The General Wrestling Thread

[adembroski]

I had heard the last several IW shows had been improvements, any word on how long Russo's been having to run his crap by someone else?

[Bigpapa42]

I had heard the last several IW shows had been improvements, any word on how long Russo's been having to run his crap by someone else?

I've watched bits and pieces of the last month or so, and it honestly hasn't seemed that much different from the same shit its been forever. You still have full-retard crap like Sting playing the Joker and Angelia Love doing a zombie gimmick. Some fans are making a big dael out of them "making a star" of Robert Roode, but they've pulled that shit before a ton of times and will end up just jobbing him back down, and he'll but just another TNA midcarder in 4 months. Put it this way - one of their major feuds they've been building toward BFG is a match between Hogan and Sting. In 2011. Which makes sense, as that's only 15 years past it being relevant.

So far as I'm aware, the last time Russo had "free reign" in TNA was the stuff in late 2009, right before Hogan and Bischoff came in. Which was ironically one of the best periods of TNA I've ever seen - you had AJ as champion (before he went mini-Naitch) and Wolfe coming in to a huge push and feud with Angle.

[SHOGUN]

To be fair, the zombie Angelina Love bit was dropped months ago.

[Bigpapa42]

To be fair, the zombie Angelina Love bit was dropped months ago.

I thought she was still "under Winter's spell and control" on a relatively recent episode...?

[SHOGUN]

I thought she was still "under Winter's spell and control" on a relatively recent episode...?

They are still partners/BFFs, but they just phased the mind control bit out. Angelina told her to stop giving her the drug since she "understood" they were meant to be together and has been acting normal ever since.

[Kuzzy Powers]

They are still partners/BFFs, but they just phased the mind control bit out. Angelina told her to stop giving her the drug since she "understood" they were meant to be together and has been acting normal ever since.

Im amazed that you follow this in detail weekly.

[EmpireWF]

What's Samoa Joe up to these days?

[Bigpapa42]

What's Samoa Joe up to these days?

Shogun can hopefully give a more detailed and insightful answer than me, but from what I've seen recently, a midcard feud with Matt Morgan and Crimson.

[SHOGUN]

What's Samoa Joe up to these days?

Being his usual fat and sloppy self while feuding on the midcard with Crimson/Tommy Mercer. Feud so far has been somewhat decent, but since Crimson is TNA's chosen one and Joe doesn't give a fuck, expectations have been low.

[SHOGUN]

Im amazed that you follow this in detail weekly.

It's not because I'm that entertained by it. Old habits just die hard.

[Warner2BruceTD]

gtfo, really?

he was on good morning america and plugged everything except TNA...

yikes

Hogan never plugs TNA. When he first signed, he was on a book tour, and everyone would ask him where he's been. He would tell them TNA on Spike and they would look at him like he had two heads and had no idea what he was talking about. He hates being associated with the second fiddle so he largely ignores TNA when he does media spots now, and people at TNA don't like it but don't really have the balls to confront him on it.

He's collecting a check, he doesn't give a shit about the promotion.

Hulk Hogan & Eric Bischoff have had their contracts renewed. Their deals expired on 10/10, just before Bound for Glory, so from a timing standpoint, they had the greatest leverage to get a new deal, just like happened last year. So now we’ll get the year with the babyface Hulk Hogan and the return of Hulkamania as opposed to 2010 which was the year of the babyface Hulk Hogan fooling us all since he was really a heel and we didn’t know it. Hogan & Bischoff have played Dixie Carter like a well-oiled fiddle, the first year building the storyline around her so they had to keep them a second year because of the ending of Bound for Glory where they screwed her out of her company for one year. This year they have to keep them because Sting has to beat Hogan with the stips that Dixie returns to run the company, not to mention they’ve spent basically two years building the match.

More regarding the Hulk Hogan situation with him agreeing to the new deal. Even if the timing wasn’t the way it was, I’ve got no doubt Dixie Carter would have and will continue to sign Hogan for as long as she can, as evidenced by the situation with Sting. The majority of those in power in the company were a few years back against signing Sting after the second year or so, because the price was so high, he never worked house shows and the feeling was they had done all they could with him. But Dixie Carter saw him as a star, and in the case of Hogan, he’s a far bigger star than Sting and it can be argued is the biggest “star” of the era. Hogan agreeing to the deal is more telling because Hogan has never been strongly behind TNA, as evidenced by his reluctance to bring up TNA when he’s doing national media. Internally, the belief is the ratings would be virtually the same with or without Hogan, the company doesn’t have a lot of new licensees and Hogan has only done one match in two years, getting ready to do a second, and doesn’t go to the big shows for appearances like the European tour because of the expense it would cost. Plus, him being all over the TV show as the biggest star gets in the way of making the core talent portrayed as the biggest stars. Hogan agreeing shows that there must have been no interest from WWE, similar to Angle, which is telling because a Hogan return would be an easy few week pop (and, as history has shown, very quickly diminishing returns from there). Even if he can’t wrestle, there are always roles you could put him in for short periods of time as a television character. There is also potential roles for his involvement in the new WWE Network since so much of the old highlight footage would be his stuff and he’d be a good person to push the marketing of the nostalgia wrestling aspect of the network. It shows how badly WWE doesn’t want to work with him if they didn’t make a play for him given next year is the start up of the network.

[IamMedellin]

LOL TNA History

[manchild24]

Ive been out of the loop here. What was Hogan big announcement or something the week after TNA went off the air.

[SHOGUN]

Ive been out of the loop here. What was Hogan big announcement or something the week after TNA went off the air.

He was "retiring" and saying his final farewell. Sting then comes out shows some security cam footage of Hogan talking to Bischoff about his plan of faking retirement to avoid facing him. Hogan got so angry about the reveal that he agreed to face Sting and if he lost he'd give the company back to Dixie Carter.

[EmpireWF]

When Bob Carter shows up to tell all these fools to hit the bricks, then things get interesting.