Wanna Wrestle? #8 - Why Hogan is still Satan and TNA BFG Review.

TNA Bound For Glory Review

Bound for Glory is being built as "TNA's WrestleMania", and for the most part it showed last Sunday. There were a number of matches that were high quality matches. I consider myself a casual fan at best of TNA's work, and I was actually excited at some of the situations going into the PPV. Overall, I would say that the opening half of the PPV was phenomenal, and everybody that was involved looked as good as they are going to look. Unfortunately the wheels fell off the track by the end of the PPV, and it erased all of the good will that the first half did for the product.

Austin Aries (c) vs. Brian Kendrick - Grade: (B+)

Holy hell, how is the X-Division championship still be defending at the beginning of every TNA PPV? Austin Aries continues to be the top guy performing at every TNA show for the past couple of months. He is phenomenal at what he does in the ring, every movement has it's purpose and he has a very natural way of getting the entire crowd behind the match. If I was TNA, I would put everything into Aries. Kendrick continues to not impress me all that much, but him and Aries work fine together. Aries selling the top-rope Sliced Bread #2 was a fantastic moment. Easiest thing to compare it to was The Rock's selling of the Stone Cold Stunner at WrestleMania. Hopefully the X-Division continues to expand past these two guys soon.

RVD vs. Jerry Lynn - Grade: (B)

The easy first reaction to this match is "oh great, another RVD vs. Jerry Lynn match, these were great in 1998". While you are right that we've seen these two fight so many times, you'd forget that these guys always put on a great match. A good hardcore match between the two, even though I have no clue what's next for either person. Van Terminator is always something that will impress me.

Crimson vs. Samoa Joe vs. Mat Morgan - Grade: (C+)

This match was more entertaining than it had any right to be. Samoa Joe vs. Crimson feud might be interesting... even though everyone knows that Joe should be a main eventer by now.

Mr. Anderson vs. Bully Ray - Grade: (B-)

Once again, another match that we've seen about ten times by now. This one went throughout the arena and had a couple of good spots (piledriver on concrete floor). Very reminiscent of old ECW matches.

A Women's Match happened. This might have been the sloppiest match I've witnessed this year... I'd rather not relive it right now.

AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels - Grade: (C)

Oh hey, another AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels match (you might be seeing a pattern with my thoughts on these matches). The match was fine up to the finish, where Styles was walking towards Daniels with a SCREWDRIVER and Daniels just quit before he was murdered. Dumb Dumb Dumb Dumb.

Hulk Hogan vs. Sting - Grade: (F)

I really have no clue where to start with this one. The only moves during the match was punches, Hogan fell down on his back twice, he took a stinger splash and then tapped out to the scorpion death lock. It's a slap in the face to all the younger workers that this match was even allowed to happen, and it helped nobody look better. Hogan's not going to take TNA to the next level, and nobody in the upper management seems to be able to get over that fact... Hogan turned face after the match FOR NO FUCKING REASON WHATSOEVER... I'll talk more about this in the next section.

Kurt Angle vs. Bobby Roode - Grade: (C+)

Time was running out on TNA's PPV time, so they skipped proper introductions for a TNA Championship match, and tried to rush a match into the last 15 minutes of the hour. GEE, IF ONLY YOU HADN'T OF WASTED TIME WITH THE HOGAN/STING MATCH OR THE WOMEN'S SLOPFEST, MAYBE YOU WOULD'VE HAD TIME IN YOUR MAIN EVENT TO PULL OFF A MAIN EVENT WORTHY MATCH. Most of the match was fine, and there was a ton of submission moves that threatened to end the match. Angle ended up winning by cheating, which is a great big "fuck you" to every TNA fan. You have a young wrestler who might set the standard for the future of TNA, and you continue to let some ex-WWE guy hold onto the belt. You didn't even let him win by pinfall, it was a bullshit ending ON YOU BIGGEST PPV!

Congrats TNA, on your biggest PPV of the year you managed to turn so many people away from your product... maybe you should figure out that this is why you only hold events in half-filled arenas:

Calm down with a funny Chris Jericho video:

Fuck Hulk Hogan

So according to multiple wrestling websites, the original plan was to have Bobby Roode win the TNA Championship from Angle, and let Angle take time off away from professional wrestling. This changed when Hogan was offered a contract extension (for two years!) and lobbied in the back for Angle to retain over Bobby Roode. I have read two different things on why this happened:

1. Hogan didn't want his "face-turn" to be in the shadow of Bobby Roode winning the TNA World Championship, or
2. Hogan didn't feel that Bobby Roode was ready to have a run as the World Heavyweight champion.

