TNA nonsense watch

TNA is now officially fucking retarded. This week’s Impact was possibly the worst Impact I have ever seen. This whole show deserves to be included in our latest TNA nonsense watch.

I’ve stopped reviewing TNA because I like Clown’s take so much, but damn it, I need to get this off my chest. I cannot believe how bad TNA has been this week. Remember that TNA is a taped show, it’s not live. TNA management chose to air this shit. Let’s see what went wrong:

Before the show kicked off, we had a package with Ric Flair talking about Fourtune – Ric Flair’s rehash of the Four Horsemen, only with six fucking members (surely it should be called Sixtune?) Indeed, the accompanying graphic package for a later match with Beer Money had lots of number fours bobbing around. It’s even spelt Fourtune. The Four Horsemen with six guys? Really? What the fuck? If you’re going to redo the Four Horsemen, have four of them.

The show opened with Dixie Carter coming to the ring, this is not a good sign. Why they’ve made her a character is beyond me. So, she calls Ric out, holding him “personally responsible” for Abyss attacking RVD. How this is so I have no fucking clue. She proceeds to suspend Ric for 90 days. As President of the company, it is perfectly within her power and right to do this. Flair tells Dixies that Fourtune are going to take over TNA (wow, it’s like that nWo/MEM/Nexus angle hasn’t been done before). Fourtune come out and look as though they are going to beat up Dixie. Luckily Serge dives into the ring to take a beating instead. I know what you’re saying: “No not Serge, you bastards, not Serge!”... of course you’re not saying that, and nobody is saying that because nobody knows who the fuck Serge is. Essentially they want to put over a group of guys as the new bad asses in town by, erm, attacking someone that no one has seen in TNA before. This guy could be anyone, and I am sure that the live audience who wouldn’t have had Taz telling us that he’s Dixie Carter’s husband were 50 times more confused than the people watching at home. Who knew there was a Serge? Who gives a fuck if he gets beaten? This is complete bullshit... But wait, it gets worse. By this point Dixie has made a swift exit, leaving her husband to get beat by Sixtune, and who should enter but Hulk Hogan (accompanied by Angle, Anderson, Pope and Hardy). “Thank God for Hulk Hogan” were the genuine words that left Tenay’s mouth at that point. He reminded me of the way Jerry Lawler creams his boxers every time John Cena turns up for work. I was expecting Hogan to rush in and take out each member of Fourtune with one punch, but luckily that didn’t happen. Instead, we were treated to Hogan “overriding” Dixie’s decision to suspend Flair. So what? Is Hogan the President now? What the fuck? Hogan explains: “I made a deal with Dixie Carter, dude, to run this company 50/50, brother” – so I’m paraphrasing, but that was the essence: a 50/50 relationship. 50 doesn’t have a majority over 50, 50% doesn’t give you more control that another 50%. WHAT THE FUCK? Either Dixie’s the President or she’s not. This is complete and utter nonsense. If that was not bad enough, with Flair declaring that Fourtune are going to take over the company, the Fatal Four (that’s Hardy, Angle, Anderson and Pope (four babyfaces who are currently in a tournament against each other for the World Championship, the most coveted title in sports entertainment, I might add)) are going to give “the keys of the company back to Dixie”. Now I hate to use logic on this, but lets look at what’s going on here: Dixie came out and took control of her company, Hogan overrode her, Hogan wants Dixie to take back control of the company. There’s a beautiful circularity in this which if considered for too long and by too many people could actually rip the very fabric of space and time.

Then it went stupider. Joe was put in a match with Orlando Jordan, a guy whose gimmick seems to have gone from “a bisexual” to a dirty fucking rapist sex offender. I’m not going to deconstruct how terrible the Jordan gimmick is here (Clown did that perfectly a few months back), but the match was just pointless. Jordan came to the ring with a Samoa Joe action figure, pretended to fellate it and molested SoCal “Butterface” Val – just like all bisexuals do... Anyway, at the end of the match Jeff Jarrett came out and started talking. A silence descended over the crowd like a bored mist. No one gets, or cares, about the squabbles between Sting/Nash and Jarrett. No one knows what is going on, or which side people should care about. Sting is too much of a face to be taken seriously as a heel, and Jarrett has been a heel in TNA for years. As far as I can make out, this seems to be another “the soul of TNA is at stake” angle, this time because of Kevin Nash, or Hulk Hogan’s politics, or Sting feeling deceived, or something. The “the soul of TNA is at stake” angle might be familiar to fans who remember things like the Kings of Wrestling... the Main Event Mafia... the Band... or, erm, the thing from the promo before, i.e. Fourtune... and, erm, EVWo 2.0... are all the major TNA angles the same at the moment? Let’s consider this angle for a moment and ask what would happen if Jarrett turned round to Nash and said “you win” and just walked away? Seriously, what is at stake? Is big granddad Nash going to slowly walk toward people and go through his vast move set? Maybe I’m missing something in the storyline, but as far as I can make out, it makes no fucking sense.

