CTDWAT: TNA Edition

[DarKnight 0]

Say what. The pacing isn't any better now than it was then. Everything is still extremely rushed and TNA has continued to try and cram in what they can, always speeding ahead to whatever is next and never allowing time for anything to sink in.

 

I don't think so. Things have WAY better pacing now then they did during those 06 Russo shows. Hell, I remember a ladder match on one of those shows, and it lasted 2 MINUTES! I think Jarrett actually cracked down on Russo backstage, and told him to write stuff more normal, and have more wrestling.

[Golgo 13 0]

More time for wrestling is all the two hours has given them. They haven't learned how to properly utilize and make good use of all that time otherwise.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

They haven't learned how to properly utilize and make good use of all that time otherwise.

Which their PPV numbers can attest to.

[LuckyLopez 0]

They haven't adopted the necessary breathing time most of the time but I think if you watch a 1 hour Impact and a recent 2 hour Impact you'll notice more time taken for entrances and post match celebrations. Just letting angles and events sink in a little more. They still rush a bit and the announcers still hamper things badly by never letting you react naturally. But I believe I've noticed a real change in the production's general pacing, although it might be too subtle to pick up on casually.

[DarKnight 0]

Oh god, Tenay and West are horrible! They act like everything they see is the most important thing in the world or something. They could be another reason why some people just can't get into TNA. Ever since TNA went to 2 hours, I haven't noticed any pacing problems, but rather I see way too many run-ins or gimmick match after gimmick match. Sometimes they even have gimmick matches building up to later gimmick matches, like during that Team 3D and LAX feud.

[CubbyBr 0]

I've said it a million times..the worst thing about TNA is the announcers. The shittiest announce team I've ever had to listen to and if they were in any other company but TNA they'd be out of there in a second.

[DarKnight 0]

Whats worst about Tenay and West, was that I don't remember them being bad in TNA's early days. They were very calm then, but it seems like ever since they went to Orlando and had their failed FOX Sports TV deal, they've done nothing but just yell and scream.

[RedJed 0]

Whats worst about Tenay and West, was that I don't remember them being bad in TNA's early days. They were very calm then, but it seems like ever since they went to Orlando and had their failed FOX Sports TV deal, they've done nothing but just yell and scream.

 

We've all covered this before I think, but a big part of the problem is that on Impact, Tenay and West are moreless reading from a script of main points to sell during the matches. Neither West or Tenay are good with this. They're not nearly as bad when they are calling the pay per views, since they are given more free reign to just call the matches as is.

[Diadem 0]

Story on Wrestling Observer says Kaz still wrestling house shows. I'm guessing the whole quitting angle is just that...

[cabbageboy 0]

Shouldn't he at least sell the angle by not being on the house shows?

 

I recall one time when TNA had a goof on Impact and they showed Tenay and West clearly reading for prepared scripts as they were calling the action. This can't possibly be good for an announcer, which is why I've never really blamed them all that much for their crap announcing.

[LuckyLopez 0]

Yeah, it seems like when TNA went to an hour they figured that they had to squeeze the 120 minutes of programming from the weekly PPVs into 42 minutes or so of TV. And they probably figured that scripting it out for the announcers to cover made sense to make sure they hit all the talking points. I'm not even sure I buy that they have a real script, but a detailed outline of talking points they're supposed to cover? That seems obvious. And neither guy has ever gotten good at making it natural. And it didn't seem like they broke the habit much if at all when they went to the "2 hours" they have now. PPV has less stories and more time to breath so they look like they have the freedom to just announce with maybe a few talking points to work in. But not 3-4 things they NEED to cover in a 4 minute match that forces them to squeeze it in. 2-3 things in an 8 minute match is much easier.

 

But I don't think Tenay and West are innocent. They've long been blamed for never letting anything breath. I think JR has declined over the years especially when he's with Lawler but one thing he never forgot how to do was to know when top shut up and let the action tell the story. Especially during promos when you have people talking. Tenay and West feel the need to narrate, even when someone else is talking. Which is crazy but they seem locked into it. Its the difference of:

 

"Can you believe that, Don?"

and

"Can you believe that, Don? Sting is going to give him a title shot! And he accepts! We're going to see a title match! Tonight on Impact! On Spike TV!"

