Tdaddy's Thoughts of the Day for 11/17

Here's what I'm thinking:

WWE:

I was wrong about the MSG Raw being a letdown. The crowd was super into the action. Kofi had a breakout performance, and there was a star studded main event.

WWE seemed intent of reestablishing MSG as their homebase as they played an awesome video montage of great MSG moments to Jay-z super song "Empire State of Mind."

Roddy Piper kind of rambled, but he had a fun segment with Vince McMahon where Piper challenged him to a match. Piper is old school and knows how to perform, so even though a match would be god aweful, he can definitely draw in a match vs. Vince. It's funny because I said that WWE is doing a horrible job of keeping Piper relevant, but I guess all you need is a good segment and that is fixed.

The highlight of the night was the Kofi Kingston brawl with Randy Orton. After Kofi originally cleared the ring, I thought it would be another dumb segment where Kofi stands in the ring but Orton backs off, but this time Kofi was super aggressive. The double legdrop was just the icing on the cake. I just hope the WWE capitalizes on this and gets some new guys in top spots. The only problem for Kofi is that after he's done fueding with Orton, there will be no other top heels exclusive to Raw that can fight.

Tdaddy's Thoughts of the Day

Here's what I'm thinking:

WWE:

Raw tonight is at MSG. These MSG shows are usually underwhelming because everyone expects them to be Wrestlemania quality. Piper should be fun and has a ton of history. The problem is that Piper hasn't really been put in a spot to draw since 1996. If WWE is smart before the show they'll show a nice long video showing what a big star Piper was.

I watched last weeks ECW a few days ago. FCW may be a horrible developmental territory, but ECW seems to be doing the job. A lot of guys on ECW intrigue me including Yoshi Tatsu, Shamus (when he was there), Paul Birchill (who will never get pushed), etc. Add in the veterans like Christian, Regal, and Benjamin, and I think the show is pretty solid.

TNA:

TNA had their PPV Turning Point yesterday. I didn't see the show, but I heard Kurt Angle vs. Desmond Wolf was good, and well at Daniels vs. Styles vs. Joe. Dave Meltzer stresses that it doesn't really matter since the company is pushing the reset button after Hulk Hogan comes in January.

Hulk Hogan will be great for the company in the short term as he immediately raises the company's visibility, but has no experience running a wrestling company. Dixie Carter while she seems enthusiastic seems to not understand that she has a bunch of hustlers in her ear. While it's good to have recognizable faces on your roster, the fact is that if WWE wanted them they would be there. TNA needs to create new stars, but they have failed on almost every occassion to do so.

Dragon Gate USA:

I hit up my collegue Derek Burgan on Facebook and told him I wanted to buy a dvd, but since I forget which shows are good and which aren't I needed his suggestion. He suggested Dragon Gate USA Historic Gate PPV show. I saw the price and shipping came out to $28 and I immediately said forget it. Then I go on Justin.tv and they are showing a match with this guy called Dragon Kid, and let's say that after I watched that, I realized $28 was a bargin. These guys at Dragon Gate USA get the praise that ROH and ECW used to get, and just watching one match with Dragon Kid showed me why. It'll probably take me a week to get it, but I have a feeling that I could have a new favorite wrestling dvd when I see it.