Hard Justice 08 Thread

[luke-o 0]

Can someone explain the ending of the Joe/Booker match to me? From what I can gather it sucked, but the WO description of it doesn't really clarify what happened.

[fazzle 0]

Booker hit Joe with the Book End on a chair. Joe kicked out. Booker went to hit Joe with the axe kick, and the lights went out. Tenay/West immediately started speculating that it must be Sting, and when the lights came back on, Joe had a guitar in his hand and hit Booker over the head with it to get the pin. Tenay/West completely ignored the actual match and starting orgasming that "it must mean only one thing! It must mean that HE is back!"

[luke-o 0]

Oh right.

 

That is shit.

[cd213 0]

The only way an ending like that won't be total shit is if Joe just used it to play mind games with Booker. I wouldn't mind seeing Jarrett back, if only to put people over. If Joe comes out and they work an angle where JJ doesn't show, but Joe, for a month keeps saying that JJ is back, but its just to mess with Booker, it might not be horrible. Right now Joe is looking like a punk champion. His reign has done nothing for me, and I would to see AJ with the belt again.

 

Overall, this wasn't a bad PPV. With the exception of the main event, I enjoyed the show, even the chain match. It wasn't the best match, but Dutt and Lethal worked pretty well with what they had. You can't blame them for the dumb stips. I enjoyed the opening of the match, when Lethal attached his end to the rope and went after Dutt.

 

The opening match ,ad the Knockouts matches were awesome, and the AJ/Kurt match was a great match. Until they showed the angle on replay of Kurt's head coming nowhere near the mat, I thought there had been a slight fuck up and Angle was really hurt. The tag matches were very good, and I markedout when Beer Money won the titles, and I am a huge LAX fan. I hope, if they do break up LAX, they only do it in a way that they are alligned, but only going for singles glory. I can see Homicide being off tv of a few weeks now, while they test the waters with Hernandez as a singles guy. Eventually I would love to see each with singles gold.

[DarKnight 0]

Overall TNA has much better actual ringwork than WWE

 

 

This made me laugh. Out loud. Really, it was more a "heh" than a "hahahaha" but it was audible.

 

 

I know its Cabbageboy, but still.

 

Why is that laughable? I thought pretty much everyone agreed that TNA has better wrestling than WWE, but its just Russo's dumb storylines that keep people from completely enjoying them. I too think that Joe's title reign has been a disaster so far, but I'm not shocked one bit. He's been booked terrible as a face since Janurary this year, and since he jobbed to Angle so many times the past 2 years, he couldn't really get over as champion anyway.

[luke-o 0]

I too am of the thinking that the workrate in TNA is better than WWE. And that TNA does have better workers than WWE. They just need better writers and a better booking team.

[Steviekick 0]

So I went to the PPV last night and here are my thoughts on the night.

 

The arena was flat out empty. Sovereign Bank Arena holds about 7,000ish for hockey games, and I would say that the building had 2000 people in it at the most. I had floor tickets, which wound up sucking. It looked like the ring was about two feet off the ground, so you really couldn’t see anything. Everyone in the audience was just kind of standing and wandering around which made things worse.

 

This was my second TNA event. I had been to a taping in Universal during August 2006. Security/production staff is way more relaxed there, and they have a lot of open space for general admission, which might have been a better idea with the lack of an audience in Trenton.

 

Production wise, they had two big projector screens as part of the entrance. Unfortunately, no one had the idea to use them to show the live feed. There were literally parts of the show where you had no idea what was going on. The other thing that was frustrating was that they didn’t show a single backstage promo. I’d say the audience was lost for the most part.

 

Creed/Petey was a decent opener. The crowd was really into it and pro-Petey, which is a shock since the net is really down on him. Lame ending with the run in finish. The women’s trio match was all kinds of awesome, and so was the 3D/Christian and Rhino brawl through the building. LAX/Beer Money was pretty hot too, and the crowd went nuts for Hernandez’s border toss of Homicide to the outside.

 

Typical TNA wonky rules made it confusing during a few of the matches, like during the Tuxedo/Chain match and the Last Man Standing. Dutt/Lethal went on too long and a “Fire Russo” chant broke out. I was proud to get a “Carl Winslow” chant started on a few occasions.

 

Styles/Angle was good, but felt like it went on too long. The cage match was all kinds of anticlimactic and the guitar ending pretty much killed the crowd. It was dead and everyone started walking out, silently. This was the worst ending to a show I attended. It really killed the crowd, and makes me wonder if they killed the market.

