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By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

IMPACT HITS

Cheerleader Melissa: After a bad show (disappointing considering last week’s good show), Impact finally featured a marginal Hit. I was impressed by the debut of Cheerleader Melissa. I had heard good things about her (despite a lame and presumably offensive alter ego Raisha Saeed) and was glad to see her in a match. She looked good in the ring and backed up what I heard about her. I question debuting her against another debuting Knockout. I question debuting her in the ring without an introduction. I question the Cheerleader gimmick (it seems so WOW, or so indie, or so not-national-wrestling-promotion). Those are the reasons I am calling it a marginal Hit. But, I am thrilled to see another quality wrestler added to the division, which has a few good wrestlers at the top, but a lot of mediocre and bad ones in the middle and the bottom.

Steiner’s Math: This was an incredibly stupid interview, but it was supposed to be and it made me laugh. I thoroughly enjoyed Scott Steiner’s attempt to put a percentage on Samoa Joe’s chances at Sacrifice. Petey Williams’ facial reactions to the whole thing were pretty good too, as if he knew Steiner wasn’t making any sense, but knew he couldn’t point that out. I enjoyed this, but I don’t know how I can take the top heel in TNA seriously if this is how he is portrayed. He got some heat back later in the show, but TNA has to be careful and not just show his goofy side, or they will be right back to where they were with Kurt Angle as the Champion last year, parading around backstage in his speedo.

Main Event: This was a good tag team Main Event, that did a nice job advancing the Angle vs. Joe vs. Steiner feud. There was some nice wrestling action. Petey Williams is good in the ring and showed he isn’t out of place with the bigger stars. The prolonged beating that Samoa Joe took got a bit repetitive, but not too bad. I was surprised that TNA went the unconventional route and had Joe refuse to tag in Kurt Angle as opposed to the typical spot where Angle would ignore Joe and leave him to a continued two on one beating. That bit of unconventional booking elevated the quality of the match. The tension between Joe and Angle worked well. It was good that Joe got the win even after Angle attacked him. Afterwards, we got more development of the feud as Angle and Joe came to blows, and Steiner knocked Joe out. He has used the lead pipe on both Angle and Joe, and it will be interesting to see how they get their revenge next week.

IMPACT MISSES

Curry Man & Shark Boy vs. Machine Guns: This was not how I would have started Impact, one week after such a good show (or really any Impact). Starting with Curry Man & Shark Boy made me want to turn off my t.v. I was confused, because they are an established team, yet they are not in the Deuces Wild Tag Team Tournament, but Rhino & Christian Cage are, despite not being an established team. That makes no sense. We got to see them face the Motor City Machine Guns, which is usually a good thing, until you see Alex Shelley eating the food off of Curry Man’s head. I will say that there was a lot of action, but it really didn’t resemble a tag team match, as the referee never tried to enforce the rules and most of the time all four men seemed to be in the ring at the same time. It was a kinetic mess, and clearly not important to the TNA writers as the match was interrupted by Scott Steiner and Petey Williams. On a side note, why do so many X-Division stars have to do imitations of former wrestling stars? Yes, I am referring to Scott Steiner as being a former star.

AJ Styles: I found some of what Styles did on Impact to be amusing. The problem is that recently (particularly last week), he has started to drop the goofy gimmick and be more serious. This week, he was right back to the total goof which is disappointing. The goof gave him a chance to work on his character development and mic skills, but needs to be dropped in order for him to be taken seriously as the star that he can be. Any credibility that he had left is totally gone now that he is hero worshiping Super Eric.

Knockouts: Mike Tenay’s interview with the Beautiful People fell flat. Angelina Love has shown decent skill, but not Velvet Sky, and neither of them do much for me on the mic. Their lame photos of Gail Kim and ODB bald were just stupid. TNA has been focusing the Beautiful People on a feud with Roxxi Laveaux, yet suddenly their attention is turned to Kim and ODB. Their tag match was fine, but things got confusing when Laveaux came out. As I said last week, the problem is that too many Knockouts are being featured at the same time, and none have a chance to stand out. I know I gave a marginal Hit to Cheerleader Melissa, but will she have a chance to stand out as a Knockout, or will she get lost in the shuffle with the rest of them?

Guerrero Joins LAX: I don’t have much problem in general with Hector Guerrero joining LAX as their manager, although Homicide is gifted on the mic so they don’t need a mouth piece, and Guerrero can be very annoying with his cartoonish facial expressions (o.k., so I do have a bit of a problem with it). However, this Miss is really for how random and quickly this teaming came together. Recently, TNA has shown Guerrero doing the Spanish commentary during LAX’s matches (which has bothered me, as it seems like someone is saying “well, we have two Latinos in a match, so we better show the Latino man doing Spanish commentary” - I think it is good to show the Spanish commentators, but why do they only do it when LAX is in the ring?). But, there has been zero interaction between Guerrero and LAX in months and months, and back then he was their enemy. Suddenly, they want him to be their manager, and he accepts. As I said, it was way too random and happened way to quickly for it to be anything but a Miss.

End of the Show: Instead of ending Impact after a good Main Event that did a nice job of hyping the biggest match at the next PPV, TNA decided to shift the focus away from the World Championship and put the focus on the silly Deuces Wild Tag Team Tournament. I am all for making the Tag Team Championships important, but not more important that the World Title. There are some intriguing names involved in the Egotistical Eight, but Kip and BG James? Give me a break. Matt Morgan? Give me a break. It is hard to get excited about these pairings, despite the presence of Booker T, Sting, and James Storm when you throw in those others too. I’m also not thrilled with the inclusion of Awesome Kong. Let the Knockouts be their own division. There is no need to get her involved with wrestling the men. Maybe some day, after she has totally dominated the women, she can move on to wrestle men. But, this is too early for that. The Knockout division was the highlight of Impact for several weeks, but lately it has gone down hill, and taking the Women’s Champion away (even temporarily) to wrestle men is not going to help the division. All in all, this was a disappointing way to end the show.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and TNA Impact each week. Email him at jmezz-torch@sbcglobal.net.

For another view from the original Hitlist author, compare Jason Powell's views to mine by visiting prowrestling.NET's "Hitlist" section here.

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