Greetings conversationalists all across the fruited plain it is I your personal Harvester of Sorrow the one and only Phantom Lord and this is the often imitated but not quite duplicated Rant Of The Week. As always I am coming to you from my bunker in the urban hell hole that is Brooklyn, New York and you know and I’m all ready in an agitated state right now so you can guess I’ll be venting some of my built up anger on TNA this week. I really can’t figure TNA out. I mean they do something good with Joe winning the title and then as we’ve seen on the last couple of impacts they take ten steps back with crazy gimmicks and insane stipulations. But I will get to that in due time.
It’s not often I give credit to the WWE for something good, but over the last two weeks I have been enjoying William Regal’s push. He won the King of the Ring which was a total shock. I figured they would give it to CM Punk or maybe John Bradshaw Layfield. I mean you have to love how Regal essentially rigged the tournament for himself to win. First he draws a match against Hornswoggle, then he faces a severely beaten Finlay, and he disposes of CM Punk in an outstanding final. From a heel standpoint it as great as it gets because the best heels are ones who can out smart everyone.
Things got better with Regal’s new sense of power as he has said everyone will respect him and fear him. Because of this I will refer to him as King William The Destroyer. The first to test King William was Mr. Kennedy. Kennedy has been trying to fit into RAW since he was drafted over last year and nothing has really stuck because his style just doesn’t mesh for RAW. But never the less he came out and insulted the King and he got a straight left right to the mouth for his troubles. Kennedy is at his best when he’s a royal prick and getting into Regal’s face like he did and under his skin was great.
Of course as GM and King, Regal could extract his revenge any way he so chose and he did it in a way no one ever has. He went into the production truck and flipped out and forced the director to fade to black right as Triple H had Randy Orton in the Crippler Crossface (gotta love how that move is quietly coming back).
Last week on RAW, Vince McMahon opened the show to address what had happened and he said no one had the balls to do something like that before and being so innovative reminded him of himself so he was fully behind Regal’s actions. Regal then came out and as the crowd ragged on him, he ordered the lights off. See if your going to be an evil GM then do it right and this is very much right. Abuse your power because what’s the point of having such great power if you can’t abuse it.
The only thing I didn’t like was Regal throwing Kennedy into a match against the entire ECW roster. It was supposed to be a way to “promote” the 100th episode of ECW (about 95 or so to many). Triple H also came out and told Regal that for his own good, don’t go to war with him so he got thrown into the match as well. For the most part the match was ECW beating on Mr. Kennedy and at the end Triple H cleaned house only for the lights to go out and Randy Orton to be waiting to nail a beautiful RKO.
Not a bad first week as King of the Ring. I’m enjoying Regal’s reign so far and the eventual Kennedy/Regal match should be pretty good because Kennedy does not get enough credit for being a good wrestler. Throw him in with Regal and it should be a good fight.
Moving along to topics of greater interest, I come to my favorite punching bag in the whole world of Wrestling, TNA. See TNA at best is a parody of a wrestling company because no real company would ever be so stupid. I mean the stuff they do brings up memories of WCW and how they continue to shoot themselves in the foot over and over.
Let’s skip back a couple of weeks back to Lockdown. This was the first TNA pay per view I had ordered in probably six months if not longer. I was really psyched to see Angle vs. Joe for the title. I wasn’t buying into all that it’s gonna be an MMA style match. I was just watching because this was a match that had me interested for once. And it was a great match. It will probably be in my Top 3 Matches of the Year if I actually do a list. It was everything TNA should be. Great wrestling with no bullshit gimmicks, run in’s, or any of the other crap we’ve come to expect from TNA. It was everything a TNA Main event should be. The two best guys in the company trying to kill each other to be the World Champion. It’s everything the “fake” sport of professional wrestling should be.
But leave it to TNA to ruin something good by going back to the same old crap that they have been doing that has left them in a permanent 1.0 rating. We go back to two weeks ago on Impact where there was a tag title match between Tomko/Styles vs. Kaz/Eric Young. It was your typical TNA tag title match but for some reason Eric Young has been playing this character who has no courage so he runs off to the back. As Kaz is getting his ass kicked suddenly the music hits and out comes SUPER ERIC. A man not afraid of anyone or anything (including the pyro) and he proceeds to clean house and he and Kaz win the tag titles.
