AJ's probably seen in some regards as a potential replacement for Daniel Bryan. But Roode has the same upside as the other over 35's they've brought in - Joe, Aries, Storm and Anderson. I have a feeling they've turned down some of those in the past. Also, back in 2003 they were in the transition period between Jim Ross and John Laurinatis in the talent relation department.

Many quality performers were in ROH and TNA, whereas stiffs such as Rodney Mack, Kenzo Suzuki, Luther Reigns and Tyson Tomko were getting signed and quickly moving to the main roster.

In saying all this, I'm still surprised they didn't at least offer either Magnus, Gunner or Crimson some sort of deal even if they don't fit the direction of NXT.

Roode is no big loss, he was never that great anyway. Better wrestlers on the roster who should have been world champ before him.

eli drake & mr anderson were very similar acts... and eli has the momentum...so mr ken, sorry anderson leaving was not going to be missed too much.

no real shock the tag team with the high profile commercial music win the gold... and as i have said decay look good... but they are only one of a couple of "teams" - mostly injured at that... you can always tell who is favoured as the only bit of money is spent on their image.. the rest get to look in the odds & sods box for something....

i see NXT as a classic "commercial spoiler" operation (i.e when a company has a similar sister product to their own, just to ensure any other competition finds it harder to compete with their main product)
those wrestlers no doubt come at a "price" to anyone who wants them, yet the wwe knows they havent set the world alight before on their own... so the NXT can take other wrestlers (for less) and rub their marketing magic on them... leaving the competition with either taking the "not quite there but expensive names" or choose from an even more risky (as the NXT took the next best) talent to try and make into stars...
remember NXT is about protecting the rear... it will never be allowed to attack RAW... the WWE inc do not want to actually damage their main product... NXT momentum will always be snuffed out if it threatened the cash cow of the business.

OMG *so* this. This is so what I think about NXT, but I couldn't put it this well.

I agree entirely.

The NXT product is good but putting Cesaro/Zayn to one side, I've never seen a match in it that I would rank up there as among the best I've seen from the likes of TNA and ROH, or indeed WWE. This is nothing to do with the talent themselves and everything to do with how hamstrung they are by the WWE style.

Whatever you thought of the weekly booking, there were frequently great matches on TNA PPV back in their prime era.

Talks are apparently stalling with new investors. They are said to want 55%, naturally Dixie wants that down to 49% to retain control.

Dixie seems like a lovely lady but she should cut her losses and run. Ted Turner and Paul Heyman never got this many chances.

and 5 new talents have been hired, to replace the 2 that just left (their leaving is weeks away on tv) - 2 of them seem good for their intl tv deal esp france... which again hints at how important foreign tv deals are for them... just think of how many uk wrestlers have graced their ring & major storylines.
on tv deals they signed a wide one with an online "fight" themed service (fight network) which is available in countries not with tna deals (they have ufc etc)
tna also announced more tv taping for this month at universal (the rumour being it was left late as the studio/funpark wants a deposit paid)

their problem is still storylines that just seem flat because of the batch recording in a single location

With Panda Energy now having nothing to do with the company, including financially, she may not get the choice. I think it's great she's getting so many chances, only because it's comedy gold. The thought of her realising she sent an email calling the head of her network an idiot (or words to that effect) to the head of her network is hilarious.

She will keep ploughing on but something has to give somewhere. I do think she seems like a nice woman (although I've read stories to contradict that from former employees) but she must be exhausted from sleep walking into blunder after blunder.

The only issue I have with TNA is the same one i have with WWE, it's just a show full of wrestling matches, just regular matches for the sake of having them.


I've never been a fan of inring wrestling matches, it's not what I grew up enjoying as a child or as an adult. I enjoy larger than life characters, I enjoy story and TNA is like WWE and NXT and ROH and every other indie out there, just spotfest after spotfest. Only people that actually enjoy watching wrestling matches will sit and watch it, same with WWE.


There's nothing there for your casual wrestling fan to watch, there's nothing there for anyone browsing the TV channels to stop and watch, it's just wrestling and wrestling and more wrestling. The only people that will sit and watch it are wrestling fans. Every other TV show on television has things which appeal to everyone, characters that appeal to everyone, a little bit of everything to try and HOOK AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE. No wrestling company today apart from Lucha does that. Even the wrestlers are dressed like athletes and have names that sound or try to sound like real names.

