Wrestling WWE IX: A Solid B+

[Legato]

Or maybe he was he was worn the hell out from working hurt without the piles of painkillers his coworkers use to get through their schedules. Assuming the straight edge stuff wasn't a work anyways.

He still should have grew a braincell and at least sit down and work some things out with Vince by somehow convince him that he needs a break.

[master of read]

And that was TNA's problem. They cared so much about competing against the E they never even bothered focusing on letting their own company grow. Did anyone really think TNA would have stood a chance against them when they competed against Raw? Of course not.

NXT even has a better show than Impact.

it also didnt help that they kept going after WWE cast offs instead of working on their home grown talent.

speaking of, their HOF pisses me off for a lot of reasons.

[lancerman]

It still makes me sick that TNA really took off when Daniels/Joe/Styles were having those great X division matches. Then they said screw it, everyone wants Angle, Christian, and Sting.

[BeastieRunner]

Random stat Wednesday!

John Cena is 46-2 all time in 2 vs. 1 handicap matches. He’s 13-1 in 3 vs. 1 handicap matches!

[Legato]

It still makes me sick that TNA really took off when Daniels/Joe/Styles were having those great X division matches. Then they said screw it, everyone wants Angle, Christian, and Sting.

The former two had good matches so how is that a bad thing? What hurt TNA was that they tried so hard to be a carbon copy of WWE instead of being its own company. You know what other company tried to mimic WWE before it closed? WCW. TNA made the same kind of mistakes that got WCW out of business.

[Legato]

it also didnt help that they kept going after WWE cast offs instead of working on their home grown talent.

speaking of, their HOF pisses me off for a lot of reasons.

The TNA HOF was basically saying they're not being subtle at mimicking off of the WWE.

It speaks volumes that Sting even jump ship. We are talking about the same guy who stuck with WCW during it's worst times.

[lancerman]

The former two had good matches so how is that a bad thing? What hurt TNA was that they tried so hard to be a carbon copy of WWE instead of being its own company. You know what other company tried to mimic WWE before it closed? WCW. TNA made the same kind of mistakes that got WCW out of business.

Because not for nothing but all their best years were behind them before they debuted in TNA.

[clayholio]

Somebody posted this "fix" today:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Str...nal_Wrestling)

"The Streak is a feat done by WWE Superstar, Bo Dallas throughout his WWE career. With a 18–1 record, it is the single greatest "undefeated" streak in WWE history, after much more meaningless streaks such as the Undertaker's infamous Wrestlemania streak or Bill Goldberg's in World Championship Wrestling With 173 wins and 0 losses. Both The Undertaker and Goldberg's streak were ended earlier than expected, due to the fact they didn't BoLieve."

That's inspirational!

agreed 100%. it makes the opponents look pretty bad too, they're all but admitting they have no chance of winning and the only question is how long it will take them to lose.

I thought it was weird to see WWE fly RVD all the way to Texas just for a ring intro. And when they announced RVD as Rollins' opponent (aside from hoping for a good match), I could only think of RVD's promo in '97 after a PPV match with Lance Storm, where he said he was better than a last-second filler match. He's still better than that.

it also didnt help that they kept going after WWE cast offs instead of working on their home grown talent.

speaking of, their HOF pisses me off for a lot of reasons.

Nah, it didn't help that while WWE was poaching the indies and Ring of Honor in particular, TNA signed exactly no big name indie talents after Nigel McGuinness, and he fell into their laps because his WWE deal fell through. They even had El Generico and Colt Cabana have a try-out match against one another, and TNA signed neither. Basically all of NXT was floating out there, largely unsigned, and TNA went used-car shopping instead.

[Legato]

Nah, it didn't help that while WWE was poaching the indies and Ring of Honor in particular, TNA signed exactly no big name indie talents after Nigel McGuinness, and he fell into their laps because his WWE deal fell through. They even had El Generico and Colt Cabana have a try-out match against one another, and TNA signed neither. Basically all of NXT was floating out there, largely unsigned, and TNA went used-car shopping instead.

Regardless of the excuses one makes for TNA they still failed to try and turn their disadvantage into their advantage. Also TNA did have a partnership with ROH till TNA fucked that up.

[clayholio]

Regardless of the excuses one makes for TNA they still failed to try and turn their disadvantage into their advantage. Also TNA did have a partnership with ROH till TNA fucked that up.

