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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

The Angles are in the back with Kevin Nash, and Kurt's sorry for being a jerk at No Surrender. They share a hug, which Nash is surprisingly uncomfortable with for someone who was emitting homoerotic overtones like three weeks ago. Kurt describes what he and Karen did to Sting last week, and Nash is aghast at their stupidity in angering the Icon. He points out that there's the happy-go-lucky (lame) Sting and the brutal creepy Sting. After a brief history lesson regarding Sting's impact on the NWO, Kurt and Karen start blaming each other for last week's assault. The phantom slap comes up, and Nash is still doubtful of Karen's story. Kurt insists that since Karen "wants to wear the pants in the family" she has to apologize to Sting later—I'm not quite sure how that followed. Somewhere in the midst of all this, she's handed a mysterious letter that she leaves unopened. Doesn't she know that people on wrestling shows only get correspondence relating to their current storylines?

[Opening Credits]

(1) Judas Mesias defeats Eric Young. If he's Mitchell's son, why isn't his name Judas Mitchell? Conversely, if he wasn't raised by his father, why is he suddenly doing his bidding? I'm probably over thinking this. Mesias is still sporting the white contacts of extreme coolness and the fake blood spitting of extreme lameness. He obliterates Eric Young in a squash, and continues the beat down after the match. Sharkboy comes to make the save, and Masias takes him out and goes for a chair. In comes Rhyno to make the secondary save. If you're wondering why, you're in good company. I'll have more to say on this later.

Borash is in the back with Christian's Coalition, and A.J. Styles has set up an elaborate Samoan environment to honor Christian's forthcoming match with Junior Fatu. Again they mention something about peeling bananas with their toes, and I'm clearly missing an allusion here. Tomko gets annoyed, and says that A.J. should be taking his match with Killings a bit later more seriously. I don't think I like this angry Tomko—I prefer him calm, like a quieter version of Batista circa December 2004. A.J. and Tomko walk off and Christian cuts a promo where he says next to nothing, but does so very well.

(2) Ron "The Truth" Killings defeats A.J. Styles. These are two of the best in-ring performers in all of wrestling today, and this match should really have been a bigger deal. Still, on Impact I suppose I should be happy that it got 10 minutes. It's basically the sort of match you'd expect: Styles and Killings both perform amazing moves effortlessly, with natural transitions, and without a single rest hold.

[Commercial Break]

We're back, and Killings hits the move of the night comes when he connects with what I can only call a springboard corkscrew dropkick to Tomko on the ring apron. It seriously looked like a move from one of those old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade games. Pacman sprays A.J. in the eyes with his paint can and Killings nails the scissors kick for the win.

Karen Angle in the back issues an invitation for Sting to come to the ring so that she can atone for her transgressions. 'Tis the season.

[Commercial Break]

Karen Angle comes down to the ring and apologizes for slapping him around last week. Sting voice is heard, and he says that he won't get caught in their traps again. He then comes out…from the entrance ramp? I could have sworn we'd be in for some descending from the rafters action. He informs her that she won't be able to interfere at Bound For Glory, because the letter she received earlier was for a restraining order good "between now and then." I'm going to assume he meant that "between" to include BFG, or else this is remarkably pointless. He then inches up on her until he is within 50 feet, at which point she is escorted away in cuffs by large men wearing shirts that say "police." I can't decide whether to go with a joke about how good it is to see Sting back with The Police or to point out that the "police" look more like the "Hot Cops" (male strippers) from Arrested Development, so I'll let you all choose your own adventure on that one.

Christian and Junior Fatu come out for their match.

[Commercial Break]

(3) Christian Cage defeats Junior "Rikishi" Fatu. Christian and Fatu lock up. Fatu is looking a bit slower than I remembered, but perhaps I'm just being nostalgic. He still however has various butt-related offense, a mean superkick, and a brutal looking Yurinagi that I don't recall having seen before.

[Commercial Break]

This is not a great showcase for Fatu, as he never gets to hit his Bonzai Drop, his piledriver, or that cool toss he used to do. I suppose we should be grateful for the lack of pile drivers though. The finish comes when a distraction from A.J. Styles allows Christian to roll up Fatu for the win. Tenay claims tights were involved, but I didn't see any. After the match Fatu starts beating down both Styles and Christian. When he goes for a Meeting of the Minds, West says it's like smashing a couple of coconuts together; I can't decide whether or not that's racist. He hits a pair of Stink Faces, though they're somewhat weak versions as he doesn't pull his trunks higher. After the Stink Faces Tomko hits the ring (to very loud "Tomko" chants), begging the question of what the devil he was doing till now. The three members of Christian's Coalition gain the upper hand for all of ten seconds, after which Joe comes out and cleans house. Interestingly, none of the Coalition was watching the ramps for Joe's appearance, as apparently his going after Christian was sufficiently inconceivable that none of them saw it coming.

We cut to the back, where Judas Maseis is choking out Sting for no discernable reason. Apparently Maseis is now feuding with the entire TNA roster.

Where We've Been:

Does anyone else get the feeling that there's some sort of bet amongst the TNA writers regarding what it will take to get Eric Young booed? Since the breakup of Team Canada, they've had Young align with then über-heel Jeff Jarrett against Samoa Joe and Sting, only to have Jarrett start getting cheered. They had him enter a bikini contest (which he won), be a moron with Ms. Brooks, and then act like wimp once Robert Roode owned his contract. The end result of all this was turning him from the single most over performer in the Impact Zone (and voted most likely breakout performer of 2007) a year ago to just another face today. Now they're apparently trying a new tack, and have just demoted him to the role of jobber-to-not-especially-impressive-new-guy. Couldn't they have just sent out Sharkboy to do the job and let Eric Young make the save? I just see no reason for this treatment—none at all.

Where We're Going:

When Nash started talking about creepy rafter dwelling Sting, I got excited. Since within a month or two of his arrival in TNA, Sting has been a fairly bland good guy, interested only in saving the company from Jarrett and then saving Abyss from James Mitchell. The crowd doesn't seem to mind too much, but neither do they have the same level of excitement they used to have at his entrance. A little bit of an edge could go a long way towards making Sting one of TNA's signature stars again. Tonight we didn't really get so much of that edge—a restraining order hardly screams "dangerous", but that could be for the best: A too sudden transformation might be difficult to buy into, and there's certainly a logic behind building anticipation before the return of a darker Sting. However, Sting's claim to see through and avoid the Angles' trickery already makes him more worldly than he's been recently. Hopefully this is the start of a transformation who's culmination we'll see by the end of Bound for Glory.

Tonight's Show:
It was certainly a marked step up from last week. We had one ten-minute match and one that lasted almost 20, all with strong performers. Sting-Angle moved forward nicely, as discussed above. However, there was nothing too exciting, which keeps the show out of the A range. B+




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