Greetings conversationalist all across the fruited plain, it is I your personal Harvester of Sorrow the one and only Phantom Lord and this is The Phantom Rant. As always I am coming to you from the rotten apple that is Brooklyn, New York and fall is officially upon us. When it’s cold I feel cranky and tonight I am cranky.
You know two week’s ago they finally had one of those feel good moments that are so hard to come by in professional wrestling. Wrestling being the way it is has made us fans bitter and jaded (no more so then me). But this is TNA. They can never just have a feel good moment and build off it. They always have to do something stupid and on Impact tonight (though it was taped a week ago), they continued the fine tradition of stupidity.
As Mike noted earlier, Bobby Roode became the new TNA World Heavyweight Champion at tonight’s Impact Wrestling tapings in Macon, Georgia by defeating James Storm.
Roode turned heel and hit Storm with a beer bottle to win.
If anyone needs me, I’m going to be in my angry dome.
Okay I needed that. Sooooo to recap TNA does one of those feel good moments in wrestling and draws one of their highest ratings ever. Then in a span of two weeks they go through something that should be built up over a few months in three weeks and ruin it. Do I have that about right?
I just knew they would fucking blow it. Why do I ever have faith in TNA that they won’t fuck something up? James Storm is only one of the most awesome wrestlers in the company that they haven’t sucked the will to live out of. He finally gets his shot at the title and wins and they piss through it in two weeks? You gotta be fucking kidding me. Okay so Bobby Roode had to turn heel. I mean it’s TNA so of course the long time friend and tag team partner is gonna turn on his buddy. But did he have to win the title? They could have easily had him bash him with the bottle for a disqualification. Or just had it where he attacked him after a promo. Point is they didn’t have to have Storm lose the damn title after two weeks.
If you look at things from a three arc story structure (Uncle Eric and Hulk Hogan keep saying look at the big picture), they blew threw the whole thing in one match. See this is what pisses off fans like me the most. Instead of slowing things down and stretching them out for a while, TNA and the WWE have to hot shot everything and blow through it all in rapid time. This heel turn from Bobby Roode made no damn sense what so ever. Where was the jealousy? Where was the bitterness? Where was anything? 95% of the match was good old fashion rasslin and then Bobby sees the beer bottle and all that was missing was a graphic of a light bulb above his head.
Now that Bobby Roode has turned heel, now what happens? James Storm is out with a concussion for the next two months (though it’s wrestling, so he’ll be back sooner) so at least in that regard it should be fun when he comes back for his revenge. But what happens between now and then is what concerns me. I have a feeling we are going to see Jeff Hardy thrown right back into the main event picture. I’m glad Jeff is getting his shit together, but I don’t think he should be rewarded with another return to the main event so quickly. But hey it’s not like the world title is gonna be the center of attention or anything.
You know what’s going to be the center of attention? Why another corporate power struggle of course. I mean it just wouldn’t be mainstream wrestling if there weren’t a corporate power struggle, cause you know that’s what all the kids want to see. After Hulk Hogan did his long spoiled face turn at Bound For Glory, which threw the power structure of the company upside down. Dixie Carter got the company back and she made Sting the C.O.O. Sting to his credit isn’t doing too bad of a job as head honcho. I mean you are only as good as the material you are given to work with. Sting has taken interest in protecting Garrett Bischoff from his evil dad and legion of hired goons. Garrett Bischoff was referee Jackson James until Bound For Glory when he suddenly had a case of morals and dared to call the Sting/Hogan match down the middle.
Why are we supposed to care if Uncle Eric doesn’t like his rotten kid? Is this supposed to be TNA’s feeble attempt at Vince vs. Shane in 2011? Who gives a shit about Garrett Bischoff? Why do they think he’ll be any different then Eric Watts, Greg Gagne, David Flair, and countless others. I don’t know if Garrett is any good in the ring, but starting him off at the top in a feud with his old man and Ric Flair is just begging for failure. Do we really need to relive the horror of David Flair siding with Vince Russo in WCW? Flip the roles around and this is essentially what this is. The most hilarious part is supposedly all of this will slowly (because that’s the only speed Hogan goes at) lead up to a match at Lockdown with Garrett and Hulk Hogan against Uncle Eric and Ric Flair in a steel cage.
