The Double Edged Sword that is TNA

[King_of_Swing1520]

after watching impact and reaction the past two weeks im actually liking tna a whole lot. last night they had a special reaction that pieced the puzzle of "they" together. bischof went over how they brought in abyss to go the dirty work, how the whole jarrett/bischof feud was fake, how hulk and flair finally got on the same page after ev2 was brought in, how jeff bought in and said screw the fans, and how hulk and eric took care of the business side and flair and fourtune were the wrestling side. the offence and the defence. why i think there are waaaayyyyy to may people involved in this one faction i do think tna did a good job of piecing everything together.

now the only problem is that through out reaction they basically said everything you saw on tv was fake and all a plan. thats fine and dandy but now im supposes to believe that what happens from now on isn't fake and all a plan? now i've only been watching wrestling for about 6-7 years so im not a history buff, but i've heard many times on these forums that this is classic russo. crossing the line between storyline and real life.

now i've really enjoyed the whole storyline and the way tna is showing us the back story on reaction but how am i supposed to believe that part of what i saw (jj v bischof, hulk v flair) was fake and other parts (ev2 v fourtune, abyss almost killing rvd) was real? a perfect example: on reaction they showed a clip of abyss carrying an "unconcious" hardy to the ring, leaving us to assume abyss attacked hardy. but they revealed on reaction that this was just acting. so that was acting and the rvd attack wasnt?

this is the double edged sword. the way tna is presenting the storyline has made it better but in doing so it has also hurt other parts of the product.

thoughts??

 

[Djm]

There's something I'm having a hard time understanding.

People always talk about wanting wrestling to suspend their disbelief, but then complain when things are too ridiculous or unbelievable.

And than some will say they want more realistic elements, but when TNA does storylines like they're doing now, everyone will scream "FAKE, FAKE, FAKE! IT'S ALL A WORK. I'M ON THE INTERNET, SO I KNOW BETTER!"

I'm just really not sure what people are asking. I do like the current storyline, because it blurs the lines between reality and the pro wrestling world, and it makes people actually pay attention to what's going on.

 

[Zeven_Zion]

after watching impact and reaction the past two weeks im actually liking tna a whole lot. last night they had a special reaction that pieced the puzzle of "they" together. bischof went over how they brought in abyss to go the dirty work, how the whole jarrett/bischof feud was fake, how hulk and flair finally got on the same page after ev2 was brought in, how jeff bought in and said screw the fans, and how hulk and eric took care of the business side and flair and fourtune were the wrestling side. the offence and the defence. why i think there are waaaayyyyy to may people involved in this one faction i do think tna did a good job of piecing everything together.

now the only problem is that through out reaction they basically said everything you saw on tv was fake and all a plan. thats fine and dandy but now im supposes to believe that what happens from now on isn't fake and all a plan? now i've only been watching wrestling for about 6-7 years so im not a history buff, but i've heard many times on these forums that this is classic russo. crossing the line between storyline and real life.

now i've really enjoyed the whole storyline and the way tna is showing us the back story on reaction but how am i supposed to believe that part of what i saw (jj v bischof, hulk v flair) was fake and other parts (ev2 v fourtune, abyss almost killing rvd) was real? a perfect example: on reaction they showed a clip of abyss carrying an "unconcious" hardy to the ring, leaving us to assume abyss attacked hardy. but they revealed on reaction that this was just acting. so that was acting and the rvd attack wasnt?

this is the double edged sword. the way tna is presenting the storyline has made it better but in doing so it has also hurt other parts of the product.

thoughts??

Well the thing is, they didn't mean that it was fake in reality, it was fake in kayfabe way. It was a ploy, a plot. Just like when Bret Hart faked his foot being broken. You shouldn't believe even for a second that the storylines from now on will be "fake". They just had an agenda, they wanted to punk everybody and they did. That's about it. Nothing wrong with it, it's pretty smart. Nobody thought they'd FAKE heel turns and feuds and everything because usually it's not how storylines go.

We all knew Hogan, Bischoff and Double J were in on it, we just didn't know how and why. They explained it well and surprisingly it makes sense.

 

[snoopy]

after watching impact and reaction the past two weeks im actually liking tna a whole lot. last night they had a special reaction that pieced the puzzle of "they" together. bischof went over how they brought in abyss to go the dirty work, how the whole jarrett/bischof feud was fake, how hulk and flair finally got on the same page after ev2 was brought in, how jeff bought in and said screw the fans, and how hulk and eric took care of the business side and flair and fourtune were the wrestling side. the offence and the defence. why i think there are waaaayyyyy to may people involved in this one faction i do think tna did a good job of piecing everything together.

now the only problem is that through out reaction they basically said everything you saw on tv was fake and all a plan. thats fine and dandy but now im supposes to believe that what happens from now on isn't fake and all a plan? now i've only been watching wrestling for about 6-7 years so im not a history buff, but i've heard many times on these forums that this is classic russo. crossing the line between storyline and real life.

now i've really enjoyed the whole storyline and the way tna is showing us the back story on reaction but how am i supposed to believe that part of what i saw (jj v bischof, hulk v flair) was fake and other parts (ev2 v fourtune, abyss almost killing rvd) was real? a perfect example: on reaction they showed a clip of abyss carrying an "unconcious" hardy to the ring, leaving us to assume abyss attacked hardy. but they revealed on reaction that this was just acting. so that was acting and the rvd attack wasnt?

this is the double edged sword. the way tna is presenting the storyline has made it better but in doing so it has also hurt other parts of the product.

thoughts??

