IMPACT Wrestling Official Thread

[DieHard]

All I want right now from TNA is:

Bound For Glory 2014:

Full Metal Mayhem match, one last time:
Team 3D vs Hardys

[bik100]

Wolves vs Hardys at Destination X, Wolves vs Team 3D at Hardcore Justice, Wolves vs Team 3D vs Hardys at Bound For Glory in a Full Metal Mayhem~!

[Ladrao12]

I just don't understand how TNAs weekly show can be boring (for the most part) and then have a very good PPV. It almost shouldn't work out, logistically.

[Thelone]

Because the PPV was mostly about wrestling, not shitty storylines you saw a million times before and overbooking. Is that a surprise to anyone that the two worst matches at Slammiversary were the KO match and Bully-EC3 (+ Anderson-Storm which was a segment imo) ? The Knockouts are trash and desperately need an overhaul while Dixie is ruining another promissing young star just to put herself over, because that's totally what TNA needs right now.

[DXvsNWO1994]

http://www.impactwrestling.com/news/ite ... you-Prefer

It's official. They're having a vote. The Six Sided Ring could be back starting in NYC. If the Six Sided Ring wins out, it'll be a permanent change.

Voting closes Thursday Night at Midnight.

[bik100]

Voted for six sides.

[Hellfont93]

Voted for six sides.

Same, just for shits n giggles really... worth a try.

[Smile]

Good.

[supersonic]

"So the roof is starting to sink, mold is forming all over the house, what should we do?"

"Paint the walls silly! That'll do the trick!"

[DXvsNWO1994]

"So the roof is starting to sink, mold is forming all over the house, what should we do?"

"Paint the walls silly! That'll do the trick!"

Love it!

[mancraig]

I have a question. I will be attending the Thursday Destination X taping in NYC next week and was thinking of also going to the Wednesday show to see the Great Muta. I already bought tix for Thursday's taping, but I just looked on Ticketmaster and noticed that the same seats are available that were there 3 weeks ago for Wednesday, which means they haven't sold any tickets since then.

Do you think if I show up at the Manhattan Center on Wednesday they will just let me in for free to fill the place up for TV? This happened when I went with friends to an Urban Wrestling Federation taping that was empty at the same venue, and two of my buddies were let in to fill the place up a bit.

Thoughts?

[stay gold]

I was wondering the same thing. I'd like to see Muta. I had tickets for a TNA house show at this very same venue (Grand Ballroom in the Manhattan Center) back in 2008 and I couldn't make it (main event was Joe vs Booker T vs Christian vs Kurt Angle).

I don't even watch TNA but it'd be nice to see Muta. Then again, they haven't hyped his appearance as a match. Not that he's anything special in the ring anymore, but I'd be disappointed to pay for this just to see him appear in a non wrestling segment.

[AssShooter]

They said "special appearance", not that he will have a match.

[stay gold]

Yeah, I know. But it's wishful thinking for many.

[Sardonic Artery]

Haven't been watching much wrestling, period, but it's been a month without TNA. Have I missed anything good? I heard Slammiversary was actually good (according to SLAM!).

[mancraig]

Eh, not really. Just a whole lot of MVP as the heel authority figure that we've seen 100 times already screwing the scrappy fighting champion Eric Young. I like both MVP and EY and they are actually quite competent in their roles, but it feels like TNA is just treading water and going safe until they figure out what they want to do.

Slammiversary was an enjoyable show, but TNA these days is just a bunch of ***-***1/2 star matches and flat storylines. They let go of most of the talent that is capable of tearing it up (AJ, Daniels, Kaz, etc.), Kurt Angle is injured and most likely done with the company when his contract expires, and are left mostly in a state of flux.

I really feel like the NYC tapings are going to be a reboot of sorts for the company which is why they have been going safe for the last few months and clearing space on the roster. The poll to decide to bring back the six sided ring is an indication of them realizing they need to change things.

The next few months should be very interesting and I do think that TNA is going to turn things around and start to pump out a really solid product. They really have no choice.

Haven't been watching much wrestling, period, but it's been a month without TNA. Have I missed anything good? I heard Slammiversary was actually good (according to SLAM!).

[bik100]

I have a question. I will be attending the Thursday Destination X taping in NYC next week and was thinking of also going to the Wednesday show to see the Great Muta. I already bought tix for Thursday's taping, but I just looked on Ticketmaster and noticed that the same seats are available that were there 3 weeks ago for Wednesday, which means they haven't sold any tickets since then.

