Brother Nero, I have a premoneeeetion! The seven deities have decided we must venture forth to the Land of Mack ma Hon and DELETE DELETE DELETE! Let us embrace Vanguard and teleport to our new destination!
BAMF!
They find themselves in the middle of the Andre the Giant Battle Royal in progress. The audience massively pops and chants DELETE DELETE DELETE and the Broken Hardys clean out all participants and co-win the battle royal.
They should save their debut until a PPV and have it as ‘mystery team’ facing one of the tag teams. Throw out some rumors that it will be The Revival, or Authors of Pain. The place would erupt when they were introduced.
Well, both Hardys are going to be in town that weekend because they’re wrestling the Bucks of Youth for their title (or one of their titles? I never know how these inter-promotional teams go). It’s not outside the realm of possibility that they could show up on Sunday.
And yes, that was the “leak”, I didn’t believe it too much either, but I figure it was at least worth mentioning.
I think a lot depends on the quailty of the match. I hope Goldberg has been working hard on relearning how to work a match, because Owens deserves better than a squash.
There’s always the possibility that Jericho shows up during Goldberg/KO, teases revenge on KO, and punks out Oldberg instead. Goldie loses but doesn’t lose heat because he lost to cheating, and JeriKO gloats about everybody falling for their master plan.
There’s been some reports that Impact is claiming some ownership of the Broken gimmick (Jeremy Borash was supposedly heavily involved with it). That can torpedo a lot of things (including fan goodwill towards the ongoing TNA reorg)
A lot of people seemed relieved that Jeff Jarrett is back in control of things there, but while “Better than Dixie” may not be that high of a bar to clear, things weren’t all puppies and rainbows when JJ was in charge the first time.
Well, it’s good to see that AJ Styles defeated Luke Harper for the #1 contendership for the WWE Championship, as Harper has no business beating Styles, or being in the main event of WrestleMania. But “curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!” With Randy Orton burning down the Wyatt Family Compound (and the resting place of Sister Abigail), are we looking at a triple threat between Wyatt, Orton, and Styles? I’d watch it, but from a storyline perspective Styles looks like the odd man out. So I’m torn.
If we’re still going with Styles vs. Shane at WrestleMania (which is a godawful waste of Styles’ talents), the easiest way there from here would be for Orton to defeat Styles next week on SmackDown, or for Shane to simply make him the #1 contender because he won the Royal Rumble. Styles gets pissed about that, since he earned the #1 contendership, and that, coupled with the fact he never got a one-on-one rematch for the WWE Title, makes him inclined to take it out on Shane.
AJ: Blah blah something I’m wrestling for the belt at 'Mania!
Shane: Actually, you aren’t. As GM (or whatever the hell is “title” is) of Smackdown I make the matches, Randy won the Rumble fair and square, so he has fair right to the match.
AJ: That’s not fair! I’m mad! I have to fight someone…what if I fight you!
Camera does the classic WWE Zoom in as AJ gets within an inch of Shane’s face. AJ turns around and walks away as Shane eyeballs him in the distance (As per WWE post-promo law).
Boom. There’s the match. Not a big fan of it, but oh well…
Next week Shane announces AJ Styles vs. Randy Orton for the right to face Wyatt at WM.
The match goes to double count-out. Shane comes out and says ‘No, we’re not ending like this again’ and restarts the match. Orton leaps back in the ring, but AJ gets pissed, launches himself at Shane and gets counted out. Orton wins by count-out, AJ destroys Shane at ringside until security pulls him off.
I remember the Bennetts were hinting at leaving a few months ago because Maria’s going to grad school. I liked Mike’s drunken henpecked husband angle in Impact. I guess the wedding thing is the onset of their sendoff.
Erick Rowan’s cleared to come back to WWE. A promo for a SD show in my area showed him following Bray Wyatt in mysterio vision, complete with sheep mask.
Honestly, it might be better if Impact just started this week with a complete clean restart. I would prefer not to see Jarrett as a regular authority figure or anything, but just having him come out with “New owners, new administration, titles all reset, we’re no longer using the TNA name” may be better than trying to explain in storyline why the Hardys went away, why Jade is no longer feuding with Rosemary, where Maria went, etc.
That would also give them a chance to restructure things that aren’t working (like the DCC) cleanly.
From what I’ve gathered, most of the reason for the cuts is the insane contracts Dixie was giving out to the wrestlers. Mike, for example, was making 250 a year for, what, a week’s worth of work a month? I can’t imagine what the Hardys were being paid…
I think this is going to basically be like a sports team (NFL, MLB…pick your poison) that was run into the ground by a previous owner, and the new owner is basically saying “look, we are going to suck for a couple years, but this has to happen”.
Cutting out all the old contracts, releasing the veterans and (eventually I’m guessing) bringing in young, cheap no-name free agents that they hope pan out to something in the long run. I don’t know what TNAs scouting department is like, but here’s to hoping they’re closer to the Patriots and not the Redskins…
I went from “Can’t wait for the tapings this weekend!” to “Screw the tapings this weekend” and now I’m inching closer to “shit, just out of curiosity…” So I don’t exactly know what I’m doing this weekend.
What should I do on Saturday: Go to Universal to see whatever this weird-ass TNA is? Or go to Seaworld for a Styx concert?