10 ways to save tna wrestling

by Julian Revolver Ocelot Cannon

1. Bring Back the Six-Sided Ring – Although I wasn’t a huge fan of this particular ring, it certainly set TNA apart from other wrestling promotions, specifically WWE. If the company were to bring this back, I think company loyalists would be happy and new fans might try the product because it looks different.

2. Close The Over 50’s Club – PERMANENTLY! – As big a Hulkamaniac as I am, this company employ far too many on screen senior citizens. Sting, Ric Flair, Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan together take up far too much TV time and unfortunately no longer add anything to the product. Sting deserves credit for constantly trying to help the younger talent but since TNA will always treat these older stars as superior, the only way for the promotion to move forward is for this team of legends to leave the sport and let the tradition live on with younger wrestlers.

3. Book Kurt Angle as a Part Time Special Attraction – It’s no secret that over the past few years, Kurt Angle has been pretty banged up and has started to look a shell of his former self, looking almost gaunt. In order to maximise the matches Angle has with his injuries and age, it only makes sense that Angle be used sporadically throughout the year in semi to main event matches to help the younger talent and utilise the Olympic Gold Medalist in the best way possible at this stage of his career.

4. Send Garrett Bischoff back to College – I have nothing against Garrett and truth be told, he’s not completely awful on the mic. WWE managed to strike gold with Shane McMahon ten years ago who was decent in the ring and able to handle upper mid card to main event feuds with stars like The Rock and Steve Austin on a regular basis. Unfortunately, Garrett doesn’t have that spark we saw from Shane. It will take a lot more than Hogan’s ‘blessing’ for fans to accept him. Simple fact is Garrett hasn’t paid his dues and doesn’t deserve his spot, something the fans will not forget. So with all due respect TNA lets focus on building someone who can sell PPVs for the company and not an Exec’s son.

5. Don’t book former WWE Talent as Superiors to TNA Veterans – Far too many times have we seen TNA bring in former WWE stars like Nash, Nasty Boys, Val Venis, RVD and they are booked to be better than the roster because they used to wrestle in WWE. It makes no sense. TNA have some great talent from AJ and Samoa Joe to MCMG and Bobby Roode. The sad reality is these guys are booked as being inferior to the former Stamford alumni and this is an area TNA really has to look at, if it plans to grow the brand.

6. Get Behind a Main Event Babyface and Stick With It -As flawed as WCW was in the day and WWE is now, there’s always a clear hero that is fighting for the company in the main events. In WWE it’s John Cena, in WCW it was Sting then Goldberg. TNA have…….well nobody. Jeff Hardy isn’t booked as a main eventer even though he should and they’ve killed off any buzz that Styles or Joe have ever had. TNA need to pick a guy whether it’s Storm, Anderson, Hardy, Joe….whoever it is and stick to it. TNA needs a hero and it’s not Hulk Hogan.

7. Take Impact Wrestling AWAY from Universal Studios – I know TNA struck a deal where they can pack the Impact Zone every week and be guaranteed a full house because they’re in a theme park, but frankly it’s impossible in 2012, to gauge how a fanbase feels about angles when you record in a theme park where instead of going on the Indian Jones ride they stumble into wrestling and just cheer and boo what they want. Obviously there are hardcore TNA fans at the shows but overall a change of scenery would do the product the world of good. What TNA need to realise is they can’t fill out 10,000 seater arenas. So why not play up to that and go and do Impact in smaller arenas where rabid fans can come to the shows and you can make a unique product for the literally, millions of wrestling fans who don’t watch or go to WWE shows. There’s a huge market out there for wrestling, TNA just has to go out into the US and find it.

8. Make the deal with Paul Heyman and give him FULL creative control. – It’s widely known that Paul Heyman came close to signing with the Nashville group on the condition that he had full creative control and he planned to only keep one legend on the roster. Dixie Carter’s figurative monumental erection for Hogan and Flair stopped this from becoming a reality. The fact is she made a mistake. Heyman’s downfall was as a businessman, never in creativity. So the chance for him to be in charge of creative and have none of the business dealings fall on his head would be a great fit.

9. Cut back to 5 Pay Per Views a Year – Although the pay per view model can be very successful in wrestling, based on the findings that of the 1 million people that watch Impact only 8,000 people buy their pay per view events, it’s clearly not a profitable venture for TNA. But there’s no reason they have to stick to one pay per view a month. For this group to get successful, they could build great rivalries over 2-3 months and then make fans fork out their money to see the match.

10. No More Reunions, No More WWE Has Beens – TNA has to look forward not backwards. We don’t want them to re-create Hogan/Sting or 90’s ECW. From now on, the company should brand themselves on being the future of pro wrestling. They’ve proven with their rankings system and open fight night that when they put their mind to it, they can be original. When WWE releases talent, TNA shouldn’t automatically sign them. Only sign wrestlers if they’re worth the price tag and could make a positive change to your product.

