I’ve been watching TNA/iMPACT since I was a little kid and my friend introduced me to wrestling. Probably the first episode I’ve ever seen is the one where Abyss slams Brother Runt’s forehead into a pile of thumbtacks, instantly sold. Little me couldn’t shut up about it for weeks.
I stopped watching iMPACT because they’ve devolved into a shell of their former self with all the talent leaving and the new roster is more WWE-like. Never liked WWE because of their lack of creativity. Their roster seems to consist of “muscular man really wants championship”-type cookie cutter personas and I haven’t heared of any interesting storyline that wasn’t [insert character] turned heel and betrayed [championship contestant] at Smackdown.
AEW seems like its worth giving a go. I actually liked some of the things TNA has done through the years such as mixed tag-team matches where the women convincingly beat the men and they weren’t weird about it. ODB carrying Eric Young around and “protecting her man”. Christopher Daniels walking down the ramp like a bond villain wearing a scarf and drinking an appletini. And probably most of all, the X-Division where the original Mexican Lucha Libre style wrestling was much more promoted than anywhere else.
If AEW can scratch the itch for womens wrestling and wacky storylines I’ll likely stick around. Especially interested in seeing how they position their trans wrestlers as that seems to be a hot topic in sports in the United States right now. I tend to get bored of the macho nonsense quite quickly (which explains my love for the X-Division, back in the day).
God yes, losing Punk is one of the best things that could have happened to them.
It just really sucks that Kenny is out right after he got back from all those surgeries. I’m dying to see him and Kota finally reform the Golden Lovers.
Yeah, they’ve been turning out much better shows since they canned Punk. Still would love to see the women’s division get more focus, but I have been wanting that for years.
Just read up on his separation from AEW since I don’t know the guy at all. Seems like a very annoying person to deal with. The wrestling world sure has its fair share of drama but those involved tend to be professional (in the sense that you keep your personal views from interfering with your profession).
Yet the industry keeps making the mistake of allowing aspects from the personal lives of the performers to mix with the storytelling. And it has never lead to anything good. (The whole Kurt Angle/Jeff Jarett debacle comes to mind)
Impact/TNA are weird. Their overall track record is thoroughly mediocre, but their women’s division is really well regarded and apparently tends to be booked really well.
The frustrating thing with AEW is that their overall quality level is fantastic… Probably the best the business has ever been, but there’s a noticeable lag with the women’s wrestling. Which doesn’t mean their women’s wrestling is bad; the division is fantastic, full of absolute standouts like Kris Statlander, Jamie Hayter, Hikaru Shida, Saraya (AKA Paige; yes, that Paige!), Athena (formerly Ember Moon), Julia Hart, and Dr Britt Baker DMD (who is, and I am not making a word of this up, a literal actual dentist who runs a dental practice as her day job, wrestles in her free time, and held the AEW women’s world championship for over a year because she’s just that good). And their booking isn’t terrible, it just feels like it gets less attention than the men’s side of things.
AEW is, in my opinion, the best wrestling product in the world. Even with my criticisms of their women’s booking (which has, to be fair, been slowly but steadily improving), it’s still well worth watching.
(edit to add: on the question of how they position their trans wrestlers, the main one is Nyla, who they’ve always booked really strong. She was a little too green for the booking they were giving her early on - she was their second ever Women’s World Champ - which is why she’s settled more into the mid card these days, but she consistently gets booked as a monster heel who people have reason to be afraid of. And to be clear, the fact that she’s a heel is never connected to her being trans. It’s just because her character is a total dick. Nyla the performer clearly has an absolute blast playing heel. The other one was Sonny Kiss who just never quite connected with audiences despite AEW making frequent attempts to push them. Sonny was always treated seriously, never as a joke. Their nickname was “The Concrete Rose” and commentary always put over how tough and resilient they were. But they just didn’t click with a mainstream American audience in a way that was ever going to get them out of the lower rungs)
They have had their fair share of bad decisions and behind the scenes controversies. Though probably not all the hate they get is justified.
I tend to look past the mediocre stuff because most of it is born from milking the same storyline past its due date. Aces & Eights comes to mind, and all of the EC3 stuff. Loved the concepts, they just took way too long to resolve, which kinda drains the energy.
