Impact Wrestling 3.8 review: The Dark War

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Impact Wrestling 3.8 review: The Dark War

Post by cero2k » Mar 8th, '19, 22:49

Full Recap: https://www.f4wonline.com/news/impact-w ... alz-278836
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Twitch stream was hosted by Melissa Santos. Don Callis made a cameo, who is in Japan working the New Japan Cup. Post-show interview was former Impact wrestler Crimson, who promoted the upcoming Salute to the Troops show on May 11th.

X-Division Champion Rich Swann vs Ethan Page - 6.5/10

Match was a power vs speed bout with Swann getting the advantage every time he had the space to run around Page, but when Page would get his hands on Swann, he would strike or drop Swann with power moves. Swann connected with the Phoenix Splash for the win. Ok match, it picked up towards the end.

Post-match - oVe came out. Sami Callihan cut a promo saying that tonight is the night that Rich Swann finally joins oVe. Callihan said that family is everything and Swann and Callihan hugged it out in the ring. Swann put the oVe shirt on and started chanting with them, but behind their backs, he superkicked Callihan and hit a double cutter on the Crists before ripping the shirt off. Crowd popped.

LAX Skit - Backstage, Konnan told Santana and Ortiz that he is getting their rematch against the Lucha Bros tonight. He tells them to just pay attention to tonight’s Lucha Bros vs Razcals match from tonight.

We got a video from last week post-show with Rolando Melendez interviewing Brian Cage with his inappropriate questions. Josh Matthews told us that Cage was taken to the hospital, but that Brian Cage is next in line for Johnny Impact’s championship as soon as Johnny can return.

Ace Austin vs Jake Atlas - 6/10
Ace Austin made his Impact debut tonight with his X-Men’s Gambit gimmick.

Match was fast paced, lots of strikes since Austin's offense is mostly kicks from all sides. Finish saw Atlas went for a kick, but Ace countered with a kick combo, ending with an interesting looking Curb Stomp and finished Atlas with a running Blockbuster, which he calls The Fold. Good showing for Ace Austin, but Jake Atlas looked even better if you asked me.

Johnny and Taya Interview - Rolando Melendez interviewed Johnny Impact and Taya Valkyrie, who are in their house in Los Angeles, California. Melendez asks about letting Brian Cage down, to which Johnny answers that he did, but it was an accident. Melendez asked about working injured like others do, to which Taya brings up that he is getting Neck Fusion surgery, yikes, bad timing to make that the kayfabe injury after Ciampa’s legit injury. Johnny said that Cage will get his title shot when he is ready to return. Rolando Melendez is a great character.

Reno Scum Promo - They cut a promo backstage. Throwstone said that it took them two years to come back to Impact and that Fallah Bahh and KM were their unfortunate victims. They accepted a rematch against Bahh and KM.

Alisha Edwards Announcement - Alisha Edwards came out for a special announcement. Alisha thanked Impact Wrestling and said that her contract is expiring at the end of the month. She said that she enjoys coming out every week, but she also has considered staying home and starting a family. Suddenly, the Desi Hit Squad interrupted.

Rohit Raju cut a promo against the women’s empowerment movement and said that Alisha should indeed go home because it’s her job. Raj Singh said that all the women in wrestling should follow in her footsteps. Gama Singh said that God created women to serve men and Alisha finally had enough and slapped Gama in the face. When Raj and Rohit got in her face, Eddie Edwards came out to help her, but the numbers game was too much for Eddie until Eli Drake came out.

Eli Drake hinted joining Desi Hit Squad in on the attack, but Drake attacked Desi Hit Squad and defended Eddie Edwards. Drake told Eddie that this was ‘something to think about’ before walking to the back.

Backstage, Eddie and Alisha talked when Drake walked up to them. Eddie thanked Eli Drake for helping them both. Eli Drake once again suggested they team up and chase the tag titles. Alisha actually agreed with Eli Drake and pushed for the tag team too, bringing up that Drake is the only man Eddie Edwards has left. Eddie agreed to tag team with Drake and take on Desi Hit Squad next week.

GWN Flashback Moment of the Week - It was The Wolves vs The Hardys vs Team 3D in a ladder match for the tag team championships from 2014’s No Surrender.

Killer Kross and Moose Interview - Melissa Santos interviewed Killer Kross and Moose. She asked about what is next for them now that they have taken out Johnny Impact and Brian Cage. Moose celebrated with a new suit. Killer Kross said if he or Moose can’t get title shots, then no one is getting title shots, and so if he doesn’t get a shot once Johnny returns, he is going back to the hospital.

Rascalz' That 70's Show - The Rascalz were in their round table. Dezmond said that in order to win tonight, they need masks to gain lucha powers, and revealed he had Kikutaro’s mask. They made fun of Moose’s Pepto Bismol colored jacket. Wentz told Xavier to just give Kikutaro his face back. It was funny, but not a lot of substance.

The Dark War. If Team Rosemary wins, they gain control of Allie. If Team James Mitchell wins, he take's Rosemary's soul
Rosemary, Kiera Hogan, & Jordynne Grace vs Su Yung, ‘Dark’ Allie, & The Undead Bridesmaid of Honor (w/Father James Mitchell) - 4.5/10
The Undead Bridesmaid of Honor was Buggy Nova, fka NXT’s Skylar Moon. Rosemary came out with a big entrance attire, she got a huge pop from the crowd.

The match wasn't really that good, it was really fast paced with tons of quick tags from both teams, so it felt rushed and like it never built tension. I think they should have just done a Tornado Tag and make it properly chaotic. Finish saw Su Yung go for the mist, but hit the Undead Bridesmaid of Honor instead. Kiera Hogan took out Su Yung while Jordynne held Allie, allowing Rosemary to pin the Undead Bridesmaid of Honor and win the match.

Post-match - Rosemary put a collar on Allie and dragged her to the back as James Mitchell had to hold off Su Yung.

Backstage, Glenn Gilbertti asked Konnan about Don Callis. Konna instigated Gilbertti telling him that Callis said he had been hired to become a mascot. Konnan told Gilbertti to go into a room and call out Callis. Gilbertti went in and saw a bald person, who he said his piece to, but the bald person turned out to be Killer Kross, who kicked Gilbertti’s butt.

Back from commercial, Glenn Gilbertti walked out from his beating. He was hallucinating confusing people with Russo, Jarrett, Cody, and the Bucks, name dropping AEW. He finally found Scott D’Amore, who talked him down. Gilbertti walked out and join Callis in commentary.

Scarlett Bordeaux Announcement - In the ring, Josh Matthews introduced Scarlett Bordeaux. Matthews asked about Scarlett’s talent search, to which Bordeaux responded that none of the entries showed any potential to win a championship. Scarlett made fun of Glenn Gilbertti wearing the turkey suit on Thanksgiving.

Glenn Gilbertti got in the ring and asked why Scarlett would want to wrestle. He said that just by walking around she was the biggest deal, but the only thing that would happen if she wrestled is that she would just suck. Gilbertti said that women’s wrestling hasn’t been good since the last Bra and Panties match. Scarlett, in the name of all women, slapped the misogynist Gilbertti.

Scarlett challenged Glenn Gilbertti to her debut match. Gilbertti talked some more trash telling Scarlett to go home and do the dishes and said if after all that she still wants to wrestle, he’ll be there waiting. Disco Inferno and Scarlett Bordeaux just had one of the best angles i’ve seen in a while on TV, they were both great. I’m sold on that match, which takes place in 3 weeks at the Against All Odds special episode.
Rosemary, Hogan, and Jordynne dragged Allie outside. Rosemary told Hogan and Grace that she will take it from there. Jordynne agrees that they had only signed up to get Allie back. Hogan did not want to let Allie go until she got the old Allie back.

