Hunter's Torn Quad

I'm not saying that they should be kept in the dark completely but some of the big moments can be withhold from them, thus producing a more genuine response. What point is there in eliciting a genuine reaction when it doesn't allow the announcers to get the points across that the bookers want in the way they want? Keeping the announcers in the dark, which was done heavily in WCW, never works, for the reason already stated.

Tenay is a great color guy. The problem with Tenay, and West, is the direction they're getting with the non-stop talking and treating everything as something major. Ideally, they would move West backstage and him shill the merchandise, and put Tenay on color with someone else as the main announcer.

The announcers have to know what is happening, and why, so they can guide the audience and take them in the direction the bookers want.

Both Meltzer and PWI have said Rey didn't suffer a broken nose, which is a good thing. Punk should have been allowed to keep the Anaconda Vice, because he can do it on both big and small guys and there's no risk of injury. I think Jeff's reign is a transition one which ends with dropping it to Triple H but not at Wrestlemania. I think they'll go for the swerve and have Jeff retain there and Hunter gets it the next month at Backlash. As for who Jeff faces at the Rumble, I think they'll have him face whoever it is that they decide to have as his attacker which I think will be Tomko, who they won't mind putting Jeff over. If Jeff's reign is to be something more long term, it'll depend on if he Garvin's the belt or not and, most importantly, if he keeps his nose clean.

A lesson that TNA will never learn.

I don't think anyone will know until it happens. Christian keeps things very quiet.

The same way you can take SCM and not get knocked out so you can conveniently take a pedigree.

Does Batista win because it's 'his turn' or does he lose to further the speculated heel turn?

If Lesnar has been accepted by hardcore fans by then, it would help. Otherwise, they'd reject the fight out of hand because of their pro wrestling background. And I don't think the casual fans would care because Lashley wasn't a star in pro wrestling and he totally lacks any kind of personality or ability to connect with the crowd. At best, it would fit into the semi-main event position underneath a title fight.

This was another really good show from UFC. Junie looks to have improved tenfold from his time on the show but he didn't look like he was ever tested against Kaplan, so it'll be interesting to see how he fares against someone who can challenge him. Bader looked good as well against Vinny, who doesn't appear to take getting hit very well. Johnson looked nice and crisp with his striking and that KO kick was great. I wouldn't have minded Philipe winning but I'm happy with Efrain getting the win. All in all, another thumbs up show from UFC. Bring on 92.

He looked very well.

Unpredictable booking or Wellness violation?

You're only now noticing the heavy reliance on skits and talking? There was apparently a mere 17 minutes and 55 seconds of wrestling on this edition of Impact as well as a gap of 37 minutes between matches at one point. I noticed that the show felt segment/promo heavy a few weeks ago but I haven't watched the past two weeks so I figured it may have just been that show. I think the average amount of wrestling on any edition of Impact in the last few months is something around 22 minutes or so. That's maybe a quarter, if that, of the amount of actual program time they have to use.

They had a match at Fall Brawl in 1996 that was actually pretty good. I think once Bret realized it didn't matter how hard he worked he was never getting above a certain level, Bret just stopped doing more than he really had to. And I'd say that happened very quickly, when the program with Flair was curtailed for the usual political reasons.

I almost think that TNA hold the belief that if there is ever no talking, of any kind, for more than a few seconds, then people will change the channel.

I remember Bret getting a finish changed in a match against Hunter from a pinfall loss to a countout loss. Bret argued against the pinfall loss because there was plan to program the two together or do anything with Hunter off of it and Bret felt, correctly, that it makes no sense to beat the world champion if it's not going to lead to anything. It wasn't going to be a clean loss. It would be some kind of schmozz with Lesnar snatching a pinfall somewhere in there. I think the idea that Taker refused because he wanted to put Lesnar over clean the next month is some revisionist history to try and defend Undertaker over refusing to lose. I think it more likely that Undertaker simply didn't want to get pinned in two PPV main events in a row.

You're only now noticing the heavy reliance on skits and talking? There was apparently a mere 17 minutes and 55 seconds of wrestling on this edition of Impact as well as a gap of 37 minutes between matches at one point. And did they explain where the rest of the babyfaces were while their friend was getting the shit kicked out of him?

MMA Junkie: Corey Hill out 12-18 months With that break, it's probably going to be closer to 18 months.

It was ironic that a show raising funds for a research facility dealing with traumatic brain injuries saw a number of injuries itself, including concussions and huge haematoma.

Ben Saunders was a beast with his utter destruction of Brandon Wolff, though the fight should have been stopped earlier. It was very quickly clear that Wolff wasn't going to have an answer for Saunders and it was a very brutal beating. The Al-Hassan arm injury looked nasty. And that main event finish was nasty. I think if Yamasaki had been closer he probably would have been able to see that Yoshida was done after the first punch and called it off. As it is, we had the highlight reel KO but also the sight of Yoshida being stretchered out as Goldberg and Rogan closed the show. FftT was a really good show for a really good cause.

I would hope Pearce is eventually able to get back to attending the Friday's shows because it's difficult to book and not be there for things to unfold as you really need to be there to see things develop first hand and react accordingly.

On the latest Observer radio show, Meltzer said that after it happened that Vince didn't want anyone to talk about the incident and to keep it quiet, and was really furious that word got out.

Before it gets taken down: The first video is the actual fight while the second one is a handheld of Rogan having someone play the fight again on the ringside monitor.

A couple of PPV numbers from the recent Observer. No Mercy (Jericho vs. Shawn in a Ladder match) did 238,000 total buys with 150,000 from North America. Cyber Sunday (Jericho vs. Batista with fans voting on the referee) did 162,00 total buys with 102,000 from North America. That last number is WWE's third lowest ever number of NA buys.