Bryan Staebell
The Choice
The simple, sad, fact of the matter is that TNA is in dire financial straights. We’ve seen names like Tara, Jesse Sorenson, So Cal Val, DOC, Joey Ryan, Crimson, Matt Morgan and Brooke Hogan become casualties of the company’s efforts to reign in spending. Devon, who’s contract runs out in October, appears to be out after dropping the “loser leaves TNA” fall at Hardcore Justice. At the same time TNA has signed a few new contracts with some of their more “key” talent. Magnus, Bobby Roode, Samoa Joe and TJ Perkins (Manik) have all signed in the last several months. There will surely be more cuts and more tough negotiations as contracts come up for renewal. Two of the most interesting names, for completely different reasons, are coming up very shortly.
AJ Styles and Ken Anderson are both nearing the end of their contracts with TNA. In many ways they represent everything that TNA is. One is the homegrown “TNA guy”, the guy who they hand picked from day 1 to be a star for their company. The other had a name made in a bigger company and was brought in and pushed to the top because of it. This isn’t going to be a rant against the latter type. I think the most effective TNA roster smartly combines both types of wrestlers. In the AJ Styles mold you have guys like Bobby Roode, James Storm, Chris Sabin, Magnus…and to a lesser extent Samoa Joe and Austin Aries (who were far more established than the previous names when they came in to the company). In the Ken Anderson mold you have guys like Kurt Angle, Jeff Hardy, Sting, Bully Ray, Hulk Hogan, Gail Kim…and previously names like Ric Flair, Mick Foley and Christian. There is value in both camps.
What makes the ongoing contract discussions interesting…is that, for the first time, it appears TNA has to make a choice. I’m not saying they have to keep one over the other…it’s not that simple. What they have to decide, however, is whether or not AJ Styles being their most popular homegrown talent is worth bending on their demands for. I don’t think Anderson is in that boat. I think they’ll just make him an offer for a reduced salary and he’ll either take it…or he won’t…and that will be that. With Styles though it’s more complicated. He’s been the face of the company for much of it’s 11+ years. Bigger names have come and gone and Styles has remained…always mattering more. He, more than probably anyone else in the company, has earned his way. Asking him to take a major pay cut is a disgrace…regardless of the company’s problems. How do you justify the giant contracts of Hulk Hogan and Sting if you have to low ball AJ Styles? And more to the point…how do you explain letting AJ Styles walk if Ken Anderson does take a new deal? AJ Styles is worth a thousand Ken Andersons.
But their in lies the rub. For better or worse…AJ Styles represents a direction that they have never fully committed to. It’s a nice bonus to have a Kurt Angle or a Jeff Hardy or Bully Ray on your roster. But this is year 12 of your existence…shouldn’t most of your roster be made up of talent you found and developed yourself at this point? Every year TNA signs Sting to another big contract. At this point…shouldn’t AJ Styles BE your Sting? They have gotten better about it recently. They aren’t throwing money at everyone who has appeared on WWE TV anymore. But they are also not doing the other part they should be doing. They don’t even try to find young talent to bring in. They’ve been talking about moving away from the big names and reloading with younger talent lately…but I honestly don’t think they have any idea where to start.
They needed to start a long time ago. AJ Styles contract should be coming up in year 12 with him as the established unquestioned top star of the company. The answer to the riddle “how do we pay AJ Styles what he wants when we have so much money committed to Hogan, Sting, Angle and Hardy” is…don’t pay Hogan AND Sting AND Angle AND Hardy. Pay AJ Styles. And Samoa Joe AND Austin Aries AND Bobby Roode AND Magnus. Then go scout RoH and the indys to find guys to make up a whole fresh lower to midcard. After you’ve done all that…look at what you have left and pick which of the first group you want to add in…Hogan OR Sting OR Angle OR Hardy.
You have 2 hours of primetime national (and worldwide for that matter) television every week. It’s time to get serious about using it to not only develop a host of new talent whose arrival in the company is long overdue…but also to make your stars THE stars of the company. Thank Sting for his time (his contract is up at year’s end). Tell Spike that if they want Hulk Hogan (contract up after BFG) on their network they’re going to have to work out a Rampage Jackson/Tito Ortiz deal with him (where Spike pays them to be on their properties). Sign AJ Styles to the contract he’s earned. Angle and Hardy have time left on their deals but they both work hard and haven’t had any issue with taking the step back from the top and putting over whoever is getting the push. After all of that is done…and I mean all of it…call Ken Anderson and see if he’ll take that pay cut.
Note: f4wonline.com reports that Styles has agreed to a three month extension (which gets them to the end of 2013) while the two sides continue to talk a long term contract.
