General TNA Booking Discussion

[Super Crazy]

So, at Turning Point, we had Matt Morgan, Hernandez, and Dinero against Team 3D and Rhino, and at the upcoming pay per view we have basically the same match, only Suicide and Jesse Neal have been added to the mix. I personally feel this feud has been crap. I don't find this feud entertaining one bit. I'm tired of seeing this angle be played out.

Now don't quote me on this, but I think Team 3D has done a good job in the past of putting teams over. Hell, I even believe they were the ones that helped Beer Money reach out to the fans like they have. But I feel like having Morgan and Hernandez, two guys who should be on singles pushes, feud with them, is a step back for them. They should not be tag teaming, they should be having a friendly rivalry.

Hell, I would of even had them in the Feast or Fired match, with them going at each other for the case. That would make for some entertaining television in my opinion. Now I'm not saying either has to turn heel, but you could have them having a feud, that while they respect each other, they feel they are better and more deserving than the other. You could even have them feud for the case.

I'm a firm believer in TNA using their own talent to elevate each other. If you feel you have great wrestlers , why not use them properly? If worked properly, any feud can elevate both stars. Why not have Morgan and Hernandez seemingly elevate each other?

Also, why throw The Pope and Suicide in the mix? Suicide should be feuding with Homicide who should still be trying to unmask him. That storyline should be an important one on television. I mean, even though most of us know who Suicide really is, I think this feud could work out really well and help Homicide continue with his character development of being a littler psychotic.

But anyway, back onto the topic I'm trying to make here. Do any of you also feel this is a step back for Morgan and Hernandez? Where do you seem them going when this feud is done? Also, who will Team 3D feud with next, as they essentially turned heel because their think their spots in the company are trying to be stolen from them.

 

[NSL]

Hamada and Kong picked up a win...I like it...

Hamada has toed the line between face and heel for a while now, and Kong has been kind of lost since the initial shock of her rampage has worn off. Pairing them together allows them to make a run at the tag titles, which they'd eventually win, and hold for a while. They're both stiff workers, but Hamada can fly, and we've seen them both work well with everyone in the division.

This could make those tag titles a little more interesting...

 

[gotham7]

I just watched the latest TNA Impact and really its been the past weeks or so I'd say but TNA has really picked it up. The storylines and angles actually make more sense and they don't change week to week. Most importantly the matches have been exceptional and I can't wait for Final Resolution. Right now I'd say TNA's product is better than the WWE's. The wrestling in TNA and athleticism shown is beyond belief especially when compared to the matches of WWE. The match between Daniels and Mcguiness/Wolfe was amazing. It's so great to watch such a technical match that doesn't have the same wash, rinse, and repeat aspects like those that are found in the WWE. TNA has such an amazing roster that I hope they expand to maybe have programming on mondays and thursdays. TNA needs to highlight guys like MCMG, Deangelo Dinero (Coolest gimmick), Kaz, Matt Morgan and the like because they can put on great matches that don't compare to what we see on WWE programming.

Is anybody else as excited about the TNA product besides me. I'm really starting to prefer it over WWE which has gotten so stale for me.

 

[Trill Co$by]

Ok, so I was watching the Bound for Glory six Knockout tag match, and as soon as Lacey was tagged in the entire crowd started a "You can't wrestle" chant. Like seriously, what match were they watching? I seriously saw Lacey use great ring psychology and she didn't even botch one move (As the man in front had said on his sign). And not only that, but for her to be as green as she is, she also has some great skills. Sure, she's not on Velvet and Madison's level, but she's still decent.

And speaking of said tag match, and participants, where the hell are the Knockout tag team champions? Am I the only one who loves to see these two tagging? Like, seriously, without thinking of how well their bodies look. Sarita and Taylor Wilde click together like they've been wrestling for life, and that's saying something. Together, from what I've seen, they could carry the Knockout tag division on their shoulders and put the Males' division to shame.

Lastly, for now, is TNA going to start pushing Hamada or are they going to have her job to everybody? I mean a few weeks ago, she gave Eric Young a run for his money in his Global Championship victory. Hell, he had to use the ropes to get the win... Why isn't TNA working off of that and giving Hamada a push for the Global title?

 

[NSL]

The problem with the Brits winning is where does the MCMG go from here? Nash won the tag team championship case, so he is going to cash it against his World Elite team? I was really hoping for MCMG to pull out the V last night.

