TNA is Adding a Local Wrestler to the British Tour

[Big Red Machine]

Source: PWInsider

By Steven Fernandes on 2016-01-10 17:41:30

TNA is holding a poll on their website where fans can vote which UK wrestler will be added to the UK tour. The options are Big Damo, Will Ospreay and Jimmy Havoc. The winner will be announced on the 1/17 episode of Impact Wrestling on Challenge TV in the UK.

[cero2k]

you know, with how strong the UK scene got in the US last year, British Bootcamp could be huge this year.

[Big Red Machine]

you know, with how strong the UK scene got in the US last year, British Bootcamp could be huge this year.

No it can't, and the reason for that has nothing to do with the British talent. It has to do with TNA's inability to follow up on things. They didn't do so for Spud or Mandrews, so what makes you think they'd possibly manage to do so for anyone else?

[cero2k]

you know, with how strong the UK scene got in the US last year, British Bootcamp could be huge this year.

No it can't, and the reason for that has nothing to do with the British talent. It has to do with TNA's inability to follow up on things. They didn't do so for Spud or Mandrews, so what makes you think they'd possibly manage to do so for anyone else?

Spud was awesome all 2015

[Big Red Machine]

you know, with how strong the UK scene got in the US last year, British Bootcamp could be huge this year.

No it can't, and the reason for that has nothing to do with the British talent. It has to do with TNA's inability to follow up on things. They didn't do so for Spud or Mandrews, so what makes you think they'd possibly manage to do so for anyone else?

Spud was awesome all 2015

Yes. In 2015, Spud was great. But he won British Bootcamp back in the beginning of 2013. They then proceeded to not do anything with him for almost the entire year, so that when they finally tried to do something with him, he had no momentum whatsoever.
Look at Mandrews last yet. What has he done? NOTHING. I even forget he's on the roster half of the time.

[cero2k]

Yes. In 2015, Spud was great. But he won British Bootcamp back in the beginning of 2013. They then proceeded to not do anything with him for almost the entire year, so that when they finally tried to do something with him, he had no momentum whatsoever.
Look at Mandrews last yet. What has he done? NOTHING. I even forget he's on the roster half of the time.

so it takes a year to do something with them, big deal. it's not like the can't work everywhere else meanwhile

[Big Red Machine]

Yes. In 2015, Spud was great. But he won British Bootcamp back in the beginning of 2013. They then proceeded to not do anything with him for almost the entire year, so that when they finally tried to do something with him, he had no momentum whatsoever.
Look at Mandrews last yet. What has he done? NOTHING. I even forget he's on the roster half of the time.

so it takes a year to do something with them, big deal. it's not like the can't work everywhere else meanwhile

1. Except there was no momentum by the time they started to do anything with them
2. By this time they were at least showing signs of starting to do something with Spud. They have done nothing of the sort with Mandrews
3. There is no reason to wait that long! Compare that to Bryan, Barrett or even Low Ki coming off of NXT.

[cero2k]

3. There is no reason to wait that long! Compare that to Bryan, Barrett or even Low Ki coming off of NXT.

1. Spud was a completely different gimmick, he needed repackaging
2. Mandrews has been here and there in the X Division, he was in the World Title Series. It's barely been 1 show since they came back
3. Bryan and Low Ki were both gone from the company pretty soon. But I can compare it to Solomon Crowe, or Bo Dallas, or Michael Tarver, or ECIII who never did/have done anything with their WWE careers

[Big Red Machine]

3. There is no reason to wait that long! Compare that to Bryan, Barrett or even Low Ki coming off of NXT.

1. Spud was a completely different gimmick, he needed repackaging
2. Mandrews has been here and there in the X Division, he was in the World Title Series. It's barely been 1 show since they came back
3. Bryan and Low Ki were both gone from the company pretty soon. But I can compare it to Solomon Crowe, or Bo Dallas, or Michael Tarver, or ECIII who never did/have done anything with their WWE careers

1. Fair enough, but if so, he really should have been given a new name to go with his completely new personality.
2. EVERYONE was in the World Title Series, so that doesn't count, and he wasn't pushed or focused on in any way. He was so obviously a spot-filler from day one, and his booking played out like that. Same goes for being "here and there" in the X-Division. With the exception of Spud winning the title, NOTHING has happened in the X-Division in the past three years.
3. What I mean is that if you want your competition to mean something, you need to make the winner look important right away. Wade got a push right out of the gate, as did Low Ki. Bryan was feuding with Miz right when he came back and even won his title. By the time Derek Bateman won NXT, it was clear that WWE didn't give a sh*t about it. They didn't want it to mean anything, so they just used it as a time-filler.

