News: TNA releases several stars

In the past few days, TNA Wrestling have released several notable talents from their contracts and allowed others to lapse, with no intention of renewal.

Names include Joey Ryan, Crimson, Christian York, Madison Rayne and Taeler Hendrix.

This comes amid worrying rumours that TNA have fallen several weeks behind on payroll and their working relationship with OVW is troubled at best.

Clem's Take: A bout of releases in quick succession definitely lends itself toward confirming the money troubles. With a handful of top tier talent drawing gigantic paychecks for relatively little activity, I can't help but think TNA are coming at this problem from the wrong end of the roster. Rather than cut up and comers who weren't costing much anyway, eliminate their main problem - Hulk Hogan. Rumoured to rake in as much as $75,000 for every appearance, he's being paid a small fortune to bumble through promo after promo. He hasn't popped the ratings one bit and after three years, TNA have reaped all the benefits they're ever going to get. Cut Hogan from one show and you could pay Joey Ryan for an entire year. I know which option I'd prefer.

Getting to Know: TNA Knockout Taeler Hendrix

Trash Talking: Gut Check

written by Rob Poulloin (@Robbie_G_CH)

Since 2004, 'Gut Check' has been apart of TNA. Starting off as a tryout program, the process has now evolved into what we see on Impact Wrestling once a month. But now that TNA's landscape has changed due to the shift in Pay-Per-View lineup, where does it leave Gut Check and in what format?

Gut Check started as a one off competition, with various categories testing the competitors. The winners were rewarded with a cash prize and an appearance on TNA programming. After a few years of development, the process moved into the seminar format, where independent wrestlers pay for a place on the course, to be put through their paces and show off their skills in front of TNA representatives, such as D'Lo Brown and Jeremy Borash.

Crimson was spotted through Gut Check
(photo by Lee South)

This process benefits both parties, as it allows TNA to witness the ability of new wrestlers, whilst also creating extra income. As for the independent wrestlers, they are in front of people who could make their dreams come true and sign them to either a developmental deal or even a full time contract. As beneficial as the seminars are, I can't help but feel that they are exploiting the wrestlers, as the company should be looking to sign the best and should be using their own resources to find those talented enough. Looking at the wrestlers to make it to Impact thus far; Crimson and Jesse Sorensen; would suggest that going out and watching other shows would be a better way of talent spotting. 

From April 2012, Gut Check has appeared once a month on the 'Open Fight Night' episode of Impact Wrestling. This is usually the second show after a pay-per-view, giving the opportunity of a contract to unsigned wrestlers, who would show their skills in a match against a roster member and then be judged the following week by Bruce Prichard, Al Snow and Taz (replacing Ric Flair). The segment of Gut Check seems completely unrelated to the seminar side beside the name. The talent picked for television have either previously been in TNA's developmental territory Ohio Valley Wrestling (Alex Silva and Taeler Hendrix) or independent stars who could have easily been given a contract without the segment (Sam Shaw and Christian York). The process being used as an angle multiple times, firstly to create hype around Joey Ryan, who was unsuccessful in his bid to win a contract and took to Youtube to protest and 'invading' multiple wrestling shows; and more recently, to add Wes Brisco to the roster, despite being seen as a masked member of Aces and Eights for months before his 'tryout'.

Joey Ryan failed in his Gut Check Challenge
(photo by Lee South) 

Officially, six out of the nine wrestlers to 'tryout' for a contract have been successful, with Ryan being the seventh as he had to fight for his contract in a match against Al Snow at Bound For Glory. Out of the seven only Joey Ryan, Christian York and Wes Brisco have been seen on Impact Wrestling on a regular basis with the others being sent to OVW to improve their skills, so it questions the need to have them taking up valuable television time where full time roster members can go without a match in months.

TNA will always need to be on the look out for the next stars to keep their product fresh but Gut Check doesn't seem to be the way to do it considering the best additions to the roster in recent history have been Austin Aries and Kenny King who have both come from Ring Of Honor. Comparing TNA's new recruits to those that WWE are assembling in NXT there is no competition, WWE are signing talent who are ready to go and have proved themselves as the biggest names on the Indy circuit, the likes of PAC (Adrian Neville) who has been Dragons Gate and New Japan, former ROH wrestlers including World Champion Tyler Black (Shield member Seth Rollins), Tag Team Champions Claudio Castagnoli (Antonio Cesaro) Chris Hero (Kassius Ohno) & El Generico; these wrestlers will not only be future stars but help improve the 'home grown' talent with their experience. 

With the wealth of talent currently on the Indy circuit TNA should be looking to those as the future of the business, Crimson was given a monster push on television whilst being relatively green where he wasn't actually ready for it where as someone who has proved themselves, Austin Aries, took the ball and become TNA World Heavyweight Champion within a year of debuting. 

Davey Richards is one of wrestlings
great unsigned acts

I have nothing against Gut Check or OVW but the future of WWE currently looks a lot brighter with wrestlers that TNA most likely overlooked who will also pass on their knowledge and experience. With TNA looking to move up to the next level they need to build a strong undercard; as the roster is starting to look a little top heavy; and rebuild the tag and X-Division who have gone unnoticed for far too long. Names like Adam Cole and Davey Richards would do this much better than Jessie Godderz and Devon. 

