LuckyLopez

While Hogan's part was no more than that once video the ultimate payoff was Sting in what I THINK was his debut with the company. So as much as the Hogan thing was an abortion it actually did turn into something that mattered. My guess is you get Hart and is calvacade of old friends of Hogan (Jim Duggan and Rick Steiner to my memory) ultimately ending with Sting, and I assume the "big" match there. Sting/AJ vs JJ/Luger, I think. Certainly not my choice for a show but I guess its a notable enough part of TNA's history and lets them showoff their ability to get guys like Hogan and Luger to "appear" and maybe puts AJ over a little. But from what I've noticed I don't think TNA really has a clear ulterior motivation for Epics or they wouldn't be showing so many departed wrestlers, especially WWE players. I think one of the upcoming weeks is actually "The Best of Jeff Hardy."

I think that's just it. He's really not built in the "big man" mold despite being large. He's certainly not in the "freak" or "monster" mold that the likes of Show or Khali are. And he was never booked in those ways. Rather I think he gets naturally grouped into the likes of Orton, Rhodes, Dibiase, DJ Gabriel, Rob Conway, La Resistance, and other fairly generic looking body builders with similar looks (many of which are unspectacular or poor in the ring). He's got more muscle than most of them so stands out a little, but not enough to pull him apart from that group and put him in with the "big men" and "monsters." And whether its fair or not that group and that look (the oiled up bodybuilder) is often assigned to a Vince McMahon "fetish" and the idea that he picks talents based on appearance rather than talent. So Masters sort of became the poster boy for that. If Masters changed his look up drastically and was booked as a monster or big man, maybe he'd work different. But he's just the narcissist cocky young douchebag bodybuilder that a lot of OVW/FCW graduates were/are. The mold that makes guys like Kennedy, Swagger, Carlito, or whoever stand out a little because they're not quite that.

He got put into the King of the Mountain match after his Storm feud and it was a hard enough push and the match was in enough doubt that a lot of people thought there was a real chance he'd get the title. And he was booked well in the match. Then coming out of the match he feuded with Christian and was definitely in the main event mix. Then he got sidetracked when he went into a feud with Dustin Rhodes/Black Reign, which probably wasn't intended to be a demotion but was cruddy enough to amount to it. That's when he started to pack on the pounds and seem to get lazy in the ring, and most fans seemed to figure he was unhappy that his main event push had ended up with him wrestling "Rat On a Pole" matches with the poor man's Goldust. When it was over he had lost a lot of stock thanks to the feud and his physical condition and TNA ended up sticking him on the sidelines. For the last few weeks he would get TV time to complain about his lack of TV time and push in some kind of quasi-shoot thing that resulted in TNA granting him his release. His stock had definitely dropped from his flirtation with the main event to his release but certainly not close to the Walker levels. At that time most figured "He was getting lazy thanks to TNA's bad treatment so he'll get back in shape with WWE."

That's "Sirelda", aka Jamie D. After Gail Kim proved a constant advantage for AMW in that feud AJ and Daniels brought her in to neutralize Kim. She disappeared from TNA right after that feud ended. The Dudleyz vs Rick Steiner/Animal match was SUPPOSED to be Dudleyz vs The Steiners in one of those "first time matchup between legendary teams" things. But a week or so before the match Scott suffered that near fatal throat injury in Puerto Rico so they just threw Animal in last minute. It was a nothing match that wasn't even supposed to happen but from the looks of that Slammiversary card there really wasn't much to speak of beyond KotM. That card features entries from the never ending EY vs Roode feud, the comedy Bob Backlund vs Alex Shelley feud (which at least was where the Guns more or less formed in TNA), the uncomfortable VKM vs Christy Hemme feud that had VKM as the faces for saying a woman's place was on her knees, and a Frank Wycheck match. EDIT: And yes, Harris was tremendous back then. AMW would have great feuds with AJ/Daniels and LAX, break up, and then Harris and Storm would have an absolutely GREAT Texas Death Match just about 2 years ago that many called a MOTY contender and another really brutal and fun match in the KotM qualifiers. Which remains the hugely shocking part of how much he dropped in a year from June '07 to Braden Walker in July '08.

