With the economic troubles that have been facing our country as of late, it was no surprise to me when I read that TNA released some of its talent. What was a surprise, however, was one of the names on the list.
Two of the names announced were Lance Rock and Jimmy Rave, who together made up the Rock n’ Rave Infection. The tag team, who came out with Guitar Hero controllers as props, hadn’t done much of anything once Christy Hemme was removed from the group. Actually, they didn’t do too much with her either. They were expendable to say the least; however, I do feel for Lance (Hoyt) Rock.
At one point I was convinced that Hoyt would be one of the young talents that TNA pushed up the card. I fondly remember the Fight for the Right match in 2006 where he took on Abyss in the final round to determine a new #1 contender to the NWA World Championship. Hoyt impressed me that night with his agility and I figured the best was just around the corner for the big man.
After that match, Abyss would go on to win the NWA World Championship from Sting due to a disqualification (back when the rule of a title change can happen during a disqualification was still in place), and Hoyt’s time in the spotlight never came. Instead he floundered around in the lower to mid card range and got stuck with the likes of VKM and the Rock n’ Rave Infection.
Seeing that Hoyt was released, however, wasn’t the surprising name to me. That one was Petey Williams.
Williams, an X Division standard, was gaining steam and was set up to begin working with others outside of the X Division realm upon joining the Front Line faction. He suffered a “hit” at the hands of the Main Event Mafia but returned about a month ago to assist AJ Styles in a match against his ex-mentor, Scott Steiner. Unfortunately for Williams, he still looked like his old mentor.
It has been said that his release came due to the two sides being unable to come to terms on a new contract. Plus, it has been stated that these releases are being done to freshen up the roster and replace some of the old, stale, talent with new, fresh, faces. To freshen up the talent pool, TNA has recently signed Madison Rayne and Rob Terry, and may possibly sign Stevie Richards, who made his debut as Abyss’ therapist last night.
Out of the three releases, TNA really dropped the ball with Petey Williams. The only aspect of Williams that was stale was his look and he could have been fine on his own had they let him outside of the Little Petey Pump gimmick. As for his future, I think Williams has a ton of options in front of him. He would be a great talent to have once ROH launches their new program on HDNet and I know I wouldn’t mind seeing him wrestle in ECW for that matter. He sure would be more entertaining than watching Ricky Ortiz and the Boogeyman on a weekly basis.
Speaking of ECW, I loved how Christian showed up this past week and went right after Jack Swagger. When Christian originally left the WWE, he was pretty much being held down from the main event picture with other stars continually rising above him whether they deserved to or not. Upon his re-debut, he goes right after the ECW Champion. Sure, it is ECW but it is a stepping stone and it is where he belongs.
I did notice a few possibly intentional plays on words when he arrived such as Matt Striker saying something to the effect of the moment being instantly classic and Todd Grisham saying that Christian was going to make an impact in ECW. Aside from that, there was no mention of TNA whatsoever aside from the fact that Christian had been gone for three years. I hope TNA took note of that and will stop the continuous mentions to their competition over and over again.
