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Post by BiloxiParish on Dec 8, 2012 12:04:43 GMT -5
Why did it not last?
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Welfare Willis
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Post by Welfare Willis on Dec 8, 2012 12:29:38 GMT -5
Jeff Hardy's contract came up for negotiation. Jeff supposedly made indications of wanting to go back to WWE and Hardy is TNA's top merchandise seller. The belt was a move to keep Hardy happy. |
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Post by TK The Friendly Robot on Dec 8, 2012 12:57:38 GMT -5
I also don't think anything went wrong either, I was always sure Aries first run was never going to be a long one. TNA has this problem where they have homegrown Main Eventers but they don't have any homegrown Superstars. I think the point was to get some reigns under Aries belt and build him up to a guy who can wrestle anywhere on the card and still be someone who everyone tunes into see and who is legitimate. This is why there seems to be so many deserving guys in TNA who have only maybe had 1 or 2 runs with the belt, it's because they're trying to find their version of the John Cena, CM Punk, Randy Orton guy who people will tune in to see whether they're holding the belt or not.
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Celgress
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Post by Celgress on Dec 8, 2012 13:00:31 GMT -5
Jeff Hardy's contract came up for negotiation. Jeff supposedly made indications of wanting to go back to WWE and Hardy is TNA's top merchandise seller. The belt was a move to keep Hardy happy. I pretty much agree with the above. Only things I'll add are that AA doesn't really work as a full on face, rather his character works best as a full on heel or tweener, thus if anyone was going to be the bad guy in the feud with Hardy over the belt it was going to be AA. Figure in Hardy's whole "redemption" schtick leading into their confrontation, and AA didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of retaining the TNA World Heavyweight Title. |
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Jimmy
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Post by Jimmy on Dec 8, 2012 13:59:38 GMT -5
I think they didn't have him wrestle enough, honestly. He should have been a fighting champion type. Instead, I seem to recall him not really having any matches until his rematch with Roode at Hardcore Justice, and then not even having an official match at No Surrender. I know they had the BFG Series deal and all, but any of Aries vs. Daniels, Aries vs. Joe, Aries vs. Angle, Aries vs. Styles, etc, would have been awesome.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2012 14:02:40 GMT -5
Because Aries is ridiculously unlikable and he was a face for most of his run for some reason. It didn't help that he was handcuffed by the BFG series going on and so forth. Not that I'm complaining, I can't stand the guy.
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Post by TK The Friendly Robot on Dec 8, 2012 14:26:06 GMT -5
Clearly Hogan thinks Aries is ready because I highly doubt he'd do a program with Aries as the main instigator otherwise. If Hogan was as bad as people make out we'd have Gunner in Aries' role in this angle. |
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percymania
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Post by percymania on Dec 8, 2012 18:58:39 GMT -5
It was the sudden face turn that didn't quite feel right.
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Post by froggyfrog on Dec 8, 2012 21:23:59 GMT -5
Hardy won BFG series is what went wrong
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Post by HMARK Center on Dec 8, 2012 22:59:24 GMT -5
It was mostly Hardy winning the BFG Series, but I do agree that Aries just doesn't work as a pure face. Even back in the day when he first turned face in ROH he was mostly face based on having been a successful ROH World Champion; the fans had developed respect for his work, plus he and GeNext got to feud with the Embassy, and the Embassy in 2005-2006 was getting nuclear crowd heat. He also had the extended Tag Title run with Roderick Strong, so again, his "overness" as a face was based on carrying a title well and putting on great matches.
Obviously Aries has tons of appeal as a babyface (those weren't BS cheers he was getting all during the months leading to Destination X), but it works mostly if you book him with a clear tweener attitude.
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Post by kamero00 on Dec 9, 2012 4:08:10 GMT -5
Aries CAN'T be a face. You don't "shush" people who are cheering for you if you are a face.
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Rave
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Post by Rave on Dec 9, 2012 5:03:46 GMT -5
Jeff Hardy's contract came up for negotiation. Jeff supposedly made indications of wanting to go back to WWE and Hardy is TNA's top merchandise seller. The belt was a move to keep Hardy happy. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 9, 2012 8:44:03 GMT -5
The Aces and Eights angle had a lot to do with it too. He had to be a TNA good guy standing up for the company, which just isn't his bag. The show where he was torturing the one guy then had the "I'M SICK OF GETTING RAILDROADED FROM BEHIND!" promo, then the freaking Armbreaker debuted. Just a general rule, if you have your World Champion facing a guy with a name that contains a verb followed by -er, and it's not the Undertaker, you f***ed up. That was a rough stretch that sucked any remaining life out of his title reign.
