Yeah, it doesn't strike me as TNA asking much of Taz. Fly into Orlando 3 times a month, tape a couple of segments, walk out. Worlds less work than he was doing in WWE as an announcer. Its a nice way to stay involved, paid, and active without doing much work at all.
I think he can really work in that mentor role as its one I always kind of wanted to see him do in WWE, and I thought it was rumored around the time ECW started and Sylvester Terkay was in the company and Angle was doing the MMA thing. I'm sure Taz & Joe will just result in a lot of "fat midget" jokes but traditional Joe is so much an evolution of Taz that just makes so much sense. Taz just leading Joe or a stable of just take no shit wrestlers could be a nice thing.
I like what I've seen of Stock and Hamada a lot. I won't assume they're awesome or anything but they seem to me to be strong additions with the potential to be stars. They're cute, they have international appeal, they can wrestler. They're strong additions I'm kind of excited for.
Very happy about London and cautiously optimistic about Red. I haven't seen Red in years and everything I've heard is his knees were shot. But if he can do his thing tag work is a great way to cover his limitations and there's tons of use for a guy like that in the X division matches.
Murdoch is someone I don't mind seeing more of. He's an interesting guy who seems to have potential even if I never loved him. But I would like to see him get a shot and see what he can do with it.
Lashley's interesting but I'm not going to get too excited. Its nice PR for a good coup for TNA. Like Angle debuting it was a genuine surprise and felt worthy of hype. I have no idea how much he'll get involved. I always liked the work he did on SD and it wasn't until he got a super hard push and went to ECW that he bugged me. He went from working with Regal, Finlay, Kennedy, and Booker to Test, Holly, Umaga, and Vince. So I can see him doing good stuff with the likes of Angle, Joe, AJ, and Daniels. Assuming he's going to do anything beyond posing.
Richards, eh. I like the guy but I haven't really cared in a long time. But he can talk and he can wrestle so worse case scenario we'll probably get some silly Abyss matches that are decent to watch.
I'm not sure I'd expect many to be cut. Rave, Hoyt, Dutt, and Petey all went recently. Kip James, Rhaka Khan, and Jacqueline seem out of the picture. I assume No Limit are a temporary part of the roster. Roxxi not making it into a PPV match that even SoJo Bolt was in seems like a bad sign for her. So I'll just assume they'll fill spots they already had open.
Its a good list of guys that could really add depth to the X, Knockout, and Tag divisions. And some midcard characters who can entertain. That works for me.
