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MAY 2022 Pro Wrestling Discussion


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He would, if he had the chance. But there's not many ex-pro athletes in AEW. He's reduced to putting over what a great football player Max Caster's dad was (he's in the Hall of Fame. The New York Jets Hall of Fame, not the one for the whole NFL).

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If JR gave the background like that for most of the wrestlers now it’d be like, “In high school they played Warcraft when they weren’t watching PWG or DDT. Their football background is accidentally watching a Tennessee game once at a friends house because they mistakenly thought they were going to an Attack on Titan watch party.” 

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I caught (and later ffwd'd through most of) TNA Victory Road 2004 on my DVR last night and here are some random ass dumb thoughts you can feel free to skip past.

That X Division stuff was fun and random as fuck.  The show started with a wacky ass X Division Royal Rumble or some such thing with one minute entries.  I LOL'd @ the on screen timer being scratch letters.  That font has attitude and is in your face.  It was the Limp Bizkit of fonts.

Guys who were market corrected out of the business like Thanos snapped his fingers: Mikey Batts, Jason Cross, D-Ray 3000.  I forgot about them like Dr. Strange made me do it.  All I remember about Batts was his finisher in TNM was called "The Batts Beater.," which is something I guess.

Alex Shelly looks like a totally different person!  And every time I see Sabin nowadays, I think the same thing, and that was definitely verified tonight.  Nowadays, it's probably how his face aged and also his pedestrian haircut, but he just looks like a middle manager in a soul crushing job who moonlights on your local indy on the weekend.  And shit, considering what Impact pays, he might be!  I'm imagining some junior accountant who left AXS on TV after the Phish concert marathon woke up and swore he saw his boss go over Jay White but maybe it was a dream.

Announcers referenced "WWE" and I had no idea they changed their name that early.  I looked it up and they've been WWE almost as long as they were WWF (20 years vs 23).  Shit.

Holy shit, there's Lance Archer working as Great Value Diesel to Kid Kash's Dollar General Shawn.  Now I need to go over this show and note how many people on it are still working regularly 18 years later.  And they're teaming with The Naturals!  The team Bryan Alvarez always mentions as his best example of teams with generic interchangeable members.  Later, announcers mention their names (Chase Stevens and Andy Douglas) and I recall that I could tell them apart by remembering that Douglas had blonde hair like Shane Douglas.  Hair things are how I tell all teams apart.  Like the Fantastics, where Bobby Fulton was blonde like Bobby Eaton while Tommy Rogers had brown hair...like Mr. Rogers.  I'm a weirdo.

Then they do a vignette where Dusty Rhodes and VINCE RUSSO are in an election to determine the Director of Authority.  That's DOA because acronyms are the beginning and end of Russo's cleverness.  Dusty is winning Texas while Russo is carrying New York.  Also, servers in STAMFORD crashed or some shit.  How did this end?  Some Bush/Gore controversy reference four years too late?  It's still more current than McMahon, though, who still trying to figure out a good Dewey/Truman angle.

That's when I realized the rest of the show would just be some Russo-ass Shit and I tuned out.  Good X Division match, though!

 

Edited by Technico Support
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2 hours ago, Spontaneous said:

Does JR still overly praise people for football or other sports/athletic backgrounds?

I've lost count out of how many times they mention that Hook had a lacrosse scholarship to a Division 1 school.

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Now I'm laughing to myself imagining JR interrogating everyone backstage trying to get something, anything, out of them that would give them real sports cred.  COME ON SON!  YOU HAD TO HAVE AT LEAST TRIED LITTLE LEAGUE!  GIVE ME SOMETHING HERE!  HOW DID YOU DO IN GRADE SCHOOL GYM CLASS?  COME ON!

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5 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Now I'm laughing to myself imagining JR interrogating everyone backstage trying to get something, anything, out of them that would give them real sports cred.  COME ON SON!  YOU HAD TO HAVE AT LEAST TRIED LITTLE LEAGUE!  GIVE ME SOMETHING HERE!  HOW DID YOU DO IN GRADE SCHOOL GYM CLASS?  COME ON!

They say, “I did do little league, I wasn’t good but I still got a trophy,” and he malfunctions and explodes like a Star Trek computer villain. 

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I actually feel like it’s time for a critical re-evaluation of 00’s TNA. They had their issues, but I’m beginning to think that we were all way too hard on it because we wanted so desperately to have a competent #2 promotion in the immediate wake of WCW’s demise, and all the ways they shot themselves in the foot were infuriating.

But in terms of the product itself? Lots of super talented people getting room to do cool shit. And, frankly, the way the booking could be chaotically bad is much preferable to me than the bland, overproduced, repetitive current WWE product, because at least the chaos could yield up something sublime from time to time. Or at the very least, something for the cringe hall of fame that still gets remembered 20 years later.

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23 minutes ago, John from Cincinnati said:

"They" meaning announcers other than just JR, right? Because Hook's mostly been on the show JR's not. 

You're probably right about that, I just know it's been mentioned a lot and not just by Taz.

I know it's occasionally brought up that Anthony Bowens played college baseball at Seton Hall.

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1 hour ago, zendragon said:

I always look back at early SpikeTV TNA as a real missed opportunity. Just couldn't get out of their own way 

I got the first PPV when they were doing it that way, and watched some on Spike TV, but I truly could not stand that 6-sided ring.

