Pro Wrestling News: TNA Impact Live May Help TNA

On March 27th TNA aired its first ever live episode. It was fun and action packed and for once actually delivered on what TNA had promised. It was perhaps the most entertaining Impact episode since the show's inception.

The wrestling matches themselves were excellent. They started off with Alex Shelley vs. Johnny Devine, which lasted a good 9 minutes and had a clean finish. The match had good energy while it lasted and ended up with Devine picking up the win. The 6-man tag match later on was also good, and LAX has a lot of momentum and continues to show why they are the hottest tag team in wrestling today. The Kurt Angle sparring match with Tomko and A.J. Styles was surprisingly tolerable, in part because of the hardway cut that Tomko suffered, but also because it was simply well done. They're trying to mix the genres of MMA and pro wrestling, which could have been awful, but instead ended up quite watchable.

Booker T vs. Robert Roode was one of the best matches either of the two have put on since they've been in TNA. The match had good intensity and energy, though I didn't like the First Blood stipulation, they did well in working with what they had. The Women's Title match was also an excellent TV match, though it was kept short at 6 minutes, I imagine this being the case because Gail Kim was originally planned in that slot and I'm not sure if ODB had the chance to set up any spots before hand. Either way, it was a good TV match with another clean ending.

Finally, the main event happened. This was perhaps the second or third best wrestling match that we've ever seen on TNA Impact. It had yet another clean finish. All of the clean finishes on the show left me feeling satisfied as a fan. Hopefully this becomes the norm, though I know it won't. They'll spoil me one week with clean finishes only to go back to the old Vince Russo formula of cheap finishes and outside interference.

TNA didn't have that many difficulties putting on their live wrestling show, either. Sure, the audio went out a few times, but it was only for a few seconds and was tolerable for their first live television broadcast. Most of the lighting and audio effects were done well, and the fact that they didn't get to overproduce the show gave Impact a touch of realism that it usually lacks. It also made it easier on the eyes without camera angles constantly zipping this way and that.

The announcers were even better than usual. Mike Tenay and Don West, having to improvise live, toned it down a notch. Though Don West had a few lines here and there that made me cringe, for the most part I was able to tune out the announcers the entire show. Anyone ever think about replacing these guys with some younger people? That MMA guy TNA brought in did better than Tenay and West combined on commentary, what about him?

This show also had a more clear definition of face and heel. It's difficult as a wrestling fan if I don't know who I'm supposed to cheer for. It seems as though Vince Russo has set up a three-month revolving door for who is face, heel, and tweener with everyone playing musical chairs at each of TNA's major wrestling Pay-Per-Views. I don't know if this whole "Cross the Line" idea can work, with people portrayed in more of a realistic way where there are no truly good or evil characters. However if it adds a sense of realism to wrestling that has desperately been missing in the past decade, then I'm all for it.

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Pro Wrestling News: WWE Wrestlemania 24 XXIV Preview With Predictions

The pro wrestling industry is gearing up for the final show of its year long season. Wrestlemania XXIV will be live on PPV Sunday, March 30th at 7 PM EST. Now let's get to the matches!

ECW 24-man Battle Royal

This match recently got moved to the preshow and will be available for viewing on wwe.com at 6:30 PM EST. It features superstars from WWE Raw, Smackdown and ECW. I would say it would be an entertaining match if it weren't for the presence of beasts such as Great Khali and Big Daddy V. I'll say that Kane seems the most likely to win and go on to face Chavo Guerrero on the main Wrestlemania card for the ECW Title.

ECW Title Match - Chavo Guerrero (c) vs. Kane

The winner of the 24-man battle royal advances to this match, and we've already determined that will probably be Kane. WWE has a tradition of dropping all of their primary to titles to faces at Wrestlemania, but this one is tough to call. They may keep the title on Chavo in order to try and legitimize it, but in reality they've ran out of opposition for him on ECW, so I'm going to to with Kane storming in and winning the ECW Title from Chavo here to get the crowd off to a good start.

Money in the Bank Ladder Match - Mr. Kennedy vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. Chris Jericho vs. Carlito vs. MVP vs. CM Punk vs. John Morrison

Jeff Hardy was originally scheduled to be in this match, but is serving a 60-day suspension due to a Wellness Policy violation. This ladder match almost guarantees to be one of the top 3 wrestling matches of the night, and I wouldn't be entirely surprised if they decide to open the show with it. It's difficult to pick a prediction, though easy to pick my personal favorite (CM Punk). Assuming that Undertaker and John Cena will win the belts of their respective brands, they will each probably be kept busy with feuds coming off of Wrestlemania. This leaves the ECW Title in limbo, in which case Shelton Benjamin could pull up an upset win and go on to feud for that title. MVP could easily win and go on to feud with Undertaker for the Smackdown Title. However my official prediction here is Mr. Kennedy, as he's seemed set for a major push for quite some time now, yet it always seems to stop dead in its tracks for one reason or another soon after it starts. Again, this one is really hard to call. MVP and Shelton Benjamin are my 2nd and 3rd picks, respectively.

