What is going on here?

[cabbageboy 0]

Okay, I just got through watching TNA and I have one thing I'd like to have cleared up:

 

What the fuck is going on in this promotion?

 

No, really. I've even been watching and I am at a loss to understand half of this shit in the main angle involving Jarrett, Cornette, Larry Z., etc. Let me see if I understand what has happened over the past couple of months:

 

--Jarrett is paranoid that the new commish is going to fire him because he is a cancer in the TNA locker room, and thus wants to get the title back so he can prevent possibly being fired.

 

--Zbyzsko is constantly worried about being fired himself, even though I've never quite understood what he is so worried about. In fact I'm not sure if he's a heel or face authority figure, given that he made a bunch of rules that cost Jarrett the title vs. Christian but also is abusing Raven.

 

Here is what I don't get about any of this: Why did Larry and Hebner help Jarrett regain the title? I mean this entire thing makes zero sense on any level. Did Zbyzsko not read his own contract stating that he had a no cut deal? Jarrett has denied even being in cahoots with Hebner and Larry Z., which is odd given the usual heel "We fooled you!" schtick after pulling off such a massive screwjob. Considering Jarrett ended up getting the belt in the end and Zbyzsko didn't lose his job there's really no reason not to come clean about it like "Ah ha! Fuck you, Cornette! I got the belt and these guys helped me!"

 

I guess what I'm saying is I don't see what Zbyzsko and Hebner gained by their subterfuge. Hebner has been fired (and yes, I figure he'll be back) and Larry was punished by having his head shaved. Neither of them really gained anything by helping Jarrett get the title! Larry was in no real danger of being fired, and I fail to see how helping the most hated man on the roster win the title would in any way help secure his own position in the company, especially with a law and order "new face" GM coming in. Why would he give a shit if Jarrett or Christian or Sting had the title? Why would Hebner do such a blatant bit of ref corruption knowing that everyone was looking at him to slip up?

 

Let's face it, where can they really go with this angle that could produce something decent? They could just forget about it with time, which might be the best idea actually. Because the only real logical conclusion here is Cornette turning heel, having been in on a mass conspiracy with Jarrett, Larry Z., and Hebner. It's the only thing that explains why he gave Jarrett the belt back and didn't particularly punish him, meanwhile giving Larry some token hair match punishment to give the illusion that he's cleaning up the promotion (and "firing" Hebner with every intention of bringing him back).

 

The thing is, that idea is the only logical angle but it still really SUCKS. It still leads to more Jarrett main event push and another tedious heel GM character to boot.

 

If this is the case, isn't this whole thing ultra confusing and much ado about nothing? It seems like a very byzantine angle to comprehend and I don't see any possible payoff that leads to something decent. Seriously, why is it that nobody seems to realize how truly hideous this angle is?

[David Blazenwing 0]

At least it's not Katie Vick bad.

[Timmy8271 0]

Your thinking too much. It's Wrestling, it hardly ever makes sense.

[cabbageboy 0]

Yeah but I haven't ever seen something quite like this. It's like some level of incoherence beyond whatever WCW did. I'm still sorta interested in seeing where (if anywhere) this is going, but I have a feeling wherever it goes isn't going to be good.

 

Seriously, is everyone so apathetic about Jarrett at this point that even a byzantine, confusing storyline like this provokes an "Eh" reaction? Anyone care to try and figure out what's going on here?

[cd213 0]

Seriously, is everyone so apathetic about Jarrett at this point that even a byzantine, confusing storyline like this provokes an "Eh" reaction? Anyone care to try and figure out what's going on here?

 

I'll try to make sense of this:

 

Zbyzsko was playing the heel commish before Cornette came in. We saw this through the Raven feud. He and Hebner helped out Jarrett before Cornette came into the picture.

 

Once Cornette showed up he made it clear that no one's job was safe, and he proved this by fireing his "friend" Hebner for his part in King of the Mountain match. He then Told Zbuzsko he had to do everything he (Cornette) said to do otherwise his job would be lost. The first thing was the put him in a match with the reinstated Raven in a hari vs hair match, and we know what happened there.

 

Last night Zbyzsco made that announcement from what Cornette "told" him to say to Jarrett and Steiner. He's not a face commish, nor a heel one. He does what he is told to do otherwise he can loose his job.

[CubbyBr 0]

Seriously, is everyone so apathetic about Jarrett at this point that even a byzantine, confusing storyline like this provokes an "Eh" reaction? Anyone care to try and figure out what's going on here?

 

I'll try to make sense of this:

 

Zbyzsko was playing the heel commish before Cornette came in. We saw this through the Raven feud. He and Hebner helped out Jarrett before Cornette came into the picture.

