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Kurt Angle And Jeff Jarrett Will Headline Bound For Glory, But It Is No Big Story

Big news out of tonight is that Angle and Jarrett will headline BFG. And I really do not get it. It is my fault that I have not been watching Impact for the last 6 years or have followed them, but who the hell is Jeff Jarrett and why is he so damn big? I know that he is the founder of TNA and that he is the King Of The Mountain. But he is being portrayed as the biggest thing in all of wrestling and it is simply not believable. He has been gone for two years and suddenly he is in the main event at the biggest TNA PPV of the year. All current fans or new fans know about the guy is that he brings a guitar to the ring. So TNA has completely failed in the aspect of making fans believe that Jeff Jarrett wrestling Kurt Angle is supposed to be big news. So far this angle is feeding off of just pure soap opera. It is not to say that the match cannot work, but if you ask any casual wrestling fan if they would pay to see Angle vs. Jarrett for the first time they would probably say no.

Anyways, Impact started off tonight and in the first five minutes "Mick Foley will appear next week". Am I the only one who hates that? Fans are excited to watch Impact and right off the bat fans are promised that better things will happen next week? Why not this week? And did you notice the marks on Kurt Angle's head? Geez. There were some problems with the opening promo. Jeff Jarrett tries to be the good guy in giving Kurt Angle his medal back because supposedly AJ Styles carries it around with him. Sure is believable when absolutely zero visual proof is shown. Kurt Angle then "crosses the line" (please make stop saying this phrase) and insults Double J's kids or something. Do enjoy it when the announcers explain what a character is thinking. How could the announcers know?

Sting Name Drops, Pro Wrestling Illustrated Gets A Free Plug, And Quiet Joe

Sting comes out and drops out some names like Vince McMahon, Hulk Hogan, and Ric Flair. Kudos to the Impact fans for chanting "overrated" when Sting showed the picture of Hulk Hogan. Oops. Sting named dropped Ric Flair and everybody was happy. But does Sting even care about the possibility of becoming world champion? What it is looking to be is that Sting comes into the match thinking that Joe is not world championship material. Joe takes Sting to the limit. At the end of the match Sting gives Joe his blessing and walks off into the sunset. That works. But what they did to Joe tonight was criminal.

Joe did a good promo in which he did not yell or scream. Hey, TNA actually pays attention. Joe talked about how Sting feared being obsolete. I thought that Joe was doing well, even with the blunt "young guy" rub from Lethal and Consequences Creed. Joe then comes out and faces the walking cartoon Bashir. Oddly enough this was sort of a WWE match. Liked that there was zero buildup between champion versus champion. A heel working on the legs of a superior opponent before a big-time PPV match? WWE style. But TNA managed to even screw this one up. For one, Joe did not even bother selling the leg injury. Bashir might as well be holding a sign that said, "we are just killing time here". And then Joe chokes Bashir and the ref reverses the decision. Just so confusing.

For one, a ref reversing the decision of a match is downright idiotic. It is so dumb. No one will remember or care that Bashir "won" over Joe. TNA will not even play upon it or even bother to mention it in the future. But of course Joe did not care about winning the match. Joe just wanted to send a message to Sting that he is "uncontrollable" and that he will destroy a weaker opponent. That is what the announcers were screaming into my ear at least. But from this standpoint it just makes Sting look bigger than Joe. If Joe did not care about winning the match, then why should fans care about the outcome? Sure, Joe choking out Bashir after the match had ended makes for fodder for Sting's "Joe does not respect wrestlers" argument, but Bashir getting a "win" over Joe is just so very dumb. And stop it with the reversing of the decision of the match. You only used it here for Sting's argument, and that is just downright bad.

So far this Joe-Sting feud is just confusing for most fans. Fans have been trying to follow and be emotionally involved in this feud but it is a hard go.

