Corkscrew_Senton

cabbage, I see what you're saying, but the fact is Awesome hadn't been paid for his title matches with Tanaka, some four months before his leaving. Four months not getting paid for doing your job! From accounts I've heard/read, Awesome was going to be World Champion all the way until November to Remember, where he'd lose to RVD, so that's a rather lengthy title. Heyman, not Awesome, put that in jeopardy by not paying him. To me, it's akin to being given a promotion in your own line of work, not getting paid for months on end, then being expected to train the guy who's taking over for you when you leave for a company that is going to pay you, and pay you on time for that matter.

SPOILER: BOOK IT!

Styles went overboard in that match. That's easy to say in retrospect, but I thought so at the time. Yeah, Awesome jumped ship with the title, but he did so after having paychecks bounced on him. I loved ECW as much as the next fan, but what was he supposed to do? You can't have a roof over your head or feed yourself simply with the adoration of the fans.

Problem with that is every night in Nitro was THE GREATEST NIGHT IN THE HISTORY OF OUR SPORT! That would be one huge DVD set.

SPOILER:

Backlund is awesome. He would have been a great choice for the Bobby Roode manager angle. Since that didn't happen, I hope something longterm comes of this Austin Starr interaction.

The footage of Cibernetico killing Ricky Banderas is an odd combination of creepy and hilarious. For your enjoyment: http://youtube.com/watch?v=xkOSXnOExzI

Knowing WWE they'll call Mistico "El Burrito," have him in gardening gear and riding to the ring on a lawnmower. Oh, and his moveset will consist of one tope per five matches, one rana per match and a bunch of restholds. You mean that was already done with Juvi, Psicosis and Super Crazy? Gotcha.

dr. rosenpenis, great point. I felt the same way with some of those comments. I always felt like WCW would have been smart to feud Awesome with Hogan right out the gate, as Hogan might have put him over since they were related, and Awesome was a big guy. That guy could have and should have done a lot for WCW. He was a great wrestler and one of the lone bright spots during ECW's bad run in early 2000.

Albert/A-Train/Giant Bernard is a lot like Scott Norton. He's a guy you see how he's booked and how he works in the US and you forgot about him right now, thinking "just another hoss." Then you see either Japanese work and it's mind blowing. Bernard was awesome in All Japan with Voodoo Murders (Brother YASHI, a tiny guy, talks shit and plays the small chicken shit heel with Bernard as his monster back-up. Combine that with uber-heel TARU and a surprisingly solid Chuck Palumbo and you've got a bad ass stable). In NJPW he's obviously in for big things at some point, winning last year's NJ Cup. Personally I hope WWE never touch him again, because he'd go back to being utterly wasted.

Ah the Villanos...so many memories. *wipes tear from eye* So Psicosis has joined La Secta? That's cool as it continues the storyline of "Is he or isn't he" with La Parka. Though it seems like a carbon copy of the Atlantis turn, I like the idea of traditional babyface La Parka hating the pops for the tweener Hell Brothers.

Emphasis on Delirious as anything more than a midcard comedy act is ridiculous, but I agree with the rest of your points Hawk about Gabe booking new stars. Whitmer's obviously been groomed for the top, although he's lost some steam since the end of the CZW feud when he was red hot. Nigel and Rave are two who come to mind also as being ready to step into the leadership roles, and both are much better than Whitmer all-around. It would be kinda cool if Rave was the man to defeat Morishima -- I know the size differential is ridiculous, but if Rave wins through very underhanded tactics, it goes along with his character. You get a heel champion who can brag about beating a giant, and the fans hate him for doing so by spitting in the honor code's proverbial face. EDIT: Just wanted to tack on rather than double-post: The crowd chanted "please come back to Steen?" For all the heat someone like AJ Styles gets from the ROH message board, it's amazing they'd eat up a guy who's 10x more of a spot-wrestler, and a bad spot-wrestler at that.

I don't think Davey Richards is bad by any means, he's just so fucking bland. At least he's turned heel, maybe he'll have more character now than just "guy who loves and want to emulate KENTA."

I wonder who the title gets hotshotted to? I doubt they'd have him go back to Japan with the strap.

Technically the angle has only been going for 3 weeks, 2 of those weeks actually involved matches where all of the New Breed didn't win clean. You do have to put over the heels before you have the faces start winning. So I say give it another week or two before we start seeing the faces win. While I think your logic is 100% on the money Scroby, I doubt it actually happens. I was waiting for WCW to be made out like a legit threat during the Invasion, either through debuts like Nash/Hall/Goldberg, or just by actual WCW wrestlers (and not Steve Austin) winning matches. Never happened. And with the current direction of ECW (pushing a Smackdown worker to the top, using Raw/SD castoffs as the top heels, making "Extreme Rules" a seldom practice in a brand with Extreme in the title), I don't except this to be any different.

