psz
Midcarder
Posts: 259
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Post by psz on Jan 17, 2010 20:49:03 GMT -5
It's official: The Six Sided Ring is dead.
Long live the Raw-Lookalike (Especially when you see former Raw wrestlers in it...)
(Personal note: I always thought the six-sided ring was gimicky, BUT!!! it was also something uniquely TNA (at least in the US). If you saw a six sided ring, you KNEW it was TNA.)
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Post by mamushi on Jan 17, 2010 20:55:25 GMT -5
I was kinda indifferent about the ring to begin with, though I think since they've been associated with it this long that it's kinda dumb to get rid of it now.
Oh well. Kinda figured when they brought Hogan in a lot of that sort of uniquely TNA stuff would go out the window.
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psz
Midcarder
Posts: 259
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Post by psz on Jan 17, 2010 21:00:49 GMT -5
Not that it was really being pushed anymore, but I give the X-Division/Championship either 6 months to get a complete re-focus, or a "future endeavors".
On a good note, it appears (at first glance) to be a full-sized ring, not the smaller rings that ECW and WCW used to use.
*EDIT* On second view (IE: different angle), it may be the ECW/WCW size ring afterall...
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Post by JustinCredible on Jan 17, 2010 21:36:41 GMT -5
I personally loved the crowd booing Hogan during the opening segment over the ring.
But with the square ring & elevated runway to the ring it looks just like mid-late 90's WCW again.
I also thought the "let's have our legitimate tough guy-MMA fighter get knocked out backstage" segment was another stroke of creative genius.
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Post by LillaThrilla on Jan 17, 2010 21:57:31 GMT -5
I haven't seen enough TNA to know if the 6-sided ring is better for the product but it is different from WWE and that is a good thing. Sadly, I suspect the possibility of Hogan nixing the X-Division isn't very unlikely either. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Should we start a betting pool to see how long till TNA goes kaput and gets bought by Vince?
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Post by JeepGuy on Jan 17, 2010 23:29:44 GMT -5
And no one inside the TNA organization sees any of this as wrong?
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Post by pulsar on Jan 18, 2010 2:32:08 GMT -5
While I'm all for giving people a chance, bringing in established stars, I have the biggest beef over the INSANE influx of wrestlers to TNA in the last month or so. So far we have Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, Ken Anderson, Brian Kendrick, Sean Waltman, Sean Morley, Scott Hall, The Nasty Boys, Tomko and Orlando Jordan. Just those new guys alone take up your full 2 hour show. I just really feel bad for those who have been with the company a while, and will just see themselves die off now. I have a feeling the end is nigh for Raven, Abyss, Dr. Stevie, The X-Division, 1/2 the knockouts, and all creativity.
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psz
Midcarder
Posts: 259
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Post by psz on Jan 18, 2010 8:08:23 GMT -5
Well it's not like Hogan told Abyss to stop being hardcore ir anything...
Oh wait...
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Post by LillaThrilla on Jan 18, 2010 10:00:38 GMT -5
So Mr. Kennedy was Hogan's big surprise? Really? At least they put him over Abyss to give him cred...
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psz
Midcarder
Posts: 259
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Post by psz on Jan 18, 2010 19:57:43 GMT -5
His reaction seemed good (Couldn't really hear it where I was), so that's at least good.
At this point, though, short of Cena, Orton, DX, or 'Taker, there's not really many BIG SURPRISES TNA could drag out anymore :-P
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Post by JustinCredible on Jan 19, 2010 5:18:47 GMT -5
*Contains spoiler of a sort* for those of us that read spoilers on the net, TNA had their director of production come out before the last Impact taping on Jan 18 to address the crowd. One fan caught it on his mobile device. Here is the video. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jAIe58DveYOne guy asks a good question... why did it take them over 6 years to realize this?
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psz
Midcarder
Posts: 259
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Post by psz on Jan 19, 2010 8:52:14 GMT -5
Wow.
I'd read something about it, but figured it was exagerated.
So basically... Fans, you can't do shit: No signs bashing the four sided ring, no cursing, no anything.
And I thought WWE was the PG show.
(Somewhere in New York, Paul Heyman is cracking up)
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Post by mamushi on Jan 19, 2010 11:24:06 GMT -5
Not that I'm surprised, just figured I'd still have time to see it this morning before it got ganked.
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Post by LillaThrilla on Jan 19, 2010 18:18:45 GMT -5
for those of us that read spoilers on the net, TNA had their director of production come out before the last Impact taping on Jan 18 to address the crowd. One fan caught it on his mobile device. Here is the video. One guy asks a good question... why did it take them over 6 years to realize this? What is a good site for wrestling news & spoilers these days?