Bunny Mania - Ashley Massaro & Maria vs. Beth Phoenix & Melina

This wrestling match won't really have a lot of wrestling and will probably have at least one blown spot. Maria is in Playboy and they'll still be trying to hype that, but don't want to weaken their women's champion, so we'll say that Maria manages a pin on Melina after about 6 minutes.

Belfast Brawl - JBL vs. Finlay

This match won't exactly be a scientific wrestling bout, to say the least. One or both men will probably bleed, we'll see outside interference from Hornswoggle, but eventually JBL will pin Finlay after hitting him in the head with some sort of weapon. Finlay's miniature push will essentially come to an end.

Smackdown vs. Raw Match - Batista vs. Umaga

There is no way that they'll put Umaga over clean here, so Batista seems to be the winner if we have a clean finish. This match will probably be better than expected, as Umaga is better at wrestling than many give him credit for. Batista beats Umaga with an impressive Batista Bomb, ending up getting the first pick for Smackdown in an upcoming draft.

Career Threatening Match - Ric Flair vs. Shawn Michaels

This wrestling contest may very well steal the show. Flair will pull out everything he has learned in the past 40 years in this match, with several believable near falls, but eventually all things have to end, and Shawn Michaels will finally put Flair away with the Sweet Chin Music. Flair will get a standing ovation after the match that goes on forever, and possibly cut a memorable promo after the match.

The Big Show vs. Floyd Mayweather

This match is a lot of hype, but won't end up being a lot of substance. It'll end with the second most undersold chokeslam of all time, very likely in less than 10 minutes, with Big Show coming out on top.

WWE Title Match: Randy Orton (c) vs. John Cena vs. Triple H

This will be a very good 30 or 40 minute match, with all three competing with one another to try and steal the show. Randy Orton has made a convincing heel champion, but Cena only lost his belt due to his injury, so the title will come home. Don't expect to see Triple H do the job here. John Cena beats Randy Orton with the FU and goes on to feud with the money in the bank winner while Triple H and Orton work out their differences to determine the number one contender after Wrestlemania.

World Heavyweight Championship Match: Edge (c) vs. Undertaker

It's time to The Undertaker to finally get his long title run. He'll hold the title for probably 6-8 months or possibly even a year after he beats Edge, so it will be interesting to see if Smackdown gets any better. This match will probably be a very good 4 1/2 star match, with Undertaker showing that he still has some gas left in the tank.

And that's the end of my predictions for the final pro wrestling event of WWE's season, Wrestlemania! Check back soon for the latest in Pro Wrestling news, rumors and spoilers.

Pro Wrestling News: Why WWE Brand Split is a Failure

If you're looking for Pro Wrestling News, you've come to the right place.

In 1997, pro wrestling was flourishing. WCW and WWE (then the WWF), in hot competition on Monday nights, were both pulling amazing ratings with viewership in the millions each show they put on. They were selling PPV's. More importantly, it was captivating, entertaining television.

You could flip the TV back and forth between The Rock and Hulk Hogan on the same night, considered the two biggest pro wrestling draws of all time. You could watch Undertaker's Ministry at one moment, then flip over and watch the nWo storyline progress. Both organizations had remarkable depth of talent on their rosters and both had amazing storylines to back up their in-ring product.

Then things started to change. WCW started becoming less and less entertaining, the downward slide beginning with the infamous "fingerpoke of doom" in which Kevin Nash dropped the WCW Title to Hulk Hogan only a matter of seconds into the match when Hogan "poked" him with his index finger. Nash dropped to the canvas and was pinned. Fans felt ripped off. There was also an incident where Eric Bischoff spoiled the end of a taped Raw live on Nitro, telling everyone that Mick Foley would win the (then) WWF Title. Many switched over to watch Foley win the title, and that was the start of the WCW ratings decline.

WWE remained relatively entertaining simply due to the talent of its roster, including The Rock, Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, The Undertaker, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, and the list goes on and on. The booking was at times horrible (anyone remember Katie Vick?), however the product remained strong. WCW continued its slide and eventually collapsed to be bought out by WWE.

Then WWE ran the catastrophically awful Invasion angle, where WCW and ECW stars were feuding with WWE stars in an admittedly clever way to assimilate them into the roster. However many of the former WCW 'stars' were quickly demoted to jobber duty, such as Diamond Dallas Page and Scott Steiner. WWE was now without competition, but instead of the ratings going up, they went down.

