Wrestling Observer Newsletter-TNA

TNA AGAINST ALL ODDS PPV POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 4 (05.8%)
Thumbs down 63 (91.3%)
In the middle 2 (02.9%)

BEST MATCH POLL
Alex Shelley vs. Eric Young 52

WORST MATCH POLL
Awesome Kong vs. ODB 23
Booker T vs. Shane Sewell 16
Abyss vs. Matt Morgan 15
Brutus Magnus vs. Chris Sabin 10

TNA badly needs to make some changes. It was only a few weeks ago when the Main Event Mafia angle started, that ratings started to rise, and there appeared to be more of a major league feel to the company and they were gaining momentum.

In the last few weeks, that has rapidly stopped being the case. If there is a way to make heels without destroying babyfaces, TNA has not learned the formula. You can see everything that was wrong with WCW here. Main eventers who have no respect, going out there to entertain themselves, phoning in performances (or in some cases, guys who are good personalities simply being too old to give much in the ring) and the quality of the shows has gone to hell. The belief is they have to put a ton of heat on the heels first, and then start giving the faces wins, but this program has been going for months, and this show featured seven heel wins in eight matches, and the only face win, Abyss, was the one that made the least sense since Matt Morgan had just turned heel and needed some steam put on him, particularly since the Morgan vs. Abyss program is going to continue.

The huge difference between this regime and the Scott D’Amore regime, even though at the end of the day, it was Jeff Jarrett steering the ship both times, is that D’Amore, when putting together a show, put it together with the idea of whether it would be a good show. This crew is trying to tell a bigger picture story, and by thinking that is more important than match quality (and it is), has put together shows that on paper are bad. The problem is, when TNA PPV’s were doing their best business, it was when they were making a reputation for having can’t miss shows. Now, with more stars, far better television and more viewers, they are generally doing rock bottom numbers. They no longer have the rep for producing good shows, something all their competitors are doing. Plus, the WCW mentality has taken over because you can have great matches or bad matches and it doesn’t matter. You stay in the same place. This encourages people to get cynical, and do as little as possible, and the removal of effort and incentive is a killer to the business.

I really don’t believe Team 3-D could get away with not being taken off television for how they look if they were in WWE. Instead, here, they were in the main event and challenging for the world title. Why? Were they so over and had so much charisma they deserved to be in main events even though they were both out of shape? Are they so tremendous in the ring that you can argue they override how they look? Do they talk so well (Bubba is a very good talker, no question, but he’s not so good as to be taken as a main eventer)? I see guys who care so little about the promotion that they don’t bother to get in shape. Booker T just clowns around and shortcuts his way through. Scott Steiner can’t have a singles match, but he does have a ton of injuries. Matt Morgan is either going to be a future superstar or a bust, and he’s leaning toward the latter. Why, since he’s limited, was he doing a 15:00 match? If there’s no real reason to have a match that sucks on PPV, why have it?

The other question is, why do monthly PPV shows? Because that’s what has been done? I don’t know what break even is for the shows, but the word has always been PPV is not profitable for the company. Now, if not profitable is a way of saying they budget more and don’t make budget, but the shows themselves are in the green, that’s one thing. But if they are losing money, they should cut back to six or eight shows, promote them better, make them more special, and raise the price. We’ve already seen that essentially, the same people buy at $29.95 or $39.95. That way you up the profit margin on the good shows, you don’t water down PPV by running bad shows, and you cut out the expenses of four shows per year. But nobody cared about this show. It didn’t look good on paper and because of the attitude of some of the guys on top, it was worse than it sounded.

One wrestler in the company noted in response to my thoughts of the past few weeks and how it appears just from talking with a few people and watching TV how the respect at the top is non-existent which usually means morale underneath is going to be down, similar to the dying days of WCW atmosphere. You can tell from the TV and particularly, the PPV.

“You hit the nail on the head with the top guys just having no respect for the place,” he said. “ They just dick around and don’t give a #@^%$# what they do. House shows are an even bigger joke.

Take Booker, when he first came in he was gung ho about helping out the younger guys, contributing to the company and had now he’s the worst and doesn’t give a #@^%$#.”

There was also the feeling that if the bottom guys worked as bad as some of the people pushed, they’d be fired, but noted the people who stink up the joint remain pushed week after week.

“It all starts with the booking. Like you said, it seems as if they have no care of good or bad.”

They wanted a European, but instead of Doug Williams, who they have under contract and don’t use, they instead decided to push Nick Aldis as Brutus Magnus. Maybe you think he’s got a better look, but then, when you push a limited guy, you have to understand their limitations and book accordingly. They put Magnus in a situation without protecting him, and he was exposed on his first show and is now worthless. And if they waited a month, they probably could have had a good shot at getting Claudio Castagnoli.

