Big D and I are back and we’re not just talking wrestling. In fact, we open up the show discussing WEC 47 and Jens’ Pulver’s awesome promo. We also talk about the James Toney signing and UFC’s mystery show that they want to put head up against the Strikeforce CBS show.
Then we discuss the new Monday Night Wars and talk about TNA and WWE, including discussing the continuing angles for WrestleMania XXVI.
The cleaning of the Knockouts continues as Roxxi a.k.a. Nikki Roxx, who in reality wasn’t even under contract but worked the New Years Eve show, has been told to take a hike. This is the second time she was released, the first being when she was involved in a backstage scuffle with fellow TNA Knockout Rhaka Khan, who at the time was dating Kurt Angle and had the political advantage, which upset a lot of folks because Roxxi was not at fault. Our friends over at QCW Radio interviewed her last summer, which can be heard here. Don’t forget to cover your nose when you hear this one.
In addition, Sean Morley, the former Val Venis, has been removed from the TNA Roster Page. Morley wrote on this facebook that he was given the go after accepting dates for CMLL. Morley was one of the many former WWE talents brought in on January 4th and since coming in, has cleanly pinned Christopher Daniels and Jeff Jarrett, who former champions for TNA (the latter of which happened on last night’s Impact).
In addition to that, TNA dropped Traci Brooks earlier this week.
The Monday Night War 2010 BLAST OFF is days early as we discovered this morning on the Jim Kerr show. TNA President Dixie Carter, Hulk Hogan, and Jimmy Hart basically flat out stated that Rob Van Dam has either signed a deal with TNA or agreed in principle to come.
We have video of it right here:
Some people considered this pretty obvious news since it has been teased since Hogan’s arrival that he wanted TNA. Rob is one of the most popular figures in the game and if TNA can lock-in Jeff Hardy as well – that’s two MAJOR stars that have not been whored out yet (see Foley, Flair, Anderson etc) and can legitimately draw in 2010.
In other TNA related news – Traci Brooks has been released by the company as the apparent cleaning of the women’s division continues.
Awesome Kong, current TNA Knockout Tag Team Champion and former TNA Knockout Singles Champion is apparently done with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling.
Kong’s personal twitter states: “I’d like to thank Dixie Carter and all of the employees at TNA for wishing me the very best in my future endeavors.”
It was announced last week that Awesome Kong was going to file a lawsuit against Bubba the Love Sponge for allegedly prank calling her and spewing racial slurs. About a month and a half back, Kong was involved in a backstage physical altercation with Bubba for making insensitive comments about the Haiti relief effort.
Kong is over enough to work numerous independent promotions and/or go back to Japan, where she made her name. The question remains; Will Kong go to WWE? Well she does not exactly fit the mold of the typical WWE diva: 90 lbs, anorexic, blonde, fake boobs. However, I do feel Kong would be an extremely effective monster heel and have really good matches with Mickie James, Beth Phoenix, or even Gail Kim, who she had her best matches with in 2007. She could even help out the Divas who haven’t quite got it down pat. Either way – only good things can happen.
It’s another wrestling heavy edition of FGB Radio. Big D and I discuss how badly TNA has been of late and how brilliant WWE has been. But before that, we talk about one of the bigger sports stories of the week which is HGH testing and how it relates to boxing and UFC.
March 8th, when TNA returns to Monday Nights, this time permanently (unless they tank), at 9PM to compete with WWE.
This is interesting because the last time TNA went head to head with WWE on Monday Nights was the infamous January 4th show when they made their debuts. Apparently, rather than try to pop a buyrate by having Flair’s first televised match since his retirement on this hemisphere and Hogan’s last in forever, they are planning to throw haymakers at WWE.
The planned match as of this writing is AJ Styles and Ric Flair vs. Abyss and Hulk Hogan. Sources close to TNA have speculated that the Abyss feud with AJ is only a placeholder until The Pope can retake the primary feud.
This is an interesting strategy to examine considering that the rumors of RVD coming in and Jeff Hardy returning on that date are going to be running rampant as we approach March 8th, but just to seal the deal, will have Hogan and Flair make a dual debut. I wonder if this is just a desperation tactic for that night. The issue is – how will they be able to follow it up afterward?
Rumors are also flying that the final Thursday Impact is set to be headlined by AJ Styles vs. Desmond Wolfe vs. Abyss vs. The Pope in a non-title four-way. Should be a fun match, but I wouldn’t have Pope and AJ touch until Lockdown. Oh well, this is TNA.
Brother, if it wasn’t 1995-esque before… it sure as hell is now!
