Greetings conversationalists all across the fruited plain it is I your personal Harvester of Sorrow Phantom Lord and this is The Rant Of The Week. As always I am coming to you from my bunker in the urban strong hold of Brooklyn, New York and you know winter is upon us when you look out the window and think oh my god there’s a thick layer of ice on the sidewalk. I had that reaction yesterday morning as the big Nor’easter rolled in over us. We were lucky as it was just sleet and rain compared to upstate New York and New England who got a lot of snow. It’s funny I looked out the window a little before 8 am and I saw what appeared to be at least an inch of ice. Of course once I got out there it was nothing but slush. It’s always fun being in the freezing rain during this most wonderful time of the year.
Say what you want about Global Warming, but unless the next ice age starts early there will be many Christmas’s in the future where the forecast will be rainy instead of snowy.
Ok so as I type this you have to bare with me because my left index finger is a bit soar so if the column seems a bit more of a mess then usual that’s why. But don’t forget I’m a product of the New York City Board of Education so my grammar will never be perfect. So on that note of endorsement to my old schools lets get this column rolling shall we.
I’ve been formulating this column in my head for at least a week now as TNA has given those of us on the IWC plenty of material to close out the year. It all started at the last TNA ppv offering when some well laid plans of theirs blew up in their collective faces. Scott Hall was supposed to team with Kevin Nash and Samoa Joe to take on Kurt Angle, AJ Styles, and Tomko. Well to no one’s surprise Hall no showed the PPV. First it was claimed that he called in saying he had food poisoning. Considering I was puking my guts out at the same time I could buy that excuse. But news has come out that Hall is having some sort of family problem. So much so he no showed a couple of shows in Puerto Rico for WWC. But to get back to the PPV, Samoa Joe was told to go out before the match and cut a promo explaining what was up. What happened was Joe decided to do a shoot on live television.
Oh if you can find the video of it, it’s worth watching because no one can figure out was it a legit shoot or was it a Vince Russo “lets f*** with the net and bosses and make them think its real while only me, you, and that guy know its not” shoots. A lot of are leaning towards that, but it was still fun to watch. The best parts were when Joe was looking right at Kevin Nash when he was talking about guys being lazy and such and Nash in turn grabbed his nuts. In the end the whole point of the promo was to give someone who was busting their ass and not getting his due and Joe called out Eric Young to fill Hall’s spot.
It’s come out over the last couple of days that Joe wanted to team with Homicide in the match (which would have been an ROH fanboy’s wet dream) but Jeff Jarrett said Homicide wasn’t over enough. I mean that right there shows how delusional Jarrett really is and why he has no business being in charge of the creative direction of TNA. LAX was by far the most over faction TNA had until they did that god awful angle with The Dudley’s that was straight out of a backyard fed with guys fighting over replica belts. No offense to The Dudley’s, but the angle sucked and I’m sure if you asked Bubba he would probably tell you so. The Dudley’s were screwed from day one in TNA but that’s for another column.
Anyway to say Homicide wasn’t over enough is just plain ignorance. TNA’s live crowd is 95% internet fans. Hell most of TNA’s fanbase are internet fans. Homicide is way more over then Jarrett thinks. But what ever, the match happened and afterwards Nash stormed off as everyone thought “oh snaps he’s pissed at Joe”. Apparently when Joe got backstage, Nash was waiting for him and there was a big pull apart. Oh the joy of being backstage in TNA.
But oh wait, there is more.
The 12/3 TNA talent meeting had been in the works for weeks. TNA management was said to be fed up with the undercard talents complaining about various things. The meeting began at 1:30PM in the bleachers at the iMPACT Zone the day after the Turning Point pay-per-view. Samoa Joe apologized for his actions the night before and Johnny Devine apologized for an incident with another wrestler that happened at a hotel on 12/1. Terry Taylor and Dixie Carter also addressed the talent with Taylor telling everyone if they wanted this release, they could have it. While Senshi and Ron Killings were the only ones to be granted their release that day, several other TNA talents have been contacting other wrestling organizations looking for work. Sources also say other wrestlers have been wanting a release and TNA has been trying to get them to stay.
