Nick D'Achino, PWTorch.com Contributor (4.0)

I still have Impact being better than Raw most weeks, but it doesn’t matter. TNA is so far behind the WWE in terms of fan base that Impact has to be SIGNIFICANTLY better than Raw, and for a long stretch of time. Any delusion shared by those in TNA about being at WCW level yet have hopefully been dashed with them being sent back to Thursday nights. The show itself wasn’t necessarily a bad or “below average” show, but the poor direction things seemed to move in definitely brought it down a few notches.

Perhaps Eric Young has a good reason for aligning with the Band (and the Band for aligning with Eric Young), after being ambushed and having a blood feud with them, but most likely it was just a swerve for the sake of a swerve. The ship has sailed on renaming them by the way. Don’t even get me started on how they handled Flair being handed his HOF ring back after losing it forever just a week prior. When a promotion devalues it’s stipulations, it really limits what they can do when they really need to pull something out of the hat.

Having Hogan and Sting on-screen together is almost certainly going to draw some fan interest, but no one who decided to stick around for it could have possibly been pulled into what they were talking about. It has Russo/Ferrara fingerprints all over it. In the long run, the quality of the stories and the conflicts are more important than pure star power. This whole few month stretch is ultimately going to be remembered as a disappointment. They needed to put their best foot forward on Mondays. Their “house” was not in order, they had no real vision or plan originally, and it showed. They should have spent the past four months of getting their stuff together on Thursdays, not head-to-head on Monday. Perhaps now they can focus on converting the viewers that they have into pay-per-view buyers, instead of forever searching for that perfect timeslot, or day of the week that will magically get viewers to watch and enjoy their show.

Greg Parks, Torch Columnist (4.5)

Jay Lethal cut a hell of a promo to start the show, and while it was fun seeing him do Ric Flair, he needs to find a character and stick with it. Then it devolved into everyone having to sell for Hogan, which was pathetic. I'm not sure how Ink Inc. got title shots already, considering this was their first week as a team. I'm also not sure what Brian Kendrick has done to earn Doug Williams calling him "crazy." I really like them allowing Mr. Anderson freedom on the mic in TNA, and Jeff Hardy played his part relatively well.

The Eric Young turn just doesn't make any sense. I like how they just threw AJ Styles vs. Abyss, in a Monster's Ball match, out there with little hype, build-up, or follow-up. RVD vs. Desmond Wolfe was a disappointment at just three minutes, and the follow-up on last week's announcement of the Championship Top 10 was not good at all. The best part of the show was the looks on the faces of Taz and Mike Tenay during the Orlando Jordan segment.

Daniel Wilkenfeld, PWTorch.com Contributor (4.0)

This week's show was a lot like last week's. It started great, Anderson was great, and then it just sort of collapsed. Lethal was great on the mic, and showed again that he has the ability to flip between wacky and serious on a dime, excelling at both. The announced matches looked great, particularly Wolfe vs. RVD. I remembered thinking at the time that a measure of TNA's commitment to its fans would be whether RVD vs. Wolfe went on as the main event. It didn't. It didn't get the 9:00 spot. Hell, it didn't get five minutes. Comically, Wolfe is still winning the fan voting (this is actually a bit to to TNA's credit — I was 100% sure they would remove him from the list once he had his shot). Just give him a real bloody title shot! (In all fairness, I for one didn't vote for AJ because they'd already said that he'd get a rematch, so his numbers might be misleadingly low).

Instead, we were treated to another Hogan-centric main event. Sting's implying that he's the real face in the feud would have some potential if I thought there was a snowball's chance in hell they'd introduce any moral ambiguity to Hogan's character. The last time they did that, it turned out to be an accident, and they quickly backtracked. On smaller matters, I do like Ink Inc., and think MattMorgan's doing all that's asked of him and more. Anderson—Hardy was great. The announcement of a retirement match when you know someone's leaving the company is kind of fun, since it's nice to see if they'll make Tara go out on her back or on top (no jokes please).

The Young heel turn was telegraphed badly — if they wanted it to be a shock, why did he come out dressed as Nash's mini-me? - but his inclusion in The Band should help. I'm much more keen on Orlando Jordan's character since I found out that he's actually bisexual, and that it was supposedly his idea to incorporate that into the plot. It's still a bit dull, but at least it's no longer actively offensive. It was also nice to see him get the better of Terry. AJ vs. Abyss was fun, and shockingly head shot free. And then we got to the two final segments, and the music died.

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