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PWINSIDER Q&A: TNA ON SPIKE, ARMANDO ALEJANDRO ESTRADA, SPIRIT SQUAD AND MORE

Answered on 12/22

I'm watching Impact on Spike, it's 9:54. For the Main Event tonight they have AJ, Joe, Rhino, and Angle all in one right, they did entrances at 9:50 and have a commercial break. My question is do you think that TNA will ever be able to run a match of the year quality match in an Impact taping if they keep the program an hour long, or do you think fitting all the story line into an hour time slot inhibits their ability to put on match of the year candidates?

Given the way TNA Impact has been booked in recent weeks, I highly doubt you'll see any Match Of The Year candidates on the show.  TNA has become a very fast paced "Crash TV" type of show, with very short (some would say ridiculously short) matches and quick jumps from segment to segment. Now, that isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as the shows convince people to plunk down $30 every month to order the PPV events where you can see long matches. 

Why does TNA have so many heel-face tweeners right now? For example…

Is Kurt Angle a face or a heel? He is acting like a heel in his feud with Samoa Joe (beating up announcers, women, etc) but is acting as a foil to a heel Christian Cage in the latest TNA tapings.

Is Samoa Joe a face or a heel? He started off as a heel in the Angle feud and quickly changed to be more a face. Now he is in a tag team match with AJ Styles (while Angle is teamed with a babyface Rhino).

Is Abyss a face or a heel? He is starting to drift from heel manager James Mitchell and be supported by babyface Sting. However, he has been a heel in TNA for years and was clearly a heel when he beat Sting for the NWA World Title.

Is Jerry Lynn a face or a heel? He is trying to put the heel Chris Sabin in his place, but is also building a confrontation with babyface Christopher Daniels.

Is Ms. Brooks a face or a heel? Her dalliances with Eric Young and the constant beratement she receives from Robert Roode paint her as a face, yet she still tries to interfere in Roode’s matches to help him win.

Is AJ Styles a face or a heel? He never had a true heel turn, he just started feuding with Rhino and acting heelish.

Welcome to Vince Russo booking.  Actually, I can't say it is definitely his influence, but he was always a fan of having characters that weren't "black and white" in terms of being heels or faces.  Joe and Angle are perfect examples of characters that could be seen as heels or faces, depending on which aspect of their persona you look at.  Lynn I would say is more of a face, while Brooks and Styles are heels. 

What is Armando Alejandro Estrada’s background? Has he wrestled in the past or is he just a manager. Did he come from OVW? If so, what name did he use there?

Estrada came up from OVW, where he used the name Osama Alejandro Rodriquez and wrestled there.  Obviously, WWE saw more in his promo skills and decided to cast him as a manager, pairing him with Umaga.

Where will the rest of the Spirit Squad end up? Any chance we will still get to see the Kenny vs. Johnny feud that was being set up?

Well, they were shipped off in a case to OVW.  Seriously, that is probably where they will end up, until WWE Creative comes up with new characters for them.  Obviously, Kenny and Johnny are remaining on Raw, and while Kenny had been given TV time (and a last name), Johnny appeared to only be on Raw this past week to fill a slot in the battle royale, so it remains to be seen if WWE will revisit that storyline and give us a match between the former Spirit Squad members. 

When talking about wrestlers who only wrestled as a heel or face the name always brought up is Ricky Steamboat as he never wrestled as a heel. My question is did Tito Santana ever wrestle as a heel. I only know him as a babyface.

Unless Santana worked as a heel during his early days in the NWA and AWA, I don't believe he ever did.  He certainly was never a heel during his big WWF run in the 80's and 90's. 

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