I'm not sure I want to see either step in the ring considering their age and what kind of shape they were in last time I saw them. But either could be a valuable part of a company as an announcer, manager, or booker. And I'm guessing this could just be a 1 or 2 time use for an angle like Balls and Spike were used awhile back. I don't know, but TNA's never been shy about using "big" guys in 1 or 2 appearances so I'm not going to assume they're in for the long haul until we know. Also, TNA named all 3 people on their website in the Impact preview so spoilers might not be necessary.

I thought last week was a real dud and a complete waste of time to watch. This week was a substantial improvement but not a great show or anything. The two things I'll remember from it are Love's awesome promo and the Morgan/Angle match. To that end while I agree with you that you can't expect too much new story development on the "go home" show I was surprised by how those singles matches went as I thought they did a good job with the losers. The matches were clearly intended to help get over the Sacrifice main event but at the same time they managed to use them to advance the story of EY's frustration, make Morgan look great and advance his desire to join the Mafia, and push the Joe/AJ thing into physicality. It was just very effective use of 3 matches where the winner was inevitable.

Yeah, Jarrett vs Raven was the big match TNA built to that they screwed up bad and it soured a LOT of people on TNA. Raven had Sandman, New Jack, Saturn, and Justin Credible helping him and beating down Jarrett and he still won. Mind you, I think it gets overblown a LITTLE because in reality the ECW guys left, Raven was forced to uncuff Jarrett in order to pin him, and then Sabu attacked Raven allowing Jarrett to hit the stroke and win. At least I think that's how it happened. Don't get me wrong, it WAS bad booking and Jarrett DID end up looking like Superman but there was actually a portion of the match after the cuffs and 4 guys that made the pin KIND of make sense. But not booking wise, because really... that was a horrible screw up. I'm a long time TNA fan and I'll defend them plenty but they've never known when to pull the trigger on a big win, turn, moment, or whatever. Their timing has always sucked.

Hey lost in Mexico to Rey and then soon after lost it in WCW to Billy Kidman. He didn't have it when he was in WWE with the Mexicools either. Someone else wears the mask now. EDIT: I really didn't mean to triple post. My apologies.

Steamboat was one of the early authority figures in TNA. I think he made a couple of early appearances to promote the X Division and hype AJ Styles as a future star and then they brought him back to get control of the company when Jarrett and others were running roughshod. The big thing I remember him doing was that when Ron Killings first became the Truth and spent weeks complaining about the racism in wrestling he confronted Steamboat about it saying that he more than anyone should know what a glass ceiling there was for guys like them. And Steamboat actually conceded that Killings had some points and then basically said "You want an opportunity? All you have to do is ask." He booked a world title match the next week and Killings upset Shamrock to become the World Champ. The promo between the two was awesome and Killings basically became a star in TNA over the course of those two weeks.