Days before Bound for Glory, Hogan said that Roode shouldn't be a champion, and he thinks that TNA should promote the living hell out of Jeff Hardy, cause Hogan thinks that he is the future. Now, personally, I think it's very obvious that Hardy should never be anywhere near the championship ever again since he embarrassed the company earlier this year by showing up to the main event pilled out of his mind:

Roode has been with TNA for over ten years, and he's talented enough to hold the TNA Championship. Forcing Roode to lose his match has just about pissed off the entire TNA roster, since there's been disappointment towards Hogan all day on twitter. It's just like WCW all over again. Fuck Hulk Hogan.

TNA Bound For Glory Review

Bound for Glory is being built as "TNA's WrestleMania", and for the most part it showed last Sunday. There were a number of matches that were high quality matches. I consider myself a casual fan at best of TNA's work, and I was actually excited at some of the situations going into the PPV. Overall, I would say that the opening half of the PPV was phenomenal, and everybody that was involved looked as good as they are going to look. Unfortunately the wheels fell off the track by the end of the PPV, and it erased all of the good will that the first half did for the product.

Austin Aries (c) vs. Brian Kendrick - Grade: (B+)

Holy hell, how is the X-Division championship still be defending at the beginning of every TNA PPV? Austin Aries continues to be the top guy performing at every TNA show for the past couple of months. He is phenomenal at what he does in the ring, every movement has it's purpose and he has a very natural way of getting the entire crowd behind the match. If I was TNA, I would put everything into Aries. Kendrick continues to not impress me all that much, but him and Aries work fine together. Aries selling the top-rope Sliced Bread #2 was a fantastic moment. Easiest thing to compare it to was The Rock's selling of the Stone Cold Stunner at WrestleMania. Hopefully the X-Division continues to expand past these two guys soon.

RVD vs. Jerry Lynn - Grade: (B)

The easy first reaction to this match is "oh great, another RVD vs. Jerry Lynn match, these were great in 1998". While you are right that we've seen these two fight so many times, you'd forget that these guys always put on a great match. A good hardcore match between the two, even though I have no clue what's next for either person. Van Terminator is always something that will impress me.

Crimson vs. Samoa Joe vs. Mat Morgan - Grade: (C+)

This match was more entertaining than it had any right to be. Samoa Joe vs. Crimson feud might be interesting... even though everyone knows that Joe should be a main eventer by now.

Mr. Anderson vs. Bully Ray - Grade: (B-)

Once again, another match that we've seen about ten times by now. This one went throughout the arena and had a couple of good spots (piledriver on concrete floor). Very reminiscent of old ECW matches.

A Women's Match happened. This might have been the sloppiest match I've witnessed this year... I'd rather not relive it right now.

AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels - Grade: (C)

Oh hey, another AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels match (you might be seeing a pattern with my thoughts on these matches). The match was fine up to the finish, where Styles was walking towards Daniels with a SCREWDRIVER and Daniels just quit before he was murdered. Dumb Dumb Dumb Dumb.

Hulk Hogan vs. Sting - Grade: (F)

I really have no clue where to start with this one. The only moves during the match was punches, Hogan fell down on his back twice, he took a stinger splash and then tapped out to the scorpion death lock. It's a slap in the face to all the younger workers that this match was even allowed to happen, and it helped nobody look better. Hogan's not going to take TNA to the next level, and nobody in the upper management seems to be able to get over that fact... Hogan turned face after the match FOR NO FUCKING REASON WHATSOEVER... I'll talk more about this in the next section.

Kurt Angle vs. Bobby Roode - Grade: (C+)

Time was running out on TNA's PPV time, so they skipped proper introductions for a TNA Championship match, and tried to rush a match into the last 15 minutes of the hour. GEE, IF ONLY YOU HADN'T OF WASTED TIME WITH THE HOGAN/STING MATCH OR THE WOMEN'S SLOPFEST, MAYBE YOU WOULD'VE HAD TIME IN YOUR MAIN EVENT TO PULL OFF A MAIN EVENT WORTHY MATCH. Most of the match was fine, and there was a ton of submission moves that threatened to end the match. Angle ended up winning by cheating, which is a great big "fuck you" to every TNA fan. You have a young wrestler who might set the standard for the future of TNA, and you continue to let some ex-WWE guy hold onto the belt. You didn't even let him win by pinfall, it was a bullshit ending ON YOU BIGGEST PPV!

