Lots of Nwa Tna news & Notes

[Guest glennsoe]

The main event on this week's NWA:TNA PPV has been dubbed "The Deadly Draw." The idea is that each competitor will draw numbers and the wrestler who drew number one will challenge NWA champion AJ Styles for five minutes as they will begin the match. After a "round" if no one is eliminated, the second and third competitors will join in. If it's booked correctly, I think the match has a lot of potential, especially with Ron Killings, Raven, and Chris Harris involved.

 

The fallout over NWA:TNA's decision to take over the outside bookings of their contracted wrestlers continued this weekend as fans were very vocal about their feelings on the matter. On Friday 5/14 at the USA Pro Wrestling event in Jamaica, New York, the crowd began chanting, "F*** TNA" during Christopher Daniels' farewell bout against Sonjay Dutt. Dutt was actually chanting along with the fans, according to one reader at the show. The anti-TNA chants continued the next night at the 3PW event in Philadelphia, PA during Daniels vs. AJ Styles. There were similar chants towards The Amazing Red at last month's Jersey All Pro Wrestling event. TNA needs to understand that they have greatly upset the type of hardcore fans who are the most likely to order their PPVs to begin with.

 

I have heard there has been some discussion about trying to sign former X-Division champion Low Ki to a contract. Ki has always had the stance of not wanting to sign as his priority was working in Japan, so it will be interesting to see if TNA does sign him. I have also heard that Low Ki has been vocal about not liking the contract stipulations that would put TNA in charge of his US bookings. In fact, he wouldn't be alone in that viewpoint as many of the wrestlers that I have talked to have told me that they feel that in the end they will pay the 15% booking fee to TNA because they don't think the Indies where they currently work will give them a raise to cover TNA's fee. This has led to a lot of resentment among the boys.

 

Bob Ryder is pushing to add an audio show to the NWATNA.com website. For those who didn't know, Ryder pitched a similar concept to Eric Bischoff back in 1999 and was hired by the company to host the weekday night show "WCW Live" for the company along with Jeremy Borash. Ryder is looking to bring a similar show to NWA:TNA, with the concept being it would be done weekly on the company website.

 

It is believed that Johnny Swinger suffered a broken orbital bone while wrestling Goldust on an independent date over the weekend. The injury happened while Swinger was giving a clothesline. Swinger still worked a date against Diamond Dallas Page for Dusty Rhodes' ACTION-1 promotion over the weekend. Swinger suffered a similar injury while working for Extreme Championship Wrestling.

 

Although NWA: TNA's Bill Banks reported on their website that Sabu has signed a contract with the company, Sabu has yet to sign a deal. I just checked the TNA site and Banks did post a correction. It was a simple error on Banks' part but I know that the company is looking to sign Sabu. Banks also reported that Monty Brown has signed a deal. I know that Brown is someone that the promotion sees potential in and they have been really happy with how hard he has been trying to improve since his return to the company.

 

I have heard that there is talk about bringing in Roderick Strong once the Impact! tapings begin in Florida. Strong is based out of Florida and has been recently making the rounds in a lot of Northeastern independent promotions.

 

Bill Banks also reported on the NWA:TNA website that Vince Russo is attending seminary school. No, that is not a misprint! Apparently Russo is looking to become a preacher. That's quite a journey for someone who started out running video stores in Long Island and then helped lead the WWF Attitude movement.

 

The promotion ran an angle on their syndicated Xplosion show where David Young lost to D-Ray 3000, a really thin worker with a huge afro. They played up Young's losing streak while Young claimed it was editing that made him look like he lost. He challenged D-Ray to a match on the PPV so everyone could see that Young can

[Guest The Last Free Voice]

Angles on Xplosion? Will the wonders never cease? Wasn't Strong on the X-Divison Jobbers of Hell team that took on team NWA before the first XCup? (It was Stryker, Sharkboy Collyer and Strong, I think...)

[Coolclint 0]

The fourth guy was Jerrell(e) Clark, who's known for his 620-degree splash.

[Guest The Last Free Voice]

I don't think so. Clark was in a tag match with some Jobber against Sonjay and some jobber in Sonjay's Debut... I think it was Strong. He was replaced the next week by Jason Cross when they fought Mexico....

[Guest Donners]

Rod Strong's only had one TNA match, and that was in February IIRC. He's pretty talented.

[Guest glennsoe]

Sources tell me that AAA head Antonio Pena will be in Nashville for this week's NWA:TNA Pay-per-view, and I have hear that legendary Lucha Libre announcer Arturo Rivera will be coming in as well. Matches for the World X Cup show on the 26th of this month are being taped on Wednesday, which will have a Team AAA vs. Team NWA vs. Team Canada vs. Team Japan format and feature the return of the "Ultimate X" match. That show has the potential to be one of the best in the history of the company, from a pure athletic and wrestling perspective.

 

From what I am now hearing, the plan for getting talent from the Nashville PPV's to the Orlando Fox Sports tapings will be to have some of the talent fly, while others get bussed in on luxury motor coaches. As I understand it, the preliminary talent and road crew will be put on the bus, while the headliners and upper management will be flown in. Also, for at least the initial tapings, they will only be bringing wrestlers and crew that they absolutely need for the shows. They are very serious about not wasting money on bringing people to Florida that they don't need to.

 

Tomorrow is the day that members of the NWA:TNA roster are expected to return documents stating that they will have all their bookings handled by the TNA office. While it appears most of the workers are going to go along with TNA's wishes, several are worried about favoritism amongst management for certain wrestlers leading to them getting more bookings at the expense of others. As one person, who requested anonymity, told me, "How do I know a promoter won't call TNA looking to book me, but the office convinces him to book (name withheld) instead? Just because someone plays politics better, will they get more bookings?"