Reported by Martin Hawrysko of WrestleView.com
On Wednesday, February 14, 2007 at 4:14 PM EST

Ladies and Gents, welcome to the returning edition of Within Reason, on this anything but beautiful Valentine’s Day here in the Midwest. It’s at times like these that leave me craving for those hot summer days on beautiful Lake Michigan just lying there on the beach. Those are the days…

Anyways, I decided that I’m going to use this column to catch-up on some of those “loose ends" that I have missed recently. A lot has happened in the two weeks that I haven’t written, and I want to give my reaction to them. I do apologize about the lack of columns lately… it’s just that the Bears SuperBowl loss really left me in limbo. In all seriousness, time has not been on my side, but I think I have worked out a schedule between work, classes, the gym, and social life.

Samoa Joe to leave Ring of Honor, commit full-time to TNA:
Most of the reaction to this story that I have witnessed is negative, with a lot of angry ROH fans mad as hell at TNA. My question is, why? I actually think this is a good decision, because it shows that TNA is serious about protecting their investments (Joe is contracted to TNA). TNA wants to make the most money possible, and by having Joe exclusive to them, they have a better chance of doing that. It’s not going to end with Joe, as I’m sure you are going to see more wrestlers in the near future work less indy and ROH shows until they finally become exclusive to TNA.

Since Joe’s TNA contract most likely does not force him to work exclusively, I’m pretty sure that if Joe really wanted to continue working for ROH, he would have. Making the decision to leave ROH, now sets him up for a huge push in TNA (whether they use him correctly may be a whole different story). It would be pretty silly to have the top star of your company wrestling for a side show company on occasion. I’m not trying to knock ROH, because they have themselves a fine promotion that has the support of a lot of local fans.

But for Joe’s long-term future, his best bet is TNA. TNA has the national television deal once a week, allowing Joe to be featured on mainstream television. TNA has monthly pay-per-views, which should in-return, make him more money. TNA has national exposure, which is something ROH does not have. It is a lot easier for fans to follow TNA, than ROH. With ROH, unless you attend every show, the only way to follow the promotion is by watching video clips on YouTube, through their website, and DVDs. In the long-run, that’s not going to get you very far.

Why all the hate for TNA? I have read other columnists on the Internet prompting you to write to TNA to voice your displeasure over encouraging, or perhaps, strongly urging Joe to leave ROH. What’s the point? What is TNA suppose to do, think that all their fans are mad at them, so they better act like a second-tier promotion and just allow Joe and their other talent to wrestler elsewhere, whenever they want? Please! This move was a no-brainer for TNA that absolutely had to be made sooner or later. And in the long-run, it should prove to have been the right move by Joe.

Hulk Hogan on the outs in the WWE and WrestleMania:
I reported this story on WrestleView.com. I couldn’t have been happier. My fine readers, most of which have e-mailed me with support and feedback, and have been kind to me thus far, this is where I break it to you. I absolutely detest Hulk Hogan. How much? Back when I wrote the news and rumors reports at TPWW.net, there was one edition in which I was so disgusted that Hogan was the “undisputed champion" that I simply refused to type his name. In that story, there were several news items about him, and instead of typing his name, I simply added an underscore (____________). To see for yourself, click HERE. The e-mail I received after that one was absolutely vicious.

Anyways, I am happy knowing that Hogan will not partake in WrestleMania, and be out of WWE for at least, a while. My dislike for Hogan has been present for years, simply due to his behavior backstage, and how he is one to exaggerate the truth. There are plenty of younger stars who behave a lot like Hogan today, but I don’t find it to be as awful, while you are in your prime and making consistent money (I find Kurt Angle to be absolutely nuts, for the record). However, Hulk Hogan is past his prime and has no business demanding that every match he wrestles is a must-win.

Hogan refused to lose to Shawn Michaels and Randy Orton in the past two years. The only reason Hulk Hogan did the jobs to The Rock, Triple H and among others back in 2002 and maybe 2003, was because he was working full-time. Hogan was aware of the heat he had, and he wanted to try his best to “make things right." After being away from the business on a full-time basis, Hogan’s ego has inflated once again. He has made it known that if he does wrestle a match, he will not lose.

