Support NeoGAF

[Empyrean Heaven]

-Via NJPW World

SHEEEEEIIIIT. I might have to stay up for this.

Please get Mauro and Josh!

EDIT: Nevermind. Kelly and Striker should be okay as long as Striker keeps his fucking smark shit to a minimum. He was one of the worst parts of Triplemania. And that's saying something.

 

[bjork]

Remember that time Undertaker fought Crush to the death?

"Good job Undertaker."

 

[Bronx-Man]

-Via NJPW World

No class that day, thank you based god

 

[Man God]

One Night in TNA

Vader showed up, went over the Harris Brothers, and was never seen again.
Paul Bearer randomly debuted at the end of a PPV and then did practically nothing, except blade a few weeks later.
After Russo unmasked as Mr. Wrestling III, Mr. Wrestling IV showed up and unmasked to reveal Nikita Koloff. Koloff hadn't been seen in pro wrestling since 1992. Koloff teased turning against Russo before walking out of the company completely, never to be seen again.
Not only did Bart Gunn make his TNA debut, Mike Tenay hyped him up as a former big superstar from the WWE. He joined S.E.X. and lasted about a week.
Moondog Spot tagged with Jim Duggan and went over S.E.X. leaders Gilbertti and Sanders in under two minutes. Never showed up again.
Viscera debuted to be Ron Killings' bodyguard. He disappeared after two weeks and was never seen again.
Mike Awesome hung around with The New Church for a few weeks, then inexplicably disappeared.
Lex Luger's arrival in TNA came while he was still under indictment for thirteen felony drug charges after the death of Miss Elizabeth happened in his home. TNA used this to their advantage and hyped this as his first match since the Elizabeth fiasco. Before his match he cut a shitty promo in which he called AJ Styles "AC" Styles. Luger then almost made AJ tap in the Torture Rack until Sting saved the day. Way to keep your top face strong, TNA.

 

[miserable]

Remember that time Undertaker fought Crush to the death?

"Good job Undertaker."

haha, gotta love those stock hit sounds from the old kung-fu flicks

 

[RBH]

https://instagram.com/p/8YipV8GKCh/

 

[Sibersk Esto]

John Cena burning out would be catastrophic

 

[Dion314]

Cena likes to work people but, regardless of that, I'd imagine he probably IS burnt out a little. He works all the PPV's, Raw, House shows, (I don't watch SD but I know he's worked that before too), and does a ton of stuff for the company outside the ring. Hell anytime he's injured he almost always comes back early or works anyway.

He deserves the break.

 

[Zach]

One Night in TNA

I'm gonna have to google some of this...

 

[shaowebb]

SHEEEEEIIIIT. I might have to stay up for this.

Please get Mauro and Josh!

EDIT: Nevermind. Kelly and Striker should be okay as long as Striker keeps his fucking smark shit to a minimum. He was one of the worst parts of Triplemania. And that's saying something.

YES! Fuck WWE, we got the goods right here! Between this and Lucha Underground I hope folks start turning away from "Sports Entertainment" and start focusing on wrestling again! Show me faster matches. Let me hear announcers call holds instead of do color commentary story time. Let me see folks allowed to get a pop when they do something.

Bring me that horizon.

 

[Jimmy King]

John Cena burning out would be catastrophic

#Kanetober

 

[Aiii]

So, it seems that the producers of this new film AJ and Punk are in intend it to be a three partner, along with a TV show. AJ's the lead: http://iconsoffright.com/2015/10/02...eets-the-walking-dead-monster-film-hellstorm/

Hoping for a decent b-movie slasher.

 

[Hex]

I am pretty much expecting the gong to hit distracting Lesnar tonight, thus allowing this to focus back on the HIAC match up.
Why they trot out Jericho for these things really is beyond me.
Would be nice to end Rusev and Ziggler but nah.

 

[Man God]

After the announcement that Hulk Hogan had signed with TNA was made public in October many in the locker room remained split on the decision. Dixie Carter, like a mother scolding her children, decided to address the TNA roster personally and delivered a speech about the state of the company while the entire TNA roster sat in bleachers and watched appearing to be bored out of their fucking minds. The overall tone of the speech was essentially "it's my way or the highway." Despite this being a legitimate message to TNA's employees, and wasn't part of any ongoing storyline, a video of the speech actually opened an episode of iMPACT. It was soon widely mocked and criticized by everyone who watched it.
Hulk Hogan's signing was announced in October. The fact that he was coming to TNA was mentioned every five minutes on every Impact from the date of his signing until his debut in January, with commentary on already taped shows re-dubbed to mention it. You can imagine how annoying that quickly became.