Credit to The Wrestling Observer
Yeah damn those hard working no name undercarder’s for bitching about being pushed aside for the next cast off from Titan.
…
See this is what is wrong with TNA. They have plenty of talent and they squander it. So when they all get pissed (because if they don’t appear on tv they don’t get paid) TNA management takes the position of “ok fine you want out well here you go”. TNA’s problem aside from not knowing or wanting to use the people who are over compared to constantly pushing ones who aren’t is they drive people away in droves with idiotic booking and nonsensical programming.
A big angle TNA just had was the feast or be fired angle. They had this clusterf*** of a battle royal where there were poles with briefcases. Three of them had title shots and one of them had a pink slip. In the end Senshi, Scott Steiner, BG James, and Petey Williams all ended up with cases. Now this match was on a PPV and in typical TNA fashion they drew it out over TWO WEEKS to tell us who got what. In the span of that two weeks we saw Christopher Daniels beat Senshi to get his case (we’ll get to that in a minute) and Jim Cornette spend an entire show wanting the cases secured when as Lance Storm pointed out THE WRESTLERS HAD FOUR DAYS TO TINKER WITH THE CONTENTS. So on last week’s impact we also had another match where you could keep, trade, or take $50 thousand dollars. Yes TNA did a parody of Deal or No Deal.
Scott Steiner ended up winning the four way match and he took Petey Williams case because he was confident it had the world title match in it. When it came time to reveal (which they dragged out over the two hours) we found out that Petey because he now had Scott’s case had won the world title shot. Another sub plot to this was BG James and his attitude towards the case. First he didn’t want it and then he was saying if he had a tag title shot Kip “I like to wear women’s outfits” James might not be his partner. Eventually we found out he did have the tag title shot (no surprise there) and he left the ring arguing with Kip while Roxxi did her best to a meth tweaker…err voodoo Queen. It finally came down to Daniels and Steiner. Scott took the attitude of either way it sucks. His case was opened to reveal he got the X Division title shot meaning Christopher Daniels was fired.
Now here’s where it gets funny. Senshi up and quit so they could have used this as an excuse to have him leave the company. But instead they had him and Daniels in a match where Daniels got the case and now Daniels is getting fired…but he’s not really getting fired because it’s all a convoluted angle.
Phantom Classic was watching part of Impact the other night and he just shook his head as I tried to explain this god forsaken angle. He concluded it made no damn sense as did anyone else watching. Wrestling should be simple at its root. When you put on programming like this it only angers and confuses everyone. TNA shouldn’t have to rely on gimmicks galore but they do. I mean hell this week on Impact we have a Christmas themed show with more gimmicks including a North Pole match and a ladder match where you have to retrieve a stuffed reindeer to make the loser dress up in a reindeer costume.
I mean when people say TNA is a joke…this is the reason why. Over on the Death Valley Driver board there’s actually a running gag now that Impact is actually The Muppet Show. Jim Cornette is Kermit The Frog as backstage is in chaos and he goes insane trying to keep the show together. I guess it can be argued that Kurt Angle is Fozzy because Kurt the comedian is not funny. Take your pick who is who when it comes to TNA and The Muppets, but if TNA continues to put on shows like this it’s not hard to understand why THE ENTIRE FANBASE THINKS THE PROMOTION IS A JOKE.
Sorry I was yelling there, but it’s annoying. I mean getting back to the Samoa Joe thing. They’re doing the old “management is screwing so and so over” angle with him. I don’t want to ruin where its going for the three or four of you who don’t read the spoilers, but an actual copy of the script for the January 3rd edition of Impact leaked (the show was taped last week) and we find out there is some direction to this but in end when the match is announced it’s pretty damn clear where they are going to go with this unless they decide to swerve us all and go in the opposite direction. I mean it wouldn’t be a Russo show with out a swerve or ten.
The thing that is amazing in all of this is Impact’s rating actually went up last week scoring a 1.2. Now Impact has hovered between 0.9 and 1.3 since it’s been on Spike TV. That means that TNA has a static audience. The same people watching each week. Now you would think if you had a built in static audience that would be good for your PPV business, but as Lance Storm correctly pointed out in his last Rant on TNA, TNA can not draw anyone in to watch their ppv’s.
