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RedJed

Victory Road 08 Thoughts

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Well, I personally think fans don't accept people who just show up and win belts immediately. It comes off like they give people an obvious push, and fans just roll eyes at it.

 

That's completely dependant to the person getting the push and the booking behind it. In this case, I think it was a positive move for sure....the Kong challenge was good stuff and was obviously leading to someone finally getting the best of Kong, and honestly, out of who they could have gotten, Shantelle Taylor isn't a bad idea by any means. Now, if they would have had Shantelle beat Kong as one of the first ladies to accept the challenge, then I could see the argument, but the way this was built, it worked.

 

As for Booker/Joe, I know that this is leading to title matches between Joe/Nash and Joe/Sting, but it seems like there was no reason for them to book that crazy finish on that PPV. This is also about the 5,8594904th time that TNA has done this with their titles on PPVs, in which there is controversy, and they end up vacating the title. I think fans are sick of seeing this happen every month.

 

The reason is was booked the way they did it was because of Houston for the most part. Joe was booked as a out of control heel basically, to get heat, and Booker was given the treatment of the sympathetic face (at the time) which segways into him really getting the fluke "win" out of the deal, then playing back to that he's a heel after all. And it's NOT happening every month....in fact the TNA title has only been held up following a match once to my recollection (last year in the Angle/Sting/Christian match) and in this case (see the Impact tapings) the title wasn't even held up anyway or vacated, the match was just declared a no decision essentially because of all of the chaos. The idea here is to keep people tuned into the product in seeing what is next following the controversy, and I would much prefer that over predictable paint by numbers booking that you can see whats going to happen next from a mile away. The real question mark out of the whole angle is Sting, and I will admit his actions made little to no sense, but that doesn't mean it still wasn't interesting to me. I'm definately intruiged where they are going with him even more than Joe or Booker right now.

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Yeah, the reason that new wrestlers winning belts has so little impact is because it happens so often. In WWE OVW callups seem to get immediate title shots and victories so often that it loses any specialness. Dibiase and Rhodes won the titles within a month of being together? It would have more impact if Cade & Murdoch, MNM, and TWGTT hadn't had similar feats in recent memory.

 

But Kong was a legitimately dominating champion who was on top of a strong division of women. The fan challenge progressed very naturally into trained wrestlers coming to TNA and taking their shot at Kong and women we recognized like Daffney fell to her. Taylor herself lost in her first shot. But she put up a bigger fight than any of the previous women and came back for more. I think its been a very good introduction that's nothing like the typical "new wrestler gets title shot, wins" stories we've seen so often the last few years. The champ was strong, the challenger made sense, she failed on her first go, and her wins have been upsets that she's just outwrestled Kong with. Which in and of itself is interesting because even Kim who has defeated Kong didn't really out wrestle her in the way Taylor has. Taylor has learned to counter her signature moves and catch her by surprise.

 

Obviously you don't have to like the story but I'm a big fan. But I think its clear from the fan reactions in Orlando and Houston and the reactions on boards including this one that fans aren't "rolling their eyes" at the Taylor victories. Almost all of the reaction I've seen has been positive.

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Meltzer reported in a post in the member stuff of his website that Booker/Joe is scheduled at the next ppv with a stipulation (probably a gimmick match) to be announced at the tapings on Tuesday. Sting will likely be ref or something, but he won't be working the match.

On the show that covered Raw, Meltzer said that Booker is staying heel, Joe didn't turn, and Sting isn't going heel. He also said that Joe/Booker at the next PPV would be a cage match, without Sting involved.

 

Didn't Sharmell begging Joe to leave Booker alone make Booker look like a pussy/heel, in his hometown?

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Yeah, if they were trying to appease Booker's hometown fans, they could've done a lot better than have them watch their hero get beaten unconcious to the point where the referees were trying to stop the match and the dude's wife was begging for mercy.

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I don't hate Taylor or anything. In fact, she's probably a pretty good worker, but I just don't like the way she's booked. I agree that WWE are the only ones who constantly have new people win belts on their debut, but that doesn't mean I want TNA to start doing it too. The only person I can remember winning a belt on their debut and actually got over was Christian in the WWF, but the light heavyweight belt was meaningless at that point. Ironically, Gail Kim won the belt in her WWE debut, but didn't get over from it, yet she's really over in TNA because they didn't just push her out of the gate.

 

I know TNA doesn't vacate their World title that much, but it just seems like every month they have some dumb angle with their titles, whether its people stealing them and being declared having the physical belt but are NOT the champion, or vacating them due to stupid controversy (Eric Young/Kaz with the tag belts).

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Meltzer reported in a post in the member stuff of his website that Booker/Joe is scheduled at the next ppv with a stipulation (probably a gimmick match) to be announced at the tapings on Tuesday. Sting will likely be ref or something, but he won't be working the match.

On the show that covered Raw, Meltzer said that Booker is staying heel, Joe didn't turn, and Sting isn't going heel. He also said that Joe/Booker at the next PPV would be a cage match, without Sting involved.

 

Didn't Sharmell begging Joe to leave Booker alone make Booker look like a pussy/heel, in his hometown?

 

I think the thought process was that by having her begging Joe to stop going nutsoid on Booker, they were trying to get babyface sympathy for Booker in his hometown. Whether she overdid her role in the match a bit, whether it was intentional or not, is an entirely different point of contention.

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No love for Joe throwing the horns and then a Western Lariat?

 

Seriously, that main event was bonkers. Booker looked weak as hell as Joe beat him down, was kicking him about all over the place and in fact beat him up so bad that his wife, referees and Sting all had to come down to get him to stop. Booker was like a guy who had a strong ten minutes but then couldn't last the pace. I have NO idea what Sting's motivation was for an unprovoked assault with a weapon. However, I had a theory for Sharmell's count - she realised that her husband had been badly beaten and had lost a lot of blood, so made the count and rang the bell herself to make him think he'd won and get him out of there to seek medical attention?

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I don't think the motivations are that hard to read.

 

Sharmell begged Joe to stop because Booker was taking a brutal beating and wasn't fighting back. It was the same reason Sting and the ref's tried to stop him.

 

Sting hit Joe because he wanted to keep Joe from hurting Booker and he wasn't listening to reason. And Joe had pissed him off. Why he let Booker take the title is a question but at that stage he was probably just pissed enough at Joe to want him to suffer the indignity of having no title when he came to.

 

Sharmell counted the pin because she and Booker are ridiculous heels who would actually regard that as reasonable. She saw an opportunity and took it. Even if it meant nothing officially Booker is the sort that will get something out of it for a week or a month while he can pretend to be champ and delude himself.

 

I think the characters' motivations all make sense including Joe being ruthless and reverting back to the old Joe a bit when he was tired of being doubted. Its just the booking that's confusing as to what they wanted to happen. But I think everyone who said that TNA probably just backed themselves into a corner with having Booker as a heel in Houston have it right. They were trying to find a way to extend this, to give the Houston crowds something, and keep Joe strong.

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