hollywood
King Koopa
the bullet dodger
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Post by hollywood on Dec 7, 2007 22:53:43 GMT -5
Usually I feel Lance comes up with good points but he's just whining here. Like many have stated before his arguements have serious flaws within them. Anyway since BFG TNA has seemed to significantly turn things around. I would've agreed until a few weeks ago. But that's pretty standard for TNA. A couple good weeks, then a few months of pure, unadulterated s***.
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pacino
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,504
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Post by pacino on Dec 8, 2007 0:47:11 GMT -5
I think I've figured it out. Dude just likes to complain
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Post by capnsteve on Dec 8, 2007 3:34:28 GMT -5
He has some valid complaints, but he always goes nuts on TNA for the same stuff WWE gets away with.
I pretty much lost all respect for him as a wrestling reviewer when he complained that some TNA guy should be in jail if the booking was realistic. No shit Lance, just about every heel in history would be in jail if wrestling were realistic.
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Post by I'm The Cool One on Dec 8, 2007 4:41:11 GMT -5
everyone wants to look at this from a smark perspective... no one wants t look at it from lance's perspective.
lance storm knows what it's like to be in the business... he knows what it's like to be talented and underutilized... THAT is why he gets pissed at TNA. because they don't utilize the talent that they've got... they plug them into bad storylines, and they bury them in idiotic ways...
TNA has disappointed the hell out of me... up untill a few weeks ago it looked like they were going in the right direction... they were booking the MCMG/3D feud well... they were pushing Kaz... etc etc... then they made a total 180... it's ignorant.
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Post by Lenny: Smooth like Keith Stone on Dec 8, 2007 10:51:28 GMT -5
I will admit that I thought last week's TNA show wasn't nearly as bad as Lance did, but I still want to defend him. I want to restate that for some reason, people only tend to post his ramblings when he is complaining about TNA. So in other words, it's not like he just sits around complaining about TNA all day. He does write about plenty of other stuff. It's just that none of that gets posted around here.
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Limey
Unicron
It's been awhile.
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Post by Limey on Dec 8, 2007 11:48:02 GMT -5
It's just that none of that gets posted around here. Probably because a review of Artemis Fowl isn't quite as relevent or entertaining as reading him vent about a wrestling promotion. I generally believe that although I don't agree with his idea that TNA is retarded, his rants entertain me, and he does make a few interesting points. This may interest the folks over here at the Wrest of Wrestling. Just my two cents.
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Post by thestinger on Dec 8, 2007 12:05:27 GMT -5
He has some valid complaints, but he always goes nuts on TNA for the same stuff WWE gets away with. He always criticizes wrestling companies for doing things WWE does. For example, he has repeatedly claimed that making Biscoff spokesman for the nWo killed WCW. He goes as far as to write "Once the guy in change is the focal point of TV, conflict of interest and ego ALWAYS screws things up!!!!!” Doesn't Vince MacMahon do that? Plus I always found Eric to be a very entertaining on-air heel character, and lots of people find Vince's character entaining too (Not me, of course). It's hard for people to imagine in 2007, but the 'heel authority figure' was once a pretty good storyline. I pretty much lost all respect for him as a wrestling reviewer when he complained that some TNA guy should be in jail if the booking was realistic. No crap Lance, just about every heel in history would be in jail if wrestling were realistic. I lost all respect for Lance as a TV reviewer after one 60 minute impact's where he tore up the booking for the first half hour, and then didn't even mention the 30 minute long main event that took up half the show! Seriously, there was an excellent, 30 minute long world title match on free tv, and he didn't mention it in his review even though it lasted 50% of the show.
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hollywood
King Koopa
the bullet dodger
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Post by hollywood on Dec 8, 2007 13:06:27 GMT -5
He always criticizes wrestling companies for doing things WWE does. For example, he has repeatedly claimed that making Biscoff spokesman for the nWo killed WCW. He goes as far as to write "Once the guy in change is the focal point of TV, conflict of interest and ego ALWAYS screws things up!!!!!” Doesn't Vince MacMahon do that? Plus I always found Eric to be a very entertaining on-air heel character, and lots of people find Vince's character entaining too (Not me, of course). It's hard for people to imagine in 2007, but the 'heel authority figure' was once a pretty good storyline. Can you tell me where he said that? I'm not saying you're wrong, I just honestly don't remember him ever saying it? And I regularly read his columns.