Out of a million homes watching Impact give or take, TNA only gets around 20 to 30,000 ppv buys a month. The best they ever did was Joe vs. Angle 1 and that was 60,000. Of course they blew their collective wad on that and burned out what could have been the best feud in TNA. If the current batch of angles and feuds is any direction, don’t expect that number to go up anytime soon. Of course TNA delusionally will believe that all they need is another big name from the past or the WWE to come join them and that will be the solution to their problems.
It’s not going to be the solution. But to give some credit to TNA, at least they didn’t throw Booker T to the wolves and a world title feud off the bat. They wisely are having him feud with a home grown guy in Robert Roode. With Robert Roode there is a lot of potential with him as a heel. He has that natural prick quality that so few guys in wrestling have. And he being an abusive douchebag to Traci has been a damn good angle. Only problem is much like the angle with Eric Young, when Traci finally does stand up for herself it’s going to be too late because no one cares anyway. So even if they drag on to long, the feud with Booker will only help Roode in the long run which is what TNA should have been doing all along and that’s pushing their home grown stars.
I only hope TNA gets their collective act together in 2008 because God help them if I have to write this same column over a year from now.
Moving along, where TNA fails at least the WWE is hitting a collective stride. The 15th Anniversary show was awesome but there was a strange news bit to come out of it.
Dave Kapoor a.k.a. Ranjin Singh, the translator for The Great Khali, was scolded by Stephanie McMahon on Monday night after Raw.
In the final segment on Raw where a bunch of people came out, drank drinks and pretty much broke kayfabe, Stephanie felt Kapoor was having too much fun. The broadcast showed a shot of him smiling and having a good time, just like most everyone else.
After the show, Stephanie called him over and told him that his behavior was highly unprofessional. She also intimated that if he didn't take "the job of a lifetime" seriously that he could very well be let go by WWE. Stephanie also added that someone on creative shouldn't be an on-screen character (he's a member of the creative team). Stephanie said that she went to bat for him in the past, and that he'd he better not screw it up.
Credit to the Figure 4 Weekly Newsletter
When a lot of us read this one earlier in the week we were a bit confused by it. I mean at the end of the show EVERYONE was breaking character and having a good time in the ring. I can’t understand Stephanie’s logic here (maybe it was her time of the month or something). Now the part of the story that is pot kettle black for her was “a member of creative should not be an on screen character”.
Yeah umm about that I guess that should mean that YOU shouldn’t be on tv nor should Vince. Further more everyone’s favorite walking rib, Fat Oily Guy shouldn’t be on tv either because he’s a creative team member apparently writing stuff for ECW (which explains why the show sucks so much at times). Hell Triple H shouldn’t be on television according to this theory because he sits in on production meetings.
Now the threat of the job of a life time thing I believe is about a rumor that was reported way back that Dave didn’t want to do this job full time. As it is he’s only with Khali when he’s on television. I mean who the hell wants to be on the road most of year especially with that big loaf if you don’t have to be. So for all we know this unprofessional stuff was just probably the old McMahon doctrine of intimidation. It’s no secret that the people in power in that company love to bully the people under them. I mean there’s nothing wrong with it. That’s just how the corporate world works. I’m sure Stephanie is a very charming woman to know as a person, but when she said the bitch was back a while back she wasn’t kidding. Of course all of this could just be that wacky sense of humor McMahon’s have where you go off on someone for no apparent reason.
But personally I like the guy. He has an Eric Bischoff quality to him that has yet to be tapped into. I mean you can only do so much being said big loaf’s mouth piece.
Well I believe that is it for this week. But before I go I just want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, belated Chanukah, and any other Holiday celebration I may have forgotten.
I shall be back before the New Year or perhaps right after it with some thoughts on 2007 and what I think will happen in 2008.
That is unless that big interstellar thing of a majig on December 23rd doesn’t blow us all to hell. But in the unlikely event that something cosmic does happen 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 leave me some feedback in my Live Journal
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