LOLTNA: That's What You Get

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Now this.

Going In On TNA

NOTE: Before I begin, nice to know that quite a few of you read my post on the classic RAW from yesterday. Think I should do more of them. This weekend, I’ll give the compliment sandwich to another classic episode.

But right now, I’m about to take the nice gloves off on a certain Florida-based promotion.

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It’s not gonna get any better, is it?

I know my buddy Joe isn’t gonna like what I have to say (because he is a diehard TNA fan), but I watched portions of last night’s No Surrender (Part Two) on Impact. It was shit, bro. I would rather watch reviews of TNA Impact from Youtuber Foolkiller99 (I highly recommend you check out his reviews. Good stuff) than watch actual episodes of Impact. Hell, I’d rather watch old 2003 Impact than 2013 Impact. And 2003 Impact was shit in a lot of areas too.

Here’s a quick summary of what you may have missed last night in case the Chiefs-Eagles game put you to sleep:

• Heel Dixie Carter is unlikable, and not just in an “I know it’s just a show, but I hate your guts” kinda way. Heel Dixie Carter is unlikable in an “I hate you, I hope you rot in hell, now get the hell off my TV” kinda way. You know, X-Pac hate. Or Maybe Miz hate. Hell, from a general standpoint, Dixie Carter is unlikable. Here’s why heel Dixie Carter just doesn’t work: before last night, she was either clueless Dixie or damsel in distress Dixie. And perhaps that’s not just in front of the camera. (See the Ask Dixie debacle from earlier this summer) Clueless Dixie plucked every ex-WWE talent they could in hopes that THIS would be the signing to turn it all around. Christian, Kurt Angle, Tara, Mickie James, and a host of others too numerous to mention. Not one of them has done so. Even the signing and taking advice of Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan (LOOK AT ME!) has done little to turn their companies’ fortunes around. And if she’s not clueless, she’s the damsel in distress, always looking for that knight in shining armor to rescue her or her company (see the whole Immortal saga). Before last night, at NO POINT in her decade as principal owner of the company has she shown to be a strong authority figure, and you expect your fans to do that now? Bitch, please.
• The Aces and Eights group now only has like four guys. Five if you count Tazz, six if you count Brooke Tessmacher. This group needs to die in a fire yesterday, and everyone not named Duh-Duh Ray and Brooke can die in said fire. So just to review the rules of Aces and Eights: (1) Bros before hos. (2) Never disrespect the Aces and Eights. (3) Don’t talk about Aces and Eights. (4) ARMBAR. Random thought: has there been a bigger dropoff between the #1 and #2 members of a stable than Aces and Eights?
• Heel Chris Sabin: nobody cares. My God, this guy dropped off the face of the Earth faster than James Storm did. Two months ago, this guy was (inexplicably) the world champion and one of the feel good stories in TNA. Now he’s heading down the path towards Mike Mizanin with better looking parents (and a better looking girlfriend).
• Your TNA Knockouts division as of September 20, 2013: ODB (champion), Gail Kim, Velvet Sky, Brooke Tessmacher, Taryn Terrell (pregnant). Not counting Taryn, half of the division now is doing valet duty. I know TNA doesn’t have much of a chance, but you pay Mickie James whatever she wants to get her back through your door. And sign some new knockouts while you’re at it.
• Joseph Park is still a thing. So that’s good, I guess. The Park/Abyss storyline does need to be resolved though, right?
• Unfortunately, so are Los Stereotypicos (Chavo Guerrero and Hernandez).
• And Bro Mans.
• Apparently there was a somewhat decent six man tag on this episode, but I missed it.

I know from reading this you probably think I hate TNA. Well, I do. Specifically, I hate what TNA has become. Eleven years in, TNA should have much more of an identity than WWE-lite, or late WCW-carbon copy. But to casual fans—ones that only pay attention to the Big Two, and even then on occasion—that’s what they are. And they didn’t have to be this way. People like James Storm, Bobby Roode, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, and Christopher Daniels have been passed over and backburnered by one stop-gap after another: Kurt Angle, Christian, Jeff Hardy, Rob Van Dam, Sting, Pacman Jones, Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, King Mo, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Tito Ortiz, Jenna Morasca, one of the “ladies” of Jersey Shore, and so on. It’s barely helped their ratings, but never consistently, and it has never helped their bottom line.

