Impact spoilers for 2/14

[cabbageboy 0]

Iggy, I think the thing is TNA simply tries too hard on every show. It's almost like they need to calm the hell down just a bit, let some angles take some time to play out, and just have some wrestling. The whole Russo car wreck style of booking is so incredibly 10 years ago.

 

I will say this right now in the hope that it will happen: At Lockdown Joe needs to just beat the fuck out of Angle for the belt. Clean. Center of the ring. No run ins or BS. I'm talking 20 minutes of Joe beating the holy hell out of Kurt Angle, with Angle just getting token offense. This is one time where TNA 100% must cut out the crap and put someone over with a vengeance.

[garfieldsnose 0]

Seems that iggy isn't a wrestling fan. He stated he started watching 10 years ago, which is almost proof he isn't a wrestling fan. He loves the entertainment aspect. That type of shit gets frowned upon here on the great TSM. I don't necessarily agree with him, but I'm not gonna say he is wrong since he has his own preferences.

 

I don't take anything seriously, and I think RAW is a hell of a lot more entertaining than iMPACT! TNA does try too hard, and I agree with cabbageboy. But I definitely don't think iggy can label himself a "wrestling" fan. And I definitely don't think iMPACT! is a better "wrestling" or "entertaining" show.

[iggymcfly 0]

I can certainly appreciate a good match, but that's what PPVs are for. You can't really expect to base the television around 25 minute technical classics every week. Smackdown did that for about 8 months in 2002 and 2003, but that's the only time it's ever worked in the history of wrestling. What you're supposed to do with television is have a lot of quick entertaining segments that fit between commercial breaks that get the fans into the storylines and build toward the PPV. It's a two-part process. I'm not saying there should never be long involved matches on TV, but when it happens, it's a bonus. You just can't expect it to happen week in and week out.

 

The last couple years, the WWE's just been booking Raw like it's a house show every week. The matches are all faces and heels randomly facing off just because their faces or heels and the matches have no reason behind them and there's no consequence to their results. Take Samoa Joe and Nash against Christian and Tomko as an example of how a main TV storyline should be booked. They had two segments to establish why the match was taking place and it also made sense with Joe having a previous grievance with the Angle Alliance. Then, the results of the match led toward Joe taking personal offense at the pinfall loss Angle made him suffer and ramped up the restart of the Joe/Angle feud to a personal level. Then, Joe avenged himself on Angle at the end of the night. That's a story that builds throughout the show and makes you feel like something was accomplished that week without waiting two months for some type of conclusion. If it was the WWE, they just would have just announced the match at the start of the show, Nash would have pinned Joe to end it, and it never would have been mentioned again. The match would have felt meaningless.

 

Also, I want to say that this little "real wrestling fan" thing is really lame. Yes, good matches can be entertaining, but they're not the be all and end all of professional wrestling. If all you're into is watching a well-simulated fight, you should stick to MMA where they don't have to simulate it because it's real. The point of professional wrestling is that the characters and the storylines are supposed to work with the matches and build up interest in the outcomes. You should judge each segment on its own merits and entertainment value instead of just being "more wrestling = good", "less wrestling = bad". There was only one segment I'd classify as boring tonight (the NASCAR interview) and one more that was mediocre (the women's match). Every other segment kept me interested and entertained so I'd say that's a pretty good show.

 

Edit: I realize that Impact first aired 3 days ago. I didn't get around to watching it off my DVR until this afternoon though.

[iggymcfly 0]

BTW, in addition to faces and heels randomly facing off with no reasoning behind the match, another one of my pet peeves about the WWE is that when they have an angle for the main event instead of a match like the "wedding vow renewal ceremony", the face and the heel never interact for more than about 15 seconds and then the heel leaves the ring and the face always just stands there like a jackass like he really accomplished something because he got the heel to leave the ring. No matter how personal the conflict's supposed to be, he never chases him out of the ring. It drives me crazy.

 

That was another reason I liked TNA's main event segment tonight. Joe and Nash were pissed and they actually acted like it. They beat the shit out of Angle for a solid 3 minutes and then didn't leave until they'd stripped him down to his underwear and thoroughly embarrassed him. They acted like real people and didn't follow the stupid random formula that the WWE uses to make their shows less interesting.

[cabbageboy 0]

I almost think the Russo style is a good shock to the system type of booking, but it is crap for long term booking. See, Raw needed that kick to the nuts circa 1997 and it worked well for that era. But by mid 1999 this style of Russo booking had already exhausted people and thus after he left the WWF did more relaxed storytelling and featured longer matches.

 

Thing is, Russo needs someone to guide him in the decision process. This Abyss/Mesias/Mitchell storyline could have been interesting, but they literally did the blowoff to it right as it began! Watch the Raw shows from 1997-98 with the UT/Bearer/Kane storyline, which Russo was also involved in. On 24/7 they are in May/June 97 with Bearer blackmailing UT about the terrible secret. He reluctantly teams with Bearer again, but then quickly says the hell with it, then Bearer reveals the awful secret of UT burning his house to the ground and killing his parents. Thing is, there is no real money to be drawn off something like that...you need someone else, which ends up being the not so dead Kane. The angle almost plays a trick on the viewer since UT gets into the Bret and HBK feuds and we almost forget about Kane, almost like they just dropped the angle. But then BAM, Kane shows up and debuts at the most critical time, the first HIAC match and costs UT a shot at the title. UT disappears to think about it for a while, then comes back and refuses to fight his brother. Kane eventually suckers UT by pretending to make up, then screws him against HBK yet AGAIN in the casket match...finally UT has enough. They make the match for WM, where UT vows to take out his evil brother.

