I am glad this is happening with Kurt Angle. I have slowly been watching more and more TNA since it's on after the ultimate fighter, which I have been watching with a few friends for awhile. TNA really feels fresh in a way, fresh as in it feels like wcw in 1995, before it got extremely popular.

Finally though, something creating a little buzz around the wrestling world, us fans haven't had anything at all interesting happen in the last few years that I can recall.

Ahahahaha.

This is shock to me as well. I can't wait for it to go prime time, cause then I'd be able to watch it. TNA is going to rock for real now. With Charisma Cage(:P), Angle, and TNA's own original guys, they could be on the up and up.

I have to give credit to Vince though, he's using the right formulas to make his product more likeable, however...he's still a long way off from re-creating the attitude era. So far too many lame gimmicks, like that Japanese dude with the redneck/cowboy gimmick, wtf.

Alright, that speech just brought Kurt Angle more respect from me. It also gives me one more reason to watch TNA. Vince might be in trouble here.

Edit: Well looks like what the hell happened to Bischoff has been answered. This comes from the front page of WWE.com.

LOLOLOLOLOL DIVINE INTERVENTION STRIKES

NO LIGHTS NO LIGHTS NO LIGHTS

So great. So great. No tron, no nothing.

I say this is the best intro to Raw ..pretty much EVER! I blame it all on Kurt Angle.

Would it be too much of a dirty pun to be calling every match tonight a DARK MATCH?

lawl

EDIT: Haha spoke too soon. :P

It looks like they finally got things going, seriously though...even if the lights were ON that segement didn't make a damn bit of sense. I like how he John Cena tried to cover it up though...

Maybe Kurt Angle didn't leave WWE.

What makes you say that?

Well, he surely wouldn't leave without a goodbye present?

Well I'm buying his book if I see it at Barnes & Nobles. I wish he was allowed to finish what he was saying. Damnit I wanted Candice to win =(. Coachmen needs to stop while he's ahead, or he'll be the next one to get fired.

Haha, I see I see. He shows up and is like "Hey guys" and security just lets him pass so he ninjas the tron and lights and bails out.

Well, maybe not that way, but it's still wishful thinking. :P

Was it just me, or was Raw just absolutely horrible last night, seriously. Nothing happened to further ANY storylines. The only interesting thing that happened was when the power got blown out and we couldn't really see anything for the first 15 minutes.

I will be tuning into TNA to see how that all goes down, they have so much buzz surrounding them right now, I would not be surprised if Kurt Angle boosted their ratings by a few million.

Kurt Angle is a great wrestler, but he is not a huge draw like The Rock or Steve Austin were. TNA will probably see a slight increase in ratings, but nothing major(.5 of a rating tops). I think it would have been better if it was never announced, and they somehow kept it a secret and then on the day they went primetime, Kurt Angle just shows up on TV. That would create major buzz. It would be like "anything can happen in TNA" (which doesn't seem to apply to WWE anymore).

I'll definitely check it out myself though.

No it wasn't just you. More fueds by emoedge and lolcena made it sour for the most part. They could have did away with the end part of the show if you know what I mean(not talking about the thing with JR). It wasn't necessary.

When you really think about it though, The Rock and Steve Austin are top card entertainers. Kurt Angle is a top card professional wrestler. TNA thrives on bringing professional wrestling to the forefront, while WWE thrives on bringing the entertainment to the forefront.

Using this, it can easily be said that to TNA Kurt Angle is worth just as much as a Steve Austin or The Rock is to WWE. That makes it quite huge.

Kurt Angle is not worth as much as Steve Austin or The Rock to the respective brands, because Pro Wrestling is about "entertainment" first, wrestling second. I agree that Kurt Angle is a fantastic pro wrestling(one of the best of all time IMO), but he is not what you would call a "draw". He doesn't sell massive amounts of tickets, and draw huge rating based on people saying "I want to see Kurt Angle".

6, 7, 8 years ago, wrestling was at its prime, not because of the wrestling, but because the entertaining characters such as The Rock and Steve Austin, now that they are gone, ratings are HALF what they were, and have been that way consistantly for several years now, long before Kurt Angle left WWE and WWE ratings are the same now, since Angle left.

Kurt Angle going to TNA won't impact the ratings very much unfortunately, I am sure of that, it will need much more. If someone with the popularity of Steve Austin or The Rock 7 years ago defected to TNA, that is something what cause a huge growth for TNA. So you cannot honestly say that a Kurt Angle is as valuable as Steve Austin or The Rock to any of the companies, although I'd like to believe it, that's just not true.

LOL no.

Pro-Wrestling as and always will be about the wrestling first, and the storylines second. The storylines are only there for a single purpose, to build up the hype to the big time wrestling match. Without the match, there is no storyline. Without the storyline, there can still be good matches. When you try to do nothing but storylines, you end up with Kiss My Ass Club segments. Honestly, if you like seeing Vince's ass on television every other month more power to you man.

I don't think it takes much thinking to determine that "years ago" wrestling was popular because brands were competing to out do each other. Be it through the matches or the storylines, each brand put out arguably their best when it boiled down to either/or. Characters can be entertaining whether they're hitting high risk moves or talking trash on the mic.

The only reason WWE ratings are as they remain now is because there are still people clinging onto the hope that the WWE will break it's shitty rationale streak and deliver television quality the caliber of what it did in the past. Edge spearing women and a horribly executed three team gauntlet match (lol first match squash) isn't going to cut it. There are WWE marks out there, like yourself, that cling and hope. That's fine, you're entitled to that.

