2014 Pro Wrestling Thread

TNA's fascination with Russo was just mind-blowing. The man was nuclear following the downfall of WCW. He was considered so radioactive, in the bad way, that not even the WWE brought him in for any amount of time, for any reason, even though it would have been an incredibly cheap way to get heat. While they insisted that they had fired or reduced Russo's role multiple times, it didn't show in the product at all, which was almost always booked horribly after the first few years. (My personal appreciation of TNA mostly syncs with Rainman's, although I watched it quite a bit less recently.)

 

I just started reading this. Terrific fun.

 

Ditto, thanks for the link!

 

Some great lines:

 

That's hilarious.

I started to read that earlier tonight but will have to pick it back up later. Some damn good stuff in there so far.

 

heh, Some of it is a little hacky / taking cheap shots - Like I was a fan of Mr. Kennedy in the WWE, and I thought he was a great signing for TNA. Like, him and Jeff Hardy, you want to go after the under-40 guys who were kind of popular at the time of their release. But pretty much everyone they got has been booked into oblivion at one point or another, despite how popular they got in the promotion on their own (Christopher Daniels, Elijah Burke, AJ Styles, Abyss) or how popular they were coming in (Samoa Joe). The only guys who really didn't lose stature were the ones who didn't need boosts up the card anyway - Jarrett, Angle, Sting, etc.

 

More TNA greatness, from the first night of the "Monday Night Wars"

 

This week’s Observer:

- Although Spike is not renewing TNA’s contract, unlike the last time this was an issue with WWE, they’re willing to work with TNA if they do find a new TV home and it’s not a direct competitor. The actual contract expires in two months, and Spike is willing to end it sooner or extend it a small amount if it’ll help out TNA. Spike also isn’t commenting publicly on this; it’s believe the leak originated from TNA’s side. There is some speculation that this is simply a negotiating tactic by Spike, to get TNA to lower their licensing fee or expenses radically.

Two reasons are being given for the non-renewal so far: 1) While TNA’s ratings are above the average of Spike’s typical programming, it’s not a huge factor above the usual rating, and there are most costs involved. Also, wrestling doesn’t attract as many and as lucrative advertising as other programs, since some advertisers aren’t interested at all in it. 2) TNA flat out lied about Vince Russo not being involved in the product anymore, despite repeated requests by Spike that he no longer have any role whatsoever.

Also, from Spike’s perspective, there wasn’t much room for growth for the promotion 10+ years in. If TNA has to greatly scale back (seemingly the best case scenario) it would mean a loss of a lot of jobs, since ROH is already full up of good talent, and Sinclair Broadcasting (their owners) don’t have interest in ramping the promotion up. Global Force Wrestling (Jarrett) still doesn’t have a TV deal, and Mexican promotion AAA is going to start a weekly American series, but it is seen as really niche.

- Daniel Bryan needs a second operation, and will most likely miss five to six months. The neck issue he had before was covering up a nerve issue in his elbow, which is why he only had half the strength in his arm even coming back.

- Kevin Steen wrestled his final ROH show, for now. He’s off to WWE developmental, although they’re somewhat high on him and it’s not expected that he’ll be there for long.

- Scott Hall refused to sign a card for a terminally ill kid at a local show, even though practically everyone else (Goldberg, Christy Hemme, Angelina Love, Lita, Ric Flair) did. It was not well-received.

- Brooke Adams and Samuel Shaw signed new deals with TNA, but they’re per-appearance deals, so there is no cost to TNA if they don’t use them.

- In a shoot interview, Christopher Daniels said TNA was three weeks late with checks in December 2013, which ruined Christmas for a bunch of people.

- Henry Cejudo, 27, chose UFC over the WWE. He’s a former Olympic gold medalist (2008) in freestyle wrestling at 121, and he has a 6-0 record in MMA.

- Sting and WWE are still negotiating terms. It’s thought that internally, something might get done before SummerSlam, since he lives on the West Coast and WWE will be in town anyway. But right now, there isn’t an announcement planned for the event or anything.

- Batista did an interview and said that since he’s 45, he would probably be retiring for good soon. He said he envisioned his retirement match being vs. Triple H at Mania, but it’s believed this is probably more in play for 2016 or later, not this coming year.

- Sheamus missed Raw last week with a severe case of the flu, which has delayed a program with Rusev. It’s believed WWE wants to put the U.S. title on Rusev, to get him even more heat.

 

Also, the latest WWE Network subscriber number came out today: 700,000, barely up from last quarter's 667,000. Most sources were projecting around 850,000, and the network needs around 1.25M to 1.5M overall to break even, depending on expenses and what not. This might explain why they seemingly slashed more contracts than people expected the past month.

 

Bryan out 5-6 months means he can come back around January. Just in time to be No. 30 at the Rumble.

 

Albeit a year late ...

 

That hasn't stopped them before.