Tessa Blanchard Interview - Melissa Santos interviewed Tessa Blanchard about a number one contender’s match she has against Jordynne Grace. Tessa said that Impact management is screwing her for what she did to Gail Kim. Tessa said that she will defeat Grace and get her rematch.

Impact Tag Team Champions Lucha Bros! vs The Rascalz (Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz) - 7/10
Great short match, Rascalz looked awesome in defeat when Pentagon picked up the pin on Wentz after a Superkick and Penta Driver Combo. The match was fast paced from the get go and Rascalz actually worked a smarter, more vicious side of them.

Post-match - Backstage, Lucha Bros were greeted by Konnan. Pentagon and Fenix told Konnan to tell Santana and Ortiz to never touch their masks again. Konnan asked for the rematch, but the Lucha Bros told Konnan to wait, but Konnan said he wasn’t asking, he was telling them and that next time he saw them, he wanted a date. Konnan walked away. Pentagon told Fenix that they’re not going to take orders from Konnan.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Overall a great show. Impact Wrestling low-key made a big deal of International Women’s Day by putting their own female roster over and not just selling a women’s revolution. While the main event was great, the storyline developments of tonight were the stronger parts of the show.

Next week, Johnny Impact returns. oVe takes on Willie Mack, Rich Swann, and Tommy Dreamer, and Tessa Blanchard vs Jordynne Grace fight in a Knockout’s Championship No. 1 Contendership match.
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Re: Impact Wrestling 3.8 review: The Dark War

Post by Big Red Machine » Mar 10th, '19, 12:12

DISCO INFERNO doing a "get back in the kitchen" sexist gimmick in 2019 is what they spent six months building Scarlet Bordeaux up as an manipulative, mean heel for?

This company is combining WWE's heavy-handedness with a desperate attempt to be Lucha Underground, ECW, and PWG all at the same time, and as a result it has absolutely zero identity of its own.

And really. TOMMY DREAMER. STILL?!
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Re: Impact Wrestling 3.8 review: The Dark War

Post by cero2k » Mar 10th, '19, 18:12

Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 10th, '19, 12:12 DISCO INFERNO doing a "get back in the kitchen" sexist gimmick in 2019 is what they spent six months building Scarlet Bordeaux up as an manipulative, mean heel for?

This company is combining WWE's heavy-handedness with a desperate attempt to be Lucha Underground, ECW, and PWG all at the same time, and as a result it has absolutely zero identity of its own.

And really. TOMMY DREAMER. STILL?!
Scarlett was never built as a heel, what are you talking about? She never did anything heel, hell, she actually pushed KM and Bahh to a main event at one point and kept talking shit to the Desi Hit Squad. And Disco was perfect, that's exactly what Scarlett needed, because she is indeed playing the Eva Marie gimmick here and she's supposed to show that she actually can go. Impact doesn't need a generic bimbo wrestler because the main event scene is actually full right now with legit badasses.

and yeah, Tommy Dreamer, we already had this conversation. He's not taking anything away from anyone, he's there to take pins and nostalgia pops.

I know you're jelly i get entertaining shows soon to be produced by Lance Storm and you get Ronnie saying you're watching fake stuff.
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Re: Impact Wrestling 3.8 review: The Dark War

Post by Big Red Machine » Mar 10th, '19, 18:28

cero2k wrote: Mar 10th, '19, 18:12
Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 10th, '19, 12:12 DISCO INFERNO doing a "get back in the kitchen" sexist gimmick in 2019 is what they spent six months building Scarlet Bordeaux up as an manipulative, mean heel for?

This company is combining WWE's heavy-handedness with a desperate attempt to be Lucha Underground, ECW, and PWG all at the same time, and as a result it has absolutely zero identity of its own.

And really. TOMMY DREAMER. STILL?!
Scarlett was never built as a heel, what are you talking about? She never did anything heel, hell, she actually pushed KM and Bahh to a main event at one point and kept talking shit to the Desi Hit Squad. And Disco was perfect, that's exactly what Scarlett needed, because she is indeed playing the Eva Marie gimmick here and she's supposed to show that she actually can go. Impact doesn't need a generic bimbo wrestler because the main event scene is actually full right now with legit badasses.

and yeah, Tommy Dreamer, we already had this conversation. He's not taking anything away from anyone, he's there to take pins and nostalgia pops.

I know you're jelly i get entertaining shows soon to be produced by Lance Storm and you get Ronnie saying you're watching fake stuff.
I watch wXw and 205 Live. I have no reason to be jealous of anything TNA is doing.

Dreamer is dragging down the matches by not being good.

As for Scarlett- she showed up manipulating executives into letting her dodge matches and calling the interviewer ugly. That's a heel.

If she wants to prove that she can go then build up a real feud between her and another female wrestler. Don't do cheap heat bullsh*t f*cking Disco Inferno.
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Re: Impact Wrestling 3.8 review: The Dark War

Post by cero2k » Mar 11th, '19, 09:25

Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 10th, '19, 18:28
I watch wXw and 205 Live. I have no reason to be jealous of anything TNA is doing.

Dreamer is dragging down the matches by not being good.

As for Scarlett- she showed up manipulating executives into letting her dodge matches and calling the interviewer ugly. That's a heel.

If she wants to prove that she can go then build up a real feud between her and another female wrestler. Don't do cheap heat bullsh*t f*cking Disco Inferno.
so bring down a match from what? 6 to 5, on a random storyline building match, on a random impact episode, for the 4th / 5th feud from the top? This is seriously not an issue to anyone, it's not a Dreamer feud, he's not taking spots from anyone, it's not even a storyline inconsistency. Your hate for Dreamer is a bit of a nitpick

Scarlett didn't manipulate anyone, she just sold herself bigger than a random match, which she is. And calling someone ugly is not a heel thing, people aren't made of glass, and at the end, anyone standing next to her is ugly.

so make her a generic woman wrestler going against jobbers because all the other women have their own feud going? I'm sorry dude, but that is boring as hell. Beating up Disco Inferno is going to be far more entertaining
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Re: Impact Wrestling 3.8 review: The Dark War

Post by Big Red Machine » Mar 11th, '19, 09:48

cero2k wrote: Mar 11th, '19, 09:25
Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 10th, '19, 18:28
I watch wXw and 205 Live. I have no reason to be jealous of anything TNA is doing.

Dreamer is dragging down the matches by not being good.

As for Scarlett- she showed up manipulating executives into letting her dodge matches and calling the interviewer ugly. That's a heel.

If she wants to prove that she can go then build up a real feud between her and another female wrestler. Don't do cheap heat bullsh*t f*cking Disco Inferno.
so bring down a match from what? 6 to 5, on a random storyline building match, on a random impact episode, for the 4th / 5th feud from the top? This is seriously not an issue to anyone, it's not a Dreamer feud, he's not taking spots from anyone, it's not even a storyline inconsistency. Your hate for Dreamer is a bit of a nitpick

Scarlett didn't manipulate anyone, she just sold herself bigger than a random match, which she is. And calling someone ugly is not a heel thing, people aren't made of glass, and at the end, anyone standing next to her is ugly.

so make her a generic woman wrestler going against jobbers because all the other women have their own feud going? I'm sorry dude, but that is boring as hell. Beating up Disco Inferno is going to be far more entertaining

The issue with the Dreamer thing more than anything else is that it plays into the perception of being a pace for "cast-offs" (and particularly from WWE) which is an issue TNA has had for a very long time. TNA has enough veteran workers that I don't see any positives in bringing Dreamer in, and certainly not any that would erase the negative he brings.


Scarlett flat out said to Alicia "shut up, five. A ten is talking." That's a heel line right there, and she 100% portrayed as a heel for the first few weeks at least, if not longer.

