So, as I said, I’m sitting down to watch TNA Impact and I’ll be pointing out thoughts, observations, results, and whatnots. So let’s begin this show, shall we? TNA boasts that they’re a wrestling show… here’s their chance to sell me on their wrestling.
Cold open, as Hulk Hogan is armed with a pipe and Eric Bischoff comes out to calm him down. They’re teasing the arrival of the Network rep, whose identity I already know… sigh. Look, I’ll give TNA credit where it’s due; I rather like the way they produce these backstage segments in this slick guerilla-style format. It moves rather nice, it has a solid feel that makes more like a traditional television program rather than a sports-entertainment program. It’s a different looking style and that’s a rather good thing; it’s the one strength that I can honestly say TNA has over WWE in terms of production.
We open up the show proper with Jeff Jarrett and Karen in the ring. The first TNA Impact that I’m actually sitting down to watch from beginning to end, and they start with ear-rape central. Good god, even as I write this, I have to turn the volume on mute. Kurt Angle comes out to tease the mistress whose identity I already know. God, the acting sucks here. I find it hard to believe that people actually like these segments.
Commercial.
Mickie James and Ms. Tessmacher beat Madison Rayne and Tara in a Knockouts tag-team match. Amazingly, this did not put me to sleep. Not a great match, but it didn’t put me to sleep. This is already a step up over the Diva tripe that infests WWE.
Ric Flair is backstage and argues with Hogan… so Flair isn’t the network rep. Okay. I get that. I really didn’t need the “old-men-bickering”.
Commercial
Tara rambles… then argues with Madison Rayne…
A cameraman heckles Tommy Dreamer… AJ Styles shouts at Tommy, Tommy yaps back, they go back and forth. You know, I’m not sure I’m too comfortable with Dreamer playing the “reluctant heel” role… he should just
Now people are taking photos of Sting, who is then heckled by the anonymous cameraman. Sting talks about RVD and the Network.
Commercial… half hour in and there’s only one match. I thought this was a WRESTLING show.
A promo video on the tag-team champions Beer Money; once upon a time, I liked the James Earl Jones-esque voiceover. Now, that effect is lost on me. Still, it’s not too bad… this leads to a Beer Money promo, who talks about Matt Hardy. They tease that Matt’s mystery partner is Jeff, but that’s not the case. Matt Hardy then comes out and yaps for five minutes… god, somebody shut this guy up please.
Someone on Twitter mentioned that James Storm has more charisma in his BEER BOTTLE than Matt Hardy does in his entire body… that is so true. I liked Hardy better when he was just flipping around and jumping off ladders like idiots ten years ago…
Bottom line, Matt Hardy’s surprise partner is Braden Walker… uh, I mean Chris Harris… who used to be James Storm’s partner ages ago when they were America’s Most Wanted years ago in TNA back when wrestling actually DID matter… and who apparently acquired Matt Hardy’s excess blubber. Interesting… all things considered, I was hoping for El Dandy…
Commercial… forty-five minutes in and there’s only ONE match on this fucking show. One match. Again, I thought this was a WRESTLING show.
Sangrieto… the TNA equivalent of Sin Cara… I wasn’t aware Russo still had his Xerox machine on hand to copy WWE gimmicks… and here comes Suicide. They fight and fight… and at one point, Sangrieto pulls his mask up halfway to mouth “okay” to the crowd for some reason. That was rather pointless.
Sangrieto beats Suicide with a nice springboard into a cutter move. This was a nice little match, but sadly Sangrieto has little time to celebrate because here comes Hogan and his BFFs.
Commercial… two matches in the first hour… not enough WRESTLING.
Network rep is Mick Foley. Yaps about how he ran things on behalf on the network. Perhaps the biggest chuckle I got out of this is when Foley says something along the lines of “This show is about wrestling. As of now, wrestling matters once again.” You know, people like to toss around that cliche about how “wrestling matters” and “we’re about wrestling.” I’ll believe it when I see it…
So Foley books a 25-man battle royal to determine the No. 1 Contender for the World Title at Slammiversary… okay, fair enough… should eat up some TV time…
And out comes Chyna… who actually looks sober and not drugged out… good for her… there are a dozen girls that would have been better choices than flimsy post-sextape Chyna, but I guess none of them were a “star” back in the old days… nor did they hump He of the tHree Hs for a time, if you get my drift.
