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10/11 TNA Impact review by Wilkenfeld: Where they've been, where they're going
Oct 12, 2007 - 1:32:02 AM |
TNA Impact review
October 11, 2007
Aired on Spike TV
Report by Daniel Wilkenfeld, PWTorch.com contributor
We start with a recap from last week, with Sting's thoughts on fatherhood interspersed. Angle is walking around backstage wearing Garret Borden's football jersey.
[Opening Credits]
(1) "Black Machismo" Jay Lethal defeats Havok. We're apparently beginning our rebuilding of the X Division here tonight with a rebuilding of the champion. Daniels is at ringside for the match, but it pretty much plays out as a straight up showcase for Lethal (who's still selling last week's beat down by Team 3D). Havok hits a couple of high spots, including a beautiful moonsault from the top rope to the center of the ring, but in the end he's just a prop. Lethal hits the Lethal Combo and the Savage Elbow for the win. After the match, Daniels grabs the title belt, stares down Lethal for a bit, and then nonchalantly tosses the title back to him. That's a nice touch, as it makes it seem like Daniels isn't worried about holding the belt - he knows he's about to get it back. Lethal looks perplexed.
Borash is in the back and sees Karen Angle enter the Impact Zone. When asked why they arrived separately, she reports that she and Kurt are having marital problems. Uh oh.
[Commercial Break]
Kurt Angle's in the ring, and he explains that he did what he did last week for two reasons - first, he's mad about Sting hitting his wife, and second, he wants to see the old Stinger at Bound for Glory. He calls out Sting, but gets Karen instead. She is quite rationally less than thrilled that Kurt has decided to go and make family fair game as targets, and lets slip that it was Kurt's idea to pretend she got slapped at No Surrender. I'll have thoughts on that a bit further down. Sting appears on the monitor, and announces that he blames Karen as much as Kurt, that the old angry Sting is back, and that he'll take his revenge when he bloody well feels like it. I'm glad to see they're not going to have Sting start trusting Karen right away. He says he'll take everything from Kurt at BFG, but that the games will begin right now. At this point a dummy that bears a faint resemblance to Sting drops from the rafters with a harness around his neck. If I were trying to scare my adversary I don't think I'd do it by presenting an image of myself being hanged. Luckily, Kurt fails to notice the odd harness placement, and immediately goes for an Angle Lock. He then realizes his mistake and is…um….moderately embarrassed? Not the best revenge for beating up someone's son, but hopefully this is just Phase 1 (Phase 3: Profit).
After some BGF hype, we cut to Nash in the back going to talk to Sting. In what seems like a pleasant chat between two normal human beings, Nash reminisces about old times with Sting and asks about his future plans. He questions whether Sting really wants to win the title like a common thing, but admits that if it had been his son Angle had messed with he would be equally pissed. They part ways amicably. This segment was very bizarre, as it almost seemed like a break in character to have Sting chatting with an old friend from the rafters, but I think I liked it for sheer variety's sake.
[Commercial Break]
One of the blond women is in the back with Team Pacman, and The Truth starts singing for no obvious reason. Pacman says hi to his wife and mother. Killings says something in Spanish about Bound for Glory being in 3 hours.
(2) Team Pacman defeats Senshi & "Primetime" Elix Skipper. Tonight playing the role of Mr. Fuji will be Adam "Pacman" Jones, as he spends most of the match throwing various objects at members of XXX. The match starts off hot with Senshi hitting a lightning fast springboard side-kick on one of the members of Team Pacman (I'll let you guess which). The Truth works his usual magic, and then tags in Pacman to hit Senshi with a football to the groin. The finish comes when Pacman distracts Skipper by throwing a fistful of dollar bills into the ring, allowing Killings to hit the scissors kick for the win.
The Steiners come out to the ring and share a series of hearty handshakes with Team Pacman. That was odd. The crowd is red hot for Rick hitting his catchphrases and bizarrely cold for Scott calling out Team 3D. He says that after they win at BFG, they're going to "roast the two fattest pigs in professional wrestling - Team 3D." Poor Devon - he's not even fat.