Ultimately it’s the small moments and unique twists that I’ll remember fondly, such as Roode terrorizing Sting to the point where he took out his Insane Icon gimmick. Jay Lethal impersonating Rick Flair, the Joseph Park Esq. arc, Austin Aries bluffing his way into ‘option C’ for a shot at the heavyweight title, the introduction of The Rising during the Beatdown Clan time with the amazing speech by Eli Drake. All moments that were amazing within their context.
But my absolute favourite arc was when they brought in Taryn Terrell as a referee after Gail Kim discovered you can just seduce the male referees to win. Which escalated into one of the best feuds I have ever seen.
Great to hear that trans wrestlers are taken seriously. Really curious to see them in action now. Might look up some matches.
Nyla’s second match with Riho is excellent. Their first outing was weak, chemistry didn’t click, but second go round they put on an absolute banger. Riho has a really strong sense of ring psychology and their David & Goliath dynamic works well.
Honestly, I fell off of TNA when they brought Hogan and Bischoff in and they changed everything about the place. I’ve tried to get back into it several times since, and never quite managed.
And definitely, there are more prominent trans wrestlers now than pretty much ever. Nyla Rose is probably the most well-known one, but there’s also Gisele Shaw in TNA, Kidd Bandit and Edith Surreal have been indie standouts, and VENY has been making waves in Japan (and has also done a handful of AEW appearances). There’s a semi-regular series of indie events called Effy’s Big Gay Brunch that features an all-LGBTQ+ roster that’s well worth checking out; you can stream them online.
Oh yeah, Hogan and Bischoff definitely did more harm than good. I remeber getting so tired of the Bischoff stuff that I would just not watch it anymore.
Best decision they’ve made was to bring in Sting to replace Hogan and we got a new Main Event Mafia and an awesome feud with Roode as a result.
Thanks for the suggestions by the way, definitely interested to see how the wrestling world is becoming more inclusive. I feel like it might still take some time to adapt, though we have been watching shiny muscular men in tight speedos for years now which is arguably more gay than watching someone talented doing what they do best and they just happen to be queer.
Interesting, I might give AEW a shot then.
I’ve been watching TNA/iMPACT since I was a little kid and my friend introduced me to wrestling. Probably the first episode I’ve ever seen is the one where Abyss slams Brother Runt’s forehead into a pile of thumbtacks, instantly sold. Little me couldn’t shut up about it for weeks.
I stopped watching iMPACT because they’ve devolved into a shell of their former self with all the talent leaving and the new roster is more WWE-like. Never liked WWE because of their lack of creativity. Their roster seems to consist of “muscular man really wants championship”-type cookie cutter personas and I haven’t heared of any interesting storyline that wasn’t [insert character] turned heel and betrayed [championship contestant] at Smackdown.
AEW seems like its worth giving a go. I actually liked some of the things TNA has done through the years such as mixed tag-team matches where the women convincingly beat the men and they weren’t weird about it. ODB carrying Eric Young around and “protecting her man”. Christopher Daniels walking down the ramp like a bond villain wearing a scarf and drinking an appletini. And probably most of all, the X-Division where the original Mexican Lucha Libre style wrestling was much more promoted than anywhere else.
If AEW can scratch the itch for womens wrestling and wacky storylines I’ll likely stick around. Especially interested in seeing how they position their trans wrestlers as that seems to be a hot topic in sports in the United States right now. I tend to get bored of the macho nonsense quite quickly (which explains my love for the X-Division, back in the day).
it’s the best time since they just dumped cm punk and it’s so much better ❤️
God yes, losing Punk is one of the best things that could have happened to them.
It just really sucks that Kenny is out right after he got back from all those surgeries. I’m dying to see him and Kota finally reform the Golden Lovers.
Yeah, they’ve been turning out much better shows since they canned Punk. Still would love to see the women’s division get more focus, but I have been wanting that for years.
Just read up on his separation from AEW since I don’t know the guy at all. Seems like a very annoying person to deal with. The wrestling world sure has its fair share of drama but those involved tend to be professional (in the sense that you keep your personal views from interfering with your profession).
