TNA Year in Review (2009)

jaykhunter

Overview :
TNA has had their worst year ever - Terrible PPV buyrates, stagnant TV ratings and truly awful booking and wrestling quality in the main event, and the women's division. For the majority of the year, there was no redeeming factor for TNA. That said, PPVs viewed in isolation (i.e. don't think about the booking) and watching iMPACT with your brain turned off, can be quite enjoyable! The biggest news of the year (after Hogan, of course) was the Jarrett-Karen Angle affair, which was used as an excuse to get Jarrett off TNA TV. Mantel soon followed and TNA has since been The Russo Show, who brought in Ed 'Oklahoma' Ferrara, who arguably has been a good thing for TNA (PPVs have been better since he came).

The most promising thing I can say is that TNA have finished the year on a strong note, with their best PPV of the year being November's Turning Point. Styles, Joe, Daniels, Morgan, Hernandez and EY have all finished much higher than they were one year ago. Newer acts like the British Invasion are finding their feet, as terrible relics of the past (Sting, Foley and Nash) are now less prominently featured (in a wrestling capacity, anyway).

With the looming inevitability of Hogan appearing on TNA TV in January (and all of his mates aswell), TNA cannot help but change. It's a minor shame that Hogan is coming in when Russo is seemingly turning things around. With WWE in such a mindless main-event stale slump this year, it was a great opportunity to get their disgruntled fanbase into the alternative, but TNA failed to capitalize completely. However, next year is looking to be interesting at least, as Bischoff, Hogan, their mates/WWE cast-offs will join the TNA roster...rumours suggest a move to Monday Nights is coming, which can only do good for TNA's exposure in the long-term. At the very least, more eyes will be on TNA...hopefuly TNA won't turn them off.

iMPACT! in 2009

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-i0gsHUxvk

The iMPACT! zone has gotten a major makeover when they went HD in October 2008, and the show looks much, much better. They've upped the number of fans in the venue from about 800 to 1,200. Unfortunately, they still haven't slowed down the pace of the show, since getting a 2-hour slot a year before that, in October 2007. One could accept an hour/week of being barraged by storylines, because there was so much talent they wanted to feature, but there is no excuse now that TNA has had 2 years to come to grips with 2 hours of TV. This is just how TNA (i.e. Russo, with or without Jarrett and Mantel) book wrestling. And it's the status quo...for now

It's fair to say that iMPACT has had a 'mixed bag' in terms of quality this year - iMPACT in 2009 has ranged from very good, to completely bollox, with the latter being more prominent. This was the year of the Main Event Mafia, where Russo decided to ditch the pushing of the TNA Originals/Frontline (i.e. the babyfaces/mid-carders) and just heavily feature Kurt Angle and his cronies, and Mick Foley, in a never-ending stream of backstage vignettes. The 29th January "Takeover" iMPACT (featuring Chet Lemon and Black Snow on commentary) divided opinions (we personally thought it was an amazing, "non-canon" episode). In the opening few months of the year, TNA's ratings raised from it's 'set-in-stone' 1.0-1.1 rating to 1.3-1.4, but squandered that and it has since remained 1.0-1.1. Some storylines have great elements, but poor booking decisions, and storyline sense really let the TNA overall down. For 3/4 of the year, we saw Sting, Foley and Nash in more high-profile matches than we care to remember. So for 3/4 of the year, we got garbage in our main events. Only in the last two months have we actually seen a change.

I suppose the best way to describe iMPACT in general would be "entertaining nonsense", or "car-crash TV". If you can not think about the huge, gaping plot-holes, the dropped angles, or what should've been, iMPACT does leave you somewhat satisfied and looking forward to next week. Don't think, even for a second, or you'll remember Foley's ever-changing heel-face status, Sting and Foley in the main event, or 'dropped' storylines like AJ Styles being attacked....sigh!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9mgXXCwsPs

TNA's PPVs - A Year in Review (2009)

A year in a company will be remembered by it's PPVs. Wins and losses on TV only contribute to the general feeling, hype and buyrate of the PPV, which should be a wrestling company's main focus. In general, TNA's main events have been horrible, while their undercard usually had some great match-ups. It has to be noted that TNA's PPV hit rock bottom in July with Victory Road, snagging two awards - worst PPV of the decade, and worst match of the decade (Sharmell vs Jenna Morasca). This sh**-stain of a PPV is so bad, you might consider checking it out!




