ExcellenceofAirPollution

Punk's flying elbow was fine when he first started using it. It was after he started having problems with his hip that he started doing it the way he does now. I remember a match with someone (I think it was Ambrose) where Ambrose was out of position and Punk did the move reverse onto his bad hip and Meltzer reported that he was hurting for weeks after that. On Orton.....I don't get the complaint about his offense or his psychology. He has a finisher that targets the head and neck....and a lot of his offense targets the head and neck. The chinlock. The draping DDT. The euro uppercuts and forearms. The Garvin Stomp ends with a stomp to the head. Even his super finisher the punt kick. A lot of his offense looks great too. He throws the best dropkick in WWE and one of the best I've ever seen quite frankly in terms of elevation and snap. He's got a great looking snap powerslam. Throws great euro uppercuts. The RKO almost always look great and he's got the leaping ability to hit it on a guy who's on the top rope. I can see the argument that he sticks to his signature moves and doesn't change up his arsenal enough for a guy who's been on TV for so long, but that's not just him, that's pretty much everyone in the WWE. That's the WWE style.

Sabu liked marching to his own drum and was so influenced by his uncle he wouldn't have had the mentality that going to WWF means "you made it". I know he's commented on shoots about how WWF was never a goal. He only went to WCW in 95 when he had the falling out with Heyman and they would let him work Japan as well, but quickly left because he hated it there. When he went to WWECW in 2006 he knew it was his last chance to make good money there. Plus they agreed to put The Sheik in the HOF

On the last audio show Meltzer specifically said that Sapolsky and Feinstein watched the King of Indies tape and it gave them the idea for ROH

James Iha on a pole

Also, I'd get rid of F'n Taz and Mike Tenay. Nothing against Tenay, he's just too associated with the stink of TNA at this point. Whole new announce crew. And as other people have said....NO MORE ON AIR AUTHORITY FIGURES. Have a Tunney/Bockwinkel type president who steps in when absolutely needed. Pattern yourself after real sports and have a Stern/Selig/Goodell type. David Stern doesn't pop up on NBATV to announce he's booked a basketball game, or punish a disobedient team by having to play the Spurs. Or try to create a Dana White type figure. Just no more bullshit authority figures, it's beyond played out, and it's pathetic how they're just directly copying WWE right now trying to make Dixie into Stephanie McMahon.

The fantasy booking in this thread is pretty interesting - First things first you change the name. Rumor has it that Bischoff & Hogan spearheaded the idea of rebranding it "IMPACT Wrestling" but Dixie felt the TNA name had too much cache to toss away, so you got the half-assed "TNA presents IMPACT Wrestling" or whatever nonsense, and it just confused people. TNA is a stupid fucking name. Always has been always will be. Yeah, "TNA" has notoriety, it's notorious as the butt of jokes to wrestling fans. IMPACT Wrestling (or the IWF as I'd brand it) is a fine name. - Second, you're a niche product inside a niche industry. Forget about trying to be the WWE, it will NEVER HAPPEN, and that shouldn't be your goal. Focus on the things that wrestling fans want to see that WWE doesn't give them. - There's a lot of wrestling fans who want to see serious womens matches, a serious womens division, and to see women treated with respect as serious athletes. Hell, this isn't just wrestling, society as a whole takes female athletics way more seriously than in the past, and it's the 21st century, gender equality isn't going away. This is one of the few things TNA did really well at one point, and for whatever reason just stopped focusing on. I would put a huge amount of effort and emphasis into the womens division. There's enough talent out there to make the division really special. - Gimmicks and VIOLENCE. And I don't mean stupid fucking gimmicks like TNA is famous for, or juice just for the sake of it, or people falling off ladders through tables, but legit old school violent matches that are treated like the matter. I saw a WWE clip recently where Shawn Michaels was just crimson mask covered in blood, and it was shocking to me because, well, it wasn't that long ago that you'd see something like that in WWE, but it feels like forever. There are a lot of wrestling fans who want to see that sort of realism again. - FOREIGN TALENT. I've heard lipservice to the idea that WWE wants latino stars, but I don't see the proof in the pudding. Their biggest hangup is having guys who speak english and have "the look". I think Del Rio is a great worker, but we all know that's not why they hired him and pushed him like they have. Newsflash....you don't have to speak English well or at all to get over. Look at baseball. Look at UFC. Look at boxing. Huge latino stars in those sports who barely speak english. Have an interpreter for their interviews. Who cares?! If I was running a promotion one of the main things I'd do is find the best latino talent I could. The luchadores got over big in WCW almost 20 years ago now! and most of them couldn't cut promos. Yeah, I'd make it a point to have language coaches so guys could say basic stuff in English as needed, but it's really not a big deal. Japan as well. When Japanese guys are brought over and treated and pushed with respect, if they're good they get over. Historically that is the case. TNA hasn't pushed ONE Japanese guy well. Not one. WWE has a better track record, and that's saying something because their track record sucks. TNA has had Tanahashi, Okada, No Limit, LIGER walk through their doors and not done shit with them. There is amazing talent in Japan right now that would get super over in the US. Use them. Make relationships with Japanese promotions. - Disassociate your identity from WWE as much as possible. No more "WWE" guys on the roster. If your name is associated with WWE you're out. No more Mr. Andersons. Angle I would just fire anyway because he's such a lunatic, but no more Kurt Angle. No more Jeff Hardy. Etc. etc. ECW took off when they created their own stars, or reinvented people's careers. They didn't trade off the fame that WWE or WCW gave someone, at least not the way TNA does. When they did it was done in a way that put ECW and native talent over. And eventually ECW as a brand was established, and they'd bring in guys from WCW or the WWF and it didn't feel like a shitty copy of what those companies did. Those are my big things. I think there is so much potential there for a company that does those things. That's the kind of promotion I'd love to watch, and I feel like a lot of people out there would get behind it

