Is TNA the worst wrestling promotion in history?

[El-P]

Having lived through an abusive relationship for ten years (I made some references to it on this board before, including as I was still knee deep in it), the few I've watched of the text messages (not going through the whole thing, thank you very much, I get enough triggers) indeed checks many boxes : the emotional abuse, the physical abuse, the demeaning, the double constraints, the gaslighting... All my sympathies goes to Akira, hopefully he has a good support system, because this shit sucks and can and will fuck you up.

As far as Masha goes, well, hopefully she can get some help too and fix her issues and whatnot, because that is *very wrong*. In the meantime, fuck her though.

(really enjoyed her work and wanted her in AEW before. Well, thank you but no thank you)

[Alucard]

Her match with Ash by Elegance has been pulled from Victory Road and she's been dropped from her bookings by Prestige, West Coast Pro, GCW, and Athena's next MPX event. Looks like she's done for.

[Al]

Labor of Love in Philly also pulled her for a booking I don't think they even officially announced. 

[El-P]

Yeah she's pretty much cooked. Karma backlash for ya...

Meanwhile, the talk about TNA becoming #2 as soon as they get the infamous "great TV deal" is hilarious. People are just not watching the product at all. The weekly TV tapings are not doing great *at all*, and apart from a few spots here and there (Leon Slater, Dani Luna, Mustafa Ali despite the idiotic gimmick), the product is really mid at best and dreadful at worst. The woman title match at BFG will end up being Ash vs Indi Hartwell and holy shit that looks horrendous on paper. And speaking of which, Hardys vs Team 3D in a tables match... that is Corgan's NWA level of fucked. And Joe Hendry is so far removed now that he did not even take part in the "invasion" angle of NXT (I won't miss him one bit though, and that ship has sailed even for the TNA audience it seems). That Santana coronation is happening months too late and in the wrong place, and who knows when he just ends up in NXT himself. Yeah, N#2 company soon...

[El-P]

And now Ash is going away because "life threw her a curveball", and from the mood of the interview she did, it doesn't seem to be the good kind at all. Not making any reference to a comeback either, she just said she couldn't compete anymore and was stepping away, and thanked the fans basically in a very much "out of character" way, and looked very emotional. Hopefully she will be ok.

As much as she still wasn't that good in term of pure in-ring, the fact she just went 300% with the Ash by Elegance character made her one of the most regularly entertaining part of TNA these last few years because how ridiculous she got in every situation. She certainly is one of the last "come to TNA and totally reinvent yourself" talent they got and was excellent at it (after that point, most just came in doing the same old stuff they were doing before). I certainly gonna miss her ridiculous self on my wrestling TV. 

[El-P]

Apparently Ash is legit retiring because of undisclosed health issues. Damn.

On a much lighter note, gotta love the never-ending cucking of TNA. They ran a vignette for Mara Sadé this week, and it goes like this "I became of fan of pro-wrestling watching Total Divas. (....) and then I lost my dream job". Holy fuck TNA, can't you even *pretend* at least ? 😂

Also, IInspiration getting the tag belts, because everything has to be about former WWE people. Sucks for Heather & M, who did a great job carrying those two slugs (seriously, how *bad* can you still be after all these years in the business ?).

[El-P]

Sure, there was some good stuff at BFG (and they pretended they got a record attendance, although that can seem a bit fishy but oh well, who isn't lying about attendance in wrestling ?), but if you look carefully, it's painfully obvious that the booking is shit and that they are only drawing better because they are cucking to WWE, for an audience who is interested only in WWE nostalgia and NXT stuff.

Mike Santana finally won. And the match was excellent, despite the fact Trick Williams is exactly the idea of a WWE wrestler (good look, can yap some nonsense, mid as fuck in-ring). Gotta give him credit though, he works very hard, and Santana was just great. It's too bad his coronation came too late. The atmosphere was *nothing* like in NYC at Slammiversary. Not to mention you could see *quite a bit* of empty seats after the Hardies/Dudleys match, which is very telling of what a part of the audience was there for. Him with his daughter at the end was a very nice touch, and obviously very real to him. Too bad it wasn't in front of his people. Also, his win had to take a small backseat for a moment to a bunch of nonsense with the obligatory cash-in tease which was interrupted by... OMG a huge surprise ? Nah, just Elijah coming back. Ok whatever. And that cash-in thing, well, it was completely idiotic, as two guys won it earlier on the show, so Nick Nemeth was stopped by a guitar on the head, and Kazarian... well, apparently he could not cash in because he had to hold the trophy or whatever, so Santana just lariat him and nothing happens. Dumb fuck booking.