Gut Check will continue to hold seminars and recently launched an online voting process of former participants, but this has been suspended due to voting issues. The future of the televised version is unknown as OFN has not been apart of Impact since the January 17th show. I would much rather see TNA make more of a competition out of the process with a separate program in a style akin to UFC's Ultimate Fighter and early series of NXT which would allow the wrestlers to gain TV exposure whilst not taking away time on Impact. This would allow for a winner to be crowned and a deal offered but would be less frequent than the current process meaning that the roster and viewers wouldn't be flooded with a string of new names.  

I hope that TNA keeps Gut Check in one form or another but the seminars should be invitational rather than at the cost of the attendee, the cream of the crop can should then be moved up to the next level, either to be offered a developmental deal on the spot or entered into a separate television show. This would weed out those who are not yet ready for the big time and would mean fans can enjoy the best wrestling from the top to the bottom of the show.

Trash Talking: 03/07/12

Going into July and the Destination X event TNA can hold there head up high, despite ratings not showing it the quality of product has been top notch most of the time with some great matches, promos and invasions. 

TNA has done a great job transforming the product in recent months, mainly since Vince Russo has parted ways with the company, for the most part the product feels fresh, this may just be down to the Bound for Glory Series and the X Division Championship tournaments but at the minute the stupid angles seem to have been cut down.

Claire Lynch clogging up TV time 

Unfortunately the amount of good on show highlights the bad, the main culprit being the 'affair' angle between AJ and Dixie Carter, which has been just awful from the start. Daniels and AJ have enough between them to make us want to watch their matches, even if we have seen the pair match up on numerous occasions, but this has been a big fail and a reminder that soap opera remains within the wrestling business.

Another reminder of this is Madison Rayne crushing on a mystery wrestler which is just dragging the Knockouts back into Diva territory by taking away the strong independence the division is known for, there is nothing wrong with pairing wrestlers up, just look at EY and ODB, but don't reduce a former KO Champion to a giggling teenager. 

Joseph Park's character still remains to entertain, but we all know he is Abyss and the sooner this reveal is made the better, hopefully the challenge laid down to Bully Ray on Impact (28/06) will bring about the end of this angle and match where Park's reveals the secret we all know. As much as Abyss has done in TNA the business seems to be at a point where supernatural situations and parts unknown are not needed any more, with more realistic characters such as Aries and Roode taking president which leaves the Abyss character looking dated and more of a throwback to the early TNA years, hopefully the coming weeks will blur old and new although has the damage been done with two separate characters already?

Security? 

Sting remains off air since his beat down on Impact (14/06) by three masked men, although just a tool to take The Icon off TV for a while and get him out of the feud with Roode we are still left with the fact three guys jumped the barriers and no one came to the rescue, no security stopped these men and not one of the wrestlers praising Sting for being the first inductee to the HOF cared that he was being taken out!

The Bound For Glory series is under way and is more structured than last year, whilst annoying that some of the matches have been over in a matter of minutes in typical television matches its good to see random matches that actually matter. Samoa Joe is making up for his poor outing last year with a number of submission victories with the crowd behind, a match with Kurt Angle taking us back to 2007 is on the Destination X card which is making the event a must watch.

Ryan gets in Taz's face

Gut Check continues and is very hit and miss, it is a good way of getting new talent on TV but seen as Alex Silva hasn't actually appeared on Impact since is it worth while? Silva and Taeler Hendrix have both wrestled previously in OVW so were likely on there way to having a shot on Impact at some point anyway.

The highlight of Gut Check so far has been Joey Ryan, since getting turned down in May he has started posting videos on YouTube against TNA and on Impact (28/06) invaded the Gut Check segment holding up a sign saying '87% of people can't be wrong' in reference to the percentage of people who voted for him to get a contract. This work has been the biggest talking point so far and hopefully will launch Ryan who could be this years Austin Aries.

high flying X Division action

With Aries trading in his X Division title for a shot at the Heavyweight Championship the mad scramble to become his replacement has started with independent wrestlers taking part to qualify for a tournament taking place at Destination X. Doug Williams, Kid Kash and Zema Ion get automatic spots in the first round as they are the only people left in the X Division following last years reboot and hopefully Mark Haskins may make an appearance as he to is still on the books. 'The original playa from the Himalaya' Sanjay Dutt returned after three years to book his spot at the ppv as did Rashad Cameron (Sabian). The matches on display on Impact showed the X Division style off and the crowd were lapping it up, it's just a shame that most of these wrestlers such as the losing pair of Rubix (Jigsaw) and Mason Andrews (Scorpio Sky) will likely not be seen in the division again, much like last years fan favourite Jack Evans; if TNA wants the X Division to be a weekly talking point again then these high flyers are the way to go! This week's Impact has some more qualifying matches to look forward to, although no one has been announced it's exciting to see who will come down to the ring!

Hulk Hogan said the TV Title was to be defended every week on Impact, Devon said he was a fighting champion, so where is it?

Finally, this week sees Angelina Love and Shannon Moore leave TNA, both have had great moments in their careers but have recently been given little opportunity to shine, we wish them best in their future endeavours.

Writer: @Robbie_G_CH
Photos by: Lee South and Impact Wrestling (@LeeSouthPhoto) (http://www.facebook.com/ImpactWrestling/photos)