My thoughts exactly...But not just for the tag titles. For all the titles. TNA has created another coudy main event picture, with AJ as champ, and Lashley, Daniels, and Joe all having guaranteed matches ahead of them. You can't forget Angle lurking also, but it seems like TNA has something else planned for him.

The X Division finally has a new heel, but he's not an X Division-type wrestler, and he's guaranteed to hurt someone, maybe himself, when he cashes in his shot. Outside of Red and Terry, there's not much going on. Suicide and Homicide seem to have dropped their feud, and Bashir is gone, so who knows what they're doing.

The Knockout Tag Titles don't have any contenders right now, but the *spoilers* for the New Year's Eve show give the idea that help may be on the way.

And what happened to the Global Championship? Eric Young said he'd never defend it on American soil, and only against non-Americans, and they just postponed the Australia tour. So, when does he drop the belt? How do they keep it in storyline, without him stepping in the ring to defend it?

 

[Remix]

When's the UK tour? he could lose it then to one of the foreigners in TNA and of its a face/nonWE member he could lift the ban enabling it to defended again.

and yeah, the Guns should have won at FR. Both because Nash (for some reason) has the tag title shot which he presumably wont use against the fellow WE members of the british invasion (a more sensible option would have been for the Brits to drop the titles and be given Nash's case to get a rematch at any point, or Rob grabbing the tag title case, and under the freebird rule the two members with talent taking the shot). and why oh why did Rob get the X-division title shot? the only match I can remember him being in he lost to a shoulder block. he A has no talent, B has no momentum and C is nowhere near close enough to a cruiserweight to be alowed anywhere near the X-Division. Kiyoshi and Homicide were both in the match and are in WE and thus would have been far better choices for a shot at Red's title. but there we go, TNA's just further proving that the X-Division just doesn't matter to them.

 

[SuperKnockout]

I was watching TNA last night for the Knockout eve mathces. I saw that ODB was claiming to be a champion. Honestly, I dont believe that ODB is a good champ. Or a good contender. No offencse to ODB, but her attitude, the way she trash talks, and how she backs it up shows she isnt good enough to hold the title. Tara, backs the championship match up, performs good maatches, and quite francilay, knows how to hype a match. But back on topic, do you think that the Knockout division is going anyywhere right now? We saw ODB turn heel if she wasnt considered heel before last night. other then that, Awesome kong has had barely and spotlight, the beautiful people are NOWHERE right now. Wow, you made Lauren leave the buisness. Big whoop! If angelina was still here we would see heel victories. Hamada may prove to be a champion contender but otherwise I have not seen anything that makes it so that she hypes up a match for a contender shot. What do you guys think? About knockouts currently, or changes that TNA should make.

 

[Super Crazy]

The Knockout division is going to go somewhere, just right now with all the focus on Hogan no one is paying attention to the Knockout division. This feud between Tara and ODB has been quite entertaining, and ODB was a good champion. She plays her part perfectly and plays the heel role pretty good. She is a good contender too.

I'll admit, the main reason I love the knockout division is that they not only have gorgeous women, but they have women that aren't your typical type of female wrestler these days, as they can actually wrestle in TNA. I think the next person to steup after ODB though, will be Alissa Flash, as she is a younger version of Tara in my eyes. But seriously, after the Hogan stuff is all settled in, I believe the Knockout division will shine once again.

 

[Chauncy Talon]

I will break this down, why I hate the Knockout Divison.


The night that ODB finally wins the title, they book her in a match with Tara to wrestle against the Knockout Tag Team Champions Taylor Wilde and Sarita.

Tara is fueding with Kong and the end had me like WTF. ODB get pinned clean? WTF is that. She just won the title and now she getting pinned clean. What kind of a Champion is that.

TNA needs to book their matches better. Seriously, you have all these KO and none of them are really like Tag Team. Hamada and Flash would of been a phenomenal tag team because they both wrestle stiff, but they were to much in common, so the bookers made them feud for less then a month. F THAT!!!!!! They should of had some kind of gimmick match to see who would wrestle against the Winner of Kong and Tara. In which I would book Kong vs Hamada in a Monster's Ball type of match. That is just me.

 

[SuperKnockout]

The Knockout division is going to go somewhere, just right now with all the focus on Hogan no one is paying attention to the Knockout division. This feud between Tara and ODB has been quite entertaining, and ODB was a good champion. She plays her part perfectly and plays the heel role pretty good. She is a good contender too.