Seems simple enough you would think. But this is TNA. They have to do everything WCW to drive itself into the ground and then some. Tomko and Styles complain that it was outside interference since Eric Young is not Super Eric. At this point you can visualize the ulcer Jim Cornette must have when he has to do this stuff. Just to get everyone off his back he agrees to make Eric Young admit one way or the other that he is Super Eric. We get to the ring and Eric refuses to admit he is Super Eric. At this point Cornette could have said “God, just kill me now” because that would be much more humane to him at this point. Eric Young refuses to admit he is Super Eric (even though they wear the same exact tights that say SHOWTIME on the back) and Cornette strips Young and Kaz of the tag titles. Tomko and Styles figure they are getting the belts back but oh no this is TNA. We need to really gimmick this one up.
What TNA came up with is the Super Wild Deuces tag team tournament. I’m not even sure if that’s what they are calling it, all I know is its stupid. You have eight established teams and 8 wild card entrants. It’s a mix of a tag team tournament and the Battle Bowl tournament where enemies can be partners (and since this is TNA you know that’s the case). It’s also what you would call a giant cluster fuck.
LAX were the number one contenders for the tag team titles so why Kaz and Eric got a tag title shot to begin with is beyond me. But hey since when is a little thing called continuity ever been an issue for TNA. So now there’s this mess of a tournament and we have The Egotistical Eight.
Those eight include “Megastar” Kip James (ROTFLMAO), Matt Morgan, BG James, Sting, Booker T, Robert Roode, James Storm, and AWESOME KONG. See now that’s the only remotely interesting thing about this. I might just order Sacrifice to see Kong beat the piss out of Billy Gunn. But for those you who can’t see the conclusion to this a mile away, the obvious winners will be a duo who doesn’t quite get along.
They also gave away a match that should have been on the PPV on Impact with The Motor City Machine Guns vs. Christian/Rhino. It was a great match and even though The MCMG’s lost, they still looked great. A match like that you want on PPV. But as usual TNA just throws it away on television hoping they can get an extra tenth of a point in the ratings.
The whole thing is a train wreck. I personally want to see LAX win just because they rule and Hector Guerrero is still having an identity crisis with his whole “I’ll be Eddie if Eddie were pushing 60” act. Odds are one of the mis-matched teams will win only to lose the titles on the next Impact because it just wouldn’t be a logical conclusion to a massive tournament if the team that ended up winning lost the belts real quick.
Another thing that annoyed me was the continued screwing over of Jay Lethal. Black Machismo by all accounts was a comedy gimmick that should have never got over. But it did and Lethal is easily one of the top baby faces on the whole roster. But despite all that they continue to make him look weak any chance they get. It was no exception as after he defended the X Title on Impact they had Lil Petey Pump come running in with a Pearl Harbor job on him and he cashed in his X Title shot and stole the belt from Lethal. I didn’t realize the Feast or Be Fired cases were now MITB cases. In any event it pissed me off to no end when they took the belt off Lethal yet again. I mean they had him look weak for a couple of months during that angle with Devine and The Dudley’s. He finally wins his belt back and is doing great and once again TNA takes the title off him.
I did find it funny though that after they put the belt on Lil Petey Pump, he got kicked in the face by Jimmy Rave and he’s now out with an broken orbital bone.
Of course it’s not like he was going to defend the title at Sacrifice anyway because TNA has come up with another convoluted gimmick match. It’s called The Terrordome and if you’ve ever seen any AAA on Galavision then you’ve seen this match before under its Spanish name of DOMO DE LA MUERTE a.k.a. The Dome of Death.
If you’re bored you can check out a video of the AAA version from Triplemania XV that I found on youtube.
Just copy and paste this link into your browser of choice.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vFL5Pvon2kA
Personally I think it’s a train wreck so I can only imagine how the TNA version is going to go. And all of this is to determine the number 1 contender for the X Division championship.
All I know is, I feel sorry for who ever will be taking the HOLY SHIT bump off the cage. You know someone is going to get launched off the cage and through a table. I think A.J. Styles right now is thanking Jesus that he’s only got to put Super Eric over because last year if TNA needed someone to take a Foley bump, A.J. was always the one getting launched for it.