 

After the show, Hector Guerrero was very friendly and took time to talk with fans. I got a picture and autograph with him.

 

[cabbageboy 0]

Someone please explain how exactly WWE's ringwork is better than TNA's. Watch a typical Smackdown sometime...every match is the same boring as shit story being told, nothing but the heel dominating with working an arm or headlocks on the mat, just stuff that doesn't engage me as a viewer. TNA's wrestlers move much more in the ring, there is more motion, a better variety of moves and holds used, and so on.

 

I can see the argument that TNA's booking sucks, that is obvious.

[dubq 0]

I love how in all of their write ups for the PPV, TNA keeps calling it "the" guitar. Like they only have one of them.

[Steviekick 0]

I love how in all of their write ups for the PPV, TNA keeps calling it "the" guitar. Like they only have one of them.

 

The whole guitar thing was just a textbook example of a Russo swerve.

[bob_barron 0]

Were they papering the arena or giving out free tickets?

[Steviekick 0]

Not that I'm aware of. There really isn't anything near SBA that they could get people from.

[fazzle 0]

I love how in all of their write ups for the PPV, TNA keeps calling it "the" guitar. Like they only have one of them.

 

How is that any different from their use of a black baseball bat?

 

[dubq 0]

I love how in all of their write ups for the PPV, TNA keeps calling it "the" guitar. Like they only have one of them.

 

How is that any different from their use of a black baseball bat?

 

I didn't say it was.

 

I was reading the results and they say "the lights went out and Joe had the guitar" as if the guitar had already been in play or something. If it were, then it'd be fine. But normally you'd say "a guitar" .. I get what they're going for by calling it "the guitar" (Jarrett) but it's still stupid any way you slice it.

[Steviekick 0]

I think its more a case of confusion/bad grammar. There was no guitar in the cage until the lights went off.

[fazzle 0]

I love how in all of their write ups for the PPV, TNA keeps calling it "the" guitar. Like they only have one of them.

 

How is that any different from their use of a black baseball bat?

 

I didn't say it was.

 

I was reading the results and they say "the lights went out and Joe had the guitar" as if the guitar had already been in play or something. If it were, then it'd be fine. But normally you'd say "a guitar" .. I get what they're going for by calling it "the guitar" (Jarrett) but it's still stupid any way you slice it.

 

 

Oh, ok. I thought you were talking about the same thing that bugs me. "Wow! It's a guitar! it must be Jarrett!" or "A baseball bat! It must be a message from Sting!" Cause ya know, nobody else knows how to go out and get these things.

 

[The Truthiness 0]

Wow, people have actually went to the next level and said TNA's wrestling is better than the WWE?

[Steviekick 0]

I would say that TNA has more talented wrestlers. The difference between the two companies is that WWE does a much better job booking them and their matches, as well as protecting their guys.

[LuckyLopez 0]

Production wise, they had two big projector screens as part of the entrance. Unfortunately, no one had the idea to use them to show the live feed. There were literally parts of the show where you had no idea what was going on. The other thing that was frustrating was that they didn’t show a single backstage promo. I’d say the audience was lost for the most part.

Not to be confrontational but that doesn't hold up true at all. The screens did show a number of backstage promos including Joe/Nash, Lauren look for Sting, and the Dudleyz looking for Sting. I'm pretty sure there were a few others, but none that I recall. There could have been some that didn't air for us as there were some dead spots where nothing seemed to be happened, but I mostly presumed they were filming the announcers at that point. But they definitely showed more than a single backstage promo.

 

They also put the live feed on the screen whenever the action left the ring. Which I was relieved to see since most of the street fight wasn't in any way visible to me.

 

Agreed on the empty arena though, although I think you might be under with your estimate. They seemed to fill out the half of the arena they did use, but that empty rest stood out. I've never been good at estimates of crowd size but I'd guess closer to 3000 than 2000. Still, not terribly strong.

 

As a source of amusement though, I went to the Trenton Thunder game before Hard Justice and they announced the crowd as 5000+. And TNA definitely had more people. Somehow I think its more likely that the Thunder lied to me than TNA had 6000+.

[Steviekick 0]

What really got me was that they had the two projector screens by the entrance flashing the damn Hard Justice logo the whole time. I did forget about those promos, but I figured there would have been more throughout the night.

