TNA's wasted wrestler, angle and feud of the year!

[zyn081 0]

I think these questions can be answered in 3 words: Raven, Raven and Raven!

 

IMO the most underutilised wrestler is Raven. He is now fighting with DDP! Hes mainly this year fought against Styles, Killings, Harris, Abyss and Brown . Why not Jarrett!

 

This brings us to the angle most royaly screwed: Raven's Destiny. It could have easily been told that every month Raven beats somebody to get a shot at the title, but gets screwed since some other wrestler derails him and Raven being who he is must get revenge, thus losing his focus. But no. We get Raven making Abyss and Brown look good.

 

Finally, mishandled feud of the year was Raven-Sabu. I mean, WTF, that should have been the bloody closing brawl at Victory Road. Geez, they had never puthands on each other. Who remembers their only fight!

 

I believe that TNA also dropped the ball with Hogan-Savage. I know it wouldnt be a mat classic but so much history couldnt be passed up.

 

The X Cup and X Division both flopped.

 

The good points of the year were the Road to the Cage build-up and the month after that, the 2 PPVS (Victory Road and Turning Point) and the rise and rise of Monty Brown.

 

Theres alot of good unsigned talent out their for gods sake!

 

Get your act together TNA! Please, for the sake of wrestling!

[Lightning Flik 0]

TNA's Worst Category Winners Should Be:

 

Dropped Feud - Raven's Destiny. Raven should've become Champion and should've been.

 

Most Underutilized - AJ Styles. Gave him another shitty title run, then bounce him to the X Division.

 

Wasted Wrestler - Raven. You have him from being World Champion possibility to not even being near the title.

 

Worst Angle - The Parity of the WWE. Freely advertise your "competition" on your show. That's such a fucking brilliant idea. Let's see worked wonders for WCW.

 

...no, I don't watch TNA (yet). But these are obvious flaws like the WWE's.

 

The difference between Wasted and Underutilized is that Wasted is the potential target they had while doing everything in hell to sabotage it, and Underutilizied is what they could've done with the guy but decided "meh, fuck with trying".

 

And no, I'm not bashing the product for simply bashing. Just going these were probably the worst of the worst.

Edited December 23, 2004 by Lightning Flik

[Guest scratch]

Most underutilized - Alex Shelley. The guy is so young and has gained so much talent in 2 shorty years, and he's barely even on TV. When he is, he's X-Division fodder. Why even bother having him around if you're not going to use him??

[TheBigSwigg 0]

Most underutilized - Alex Shelley. The guy is so young and has gained so much talent in 2 shorty years, and he's barely even on TV. When he is, he's X-Division fodder. Why even bother having him around if you're not going to use him??

There are several I'd consider for most wasted, but Alex Shelley is definitely one of them.

 

Most wasted wrestler-Shelley, Daniels, AJ, Raven

 

Feud-Anything with Raven

 

Worst Angle-anything involving Jarrett.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Most underutilized worker:

Ron "The Truth" Killings takes this home for the second year in a row. A breakout star in 2002, and a solid mid-carder in 2003, the man has talent that TNA refuses to let loose, or refused once Jeffy Jeff got the book and put his friends (Watts, Russo) on TV more than those that deserved to be. He had a damn good match with AJ Styles for the NWA World Heavyweight title, and then, the following week, put on an extremely strong showing in the King of the Mountain match. He can cut great promo's, can put on very entertaining matches, and is probably the only thing close to a marketable worker TNA currently has (as Styles has the talent in the ring, but not the right gimmick/character, and nobody else is close to being something even resembling a draw).

 

Mishandled feud:

Jeff Jarrett vs. Anybody. Why? Because you knew Jarrett would come out on top in the end.

 

Angle most royally screwed:

XXX vs. AMW. What could have been built off of last year's terrific feud that elevated the NWA World Tag Team titles to heights they haven't seen in over a decade was based around the false idea of respect, and the true "hatred" between the two teams was never really capitalized. Booking 101 states that the heels go over the faces until the blowoff. AMW went over XXX in every match. EVERY. MATCH. That's TERRIBLE booking.

 

Most wasted talent:

Raven. With what could have been a magnificent bloodfeud between Raven and The Gathering (CM Punk and Julio) being thrown to the shitter because Dutch listened too much to Jeffy Jeff (who does not like Raven on a personal level, and disagrees with him always, despite Raven's list of successful feuds booked by him)* and had a series of under 10-minute long tag bouts, the majority of which didn't even feature Raven, but instead The Sandman and/or Terry Funk. There could have been the chance to get Raven over huge as the tweener the character is designed to be at Road to the Cage, as after injuring Chris Harris and taking him out of the ring for a period of time, and already having proven he could hang with Jarrett the year prior, the title shot is, instead, given to AJ Styles, who was not the number one contender, nor had he been for some time. This is not to be seen as an insult towards AJ, as I completely marked out when he pinned Jarrett, but it should have been Raven in the cage, and Raven holding the title after the match.

 

So, basically, it's the usual suspects. The people that TNA pushes are the ones that don't really deserve it (the only ones that remotely do being Styles, and possibly Monte Brown considering how over he's gotten since returning back in February/March), and the ones that they should push (Raven, Killings, Kash, even Abyss) are the ones that get shit on.