There is also a new policy, taken from WWE, where instead of booking well in advance, they only book the top few matches on PPV, and then fill out the show before the final tapings. That’s not necessarily bad since whatever drawing aspect any matches have, and here that isn’t much, it’s only the top matches that matter anyway. But it also means you are doing two weeks of TV, often with no idea where you’re going with anyone but the top guys.

For the next PPV, Destination X, on 3/15, after the first two weeks of TV, there was little hype for any direction. They’ll do an Ultimate X match, that will likely include Jay Lethal, Consequences Creed, Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley, and perhaps others. A.J. Styles vs. Booker T and Scott Steiner vs. Samoa Joe were pushed on the PPV, and from TV, it looks like something with Matt Morgan vs. Abyss is continuing. Kurt Angle and Sting are feuding on top built around an empty arena match on television. There will most likely be a trios match on the PPV with Angelina Love & Velvet Sky and a third person (adding a new member to the Beautiful People has been discussed) against Taylor Wilde & Roxxi & Governor Palin.

For the 2/8 Against All Odds show, it drew the usual full house of 1,100, all free, in Orlando, which is also where the next PPV will be. They don’t go on the road until Lockdown in April in Philadelphia, the all cage match show. The show ended up, based on reader responses, being the consensus worst PPV the company has done, and even before the event, those inside figured on a rock bottom level buy rate given the weak main event and weak TV build-up.

The show featured a production issue, which is likely not the company’s fault. It appears many, if not all the people ordering the show off the Dish Network, had a sound to picture issue where it was described as being like watching an old Japanese Kung Fu movie. Those in inDemand or DirecTV did not have the problem.

1. Alex Shelley retained the X Division title pinning Eric Young in 13:01. Easily best match on the show. Young started out fast with a springboard dropkick and plancha. He came off the ropes for another plancha, but Shelley moved and Young crashed into the guard rail. Shelley worked on the body, including the ribs ad back, including a kneedrop off the top rope to the back. Young came back and missed a charge and took a bump over the top rope to the floor. The two traded near falls with the crowd into it. Young dropped Shelley on the top turnbuckle, but somehow wound up arguing with ref Rudy Charles. While this happened, Shelley schoolboyed him and got the three. ***1/4

The show story was all about Angle and Sting. Angle vowed the Main Event Mafia would end the show as champions and end up closer than ever, so he was half right.

2. Scott Steiner pinned Petey Williams in 11:17. Steiner couldn’t do much, looked bad much of the way, and Williams worked his ass off to almost make it decent and his reward was being let go. Crazy. Steiner did his suplexes. Williams used a tornado DDT and diving head-butt for near falls. Steiner blocked the Canadian Destroyer. Williams used an enzuigiri and codebreaker. Williams went for his plancha into a huracanrana on the floor, but Steiner blocked it and power bombed Williams on the floor. He used the Steiner recliner, which resulted in a rope break. Steiner then used the Steiner screw driver (a form of a sit out tombstone piledriver) for the pin. Post-match, saw Steiner yell at the crowd for cheering him. He then gave Williams a Samoan drop off the middle rope and went for the Steiner recliner again. Samoa Joe’s music played. Joe was nowhere to be found and Steiner got scared of his music. That was asking a lot. They showed Joe on the screen with the new tattoo on his face to set up their program. *1/2

Mick Foley was with Sting and Sting acted like a babyface. Later, 3-D was talking with Sting trying to tell him to leave the Mafia. Foley said he would give the belt to the winner and he would announce the main event. Foley shook hands with Sting and Sting said that meant a lot to him and did a face promo.

3. Brutus Magnus pinned Chris Sabin in 6:38. The fans did dueling chants. That used to be for when two guys were super over. Magnus played powerhouse but instead of being a squash, this turned into a back-and-forth match which exposed Magnus for being so green. This reminded me of when Mordecai debuted in WWE after all the vignettes, and his first PPV match was against Bob Holly . The idea was Mordecai would squash him and build for a feud with Undertaker. Instead, Holly took most of the match, Mordecai looked like hell, and within a few weeks he was jobbing and gone. Magnus ended up jobbing on TV the next night. Anyway, he won this with the Tormenta, which is a twisting Samoan drop. *1/4

4. Awesome Kong pinned ODB to keep the Knockouts title in 5:39. Jim Cornette kicked the other members of Kong’s stable out of ringside. Kong’s back is hurting pretty bad so they couldn’t do much. We all knew losing Gail Kim would hurt TNA’s women’s division a lot, but this has become ridiculous. They really need to beg Paco Alonso for some dates on Dark Angel and try and get her over and rest Kong until she’s healed. Because of Kong’s injuries, they worked a power match, building to the spot where ODB slammed her. Kong came back and won with the implant buster. ½*