Yet the industry keeps making the mistake of allowing aspects from the personal lives of the performers to mix with the storytelling. And it has never lead to anything good. (The whole Kurt Angle/Jeff Jarett debacle comes to mind)
Impact/TNA are weird. Their overall track record is thoroughly mediocre, but their women’s division is really well regarded and apparently tends to be booked really well.
The frustrating thing with AEW is that their overall quality level is fantastic… Probably the best the business has ever been, but there’s a noticeable lag with the women’s wrestling. Which doesn’t mean their women’s wrestling is bad; the division is fantastic, full of absolute standouts like Kris Statlander, Jamie Hayter, Hikaru Shida, Saraya (AKA Paige; yes, that Paige!), Athena (formerly Ember Moon), Julia Hart, and Dr Britt Baker DMD (who is, and I am not making a word of this up, a literal actual dentist who runs a dental practice as her day job, wrestles in her free time, and held the AEW women’s world championship for over a year because she’s just that good). And their booking isn’t terrible, it just feels like it gets less attention than the men’s side of things.
AEW is, in my opinion, the best wrestling product in the world. Even with my criticisms of their women’s booking (which has, to be fair, been slowly but steadily improving), it’s still well worth watching.
(edit to add: on the question of how they position their trans wrestlers, the main one is Nyla, who they’ve always booked really strong. She was a little too green for the booking they were giving her early on - she was their second ever Women’s World Champ - which is why she’s settled more into the mid card these days, but she consistently gets booked as a monster heel who people have reason to be afraid of. And to be clear, the fact that she’s a heel is never connected to her being trans. It’s just because her character is a total dick. Nyla the performer clearly has an absolute blast playing heel. The other one was Sonny Kiss who just never quite connected with audiences despite AEW making frequent attempts to push them. Sonny was always treated seriously, never as a joke. Their nickname was “The Concrete Rose” and commentary always put over how tough and resilient they were. But they just didn’t click with a mainstream American audience in a way that was ever going to get them out of the lower rungs)
They have had their fair share of bad decisions and behind the scenes controversies. Though probably not all the hate they get is justified.
I tend to look past the mediocre stuff because most of it is born from milking the same storyline past its due date. Aces & Eights comes to mind, and all of the EC3 stuff. Loved the concepts, they just took way too long to resolve, which kinda drains the energy.
Ultimately it’s the small moments and unique twists that I’ll remember fondly, such as Roode terrorizing Sting to the point where he took out his Insane Icon gimmick. Jay Lethal impersonating Rick Flair, the Joseph Park Esq. arc, Austin Aries bluffing his way into ‘option C’ for a shot at the heavyweight title, the introduction of The Rising during the Beatdown Clan time with the amazing speech by Eli Drake. All moments that were amazing within their context.
But my absolute favourite arc was when they brought in Taryn Terrell as a referee after Gail Kim discovered you can just seduce the male referees to win. Which escalated into one of the best feuds I have ever seen.
Great to hear that trans wrestlers are taken seriously. Really curious to see them in action now. Might look up some matches.
Nyla’s second match with Riho is excellent. Their first outing was weak, chemistry didn’t click, but second go round they put on an absolute banger. Riho has a really strong sense of ring psychology and their David & Goliath dynamic works well.
Honestly, I fell off of TNA when they brought Hogan and Bischoff in and they changed everything about the place. I’ve tried to get back into it several times since, and never quite managed.
And definitely, there are more prominent trans wrestlers now than pretty much ever. Nyla Rose is probably the most well-known one, but there’s also Gisele Shaw in TNA, Kidd Bandit and Edith Surreal have been indie standouts, and VENY has been making waves in Japan (and has also done a handful of AEW appearances). There’s a semi-regular series of indie events called Effy’s Big Gay Brunch that features an all-LGBTQ+ roster that’s well worth checking out; you can stream them online.
Oh yeah, Hogan and Bischoff definitely did more harm than good. I remeber getting so tired of the Bischoff stuff that I would just not watch it anymore.
Best decision they’ve made was to bring in Sting to replace Hogan and we got a new Main Event Mafia and an awesome feud with Roode as a result.
Thanks for the suggestions by the way, definitely interested to see how the wrestling world is becoming more inclusive. I feel like it might still take some time to adapt, though we have been watching shiny muscular men in tight speedos for years now which is arguably more gay than watching someone talented doing what they do best and they just happen to be queer.