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TNA IMPACT
September 4, 2008

You Are Supposed To Boo Sting, Not Cheer For Him! You Idiots!

Do love it when TNA tries to pigeonhole fans into reacting a certain way for a particular character. If Sting is supposed to be heel I would have not of noticed and frankly I do not think anybody who watches TNA regularly cares much at all. I would like to see Sting vs. A.J. Styles in some fashion. Poor portrayals of baby faces and heels? You got that right. The title of the show was Sting vs. The Fans, even though the video package before it hyped up the fact that Sting was against young talent. And did anybody see the end of the show? Not only was it a repeat of what fans have been seeing every Impact on this month (Guess what? The music of Jeff Jarrett plays! Oh wow!) but they are trying to turn Sting heel by placing him next to Styles and Joe. Problem is, compared to Sting, fans are going to cheer for Sting. Some horrible logic thrown in here that every single TNA fan wanted Booker T and Angle taken out. Because supposedly in TNA logic every fan hates heels and want them to be taken out. It does not matter if they do minor heel things like litter or jaywalk. And comparing Booker T and Angle's heel actions to the heel actions of Beer Money is like comparing cutting in front of someone in a line to slashing somebody's tires. It is TNA's fault, not the audience, if TNA consists of a lot of tweeners. Nothing like when I do not agree with bad logic, but I have to accept it anyway.

Wrestling Acting 101: The Secret Of Taking Off The Shades

What a botched opening segment. Mike Tenay says that he cannot wait to hear Sting's scathing promo on young talent, even though he had no idea (remember, we are using that old forgotten term "logic" here) what Sting was going to say. Kurt Angle's glasses were rocking, and if you want to say something important, you best take off your shades. Anybody here know why Booker T is trying to do a Jamaican accent? Or why he used the word "poo butt" (or whatever the term he used)? I did love it when the crowd started to chant "Cage is a poo butt" or something. Cage gives him a what-the-hell are you talking about look. I guess they are easily entertained. Oh, damn, Christian Cage just called Booker Whoopi Goldberg! Cause you know Whoopi has dreads, and so does Booker! I love it when Jim Cornette teleports seemingly out of nowhere, thanks to the marvelous crew known as TNA editing. Because TNA fans have the attention span of about five seconds. I fear that Jim Cornette might appear out at any time! Let us at least give credit to Smackdown for having Triple H point out that he was doing a promo. At least WWE tries to remain fresh. The opening segment was ripped straight out of TNA's playbook, devoid of any real thought or planning. Heels do a promo. Face does a promo. Heels beat up on face. Another face runs in. Corny teleports in and makes a match that will sure to punish the heels in some fashion. Crowd cheers. Stay tuned.

Joe Plans To Put A Lot Of Hands On Nash And To Star In A Weak PPV

Uh, ok. There are bad ideas and then there are really dumb ones. The plan to have Joe become bigger than Sting is not such a great idea. Did like that he varied the pitch of the promo, so that he was not screaming the entire time. Despite this sort of good news, No Surrender looks to be nothing more than soap opera trash. You know. Will Jeff Jarrett show up? Will Mick Foley show up? Will fans have a good reason for buying this weak PPV? Did TNA all run out of ideas for a zany gimmick match?

A Ref Punks Out A Wrestler And No One Notices

Not quite sure what they are doing with Bashir these days. It would have been interesting if Bashir was portrayed as a actual human being. Now he is just another 1980s heel from a foreign nation, but more spicier with his shocking statements that do not make really any sense. Bashir wants to torture people along the way? Yawn. It is like they cannot decide who to push. People would probably be ranting and raving about how no ref should be able to punk out a wrestler but I do not think anybody really cares, since nobody really cares about the X Division. It is a joke and it will remain a joke until TNA realizes that nobody will buy into the X Division if they keep giving out short spot fest matches on TV that mean nothing. It is downright dumb to believe that these guys just save their best stuff for the next PPV, but I guess that is logic for you. You talk about crawling towards the PPV? It is amazing that no semblance of plan was ever introduced. I think I had my fill of Consequences Creed's roughcuts. Nothing wrong with them, and I will gladly take these over any Eric Young skits, but I did not think they would be running this long. Hey TNA, if wrestlers have shelf lives, did you also know that video segments have shelf lives as well?

