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TNA Impact review
September 6, 2007
Taped on August 13 in Orlando, Fla.
Aired on Spike TV
Report by Daniel Wilkenfeld, PWTorch.com contributor

Random Interview Woman catches Team Pacman coming in. They say they're going to spray paint Kurt Angle, only they add suspense by referring to him as the "big dog," thus creating a mystery among everyone who couldn't remember with whom they were feuding.

[Intro]

1 – Tomko defeated Kaz

This match served the important function of letting me feel really smart, because, as predicted here two weeks ago, the crowd has taken a shining to Tomko. They sounded like they were split pretty evenly between him and the talented Kaz. The story of the match is of course power vs. speed, with Kaz hitting flurries of strikes between Tomko's big grapples. I was actually a bit disappointed in Kaz's work here, as the high flying in this match consisted of one missile dropkick and one tornado DDT. At one point Robert Roode tried to interfere, but hit his hand on the post instead. I wonder if they're trying to make him look ineffective? Tomko wins with a two-handed choke-slam.

After the match, Ms. Brooks goes to check on Kaz, and Robert Roode starts getting uppity about it. He gets in her face, and is pushed back by…Tomko? Neat. There are several ways to interpret that: 1) They're testing the waters for a face turn, which is a bit sooner than I would have thought appropriate, 2) They're presenting Tomko as the sort of guy who just doesn't put up with anyone's crap, or 3) They really are trying to send the message that even most of their heels have some respect for women, *coughwwecough*. I'm pretty cool with any of those.

DW and Tenay run down the card for No Surrender.

Borash is in the back with Sting and the Angles. Sting's on his A-game, saying he knows not to trust Kurt, but that they might be able to use their mutual distrust to goad each other to success. Karen is less than thrilled at Sting's confrontational tone, and he tells her she'll have to stay in the back during their match. She's about to object, when Kurt says that she has to listen to his tag team partner.

[Commercial Break]

Random Interview Girl is in the back with Chris Harris, who's talking about how Dustin Rhodes and Black Reign are like two different people. This promo's actually fascinating, but not for any of the right reasons - Harris seems to hit all the marks, and says everything in roughly the right tone, and yet somehow comes off as completely impossible to believe or take seriously. Whatever the "it" factor is that makes the difference between quality mic work and boring drivel was completely missing here, and I have no idea why. What's even weirder is that Harris was so good on the mic as the slimy cowboy during AMW's last heel run - I wonder who's idea it was to jettison that character?

They show a video of Black Reign and Harris, and then run down the Angle's matches at No Surrender again.

Borash is in the back, where he plugs TNA mobile before checking in with Black Machismo and Abyss; they'll be teaming up later tonight. I can't decide if Black Machismo's shtick is getting old, but as I started watching after the golden age of Savage I'm probably not the target audience anyway. Abyss is Abyss. They should probably let Angle do more of the talking in this feud.

Joe is walking "towards the Impact Zone", which looks for all the world like an empty basketball court. Team Pacman sees him go by, and ponders whether he could be the next victim of their spray-painting ways. I'm not quite clear on why they don't know yet.

[Commercial Break]

James Storm crashes an AA meeting, looking for Rhino (my wife at this point questions why a meeting of Alcoholics Anonomous would let in someone with a camera). This should have been funny, but I thought it fell flat. It wasn't actively bad or anything, just flat.

2 – Samoa Joe defeated Raven

Raven comes out to the ring on a throne, pulling it off better than Triple H did. I think he lost a bit of weight - good for him. Joe comes out to full fire-twirling again, which apparently he's doing every week now. Joe beats Raven down a bit on the outside, then on the inside. The crowd's mostly behind Joe, but it's close. Raven wards Joe off with a Kendo stick, and while Joe's keeping his distance he gets nailed from behind by A.J. Styles.

[Commercial Break]

Raven hits a leaping knee from the top rope, but when he tries to follow up with a sweaty towel to the face (yes, you read that correctly), he accidentally nails AJ instead. One rear naked choke later and it's over. Remember when Raven was propelled to the world title by the demand of a loving crowd? No? Neither does TNA.

