Dangerous A

Not that I disagree with you Porter, but to play a little devil's advocate.. Perhaps TNA isn't looking to "blow it's load" even though this is the launch. Perhaps they are waiting until BFG or even a little later before doing something really big anglewise or big match delivery.

No it does not. I love watching Benoit as much as the next smart mark, but for him to have this lowly title after seeing them screw up his World title program makes it hard to watch. He's the company's best guy in the ring and they don't keep him strong. I'm not even saying he should be World champ or anything, but right now, since he moved to SD, he has been portrayed as anything but ME material.

So far, No Mercy looks like... Batista v Eddie JBL v Rey MNM v LOD 5000 Lashley v Simon Dean Taker v The Ortons Casket match Color me under fucking welmed at that lame attempt at putting together a ppv. May have to skip this one and look to Survivor Series because this is not worth $35. Hell, it's not worth $10.

I'm pretty much of this mindset. I don't care to read Warrior's long winded, insane rants and no way in fucking hell I give Vince McMahon a dime of my money so I can watch him bury someone so he can get his rocks off. Fuck 'em both.

I am interesting in seeing this visual.

Problem is at the beginning of Eric's administration, Hogan and the "star power" still had drawing legs. Dixie's "stars" don't even have that luxury because they are nothing but albatrosses around TNA's neck. Kind of weird that TNA was created to get Jeff over as the main star in a wrestling promotion, it's perception changed to something that is different and could provide a decent alternative in the monopoly that is US wrestling, and Jeff is doing whatever he has to to keep the original vision of TNA alive.

It looks like that, but hopefully TNA can edit it so it looks like dynamite. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ah, the beauty of taping shows versus live ones. I never got why Raw didn't go to taping after WCW went under. The whole reason for doing live shows was so 1) Eric couldn't spoil the results so much and 2) The so called "anything can happen" so don't tune out mentality. Once WCW went the way of the dodo, live shows should've gone by the way side. Lord knows Raw could've used some editing the last 4 years.

The Observer said the difference was USA is in 88 million homes and Spike is in 87 million homes.

$80 Million in the US alone is going to be really tough since this is the dead season for the big screen. If it finds an audience overseas and the DVD's do well, I'd like to hope for sequels. $20-$30 million opening would be great for an opening, but the key is to look for weeks 2 and 3 for the drop off. Those will be the true indicators as to whether or not the movie has box office legs or is just a one shot opening weekend of fanboys and curious moviegoers.

Another thing is Meltz believes that the US pro wrestling audience is a bigger factor to MMA (UFC in particular) than it really is. Like HTQ said in his interview on the Danger Zone (cheap plug, go there now!) I also think UFC's audience is more boxing type guys than wrestling. It's not to say that there is zero crossover appeal, just less than what Meltz thinks.

Meltz has to do this sort of thing. Really, I don't see UFC and TNA being real competition just yet. However, Meltz has to portray that things are heating up in the pro wrestling business or else he stands to lose a lot of his audience. He bad mouths WWE for sure, but he can't go full monty because if he portrays that there's no hope, than why would people buy his newsletters or come to his site? They'd just give up. He has to give a glimmer of hope that either A) WWE is bad, but not hopeless or B) Play up the new competition.

So Bentley can superkick one or both his opponents to heat up BFG?

This is from the Observer site in regards to last night....

Just wrapped up the DVD set last night. I'm hooked. Can't wait for this friday. I'm actually circulating the DVD set to some of my friends to try to convert them and eventually get their asses into the theatres.

Another factor in this duel of Iron Man Matches is the finish. WWE has Taboo Tuesday coming up, where fans decide things by voting. Most are assuming that Angle will end up with a title match against Cena and the fans will be deciding on a stip. However, Shawn Michaels is involved here and the one thing he isn't trying to have is someone going over him. I can see them booking the Iron man to a draw and then booking team giving fans the chance to vote for either Angle, HBK, or whoever ,perhaps Edge to keep up the story that he keeps getting out voted at TT for title shots and lines him up perfectly as a challenger around Survivor Series time. He could say he's using his MITB shot at the winner of TT at Survivor Series. (hey, I should be on creative Daniels and AJ will probrably have a decisive winner because both men don't mind losing to the other. Angle/Michaels could become effected if they do even-steven booking of their Iron Man match and it's not out of the relm of possibility either.

That's because he can't. It would make him look worse in the industry if he had a show littered with sniping at Spike. He already has UPN up his ass for the Muhammed Hassan fiasco and the last thing he needs is Viacom (?) looking for a reason to have lawyers looking for clauses to get out of their new deal the moment they screw up again and do something really offensive.

