The Shoot #45
December 29, 2009
By: Joshua Piedra of WrestleView.com
-The First Shot-
Hello everyone and welcome to your 45th edition of The Shoot. This week we will review the voting results for TNA’s 2009 Year End Awards as well as take a look at the WWE brackets. No PPV this past Sunday so I don?t have any prediction results for you, but in addition to some anime reviews in Culture Shock, I have a unique little tidbit about a quote from Diamond Dallas Page that was used in defense of Mega Man 10. So strap in and get ready for more voting, more japanime and video games, and of course? more glances around the wrestling community to see which news stories interest me! Here are your Quick Shots for this week!
-Quick Shots-
Last week I noted that The Young Bucks had a tryout match with TNA. I guess Dixie Carter liked them because they are now officially part of the TNA locker room. Congratulations to them? their flippy offense will fit right in. Speaking of new signees, the WWE picked up the former Mystico, now known as Incognito. Of course, I got really excited when I saw former Mystico, but I got him confused with CMLL start Mistico. Now I?m disappointed in this signing.
Carl DeMarco used a slightly familiar excuse and cashed in his WWE stock and left the company citing that he wanted to try something new and didn?t want to wake up 10 years from now feeling that he hadn?t done anything different. So far that’s two people who have used that excuse? I?m officially going to start a counter and since Shane McMahon was the first one to use that excuse for his departure from the WWE, I hereby dub this the ?Shane McMahon Endeavor?.
Speaking of that? just a quick smirk to Taz for calling Shielk Abdul Bashir’s ?firing? a future endeavor back at the Final Resolution PPV.
WWE, THQ, and Jakks Pacific got their issues hammered out, but my god is the WWE getting a lot of money out of these settlements! THQ will pay the WWE $13.2 Million up front while Jakks Pacific will pay the WWE $20 million over the next four years. On the flipside of the coin, WWE and THQ have signed a new 8 year deal ensuring all of us a copy of WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2019.
There are also rumors flying around that TNA is looking to abandon their six-sided ring to return to the more traditional four-sided ring. I, personally, love this decision. I was never a fan of the six-sided ring and thought that it was just way too gimmicky. Yeah, the ring works in Mexico since a lot of the lucha style works well with it, but it just doesn?t seem to fit well with TNA. I know that they were just trying to be innovative, but when you practically steal ex-WWE stars and re-hash old WCW storylines, you?re not really being innovative anymore, are you?
-The Big Shot: 2009 Year End Awards: Part III-
Alright boys and girls? the time has come to see who won each category in the 2009 Year End Awards in TNA as well as take a look at the categories for the 2009 WWE Year End Awards! With that being said? here were your participants for this round:
Participants: Luke Bartlett, Anthony Valvo, Rick Jackson, Jeremy Samples, Josh Piedra, Josh Boutwell, Jose Marrero, Matt O?Brien, Doug Lackey, Rocky Jr
TNA Wrestler of the Year: AJ Styles
We?ve had a lot of wrestlers in TNA that could have taken this title.. oddly enough, Sting wasn?t there nor did he receive even one vote. AJ did come away with the win in this situation getting seven of the ten votes while Kurt Angle received two votes and Alex Shelley received one vote.
TNA Tag Team of the Year: Beer Money Inc.
This one was a close call, but Beer Money Inc. came away with a close victory by securing five of the ten votes while the British Invasion received four votes and the Motor City Machine Guns received the last remaining vote.
TNA Knockout of the Year: Angelina Love
Another close victory here and the former TNA Knockouts Champion secured four of the ten votes. While only scoring four votes it was enough to put her in first place while Awesome Kong and Tara tied for second place with three votes a piece.
TNA Storyline of the Year: Desmond Wolfe vs Kurt Angle
This one surprised me. It’s still a fresh storyline.. for all we know it may not even be over and it secured three out of the ten votes to be the storyline of the year. Humorously, second place was Nothing. That’s right? two people voted that no storyline in TNA was worthy enough of being a storyline of the year for that company. We had five storylines tie for third place which included Jeff Jarrett dating Karen Angle, Kurt Angle and Sting vying for control of the Main Event Mafia, the formation of the World Elite, the dominance of the Main Event Mafia, and Kurt Angle vs Matt Morgan.