I hope you’ve found this column as enjoyable as I found writing it. If TNA implemented even half these changes, I truly believe their show would be much better and they’d be on the road to becoming a long term, successful promotion. We can only hope……

Operation Retroshock: An interview with Larry Kenney

An interview with Larry Kenney on Operation Retroshock

 

Hello Everyone and Welcome to a very special but simple edition of Operation Retroshock!

It is special for two reasons, the First being that the guys are Interviewing the Legendary voice of Lion-O, Mr. Larry Kenney! The Second and most important is that its Allan’s Birthday Show! Ok we are only kidding about it being the more important! But there was no better way to mark Allan’s Birthday Show than to speak to such an amazing man.

So sit back enjoy the interview and also find out just who won the competition! Plus there is the launch of a new competition!

 

Follow Vint on Twitter @Vinto316

What the Shell:Alien Turtles Talk – News update

Hey dudes and dudettes welcome to another edition of What the Shell!
In this episode, Dylan Cook leads the way as the rest of the shell gang (Chris Vint, Suine Hallock and Mike Lacey) discuss the rest of the news from the internet concerning the latest Teenage Mutant……sorry i meant the Ninja Turtles film that Michael Bay has his hand in.

We go over what Michael Bay said to the world about the Ninja Turtles, the creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird as well as a few others. There is also breaking news concerning Dontatello!  This is not to be missed!
Follow the shows twitter feed @TMNTShell, Chris is @Vinto316, Dylan @happymonkeyshoe, Mike is @mlacey91 and Suine is @Suine_Hallock.  there is the facebook page which is www.facebook.com/tmntclassics.

After more Turtle related stuff?  Check out co-host Suine Hallock talking Turtles comics with the fantastic Ryan Porter by clicking here – http://popculturenetwork.com/article.php?story=20120401164826885 or it is available on Itunes, just search for Popculturenetwork.com and the title is Radical Corner of Turtle Comic Talk.  You can also check out Suines amazing TMNT reviews by heading to www.radicalretro.com!
Stay tuned for the David Wise interview, heading your way very soon!

 

The Walking Dead – A new day Xbox arcade review

by Chris Vint

So what do Jurassic Park, Back to the Future and now The Walking Dead have in common? They all now have a video game thanks to Telltale games. This is the first episode and I’ve just finished it.  At the very start, like mass effect, your decisions determine the outcome of the game.

I am not familiar with the Walking Dead comics or the television program. I’ve heard people talk about it and this game is a fine introduction to the product.

We meet Lee who is in the back of a police car being escorted to prison. This is where we see the dialogue interface for the game. Every button has a sentence beside it and down the bottom is a timer.  At some stages, silence is an option too. When you say something to a character, they may remember it or appreciate your loyalty. For instance, I gave Clementine an energy bar and it came up the top left that “Clementine will remember you looking after her”

The voice acting in this is superb and it almost feels like you are watching an animated version of the show.  There is 7 stages within this episode and in some, there are difficult decisions to be made,

I don’t want to go into too much of the game as there are several characters you meet along the way. It’s a very enjoyable game and I thank Rob Base for passing along this code for me to sample this.

2 hours or so would be the length of the game and it’s available on the Xbox marketplace, playstation network and steam for the pc.

If you were a fan of Broken Sword, monkey island or Sam and max, you will truly love this game and the rich surroundings of it.

9/10 rating – looking forward to the next episode of this.

 

Follow Chris Vint on Twitter @Vinto316

Masters of the Universe Chronicles – The Final episode?

Hey guys your eyes aren’t playing tricks. The Chronicles feed is unable to host any new episodes at the moment so this was the best way to bring you a new and possibly last Chronicles ever episode.

I was joined by Brandon and Manny from the terrific ThundercatsNow podcast (follow them on twitter @thundercatsnow) as we discuss our favourite figures from the line as well as the problems we have had in dealing with Digital River and ordering from Mattycollector.com.

Search for the Thundercatsnow podcast on Itunes and leave the great guys (and gal, Celesta) a great review as they deserve it!

Follow myself on twitter, @Vinto316, Operation Retroshock @retroshock316, Allan Price @AllanGWPrice and lastly the Wrestleshock host Mike – @mlacey91

For what may be the last time, thanks for all the Masters of the Universe Chronicles support and to all the people who came on as a guest. Until next time…perhaps

Operation Retroshock # 8

Welcome to an extremely Radical Episode of Operation Retroshock as Allan and Chris are joined by R2T3’s own Suine Hallock! The guys chat about Resident Evil 1-4, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Metal Gear Solid where for once we hear Chris give off instead of Allan! Makes a change don’t ya think? Why though? one word, Raiden! Finally they speak about the memorable Mario Kart games, asking just why does Yoshi’s Kart have two speeds? Faaaast and waaaay too Faaaaaast! You’ll get it when you listen!

Also the guys have a Historic Guest Announcement to make for Episode 8 and trust us you will be dying to hear it! So go on get listening and Enjoy Episode 7 of Operation Retroshock!

 

 

 

Follow Vint on Twitter @Vinto316