3D is in the back, and Ray begs to differ regarding their status as barnyard animals. He comments that at BFG they're going "to take some Team 3D wood and shove them down your throats." You can make up your own joke there. He then starts rambling about how Britney Spears is a fat alcoholic. There is a funny moment when Borash starts to make the obvious comparison and Brother Ray shuts him up. Brother Ray then rambles some more about how they're going to piss on the Steiners, only to have the Steiners jump out and be restrained by security. This was not the best promo work these two teams could do.
[Commercial Break]
Nash is in the back with the Angles, and he question's Kurt's strategy of provoking Sting. He says he's washing his hands of the whole affair. Kurt takes Borash to go Sting hunting.
The Amazing Kong defeats Gail Kim
(3) All the women who will be in Sunday's knockout gauntlet are at ringside, giving us our first look at the non-TNA women. The Amazing Kong is fairly large. She's a little slow for a woman, but very fast for someone with her frame. All in all, she's not the sort of wrestler I would like to see populate the women's division - I prefer the women to be a faster paced alternative to the men - but as a unique attraction she might work. The story of the match is Kim's speed and technical prowess versus Kong's admittedly impressive power. The high point is Gail Kim going for a leg scissors, not having the leverage, and then locking in the octopus. Kong just powers through everything and hits a sit-out powerbomb for the win. The other women seem impressed.
We cut to Don West's pre-taped interview with "The Guru" Sonjay Dutt, who is now requesting donations to help with the Ebola outbreak in Nairobi. Has Sonjay's metamorphosis just been the first part in a long-term scam for cash? I don't know, but this makes me think that we might finally be moving towards a punch line with this gimmick.
[Commercial Break]
We see footage of Tomko and A-Train defending their tag titles in Japan.
Christian Cage and A.J. Styles are out for Christian's new talk show, "Chatting With the Champ." How on Earth did WWE manage to copyright "The Peep Show"? The ring has a Samoan backdrop, as apparently TNA needed to find something to do with A.J.'s luau set from two weeks ago. Christian calls out Joe, and just when I'm thinking Christian's a bit off his game, Joe goes off on how Christian's not even trying anymore. Damn - even when he's a bit bad he's good. Joe says that while he (Christian) might be funny, in the end of the day he's still just an asshole. Christian keeps trying to talk Joe down, while Joe's looking for a fight. Cage has Styles mix some drinks, but Joe, showing a level of sense not previously seen in his TNA career, doesn't drink what's handed to him. Instead he jumps Cage, and when Styles tries to make the save Matt Morgan comes and carries him off. Remember when A.J. Styles was the first ever TNA Triple Crown winner? I'm just asking. Christian is able to grab a coconut and nail Joe in the head. A talk show host hitting his Samoan guest with a coconut? Roddy Piper is not going to be happy when he hears that people are stealing two of his gimmicks at once.
LAX is in the back with the Latino Nation, and apparently Homicide speaks English, if not especially well. They should really just let them cut their promos in Spanish - a decent chunk of their audience would probably appreciate it.
[Commercial Break]
(4) Robert Roode defeats Petey Williams. I know Robert Roode has a lot of fans in on the internet, but this is the first match where I've really seen anything in him. Petey Williams goes full speed the whole match, hitting whacky hurricanranas, slingshot moves, and whacky slingshot hurricanrana moves, and Roode keeps up the entire time. When Petey goes for the Canadian Destroyer Roode smoothly reverses it into the Playmaker for the clean win. After the match, he calls in Ms. Brooks to slap Petey a bit, but she declines. It's funny how as soon as we found out she didn't really want to work for him she started acting nicer. He starts getting annoyed, so Kaz runs down and knocks him out of the ring. Roode demands she join him on the outside, but Kaz wants her to stay with him. Roode, apparently fearing that he'll lose this battle, just pulls her out of the ring.
Kurt is in the back looking for Sting, and announces that the "first place to look for a piece of crap" is in the men's room. Why are they just looking in the first place now when they set off almost three segments ago? Kurt goes into the bathroom, only to encounter a conspicuous camera-light which gets caught onscreen, and Junior Fatu making use of the facilities.
(5) Black Reign & Raven defeat Abyss & Rhino. We barely get through the introductions before we cut to some ads.
