sek69

Anthem, it appears. I guess they need to shell out for new belts again since the new ones had Global Force all over them and the old ones were TNA branded.

Impact officially announced that they have cut ties with Jeff Jarrett and GFW.

I can't remember but did the ft worth shows exist in its own world like it did in later years? For example ft worth had a world class tv title. For all intents and purposes did not exist at the Sportarium. Pretty sure that the match Jimmy Garvin lost that kicked off the Sunshine/Precious split was for the TV title, which made it weird when it looked like he was getting super mad for no reason since the main show never mentioned the title that I can recall.

I'm assuming they just went with a guy they figured could work a good match with Finn on short notice. Plus they clearly see Matt as the lesser half of a nostalgia act and not someone that can be plugged into a promoted PPV match.

I would have saved his in ring return for a Wrestlemania or Summerslam PPV not a C PPV show like TLC. Ideally that would be the best plan, but shit happens and I can see how WWE would feel one big deal (Angle's return) would make up for not being able to deliver the other big deal they built up for months (first Shield match).

I wonder if Nias leave of absence and Tom Phillips being off Smackdown allegedly on assignment are connected to this.

Can you imagine the discussion that must have taken place today? "So the shit hit the fan today, let's put the guy we fired so he wouldn't die on our watch into the main event TLC match in two days". Even if you're confident he has his substance issues under control, which is well...y'know, there's still the concern that his neck is so bad his arms have atrophied to such a state I'd be concerned if I was his opponent that he might lose me during a move. So even if he's going to be protected to not take any crazy bumps, having him be the one to initiate them could be just as scary.

Or as someone on Deadspin's comment section called it, "kayfabies"

Bryan just retweeted WWEs announcement of Angles return with Interesting and the hand-on-chin emoji. On one had hes been openly trolling the company about keeping him on ice, but on the other it seems to help his case that Angle got cleared with all his documented issues.

I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on the internet, but isn't viral meningitis contagious? Like super contagious? I remember there being an outbreak at a college around here and the whole town was basically shut down.

Well damn. At least with Angle they can explain it by having the GM suit up to help his brand but it should be interesting seeing what pretzel twist they come up with to justify a SD guy appearing on a Raw PPV (assuming they even try to).

Looks like Bray is touch and go for the PPV, and if it's true he has meningitis I don't see how they could allow him anywhere near the building.

So I wonder what is going on with the Rotunda family, Bo apparently has been sick to the point that Bray (and Jo Jo) was off TV the last two weeks because of it. It would seem that it must be something fairly serious for him to miss the last two shows prior to a PPV he had a highly pushed match at. Maybe Bray's just as embarrassed as the rest of us of the Sister Abigail shit and is in hiding until the PPV. I just hope it's nothing too bad for Bo since I've been getting a kick out of his Miztourage character.

He's probably happy for the first time ever he's in the rasslin business since no one will care he's done most if not all the shit Harvey's said to have done.

I'm not necessarily saying Edge is HOF caliber, but it seems like there's more of an argument to be made than people seem to realize. He was part of a tag team boom that revolutionized the TLC match (for all the bad and good that led to) and he was the only one who was able to get a 100% heel reaction facing off against Cena at the peak of the anti Cena sentiment. I personally would have him at the level right below HOF, but I could see why someone would make the argument for him.

Well not paying guys makes both kinda shitty IMO. Paul was in a place where his company needed TV and PPV revenue to compete that Jerry never really was.

Not excusing it but one difference is that Heyman frequently was broke and trying to handwave it away, Jarrett had the money and seemingly just didn't want to pay guys.

So if Junkyard Dog ever gets voted in, what are the odds his HOF bio is just Dave calling him a fat tub of shit for 3 pages?

IIRC one of the issues with Jerry Jarrett getting in was him having a bad rep for being a poor payoff guy.

I get the impression Flair never really felt comfortable in the WWF at that time. He was only there because WCW management were being dicks, and nothing about him really fit in the 1991 "WWF Universe" (if you will). After the initial "oh shit, it's Ric Flair in the WWF" moment it was like Vince really didn't know what to do with him and he really didn't want to be there.

The one houseshow match that was in LA made it to 24/7 (and I think it's on the Network too) was OK, but the fan reaction was kind of meh since it wasn't like LA was a big Flair market. Plus you'd have to think there's no way Hulk would want to do even an house show match with Flair anywhere in a market the NWA had a presence in.

I don't think the two ever gelled IMO. Vince knew enough about Flair to build an entire Rumble around him and give him title runs in an era where most former NWA champions were jobbed out or given ridiculous gimmicks just to prove that the WWF was better.

if I'm thinking about it like I believe WWE is, I'm guessing this is the plan: Braun gets sick of the jabronies on his team and walks out and Kane gives the Shield a monster to destroy. Maybe Kane sticks around to do a program with Roman to avenge his bro, but doesn't he still have an election to win?

It is, but the hard part is getting them to see it's not a binary choice of what they are doing now or force feeding. Maybe the workload needs to be better balanced, we know Raw and Smackdown have their own staffs but who comes up with stuff for 205 Live? With all the writers they employ it seems like it shouldn't be difficult to spread the workload to help avoid burnout and raise the quality of all their programming.

To be fair, the further away we get from the territory era the more people write them off. It usually comes down to a combination either "in the end, X promoter lost to Vince so they can't be HOF worthy" which disqualifies everyone who ever promoted wrestling in North America from the dawn of time until the 90s except the Lutteroth family, or not understanding the context of how big a draw a promotion was in a given area. A place like Portland has the added handicap of not having a ton of footage available and what does exist is usually multiple gen copies of stuff stored in Buddy's garage or wherever.