Some of my earliest memories of TNA, I saw both of those flipping through the stations.

 

[Mr. Luchador]

It's a shoot brother.

Yeah that was pretty early on in TNA's run, and man I hated it and never looked at Piper the same way again.

 

[Shiv47]

I am pretty much expecting the gong to hit distracting Lesnar tonight, thus allowing this to focus back on the HIAC match up.
Why they trot out Jericho for these things really is beyond me.
Would be nice to end Rusev and Ziggler but nah.

Jericho still gets a pop and prefers to work house shows. At the house show I went to before Summerslam, he got one of the biggest pops of the night. Why, I have no idea.

 

[Man God]

January 4, 2010: The Night TNA Changed Forever Into Hogan's Playground

At the very beginning of the show, footage was aired of fans bashing WWE and talking up TNA.

An X-Division Asylum match opened the show; to win the match, one of the participants had to climb up the domed cage structure and through the hole on the top. The cage's blinding red color made it nearly impossible to see anything going on in the ring, and even if anyone could see anything, the incompetent cameramen missed every single spot. Homicide attempted to climb out of the cage, but when he failed, he dropped down to the ring and hit everyone with a baton, causing a cage match to end in a No Contest.

This resulted in very loud "THIS IS BULLSHIT" chants from the audience. TNA did this as its first salvo in a new "Monday Night War".

Jeff Hardy returned to TNA by randomly hitting Homicide with a chair following the Asylum match. Neither TNA nor Hardy ever explained the attack.

The second time Homicide attempted to climb the cage, he got stuck.

After the first round of "This Is Bullshit", the chanting was very noticeably censored. Instead of turning the audience mic down or just censoring the chant itself, production decided to blank the sound entirely upon every reiteration of the chant, making them look stupid in the process.

Vince Russo later defended this match, basically saying "Why can't there be a No Contest in a cage match?" despite the obvious logic fail.

TNA showed Hogan's arrival via limousine on its way to the Impact Zone. The footage clearly showed the limo driving around Universal Resort. Hogan arrived and said "I've been in the back all day". This ended up being edited out of the repeat showing.

During Eric Bischoff's first promo with the company, he asked SoCal Val to bring him the script for the night. He ripped the script up and threw it into the crowd, then he gave Val his version. Security went into the crowd during commercial and asked the fans to hand the ripped pages back (since Bischoff ripped up a real script).

Fans booed Hogan (who was still supposed to be a face) after he verbally attacked Jeff Jarrett (who was supposed to be the heel but acted like a face) following a heartfelt speech.

In this, Hogan accused Jarrett of being a famewhore who held young talent down for his own gain. This would be accurate and legitimate criticism of Jarrett, if it were coming from basically anybody besides Hogan. Most everybody saw it as a massive pot-kettle-black moment.

Bobby Lashley came out, randomly turned heel for no reason, and left the company a few weeks later.

When Lashley first joined TNA, an agreement between Strikeforce (the MMA promotion Lashley worked for) and TNA said Lashley could appear on either company's programming so long as he crosspromoted both companies. When rumors about Hogan and TNA began, Hulk appeared at a UFC event and put over the company. UFC planned on moving to Spike, and Strikeforce considered Hogan's appearance a breach of its verbal agreement with TNA; Strikeforce then disallowed Lashley from promoting TNA, then later pulled him from the show altogether.

After firing Lashley, Hogan and Bischoff proceeded to tell Ric Flair (who had also arrived during the show) that they couldn't fire him, because he'd signed his contract before they'd arrived. The obvious logic fail displayed was never addressed.

The Nasty Boys showed up and shredded their last tiny sliver of relevance to the wrestling industry. Despite general fan apathy, they stuck around and engaged in an awful feud with Team 3D, which led to the reveal that Brian Knobbs couldn't even cut a promo without getting winded.

Prior to the show, TNA advertised a match between Samoa Joe and Abyss. Once the show started, Rhino replaced Joe, and the match turned into a Barbed Wire Match. During the show, a backstage attack forced Rhino out of action, and TNA replaced him with Samoa Joe. Joe and Abyss then proceeded to have a regular singles match.

TNA also advertised a tag team between The British Invasion and Beer Money, but this match actually didn't take place, due to Beer Money also being attacked backstage.