Do you think if I show up at the Manhattan Center on Wednesday they will just let me in for free to fill the place up for TV? This happened when I went with friends to an Urban Wrestling Federation taping that was empty at the same venue, and two of my buddies were let in to fill the place up a bit.

Thoughts?

They've actually sold quite a bit in three weeks but I highly doubt they will comp tickets since the walk-up crowd will be pretty huge. Ticketmaster mark-ups for these shows are crazy.

[supersonic]

Spoiler: show

Taryn Terrell returns to TV this week. There seems to be a spot for her working with Gail Kim against The Beautiful People. Terrell had already returned at the most recent tapings, but only for a match taped for an all-women’s PPV after pregnancy leave.

With falling ratings, bad ratings patterns, losses of talent and depressing house show business, things had not been looking up for TNA this year.

It’s a shame that when the company put its best foot forward, so few saw it. Slammiversary on 6/15 was not promoted well on television, and going head-to-head with what ended up being the deciding game of the NBA Playoffs did them no favors. The TV was built around Eric Young vs. MVP for the TNA title, and that match fell apart due to MVP’s knee injury. A telling sign about TNA is that it probably didn’t matter anyway because the audience they have left is at this point the group they haven’t yet driven away.

The issues with TNA have never been about talent. They went into the Dallas market, got a lot of late media hype built around the local storyline of Kevin Von Erich returning on Father’s Day for his sons U.S. television debut. It resulted in a healthy and enthusiastic crowd of 3,500 fans, which was not a papered crowd, at the College Park Center at the University of Texas-Arlington campus. By today’s standards, seeing TNA with a crowd like that looked great, but you only have to go back two years ago, when they ran the same building for Slammiversary and did 5,000 fans at a time they had far more star power. TNA’s production crew once again deserves credit because they made the crowd appear on television to be twice as large as it really was. There was a real change in morale coming off the house shows with so few fans to seeing a nice sized and super lively crowd.

The show featured a moment, in some ways sad, in others nostalgic, that has nothing to do with TNA and clearly had a lot to do with the atmosphere and crowd size.

The biggest long-term star in the history of pro wrestling in Dallas was Fritz Von Erich. Originally a heel, when he gained control of the promotion and the territory in the mid-60s, the former Nazi heel became the All-American local badass from nearby Lake Dallas. The biggest and baddest heels came to town, and Fritz knocked them off. More than any other promoter, he was able to groom his sons for superstardom. After Fritz retired as a regular wrestler in 1982, the television shows built around David, Kevin and Kerry Von Erich did gigantic television ratings. As far as local fame went, very few wrestlers in any part of the country had the name recognition and star power of the Von Erichs. But unlike Fritz, who ruled the roost for decades, his sons candles burned out long before their legends ever did.

David was only 25 when he died. A younger brother, Mike, was brought in as a replacement. He had health issues, was not the athlete or wrestler that his brothers were, and was filled with inner turmoil and committed suicide. Several years later, Kerry, was for a brief period of time was one of the biggest stars and drawing cards in wrestling, but whose career had gone downhill due to major drug problems, followed suit. Yet another brother, Chris, who tried wrestling but was too small and physically fragile, also committed suicide. There was yet another brother, Jackie, the oldest, who died as a young child when he was electrocuted.

In all, Kevin Von Erich would note that at one time he had five brothers, but by the time he was in his mid-30s, he had none. Fritz Von Erich passed away from cancer in 1997 at the age of 68.

The problems with the Von Erichs, revelations about the drug use, and a number of other factors killed wrestling to the mainstream by the late 80s, and Dallas never really recovered as a wrestling market until the Monday Night Wars and the rise of Steve Austin in 1998.

Kevin moved years ago to Hawaii, but his sons, Ross & Marshall, wanted to become pro wrestlers and were sent to train with Harley Race. Later, because of their name, and the fact Fritz was a gigantic star in Japan during the 60s (a 1966 match with Giant Baba vs. Fritz Von Erich was the first Budokan Hall sellout) for his iron claw finisher.

Kevin was a spectacular performer when it came to flying, based on the standards of his time. Wrestlers hated to work with him because he was so stiff, as Taz even noted in code with the line “cemento,” when discussing a match he had with Kevin early in his career. He had a lot of injuries, masked them with a lot of pain killers, and you could really see his heart in the ring start to falter even as early as 1984 when David died.