TNA Against All Odds 2010 is in the books and the show was quite… strange. The show was primarily focused on an 8-man “8 Card Stud” single-elimination tournament with the winner becoming the #1 Contender for the TNA World Heavyweight Title at Lockdown in April. Looking at the show on paper, you’d expect a wrestling-heavy show with very little gaga. Well it certainly was, and it bombed.
Against All Odds can perhaps be seen as a conundrum; an extended metaphor for this entire Bischoff/Hogan regime. For all of the complaints that fans had about the Russo/Jarrett era mainly due to the logic holes during Impact, almost every PPV was pretty solid-to-great. With this regime, it’s almost completely backwards. The TNA Impact television show has certainly improved tenfold; better timing, virtually no shenanigans, but still failing to really hook the audience (and when I say the audience, I mean me and a few select people I’ve spoken to). It almost seems like TNA went from being bad to boring and to be frank; I don’t know which is worse.
This couldn’t have happened at the worst time considering that TNA has been on a streak of fantastic PPVs since all the way back in September. The reasoning behind this is odd though. Why? Is it that the talent is fed up with the management change? Is it that the new/old people brought in can’t hack it with the young talent, bringing the overall match quality down? Could it just be that the talent is had two off nights, two months in a row? I don’t know; but match-wise, Against All Odds was a failure, and that’s something I haven’t said about a TNA PPV since last summer. Continue Reading »
2010’s Super Saturday UFC show is now just a recent memory fading, fading, and fading into history. In fact, this show probably NEEDED to fade. But oh well, let’s see what the Gods had to say…
GG
Thumbs down
Best Fight: Chael Sonnen vs. Nate Marquardt
Worst Fight: Demian Maia vs. Dan Miller
Well, this wasn’t exactly the kind of card we hoped for, but it wasn’t all bad. I did enjoy seeing Matt Serra get a knockout win. Frank Trigg didn’t look good at all and retirement may be in his future. I was befuddled that they’d put another decision on from earlier in the night right after Demian Maia’s boring win over Dan Miller, but they wanted to showcase Mr. Wonderful. They shouldn’t waited until after Swick vs. Thiago. Chael Sonnen and Nate Marquardt was very fun, but not your regular fun fight. There wasn’t a lot of back and forth and it was mostly a wrestling destruction by Sonnen. I think Marquardt made the fight by continuing to fight from his back, but Sonnen really schooled him on this night. And Couture knocking out Coleman was anticlimactic because the second you saw Coleman react slowly to Randy’s punches, it was only time before he was going to be finished.
You’ve heard the stories, well WE’VE got the video folks. This is TNA Director of Set Production Steve Small telling the Impact Zone fans that they are “cast members” and to “watch their language”. This is from the January 18th TNA Impact Tapings that concluded a few hours ago. He tells them to know their role… seriously.
The first TNA PPV of the Hulk Hogan era is in the books and is getting all sorts of mixed reviews all throughout the interwebs. GG and I were the only ones who got to see it from FGB, so here are our thoughts:
GG Thumbs in the middle
Best match – Kurt Angle vs. AJ Styles
Worst match – Tara vs. ODB
I don’t mind sacrificing great wrestling to push angles if you deem them important first off. But none of the stuff they pushed as huge was really all that big. Ken Anderson was a huge let down. There were only two matches that were really good. I liked Desmond and Pope because it was something different. It was long and had some boring spots, but it was easy to follow and they told a good story. Angle and AJ was good, but not great. I don’t like AJ as a heel or as a Ric Flair like character. It looks like something that’s doomed to fail.
Also, Daniels losing to Morley was terrible. That kind of stuff is a what makes people change the channel and what doomed WCW. I give them a bit of a mulligan because they don’t have their stuff together, but also can’t give this anymore than a thumbs in the middle.
Big D Thumbs in the Middle
Best match – The Pope vs. Desmond Wolfe
Worst Match – Tara vs. ODB
We saw a bunch of changes, including a new set, ramp, and now FOUR-Sided ring. But these are NOT necessarily the changes I hoped for with Hogan and Bischoff in control. The “WWE jobbers” as I call it were put over way too often, with Ken Anderson flopping in his victory over Abyss and the former Val Venis botching in HIS win over Chris Daniels, who by the way was MAIN EVENTING the last two TNA PPVs and having classic matches in both. Some good stuff though was the main event and the awesome Pope vs. Wolfe match, which I think stole the show. At first I was lukewarm to the idea of AJ Styles as a heel, then I realized he’s too short and not believable as a bad guy. I’m a wrestling fan and I’m supposed to BOO AJ Styles and Ric Flair? Huh? Big mistake. There were a LOT of mistakes made on this show, and some small improvements… so it’s gotta be in the middle.
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