They didn't have a partnership - TNA used to allow their talent to take indie bookings until there was a big storm that threatened people's ability to travel back and forth to shows on a PPV weekend. They tried to pull several guys from a ROH show. Some went early, some didn't, they all made it to the PPV, but that was basically why Austin Aries' first run in TNA didn't amount to much.

TNA deciding not to allow their wrestlers to work on other networks and on other DVD releases may have had something to do with their Spike TV deal.

[Vibranium]

I doubt that...suits don't care about indy bookings, TNA probably wanted to make sure their talent wasn't banging themselves up on someone else mat

[alex]

I doubt that...suits don't care about indy bookings, TNA probably wanted to make sure their talent wasn't banging themselves up on someone else mat

Or they didn't want their talent to get paid more by an indie then they were by the number 2 wrestling promotion in the country.

[BeastieRunner]

Heyman dropping bombs on the MMA hour:

Lesnar back in UFC:
"He had a clean bill of health. He was not ready for the Alistair Overeem fight. A liver kick, well placed, will drop anyone and a liver kick from Alistair Overeem, at that size and that weight, no matter how he attained it, or even if he was 50 pounds lighter, a liver kick from Overeem will drop a horse.

Brock wasn’t healthy. I don’t think Brock has truly understood nor accepted the severity of the illness that took him down. They did blood work on Brock and they found out he wasn’t healthy for many, many years. His body was fighting this affliction off and using so much of his energy.

He was handicapped the entire time. His body is so freakish, he was fighting this thing off and he had enough energy to do those other things while sick.

I think he’s very, very happy right now with what we’re doing in WWE. It’s (returning to fight in UFC) not a subject he has to think about. If the deal ends up over in WWE, if a change of circumstances happens, and if it’s a no-brainer to get him back into the cage, I’m sure it’s something he’d consider. Right now, it’s not a topic of conversation. Why would you mess up the WWE deal?"

And on CM Punk in WWE or MMA:
"I think CM Punk’s mindset is to never come back, and their (WWE) mindset is they never want him back. He’s driven and determined never to go back. He feels that if he ever goes back, it’ll be a sign of failure on his part. His success in life is predicated on the idea he never goes back.

Punk has always had the opinion that at its core, when the cage door gets locked it’s two really capable people punching each other in the face until one drops. Sometimes the skill level is overrated, and the ability to just fight comes into play. He’s educated in MMA. He’ a very serious student of the disciplines and he’s become far more entrenched. He’s a fighter at heart. One of the things that makes it so interesting is he came into the wrestling world as a fighter who ended up performing, not a performer making a transition into the fighting world.”

[alex]

Heyman dropping bombs on the MMA hour:

Lesnar back in UFC:
"He had a clean bill of health. He was not ready for the Alistair Overeem fight. A liver kick, well placed, will drop anyone and a liver kick from Alistair Overeem, at that size and that weight, no matter how he attained it, or even if he was 50 pounds lighter, a liver kick from Overeem will drop a horse.

Brock wasn’t healthy. I don’t think Brock has truly understood nor accepted the severity of the illness that took him down. They did blood work on Brock and they found out he wasn’t healthy for many, many years. His body was fighting this affliction off and using so much of his energy.

He was handicapped the entire time. His body is so freakish, he was fighting this thing off and he had enough energy to do those other things while sick.

I think he’s very, very happy right now with what we’re doing in WWE. It’s (returning to fight in UFC) not a subject he has to think about. If the deal ends up over in WWE, if a change of circumstances happens, and if it’s a no-brainer to get him back into the cage, I’m sure it’s something he’d consider. Right now, it’s not a topic of conversation. Why would you mess up the WWE deal?"

And on CM Punk in WWE or MMA:
"I think CM Punk’s mindset is to never come back, and their (WWE) mindset is they never want him back. He’s driven and determined never to go back. He feels that if he ever goes back, it’ll be a sign of failure on his part. His success in life is predicated on the idea he never goes back.

Punk has always had the opinion that at its core, when the cage door gets locked it’s two really capable people punching each other in the face until one drops. Sometimes the skill level is overrated, and the ability to just fight comes into play. He’s educated in MMA. He’ a very serious student of the disciplines and he’s become far more entrenched. He’s a fighter at heart. One of the things that makes it so interesting is he came into the wrestling world as a fighter who ended up performing, not a performer making a transition into the fighting world.”

I have high hopes that a 35 year old who has been doing pro wrestling since he was 15 would be fantastic in mma.
I also believe in unicorns.

[Vibranium]

Brock does seem to be doing ok considering how serious diverticulitis can get