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TNA Impact review
October 18, 2007
Aired on Spike TV
Report by Daniel Wilkenfeld, PWTorch.com contributor

Borash is in the back with the Angles, and Kurt is blaming Kevin Nash for his loss at Bound for Glory. Karen, like the rest of the world, didn't see it that way. Kurt says that he's calling out Sting for a rematch later tonight. Karen starts to say that he can't beat Sting, but thinks better of it and stops himself. Umm…he's Kurt Angle. He won a gold medal with a broken freak'n neck. It's simply not believable that he can't beat Sting.

[Opening Credits]

Kurt comes to the ring, followed by Karen. He calls out Sting, and reiterates that he only lost because of Nash. He takes a shot at the NWO, which briefly makes me dream that maybe Scott Hall is coming back for some promo-awesomeness. Instead we just get Kevin Nash coming out to take issue with Angle's interpretation of the Bound for Glory main event. Angle looks like he might back down before seeming to (finally) remember that he is Kurt Angle and the other guy's just Kevin Nash. Nash offers him one chance to apologize, and when it's not taken, he points out that there's going to be some violence. He hits a knee lift to Kurt and, after a bizarrely long pause where Angle just sort of stays bent over waiting, nails the Jacknife.

[Commercial Break]

Kurt's in the back lying in pain as Karen explains that they need to make peace with Nash if they want the title back. The powerbomb seems to have brought Kurt to her side, as he's desperate to regain Nash's trust and suggests Karen goes and picks up some porn as a make-up gift. Borash seems to know all about the best places to get said porn, which Kurt doesn't seem to think is all that odd. That's actually slightly funny.

1 -- Alex Shelley wrestles Chris Sabin to a no-contest.

The match kicks in with some sweet chain wrestling. The crowd starts off torn between chanting for Shelley and chanting for Sabin, and eventually decides to just screw it and cheer for the motor city. Just when it's starting to get exciting, Team 3D comes out and talks about how much the match sucks. On the bright side, presumably if the heels were scripted to say how the match sucks then TNA must have known how awesome it would be going. Brother Ray says that the Machine Guns are nobodies who cost them their match against the Steiners. They announce that they're going to destroy the X Division, and then put both Sabin and Shelley through tables. I actually really like this use of 3D.

Christian Cage approaches Cornette in the back, claiming that he should be the number one contender, and that he'll win the right in a ladder match. The ladder's not mentioned again for the rest of the night, so I'm not quite sure why they brought it up. Joe comes into the office and says that he wants the spot Shelley and Sabin's no-contest freed up in the Fight for the Right Tournament. Joe and Christian are at each other's throats before Morgan breaks it up.

[Commercial Break]

Tenay is in the back with "Disco Inferno" Glenn Gilberti who, as part of a tie-in with the film The Comebacks, is going tonight to begin his comeback tonight. Gilberti hits a nice line about how professional wrestlers don't disappear just because they're not on TV.

2 -- Awesome Kong defeats Talia Madison

Tonight, in addition to last week's power moves, Awesome Kong is bringing the female equivalent of some fat-man offense—splashes in the corner, no-selling takedowns and whips, etc. This is basically a squash, and not for Talia Madison.

Nash is in the back, and talks about how he's been the comic relief for the last year, but he didn't really mind except that now Angle's got him pissed. It turns out that his awesomeness on the mic has now moved from just his comedic roles to his more traditional promos, as with a few sentences he manages to make me care more about his character than many wrestlers do in their whole careers. Karen Angle comes up and says she needs to talk to him, but he correctly points out that she's Kurt's wife, and should be on Kurt's side, so there's not really much to talk about.

[Commercial Break]

Crystal (I think) is in the back with Chris Harris, and he's suddenly rocking the asshole vibe. He questions her skills as an interviewer, and when Rhino comes criticizes him for being late. He then tells Rhino to stay sober, and when the Man-Beast takes offense, Harris tells him to save it for the ring.