How Many Crappy Segments Can We Push In The Shortest Amount of Time?

That is a good question. Oh boy, Beer Money sure is going to get what is coming to them at No Surrender when the face LAX! Yeah! And it sure will be fun watching the Super Idiots fight off against the Rock & Roll Infection! Here is a better question: what exactly are they fighting for? Pride? Championships? Or is it because TNA threw these feuds in there because people will get excited for it? Indeed, people are looking forward to a Beer Money/LAX match, but is anybody really clamoring for a Justice League of Nimwits versus two Guitar Hero losers? Not so much. Much to my surprise TNA did the same exact thing with Matt Morgan and Abyss. You know. Somebody makes a save for the other guy because they are battling Team 3D. Three weeks of nearly the same thing every time for this feud. Yay.

You Know What The Killer Knockout Division Needs Right Now? Farts And Swimsuits Competitions!

Is ODB selling beans comedy to these people? Man these writers are old. I chide WWE for their lame humor, but at least I can connect with it in some fashion. TNA humor is like when a drunk tells you an ok joke for the tenth time. TNA people need to catch a ride on over to Adult Swim on Cartoon Network and watch shows like Robot Chicken, Frisky Dingo, The Ventura Brothers, Family Guy, whatever. Old Johnny Carson shows, Red Fox, Abbott & Costello, anything. I tune into the Knockout Division because I know that I will actually see a wrestling match. If fans want to go see a bunch of women dress up and do dance offs, strips offs or mud wrestling, they will check out WWE. They are pushing the Beautiful People like they are the hottest thing going but I still clamor for Kong, ODB, Roxxi (if she ever wrestles again), and Gail Kim if they get her back.

I guess it is also funny for TNA to have ODB to rip off the burka off Saeed. Because wrestling is should always just remain full of sterotypes. Oh glorious sterotypes. Devoid of real depth of human emotion. It is just another one of those instances where you would not want your children watching wrestling, because of the laundry list you do not want your child to see as acceptable behavior. If you tell us to get over it because it was entertaining, I disagree and say that this stuff should have no place in wrestling. Why are some things acceptable and others not? Are the reasons why some things in wrestling acceptable downright faulty? That is a double standard, and TNA should be better than that. Payoff? A few minor points on the ratings scale, if any. Sure worth it.

TNA: We Are Filler

What bothers me the most about this show was that if bits of the show do not get enough ratings or enough support in the back, they are dropped without any mention of it at all. Impact fans are treated to the plan of "let's throw things at the wall and see if they stick" mentality. It is not to say that this plan cannot work, but there are have already been bits in the Impacts of August that go nowhere. MotorCity Machine Guns heel turn. Reason why last week Rhino saved somebody from the Knockout Division. Karen's Angle. It is shoddy and does not inspire a whole lot of confidence that they know what they are doing. This show was the very definition of a holdover. Just a whole lot of nothing. Maybe TNA should invest more into their video production unit. We chide WWE for running the same video package all the time, but truth be told their ones are often very well done.

IMPACT'S FINAL VERDICT: Very Absurd

Not a lot going on tonight. I guess fans are supposed to be jacked up about Jeff Jarrett possibly showing up next week. I am wishing that they would just hurry up and bring Double J and Mick Foley in already, since fans are being bored with the same poor hack job every week. Heck, I will take 20 billion Foley vs. Abyss matches, as long as there is a viable reason to tune in. Has there been an emotionally fulfilling Impact in awhile? I am not talking about where all the faces win and everybody is happy. I am talking about characters that are not paper thin and feuds that are not bluntly designed for the PPV. A lot of these bits are meant to hype up a feud or a character, but they are moving at the speed of an iceberg. As usual, Christian vs. Styles was the highlight of the show. Even though Angle's evil twin Frank Trigg ran in and caused interference. Because TNA works under the mentality that the more you put into a wrestler/feud, the bigger it will become. I guess they do not understand the term "counter-productive". Frank Trigg running in also makes Jim Cornette to be a really crappy management guy. Combine this with the usual crappy refs that seemingly still have jobs even though every one of them botches a match every week. Add this to the crappy writing, and you just have a show that does not really connect to the core of wrestling fans.

"The Absurdity of it All" will appear every Wednesday and Saturday. Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com.

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