[Commercial Break]
This match is No DQ, so it consists mostly of one stiff weapon shot after another. The most vicious is a Raven Effect on Abyss onto some thumbtacks, which looks just brutal. This "match" is just a rushed brawl, but with no hardcore matches on Raw, Smackdown, or, strangely, ECW, I like my periodic fix of mindless bashing. Though this is technically a tag match, Black Reign doesn't let Raven get the win and Abyss is too blinded by the thumbtacks to know his own partner. Abyss hits the Black Hole Slam on Rhino, and Black Reign is there to make the cover for his team.
Junior Fatu is in the back with Some Blond, and comments that there is more "drama" in TNA than the WWE. I'm not sure I'd be advertising that. Fatu claims that she can smell that he's going to win the fight for the right tournament, apparently reasoning that Samoan + talk of smelling = ratings gold.
[Commercial Break]
Some Blond turns out to be Crystal, and she asks Matt Morgan whether he's looking forward to BFG. He says he can't wait for Joe or Christian to try him, but that in the meantime he'll be enforcing the main event tonight. If Sting tries to come after Angle, he'll let him, as he's just there to make sure Angle doesn't escape.
(6) Kurt Angle & Team 3D defeat Junior Fatu & LAX. LAX is in the main event two weeks in a row? Sweet. On the other hand, so is Junior Fatu, so it might not be TNA's biggest honor (not that I have any beef with Fatu, but LAX he ain't). Before the break it's all faces, with Homicide hitting his flips, Fatu hitting his big man spots, and Hernandez hitting the fast power moves that make me think that he might be the single most under-utilized performer in professional wrestling today.
[Commercial Break]
Homicide and Angle are engaged in some nice back-and-forth wrestling, which happens repeatedly throughout the match. Soon enough though it becomes the traditional game of isolating and beating the living daylights out of Homicide. Eventually he gets the tag to Fatu, who is a big house 'o fire. Hernandez and then Homicide tag back in, but now it's a free-for-all. Fatu hits a Stink Face on Angle, only to walk into a 3D. Hernandez does some flying, taking out Devon. Homicide and Angle do some more chain wrestling, and thanks to Lethal's win a few weeks ago part of me believes that Homicide might just have a chance. He doesn't. Angle hits the Olympic Slam for the win. He then calls out Sting, who appears on the monitor and says they should wait for Bound for Glory. Then again, he says, maybe not, as a remarkably Sting-shaped member of the Latino Nation sneaks up behind Angle. Sure enough, it's Sting, and he makes Angle tap to the Scorpion Death Lock.
We close out the show with a package of TNA wrestlers and announcers selling the importance of Bound for Glory.
Where We've Been:
So Kurt asked Karen to pretend she'd been slapped? That raises the question of what he gained from this charade that made it worth costing himself the tag team titles, but does explain why he would have continued to "believe" her story. If they can supply him with a believable motive, they might be able to salvage something sensible out of this storyline. Most likely he just wanted to somehow get in Sting's head, but that won't really cut it, as the two weren't feuding at the time. Slightly more interestingly, they could point out Angle's actual obsessive nature, and claim that he really did care about beating Sting at his absolute best, and needed an excuse to bring that out. Nothing I can think of makes too much sense, but at least the heel who genuinely wants the best competition would be a new twist, and it would make Angle out not to be a complete moron.
Where We're Going:
Hopefully I'll have a Bound for Glory Preview written some time this weekend, so I won't say too much about BFG here. What I will say is that I do not like the trajectory this show is on after last week. There seemed to be a lot more skits that added "drama" without doing any real work. Most notably, I'm thinking of anything having to do with Karen Angle, and Kurt Angle walking in on Fatu in the bathroom. There was no reason for any of these skits to exist (particularly not the latter), and so for the first time perhaps ever Impact had segments that felt like filler. For years they've been unable to get many of their top stars onto the program, and now that they have finally have two hours it is not the time to overlook the Alex Shelley's of the world in favor of bathroom sketches. I'm going to just hope that this week's downtime was due to Impact being in a slight holding pattern before their biggest PPV of the year. We'll see next week what the real story is.
This Week's Show: I'm apparently one of the few who liked last week's broadcast, but thought this week's was a marked step down in both intensity and time management. I wonder if that means everyone else will like it this week or else really hate it? A fun main event and some quality wrestling in the brief under-card matches keep this episode afloat. B
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