 

Its just unnecessary and clutters the broadcast. Maybe that's an edict from the TNA people like WWE's infamous "storytelling" messages to the announcers. But whoever's call it is it hurts the product.

 

And the truth is I just think that like most long term crews they're too comfortable with each other. They fall into habits good and bad. I think whenever they add a 3rd man to the booth it changes drastically. Trigg has been good in his appearances (especially since he's played a heel announcer that's been absent from TNA since year 1). But even someone who sucks like Hermie Sadler just seems to pull West and Tenay out of their rhythm and make them think instead of just go on routine. Which is why TNA fans have been calling for a 3rd announcer (a heel) for years and why I'm still amazed that even with a guy like Trigg there who they seem to like in the role TNA has never given it a real shot.

 

I don't agree with a lot of the complaints about TNA but I've yet to meet one person who didn't agree on the announcers. And TNA seems deaf to the problems for whatever reason.

[CubbyBr 0]

And the truth is I just think that like most long term crews they're too comfortable with each other. They fall into habits good and bad. I think whenever they add a 3rd man to the booth it changes drastically. Trigg has been good in his appearances (especially since he's played a heel announcer that's been absent from TNA since year 1). But even someone who sucks like Hermie Sadler just seems to pull West and Tenay out of their rhythm and make them think instead of just go on routine. Which is why TNA fans have been calling for a 3rd announcer (a heel) for years and why I'm still amazed that even with a guy like Trigg there who they seem to like in the role TNA has never given it a real shot.

 

I would agree with this. I remember when they did the big brutal Abyss beatdown in early 2007 and Christian's coalition left him in a pool of his own blood. Well they had Konnan calling the angle along with Tenay and West and it made it so much better. Konnan kept talking about how Abyss deserved it While Tenay/West were disgusted whcih created a real contrast. It was one of my favorite angles they've done.

[cd213 0]

Story on Wrestling Observer says Kaz still wrestling house shows. I'm guessing the whole quitting angle is just that...

 

 

Shouldn't he at least sell the angle by not being on the house shows?

 

I recall one time when TNA had a goof on Impact and they showed Tenay and West clearly reading for prepared scripts as they were calling the action. This can't possibly be good for an announcer, which is why I've never really blamed them all that much for their crap announcing.

 

It's been mentioned a number of times already, according to the story, he is finishing up his commitments by doing the hosueshows.

 

I will find the story, but I read on gerweck.net that they are going to bring Kaz back as a masked character that they created for the video game and stick him with the Prince Justice Brotherhood.

[Mike wanna be 0]

Shouldn't he at least sell the angle by not being on the house shows?

 

I recall one time when TNA had a goof on Impact and they showed Tenay and West clearly reading for prepared scripts as they were calling the action. This can't possibly be good for an announcer, which is why I've never really blamed them all that much for their crap announcing.

You mean this little gem?

 

They don't even have monitors in front of them, how the fuck do they even know what's going on in the back?

[The Truthiness 0]

Story on Wrestling Observer says Kaz still wrestling house shows. I'm guessing the whole quitting angle is just that...

 

 

Shouldn't he at least sell the angle by not being on the house shows?

 

I recall one time when TNA had a goof on Impact and they showed Tenay and West clearly reading for prepared scripts as they were calling the action. This can't possibly be good for an announcer, which is why I've never really blamed them all that much for their crap announcing.

 

It's been mentioned a number of times already, according to the story, he is finishing up his commitments by doing the hosueshows.

 

I will find the story, but I read on gerweck.net that they are going to bring Kaz back as a masked character that they created for the video game and stick him with the Prince Justice Brotherhood.

 

Oh, This company, this fucking company.

 

[Matt Young 0]

Shouldn't he at least sell the angle by not being on the house shows?