 

Once Cornette showed up he made it clear that no one's job was safe, and he proved this by fireing his "friend" Hebner for his part in King of the Mountain match. He then Told Zbuzsko he had to do everything he (Cornette) said to do otherwise his job would be lost. The first thing was the put him in a match with the reinstated Raven in a hari vs hair match, and we know what happened there.

 

Last night Zbyzsco made that announcement from what Cornette "told" him to say to Jarrett and Steiner. He's not a face commish, nor a heel one. He does what he is told to do otherwise he can loose his job.

 

Its the same stupid thing thats been going on since they got on Spike TV and its gone nowhere for the past year. What happened with Raven's girlfriend? What happened to Jacky Gayda and the dirt she had on Jarret, etc? I'd love to know who in TNA actually thinks that people give a shit about Zybsco, Slick Johnson, Hebner, etc.

[cd213 0]

I actually like Mark "Slick" Johnson. As far as refs go, he's pretty good, and I like that he actually has a character. I know, refs should just be in the backgroud, but it's something different. He has a personality, which is something that some of the wrestlers don't have.

 

I don't watch TNA for the main event storyline, I watch it for the X-Division, Joe and an actual tag team division.

 

Two of the things that I enjoy in wrestling are a good tag team (not just two people thrown together), and refs.

 

There are a few exceptions to the "no two random people to make a tag team" rule, like AJ/Daniels. As long as the team shares a look and the same music I have no problem with that. Look at AMW, originally just two guys thrown together to form a team, and they are 6 time champs. They work well together.

[CubbyBr 0]

I'd love to know what the casual fan thinks of this show when he's flipping through the channels and sees Tenay, in his tuxedo, screaming and making those ridiculous facial expressions, Zbyzsko in his wig, Don West in his orange shirts, and Slick Johnson's bad acting. Perception is reality and TNA is just so hokey and fake at times that its hard to watch. They need to get rid of Zbyzsko, Slick, and other wastes of TV time and add more LAX, Nash/Shelly/Devine, add personality to the X Division, etc.

 

And good god, please change the announcers. They oversell everything so bad that its hard ot buy into anything. The five minutes that Konnan was doing the announcing with Moody Jack was really refreshing. Bring back Scott Hudson and put him at the announcers desk with Konnan. Anything would be better than Tenay and "DW."

[cabbageboy 0]

See, personally I wonder what casual fans think if they tune in and see Konnan or the Road Dog on TV in the year 2006.

 

As far as Zbyzsko goes, I actually don't recall him flat out helping Jarrett before the KOTM match. In fact I don't know what the fuck Larry Z. was doing. You can write off the Raven thing as a personal grudge, but he also made some stips that originally cost Jarrett the title against Christian. It's too weird, it can't work having a commish character that does heelish stuff one minute and then does face stuff the next. It confuses people. You can't have it both ways, either Larry has to be an evil authority figure (which makes no sense because he has to answer to higher ups) or he has to be fair and impartial.

 

Think about a casual fan's perspective here. Let's say a fan watched the show after Slammiversary and heard about the Larry/Hebner screwjob finish....then last night here's Zbyzsko out making rulings unfavorable to Jarrett. What the fuck is this? If the guy has no will of his own then he's a useless character and has no business being there.

 

Destroyer, your views are that of the typical TNA fan: Watch the X division stuff (which hasn't been terribly interesting since Styles and Daniels started tagging), and some of the tag division stuff. The problem is that you can't have a highly successful promotion basing it around stuff like a glorified cruiser division, and an ill defined division at that. Fans are supposed to care about the main event scene...that's why it's the main event scene.

 

Anyway, I'm giving TNA till BFG to get the belt off Jarrett and put it on Joe. That said, when they inevitably end Joe's title run by having Jarrett pull some mass screwjob I stop watching.

[AlaskanHero 0]

I keep watching in the hopes that there'll be a resolution to the various storylines TNA has made. Like the whole the screw job in Michigan, the video tape, what Jackie Gayda knows, a lot of these other vaguely defined storylines that they mention briefly but never go into detail and maybe Raven's girlfriend (though I think they dropped that when Raven was recovering from the thyroid thing).

[slimm44 0]

As far as Zbysko aligning with Jarrett, I think it was supposed to go like this:

 

Zbysko was being ousted and decided to align with Jarrett to 'over-power' Cornette/management. But Cornette was brought in as a side-guy, not the main guy so it really didn't make sense

[CubbyBr 0]

See, personally I wonder what casual fans think if they tune in and see Konnan or the Road Dog on TV in the year 2006.

 

Agreed on James Gang but Konnan has been pretty entertaining as the leader of LAX. Atleast he's good on the mic...Zbyzsco just fucking sucks. He brings absolutely nothing to the table at all..can someone honestly explain the reasoning behind these stupid skits with him and Slick Johnson every week when they can use this TV time to develop someone like Sonjay Dutt or Petey Williams or give the extra time to a match or an angle. Perfect example was two weeks ago with the LAX contract signing angle. After Homocide hit the cop Killa the crowd was super hot. So instead of staying with it and letting LAX soak up the heat to really make the angle seem important, they cut away to a completely pointless skit with two horrible actors in Zbyzsco and Slick.