Later on in the show we had the revelation that Abyss must have multiple Janices. There is a brawl between him a Stevie Richard (he must have been struck off for malpractice because he no longer mentions his doctorate) in the car park. This segment is piss poor, but there is a point where Abyss manages to break Janice in two. After a commercial break, Rhino is waiting for Abyss in the ring and Abyss has either managed to do a miraculous repair job on Janice, or he simply has a whole collection of them. Living like some kind of Mormon with multiple women (except planks of wood rather than a genuine polygamist relationship). Clown will probably tell me that this is just a continuity error rather than nonsense, but I don’t care, this show had more holes in than, I dunno, something with a lot of holes in.

This is just a taste of how bad it was. Of late TNA’s story-telling and logic has took a complete nose-dive.

I’ve had enough now. I’m serious; TNA needs to get its shit together, because if there’s no improvement by Bound for Glory, I’m done (except for the live show in January I have tickets for already).

TNA nonsense watch: The World Title

The way TNA has been with the World Title has infuriated me of late. Not only did the hand the strap to RVD without any sort of build-up, but now they are doing a tournament for the title which has no value whatsoever.

I like tournaments in wrestling, you often get some good matches out of them, but they are weakened by a lack of feud or build-up between competitors. TNA has made some stupid fucking mistakes of late, and the current “tournament” is just an example of this.

Over the past few months, Kurt Angle has been working his way up the TNA rankings, taking on each competitor in the rankings before reaching the number one spot. This was a great angle, built around Kurt’s competitive spirit and a desire to prove he is the best. This alone would have been enough to do an angle which lasts about a year, perhaps with some bumps on the way to add some drama to the proceedings. After a few matches, Angle started to say that he couldn’t stand it if he lost, and would consider retiring if he did. Then, for no reason, all of Angle’s matches came with an attached career stipulation. Because Kurt is one of the biggest draws for TNA, and because he’s said in interviews that he’s going to be sticking around in TNA for at least a year, the angle has lost its drama. I’ve said it before: Kurt Angle matches are always good, but without a sense of drama or anything really being at stake no one gives a fuck.

With RVD’s kayfabe injury, and him being stripped of the title we are now left with a “tournament” to be the new champion. Kurt, it seems, has been made to look like a dick because of this. In keeping with the angle, it would have made more sense for Angle to bow out of the tournament, his reason being that he has not yet worked his way up through the rankings. So we can assume that the angle is over... well not quite: the career stip is still in place. This means that the tournament is pointless, and that the next champion will be Kurt Angle. So like some horny kid, TNA blow their load too soon and make Angle look: A) Like a pussy and B) like a hypocrite.

Of course, the flipside to this is that TNA may have realised that people weren’t buying into the career match angle, and are thus dropping it. Let’s hope that it is the case. But if this is case, why does Kurt need to have the career stip? It makes no sense to me.

We are all sophisticated enough to know how wrestling works for fuck’s sake. Let’s hope TNA never do an angle like this again.

Oh, and no Joe or AJ in the top 8? Nice to see Williams versus Angle though.

TNA Nonsense Watch

Seemed that the Clown missed this one on his review. In a short, promo Ink Inc. (eugh, I feel dirty just typing that) are talking about going against the Band for the tag titles. The footage, though edited so it happened after the Band had taken the belts was recorded at the same time that Doug Williams was going into the ring in an earlier match (you can clearly hear his music and entrance announcement).

This is a case of TNA management being extremely stupid, or Moore and Neal being psychic. I hope it is tha latter. With Hogan'ss magical ring, we're probably long overdue for a psychic tag team. Maybe they have telekinesis and suddenly you will see chairs being wielded by what looks like an invisible opponent... stupid TNA, this is why you should do Impact live.

Clown's TNA Nonsense Watch

There's a disturbing trend starting up in TNA. Things are happening that make no fucking sense whatsoever. I've decided to start up a Nonsense Watch to catalogue all of the insane bullshit that's going on. Here's a few to get the ball rolling.

