Well there cannot be a lot left to be said about Against All Odds. Last night Eric nelson was kind enough to pull himself away from his class work and serve as the medium for my dismay. Of course instant reactions are usually bad, especially with such a large amount of disappointment. So in that vein here are a few more random thoughts from the PPV last night. None of these are in order, hence the use of the word random.
I will be very surprised if TNA comes back to this area in the next five years. Jeremy Borash shilled like a snake oil salesman trying to get the crowd in to the product. He used the easy tricks by constantly repeating the name Greenville, SC and had the audacity to say this was the first time they had been to South Carolina. This is true if you ignore the house show run from 2006 they had here. All he was missing was the plant from the crowd who would come in to the ring and rant and rave about the greatness of TNA.
In comparison to a WWE show, nothing goes on before the show to get the crowd hyped. The audience is invested in the product and the storylines beforehand. It is amateurish to have a male cheerleader out there pumping up the crowd. They send Christopher Daniels to Greenville and used him in a Local DJ spot when they could have had him wrestle Kaz as a dark match treat. It could have showcased same athleticism and got the crowd hyped in this manner. It also would have set the tone for their product being vastly different than WWE.
This is the place where I backtrack a tad. In the audio report Eric Nelson and I conducted I blew off the Traci Brooks/ Payton banks match. The match itself was adequate. If there would have been a little more emotional investment it would have been a decent brawl and a satisfying finish. Instead we had two women who were angry with each other and that was it. Both women worked hard so it was definitely not an effort issue, it was an execution issue by the writing staff. The crowd was behind Traci but was apathetic to Payton. She hasn’t been around long enough and the rub from Robert Roode clearly did not take.
Another bit that was we did not cover was the gimmick of Jimmy Rave and Lance Hoyt and after listening to the audio some more backtracking is needed. On television this gimmick bombs badly. In person the gimmick of the clueless airheads (Adam Sandler opus) comes off rather nice. Jimmy Rave finally has a character and he plays the role well of the pesky right hand man to the aging rocker. The absence of Christy Hemme actually helped the gimmick. They had to fend for themselves with the cameras off and they seemed to really grow in to the gimmick. Seeing them walk down the ramp they looked like stars. No you are not misreading this; Lance Hoyt and Jimmy rave looked like stars. The air guitar is annoying as hell and Lance relies on it way too much. The guitar Hero guitars are ridiculous but fit the gimmick. This can blossom in to a legit gimmick if TNA so decrees and it won’t take much. People also don’t; like them and it isn’t go away heat, it is legitimate loathing already.
A minor disappointment was the exclusion of Angelina Love and Velvet Sky. They have received a good deal of Impact time and not having them on the show, even in a backstage skit, seemed like a lost opportunity. Sure the expense of flying them in for the show may have been a tad cost inefficient but they flew Curry man for a dark match. Now that TNA is changing their taping schedule and the talk of an all Knockouts show gains steam it would have been nice to focus on all of the women in the division. Kevin Nash didn’t make an appearance so they could have worked him in with those two.
If TNA ever runs in to complications with a state board over the content of a wrestling match near a month in advance they need to change the match. The crowd died during the match as you have an arena full of people watching video screens for an extended period of time. It is no exaggeration to say that people fell asleep. Next time do your homework and realize what the state board will and will not accept. Do not tape a match and try and pass it off as live. The contrast between a taped match and a match legitimately live is obscene. Impact has a taped feel to it as is and trying to trick your audience in to believing it is live is a smack in the face of the paying customer. It doesn’t help matters that the ring apron for the match was dirty and they didn’t set up any Against All Odds banners around the ring instead of their DVD advertisements. Al little housecleaning and planning could have made this match a bit more legitimate.
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