I can and I will say that Angle is that valuable to TNA. At a time when the business needs competition, a jump like this throws up red flags everywhere to other wrestlers that there's another game in town willing to take you and make you if you aren't getting pushed hard enough in the WWE. Potential stars that the WWE has left unpushed because they don't have the exact penis size Vince wants will be welcomed into TNA.

You have to understand that I am a pro-wrestling mark. I care about the industry, I look at the industry from the perspective of what will raise it all the way around. I don't need to repeat my former argument about how much Kurt means to TNA, especially once he's fully healed because the argument remains true. I'm not looking at potential growth for TNA, I'm looking at potential growth for the industry. Will TNA ratings rise because of Angle? That remains to be seen. Who else will now jump over to TNA? That remains to be seen.

Sorry, but I don't believe in the concept of "sports entertainment" at all, period.

He does not see "entertainment". He sees "wrestling".

Now my thoughts are that Angle is not an entertainer, he is a wrestler.

Going back to what Joey Styles said.. Vince has his employees called "superstars", not "wrestlers". This point is brought up several times in not only this thread by in WWE itself. That's a huge red light going off there.

I don't know about him being a seller like Rock and Austin, but Rock is pure WWE. Austin came from WCW which was more like 50/50 on entertainment/realism scale. Rock is like 80/20. True though, they brought in the ratings, so did Triple H back when DX was huge.

Got dammit Kostaki how you typed that big ass reply faster than my shitty tiny ass reply ; ;.

Hold it up there, buddy. I'm not a WWE mark. I'm not a TNA mark either. As a matter of fact, I barely even watch wrestling at all anymore. I used to be HUGE wrestling fan, but it began to become boring to me unfortunately. I'm not clinging to any hope of it getting back to the way it was in the past. I honestly don't about the past because I want something new for a change. The only thing I wish, is that I was a huge fan again. If anything, I'm actually rooting for TNA to pull though, and become the dominate brand, because hopefully something different and fresh will maybe revive my love for wrestling in general. In short, I have ZERO biased.

Anyway, for you to say that wrestling now, is about wrestling first, and entertain second, is crazy. Sure I would love it to be that way, but it's just not anymore. It hasn't been that way since the early 90s. When I'm talking about it being Entertainment first, Wrestling second, i'm talking about what is drawing people in to watch the shows and buy the tickets. When Steve Austin hit it big and rating soared, it was NOT because he was a great WRESTLER that everyone just had to see, it's because he was a great ENTERTAINER. It really had nothing to do with wrestling.

The WCW vs WWF battle that happened in '98-'00, was not a battle about who had better wrestlers because frankly almost all the main event guys at that time, flat out sucked in the ring. They were however great entertainers, and they were able to draw in new fans, that's why pro wrestling was so popular...

...leading back to my point, Kurt Angle will NOT make TNA a success, he will help a little bit, but it will need more than 1 new great wrestler. He will definitely provide great, entertaining matches, like he always has, but he is not a draw, so there is no way in hell that is as valuable to the business as Steve Austin or The Rock were. IMPOSSIBLE. Bottom line.

If you don't watch the products anymore, and you aren't clinging to any hope of anything ever improving, then I don't see where most of any of your claims have much merit. Even though you don't know many facts, I'll humor you.

The "Attitude" era of the WWF was about pushing the limits of television. Doing things that no one else had done. WCW vs. WWF did not happen in 1998-2000, WCW vs. WWF happened from 1996 to roughly the beginning of 1999. The Attitude era was the WWF's last bastion against WCW winning the ratings war for 80+ consecutive weeks. Without WCW, there would be no Attitude era. There would be no Steve Austin. He would still be the Ringmaster. There would be no The Rock. He would still be Rocky Maivia, underdog of Faarooq in the Nation of Domination.

I really don't need to spell this out again. Professional Wrestling is and always will be wrestling first, and storyline second. It's almost a complete insult to the careers of people who have built their careers from having the most memorable matches ever in countries all over the world to believe otherwise. Storylines exist only for a single purpose; to create momentum for the upcoming match. Nobody buys tickets to Wrestlemania to watch Vince McMahon run his mouth for 20-25 minutes. Nobody buys PPVs for $29-39 a piece to watch lingerie pillow fights. They buy them to skip all that and see good matches.

I don't even need to begin to tell you that storyline emphasis is the DRIVING REASON that the industry as a whole has declined hardcore over the past five years. It is, pure and simple. I like how you keep citing Steve Austin and The Rock though. You can't cite anyone presently though, can you?

lawl.

Oh yeah, another thing about Raw and not about Kurt Angle, when Eric came out to advertise his book, do you know if his microphone got shut off because of what he was saying about WWE or was it because it was supposed to be scripted for him to turn heel or whatnot?

You guys might be up to date with wrestling new, but I am not so much :(

Well, there was supposed to be a big announcement to shock WWE waves the first 10 minutes of Raw. The power went out (lol) and thus the announcement will probably be pushed back to next week. It's a pretty safe bet to say that Bischoff was part of that announcement. Probably returning to WWE in some form or fashion. I don't know 100% for certain, but when he was doing his speech, he put a pretty big emphasis on "There would be no D-X, without nWo" (which is true heh) so I'm kinda thinking the announcement was that Bischoff is bringing back the nWo to fued with D-X to set up another WCW vs WWE feud. Of course, this all speculation. Bischoff could very well be named GM once again. (Which would make me happy, really)