I'll admit, the main reason I love the knockout division is that they not only have gorgeous women, but they have women that aren't your typical type of female wrestler these days, as they can actually wrestle in TNA. I think the next person to steup after ODB though, will be Alissa Flash, as she is a younger version of Tara in my eyes. But seriously, after the Hogan stuff is all settled in, I believe the Knockout division will shine once again.

Ok, your maybe half right. Alissa Flash as champion seems good. Hogan is stealing the spotlight, i think what happened last night was a shot for the TNA knockouts to shine, I agree. HOWEVER, ODB plays a women who does not deserve a title shot IMO. Im not just saying that since I dont like her charectar, I dont like the way she fights, or puts on matches. WWE has divas who show skin, and barely wrestle, so in WWE shes a good competitor. Last night for instance though, she would NEVER have won the tournament without that bottle over kongs head. She would have been bombed to a loss. However, shes heel, nd I respect that. I just dont believe that its necessary for her to be in the titkle shot. Maybe make her lose the rematch, and get it over with. But right now, with hogan taking the spotlight, theres no room for ODB in my opinion.

 

[bigbadwolf8169]

Regardless of the fact that it is downplayed right now cuz of Hogan, The Knockouts division is goin, and miles ahead of the WWE Womens division. Great wrestlers and standout women. All different with the exception of the Beautiful People. And they are beautiful. Somethin that i wanna say, i dont really see ODB as a heel, she is more of a tweener, like a female Stone Cold. Her "shoot" on Tara was nice, and the whole segment was just entertaining. I love Alissa Flash and Hamada. Serita and Taylor are damn good, and Daffney is still blazin. Awesome Kong, what cant be said about her. The Knockouts are by far better than the Divas.

One thing i like to see is more tag matches for the Knockout's Tag titles. Maybe they could make a few more stables of women, or a bring in a few more females from the independents. Id love to see a tag team of Sara Del Rey and Alissa Flash, or maybe bring in some more Japanese talent.

 

[SuperKnockout]

Regardless of the fact that it is downplayed right now cuz of Hogan, The Knockouts division is goin, and miles ahead of the WWE Womens division. Great wrestlers and standout women. All different with the exception of the Beautiful People. And they are beautiful. Somethin that i wanna say, i dont really see ODB as a heel, she is more of a tweener, like a female Stone Cold. Her "shoot" on Tara was nice, and the whole segment was just entertaining. I love Alissa Flash and Hamada. Serita and Taylor are damn good, and Daffney is still blazin. Awesome Kong, what cant be said about her. The Knockouts are by far better than the Divas.

One thing i like to see is more tag matches for the Knockout's Tag titles. Maybe they could make a few more stables of women, or a bring in a few more females from the independents. Id love to see a tag team of Sara Del Rey and Alissa Flash, or maybe bring in some more Japanese talent.

Your right i guess. ODB has a style like STONE COLD. However, when she talks so much and gets beat by someone, sh goes and takes a long time to trask talk and say "im rightfully champion!" and so on. But im talking about the knockout championship. Not the tag titles. ODB just needs to relax some, let Tara talk, and beat Tara. I wouldnt mind seeing her lose the rematch, but winning... IDK. I like Tara since she has nice moves to comeback. However, ODB has some big hitting moves. Lie a clothseline. but I get tired of seeing her use weapons or somethin to win. If she was a rightfull "knocked up champ", she would use some real wrestling moves. She does time to time, but not as much as everybody else

 

[JJYanks121]

The Knockout title got severely devalued when the knockout tag titles were created. It was a novel idea, but with only 16 knockouts on the roster (I believe that number is where it's at right now but don't kill me if I'm a little off!) and 2 titles, it's kind of cutting it thin, It's similar to the Diva situation in WWE in a way. There are a similar amount of Divas that are split between 2-3 shows. Their solution was creating a belt for each show. At the time, I said it was a bad idea because it limits the competition and makes feuds very repetitive. Now TNA is doing the same thing. Two wonderful talents (and not bad ones to look at either) in Taylor Wilde and Sarita hold the tag titles and thus are not involved much in the singles Knockout division. Conversely, there aren't a ton of challenges to their belts so winning the belts actually made those 2 very useless in the division.

As for ODB, her character is unique but I think she takes it too far. If a male had a gimmick like that, he'd be no more than a midcarder. It's kinda like the Goodwins or something (if you remember the famous hog pen match a young Hunter Hearst Helmsley had with one of those guys). For me to take her seriously, she'd have to take herself a little more seriously. Tara is someone who does and she does a nice job at the top of that card. However, the booking is very ADD which is pretty typical with Vince Russo, ideas change so fast you can't really get into a storyline.