"undisclosed celebrity" could be Mark Cuban

The weird thing with their promotion, or lack thereof, of house shows is that they've shown they're capable of promoting the hell out of shows on a local level at times. Not often, but at times, and the houses have shown it. I don't know why they didn't consistently promote shows, probably a combination of general incompetence and money. But if they couldn't afford to staff a dedicated street team for local marketing, maybe like 5 people to just set up partnerships and sponsorships with local businesses, make connections with people who can promote the show for you, go and shake hands, put up posters and flyers etc etc. they didn't have any business running a lot their shows. Promoting an event isn't rocket science. They handled the booking thing in the worst, most short-sighted way imaginable. Once they got on Spike they got it in their heads that they were now a big time national promotion, and that national tv was payment enough and they weren't going to leave any more money on the table. Except they were still the same old TNA that very few people pay to see, and they weren't competent enough to turn it into a deal that actually worked for their wrestlers. And they saw ROH as competition too I guess, and didn't want them benefiting from using TNA wrestlers. I can understand not wanting guys working for ROH, but not letting them book their own dates, taking a cut of their pay, and not letting them show up on a DVD if it was say Chikara or PWG was ridiculous

Doink was never wildly popular ever, unless you want to count this board fifteen years after the fact. Doink was popular in that Vince McMahon "Ha Ha HAAAAA!!" mode where the more he laughed, the more desperate he sounded. If fans reacted the way Vince wanted to, who knows how far he could have gone. Heel Doink was awesome, but what made him awesome was so ahead of its time that Vince would never have gotten it. And when fans started to take to him, Vince took the completely opposite reasons why, and made him the waste of space that he became. He was a psycho in clown makeup who could wrestle you and destroy you while he looked stupid. Then he turned into a legit comedy wrestler who pandered to everybody because he was a clown. And the whole point was lost. Doink wasn't wildly popular, but he was a popular character for a while, mainly with kids. The fact that the gimmick is still around 20 years later on random indy shows speaks to that. There's a million paint or mask gimmicks to throw on random guys, but that's one that's drawn for indies

I guess i just assumed since they seem to be keeping Rollins & Reigns together, and Ambrose looks more like the babyface type. I'm the exact opposite. Reigns is the one with huge superstar babyface potential, and Rollins seems like he'd be a good babyface Ambrose seems like a natural heel to me I expect them to both turn on Ambrose. I'm hoping it doesn't happen too soon, and that they don't botch it and the followup the way they did when they split up Legacy. I could also see them doing a deal where just Reigns splits off, and they keep The Shield around with Ambrose, Rollins and a new member. It's a great gimmick that probably has a longer shelf life than just the original 3, as long as they keep Ambrose as the leader