Congrats TNA, on your biggest PPV of the year you managed to turn so many people away from your product... maybe you should figure out that this is why you only hold events in half-filled arenas:

Calm down with a funny Chris Jericho video:

Fuck Hulk Hogan

So according to multiple wrestling websites, the original plan was to have Bobby Roode win the TNA Championship from Angle, and let Angle take time off away from professional wrestling. This changed when Hogan was offered a contract extension (for two years!) and lobbied in the back for Angle to retain over Bobby Roode. I have read two different things on why this happened:

1. Hogan didn't want his "face-turn" to be in the shadow of Bobby Roode winning the TNA World Championship, or
2. Hogan didn't feel that Bobby Roode was ready to have a run as the World Heavyweight champion.

Days before Bound for Glory, Hogan said that Roode shouldn't be a champion, and he thinks that TNA should promote the living hell out of Jeff Hardy, cause Hogan thinks that he is the future. Now, personally, I think it's very obvious that Hardy should never be anywhere near the championship ever again since he embarrassed the company earlier this year by showing up to the main event pilled out of his mind:

Roode has been with TNA for over ten years, and he's talented enough to hold the TNA Championship. Forcing Roode to lose his match has just about pissed off the entire TNA roster, since there's been disappointment towards Hogan all day on twitter. It's just like WCW all over again. Fuck Hulk Hogan.

Why is Samoa Joe still at TNA? Better question, why does TNA still exist? Though to be honest, I don't think I've watched TNA since it first came into being, so I can't really comment too much (other than that I think Samoa Joe deserves better (though is WWE really better?)).

 (other than that I think Samoa Joe deserves better (though is WWE really better?))/

Triple H inducted Mil Mascaras into the WWE Hall of Fame yesterday.

@MooseyMcMan said:

Why is Samoa Joe still at TNA? Better question, why does TNA still exist? Though to be honest, I don't think I've watched TNA since it first came into being, so I can't really comment too much (other than that I think Samoa Joe deserves better (though is WWE really better?)).

WWE is more reliable of a place to be at. If you're under 40 and in TNA, it seems impossible to be considered a main eventer. It's down right silly that Hogan is still considered the center of the company, even though his "house hold name" doesn't bring in as many additional viewers as TNA wishes it would.

@CL60 said:

Triple H inducted Mil Mascaras into the WWE Hall of Fame yesterday.

Saw that... I don't know how I feel about him being announced before Randy Savage (even though it was done as a cheap pop in Mexico)

I actually thought that the Hogan-Sting match was much better than I anticipated. That being said, my expectations were about as low as humanly possible, so I guess that's not saying much. But still, I don't think it was the complete and utter trainwreck that everyone expected. And I'd be lying to you if I said that I didn't mark the fuck out for Hogan's face turn. I know, I know. He's a cancer to TNA and he has no business on TV. But seeing him Hulk up and take out the bad guys made me smile like the little kid that at one point actually liked Hulk Hogan.

That being said, all that goodwill was immediately crushed by the main event. What is to gain by having Angle win this match? He's injured, old and off to tryout for the Olympics soon. Not to mention a drunk who has embarrassed the company in the last year more than anyone not named Hardy. I don't understand how you hype up this huge Bound for Glory series and the struggle of Bobby Roode since the beginning of his career in TNA to just have him lose just like that. The whole came off as a giant waste of time for all involved. Roode will probably win the title at the next PPV or something but why not let Roode have his moment at your "biggest event of the year"?

If Hogan truly had a hand in the main event, that is complete and utter bullshit. Hogan has made clear his feelings about Roode, claiming that he's "not ready to be champion." In which case, fuck Hulk Hogan. As giddy as his face turn made me for those few seconds, fuck Hulk Hogan.

Sorry Loved the Sting vs Hogan match, the only reason I watched and it will be one of my most memorable matches next to Hogan v Goldberg, Flair v Steamboat, Edge v Mick Foley, Rock V Foley. Even if Hogan was fragile that was still a great match and he showed why he is a legend by STILL making a crowd (even the small one) sound as loud as any other event.

