Is that something you are thinking about? Yes, because I cannot go on much longer. I don’t want to embarrass myself, or embarrass Spike or embarrass TNA. We all know it’s a wave that is coming in to shore. I don’t know when exactly it will hit, but it’s gonna hit. I thought probably this year. Actually it’s over the last couple of years it seems the thought has been in-and-out, in-and-out, in-and-out these thoughts of retirement and everything else but under the circumstances I think that I want to stick it out for one last – and this is THE last – hurrah. I don’t know when it will end for sure, but as long as I stay healthy into 2009. But how far into 2009 I don’t know. What do you want to achieve in that time for both you and TNA? I want to protect wrestling and TNA so we don’t se another WCW story. I want to start laying the foundations now with some of the younger guys. Despite everything, the Samoa Joes, the AJ Styles, they are the future. I’m not, they are. And I honestly do want some of the younger guys to remember and look back and reflect and say: “You know, he really wasn’t out for himself.” Is there anyone, in TNA or the rest of the world, who you look at and think: “Before I retire, I really want a match with that guy”? In TNA, I’d love to have a match or two with AJ. I’ve just had my first one with Joe. I think another one with Jeff Jarrett would be good. Outside of TNA, I’ve always thought Undertaker v Sting would be really something. And we just did this huge autograph session and I had so many wrestling fans come and say: “How about one more match with Ric Flair?” I think I could be 80-years-old and they’d still be saying that.

He's evolved from being a hip hop wannabe being choked out by Tazz and destroyed by Lesnar, to an urban influenced underdog, to the unstoppable superman style babyface who respects the troops. He's not the deepest character to ever grace the wrestling ring, but he's not the same character he was four years ago or even two years ago. Now they are building him up as a tough as nails type of guy who's passionate about everything he does.

I still hope they'll make Freddy vs Jason 2 with or without Ash lol. I actually thought the first one was decent, and it'd be cool if they tied up both franchises with a sequel.