Fill in the Blank Friday: Tito Ortiz

By Kevin Hunsperger
@kevinhunsperger & @my123cents on Twitter

There's a lot of online criticism over the appearance of MMA fighter Tito Ortiz on the August 1 episode of Impact Wrestling. I think it's still too early to judge, as I'm not 100% sure that Ortiz is an actually employee of TNA or is Spike TV paying for this.  Many fans are upset that Ortiz was brought in weeks after several talented "wrestlers" were let go.

Photo from Impact Wrestling

Ortiz, who is 38 years old, has never had a professional wrestling match (to my knowledge)  I don't know if he's being brought in to do any wrestling or if this is just a gimmick to cross promote the upcoming Bellator fight against Rampage Jackson.  So, I'm not going to judge the decision, yet.  Instead, I'll let you do the judging.  You know the rules, fill in the blanks here.

1. If Impact Wrestling is indeed paying the bill for Tito Ortiz and had to cut several other wrestlers to do it, they should have brought in __________ instead.

2.  Bringing in MMA fighters will ___________ TNA/Impact Wrestling in the long run.

3.  The most succesful cross over athlete into the professional wrestling has been ___________.

TNA is on a Rampage

Rampage Jackson

By Chad Smart
@chadsmart & @my123cents on Twitter

Last week, Dixie Carter tweeted TNA had signed a BIG free agent. Today it was announced that free agent Quinton “Rampage” Jackson had signed a dual contract with Bellator and TNA. I haven’t read the details of the contract so I don’t know which company is going to be the main focus of Rampage’s career but given his MMA background, I’m going to guess he will spend more time fighting for Bellator than wrestling for TNA.

If you go back a year ago, Dixie Carter announced the signing of King Mo. Mo has a similar Bellator/TNA contract. Outside of being the special enforcer in the James Storm vs. Bobby Roode match at Bound for Glory, and some highlights from OVW, King Mo hasn’t been seen in TNA.

While I have no real opinion on Rampage Jackson other than I thought he was good in the A-Team movie, I question why TNA would sign guys to dual contracts. Maybe there are some behind the scenes dealing with Spike that aren’t public knowledge. TNA does promote Bellator during Impact more than Impact gets promoted on Spike from what I’ve seen.

As a fan, this signing really doesn’t move my give a darn meter in the slightest. Mainly because I’m not an MMA fan in the slightest so seeing an MMA fighter in a wrestling ring doesn’t interest me. For TNA’s sake, I hope I’m in the minority.