3 -- Robert Roode & James Storm defeat Chris Harris & Rhino

James Storm is his usual awesome self in this match, jumping all the way to the floor when Rhino so much as looks as him. It could just be my imagination, but the crowd seems a bit more behind Harris now that he's copped a little bit of an attitude. Harris and Roode go for a bit of back-and-forth wrestling, but it's not quite as smooth as it could be. The ref gets distracted and misses Harris rolling up Roode for a five count, but turns around in time to see Roode hit the Payday for the win. The real story is after the match, as when Rhino tries to help Harris up he gets shoved aside for his troubles.

Borash is in the back with Kaz, who summarizes his career in TNA before looking forward to the Fight for the Right. This promo's competent, but it's nothing special.

[Commercial Break]

We come back to Tenay and Cornette in the ring with the Knockouts', Tag Team, and World Championships. Before Cornette can call out the first new champion, "Black Machismo" Jay Lethal comes down to…shake hands with Cornette? That was random. Though I suppose he's right that he shouldn't be left out just cause he already had his belt going into Bound For Glory. Lethal is mollified by a quick congratulations and heads to the back.

Cornette calls out the first new champion, Gail Kim. He talks about how inspiring she was, and she in turn thanks the fans for all their support. I didn't really understand the point of this bit, until it occurred to me that this might be one of the rare occasions when they're actually being sincere—she might just be really gratified to be the first Women's Champion. The crowd certainly seems gratified to have her there.

Tenay then calls down Styles and Tomko, who are accompanied by Christian Cage. Tomko says he'll let AJ talk, and Styles begins with an awesome list of thank you's, including ones to Pokemon, Nintendo DS, Kip James ("even though he's more than twice my age, he's keeping it real"), and that Russian from Rocky IV. Cage cuts him off and says that they should be thanking him. In the meantime, he wants the spot in the Fight for the Right Tournament, and Cornette tells him that later tonight he'll be fighting
Joe for it. I sure never saw that coming.

Finally they call down Sting, whom the crowd greets with a "You've still got it!" chant. I'm not Sting's biggest fan in the world (though neither am I a detractor), but he earned that one. Tenay asks him if he'll be wrestling Angle tonight. He turns the decision over to the crowd, who I'm pretty sure mostly yelled out "no!" Oops. Sting, showing a surprising lack of improvising ability for a veteran, acts like they all said "yes" and agrees to the match. Angle's music hits, and he comes out in a wheel-chair and with a doctor's note. Apparently the Jacknife did serious damage to his spinal cord. Angle says he'll fight next week, presumably after having the chance to patch things up with Nash. Sting asks Angle if his mother signed the note, but apparently considers the match on. He says that if Angle's not crippled now, he will be next week.

[Commercial Break]

Borash is in the back with Angle, who has apparently been rattled by Sting. He's crying about being crippled next week, and agrees with Karen that they have to go find Nash.

4 -- Kaz defeats Lance Hoyt (w/Jimmy Rave and Christy Hemme)

This is a Fight for the Right quarter-final match. The story is the breakdown in communications between Hoyt, Hemme, and Rave, which would be interesting if we had any idea what they were doing together in the first place. When Christy enters the ring Kaz bends her back as if he's going to kiss her, but when Hoyt charges he tosses her aside and nails an ensuguri for the win. I would think the man with one of the coolest finishers in professional wrestling would try to use it every now and then.

Crystal is in the back with some professional eating champion. While I'm fairly sure my recapping duties do not extend to Spike TV crossovers, I should mention that the guy was actually fairly natural on the mic. I wonder if he wrestles. Fatu meanders onscreen, and cuts a promo which involved asking Crystal what she's smelling and talking about various "jabronies". Apparently someone is happy the Rock said he's not coming back.

[Commercial Break]

The Angles are in one of the sketchier parts of the arena with Borash, and since Kurt can't walk he sends Karen to ask Black Reign if he's seen Nash. Reign says he has, but then proceeds to pull out his rat and lick it (that's not a metaphor). Karen and Borash run off screaming, and Kurt calls for someone to help push his wheelchair.