Putting her in a feud where her character matters doesn't make her a generic woman. Having her fight the random misogynist makes her a generic woman. And we've seen Disco Inferno vs. a woman several times before, INCLUDING IN TNA, and it has never been entertaining. I also don't think that any company is helped by doing stereotypical cheap-heat angles like the "get back in the kitchen" misogynist or the "evil foreigner who hates America and wins the US Title" stuff the way WWE has been doing it with Nakamura, or a homophobia angle, etc. It's creatively lazy and fans know that it's cheap heat. and nothing more.
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Re: Impact Wrestling 3.8 review: The Dark War

Post by cero2k » Mar 11th, '19, 11:09

Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 11th, '19, 09:48


The issue with the Dreamer thing more than anything else is that it plays into the perception of being a pace for "cast-offs" (and particularly from WWE) which is an issue TNA has had for a very long time. TNA has enough veteran workers that I don't see any positives in bringing Dreamer in, and certainly not any that would erase the negative he brings.


Scarlett flat out said to Alicia "shut up, five. A ten is talking." That's a heel line right there, and she 100% portrayed as a heel for the first few weeks at least, if not longer.

Putting her in a feud where her character matters doesn't make her a generic woman. Having her fight the random misogynist makes her a generic woman. And we've seen Disco Inferno vs. a woman several times before, INCLUDING IN TNA, and it has never been entertaining. I also don't think that any company is helped by doing stereotypical cheap-heat angles like the "get back in the kitchen" misogynist or the "evil foreigner who hates America and wins the US Title" stuff the way WWE has been doing it with Nakamura, or a homophobia angle, etc. It's creatively lazy and fans know that it's cheap heat. and nothing more.
So the same joke from 10 years ago? that Impact is full of WWE-rejects. Impact has Johnny Impact, Rich Swann, and Dreamer, that's it, 3 guys and 2 haven't been in WWE for years. WWE has more old TNA geeks now, both in the ring and outside. If anyone still has that perception about Impact, then they're living in the past. Veteran wrestlers? Like Eddie Edwards? Go to their roster page and tell me who is a veteran wrestler they can insert here to replace him? Everyone pretty much has something going on right now. Dreamer takes nothing away from this match. People keep popping for him.

I don't think that's a heel, that's just her character, but even if you want to take it as a heel thing, fine. It's been months, you're referring to her debut. She's hasn't done anything heel, she is just Scarlett Bordeaux. How did you ever survive The Rock and Stone Cold who were far bigger dicks?

So who else is currently doing a misogynist dude vs girl on TV right now, that makes her generic? Is it cheap heat, sure, there's nothing wrong with cheap heat if it works, and this worked, it was international women's day and they put her over a misogynist. They're not circlejerking each other on how revolutionary they are, they're not pretending this is a shoot, and they're using a dude who is irrelevant and whose character won't get hurt going forward for doing one angle and then taking off. Disco Inferno is a stepping stone and nothing more. You're referencing matches from 2004? really? Some of the Stardom rookies weren't even born the last time Disco had a run with Impact.
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Re: Impact Wrestling 3.8 review: The Dark War

Post by Big Red Machine » Mar 11th, '19, 12:20

cero2k wrote: Mar 11th, '19, 11:09
Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 11th, '19, 09:48


The issue with the Dreamer thing more than anything else is that it plays into the perception of being a pace for "cast-offs" (and particularly from WWE) which is an issue TNA has had for a very long time. TNA has enough veteran workers that I don't see any positives in bringing Dreamer in, and certainly not any that would erase the negative he brings.


Scarlett flat out said to Alicia "shut up, five. A ten is talking." That's a heel line right there, and she 100% portrayed as a heel for the first few weeks at least, if not longer.

Putting her in a feud where her character matters doesn't make her a generic woman. Having her fight the random misogynist makes her a generic woman. And we've seen Disco Inferno vs. a woman several times before, INCLUDING IN TNA, and it has never been entertaining. I also don't think that any company is helped by doing stereotypical cheap-heat angles like the "get back in the kitchen" misogynist or the "evil foreigner who hates America and wins the US Title" stuff the way WWE has been doing it with Nakamura, or a homophobia angle, etc. It's creatively lazy and fans know that it's cheap heat. and nothing more.
So the same joke from 10 years ago? that Impact is full of WWE-rejects. Impact has Johnny Impact, Rich Swann, and Dreamer, that's it, 3 guys and 2 haven't been in WWE for years. WWE has more old TNA geeks now, both in the ring and outside. If anyone still has that perception about Impact, then they're living in the past. Veteran wrestlers? Like Eddie Edwards? Go to their roster page and tell me who is a veteran wrestler they can insert here to replace him? Everyone pretty much has something going on right now. Dreamer takes nothing away from this match. People keep popping for him.
It's not even Swann or Johnny that are problematic. Ex-WWE guys are fine if they are guys who people feel never got a fair shake in WWE and have untapped potential. Over the years TNA has developed a reputation as a place that out of desperation brings in guys like Dreamer, Big Zeke, Snitsky, Knux, Val Venis, Stevie Richards, MVP, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall Shane Douglas, Raven way past his expiration date. It was the place where ex-WWE and ECW guys went when they were either over the hill or when WWE decided they weren't particularly good because TNA was so desperate for star-power that they would bring them in and try to push them rather than focusing on building up their own crop of talent. It's something they need to be doing everything they can to move away from, and bringing in Dreamer plays into that. The negatives of booking Dreamer far outweigh the positives of giving his spot to someone who TNA can use in the long term and try to build into something, and who isn't an old guy people got tired of seeing over a decade ago. Unless he's in NYC or Philly, Tommy gets the same politeness pop that all old-timers get.

oVe have been wrestling for like fifteen years, Swann and Willie Mack for over ten. Even in terms of "old school" veterans they should have enough experience backstage between D'Amore, Callis, Homicide, Konnan, D'Lo, Gama Singh, etc. to cover all of the necessary advice-giving. And you can add Dreamer to that mix if you feel he can contrinute, but putting him in the ring is counterproductive.
cero2k wrote: Mar 11th, '19, 11:09 I don't think that's a heel, that's just her character, but even if you want to take it as a heel thing, fine. It's been months, you're referring to her debut. She's hasn't done anything heel, she is just Scarlett Bordeaux. How did you ever survive The Rock and Stone Cold who were far bigger dicks?

So who else is currently doing a misogynist dude vs girl on TV right now, that makes her generic? Is it cheap heat, sure, there's nothing wrong with cheap heat if it works, and this worked, it was international women's day and they put her over a misogynist. They're not circlejerking each other on how revolutionary they are, they're not pretending this is a shoot, and they're using a dude who is irrelevant and whose character won't get hurt going forward for doing one angle and then taking off. Disco Inferno is a stepping stone and nothing more. You're referencing matches from 2004? really? Some of the Stardom rookies weren't even born the last time Disco had a run with Impact.

There was also a segment when she manipulated the POV executives to avoid having to wrestle (also a heel move), and the way she talked to people made her seem completely manipulative.

It makes her generic because any woman could be stuck in her role and the angle would be the same. Saying "go back to the kitchen" is going to affect Scarlett Bordeaux the same way it will affect Lita the same way it will affect Asuka the same way it will affect Trish Stratus the same way it will affect Jazz the same way it will affect Stacy Keibler the same way it will affect Awesome Kong. You should be putting your talent in roles that make their individual characters relevant.

As for Disco, he wrestled women in WCW, too. If he couldn't have a decent match with Jacquelyn twenty years ago when the oldest one of them was was early thirties, I don't think he's going to be able to have a decent match with Scarlett Bordeaux at age fifty-one.