Let's experiment: Porsche, Corvette, Viper, Lamborgini, Ferrari, Ford Taurus

The Rock, Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold, Kurt Angle, Bobby Roode. Anything seem out of place on those lists?

The sad truth of the matter is Bobby is great in the ring but he doesn't have the 'it' factor everyone is talking about these days. John Cena? like him or not he's got 'it'. CM Punk? Orton? They have 'it'. Kurt Angle? Sting? Yup. Bobby Roode? AJ? not quite. These guys have the talent as seen by their in ring abilities on par with Kurt who is the best in the business. But as far as being THE guy on the show? He's good but he's not Randy Orton or CM Punk...yet.

I give it 4/5.

I give Wrestlemania this year .5/5 worst $50 dollars I could have spent. In fact WWE in general this year with the exception of a few guys has been so bad I stopped watching it.

I started following TNA lately, based almost entirely on their build of the Roode vs. Angle main event and, wow, I am probably going to return to not giving a shit for years now. I don't know how anyone other than Hogan can justify that finish, and even then, how could no one else on the creative team step in and point out how momentum destroying it is.

@Milkman: I think I've seen and ready too many shitty things about Hogan that makes me want to never like him again... Even though Hogan's antics caused one of my favorite youtube videos ever when HBK put Hogan in his place during a wrestling match.

you haven't changed a bit, TNA.  
 
OH WHY ARE YOUR FINISHES SO BAD. I THOUGHT YOU GUYS GOT RID OF RUSSO.

@TurboMan: You're right. And believe me, I felt kind of bad that I was enjoying anything that Hogan was doing. But it was just a moment that brought me back to being a kid before I knew anything about backstage politics and I just wanted to see Hulk Hogan leg drop the shit out of everyone. If anything, Hulk proved that he could still make a crowd go wild, for better or for worse.

@pplus0440: I think the problem is that they've never given Roode a chance to shine. I would agree that Roode is dull as a face, but some of his heel work as the leader of Team Canada is great. I stopped watching TNA for a while after Russo got involved at first, but people tell me he was fantastic and got legitimate heel heat from the brain-dead crowd at the Impact Zone.

The crowd was fully behind Roode last night and when he lost, it's impossible to not to notice the silent disappointment in the crowd. If that doesn't tell you that he's over with the audience, I don't know what would.

@Milkman: It's very true that the crowd still goes apeshit for Hogan... but the company's ratings and attendance has never went up with him...

eh, I'm tired of ranting for now, gonna watch Raw.

Reading this post reminds me that I need to take TNA off the record list on my DVR. At first I put it on there to see what "the other guys" are doing. The past couple of months, I've just fast forwarded through the video to find out what the storylines are. I think the Hogan vs. Sting and Angle vs. Rooderesults are the final nails in the coffin for me.
 
Every time I see an X Division match listed as one of the best (if not THE best) match of an event, it makes me wish WWE would bring back the Cruiserweight division.

I haven't watched TNA in ages. I just get depressed with the mismanagement of talent like Alex Shelley, Samoa Joe, Douglas Williams and the list goes on and on. Ugh. Scuttlebutt is that Dave Lagana has gotten a position in booking now. Maybe there's hope.

Though I will say one thing. I love Beer Money and think they've been one of the greatest tag teams of the last few years. I think Bobby Roode is a good wrestler. He carries himself well on the mic and he seldom has a bad match. However, I kinda feel like this push should've gone to his tag partner James Storm. He's just as talented, but he has more of a character/gimmick for people to latch on to. Hell, he's even been in TNA longer than Roode.

About a week ago I thought "Wrestling is fucking dumb". It made me sad. I love the matches when they're good but most of the time they aren't. The stories are absolutely abysmal. If only I was ten again.

Glad to see that TNA is still fucking terrible and I'm not missing anything by not watching it. I have tried time and time again, and it fails on every occasion. The Hardy/Sting fiasco renewed my interest in it, but that was only because I was curious to see if it was physically possible for it to get any worse. TNA has some talent and could be better. They have the potential to grow and expand. But they push the wrong guys and the booking is consistently awful.

@W0lfbl1tzers: I'd recommend checking out ROH, extremely excellent matches that treat wrestling as if it were a sport more that stories. The only strong set back for introducing people to it is that they're extremely private in terms of sharing their matches for free. So here's a sketchy link to one of my favorite matches of all time: http://rutube.ru/tracks/163353.html?v=3cfc021c8247ca76c2904086cf743eeb

@TeflonBilly: I like James Storm a lot also, I think the main event push could have went to either person.