TNA Match of the Year: Desmond Wolfe vs Kurt Angle (Turning Point)
While, like the storyline, this is still a new and fresh match in our minds, it is really easy to see why this would win match of the year. It was probably the first TNA match in YEARS that slowed down and actually wrestled instead of just bumping for twenty minutes and having the match end in controversy or a run-in. The match scored four of the ten voted while AJ Styles/Daniels/Samoa Joe II from the same event came in second place with two votes. The other four matches tied for last place and they were AJ Styles vs Sting from Bound for Glory, AJ Styles vs Kurt Angle from the iMPACT before BFG, Alex Shelley vs Chris Sabin from Genesis and Kurt Angle vs Jeff Jarrett.
TNA Show of the Year: Turning Point
The first four E-Mails I received said Bound For Glory. I thought that this show might sweep the category, but the remaining six E-mails I got were all for TNA Turning Point 2009 causing it to rocket past Bound For Glory and secure the award for Best TNA Show of 2009.
Best TNA Singles Champion of the Year: AJ Styles
The Phenomenal one secured four of the ten votes and that was enough to award him as the best singles champion of 2009 in TNA. His world championship win was long overdue and it was nice to see TNA actually back the guy who has been there since day one to continue to make him the only wrestler in TNA history to hold the X Division Title, the NWA World Tag Team Titles, the NWA World Title, the TNA Legends Title, and now the TNA World Title. He just needs to win the TNA Tag Team Titles to secure his spot as the only grand slam winner in TNA history. Sting came in second with two votes while Aley Shelley, Kurt Angle, Kevin Nash, and Angelina Love all came in last place with one vote a piece.
Best TNA Tag Team Champions of the Year: Beer Money, Inc.
This seemed like a repeat of the Best Tag Team category. The multi-time TNA Tag Team Champions, Beer Money, Inc secured five of the ten votes to win this category just edging out the British Invasion who secured four votes to come in second place. Surprisingly, third place went to the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champions, Sarita and Taylor Wilde.
Best TNA Finisher of 2009: Gringo Killa (Homicide)
With so many finishers in TNA, Homicide’s Gringo Killa (formerly known as the Cop Killa) won as best finisher with three votes. The Styles Clash came in second with two votes while The Tower of London (Desmond Wolfe), Frog Splash/Neckbreaker (MCMG), and the Hellavator (Matt Morgan) came in third with one vote.
Now? you notice that these votes only add up to nine which means one was missing. I had an interesting exchange of E-Mails with Wrestleview’s Doug Lackey. He didn?t understand what the category was.. whether it was finisher move or match finish. I told him it was a finisher move and he responded with ?just put me down for whatever ends the match the fastest? Because of that, I am happy to announce that Vince Russo received 1 vote!
Best TNA Moment of 2009: AJ Styles wins the TNA World Title
Understandably so, this wins moment of the year in 2009. The fans wanted to see this happen for such a long time and when it finally happened everyone thought it was the greatest thing since Sliced Bread No. 2. This moment secured six of the ten votes. Hulk Hogan signing with TNA scored two votes while Foley Destroying Sting on Impact and the Youth Movement at Bound For Glory received one vote a piece for third place.
Most Shocking TNA Moment of 2009: Hulk Hogan Signs with TNA
This one, dominated this category securing six votes. I think the shock here comes from the stupidity of the situation more than the star power, but meh? I digress. Nigel changing his name to Desmond Wolfe, TNA Actually Pushing Younger Talent, TNA Still Being Alive as a Business, and Jeff Jarrett’s Leave of Absence all tied for second place with one vote. The responses in this category put a big smile on my face.
So there you have it? those are your winners for the TNA 2009 Year End awards. These awards ended up being more interesting than I thought they would be. Nice job to all that participated and, again, I thank you for your time.
We are now half way through the awards? WWE and Overall Awards are all that are left. This week it will be the WWE. The categories are as follows:
WWE Wrestler of the Year:
WWE Tag Team of the Year:
WWE Diva of the Year:
WWE Storyline of the Year:
WWE Match of the Year:
WWE Show of the Year:
Best WWE Singles Champion of the Year:
Best WWE Tag Team Champions of the Year:
Best WWE Finisher of 2009:
Best WWE Moment of 2009:
Most Shocking WWE Moment of 2009:
You have until Sunday, January 3, 2009 ? 11pm EST to get your votes in. Send all votes to syscrash2002@hotmail.com or send me a message via Facebook as some of you have done with the TNA votes. Any method will work as long as I receive them.