[LuckyLopez 0]

Yeah, the logo was flashing whenever there wasn't anything else. But they used it quite a bit. The entrances, backstage stuff, those match build videos that air on the PPV, and whenever the action slipped out of the ring. But whenever none of that was happening it was just that flashing logo, yeah. They also used it a few random times like when Daivari came out. For some reason they cut to the live feed to show his intense stare. Although maybe I just missed more usage of it during that match since I wasn't really aware of it being used during matches until I caught sight of that.

 

Like I said, there were a few blocks of times where I wondered if there was a backstage promo airing we weren't getting. But since they showed us a bunch of other ones I just figured there must be something else like the announcers hyping the next match or the "tale of the tape" that they do. Since it just seemed odd that they'd show us SOME videos/promos but not all. But not having watched the TV version yet I can't account for missing segments.

[Steviekick 0]

I was assuming there was some segments that they didn't show, especially since every TNA tv taping report is missing them.

 

I just wished they would have shown what was going on in the ring on the screen the whole show. Where did you wind sit?

[LuckyLopez 0]

To the right of the stage, right by the backstage area and more or less under one of the screens. So I probably had a better view of it than most and might have picked up on it before others did. Like I said, after the Creed/Petey match I noticed Daivari's promo on screen and it seemed odd. But TNA might have put the full promo including what seemed like him abusing Creed's downed body on the screen (which and I assume most had no way of seeing). But it was basically a matter of discovering they were doing that as they really were flipping RIGHT back to the Hard Justice logo whenever the action got back in the ring. I was able to watch the screen out of the corner of my eye and sometimes they would make me dizzy with how they flipped back and forth in the Street Fight.

 

I've always been under the impression that the unaired backstage skits during Impact tapings is either because (a) they don't want to let them get spoiled or (b) they don't have them filmed yet. Neither seemed to be an issue at a PPV so I just didn't see why they would air some and not others. I plan to watch the PPV so I'm gonna keep an eye out for anything I missed. But I didn't notice anything reading recaps.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

So, Joe went from playing background player for Sting last month to Mr Ego himself, Jeff Jarrett, this month. How about, I don't know, making Joe the focal point of Joe's matches?

[RedJed 0]

So, Joe went from playing background player for Sting last month to Mr Ego himself, Jeff Jarrett, this month. How about, I don't know, making Joe the focal point of Joe's matches?

 

Exactly, and basically just being booked just as both Booker and even Joe himself has mentioned him (Joe) being, something about a paper indy champion, etc. He still hasnt proven anything in this Booker/Joe feud, in fact still looking like he CANT beat Booker. So he needed to get help from Jarrett to beat him. I swear if they aren't booking him into a heel here, I just don't get it because he's not being able to "prove" himself in the booking at all, in retrospect to, say, Punk on Raw.

 

BTW, that errant shitty looking botched guitar shot to Booker to finish the match was just about prophetic and ironic as you get, if you think about it. This definately was a "miss" in terms of delivering strong to finish the ppv, and to address the points that the story between Booker and Joe has been built upon. Instead it came across ten times worse to me than Victory Road's finish, just because I thought THAT match was going to lead to some sort of strong ending from this match and put some sense/purpose to the feud. That sure didn't happen.

[DarKnight 0]

Someone backstage needs to tell Russo to stop doing his bizarre booking with Joe. Joe needs to be booked as a normal face champion, not this shades of gray crap. You don't book that kind of shit when you need a guy to be the face of your company.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

You would, if you're angling to make it look like a wrestling federation set in middle of the Watchmen universe.

[The Truthiness 0]

So, Joe went from playing background player for Sting last month to Mr Ego himself, Jeff Jarrett, this month. How about, I don't know, making Joe the focal point of Joe's matches?

 

I told people from day one, the company had no faith in Joe.

[RedJed 0]

So, Joe went from playing background player for Sting last month to Mr Ego himself, Jeff Jarrett, this month. How about, I don't know, making Joe the focal point of Joe's matches?

 

I told people from day one, the company had no faith in Joe.

 

I don't think it's that they dont have faith in him (I truly believe they do), they just don't get how they are booking him lately is making him look like shit. Typical needing to think outside the box stuff that the writing staff (and I don't necessarily just say Russo is to blame with this whole Jarrett coming back thing) just doesn't get in booking a significant majority of their champions, especially the babyface ones.

[Timmy8271 0]

What's with TNA and using the video games characters for entrances? That's just stupid.