I just got back into watching TNA for the so bad it's good feel of it. I'm still not sure if it's TNA or Impact Wrestling though. Anyway, I'm really tired of Hogan and I can't believe Roode lost. You don't end your biggest show's Main Event with the face losing unless something big is planned. At least Wrestlemania had The Rock, Bound for Glory just had disappointment. Gotta love Austin Aries though. It's too bad if your name isn't AJ Styles the X Division is your permanent home.

TNA has been on the decline for a few years, they are mishandling somoa joe for a while now and they seems to rehas hstorrlines like it new again. Angle winning i don't mind but HOgan match sound like it expected, a rating boost nothing else. TNA has a lot of poternital they jsut need good booking, Pre 2009 TNA was really awesome before it became WWE retirement home

TNA had promise but when WWE went "PG" they decided   Oh lets do the opposite and try  WAY WAY too hard to be "edgy" because people are obviously complaining about  WWE's PG shows!   We'll get all the disgruntled WWE fans!  *sigh*    Shame too cause  Samoa Joe , Kurt Angle and  AJ Styles are good workers.

David Lagana is taking over writing for TNA it seems. He is really good, I've listened to a lot of podcasts with him, know people who worked with him in RoH. And can't be worse than Russo right?

It becomes whether he can convince everyone that TNA shouldn't be a 1999 WCW reunion tour. The funniest part of all of this seem to be Sting winning clean, which was the giant mistake made the first time.

TNA has a huge problem looming beyond Sting, Hogan and Flair being currently important. They seem to be revolving quickly to Angle and Jeff Hardy, which anyone reading this should know isn't a good idea. And the ever looming idea that Jeff Jarrett thinks the best wrestler is Jeff Jarrett, which has been true.... never. Samoa Joe is also a shell of his former self.

I might do a write up of WWE Vengaence because that also looks like a train wreck, With very few matches announced, and the ones that are being something like Henry vs Big Show that scream placeholder. If Giantbomb can handle two wrestling blogs that will be the point where WWE had to ruin every great thing they had going just because they scheduled 3 PPVs and a Mexican tour in 5 weeks.

@pplus0440 said:

Sorry Loved the Sting vs Hogan match, the only reason I watched and it will be one of my most memorable matches next to Hogan v Goldberg, Flair v Steamboat, Edge v Mick Foley, Rock V Foley. Even if Hogan was fragile that was still a great match and he showed why he is a legend by STILL making a crowd (even the small one) sound as loud as any other event.

Let's experiment: Porsche, Corvette, Viper, Lamborgini, Ferrari, Ford Taurus

The Rock, Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold, Kurt Angle, Bobby Roode. Anything seem out of place on those lists?

The sad truth of the matter is Bobby is great in the ring but he doesn't have the 'it' factor everyone is talking about these days. John Cena? like him or not he's got 'it'. CM Punk? Orton? They have 'it'. Kurt Angle? Sting? Yup. Bobby Roode? AJ? not quite. These guys have the talent as seen by their in ring abilities on par with Kurt who is the best in the business. But as far as being THE guy on the show? He's good but he's not Randy Orton or CM Punk...yet.

I give it 4/5.

I give Wrestlemania this year .5/5 worst $50 dollars I could have spent. In fact WWE in general this year with the exception of a few guys has been so bad I stopped watching it.

I disagree, back when I watched TNA I thought AJ was one of the few people I actually thought was decent to watch,although I still don't think Bobby Roode has what "it" is you're talking about

@GorillaMoPena: The ultimate goal is to push the favor of Whiskey Media into creating a Wrestling Wiki site, so we can have as many wrestling blogs as it takes :)

I say this, why not take th run with Roode, what do you really lose?

You're not exactly drawing in gangbusters, and the guy holding your belt now is fucking broken

I'm sorry Kurt Angle fans, dude is done, from chomping pills, DUIs, bad neck, and just atrophy due to being off the gas Angle in his mind still thinks he can put on 5 star classics, but they are nothign more than 15 min wankfest, blow through all our spots matches.

While Sting and Hogan are long past their sell-by-date I feel the match was inoffensive, but let's stop now TNA.