Lethal Lockdown

So the angle going into this is that Bischoff has been talking to Flair for weeks before the match, causing suspicion that he's planning to turn on Hogan and side with Flair. During the match, Flair and Hogan both get involved, culminating in Hogan menacing Flair with a baseball bat. Bischoff runs in, talks Hogan into calming down and handing him the baseball bat. Bischoff pulls out some brass knuckles, pretends he's going to give them to Flair, but instead gives them to Hogan who batters Flair while Bischoff cheers him on.

This makes no fucking sense at all. If you're on Hogan's side, why bother breaking it up only to instigate it again 30 seconds later? He had the guy at his mercy with a baseball bat. Brass knuckles are an inferior weapon, apart from the fact they are more easily concealed. The match was no DQ, so concealment isn't an issue...so what was the point of the run-in? If the run-in was pointless, what was the point of the entire angle?

It's later revealed that the only reason Bischoff was talking to Flair was to lull him into a false sense of security so that Bischoff could screw him over at the PPV. But he didn't screw him over - all he did was postpone a beating from Hogan by a few seconds. If he hadn't been involved at all, the end result would have been identical. There's weeks of exposition to build heat for when Bischoff interrupts a main event match to do nothing whatsoever. They wasted TV time, FOR NOTHING, for weeks on end when there's a locker room full of talented wrestlers that hardly ever get on TV because they aren't big names.

WHAT THE FUCK

The Band

Eric Young screws Kevin Nash for the Legends title. Kevin Nash says he'd usually get revenge, but he's impressed with Young so he forgives him and joins Young's faction, and the two are stable mates.

Months later, Scott Hall and X-Pac come to TNA. They immediately resume their friendship with Kevin Nash, and start a faction called 'The Band' (Young's 'World Elite' faction disappeared into thin air with no explanation). However, Hall and Pac don't have contracts, so they're not officially in TNA. The three argue, and Hall and Pac attack Nash. Young comes out to rescue his friend from the beating. The feud between Nash/Young & Hall/Pac continues, resulting in a PPV match where if Hall/Pac win, they get contracts.

The match comes around. Hall/Pac beat down Young for several minutes. Young finally gets a tag to Nash. Nash comes in, does his finisher on Young, tags back out again and Hall/Pac pin Young to get the win.

The next show, Nash calls Young down to the ring. He apologises, and offers young a spot in The Band. He tells him the plan all along was to get contracts for Hall/Pac and then build a four man stable with Young. Young refuses, and attacks Nash. This sparks off a feud which culminates in a cage match at Lockdown. Nash defeats Young relatively easily.

3 weeks later, Young rushes to the ring to help Team 3D in a brawl against Nash/Hall. He turns on them, and reveals he has now joined The Band.

This doesn't make any sense. THREE WEEKS AGO, Young was feuding with Nash because he was so vehemently opposed to joining The Band...now he's a member? If Nash just said to Young, before the contracts match, "Hey buddy, this thing with Hall/Pac is just a ruse to get them contracts. So when we get in the ring, one of us just lays down, they get the 1-2-3, they get contracts, and BANG! We're the most bad ass stable in the company", Young would have gone along with it. To have Young get screwed, refuse to accept the apology, fight Nash because he's so angry about it, and then join for no apparent reason is just nonsense.

WHAT THE FUCK

X-Pac

X-Pac no-shows Lockdown. Taz announces it as 'Pac didn't show up...it's just Pac being Pac I guess'.

The following iMPACT, Taz says 'Just to clarify, X-Pac didn't no-show, he couldn't make it and Dixie Carter was aware of the situation'.

The iMPACT after that, Pac gets his skull smashed against the concrete by 3D and is put on the 'injured' list.

This makes no fucking sense whatsoever. Do they really expect us to believe that when a wrestler can't make a show, they call the owner of the company directly? Not any kind of manager, not any of the bookers, they just go straight to Dixie. They don't let their friends know, they don't let their stable mates or tag team partners know, they just call Dixie and that's all they have to do. And Dixie Carter wouldn't bother to mention to anyone - not the event staff, not the commentators, not Hogan, not anyone - that one of the stars of their FUCKING PPV isn't going to be there? She just assumes that it'll sort itself out and there's no need to pass the message on?

WHAT THE FUCK

Abyss

Abyss wears Hogan's ring on his wedding finger.

WHAT THE FUCK

Orlando Jordan

No words necessary - WHAT THE FUCK