Commercial
We recap the previous segment… no politics, no gamesmanship, wrestling matters… yep.
Backstage interview with Mick Foley and Chyna (mostly Foley) about how wrestling apparently matters now… I guess this is the bullshit catchphrase you’re going to fool people with, right? Wrestling Matters At Impact Wrestling… yeah, like I said, I’ll believe it when I see it…
Backstage interview with Ken Anderson, who’s still annoyed that he didn’t get his World Title rematch.
A rundown of the upcoming Sacrifice PPV.
So now we have a 3-way match between Abyss, Crimson, and Samoa Joe… Tenay and Taz bring up Joe’s initial undefeated streak when he first debuted in TNA.
Crimson pins Joe after Abyss did all the work. Joe is not happy and lets Abyss beat up Crimson. This was a painfully short match… never had a chance to get going and what was there was okayish at best… you know, for a show that makes the bold claim that “Wrestling Matters,” there sure isn’t enough WRESTLING to bring credence to that statement.
Commercials…
Promo with Rob Van Dam, who is already scouting out potential challengers… or pot partners… who knows…
And we have the battle royal… and there are already talent in the ring… and out comes Fourtune… which comprises five wrestlers… and outcomes Immortal… and I just hate that song… and out comes Mr. Anderson… apparently, he’s such a big star that he needs his own entrance for this battle royal… and apparently, so does Kurt Angle…
And we begin…
Matt Morgan takes out two Brits…
Matt Morgan takes out Orlando Jordan faster than Chris Benoit beat him for the US Title…
Matt Morgan takes out Anarchia… guy’s on a roll…
Eric Young is a moron…
Scott Steiner is taking a beating…
There goes Jesse Neal… There goes Shannon Moore… Hernandez eliminated both of ’em…
Matt Morgan takes out Robbie B.
Eric Young takes out gunner…
Eric Young eliminates himself… steals the TV Title… Gunner gives chase… Eric Young’s a moron…
Commercial…
Jeff Jarrett eliminates Kazarian… Kazarian’s holding on to his knee… looked like he landed wrong…
Bunch of guys get elminated… I lose track… somewhere along the way, Mick Foley joins commentary and they keep saying, “Wrestling Matters.” As if it really matters…
God dammit, did they really need to drag this battle royal out for a whole half-hour?
Commercial… well, hey, there’s a match… I wish there were MOAR matches… but yeah…
Back from commercials and we’re still going with this battle royal…
Tommy Dreamer eliminates AJ Styles… meanwhile, Foolkiller is scrambling for his suicide pills…
Bubba Ray takes out Dreamer…
Final Four: Buh Buh, Jarrett, Angle, and Anderson
Bubba and Anderson fly through the ropes so that Jeff Jarrett can toss out Angle with help from Karen. They celebrate too soon and sure enough, Chyna shows up and tosses out Jarrett… apparently, Chyna forgot how to crouch down and hit people in the nuts… fuck me, this is stupid…
Meanwhile, Bubba and Anderson goes back in and fight it out… and Anderson takes out Bubba after a decent brawl…
Ken Anderson wins the battle royal and earns himself a title shot. To celebrate, he summons his mic from the sky (never can bored of that skit…) and he yaps…
And we end the show with a nice little exchange of words between Sting and RVD to hype up their World title match at Sacrifice before Mr. Anderson gets the last word in… in… Funny how rather than hyping up and making the final push for the Sacrifice PPV taking place this weekend, they’re already hyping up the upcoming Slammiversary show in June… So I guess there’s no reason to buy this PPV because it really doesn’t matter… which means there was no point spending a shitload of money to bring Chyna in to do her usual bit of nothing…
Okay, here’s the thing with Chyna. Chyna was one of those unique cases… solid performer, was able to keep up with the male counterparts, she was a big deal, not going to say that she was a flash in the pan. Back in the day, she actually was a big draw whether she was the square-jawed, flash-chested silent bodyguard of Hunter Hearst Helmsley or whether she was the muscular female who won the Intercontinental Championship from Jeff Jarrett back in 1999. She wasn’t anything flashy, but she was a decent worker. She had her fanbase… and her own Playboy spread… so not going to take anything away from what she has accomplished… she’s done quite a bit. Thing is, that was ten years ago… and outside of a couple appearances in Japan, I think it’s safe to say that her involvement in the wrestling business was minimum at best, fuck all at worst. And then there were her drug problems, and then there was the sex tape that she did with X-Pac. I mean, these days, she’s more likely to be tabloid fodder for TMZ than anything else. It would be interesting to see if Chyna could actually pull off a decent performance and make people remember her as the performer she once was and not as the stoned druggie who dressed up as a bunny one time…