@TurboMan said:

TNA Bound For Glory Review

Congrats TNA, on your biggest PPV of the year you managed to turn so many people away from your product... maybe you should figure out that this is why you only hold events in half-filled arenas:

When was that taken? I saw a full arena for the Hogan 'match', it didn't seem like any trickery was afoot.

Calm down with a funny Chris Jericho video:

I haven't seen this before, Jericho is awesome as a heel.

James Storm won the title at the tapings tonight. :)

@Barrock said:

James Storm won the title at the tapings tonight. :)

AH! Spoiler!

..that's actually very interesting and it's easy to see that Roode is going to get that heel turn again

I liked the RVD match and the AJ Styles match (until that one went to shit)

Everything else was fucking terrible. I don't want to watch 50+ year old men dance around the ring trading fake punches. Roode not winning is retarded.

There is a massive gap left in wrestling since WWE started all the PG shit that TNA could be filling, but they seem more interested in becoming a retirement home.

@Barrock: thats good to hear

i actually exited to see if kurt angle can go the distance in the olympics

@Barrock said:

James Storm won the title at the tapings tonight. :)

Just read the spoilers. Appearantly Storm won the match in under three minutes, so I'm guessing it's safe to assume that he was legitimately injured during Bound for Glory. Now I'm happy that Storm is the champion, he deserves it even though there was no build up for it, but I have to wag my finger once again at Hulk Hogan. In the interviews before BFG, Hogan was actually praising Storm, saying that he was the real deal and not Roode (or something to that nature).

Once again, hopefully this will lead to a logical Roode heel run vs. James Storm (which would actually be damn entertaining).

Another thing: Why the fuck does anyone listen to Hogan when he wants to push that piece of shit Jeff Hardy when he can't even main event without being on pills? Any other industry and he would have been fired for working in that state.

Weird that Storm won the belt, earlier today I heard Angle would only be out for one week after the injury on sunday.

@Humphreys said:

When was that taken? I saw a full arena for the Hogan 'match', it didn't seem like any trickery was afoot.

Oh, but there was video trickery! It's actually something that WWE Smackdown shows are guilty of as well... but here's the match (mirrored, but it still shows a bit of proof)

There's a good wide-shot at about 1:12 (sting's entrance) that will show you half-full, half empty. There's a good six rows along that right side, but there's nobody after that, giving it a look of an arena that's packed...

Here's what it looks like when Smackdown tickets don't sell well...

Sorry for the late reply, but I was at Bound for Glory on Sunday. My friend bought the tickets and I paid him for mine when we left the arena. He noted that the turnout was a bit less than the one for the last PPV that TNA had done in Philadelphia. Not all of the seating in the arena was being used. It was weird to see Don West making his way through the crowd and greeting attendees. I thought it was a nice touch. We also got to see some wrestlers in the crowd and as staff. Axl Rotten, an ECW veteran, stood near our seats and bowed when people started an 'ECW' chant. He would later go up to the special seats and chat with Vader and a couple of other folks. We also saw D-Lo Brown and Vince Russo walking along behind the scenes. Russo is still with the company. He has just been down-sized in terms of his position. Also, the dark match for the event was Ink Inc. vs. The Mexican Americans. It was a decent match, but, like all of the title matches that night, the champions retained.

I agree with your sentiments for most of the matches. The Aries-Kendrick match was my favorite of the bunch as well. The second Sliced Bread No. 2 that Kendrick missed on the apron looked pretty brutal. Kendrick is a pretty solid wrestler and it showed in his work with Aries. After the show, a number of people complained about the placement of the final two matches. They felt that the Hogan-Sting match stole all the thunder for the title match. As it turned out, the crowd was torn between supporting Angle and Roode. The crooked finish didn't help matters either. Unfortunately, I think Hogan, Flair, and Jeff Hardy got the biggest pops of the night. I like those guys and I gave Flair and Hogan standing ovations, but, as you have noted, fresh blood is needed.

The WWE is able to create star wrestlers. Thus far, Impact Wrestling has coasted on signed talent and it showed in this PPV. It was not a bad PPV, but it was a little sad to think that this event was supposed to be Impact Wrestling's best effort.

@jewunit: Just curious, was there any kind of reaction when Russo was found walking around?

I love that you're still keeping up with this wrestling blog. Being able to read/talk wrestling on GB just seems great to me. Ok, just wanted to get that out of the way.