Abyss defeats Disco Inferno

As movie tie-ins go, bringing back random older wrestlers with silly gimmicks to job to Abyss is actually pretty good. I'm hoping the Gobbledygooker gets a gig out of this.
After the match, Black Reign comes out to attack Abyss. Mitchell creates a distraction, which gives Reign time to hit a shot with his hammer and handcuff him to the turnbuckle. Whoever made the point a few weeks back that TNA has been busting out handcuffs too often lately was dead on, and it really starts to show here—there is just no need in this case. Reign puts the rat in a bag and puts the bag on Abyss's head. I want those 5 minutes back.

[Commercial Break]

Kurt finally spots Kevin in the back, but the latter drives off as Kurt shouts out his promises to buy him porn.

5 -- Christian Cage defeats Samoa Joe

Before the break it's mostly Joe. The coolest spot of the night comes when Joe goes for a Suicide Dive, stops when he sees Christian's rolled back into the ring, only to have Christian go for a Suicide Dive, but get caught in the head with a remarkably high heel kick by Joe.

[Commercial Break]

I think if anything the match picks up a bit after the break. Joe hits a cool rolling pin, catches Christian in mid-air with a Diamond Cutter, kicks out of a Frog Splash, and hits a standing Muscle Buster without using the turnbuckle. The ref takes a bump, and Styles and Tomko come out to the ring. Joe fights them off, with a slight assist from Matt Morgan. He locks in the rear naked choke, but the ref isn't there to see Christian tap. The hold's sort of upside down, as Joe is on top of Christian Cage rather than underneath him, which proves unfortunate for him when it enables Robert Roode to sneak up behind him and nail him with a chair. Christian rolls over for the win—wait, Joe stayed down to one chair shot? Is this some new policy? The announcers admit that they're not quite sure what's going on, and hope to find out next week why Roode would screw Joe. If I were Christian I'd be insulted.

Where We've Been:
The best news for me coming out of today's show was Chris Harris's overdue heel turn. This is cool mostly because along with LAX and Eric Young suddenly getting mini-pushes, it makes me wonder if someone at TNA headquarters is reading this column. That would rule. More importantly, however, it's overdue because Harris just isn't all that interesting as a face. Most importantly though, it's a good move because the fans want to boo Harris. TNA is often criticized for their failure to keep straight who's face and who's heel, but personally I find that to be one of their strengths. VKM, much as I don't like them, always behave in roughly the same fashion, and sometimes the crowd feels like cheering and sometimes it feels like booing. Ditto with the likes of Christopher Daniels, Christian Cage, Joe, etc. The more people they can have act as tweeners, the better. The audience will pick our favorites on our own—it's better to do it that way then have good guys and bad guys shoved down our throats (see WWE's attempts to get Angle booed when he was fighting Cena). Have Harris be kind of a jerk, but still not a caricature, and you let the crowd decide based on our daily preferences. How could your product be better suited to the consumer than by allowing the consumer to define your product on the fly? My guess is that if they keep Harris a bit of a jerk without making him cartoonishly evil, he'll end up a bigger face then he ever was as a generic good cowboy.

Where We're Going:
The other big news out of this week's show is that we had PPV quality main event this week and are at least scheduled to have one again next week. My guess is that a lot of people are likely to criticize this move as foolishly punishing those who shelled out to see the PPV, but I think it's brilliant. TNA had strong pay-per-view matches years before their weekly broadcast was even tolerable. Strong matches should be what they're selling, and if people look forward to the anchoring matches as the best part of a weekly show, they might even tune into the PPV's more often in order to see even stronger matches all bunched together. Moreover, even if this hurts PPV buys in the short-term, in the long run the product is essentially tied to how many people watch the free programming, and making each week of that must-see might just be the key to growing the brand.

Tonight's Show Okay, so we had no LAX, Eric Young, Ron Killings, Raven, or XXX, but we did get two squashes and two segments with Black Reign. This show was crusin' for a grading bruisin' till the main event, which thankfully left me with a positive enough aftertaste to give this show a respectable grade. B

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