Bad booking made for boring television, and many former ECW and WCW fans were upset to see their favorite wrestlers mistreated (I still feel that WWE could have used Raven much better than they ever did). I still watched WWE though, at the least for its great in-ring PPV wrestling. And for The Rock. That guy is just awesome.

The invasion angle died with a whimper, and the WWE introduced the Brand Split in April of 2002. Different stars would be exclusively featured on each of their two shows, Raw and Smackdown. At this time they had just absorbed the WCW and ECW rosters, so this worked well for a while to add intrigue and make storylines more interesting. Lesser stars would get more time on their individual brand because there wasn't a top card traveling from show to show.

However today, the WWE roster is fractured. No more Rock, no more Steve Austin. The WWE only has perhaps 10 wrestlers that you could reliably put a World Title on, whereas they may have had 30 or even 40 back in 2002. They just don't have as many entertaining wrestlers any more, and their roster is spread far too thin between three brands. I tend to watch Raw for Jeff Hardy, Chris Jericho, and to extents Mr. Kennedy and Santino. I don't watch Smackdown right now, it just isn't good enough. I don't want to see Vicki Guerrero. I don't want to see Mark Henry. I don't want to see Big Daddy V. The only redeeming qualities of Smackdown are Edge, Rey Mysterio, Undertaker and MVP, but they aren't enough to make me want to stay in on Friday nights.

Collapse the three brands into one unified roster. Unify the IC/United States Title, The WWE/World Tag Titles, and the World/WWE/ECW Titles. Get all of your talent on all three shows - whether or not they want to work Tuesdays.

You know, I'd probably watch Smackdown for Hardy and Jericho.

Thanks for reading my Pro Wrestling blog.

Pro Wrestling's End of the Season; Wrestlemania

If you're looking for Pro Wrestling news, you've come to the right place.

Wrestlemania is right around the corner. We're coming up on a huge weekend in Orlando, with TNA, ROH, and of course the WWE all putting on shows.

TNA iMPACT! goes live for the first time on Thursday, and it should be interesting to see how it goes. I pray that they have issues with the commentator microphones, as Mike Tenay and Don West frustrate me on a weekly basis because they never stop talking. TNA is hoping to score big ratings on their first live iMPACT! on the back of a returning Sting as well as a Women's Title match where Awesome Kong will defend the title against an opponent chosen by the fans on their website at tnawrestling.com, where fans will vote for theirchoice during the broadcast, similar to WWE's 'Cyber Sunday' and 'Taboo Tuesday' flop interactive PPV's. The rest of this week's iMPACT! looks lackluster at best from what they've announced so far - when will TNA realize that you need to provide quality wrestling as well as intrigue in order to pop ratings?

As for Ring of Honor, they'll be in Orlando for 2 shows on March 28th and 29th, offering solid looking cards including Nigel McGuinness vs. Austin Aries and several excellent Japanese import stars. Tickets start at $20 and are available at rohwrestling.com.

WWE is of course 'tuning up the band', so to speak, as their season winds itself to a close. Wrestlemania is less than a week away and it looks to be a very solid show. The 7-man Money in the Bank match (sans a suspended Jeff Hardy) could very well be the show stealer as in years past, although the Shawn Michaels-Ric Flair retirement match will certainly be emotional, as in all likelihood it will be the Nature Boy's final match. I would rather personally see Triple H win the WWE Title than John Cena in the triple threat main event, though that's just personal preference, and if I had to make a prediction I'd imagine John Cena will win it as it seems he only dropped it due to that pesky pec tear. There's no way that they're ending Undertaker's 'Mania streak, so it looks like we have face champions on both brands emerging out of the show to end all shows. JBL-Finlay will probably be kept short, 10 or 15 minutes at best, and while it may be entertaining I don't imagine we'll be seeing that great of a wrestling match from these two. The women's match will be good for what it's good for. Big Show-Mayweather could be one of two things - very bad, or very ugly. It'll be very bad if it's your traditional 'celebrity' match where there isn't much action due to the celebrity not knowing how to work. Or it could be very ugly - and this I would find amusing - if Show decides to stiff Mayweather. It would be funny if he decided to throw a stiff blow or two and Show doesn't seem to be in a position to lose anything for doing so. At the least, it's the more interesting of the two options, though for all the hype I must say I'm not looking forward to Show-Mayweather.

All in all, it looks like we have a good, solid action-packed weekend ahead of us in pro wrestling, and I'll continue to be here to give you a rundown and keep you up on all the news, rumors and latest spoilers.

Thanks for visiting my Pro Wrestling blog.

Welcome to Pro Wrestling News Daily!

Welcome to Pro Wrestling News Daily! I'll try to keep this as updated as possible every day with the latest news, rumors and spoilers from the pro wrestling industry, as well as my own commentary. This will include coverage on TNA, WWE, ECW, and ROH. If you have any questions or comments please either comment here to e-mail adamfoxblogger@gmail.com