Post by slowdive on Jan 18, 2007 11:07:43 GMT -5
TNA News from this weeks Torch Newsletter
Sting came to TNA Final Resolution with some notes written down of ideas for his main event match. It surprised some people because his rep is that he doesn't show any indications of giving any thoughts to TNA except when he's there being told what to do...
Jeff Jarrett yelled at some people at Monday's TV taping over some miscues after an angle with Christian, Tomko, and Kurt Angle. At one point, Angle walked away from the ring when he was supposed to wait for Tomko to arrive for a planned angle...
One concern to some in TNA is that the crowd at the "Impact Zone" is getting less and less enamored with Sting and heckling him or just not reacting to him. He got hit with some Steve Austin "What?!" chants at one point and some anti-Sting chants during the Abyss/James Mitchell angles. "They see him every taping, so there's no mystique there," says one source. "And some of these fans are out to be this generation's ECW Arena crowd and make themselves part of the show"...
A few minutes were cut from the PPV main event with Sting vs. Abyss vs. Christian due to the show running long, but none of the angles and interference spots in the match were cut, so everything ran close together. Some thought it worked out better, and others thought it seemed too busy and overbooked as a result...
Christy Hemme was said to be visibly distraught after her segment on the PPV bombed. The crowd was hard on her, and it affected her as this was her chance to show her range as a character. She had been itching to do more than those bumpers into commercial breaks, and she may have seen the crowd rejection of her speech as hurting her chances to get more TV time in the future...
There was some legit heat between LAX and Team 3D headed into Sunday's PPV. It manifested itself with Brother Ray not selling for LAX during most of the match, and at one point violently tossing Homicide like a rag doll into the security railing at ringside several times. Homcide tagged out to Hernandez afterward and looked pretty hot about what happened. After the match, Homicide walked past the Gorilla position looking upset. (As ROH World Hvt. Champion, he has a reputation to uphold, not to mention general pride in being treated with respect by a fellow wrestler.) By the end of the night, he was telling people it was no big deal, and the next night at the TV tapings, LAX and Team 3D were openly, cooperatively discussing their scheduled rematch on the TV taping with no signs of heat, so it appeared they worked out their differences, whatever they were. After the PPV, speculation among TNA sources about the PPV match issues ranged from there being problems before with perceived "attitude issues" between the teams when they were planning the match to Brother Ray trying to impress some friends and family who were in the crowd that night, including a reluctancce to sell for someone "so much smaller than him" in Homicide...
Bob Backlund threatened to walk out of the building when Kevin Nash made a reference to the two visiting doctors while implying they were trying to get extra pills for recreational use. The segment was retaped with Nash revising his sarcasm...
TNA announced a licensing deal with New Motion, Inc. on January 12 to provide mobile content featuring TNA wrestlers. The press release made trade magazines that cover the mobile industry. Part of the soft launch of the mobile deal was the Joe vs. Angle polling at the TNA PPV. TNA's press release states there will be "alerts, blogs, wallpapers, ringtones, fan clubs, and fan polling" on the mobile service...
Line up for the Jan. 20 TNA house show just outside of Birmingham, Ala.: Kurt Angle vs. Abyss, A.J. Styles vs. Rhino, Austin Starr vs. Eric Young, B.G. James vs. Bobby Roode, Chris Harris vs. James Storm, and no NWA champion Christian Cage or Samoa Joe. TNA was advertising this show as Angle's first NWA Title opportunity, but that was before Abyss lost the title to Christian at Final Resolution...
The Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser interviewed Angle about the move to TNA. Angle said about Dixie Carter: "She puts the talent first. The WWE puts the stockholders first, not the talent first. I don't like wrestling for a company like that. They (TNA) let the talent have a say on what they want to do. In the WWE, they give you a script on what to say. Dixie puts family first, your health second and wrestling third." Angle said he was surprised the ratings Impact ratings jumped quickly. He credited his feud with Samoa Joe for spiking the ratings. Angle said he wants to teach younger wrestlers to "help make them better"....
After suffering a concussion at the TNA PPV, Angle made a TV appearance the next morning promoting TNA...
Don West was the guest on TNA's monthly conference call last Tuesday. The call focused on the usual topic of TNA being a growing company. Here are some key quotes from West that stood out to me. On the war of words between Kurt Angle and WWE, specifically Vince McMahon: "There were a lot of hard feelings and they didn't expect him coming here, so it hurt Vince and they retaliated like most would. The animosity is childish on both parts." West said St. Louis is a possible venue for another PPV outside of Orlando. On what TNA could improve on, West acknowledged the lack of exposure for TNA in the mainstream market. "Many people have no clue who we are and what channel we are on," he said. "People need to know the guys we have and they need to know that Angle and Christian are here too." On whether he knew about the Kurt Angle "big surprise" announcement, West said he didn't know until five minutes before they went on the air for the PPV and Mike Tenay didn't know until the announcement was made. He said everyone not in the know was expecting Goldberg...
Kurt Angle appeared on the iVillagelive.com syndicated show Monday morning at 11 a.m. He said he suffered a concussion eight minutes into his 30 minute "Iron Man" match with Kurt Angle and didn't remember anything afterward. He was also on the George Michael Sports Machine syndicated show over the weekend. On both shows, he was a strong advocate for TNA, including saying he left WWE for TNA because it has better wrestlers...
The original sales pitch Kevin Nash gave to the X Division wrestlers, from a storyline perspective, to participate in the PCS Tournament was a cash prize. In the end, though, all he did was hand out DVDs of "The Punisher" and "The Longest Yard" as a thank you for their partcipation. So cash incentive was the storyline reason for Senshi being a reluctant participant in that circus.
