By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

IMPACT HITS

Joe’s Interview: Joe’s in ring promo at the start of the show was o.k., but his interview with Lauren was very strong. He did a good job reminding the audience that his picks for the qualifying matches for King of the Mountain would be named next week, and he put the focus on this week and Booker T. I like how Joe held up Booker’s accomplishments, while also stating that he is hanging on to former glory because he knows that he will never reach that glory again. Joe delivered the promo very well. It was short and to the point, well written and well delivered, accomplishing the goal of hyping next week and the Main Event.

Angle’s Apology: After the brief interview with Angle and Jeremy Borash earlier in the show, I was worried that TNA was going to try to make Angle seem sympathetic. I was glad that he went the better route of having him give a very tongue in cheek apology. Angle was great here in his dead pan performance, asking Karen to accept his apology, while at the same time actually running her down the entire time. I loved his list of priorities. I loved how he had some stupid balloons for her. The whole thing was (like the Hit above) well written and well delivered. I am curious to see where this goes next week, which is saying something as I have been pretty tired of the whole Angle family soap opera.

LAX Looks Strong: LAX vs. The Motor City Machine Guns was too short and too hectic to give a Hit to, although there was enough high energy action to keep it from getting a Miss either. In the end, LAX looked very strong in their first match since becoming Tag Team Champions, which is a good thing. If their title reign is to mean anything, they have to be kept strong and have to look good in the ring. WWE would have had them lose their first match, setting up an immediate feud for the Titles. Clearly, TNA is going for an LAX vs. Team 3D feud, and they were smart to start off LAX’s title reign with an impressive win over the Guns.

IMPACT MISSES

Opening Segment: This is a marginal Miss, as it wasn’t a terrible opening and there were a few to like about it, but there was enough bad to slightly tip the scales that direction. I was disappointed after last week when TNA went back to the stupid title for Impact this week. Joe was fine in his promo, but the whole King of the Mountain set up was confusing. Joe said that the match would feature five men, then started talking about the other eight in the match. He did a very bad job of explaining that there would be eight men trying to qualify for King of the Mountain to face him. He said there would be five in the match, that Jim Cornette would pick four of them and he would pick the other four. This was a simple mistake that hurt the overall segment. Booker T did a good job on the mic as a heel, but the booking seemed backwards to me. He was playing a babyface getting triple teamed and needing to find some back up. He had sympathy, not Joe, Christian Cage and Rhino. If Joe had done a better job explaining the qualifying match aspect to King of the Mountain, and if TNA had stayed away from the title of the show, and if the booking at the end had actually made Booker the heel, it would have been a Hit, as the performances were all strong otherwise.

Ignoring Dutt’s Reaction: After the decent fast paced but meaningless six man tag match, Jay Lethal proposed to So Cal Val, while Sanjay Dutt looked on in horror. That was all fine. But, clearly Dutt was upset over the proposal and Val’s acceptance, yet the announcers ignored it. There were even a few close-ups of Dutt’s upset face, yet the announcers ignored it. TNA doesn’t want the announcers to point out that Dutt is upset, because they want them to be able to act surprised when Dutt turns on Lethal and ruins the wedding at Slammiversary. But, in order for that to happen, they sacrifice all credibility. If Dutt’s performance had been subtle, and if the camera didn’t zoom in on close shots of his face, then the announcers could logically miss that he was upset. As it was, they were made out to be total idiots for not noticing the obvious.

Kim vs. Kong: This was a disappointing Knockouts Championship match between arguably the two best women wrestlers in TNA. After the commercial, the match had some good action and nice near falls, but before the commercial, the match was clunky and sloppy. Gail Kim tried to do a huracanrana, but the spot was botched. The outside interference really took a way from the enjoyment of the match. I was fine when ODB came to the ring to even the odds, but then all the Knockouts came out. TNA had a chance to put on a showcase Championship match, but instead they WWE’d it up by having all the women come out to distract things. As I said, the second half of the match was better than the first, but there were a few sloppy spots there too. In the end, I can live with a few blown spots in this match without the distraction of the other Knockouts. The non-clean finish hurts the match quality also. Why wouldn’t the heels want Kong to lose the match? She is clearly harder to defeat, so getting the title off of her should help their cause of becoming the Knockout Champion, but I guess TNA feels the need to keep the heel vs. face dynamic totally clear, other than the rest of the show 99% of the time.

Young Looking for Elvis: This is just so lame and stupid. I don’t care about Eric Young. I don’t care about his attempt to find Elvis. This was supposed to be funny, but it wasn’t. Is a random Luchador picking up Young funny? Not to me. In addition to just not enjoying this video, I am fearful of where this is going to go. I don’t look forward to more of these videos or the eventual conclusion.

Main Event: This was just an ugly brawl, hardly even a wrestling match. It started out as a huge brawl all over the ring side area. The match got going after a commercial, but was pretty boring with a long beat down on Rhino. After he finally got a hot tag to Joe, things got a bit better, but not much. The match broke down again pretty quickly. I will say that I like Joe winning with the snap powerslam as it is one of his signature moves, and that should plant the seed in future matches that he can finish off an opponent with that move, leading to believable near falls. But, that is the only positive in this match. Afterwards, the beating of Hector Guerrero was o.k., but where was LAX? How could Booker T, even with a chair, hold off Joe, Rhino, and Christian from coming to Guerrero’s aid for so long? It was a mess.

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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