-Culture Shock-
First off.. congratulations to the New England Patriots for crushing Jacksonville with a final score of 35-7 and clinching the AFC East! See you all in the playoffs!
There has been some clamoring about Capcom’s recent announcement of another 8-bit Mega Man game. Yes, it is true! The blue bomber is coming back to Nintendo WiiWare, Xbox Live Arcade, and Playstation Network in March of 2010, but some gamers are not happy about that. They prefer their hi-def, blood splattering, eye candy games, that take little to no skill to play and only a couple of hours to defeat instead of days or weeks like the classic Nintendo games of old. Some of today’s younger generation (and I?m only 28.. so I?m not THAT old) can?t really appreciate the games made just ten to fifteen years ago. In fact, The Mega Man Network ran a segment of the article written by IGN.com where they defended Capcom and Keiji Inafune’s decision to create Mega Man 10 in 8-bit. In TMMN’s segment, they actually quoted Diamond Dallas Page when explaining their thoughts:
?Not to cross my fandoms here, but this reminds me of something I think ?Diamond? Dallas Page once said about wrestling: ?Those who get it, there’s no need to explain; those who don?t get it, no amount of explaining is ever going to do.? I imagine there are exceptions to the rule, of course, but I think for the most part, people have their minds made up about games such as this, regardless of the reasoning behind their creation.?
I couldn?t have said it better myself? who would have thought that a quote from Diamond Dallas Page about wrestling would actually hold true as an argument for the creation of another 8-bit Mega Man game.
Well? as I said last week, I have a few quick anime reviews for you since some of the ones I have been following have wrapped up.
Umineko no Naku Koro ni (When the Seagulls Cry) wrapped up and I was highly angered by the ending. The series was about the Ushiromya family gathering on Rokkenjima Island for their yearly family gathering to discuss their wealth, their businesses, and their assets. This year, the family head Kinzo, only has three months to live and discussion on who the new family head has begun until a series of mysterious murders takes place on the island, which the family is now trapped on due to a typoon. The murders are committed by The Golden Witch Beatrice by using magic, however, one character named Battler doesn?t believe in magic or witches. After his death he spends time in purgatory with Beatrice in a series of games where the murders happen over and over with different scenarios and it’s Battler’s job to prove that they were not committed by magic and that witches do not exist. Well, the end had Battler use theories to dispel each of the four game’s murders, explaining each murder with rational thought. This defeats Beatrice, but then it states that the game will continue. They then cut away to the witch Bernkastle and have her state that all of Battler’s explanations were incorrect and they wonder how the game will really end. End of the series.
So either they are setting this up for a second season or it’s just one of those ?let the viewer decide how it ends? situations. I hate those kind of endings because I like to see a definitive ending to things. Every story deserves an end and for them to take this kind of ending just reminded me of the Sopranos and the kind of B.S. ending they gave to that show.
Next up is Darker Than BLACK: Gemini of the Meteor. This anime felt a little rushed for the last episode. They really wrapped things up quickly and explained a lot in their 23 minute time slot, however it left the series WIDE open for a third season, which I hope gets created. It wasn?t the best kind of ending an anime like DTB could receive, but it was still pretty interesting.
And finally we have my pick for anime of the season: 11eyes. The ending to this show was absolutely phenomenal. It really tricked the viewer as it made Episode 11 out to be a false ending to the series. The real ending was filled with shocking moment after shocking moment and really carried with it true emotion, suspense, and drama. If you want to see how to do a 12 episode series correctly, look no further than 11eyes. Again, if you haven?t checked it out, I highly suggest that you go ahead and do so. The final words suggest a second season and if so, I?ll see you all again in the Red Night soon enough!
-The Final Shot-
That’s going to do it for me this week. If you would like to submit anything as far as column feedback, wrestling discussion, culture shock topics, anything? you can do so by using any of the methods below.
E-Mail: syscrash2002@hotmail.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/itoshinojjp
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/joshuapiedra
Until next week?
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