You are once again making the mistake of confusing "not as obnoxious as the way WWE does things" with something that is actually good or productive. This isn't as annoying as WWE, but it is neither good nor productive. You say Disco Inferno is a stepping stone, but a stepping stone to what? Do you really think they're going to run with "Scarlett Bordeaux, sex-positive feminist hero" in a division with Taya, Tessa Blanchard, and Jordynne Grace? I don't.
What does Scarlett gain from beating a goofball twice her age who just moments before her own segment they had get beaten up and made to look like a goof by someone else?
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Re: Impact Wrestling 3.8 review: The Dark War

Post by cero2k » Mar 12th, '19, 14:50

Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 11th, '19, 12:20 It's not even Swann or Johnny that are problematic. Ex-WWE guys are fine if they are guys who people feel never got a fair shake in WWE and have untapped potential. Over the years TNA has developed a reputation as a place that out of desperation brings in guys like Dreamer, Big Zeke, Snitsky, Knux, Val Venis, Stevie Richards, MVP, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall Shane Douglas, Raven way past his expiration date. It was the place where ex-WWE and ECW guys went when they were either over the hill or when WWE decided they weren't particularly good because TNA was so desperate for star-power that they would bring them in and try to push them rather than focusing on building up their own crop of talent. It's something they need to be doing everything they can to move away from, and bringing in Dreamer plays into that. The negatives of booking Dreamer far outweigh the positives of giving his spot to someone who TNA can use in the long term and try to build into something, and who isn't an old guy people got tired of seeing over a decade ago. Unless he's in NYC or Philly, Tommy gets the same politeness pop that all old-timers get.

oVe have been wrestling for like fifteen years, Swann and Willie Mack for over ten. Even in terms of "old school" veterans they should have enough experience backstage between D'Amore, Callis, Homicide, Konnan, D'Lo, Gama Singh, etc. to cover all of the necessary advice-giving. And you can add Dreamer to that mix if you feel he can contrinute, but putting him in the ring is counterproductive.
I accept that I fault from comparing to WWE, but then it's unfair to try and judge them because WCW did something 20 years ago, or even TNA 10 years ago. Yeah, TNA had that reputation, but seriously, that was a long time ago. When was the last time that an 'ex-WWE guy came in to take someone's spot, and to that extend, who is out there other than Kenny Omega that isn't a top level WWE reject? We're talking about Dreamer here, he is the filler in this match, because this feud isn't about the Crists, or Willie Mack, and surely not Dreamer, this feud is Swann vs Callihan, the rest are there to support sides and Dreamer has ALWAYS had issues with Callihan on Impact. You want consistency, there you go, they used someone who also has had problems with Dreamer. Who are they going to give that spot, someone that makes no sense to the story? someone who will overshadow Swann? someone they're going to job out and then make us complain that they jobbed out their young guys to WWE rejects Swann and Solomon Crowe? Dreamer is doing ONE match, not a program. I could point out far worse things we could be complaining about with Impact.

You've said before that Impact is not out there winning you back. If Dreamer in a random 6-man is the complain, then it's because you don't want to be won back.
Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 11th, '19, 12:20 There was also a segment when she manipulated the POV executives to avoid having to wrestle (also a heel move), and the way she talked to people made her seem completely manipulative.

It makes her generic because any woman could be stuck in her role and the angle would be the same. Saying "go back to the kitchen" is going to affect Scarlett Bordeaux the same way it will affect Lita the same way it will affect Asuka the same way it will affect Trish Stratus the same way it will affect Jazz the same way it will affect Stacy Keibler the same way it will affect Awesome Kong. You should be putting your talent in roles that make their individual characters relevant.

As for Disco, he wrestled women in WCW, too. If he couldn't have a decent match with Jacquelyn twenty years ago when the oldest one of them was was early thirties, I don't think he's going to be able to have a decent match with Scarlett Bordeaux at age fifty-one.

You are once again making the mistake of confusing "not as obnoxious as the way WWE does things" with something that is actually good or productive. This isn't as annoying as WWE, but it is neither good nor productive. You say Disco Inferno is a stepping stone, but a stepping stone to what? Do you really think they're going to run with "Scarlett Bordeaux, sex-positive feminist hero" in a division with Taya, Tessa Blanchard, and Jordynne Grace? I don't.
What does Scarlett gain from beating a goofball twice her age who just moments before her own segment they had get beaten up and made to look like a goof by someone else?
I guess what you saw a 'manipulating' I just saw as she just got the the Smoke Show she wanted. She didn't actually have a match back then, she only said she didn't want to be in the ring, AND even then, that was like the second or third week after her debut, August 2018. She hasn't been a heel in months.

if that's your argument that makes her generic, then so if fighting another chick or challenging for a title. that's what everyone does. Cage is generic because you can put any other dude in there and get screwed out of the title. if 'go back to the kitchen' is what you got, then you didn't get the story/angle at all, 'Go back to the kitchen' was the Desi Hit Squad's thing an hour earlier with Alisha Edwards which played to her promo and Disco only referenced. Disco's argument wasn't go back to the kitchen, Disco argument was that Scarlet shouldn't wrestle because she is eye candy and she is just going to kill her aura by showing she can't wrestle (like Eva Marie, Lana, Lacey Von Erich, and many others we've seen), he admitted that Scarlet is the hottest thing going just by walking around. Scarlet is not fighting for women to be out of the kitchen, she's fighting to not be cast as just eye candy, or that eye candy can go in the ring. That plays to her individual character.

Yeah, Disco is a terrible wrestler, good, he's not there to have a 5* match, he's there to get his ass handed by Scarlett and it SHOULD be ugly. This should be Beulah vs Bill Alfonso, not Meiko Satomura vs Pete Dunne. A stepping stone to what? i don't know, she can become a hero or a villain, they can go anywhere, and regardless where they go, she'll have a win in her debut and she'll shut up Disco's mouth, which is what we all want, we all know he's a goofball, but he's also a loudmouth and I want someone to shut him up. This is not exactly a feud that hinders her or limits where she can go from here, she won't be forced to anything after this so even if she doesn't want to wrestle again and turn heel, it will be ok; or maybe Disco brings out idk, Vanessa kraven to kick her ass and we get a natural progression to a woman-on-woman feud with Disco as the heater.
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Re: Impact Wrestling 3.8 review: The Dark War

Post by Big Red Machine » Mar 12th, '19, 16:20

cero2k wrote: Mar 12th, '19, 14:50
Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 11th, '19, 12:20 It's not even Swann or Johnny that are problematic. Ex-WWE guys are fine if they are guys who people feel never got a fair shake in WWE and have untapped potential. Over the years TNA has developed a reputation as a place that out of desperation brings in guys like Dreamer, Big Zeke, Snitsky, Knux, Val Venis, Stevie Richards, MVP, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall Shane Douglas, Raven way past his expiration date. It was the place where ex-WWE and ECW guys went when they were either over the hill or when WWE decided they weren't particularly good because TNA was so desperate for star-power that they would bring them in and try to push them rather than focusing on building up their own crop of talent. It's something they need to be doing everything they can to move away from, and bringing in Dreamer plays into that. The negatives of booking Dreamer far outweigh the positives of giving his spot to someone who TNA can use in the long term and try to build into something, and who isn't an old guy people got tired of seeing over a decade ago. Unless he's in NYC or Philly, Tommy gets the same politeness pop that all old-timers get.

oVe have been wrestling for like fifteen years, Swann and Willie Mack for over ten. Even in terms of "old school" veterans they should have enough experience backstage between D'Amore, Callis, Homicide, Konnan, D'Lo, Gama Singh, etc. to cover all of the necessary advice-giving. And you can add Dreamer to that mix if you feel he can contrinute, but putting him in the ring is counterproductive.
I accept that I fault from comparing to WWE, but then it's unfair to try and judge them because WCW did something 20 years ago, or even TNA 10 years ago. Yeah, TNA had that reputation, but seriously, that was a long time ago. When was the last time that an 'ex-WWE guy came in to take someone's spot, and to that extend, who is out there other than Kenny Omega that isn't a top level WWE reject? We're talking about Dreamer here, he is the filler in this match, because this feud isn't about the Crists, or Willie Mack, and surely not Dreamer, this feud is Swann vs Callihan, the rest are there to support sides and Dreamer has ALWAYS had issues with Callihan on Impact. You want consistency, there you go, they used someone who also has had problems with Dreamer. Who are they going to give that spot, someone that makes no sense to the story? someone who will overshadow Swann? someone they're going to job out and then make us complain that they jobbed out their young guys to WWE rejects Swann and Solomon Crowe? Dreamer is doing ONE match, not a program. I could point out far worse things we could be complaining about with Impact.

