James Caldwell, Torch Assistant Editor (3.0)

The inept storytelling on this week's Impact was exemplified by one moment on this show. Kurt Angle, fresh off a babyface promo with one of the top heels in TNA, Mr. Anderson, walked down the entrance ramp and met the leader of the top heel group in the company, Kevin Nash, and greeted him with the Wolfpack signal. Either there's a major angle in play with Triple H throwing up the Wolfpack signal on WWE Raw and Nash greeting Angle with the Wolfpack signal on Impact or TNA has simply given up on trying to make sense of their storylines.

Watching this show, I couldn't help but sense the show has reached a level of irrelevance where it doesn't matter what TNA does because it doesn't matter. TNA has lost the buzz from March 8 and the creative team isn't providing a product that is entertaining to a broad audience. There is not a consistent story from week to week; the audience doesn't know who to look forward to because most of the stars seem like part-time players and the regular stars are often-times on the show one week, then off the show the next week. I simply don't know who TNA is marketing this show towards.

It's sad because there were actually some good performances on this show. Mr. Anderson had another great heel promo showing WWE what they missed out on if they let him fly as a heel who everyone wants to slap across the face because he makes your skin crawl. A.J. Styles vs. Jeff Jarrett was a decent match - with the usual screwy TNA finish - but I didn't buy any of the performances. I'm not buying Styles's act. I'm not buying Flair as this Linda McMahon/Freddie Blassie horrible hybrid acting like a clown on national TV. It exemplified why this show just does not seem relevant because no one is convincing me they're actually buying into what's being written for them by the creative team.

TNA has to go back to the basics on why this show exists. Why does the TNA promotion exist? Is it for Orlando Jordan to descend from the rafters wrapped in tape? Is it for Samoa Joe to appear on a grainy hand-held video vowing to do nothing of consequence? Is it for Jay Lethal to randomly appear on the show spouting off 1980s WWF names? What is TNA contributing to the world of entertainment or pro wrestling? Right now, I would say nothing. They need to figure out what the foundation of this promotion is and go from there. The product is not entertaining; it makes people's heads hurt, and the ratings reflect a complete disinterest in whatever form of entertainment TNA is trying to present from 9:00 to 11:08 p.m. EST on Monday nights. Figure it out, TNA, then come back with a show people will want to watch.

Nick D'Achino, PWTorch.com Contributor (6.0)

Not so many outrageous or "newsworthy" things happened on this week's Impact, but they didn’t need to. Plenty happened on the March 22 edition of Impact, and this one did a good job following up on a lot of those things. I’m not going to encourage Crash-TV style booking by saying a show that stayed within itself was “boring” or “uneventful." TNA's main focus from now until Lockdown in April should be to build toward that pay per view. Say what you want about The Band being too old and past their primes in the ring, but least they aren’t miscast and going over guys like Van Dam or Hardy.

As for the whole Orlando Jones re-debut, that turned out to be much ado about nothing. It got a lot of attention after the reports came in from the tapings, but whatever else it was that happened after he made his entrance wasn’t shown, so it ended up being extremely pointless. Apart from the opening, there was no Hogan on the show and I don’t think it suffered whatsoever from it. Hogan will be back next week and no doubt, the tension between he and Bischoff will rise and be a main focus of the show, so it was good to have a break from him for a week.

Greg Parks, Torch Columnist (4.5)

It was nice to see Jay Lethal back, but why exactly was he put in charge? Why is Hulk Hogan humoring him? And most of all, why did he, someone who has been a non-player the entire Bischoff/Hogan regime, beat the hottest tag team in TNA one-on-two? I can't think of a better way to get fans to turn the channel to the competition's program than to have Bubba The Love Sponge lead The Band to the ring. And Bubba shoots on the fans!

The Pope/Chelsea segment did nothing for me, despite Pope's very good mic work. The double-entendres were weak. Orlando Jordan's debut was intriguing, but they never followed up on that set he and his male and female companions sat at. A.J. Styles was a slightly better-than-average match. I liked the stuff between Kurt Angle and Mr. Anderson. The main event was mind-boggling: You have a PPV full of cage matches coming up that you expect people to buy....and you give one away for FREE now? Not only that, but you give away the biggest move that can be done in a cage, having someone fly off the top. I just don't get it.

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