It's all speculation. Only person who said it could be FOX is a guy in this thread. If it was Fox it would be primarily tv driven, but if they could do live dates that make money they would do it. And if someone semi-competent was in charge of booking dates and promoting them they could make money. TNA is so weird when it comes to house shows. They run in places like Miss, Louisiana and Texas often and draw shit crowds, yet still book shows there. Maybe because talent could drive and didn't have to be flown in, I don't know. They've always drawn better in places like NY/NJ, Philly area and Chicago. I'm sure the reason they didn't run those places more is the price of booking the venues and flying in talent, but it's better than drawing flys in the bumfuck south. As far as TNA controlling the indy booking rights of their talent and taking a cut of it, it's one of the worst moves they've ever made, and that's a long list. For what they pay the people who would do indy gigs, and how little they book them on shows, that's shameful. Especially given the fact that a lot of guys could make more with indy gigs than being paid by TNA minus the cut they take. It also probably cost them a lot of credibility and talent that might have potentially been looking at them as an option. It's so widely known the way they screw over talent at this point that only people who have no shot at being hired by WWE look to go there. All the best talent now just waits it out for the chance of a WWE tryout.

Fox buying them would be the greatest thing that ever happened to them, but that means they end the deal with Spike, and that seems like the biggest chip TNA has. And I don't know how that would work with the international deals, most of which are with different entities, many of which have channels owned by Fox as competitors I was actually thinking maybe Sinclair should try to buy them, and roll them together with ROH. They have obscene amounts of money and have been growing rapidly in terms of the channels they hold interest in. They could afford it. And if they're serious about wrestling being part of their programing, getting TNA's talent and especially production crew would be a huge improvement for them. Again though, that might kill the deal with Spike. On Gail Kim....who is Robert Irvine and why is he famous? Is he known mainstream? I've never heard of the guy. WWE would absolutely want her regardless of who she's married to, but I don't know if the interest would be mutual. Isn't the reason she jumped from TNA to WWE because she felt like she couldn't turn down the contract they offered, and ended up being miserable and underpushed and jumped back as soon as the contract was up? So yeah, she might not be hot on the idea of going back there On EY.....I definitely think they'd want him. He's not the same guy as Colt Cabana. He's also a better worker for what they want, and funnier. I get the sense that Cabana's attitude in developmental might have hurt him too, the way he talks about it now. He didn't like being stuck there for so long, and he despised Bill Demott. I think they put him on tv the way they did as a rib on him. Getting video time on wwe.com was likely Joey Styles....and Cabana claims that the decision makers had no idea about it and don't pay attention to stuff like that. Which I believe considering the time. They seem to pay more attention now, but there's still tons of stuff on wwe.com that you would never see on tv.

On the ratings, 3 hours is a killer. It drags the # down. People know to watch at 8 now, unlike in the past when they'd do 3 hour specials and they'd get the big spike at 9 because people didn't realize. Now people know, but only idiots and masochists like us can sustain through the full show. The rating drops in hour 2 and drops in hour 3 because people just don't want to watch a wrestling show for that long, not to mention that a lot of RAW is "filler" now. I like that a lot of the talent gets to be on TV on Mondays now, but a lot of it people will just change the channel on. When you see the breakdowns now there's huge segment to segment swings, in addition to the usual patterns. To the guy who blamed the contract signing, I bet it did a good #. People are conditioned to tune in to the last segment, and everyone was expecting Big Show or Vince or some big angle there. That had zero negative impact on ratings. Also, it's fall. The NFL always takes a bite out of their ratings. It was worse before MNF moved to ESPN and SNF became the showcase national game. I know this, you all should know this, and WWE sure as hell knows it. Which is why it's so amazing when people still talk about the fall ratings drop like it matters and try to pin blame on anything but the obvious. The WWE does it as well, and often panics. It's hilarious.