I think TNA was probably trying to put its best foot forward. I think TNA's always been proud of 3 things. (1) The X Division, (2) The early years Tag division, and (3) the faces that have come through. The first two really are TNA's biggest success stories and the "six sides of steel" is another one they're very proud of. So I'm not surprised we got a pair of tag matches that SHOULD have been a bigger deal if they had presented them properly. As for the singles match, I can understand why they didn't do Jarrett/Sting (since it isn't much to talk about) or Joe/Angle (since while I loved it it was oddly paced and a lot of people didn't care for it) but Christian/Rhino was a very strange choice given how little that has to do with the product. My guess is TNA figures that if you're watching Epics you're already aware of Impact and watching or not watching. A decent Jarrett/Sting match or good Joe/Angle match won't win you over and if you gave Epics a chance one assumes you gave Impact a chance. But I don't know. Who knows? Maybe there's a "Joe vs Angle" or individual show for either guy upcoming and the match was held back for that reason? Realistically maybe they used a throw away match because it was a throw away match and didn't fit into a larger theme? After all they're going to burn through basic themes like "steel cage matches" and "X Division" pretty quick and they'll have to find some other ideas. Not at all. I understand where you're coming from. All the context was ripped out of those matches by just showing them with no background and Foley did very little to add anything to them besides "BRUTAL MATCH!" Just the sort of videos that WWE does on PPVs or that TNA does online fairly often could really make the matches mean something. Instead you have no idea that AMW and XXX have feuded for 2 years and the loser breaks up in this nor that its a rematch of one of TNA's biggest matches ever, you have no idea that AJ and Daniels recently united after a long standing feud (with Joe) and knocked off AMW and were now being attacked by the upstart LAX who would win their first titles in the company, or that Christian and Rhino had a long and bitter feud based on their real life relationship and Rhino's sense of betrayal and that this is a match Rhino wanted to finally get his revenge on Christian. None of that was presented to the audience and anyone who didn't watch them the first time or just doesn't remember all the details is left with no story to the match. I remember for awhile WWE Heat used to do something like this where every week they'd show some big match like TLC I or Foley/Taker HIAC and the participants and other people would sit around talking about the match and what led to it complete with highlights and clips. THAT's what I think TNA should do with Epics even if it means cutting the show down to 2 matches a week. Taking 20 minutes to not just show a big match but to tell the story of the match might be more entertaining.

Yeah, but you seemed to dislike the matches themselves which surprised me. You called the AMW/XXX match "average" and called the fans delusional when that was widely considered at the time a great match and one of the matches that made TNA worthwhile. Of course a great part of that had to do with this being the blowoff to a nearly 2 YEAR feud filled with great matches, that this was the rematch to the first TNA cage match which was widely considered a MOTY contender, and that the stipulation on this match (which went unmentioned on the show as best as I can remember) was that the losers would have to break up. And you seemed to suggest that the LAX match was "brutal" in a bad way. Which again, strikes me as odd because I loved that match and it was right in the middle of the period when LAX were one of the hottest things in wrestling and AJ/Daniels were having tremendous match after tremendous match. Again, perhaps its a match that loses something without context because LAX were just red hot at the time and I remember some people actually suggesting they might be TNA's "nWo" if played right. And along with AJ/Daniels and AMW they were in the middle of what more or less amounts to TNA's last great run for the tag division before a LONG run of mediocrity. I just watched. The format/layout of the show could definitely use work. It felt very thrown together and not up to par with TNA's usual production. It really felt like they took 3 matches, a quick Foley stand up, and some voiceovers and threw it all together. I can't help but wonder if they're being lazy considering the show's only airing in the UK. I would think they'd clean it up if it was airing on Spike in the US. Just to address one of your questions/complaints, the key in the opening match didn't appear out of nowhere. Daniels was carrying with him and when Storm laid him out he dropped it in the center of the ring. While I can't necessarily blame you for tuning West and Tenay out but they were actually making mention of it prior to him losing the key. I think they may have cut out a chunk of that match during the commercial but I'm not sure. The Christian/Rhino match had some kind of weird stipulation for the weapons that I can't recall. I think they had wrestled in a pole match on an earlier Impact to win the right to specific weapons which the refs would then give them. It was weird. Again, missing context. Along with that the match was kind of in a weird place because Christian was undefeated in TNA at the time and hyping it pretty heavily, but at the same time this was more or less the blowoff to a long feud and Rhino kind of had to win it. That's why they booked it with the gore through the cage so Rhino walked away having got his revenge on Christian but Christian was able to continue boasting that he was undefeated. I thought the show was ok but nothing special. I liked the first too matches a lot but if you didn't I can see where the show would be a big disappointment. Like I said, the whole thing felt very thrown together to me and that's not good but I watched a few good matches from TNA's past that I enjoyed so it worked well enough for me. The one thing I think they could really stand to add would be a quick setup for the matches to give them context. Maybe some highlights or quick interviews from the wrestlers (or the ones still in TNA) or just Tenay and West. Just something to give the matches context because those were 3 matches that were all significant parts of very brutal feuds and yet they were more or less presented as just matches. And the XXX/AMW match had the huge stipulation of them breaking up that I don't think even got mentioned.