[cero2k]

1. Fair enough, but if so, he really should have been given a new name to go with his completely new personality.
2. EVERYONE was in the World Title Series, so that doesn't count, and he wasn't pushed or focused on in any way. He was so obviously a spot-filler from day one, and his booking played out like that. Same goes for being "here and there" in the X-Division. With the exception of Spud winning the title, NOTHING has happened in the X-Division in the past three years.
3. What I mean is that if you want your competition to mean something, you need to make the winner look important right away. Wade got a push right out of the gate, as did Low Ki. Bryan was feuding with Miz right when he came back and even won his title. By the time Derek Bateman won NXT, it was clear that WWE didn't give a sh*t about it. They didn't want it to mean anything, so they just used it as a time-filler.

2. Still being used like everyone else, they could have easily left him out and be missed for many months
3. Aside from Barrett, not a single 'winner' has ever done anything in WWE. Low Ki didn't do shit, Kaitlyn didn't do shit until she mistakenly won a match, Tough Enough doesn't mean shit, Dijak won and he became a jobber.

[Big Red Machine]

1. Fair enough, but if so, he really should have been given a new name to go with his completely new personality.
2. EVERYONE was in the World Title Series, so that doesn't count, and he wasn't pushed or focused on in any way. He was so obviously a spot-filler from day one, and his booking played out like that. Same goes for being "here and there" in the X-Division. With the exception of Spud winning the title, NOTHING has happened in the X-Division in the past three years.
3. What I mean is that if you want your competition to mean something, you need to make the winner look important right away. Wade got a push right out of the gate, as did Low Ki. Bryan was feuding with Miz right when he came back and even won his title. By the time Derek Bateman won NXT, it was clear that WWE didn't give a sh*t about it. They didn't want it to mean anything, so they just used it as a time-filler.

2. Still being used like everyone else, they could have easily left him out and be missed for many months
3. Aside from Barrett, not a single 'winner' has ever done anything in WWE. Low Ki didn't do shit, Kaitlyn didn't do shit until she mistakenly won a match, Tough Enough doesn't mean shit, Dijak won and he became a jobber.

2. Except when "being used like everyone else" means being a jobber with no personality who doesn't stand out in any way, it's not a good thing.
3. And don't get me wrong: none of those were good, either. But that doesn't mean that what TNA is doing isn't bad/doomed to failure. I'd be better if they just took one of these guys and brought him in as a roster member with an actual plan for him.

[cero2k]

2. Except when "being used like everyone else" means being a jobber with no personality who doesn't stand out in any way, it's not a good thing.
3. And don't get me wrong: none of those were good, either. But that doesn't mean that what TNA is doing isn't bad/doomed to failure. I'd be better if they just took one of these guys and brought him in as a roster member with an actual plan for him.

2. not really, he is being featured like everyone else and not everyone can win. He was the weakest in his group, just like Anderson was the weakest in his, just like Spain was the weakest in their in the last world cup.

[Big Red Machine]

2. Except when "being used like everyone else" means being a jobber with no personality who doesn't stand out in any way, it's not a good thing.
3. And don't get me wrong: none of those were good, either. But that doesn't mean that what TNA is doing isn't bad/doomed to failure. I'd be better if they just took one of these guys and brought him in as a roster member with an actual plan for him.

2. not really, he is being featured like everyone else and not everyone can win. He was the weakest in his group, just like Anderson was the weakest in his, just like Spain was the weakest in their in the last world cup.

2. Except the difference between those scenarios is that Spain is seen as a legitimate soccer powerhouse. That group that Anderson was the worst in? That was called "Group Champions" because everyone in it was a former TNA World Heavyweight Champion. Mandrews' group was Tigre Uno, DJ Z (who has been a comedy guy for the past year or two), and two nobody jobbers. Mandrews (or ANYONE in the X-division with the exceptions of Tigre Uno, Spud, and Low Ki) hasn't been "featured" at all. He's just been there. You could replace him with any one of a million guys, and all of his matches in TNA would have been no different.

