I'm just going to say it: I enjoy TNA
 

Their characterisation, anyway. I love the way each character on TNA feels like a real person, doing things not because they are a good guy or bad guy, but because it is who their character essentially is.

Take Desmond Wolfe: He's challenged The Pope to another match at Genesis. Why? Because he lost to him, and wants to prove he can beat him. Wolfe's character is hyper-competitive, and he may be a complete wanker, but you have to respect certain elements of the character.

Then there's Tomko. His reasons for attacking AJ Styles go back to 2007/2008, when he was teaming with AJ Styles. And you feel in Tomko's mind that he's doing it for reasons that are important and honest to him. Tomko's not a bad dude, neccessarily. He's angry and possessed by jealousy, sure; but you sense that his hurt at Styles betraying him his very real.

TNA has its problems -- no doubt; but I love their approach to things. It may seem like guys are turning each and every week, but it's really just the characters doing what they think is right. Sometimes they will step on a guy and be right; and sometimes they will do it and be wrong.

Does anyone else enjoy how fluid TNA's characters are?

tbh TNA is the only wrestling I actually go out of my way to watch. They've got a really good roster, and generally it's pretty entertaining.

I too like TNA a little bit more than WWE but I hate how everybody is soooo generic (can be said for both companies) and I hate TNA's obsession with run ins. Once that stupid 6 sided ring is gone it'll get a lot better.

I enjoy TNA, and like the majority of the stuff they do....... but then it seems that my love always gets knocked down a few pegs by shit booking by Russo, the return of old crap talent that no one wants to see again (e.g. The Nasty Boys) and the lack of TV time to those that they deem the future (example: How in the hell are Matt Morgan & Hernandez only given 3 minutes of TV time on a 3-hour special, especially if they are constantly deemed "the future" of TNA?)

I agree with some of this... i understand that the 3 hour special was all about the return of Hulk, but shit, for a company that is building on it's future stars, they did do a shit job of giving them any tv time...

Yeah, the characterization is good, which is a big factor in wrestling. As far as run-ins and use of older talent goes, well that's something they have deemed to be important for booking reasons. While it's true most of us here would say we don't care to see Hogan and company go over on the younger guys, they are after all the better known faces and therefore could gain a larger audience, in theory. That interview with Hogan where he talked about how people like him get all the publicity calls rather than the AJ Styles types of the company is completely true whether we like it or not.

I've always liked TNA, but much like WWE, it has it's fair share of good and bad.

I have far, far greater interest in TNA than WWE.

If you break it down:

Main-Event Division: TNA at the moment > WWE. Don't get me wrong, WWE has a lot more established stars at main-event level. But as for the World Title's. I'd definitely rather see guys like AJ, Angle, Joe, Daniels and so on than fucking Cena and Sheamus.

X-Division: Not what it once was, but is still exciting as fuck. Amazing Red is an incredible talent, the stuff these guys do is far better than anything seen in the WWE for years. Another TNA victory against WWE's lack of high-flying, fast-paced wrestling.

Tag-Division: I don't think anyone could even begin to argue that TNA's tag division is far superior to WWE's. Although more time should be given hyping the feuds and stuff.

Women's Division: Again, TNA's is far, farrr superior. Women's matches that are actually good, not even just bareable.

Storylines: This goes to WWE, but only just. BOTH companies run with shit storylines.

Characters: Much prefer TNA's characters, I like how there's a mixture of over the top characters (Jay Lethal, Suicide), as well as the characters who aren't over the top, but (forgive me for sounding like a 13yr old fanboy) but are cool as fuck (Nash, Pope, Morgan), as well as characters who are very similar to their own personalities (Styles, Foley, Angle). It's a really, great mix. I'd say their roster is easily superior to that of WWE's.

If you look at the young/still rising guys in both companies - you've got AJ, Joe, Daniels, Shelley, Sabin, Morgan, Hernandez, Pope, Amazing Red - suppose Hardy and Kennedy can be thrown in too. All of these are worth mentioning in TNA.

WWE - Bourne, Kofi, Orton, Morrison, Christian, Punk... who else? Miz is OK, Cena is Cena, Sheamus is shit and Jack Swagger is the most unlikeable wrestler I think I've ever seen.

Match-Quality - OK, so they fuck up more often than WWE, but so they should, TNA actually puts on wrestling matches. Not knock-down contests with the occasional slam. TNA's matches are far-more entertaining. No question.

Commentary - Tazz/Tenay are great. WWE commentary is horrible.