I honestly can’t figure out TNA. It’s really like they look at their program and say “ok let’s do everything we can to stay just where we are”. They have the talent to more then be able to be doing double or triple the business they are doing now yet TNA management does everything they can to pigeon hole themselves into the ground. I believe the problem is TNA is run by people who aren’t thinking globally. TNA by all accounts is a regional promotion that just happens to be on national cable. I’ve said this over and over and over and until TNA finally realize that what might work in Nashville at the state fair grounds won’t work everywhere else.
One thing TNA does have that actually does work is the Knockouts division. Next to the Angle/Joe match at Lockdown, the best match of the night was Kong/Saeed vs. Kim/ODB. The Knockouts have done the impossible and that’s make women’s wrestling more then just eye candy in a major promotion. Sure you have small time groups like SHIMMER or WSU who are doing outstanding jobs with women’s wrestling, but TNA to their credit has taken something that the WWE turned into a joke and has given some credibility to it.
But as you know by now, TNA has a habit of shooting it self in the foot and since they have no one who can seemingly stop Awesome Kong (and they won’t pull the trigger and put the belt on ODB all ready) they came up with another convoluted gimmick match for the Knockouts. It’s called the Makeover match. It’s a typical battle royal and when there are only two women left it becomes a ladder match and up top is a contract for a match against the Knockouts Champion. Only catch is who ever loses will have her head shaved bald.
Now as stupid as that is, TNA made it even dumber because on this past Impact they did an Immunity Pole match. Yes TNA just had to get the Knockouts/Pole climber joke in there. The Immunity is that if you get the barbers sheers off the pole then you are Immune from getting your head shaved in the make over match.
If you need a moment to process all of this, your not alone so bare with me here as I try to explain this. Who ever climbs the ladder and gets the contract gets the title shot. But if some how the winner of the Immunity match (which was Gail Kim) is the loser of the ladder match then the person who gets her head shaved will be the third runner up in the battle royal.
I can’t even begin to guess which one of the Knockouts will get their head shaved. I suspect it will be one of the Beautiful People in Angelina Love and Velvet Sky (Angel Williams and Talia Madison). Apparently in her Smokey Mountain days, Jacquelyn had her head shaved in some sort of angle so it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if she got her head shaved just because she needs something of interest other then being James Storm’s drinking buddy.
See I can’t even begin to picture this one and it’s amazing to think TNA only gets around 35,000 buys a PPV if they are lucky.
This past Impact drew a 0.9 rating which is actually below TNA’s usual 1.0-1.2 range. It’s a shame its like this because Samoa Joe, Kurt Angle, and the other TNA guys deserve so much better then this. Granted this past week’s show was particularly bad but still TNA should be able to draw much better then what they do right now. Maybe it’s just because they are on Spike TV. Maybe it’s because Paul Heyman is right when he basically said TNA can’t market their product for shit. Either way I can’t figure out TNA and this PPV this weekend Sacrifice looks like it could be a train wreck of epic proportions.
To make things worse, the main event is Samoa Joe defending the title against Scott Steiner and Kurt Angle in a triple threat and last week Angle was in Korea for a show and he got injured on a botched body slam.
According to a house show report, Angle came out and looked like he could barely walk and some how he’s going to wrestle on the PPV unless something happens.
If Angle is as hurt as these reports lead on to be, I would hope TNA has the common sense and decency to do some sort of injury angle to take him out of the match. Kurt Angle is a mad man and he has no qualms about wrestling with A BROKEN FREAKING NECK. He did it in the Olympics, he did it at Wrestlemania 19, and he’s willing to do it again.
It was said when Angle signed with TNA, they would take special care of him and not work him to death like the WWE was doing. If it’s as bad as it appears to be, Angle is on the fast track to being in a wheelchair and as a fan of his I don’t want to see him crippled for life just because he wanted to wrestle on some poorly booked throw away PPV from a company that couldn’t book its self out of a paper bag.
On that ominous note, I am done for this week. Like I said I hope it’s not as bad as the reports say it is and if it is I hope TNA has the common sense not to let Angle work that match.
On a more positive note I want to wish all the mothers out there a Happy Mothers Day. It appears to be a nice sunny day as the sun is rising here in New York so lets hope it stays that way for everyone.
Until next time remember someone has to give you this information and it DAMN well has got to be me.
You can click here to send me any and all feedback at phantomlordnyc@yahoo.com or click here to leave me some in my Live Journal.
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