The Instant Boredom Christian Cage

So on Karen's Angle Cage comes out and talks about how he is a tweener. No amount of quick camera editing done by TNA could have saved this from being a ratings stinker. Cage talks about veterans hogging the spotlight when in reality they should just pull away and hand the torch to other guys. Double J, anyone? Which side will Cage choose? Who the hell cares. The most important thing out of this boring and trite segment is that Cage's cell phone ring sounds boringly enough like a normal telephone ring. What a missed opportunity to have Pink Floyd's "Money", "All About The Benjamins", or some other damn song.

What was great about tonight is that I flat out did not care about the main event. There was little hype and no real reason to care about the match. Knowing that Cage would get involved somehow, I skipped to the end. And sure enough, Cage costs Styles the win. I would think that they would have to involve Foley into BFG somewhat (and would have to announce it ahead of time to get more PPV buys), but I cannot see him wrestling a match with Booker. Foley might be the special guest referee at the Jarrett-Angle match (then TNA can play up on its "who side is Foley on? The young guys or the bad veterans?" storyline crap).

No Hype, No Real Outcome, And No Real Reason To Care For LAX and Beer Money

James Storm has a good promo about Jackie not being scared of men. But what happened during their match? Jackie runs away from the men. During the match the announcers tell us that Sting will be at the fanfest at BFG. Tenay points out that fans will get a lecture about respect from Sting. No thanks. Anyways, Homicide decides to become an idiot (along with TNA) and leaves the ring, leaving Beer Money to get the "dirty" win over homicide with that beer football helmet. This is a good example of why TNA should stay away from these types of wins. Honestly, Beer Money could have won straight up. But TNA still believes that the heels should always win by interference or by cheap means. However, this makes no sense as the announcers do not fully announce the match (usually in the middle will hype other things), having LAX lose Hector Guerro means nothing for the fans because TNA did not hype it as important, and the faces vowing revenge over the dirty tactics of heels is just so old and overdone in TNA. It is not to say that these things cannot work, but it leads me not to care about these teams if nearly the same action occurs all of the damn time on every Impact.

Kong Defeats Amy Winehouse and the Roxxi "Hardcore" Storyline That TNA Forgot To Put In Motion Two Months Ago (But Pretended That They Did)

What I did not like about the Roxxi video package is that TNA portrays it like this "hardcore women's wrestler" has been in place for months. Heck, Roxxi has not been on TV for a good long while. So when TNA talks about how Roxxi is changing women's wrestling with his hardcore wrestling style, fans cannot believe it (fans just tuning it would, but not fans who have been watching Impact for awhile now). Kong defeats Amy Winehouse (are beehive hairdos making a comeback?) and Roxxi pulls the old switcheroo. One note about the Winehouse look alike: She spent more time screaming than actually trying to fight back. Ahhh I am really scared but not really and I am not convincing anyone. There is jobbing well and then there is jobbing badly. Hell, right now I am more interested in this feud than Styles and Cage, and they get paid more than the knockouts.

WWE's King Booker Character, But Now With An African Accent (ooh!) and Matt Morgan Kills A Bear With His Bare Hands (ooh ooh!)

I swear, Booker starts talking about AJ Styles out of the blue. Maybe it was because that the main event got near to zero hype. Booker might as well brought up Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke or Bigfoot. Speaking about wildlife let us talk about Matt Morgan. Morgan beat up a 1,000 pound bear with his bare hands? Wow. Is there anything this guy cannot do? That is just amazing. How great is Matt Morgan?

Making "Duck Duck Goose" To Be The Most Demonic And Barbaric Game From Hell

Wrestlers go crazy inside the steel asylum? That video package sure was good. With the creepy music and whatnot. It would make you believe that just being in that horrific birdcage would make you go mad. But truth be told if it was just two dudes duking it out, it would be a cage match. This is the actual match: Jam everybody from the X division and other losers into a cage and watch a spot fest. Instead of hyping up the birdcage as on level with the horrors of Hell in a Cell, TNA would better suited if they just said that the steel asylum is where "some crazy crap is going to happen". I would be like, "Damn you are right some crazy crap will happen and I will buy the PPV to see the match". This is not an exploding landmine death match. The cage is not surrounded by barbwire dipped in poison. The ring is not covered with nine inch nails. You cannot portray every gimmick match as the most barbaric and demonic match. If TNA had to hype up the "Duck Duck Goose" game, they would add a lot of demonic noises and creepy music. Even the announcer would say "duck duck GOOSE!" as if he was Satan himself.

