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redfiona99First a story of personal silliness.
So the estate agent rings me at quarter to nine. Now for those of you who don't know, it's not that I don't do mornings, it's that anything I do in the morning goes horribly, horribly wrong.
I am so discombobulated that I try to answer my alarm clock, and am most distressed when it won't let me answer the ringing. I then, with the special logic of the barely awake, decide that I must have fallen asleep with my mobile and it must therefore be in my bedding. I turn my bedclothes upside down, literally, and get freaked when I can't find it because the spiders must have eaten it.
I repeat, I am not a morning person.
Eventually, I woke up enough to realise that at night, I actually have functional brain cells, and therefore I'd probably left my mobile in my trousers. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the phone it rang off. Since I've been playing phone tag with this man most of the week, I don't think it bodes well.
~~~~
Lockdown
TNA - you know you're on a warning right.
That opening was immense. I also love the contrast of Bobby Roode, city smart, going to a gym to prepare, while the country mouse James Storm is training out in the back woods.
And we go from that, not to an interview with one of our main event participants, which you'd expect, but to the damned Bischoff nonsense.
A word to the wise, TNA, if you're trying to build this up into a big fight between tough guys, don't have them walking past each other backstage without growling. I ask for very little, just some growling.
Dear Kazarian, I'm going to assume it's to avoid the obviously developing bald spot, but the haircut makes you look like Angle from a distance.
Shut up about twitter.
Why is Eric Bischoff on my screen, wrestling?! TNA, I do not want the old man hour. Could you really not find some indie random? How about Kid Kash, he's about and a heel. Or Zeema Ion. Or the Pope. Or anyone! Also TNA, you might want to notice the fans are cheering for more violence to be enacted on Garrett, this is not a good thing.
I grant, however, that they are keeping Eric Bischoff out of the way in an inventive and character-based way.
Well that was a waste of Daniels, Kazarian and Styles. You know a fair few months ago when I said it was impossible for a match with them in to be bad, I think TNA just proved me wrong, not the fault of those three gentlemen, but the cage match itself which was badly laid out because everything seemed to be just outside camera view or behind a pillar and had the emotional focus on two people who I do not care about.
Dear Tazz, no, we don't play patchinko in England.
I am enjoying all the wrong things about Morgan vs Crimson, and the build up thereof.
The Knockouts took the 'this is a PPV' bump. Either that or there was an all-mighty fuck up. Actually, judging by the state Gail was in afterwards, I vote all-mighty fuck up, not least of all because Tazz sounded legitimately worried about Gail.
Unexpected Flair is always a nice thing, even if I suspect it's because one of the matches must have run short. Unexpected Flair is good, especially when he's heeling and dealing with great expertise. With due respect to Bubba Ray Dudley, who is probably the most wonderful old-school type heel active at the moment, oh Flair you're awesomely evil. We boo with love.
Oi Hogan, that was a sucker punch, if you're a good guy, you're not allowed to do that.
Crimson is slowly turning into an illustrated man.
There really wasn't enough violence in the Crimson vs Matt Morgan match.
Sneaky evil wins the day over stupid good. (Also really, stop blowing kisses at him, Crimson, I don't want to write a second fic about you two.)
Dear Jeff, don't do anything stupid.
We have first blood.
Sorry, I was mistaken, the stupid bump of the night goes to Jeff Hardy and Kurt Angle.
I'd say get down from there, Jeff, but I know how you plan on getting down so I shan't. Stupid PPV bump winner = Jeff Hardy.
I know it's probably not, but the voice on Hardy's music sounds like Brian Molko.
And then we come to the main event.
TNA, you have just failed eternally, as I suspected you might. I could have dealt with a fair Cowboy loss, but not this. This comes under the heading of screwy ending, again.
Now I get that the screwy ending is intended to prolong the feud, but this is already a prolonged feud, admittedly partly for reasons out of TNA's hands, and when Roode comes out next week and goes, "he's had his rematch, I'm not facing Storm again," and Hogan yells at him and makes another Storm vs Roode match, and then Roode complains about favouritism, I will be forced to agree with Roode. TNA, do you have any idea how little I like agreeing with Bobby Roode? (As always, I mean Bobby Roode (TM) not the dude himself, who does some brilliant high class heeling and who I respect and admire.)