 

That is how you draw money. This angle was first teased in May of the previous year, then Kane debuted 5 months later, then finally he and UT wrestled at WM in late March of 1998. I read that Russo wanted UT to chokeslam Kane right after the HIAC match, but Cornette pointed out how stupid that would be. Russo when he goes unchecked books like a child with ADD, he doesn't seem to understand the concept of how to build something. Abyss/Mesias in the barbed wire match should be a match that they build to for months. Abyss should refuse to fight his brother, while Mitchell and Judas laugh at him and badmouth him for weeks and months, calling him out, etc. Mesias can even use barbed wire on his opponents, and they also bring up Abyss' fear of barbed wire. Finally when Judas costs Abyss a title match with Angle, Abyss has enough and now vows to his mother to take out his evil father and stepbrother. This should last at least 6 months.

 

Instead we get these guys doing the barbed wire deal mere weeks after the angle begins. What do you do with it now?

[luke-o 0]

Couldn't agree more and that's TNAs biggest problem at the moment. The storylines aren't so bad but the timing is. Although the argument with the Abyss/Mitchel/Mesias angle is that Abyss/Mitchel's storyline has been going for almost a year now. I can see Abyss taking some time off now to regroup and think over things before coming back in a few months time to finish things. But that will most likely happen next week.

 

Russo is an interesting writer as he is always looking for that new thing to draw in new fans. If you listen to his shoot interview, he claims that he is always trying new ideas to see how they play out with an audience. Take what he did with WCW circa 2000, did it work? No. But at least he tried it. He wasn't sticking to the same old forumla. Who knows, the wacky "working the audience/workers" storylines could have worked. Only they didn't.

[iggymcfly 0]

The thing is that Undertaker was an established multi-time world champion that was super super over. Thus, the fans were interested enough in what he was doing that the story could play out over several months without the fans losing interest and feel like it was building to something epically important. The fact that it was executed perfectly helped too.

 

Abyss is I guess technically a main-eventer in TNA, but people just aren't that interested in him. The storyline felt like a rehash of Kane/Undertaker from the start, no one really took Judas Mesias seriously as someone that could actually beat Abyss, and so they just made it a one month deal. Sometimes, you have to recognize your limitations.

 

That's actually another thing the WWE's doing wrong right now as they keep trying to make a lot of feuds into some epic that lasts 3-6 months when they obviously don't have the legs to do so. Feuds like Cena/Edge and DX vs. Vince should just be a one or two month program and then be finished. In order to make a feud last longer than 3 months, you need an amazingly well-written storyline and you need two workers that are tremendously over with the audience. If you don't have that, you just shoot yourself in the foot by stretching it out.

[Guest MadManOnTheWater]

Didn't WON report that the Abyss storyline has mainly been booked by Dutch Mantell, with help from Abyss?

[cabbageboy 0]

Actually Edge/Cena pretty much was that sort of thing. The first initial feud lasted just a couple of matches in Jan. 2006 with Edge cashing in the MITB, Cena regaining, and then the blowoff on Raw. I don't really consider the other stuff in Aug.-Sept. 2006 the same feud.

 

While I agree that Judas is a weak character, that is because TNA didn't do much to convince me he was a threat. It didn't help that he got hurt almost immediately into his run, but should he really be doing a clean job for Christian the week before a vicious barbed wire match?

[iggymcfly 0]

Actually Edge/Cena pretty much was that sort of thing. The first initial feud lasted just a couple of matches in Jan. 2006 with Edge cashing in the MITB, Cena regaining, and then the blowoff on Raw. I don't really consider the other stuff in Aug.-Sept. 2006 the same feud.

 

Just looked at Edge's wiki page. Even if you say the feud started after Mania since Edge was feuding with Foley for a while, we have in order on the PPV schedule:

 

Backlash: Cena vs. Edge vs. HHH for the WWE Title

One Night Stand: Edge costs Cena the title in the main event.

Vengeance: Edge faces RVD, but the feud's definitely continuing with Cena on Raw over the preceding month. Two weeks after Vengeance, Edge pins Cena in a Triple Threat to win the title.

Summerslam: Edge defeats Cena with brass knuckles.

Unforgiven: Cena defeats Edge in a TLC match.

October 2 Raw: Cena defeats Edge in a steel cage to blow off the feud.

 

So, the feud went from April to October. That would be a span of 6 months which is ridiculously long for a cheating heel that no one takes seriously to take on a face that's booed by half of the audience, especially when they'd already feuded for 2 months earlier in the year.

[Jingus 0]

Actually Edge/Cena pretty much was that sort of thing. The first initial feud lasted just a couple of matches in Jan. 2006 with Edge cashing in the MITB, Cena regaining, and then the blowoff on Raw. I don't really consider the other stuff in Aug.-Sept. 2006 the same feud.

No, looking at the results, they wrestled five times on Raw in January and February. And it was like six weeks after the "blow-off" that they wrestled again in April.