 

I recall one time when TNA had a goof on Impact and they showed Tenay and West clearly reading for prepared scripts as they were calling the action. This can't possibly be good for an announcer, which is why I've never really blamed them all that much for their crap announcing.

You mean this little gem?

 

They don't even have monitors in front of them, how the fuck do they even know what's going on in the back?

 

Well, they do have a huge fucking screen right next to the table.

[DangerousDamon 0]

Story on Wrestling Observer says Kaz still wrestling house shows. I'm guessing the whole quitting angle is just that...

 

 

Shouldn't he at least sell the angle by not being on the house shows?

 

I recall one time when TNA had a goof on Impact and they showed Tenay and West clearly reading for prepared scripts as they were calling the action. This can't possibly be good for an announcer, which is why I've never really blamed them all that much for their crap announcing.

 

It's been mentioned a number of times already, according to the story, he is finishing up his commitments by doing the hosueshows.

 

I will find the story, but I read on gerweck.net that they are going to bring Kaz back as a masked character that they created for the video game and stick him with the Prince Justice Brotherhood.

 

Oh, This company, this fucking company.

 

Haha maybe the Prince Justice Brotherhood will actually turn out to be a cult led by a repacked Prince "Fergal Devitt" Justice. However, Kaz is going to be repackaged as a character they created for the Impact game? I did find it weird that Kaz was not one of the announced wrestlers in the game.

[DarKnight 0]

QUOTE (cabbageboy @ Aug 3 2008, 05:15 PM)

Shouldn't he at least sell the angle by not being on the house shows?

 

I recall one time when TNA had a goof on Impact and they showed Tenay and West clearly reading for prepared scripts as they were calling the action. This can't possibly be good for an announcer, which is why I've never really blamed them all that much for their crap announcing.

 

You mean this little gem?

 

They don't even have monitors in front of them, how the fuck do they even know what's going on in the back?

 

Oh Jesus! That was embarrassing. I completely forgot that ever happened. I'm laughing hysterically now after watching the clip you posted!

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

On the latest Wrestling Observer radio show, Meltzer talked about TNA and said while they know where they're going with almost all their storylines, they have no idea where they're going with the Sting storyline and are booking it as they go along. Meltzer and Alvarez also talked about few other things, including the general buffoonery of the babyfaces, Joe in particular, and said it's not intentional; TNA think they're actually making Joe look good.

[DarKnight 0]

Yes, Joe has been booked as one of the biggest moron babyfaces. Every week he whines and complains, and yells and screams about stuff to Nash, and Nash comes off very calm and collected, and much more smart. Joe gets fooled by every heel's mindgames, while Nash sees stuff coming from a mile away and warns Joe about it, but Joe doesn't listen to him. To be honest, I think in the eventual Nash/Joe title match, the crowd might cheer for Nash, since he's the one who comes off as the good guy right now, unless they turn him heel.

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

Russo booked a 2 minute cage match on RAW in Feb (?) 99 w/ Mideon vs Bossman

 

Beat that.

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

3/15/99:

The Big Bossman fought Mideon to a no contest in a steel cage match when the Corporation, under Vince McMahon's orders, was sent to attack Mideon since the Undertaker had Vince convinced he was at the McMahon home

 

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

That's an angle. Get the guy you want to beat the shit out of locked in a cage and then lock the army in with him. ...that's not even a bad angle.

[DarKnight 0]

Yeah, I don't think that 2-minute cage match from 99 is embarrassing, since that seemed like an angle rather than a match. The 2-minute ladder match he booked a couple of years ago was embarrassing since it was an actual match that had a winner, and came off so blatantly rushed since they only had 1 hour.

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

That's an angle. Get the guy you want to beat the shit out of locked in a cage and then lock the army in with him. ...that's not even a bad angle.

 

Yeah I mis-remembered how it went down. That's why I looked it up.

 

[DarKnight 0]

I actually remember that silly Raw. It had the Undertaker's cross thing burning in the yard of the house, and Vince went home quickly, while the Undertaker showed up later in the night. The Ministry is some of the most crazed and fun stuff ever.

[RedJed 0]

Some news from the latest Observer that just came out today....