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Post by "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay on Dec 9, 2012 8:50:30 GMT -5
I don't think it's completely unfair to say 'literally everything except his win.'
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Post by Bram wants to 'urt you on Dec 9, 2012 9:42:13 GMT -5
When Aries won, people thought "fantastic! TNA is booking stuff on the fly based on actual talent and fan reaction". The problem is, TNA ISN'T booking things on the fly. They've got their plans and storylines in place, and they simply try and bend their apparent spontaneous decisions into the whole story.
A Double wasn't made champion, with TNA then building the show around him, he was shoehorned into the current flow of the story and THAT was TNA's focus all along - Aces & Eights. The whole A's/8's story arc would have still panned out regardless of who was the champion. In fact, since Roode has subsequently been shown to be allied with the bikers, keeping the belt on him up to BFG would have made more sense.
So Aries run may appear lackluster, but that's mainly because TNA hadn't planned for him to have a run at all. They hadn't got any feuds waiting to go, because I honestly think their whole plan was to let Roode retain until BFG.
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Post by cabbageboy on Dec 9, 2012 11:24:41 GMT -5
The thing is this: Aries shouldn't have won the belt when he did. TNA was building this huge final blow off to Roode/Storm and should have simply gone with that as the main event for BFG (it was the best match on the card anyway). They booked themselves into a corner where Aries was too over to job, yet no coherent storyline was in place if he won. A time limit draw or a DQ finish to keep the belt on Roode and then think about what to do with Aries later would have been the better option. As it is, Aries won the belt and aside from the obvious Roode rematch had nowhere to go with it other than jobbing to the BFG winner.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 9, 2012 12:39:05 GMT -5
Aries faced two problems. One, he was a babyface when he won the belt, and the only credible heels in the company were guys he had already beaten (Ray and Roode). It left him with pretty much no one to work with unless TNA turned him heel (like they did with Roode) or went for constant face vs. face matches.
The second problem, and it will always been a problem with him, is that his character/personality is perfect for a heel, yet his size/moveset is perfect for a face. When TNA tried to tweak his face character as champion, it fell flat. I mean, Aries having a hard time giving up the X-Division title in order to have a shot at the World Title just didn't mesh with his character. I understand why they did it (they wanted to maintain some level of value to the X title), but Aries shouldn't be playing that role. He is too self-absorbed and too much of a prick to care what happens to the X-Division title, and for him to play hero and make sure the title is always valued just seemed like something AJ Styles should have been doing, not Austin Aries.
I think Aries is at the perfect spot now, but unfortunately that probably means he won't be champion any time soon. He is playing the role suited for him, he is in a main event level program with Hogan and Bully, and you know what? No one sees him as being out of place in that role. So the title reign, as short as it was, elevated him to the point where he can be viewed as an upper mid-carder at worst, and a credible main event player on top of that.
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Post by kingoftheindies on Dec 9, 2012 19:11:33 GMT -5
nothing went wrong. Personally, I was surprised he held the title until BFG. Not shocked but a bit surprised. I was always under the impression that with how over Aries got himself, the Belt was both a reward and a test to see how Aries as a main eventer would play out. I think what make people look so negatively now is how out of nowhere, Jeff became the threat.
The BFG series was pretty much built as a three man race between Storm, Bully, and Joe. Hardy spent half the summer feuding with Robbie E (I got 5 points bro!), and really out of the main picture. Then out of nowhere, Hardy wins BFG and Aries is heel. Honestly, had they done the redemption storyline much earlier (like when Jeff came back) it could've been better. But instead it was a rushed month long thing to keep Jeff happy.
But Aries wasn't damaged by it. He's now the number 1 heel in the company, and has been money.
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Post by austinariesfan88 on Dec 9, 2012 19:57:04 GMT -5
I think Aries works way better as the cocky, smug heel than the heroic face and he didn't defend the title enough imo. I would love to see Aries get another run with the belt, but I think 2013 should be the year of Christopher Daniels, have him beat AJ tonite at Final Resolution then somehow end up number one contender and eventually win the belt.
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Post by rapidfire187 on Dec 12, 2012 0:24:14 GMT -5
He just didn't have heels to work with. I thought Aries made a great bad ass face. I prefer him as a heel, but I would have preferred for TNA to have stayed the course and turned other people heel to face Aries. Aries vs heel Angle, AJ, Joe, and maybe a returning JJ could have gotten them through several PPV's.
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