You've said before that Impact is not out there winning you back. If Dreamer in a random 6-man is the complain, then it's because you don't want to be won back.
My criticism is not that this is something WCW did or 2004 TNA did and therefore it's bad. My criticism is that they are repeating mistakes that most of the wrestling world has figured out not to make by now. And repeating mistakes has been one of TNA's biggest problems, no matter who is in charge.

I'm not saying "don't bring anyone from WWE in, no matter what." What I'm saying is that if you do, make sure that person is either:
1. someone who fans feel never got a fair shake or has something left unfulfilled (like Christian in 2005, or like when they brought in Drew and Sandow in 2015)
2. Make sure it's someone you have a compelling, well-plotted story for that requires that specific person's involvement (like when they brought in Billy Gunn in 2005 to tell the story with his attempt to get back together with Road Dogg causing problems in the 3-Live Kru).
3. Someone who are using in a completely different manner- something that shows that there are creative ideas here and you're not just trying to piggy-back off of whatever name-value WWE has built for the wrestler (EC3 is a good example of this, though he also falls into the next category)
4. Make sure it's someone you really, really believe has this untapped or underutilized talent. Someone you are going to make WWE feel stupid for letting go in one year's time. You want to be Gabe Sapolsky, picking your new talent carefully in order to ensure that you always pick winners, rather than being Ian Rotten and taking in anyone who shows up so that for every CM Punk and Chris Hero on your record, you've got eighteen low-talent nobodies on your record, too.

TNA is at the point where they are Ian Rotten, not Gabe. For everyone good former WWE bring-in, they have six bad ones.

And this is advice I would give to any company. Did you see the way people groaned when Kenny King brought MVP in to be his partner for Tag Wars this year?

With Dreamer in particular... he's a living cliche. He's a walking perception issue. He is a guy a promotion brings in when they are desperate and/or on the wrong track. And he's a guy that you bring in for a few months and then he goes away when everyone remembers the matches are no good and then you bring back six months later anyway. This is fourth run with TNA or something over the past few years, and aside from the first one almost all of those have been him coming back for one program... and that's with him having done similar in WWE and ROH in between.

I'd rather that instead of Dreamer coming back, they used the opportunity to give Swann a new friend who will benefit from the rub of being involved in the Callihan vs. Swann feud in some way. A young guy stepping up can do the job and still get over in defeat because he took a beating from oVe and thus won the respect of Swann and Mack and everyone else in the locker room.
cero2k wrote: Mar 12th, '19, 14:50
Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 11th, '19, 12:20 There was also a segment when she manipulated the POV executives to avoid having to wrestle (also a heel move), and the way she talked to people made her seem completely manipulative.

It makes her generic because any woman could be stuck in her role and the angle would be the same. Saying "go back to the kitchen" is going to affect Scarlett Bordeaux the same way it will affect Lita the same way it will affect Asuka the same way it will affect Trish Stratus the same way it will affect Jazz the same way it will affect Stacy Keibler the same way it will affect Awesome Kong. You should be putting your talent in roles that make their individual characters relevant.

As for Disco, he wrestled women in WCW, too. If he couldn't have a decent match with Jacquelyn twenty years ago when the oldest one of them was was early thirties, I don't think he's going to be able to have a decent match with Scarlett Bordeaux at age fifty-one.

You are once again making the mistake of confusing "not as obnoxious as the way WWE does things" with something that is actually good or productive. This isn't as annoying as WWE, but it is neither good nor productive. You say Disco Inferno is a stepping stone, but a stepping stone to what? Do you really think they're going to run with "Scarlett Bordeaux, sex-positive feminist hero" in a division with Taya, Tessa Blanchard, and Jordynne Grace? I don't.
What does Scarlett gain from beating a goofball twice her age who just moments before her own segment they had get beaten up and made to look like a goof by someone else?
I guess what you saw a 'manipulating' I just saw as she just got the the Smoke Show she wanted. She didn't actually have a match back then, she only said she didn't want to be in the ring, AND even then, that was like the second or third week after her debut, August 2018. She hasn't been a heel in months.

if that's your argument that makes her generic, then so if fighting another chick or challenging for a title. that's what everyone does. Cage is generic because you can put any other dude in there and get screwed out of the title. if 'go back to the kitchen' is what you got, then you didn't get the story/angle at all, 'Go back to the kitchen' was the Desi Hit Squad's thing an hour earlier with Alisha Edwards which played to her promo and Disco only referenced. Disco's argument wasn't go back to the kitchen, Disco argument was that Scarlet shouldn't wrestle because she is eye candy and she is just going to kill her aura by showing she can't wrestle (like Eva Marie, Lana, Lacey Von Erich, and many others we've seen), he admitted that Scarlet is the hottest thing going just by walking around. Scarlet is not fighting for women to be out of the kitchen, she's fighting to not be cast as just eye candy, or that eye candy can go in the ring. That plays to her individual character.
You can do more generic things when you're going after the title, but the point is that Cage's journey has made us understand why he's so angry he got screwed because we've seen him work so hard. We haven't seen Scarlett working for anything.
I don't see how you can possibly watch her character and not see her as anything but an arrogant manipulative heel. She strings people along, calls people ugly, she held a talent search only to bury everyone in it as not being worthy of her. This is all classic heel stuff.
If Scarlet wanted to wrestle then why did she ask for a talk show instead of having a match? If she wanted to be cast as more than just eye-candy she would have had no problem getting a match whenever she wanted one, just based off of her interactions with the executives that we have seen. But she hasn't done that. We have seen pretty much zero evidence in TNA that she has any talent as a wrestler. She has basically been a version of the cowardly manager who just doesn't a client yet. She's not Trish Stratus; she's Jim Cornette. When you look at it through that lens, Disco is just offering her friendly advice because we don't really have any evidence that he's wrong.

And since when are we supposed to think that eye candy can't go in the ring? This is pro wrestling. Yeah, we've had Aksana and Lacey Von Erich and Velvet Sky and Eva Marie and Candice Michelle and Rebel and Lana. But we've also had Trish Stratus and Gail Kim and Candice LeRae and Lita and Hana Kimura and Nattie Neidhart and Taya and Ivelisse. Why should anyone's default assumption be that a hot chick must stink in the ring? For every Eva Marie that gets thrown at us, there is a Nikki Bella or Alexa Bliss! or Taryn Terrell who wind up being perfectly capable of delviering great matches.