Let's say WWE buys it (I seriously doubt this will happen) or they just closeup shop and all their talent is on the open market - Sting goes to WWE for sure. Heck, he might be headed there anyway - I don't know what Hogan is doing right now, but he's no doubt going back to WWE at some point - Hardy they would absolutely hire - Angle.....I kind of doubt it. That he sent feelers out to them when his last contract was up and they had no interest was pretty telling. The guy is a trainwreck, who they ran out of their company in unprecedented fashion. The fact that TNA has employed him all these years, through multiple arrests and public incidents, obvious drug and HGH/steroid use, and just general insanity, says everything about their company. Maybe at some point if Kurt chills out they'd put him in the HOF, but then again, I don't expect Kurt to chill out anytime soon. - I think they would bring in Samoa Joe for a few reasons. A) he's good, and they can always use good performers. B )He's one of the few guys that actually drew money in TNA, and I'm sure WWE is aware of that, and C) he's got some friends in high places there - Storm and AJ might be shit out of luck. Too old to put too the system, and too "TNA" to push on the roster, is what they'd probably think. If they were desperate I could see them bringing in AJ and giving him a push, but I don't think they're desperate right now (other than when it comes to John Cena) - I've read and heard for years that Bubba will never be welcome back in their lockerroom, and I tend to believe that. Again, if they were desperate maybe, but I don't see it. He's 42, and a prick. He can ride out the rest of his career making good money in the indies/foreign circuits. - Ken Anderson? No f'n way. He pissed off all the right people - Magnus? Probably. He's young and he's got the right look, and he doesn't seem to have the TNA stink yet because they haven't majorily screwed up his pushes yet, though that may be happening as we speak - As for the rest of the roster, I feel like WWE would poach some names you wouldn't expect. Wes Brisco probably gets another shot due to family connections. They'd probably bring in several of the women. Taryn would deserve to be signed but probably wouldn't. Gail would have a job if she wanted it. Maybe Tapa, though she's kind of redundant since Snuka has the same gimmick. I could see Eric Young because they like versatile comedic performers like him and he's kinda mainstream with his tv show. Guys like Ion, Spud and Robbie E might get a look, but would for sure be sent to Florida.

Yeah....I'm calling bullshit on this. And I'm not exactly a big Nattie fan, and she's not as good as she used to be, but it's true that she's the girl they ask to go out there and make the girls they want to push look good. Her looking bad or the matches she's in looking awkward isn't exactly her fault. I like Summer Rae a lot, and maybe she's had some more entertaining matches than Nattie has, I haven't seen any of her in NXT. Hell, I find her far more entertaining than Natty on WWE tv already. But that doesn't make Summer Rae a better worker. Put Summer in there with Aksana or someone like that and ask her to make them look good. At least Summer when given the chance can look good and shows some real potential. Nattie gave the entire match to her.

I can't tell if Harper is working this way on purpose or not, as part of the gimmick. He does tend to look clumsy and sloppy. I didn't see a ton of Brodie Lee on the indies, mostly Chikara, and he wasn't that way like he appears to be now. Maybe age and injuries catching up? Punk looked to be bleeding around the hairline, but I couldn't tell if that was from the Wyatt beatdown or part of the table catching him after the elbow drop What's up with the complete disregard for Ryback. They built that match up for two hours then it was incredibly short, with Punk taking a bit of punishment but basically dominating and winning decisively. Not like they didn't have enough time to fill on the show. I also wonder how bad Punk is hurting these days, because other than the match with Lesnar he hasn't looked that great since his comeback, and bodywise looks smaller than ever

Yeah. I thought the crowd was good tonight for the first 2 hours but got burned out in hour 3. That's been the pattern most weeks ever since they went to 3 hours. The Rhodes-Americans match was really f'n good, but the crowd was just dead for most of it. Goldust was trying really hard to get them into it, yelling at the crowd when he was on offense late in the match. Crowd did pick up more for the finishing stretch, but that match would have been so much better with a hot crowd. Then poor Del Rio gets thrown out there in the 3rd hour to get serenaded with "WHAT?!" chants by a tired/bored crowd. His promo would have come off a lot better if done earlier in the show. Heck, even the girls were trying really f'n hard just to get the crowd to react to anything. With the pre-show tapings and dark match, you probably end up being in the arena 4+ hours, right? That's too long for a tv taping. It's too long for almost any wrestling show.