The talent might be there, but the division itself isn't great, and as I stated, and extra set of belts along with bad booking are culprits. Slow the booking down and build a great feud and it might help.

 

[Toroc102]

Having watched iMpact last night, where do you guys think TNA should go from here? They did a lot of great stuff last night, but there was also a lot of bad stuff and some bad future indicators.

Personally, I thought Hogan and Bichoff filled good roles last night, if they continue on that way I think they're best suited for the power figure role in TNA.

I think Hernandez and Morgan have probably the brightest futures in TNA, the only guys that squashed anyone in TNA last night, they have great looks and can be taken seriously anytime.

The Pope and Desmond Wolfe are great future prospects, I haven't seen a match that original in a long time. The shit Wolfe was doing in there was innovative as hell, while Pope is just a great wrestler. I think he flowed a lot better in TNA then he did in ECW and his hesitation elbow drop is damn impressive.

The Knockouts are great, they are miles ahead of pretty much every Diva in the WWE right now except for Gail Kim(former KO, best in ring girl in WWE right now imo) and Beth Phoenix. Basically both matches I saw last night we're on par or better than any match I've seen on Raw recently.

on to the negative

I think a lot of TNA talent was unfortunately overlooked and disrespected. It was all TNA that was jumped, Chris Daniels was disrespected during what I thought was going to be a good promo, Styles and Angle were disrespected after their match, imo by the nWo segment. The freakin Nasty Boys got way too much airtime, I hope they get gone soon, hopefully The Dudley Boys beat their asses and its a one off feud. I don't think Mick Foley is worth much outside of the WWE, or without Cactus Jack. Basially he's just an old fat guy to me running around with no power, I don't care for it.

The nWo was just, it was great for nostalgia's sake, but if they let Hall and The Kid go over anyone, I will be sorely dissapointed. I'm hoping that, believing they we're the attackers last night, TNA comes together and kicks their asses out, sort've putting a proper end to the nWo once and for all.

Al in all, the ball is in TNA's hands right now for sure. They can improve on last night and make this a great show, or they can go down the same road WcW did and put the spotlight back on the old guys. I just hope they don't go back to the old ADD style of booking, if none of this can hold up for more than 3 months I'll be dissapointed.

So what do you guys think, what should TNA do more of and what should they cut, where should they go with the storlyines they've started? Who is the masked man? Is there anyone that you'd really like to see in TNA?

 

[NSL]

The (possibly) biggest show in TNA history, and we got a passing mention of the tag champions, and the "midcard" title was ignored.

I don't see why a 3 hour show had no room for these titles, especially since the tag division is miles better than anything the WWE is doing, and because Eric Young is the type of guy they said they'd be pushing. People who can talk, and people who can wrestle. He does both. Why not put him on TV, even jst cutting a promo?

The British Invasion may not be the most marketable tag team, but it would have been nice to show them off a little bit.

 

[Super Crazy]

I was totally hoping EY would have gotten a promo tonight. The only time I saw him was when Flair showed up, he was one of the guys lined up, standing there selling hello to him. I'm actually a little disappointed though, I mean, if Nash is with Hall and Waltman, where does that leave EY?

 

[NSL]

I was totally hoping EY would have gotten a promo tonight. The only time I saw him was when Flair showed up, he was one of the guys lined up, standing there selling hello to him. I'm actually a little disappointed though, I mean, if Nash is with Hall and Waltman, where does that leave EY?

EY still has the World Elite. He's not without a storyline right now. I just wish that he, and his belt, would have gotten some recognition.

He obviously wasn't going to defend it, but last night would have been perfect for him to pile on the heat, getting people to hate him even more. I'm hoping we'll see something from him next week, or it'll be about a month before he's made an appearance.

 

[Super Crazy]

EY still has the World Elite. He's not without a storyline right now. I just wish that he, and his belt, would have gotten some recognition.

He obviously wasn't going to defend it, but last night would have been perfect for him to pile on the heat, getting people to hate him even more. I'm hoping we'll see something from him next week, or it'll be about a month before he's made an appearance.

I know he still has the World Elite. But honestly, I can't look at them as a stable right now, as I feel they don't have much unity anymore. But that's just me. Anyway, I was referring more so to the fact that if Nash is with Hall and Waltman, is he still with EY also? And an intriguing thought, could it have been EY behind the attacks, helping to protect the Brits from the guys who want their belts?