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2 hours ago, zendragon said:

I always look back at early SpikeTV TNA as a real missed opportunity. Just couldn't get out of their own way 

A million percent. Even the name TNA probably put them behind the 8-ball in a lot of ways. I remember when it was rumored they were changing the name back in '06, I thought to myself, Great it's either going to be NWA or Impact Championship Wrestling or something - I never dreamed the TNA part of NWA-TNA would be what they kept. I have to imagine they alienated a lot of parents, women, and licensing partners with that name. Even Jim Cornette, who has one of the filthiest mouths on the planet, said that he would always over-anunciate T-N-A when making work calls.

FWIW, Jeff Jarrett claims that the six sided ring was the only way they could get their action figures into stores because most retailers didn't want to carry them since they already sold WWE toys. @JLowe

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TNA has it's moments but it is remembered correctly. Near-constant failures at booking and promoting. By this point, in ring alone doesn't cut it. Always hiring WWE Rejects, WCW burnouts, AJ Styles always the "future" of the company, and just wasting opportunities that to this day despite a name change and being the most well run they have been Impact cannot lose the spectre of TNA.

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It depends which WWE rejects we're talking about. Shannon Moore and Orlando Jordan? Sure, but it's not like they were ever more than marginal midcard guys, so it's hardly the greatest blunder in the world to take a flyer on them? But Christian, Angle, the Dudleys, the Hardys, Booker, etc? Those are all assets to a promotion. There could have been perhaps better balance between those types and Sting and the "homegrown" guys, but the idea that bringing in former WWE or WCW guys with name value was one of their most significant undoings has never squared with me. There's a more competent hypothetical version of TNA that could have made those big acquisitions even bigger positives while maintaining a strong "homegrown" core. AEW's doing just fine on that front right now, disproving the notion that loading up on former WWE guys will be detrimental to a company's image or growth. 

I like TNA a lot both for the quality of work it produced, the guys it gave a platform to, and, as EVA alluded to, the weird, fun, misshapen failures that are far more interesting than some of the more sterile alternatives out there. I remember the Spike TV days and prior surprisingly fondly.

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Someone had to be first after WCW. TNA ended up being an incubator for a lot of talent that WWE wasn’t interested in at the time or would’ve misused even worse. It served its purpose and it’s a link in the chain to where we are currently. Also, those old dumpster threads are an absolute delight. 

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Not to get all philosophical, but if a wrestling promotion is around and none of the tastemakers care and it has little fan investment, does it truly exist? This was always the missing ingredient. People need to care for a promotion to matter. 

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1 hour ago, odessasteps said:

It also drove Alvarez crazy. 

I used to like listening Alvarez and Meltz doing Impact recaps because Meltz was trying take some kind of objective approach while Alvarez was gazing into the abyss, I don't remember what prompted this one exchange but it always stuck with me-

 

Alvarez

"AND JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I SAW THE WORST THE TELEVISION SEGMENT EVER, THEY FOLLOWED IT UP WITH THE WORST TELEVISION SEGMENT EVER!"

Meltz
"Yeah this is another example of TNA not understanding their audience and-"

ALVAREZ
"HOW IS THIS A WRESTLING COMPANY"

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1 hour ago, nate said:

I'll never forgive TNA for dropping the ball on Monty Brown and not giving us a Nash vs. Low Ki match.

I'll never forgive TNA for not letting me take the Gut Check Challenge. 

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4 hours ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

A million percent. Even the name TNA probably put them behind the 8-ball in a lot of ways. I remember when it was rumored they were changing the name back in '06, I thought to myself, Great it's either going to be NWA or Impact Championship Wrestling or something - I never dreamed the TNA part of NWA-TNA would be what they kept.

For some reason that reminds me of a joke from when the Washington Bullets became the Washington Wizards. I remember local talking heads (I'm from Virginia) joking that if they really wanted to drop the violent connotations from the name, they should've dropped Washington.

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10 hours ago, AxB said:

He would, if he had the chance. But there's not many ex-pro athletes in AEW. He's reduced to putting over what a great football player Max Caster's dad was (he's in the Hall of Fame. The New York Jets Hall of Fame, not the one for the whole NFL).

Not to mention, with all the additional media covering sports these days he can't make shit up as easily either.

"There's Wardlow. He was an All-American D End 2 years at Ohio State before coming into the business you know .."

"Um, no he wasn't JR."

"Whattayamean he wasn't..."

"I have the Big10 Network. Watch a lot of Buckeyes. Never saw a Wardlow anywhere."

"Uh, my mistake I must have meant Ohio U..."

"JR, I'm not seeing any of this on his Wikipedia page. I mean, he boxed a little..."

"There's Wardlow, fans, former Golden Gloves champion in the tradition of the great Roddy Piper! Gonna be a slobberknocker tonight I guarantee it!"

 

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2 hours ago, Nineteen said:

I used to like listening Alvarez and Meltz doing Impact recaps because Meltz was trying take some kind of objective approach while Alvarez was gazing into the abyss, I don't remember what prompted this one exchange but it always stuck with me-

 

Alvarez

"AND JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I SAW THE WORST THE TELEVISION SEGMENT EVER, THEY FOLLOWED IT UP WITH THE WORST TELEVISION SEGMENT EVER!"

Meltz
"Yeah this is another example of TNA not understanding their audience and-"

ALVAREZ
"HOW IS THIS A WRESTLING COMPANY"

I lol’d, so thanks for that!

Say what you will about Alvarez but he is so necessary to those shows.  Dave and Garrett is like listening to two Daves.  It’s dry and dull as a salt-free cracker. It’s like trying to read Red Badge of Courage again or like watching paint dry while on quaaludes.

Edited by Technico Support
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