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By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

IMPACT HITS

Sanjay Dutt: Dutt was great this week. After his over the top facial reactions two weeks ago, he dialed it down this week which was good. He was the best part of the interview with himself, Jay Lethal, So Cal Val, and Ace Young. Was he upset about what the Rock N Rave Infection did last week? Was he upset about Lethal not paying attention to their match? Was he upset about the upcoming wedding? He played it like it was all of the above which worked well. I loved when Dutt questioned Lethal’s focus asking if he was nervous because he was planning on asking someone else to marry him. He gave a good performance during the tag match. He showed his great athleticism, while also telling the story of having some miscommunication with Lethal. His paranoid look afterwards when he thought Lethal was on to him was great also.

Angelina Love: Angelina Love is definitely the better half of the Beautiful People. She cut a good promo on Lauren and Roxxi. She seems to get it. She knows how to talk. She knows hot to get under people’s skin. She seems very confident on the mic, and TNA has been letting her talk lately which is nice. She isn’t great in the ring, but she is solid. She is far better than Velvet Sky. I find the paper bag treatment amusing, but am worried that we are heading for a Paper Bag Over Your Head match between her and Roxxi in the near future, which would be a bad thing. It is too bad that TNA has done such a poor job with Roxxi since the head shaving, otherwise this feud would have potential to be very good.

Rhino vs. Storm: This was a solid King of the Mountain qualifier. The brawl before the match worked well as it fit in with the history between these two. Rhino and James Storm had a feud in the past, and it was good that their history was brought up and that they fought like they still hate each other. The match was only 6 minutes, but it followed several minutes of an intense brawl, so we got to see these two go at it for a good length of time. I would have liked to see Storm pick up the win, as I’m not excited to see Rhino in King of the Mountain, but Storm looked strong. They did a good job getting over the Last Call as a finisher, despite the loss.

Tomko vs. Cage: This was a good Impact Main Event. Tomko worked hard to put on a good match with Christian Cage, who was good as you would expect. They worked well together and had a good back and forth match. The match never got boring, as neither had the advantage for too long a period. The ending sequence was especially strong with many counters and near falls. I was expecting AJ Styles to make an appearance to cost Tomko the match, so I was pleasantly surprised when the match ended clean. Tomko has mainly been a tag team wrestler in TNA, so this should help him in an upcoming singles push. He did have a very good outing against one of the best in the company. So, I don’t think he was too hurt by the loss. It was good to see TNA actually let a big match have a clean loser, as they usually are over protective of just about everyone on the roster.

IMPACT MISSES

Opening Segment: For all of Impact’s faults, it is seldom boring. Unfortunately, one of those few boring moments encompassed the entire beginning of the show. The first 15 minutes or so nearly put me to sleep, as many people gave speeches, and none of them were interesting at all. I thought Brother Ray was never going to shut up. He finally did, but then Booker T went on and on. I don’t understand why TNA is having him go to this almost-King Booker gimmick. Then LAX came out, and it was good after they got beat down last week, but instead of fighting, Hector Guerrero talked and talked. Just when the action was about to start, Christian Cage came out and talked and talked. I did like how he said that Booker T shouldn’t bring up his past championships, and really wish TNA would practice what Christian was preaching as they constantly tout the past achievements of any former WWE, WCW or ECW wrestler. Then Samoa Joe talked and talked. There was finally some action and AJ Styles’ surprise attack, but before anything could actually happen, it cut to the back with Jeremy Borash and Karen Angle. I guess hearing Karen talk is more important than seeing Styles kick ass.

Hermie Sadler: I cringe every time TNA brings this guy on to do guest commentary. He adds nothing to the broadcast. In fact, his nonstop talking about Nascar and Direct TV, and Memphis really distracted from the match he was calling. Rock N Rave vs. Lethal & Dutt was a solid tag match that fed into the Dutt - Lethal storyline, but none of that mattered as he just kept talking about everything but the match. I guess I just don’t get why he’s used at all.

Kong vs. Fan: The set up to this “match” early in the show as Jeremy Borash was berated by Jim Cornette was ridiculous. Cornette could have put a stop to it last week. Then, to act all happy because it got good ratings was ridiculous and a lie. According to the report here on PWTorch earlier in the week, Awesome Kong vs. the fan was one of the lowest rated segments of last week’s show. I guess that’s not a big deal, but the whole scene was still stupid, especially when they talked about their plans, hoping nobody would know, when they acknowledged the presence of the camera. How stupid was that? Then, the “match” was another boring squash that accomplished nothing. This is a terrible gimmick and is a waste of Kong’s talent. And why would the fan agree to the fight, if all she could do was run away?

History Videos: Just like last week, TNA couldn’t have a big match without first showing a video of the history between the two wrestlers. These videos are not needed if the announcers are just told to remind the viewers of the history. Wait a minute, despite having watched the videos on Storm vs. Rhino and Tomko vs. Cage, the announcers did just that. They did a good job of recapping these two rivalries. It was repetitive after the videos (although the first was cut short). We don’t need to see the videos and hear the announcers recap the history, so just let the announcers do it.

End of the Show: I have no problem with ending Impact with the heels standing tall. But, TNA promised throughout the night that we would hear from AJ Styles, and they failed to deliver. Normally I would rather see action that hear talking to close a show, but in this case a little talking mixed in with a subsequent beating would have been better. Plus, didn’t we just see the same ending last week? In fact, Don West said, “It’s hard to watch again after they did it last week.” I agree. My biggest problem is that in trying to make the Bad Guys look strong, TNA managed to make their top babyfaces look like wusses. A tired and beat up Christian was the only Good Guy with any balls to come to Styles’ rescue. LAX wanted to fight at the start of the show. Where were they at the end? They’ve done a great job getting revenge on Team 3D for beating up Hector Guerrero two weeks ago, and themselves last week. They are chumps for not showing up at the end. I guess Rhino wasn’t as into the opening segment as Christian, because in the end he was nowhere to be found. Samoa Joe hates Booker T and threatened to break his fingers, but when he had a chance to come out and do it, he was nowhere to be found either. TNA can explain why none of them came out next week, but that will be a week late.

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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