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Mecca
Wade Wilson
Posts: 25,176
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Post by Mecca on Dec 8, 2007 13:08:29 GMT -5
Some of these defenses are making me laugh.......it reminds me of when people refused to admit the dying days of WCW were booked like ass.
This is what I picture.....Storm/Alvarez point out why these angles suck and why this show is frustrating...TNA fans react :Sticks fingers in ears: "We can't hear you but the WWE sucks!"
Also for people that go "oh but he lets the WWE have a pass on picks on TNA" you apparently missed this where he explains it....
Why I Rant
February 5, 2007
After my recent “RussoRiffic” TNA rant I was again bombarded with the question: Why do I pick on TNA, why don’t I rant on WWE? There are several reasons behind this so this week I figured I could look at them in depth.
When I look at WWE and TNA I don’t just do so as a fan that wants to watch wrestling. I watch them with a vested interest in their success as it pertains to the wrestling industry. I want both companies to thrive and succeed for the good of the business and the boys who work in it.
WWE is thriving; they make money, lots of money (grossing $380 million per year). There is little to no chance they are going to go out of business any time soon. There is more chance of WWE shutting down because Vince losses interest than due to financial concerns. TNA on the other hand is losing money, LOTS of money ($10 million per year). Without it’s financial backers TNA cannot exist. At some point in time people investing money in a business expect a return on that investment. If that point in time comes before TNA is able to turn business around and actually make money or at least break even, so it can survive without money backers, it’s game over, no more TNA. TNA supporters constant defense that WWE does Stupid Stuff too, is nothing more than a cop out!!
WWE and TNA are in two completely different boats. WWE has a stable loyal audience that tunes in every week, buys enough merchandise, and orders enough PPVs for WWE to make money. As long as they don’t do enough stupid things to drive their audience away in droves they will stay in business. TNA on the other hand does not have a large enough fan base, and they do not order enough PPVs, for TNA to stay in business without financial help. So TNA needs to attract a ton of new fans in order to become a success. When your goal is to attract new fans rather than just not repel current ones you need to be far more careful and can get away with far fewer mistakes.
The other reason I don’t rant on WWE like I do TNA is that their show in my opinion is far less frustrating. WWE does some stupid shit, don’t get me wrong, but at the end of the day they usually deliver the goods in some form or another. As wrestling fans we’ve been conditioned to tolerate a certain degree of crap as long as IT ISN’T ALL CRAP and once in a while you deliver what we want to see.
Let’s look at SmackDown this past week, which I thought was a weak show by SD standards. SD had 4 matches, two of which had outside interference and were in my opinion crappy finishes, especially the “Little Bastard” Boogey Man finish. As disappointing as those 2 finishes were, there was at least 2 clean finishes on the show and the solid 12 minutes of action delivered by Benoit and Finlay before the finish more than balanced that out. On top of that the show ended with an extremely strong segment involving 4 top guys. We got to see a very serious and dramatic standoff between the two World Champions and the top 2 contenders. It was meaningful and set up the next PPV Main Event, and increased interested in the following PPV (WrestleMania) as well. No other people were involved it was clear cut and focused.
TNA on the other hand had 3 matches ALL of which had outside interference and post match brawling. None of the matches went more than 4 minutes and totaled less than 10 minutes combined. There was tons of goofy stupid crap but not one solid meaningful focused segment to anchor the show. They offered us a “PPV caliber Main Event” which had my hopes up, yet turned out to be another short, pointless match that didn’t even have a finish. Had they let AJ and Joe deliver a great main event, like they both can, all the other stuff would have been forgiven. Those who like the goofy stuff would have gotten their fill and those of use who foolishly expect some wrestling on a wrestling show would have been happy as well. If TNA would give me one great solid match once in a while (and they sure as hell have the roster to do it) I’d watch the show and put up with all the stupid shit. Just because others do stupid shit doesn’t excuse it on your show, especially when the other guys on occasion deliver matches like Edge and Shawn Michaels did 2 weeks ago.
In closing to those of you who emailed me stating that ECW is worse than TNA, which again is not a valid defense. I won’t dispute that. I don’t find it as mind numbingly frustrating, but I don’t enjoy it and gave up on it months before I gave up on TNA. If TNA revamps it’s creative team, or ECW starts featuring more Tommy Dreamer and less Matt Stryker, I’ll likely give both of them a try again.