And with most of that eye candy (and we can throw Rob Terry, Mason Ryan, and their ilk in here for the sake of gender balance), the problem was not their existence as eye candy. The problem was that forcing them into the ring exposed that they were bad workers. That's what the real difference is between Torrie Wilson and Candice LeRae. The right thing to do with someone like that is to try to find a role for them in which they can succeed, like Lana did as a manager. If the person can't work, can't cut a promo, and can't add to someone's act in a tangible way (think Dawn Marie with Lance Storm), then they shouldn't be used as on-screen talent. But if someone has some other skill that they can contribute, they're not eye candy.
cero2k wrote: Mar 12th, '19, 14:50 Yeah, Disco is a terrible wrestler, good, he's not there to have a 5* match, he's there to get his ass handed by Scarlett and it SHOULD be ugly. This should be Beulah vs Bill Alfonso, not Meiko Satomura vs Pete Dunne. A stepping stone to what? i don't know, she can become a hero or a villain, they can go anywhere, and regardless where they go, she'll have a win in her debut and she'll shut up Disco's mouth, which is what we all want, we all know he's a goofball, but he's also a loudmouth and I want someone to shut him up. This is not exactly a feud that hinders her or limits where she can go from here, she won't be forced to anything after this so even if she doesn't want to wrestle again and turn heel, it will be ok; or maybe Disco brings out idk, Vanessa kraven to kick her ass and we get a natural progression to a woman-on-woman feud with Disco as the heater.
I haven't seen that match in a while (I'm actually in the middle of watching that show, though), but if I remember correctly, Beulah and Fonzie made up for their lack of working ability by just stiffing the absolute sh*t out of each other. Does that sound like something you're going to get in a Disco Inferno match?

Maybe it will go somewhere positive, but I'll believe it when I see it. This company doens't deserve the benefit of the doubt anymore.
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Re: Impact Wrestling 3.8 review: The Dark War

Post by cero2k » Mar 13th, '19, 16:56

Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 12th, '19, 16:20
My criticism is not that this is something WCW did or 2004 TNA did and therefore it's bad. My criticism is that they are repeating mistakes that most of the wrestling world has figured out not to make by now. And repeating mistakes has been one of TNA's biggest problems, no matter who is in charge.

I'm not saying "don't bring anyone from WWE in, no matter what." What I'm saying is that if you do, make sure that person is either:
1. someone who fans feel never got a fair shake or has something left unfulfilled (like Christian in 2005, or like when they brought in Drew and Sandow in 2015)
2. Make sure it's someone you have a compelling, well-plotted story for that requires that specific person's involvement (like when they brought in Billy Gunn in 2005 to tell the story with his attempt to get back together with Road Dogg causing problems in the 3-Live Kru).
3. Someone who are using in a completely different manner- something that shows that there are creative ideas here and you're not just trying to piggy-back off of whatever name-value WWE has built for the wrestler (EC3 is a good example of this, though he also falls into the next category)
4. Make sure it's someone you really, really believe has this untapped or underutilized talent. Someone you are going to make WWE feel stupid for letting go in one year's time. You want to be Gabe Sapolsky, picking your new talent carefully in order to ensure that you always pick winners, rather than being Ian Rotten and taking in anyone who shows up so that for every CM Punk and Chris Hero on your record, you've got eighteen low-talent nobodies on your record, too.

TNA is at the point where they are Ian Rotten, not Gabe. For everyone good former WWE bring-in, they have six bad ones.

And this is advice I would give to any company. Did you see the way people groaned when Kenny King brought MVP in to be his partner for Tag Wars this year?

With Dreamer in particular... he's a living cliche. He's a walking perception issue. He is a guy a promotion brings in when they are desperate and/or on the wrong track. And he's a guy that you bring in for a few months and then he goes away when everyone remembers the matches are no good and then you bring back six months later anyway. This is fourth run with TNA or something over the past few years, and aside from the first one almost all of those have been him coming back for one program... and that's with him having done similar in WWE and ROH in between.

I'd rather that instead of Dreamer coming back, they used the opportunity to give Swann a new friend who will benefit from the rub of being involved in the Callihan vs. Swann feud in some way. A young guy stepping up can do the job and still get over in defeat because he took a beating from oVe and thus won the respect of Swann and Mack and everyone else in the locker room.
You can't really blame Impact about that anymore for using one of their agents for a random match. Impact hasn't been doing the WWE reject thing FOR YEARS! WWE, ROH, Impact, who has the freshest bunch with titles? Lethal? Lesnar? Shane McMahon and The Miz? The Briscoes? Kofi? Who has the marquee match at WM? 50 yr old Batista vs 50 yr old Triple H. You're blaming this huge thing on one small occurrence pretending like it's still Jarrett and Prichard doing the booking. Impact is pushing all those guys you listed, either up and comers or people who didn't get their chance in WWE, what else do you want?

if that's your perception of Dreamer, that's your thing, but I highly doubt anyone else sees Dreamer as the "we're desperate" answer. Nothing Impact does now a days seems 'desperate' anymore, fans who watch it like it and it's now just a niche thing in the internet. If you go on reddit, anyone who brings up the shitty 2009 TNA jokes get downvoted.

Look, if it turns out that Dreamer takes the spotlight from Swann and starts his own feud with Callihan, I'll come back and accept that I was wrong. But using Dreamer on a random 6-man is not the big deal you're trying out to make. It's not desperate. It's not even nostalgia pop, he's just a third guy that makes sense for the story.
Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 12th, '19, 16:20 You can do more generic things when you're going after the title, but the point is that Cage's journey has made us understand why he's so angry he got screwed because we've seen him work so hard. We haven't seen Scarlett working for anything.
we don't need to see her training, she's not proving that her training worked like Eva Marie's NXT run. She's a character that talked a big game and someone called her out and so now she's gonna shut that person's mouth
Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 12th, '19, 16:20 I don't see how you can possibly watch her character and not see her as anything but an arrogant manipulative heel. She strings people along, calls people ugly, she held a talent search only to bury everyone in it as not being worthy of her. This is all classic heel stuff.
I see a strong, sure-about-herself, smart, beautiful woman. She gets what she wants because everyone is suddenly dumbfounded when she comes in the room, it's not her fault all these people act like that, and she actually doesn't ask for anything, she's actually just giving advice all the time, that's how Bahh got himself a title shot at one point. She gives more than what she takes. And calling people ugly is not a heel, was The Rock a heel when he made fun of Cole and Kevin Kelly? no. Anyone that gets butt hurt for being called ugly has an insecurity issue. She held a talent search because she thought she was going to find someone and then realized she was the best there was, that's not playing anyone. If I decide to hire someone and all the submissions suck and I decide to just do the work myself, does that make me a heel?
Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 12th, '19, 16:20 If Scarlet wanted to wrestle then why did she ask for a talk show instead of having a match? If she wanted to be cast as more than just eye-candy she would have had no problem getting a match whenever she wanted one, just based off of her interactions with the executives that we have seen. But she hasn't done that. We have seen pretty much zero evidence in TNA that she has any talent as a wrestler. She has basically been a version of the cowardly manager who just doesn't a client yet. She's not Trish Stratus; she's Jim Cornette. When you look at it through that lens, Disco is just offering her friendly advice because we don't really have any evidence that he's wrong.

And since when are we supposed to think that eye candy can't go in the ring? This is pro wrestling. Yeah, we've had Aksana and Lacey Von Erich and Velvet Sky and Eva Marie and Candice Michelle and Rebel and Lana. But we've also had Trish Stratus and Gail Kim and Candice LeRae and Lita and Hana Kimura and Nattie Neidhart and Taya and Ivelisse. Why should anyone's default assumption be that a hot chick must stink in the ring? For every Eva Marie that gets thrown at us, there is a Nikki Bella or Alexa Bliss! or Taryn Terrell who wind up being perfectly capable of delviering great matches.