At this point in his career, one should do what is best for the business, especially after the business made this guy rich and famous. Wrestlers such as Ric Flair, The Undertaker and Mick Foley are playing the game right. Each Hogan appearance is supposed to be “special." How the hell am I suppose to think that it is special when each time he returns, I know he is going to win.

Hogan’s entire act is so old with me. After every return, he states he did it for his “Hulkamaniacs." The truth is, Hogan could care less about any of his fans, as long as his payday is high and he gets his win. His act is so old and thin, I never understood why everybody buys it knowing how he truly is.

Hulk Hogan no doubt would have helped sold seats and increase pay-per-view buyrates for WrestleMania. WWE knows this. But after being so disgusted that he tricked a WWE secretary into releasing the Hall of Fame candidates on a live radio show, the company knew it was better to show Hogan the door.

"This is TNA" Monday night special:
I was really hoping that the company would have had some sort of announcement, perhaps that Impact was expanding into a two hour show, or that they signed Chris Jericho (wishful thinking). Regardless, I still think it would have made more sense for the company to have done a live show, especially since the Impact tapings were taking place at the same time as the special on Spike TV.

It seems that fans are “mixed" between the film shots that were edited into the pay-per-view matches shown on the TNA special. I absolutely hated those edits, as I found them to be rather distracting. The edits would have been fine if we were watching match highlights, but we weren’t watching highlights, we were actually watching a match in its entirety (or close to it barring any edits).

Regardless, the special earned a 1.2 rating, which may be disappointing for some, and positive for others. The 1.2 means that many loyal TNA fans who watch Thursday nights made the effort and watched it on Monday nights, when they could have done something else. Hopefully, intermixed in that 1.2 were new people who never saw TNA before. The 1.2 also means that the WWE fans that had no Raw on Monday night did not even bother to give the TNA show a try.

I said it all along, but I think the best move would have been to air a special two hour show this Thursday night. While Raw’s second hour is going on, TNA should have scheduled Impact to start, so their second hour would be by itself. The majority of wrestling fans most likely made other plans on Monday night and therefore did not see TNA. TNA should have capitalized this Thursday night, when most wrestling fans would be in front of their TV sets.

.:: Aimless Observations ::.

-I am really enjoying Wrestling Society X. I think thirty minutes is cramming to much in, and that they could accomplish a lot more with sixty minutes. I’m not sure what the future of the company will be after the ten episodes have aired. Are they going to show reruns or take it off the air until they tape new shows (that’s IF they continue to tape more)?

-Looking forward to Raw this week. Not sure how it turned out, but I am hoping Carlito’s response to Ric Flair’s promo last week is the jump start of a push. Who knows. The Trump vs. McMahon stuff most likely will be overbooked, but I guess you deal with some bad for hopefully a lot more good.

-Is Vince Russo’s booking destroying TNA? There have been some people who though Against All Odds was good to ok, many more on the ‘net thought it was brutal. I had optimism that when Russo was jumping aboard TNA, he would be different. But Russo, in my opinion, is doing all the wrong things, once again, which is making me lose interest in TNA in general. I am hearing that the next few Impact tapings are better than recent ones, but who’s to say the next tapings won’t go back to the Russo crap?

-Test is suspended for thirty days for a wellness policy violation. I figured the wellness policy was “released" along with the other talents back last month.

--And that will do it for me this time. Hope everyone has a nice Valentine’s Day… and if you’re single, just be thankful you’re not in front of the television watching Mae Young give birth to a “hand." I apologize; I was only trying to help.

My e-mail address is martinhwv@gmail.com. Feedback is welcomed and appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Bloggin’ with Reason: A random spew of ideas, opinions & reflections from wrestling... and other stuff!

NOTE: The views expressed in this column are not the views of WrestleView.com and its immediate staff.