5. Booker T retained the legends title pinning Shane Sewell in 6:01. Booker mostly stalled and walked around like Sewell was a joke. He was just making fun of Sewell. Finally they got going. Don West compared Sewell to John McEnroe. Did McEnroe start shaking before he would make comebacks? Or did his opponents laugh at him and treat him like a joke while always beating him? Or did he mean Sewell would be awful at hosting a talk show? Sewell made a comeback until Sharmell tripped him, and then Booker used the ax kick for the pin. Crowd didn’t react like they thought Sewell had a chance when he was making his comeback. I wonder why? Post-match saw threaten to attack Sewell until A.J. Styles ran in. They brawled for a while and Styles clotheslined Booker over the top rope. Styles grabbed the legends belt. ½*

6. Abyss pinned Matt Morgan in 15:37. Morgan worked this match just a week after having surgery to remove a strep infection from his shoulder. They said he was working against doctor’s orders. He wrestled the match with a shirt on. He was very limited in what he could do as a lot of his offense looked bad because he appeared to have no rotation or power in his right arm. They brawled for several minutes in the crowd. At one point they want all the way up to the top of the bleachers, but this badly exposed just how small the Impact Zone really is. Match was long and sloppy, with Abyss kicking out of Morgan bicycle kick, the carbon footprint, as well as a choke slam on a chair. The match story was that Abyss kept wanting to use weapons on Morgan, but ref Rudy Charles would stop him. Abyss went for a chair shot and Morgan pulled Charles in the way and Abyss KO’d Charles. Abyss used the black hole slam and ref Slick Johnson ran in, but Morgan kicked out. Morgan used a low blow and set up another carbon footprint, but Abyss moved out of the way and hit a second black hole slam for the pin. After the match, with Morgan down, Abyss grabbed a bag of thumb tacks and spread them out on the mat, but Morgan bailed before being thrown on them. *1/4

Angle and the Mafia tried to convince Sting to stay on their side because nobody has a bigger ego than Bubba Ray. He said that they are in a war and need Sting on their side, although tonight they are opponents. Sting and Angle hugged, but after Sting left, Angle told Kevin Nash to make sure and watch Sting.

7. Robert Roode & James Storm retained the tag titles beating Jay Lethal & Consequences Creed in 15:41. Not bad, but probably not quite at the level you’d expect. They did some early comedy where Roode & Storm fell on each other with one having his mouth in the other ones crotch. They do this spot on a lot of house shows and it’s an easy pop. Creed had his shoulder bandaged up from the chair shot on TV a few days earlier, but he didn’t work the match like it was a severe injury, but it was referenced. Lethal made a hot tag coming off the top with a missile dropkick with one foot on each guy. He did an enzuigiri on Storm, and an elbow off the top for a near fall and a Lethal combination on Roode. They did a double flapjack on Roode for a near fall. Finish saw Jacqueline giving Storm a chain and he hit Lethal with it. Lethal fell to the ground and Roode pinned him. **½

8. Sting retained the TNA title in a four-way over Kurt Angle, Brother Ray and Brother Devon on 14:34. Match was so-so, but weak in the main event position. It was largely Angle trying to carry three people, with Sting limited due to his age (almost 50) and a bad knee, and 3-D being out of shape and having the handicap that nobody believed either could win. They did a spot early where Bubba just laid down and invited Devon to pin him, since then Devon would get the title. But Angle saved. However, later in the match, when the ring was clear and they were wide open to do that, they never did. The crowd never bought 3-D as challengers. At one point, 3-D went against each other and started by trading go-behinds and they’d keep reversing. Crowd died as they expected. So then they started trading punches with the idea fans wanted them to brawl. Crowd was even more dead until they did the double clothesline, both get up and pose which is an automatic clap, clap, clap pop. Sting and Bubba at one point were brawling in front of Dixie Carter (I think, they never focused closely on the woman there). Angle had his left eye busted, supposedly from an elbow by Sting. They did a spot where Devon did the worst looking Boston crab ever on Angle, while Bubba did an even worse looking figure four on Sting. Angle, while caught in the crab, crawled over on top of Sting for a near fall. Angle gave Bubba an enzuigiri and Angle and Sting were left together. Angle worked on Sting’s knee. Several near falls back and forth. Bubba used a rock bottom on Devon and Devon kicked out. Devon kicking out made no sense. 3-D did the Doomsday device on Angle, but Sting saved. Sting used a back suplex on Bubba for a near fall. Finish saw Angle use a belly-to-belly superplex off the middle rope on Devon. Bubba then knocked Angle out of the ring, and Sting came from behind Bubba with a scorpion death drop for the pin. Finish was flat. Foley got in the ring and gave Sting the title belt and shook his hand. **

ALL JAPAN

TNA’s Lance Hoyt teamed with newcomer Michael Faith to beat Manabu Soya & Seiya Sanada in a prelim. Not a good night for Faith, who was described as looking like Rhino on donuts, he screwed up his second rope moonsault finisher, and fell through the ropes once as well.