Sting came to TNA Final Resolution with some notes written down of ideas for his main event match. It surprised some people because his rep is that he doesn't show any indications of giving any thoughts to TNA except when he's there being told what to do...
Jeff Jarrett yelled at some people at Monday's TV taping over some miscues after an angle with Christian, Tomko, and Kurt Angle. At one point, Angle walked away from the ring when he was supposed to wait for Tomko to arrive for a planned angle...
One concern to some in TNA is that the crowd at the "Impact Zone" is getting less and less enamored with Sting and heckling him or just not reacting to him. He got hit with some Steve Austin "What?!" chants at one point and some anti-Sting chants during the Abyss/James Mitchell angles. "They see him every taping, so there's no mystique there," says one source. "And some of these fans are out to be this generation's ECW Arena crowd and make themselves part of the show"...
A few minutes were cut from the PPV main event with Sting vs. Abyss vs. Christian due to the show running long, but none of the angles and interference spots in the match were cut, so everything ran close together. Some thought it worked out better, and others thought it seemed too busy and overbooked as a result...
Christy Hemme was said to be visibly distraught after her segment on the PPV bombed. The crowd was hard on her, and it affected her as this was her chance to show her range as a character. She had been itching to do more than those bumpers into commercial breaks, and she may have seen the crowd rejection of her speech as hurting her chances to get more TV time in the future...
There was some legit heat between LAX and Team 3D headed into Sunday's PPV. It manifested itself with Brother Ray not selling for LAX during most of the match, and at one point violently tossing Homicide like a rag doll into the security railing at ringside several times. Homcide tagged out to Hernandez afterward and looked pretty hot about what happened. After the match, Homicide walked past the Gorilla position looking upset. (As ROH World Hvt. Champion, he has a reputation to uphold, not to mention general pride in being treated with respect by a fellow wrestler.) By the end of the night, he was telling people it was no big deal, and the next night at the TV tapings, LAX and Team 3D were openly, cooperatively discussing their scheduled rematch on the TV taping with no signs of heat, so it appeared they worked out their differences, whatever they were. After the PPV, speculation among TNA sources about the PPV match issues ranged from there being problems before with perceived "attitude issues" between the teams when they were planning the match to Brother Ray trying to impress some friends and family who were in the crowd that night, including a reluctancce to sell for someone "so much smaller than him" in Homicide...
Bob Backlund threatened to walk out of the building when Kevin Nash made a reference to the two visiting doctors while implying they were trying to get extra pills for recreational use. The segment was retaped with Nash revising his sarcasm...
TNA announced a licensing deal with New Motion, Inc. on January 12 to provide mobile content featuring TNA wrestlers. The press release made trade magazines that cover the mobile industry. Part of the soft launch of the mobile deal was the Joe vs. Angle polling at the TNA PPV. TNA's press release states there will be "alerts, blogs, wallpapers, ringtones, fan clubs, and fan polling" on the mobile service...
Line up for the Jan. 20 TNA house show just outside of Birmingham, Ala.: Kurt Angle vs. Abyss, A.J. Styles vs. Rhino, Austin Starr vs. Eric Young, B.G. James vs. Bobby Roode, Chris Harris vs. James Storm, and no NWA champion Christian Cage or Samoa Joe. TNA was advertising this show as Angle's first NWA Title opportunity, but that was before Abyss lost the title to Christian at Final Resolution...
The Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser interviewed Angle about the move to TNA. Angle said about Dixie Carter: "She puts the talent first. The WWE puts the stockholders first, not the talent first. I don't like wrestling for a company like that. They (TNA) let the talent have a say on what they want to do. In the WWE, they give you a script on what to say. Dixie puts family first, your health second and wrestling third." Angle said he was surprised the ratings Impact ratings jumped quickly. He credited his feud with Samoa Joe for spiking the ratings. Angle said he wants to teach younger wrestlers to "help make them better"....
After suffering a concussion at the TNA PPV, Angle made a TV appearance the next morning promoting TNA...
Don West was the guest on TNA's monthly conference call last Tuesday. The call focused on the usual topic of TNA being a growing company. Here are some key quotes from West that stood out to me. On the war of words between Kurt Angle and WWE, specifically Vince McMahon: "There were a lot of hard feelings and they didn't expect him coming here, so it hurt Vince and they retaliated like most would. The animosity is childish on both parts." West said St. Louis is a possible venue for another PPV outside of Orlando. On what TNA could improve on, West acknowledged the lack of exposure for TNA in the mainstream market. "Many people have no clue who we are and what channel we are on," he said. "People need to know the guys we have and they need to know that Angle and Christian are here too." On whether he knew about the Kurt Angle "big surprise" announcement, West said he didn't know until five minutes before they went on the air for the PPV and Mike Tenay didn't know until the announcement was made. He said everyone not in the know was expecting Goldberg...
Kurt Angle appeared on the iVillagelive.com syndicated show Monday morning at 11 a.m. He said he suffered a concussion eight minutes into his 30 minute "Iron Man" match with Kurt Angle and didn't remember anything afterward. He was also on the George Michael Sports Machine syndicated show over the weekend. On both shows, he was a strong advocate for TNA, including saying he left WWE for TNA because it has better wrestlers...
The original sales pitch Kevin Nash gave to the X Division wrestlers, from a storyline perspective, to participate in the PCS Tournament was a cash prize. In the end, though, all he did was hand out DVDs of "The Punisher" and "The Longest Yard" as a thank you for their partcipation. So cash incentive was the storyline reason for Senshi being a reluctant participant in that circus.