By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor

The TNA Impact ratings for last night's show benefited from an uptick in the first hour to a 0.91 rating with no competition, then declined to a 0.82 second hour rating, which was in line with the March 15 and 22 episodes.

-- Impact peaked in the first hour with a 0.98 quarter-hour in Q3, which featured backstage promos from the Knockouts, Rob Terry vs. Homicide, and the first-half of the Knockouts eight-women match.

Caldwell's Analysis: Look at that. Crafty move to justify Rob Terry's push by sticking him in-between two Knockouts segments that were guaranteed to draw ratings.

-- The ratings for Kurt Angle vs. Mr. Anderson and Hulk Hogan's backstage segment with Bubba the Love Sponge did not fare well in Q5 up against the beginning of Raw.

Impact averaged a 0.93 rating in Q4, then dropped to a 0.81 for Q5, which featured the ending of Angle vs. Anderson and the backstage segment with Hogan. The rating then increased to a 0.88 in Q6.

-- Impact then peaked again with a 0.97 over-run rating (Q9) up against the beginning of WWE Raw's second hour.

The over-run segment with the Beautiful People strip tease shot up nearly 40.0 percent from a show-low 0.70 quarter-hour for a Q8. Q7 was also in the same range with a 0.73 quarter-hour.

The final 30 minutes of the regular broadcast featured Jeremy Borash interviewing The Pope and Desmond Wolfe interrupting, Douglas Williams's promo, Williams running the gauntlet with Generation Me, [Q8] a Team 3D interview, the default TV main event of Pope vs. Wolfe, and A.J. Styles's only appearance on the show attacking Pope.

Caldwell's Analysis: No build-up = no interest. Also, Pope has been shifted away from being a legitimate main-eventer with some quizzical build-up to his TNA Title match against A.J. Styles at the Lockdown PPV. As I wrote about over the weekend, there has been no juice to Pope's journey to a TNA Title shot and he's been treated as an afterthought for the last several weeks since interacting with Ric Flair after Against All Odds. Also, TNA hasn't developed the X Division, its feuds, or its characters; the "division" by itself doesn't sell and it's not over.

RELATED STORIES
-- TNA Impact ratings report
-- WWE Raw ratings report

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