TNA

Stevie Richards was backstage at the PPV and TNA officials have confirmed that he will be coming in. He’s close with Terry Taylor so it appears that was his in.

Rob Terry, a huge bodybuilder from Wales that was in WWE developmental as Big Rob, I think as a manager for Nic Nemeth (now Dolph Ziggler) and was eventually cut, was signed to a deal here. If you saw the guy, he was almost the McMahon prototype look, like a more powerful looking version of HHH, and to me, they would give someone like that every chance in the world and if he didn’t make it there, then you’d question his potential despite the look. Still, look at Marco Corleone, who had the WWE look, great athletic ability and zero charisma, and now he’s a big star in Mexico to women.

Cut to make room for them was Petey Williams (final appearance in losing a loser leaves town match at the 2/10 tapings) and Lance Rock, with more expected on the way. There was an immediate negative reaction on Williams, because he was seen as a nice guy who always worked hard and had done nothing wrong. There had been pushes for cuts simply because some guys had been there forever and they had no idea how to push them. But the resentment is that Williams always worked hard and never got in trouble, while guys who don’t work hard and have been constant trouble aren’t going to be let go, but that’s also the entertainment business . . They are doing a TV gimmick where Beer Money says they will defend the tag titles against anyone at any time, but if they win, whomever drops the fall has to leave TNA. On the 2/10 tapings, Williams & Eric Young challenged, and Williams was pinned. It appears they are going to use this to get rid of undercard guys as it’s been so long since they’ve had a roster purge. But it’s already been a big negative for morale since Williams always works hard on a roster where the top guys no longer do. A lot of contracts expire in March. There has been a lot of talk regarding underneath talent, but most have no where to go with Japan and Mexico not being strong enough to support Americans to where they can make full-time money. It’s possible ROH may take some. WWE may be interested in a few, but most likely only the ones with some size.

Storm will be appearing on the 3/5 episode of “World’s Toughest Cowboy.”

Announcer Lauren Brooke Thompson has gotten a second gig as host of a show called “Top Ten” on The Golf Channel which airs on Tuesday nights at 9 p.m.

Even though Christy Hemme worked a mixed tag match in Canada last week, she is not ready to return. All she did in the match was slap SoCal Val, and took no bumps, nor any punches, kicks or slaps or whips.

Kevin Nash’s staph infection is also slow in healing. At first they were hopeful Nash would have been ready for Against All Odds, but now the feeling is he won’t be ready until April, so Samoa Joe’s return has been changed to first working with Scott Steiner and then with Nash when Nash is able.

They have booked the 18,000-seat Coliseum in San Juan for a house show on 3/20.

They did a house show at the Norfolk Scope on 2/5 which drew about 2,000 fans. As noted last week, of the four names in all the billboards around town advertised (Samoa Joe, Kevin Nash, Kurt Angle and A.J. Styles), only Joe was on the show. Homicide won a three-way over Sonjay Dutt and Sheik Abdul Bashir, first pinning Dutt and then Bashir. Taylor Wilde & Roxxi beat Angelina Love & Velvet Sky in a match filled with missed moves. Brutus Magnus pinned Eric Young. Booker T pinned Shane Sewell, once again calling him Shane Stool. Booker told Sewell to back out of the match and go back to refereeing. Fans at ringside also encouraged him to back out of the match. It’s always good for the show when your TV encourages you to cheer the heels. As the match got going, fans cheered both about the same. Hernandez pinned Kip James. Beer Money beat the Motor City Machine Guns. Question. How come Team 3-D’s win of the IWGP tag titles is pushed all over television while the Machine Guns win of the jr. belts is ignored? They had the best match on the show to no surprise. Main was Joe over Scott Steiner. After a ref bump, Steiner grabbed a chair. Mick Foley came out and grabbed the chair from Steiner and put the socko claw on Steiner. Joe then grabbed the choke for the win. Foley then said he wanted to bring the wrestlers back out and they ended with the usual autograph signing.

The other house show was 2/6 in Charlottesville, VA, before 1,500 fans. Good opener with the Machine Guns over Dutt & Bashir. Steiner killed Sewell the entire match, but Sewell won with a slipping on a banana peel roll-up, and then Steiner beat on him some more after the match. Sewell was over here. Beer Money beat LAX in the best match on the show. Main saw Joe over Booker. After a ref bump, Booker was about to use a chair but Foley came out and used the socko claw, allowing Joe to get Booker from behind with the choke.