It's the Final DELETION!!!!!!!

This past week, TNA Impact Wrestling regained my attention. I'll admit I'm always on the fence with them. They'll have a story line going on between wrestlers that seems interesting, and then it goes nowhere.

Or I'll catch a match of a particular wrestler, and the company actually starts to go with him, giving them a new star, and they just squander it *cough*Magnus*cough*.

But now they've done it again, and in the most brilliantly, weird way I might add. I'm talking about the Broken Matt/Brother Nero fued, that all culminated with The Final Deletion.

When this thing started, I'll be honest, I thought to myself: "What the hell is this?". What I'm talking about is the Jeff Hardy/Matt Hardy contract signing for Slammiversary. Plainly put, it seemed stupid. But you know what it did? It got to tune back into Impact Wrestling a few more weeks, and I've seen this asinine character Matt Hardy has come up with. This "Broken Matt" character. It's so odd, that it's actually entertaining. And that's saying a lot, because I've actually never been that big of a Matt Hardy fan.

But this... this... THING. This Broken Matt/Brother Nero feud they've put on, it combines the best parts of the weird world of wrestling with those movies that are are so strange, that they're good. It's home video MEETS found footage movies MEETS the crazy concepts you'd think up when you're playing outside with your friends when you were five years old MEETS those old school crazy wrestling matches. You know the ones; like the Pig Pen Match, or the Kiss My Foot match between Jerry Lawler and Bret Hart, or the Scaffolding Match between the Midnight Express and the Rock N Roll Express.

Don't take my word for it, check it out for yourself. TNA has put The Final Deletion on youtube in all it's hilariously awesome, super-weird glory!


It's insane, right!? But insane in a good way. Insane in the way that (at least to me) says, check us out over here. We aren't doing that same exact thing as everyone else, and that in itself is a good thing. It's different. And what's even better, from a business point-of-view, is that the match helped TNA score their largest ratings in over a year, and it's highest ever since debuting on PopTV, at 410,000.

It'll be interesting to see where they go from here and if they can keep up the momentum, at least ratings wise.

On a side note, here's EC3's reaction to Final Deletion, which was pretty much mine. Did you see Final Deletion? What'd you think?

Slammiverary: The PPV with no consequences

Impact Live just aired and it was actually a pretty good show. The past few weeks, the shows been working pretty well. Bram (who I'm a big fan of) has been calling out past TNA wrestlers, the Doll House, led by Taryn Terrell, has been putting together some good stuff, and the Wolves versus the Dirty Heels have been really entertaining in the Best of Five series. And then there's Ethan Carter, who is really building up momentum, as he's getting ready to face Kurt Angle. Plus, James Storm and Magnus has put together a story line that's become really personal. All of these angles could and should lead up to some great payoffs for the Slammiversary pay-per-view. But most of them won't.

It's weird. Why have a PPV where some of the biggest matches you could have, won't happen until the next week on TV? The first thought that comes to mind is the WCW fiasco where all they cared about was ratings, and instead of building up the Goldberg/Hulk Hogan match for the world championship at the Georgia Dome to something huge, they pack the stadium full for a big rating, not taking advantage of the pay-per-view possibilities.

The only Slammiversary match of any consequence is the Magnus/James Storm match. It could be so much bigger than they've promoted it also, but it's kind of just left on the back burner for TNA. It's a shame too, because it has gotten very personal, and could be a very emotional match. It kinda reminds me of the Stone Cold/Brian Pillman feud in the 90's.

But what about the X-Division championship? The title was just won this week on the live Impact show (a match in which Grado lost in a three-way with Low Ki and Tigre Uno. I thought TNA could have capitalized on the Grado following that's been going on, but that's a topic for another post). No type of X-Division match on the card, let alone the champion defending the title.

What about the World Title match? The number one contender, Ethan Carter is in a tag match with Tyrus versus Mr. Anderson and Lashley. Um, okay. So on TNA's first pay-per-view in eight months, they don't even have the world championship up for grabs? Kurt Angle isn't even booked on the card, unless they pull a fast one and have him in the King of the Mountain match.

And speaking of King of the Mountain match, they get Jeff Jarrett to make a surprise appearance on Impact which got everyone on the internet talking. He comes out, and half the time talks about Global Force Wrestling. Good on him, because it's his new promotion, but that can't be good for the TNA brand. But Jarrett comes out and announces he will be in the King of the Mountain match. That's kind of cool, but who else is in it? I don't know.

And what could be a great Knockouts Championship triple-threat match of Awesome Kong, Brooke and Taryn Terrell, is going to be on network television while at Slammiversary, it's Kong and Broke versus Terrell, Jade, and Marti Bell. It could be a good match, but why not defend the Knockouts title? Again, I don't know.

There are no championship matches on the line. The tag titles, knockouts title and the world championship are all going to be fought over three days AFTER the pay-per-view on television. Why? It doesn't make sense.

The only thing I can think of is that, TNA wants ratings. Again, it reminds me of WCW. Look, ratings are good for any show, wrestling or otherwise. But as far as I know, wrestling shows are different than normal tv shows. Wrestling shows build up to a big pay-off show, where the storylines come to a boil. It's what so many of us wrestling fans want! At this point, I don't have any real reason to buy the pay-per-view myself, other than to watch the King of the Mountain match. That alone is not enough for me to shell out extra money for a wrestling show. I may just wait to watch Impact Wrestling three days later on tv and get what should be a pay-per-view quality type show for free.