 

As part of the office expansion, they have a nearly completed 20,000-square foot TV studio in Nashville, which will include in-house DVD production, stand-up sets, place a place to house the tape library and merchandise. The new set-up should be ready in September and October and they’ll do a lot of pre-tapes during the week in the studio. They’ve added new office space in the building they lease as well. The company is doing very well financially to the point they are now paying Panda Energy back on the tens of millions they put into the company the first few years before it started breaking even. (NOTE: In today's Observer update, there was also mention that part of this facility will be for HD production, so TNA is going HD soon here.)

 

Mike Weber was hired as Vice President of Marketing. Weber worked for WWF and WCW in the 90s in marketing and communications and has a lot of experience working with the cable companies. He was WCW’s PPV guy at one point. After WCW folded, he went to work on the Monster Trucks tour.

 

There was more grumbling across the board about creative this past week than any time in a long time. Some of it came out publicly, some was behind the scenes and some was just an unspoken lack of confidence. Besides the stuff with Tomko and Kevin Nash that blew up, there were the complaints about too many stipulation matches and weapons matches for no reason, and too many super hero segments with the Prince Justice league. However, the belief is no change is going to be made, both because the company isn’t in dire straits financially and because there is nobody on the outside that Dixie Carter would know to make the change to. One of the biggest complaints is that Samoa Joe as world champion is supposed to be the company’s top babyface but he’s being booked as a whining complainer. The joke is that if it was another company like WCW, you’d think they were booking him to fail to prove a point, but here, nobody thinks that because they just believe Russo doesn’t know how to book a main event babyface. But there is concern that Joe isn’t as over as a face the past month or so the way they want him to be, but then again, after watching A.J. Styles cut the promo on Sting on TV, neither was he.

 

Tomko quit the promotion at the 7/29 tapings. Things started to go bad for him when he had all that momentum for a babyface turn, and then to swerve the audience, they turned him back heel and he’s been pretty much dead ever since. He hurt himself in the eyes of the company a few months back when he missed a fan fest the day before a PPV to take a date with the Inoki Genome Federation in Japan, even though he was told by management not to go. He was suspended for 30 days and his push was cut way back from there. Because he lives at a high standard, money is of major concern he was always visibly disappointed if he wasn’t booked on a TV. He felt he could be used better and came in and quit. He’s booked for the 8/15 IGF show at Sumo Hall. WWE has been interested in him ever since he started getting over in TNA. He left WWE on good terms, telling them he would rather go to Japan and up his game and come back in a few years than stay in WWE and flounder and not get as much ring time to improve. Not sure of non-compete terms but it wouldn’t surprise me for him to end up in WWE.

 

Nash walked out on the tapings as well. He has a creative control deal where he has to approve of whatever they book for him in his contract. He was booked on the 7/29 show (airing 8/7) for a weapons gauntlet (Royal Rumble) match as well as an interview. He was already mad at TNA because at the 7/13 Victory Road show, he had scheduled a vacation until 7/15 figuring he wasn’t booked on the PPV in Houston. Then he got called that he had to be on the PPV, so he had to cut his vacation short two days, and when he got there, his only segment was that deal where he told Joe he had his back and Joe told him that not under any circumstances. Anyway, he saw the script of the show, first got mad that it was a weapons match because he doesn’t like being in weapons matches. A constant complaint within the company is there are too many weapons matches, and even more so now because what is the point of doing a weapons gauntlet match on free TV when you are selling a PPV that includes a weapons cage match, a weapons street fight, a last man standing match and a chain match. Then he saw he was being eliminated third, was going to be eliminated during a commercial break, and figured that since he at least at this point is supposed to main event the September PPV against Joe, that none of that made any sense. There were stories that he was also made at how he was going to be eliminated, but the impression I had is that the script he saw only mentioned B.G. James, Lance Rock and Nash as the first three guys out, all during the first commercial break of the match. He said he wasn’t doing it and went home. While that would have been it for 90% of the people on the roster, obviously he knew he’d get away with it. And even people who aren’t enamored with Nash were not criticizing him for this one. It appears this idea stemmed from that story from a few weeks back about Vince McMahon being mad at how Michael Cole went to a break would make people think a match can’t end during a break since they never do. Russo saw that as one of those things that never happens in wrestling, so he wanted to do it. But instead of having one guy eliminated, if one is good, then three must be better.