January's Genesis
Genesis had very low expectations, since 2008 ended on a huge slump. Thankfully, besides the two main events (i.e. what TNA were pushing - Rhino/Sting, MEM vs Frontline 6 man tag featuring CUTE KIP) the other matches delivered. Matches of the night were the great Shelly/Sabin X-Division Title match, and Angle/Jarrett II, which was even better than the first. Overall; Good (great + pants = good)




February's Against All Odds
This PPV was the very definition of filler PPV - no title changes, no good booking, no stunning matches, no progression of anything. It couldn't have been more run-of-the-mill. Magnus had a terrible debut against Rhino, Beer Money and Shelly did the best they could against inferior opponents (Lethal Consequences and EY respectively), Morgan frustratingly jobs against Abyss, and Sting retains in a god-awful main event, featuring Sting (c), Angle, Bubba and D-Von. Overall; poor.




March's Destination X
At this point, it was the worst TNA PPV I'd ever seen. No hyperbole, it was f***ing sh**! To qualify that statement, lowlights of the show were "One Night With ODB", Magnus/EY, Bashir/Semen, Morgan/Abyss II, SoJoBo vs Kong, Steiner vs Joe. Best matches of the night were Styles/Booker (good) and Ultimate X, which was very good. Sting/Angle's main event was passable. Overall; abortion.




April's Lockdown
Was a mixed bag, with the worst coming in all areas of the card. Danny Bonerdouche was rightfully moved to the pre-show, the Queen of the Cage was an abomination of 'Eve from WWE' proportions, but the crowning brussel sprout on the turd was Cactus Jack winning the TNA title from Sting. the Xscape X-D spotfest, MMG vs No Limit vs LAX played 2nd fiddle to the Philadelphia Street Fight Team 3D and Beer Money had - a boring brawl all around the arena, but the crowd went mental. Overall; OK at best.





May's Sacrifice
The MVP of the show was Don West, who really put on a stormer. The show featured generally good matches - Daniels/Suicide, Taylor Wilde/Daffney (Monster's Ball), Mick Foley (c) vs Sting vs. Angle vs. Jarrett (Sting won, and so is now the leader of the MEM), some great matches - Lethal/Creed/EY vs MMG/Bashir, Beer Money/British Invasion, one really poor match (Joe vs Nash) and a good match ruined by Russo - Booker vs AJ : I Quit Match (rather good until Morasca ran in & threw the towel for Booker). Overall; very good!




June's Slammiversary
This PPV was built well in the preceeding 5 weeks & was mostly a very strong wrestling PPV - X-Division KOTM (Suicide retained), Monsters Ball (Raven/Daffney vs Abyss/Wilde), Team 3D/Beer Money, World Title KotM (Foley, Angle, Joe, AJ, Jarrett) but was slightly let down by some crazy nonsensical booking. Still, this is the best TNA PPV since January's Genesis. Overall; very good!




July's Victory Road
How can you do from two "very good" PPVs to the worst PPV of the decade, and possibly all time?! No hyperbole here! This piss, **** and vomit cocktail saw Tara and Love in the curtain jerker/match of the night - That's right! Dr. Stevie tazer'd Abyss for the win, 3D/British Invasion was very poor, Morasca/Sharmell - possibly the worst match ever - a match so bad you should actually track it down! Elsewhere, Nash jobbed out AJ clean without using his finisher, Beer Money couldn't do anything with Booker/Steiner, Taz finally showed up in TNA, as Sting refused to take Joe's muscle buster in a calamatous affair. Bobby Lashley's video says TNA is #2 behind his 'real' career (MMA) and an injured Kurt Angle can't do anything with the enormous drag factor that is Mick Foley in the ring. Overall; f***ing s**t!




August's Hard Justice
The X-Division Steel Asylum Match stole the show (featuring Amazing Red, Suicide, MMG, Lethal, Daniels, Creed, Pope). It was all downhill from there. Abyss/Jethrow Holiday, Joe/Homicide, 3D/Booker-Steiner, Nash vs ****ing FOLEY...all range from disappointing to disgraceful...although ODBeaner vs TBP (where Beaner battered Velvet's arse) had a stupidly entertaining affair. Hard Justice was main-evented by Sting vs Angle vs Morgan, which sucked. (We'd recommend watching the X-D and ODB/TBP matches, though) Overall; poor.




