Thursday, March 28, 2024
EditorialDisappointing Moments Of 2014. (Pt. 2)

Disappointing Moments Of 2014. (Pt. 2)

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… Continuing on from the previous article.

January, July — Sting leaves TNA, and the WWE 2k15 vignette.

After many years with TNA Wrestling, Sting decided to leave the company. The exact reasons behind the decision is unknown, but I can guess it is down to his age, and the fact his legacy in WCW is owned by WWE. He was the first TNA Hall of Famer, and he inducted the second TNA Hall of Famer Kurt Angle. I can’t imagine there being any bad blood between Sting and TNA, because they worked together for many years side-by-side. Sting talked about retiring many times during his career with TNA. He would say it to live crowds, but the crowd would disapprove and convince him to stay on. Sting’s passion to entertain the fans kept him going.

I believe Sting finally realized he shouldn’t be taking a spot away from a young talent who needs it more. I was shocked to see Sting appear in WWE, because it had become apparent in interviews that Sting didn’t get along with Vince McMahon. This information was shot down by The Stinger, as he claimed he never had any bad blood with Vince or WWE. And then we got one of the most disappointing vignettes of all time. WWE really enjoy teasing us. You could hear the disappointment from the live crowd the second “WWE2k15” appeared.


February — Aksana delivers a supreme botch.

Ok, maybe this should have been in part one, but I forgot about it! Naomi and Aksana were having a match, when suddenly, Aksana delivered a super botch! Naomi suffered a displaced fracture of the orbital bone. This likely cost Aksana her job. I was happy to see her released, she could have blinded Naomi with this move.

June — Daniel Bryan stripped of the title due to injury. WWE releases talent.

June was one of the most disappointing months of the year for many reasons. Daniel Bryan was in his element as WWE World Heavyweight Champion, and the fans were happy to see a champion we could all love and respect. And then Daniel Bryan picked up a neck injury. It’s irony at its finest. He broke through the glass ceiling thanks to the out-pour of negative feelings over his exclusion from the Rumble. WWE found a way to get him into the Wrestlemania main event, Bryan won that match, and a couple of months later he was stripped. That’s life for ya. 

He suffered the injury in May, however WWE delayed vacating the title before they could be sure of the extent of his injuries. The fans miss Daniel Bryan, and I hope he recovers completely before he thinks about getting back in the ring. He is due a lengthy title reign, he deserves it for sure..

In the same month, WWE released ten wrestlers from the roster: Curt Hawkins, JTG, Theodore Long, Camacho, Brodus Clay, Evan Bourne, Yoshi Tatsu, Jinder Mahal, Aksana and Drew McIntyre.

There will always be disappointment when wrestlers are fired. In this instance, a number of wrestlers who were barely ever used got the axe. Curt Hawkins was never given a chance to shine at all. JTG kept his job for years despite never appearing on the main roster. When he did, it was to job to someone. Teddy Long always got a nice reaction from the crowd, and I wonder why they didn’t give him his job back as Smackdown GM. Camacho did nothing with Hunico on the main roster, but when I tuned into NXT and saw him again (for the first time in about two years), he was a completely different guy, brimming with confidence. I was impressed by Camacho, so I was surprised to see him gone too. 

Brodus Clay was only ever used right as Del Rio’s bodyguard, then they turned him into a dancing joke. Evan Bourne was plagued by injuries, he had spent so much time on the bench that I wasn’t surprised to see his name. Yoshi Tatsu was another guy who rarely appeared on the main roster. The fact he’s Japanese held him back. I never really cared for Jinder Mahal, so I wasn’t surprised by his name either. I was happy to see Aksana’s name there after the brutal botch she did on Naomi.

And then we have Drew McIntyre. The Chosen One. The man who many fans labelled as supremely underrated. Drew McIntyre was a solid heel at one point in time, and a decent Intercontinental Champion. Then something happened and he was relegated to 3MB. I would love to know what happened to him backstage to make WWE put him in that position. With Drew and Jinder fired, 3MB was immediately split up, and surprisingly, fans didn’t like it. They had grown to like 3MB. Even Mick Foley liked 3MB. You can see how much he missed them … right here, in this picture below!

July to November — TMZ report Spike TV will not be renewing their contract with TNA

I have to say that I am absolutely sick and tired of seeing this news. TNA wrestlers are worried, Dixie keeps saying she will have some news “soon” blah blah blah. The fact is … TMZ reporting this news has done nothing to help anyone. Why is it that as soon as a contract (whether it’s a TV deal, or a wrestlers contract) is close to an end, some news site automatically labels it as “so-and-so is going to leave”, and “this channel is not going to renew its contract”. I have not believed anything in relation to this important “news” story. I think TNA are actually milking this to their own benefit. Get the fans believing the ship is about to sink, and they will show up in droves to defend it. It’s like when a celebrity is dying (or dies suddenly), people who were proper fans decades ago will suddenly show their respects despite completely forgetting about them. 

