This is the most uninspiring and quite possibly offensive card the company has put on PPV in a long time. I dread to think how much more can be scraped off the bottom of the barrel for the traditionally crap Great American Bash.
By the way, do you have The Wrestling Channel? If so then a) you jammy git, and b) what do you make of the TNA PPVs?
I do indeed get The Wrestling Channel, although I think American fans seem to imagine it as something rather grander than it is. It's basically TNA plus some old British tapes plus loads of barely-watchable indie tapes to fill time. (They ran an Israeli show a few weeks ago where the various cameras were in different aspect ratios, which is a whole new level of incompetent - it's hard to imagine any other station touching that sort of material.)
The thing about TNA is that the work is generally very strong, but the booking is decidedly wonky. They need stronger storylines to hook people with; at the moment, the TNA audience is basically those people who will watch any two wrestlers having a good match regardless of the context, and who see the angles as essentially a distraction. There's also the problem that, being the Wrestling Channel, they regularly fuck up the broadcast and show segments out of order or insert ad breaks in silly places. (The Sabu/Abyss match caused them all sorts of problems because they clearly couldn't air it first - you can't show that sort of thing at 8pm on free television - and so they add to chop up the whole PPV and air it out of sequence.)
But judged as free monthly shows, they're excellent. The work is fine, I just wish they'd get some stronger stories. I think Lockdown is airing tonight, and I'd certainly recommend it over the WWE's offering.
I'm not really sure why you're so down on Judgment Day. JBL/Rey will probably not be great, but it will at least be good. Finlay/Benoit will certainly be great (and it's possible that they've, er, reconsidered about the leprecaun), and the tag title and cruiserweight title matches will be good. There's certainly a lot of crap on this card too, but what do you expect from a WWE show? Four good matches is a good show, in my book. It will almost certainly be better than Lockdown, which, as I recall, was pretty dreadful.
Also, if Rey is 5'6", I'm 6'10". He's 5'3", tops.
The only way to salvage something from the leprechaun gimmick, and to finally do something more suited to Mark Henry's talents, is to have the big lummox suddenly discover his Irish roots and become Finlay's unwanted leprechaun. Angry fat black man yelling Father Ted quotes in an American accent whilst wearing a green tophat and tails as he dances a merry jig? Comedy gold.
Lockdown was as forgettable as any other given TNA show was, although without their usual standard of two really good matches. Christian/Abyss was a decent brawl, though their Sacrifice match was better, while the main event was only worthwhile because of stunt involving A.J. Styles that was somehow both really cool and really silly.
By the way, I'm not American, I'm Scottish. I just wish I had the Wrestling Channel so that I could see some ROH on a regular basis, though I'm not about to sign up to several thousand other Sky Plus channels in order to get it.
Given that the last time the notorious unsafe Mark Henry wrestled Kurt he supposedly legitimatly injured him, I'm just hoping that if the match does end up with another injury angle, it's only an angle.
As for the Cruiserweight match, I'm half expecting Super Crazy to win and bugger off to the new ECW with the belt. Maybe Heyman and his team would at least know how to book it.
Unusually for a WWE woman, Melina isn't actually a bad wrestler. Since we've yet to see any evidence of this since she's been in the WWE, I don't expect it to happen now either. No doubt someone will lose their top though, since the bookers can't do a women's match without that.
"Finlay/Benoit will certainly be great (and it's possible that they've, er, reconsidered about the leprecaun), and the tag title and cruiserweight title matches will be good."
I agree about Finlay/Benoit, but I don't think the other two will get enough time to be more than good TV matches. I'm just not interested in Rey/JBL, and the rest of the card is dire. It's not nearly enough to justify the price.
"I just wish I had the Wrestling Channel so that I could see some ROH on a regular basis, though I'm not about to sign up to several thousand other Sky Plus channels in order to get it."
Isn't TWC a Freesat channel? I thought you only needed the dish.
Maybe, but I just don't watch enough TV to justify paying for any sort of Sky package, even the basic one.
The show didn't sound too bad actually. Hopefully they'll do something a bit more substantial with the Hooliganz and not just phase them out like they did the London/Kidman combo. There's no good reason why they couldn't be at least as big as the Rockers were.
Also - no leprechaun. Bonus.
Unfortunately for us and Rey's knees we have to wait even longer for him to drop the title and Chavo to turn heel. Perhaps he just doesn't want to get the surgery until after the ECW show?
Weren't you going to review that book that Hatter M was basd on?
Well, I feel vindicated. Best show of the year, by far.
Well, that was dull. I actually fell asleep during the Rey/JBL match (though that could have been the beer...)
I'm growing a bit tired of the incessant WWE pay-per-views, honestly. Unless it's Wrestlemania or another significant one, we're just getting TV quality matches. I can get those for free.
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