September's No Surrender
Back to TNA sucking. Pope's/Suicide's talents were wasted in a brawl, TBP show just how badly they need Angelina Love against Taylor & Sarita, Daniels/Joe submit a disappointing effort, Abyss/Nash stank up the arena, Beer Money vs Team 3D vs. Steiner/Booker vs. British Invasion have an alright Lethal Lockdown, Bobby Lashley has a terrible PPV debut with Rhino, and AJ wins a four-way match in the most embarassing fashion (Sting "let" him pin Angle) in a decent match. Everything about this PPV was 'meh'...with so many poor booking choices and squandered opportunities. Overall; poor.




October's Bound For Glory
Finally! A decent PPV (I don't count this as TNA's "WrestleMania", TNA PPVs just 'happen'). Ultimate X match was very good, but worse than previous outings, (Amazing Red's win was completely overshadowed by the dangerous, botched spot by Daniels and Suicide)...then a string of OK matches, a surprisingly enjoyable Joe vs Lashley, a comically overbooked botchfest by Abyss and Foley (which had me in stitches). Angle/Morgan had quite a good match (Angle bringing Morgan to the match of his career), Sting vs Styles in Sting's best match (i.e. OK by normal standards) in over a year. (I personally quite enjoyed the PPV) Overall; good.




November's Turning Point
TNA's PPV of the Year, and probably wrestling PPV of the Year. Wow! I know! Not only did it have the correct booking decisions, the general match quality was great. The PPV delivered when it really needed to, and every match was at least average. The card featured surprisingly decent efforts by the KOs (Tara/Kong in a cage, TBP vs ODB/Taylor/Sarita), decent enough attempts by 3D/Rhyno vs Morgan/Hernandez/Pope, good matches (Amazing Red/Homicide and MMG vs Beer Money vs British Invasion) and capped off by two match of the year candidates, the superb Nigel McGuinness vs Kurt Angle, and AJ/Joe/Daniels in a three-way. Overall, a huge success, well done TNA. Excellent.




December's Final Resolution
This PPV hasn't happened at the time of writing, but is headed up by Styles vs. Daniels, McGuinness/Angle 2/3 falls, The Feast or Fired Match (containing most of the roster) and ODB vs Tara. I imagine that the PPV will be good to very good, but not excellent. McGuinness and Angle will have another stormer. Daniels hasn't impressed in singles competition since his returning debut match against Angle (so I imagine the match will be good-to-very-good), and the Feast or Fired could go either way. The Guns will probably put in a good performance against the British Invasion. Speculation on a PPV isn't great so I'll just leave it at that!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DohAGhtlMd0

So a quick re-cap :

iMPACT has been very hit-and-miss this year. Booking is terrible, matches are in general very short, in favour of multiple useless backstage vignettes. But the show is "entertaining nonsense" if you turn your mind off.

January's Genesis : Good
February's Against All Odds : Poor
March's Destination X : An abortion
April's Lockdown : Not bad.
May's Sacrifice : Very good
June's Slammiversary : Very good
July's Victory Road : F***ing Sh*t!
August's Hard Justice : Poor
September's No Surrender : Poor
October's Bound For Glory : Good
November's Turning Point : Excellent

ALL IN ALL

TNA has had a big shuffling on-screen and off. It's seen some great moments, but some truly awful ones. Overall, it's been quite a poor year. Their PPV buys have never been so low (Slammiversary got 8,000 buys; 20,000 is needed to break even, WWE averages around 190,000 outside the 'big 4') and main events undelivered. I've never thought "am I going to quit TNA altogether?" so many times in one year. It'd be remiss that a large part of my wanting to watch TNA is due to Nigel McGuinness.

Thankfully, in the last 2 months, we have seen a change for the better. We've finally gotten past the horrible botch that was the MEM angle (it started very promisingly), and the terror that is Foley, Nash, Abyss and Sting in the ring. We're left with some fresh match-ups, headed by AJ, Joe, Daniels, Morgan, Hernandez, Angle and McGuinness, who has been protected really well, despite being powered through his storyline.