It's like murder she wrote or book that keeps you thinking what's going to happen next! It's very interesting to me and keeps wrestling from being stale IMO! I love it! It forces you to think and that's better than having things laid out on a silver platter and just to easy to figure out and that's Innovative IMO, And great for the wrestling business!

Tna has been trying to change the wrestling business like Hulk Hogan and Dixie Carter has said. yet people aren't quick to understand so they rip it. and they just don't know that what Tna is doing is good For The Pro Wrestling Business!

 

[sweetcosmicpope]

I personally like the idea.

They put this admission of faking things out there to make people think. People are always going to second-guess what's going to happen, because things could be a work or misleading in the storyline, itself.

If you take the ability to know what's going to happen, then things will always be a big surprise. I think it's freakin' genius.

 

[Post]

I definitely am interested in where the Immortal storyline is going.

I thought that the Reaction piece last night was pretty cool and revealing...it tied all of the pieces together. I get what you are saying though. When will they stop and/or take it too far. Are they going to have a title change one week, then the next week say on Reaction that it was all a goof.

For me, TNA gave away this "shocker" (sarcasm) of Hardy going heel and the formation of Immortal quite a while back. It ruined it when Nash, Sting, and Pope all came out and stated that Bishoff and Hogan were not what they seemed.

It could have been done better. They hyped it up so much that nobody was surprised when it happened.

 

[MarkoMan]

In terms of JJ vs. Bischoff, I don't remember if they still had differences or if it was a part of the plan... but I know that with Hulk v Flair, they definitely weren't on the "same page" at that point. They had mentioned a number of times that Fortune's drive for power in TNA could be a threat to "Their" plans, but Dixie's comparison of Hulk and Flair to the 80s with ECW to the 90s was the "catalyst" that brought them together.

In other words, Jarrett was prolly in it from the beginning, and [storyline wise, since Hogan and Flair debuted on the same day] Flair was independent of it until ECW showed up.

It's a cool story, although I think that it would have been better to reveal pieces of the plan within the coming weeks as opposed to over an entire hour so that you can get that suspenseful pull of how things were brought together. Now all we have to do is wait and see what the "protagonists" of this story are going to do.

For me, TNA gave away this "shocker" (sarcasm) of Hardy going heel and the formation of Immortal quite a while back. It ruined it when Nash, Sting, and Pope all came out and stated that Bishoff and Hogan were not what they seemed.

It could have been done better. They hyped it up so much that nobody was surprised when it happened.

So I can understand history repeating itself with Hogan and whatnot, but you knew Hardy was going heel?

 

[Kcirdor]

i love it. I haven't been this pumped about watching wrestling in almost 10 years. I like the way they made it all obvious what was going to happen.. They even added the Angle 'retirement' clause to make people "know" angle would win. I was a bit dissapointed when it was jeff hardy that made the turn. Due the fact that I just didn't like him at all. He was a terrible face on the mic. But amazingly has been pretty good in his heel character. His confusing speaking works better for a heel. After years of hating the guy, I finally like him. That in itself is pretty amazing.

 

[kazfan401]

Last Nights Impact and reaction were great, best show in a long time and I hope the ratings keep going up, I love just about every storyline going on in TNA right now, and I was suprised at how well every actually made sense and now I can't wait for next week, TNA is keeping my attention so they are definitely doing something right.

Hey! It's wrestling lets just enjoy it and be glad it's a part of the world.

 

[shattered dreams]

To expand on what zion correctly explained, this just keeps you guessing. The key to much of the fallout storyline is paranoia and not being able to trust anyone. All the faces are confused and cannot band together to defeat the new faction in charge because they are worried about precisely what the OP is talking about, What if this person is faking in a kayfabe sense? I do not see it as a double edged sword, I see it is a solid development for keeping the audience intrigued at the unpredictability. The genius of it IMO is that the fans are legitimately experiencing the same emotions that the faces are in a kayfabe sense. It makes it easy to relate to the story and get caught up in it.

 

[CuddleBuns84]

I myself saw a huge double edge sword. Maybe a ninja star not thrown properly. Anyways, let me explain...

Hogan and Bischoff already had power. They were incharge. Same with Dixie. However I'm suppose believe everyone was upset of over EV2. This is why the company had it's talespin. EV2 showed up, and Dixie said go for it. Okay, kind of stupid.

It would of made more sense to have Hogan and Bischoff be the faces in this. Or the anti-faces. The whole reason they did this was because they knew the wrestling industry needed this. Not Dixie Carter. Then edged her out. Well have her show up here or there to introduce a free agent to put a wrench in Bischoff and Hogan's plans. Instead, they rebuilt the nWo. Well and nWo type stable. Didn't really need that.