Also, the screwy ending has a long and storied history but it only works if it is unexpected. You want to know when I started expecting the screwy ending? The moment the match was announced. Want to know why, TNA? Because I can't remember the last TNA PPV main-event that didn't have a screwy ending. Possibly it was Hogan vs Sting last Autumn but if it is, that's already 6 months of screwy PPV endings.
I doubt that the TNA writers actually sit around going 'what would be the least satisfactory ending to this match?' but it feels like that sometimes.
Theoretically, I'm in the age bracket they're trying to target, 18-34 with money to spend, and I'm disenfranchised from the WWE (I don't get Sky or Virgin so I don't get Sky Sports so no WWE wrestling for me). And they do so many things right, like they actually have a women's division and a cruiserweight division. And they have babyfaces I can cheer and wonderful heels I can boo and hiss at (hello Bully Ray). I want to like TNA, but you know what's stopping me, it's that I know there's no point investing emotional energy into it because any match I care about will end with a stupid, screwy finish. Bobby Roode and James Storm did a wonderful job in getting me to overlook that fact this time. And they're going to try to do it again next time (or whoever the next face challenger to Roode is going to be will try). And it might work again, all the fates might actually align again to get me to care, because, I'll be honest here, it was the background that got me, the tag team partner betrayed, the destroyed friendship. The chances of them being able to produce something like that again is small. And the chances of getting me involved again are even smaller, it took Storm in the main event to make me stay up and watch, because I stopped watching the last hour of TNA PPVs because there was always a screwy ending. So they've wasted a lot of my good will, for no descernable reason.
Now had Roode won clean, you could have had a clean new feud for him with someone else, or else a series of matches for the new number one contender, or Storm begging for another rematch (more difficult to do, yes, but not impossible, see Crimson & Morgan's second rematch against JoeMagnus).
Instead we're going to get another round of 'I was screwed', 'I beat you, na na'. Which we've had for Roode vs Hardy, which we had for Angle vs Hardy, which we've had for Mickey vs Gail Kim, which we've had for Gail Kim vs Velvet Sky.
TNA, play another record, please.
I don't know if it was just me, or did a lot of the matches not make use of the steel cage aspect of Lockdown. I mean, the main event, Hardy vs Angle and Crimson vs Morgan did, and to a lesser extent so did the beginning of Devon vs Robbie E, but the rest could have taken place in a normal ring. And before anyone mentions the Lethal Lockdown match, name one spot in that didn't involve Bully Ray cheese-gratering probably Aries (oh the camera work was awful) that couldn't have been done without the cage*.
But Red, I hear you say, you don't even like cage matches. And that's true, but I feel if you're going to go to all that bother, and restriction of camera angles, you might as well use it.
* The other possibilty, since if anyone could cheese grater someone in a non-cage match, that person would be Bully Ray, is AJ vs Kazarian on the top rope and then climbing across the top of the cage, but that's 2 spots in one hyped up match.
~~~~
Given the adverts for 'Smash' (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825133/), I take it Jack Davenport is there to be the smarmy Brit who gets his comeuppance. He's looking decidedly ... rafish.
Oh dear god, they're using the wrestlers to advertise the new Blockbusters. The wierd, it does not compute.
I know it isn't, but I swear it's Tchecy Kayro in the Stella Artois cidre advert.
So the estate agent rings me at quarter to nine. Now for those of you who don't know, it's not that I don't do mornings, it's that anything I do in the morning goes horribly, horribly wrong.
I am so discombobulated that I try to answer my alarm clock, and am most distressed when it won't let me answer the ringing. I then, with the special logic of the barely awake, decide that I must have fallen asleep with my mobile and it must therefore be in my bedding. I turn my bedclothes upside down, literally, and get freaked when I can't find it because the spiders must have eaten it.
I repeat, I am not a morning person.
