Welfare Willis
Crow T. Robot
Pornomancer 555-BONE FDIC Bonsured
Game Center CX Kacho on!
Posts: 44,259
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Post by Welfare Willis on Nov 24, 2014 9:40:16 GMT -5
Bye Bye TNA Why? TNA going on the road drove the well dry Hogan and them good old boys were laughing as the rest of us cry Singin' "Hulkamania will never die I'll keep going balls deep until I die"
Did you write the book of Dilligaf And do you have faith in Dixie above If the thirty black guys tells you so? Now do you believe in EGO? Can Crimson f*** up a show? And can you teach Dixie how to make TNA grow?
Well, I know that Angle faced off with him 'Cause I saw Joe being a badass again You got on your shoes Only a matter of time before TNA gave you the blues
Samoa Joe was a broncin' buck With long trunks but always fell into the muck But I knew I was out of luck The day the music died
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Post by HMARK Center on Nov 26, 2014 19:34:04 GMT -5
This thread got me thinking a bit. We've all said it, but really think about the times TNA could've developed a "franchise player" for their show, and think of all the times they basically said "screw it" and threw the potential in the garbage.
Monty Brown: I was never a huge fan, but people gravitated toward him, and TNA was clearly high on him...so they turn him heel, have him work for Jarrett for awhile, and he never, ever regains his footing in the company. He left the business after awhile, regardless, but we all know he stopped over at WWE before that happened.
AJ Styles (the early years): never let the guy run with the big belt for very long during those early years, and kept yo-yo'ing him between divisions.
Samoa Joe: we've covered it in this thread. Give away his unbeaten streak AND a guaranteed huge ticket match with Angle right away, take away his mystique, finally give him the title but put him in a horrific angle...and the guy STILL kept getting over every time he set foot in a ring. Still couldn't have that, so they had him punched out with the rest of the TNA regulars against the MEM, had him JOIN the MEM, then Russo tried to bury him.
Austin Aries: red hot going into and coming out of his World Title win against Bobby Roode, quickly turned heel so he can play the foil in the "Jeff Hardy Redemption Story". So which is it: was Aries a guy you wanted to pull the trigger on or not?!
AJ Styles (near the end): guy gets built up to be the most effective weapon TNA could potentially have against Aces and Eights, and gets the Sting "Franchise who feels betrayed by the company" treatment to build up to his eventual triumph. He wins...in an overbooked mess, when TNA could've just let him and Bully Ray have a solid strong style main event title match. Then TNA can't be bothered to even pony up the cash to re-sign him. AJ goes to NJPW and ROH.
We can keep turning back to the "They just kept deciding to focus on old WWE guys, instead" argument, but I really feel like there's something deeper at play with all of these. It's as if TNA was too scared to ever go whole hog, or at the very least was never prepared when an opportunity fell into their laps. They booked guys like Joe, AJ, and Aries perfectly...but only up to a point, and never when it could've been most profitable. That just speaks to something beyond "Let's focus on Sting/Angle/Christian/whomever today, instead!"