Crowds - TNA crowds are great (over-do some chants but still, at least there's passion). WWE crowds are horrible.

- The major downfalls to TNA is their, at times, unbelievable booking. The cage match DQ for example. Opening match on the biggest night in their history and they fuck up badly. You just think, how, HOW, could that happen?

Over-doing stuff is a problem too. The constant run-ins, and how there's a brawl every week which ends up with about 30 security blokes breaking it up. Gimmick matches - there's too many.

So for me, WWE is only superior to TNA in that it's entrance themes are better, the pyro's better, the storyline's are slightly better and make more sense. The only other thing that draws me to WWE is the nostalgic element I guess, more than that even, WWE's been there my whole life and there's a greater history and so on. But really, TNA is far, far better.

I think only perfectionists, over-the-top critics and people who are too attached to WWE can honestly say that they prefer WWE by a long way to TNA.

Well they did get a 1.3 rating for the Thursday TV taping following the live monday show, so they did well for the whole week. I agree they got a better roster for a PPV, but they dont know what to do with tv production!

Like I've said before, the one thing I enjoy greatly about TNA is the unpredictability of their matches. In WWE you know who is going to win nine times out of ten. In TNA, someone like The Pope can come out of nowhere and beat Desmond Wolfe. Then Desmond Wolfe can beat Samoa Joe, a guy who is in line for a world title shot.

I am not really sure that much unpredictability is necessarily a good thing, especially when their own roster needs the push to be deemed separate from the old wwf/wwe guys

Generation Me Vs MCMG's was fucking insane and better than anything on WWE TV

I saw that TNA got a 1.3 on Thursday, which is great. It's the best they've had on a Thursday in ages (poss ever?)

TNA makes me want to see what's going to happen next week, WWE makes me want to change the channel, I just can't sit through the show.

The reason I like TNA is, everyone has a purpose/direction, regardless of where they are on the card, which leads to PPV matches that I'm actually interested in seeing.

WWE puts too much focus on the main events, which involve the same people for the past 5 years, none of which I can say I will go out of my way to watch anymore, because of saturation.

Agreed.

exactly:y: TNA has better talent and characters they just need to realize how to utilize it correctly

Im curious how they handle G-ME.

Somehow I think they'll screw it up.

Actually its a good start for G-ME to have gone over the guns

I don't see them screwing up don't see how they can

WOW I am so pleased to see some TNA support on TPWW. This has always been a WWE heavy board (sure, mostly complaints) so this is a surprise. And for the first time in maybe forever I really agree with what everyone has said.

TNA is going to sucker punch WWE so hard, their going to think it's 1998 again.

Generation Me vs MCMG was excellence.

And yes the poor booking in the Terror Dome was atrocious.

i was here in 1999 posting as 6to1 you should have heard the wwf fans then on this board, they said the same things about non wwf. boo-hoo bunch of retreads

Some of these complaints are valid, but for arguement's sake:

* Vince Russo's booking has been quite good recently. Yeah, the guy still makes irrational decisions sometimes which ends up hurting guys. Samoa Joe is a bit lost at the moment, as are Daniels and even Abyss (although Abyss seems to be finding himself and Joe has a key to at any time with his briefcase).

* Truthfully, I feel that Scott D'Amore is getting more overwhelmed by booking right now. Does he still handle the Knockouts? It's like he can't decide whether he wants ODB or Tara to be champion. Make up your mind. Also, the whole Cody Deaner stuff last year? The Knockout Tag Team Title scene is a lot better, but is hurt by the fact that there are no credible tag teams that haven't lost to Kong/Hamada yet. Angelina Love returns, and goes AGAINST The Beautiful People, which I truly feel is a mistake.

* I'd prefer no Nasty Boys to good Nasty Boys, but what we've seen so far has not been the worst shit TNA could put forward. From Team 3D, anyway. Brian Knobbs is awful, but Brother Ray has gone out of his way to add passion to this feud. Ray is an asshole, and not someone you're likely to ever want to know, but he's a damn good promo and is working his ass off.

* Morgan & Hernandez DESTROYED Raven & Dr. Stevie. They didn't need 20-minutes to do that. They went in there, dominated, and went out. I guarantee that would have left an impression in some people's minds. They're also the #1 Contender's for the TNA World Tag Team Championship, and I am fairly certain that either them, or Hall & Nash, will be walking out of Genesis as the champs.

