Category: Wrestling Television Musings

The last time I sat down to watch an episode of Impact Wrestling… let’s just say it didn’t go over well and the end result was one of the longer tirades I’ve written on a wrestling show.

It’s been a year since then and there’s been yet another shake-up in management, a move to Toronto, and a massive reshuffling of the deck in terms of talent and personnel. And of course, the familiar claim to fame that Impact Wrestling survived another year. And while the product was once again under new management, I didn’t bother to watch their first show last month because it wasn’t a straight-up reboot or anything like that, but rather a slow shift. Things would change, but not outright and in a way that would feel natural rather than forced.

So I made the decision to bite the bullet and check out their Crossroads special; essentially an episode of Impact Wrestling with four major matches, including the first ever meeting between Impact World champion Austin Aries and Johnny Impact. I’ll be doing a general musings of the show, but I will also bring up a couple points from my last Impact viewing experience and see how this compares to that earlier (and lesser) venture.

For what it’s worth, I’m watching this off the Global Wrestling Network website, which shows the last few episodes of Impact for free. I’m on the fence as to whether I’d want to fork over another ten bucks for a monthly subscription, but on the other hand, there’s a whole bunch of TNA shows that I’d very much want to check out and I’ve got some free time coming up, so it might be worth looking into in the future.

But back to Crossroads… right after the break, of course.

Continue reading “Impact Wrestling: Crossroads (March 8, 2018 Episode)”

It’s a day late but that’s only because I saw it a day late and since I’ve seen it and since this is supposed to be a new day yes it is and since I don’t know what a comma is apparently I’m going to share my thoughts on the first episode of the brand spanking new IMPACT WRESTLING being run by all the old TNA guys.

I guess that’s good enough for TNA standards, right?

Anyway, to provide context, this is the first episode of Impact Wrestling under the direction of the new creative team of Jeff Jarrett, Scott D’Amore, Bruce Prichard, Dutch Mantell, and a couple other guys… essentially some of the folks who were around during the TNA heyday years, whatever that ends up meaning, I guess. The company had been acquired by the Anthem Sports group (who also owns the Fight Network up here in Canada) a while ago and have before this point produced lame bird episodes from what’s left of the old regime. And since this is a new era or something, this seems like the perfect jumping on point for someone looking to get into this would-be alternative to the WWE circus.

Some more context to provide; this is the first episode of Impact Wrestling that I actually sat down and watch in its entirety in years. Yes, despite the “brilliance” of Broken Fatt, Brother New Coke, and Not So Final Deletions, I haven’t had the urge or desire to catch up on anything going on with the TNA promotion beyond reports I’ve read online. If anything, the story of the administrative in-fighting and financial woes of the company were more compelling than anything that took place in the hexagonal circle.

With Dixie Carter and Billy Corgan turfed in some form or fashion and most of the major stars having left, I figured it’d be interesting to see how Jarrett and company fare on their first effort in a new chapter of Impact Wrestling. So I gave the first episode a go and well, you could read my full thoughts after the break. However, given the choice of image used for the header of this post, you could probably surmise what I thought of this first episode.

Grab a drink, kids. This is going to be a long one.

Continue reading “IMPACT (Mar. 11th, 2017) – The New Impact Wrestling… Oh Dear…”