Hulk Hogan Not Happy With Not Having Champion for UK Tour

[Ayden C.]

I believe that Hogan making such bold comments really just complicates things more than they need to be complicated. Should they have had somebody hold the belt while Hardy was gone? Sure. But the fact is that they are on to new things now and comments like that are simply going to keep them from moving forward. Hardy doesn't deserve comments like this and they make the company look like garbage. What does he get out of belittling one of the top stars of the company? I am almost hoping that this is some kind of work. Hardy brings TNA more money than probably most of the roster combined and I would like to see you do what he does in the ring before you start calling him a spot monkey.

[NotoriousMEAT]

Originally Posted by Jack-Hammer

Personally, I've been less than thrilled with Hardy as TNA World Heavyweight Champion. I get that he's wildly popular and that he's said to bring in a lot of merchandise sales for TNA. He's also a lot of fun to watch inside the ring. I'm just not really all that into the guy. He's been fortunate, thus far in his 3rd title run in TNA, to have been put into feuds against wrestlers, such as Bobby Roode & Austin Aries, who've been able to carry their weight plus his when it comes to the build up of their feuds. He has another opponent now in Bully Ray who will be able to do the same thing because Hardy is wretched on the mic.

I also understand where Hogan is coming from as it refers to the UK tour. TNA does good business in the UK and it's extremely unusual to have someone whose both wildly popular, as Hardy is, and is the TNA World Champion simultaneously to not be on the tour. We still don't know what the deal is as far as Hardy missing the tour. Could it stem from issues surrounding his past legal troubles? Is Hardy legally allowed to leave the country? Did he just not feel like going and persuaded Dixie to give him some time off?

I couldn't agree with you more Hammer. I feel the exact same way with everything stated above. I hate to be THAT guy, but I'm starting to get this feeling that Hulk Hogan is slowly poisoning the well here. This is the second negative statement in a month Hogan has made publicly about Dixie and her decisions in running TNA. Did I miss something here? Because I was under the assumption that Hogan was a HUGE mark for Jeff Hardy and was one of his largest supporters. Sure they could have hot shotted the title onto Roode before the tour, and set up a rematch for Lockdown.. but that would screw up everything TNA had planned. The creative team has done a stellar job of long term booking! There's still a lot of room for improvement. The debacle that is Ace's and Eights is a good example of that. But overall I've enjoyed TNA. Since September they've been slowly moving Bully Ray to that next level and now he's a legit PPV number 1 contender. I think this Aries/Roode storyline is brilliant.. but it would have been ruined if Roode ended up with the World Title. Not to mention the time and patience they've had with whatever they have planned for AJ Styles.

Recently someone called Dixie a money mark, and that's the perfect description for her. And honestly, it's all she should be doing. She's clearly passionate about TNA, but she doesn't know enough about wrestling to have this, "final say" power. In some cases sure. But if Hulk Hogan says, "Hey, we need a World Champion on this tour", then lil ol Dixie should have put a World Champion on this tour. Did Jeff want time off? Could he not leave due to legal restraints? Or did he use legal restraints as an excuse to get time off? All are possible scenario's. I think Impact this month did alright minus Jeff Hardy, but the only plausible option I see in having a World Champion on that tour, would have been to turn Bully and Brooke heel by joining Aces and Eights, and Bully somehow becoming Champion before running off to the UK. A month without Hardy would have had the fans begging for an encounter come this week, and the Lockdown match could still be set up. Besides that, there was no out, and Hogan is a jackass for putting Dixie on blast like that.

I don't know how they intend to do it, but I think Hogan and his crew are trying to push Dixie out of any handlings when it comes to TNA's WRESTLING decisions. Maybe he thinks if he can make her hated by the IWC, she'll get flustered and step down. She seems tough though. If anything he's just gonna piss her off.

[lowandmighty]

Hulk Hogan is absolutely right. The WORLD champion should be there if there's a tour to another part of the world.

If I was in the U.K I would feel like I got screwed and wasn't being taken seriously as a fan.

This is embarrassing to TNA. In other individual sports you can't just sit at home when you're the champion while the rest of the competition competes against each other all around the world because you would lose your ranking.

Hardy should be stripped of the title in my opinion.

