My Thoughts on RVD, Jeff Hardy and AJ Styles
 

So I tried to watch as much of TNA as I could last night. For the most part I managed to catch the important parts between bouts of violent masturbation.

*RVD's haircut makes him look really weird and old.
*Jeff Hardy's entire schtick now is going crazy with a magic marker on his face.
*RVD and Jeff attempted to do that "a lot of offense that is countered and dodged" thing that used to happen in ECW in the 90s. It didn't look good to me though last night.
*The match actually ended up being pretty good. This is an awesome way to tell the fans at home that: even the WWE's washed-up wrestlers are better than our home-grown talent.
*RVD is a total dick to his supposed "best friend". After the match, instead of helping him up and shaking hands or even, gasp, raising Jeff's hand in the air as a show of respect he just celebrates a bunch and smiles a lot. Asshole.
*RVD and Jeff Hardy watching their match together and talking is a half-ass way to accomplish what my previous note would have done. Nobody wants to hear Jeff talk, damn it!
*AJ's earrings look really stupid, as does his feathered hood.
*A great match between TNA's Home-grown Hero (albeit a heel now) and RVD (ECW's and WWE's reliable ring-veteran), and who goes over? The guy with the strongest ties to the competitor of TNA.

Was it unexpected? For me, yes.
Was it smart? Meh, it was something. If RVD is onboard with TNA and plans on being with the company for the next 6-10 years while maintaining his current level of popularity...yes. So, I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Was it worth jobbing AJ Styles? If RVD had not already wrestled a grueling match a mere hour before, maybe, but AJ Styles looks weak as hell. He couldn't beat a tired, bloody RVD on his worst day, why expect him to do it ever?

AJ Styles face-turn? Magic face-powers are the only way I see him recovering the title. However, with Samoa Joe's (celluloid) return, I don't see too much time being devoted to AJ. I could be wrong but, the main-event scene is pretty crowded with Kurt Angle, AJ Styles, Sting, Jeff Jarrett, Rob Van Dam, Samoa Joe, Hulk Hogan (wrestling or not), Ken Anderson, Jeff Hardy, Matt Morgan and...uh...that might be it.

I enjoyed the show though, just can't help notice how the company seems to be falling apart. I wonder how much money they'll spend suing Jim Cornette.

AJ's been made to look weak his entire reign. He loses to Hardy on Impact, Abyss slams him through the ring at a PPV with no finish, and now RVD beats him. That may have been the worst title reign in wrestling history.

I think with RVD you get a guy who has been at the top before and is probably more comfortable with the spotlight than AJ.

As an aside... whatever "wellness policy" TNA has is obviously bullshit since their champion and now the face of their company loves the funny grass. I wish someone would twitter Dixie asking about employees smoking weed.

I like RVD as champion. I think he would face all comer from not only the Heavyweight division, but the X division as well.

yes the longest reigning tna champion makes him look really weak, also there is nothing wrong with smoking weed and i think tna management knows about their wrestlers smoking weed because look who the champion is and look what date it is.

This issue with "putting WWE talent over homegrown" is blown way out of proportion IMO. Whichever way you look at it RVD is a TNA talent. They'd be crazy not to use him in full capacity. He is over, can still go in the ring, etc.

It's the like the reverse of people moaning that "Vince is using _______ right cos he made his name outside of WWE".

As for an over-crowded Title scene, Angle is taking time off, Sting-Jarrett don't seem to be involved in the title picture. Nor does Morgan.

If anything the title picture looks more like RVD, Jeff Hardy, AJ, Pope and probably now Joe and Anderson. With the likes of Sting, Jarrett, Flair, Abyss and 2 of those previously mentioned working ME programmes away from the belt.

That looks pretty good to me - if a little light on homegrown talent.

I think the situation with Raw was a major catalyst for TNA putting out these "PPV quality matches" and switching the title.

