All posts and relating to episodes of TNA Impact/Impact Wrestling from 2004 to 2023. Any episodes of Impact from 2024 and beyond have their own dedicated category.
Anybody watch the Whole F’N Show a couple Thursdays back? Anyone remember that sick ending where TNA World Champion Rob Van Dam was found bloodied and unconscious before a crazed Abyss holding his toothpick of death?
Well, a week later, it was announced that the title would be vacated and a tournament would take place spanning TWO MONTHS, with the finals to be held at TNA’s Bound For Glory PPV.
So, if you haven’t checked out my spoiler thoughts, do so here.
I will give TNA a sliver of credit – their first Thursday show since tapping out on Mondays turned out to be a better show than I was expecting and certainly not as horrifying as I had initially believed after reading the spoilers. It’s not a particularly good show – let’s not go crazy in our limited praise – but obviously, the advantages of being a taped show means you get to edit the bullshit and bring it down to a tolerable level.
Sadly, it’s still TNA. And there’s still plenty of bullshit to be had here.
Continue reading “IMPACT (May 13th, 2010) – Back Where They Belong”
Well, it’s over.
After just nine weeks, Total Nonstop Action has thrown in the towel on their fruitless Monday Night Pillow Fight and are returning to their usual Thursday night timeslot starting next week. I’ve already seen the spoilers for that show and it looks like it’s going to be business as usual. But at least, I got to see their last Monday show…
And I kinda wish that I hadn’t.
Let’s get the good bits out of the way; the opening segment where Jay Lethal was doing the whole Ric Flair spiel (and quite frankly a phenomenal job of it too) and Ric Flair coming out to confront Lethal was tremendous. Honestly, if Jay Lethal ever gets out of wrestling, he should do impressions for a living because he has a natural talent for that sort of thing. In fact, if Impact was nothing but Jay Lethal doing wrestler impersonations for two hours every week, I’m sure the ratings would’ve improved overnight and trumped RAW.
Unfortunately, the rest of the show was a thing. The usual brand of good matches running short and with usually shit finishes. Eric Young joining Hall & Nash to form the 19,960,707th edition of the nWo… er, I mean, THE BAND, is baffling to me and I’m not sure it’s going to last… didn’t Nash beat the shit out of Young some time ago or am I misremembering things? RVD/Nigel… er, I mean, DESMOND WOLFE, seemed like it could’ve been a fun match had it not been cut short. Some stuff with Sting and Hogan…
I find myself watching this show and fast-forwarding on the recording to get to the good bits. I couldn’t find any good bits and the bits that could’ve been good ended before it got good. Even so, from what I saw, this was not a good Impact and gave me the impression that TNA not only tapped out on Monday Nights, but was also crying uncle in a very whiny voice.
So long, Monday IMPACT. It’s been a fun ride… I guess… or maybe not.
Can’t wait for this Thursday show… if I can catch it.
Well, last week, I praised Impact on a far better show than their usual outing and figured – quite foolishly, in hindsight – that things were turning around and maybe TNA might have a chance at producing a quality show going forward. They’d pretty much have to, right?
Well, sadly, that didn’t happen. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.
The main event saw Ric Flair lose to Abyss, following an teased finish in which Flair struck Abyss with brass knuckles and scored the pin. Unfortunately for the former multi-time world champion, TNA assigned one of the smart referees who spotted the knux, managed to put two-and-two together, and got into a shoving match with Flair before restarting the match, allowing Abyss to win. The match itself is… a thing that happened.
However, the stipulation in this match was that whoever lost the match would have to give up their WWE Hall Of Fame ring, which meant that Ric Flair would have to surrender his ring to Abyss. Flair cries foul, but out comes Hogan to rip the ring off Flair’s finger. This is the top angle in TNA, kids; everybody is fighting over Hall Of Fame rings from another promotion. My brain hurts.
The rest of the show… you know, I’d wish I could comment, but that main event and the feud over the rings has broken my brain to such a degree that I simply can’t be bothered to remember what the fuck happened beforehand. That’s how bad this was.
Against my better judgment, I saw TNA Impact… and holy hot damn. This is actually a good show. I mean, seriously. What the fuck happened? Just last week, I watched five seconds of a show that made me shake my head in disgust and stick with the complacent RAW. This week, I find myself constantly switching between RAW and Impact just to see what happens next. I think I might actually go ahead and catch the replay this coming Thursday to watch the whole thing, because from the bits I saw in the second hour… Impact pulled off one of their best shows… well, ever.
Continue reading “IMPACT: (Apr. 19th, 2010) – What a great IMPACT that was… wait. IMPACT?!!”
In what seems like a pleasant bit of good news, this week’s Impact wasn’t a complete shitshow.
Continue reading “IMPACT (April 12th, 2010) – Well, It Didn’t Suck”
Orlando Jordan shows up and pours milk all over himself… smell the ratings, I guess… or just find a good gay porno if that’s your thing because that’ll get the job done much better.
You know, I wrote a quick blurb up on the blog and started it with “I’ve got nothing.” I wish I had nothing. I wish I hadn’t watched this show, which I didn’t plan on doing because Impact had been sucking the proverbial meat missile in grand fashion. Unfortunately, our ol’ buddies at The Score pre-empted RAW so they could show some college basketball games. That meant I got to contribute to their 0.7 rating for the week, which I’d imagine would make everyone over at TNA happy that they’re not getting the same shitty Thursday numbers… you know, the 1.x ones that meant more people were watching.
Then again, maybe it’s a good thing that nobody is watching this shitshow.
So they start the show by announcing what was called a “TNA Diva Lockbox Showdown”, in which a bunch of women will compete for keys to open boxes or something. The match happens and it’s a multi-woman match where a bunch of women get pinned and I have no fucking clue what’s going on. Are you sure I’m watching TNA, which is supposed to have the better women’s wrestling? This looks like something out of the Divas division run by LayCool, which is the equivalent of an extended piss break.
Then again, Russo is writing this shit, so I shouldn’t be surprised.
Continue reading “IMPACT (Apr. 5th, 2010) – This Show Fucking Sucked”
Show opens with Eric Bischoff playing a guitar, which prompts Jeff Jarrett to come out and hit him with another. This prompts Eric to book a match between Jarrett and Foley in a Loser Gets Fired match. Then the match happened and Jarrett won, so Foley’s gone forever until they need him on TV again. I should mention that last time, Eric got his head shaved, but I guess it grew back, so that whole thing was pointless. On the bright side, Foley punched out that Bubba guy for real and gave him a black eye and a bloody nose.
Continue reading “IMPACT (March 22nd, 2010) – Foley’s Retired? Could’ve Fooled Me”
The show begins with Hulk Hogan and Abyss driving up in a golden hummer. I wonder if it’s the same hummer that ran over Nash ages ago, but painted gold. Apparently, there’s a clip on Youtube about a gold boat somewhere that this may have gotten inspired by. I wouldn’t know. Oh, and also in the hummer were Jeff Hardy and new signee Rob Van Dam, last seen getting beat up by Sting after a fluke win.
dtm666 