With TNA's mid-carders finally getting a go, and Hogan's impending arrival, things look really interesting for TNA. Steve predicts a Brand Split storyline with Hogan and Dixie, which either sees a new TNA show and/or a move to Monday Nights. Let's hope that a minority of Hogan's mates come (we're hearing Beefcake, Knobbs, Heidenreich...also Umaga and Kennedy) and that Hogan uses his stroke to sort out the pacing of the storylines. It'll be impossible (and inadvisable) for Hogan to wrestle on a regular basis, so let's hope TNA is in a better position this time next year.

Machismo Fan

A hit or miss first 7-8 months but they started to pick up over the last 4 months. While the focus has clearly been shifted towards the younger guys and new faces, the thought of Hogan coming in could change that instantly (though thankfully it doesn't appear that he'll be wrestling very often so he can't job out the entire roster). Excellent matches have been at a minimum this year as the focus on the MEM, while gave the show and product a certain sense of direction, really decreased overall match quality.

Beer Money haven't shot into stardom after a face turn in the way that they should have due to poor booking and the immediate loss of the Tag titles to Booker and Steiner. The X-Division has been pushed even further down the pecking order though I'm happy to see the title on Red (when he's not being squashed by Steiner). On the subject of Steiner, all credit to him, he didn't go down the route of Booker who didn't put in the effort, I think Steiner has given everything he has in each of his matches this year and he has really earned my respect this year.

While AJ hasn't been booked as a strong champion, he's undeniably the right choice for the main events. As long as he isn't bogged down with somebody like Nash in main events he'll steal the show on every PPV for the next few months and hopefully well beyond and TNA haven't had that kind of stability in the main events very often. Future matches against Wolfe, Angle, Daniels, Joe and his mystery attacker all have potential over the next few months plus matches against the likes of Hernandez and Morgan should be good. Plus Pope has oozed charisma and personality since debuting.

They've been inconsistent with PPV's this year. Mostly storyline based PPV's (like Victory Road) have failed miserably while work rate based PPV's (like Turning Point, BFG, Genesis and Slammiversary) have succeeded. In summary, while TNA have had pretty bad year 2010 looks to have potential but that all depends on the effect Hogan has.

flahavaj

Did you write this jaykhunter? Fair play to you if you did, great write up and overall pretty fair analysis of the year they've had.

michael.etc...

Agreed, that was a really good read.

jaykhunter

Thanks guys, I sure did! it took me a while to cull together from my reviews from the past year :pac: I might supplement it with something along the lines of Machismo Fan's analysis, I didn't really hit it from that angle.

But cheers!

Rjd2

Superb opening post.
I think I will do one of these for WWE next week depending on time and stuff.

EdK

TNA has had a pretty poor year to be honest but have shown glimmers of excellence and I hope are starting to realise that matches like Styles V Joe V Daniels and Wolfe Vs Angle are what people what to see, TNA have a really strong roster and used correctly they could do great things

I do feel that many people who speak on TNA being non sensical or being hard to follow are speaking from their previous experiences which dont tend to be at all recent, If you watch the TNA product regularly it fits together not too bad

TNA are not perfect and have had a strong finish to the year and honestly right now I look forward to their ppvs and tv show more than WWE, I conssider myself a wrestling fan and watch all different types TNA,WWE,ROH and Dragongate all for different reasons I take what I want from each and try not to be over critical which leads to greater enjoyment of wrestling

Don't be too cynical, people have the right to their opinions but todays wrestling fans it seems like they cannot be appeased

Im not too optimistic about Hogan and TNA it seemed they had turned a corner only to turn back again but we will see when Hogan's true impact and involvement becomes more clear

JP Liz

great post op

Tricity Bendix

First off, well done on the OP.

[qoute]TNA has had their worst year ever - Terrible PPV buyrates, stagnant TV ratings and truly awful booking and wrestling quality in the main event, and the women's division.[/quote]
There's a lot of things in the OP that I agreed with, and lots I disagreed with. But the thing that got the biggest reaction out of me was including the women's division as part of the reason why the past year was TNA's worst ever.