That’s my two cents, Lance Storm
Hope that helps clear some things up but I doubt it will. These hardcore TNA fans, I watch the product myself, but some of the fans blow my mind. It's like they refuse to focus on what would make their program better. If anyone offers a critique it goes back to "but WWE sucks more!" it has shit to do with the WWE. TNA gets roughly 20 thousand PPV buys off an 1.1 audience which is about 1.5 million people, so they can't even entice 5% of their audience to buy their shows...and you think their show is doing just fine? Um ok.....that's a problem.
TNA and it's fans shouldn't be worried about the WWE in the least. They are not even remotely close on levels. The WWE is profitable, TNA isn't. TNA needs to focus on making itself profitable and actually getting people to buy their shows before they worry about anything the WWE is doing.
Another big issue with TNA is they refuse to pull the plug on bad angles, sometimes it's better to just cut bait and pull the plug.
If you want some simple things that would improve TNA 100% in my view, they're are some of the simplest things but they'd help to a huge degree.
Get Don West and Mike Tenay out of the booth right away. They yell and scream like buffoons, when the wrestler cuts a promo they go on and on, just shut the hell up really. Also it doesn't help that they constantly cut to Tenay making retarded faces.
Camera work....who is calling for these incessant camera switches for matches? There will be 30 plus camera switches in about a 30 second period. Hard camera mother f***ers use it. It's hard to watch a match when I feel like camera switches are going to give me an epileptic seizure.
The 50/50 booking, you can not book everyone equal because then no one is a star. TNA has made every person on the roster a midcarder by refusing to have a pecking order about who should win and lose matches.
TNA's big problem is they're stuck between trying to out-WWE the WWE and appealing to the hardcores. In the process they've alienated the hardcore fans, who have pretty much quit watching wrestling on cable or just watch WWE out of force of habit.
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Post by thestinger on Dec 8, 2007 13:43:14 GMT -5
Can you tell me where he said that? I'm not saying you're wrong, I just honestly don't remember him ever saying it? And I regularly read his columns. He wrote that, and similar comments several times during his review of the book "Death of WCW." It's kind of funny since when you read the statement, "Once the guy in change is the focal point of TV, conflict of interest and ego ALWAYS screws things up!!!!!” and you didn't know the context, you would think Lance was bashing WWE shows centering around MacMahon. And yet, I don't read blistering reviews WWE shows that center around 'the guy in charge.' Hence my point that Lance is for some reason biased against TNA. Maybe he's letting his contempt toward Russo egg him on? Speaking of Russo, I saw him in person for the first time this week.... oh the things I was tempted to say.
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hollywood
King Koopa
the bullet dodger
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Post by hollywood on Dec 8, 2007 13:46:17 GMT -5
Can you tell me where he said that? I'm not saying you're wrong, I just honestly don't remember him ever saying it? And I regularly read his columns. He wrote that, and similar comments several times during his review of the book "Death of WCW." It's kind of funny since when you read the statement, "Once the guy in change is the focal point of TV, conflict of interest and ego ALWAYS screws things up!!!!!” and you didn't know the context, you would think Lance was bashing WWE shows centering around MacMahon. And yet, I don't read blistering reviews WWE shows that center around 'the guy in charge.' Hence my point that Lance is for some reason biased against TNA. Maybe he's letting his contempt toward Russo egg him on? Speaking of Russo, I saw him in person for the first time this week.... oh the things I was tempted to say. Well, if I may, I'd direct you to the old Storm column mecca just posted. While, mecca might be a tad harsh, in that colum Lance effectively tells why he may seem harder on TNA than WWE. The fact is, WWE can afford to make stupid decisions right now. TNA can't.
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Post by thestinger on Dec 8, 2007 13:52:29 GMT -5
Hope that helps clear some things up but I doubt it will. These hardcore TNA fans, I watch the product myself, but some of the fans blow my mind. It's like they refuse to focus on what would make their program better. If anyone offers a critique it goes back to "but WWE sucks more!" it has crap to do with the WWE. This thread is about Lance Storm's TNA rants and whether or not they are fair. I would like to read your response to THIS section of my previous post, which doesn't mention WWE at all. 'I lost all respect for Lance as a TV reviewer after one 60 minute impact's where he tore up the booking for the first half hour, and then didn't even mention the 30 minute long main event that took up half the show!
