Wade Keller, PWTorch Editor (7.5)

This worked. It was different, and not flawless, but the change of pace with the MEM takeover of the first 75 minutes worked. The downside of it working from an entertainment standpoint is that it also got them over as entertaining screwballs, like the fun kids in class when the teacher left the room. I'm not sure about having Angle beat both members of LAX fair and square. I'm all for clean finishes, but one heel should not beat two babyfaces clean unless the faces are being buried or are a full level or two lower than the heel on the roster. Otherwise, you really damage the babyfaces. LAX are damaged now.

Kurt Angle was at his best as a character in terms of just being entertaining in and out of the ring. Kevin Nash was good on commentary. He could have been better, but he was drowned out by far and away the worst part of this experiment, which was the unfunny, overbearing Booker T, who is once again his own biggest fan. The non-stop rapid-fire commentary might have worked if he sat in one match, or part of one match, but 75 minutes of it was horrible. If ratings go down during the first five quarter hours, he's why. Rudy Charles and Andrew Thomas played their parts well. Scott Steiner was a riot as ring announcer. Sharmell and Jeremy Borash did what they did well.

Once it went back to normal, it was a normal Impact, with the usual mix of good and bad, and whether you like it has to do with personal taste and whether you can overlook the flaws. I'm not sure about Jim Cornette, as a babyface authority figure, booking Shane Sewell against Booker T without some credibility being given to Sewell that he can hold his own. I'd rather have had Booker, full of overconfidence, demand the match, and then play up Sewell as eager to accept the challenge, with friends of his warning him that he might be out of his league. Sewell, though, insists on accepting the challenge and proving he's able to hold his own. Cornette just throwing it on the card seemed like he was punishing Sewell for some reason since Sewell is just not portrayed as being at Booker's level at this point.

Two weeks out from a PPV, you can get away with this show. It's entertaining and further establishes that MEM are a sequel to the NWO, but up to the challenge of not being a pale imitation. The Sting-Angle dynamic was furthered, too, so it had it's eye on that ball, too. There was enough stressing of the PPV that it wasn't just a screwball entertainment-oriented toss-off, but it promoted the money product, too. They just have to be careful that they don't position MEM to be too funny and likable. Having Angle win in the end against a strong babyface team clean was dangerous as now MEM aren't just funny, but they're good. TNA had a relatively weak babyface roster as is, so who wants to boo them now?

The teaser of the new-look Samoa Joe was a strong hook at the end. He was due for a make-over after a rough 2008 in many ways. I'm eager to see what he (and they) have come up with.

Curtis Shanks, PWTorch.com Contributor (5.0)

It was the tale of two halves tonight on Impact. The first half, despite a couple of positives (Kevin Nash on commentary and Scott Steiner ring announcing) was down-right annoying. The Main Event Mafia have looked like legit bad-asses at times over the past couple of months, but tonight was a step in the wrong direction for them. On paper, taking over the show seems like a good idea. But the way it was presented reeked of some of the garbage WCW presented to us a decade ago.

The show returned to normal for the second half, which saved this show from bombing. From a storyline standpoint, Mick Foley did a nice job of stacking the deck against the MEM members as retribution for how they ran the show the first half. There was promise, but the matches just had too many gimmicks attached to them. Our lineup tonight consisted of three handicap matches, the overbooked Steiner/Abyss match, the one-handed Petey Williams debacle and the joke that was the TNA referees in a match. There's a reason referees are just there as authority figures for a match and not allowed to give promos. And we saw it tonight.

To close tonight's show, we saw a snippet promoting the return of the "real Samoa Joe". Are we to assume the real Joe is essentially the same guy, just with a new Samoan design painted on his face? In all his time in TNA, Samoa Joe has never been allowed to express himself with his face paint, and now he finally gets that chance.

Daniel Wilkenfeld, PWTorch.com Contributor (9.5)

Impact tonight was just great. The first hour was amusing and different, but all the squashes put me in the mood for something else. They delivered that something else in the second hour. Putting aside the cowboy business as what I can only assume is an unfortunate contractual obligation, I really don't have a bad thing to say about this show. The return of ass-whipping Joe at the end was just icing on the cake. Kurt Angle, Booker T, and both members of LAX all put in all-star performances, and no one felt like dead weight. Kudos all around.

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