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Post by JustinCredible on Jan 19, 2010 18:22:30 GMT -5
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Post by Rick Garrard on Jan 19, 2010 18:26:54 GMT -5
If you saw a six sided ring, you KNEW it was TNA.) I always saw it and wondered why the announcers were speaking English, since it was AAA's ring first. As Bischoff has stated in the past regarding his WCW vs WWF feud, there are two ways to beat a competitor... be completely different than them (which is what he did with WCW) or be extremely better than them at the same thing they do, which is highly unlikely in TNA's case. Hogan's arrival starts the decline of TNA.
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Post by LillaThrilla on Jan 19, 2010 18:27:03 GMT -5
I love when the TNA guy talks about having a kid here and a fan responds with "Why would you bring a kid here?"
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psz
Midcarder
Posts: 259
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Post by psz on Jan 19, 2010 19:27:27 GMT -5
Gotta disagree a bit, there. The match styles were nearly identical, the angles were close, and the roster was, well, ex-WWF guys. Other than the Cruiserweights and the nWo, there wasn't much that really defined WCW vs WWF
ECW? That was different. ROH? That's different. Old TNA? That was different.
I'd say that WCW DEFINATELY fell in the "Same but better" catergory, at it's peak.
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Post by snabbit888 on Jan 20, 2010 0:45:20 GMT -5
I'm glad it's gone. They hardly ever utilized it as any different anyway, and it just made a lot of the older wrestlers look super awkward. Being different just for the sake of is equally as counterproductive as trying to copy someone.
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Post by JustinCredible on Jan 21, 2010 21:19:23 GMT -5
Hulk Hogan was on Bubba The Love Sponge's radio show this morning and said he wants to kill off all TNA house shows until the TV comes together.
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Post by JeepGuy on Jan 21, 2010 23:45:37 GMT -5
I'm glad it's gone. They hardly ever utilized it as any different anyway, and it just made a lot of the older wrestlers look super awkward. Being different just for the sake of is equally as counterproductive as trying to copy someone. Easy solution ... get rid of the older wrestlers!
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Post by snabbit888 on Jan 22, 2010 1:08:56 GMT -5
I'm glad it's gone. They hardly ever utilized it as any different anyway, and it just made a lot of the older wrestlers look super awkward. Being different just for the sake of is equally as counterproductive as trying to copy someone. Easy solution ... get rid of the older wrestlers! So that no one watches at all? Casual fans don't give a shit about the Motor City Machineguns. Or Daniels. Or any of those guys. It's sad, but true. You need your recognizable stars for anyone to even start watching to be able to learn about the internet darlings.
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Post by JustinCredible on Jan 22, 2010 4:51:27 GMT -5
Bubba the Love Sponge went on the Howard Stern radio show this morning and pretty much buried the company. Howard thought that the altercation was a work. Bubba called in and said it wasn't. He said TNA was in shambles and he had gone to help them as a favor to Hogan and was given the job of backstage interviewer. He talked about giving away tickets to his listeners for the January 4 live Impact so that, "They wouldn't have the same 40 people showing up to their event." He claimed he had 1800 followers of his Bubba Army standing outside the Impact Zone but Universal Studios staffers told them that Bubba's passes were unauthorized. Regarding the altercation with Kong, he claimed he grabbed Kong by the neck and was ready to giver her a pounding but realized if he did then he may lose his day job. He said he's trying to get hold of security surveillance footage to see if the altercation was caught on tape.
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Post by JustinCredible on Jan 22, 2010 4:57:13 GMT -5
Here are a few highlights from Hulk Hogan's appearance on Bubba the Love Sponge's show yesterday morning:
* Hogan wants to end TNA house shows until the TV situation comes together.
* Hogan said he has no plans on bringing in only his friends to TNA.
* Bubba called Awesome Kong a b**** when talking about their incident earlier in the week. Hogan played it off as being menstrual related.
* Hogan put over Ric Flair, saying he was really on his game once he got rolling with AJ Styles.
* Hogan said his focus in TNA was showing everyone how the business works.
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Post by mamushi on Jan 22, 2010 13:18:05 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm real convinced that Bubba would've put a "beating" on Kong. I'll believe when I see it on the tape that would never see the light of day anyway and not coming from the mouth of a guy who, for all intents and purposes, was "beaten up by a girl." His ego is on damage control. And if that's Hogan's real view of the situation and not just playing up to Bubba cause he's on his show then the women's division is very quickly on it's way out sadly.
Then that first night was just my imagination??
At this point, I wonder if Hogan hasn't been away from being an actual person in the wrestling business so long that he has no idea what today's audience wants and needs, especially as competition to the WWE juggernaut.
I've got a lot of respect for Hogan and what he's done in the business, and there is a probably little bit of a disconnect from what he really thinks and is trying to do behind the scenes and what he's portraying to the public eye (like his comments above) but the question is how much.
From what I've heard, I get the feeling we're on our way to a generic, WWE-light product that will end up being white noise.
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