By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

IMPACT HITS

Opening Segment: This was a good start for Impact. They still need to do away with the episode titles, but it was nice to start a show without a long video recap for once, and with a match instead. The match itself, Rhino vs. Lance Rock was just a squash, but it was a match. Afterwards, things continued to go well with Rhino calling the TNA Frontline to the ring and his subsequent promo about what the Main Event Mafia did to Brother Ray last week. Rhino delivered well on the mic. What I particularly liked was the short but good promo from Samoa Joe. He has been really lost in the shuffle the last few months which is a shame. He got a chance to talk here and he delivered. He even pulled out the "Joe is going to kill you!" line which was nice to hear.

Dutt vs. Sabin: This was far and away the best first round match in the X-Division Title Tournament. It actually went a fair amount of time, 6 minutes. Now, 6 minutes isn't a long match, but it certainly was much better than the 3 and 2 minute matches from last week. It featured plenty of high energy, fast paced offense. Chris Sabin and Sanjay Dutt showed why they are special in the ring. I still think that these talented X-Division workers need to work on better in ring psychology and less on just doing cool high spots, but it was still plenty fun to watch.

Rough Cut: This was a better way to present a Rough Cut of a heel than last week's very sympathetic video on James Storm. Robert Roode didn't come across as very likable. He was presented in his business attire which set a more heelish tone from the start. Also, his great ambition as a chile was to win. He clearly emphasized that winning in hockey was all that was important to him. That fits in with his current persona much better than the farm boy persona displayed by Storm last week.

End of the Show: Despite the poor main event steel cage match (more later), the actual end of Impact was well done. The Main Event Mafia did a good job of attacking Samoa Joe after the match. Joe looked strong for fending off the overwhelming odds for quite some time. It was believable how they were able to lock the cage and keep AJ Styles and the other members of the TNA Frontline from climbing back in. It was interesting to see them focus on Joe's arm, and should be interesting to see where the story goes from here, particularly in regards to Mick Foley. Sting's use was strong too as he didn't participate in the beat down to continue the conflicted aspect of his character, but did keep the Frontline away to keep up the heel part of his character.

Better Pacing: Impact this week had much better pacing than usual and didn't feel nearly as crammed full of content as it often does. There weren't nearly as many segments. So often, there are two times a show where they cram four or five scenes into one segment. That didn't happen this week. There is still room for improvement. They don't need to randomly show a Knockouts video or a Cross the Line video for instance. Take those away and give a bit of extra time two one of the matches instead. But, at least things were moving in the right direction. Hopefully they will keep it up and continue to improve the pacing.

IMPACT MISSES

Beautiful People: It is sad how the mighty have fallen. I can't believe they keep going with this angle. It isn't funny. It isn't in any other way entertaining. It makes Angelina Love and Velvet Sky look like total idiots. I don't think being stupid is essential to their gimmick. They didn't act like morons when they were doing such great work earlier in the year. Kip James has tried a few times to tell them that it isn't the real Palin, but why not just say it? Or tell them between t.v. tapings? My only hope is that they are being set up by Lauren for all the abuse that they have put her through.

ODB's Angle: I am glad to see that ODB has continued the tradition started by Karen Angle of having her talk show interrupted by violence at the end. That is not my only problem with the show. It continues the crassness and trashiness of the Knockouts. I recently praised Christy Hemme for not being as trashy as the other babyface Knockouts, but here she was this week talking about posing nude and laughing uproariously at ODB's infantile humor. Also, enough with the WWE references already! We had to hear it here, then during Kurt Angle's speech later.

Kiyoshi vs. Creed: Kiyoshi failed to impress me in his first match in TNA. Once again, TNA fell back to its usual practice of having a foreign wrestler debut in a match, without any type of introduction. Just saying that he is the partner of The Great Muta in All Japan isn't enough to make anyone care about him, particularly more casual fans who don't know who The Great Muta is. And as I said, he wasn't very good. He didn't seem to sell any of Consequences Creed's offense. It was a rather boring match. It went a bit longer than last week's matches, but not very long, which was probably a good thing. He totally missed the moonsault at the end, but I guess he sill got enough wind pressure to finish off Creed.

Steel Cage Tag: Clearly, this had to be a steel cage match in order for the Main Event Mafia to have Joe in the cage at the end, but the gimmick really hurt the match. Also, the quality wasn't very good. It was short and did nothing to make me think that there is anything remotely special about steel cage matches. That makes it difficult to sell them on future PPVs. Also, it is just cheesy to have the match end with a babyface like AJ Styles escape the cage. Wasn't this his opportunity to get back at Kevin Nash and Sting for all that they have done to him and his Frontline partners, particularly what they did to Brother Ray last week? He and Joe wanted to get revenge, and how did he get that revenge? By climbing out of a cage? That was ridiculous. I can't ever cheer for Styles again as he was a total wuss for leaving his partner behind just to get a rather meaningless victory instead of brutally talking out his opposition like he should have.

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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