El-P

My digital recorder didn't record the show last night. Not sure what the issue was. Judging by this thread though, it seems to me that I won the fucking poney !

Not sure I would call it the best KOTM match, but it sure was a great one, redeeming the very disappointing mess of the previous year. It's also probably the very point where they should have pulled the trigger on Samoa Joe before it was too late. Angle didn't need the title (he's a guy who doesn't need a title to be at the top). He wasn't the worst choice (AJ Styles needed to be rebuilt as a top guy and Christian already was there for most of the year) but even Chris Harris would have been better as far as creating a new legit main event star. I'm not overly familiar with the chronology of the events to follow, but I do think this highlights the point where it was obvious TNA would not create any new star and would only trust WWE names at the top. It was Samoa Joe's to win there. The post-match was kinda idiotic since this whole feud was already done to death by this point, and Angle's attitude was confusing, as it has never been clear if this guy should be considered a heel or a babyface. This match is also one of Christian's best performance.

Jeff Jarrett talking about his wife at Slammiversary 2007 was pretty rough to watch. It's crazy she was first diagnosed with cancer in 1996, then it came back in 2004. Can't imagine what Jarrett went through during all those years while trying to get TNA off the ground. Put things in perspective too.

I know it's the Network era, but these PPV's every two weeks don't mean anything anymore. The product is oversaturated as hell already. Orton vs Mahal AGAIN. I sure hope for them they crack that great Indian market... Wait, Cena vs Rusev ? Where did that come from ? What kind of redux is it ? It'll only show how low Rusev had dropped from the totem pole since that Mania tank introduction with the (then) glorious Lana. No interest in Nak facing Corbin at all. No real interest in AJ vs Owens although it'll probably be Owens best WWE match ever if AJ works at his usual level. Multi-women match again. Yeah, that's totally making them look important... Zayn vs Kanellis, I have no idea, I only saw Bennett in New Japan teaming with the other guy. I guess it's their version of Skip vs Barry Horowitz at this point (yeah, it's not that bad in term of push, but Zayn still is basically a JTTS right now) Usos vs New Day will probably be quite good. So yeah, looks like nothing on paper but could end up with a number of actually good fun matches (Cena vs Rusev / AJ vs Owens / Usos vs New Day / multi-women), but it's still a nothing happening product in term of characters.

Hogan *as part of the nWo*. And the nWo was all over the TV. The angle was the hottest ever. In a company that was hot and fresh top to bottom (mostly). Brock showing up every three months for a 10 minutes suplex wankery with Heyman showing up from time to time with no issue to talk about (remember the endless "My client retired the Undertaker" boring shit after that Mania ?) in a cold product isn't exactly comparable.

Crappy matches to boot. Lesnar can go for all I care. Maybe the top of the card won't be so much focused on "dream" matches and a champ that's never on TV.

I'd argue that the music is the reason why Roode can't really get over. It overtakes everything about the character. Once the music theme is more over than the guy, it's over and done with. "Glorious" is an hideous piece of music and a terrible idea. Roode is an Arn Anderson-like worker in the ring (not saying he's even close as a worker though, let's not be crazy), he's a guy who gets over having good-solid TV matches. This music theme makes him Fandango. Nakamura refusing it was a damn smart idea (yeah, fans chants Nak's theme also, but it's because they loved Nak from day one and the music is actually catchy in a non-cheesy way and fits the character).

"Fire Russo !" For that chant only, TNA deserved to exist, at one point.

The Russo podcast was fascinating for the bullshit debunking, but I came to the same kind of conclusions you did after listening to one or two others. You can see the same kind of attitude in the 1990 Timeline he did recently, where Sean at one point just throws "You can justify anything !" at him. A stark contrast with Schiavone, whose obviously having a great time doing this stuff and shows fairness to Meltz, sometimes calling him for his bullshit and sometime saying he was absolutely right and on point, while Bruce is just playing "stupid dirtsheet" in 2017. (and yeah, Prichard seems to be one of those guys who thinks he's funnier than he actually is. See Nash, Kevin too, although he can be indeed quite funny)

I have to admit, I'm kind of a vampire fan. I enjoy a good bloodletting. Let's face it, pro-wrestling is crass. And this is one hell of a bloodletting. The key to any good blood match is of course, selling. When you wear a crimson mask, and fuck these guys were gushing buckets of blood, selling is everything. And sold they did well. You don't need a hundred big spots to have a great bloodletting, because what you project matters more than spots. Not to say they weren't great spots. The fucking helicopter thrown through a table. The insane spear through the ropes through a table outside (that one was amazing). And so, they made the 10 count matter. Not a huge fan if the Texas death match gimmick but here it looked organic (as opposed to some Cena match were you can see the script), chaotic and downright dirty. Everything was *right*, including Gale Kim jumping on Miss Jackie to take her away as she was trying to get involved. And the finish, of course, which was poetic justice. (in typical TNA fashion though, they cut off from the post-match almost immediately, because NO TIME !!!). Usually, a feud between partners after the break up of a team (a legit team I mean, and AMW was one of the best team in US wrestling, there, I said it) is disappointing. Actually it often suck too. This is the epitome of a great post break-up blood feud. This is how it should be done. If this match had happened anywhere but TNA, it would be raved about to this day and considered a classic. These two guys are two of the most underrated workers of the 00's (and the 10's for Storm too I guess). Damn the TNA stigma, this is classic. MOTYC.