And with most of that eye candy (and we can throw Rob Terry, Mason Ryan, and their ilk in here for the sake of gender balance), the problem was not their existence as eye candy. The problem was that forcing them into the ring exposed that they were bad workers. That's what the real difference is between Torrie Wilson and Candice LeRae. The right thing to do with someone like that is to try to find a role for them in which they can succeed, like Lana did as a manager. If the person can't work, can't cut a promo, and can't add to someone's act in a tangible way (think Dawn Marie with Lance Storm), then they shouldn't be used as on-screen talent. But if someone has some other skill that they can contribute, they're not eye candy.
You just cut a promo pretty much agreeing with Disco Inferno.

All those arguments are exactly why Scarlet, Callis, me, and the rest of the fans think Disco Inferno is a dumbass that is going to get his ass kicked? 'Eye Candy' doesn't equal 'no talent' and just because Disco has no idea what Scarlet can do, he just assumes she can't do shit because she's eye candy. So in two weeks, Scarlet is going to make Disco eat his words so he doesn't just assume that scarlet can't wrestle because we haven't seen her wrestle.

And you're getting the story wrong, Scarlet never 'wanted' a match, she got her smoke show, had the talent search to find someone she would take to the top, and it was until she didn't find anyone that she decided to make her 'much anticipated' in-ring debut instead and take herself to the top. She hasn't escaped ANYTHING since debuting

I do have to say, from all the women that you brought up as 'eye candy', only Trish, Terell, Bella, and Alexa were eye candy that learned to wrestle, the rest were known trained wrestlers, hence not eye candy. Eye candy are bimbo valets, not
trained wrestlers that happen to be pretty/handsome.
Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 12th, '19, 16:20 I haven't seen that match in a while (I'm actually in the middle of watching that show, though), but if I remember correctly, Beulah and Fonzie made up for their lack of working ability by just stiffing the absolute sh*t out of each other. Does that sound like something you're going to get in a Disco Inferno match?

Maybe it will go somewhere positive, but I'll believe it when I see it. This company doens't deserve the benefit of the doubt anymore.
It doesn't have to be the bloodbath Fonzie and Beulah did, but it can be the 2019 equivalent of an ass kicking. chops, apron spots, piledrivers, destroyers, the whole shebang. Disco really just has to do some chops and try to overpower her, but aside from that, he only needs to be capable to taking bumps for less than 10 minutes.

No company deserves the benefit of the doubt. The way we decide to give it is all biased. You just have a personal hate to Impact, I don't know why you keep bothering yourself with it.
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Re: Impact Wrestling 3.8 review: The Dark War

Post by Big Red Machine » Mar 13th, '19, 19:55

cero2k wrote: Mar 13th, '19, 16:56
Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 12th, '19, 16:20
My criticism is not that this is something WCW did or 2004 TNA did and therefore it's bad. My criticism is that they are repeating mistakes that most of the wrestling world has figured out not to make by now. And repeating mistakes has been one of TNA's biggest problems, no matter who is in charge.

I'm not saying "don't bring anyone from WWE in, no matter what." What I'm saying is that if you do, make sure that person is either:
1. someone who fans feel never got a fair shake or has something left unfulfilled (like Christian in 2005, or like when they brought in Drew and Sandow in 2015)
2. Make sure it's someone you have a compelling, well-plotted story for that requires that specific person's involvement (like when they brought in Billy Gunn in 2005 to tell the story with his attempt to get back together with Road Dogg causing problems in the 3-Live Kru).
3. Someone who are using in a completely different manner- something that shows that there are creative ideas here and you're not just trying to piggy-back off of whatever name-value WWE has built for the wrestler (EC3 is a good example of this, though he also falls into the next category)
4. Make sure it's someone you really, really believe has this untapped or underutilized talent. Someone you are going to make WWE feel stupid for letting go in one year's time. You want to be Gabe Sapolsky, picking your new talent carefully in order to ensure that you always pick winners, rather than being Ian Rotten and taking in anyone who shows up so that for every CM Punk and Chris Hero on your record, you've got eighteen low-talent nobodies on your record, too.

TNA is at the point where they are Ian Rotten, not Gabe. For everyone good former WWE bring-in, they have six bad ones.

And this is advice I would give to any company. Did you see the way people groaned when Kenny King brought MVP in to be his partner for Tag Wars this year?

With Dreamer in particular... he's a living cliche. He's a walking perception issue. He is a guy a promotion brings in when they are desperate and/or on the wrong track. And he's a guy that you bring in for a few months and then he goes away when everyone remembers the matches are no good and then you bring back six months later anyway. This is fourth run with TNA or something over the past few years, and aside from the first one almost all of those have been him coming back for one program... and that's with him having done similar in WWE and ROH in between.

I'd rather that instead of Dreamer coming back, they used the opportunity to give Swann a new friend who will benefit from the rub of being involved in the Callihan vs. Swann feud in some way. A young guy stepping up can do the job and still get over in defeat because he took a beating from oVe and thus won the respect of Swann and Mack and everyone else in the locker room.
You can't really blame Impact about that anymore for using one of their agents for a random match. Impact hasn't been doing the WWE reject thing FOR YEARS! WWE, ROH, Impact, who has the freshest bunch with titles? Lethal? Lesnar? Shane McMahon and The Miz? The Briscoes? Kofi? Who has the marquee match at WM? 50 yr old Batista vs 50 yr old Triple H. You're blaming this huge thing on one small occurrence pretending like it's still Jarrett and Prichard doing the booking. Impact is pushing all those guys you listed, either up and comers or people who didn't get their chance in WWE, what else do you want?

if that's your perception of Dreamer, that's your thing, but I highly doubt anyone else sees Dreamer as the "we're desperate" answer. Nothing Impact does now a days seems 'desperate' anymore, fans who watch it like it and it's now just a niche thing in the internet. If you go on reddit, anyone who brings up the shitty 2009 TNA jokes get downvoted.
Of course I can blame TNA for putting one of their agents on TV. I blamed ROH for using Hurricane, and wouldn't want them to start using Joey Matthews or Jerry Lynn on TV right now, either.
That is definitely a perception of Dreamer. That was exactly the response he got when he came into ROH in 2017, the response he got in MLW, the way most people (myself being an exception) responded when he showed up in Lucha Underground

I will admit that it has been about two or three years since the last particularly bad batch came in, but even since then they have brought in Chris Masters and Tommy Dreamer, but that's also with me giving them a pass on some people who wouldn't have been mistakes if TNA actually used them well but they totally failed to use in any productive manner like Sandow, Cody (& Brandi), and arguably even McIntyre. I also think you're forgetting a few over the years, like Lefort & Louis. Plus they keep bringing back their own old farts like Scott Steiner and Crimson, or doing things like turning people like Al Snow into on-air characters fifteen years after their expiration dates.

I think the marquee match at WrestleMania is Charlotte, Becky, and Ronda. Lethal has been fine because they've done a good job of setting new challengers up for him (not their fault that both Sabin and Flip went down with big injuries), and ROH's tag team division is a whole new animal in 2019 due to the AEW guys leaving and their various replacements in LifeBlood/Villain Enterprises coming in, plus The Bouncers being split off from Silas so they are the primary team for BCB now rather than his team with Silas.

WWE has Daniel Bryan as a realatively fresh character with the title. Shane & Miz were a new combination that at least brought some variety to a division that had been the same guys over and over (not that they it wouldn't have been better if they had actually used SAnitY and Gallows/Anderson, but at least we weren't getting New Day vs. Usos for the 9,133,490th time). Yeah, Brock is stale, but he's not around anyway. Truth and Joe are champions. WWE's problem hasn't been stale champions so much as stale storylines in general.

