By Curtis Shanks, PWTorch specialist

Welcome to the TNA Impact edition of Under the Microscope. We're here to review all those little observations and tidbits you may have missed. This is not a detailed recap of the show, but a review for those of you that saw the show but didn't actually "watch" it.

After last week, we know that Brother Ray wants a singles push, Abyss loves Family Guy, and Christopher Daniels has to shave his head again. But what else is there to notice? Let's see what we can spot. Cue the opening pyro.

Although not a major change, we get a different look for the opening to tonight's show. A recap video was not shown and there was no opening pyro as we went directly into Lance Rock's ring introduction to start the show. This is also the first time in a while that we did not open the show with a promo from the Main Event Mafia.

While professional wrestling TV shows today are filled with segments that draw widespread criticism, TNA's Rough Cut segments are extremely well done. They are about as close as you can get to an out of character shoot interview without breaking kayfabe. Tonight's segment features Robert Roode and details his path through his wrestling training. Roode mentions he was trained in Canada, but fails to mention that his trainers were two guys known to wrestling fans, Val Venis and Shane Sewell. While Roode has been with TNA since early 2004, he has previously done about a dozen jobs in WWE in squash and dark matches as an enhancement talent the year before. Among the individuals who defeated Roode on WWE TV were La Resistance, the F.B.I., Billy Kidman, and Sean O'Haire.

Kurt Angle rattles off a list of accomplishments during his "tribute" to Jeff Jarrett tonight. While Angle does a good job of giving us the facts, the Microscope aims to dig a little deeper into those accomplishments. Angle mentions that Jarrett was named the 1988 Rookie of the Year. This accomplishment was actually given out by the American Wrestling Association. Also mentioned are Jarrett's runs in WWF and WCW, as well as his seven Intercontinental titles, a tag title with Owen Hart, and four WCW titles. We could also add a WWF European title run and three WCW U.S. title runs to that list.

As Jeff Jarrett tries to confront Kurt Angle, we see Scott D'Amore among the individuals racing from the back to restore order. D'Amore is a familiar face in TNA, as he was formerly on TV as the manager of Team Canada. Behind the scenes, D'Amore started in TNA as a road agent and eventually became a member of TNA's booking committee, including a period of time where he was the lead booking member. D'Amore has been seen sparsely on TV as of late, as he left TNA earlier this year to focus his attention on running his independent promotion, Border City Wrestling.

Border City Wrestling is an independent promotion based in Canada that began running shows in the early '90s. BCW ceased operations and went on a hiatus during most of D'Amore's TNA stay, but resurfaced when he returned earlier this year. D'Amore is not the only tie between the two companies, as many TNA talents have appeared on BCW shows as well. Former Team Canada members Johnny Devine, Petey Williams, A1, Robert Roode, and Eric Young have all made appearances in BCW. Abyss, Chris Sabin, Alex Shelley and Rhino are a few other TNA talents to wrestle for D'Amore as well. When Jeff Jarrett regained the NWA title from Raven before TNA made their Spike TV debut, the title change was non-televised as it actually occurred at a BCW event.

During tonight's first round match in the X Title tournament we get a look at TNA's newest roster member, Kiyoshi. Kiyoshi has wrestled under his real name, Akira Raijin, for All Japan Pro Wrestling. During his AJPW run he has used more of a ground-and-pound, brawler wrestling style rather than the high-flying style accustomed to the X Division, although he wrestled more of the X Division style this evening. Raijin first appeared in TNA way back in July of 2007 losing to Seratonin in a dark match before the Victory Road PPV. Aside from AJPW and TNA, Raijin has also competed in Juggalo Championship Wrestling, the independent promotion run by the ICP.

We finally hear wrestler-turned-referee-turned-wrestler Shane Sewell speak tonight in his sit down interview with Mike Tenay. Sewell mentions that he injured his neck as an active competitor, thus his transition into the referee role. This is a nice explanation by TNA to give us a back story on Sewell, but it is inaccurate. Sewell is actually still an active competitor for the WWC promotion in Puerto Rico as he is featured on their website (as Glamour Boy Shane) and wrestles events for them when not in TNA.

If you've listened closely to her ring introduction, Rhaka Khan is billed as being from The Isle of Man. The Isle of Man is actually a real place, as it is a small island located in the British Isles. Not sure why TNA chose this as Khan's hometown, as she is actually from Illinois. If your interested in people who are actually from the Isle of Man, the most famous have to be Barry, Maurice, and Robin Gibb, better known as the Bee Gees.

The grand total for our bleep counter this evening ends at six, although not all were planned by TNA. We hear three during a Main Event Mafia locker room promo and one during the Samoa Joe beat down, but the other two actually came from fans during the ring intro of Scott Steiner.

Numbers crunched harder than an unprotected chair shot to the head: the year 2008 is nearing its end and 2009 is almost upon us. During this past year we've seen many noteworthy things on Impact. We've said hello to Mick Foley, good bye to Christian Cage and please stop to Kip James. We could go on for days about everything that has transpired in the past 11 months concerning storylines, characters and matches - so we'll sum it all up to simplify. So what exactly do the numbers say about what we've seen on Impact this year?

This calendar year, 50 Impacts have aired before tonight with a total of 271 matches being shown. Of those matches, 26 have been title shots - three world, four tag, eight X, nine Knockout, and two legend. While gimmick matches seem common-place in TNA, only 38 have aired on Impact so far this year. Another thing TNA is known for is great in-ring action, but the Impact matches so far this year haven't exactly echoed that sentiment. Only 40 matches have gone ten plus minutes, so you're just as likely to see a gimmick match as you are a lengthy match.

Only two matches this year have hit the 20-minute mark, something we should see more of for TNA to live up to the Total Nonstop Action name. The first was Christian Cage defeating Samoa Joe and A.J. Styles last January in a #1 contenders match. The other was Samoa Joe's successful title defense against Kurt Angle last April, which clocked in at 23 minutes.

Curtis Shanks is a self-described wrestling nerd. Who else understands what Matt Striker is talking about all the time. Feedback is welcome, as comments, suggestions, questions and chemistry exam answers can be sent to Curtis at curtisshanks.torch@gmail.com.

[Samoa Joe photo by Wade Keller (c) PWTorch]

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