This is the match that finally sells me on Garvin, which I always found to be overrated. But by watching this and the two Arn studio matches the month before, Garvin regains the appreciation I used to have for him before he became the token "new discovery" of the 80's sets. And it appears in broad daylight that actually, Flair got Garvin way goofier than he is. Exhibit X of Flair not always bringing the best out of his opponents. This, on the other hand, is just a great match. No sense of progression ? Meh. A sense of Garvin beating the fuck out of Blanchard, who hangs on as best as he can. I love Blanchard more and more. He was all about kick/punch (which he did way better than Lawler, just saying)/sell. Again, this looks way more legitimate and "real" than any Flair matches with Garvin, which did had urgency (although Flair really didn't need Garvin to push him, he could go-go-go whenever he saw fit, usually with good reasons) but also way more goofiness and Flair-formula stuff. This doesn't look like your formula "wrestling match". It looks like a fucking struggle, especially on Blanchard's part. The guy is just awesome at this. Interesting that along with the Magnum TA match, he probably has had the better big matches than Flair at the same period, while Flair got the best out of Dusty, which Blanchard couldn't do. Anyway, this is just terrific, Garvin's selling of the hand is great, this is the ongoing story without it becoming the focus of the match, which looks like a fight. The ending is quite wonderfully done. Dusty's booking was clearly getting annoying by this point though. Maybe he borrowed the "Dusty finish" from someone else, but damn was he overusing it already. Plus putting himself around every big babyface feud (Magnum, Morton, Garvin) is getting old too. MOTYC for 1986, my favourite Garvin match ever and another classic for Blanchard.

Re-watch that Youshoot he did a few years ago, where he was portraying himself as a serious family guy who wouldn't mess around... Yeah, this is some seriously fucked up shit. GWF, time fo futur endeavor the guy...

The neverending stop-start pushes and character switches made sure she would not get over. Meanwhile, Carmella the tool gets the push. So yeah, I guess she's got good reasons to be pissed.

Indeed. Never cared for her work in LU, nor her character. The fact they actually made her push to the top work to me despite all this is a testament to how good this stuff can be. That being said, I wasn't disapointed to see her go away (although she'll still be on TV with the ridiculous delay of S3 part 2). The fact she seems to be quite the bitch really doesn't help her case. It's too bad Ivelisse gets injured all the time, she sure would deserve the spot way more (and from the shoot interview I've seen, she really seems like a nice person who had it quite rough to make it to where she is).

Dixie can still be the mother... DO IT !

Jason Jordan & Kurt Angle. This is 1999 Russo level stupidity, with godawful GODAWFUL "acting". WWE TV is embarrassing.

That TNA under Scott D'Amore from the spring of 2005 up to the Summer of 2006 (it got rougher after Slammiversary that year, although still good) was a super easy promotion to watch, with a fun TV, angles that made sense most of the time, very few really bad stuff and a lot of excellent to great matches thanks to AJ / Daniels / Joe being featured heavily in position to have strong matches. I put that against any territory from the 80's and it wins easily. So, for that year and a few months alone, TNA was worth it. Then of course, never such potential has been ruined so quickly. But again, the name is Russo, and he's the idiot of all idiots.

It's funny because when it was happening, I actually couldn't stand The Rock. I only grew appreciation for his work during the GWE poll in 2006. Back then, I thought his work was the shits (he was still pretty green and really didn't become interesting to watch until about 2000 I'd say) and I couldn't stand the catchphrases laden promos. To me, pro-wrestling done that way wasn't interesting. Sadly, it set a precedent. I wanted my promos to actually mean something and deal with issues. So the entire deal of "it doesn't matter what your name is / turned this sumbitch sideways / lay the smack down / if you smeeeeeeell" was just a turn-off after the first few times when it was still funny and different. Billy Gunn is a complete oddity to me. He wasn't exactly setting the world on fire with his work in the NAO and he wasn't even a good promo. Like just saying "Suck It !" while being part of the hottest act at the time was enough (and really, retrospectively, it was pretty awful and embarrassing). When he went in TNA, while Armstrong could find new ways to twist his deal to make it work around new stable names and could actually cut very good promos when issues were given (like the angle with his father vs Konnan), it was brutal to watch Kip James not being able to say his stupid "suck it !" stuff and try awful, dry formulas that went over like a fart in a church like "I'm Kip James bitches !" or "Get It, Got It, Good !" or something to that effect (can't even remember it). It raises the question about all these sing-along/catchphrases guys whose actual *work* don't matter one bit in getting them (or are *they* really ?) over. You can argue it existed before, like Hacksaw getting huge reactions just because of the shouting and USA chant, but not really in forms of sing-along catchphrases, which are one of the worst heritage of the Attitude era. Enzo & Cass directly come from there (hell, even Enzo alluded to it during his promo before the PPV hard job).

Well, while Rock was conquering Hollywood, James & Kip were doing those godawful VKM skits and eye gouging misogynic stuff with Chrystie Hemme in TNA… But everything is right now though. Road Dog is Old Skweel now...

He knows where his bread is buttered. He can be a lifer over there now. In the process, he seems to have AlSnowed himself.

Wonderful. Whatever can bring life into the product, Vince will kill immediately.

When I said Road Dog could cut promos, I mean he had the ability to do so, as showed by stuff from time to time, including in TNA when they brought Bullet Bob too. Of course the intro stuff got annoying and repetitive by the fall of 98. It's not like the NAO were a very good team to begin with either.

They were the worst NAO ever. Annoying sing-along catchprases and nothing else. At least Road Rog could work and cut promos that actually meant something (as opposed to blabbing some nonsensical pseudo-cool Jersey bullshit), and Billy Gunn on his worst day was still way better than Cass. Never got whatever hype these guys got.

Come on. Ratings don't matter at all. Everybody is watching WWE on Youtube...

Exactly. Hence the sarcasm, but it wasn't clear I guess. Really, the idea of building around Alberto was just not right to begin with.