Although they lost Kim (and Love halfway through the year), TNA gained Tara, Hamada, Sarita and Alissa Flash. Kong was probably the best female worker in the West over the past year, and ODB became **** hot. The women have put on great matches throughout the year. Looking at Jenna vs Sharmel in isolation is just not fair, as its crappiness is easily cancelled out by the brilliance that was Tara vs Kong.

jaykhunter

Thanks for the kind words It's so refreshing to not hear typical "Xbox Live" responses!!

I lumped the Women's Division in while mentioning TNA's worst year ever because I no longer look forward to the matches, and haven't all year. I literally stopped caring the day Gail Kim left. Although ODB is popular, I thought she was red hot late last year/early this year and Kim's natural babyface-champion successor. Even with Kong's injury they only (reluctantly) pulled the trigger on ODB a lot later, and put her in with Beaner and left out of the loop with Tara vs Kong. Kong's mystique (IMO) has gone way downhill this year. I don't see her with the aura of awesomeness I used to during her run with Kim

I can tell that Flash, Sarita and ~Hamada are great women's wrestlers (better technically than Kim!) but I haven't seen anything spectacular on a consistent basis. I know Alyssa Flash and Sarita had a stormer (2nd best women's match on American TV I've seen in 2009 :eek:) a few months back that I neglected to mention. I whole-heartedly disapprove of TNA's decision to add KO Tag Belts and have two women's matches on the PPV. I think the women's PPV matches -on average- are better than the disgrace that is WWE's Divas Division but about as tolerable as an Abyss/Foley/Stevie Richards match. Since The Beautiful People can't wrestle, Sarita and Wilde are having a rough time dragging them to a passable match.

Victoria is a great veteran but she's past her prime - I don't think she can wrestle as good as Kim. I'm a big fan on Victoria's but I view Gail Kim's loss for the KO Division like if TNA lost AJ Styles and Kurt Angle in the men's division. TNA can't have as good a match anymore simply because no-one of the same calibre is around (in terms of both crowd-reaction, story-telling and wrestling ability). I do think as I warm to Sarita, Flash and Hamada, and they pull out stunners like they did on iMPACT a few months ago, and possibly hire Sara Del Rey and MisChief (who had my personal best women's match at ROH's Rising Above 2009 :pac::pac:), and get Angelina back, they'll be a very strong division.

Anyway, my main problem is that the females are wasted in tag matches. All of these women have much better singles matches. I'd rather have one awesome division than two mediocre ones. They already have the best women's division on TV (sorry, SHIMMER, get a TV deal!) but they need to be booked correctly to hide their flaws and accentuate their strengths. At the moment all I see is what could be and the "meh" that is today.

Personally I hate watching women wrestle (unless it's a spectactular match - I've only seen 2 this year lol) so it's quite subjective negativity on my part. Hope that explains it

michael.etc...

Tricity Bendix wrote: »

Although they lost Kim (and Love halfway through the year), TNA gained Tara, Hamada, Sarita and Alissa Flash. Kong was probably the best female worker in the West over the past year, and ODB became **** hot. The women have put on great matches throughout the year. Looking at Jenna vs Sharmel in isolation is just not fair, as its crappiness is easily cancelled out by the brilliance that was Tara vs Kong.

I definitely agree here that there have been some fine women's outings this year (like every year) in TNA. But I do also think Tara has largely been horrible since she joined, and the booking surrounding her, and Kong highly questionable. They also had a cage match for no reason last month...?

The creative team really do a disservice to the division though, regardless of how well the ladies work, so hopefully that changes. But the biggest problem for me has been the loss of Angelina Love... it somehow seems to have removed the stability and direction of the entire division.

But still- in terms of the ladies, miles ahead of WWE.

Personally I hate watching women wrestle

Jakhunter- have you tried Shimmer?

jaykhunter

michael.etc... wrote: »

Jakhunter- have you tried Shimmer?

I actually name-dropped them in the women's division post. And said Del Rey and MsChief (two SHIMMER wrestlers) had my personal Women's MotY at ROH's Rising Above

Honestly I'm quite a misogynist in terms of wrestling - I don't care for women outside sex appeal. In WWE and TNA (in general) they're not presented as athletes and are not as good as male wrestlers, so I don't care. I think I've been bred by Vince McMahon that a woman's place in wrestling is sex appeal only.