They did. It was awesome.

Oh come on. The Natalya hate on here from some people is getting ridiculous. She's not great, but she's not as awful and incompetent as some people here make her out to be, and she's generally put in the position of going out there and trying to make super green models look good. Summer has the longest legs Natalya has probably ever had to put the move on, and I doubt Summer is an expert on getting put in a Sharpshooter. She struggled with it for like one second, then when she locked it in and rolled it over it looked really good. And Summer was pro enough to sell it like it fucked up her leg afterwards. Even when her and Fandago were standing on the stage for the last segment she was still selling it. She's got potential.

I have a feeling when prospective corporate buyers go through the books TNA is going to be a tough sell. According to Meltzer they made a modest profit for a few years, but overall have been in the red, with Panda and Spike propping them up. They've never drawn any great live gates. Nobody buys their PPVs. I don't know how well their DVDs and merch sells but it seems like it always ends up in clearance bins or they dump their back inventory with those brown bag specials. And now after their live Impact plan failed, they don't even have a regular home. It sounds like they're going to end up back at Universal, but in a worse venue than the Impact Zone. The biggest value to the company is the tv deal with Spike, and their international TV network, which is something they spent years building up and might be their most impressive accomplishment. Those two things I can see having appeal to a buyer.

Cena coming back to face Del Rio is reminding me a bit of when he came back to wrestle Jericho for the belt at Survivor Series 08 after being out since SummerSlam with an injury. Jericho was coming off the best run of his career with HBK, and Cena came back and beat him for the title in his first match back like it was nothing. Not that Del Rio has been on anywhere near as good a run as Jericho, but he's been on a really good run since turning heel, consistently having very good matches and coming off as a convincing World Champion. And I suspect Cena will beat him for the title in relatively easy fashion. I think the biggest problem with this Del Rio run is the lack of challengers. They had something good going with Ziggler when they did the double turn....then Ziggler got the concussion and fell out favor for whatever reason. That's a feud that they didn't get enough out of, which could have put Ziggler over the top, but instead they bogged him down with the AJ/Big E/Kaitlyn stuff which never even got a proper blowoff, and now 2 of the players are more or less out of the picture. Then they gave Del Rio lameduck challengers in Christian and RVD who nobody believed would win the title. And now he's going to be fed to Cena. As far as RAW....I thought the Big Show angles that bookended the show were really good, as was the stuff with Stephanie/Maddox/HHH. The 6 man was good stuff. It was cool seeing Backlund and Bruno. Orton and Kofi had a decent match. Replaying the Real Americans-Khali/Santino match was odd when they could have just shown the clip from the PPV, and then they have the Cobra get the heat in the segment. I'm digging Los Matadores as a fun undercard gimmick. The Diva match was atrocious, and I thought Jo Jo was supposed to be the better prospect of the two. Eva Marie needs to be stuck in developmental for years and will probably never be any good. The Punk-Truth teamup was odd since Punk is always such a loner, as was them winning so decisively, and I kept expecting Truth to turn and become a Paul Heyman guy. Nothing else on the show really sticks out to me right now. I miss seeing the Usos and PTPers on RAW. I don't get why they pushed both teams for weeks, even having the Usos involved in Reigns being pinned for the first time....and now they're nowhere to be seen. Inexplicable waste of two fresh, over tag team acts.

He and Vinny have an upcoming tag match against The Heartthrobs

It's easy. Have him cut a shoot promo on McMahon and Michaels, claim to be the rightful holder of the WWF title, then get confronted by Hall/Nash. IIRC Bret, who had creative control, nixed doing that as he just wanted to move on from Montreal. But that's where the money was with Bret's debut, and everyone knew about The Kliq at that point. He beats Hall in his first match. Then he goes through Nash. Then he challenges Hogan to the match he never got in the WWF, with the winner becoming #1 contender for Sting's title. Of course this is also predicated on guys willing to work with Bret and put him over, which I'm sure Nash and Hogan weren't willing to do.

your sig is the greatest thing since sliced bread #2

........At least my girl Alicia gets some shine