Bubba the Love Sponge, an obese radio host and longtime friend of Hulk Hogan (ex-friend now), served as the show's interviewer; he tried to use the whole show to get himself over, as opposed to the people he was supposed to be interviewing.

Mick Foley spent the whole show attempting to get into the iMPACT Zone despite security doing its best to keep him out -- while numerous other uninvited guests (including Scott Hall, Sean Waltman, and the Nasty Boys) managed to get in with little problem. Hall and Waltman actually attacked security (and were not punished for doing so), while Bubba the Love Sponge ran interference to get the Nastys in.

OBD and Tara wrestled a godawful (and ridiculously short) match due to ODB busting one of her breast implants. TNA decided to show this match without any opposition from WWE to potential new fans -- and put on an awesome tag team match (Awesome Kong & Hamada vs. Sarita & Taylor Wilde) on the second half of the show (when Raw was on). None of the four women in the tag team match showed up regularly on TV again after this show, and Sarita only started showing up again thanks to Rosita and the Mexican America group.

Throughout the night, TNA showed the Beautiful People playing strip poker with Val Venis Sean Morley in an attempt to keep people from switching to Raw. Nobody cared.

Orlando Jordan made his debut by interrupting a backstage interview with D'Angelo Dinero, and despite Tenay and Tazz hyping him up as a big star, nobody cared. Jordan went on a winning streak for a while, then he underwent his infamous gimmick change and his momentum died faster than Owen Hart.

Numerous commercial breaks plagued the show's main event. At one point, Tenay said TNA would stick with the main event to the finish with absolutely no commercial breaks -- then followed up by transitioning into the next commercial break.

Rather than ending the night with Angle & Styles' fantastic main event match, TNA ended the show with a segment featuring Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Sean Waltman, and Mick Foley talking.

It's fitting that the biggest night in TNA history is also the longest single event covered by LOLTNA.

 

[lovely ladies]

Also tonight, Seth Rollins super fan Daniel Cormier has his first title defense against Alexander "Master Chief" Gustafsson on the Ultimate 192 sponsored by Halo 5: Guardians.

I have no doubt he'll be watching the MSG show to get himself psyched for his bout.

 

[Heel]

Get his ass again, Seth.

 

[Liquidsnake]

Hrm the rating drops got me thinking...what would I do if I ran things to get ratings up? I got some ideas:

- 2 hour RAWs, 1 hour NXT lead-in
- Remove Big Show, Kane, and Mark Henry off TV and put them in the back as agents.
- Fire Kevin Dunn
- Make Sasha the Diva's champ for like two years straight until I bring Kharma back to destroy her to shake up the Diva's division. Remove useless model Diva's like the Bellas off TV and release them.
- Make Ambrose the top babyface and have him wreck shit by doing something different on every RAW ala Stone Cold to keep viewers tuned in.
- Reigns becomes US champ to add some prestige to the belt by featuring it as main event level feuds at house shows while Cena takes some much needed time off.
- Owens becoming the longest reigning IC champ of all time, wrecking through the roster Rusev style.
- Bring Bryan back. Have him take the belt off Seth "The Draw" Rollins and then Sheamus cashes in on the same night to win the belt from Bryan at Royal Rumble. Setup Sheamus vs. Bryan feud for the WWE belt.
- Give Dudley's the tag titles, setup for Wyatt vs. Dudleys feud at Wrestlemania for the belts. Have the Dudley's dominate the tag division for several months and have the Wyatts beat them at WM, in a "Family vs. Family" feud.
- Never main event a show with Brock vs. Taker and similar matches, have them undercard the World title match to emphasize the importance of the belt.

I like your idea, but Cena should retire.

 

[Man God]

Dixie Carter snuck into Bischoff and Hogan's office and called Bischoff a "smug shit". She later thanked Spike TV in a tweet for letting her swear on television. This promo closed with Dixie's husband Serg getting punched in the face by Gunner and Murphy while she screamed his name at the top of her lungs.

No words.

 

[slightconfuse]

Man God are you just reading the LOLTNA wiki??

 

[slightconfuse]

BOLA DVDS JUST CAME IN THE MAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

know what im doing later

 

[Hex]

Jericho still gets a pop and prefers to work house shows. At the house show I went to before Summerslam, he got one of the biggest pops of the night. Why, I have no idea.

You would think also after his last outing that he might be in a heel role here, but he is against Owens.
They just kind of let that whole thing go, except for Ambrose not wanting outsiders now.