Now I'm not one to defend Russo since I think most of his booking sucks, but I have to give him credit here. Seems like fans get upset when feuds are either blown off after one match, or the feud ignored/forgotten after the one match. Granted the gimmick names are horrible, but at least they're being booked like actual feuds.

If MTV is going this route to protect the youth of America, then it needs to dump The Real World, Laguna Beach, The Hills, etc. to prevent brainwashing future generations from being vaccuous, shallow sluts.

Someone actually thought V for Vendetta aped Sin City? Unbelievable. And this "Uwe Boll" of TSM...did he challenge any other posters to boxing matches but back down for the bigger posters?

Other networks need to start using these kinds of Standards and Practices. NBC for example -- "Well on Law and Order SVU we've got this guy raping a woman with a candlestick then shooting her with a gun. Anyone can buy a gun and candlestick, so we better not air the episode, or replace the gun with a flaming Phoenix since those don't exist and instead of a candlestick we'll use an exact replica of a Ford Model-T."

The TV show, I'd grade a C. I mean, it has its moments and it's better than Raw or ECW...but is that really saying anything? The Teddy Hart livewire shock was beyond lame, and the matches are so short. I'd give the website cast an A-...great matches, seemed more like a wrestling show than a video game. If the TV program was more like the webcast I'd be really pumped about this promotion. Matt Classic is a great gimmick. Lacey gets an A for looking sooooo fine. GQ Money does fine in his studio role with Lacey, but man is he awful as ring announcer. Bret Ernst is the single worst announcer in wrestling history. Just fucking awful. He doesn't know wrestling at all, he called Tyler Black "Matt Classic" at one point, and he's just obnoxious. I mean, I'd rather have 10 Mark Maddens than 1 Bret Ernst. Fucking horrible. Last thing-- one of the MTV plants in the audience looked like a girl I lived across the way from in an apartment complex during college two years ago. I wonder if it's the same chick...

What can (or should) TNA do to become a viable competitor to WWE in your eyes as wrestling fans? WCW reached its pinnacle with former WWF stars repackaged, but the climate isn't such for that to work today. Basically I'm curious what fans want to see from TNA, either in terms of long-term angles, characters, direction etc., and what people think would make TNA larger nationally?

You know, a heel turn for Batista might be great. Have him as the whiny champion who talks about being disrespected by the fans and other wrestlers, out to prove he's the best.

Don't think I've ever read any of those workrate reports, so I'm not knocking them. To qdes, I'd actually agree with that guy about Petey's legsweep, it looks slow and useless. I also think Petey does a shitty sharpshooter. I'm not defending Petey as a golden god, 5* wrestler. I just don't think he's even as close to as bad as a majority of that board makes him out to be. There's no way he's worst wrestler material.

Ahh, the classic "if you don't like it, don't watch" comeback which has obviously put SO many people in their place. The reason no one answers the question outright is because it doesn't really have an outright answer. The best way I've seen it summed up was in regards to wrestling as a whole, not just TNA, but I still think it applies. Let's say that you're a sports fan, a baseball fan. Your favorite team is...let's say the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs haven't won in a really long time. They've had a few decent seasons but they haven't won the big one. That doesn't mean when the team is bad that you stop watching them, following them and supporting them. Maybe in the off season they get healthy, or get some new aquisitions or a new manager and before you know it, you're anticipating opening day again. Then, at the end of the year, when they hit some key injuries or what have you, you're disappointed but "there's always next year." As both a Cubs fan and someone who watches TNA despite hating Russo's style, this is pretty much spot on. TNA around say, May of last year was the 2003 Cubs. Putting on a great performance with talented people, really on the cusp on doing something special. The Kurt Angle announcement was Game 4 of the NLCS when Chicago went up 3-1 and looked headed for the World Series -- TNA looked headed for the big time. And the hiring of Vince Russo to book...that was the Steve Bartman ball. And like the Cubs of '04-'06, I hold out hope. The Cubs have/had Derrek Lee, Greg Maddux, Carlos Zambrano, Juan Pierre, Jacque Jones, Cesar Izturis, etc. TNA has Samoe Joe, Austin Aries, AJ Styles, Fallen Angel, Christian. This is seriously the perfect analogy. You've seen the team/product do some great things, and some of the pieces are still there, and you're just waiting for it to come all together.