Eventually, I woke up enough to realise that at night, I actually have functional brain cells, and therefore I'd probably left my mobile in my trousers. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the phone it rang off. Since I've been playing phone tag with this man most of the week, I don't think it bodes well.
~~~~
Lockdown
TNA - you know you're on a warning right.
That opening was immense. I also love the contrast of Bobby Roode, city smart, going to a gym to prepare, while the country mouse James Storm is training out in the back woods.
And we go from that, not to an interview with one of our main event participants, which you'd expect, but to the damned Bischoff nonsense.
A word to the wise, TNA, if you're trying to build this up into a big fight between tough guys, don't have them walking past each other backstage without growling. I ask for very little, just some growling.
Dear Kazarian, I'm going to assume it's to avoid the obviously developing bald spot, but the haircut makes you look like Angle from a distance.
Shut up about twitter.
Why is Eric Bischoff on my screen, wrestling?! TNA, I do not want the old man hour. Could you really not find some indie random? How about Kid Kash, he's about and a heel. Or Zeema Ion. Or the Pope. Or anyone! Also TNA, you might want to notice the fans are cheering for more violence to be enacted on Garrett, this is not a good thing.
I grant, however, that they are keeping Eric Bischoff out of the way in an inventive and character-based way.
Well that was a waste of Daniels, Kazarian and Styles. You know a fair few months ago when I said it was impossible for a match with them in to be bad, I think TNA just proved me wrong, not the fault of those three gentlemen, but the cage match itself which was badly laid out because everything seemed to be just outside camera view or behind a pillar and had the emotional focus on two people who I do not care about.
Dear Tazz, no, we don't play patchinko in England.
I am enjoying all the wrong things about Morgan vs Crimson, and the build up thereof.
The Knockouts took the 'this is a PPV' bump. Either that or there was an all-mighty fuck up. Actually, judging by the state Gail was in afterwards, I vote all-mighty fuck up, not least of all because Tazz sounded legitimately worried about Gail.
Unexpected Flair is always a nice thing, even if I suspect it's because one of the matches must have run short. Unexpected Flair is good, especially when he's heeling and dealing with great expertise. With due respect to Bubba Ray Dudley, who is probably the most wonderful old-school type heel active at the moment, oh Flair you're awesomely evil. We boo with love.
Oi Hogan, that was a sucker punch, if you're a good guy, you're not allowed to do that.
Crimson is slowly turning into an illustrated man.
There really wasn't enough violence in the Crimson vs Matt Morgan match.
Sneaky evil wins the day over stupid good. (Also really, stop blowing kisses at him, Crimson, I don't want to write a second fic about you two.)
Dear Jeff, don't do anything stupid.
We have first blood.
Sorry, I was mistaken, the stupid bump of the night goes to Jeff Hardy and Kurt Angle.
I'd say get down from there, Jeff, but I know how you plan on getting down so I shan't. Stupid PPV bump winner = Jeff Hardy.
I know it's probably not, but the voice on Hardy's music sounds like Brian Molko.
And then we come to the main event.
TNA, you have just failed eternally, as I suspected you might. I could have dealt with a fair Cowboy loss, but not this. This comes under the heading of screwy ending, again.
Now I get that the screwy ending is intended to prolong the feud, but this is already a prolonged feud, admittedly partly for reasons out of TNA's hands, and when Roode comes out next week and goes, "he's had his rematch, I'm not facing Storm again," and Hogan yells at him and makes another Storm vs Roode match, and then Roode complains about favouritism, I will be forced to agree with Roode. TNA, do you have any idea how little I like agreeing with Bobby Roode? (As always, I mean Bobby Roode (TM) not the dude himself, who does some brilliant high class heeling and who I respect and admire.)
Also, the screwy ending has a long and storied history but it only works if it is unexpected. You want to know when I started expecting the screwy ending? The moment the match was announced. Want to know why, TNA? Because I can't remember the last TNA PPV main-event that didn't have a screwy ending. Possibly it was Hogan vs Sting last Autumn but if it is, that's already 6 months of screwy PPV endings.
