Rex (latin) means “King”, just as “Rey Mysterio” (spanish) means “King Mystery”, or “Mystery King”
Aron (/ærən/) is a masculine given name and a surname. It is an alternate spelling of Aaron, prominent biblical figure in the Old Testament. The name means “mountaineer”, or “mount of strength”
So he’s plain old Aaron King. 
Or, you know, “King of the Mountain”, which is appropriate for TNA. 
If he had that name in WWE, towards the end of his run, no doubt Vince would have had him dress up as a Tyrannosaurus.
(just in time for Jurassic World, in theater’s this summer!)
Meanwhile, Billy Corgan has actually, really, non-kayfabe, been promoted to President of TNA. Dixie has been relegated to the title of “Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer”, which I think is corporate-speak for “sit over there and don’t touch anything”.
I’m really still doubtful as to whether TNA is salvageable at this point, but if Corgan is calling the shots and paying the bills now, they’ll likely be able to stay afloat at least a little while longer. (It’s not impossible that they could still turn things around; hell, in 1995 WWF was doing house shows in high school auditoriums.)
Sung to the tune of Bullet With Butterfly Wings
*The Cart is a vampire, sent to drain
Dixie destroyer, held us up to the flames
And what do I get, for my pain?
Betrayed desires, and a piece of TNA
Even though I know–I suppose I’ll show
All my cool and watch the fed job
Despite all my rage I have still bought a crap TNA
Despite all my rage I have still bought a crap TNA
Then someone will say what is lost can never be saved
Despite all my rage I have still bought a crap TNA*
It’s difficult to say how much Billy being more in-charge will affect or improve TNA. The only booking I’ve heard people say he’s directly involved in has been the Women’s division, and it’s possibly the worst it’s ever been.
I tell you what, even if it’s free, 7 hours of live wrestling is…well…it’s just a lot.
Another warning (if you want to call it that) I’m going to open spoiler some TNA stuff for the coming weeks. I highly doubt anyone cares, but I figured I’d do my do diligence.
Ok, so, Ms. Cups and I went to 2 out of the 3 TNA tapings this weekend. I think I would have been OK doing it again on Sunday, and we were at Universal, but I think Ms. Cups had had enough TNA for a weekend.
First thing to note: Yes, the shows were completely free. There was a VIP option where you got a pass, a poster, and specialty seating, and quite a few people surprisingly did it. Otherwise it was first come/first serve seating. On Friday we came slightly after the doors opened and walked right in. All ringside standing-room-only spots were taken so we just went to the normal stands.
Let’s talk about the stage. Pretty well set up actually. If I was standing on the entrance ramp, to the right of me would be the VIP seating and to the left of me (TV facing) would be the stands. Ringside was all standing-room-only along the ramp and to the left of the ring. Behind it was Josh Matthews and The Pope. The funniest part to me about the stage set up was that there was a Universal Studios concession stand near the entrance. So you could grab a churro/corndog/popcorn/soda/beer(!!) throughout. It’s not much, but it’s better than what Full-Sail has.
Semi-quick Tangent: Ms. Cups and I went to Universal for spring break in grad school (before we were a “thing”). And when we were leaving, a dude said “Free wrestling taping! come on in!”. This was before we watched, so we blew it off. Ironic that we’re here now…
Ok, back to the show: So we were in the stands and we were seated in order to make the stands look full. Friday’s show was busy enough, but not overwhelming. So throughout the night the TNA workers would ask people to move around and fill space. It wasn’t as much of a problem on Saturday. The funniest part to me was that there were TNA workers passing out signs to people in the stands. We didn’t see that on Saturday, but funny that they had pre-made ones!
The Tapings: We saw two-weeks’ worth of matches during the show, then after the tapings they were doing matches for their One Night Only PPV. This was funny because the matches in One Night Only were clearly happening after the tapings we were watching. So on Friday we saw a segment where Lashly brought out all 3 titles he owns and cuts a promo on Dixie and Billy Corgan, then later in the night we saw Lashley defend just the TNA championship, without the two other belts.
Anyway, on Friday we were able to see what amounted to the entire reason we wanted to go in the first place: We saw the Hardys. Not only that, we saw them in a ladder match! There was a 4-team ladder match for the right to face Decay for the Tag-Team titles. It included Broken Matt and Brother Nero (who eventually won). Boy are they funny/weird! Also, after the match, Jeff spent A LOT of time with the fans ringside. Mad we couldn’t get there…
That pretty much sums up Friday that I can remember.