Cross The Line Into Cheesyland (But You Will Have To Wait In Line), Team 2D, Ripping Off John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Bug Eyes Borash, And Suicide Video Packages Are Super

Nowadays on Impact there is a huge focus on what a person will say and whose side a person is on. Who the hell cares? Am I supposed to be excited about Foley doing a five minute promo at the end of the next Impact? I understand about ratings and all of that but this is really old how TNA drags things out.

Team 3D were undefeated in Japan? Zzzzz. Sonjay Dutt and SoCal Val steal the John Lennon and Yoko Ono sitdown. Cross the line into the world of rip offs. I actually like their little heelish tag team, even though it means three months of Dutt getting cheap wins. Yippee.

Borash and his bug eyes. So wonderfully cheesy.

Seriously. Suicide video packages. I watch them over and over again. Watching Spiderman hang out in a basement talking about vengeance will be his. Hyping a character from a videogame. I look into my crystal ball and I see: A PPV run-in. Beating up on jobbers. Matches in the X Division. And then sinking into obscurity. Joining the Super League of Idiots. Becomes Curryman's little brother. Form a Tag Team. Win the tag team championship with the stupidest angle ever. People stop watching Impact. Impact loses their Spike deal. Move to Fox Sports Network. Ratings still go down. David Arquette wins the TNA world heavyweight championship. TNA goes bankrupt. Of course, this will not happen.

IMPACT'S FINAL VERIDCT: In The Middle Of Absurdity

I have started watching Impact for over a year now, and I have no idea who Jeff Jarrett is. I have heard of him and knew about his story. I read about his matches. The general impression that I got from him is that people liked him, but did not really consider him to be this truly excellent performer in the ring. So this whole Jarrett versus Angle is supposedly just meant for old TNA fans who want to see what the old boss can do against Angle. That is great and all, but the fact remains that for new fans there is no real reason to care about the match. If you love Jeff Jarrett and are interested to see what he does in the ring, it is a great deal. But for new fans who do not know who Jeff Jarrett, this is a bad deal. This feud would be great for a minor PPV, but for BFG, which is sort of TNA's Wrestlemania (supposedly), this is sort of a letdown. People wanted to see Sting versus Angle last year, and it worked off big. From my standpoint it feels like Jarrett thinks he is still a big draw, but as of right now I will not buy BFG just to see what Jarrett and Angle can do in the ring. It might be an awesome match filled with excitement, or it just might be a stinker that relies heavily on storyline interferences/run-ins to pull it through (as TNA is apt to do in TNA PPVs). Tonight was decent stuff.

LEAVING YOU WITH MY ABSURD THOUGHT: I often wonder why wrestling video games nowadays do not cater to the more "experienced" video gamers. It is sound business to cater to the casual gamer, but in any wrestling video game fans should be able to have Joe versus King Kong Bundy or Hulk Hogan versus Eric Bischoff (from created wrestlers). Do not know why THQ does not give users the option to play the game how they want to play. Sometimes I wonder if they actually put themselves into the person's shoes and think that people want to be subjected to a questionable bit in one of their videogames. They keep pigeonholing video gamers into a specific experience. WWE and TNA should take a look around and drive down the prices for their PPVs. Heck, if TNA's PPVs were only $20 or $10 instead of $30 I would be more tempted to buy them. Or maybe just the $5 option to see the main event (i.e. Jericho vs. HBK in ladder match at No Mercy). I will ask for ROH DVDs this Christmas.

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com.

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