I realise I'm downplaying their contributions (despite me talking up a lot of the TNA KO's division) and I've tried SHIMMER but I personally can't watch a PPV with just women. My brain is wired that either women are really hot and can't wrestle (Maryse, The new Beautiful People etc) or not sexy and can wrestle (Sarita, Flash etc) but no woman does it all (for me, that is). Gail Kim had the best of both worlds but in general I'd much rather see men wrestle.

Apologies if this post is sexist, it's just how I view women in wrestling. If a women's match is not as good as a men's match, then the men should wrestle.

Again, I'm sexist with regards to women (in wrestling ONLY!). It's just how I feel. Hope that doesn't invalidate the rest of my opinions!...dunno why I posted it really LOL

michael.etc...

jaykhunter wrote: »

I actually name-dropped them in the women's division post. And said Del Rey and MsChief (two SHIMMER wrestlers) had my personal Women's MotY at ROH's Rising Above

Honestly I'm quite a misogynist in terms of wrestling - I don't care for women outside sex appeal. In WWE and TNA (in general) they're not presented as athletes and are not as good as male wrestlers, so I don't care. I think I've been bred by Vince McMahon that a woman's place in wrestling is sex appeal only.

I realise I'm downplaying their contributions (despite me talking up a lot of the TNA KO's division) and I've tried SHIMMER but I personally can't watch a PPV with just women. My brain is wired that either women are really hot and can't wrestle (Maryse, The new Beautiful People etc) or not sexy and can wrestle (Sarita, Flash etc) but no woman does it all (for me, that is). Gail Kim had the best of both worlds but in general I'd much rather see women wrestle.

Apologies if this post is sexist, it's just how I view women in wrestling. If a women's match is not as good as a men's match, then the men should wrestle.

Oh yeah, so you did! I guess your concluding sentence completely threw me then.

I'm not going to agree with the rest of your post, because I do actually believe it's sexist (which you pretty much admit)- but I don't want to get into a debate about sexism in wrestling either.

However I do agree with the last sentence to some extent (which is why I'm so critical of WWE's women's "wrestling"). But i think in the states, a big problem is that alot of the women are trained by men, and attempt to work like men, which is one of the strengths behind good Joshi- the Women work as if they're women, and play to their own characteristics much better.

To get back on topic- I think TNA did a wonderful job of starting up a division that avoided some of the pitfalls, but then took ten steps backwards.

flahavaj

michael.etc... wrote: »

Jakhunter- have you tried Shimmer?

Or AJW from about 1991-1993. Possibly the greatest run workrate-wise any promotion has ever produced.

Tricity Bendix

jaykhunter wrote: »

I lumped the Women's Division in while mentioning TNA's worst year ever because I no longer look forward to the matches, and haven't all year. I literally stopped caring the day Gail Kim left. Although ODB is popular, I thought she was red hot late last year/early this year and Kim's natural babyface-champion successor. Even with Kong's injury they only (reluctantly) pulled the trigger on ODB a lot later, and put her in with Beaner and left out of the loop with Tara vs Kong. Kong's mystique (IMO) has gone way downhill this year. I don't see her with the aura of awesomeness I used to during her run with Kim

I guess its a personal thing, but one of the main reasons I watch TNA is to watch the women wrestle. As for Kong's mystique, that simply couldn't last. After a while of being on TV, she was bound to lose some of the 'wow' factor she had when we first saw her. I was watching TNA with my little brother, who isn't a wrestling fan, and when he saw Kong his draw dropped.

I can tell that Flash, Sarita and ~Hamada are great women's wrestlers (better technically than Kim!) but I haven't seen anything spectacular on a consistent basis. I know Alyssa Flash and Sarita had a stormer (2nd best women's match on American TV I've seen in 2009 :eek:) a few months back that I neglected to mention. I whole-heartedly disapprove of TNA's decision to add KO Tag Belts and have two women's matches on the PPV. I think the women's PPV matches -on average- are better than the disgrace that is WWE's Divas Division but about as tolerable as an Abyss/Foley/Stevie Richards match. Since The Beautiful People can't wrestle, Sarita and Wilde are having a rough time dragging them to a passable match.

In fairness, the first tag match was a decent affair, and Velvet Sky can wrestle. We've yet to see the best out of Sarita and Wilde, but all the indications are that they're a very exciting team to watch.

