Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

Saw the results from the Tokyo Dome show, although I haven't been able to check out the show itself.  Some brief comments:

• 28000 or so.  Terrible attendance for a Dome show.  I haven't followed puro for a while, so I don't know if this is a typical trend.  But I hope it's not attributable to TNA (solely).
• TNA vs NJPW.  It's obvious they're planting some major seeds, especially with the chair shot Jarrett gave, Angle retaining and the stare down between Angle and Nakamura.  Apparently, there's a match scheduled for Ryogoku between Angle and Nakamura on 2/17/2008.
• TNA was rather generous in lending NJPW their best talent and this is probably TNA's biggest showing in terms of attendance.  One good thing about TNA that differs from WCW during the talent trades with Japan is that a good portion of TNA can work well, not just the cruisers.
• The times for most of the matches were, imo, pathetic.  I wonder if people anticipated the non-epic match times in just staying home?
• TNA got the better deal without question in this.  Most of their people went over, they had their biggest card, and they can claim being international with Kurt defending.  Outside of bragging rights and the upcoming TV broadcast of this program, I don't know if TNA will get much more than this.
• Hopefully, the seeds will be planted in a long term feud between both companies.  If this happens, I sure hope to God that they disallow Russo from touching anything related to this feud.  The previous interactions of the Japanese on TNA soil have been respectable, albeit not great.  I'd honestly hate to see in 2008 a redneck, Pearl Harbor type of storyline develop from Russo's racist viewpoint.  It just doesn't work and would end up offending more fans than doing any good promoting both companies.
• Some people want Nakamura to win over Angle at 2/17.  Apparently, Nakamura is some prodigal kid (saw some videos; not too shabby).  If they don't manage to fuck up this feud, I wouldn't mind Angle holding onto the title a little longer and then putting over Tanahashi in a big way, just to prolong the feud and make Tanahashi look like a stronger challenger.  We'll see for this one.

If this feud does come to US soil (which in a way I hope it does), then I really hope someone at TNA wakes up and realizes that Russo would be the worst person to book anything for this program.  This program can be serious and do well, but I don't have enough faith to see it last more than a month or two with the lowbrow, standard Japanese stereotype jokes in between.