Apart from that, the really 100% satisfactory match which felt like actual TNA was the System vs Order 4, which actually had blood and bumps on thumbtacks and intergender violence. Doesn't matter that the System's face turn is the most ill-fated ever, Eddie Edward was near Boston, so he's a hero. Good work, cool spots, great finish with Alesha and Ali. And that Agent Zero Guy looks quite impressive (damn he's actually 44 year old indie worker Bill Collier, he sure doesn't look that old).

Of course Leon Slater vs Je'von Evans SHOULD have stolen the show. Which they did. Until the DUMB AS FUCK ALL finish. So the time runs out at 20 minutes, which already was badly received. So Santino comes out and oh well yeah, they're gonna do the deal of teasing a shit finish but actually not doing it. Ok, fine. So the match restarts and it's awesome again for like two minutes and then.... Darkstate shows up and attacks both men. ACTUAL SHIT FINISH. Ya know, teasing you're gonna do but not actually do a shit finish to actually do a shit finish takes a special talent as a dumbfuck booker. Vince Russo would have been proud. 

Speaking about dumb as fuck, the BFG Gauntlet (which was worked basically strictly as a Battle Royal) demonstrated that if you're not an ex WWE guy, they have no interest in ya, as the match ended up with Nick Nemeth and Matt Cardona. But wait, no, Cardona gets eliminated so Kazarian, who WASN'T in the match but only interjected himself by attacking someone else before they entered (which is already stupid), is still there and so the match ends with two heels facing up. Yup. Genius. And not only that : they fucking double pinned each other. So they both win. Which led to the clusterfuck in the main event postmatch.

If four 50 years old guy moving at a snail pace positioning tables and running themselves into them is your idea of great pro-wrestling, then I guess Hardies vs Dudleys (yeah, they actually called them this) was not an embarrassing display of washed up guys playing the hits of 25 years ago. Match was awful ("highlight" being Jeff completely missing D-Von, which honestly was for the best because D-Von looked like he had no business being out there, on his Swanton from a ladder and almost driving his head through the bottom stair of the ladder), although people will try to defend it because the crowd loved the bumps and *moments* (fuck you WWE for making this a thing). Post match with Dudleys giving their boots to the Hardies could be kinda cool if you're in those four, which I'm not. Too bad Bubba didn't also gave his podcast mic to the Hardies or something. Nostalgia is a poison.

And yeah, Kelani Jordan retain the KO title. Cucks. Not that it's problematic in the sense of Indi Hartwell is SO BAD. I almost feel bad saying it because these people, and women in particular, get so much shit these days because of social medias, but Indi is just *not good*. Like, some moments of this match were legit cringeworthy. They had her family at ringside too, nice for them to come all the way from Australia to see her lose. 

Also, after building a whole rivalry between bully Tessa Blanchard and Gia Miller (who is trained and has worked a few matches), basically Tessa beat her ass and then pins her after using a roll of coins. Ok, what was the point ?

Anywoo. The booking is mostly shit, the product is entirely dependent of WWE's involvement. The day the Hardies are gone, good luck, because they are the biggest stars there by a wide margin. The focus is going almost entirely to ex-WWE/NXT people, doesn't matter how mediocre/untalented they can be. Likewise with Hendry last year, they totally missed the peak (and hometown pop) for Santana, having him perform in front of an audience who was halfway supporting Trick Williams, not to mention the ones who left after getting their nostalgia shit.

The HOF ceremony was cool although there was not a lot of people in the building at this point. The Beautiful People look almost exactly like they did 15 years ago. Fun thing, Velvet Sky still sounds exactly like Velvet Sky, whereas it was almost odd listening to Angelina Love who sounded like a different person (she mostly had been a bitch heel all her career) and gave quite a nice and genuine speech. Both mentioned Billy Gunn, neither mentioned Madison Rayne (to the surprise of no one, really). Mickie James was also good, and came off as charismatic as she always does. She's really someone I would have loved to have a stint in AEW, but oh well, her last rodeo in IMPACT (when it was still fun to watch) was really cool.

(Carlos Silva literally sitting in the cuck chair at ringside will never not be funny. This guy is taking *every chance he gets* to appear on TV)