The O’Really Report – Total Nonstop Apathy (Jeff Hardy, Sting, Anderson, RVD)

Columns, Top Story

Remember when there used to be “TNA! TNA! TNA!” chants at Impact or TNA PPVs?  Well that may be a thing of the past.  Honestly the date that should be remembered from these last few months isn’t 2-21-11 nor is it 3-3-11.  It should be 3-13-11.  The Day TNA shot themselves in their own foot.  Welcome to your Weekly Wednesday Wrestling stop, The O’Really Report with your truly, Rhett Davis.  Before we get into how TNA screwed themselves, let’s get the self-promotion done.

Facebook:  Look me up under Rhett Davis.

Twitter:  @radmann9

E-Mail:  radmann9@yahoo.com (send me some mail if you feel so inclined)

You can catch my 10 Thoughts on Monday Night Raw right here.

Onward with the TNA bashing!  TNA in case you are misinformed or are new to the product is an acronym which stands for ‘Total Nonstop Action.’  A little over a year ago, Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan came in and formed a partnership with Dixie Carter at TNA’s peak.  TNA was at their highest point in the company’s history and was rocking and rolling.  Seeing stars like Hulk, Eric, Hall, RVD, and various other superstars was monumental for the company.  Everyone thought that TNA had finally broken the glass ceiling on being invisible!  And running head-to-head with Raw on Monday Night was a ballsy move.  It seemed like Eric and Hulk knew what they were doing… until they showed up.  Slowly week after week of wrestlers entering the business and taking virtually taking over, we realize that Russo, Eric, and Hulk have no idea what they are doing!  I have found it extremely difficult to follow this show throughout the year.  It’s frustrating to see someone like AJ or Jay Lethal get the nod of approval and then the next month lose their title and utterly DISAPPEAR.  Seriously where the hell is Jay Lethal?  Before we get to the ultimate failure of the week, month, and possibly year, let’s take a look at this past Sunday:  Victory Road.

Victory Road was a PPV that I absolutely forgot was even scheduled until early last week when I got a notification about it.  Pretty sad isn’t it?  With WWE, I know when the shows are.  Generally I know at least a couple of weeks ahead not because of a notification from the highly esteemed Kelly Floyd about the Roundtable.  Like WrestleMania is in two and a half weeks with two more full weeks of preparation.  Does TNA actually have a next PPV…?  Lockdown maybe…?  Anyways after VR they should never EVERRRRRRRR have control of a PPV uh-GAIN.  Sorry had to channel Y2J a little bit there. (P.s. if you haven’t read ‘A Lion’s Tale’ you need to. Great book.)   So the opening match of the night was Bully Ray and Tommy.  Overall it was a decent opener, but it might have been better to open with the Ultimate X or Tag Team match.  My only real frustration with this angle is that Tommy was inserted here for not much of a reason except he sided with D-Von after Ray attacked D-Von’s son.  I’ve said it before that I’m a fan of Bully Ray’s new persona, but not this feud with D-Von as it is just dragging its feet now.  But they’ll be back next month with Bully/D-Von at Lockdown.

Moving right along, the next match on the card was the Knockouts Tag Title Match and we have new champions in Sarita and Rosita.  Brava ladies and I don’t really have a comment except that Rosita still looks a little green.  Next up, Hernandez and Matt Morgan had an… uhh… interesting ending.  Apparently SuperMex acted like he was bleeding and then smeared some ketchup on Morgan’s face that the ref saw and thought was blood thereby ending the First Blood match.  Hmm… it would’ve been much more beneficial if they could have just let SuperMex pull out a cheese grater and ECW-style cut his head open with that or you know… just hit him in the back of the head with a steel chair in Jeff-style and dang near kill the man. But I’m not to Jeffrey Nero yet.  Following that bizarre finish was the Ultimate X match.  This match wasn’t even ANNOUNCED until Thursday night and really even then it had no backstory.  Sure sometimes matches aren’t announced until the week before the PPV, but more often than not they at least have HISTORY.  This match was just throwing the three men who were supposed to fight last month in a #1 Contenders match and giving them all chances at the X-Division title in one swoop.  Maybe now Jay Lethal can come back and reclaim his gold?  Maybe?  It was a good match, but, with no reason for it other than to have an extra match, it was pointless and literally accomplished nothing more than making Kaz that much more capable an X-Division champion… in a dead division.

After that stellar match, (no sarcasm) they add another good match with the TNA Tag Team Championship.  Beer Money is a great team, but, as everyone else is saying, they have no real competition.  Sure they had the Guns, but now that one of them is injured they have no one to fight and those two teams would’ve eventually got boring anyways.  Now apparently Ink Inc is on the verge of breaking up.  Hasn’t TNA learned from WWE that breaking up every team that’s not the champions doesn’t bode well?  We see how well Cryme Tyme, Hart Dynasty, and Hawkins and Ryder are doing don’t we?  Oh wait… TNA doesn’t learn from their mistakes, but yet again… I’m not talking about Jeffrey yet.  Anyways enough about the depression of tag team wrestling; the next match was Matt Cold Blood Hardy vs AJ Styles.  I was actually okay with this match.  It sets up the big AJ and Flair match coming up soon and gets the other Hardy on the show.  And then…

The show hits the fan and by show I mean Elimination Chamber.  If you catch the Cena reference congratulations if not… look it up.  The show has been centered on a split main event.  Anderson and RVD was the first match and Sting and Jeff Hardy was the other.  Two main events, one match is 90 seconds long, one has no finish.  Problem with that?  I believe so.  The Anderson/RVD match should have had a decision.  Ties or false-finishes are what set-up PPV matches not what ARE the PPV matches.  That double countout should’ve happened last Thursday, not on Victory Road.  Eric should’ve came out and restarted the match making it no countouts.  Anything would’ve been better than sending the fans pissed off into the main event.  Especially when the main event is 90 seconds long!  The only really hyped matches on the entire card were these two main events.  They hyped the rematch for Jeffrey’s title big time and then what?  Sting’s return promo was longer than the entire match.  The sad part is that the reason that it was so short was that apparently Jeffyboy was on some drugs… on a PPV night… again.  The fact that this has happened before is what irks me.  Jeff Hardy should have been fired the first time.  He should’ve received the RVD treatment that Vince McMahon gave when he was caught on drugs or maybe even the Sabu treatment.  Regardless, Jeff Hardy should be fired on the spot and TNA should be ashamed of the biggest failure of the week/month/year being the fact that they allowed this 90 second match to end their show.  And a big thumbs down to Jeff Hardy/Vince Russo/Eric Bischoff/Hulk Hogan.

And quite frankly my dear… that’s a wrap.

Rhett Davis is a college student striving to become an engineer one day. He enjoys watching men fight over a pigskin, partying it up, and watching oiled up men move each other in unique positions on a mat. He started writing on 1/19/11.