Wait, so did you not like the matches or was it the format and extras that you hated? Because I LOVE those first two matches. The LAX vs AJ/Daniels feud was one of my favorite in recent memory. Christian/Rhino was from some special Impact. Either their first primetime show or their first live show. Whichever it was I remember it being a solid show but they tried to cram a LOT into it and nothing ever really clicked as a result. The cage match was entertaining if memory serves me correctly but nothing to be upset you didn't see in full. There are definitely plenty of better cage matches in TNA's history to choose from and the theory that they were showcasing Christian doesn't seem unreasonable.

The point is that you're balancing the number of fans who really will get a kick out of this "angle" vs the fans you piss off by taking a show away from them to spite someone... or the fans who find this moronic and have no interest in watching 2 hours of shots at the Nuggets. Not to mention that WWE and Vince will probably manage to complete reverse the opinion of the mainstream in days. As you said, they got a ton of publicity and the really unique part of that was that for once the mainstream was on their side and was treating them with respect. But with all of this stuff if ESPN isn't once again rolling its eyes at WWE by Monday night and the rest of the media hasn't once again dismissed WWE as the useless sideshow it is then I'll be shocked. And I know Vince goes by the "no such thing as bad publicity" mantra and if he gets a marginal one time bump in ratings he'll somehow see that as a gigantic victory for WWE. But still, seems really silly to squander some good will and annoy some fans all to take pot shots at someone who kind of screwed you in business. A situation you have to assume most wrestling fans have no idea is happening or couldn't care less about.

People read the thread curious if its interesting but find that it doesn't interest them enough to jump into conversation? You want 98 people posting "I have nothing worth adding"?

And comparing the situation to cassettes/CDs is just silly and pointless. Vinyl, 8 tracks, cassettes, CDs, MP3s... they all provide the same function. The ability to play music. The advancements in technology have made the music clearer and the methods smaller or more convenient. CDs replaced cassettes because they were a superior product that presented a better sound and objective advantages in the quality and flexibility. As far as MP3s work over CDs its because of storage issues, cost, the ability to pick and choose, and other advantages it has. What is the advantage that ebooks have over printed books? That's the real question and the reason they'll replace books if it happens. Will the cost make the difference? Printing companies will obviously not push this as opposed to the CD/cassette issue where the recording companies are the same people making money off the new format and actually charge MORE for the new format. What are the advantages that the technology will provide that will allow it to replace a form that has existed in the same form for millennia? Add in that while cassettes may be pretty uncommon these days that's because of the flaw of the particular format. Vinyls remain popular enough amongst many music fans. The format appeals to many fans for various reasons. I find it hard to imagine that the same thing won't happen for generations after the time when/if ebooks become the norm. There will still be a significant number of collectors and great fans of literature who are wiling to spend time and money to build impressive libraries of classics, first editions, and examples of a once popular form that is fading away. It seems more than a little disingenuous of you to insult and scold a poster for not offering a detailed response when you yourself failed to offer anything resembling a sophisticated or well thought out argument for it in the first case. "Elitism" and other such phrases are getting tossed around a lot in this thread yet calling a poster "elitist" for offering a 1 line rebuttal to your 1 line comment (neither with any explanation or reasoning) seems about as poor a use of these terms as I've seen. If anything YOU come off as the poster who believes his opinion needs no explanation and that his fellow posters should make more effort than you.