As for the PPV, the main thing that I just throw my hands up in the air over is the Angle vs Roode thing. I said to one of my friends last Thursday "Only a company that has no fucking idea what it's doing would give Roode as much of a push as they're giving him right now, and have been giving him for weeks now, just to deny him the title at the PPV. How much you want to that bet Angle wins?" Hogan needs to go on and bugger off.

At one point, back when WWE had started doing their whole "let's have guest star general managers!" I stopped watching that and started watching just TNA because I couldn't put up with the crap that the WWE was putting out around that time. Some point within the last year or so I started watching WWE again because of what Hogan and crew have done to TNA since showing up. I still watch TNA, mostly because at this point it just feels like watching a train wreck. You know it's going to be terrible, you know that you want to look away, that nothing good will come from it, but...curiosity keeps you watching, to see just how bad it really is going to be.

At the same time that I want to bitch and moan about what hogan is doing to TNA and how I can't wait for him to just go away (I'd prefer for him to just up and quit and have some amount of class with it, but I'm expecting he won't go away until he either suffers some horrible medical condition that prevents him from still getting involved or he dies) I also can't give the people in charge at TNA a pass either. If they can't see why he is bad, that he has way too much influence for one man, and that he only barely knows what he's talking about anymore, then they're just as much at fault as he is.

Let's look at it this way by comparing what this storyline most closely resembles, Christian's first title run-

TNA gives Roode a huge push as a face, hype him up for weeks, maybe even months, about this guy that's been with the company for ages and still hasn't really had a shot for the TNA title, for this title shot at BFG, against Angle, a guy who was supposed to be leaving to go train for the Olympics what feels like ages ago and is quickly deteriorating in health (and who also has a very shoddy excuse to be a heel at the moment), and then they deny Roode the title just to (as it is looking anyway) have Storm win the title and make Roode go heel over it. (holy run on sentence, but I don't feel like fixing it right now.)

Let's compare that to WWE who last minute had to substitute Christian in as a number one contender against Alberto when Edge had to suddenly retire. Christian wins the title, they make a big deal about how he's been with the company so long and this is his very first title run, he fulfilled his dream and then....he gets robbed of the moment by Orton, causing him to turn heel in rage at his constant loosing to Orton. I still feel bad for Christian about that whole ordeal, he got such a short end of the stick during that whole storyline. Anyway, the point is, his heel turn felt slightly more natural. He was face, then he was face but you could tell he was getting angry, then he was heel and giving him the title in the first place helped make his heel turn more believable. If he had just simply lost the match to Alberto and then did a heel turn after that for no reason, it would feel kind of weak. Which is what they're doing to Roode.

The real kicker here is that while Roode winning the title from Angle and then losing it to Storm would have made so much more sense story wise, they'd run the risk even more of looking like they were just ripping off a WWE story (which they've certainly been accused of in the recent past. Such as when Sin Cara came to the WWE they had a "new mexican wrestler" show up.) But at least Storm stealing away the title from Roode would have felt better. Roode just getting pissy because Storm won it instead of him after he blew his chance and then had the company screw him out of a rematch despite the "controversial" ending to his match against Angle just sounds... I dunno, it sounds like something that TNA's probably already done before. Sort of like "Angle's turning heel because Hogan said Dixie was to blame for everything, and he bought it!" or "Hardy's turning heel because the fans don't appreciate him and his sacrifices enough but Hogan gets him!" (though that was at least better than the reason for angle's turn, but it all sort of just starts to feel the same coming out of TNA. But I sort of blame the fact that they've essentially had one single storyline going on now for well over a year.)

Anyways, that's my immediate thoughts on the matter.. partially because I'm getting really tired and feel like at some point there the things I was trying to say probably got away from me.

Edit: Wait, I know where I roughly know the Roode vs Storm storyline from, back when AJ won the title and then Daniels turned on his "long time friend because he was jealous of his success and tired of always being in his shadow." At the very least, it really, really reminds me of that.. But I guess this is wrestling and storylines get repeated like something that gets repeated a lot... give me a break, I'm too tired to think of some good analogy.

@TurboMan: Not really. He was mainly just sitting around the Spanish announce table. No one approached him or called out to him as far as I know. My friend joked that he couldn't stand after the Hogan-Sting match because he was so rock-hard for it. It did seem like something that Russo would put together.