Again, it's only ever gonna appeal to wrestling fans. The people that are gonna sit and watch it no matter what, preaching to their own choir, preaching to the people that will never leave them, just like WWE and NXT, preaching to their own crowds, preaching to the very fans that will never stop watching rather than ignoring them and trying to hook in as many non wrestling fans as possible. Insanity but at least I can say I've seen wrestling at it's best and seen most of my wrestling heroes in the last 30 years live in person. It will never be that good again. Wrestling will never be as good as it used to be.

Anyone else think Shane Helms sounds like Frank Spencer ?

wow impact actually had a scene outside the "studio" in the parking lot... it needs a lot more of these to make the show look different each week.

(while nxt now sucking in tna & roh etc wrestlers is clearly just being used to spoil the other shows by taking all the talent and parking them... hardly the new generation or next thing when it's all the old people from tna!)

Have they given up on The One Night Only's, not been one this month, not sure whether that's a bad or a good thing

next one is " knockouts 4" one night only
and will be shown on challenge 23/4 ( a saturday ) (it was recorded last month)

I thought they were supposed to be the first Saturday of the month? not that it matters

Stick him in a brown raincoat and a beret. It'd be a better look than the one he's got!

A giant booger

https://thegossiplife.com/2016/04/12...em-12042016-2/

Then I would suggest you aren't watching (enough of) the NXT product.

There are a lot of valid complaints that can be made about NXT as a brand, as a development league and as show but the argument that it isn't or hasn't produced high quality matches really doesn't hold water. If nothing else every TakeOver event to date has had at least one stand out brilliant match which is more than can be said for equivalent big shows in TNA and WWE in recent times.


I'm really not at all convinced by this argument at all.

Firstly I think it requires the belief that TNA or RoH pose some kind of threat to WWE and at this stage it is abundantly clear that they don't. If ever there was a point that WWE was going to do a talent raid to play spoiler to TNA it has well and truly passed. I'd also add that with TNA in particular I'm not sure its true to suggest that WWE is raiding talent or keeping it away from TNA. Most indicators are that guys like Austin Aries or Bobby Roode were probably on their way out of TNA regardless of whether they had an NXT deal or not either because they were unhappy there or because they don't think there's going to be a company to work for a whole lot longer. It seems to me that this 'NXT is stealing talent' line is the new excuse of the moment for TNA.

Secondly I'd point out that as a development brand NXT should absolutely be hiring experienced and talented hands and putting them on their shows. People don't learn in a vacuum. Getting the chance to work with talent like Balor, Austin Aries, Samoa Joe and Nakamura is only going to help the development talent working in NXT. I'd also add that its hardly new for WWE to send established or experienced talent to development before calling them up onto television. What's new is that development is now a weekly television show. Of the current(ish) roster Alberto Del Rio, Cesaro, Daniel Bryan, Dean Ambrose, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn and Seth Rollins (among others) were all established and respected workers outside of WWE but were all sent to development before joining the main roster. This is not a new practice for WWE its simply what they do.

No one was ever going to challenge WWE. At the point the no compete clause in the WCW sale contract was up, Ted Turner asked former owner of Georgia Championship Wrestling, Jim Barnett to look into how feasible it was to start again and was told-

1. $50 million in start up costs for a WWE sized company
2. WWE has all the stars under contract so we'd have to create new stars out of complete unknowns.
3. TNT and TBS have no interest in showing wrestling.

The last one is the killer really. It's impossible to do without a good tv deal, a much better one than TNA currently have.

But I think that just highlights how much TNA dropped the ball. They had a good (to great) TV deal with a supportive partner in Spike, established stars and a roster of relative unknown and exciting new talent. There's really no reason why they should be in the state they are now.

TNA are in the state they are now because the (relative!) golden era on Spike you're describing was never financially sustainable. TNA on Spike was a loss-making experiment financed by the network and Panda. They burned huge amounts of money trying what any sensible company would - imitating 1995 / 1996 WCW to see if they could catch fire and challenge WWE. What they proved was that such a venture is not financially sustainable. There's not a big enough wrestling market in the US for a decent-sized number two promotion. So the funding was withdrawn and TNA shrunk to live within its means - a glorified, televised indie. That's where we are now. No ball was dropped.

All of this is publicly available information.

NXT is absolutely a commercial spoiler operation. It makes a loss. It can't even get a slot on proper television. All of this even with extensive cross-promotion via the goliath WWE brand. It proves again that there isn't a big enough wrestling market to sustain a WWE alternative. It exists only to absorb talent and prevent anyone else from starting a competitor to WWE.

completely agree seibu