Well, it's not like WWE are paragons of virtue. Vince made ridiculous demands when negotiating and seeing that WWE didn't deliver ratings it on a consistent basis due to bad booking and failure to create stars, (this is where some will insert the "cyclical" defense) I could see where Spike didn't want to give Vince what he wanted, despite WWE helping Spike get from TNN to where they are now. However, I don't see where Spike owes WWE anything. Their deal is over. I'm sure Vince is just loving thinking he's the victim here when, if given the chance, he'd screw with whoever over whatever whenever he can. I'm sure if WWE were a hotter commodity, Vince wouldn't think twice about fucking Spike over for a better deal and would probrably kick dirt on the network on the way out. Spike isn't right for handling things like they did, but it's not like WWE is known for being a company that is very honorable and deserving of a nice send-off.

Amazing Red Masahiro Chono Aja Kong WWE Women's Division

Believe it or not, Jarrett-Nash, while as a match it will suck ass, almost has to happen if long term booking and planning are a part of TNA. They don't want to give away the elevation of Brown and/or Joe just yet. As stated in the latest Observer, they have to establish those guys first and make fans want to see Brown and Joe challenge for the title. Then after a heated buildup, you deliver the match. Giving Brown the shot and title now is hot shotting and opening him up to becoming a transitional champ instead of a long term one if his reign starts to show it doesn't have legs. The important thing is for TNA to use Jarrett as the transitional champ until they build up the proper long term guy. The problem with that is Jarrett doesn't have a good track record of helping make guys into stars and putting people over. Ditto Nash. While they could do it, there is no evidence that they will put guys over no matter what they say in interviews.

The Worm and People's Elbow are moves that are over because of the character executing them. The Canadian Destroyer is over because of the move itself and degree of difficulty involved in executing it.

A thumb war between 2 retards would be more compelling.

Agreed on the paper thin rosters. However, the death knell for the actual ECW/WCW unification was Stephanie being announced as the storyline owner of ECW. Whatever ECW mutant fanbase that was interested quickly tuned out because none of them were buying into Steph as ECW's owner. Good point. Another reason they shouldn't have gone through with the angle in the first place. This is where I part company with you because I don't think the McMahons have it in them to let people from the competition, even if they really aren't competition anymore, go over in any way shape or form. Even if the intention would be to have WWF go over in the end (which is what the plan should be) they wouldn't let the invaders go over in the beginning as they should to heat the feud up. Basically, I don't think the McMahons can successfully do an interpromtional war type angle because they want too much control and won't let anyone but their guys over. That's not to say they don't do other angles and feuds well because they aren't the top promotion in the world without some measures of success, but the very nature of the McMahon's wouldn't allow for the Invasion to be successful IMO.

That's a very good point. Here is a question. If WWE had brought in the big names (Goldberg, Hogan, Steiner, Flair, Sting, whoever) do you still think they would've booked the squash that they did? Or was WCW's rep so far gone that it wouldn't have mattered who lead the Invasion, it would've tanked? From what I gather, you (and for the most part others) say that the Alliance side had nothing to offer, therefore we get what we got. (which still doesn't seem right to me) However, if the guys who were identified more closely with WCW were brought in from the start, do you think they would've done business differently? I don't think they would.

Give me a counter roster for Austin, Rock, Undertaker, Angle, Kane, Big Show and Jericho. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> You can't really. In hindsight, you aren't going to counter that roster. However, they gave no one on the Alliance side a chance. Even RVD, who was as big a styles clash as they come, was getting over huge to the point they couldn't hold him out of one Main event (No Mercy) and they still wouldn't even attempt to get him over. Thing is, this was booked to be a squash from pretty much the get go. I'm not even saying they did it out of malice, but they couldn't or wouldn't even try with the Alliance guys and they weren't about to let any of them get over by hook or by crook. Were some of them green and a styles clash? Yes. But none were ever in a position to be anything except background for Steph and Shane. It was doomed to fail. The angle should've never have gone forward in the first place. It'd be one thing if they would've tried and it failed, but the chance was never there. It'll always be could'a, would'a, should'a. in regards to the Invasion angle.

They didn't stand a chance from the moment this thing was a go. Didn't matter if they had a bad match (which they did) or a good one, the crowd, who paid to see WWF Raw, didn't want the show to end with Nitro. You are correct in that there was a styles clash. It wasn't like they couldn't work though it though. Guys in the WWF lockerroom were not going to let newbies from "down south" show them up or take their spots, so they claimed they couldn't work. It might've taken some time, but less time than you think. The Alliance definitely could've used the star power of Hogan, Flair, etc, but it like they couldn't have forged ahead without them. The Invasion buyrate proved that. There was interest in the feud with mostly midcard players. Once people caught on that this wasn't even a competition and just a glorified squash, the angle tanked. The feud had zero hope when they decided to not put over any of the WCW/ECW guys. All the positions of power in the Alliance were actually WWE guys. (Austin, Angle, Steph, Shane) My thing is, they didn't even try with any of the WCW guys.