Saturday had a gimmick match for the X-division championship. The wrestlers had to climb some scaffolding looking thing in order to shimmy across a tightrope and grab the belt. That was a really really cool and fun match. Some of the spots people took looked wicked. DJ-Z eventually won on a neat looking spot. Allie won the women’s title on some schmozzy BS, and eventually gave it back. Billy came out and officially retired the King of the Mountain title, replacing it with “The Grand Title”.
All-in-all we saw pretty much everyone we could hope to see: Lashley, Gail Kim, The Hardys, Decay, Tyrus, Eli Drake (god is he annoying!), The-Former-Damien-Sandow.
Last but certainly not least is my favorite part of both nights, and it’s absolutely genius. During commercial breaks, the announcer guy keeps teasing the audience with backstage passes and free shit in order to get them to cheer. TNA has these production assistant people that are manning the floor. They were the ones passing out signs and telling you where to sit and stuff. But during the show they also watch the people in the stands and would run up and give you shit if you cheered loudly.
So often during the show the announcer would keep saying “we are giving backstage passes to the loudest people!” and everyone would cheer, and people would get passes, and then announcer would say “Let’s give out more! You know what? I’m going to go and get about a half-a-dozen more of these and we’ll give them out after this match!” And he says that over and over again. It’s the best. It guarantees you that people will be active during the tapings and it costs them literally nothing to take a kid and his dad backstage to meet EC3. You’d think with business savvy like that, TNA would actually, you know, make money…
Whew that was a lot. All-in-all it was a lot of fun. It was, IMO, basically on par with NXT shows. The wrestling was better than I expected, the atmosphere was really quite fun, the wrestlers interacted with audience A TON. Heels, faces, they would all meet the fans, give high-fives and autographs, and practically broke character to do it. And it was everyone. Hardys, EC3, Kendrick, Lashley…everyone did it. I’ll have to keep an eye on next month’s tapings cuz I would love to go again.
(plus they have churros! Your move Full Sail…your move…)
WWE back when it was WWWF taped multiple shows out in the Hershey PA area like that. It pretty much started the use of video tape for wrestling shows. They’d hand out tickets for it at most of the live shows.
Jeez, how do they make money? They had to lease the venue, and have to eventually pay the wrestlers and crews. There’s not even any concessions to get a cut of. Pop TV has to interest enough advertisers to buy ad time, and I doubt “Only available on TV” products sell that well.
I haven’t seen any indication they do make money. WWE rarely makes money from house shows either. It’s all in the PPV, or the network in the case of WWE. Wrestling on TV is just advertising for PPV these days, as it was for the live shows in the past. They pay wrestlers a lot these days, used to be most guys were lucky if they could make $50 a night and then get a bonus for a big event. The handful of champions and the promoters used to make all the bucks back when. Even now WWE gets half or more of it’s income from merch and games.
Is there any paperwork that says if Universal has a stake in TNA as an owner?
The security, concession worker and door people were all in-uniform Universal employees. If Universal has a stake in them then all of that would be “free”, and save them some serious money.
Also didn’t mention, they talked about tickets being available soon for Bound For Glory and that I should go online to guarantee my seat. Which makes me think that tix for that would be free too?
To my knowledge, Universal does not own any stake in TNA.
TNA does apparently do a fairly good business with overseas TV rights.
Since it’s a private company, exact financial details aren’t available, but it was widely reported (starting with Facebook posts by a TNA worker) that they were literally out of money less than 24 hours before a set of PPV/weekly show tapings a few months back. Apparently Billy Corrigan is the one who bailed them out of that, which is where he got his minority ownership which led to his current President status.
Sounds like they made fans out of the T-Cupses.
They definitely had some good years before Hogan & Bischoff took charge. The tag series between Motor City Machine Guns and Beer Money (Bobby Roode and James Storm) was some of the greatest action I’ve ever seen. Their Knockouts division was metric tons better than WWE’s Divas at the time. They at least train the talent right.
Well Ms. Cups loooooves her some Jeff Hardy. So the fact we got to see him twice in one night really made her night.
Matt also called Jeff (whilst scolding him) a “spot monkey”. That’s pretty meta for a wrestling show. Does TNA regularly break kayfabe like that?
Neville tripped and fell.
Well, with two major shows coming up this weekend, I suppose it’s time to offer some predictions. First up is Takeover Brooklyn II: Back 2 Tha Hood.
Samoa Joe vs. Shinsuke Nakamura for the NXT world championship. I’m gonna predict Nakamura wins this one. He remains undefeated in NXT, and he’s beaten the only person (Finn) who’s managed to beat Joe. He’s on fire, the crowds love him, and it only makes sense for him to go over here. He and Joe will likely have a rematch at the next Takeover, after which Joe will move on to the main roster.