[The Eighties]

WWE will be doing the same thing, Rock will be champion and miss as many Raw's as Hardy missed Impact's, the fact is it's not worth changing booking plans and hot potatoing the title so the belt can be on a tour over the shoulder of a placeholder champion.

Personally I think Hardy is better chasing the belt but I find his title run less annoying than it could be as he doesn't hog Impact even when he is there.

I'm not sure what Hogan has to gain by this though, unless he's working around Dixie and looking to push her further out of creative decisions by undermining her.

[Zeven_Zion]

Originally Posted by Viperman86

While I don't like Hulk Hogan, I absolutely agree. I haven't liked Hardy since the bs he pulled at Victory Road. He's not a good wrestler, he's a spot monkey, and the only reason he's champion is because of his popularity. I still don't know why they rehired him after that. The fact that TNA has to put the title on Hardy to keep him with the company shows how weak they are, while Roode and Aries were great champions. If you're champion can't be at the show, thats just stupid, and the fact that Hardy can't go into the UK shows why he shouldn't be champion. And people are going to say I'm only one less viewer so they won't care, but as long as Hardy is champion, I refuse to watch TNA. I pray to God that Bully Ray wins the title.

Not to piss on your bonfire, but isn't "popularity" THE reason why you make someone your Champion? It's not like the WWE has kept Cena at the top because of his tremendous talent as a wrestler and on the mic. Even those magnificent wrestlers like Austin, Michaels and Rock became Champions because of their popularity. They differ in how their popularity was "made". Some did it through wrestling skill and charisma, others just appealed to a lot of people like Hardy. In the end, they all became popular and then they became Champions.

This, of course, changed when Vince started slapping that belt on anyone with a shred of talent but that's another story.

As far as what Hogan said, I don't buy it. Why? People agree with it. RED FLAG. Hogan's always been a huge Hardy supporter, and now all of a sudden he prefers Roode to have been the Champion? Come on. If Hogan wanted a Champion on that tour he would've made sure we had one. I think he's just sucking up to the IWC so a few agree with him and so on, which is not a bad thing - it's a bit PR-ish but go for it.

And I also disagree with his statement and everyboy elses. Have Hardy drop the belt because of a tour? Are you insane? TNA was fully aware of Hardy's issues when it came to overseas work. They knew this guy would probably last long enough until this point and they knew what would happen.

What if they did take the belt off him? Then what? Roode or Daniels or whoever wins it, goes on the tour with it, then we come back to the states and ... what then? Hardy gets it back? So we get some shit-fuck two-three week reign, and the person who basically kept it warm for Hardy looks like a doofus.

Or maybe he comes back to the states and he doesn't lose it. Then Hardy's whole reign, this huge story of redemption they had going on was for absolutely nothing.

Just because of a tour? Do you really think UK fans are sitting there going "You know wot, mate, oi fancy meself some TNA bot they don't ave that Hahdy in theeh. Oim not going."

Hell no, UK fans love TNA, not Jeff Hardy. Probably some wanted to see him but the arena was packed and TNA had great shows, as usual. All of this proves that TNA dodged a bullet and chose the right way to tackle this.

Also consider that they're going on the road once more and they need Hardy as Champion, so if he lost it prior to the tour he was gonna win it back as soon as TNA returned to the land of obesity and we'd have that whole doofus thing I talked about.

Sorry, brother.

[Hugh G. Rection]

I firmly believe that Hardy should've dropped the title to Daniels. He could've then held the title for the UK tour, and then as soon as they come back he drops it back to Hardy or someone else. Would anyone have really had a problem with that? Daniels finally gets a title reign, the belt is on the UK tour and I'm sure Daniels would've done some stellar work as champion.

[Honkey_Kong]

Originally Posted by Max220298;4346377
Problem is, Jeff Hardy is on that probation shit, [b

so it isn't necessarily his fault.[/b] If he could go over to the UK, he would do. This shows, however, how much TNA want Jeff Hardy as champion. As much as I dislike Dixie Carter (I dislike a lot of people), she has shown here that in a tough situation like this one, she has made a tough desicion and kept Jeff Hardy champion. She didn't have to, she could have dropped it from him, but they didn't because they obviously have some big plans for him. If not, why keep it on him only to take it of him on the next PPV? This may be a show of good things to come if TNA is so keen to keep the title on him.