[Guest JacK]

What about that one or two week Truth title reign as mishandled angle? What exactly were they going for with that?

[zyn081 0]

I would most probably have to say that most underutilised wrestler was Daniels most underutilised feud was XXX-AMW and most underutilised angle was Ravens destiny.

 

Wasted wrestler was Raven, wasted fued was Raven-Sabu and wasted angle was a possible Hogan-Savage.

 

Without doubt, for TNA to improve, the show must be built around the following in 2005:

 

Abyss

AJ Styles

Alex Shelley (Has to be built-up though)

Monty Brown

Christopher Daniels

Chris Harris (Cant really leave him out)

Chris Sabin (Has to be built-up though)

James Storm (Cant really leave him out)

Jeff Hardy (Cant really leave him out)

Jeff Jarrett (Cant really leave him out)

Kid Kash

Pat Kenney (Has to be built-up though)

Ron Killings

All of Team Canada

 

To a lesser extent:

 

Amazing Red

Hector Garza

Jerrelle Clarke

Scott Hall

Sonjay Dutt

Sonny Siaki

 

The rest would play filling roles.

[what 0]

Worst Angle - The Parity of the WWE. Freely advertise your "competition" on your show. That's such a fucking brilliant idea. Let's see worked wonders for WCW.

Yeah, I'm sure all that free publicity is doing wonders for the WWE's business.

[slimm44 0]

Sabu got hurt so there was no way to continue the feud.

 

I'm strongly pro TNA so I can't say who has been wasted and what not. Sure they have had their pros and cons, Chris Harris trying to make it as a singles competitor wasn't a huge draw but that angle made what I thought was a great feud between AJ, Killings, Raven and Harris, and gave Jarrett a rest and took the focus off of him for a little bit.

[zyn081 0]

Sabu got hurt so there was no way to continue the feud.

 

I'm strongly pro TNA so I can't say who has been wasted and what not. Sure they have had their pros and cons, Chris Harris trying to make it as a singles competitor wasn't a huge draw but that angle made what I thought was a great feud between AJ, Killings, Raven and Harris, and gave Jarrett a rest and took the focus off of him for a little bit.

Raven could have 'taken' Sabu out and they could have done it properly when he was fit an able.

 

The road to the cage was the best angle TNA have had all year. The deadly draw, cage match & king of the mountain made their best month of the year.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Which is sad, because the shows were terrible.

[Guest Coffey]

Most underutilized wrestler: Sonny Siaki.

 

I still can't believe that Raven didn't win the belt after his "destiny." Man, that was REALLY a bad fuck up by TNA.

 

I feel bad for Simon "Irish" Saint Something Diamond Kenney too. He's a good worker and talker...and he has shown he can get heat too. What more does he need?

 

Ya'll remember Ravashing Rick Rudo's weight limit shit that he talked about for WWE? It'd work perfect in TNA. People like Amazing Red could get over while people like Sonny Siaki wouldn't be bypassed.

[zyn081 0]

Sonny Siaki and Simon Dimond have got the wrong end of the stick. Such a great shame about Dimond, cause he can talk and has a decent moveset, and can play a likeable face and heel.

 

What did Rude used to do? Its a bit before my time you see.

[Guest Coffey]

RavishingRickRudo, a poster here at TSM, not Ravashing Rick Rude, the former wrestler.

 

I'll try to find the thread so I can link you....

 

EDIT: Link

 

That's why I suggest using a Weight System. Heavyweight, Middleweight, Light/Cruiserweight. Then there's a reason why each guy is challenging for each title - not because they "suck", but because that's their weight. Since the WWE is worked, they can work weight as well. Middleweights can move up to heavyweight, heavyweights can move down to middleweight. Natural storylines can be associated with it.

 

The Tag Division would be Openweight. And there still could be special openweight matches. But they should limit those. There is the problem - the WWE could lose focus and do a whole bunch of open weight matches and be in the same situation it is in today.

[Guest BrokenWings]

I still can't believe that Raven didn't win the belt after his "destiny." Man, that was REALLY a bad fuck up by TNA.

That was the fuck up when it comes to TNA.

 

Didn't that show do the biggest buyrate of TNA's history up until that point? And even then I don't believe it was surpassed until weekly ppv's became a thing of the past.

 

I was watching that show literally feeling TNA's bright future slip away in three seconds.

 

I honestly believe they lost many fans and interest due to that one match.

 

So yeah, in regards to the topic, my opinion is that of both wasted talent and wasted angle of the year go to Raven, with the angle being that of his Gathering split, which effectively also fucked over CM Punk.

 

Also, I don't believe the X Cup to be a flop, and think they should still be continued but with a larger time gap in between the tournaments. I think it was mishandled, as they were unwilling to get good, or in some cases (Team UK, Japan), even decent talent. However, I still believe that since they produced some good matches, and in some cases feuds (Team Canada), and had crossover talent appeal for TNA to bring in at later dates (Garza) that makes it a success.

[zyn081 0]

Thanks alot Coffey. MLW had a system like that. Heavyweights and lightweights, with openweight matches too. I like the idea, same as boxing.

 

The X Cup was a case of too many tourneys in too little time. They burned it out. Team Japan could have Nosawa, Kaz Hayahsi, TigerMask IV and Wataru Sakata.