The Mercy Side: Thoughts on TNA Final Resolution and WWE Raw

Hey everyone,

I just thought I'd quickly run through my thoughts on the latest TNA Pay-Per-View and WWE's Monday Night Raw.
 
On the whole, Final Resolution was exactly what TNA is in general at the moment, a mixed bag of good, bad, and awful. The tag team matches were well received, and the Knockouts feud was also good. That's the good. The bad was the constant fuck-ups mid-broadcast - the PPV started a few minutes late. The hell? This is the biggest night of the month for the company and they screw the production up. There were blackouts, some parts had just sound, they put some videos or segments up early or late, it was a complete disaster. Abyss/Pope and Jarrett/Joe were pretty bad too, as expected.

And then the awful. Jeff Hardy. Now there have been conflicting reports to what happened on Sunday night. It doesn't matter what the truth is, if he was drunk, if he was high, if he was wasted, or if he was tired. Was he off his tits, or exhausted due to a ridiculous travel schedule? As I said it doesn't matter, it shouldn't have happened.

If he was high or drunk, get rid of him. If he has to take drugs, drink, fine, what people do in their personal lives is up to them. I don't condone drug taking but if TNA want to turn a blind eye that's fine. But if it affects work, then that's where the line is crossed. If I turned up to work drugged up and out of it, they'd sack me. It should apply anywhere, you are a professional. Yes, this is the wrestling biz, but it's also a national and a semi international product, that is watched in many different countries. Jeff Hardy is not only a role model to many people, especially children, but is the champion. He's the main man. He is booked to get asses into seats. If he is drugged up, he's simply, not going to perform. It makes him look really bad. It will make TNA look even worse. So as much as he's money, he's a big "superstar", he will be the cause of them losing money if they continue to let him get away with it.

But the more recent report is that it was all blown out of proportion, and that Jeff Hardy has been all over the world, promoting and performing. Now, if that's the case, that's TNA's fault. Final Resolution is the main night of the month, it's PPV night. All the month's work builds up to that one night. If they exhaust their champion to death before the main night, they're not going to get 100% out of him. He should be relaxing the day before, doing his usual work out, preparing for the night. Not travelling on planes and promoting TNA. It makes me laugh in a way, TNA's schedule is nothing on WWE's, they don't promote anywhere near as much as WWE wrestlers do. Jeff should know, he spent most of his career there. I don't know if TNA worked him too hard or if he isn't dealing with it well enough. Something needs to change, if there's nothing wrong with the schedule, and he can't deal with it, he's not fit for champion. John Cena is the most popular guy with casual fans in WWE, yet he backs it up by busting his ass day after day, year after year. That's one of the main reasons he has been champion so many times for so many days. WWE trust him with their product, if it's too much for Jeff Hardy he shouldn't carry the burden.
 
Now that's out of the way, I'd like to talk about Raw last night. It sounded okay, they didn't do anything mind blowing. CM Punk is really getting used to his new commentary role. I love his "my soda!" lines he keeps saying when the wrestlers get close to the announce table, or put someone through it. It's fantastic.
 
The Michael Cole angle sounded good as well, I just hope that he is going to be an official heel now, it's just frustrating when he praises some faces, it's not good for the casual fans who see Cole like some bad guys and some good guys. He needs to be consistent. I think Michael Cole may need to develop a heel manager persona down the line, his heat is fantastic right now. I wouldn't say The Miz, he can talk for England (I mean US, sorry), but maybe Alex Riley on his own, or with a stable. Cole, Riley and some one else, or a tag team. It might work.

The Orton/Miz stuff is working so far, not that I'm excited about their PPV match. It should be an okay match, but I don't think they'll have anything close to a match of the year standard match. But The Miz can talk, and Orton is over enough for there to be interest, mainly with the casual fans who want Orton to take The Miz out for his cocky chicken-shit heel approach.

Sheamus/Morrison is carrying on it seems. That's fine, maybe Triple H isn't quite ready yet. Sheamus should go over in their next match, and then Trips come back and beat him up. I want Morrison to go over personally, I'm a decent fan of his and think he deserves a break. But for storyline purposes it makes sense for Sheamus to go out of the feud looking strong so people can debate, can he actually beat Triple H? It's been close to a year now, since they first started their feud. Time flies.

That's it from me today. I should do these type of posts once in a while, it really depends on time, and if what happened in the week interests me. I'm not going to do any play-by-play or any reports, there's enough guys out there to do that. But if you want my views on wrestling, you know where to go.
 
Tomorrow I'll start my Top 50 Greatest Wrestling Catchphrases list. I'll post from #50 to #26 tomorrow. I hope you enjoy that. Have a good night.

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