RIP Mike Awesome, you will be missed,
Friday, February 23, 2007
Sunday, February 18, 2007
New ROH World Champion
And so ends the reign of Homicide as Pro Wrestling NOAH's Takeshi Morishima wins the ROH world title. Now there really is no arguing about whether this is a world title or not!
In a weekend that has seen some major shake-ups in ROH (including the setting up of 3 potential new factions) perhaps the most shocking news has been the title win by the big man from Japan. While many did not expect Morishima to be beaten by Joe in New York on his debut, almost no-one reallistically thought that Morishima would beat Homicide for the title in Philly (espceially when Morishima is heading back to Japan after next weekend's show!) However ROH kept it's fans second-guessing with this huge upset. The potential ramifications of what will happen if their champion were to take the belt and return to his homeland for unkown period of time has got the message boards buzzing and it will be interesting to see just what affect this has on future ROH shows, especially the shows in the UK where Morishima is allready booked to appear for NOAH in Japan while ROH is in the UK.
With ROH fans wondering just how booker Gabe Sapolsky could trump last year's incredible Milestone series of shows, it is looking like the 5 Year Festival has allready gotten off to a flying start. Whether it is the Samoa Joe farewell tour, the new factions based around Aries, Strong and Evans or this massive title change. Once again it shows that Sapolsky sure as hell knows how to keep the super-smart ROH fans guessing and long may it continue!
TNA Against All Odds 2007 (or why everything is all Vince Russo's fault!)
Not everything in the world is Vince Russo's fault. Global warming isn't Vince Russo's fault. World hunger isn't Vince Russo's fault. Bird flu isn't Vince Russo's fault. But Sports Entertianment is and that's what is killing TNA right now. The inroy is though, that the ratings are actually up, so perhaps he is doing something right after all. However not in my mind. Last year TNA was on the cutting edge of pro-wrestling. It was forward thinking, exciting and most important of all, different, to WWE. However since Vince Russo has taken over we have seen a return to the kind of car-crash TV that was such a feature of the Nashville-era of TNA and the dying days of WCW. We've seen a million and one angles, shoots that are works that are shoots, women wrestling men, meaingless celbtirty camoeso. Just about the only thing we haven;t seen is midgets in trash cans, but with WWE having a mini-Boogeyman now, perhaps that is a step too far even fro Russo to go down again.
Now that's all well and good, it livens up the prgram and makes it more than a dull old fashioned wrestling program. The unfortunate side-effect is that it has come at the expense of the one thing that TNA prided itself on. Wrestling. Why is 'wrestling' such a dirty concept in 2007 that even programs that claim to be about nothing but wrestling, are actually ashamed to put it on their programs. WWE have been guilty of this for years, and now TNA have gone from being Total Non-stop Action, to Total Non-stop Angles. The irony though, is that when WWE fans are crying out for something different from the lame ECW shows and goofy episodes of Raw, TNA is not presenting them with anything different. Instead, they are putting on the same embarassing cra that WWE peddles week in and week out, however it features the guys who were 'not good enough' to last in WWE and so comes across as even more second rate. With WWE heading into Wrestlemania and putting a renewed focus on the in-ring work as a way of getting over 2 main events they seem to have only just decided on, TNA is allready at a disadvantage. When WWE are putting on crappy pay-per-views on a fortnightly basis, TNA have a fighting chance by putting on quality wrestling, but when WWE get the big guns out, during their most focused time of the year, then TNA are going to be in trouble. If TNA persist with fat naked Oily guys, Christy Hemme's bad soap opera acting and Bob Backlund, then they are going to be in trouble. Because WWE had one of the best Royal Rumbles they have had in years and are building a really strong Wrestlemania card, so Vince Russo, let's hope you have more than one card left up your sleeve, cos you;re going to need all your booking tricks to make TNA a success from here.
Overall verdict: U (ungraded)
"Until TNA start putting together decent shows, without naked oily guys having wrestling matches, I'm refusing to watch them."
Now that's all well and good, it livens up the prgram and makes it more than a dull old fashioned wrestling program. The unfortunate side-effect is that it has come at the expense of the one thing that TNA prided itself on. Wrestling. Why is 'wrestling' such a dirty concept in 2007 that even programs that claim to be about nothing but wrestling, are actually ashamed to put it on their programs. WWE have been guilty of this for years, and now TNA have gone from being Total Non-stop Action, to Total Non-stop Angles. The irony though, is that when WWE fans are crying out for something different from the lame ECW shows and goofy episodes of Raw, TNA is not presenting them with anything different. Instead, they are putting on the same embarassing cra that WWE peddles week in and week out, however it features the guys who were 'not good enough' to last in WWE and so comes across as even more second rate. With WWE heading into Wrestlemania and putting a renewed focus on the in-ring work as a way of getting over 2 main events they seem to have only just decided on, TNA is allready at a disadvantage. When WWE are putting on crappy pay-per-views on a fortnightly basis, TNA have a fighting chance by putting on quality wrestling, but when WWE get the big guns out, during their most focused time of the year, then TNA are going to be in trouble. If TNA persist with fat naked Oily guys, Christy Hemme's bad soap opera acting and Bob Backlund, then they are going to be in trouble. Because WWE had one of the best Royal Rumbles they have had in years and are building a really strong Wrestlemania card, so Vince Russo, let's hope you have more than one card left up your sleeve, cos you;re going to need all your booking tricks to make TNA a success from here.
Overall verdict: U (ungraded)
"Until TNA start putting together decent shows, without naked oily guys having wrestling matches, I'm refusing to watch them."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