There was a time when TNA out-talented WWE roster spot for roster spot. That may still be the case now, but I doubt it, especially with WWE's main roster getting a serious influx of new faces in the last twelve months. And even if it is, there is no question about this: WWE is and has been better managed than TNA at its best. Bad talent can be overcome. Bad management cannot. (For proof of this, see the perennial NFL disappointment known as the Dallas Cowboys. All the talent in the world, with shit management.) And whoever's fault this is, whether it be Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, Dixie Carter, or a combination of the three, you are the reason that TNA is a sinking ship for which there is no hope for recovery.

The only reason Impact is still on your television is because you continue to watch it in droves. It outrates everything on Spike TV by a wide margin, and it even outrates WWE programming in some international markets. Once upon a time, the same thing was said about Nitro. Eventually, the millions of dollars lost was simply too much to overcome.

TNA’s biggest show of the year is one month from now: Bound for Glory. Beyond AJ Styles finally winning the world title again and perhaps the long Aces and Eights saga coming to a merciful end, nothing is certain. Not even its future. Hulk Hogan’s contract is set to expire a week from Tuesday. Eric Bischoff’s comes up soon. Nearly half the active roster from one year ago is gone. In fact, if you have WWE '13, you can do a gamesave with every active on-camera talent they have and still have a few slots left over. TNA’s financial future is in so much peril, they’re looking to get their old home back in Orlando. I want to feel sorry for what TNA has become. But I can’t. This is the bed they have chosen in the cramped up room they have chosen in the rickety house they have chosen. Now they must lie in it.

Sleep comfortably, TNA, while you still can.

No Bad Wrestling Today... For Once

Well, today, I'm packing up for a move. Again. This will be my second move this year (back to Baltimore if anyone cares), and my third move in 21 months. So that'll be my focus. So... no bad wrestling to make nice about today.

Ok, I lied. But I won't be making nice about it. I can't make nice about incompetent booking like this.

The above picture you see is the current Bound for Glory Series standings.

Rank	Wrestler	Points	Matches
1	Magnus	39	7
2	Bobby Roode	34	8
3	Christopher Daniels	33	6
4	Austin Aries	28	7
5	Samoa Joe	26	9
6	Jeff Hardy	24	7
	Mr. Anderson	24	9
8	AJ Styles	22	8
	Kazarian	22	7
10	Joseph Park	17	8
11	Hernandez	7	7
12	Jay Bradley	0	7

And thanks to that wonderful source known as Wikipedia, this is how they got there. Bound for Glory is in a month and a half. No Surrender, the next big Impact of significance, is in two weeks. Only two men have wrestled nine matches in the series. So guess what TNA is doing? According to Wrestling Observer Newsletter, they're essentially gonna end it:

The entire thing is a mess because time is running out and of the 11 matches that would be necessary for each guy in a 12 man round-robin tournament, the guys have ranged from four to six matches completed with time running out.

So they are essentially dropping everything, doing the four matches this coming Thursday, and ending it from there with the top four point getters going to the 9/12 final four show.

And as Cageside Seats pointed out yesterday, with just three "must win Thursday" matches scheduled for tonight, no math can help Joseph Park, Hernandez, and Jay Bradley (who went 0-fer in the tournament after having to win a qualifying match to get in against a since-released Sam Shaw) get in the "No Surrender" Final Four. Samoa Joe, Mr. Anderson, and Jeff Hardy (all within two points of each other and four points of #4 Austin Aries), are also benched for the night, and will have to hope for someone to lose points to break through.

Unlike last year where D'Angelo Dinero got injured and stuff had to be shuffled around, no one got hurt in this group. The tournament began on June 6. That means they had three months to get everyone twelve matches. New Japan Pro Wrestling gets this right every year, and they knock it out in two weeks. (It's called the G1 Climax, and you oughta watch it if you can find it.) Why can't TNA?