It isn't his fault? It most certainly ist. He SHOULD be in prison right now for what he did. If it were you or I that did the same thing, that's where we'd be.

And as much as I hate all things Hulk Hogan, he's right. They NEED their world champion defending the title abroad when they go on international tours. Especially since TNA is bigger than WWE out there. I get that Dixie wants to keep the belt on Hardy due to his popularity, but for this tour, she could've had a temporary champ defend the belt there. If not Daniels, Roode would be a good one.

I will say this though, it's absolutely unprofessional for Hogan to be airing dirty laundry like this out. There shouldn't even be any dirt sheets going around claiming Hogan isn't happy with Hardy having the title during this tour. He should've said his part with Dixie and the top creative staff behind closed doors. If it fell on deaf ears, he should've kept quiet and not even told others within the company.

[Spinebreaker]

Originally Posted by Ayden C.

Hardy brings TNA more money than probably most of the roster combined and I would like to see you do what he does in the ring before you start calling him a spot monkey.

I can't disagree more with this way of thinking. So you can only criticize Hardy's wrestling, if you can perform better than him yourself? UTTER nonsense.

I assume that you maintain that opinion about everything?

Given that your own post criticised Hogan, I can only assume you have been the GM of a televised wrestling show, and done it better than he has? I also assume that you don't give opinions on movies until you receive your own academy award. You don't mention books until you're nominated for a Nobel prize for literature. And I'm certain you've never said a song wasn't very good until you were certified a maestro yourself.

Hardy's an entertainer, he chooses to put himself, and his product in front of people. He is, in theory, among the top individuals in the business, so everyone paying to see his work, has the right to decide if they like it or not.

Hardy's big and ugly enough to deal with being called a spot-monkey (Which he is, he's almost the dictionary definition of one. He's not a good one either) and also, if he doesn't like people calling him a spot-monkey, he can learn some new moves and improve his mic skills to shut people up.

[Thriller]

Originally Posted by It's Damn Real!

You could have then gone into Lockdown with Hardy gunning for his title back, which I'd argue is always much more entertaining a Jeff Hardy to see than the one where he's defending it.

You hit the nail on the head right here. WWE was able to book Hardy for a year as the guy just coming up short of winning the title. AN ENTIRE YEAR. Think about how often that happens in modern day wrestling. He was one of the most popular guys in the company and was moving (ugly) merch without ever winning the title.

Have Jeff lose the title right before the crew leaves for England, then on the first Impact when they return to America, have him cut a promo about how sick it made him to watch *insert new champion here* parade around the UK with his title while he was stuck at home. Someone else gets a boost by getting a title reign and you have your Lockdown main event set.

[It's Damn Real!]

Originally Posted by Thriller

You hit the nail on the head right here. WWE was able to book Hardy for a year as the guy just coming up short of winning the title. AN ENTIRE YEAR. Think about how often that happens in modern day wrestling. He was one of the most popular guys in the company and was moving (ugly) merch without ever winning the title.

Have Jeff lose the title right before the crew leaves for England, then on the first Impact when they return to America, have him cut a promo about how sick it made him to watch *insert new champion here* parade around the UK with his title while he was stuck at home. Someone else gets a boost by getting a title reign and you have your Lockdown main event set.

They had two routes with it, too:

1. Hot-shot the Aces and Eights storyline and reveal someone like Bully Ray as part of the group after he's been given a title shot against Hardy on IMPACT, having Ray (or insert character here) cheat to win the title, injuring Hardy in the process. Aces & Eights goes to the forefront of TNA/IW, look 100x more credible, and you now have Hardy involved in the story line completely, over the company's most valuable strap.

2. Go with the tried and true approach and have either Aries or Roode take it off him in similar fashion. Dupe him, the way Roode duped Storm into putting the #1 Contender's Spot on the line, only to cheat your way to winning it. You now have a money match-up with Hardy wanting revenge against either at Lockdown.

It's too easy not to, and I'd argue that Hardy chasing a guy who "stole" his title at Lockdown would sell ten times the number of tickets as the guy coming "after" Hardy for the title he's held for months now.