I don't see why they didn't just have Homicide win the Steel Asylum, and then feud with Jeff Hardy over the X-Division Title. I think it would have made sense, and would have added a pretty big match to the PPV.

well apparently they had to do the steel asylum DQ because no one could get out of it

I have given TNA multiple chances, and aside from James Storm they have yet to produce anything I care about.

They seemed to look like piss poor hardy clones AND they got a dumb tag name which seems only like a rip at WWE for DX.

NoRoolz's long ass post is pretty good. :y:

This was a big one for me. I stopped watching TNA for nearly a year and only started paying attention a few PPVs ago. It was kind of jarring to realize that in WWE, a lot of feuds are just series of matches without any real motivation. While it's debatable whether or not the motivation/purpose in the TNA storylines are good/bad/whatever, the fact that there's any at all makes a big difference to me.

Mike Tenay sucks ass.

Does this have anything to do with Sean Morley?

You are the first to bring him up in this thread.

Not really. I have enjoyed Morley in TNA so far. It's annoying how similar his character is to his WWE persona, but Morley has seemed like a natural performer in TNA.

TNA is doing so well, they will have to more than double their highest rating of all time (which they got on a 3-hour clusterfuck live show they hyped for 3 months) to compete with RAW. I do give props to TNA for destroying ECW and nipping at SmackDown!

TNA is ok, but everything seems like a clusterfuck (and not the good kind). TNA also looks so fucking cheap its hard to take seriously...I almost take it as seriously as the bipolar smarktards they give free tickets to who ruin any "moment" TNA might have. I have had very few moments in TNA since they started on FSN years ago that had me hooked.

The Harris/Storm feud that peaked with the Texas Deathmatch was one. I tuned in for DDPs return for Destination X a few years ago, but that ended up being a huge letdown. They have great talent, but most of the undercard has no psychology and its just so fast and no story being told other than "that looked cool". TNA is full of potential, but being Nitro 2010 won't cut it.

The main event is loaded and they have some of the best in world, but the storylines suck or too much of a clusterfuck to bother keeping up with.
The upper midcard is pretty solid right now with Pope, Wolfe, etc.
The tag team division is ok, but they are ADD with the teams sometimes.
The women's division is good.
Everybody else is just a clusterfuck trying to do a bunch of cool moves they saw in Japan in the span of 5 minutes.

Say what you will about TNA (and there is NO shortage of legit complaints to be filed against them) their devotion to character development in top notch. They have rarely, if ever, booked a wrestler to interact with another wrestler without mentioning their history with one another. When placing them side by side with WWE who assumes all their fans have amnesia after a 2 month span, TNA is wonderful. Tomko and AJ's history is the most recent example, but they don't book characters counter-intuitively.

And for what it's worth, I know many people complain that in TNA you can't tell who's a face and who's a heel. For my money, I like that. It allows the fans to decide who's in the right and who's in the wrong...and let's face it, most TNA fans are smarky anyway, so no matter who's face or heel their gonna cheer their favorite regardless, why not simply embrace it? You say; here's this character, he's not always gonna be perfect and he's not always gonna be evil. He's simply gonna behave in a manner that fits his character. You decide how to feel about that.

TNA has a long way to go, but in terms of having their characters be interesting, I think they're on the right track.

TOVO Fact: Tovo has begun wearing more suits recently. He likes the added confidence he feels while he looks his best.

Pope probably makes TNA worth watching alone

Yeah I still don't like TNA. Pretty bored through most of Genesis tonight, only really enjoyed Pope and the main event.

also the motor city machine guns are fantastic, but they seem misused still

Tovo, I have truly missed you. I agree with everything you said here. Even the suit part.

For example, I saw a lot of people shitting over AJ Styles' "heel turn" at Genesis. I haven't seen the "turn" yet, but reading what happened, I don't know if I would consider it a proper turn. You've got AJ Styles taking advantage of an opportunity to retain his title, and knocking off perhaps his greatest threat to the title for 2010. It doesn't neccessarily make him a "bad guy."

And yes, Pope is incredible.

I seriously think they shoud have 8 turnbuckles, but just 4 sides. That way you could have some dude ike alex sheley jump to each consective turnbuckle whilee grabbing some dudes head and shoving it into the pad right in front of the camera.

I wouldn't mind seeing TNA bust out some different rings as gimmicks and such. For example: I've always wanted to see cruiserweights/X-Division guys work with the War Games-style set-up. It'd be an elongated ring divided with some ropes along the middle.

Just read this weeks iMPACT! spoilers...Really doesn't sound good...at all.