LOL. Longest reigning champ in TNA. Woo! I should probably preface that last comment... his reign as heel under Hogan and Bischoff was a terrible stretch where he went from putting on amazing matches against Angle to putting over shit like Abyss and Hardy. When has the heavyweight champion ever gone through a stretch like that? As a face he was good.

yeah putting over shit former champions makes him look oh so weak.

if anything i would consider RVD an ECW guy

Calling AJ's reign weak is pretty accurate in my opinion. Doesn't matter how long the reign lasted if you continually look weak throughout.

Kinda like the situation with the IC/US belts in WWE. They don't change hands very often but they seem to be forgotten about for long periods which devalues them just as much - if not more - that quick title switches.

Semantics. It still boils down to the same "problem".

well he is a heel, heels almost always look week as champs who cheat to win.

Fair point.

HHH's Heel Stints were amazing in that he was a super-heel. King of Kings and all that.

he was the cool heel like stone cold was, an he maried the bosses kid

RVD in no way should have won the title shouldve changed hands at the ppv

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Last night was a great night for TNA. They had three three quality matches and a nice title change.

People will bitch about everything, as is evidence by the above thread. Rob Van Dam in a quality compitent wrestler that went over a cowardly heel to with the richest prize in TNA.

AJ's reign may be "weak" but it was "weak" in the way the JBL's title reign was "weak." He played the cowardly heel to the best of his ability and tried his best to make you want him to lose. Just because a champion is "weak" doesn't mean he's bad. Besides AJ's credibility was well established earlier on in his reign by going over Sting, Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, and Kurt Angle clean. Then he turned heel and he relied on Ric Flair's help too much, Tenay and Taz talked about that during his defense against The Pope.

TNA has sooo many problems, why can they be given credit where credit is due?

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The only thing I have a problem with RVD being champ. Good god that's awful.

Fuck me, you really are a dumb shit aren't you?

would you care to elaborate?

His reign wasn't necessarily weak until this Abyss shit started. From September-February he put on consistently good matches, and when he was heel he started cheating. He'd only been doing that for about a month or so, and even when he didn't it didn't necessarily make him look weak, it's just a heel move. However the last month or two of his reign made him look very weak.

I wanted to check out RVD's haircut that makes him "weird and old" so I typed RVD TNA and this is what I found:

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WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? That's his debut? A 7 second match against Sting? Then Hogan gets hit with a bat? Fuck, every once in a while when I see some TNA video I appreciate WWE so much.

The problem is, I didn't want AJ to lose. I wasn't even being a smark about it, I just didn't feel like RVD was really that good of a person (aka, he wasn't face enough) and I didn't feel that AJ was that bad a person (he wasn't heel enough).

We're supposed to emphasize with the hero, watch him fight and feel like he actually is overcoming an obstacle that could have potentially stopped him in his tracks. I didn't get that feeling. Rob Van Dam is and always has been great in the ring but, rarely did he ever come off as someone I'd feel sympathy for or relate to. He's a pot-head jock who happens to succeed at nearly everything he does. He's Mr. Perfect on THC.

Jeff Hardy, despite his lack of talent on the mic', has shown an innate ability in the ring to make me care when he misses a move, care when he gets hurt and even care when he loses. While RVD dickishly celebrated I actually felt for Jeff Hardy as he lay there. I cared.

AJ had everything to lose in that match and nothing to gain, he wasn't the aggressor, he didn't initiate the match, he didn't even make me hate him. After all this time with Ric Flair it's funny that he didn't learn how to be hated.

Aside from Flair, you know who was an awesome heel who I nearly despised (his character of course). Triple H. When he consistently destroyed Mick Foley in match after match and did his best to retire the guy, at that point my idol, I really felt like he had something to gain in his matches. Every match I watched I really wanted him to lose and I was disappointed to see him win and not only win but win fairly.

AJ busted his ass to give us a great match but, you know what? I had no reason to root against him. I didn't care either way who won.

That's a great summary.

I think AJ's title reign ran into trouble when he started being Mini-Flair. There was no need to go that route - with the copying of promo style, character, etc. Really undermined AJ as a character in my eyes.