Honestly I was amazed to see Hogan manage to pull off his match with Sting with out dying or having his back finally shatter into a billion pieces. But he is really pushing his luck if he tries to “wrestle” again in the future. I just don’t understand why wrestling companies have to do these stupid power struggle angles. All a wrestling company really needs is a boss heel stable. Immortal has the potential to be a stable like The Dangerous Alliance (I wouldn’t dare say The Horsemen). Bully Ray is easily the best part of the whole group. I could watch him make So Cal Val cry for hours on end. He is the kind of guy a company should build a solid face champion to feud with. He is also the kind of guy who could be champion for a long time as they build up any number of guys to end his reign of terror.
That whole Bound For Glory series was such a mess. James Storm vs. Bully Ray would have been a perfectly good final. I like Bobby Roode, but unless he reverts to being the Robert Roode from 2007 I don’t see this heel turn for him working. If he’s the Robert Roode who had Eric Young as a slave and punched Booker T’s old lady in the face then there is some hope. But considering how it ended and Roode was screwed out of the title, it made no sense for him to lose. The rumors going around the news sites was that Hulk Hogan (who is really defacto in charge of TNA) pretty much changed the decision that day to have Bobby Roode win the TNA World Title at Bound For Glory.
Never mind the fact that Kurt Angle’s body is falling apart before our eyes. Angle for some inexplicable reason retained only to lose to Storm at the next set of TNA tapings. This is why it made no sense to begin with. James Storm should have won the BFG series to challenge for the title. This way Bobby Roode could be the “supportive” best friend and partner while he slowly grows bitterer about Storm having all the success. Could have stretched it out over the next three to six months, but instead as I pointed out above they blew it in one night.
Can TNA really give you and me as fans any good reason to continue watching when things are like this? I try to see the big picture as Uncle Eric tells us to, but that picture looks blurry at best. If the big picture is just a way for Hogan to put himself over everyone else, then what’s the point?
I fear as I mentioned above that even with Roode’s heel turn and title win, he’s going to be a transitional champion. James Storm was a transitional champion because rumor has it some people in TNA think he’s too southern. I know we New Yorker’s think that everything between here and Los Angeles is just fly over country, but that whole too southern thing is a load of horseshit.
Too southern has been a thing thrown around by Vince Russo, Kevin Dunn, and countless others. Jim Ross can’t be a lead commentator because he’s too southern. We can’t be a wrestling company because rasslin is a southern thing. Hogan in an interview praised James Storm because he fits the NASCAR demographic. I don’t watch NASCAR that much, but I think Storm rules. He’s not from the cookie cutter mold of John Cena or Randy Orton. James Storm comes off as a regular guy that we can identify with. He likes to kick some ass and then drink some beer (or drink some beer then kick some ass).
TNA had something with in reach and they fucked it up. Now we as fans have to suffer through the mess that will be in its wake for the next six months as everything builds to Lockdown. I’ll give TNA some credit in that regard. Even if their direction makes no friggin sense, at least they have a direction locked in. Vince McMahon is so erratic when it comes to show planning that if an idea lasts more then a week it’s a miracle.
I’m not going to even bother talking about RAW because I would like to preserve some of my sanity since I have a shitload of papers to do the rest of this month in school. I will say this much about last week’s episode. Find out Sheamus is related to Beeker is easily one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. If you haven’t seen that, just track it down on Youtube. It’s just tremendous.
See I’m not completely bitter. Something’s actually amuse me. Before I go, if you have the ability to you should check out Chikara Pro’s High Noon IPPV on November 13th, 2011 at 4pm Eastern. If there was ever a company that deserves success it’s Chikara. The main event is Mike Quackenbush taking on Eddie Kingston for the Chikara Grand Championship. Plus they have an honest to God David vs. Goliath match with Green Ant vs. TURSAS, and much more.
As much as TNA kills my will to live, seeing stuff from Chikara restores my faith in wrestling. Check out http://www.chikarapro.com for information on how to watch the show.
On that note I am done for this edition of The Phantom Rant. I apologize for the delay in between columns, but I’ll be honest. My Biology class this semester is just killing me. I have never been more burned out from a class then this one. Remember that episode of Married With Children when Kelly is on the sports trivia show?
Pour a gallon of information in a shot glass of a brain…something’s bound to spill out. That’s pretty much how I am.
But rest assured I will be back sooner rather than later. So until next time (unless YU55 smashes into us on the 9th), take care and remember someone has to give you this information and it DAMN well has got to be me.
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E-mail me at PhantomLordNYC@yahoo.com
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