As for TNA not being desperate... they took the world title match of their biggest PPV of the year and tried to make it a worked shoot. They're also dedicating their women's division to these goofy special effects attempts to be Lucha Underground.
cero2k wrote: Mar 13th, '19, 16:56
Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 12th, '19, 16:20 You can do more generic things when you're going after the title, but the point is that Cage's journey has made us understand why he's so angry he got screwed because we've seen him work so hard. We haven't seen Scarlett working for anything.
we don't need to see her training, she's not proving that her training worked like Eva Marie's NXT run. She's a character that talked a big game and someone called her out and so now she's gonna shut that person's mouth
It's not about training videos it's about all of the matches we watched in which Cage fought his way to earn his title shot. We haven't seen Scarlett do sh*t yet. She just runs her mouth like a heel.
cero2k wrote: Mar 13th, '19, 16:56
Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 12th, '19, 16:20 I don't see how you can possibly watch her character and not see her as anything but an arrogant manipulative heel. She strings people along, calls people ugly, she held a talent search only to bury everyone in it as not being worthy of her. This is all classic heel stuff.
I see a strong, sure-about-herself, smart, beautiful woman. She gets what she wants because everyone is suddenly dumbfounded when she comes in the room, it's not her fault all these people act like that, and she actually doesn't ask for anything, she's actually just giving advice all the time, that's how Bahh got himself a title shot at one point. She gives more than what she takes. And calling people ugly is not a heel, was The Rock a heel when he made fun of Cole and Kevin Kelly? no. Anyone that gets butt hurt for being called ugly has an insecurity issue. She held a talent search because she thought she was going to find someone and then realized she was the best there was, that's not playing anyone. If I decide to hire someone and all the submissions suck and I decide to just do the work myself, does that make me a heel?
Dude... The Rock was a total dick and absolutely did not know how to B. A. Star.

And if you can't see that Scarlett is clearly a heel, I don't even know what to say. She held a talent search and then when she announced a winner, said she was picking the smartest, best, most talented person ever... and it was herself. "I'm more other than all of you and I haven't even wrestled yet" is a complete and total heel line.

But even if we put that aside, are you really going to tell me that seeing Scarlett beat up Disco Inferno is a satisfying payoff to MONTHS of storylines? Really?
cero2k wrote: Mar 13th, '19, 16:56
Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 12th, '19, 16:20 If Scarlet wanted to wrestle then why did she ask for a talk show instead of having a match? If she wanted to be cast as more than just eye-candy she would have had no problem getting a match whenever she wanted one, just based off of her interactions with the executives that we have seen. But she hasn't done that. We have seen pretty much zero evidence in TNA that she has any talent as a wrestler. She has basically been a version of the cowardly manager who just doesn't a client yet. She's not Trish Stratus; she's Jim Cornette. When you look at it through that lens, Disco is just offering her friendly advice because we don't really have any evidence that he's wrong.

And since when are we supposed to think that eye candy can't go in the ring? This is pro wrestling. Yeah, we've had Aksana and Lacey Von Erich and Velvet Sky and Eva Marie and Candice Michelle and Rebel and Lana. But we've also had Trish Stratus and Gail Kim and Candice LeRae and Lita and Hana Kimura and Nattie Neidhart and Taya and Ivelisse. Why should anyone's default assumption be that a hot chick must stink in the ring? For every Eva Marie that gets thrown at us, there is a Nikki Bella or Alexa Bliss! or Taryn Terrell who wind up being perfectly capable of delviering great matches.

And with most of that eye candy (and we can throw Rob Terry, Mason Ryan, and their ilk in here for the sake of gender balance), the problem was not their existence as eye candy. The problem was that forcing them into the ring exposed that they were bad workers. That's what the real difference is between Torrie Wilson and Candice LeRae. The right thing to do with someone like that is to try to find a role for them in which they can succeed, like Lana did as a manager. If the person can't work, can't cut a promo, and can't add to someone's act in a tangible way (think Dawn Marie with Lance Storm), then they shouldn't be used as on-screen talent. But if someone has some other skill that they can contribute, they're not eye candy.
You just cut a promo pretty much agreeing with Disco Inferno.

All those arguments are exactly why Scarlet, Callis, me, and the rest of the fans think Disco Inferno is a dumbass that is going to get his ass kicked? 'Eye Candy' doesn't equal 'no talent' and just because Disco has no idea what Scarlet can do, he just assumes she can't do shit because she's eye candy. So in two weeks, Scarlet is going to make Disco eat his words so he doesn't just assume that scarlet can't wrestle because we haven't seen her wrestle.

And you're getting the story wrong, Scarlet never 'wanted' a match, she got her smoke show, had the talent search to find someone she would take to the top, and it was until she didn't find anyone that she decided to make her 'much anticipated' in-ring debut instead and take herself to the top. She hasn't escaped ANYTHING since debuting[/quote]

We would assume she can't wrestle because if she could, she'd have been wrestling by now! She's been on TV for ALMOST NINE MONTHS. When Candice LeRae or Taya or whoever come into a company, they don't spend nine months doing bullsh*t. They get down to wrestling!
If she's a wrestler then why didn't she want to wrestle? That's what wrestlers do, and is presumably why TNA kayfabe signed her. A wrestler doesn't get brought into a promotion and then decide that he/she wants to be a manager instead without ever wrestling first.
cero2k wrote: Mar 13th, '19, 16:56 I do have to say, from all the women that you brought up as 'eye candy', only Trish, Terell, Bella, and Alexa were eye candy that learned to wrestle, the rest were known trained wrestlers, hence not eye candy. Eye candy are bimbo valets, not
trained wrestlers that happen to be pretty/handsome.
Trish actually got trained on her own in Toronto before going to WWE with the same guys that trained Edge, Christian, and a bunch of the other Toronto wrestlers. That's why she never went down to Memphis like people did during that era.
As for other people who came to them as not trained wrestlers but turned out more than fine: Charlotte Flair, Michelle McCool, Naomi, Kaitlyn. Brie Bella and Liv Morgan are both at least passable. Carmella, too. And that's not counting women they're pumping out now, most of whom are still hired at the very least to be attractive, even if they're not outright Mandy Rose-esque.
cero2k wrote: Mar 13th, '19, 16:56
Big Red Machine wrote: Mar 12th, '19, 16:20 I haven't seen that match in a while (I'm actually in the middle of watching that show, though), but if I remember correctly, Beulah and Fonzie made up for their lack of working ability by just stiffing the absolute sh*t out of each other. Does that sound like something you're going to get in a Disco Inferno match?

Maybe it will go somewhere positive, but I'll believe it when I see it. This company doens't deserve the benefit of the doubt anymore.
It doesn't have to be the bloodbath Fonzie and Beulah did, but it can be the 2019 equivalent of an ass kicking. chops, apron spots, piledrivers, destroyers, the whole shebang. Disco really just has to do some chops and try to overpower her, but aside from that, he only needs to be capable to taking bumps for less than 10 minutes.
Dude... we both know Disco Inferno isn't taking apron bumps or stiff chops, and that's not even really Scarlett's style, either. She's more of a traditional "pro wrestler" with dropkicks and suplexes and body slams.
cero2k wrote: Mar 13th, '19, 16:56 No company deserves the benefit of the doubt. The way we decide to give it is all biased. You just have a personal hate to Impact, I don't know why you keep bothering yourself with it.
I disagree. If a company has proven over time that things that seem strange in their storylines always wind up making sense in the end, then I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Same with surprises being good, or f*ck finishes having some actual meaning as opposed to just being a cheap out. But if a company or creative team has a reputation for not delivering, they shouldn't get the benefit of the doubt. The first time you tell me "things will be different now" I will believe you. The fifth time you do it and things still aren't different, I'm not going to believe you. Or, to put it another way, are you really not going to judge a company for bringing in Vince Russo and making him the head booker with his track record?
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