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Reflecto
Hank Scorpio
The Sorceress' Knight
Posts: 6,847
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Post by Reflecto on Nov 27, 2014 5:44:50 GMT -5
This thread got me thinking a bit. We've all said it, but really think about the times TNA could've developed a "franchise player" for their show, and think of all the times they basically said "screw it" and threw the potential in the garbage. AJ Styles (near the end): guy gets built up to be the most effective weapon TNA could potentially have against Aces and Eights, and gets the Sting "Franchise who feels betrayed by the company" treatment to build up to his eventual triumph. He wins...in an overbooked mess, when TNA could've just let him and Bully Ray have a solid strong style main event title match. Then TNA can't be bothered to even pony up the cash to re-sign him. AJ goes to NJPW and ROH. We can keep turning back to the "They just kept deciding to focus on old WWE guys, instead" argument, but I really feel like there's something deeper at play with all of these. It's as if TNA was too scared to ever go whole hog, or at the very least was never prepared when an opportunity fell into their laps. They booked guys like Joe, AJ, and Aries perfectly...but only up to a point, and never when it could've been most profitable. That just speaks to something beyond "Let's focus on Sting/Angle/Christian/whomever today, instead!" It was worse in the case of Styles than it was Samoa Joe/Aries/Monty Brown, simply because he and Matt Morgan really tell the deeper issue at play with TNA that hurt it than the others (all popular stars, but were never THE franchise guy or close.) In Styles's case, though- even before Aces and Eights, he was sold from day 1 of TNA as "This guy is loaded with potential and he's the future of this business"...in 2002. In the 11 years AJ Styles was with TNA, he was a multi-time TNA Grand Slam winner. He won every title TNA had, won every title multiple times, and had become one of the most decorated stars TNA will ever have. ...and when AJ Styles left the company in 2013, HE WAS STILL SOLD AS "This guy is loaded with potential and he's the future of this business." THAT, in itself, was more of a problem with Styles- it wasn't even that they didnt go whole hog and try to make him a franchise player- but they never stopped selling AJ Styles as "this guy has the potential to be a future World Champion", even AFTER he held the TNA World Title, many times. Rather than making his potential part of the selling point, it became the entire gimmick of AJ Styles when it came down to it. It's the same problem as Matt Morgan had, who's entire gimmick could be boiled down to "Jim Cornette once said this guy would main event Wrestlemania in 5 years- the only other people he said that about were Rock, Lesnar, Batista, and Cena, and he was right about all of them. One day, Matt Morgan's going to be our franchise player, you guys, honest!"- even if it came close to happening and didn't happen.
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Post by ________ has left the building on Nov 27, 2014 22:53:08 GMT -5
This thread got me thinking a bit. We've all said it, but really think about the times TNA could've developed a "franchise player" for their show, and think of all the times they basically said "screw it" and threw the potential in the garbage. AJ Styles (near the end): guy gets built up to be the most effective weapon TNA could potentially have against Aces and Eights, and gets the Sting "Franchise who feels betrayed by the company" treatment to build up to his eventual triumph. He wins...in an overbooked mess, when TNA could've just let him and Bully Ray have a solid strong style main event title match. Then TNA can't be bothered to even pony up the cash to re-sign him. AJ goes to NJPW and ROH. We can keep turning back to the "They just kept deciding to focus on old WWE guys, instead" argument, but I really feel like there's something deeper at play with all of these. It's as if TNA was too scared to ever go whole hog, or at the very least was never prepared when an opportunity fell into their laps. They booked guys like Joe, AJ, and Aries perfectly...but only up to a point, and never when it could've been most profitable. That just speaks to something beyond "Let's focus on Sting/Angle/Christian/whomever today, instead!" It was worse in the case of Styles than it was Samoa Joe/Aries/Monty Brown, simply because he and Matt Morgan really tell the deeper issue at play with TNA that hurt it than the others (all popular stars, but were never THE franchise guy or close.) In Styles's case, though- even before Aces and Eights, he was sold from day 1 of TNA as "This guy is loaded with potential and he's the future of this business"...in 2002. In the 11 years AJ Styles was with TNA, he was a multi-time TNA Grand Slam winner. He won every title TNA had, won every title multiple times, and had become one of the most decorated stars TNA will ever have. ...and when AJ Styles left the company in 2013, HE WAS STILL SOLD AS "This guy is loaded with potential and he's the future of this business." THAT, in itself, was more of a problem with Styles- it wasn't even that they didnt go whole hog and try to make him a franchise player- but they never stopped selling AJ Styles as "this guy has the potential to be a future World Champion", even AFTER he held the TNA World Title, many times. Rather than making his potential part of the selling point, it became the entire gimmick of AJ Styles when it came down to it. It's the same problem as Matt Morgan had, who's entire gimmick could be boiled down to "Jim Cornette once said this guy would main event Wrestlemania in 5 years- the only other people he said that about were Rock, Lesnar, Batista, and Cena, and he was right about all of them. One day, Matt Morgan's going to be our franchise player, you guys, honest!"- even if it came close to happening and didn't happen. And that is the reason why after all these years, we still don't know what the company's mission statement nor have a true franchise player. TNA is like a 5 year old kid who keeps changing every couple of minutes of what he wants to be when he grows up. They never went all in on homegrown, breakout talents. They banked their future on older talent who made their names elsewhere. The booking changed like underwear when even a new regime took over. TNA doesn't even know what TNA is.
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Post by tropicalstormstl on Dec 1, 2014 15:31:54 GMT -5
But, maybe, just maybe, we have something new with EC3
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