It was Bob Ryder of TNA who was given credit for the idea of bringing in Ross & Marshall Von Erich, with Kevin, to the show. Now 57, Kevin is so racked with injuries that he rarely travels from Hawaii because the plane flights kill his back. It’s been years since he’s been in Dallas, although he did appear at a Raw in Dallas to a big reaction many years back. As a celebrity that anyone who lived in the area would know instantly, he opened a lot of media doors. Stating that his goal in life is not to wear shoes, Kevin, who wrestled bare foot during his career, perhaps from watching Jimmy Snuka in the area, was wearing flip flops while introduced and I believe took them off when he did his run-in.

Even with a tremendous opener, and generally good work, the emotional moment of the show came when his sons were being beaten down after a DQ against foes Jessie Godderz & DJ Zema Ion (who deserve credit for carrying them to at least a decent short match) and Kevin hit the ring and cleaned house, and put Ion in the claw that his father made famous. Why they did a DQ finish instead of having the Von Erichs win was a head scratcher. I mean, I get the surface logic, they are newcomers against our regulars, but it’s the Bro Mans “B” team who lose all the time anyway so you can’t put over the Von Erichs in Dallas when the crowd came to see them?

It was both nostalgic and sad at the same time, because it represented a finale. The reality is there is nowhere for Ross & Marshall to work in Dallas and gain the experience to carry on the name even though the local crowd really wanted to like them. The territorial era of wrestling ended a long time ago and very few wrestlers in any territory had the connection to the public and mainstream recognition that the Von Erichs had in the 80s, and those who did like Ric Flair or Jerry Lawler have never gone away to where a return to the market would be such a big deal. I’m not sure a moment like Kevin putting the claw, the family trademark move, on DJ Zema Ion to a national television audience can be replicated again.

“That show was beautiful to me,” said Kevin Von Erich on Facebook. “The response from the fans, awesome, and this first step by my sons is to be the fist step into a great new chapter in our lives. They didn’t step away, they stepped up, and can only go onward and upward from here. For sure I just had the best Father’s Day a man could ask for.”

What surprised me was how small Ross was. While not nearly as muscular, he was very short, and reminded me somewhat of Anthony Nese as far as being a good athlete. He didn’t stand out at all past being crisp in basic moves, very green and having nice dropkick. Marshall is bigger. I thought he’d be David Von Erich’s size but was nowhere close. He had some fire, and wrestled barefoot like Kevin. Past the one time nostalgia deal here, the family connection no longer means anything because the Von Erichs have been gone for 25 years and TNA isn’t the place for guys to learn. I didn’t feel either had the potential of even a Garett Bischoff, who started here green and was protected because of his father being a major force in creative. Bischoff had a look and swagger about him, but needed lots of ring time, and the current business on television isn’t the place for that as fans typecast you based on early impressions.

The other big item, which got a tremendous reaction live, was Kurt Angle announcing Team 3-D as the third members of the TNA Hall of Fame, following Sting and Angle. They will be inducted at Bound for Glory in October.

Devon was kept away from everyone. The identity of the new Hall of Fame members was kept secret from almost everyone. When Taz said how he had no idea Devon was even there, that was apparently true. None of the wrestlers knew as best I can tell. Angle, who was moving well after his recent reconstructive knee surgery, noted that he wasn’t retired. He announced they were inducting possibly the greatest tag team in wrestling history. When he said that, I thought it was weird they’d be inducting Beer Money and blow Bobby Roode’s return that way. Devon said he thought he’d never be back in TNA after he was let go. Right now we have no idea if Devon will be back for the TV tapings in Bethlehem, PA and New York, or anything going forward past the induction ceremony.

Regarding what happened with Tommy Dreamer last week and his speech at the House of Hardcore show on 6/6 in Poughkeepsie, as expected, Dreamer was backstage working as an agent on this show. He was always scheduled at all the upcoming tapings. They are going to work some form of a Dreamer or House of Hardcore vs. Dixie Carter angle at the tapings since Carter on Twitter said she wanted Dreamer to come to the TV this week in Bethlehem, PA (he was booked all along) to say what he did at his show to her face. The impression I have is Bully Ray, who is very strong politically in the company, was a catalyst for turning his non-appearance at the indie show into an angle.

