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I've never been a fan of how Joe was used for the latter end of his TNA career, but deep down, I'd say they even bungled the Angle feud. Imagine if Joe had choked out Angle that first match? Think about what THAT would have meant for the future. As I wrote about in my column yesterday, Joe and TNA both suffer for the sins of the past regimes. TNA has to find their own way out. Joe was able to use the exit door.
Should WWE sign Samoa Joe to a deal, have him run in Sunday, cost Bryan the match, play up the Samoan connection between Joe and Reigns (since all Samoans must be related in WWE), then have Brian/Joe at Mania? The fans would be satiated enough by that match that they wouldn't crap all over Reigns/Lesnar and they would have an instant top heel in Joe.
Should WWE sign Joe to a deal? I personally love that idea. What I would really like to see is WWE sign Joe quietly and then have him working on dropping a little bit of weight and getting any lingering injury issues taken care of before debuting him. I don't think rushing him onto a PPV would be a great idea as I honestly don't think the lion's share of the casual WWE audience would know who he is. I do love the idea of Joe debuting and choking people out every week as WWE builds his own character there. Time will tell.
Question about the WWE "Reality" era. Why? Maybe I'm a bit old school, but WWE was so much more interesting when they had an influx of characters who were on TV. Part of the attraction to WWE during the attitude era was seeing characters you don't see on the street every day. For example, The Undertaker and Kane character, yes, we all know that this is fake. But the way Paul Bearer told the story and even Undertaker at times choking up when talking about Kane, in normal clothes, that's the type of stuff that draws a mass audience to wrestling. It's not just about wrestling purists ala Daniel Bryan. Pro Wrestling is half sports half theatre. Now I get the audience has "smartenned" up, but, they were always "smart". Even back in the Attitude era. Now, While I like what they're doing with NXT and it has been a treat, but to me, it exposes the business. Imagine back in 97 if they had the Taker-Kane storyline going, and they had Smoky Mountain Wrestling on a syndicated network. They take the only guy who is 6'10, 326 pounds off of the syndicated show and debut him as Kane. Everyone would know who he is and what he looked like. When they took Kane off as Isaac Yankem, there was a good amount of time between then and Kane's debut for him to grow out his hair, dye it black, etc, so that when he debuted, nobody really knew what he looked like. Watching Triple H's recent comments on the Network about fans getting too smart, seems like an easy way out of having to hide secrets and just have a bunch of wrestlers go out there with generic names and generic attire and wrestle. Also his 3 hour RAW comment, how it's so hard to book a 3 hour show. I have an idea. Look to WCW Nitro 97-98, bring back the Cruiserweight Division, Every week, bring a name in from Japan, or Mexico, have them get a chance. Worked well for WCW during those years.
You bring up a good point about having wrestling matches just for the sake of having good matches underneath, which WCW did well during the Nitro presentation. I don't think the company is being lazy at trying to hide things and create a good product. I think they are overworked and have far too much content to create in a given week. Sooner or later, that is going to wear down on you, no matter who you are.
Also, what is with the WWE having to have "one" top guy? Why don't they realize that part of the lure of the AE is that they had SEVERAL top guys who could've been champion at any given moment. You never knew what what would happen. If I was them, I would fill the top spots with atleast 6-7 guys. Roman Reigns, Daniel Bryan, Seth Rollins, Dolph Ziggler (after his Survivor Series performance, there's no reason he shouldn't be a main eventer), Cesaro, and Bray Wyatt. The 7th spot I would give to a giant, as back in the AE era, WWE had 2 giants in Taker Kane, while WCW had Nash, Big Show and Sid at times. Baron Corbin seems to be showing great potential to fill that role. Give the belt to RR at WM, have Bryan and Ziggler go at it for the No. 1 contender's spot, have Cesaro face Orton and beat him, and Wyatt has a close call with Taker but after the match, Wyatt puts Taker in a casket w help from Harper and Rowan, and buries him, etc. Why is this is hard for the WWE nowadays?
It all comes down to Vince McMahon and whether he sees someone is a top guy. The audience obviously wants to see Daniel Bryan and Dolph Ziggler in those spots but if Vince doesn't want to give it his blessing, it's not going to happen. It all bubbles up to him and comes down from him.
Is it true Mike Johnson was banned from TNA following Russo-gate?
That would be the first I've heard of this, and I've been at TNA tapings in NYC since that story took place, including backstage discussions with different TNA executives, including Dixie Carter, so obviously, not true.
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