 

Some in management were of the belief part of the reason the talent was so mad at creative is because they did a three-day house show run before the two days of TV, so this was five straight nights on the road so people were grumpier than usual, although Nash was not on the road for that tour (Tomko was).

 

Regarding what happens with Sting, the decision hasn’t been made. Usually TNA plans things well in advance, but in this case, Russo wants to turn Sting heel because it’s the double swerve. He has everyone like the announcers and Styles and Joe going so strong that Sting is going heel that he thinks the fans will then believe, for sure, he’s not turning, so he can swerve them by turning him. Russo discussed this with Sting in Houston at the PPV, and Sting wasn’t on board when it was over. If Russo can convince him to go heel, he will. If not, he won’t. The fact Russo turned him heel once before in WCW, and it was such a flop that nobody booed him and three weeks later he was back as a face without even a turn back doesn’t matter. Worse, the TNA TV crowd consists of 70% people who are tourists from out of town who don’t regularly watch the TV show, so getting them to boo Sting won’t be easy, and among the other 30% who are the regulars, there is also the chance they’ll just reject the turn because Sting not being a regular, his being there is seen as special. Particularly since with the booking of Joe as a face being so bad, the idea of the Sting turn is to build to a Joe vs. Sting match with Sting as the heel going for the title. Using Styles on TV as the person also mad at Sting may be a way to first do Sting vs. Styles, because Styles is popular and his character isn’t being so whiny, thinking then they can get Sting over as a heel leading to the Joe match.

 

Team 3-D’s contract expires next month. We haven’t heard anything internally regarding their status.

 

Matt Morgan, as “The Beast,” appears to be a ratings draw on “American Gladiators,” even if he hasn’t really broken out of the pack here with TNA. His appearances drew the highest quarter hour on both 7/21 and 7/28. The latter show did a 3.2 on the fast nationals, up from what the show has been doing. The 8/4 show was the season finale.

 

Another note on the Angle family TV pilot we mentioned last week was Kurt talking about having an affair with a woman for two-and-a-half-years while he was in WWE, and that woman threatening to kill Karen. Funny he should mention that. It was a well known story in the company about this crazy woman who was said to be stalking Kurt and finding out the hotel he was staying at in all those cities, not knowing Kurt actually knew her, let alone they had a lengthy affair. For whatever it’s worth, on the TV show, Kurt is portrayed an a driven but excessive person who thinks about his work/sport 24/7 and can’t focus on anything else. Karen is portrayed as akin to a saint for putting up with all his crap and trying to turn him into a semi-normal father and husband. From what I’ve heard from another wrestler who is in negotiations regarding a reality show about his life, there is considerable money in this. For Kurt, it is to his benefit to come across as whacked out as possible in trying to sell the pilot to a major station since he’s the name it’s being sold on and her role is to be pretty wife who is a saint for putting up with him.

[DarKnight 0]

Its funny that TNA NOW realizes Joe is booked as a whiny little child. He's been booked that way since Janurary when he was doing that angle where he would complain to Cornette about not getting paid enough money, and at that month's PPV he got booed, and the crowd started chanting "lets go Tomko!" when Tomko was a heel. Judging from that news you posted RedJed, Russo seems more crazy than ever.

[Atticus Chaos 0]

I don't think Kurt's famous enough to land a major tv network. Hulk Hogan is the most famous wrestler ever, but even he's only a D list celebrity in the mainstream.

 

If I thought he was being the real Kurt, I might be interested. But, as has been mentioned, the whole things obviously scripted. Not to mention, Angle's been working everyone for so long, he probably doesn't even know who the real Kurt is anymore.

[DarKnight 0]

Yeah, Angle has pretty much lost his mind the past few years.