I doubt that the TNA writers actually sit around going 'what would be the least satisfactory ending to this match?' but it feels like that sometimes.
Theoretically, I'm in the age bracket they're trying to target, 18-34 with money to spend, and I'm disenfranchised from the WWE (I don't get Sky or Virgin so I don't get Sky Sports so no WWE wrestling for me). And they do so many things right, like they actually have a women's division and a cruiserweight division. And they have babyfaces I can cheer and wonderful heels I can boo and hiss at (hello Bully Ray). I want to like TNA, but you know what's stopping me, it's that I know there's no point investing emotional energy into it because any match I care about will end with a stupid, screwy finish. Bobby Roode and James Storm did a wonderful job in getting me to overlook that fact this time. And they're going to try to do it again next time (or whoever the next face challenger to Roode is going to be will try). And it might work again, all the fates might actually align again to get me to care, because, I'll be honest here, it was the background that got me, the tag team partner betrayed, the destroyed friendship. The chances of them being able to produce something like that again is small. And the chances of getting me involved again are even smaller, it took Storm in the main event to make me stay up and watch, because I stopped watching the last hour of TNA PPVs because there was always a screwy ending. So they've wasted a lot of my good will, for no descernable reason.
Now had Roode won clean, you could have had a clean new feud for him with someone else, or else a series of matches for the new number one contender, or Storm begging for another rematch (more difficult to do, yes, but not impossible, see Crimson & Morgan's second rematch against JoeMagnus).
Instead we're going to get another round of 'I was screwed', 'I beat you, na na'. Which we've had for Roode vs Hardy, which we had for Angle vs Hardy, which we've had for Mickey vs Gail Kim, which we've had for Gail Kim vs Velvet Sky.
TNA, play another record, please.
I don't know if it was just me, or did a lot of the matches not make use of the steel cage aspect of Lockdown. I mean, the main event, Hardy vs Angle and Crimson vs Morgan did, and to a lesser extent so did the beginning of Devon vs Robbie E, but the rest could have taken place in a normal ring. And before anyone mentions the Lethal Lockdown match, name one spot in that didn't involve Bully Ray cheese-gratering probably Aries (oh the camera work was awful) that couldn't have been done without the cage*.
But Red, I hear you say, you don't even like cage matches. And that's true, but I feel if you're going to go to all that bother, and restriction of camera angles, you might as well use it.
* The other possibilty, since if anyone could cheese grater someone in a non-cage match, that person would be Bully Ray, is AJ vs Kazarian on the top rope and then climbing across the top of the cage, but that's 2 spots in one hyped up match.
~~~~
Given the adverts for 'Smash' (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825133/), I take it Jack Davenport is there to be the smarmy Brit who gets his comeuppance. He's looking decidedly ... rafish.
Oh dear god, they're using the wrestlers to advertise the new Blockbusters. The wierd, it does not compute.
I know it isn't, but I swear it's Tchecy Kayro in the Stella Artois cidre advert.
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no subject
Date: 2012-04-19 05:36 pm (UTC)Sometimes it feels like they do. Like they're actively sabotaging their own product. I mean, it was a joke a few years ago that the WWE is sneaking people into TNA to destroy it from within, but then again, it's wrestling, which, in all its permutations, is a conundrum of "actively seeking against its own best interest."
I went from being their biggest fucking stan, swallowed the kool-aid and all, to the bitter bitch that I am now.
Anyway. Kazarian got a haircut? And that whole storyline is going nowhere fast, right? Which is... to be expected. >.<
no subject
Date: 2012-04-20 02:18 pm (UTC)Sometimes it feels like they do.<<
At least if they were doing it deliberately, they'd be making sense. If they're not doing it deliberately, it means people, more than one person, a whole group of them, sat down and went, 'this ending, it will work'. There's no explaining that kind of mentality.
And yes, the AJ vs Kaz 'n' Daniels thing is going nowhere, slowly.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-20 05:36 pm (UTC)LOL, that's true. That's pretty sad.
the AJ vs Kaz 'n' Daniels thing is going nowhere, slowly
BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.