Ok, so Impact last Thursday was rough. Around 10 minutes of actual wrestling that made no one look good, and around 40 minutes of segments that, again, made no one look good.

Anything else?

So last night, I stopped watching Impact after the PCS segment. Did I miss anything?

I watched the 1/11 show on its Saturday night replay. Considering that it was an "eve of the PPV" show, it wasn't good that not a single thing intrigued me.

-Raven is heading up ANOTHER group of worthless turds. Can't wait until he comes out and breaks their fingers. Again.

-The Voodoo Kin Mafia at the Alamo? If you're going to do a cutesy skit at the Alamo, you NEED to work in a line about the basement. That'd be funny... "canoeing" on a log isn't.

- One Cool Point to James Storm. He was pounding on some guy in the corner, then stopped to put on his cowboy hat and gloat-- that was funny.

-If it's not "live", then how did the cameras miss the attack on Konnan?

-Can't really take the Dud...err "Team 3-D" seriously when they come out in camouflage and a plastic helmet. But I guess they've been doing the "we're pissed off bad asses" thing since they arrived, and needed something to make this feud seem different.

One of my biggest disappointments in TNA has been their complete mishandling of the Dudleys

Woah, I'm seeing a lot of praise for Impact this week, even at DVDR...and noone has been banned for it yet.

The only shot I'll take at the haters this week is all of the "WHy is TNA giving away Angle/ AJ for free?" comments. Hey dorks - we're fans, we WANT a better product for less money. That's a good thing. 1 hour of jobber squashes will not get TNA more PPV buys. TNA has to increase their base audience by GIVING AWAY better shows each week. Why would more people watch Impact if they are putting on worse shows? Since Impact is the main vehicle for selling the PPV's, you want as large an audience there as possible. That way, even if the percentage of your viewing audience that buys the PPV stays the same, your buy rate will go up. Of course the goal is to then increase the percentage of buyers, which does include a little teasing, but for the time being TNA has to get their core viewing audience up. And regardless of what makes good and bad business, keep one thing in mind:

WE ARE FANS, NOT TNA BUSINESS CONSULTANTS. IF THEY WANT TO "GIVE" US SOMETHING, WE SMILE AND TAKE IT.

Say you go to Burger King. You get to the counter, order a load of food, and then the chic behind the counter tells you that today your meal will be free. Are you gonna stand there and gripe that Burger King will go out of business if they give away Whoppers? No, douche. You eat the burger. If you like it, you'll gladly come back and pay for it next time.

I think these geeks have forgotten why they ever started watching wrestling in the first place.

Thank You

I think the internet would be better if people just stopped acting like they had some kind of say in what's going on

Yeah, the only people who should ever have those types of opinions are those who own WWE stock.

Everybody keeps referring back to Hogan / Goldberg on Nitro as the precedent for this situation. 1 - That is hindsight. When it was on, it made for exciting television. Me and several million other were glad to have seen it. It is only looking back that we see it as a missed opportunity for revenue, and even then, it is just speculation. WCW had to keep the show exciting enough for people to be willing to pay for the PPV.
2 - It is a COMPLETELY different situation. Hogan and Goldberg were both proven PPV attractions at the time. It was money in the bank. Had they held it out, and hyped it big for PPV, it probably would have made a significant impact on the buyrate. AJ (and even Angle) haven't been proven to make a significant impact on PPV numbers. There is no evidence that building to the match on PPV would have made any measurable increase in buys for TNA. Chances are that the same 30-40 thousand people would have bought the PPV. They may have beeen more excited about it, but for now, that's the extent of the market that TNA is reaching. First they must increase their viewership in order to increase the potential for larger PPV numbers.

Yeah ^

I didn't see Impact because I was working, but I also imagine that Angle/AJ was probably 10-15 minutes with a commercial break thrown in the middle. It was probably an exciting match and all, but later if they want to do a ppv match between them, I don't think this would hurt it. A ppv match would suggest a longer time and higher possibilities of clean finishes, or more significant ramifications.

I like the argument that the ratings aren't as important as the buyrate, using UFC as the example.

Of course, the flaws with the example are:

1) The ratings are important, as without a TV show, TNA has nothing to build to the PPV with
2) The buyrate for pro wrestling will NEVER be as high as a legitimate fight. Too many people see wrestling as "fake" and don't care as much about something like Joe/Angle as they will a legitimate fight like Vanderlei/Fedor, Liddell/Ortiz, etc.

From what I'm reading, it was less than 8 minutes total. You are dead on. If nothing else, it is a teaser for a real match.

I'll also add that I watched Impact, and it flowed a lot better than in the past few weeks. As if the production crew figured out how to deal with Russo's style.

Though the VKM stuff is odd. How do you go from challenging two of the biggest names (supposedly) in the business to forgetting them so one of you can piss off Christy Hemme. Not to mention that Kip went from being goofy face to "He-Man Woman Hater" with no explanation.

And something else....

I know Russo likes "grey" characters, but somewhere, somehow, you need a "White" character and a "Black" character. Sting is the perfect example. He should be the "white" character for TNA. He should only do what's right and good. Someone like Mitchell, or even Abyss should be the "Black" character. That way, when someone is acting "Grey" you have something for them to be compared to.

EDIT: Did anyone else notice that Tomko's goatee was died like Steiner's? Good "Clue" there.