Is it a decent story line. Yea to some of it. The whole, "Hey, we hated ECW, so we started this evil scheme." Really isn't great inspiration for this swerve. Now, if you had a "Hey, we can do this better, your holding up back." Storyline. Then you would of gotten me more interested. I just think Hogan already did enough when he was a heel. Really didn't need to recreate it.

 

[Navi]

after watching impact and reaction the past two weeks im actually liking tna a whole lot. last night they had a special reaction that pieced the puzzle of "they" together. bischof went over how they brought in abyss to go the dirty work, how the whole jarrett/bischof feud was fake, how hulk and flair finally got on the same page after ev2 was brought in, how jeff bought in and said screw the fans, and how hulk and eric took care of the business side and flair and fourtune were the wrestling side. the offence and the defence. why i think there are waaaayyyyy to may people involved in this one faction i do think tna did a good job of piecing everything together.

Did it really take last night's Reaction for you to figure it out? I thought it was all explained in the first 45 minutes of last week's Impact. Most of it could have been figured out after BFG. I'm stunned that they even took the time to do it again.

now the only problem is that through out reaction they basically said everything you saw on tv was fake and all a plan. thats fine and dandy but now im supposes to believe that what happens from now on isn't fake and all a plan? now i've only been watching wrestling for about 6-7 years so im not a history buff, but i've heard many times on these forums that this is classic russo. crossing the line between storyline and real life.

Of course it's fake. Wrestling is a kayfabe sport, and inside the world of kayfabe your going to get storylines, which might force you to think a little. It's always about the plan, the next feud, what works for the storyline is what sells the sport. It doesn't matter how long you've been watching, it shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Oh and it's not classic Russo, he's just copying what was done back in 1996.

now i've really enjoyed the whole storyline and the way tna is showing us the back story on reaction but how am i supposed to believe that part of what i saw (jj v bischof, hulk v flair) was fake and other parts (ev2 v fourtune, abyss almost killing rvd) was real? a perfect example: on reaction they showed a clip of abyss carrying an "unconcious" hardy to the ring, leaving us to assume abyss attacked hardy. but they revealed on reaction that this was just acting. so that was acting and the rvd attack wasnt?

this is the double edged sword. the way tna is presenting the storyline has made it better but in doing so it has also hurt other parts of the product.

thoughts??

Your are really over analyzing this to a degree that it doesn't need to be. Hogan, Bischoff, Hardy, Abyss, Flair and Fourtune have been in on it for awhile now. It was a plan to turn Hardy heel and take over the company from Dixie. None of them where happy the way she was running it and they decided they could do a better job. Kayfabe remember. Abyss was supposed to make you think he hated Hardy and meanwhile the two of them where working together the whole time. That way the Hardy heel turn worked. If the news had gotten out they were in it together, the biggest surprise in wrestling this year would never have happened.

Sit back and enjoy the sport. It hasn't hurt it the product at all, but trying to analyze something that defies analysis will drive you crazy.

 

[SpecialFNK]

I think they explained a lot more on ReAction last night than they did last week on Impact. not just Immortal coming together, but also Fortune coming together.
the way Bischoff explained it last night it's as if this story line has been planning for a while now.
from what I remember the biggest time in wrestling was back when nWo was in control at WCW when both Hogan and Bischoff were heel. when Hogan and Bischoff first came in this year you weren't going to have them come in as heels. now you have them heels which is probably when they can be their best.
I never liked the whole story line with Hogan giving Abyss the ring. I thought that was stupid, but after last night it made more sense. Hogan/Bischoff wanted to use Abyss. they wanted Abyss with confidence. they gave him a ring and told him it had powers. Abyss is big and stupid enough to believe this. they then had Abyss turn on Hogan with the ring and shove it down his throat. after that no one really expected that Abyss was still with Hogan.
they also explained how Fortune came on board, when Dixie was praising EV2.0 and how that upset Fair and Fortune. you wanted to know why on earth would Flair be on the same side as Hogan, there's your answer. I also don't think that has to mean Fortune and Immortal will always be one.
it seemed like Bischoff was saying that Immortal needed to have Fortune on board in order to take over. it also seems like Bischoff said/let it be known/whatever that Immortal could still add people? if Immortal does add more people, would it then seem likely they could turn on Fortune? I don't think Immortal wants to be with Fortune, but they have used Fortune to get where they are. once Fortune is no longer needed then Immortal could cut them lose. I think it would make more sense for Immortal to turn on Fortune, but even if/when they do I don't think that automatically makes Fortune face. back in the nWo era at the time/before I wouldn't consider Ric Flair and Four Horsemen face, but FH was one of the top groups facing off against nWo. I remember times when nWo kicked Flairs ass, like slamming the steel cage door on his head. you also had Curt Henning given "Anderson's spot" in FH only to have Henning turn on the FH and join nWo.
I don't think you only need to have face vs face, but having face vs heel vs heel adds more excitement.
I look forward to if/when Immortal turns on Fortune and you have Fortune against Immortal.