[cero2k]

2. Except the difference between those scenarios is that Spain is seen as a legitimate soccer powerhouse. That group that Anderson was the worst in? That was called "Group Champions" because everyone in it was a former TNA World Heavyweight Champion. Mandrews' group was Tigre Uno, DJ Z (who has been a comedy guy for the past year or two), and two nobody jobbers. Mandrews (or ANYONE in the X-division with the exceptions of Tigre Uno, Spud, and Low Ki) hasn't been "featured" at all. He's just been there. You could replace him with any one of a million guys, and all of his matches in TNA would have been no different.

Mandrews was there with the X Division Champion and two former X Division champions. in his division, he was going against the top guys

[Big Red Machine]

2. Except the difference between those scenarios is that Spain is seen as a legitimate soccer powerhouse. That group that Anderson was the worst in? That was called "Group Champions" because everyone in it was a former TNA World Heavyweight Champion. Mandrews' group was Tigre Uno, DJ Z (who has been a comedy guy for the past year or two), and two nobody jobbers. Mandrews (or ANYONE in the X-division with the exceptions of Tigre Uno, Spud, and Low Ki) hasn't been "featured" at all. He's just been there. You could replace him with any one of a million guys, and all of his matches in TNA would have been no different.

Mandrews was there with the X Division Champion and two former X Division champions. in his division, he was going against the top guys

Except that Uno is the only one who had been protrayed like a top guy in the past two years, so it doesn't matter. If he had gotten wins, they'd be over guys who didn't matter, and thus the wins wouldn't matter much.

[cero2k]

Except that Uno is the only one who had been protrayed like a top guy in the past two years, so it doesn't matter. If he had gotten wins, they'd be over guys who didn't matter, and thus the wins wouldn't matter much.

they would have mattered in his division

[Big Red Machine]

Except that Uno is the only one who had been protrayed like a top guy in the past two years, so it doesn't matter. If he had gotten wins, they'd be over guys who didn't matter, and thus the wins wouldn't matter much.

they would have mattered in his division

Except that the whole division hasn't been made to matter for years. It mattered briefly, for Spud's win, but that's it. When was the last time we had an actual feud over the X-Division Title? Aries vs. Sabin (which was really just a function of Sabin vs. Velvet)?

[cero2k]

Except that Uno is the only one who had been protrayed like a top guy in the past two years, so it doesn't matter. If he had gotten wins, they'd be over guys who didn't matter, and thus the wins wouldn't matter much.

they would have mattered in his division

Except that the whole division hasn't been made to matter for years. It mattered briefly, for Spud's win, but that's it. When was the last time we had an actual feud over the X-Division Title? Aries vs. Sabin (which was really just a function of Sabin vs. Velvet)?

and so has TNA, that doesn't change the fact that Mandrews was used, an he was used in a good group. There were three groups that were literally filler, and Mandrews wasn't in them, they could have easily added Steeve or King to the X Division group, but they went with Mandrews

[Big Red Machine]

they would have mattered in his division

Except that the whole division hasn't been made to matter for years. It mattered briefly, for Spud's win, but that's it. When was the last time we had an actual feud over the X-Division Title? Aries vs. Sabin (which was really just a function of Sabin vs. Velvet)?

and so has TNA, that doesn't change the fact that Mandrews was used, an he was used in a good group. There were three groups that were literally filler, and Mandrews wasn't in them, they could have easily added Steeve or King to the X Division group, but they went with Mandrews

Dude... the X-Divison Group was complete and Total Filler (with the exception of Tigre Uno, who could have just as easily been moved to Group UK and then renamed that as Group International). And it wasn't even well-used filler like Group Wildcard was (they needed Shera to go over so they put him in there with a bunch of guys who they didn't mind beating). It was just random filler to make the tournament last as long as possible, like Group Knockouts and Group Future 4 were.
They went with Mandrews because that's how they wanted it to fit together. They could have moved a bunch of guys to a bunch of places. Spud could have been in the X-Division and Mandrews could have been in UK. But they chose to use Mandrews, and to make him the only guy in the group who didn't get a single win. Steve went in Group Wild Card because they thought the name fit him better.
Just being used is not good enough. It's better to not be used at all than to be used as a jobber if you want someone to have credibility.