I will agree that Ratings aren't AS important as buyrates, but for TNA to get established, the two have to go hand in hand.

You bring up a good point about legit fights, and why they don't coorelate to pro-wrestling. If you think about it, main event boxers are NEVER on free TV. In fact WBC, WBA, or IBF don't even have a centralized TV show to promote the fights. It's just a completely different business entirely, and can't be related to wrestling in that manner.

I don't mind some complex characters, but the quick switches back and forth - like with Angle - really bother me.

I like complex characters as well, but I think wrestling is suffering due to a lack of black and white characters. And Black and White doesn't always equal simple either. Okay, so maybe black doesn't. But think back to guys like Rick Rude, Ted Dibiase, etc. Guys who were consistent heel characters. They were the black. They were the pepper to the salt of guys like Sting, Hogan & Savage. This is the problem with the "Grey" booking. You have a lot of middle ground, which makes everyone bland. Give me some pepper and salt to go with my grey.

Well, TNA needs some more "black and white" characters, but the WWE really needs more grey. Especially since a lot of their characters aren't heels because that's who they are. They are heels because they pull on tights to win matches or insult the city they are in and act grumpy. Later they turn face and suddenly they're hugging other babyfaces after winning tag matches and all smiles and clap to get the crowd behind them.

Agreed. I said "some" complex characters. Tweeners need to be the exception in order to be effective.

Yeah, I'm not digging the whole Abyss thing. It just screams the whole Kane storyline from whatwasit, 99? I dunno, it's just too familiar.

I am, however, enjoying the Angle/Xtian exchanges and AJ/Rhino. And it looks like we may have a Lowki/Aries feud in the cards too, which would be amazing. Not too keen on Lynn being back, though. They need new talent in the X Division, not old talent brought back.

The beginning of the X-Division match made me wish they knew how to book Low-Ki. And it made me remember why I loved Jerry Lynn

Yeah, I kind of wish Ki had better booking too. ANY sort of storyline or feud would be a good thing at this point.

And don't get me wrong, it's great to see Lynn back, but I think it's a step backwards. They need new blood, and Lynn is pretty much as far from New Blood as you can get, yaknow?

I think Lynn's a good move at the moment, as they've had nothing but Sonjay, Lethal, Shelley, Sabin & Senshi for quite a while. I think it's good as it brings serious wrestling back to the X-Division after the PCS and the Jackass crap. I only hope it continues to get serious

Good point. I just wish they'd gone with someone new. I mean, we've seen just about every concievalbe Lynn matchup already. Well, I don't think we ever got a Lynn/Daniels program... did we? That'd be fun.

Random note: I see some people still hate the Senshi name, because you both seem to be jumping between using that name and Low-Ki in the same comments. :D

I heard good things about Sting/Abyss in terms of live action, despite a horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE storyline. Any truth to those rumors, or is it TNA fanboys sucking everything off?

<--Sting fan and would watch if it's as good as I hear.

Well, I'm a huge Sting mark, and I'm liking the actual execution of it, even if the whole premise is incredibly cliche and done to death.

I'm not real big on the white and black Sting, although I thought that he's done a good job since coming to TNA. He at least goes full speed in the matches and doesn't look to be in bad shape.

Good to know he appears to be giving a shit. Motivated Sting, even at his age, is still worth the time and money. Unmotivated, lazy as a slug Sting is a waste of ability.

Okay, so that Impact was the drizzling shits. Not one thing on there that made sense outside of Jim Cornette telling Christy Hemme "You wanna teach him a lesson? Marry him, that'll teach him!"

I found Impact in general to be a real guilty treat this week. I loved the Cornette bit, and nothing on the show bored me or anything. I actually marked out too when Eric Young shoved Robert Roode for mistreating Tracy. I don't know why, but it did.

I won't comment on the wrestling since there wasn't much of it.

I was one of TNA's biggest supporters from the day it opened up and was running weekly PPVs until about the end of January. I don't like to point the finger at one specific person, but I gotta think it's Vince Russo. The shows have Vinny Ru written all over them, and he's just not an effective booker/writer. He was awesome when he had Vince McMahon controlling him from above, but whenever he's the primary writer, he sucks balls. The only positive his TNA runs have produced are the heel pushes of AJ Styles, which I'm a huge fan of. But in this run he has managed to make Kurt Angle "just another guy" in a matter of a few months. I can barely stand to watch the show anymore. It's really sad that they were able to turn off a hardcore fan like me.

I'm going to keep it simple much like Impact this week.

Fucking shitty.

I caught bits and pieces including what looked like the worst ladder match this side of Brian Christopher/Dusty Rhodes. I kept waiting for them to do stuff...and then it was over.

Definately one of the worst ladder matches I've ever seen.

How long did it run? 37 seconds?

With commercial, probably 4:37...

But goddamn was that segment with Jay Lethal and Kevin Nash hilarious...

"The White Man is trying to hold you down"

"I'm blacker than you"

That's one of the three things that I like about Impact right now. Who woulda thunk I'd tune into TNA to see Kevin Nash.

3 things...hm...Nash, LAX, and...?

Ooooh, more Nash?

I watched last week just to see the Nash segment, and when Lethal cut that Savage Promo I fucking lost it. It honestly made the show worth seeing.

Sweet, now I'll actually watch the show.

Heel champion Christian, actually. Those are followed closely by AJ Styles and Samoa Joe just for being them, but they've both had balls cut off recently.