As far as TNA going forward, this show seemed to temporarily help momentum, but the New York tapings in particular are going to be very expensive for a company on a tight budget. Taping lots of shows in a short period of time alleviates some expense of going out every other week, as from a travel standpoint, they are bringing the crew in three times for TV’s that will air from this week until mid-September. Given that the next PPV won’t be until October, even taping so far in advance before they will have another set of tapings closer to the date to build Bound for Glory, they won’t be stung as badly if someone gets hurt between the taping and the air date of the show.

Among the things announced for the New York tapings is the return of Matt Hardy, who will team with Jeff. Matt is a free agent who works some ROH dates. A reuniting of the Hardy Boys as babyfaces right now would be a good thing for TNA, and perhaps the Willow loss to Magnus signals Willow going back to Jeff Hardy. The Great Muta returns for the 6/25 show in New York. Destination X, which at this point would be headlined by Eric Young vs. Seiya Sanada for the TNA title, will be taped on 6/26, which will include bringing back a number of former X Division wrestlers.

Low Ki and Homicide we know of have been at least talked with about working the TV’s and Low Ki has told people he was coming back dating back about two months ago. Even though the Manhattan Center will only be set up for 800 fans, none of the New York shows are sold out.

They are also teasing bringing back the six-sided ring, as they are doing a fan poll and have announced that whichever ring wins the poll will be the ring they use in New York.

TNA used a six-sided ring as its trademark for years, until Eric bischoff and Hulk Hogan came in and changed it back to a four-sided ring in 2010. The one thing that was clear is from a fan standpoint, it made no difference. Having talked with wrestlers, the reaction has been mixed. Some have said the six-sided ring takes a lot less time to get used to and creates more angles that can be used. Others have said it’s more difficult to work in.

Austin Aries was publicly negative over this decision, wanting to stay with the four sided ring.

“What’s wrong with wrestling?,” he wrote on Twitter. “Letting people who’ve never done it, and never put their bodies on the line, run the show.”

While the latter half of the statement in a sense is historically ignorant since many of the most successful leaders and decision makers in pro wrestling history were not wrestlers, the idea of leaving a decision like that to a fan poll is mind numbingly stupid. First, given the nature of fan polls, you can get very few people working in unison to screw it up, which TNA has already learned when it did fan polls to determine the No. 1 contender for the title as a booking idea by Bischoff. They had to scrap it after two months because fans constantly voted on guys the company wasn’t pushing. Second, if the people in charge don’t have enough of a strong vision of the product look that they are allowing fans to vote on it, then they clearly shouldn’t be the people in charge. Promoters who historically did use fan polls for decisions dating back historically all learned the same lesson, which is why many long-term promoters tried it and all ended up dumping it. If you do what the fans tell you they want you do to do, as strange as this sounds, you won’t draw. What the fans will say they want to see differs greatly from what actually motivates them to spend money, and the job is to have your own big picture concept of what will draw more interest. If you’re not smarter than the ticket buying fan in conceptually what is best, again, you’re not the right person in charge.

John Gaburick gave the guys a big pep talk before the show.

There was one sad note. A few hours before the show, TNA, in its social media driven mind, put out a Tweet saying that if they could get 500 retweets in an hour, they would reveal what match was going to open the PPV. Embarrassed, they had to pull the Tweet after an hour when they only got about 250.

As far as the show went, Eric Young retained the TNA title over Bobby Lashley and Austin Aries in a three-way cage match. The day after TV aired, they announced that MVP had torn his meniscus and was out of the match. They had known about it some time back but kept it quiet until the final TV show. It was announced two days before the show that Young would defend in a three-way against the winners of matches with Lashley vs. Samoa Joe and Aries vs. Kenny King. It worked out well. Aries is such a good worker that he could enhance the match, but with Lashley, there was at least a top heel group presence.

[Bulletclubfan97]

TNA Recently decided to let the fans decide whether they should bring back the 6 Sided Ring what's ur opinion on this?
My opinion: 6 sides is more easy to get hurt than 4 sides due to the odd angles 6 sides has and given u risk ur life as a wrestler just stepping in the ring is dangerous they don't need it to be anymore risky

[AssShooter]

TNA Recently decided to let the fans decide whether they should bring back the 6 Sided Ring what's ur opinion on this?
My opinion: 6 sides is more easy to get hurt than 4 sides due to the odd angles 6 sides has and given u risk ur life as a wrestler just stepping in the ring is dangerous they don't need it to be anymore risky

I think it's not really useful. Maybe it will bring some interested fans at first, but if the shows are still bad, they will not last long neither. It's not a bad idea, but they should be focused on the quality of their program.