Seriously, there was an excellent, 30 minute long world title match on free tv, and he didn't mention it in his review even though it lasted 50% of the show.'
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Mecca
Wade Wilson
Posts: 25,176
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Post by Mecca on Dec 8, 2007 13:54:26 GMT -5
Ok what was the mainevent and what show was it.......I'm not in Lances head but I can offer my view.
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Post by thestinger on Dec 8, 2007 13:55:22 GMT -5
The fact is, WWE can afford to make stupid decisions right now. TNA can't. This is true. BUT. The current discussion is whether or not Lance Storm's reviews of TNA programs are fair. To me, the answer is a clear 'no.' I don't want to repeat myself a third time, but when an hour long show features a very good 30 minute title match, and a LENGTHLY review does not even mention that match in passing, the reviewer has an agenda -- (in this case it's probably to get Vinny Ru fired).
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Post by thestinger on Dec 8, 2007 13:58:03 GMT -5
Ok what was the mainevent and what show was it.......I'm not in Lances head but I can offer my view. If I recall correctly I believe it was a three way title match between Angle, Christian and Rhino. It was a good match which took some flak for Christian's teamates, AJ and Tomko brawling with Abyss and Sting at ringside before the match (which Angle won.)
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hollywood
King Koopa
the bullet dodger
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Post by hollywood on Dec 8, 2007 13:58:54 GMT -5
The fact is, WWE can afford to make stupid decisions right now. TNA can't. This is true. BUT. The current discussion is whether or not Lance Storm's reviews of TNA programs are fair. To me, the answer is a clear 'no.' I don't want to repeat myself a third time, but when an hour long show features a very good 30 minute title match, and a LENGTHLY review does not even mention that match in passing, the reviewer has an agenda -- (in this case it's probably to get Vinny Ru fired). Lance has no vested interest in TNA other than a personal interest on whatever contributions they could make to the wrestling industry as a whole--which right now, is little more than a proving ground for uong guys and a retirement home for the old ones. And I have to ask, in that 30 minute match, how many run-ins were there? I can only imagine how many they managed to cram into a match that ran that long. EDIT: Angle/Christian/Rhyno. I remember that one. I watched it. Had about a half dozen run-ins, with some that had nothing to do with the match. Typical TNA shenanigans.
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Mecca
Wade Wilson
Posts: 25,176
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Post by Mecca on Dec 8, 2007 14:02:09 GMT -5
Is that the show that gave us this great moment.... youtube.com/watch?v=NBxbP-AmWYAThat clip sums up a lot of my issues with TNA, especially when you consider it's a taped show...and the heel/face entrance ramps gotta go.
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Post by thestinger on Dec 8, 2007 14:12:56 GMT -5
Well I may be thinking of the wrong main event. I seem to remember Joe being involved.
Anyway I disagree with both of you about that match. If the run-ins didn't cause or affect the finish, they don't bother me.
And even though he's in my top 10 favorites, I think Lance is full of #$%* when it comes to TNA.
If I could respond to him, I would say, "If TNA frustrates you most of all the 'wrestling' shows on TV, you need therapy."
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hollywood
King Koopa
the bullet dodger
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Post by hollywood on Dec 8, 2007 14:14:40 GMT -5
Well I may be thinking of the wrong main event. I seem to remember Joe being involved. Anyway I disagree with both of you about that match. If the run-ins didn't cause or affect the finish, they don't bother me. And even though he's in my top 10 favorites, I think Lance is full of #$%* when it comes to TNA. If I could respond to him, I would say, "If TNA frustrates you most of all the 'wrestling' shows on TV, you need therapy." His website, www.stormwrestling.com, has his email address.
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Post by thestinger on Dec 8, 2007 14:21:19 GMT -5
I don't want to really disrespect him, like I said, he was a favorite of mine once.
But I don't respect his opinion on TNA. After the week I described took place I simply decided not to waste my time reading Lance's TNA thoughts anymore.
And Hollywood, I doubt you agree with everything Lance thinks either. He's said a couple of times that he thinks Bobby Roode is one of the best talents in the company (even wrestled his last match against him).
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