 

[somedevil]

NXT Special news from the Observer:

NXT Takeover: Respect will run two and a half hours instead of the usual two hours.

So the other matches will get more time now.

 

[Rutti]

Rollins vs Cena is probably going to be a good match but it's a match that I have seen too many times recently.

 

[Vylash]

Also the amount of people who make 1 or 2 appearances on TNA and then leave never to return is outstanding.

it's more common than ever since their contracts are per appearance now

 

[Aiii]

So, is WWE gonna drop below 2.0s before the year is over or do we have to wait until next year for that?

 

[Jimmy King]

I don't even think they're good matches. There is zero improv in their bouts. It's the same bullshit spots and routines set to auto-pilot.

yeah, even taking away Rollins' shitty character work (or lacktherof), their matches do nothing for me on any level

 

[Pristine_Condition]

Nope, 'The Beast of Belfast' Big Damo O'Connor;

HOSS.

 

[avengers23]

NXT Special news from the Observer:



So the other matches will get more time now.

Or they go with Bryan Alvarez's insane idea that the Iron Woman match ends in a tie and has to go to sudden death overtime.

 

[Professor Beef]

If you could have Brock Lesnar do the Fusion Dance with any one wrestler, which non-fusion wrestler would you make that fusion fight?

 

[imBask]

So, is WWE gonna drop below 2.0s before the year is over or do we have to wait until next year for that?

I don't think it'll happen, but I hope it will. They really deserve it

 

[Bronx-Man]

So, is WWE gonna drop below 2.0s before the year is over or do we have to wait until next year for that?

This year's holiday episodes ratings are going to be subterranean.

 

[Rutti]

I don't even think they're good matches. There is zero improv in their bouts. It's the same bullshit spots and routines set to auto-pilot.

I guess... It was same with Cena vs Owens when it was great for the first match but the consecutive matches were usually repeats of the first with maybe minor variations.

 

[Anth0ny]

So, is WWE gonna drop below 2.0s before the year is over or do we have to wait until next year for that?

what's the rating at right now?

I know it'll drop under 3 million viewers with football + no cena.

 

[slightconfuse]

Smackdown is Cooked. Going tombs below 2 million soon

 

[Aiii]

what's the rating at right now?

I know it'll drop under 3 million viewers with football + no cena.

2.33 last Monday.

Smackdown is Cooked. Going tombs below 2 million soon

Going to move to USA Network next year though.

 

[JavyOO7]

No clue what USA and WWE are thinking by having even MORE wrestling on that channel next January.

 

[oddjobs]

So who turns heel next week? Balor or Joe?

 

[KingBroly]

They wanted to stay the #1 most viewed channel in the US.


Maybe they should've told WWE to get their shit together when it comes to building up talent and storytelling/writing, first.

 

[Data West]

I feel like a neanderthal putting a disc into a disc drive now.

Thanks PWG

 

[British Monsoon]

The show I was at yesterday will be up on VOD before my BOLA DVDs arrive, thanks PWG

 

[Valentus]

No clue what USA and WWE are thinking by having even MORE wrestling on that channel next January.

USA doesnt have own shows that gets the ratings of wwe shows?

 

[Data West]

Melissa Santos makes me feel like liquidsnake

 

[Hex]

So who turns heel next week? Balor or Joe?

Heel jacket Balor, Face demon Balor. You never know which you will get.
Joe bores the shit out of me to be honest, and he would be a boring thug heel
Finn has more potential as heel and I think he enjoys it, but he is also money as a face.

 

[RBH]

No clue what USA and WWE are thinking by having even MORE wrestling on that channel next January.

I sometimes wonder how different things would be if Bonnie Hammer wasn't at USA Network to go to bat for the WWE.

 

[Professor Beef]

I sometimes wonder how different things would be if Bonnie Hammer wasn't at USA Network to go to bat for the WWE.

You really wanna go up against someone legit named "Hammer" though?

 

[oddjobs]

Heel jacket Balor, Face demon Balor. You never know which you will get.
Joe bores the shit out of me to be honest, and he would be a boring thug heel
Finn has more potential as heel and I think he enjoys it, but he is also money as a face.

Yeah I guess heel Balor makes most sense. Not a ton of viable challengers there though... Crews? Gargano (as I guess he'll be signing full time soon?) Zayn once he gets back?

also: dear fucking god Emma & Dana Brooke are terrible.

 

[RBH]

You really wanna go up against someone legit named "Hammer" though?

You wanna play 21?