There is no concrete evidence anywhere to suggest TNA are in trouble. There is no concrete evidence anywhere to state that Spike TV don’t want TNA on their network. There were rumours that all of this happened because TNA had secretly employed Vince Russo. That is completely ridiculous and laughable, Vince Russo is only one man, he’s not THAT important to anybody. The sad thing is, and the most disappointing thing to me about all of this, is that I see comments all the time from fans assuming TNA is going to die. Are you kidding me? You read a news story with no concrete evidence, all conjecture, and you interpret that as TNA is going to die? C’mon, really? Are people that gullible? Why do people take these things so seriously?

I have a theory, and I think it’s all down to what happened during the Hogan/Bischoff days in TNA. They got a lot of negative attention during that period, and fans simply do not want to move on from that. They assume that Hogan “sucked it dry” with his big fat contracts, and now TNA has no money left to keep the business afloat …

NEWSFLASH! The Carter Family has more money than Vince McMahon and WWE! So long as the Carter Family has billions and billions of dollars (from their power company, Panda Energy), and so long as Bob Carter is willing to give Dixie the money to keep it going, TNA will never die. There I said it! TNA will not die, at all. The only reason they don’t sink billions of dollars into the company and attempt to make it direct competition with WWE is that it’s bad business practice. You don’t just throw money at a company and expect it to grow. Any business needs to grow naturally and make its own money. That’s why the Carter Family owns Panda Energy, because they are smart in business. If TNA ever gets to a point where Bob Carter could see a decent investment, he would do it. He would do it for the money, but he wouldn’t hand his daughter a paycheck for millions of dollars unless he knew for a fact he would get that money back, with interest.

Am I the only one disappointed by this? I just think that someone somewhere needs to bash on TNA to make themselves feel good. There is nothing wrong with the product, they have good talent, and TNA is consistent with its ratings. Why would Spike TV want to lose their highest rated show? It doesn’t make a lot of sense.

I firmly believe that when it comes down to contracts, whether it’s a TV contract or a wrestler’s contract, it should not become public knowledge. Websites will twist and distort facts into “news”, and that is downright pathetic. What starts as “news” from one website, gets copy and pasted to a million other websites, and then all of a sudden it becomes common knowledge. Personally I am just going to wait and watch TNA make a huge deal out of their new TV contract which they probably already have. The fans will be happy, and they will only be happy because websites like TMZ decided to make a big deal out of it. It ends up working in TNA’s favour after all. Any publicity is good publicity.

Does anyone remember when websites made a huge deal out of TNA not paying their talents? They made a huge deal out of how Bobby Roode’s contract ran out and he almost walked away. TNA announced they had encountered issues with their accounting department, and that was the only reason wrestlers had not been paid as intended. Everyone else made it out like TNA was dead and had no money left. It was confirmed that Bruce Prichard was in charge of contracts and it was his work (or lack of) that had caused Roode’s contract to almost expire. 

All I can do is sigh when I see these “news” stories, and then I have a face-palm moment when I see the comments attached to the “news”. The story continues to this day, several months on, and I am supremely bored with it. I wish people focused more on what’s going on in the TNA product then what’s happening behind closed doors. TNA is a private company, so no matter what information anyone decides to throw out there, NOBODY knows the current financial situation of TNA except those who work directly for TNA and Dixie Carter. They tell us there is nothing to worry about, and that’s all we need to know.

April to June — Bray Wyatt 1 – 3 John Cena

Bray Wyatt was on a winning streak early this year. That was until he ran head first into the invincible John Cena. I kept expecting Bray Wyatt to go over Cena so he would look strong .. or at least, as strong as a guy can look with two bigger guys watching your back. You would expect the Wyatt Family to put Cena out of his misery with their numbers, but it didn’t happen. The Wyatt Family had previously defeated The Shield on multiple occasions, but then they couldn’t defeat John Cena? It was incredibly disappointing from where I was sitting. It wasn’t like Cena needed to be put over, yet WWE took one of their rising stars and made him look as weak as Zack Ryder. (Exaggeration for dramatic effect)

The only time Wyatt was able to defeat Cena was in the cage match, which saw a “demonic child” singing to John. Wyatt used Cena’s love for children against him. It was incredibly cringing to watch, and it was unbelievable that a child could do to Cena what the whole Wyatt Family could never do; distract Cena long enough to defeat him. 

Now that the Wyatt Family has split up, WWE should be doing the right thing by making Wyatt look strong on his own. I’m not going to hold my breath on that one.

And that’s all for this edition. Part 3 will be coming soon. I can’t say when exactly, but it will probably be after the weekend. Thanks for reading!

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