Impact recap for the last 2 weeks
Let’s start with the second night of Hardcore Justice
A notable show due to the ending. Devon was pinned by AJ Styles in the big 10 man, loser of the fall must leave the company, match. Styles half dropped the loner gimmick much to the crowd’s approval. He hasn’t fully dropped it though…so I still don’t know where it’s going. Match was real good. Crowd was really into Rampage Jackson hitting guys even though he looked terrible doing most of it.
Joseph Park won 20 points in the BFG series (which ended up being meaningless) by winning a street fight over Daniels, Jay Bradley and Hernandez. Pretty good match. The story here was that Daniels, Roode and Kaz were trying to recruit Austin Aries. Aries came out and pretended he was going to help Daniels before turning on him and costing him the match.
Gail Kim beat ODB in a pretty good match.
Bobby Roode and Kaz beat Gunner and James Storm in a non-title match. I have no memory of it so it must not have been good or bad.
The only other thing of note was Bully Ray introducing his new Brooke…Brook Tessmacher. It sure looks like they’re going to be ending the Aces and 8’s soon with Bully, Tito Ortiz and Brooke being their own thing. The Champion with the hot girl on his arm and the muscle at his back is already roughly a trillion times better than the Aces and 8’s have been.
Show was a step down from recent weeks but the main event made it worthwhile.
This week’s Impact saw some very good wrestling despite them ripping my heart out with the complete destruction of the BFG series.
Basically…they ran out of time having only finished about half of the tournament. So this week was “must win Thursday” or something. Basically they did 4 matches to get the people they wanted in the final 4 where they needed to be. Kind of…(more on that later).
Austin Aries pinned Daniels in an awesome main event to secure his spot in the final 4. They did some nice promos building the match up throughout the show and they really delivered.
Jeff Hardy pinned Kaz in a good match to put himself into 4th place in the tournament. Hulk Hogan would totally screw him later in the show though.
AJ Styles pinned Bobby Roode in another really good match for 7 points. This only put him in 5th place though. He was going for submissions in the match like he understood he needed more than the 7…but then he pinned Roode in the end anyway. Weird.
ODB beat Gail Kim in a 2/3 falls match. This wasn’t bad…but it didn’t look like they had a very good plan of what they were doing out there. Gail, as always, was good enough to still make something out of it. ODB is now the #1 contender to Mickie James’ Knockouts title.
Bully Ray cut an awesome promo burying his brother Devon for being weak his whole life and that’s why he lost last week. They teased more Bully Ray/Anderson problems as we head towards the merciful end of the Aces and 8’s.
AJ Styles cut a promo that people either liked or really really really hated. I thought the content was good (Styles basically touched on his real contract issues and buried Dixie for spending on “names” that fail over and over and always promising the company’s new direction that will change everything). He was right about everything but he’s not a promo guy. He was trying to use the truth to explain what his character has been doing for the last year…but he’s the wrong guy to cut this promo.
Finally Hulk Hogan returned and completely botched his segment. He announced that Bully Ray would have to face Sting this week (it’s next week) for the TNA title (it’s non-title). Still…fans are always happy to see Hogan and I do believe that their interactions do a lot of good for Bully Ray’s character. Hogan also announced that there would be 1 more BFG series match with all 12 men in a gauntlet for 20 points.
What this means is that Magnus, Austin Aries and Bobby Roode are all guaranteed to be in the final 4 at No Surrender. Jeff Hardy, who is in 4th place, needs to either win the match himself or have one of Magnus, Aries, Roode, Bradley or Hernandez win (Bradley and Hernandez are mathematically eliminated) or he loses his spot to whoever wins the match.
Great wrestling show with some super strange segments outside of the ring.
Impact Preview for 9/5
This show was already taped so this is just a non spoiler run down of what is coming up.
12 man gauntlet for 20 points in the BFG series (Magnus vs. Aries vs. Roode vs. Hardy vs. Styles vs. Daniels vs. Kaz vs. Anderson vs. Joe vs. Park vs. Hernandez vs. Bradley)
Bully Ray vs. Sting
Chris Sabin vs. Knux
Gunner and James Storm vs. Wes Brisco and Garrett Bischoff
We will know who the final 4 are for No Surrender and what the semi final matches are. ODB and Mickie James will have a confrontation.
Random Randomness
The next “One Night Only” PPV is the all Knockouts show. It airs starting Friday night.
The list of upcoming TV/PPV tapings is as follows:
9/12 – St. Louis, MO (the live No Surrender show and the taped 9/19 show)
9/26 – Little Rock, AR (the live 9/26 show and the taped 10/3 show)
10/10 – Tulsa, OK (the live 10/10 show and the taped 10/17 show. Go home shows for BFG)
10/20- San Diego, CA – Bound For Glory