 

 

I'm not trying to hate on TNA...i really like some of the stuff they're doing with LAX, Bobby Roode, Naturals, the video packages have been awesome, and I'm really liking the Christian slow burn heel turn...i just wish they would wake up and make the show less hokey and a little more believable...kinda like ECW was this past week. Get rid of the bad acting, the laser beams and the pyro in a 900-people filled studio, Tenay and West screaming about everything. Let the characters that are over (LAX, Christian, Styles/Daniels) shine and give them enough time in the ring to show their stuff. Look at someone like the Truth...Truth could be their biggest star but he's been buried more times than I can count. When TNA first started up the guy was one of the most compelling characters not only in TNA but all of wrestling at the time. And now He gets about 4 minutes of TV time a month and does nothing of note besides saying "whats up?" And why is that? So we can watch Zbyzsco walk around with a wig on while Slick points and giggles at him like a child. And they wonder why the rating is a 0.8.

[cabbageboy 0]

But here is the thing about Zbyzsko that doesn't make sense: He wasn't being ousted. Cornette said he had a no cut contract, so are we to believe that Larry didn't even read his own contract?

 

Seriously, I am REALLY trying to get something out of this beyond "This is our lame excuse for putting the belt back on Jarrett."

[razazteca 0]

Slow burn = never ending story = chapter that was a complete waste of time and total fluff = boring. The only reason why a ref would even develop a character would be to turn heel screw the good guy and/or turn into a manager. Let me put it this way, Slick = Kent from Real Genius, wants to pretend that he is the boss but he is nothing but an asskisser that nobody respects.....the pecking order is god, cornette, zybrisco, slick, dry cleaning. This is a total waste of time the only out would be for him to screw over Jarrett costing him the belt then have Cornette "fire" him and somehow have Slick return as the personal trainer for Nash and the Paparazzi. But then again Slick's acting ability is at public access levels so it would be as exciting as watching Larry Zybrisko do a used car commercial.

 

As for Zybrisko in the never ending screw Raven over and always take Jarrett's directions cause I am his bitch saga who cares what happens to him. Seems like this damn this will forever be on hiatus because somebody got hurt or got knocked up or the writers sobered up or they decided it was pointless so they dropped it all together. Larry Zybrisko was never believable as the GM and when they brought in Cornette they should of "fired" and removed him from tv all together.

[Timmy8271 0]

I've guess that i've gotten so use to Jarrett that anything he does gets an "eh" reaction out of me. He's like Vince Mcmahon.

[cabbageboy 0]

Well, think about this for a moment. Why is Zbyzsko kissing Jarrett's ass? All Jarrett does is whine about how the upper management is out to fuck him over (which is curious coming from a heel) and how little influence he has. I suppose I am giving this entirely too much thought, but it's utterly mindblowing.

 

1. You are Larry Zbyzsko. You know that a new GM is coming in and heads will roll if you fuck up. Nevermind that you have a no cut contract, you're still paranoid. So what do you do? Help Jeff Jarrett regain the belt, the one thing guarranteed to piss off the new GM. WTF?

 

2. You are Earl Hebner. You have no clear ties to Jarrett whatsoever. In the first few months on the job you have seemed vaguely duplicitous based on the past but you haven't done anything truly crooked as a ref.

Do you want to show the new GM--Cornette--that you are an honest ref? Of course not. You'd rather help Jarrett regain the title, a move that pisses off Cornette and he fires you.

 

3. You are Jeff Jarrett. You have an ill defined relationship with Zbyzsko, seem to order him about, but there's really no reason why he'd bother to listen since in storyline you have NO actual pull with TNA upper management. In fact Larry made some stips that barred run ins and led to you losing the title to Christian (in a match Hebner reffed to boot). Yet now Larry and Hebner out of the blue help you win the title, and then you say "Gee, I have no idea why these guys helped me but thanks!"

 

4. You are Jim Cornette. The new face of TNA management. First night on the job the very guys you have an eye on do a blatant screwjob and help the man you despise regain the title. So you start by firing Earl Hebner as a scapegoat, fine. Can't fire Zbyzsko? Why not just send him home a la Kevin Sullivan? Have him lose the humiliating hair match and put him on the bench with Waltman and Co. Oh, and what to do about Jarrett? Strip him of the title? Fire him outright? Nah, just let him have the belt anyway and set up a 4 way where his buddy Steiner can cheat for him.

 

Seriously, there can't be a goofier storyline than this since the Hummer angle in WCW.

[luke-o 0]

But i have to watch this, if i dont, i have to watch WWE.