WWE's Next Competitor

The title of this post may be a tad misleading. World Wrestling Entertainment is on the stock market. It's a multi-million dollar company. What company out there could possibly rival the machine that is WWE. Well none of them individually. But all together? That could be a different story.

WWE hasn't been rivaled in ratings or any other way since the Monday Night Wars with WCW. But since that company has shut down, no other single company has been able to put on a product with the budget and spectacle of WWE.

For a moment, TNA looked like it might start to come close, especially when a number of WWE stars went over there, including Booker T, Jeff Hardy, Hulk Hogan, The Dudley's, Sting, just to name a few. But for whatever reason, and there are numerous websites out there that talk about such, they've never been able to break the barrier in fan growth.

But in 2014 the landscape started to change. Towards the end of January, the day after the 2014 Royal Rumble, CM Punk, arguably the most popular wrestler in WWE, left the WWE. The whole ordeal was talking about in Colt Cabana's Art of Wrestling Podcast, but right when it happened, people didn't know what was going on.

Was it a work? Was Punk really gone? And if he was really gone, where was he going? He'd already mentioned ROH on WWE t.v. before, was he going there? Would he actually go over to TNA and wrestle there? New Japan Pro Wrestling? No one knew and everyone was speculating.

As more time passed in 2014, it would seem to everyone that CM Punk was done with wrestling, at least for the immediate future. But then another shake up.

In August of 2014, Alberto Del Rio was involved in an incident with a WWE employee and was subsequently fired from the company. Though it was reported that WWE had a non-compete clause in their contracts, lawyers for Del Rio contested that clause and he won. He was free to wrestle. At first he appeared on the Mexican promotion AAA, and then in December it was reported that Del Rio, now going by Alberto el Patron, would be wrestling for ROH in January of 2015.

So in 2014 we had two rather large shake-ups, with CM Punk and Alberto Del Rio. But that's not all. Both TNA and WWE decided to release or not renew contracts with a number of wrestlers. Coming from a large group of released WWE wrestlers was Curt Hawkins, Drew McIntrye, Brodus Clay, and Evan Bourne, as well as others.

In TNA, A.J. Styles, Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian, Chris Sabin, and others did not have their contracts renewed with the company.

So now, throughout 2014 we have all these great wrestling talents out on the market. They've all continued to wrestler on the independent scene, and also Clay has now signed with TNA going by the name Tyrus. But that's not it.

Along with an abundant of free agent talents on the market, not only do we have WWE, TNA and ROH, but New Japan Pro Wrestling was beginning to be highly promoted through Jeff Jarrett's new promotion GFW (Global Force Wrestling). AND, a new player came to the t.v. screen in the form of Lucha Underground. Though debuting on a small network, El Rey, in October, fans and wrestlers alike have been giving the promotion high praise. There's also Tommy Dreamer's House of Hardcore, which isn't really a weekly or monthly promotion, but putting on great wrestling shows every few months.

Finally, there is the plethora of "indy" talents already making names for themselves with small independent wrestling promotions like Adam Cole, The Youngbucks, Chris Hero, Ricochet (who wrestlers as Prince Puma in Lucha Underground), reDRagon (the tag team of Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish) and others.

So what does this all mean? An abundance of talent not only in TNA and WWE, but performing on independent shows, as well as wrestling promotions like NJPW, ROH, and Lucha Underground reaching a wider audience. Professional wrestlers out there, can perform in front of crowds today, some larger than others, and if they didn't make to to WWE or just don't want to go to WWE, they don't have to, and can still make a living. That's why some of the talents like TNA, the schedule isn't as grueling.

The title of this post is "WWE's Next Competitor" and the next big competitor is the market itself. Because if a fan doesn't like what's going on in WWE, they can check out TNA. Or ROH. Or NJPW. Or Lucha Underground. There are so many options out there now, including some great independent promotions not on t.v. So WWE, at least in my opinion, needs to put out a great product. Because over time, if they just put out middle of the road entertainment, fans can tune in to other products. Will the fall-off be like that of the nineties, and make a company rival WWE? Probably not, but the fall-off wouldn't be good for business, no pun intended.

But it's not just the fans with options. The wrestlers have options now too. I don"t know the pay scale for wrestlers, but if you're a top talent in WWE, there probably isn't another company out there that can rival their pay. I'm talking main event wrestlers, at every pay per view. But not everyone can be that, for one reason or another. But you can go out and be a free agent, wrestling for other promotions, and make a living. And if you're good, you can make a good living.

So WWE's next competitor isn't just one promotion, but all the great promotions putting on good shows right now as a whole. There are lots of other options out there for professional wrestlers, and they don't HAVE to stay in WWE. Sure, WWE is the desired destination for many wrestlers, because it's the show. If you play football, you're goal isn't to play in the Canadian Football League or the Arena Football Leaugue, but the NFL. That's just the way it is. WWE is the big show. But the other shows out there are an actual option for wrestlers now, to not only perform and entertain the fans, but make a living as well.

It's a good time to be a wrestling fan.