Asuka vs. Bayley for the women’s championship. Asuka is most likely going to go over here, setting up Bayley to hit the main roster and challenge Sasha for the WWE women’s title.
Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas vs. Bobby Roode. This could go either way - Roode is the latest talent that WWE’s managed to poach from TNA, and he could really use a marquee win to boost his rep as a top-tier heel. Andrade, meanwhile, is still green himself, and could use a push as well. I’m gonna say Bobby wins this one - for all the ring prowess he may currently possess, Andrade’s gimmick right now really isn’t one you give to top-tier talent, and with Roode being a former TNA champion, he’ll probably go over here so he can be built up as a major heel competitor to the world title later on.
The Revival vs. Johnny Gargano and Tomasso Ciampa for the tag titles. I’m gonna give this one to Gargano & Ciampa. It seems to me that the only reason to put the belts back on the Revival was to set them up as transitional champs for the benefit of a face team. Gargano and Ciampa are in the perfect place right now to be that face team - they just had a blockbuster match at the CWC, and Gargano has dropped his Evolve titles in the last few months, indicating that he’s in WWE for the long run now. We’ll probably see the Revival move to Smackdown soon to resume their feud with American Alpha.
No Way Jose vs. Austin Aries. I’ll confess to being a total mark for No Way Jose, but there’s no way (jose) that his gimmick would ever get over on the main roster. Aries, meanwhile, has the potential to be a top contender for the championship if Nakamura wins the main event (which I think he will). Aries goes over here.
Ember Moon vs. a lady wrestler to be named later. Is Blue Pants available? Because the sports entertainer formerly known as Athena is going over here.
I’ll post my predictions for Summerslam tomorrow after Smackdown airs and the card has been finalized.
Sadly, I won’t get to watch either show live - Takeover is happening at the same time I’ll be attending the ROH TV taping in Vegas, and I’ll be on the plane home while Summerslam is airing.
You know, if you miss those shows live, you can always catch up on the WWE Network, available for only $9.99!
OK Smapti, bring back pics of you and your glow worm. I agree with all your picks except Gargano & Ciampa vs NuHorsemen. I have a feeling there’s going to be some screwup between Gargano & Ciampa, stemming from their CWC match, which will lead to Ciampa turning on Gargano and allowing Revival to keep the belts.
RAM really screwed up Finn’s big moment last night IMO. They overhyped it and sucked out the mystery element. Seth kept going around, whining “Where is the demon king,” which sounds too much like “Demon Kane.” Then when Seth got in the ring to call Finn out, he took too long with his bloviating, partially because something happened off-camera and he had to kill a few minutes to allow for the crew to clean it up. Did a fan try to jump the ring? Did somebody throw something? Seth seemed to gasp in surprise for a sec, then resumed his rant. That killed the momentum.
When Finn finally came out, his music sounded like it was coming over a pocket-sized AM radio. There was too much lighting, which glared off the fog. In the NXT shows, they only used spot lights, which made it look he emerged from inky darkness outside the light. Here, they used all the lights, and showed him crawling from backstage. No, you morons! Spotlight Finn as he’s rising from the fog, not before! That way he looks like he’s merging from the hells underground!
Part of what makes Finn’s entrance so effective is the contrast between stark brightness and darkness, making his eyes glow and the painted teeth on his jaw and neck stand out. This was strictly amateur hour, which is bad considering the Full Sail crew uses interns. Maybe they just didn’t have enough time to do the setup properly, but hopefully they’ll get their shit together at Summerslam.
Spot on. Seth is the wrong guy to put him over. Especially since I can’t see him doing the job for Finn at the Slam.
Finn had a small fan club there making noise, but otherwise the crowd was unimpressed. I think it will take more than some lighting, he’s got to wrestle in big venues now, he’s nobody in WWE, he has to do the work to get over.
Yeah, someone jumped in the ring. You could see the top of his head for a split second before he went down. WWE did a good job of keeping the whole thing off-camera.
I don’t see The Revival on the main roster. They’re just too small for Vince. But if they’re getting paid well enough in NXT, I’d be happy to see them as the perennial heel champs who the faces have to overcome. Plus, I don’t want to see them called up, as I’m thinking they’d be just another Ascension, hideously misused.
Was sincerely hoping “Demon Kane” would show up when Rollins was walking around. They missed that opportunity.
Also, WWE just completely FUCKED the whole Demon thing. One, “Demon King”? Nah, just ‘da Demon’. Then, this entrance SHOULD have been saved for Summerslam, not given away on RAW just for a face-off. Foolish move, Vince.
Yep, it was a fan run-in. Wonder if the superstars brag to each other about how many times they’ve been attacked/stalked?