After the match, Joe attacks A.J. Tomko tries to make the save, but meets with failure. Christian has more success, hitting Joe from behind with a steel chair. He then has his peeps handcuff Joe to the rope and hits him a couple more times with a chair. Joe's fire-twirlers come down and stand over his body protectively. So that's what they're there for. Don West comments about the "protective nature of the Samoan people," and my wife and I debate whether that's racist. Christian, however, disapproves of their involvement in this angle, and so attacks both and hits one with a one man Con-Chair-To. I really hope that was filmed before the news came out about Benoit's head - as far as important uses of head shots go, I'm not sure one to a random Samoan worker is really the most essential to the wrestling industry.

[Commercial Break]

A promo airs for Mitchell's new monster, Judas Maseeis(?). I still say that he's Kevin Thorn in a mask.

Rhino calls Mike Tenay, and tells him that he'll be meeting James Storm in the ring at No Surrender. I'm not sure why they're working so hard to keep these two apart - maybe Rhino needed a couple of weeks off?

3 – Black Machismo Jay Lethal & Abyss defeated Kurt Angle & Sting

I'm really digging Angle's new entrance, especially with the 15 belts silhouetted against the entranceway. Sting and Lethal lock up to start. Lethal gains the upper hand and tags in Abyss, but the monster insists on Sting tagging in Angle. Abyss is in full control, with Angle unable to work any offense to counter Abyss's power. Karen Angle moseys on down to ringside as we cut away.

[Commercial Break]

During the break, Sting made Kurt carry Karen to the back, much to her chagrin. Sting and Angle take turns beating down Lethal until Abyss comes in and starts cleaning house. Illegal man Lethal hits a big elbow off Abyss's shoulders to some appreciative chants from the crowd. When Abyss goes for a double chokeslam on both of his opponent's, he realizes he doesn't want to hurt Sting and lets him go. After Angle's slammed, however, Sting is willing to confront Abyss enough to break up the cover. Lethal takes Sting over the top rope, and we're down to our No Surrender main event. Encouragingly for the PPV, the sequence with these Angle and Abyss was probably the best wrestling the night: Angle counters a powerslam into an Angle Slam, but Abyss kicks out. He locks in the Angle lock, but Abyss rolls through. Angle tries to nail him with a clothesline, but gets nailed with a Black Hole Slam and it's over. Since when does a Black Hole Slam keep down Kurt Angle?

Mitchell lures Abyss away, after which Killings and Pacman sneak into the ring, dispatch Sting, and spray paint Angle.

Where We've Been:

It's a good thing TNA's supposedly getting a second hour, because time management is not their strong suit. When WWE runs down a PPV card in their two hour broadcast, it's almost always skip-able. When TNA does in an hour-long show, it's questionable. When they do it twice in the first half hour, and then immediately plug TNA mobile, it's downright asinine. Especially on a show that does not have time to feature Eric Young, LAX, Christopher Daniels, Sonjay Dutt, etc. I realize that you don't want the show to feel cramped, but adding filler is not the answer. The entire show just felt like an ad for No Surrender, with the net result that I want to see it less than I did after last week's stellar show.

Where We're Going:

Supposedly there's a "major announcement" coming at No Surrender. Last year's No Surrender featured the stunning news that TNA had signed Kurt Angle, but I'm guessing they're not going to top that (if they do have someone equally exciting, like RVD or Y2J, they deserve massive credit for keeping it so well under wraps again). Most likely it's just that, as already mentioned, TNA's going to two hours, which will be extremely welcome news. They just announced a 10-team gauntlet to become the #1 contender to the tag team titles for the PPV as well, which should go a long way towards demonstrating the untapped depth of TNA's roster. Going into No Surrender, I must say I'm much more excited about the state of TNA than I was last month before Hard Justice.

Tonight's Show:

Tonight's show was fairly bland - there wasn't a whole lot to hate about it, but there wasn't a whole lot to love either. For my entertainment dollar, dull is almost worse than bad. The repeated plugs for various TNA products and events contributed to an air of this week's show being disposable fodder. C+


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