Victoria is a great veteran but she's past her prime - I don't think she can wrestle as good as Kim. I'm a big fan on Victoria's but I view Gail Kim's loss for the KO Division like if TNA lost AJ Styles and Kurt Angle in the men's division. TNA can't have as good a match anymore simply because no-one of the same calibre is around (in terms of both crowd-reaction, story-telling and wrestling ability). I do think as I warm to Sarita, Flash and Hamada, and they pull out stunners like they did on iMPACT a few months ago, and possibly hire Sara Del Rey and MisChief (who had my personal best women's match at ROH's Rising Above 2009 :pac::pac:), and get Angelina back, they'll be a very strong division.

Tara is not as good as Kim, thats obvious, but for my money the TNA Tara has been better than the WWE Kim.

Hamada has already been putting on great matches, against Daffney (which I didn't think would work and was very surprised when it did) against Alissa Flash, and against Tara.

Anyway, my main problem is that the females are wasted in tag matches. All of these women have much better singles matches. I'd rather have one awesome division than two mediocre ones. They already have the best women's division on TV (sorry, SHIMMER, get a TV deal!) but they need to be booked correctly to hide their flaws and accentuate their strengths. At the moment all I see is what could be and the "meh" that is today.

I think the Tag titles were brought in because the division is so large now, and the girls need a prop to build storylines around. Plus, TNA know there women's division is a strong selling point.

Personally I hate watching women wrestle (unless it's a spectactular match - I've only seen 2 this year lol) so it's quite subjective negativity on my part. Hope that explains it

Each to their own, I suppose.

michael.etc... wrote: »

I definitely agree here that there have been some fine women's outings this year (like every year) in TNA. But I do also think Tara has largely been horrible since she joined, and the booking surrounding her, and Kong highly questionable. They also had a cage match for no reason last month...?

Tara has been booked very strongly since arriving in TNA. She won the title straight away, has blitzed through most of the talent, and gets cheered by the crowd. Whats wrong with how she's been booked?

And I thought the cage match was fairly obvious: they've been at each other's throughts for months, and the cage match was the big pay off. I thought it was an astounding match, by the way. I don't know how many times I paused and rewinded Tara powerbombing Kong.

The creative team really do a disservice to the division though, regardless of how well the ladies work, so hopefully that changes. But the biggest problem for me has been the loss of Angelina Love... it somehow seems to have removed the stability and direction of the entire division.

That redneck guy holding the title was a disservice, but I think creative showed respect to the division by creating the tag titles.

Angelina is sorely missed. Lacey Von Erich is the worst thing on televised wrestling, and I include Hornswaggle in that estimation. But from what I can tell the direction has very much been ODB vs Tara. Thats what the booking has been leading up to, and its been heading that way for months now.

Machismo Fan

Tricity Bendix wrote: »

Angelina is sorely missed. Lacey Von Erich is the worst thing on televised wrestling, and I include Hornswaggle in that estimation.

I still don't see why they insist on putting Lacey in the ring when Madison and Velvet are more than competent enough to carry the in ring aspect of the group.

jaykhunter

Machismo Fan wrote: »

I still don't see why they insist on putting Lacey in the ring when Madison and Velvet are more than competent enough to carry the in ring aspect of the group.

Although they've gotten better, their tag match at September's No Surrender was a huge botch, and a huge eye-opener. Considering both Wilde and Sarita at both at least good women's wrestler, they couldn't do anything with Rayne and Velvet. I agree that Lacey's even worse than those two. Velvet and Rayne have upped their game since but I'd consider them average at best.

I should also make it clear that I respect proper women's wrestlers, but not women that are on TV because they are pretty but have no in-ring talent.

michael.etc...

Tricity Bendix wrote: »

Tara has been booked very strongly since arriving in TNA. She won the title straight away, has blitzed through most of the talent, and gets cheered by the crowd. Whats wrong with how she's been booked?

And I thought the cage match was fairly obvious: they've been at each other's throughts for months, and the cage match was the big pay off. I thought it was an astounding match, by the way. I don't know how many times I paused and rewinded Tara powerbombing Kong.

But was the Cage match not their first one-on-one on PPV? And was it announced in advance?
It was an impressive effort though definitely.