Seriously… it’s not a pretty picture…
Above all else… I honestly don’t get the point of signing Chyna… like I said, there were a dozen better choices out there that could served the same purpose in the role of Angle’s mistress, but none of them have a name and that’s pretty much the only reason why Chyna was even hired… at least, that’s what I think. But to me, I think that’s all Chyna really offers; a name and another expense. I sincerely doubt that signing Chyna would be considered a big deal, because it really isn’t. It’s a nice surprise… for some people. I personally don’t care… but is Chyna really worth it in the long run? We’ll see… I guess…
Overall, Impact was somewhat of a meh show. I like the backstage segments; some were decent, but mostly I like the way they were shot and put together; in essence, it was like watching a TV show rather than a backstage skit of a wrestling show, which is something that TNA has managed to pull off better than WWE in that regard. It’s a really strong point in their product, which is what I like.
However, in a show that emphasizes the importance of wrestling and pushes the theoretical idea that wrestling matters, there hasn’t been a whole lot of wrestling taking place within this show. There were four matches total on this entire program, the total amount of time dedicated to wrestling is a little over half an hour and most of that half hour is the battle royal, which was a long drawn-out affair that didn’t hold my interest during the middle portion of the match… although to be fair, I never was a fan of battle royals.
Taking the battle royal out of the picture, you only had three matches and each of them were well below the five minute mark… the Knockouts tag-match was not boring but ultimately none too impressive (admittedly three steps above the usual Diva tripe), the match between Sangrieto and Suicide was alright but too short, and the triple-threat really came to a halt before it really got going. It seems almost that an episode of Monday Night Raw, which does the best it can to de-emphasis wrestling and insist that they are not a wrestling match, would have slightly more compelling (longer) matches than the show that insists “wrestling matter.” That’s not a good thing.
So yeah… TNA is now Impact Wrestling. It’s apparently all about wrestling. Wrestling now matters. And this emphasis on wrestling is apparently what is going to separate the promotion from WWE. The thing is that people would insist that TNA has always been about wrestling, but from what I have seen today, and even during past viewings of prior episodes of Impact, I never got that impression. The impression I got, and the impression that has stuck with me for the past few years, is that TNA is trying to be WWE Lite… trying to recreate what has been successful in the past by bringing in those older WWE Senior Citizens, whether it’d be Angle or Nash or RVD or Chyna, I guess. And while it might be cool to see some of these old faces again, it doesn’t really do much in terms of ratings. And perhaps most importantly, it doesn’t help much in terms of establishing an identity for TNA.
What’s being done now has already been done before. And if TNA… Impact Wrestling really wants to make an impact on the industry, then they’re going to have to do something that will make them get noticed. They’re going to have to put out a product that is unique and distinctly different from what you’d get from WWE. Saying that wrestling now matters or proudly declaring the importance of wrestling is not enough to be unique. They’re going to have to make it matter. They might have to show MOAR WRESTLING.
But I’m off a tangent now…
Overall, Impact was rather average. A couple dumb moments… but not too offensive. Oh well…
dtm666 