Completely agree on the Beautiful People- without Lacey's involvement, they're fantastic. It doesn't matter that they great technicians- they're still very entertaining in the ring.

jaykhunter

Went back and re-watched the inaugural KO tag belts match from No Surrender. It wasn't half as bad as I remember it - wow Sarita tried really, really hard in the match to make sure it was decent. Great job! I'm sure TBP will be happy to get Angelina back....she's much more effective as a heel... She'll probably have a face run to start with then Russo back into TBP.

Oh, I wrote up a Year in Review for the TNA Roster aswell (talking about individual wrestlers) I'd be really grateful for any replies

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055758926

Memnoch99

I tend to be very critical of TNA overall mostly, but I have watched more of it this year than before. I will always watch the PPVs and for a while from the Empty Arena match between Angle and Sting I watched every Impact up until AJ won the belt recently. However I hate watching Impact-its really difficult sitting through some of the crap thats on it just to watch one decent segment. I honestly think that TNA need to take every PPV on the road-the atmosphere at those PPVs tends to be way better than the ones in the Impact Zone. And they need to stop cramming everyone on the roster on to PPVs. Too many multi-person tag matches.
A lot of things that showed promise were a let down ultimatley.
Sting being the Godfather of the Mafia/ Joe being in the Mafia/ The lame finish to Sting/Aj at BFG.

That being said there was some fantastic stuff as well-Angle/Jarrett-Aj/Daniels/Joe and Angle/Mcguiness. I loved the Empty Arena match (cant remember was that this year though) and anything Angelina is awesome.
Morgan/Angle was also surprisingly good.

D2D

Just in case anyone doesn't know how bad Victory Road really was, a whole botchamania was made for it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyI9teoTi9M

chopperbyrne

That womens match looked terrible. It looked like Sharmell tried her best though.

Loving the Yoshi music from Mario World.

jaykhunter

Memnoch99 wrote: »

I tend to be very critical of TNA overall mostly, but I have watched more of it this year than before.[...]That being said there was some fantastic stuff as well-Angle/Jarrett-Aj/Daniels/Joe and Angle/Mcguiness. I loved the Empty Arena match (cant remember was that this year though) and anything Angelina is awesome.
Morgan/Angle was also surprisingly good.

I completely agree. Cements my theory of intelligent fans having the same basic opinions on wrestling, with individual variations throughout :):). I'm a Morgan-booster so I wanted/expected/was happy to see Morgan/Angle being good! Don't get me wrong, it wasn't amazing, but if they had two more PPV matches to finish the feud they would've been great. Most people think Morgan = Khali/Kozlov/etc etc and neglect to see his potential so it's good that Angle showcased Morgan's talent/potential at BFG.

You probably know it already but TNA have been doing really, really badly with PPV buyrates (Slammiversary got 8,000 buys) so it doesn't even make sense to keep doing PPV (they do them because of pride, wanting to be 'just like WWE' before they're ready) let alone go on the road! Although yeah, I love it when PPVs are out of Orlando, crowds are bigger and much more up for it (except for the Philadelphia crowd, who only got into the 3D match and whenever someone botched) TNA really can't afford it.

I suppose when only 20,000 people are watching the PPV it doesn't really matter where you have it. I know Dixie mentioned that she'd love to do a PPV in UK, that could just be talk. But the fact is you'd get 5,000+ paying customers.

Just to continue that thought of a UK TNA PPV, UFC tried to sell their English PPVs back in America and it was a flop. They showed it live at 3pm and a repeat at 9 - no-one was interested. So now they just air it free on Spike TV with a sh-t-load of ads and plugs. TNA should do the same thing once a year

Vince135792003

jaykhunter wrote: »

So now they just air it free on Spike TV with a sh-t-load of ads and plugs. TNA should do the same thing once a year

That's not strictly true in the sense that not all their international shows are free on tv.. UFC shows from Dublin and Germany were both on ppv this year and did quite well.

jaykhunter

I meant that they're free to air in the US but not for us

Do you mean that the Dublin and Germany UFC's were PPVs in the states, but the UK ones are free?

Vince135792003

jaykhunter wrote: »

I meant that they're free to air in the US but not for us

The Dublin show and the show from Germany was on ppv over in the US.

jaykhunter

Had no idea! Cheers