By Shane McKinley, PWTorch Specialist

"It's just talk, talk, talk, talk
Til you lose your patience"

- "State Trooper" by Bruce Springsteen

Sabin vs. Shelly, Angle vs. Jarrett, Cena vs. HBK, Matt vs. Swaggah...and now A.J. Styles vs. Angle? Ha ha. This is TNA. Styles vs. Angle on Impact isn't going to happen.

The title of the show is "When Icons Collide." I watched the show and I couldn't figure out what they meant. Maybe Styles and Angles are "icons"...but they never fought.

"I flew 6,000 miles for TNA." Right on, brother. MEM comes out to do their endless NWO weekly blah blah blah opening bit. Angle: "We would take a bullet for each other. Let's put that to the test. In my hands I have a fully loaded 9mm." Angle then goes to talk about the Las Vegas show that was three frickin' months ago. TNA then plays a MEM video package that has the writing of a shoddy philosophical student.

Example: "Great men are almost always bad men." Hey, you're right. Like Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Abraham Lincoln. For the most part I just ignore how TNA paints the "good" side of MEM, because TNA pretty much is tweeners against tweeners.

MEM babble on some more. I was bored. You know what MEM needs? A struggle. A fight. A opponent. Time for some people to come back.

Guess TNA doesn't want to talk about Kip being in the main event at the last PPV. Of course not. It wouldn't fit into the storyline TNA has. And as long as they don't talk about it, maybe it never happened at all.

Here's Hernandez, and he wants his title shot against Sting.

I thought Sewell was fired from being a ref by Cornette some time back. Because, you know, he has that nasty habit of attacking TNA wrestlers. Just an illogical way to put Sewell into storylines. Either he is a wrestler or he is a ref.

Don West screams this into my ear at full volume: "You gotta be afraid if you're Sting. You just came off a slow nine-minute match against Rhino." What bothers me a lot about TNA is that they will not even pay attention to what actually happened. It's going against what fans saw and what fans believe.

Does Sting have to be afraid? Sting is World Champion, if that means anything to TNA. It's supposed to mean something. He's World Champion for a reason. He should be ready to face all challenges. Right now he's just a lame duck merely holding the strap. Sting showing fear and having such a hard time at the start of the match against Hernandez...TNA once again goes for the cheap thrill.

Uh, Book, why didn't you just attack Hernandez during the start of the match? Hell, if I was Sting I would just get counted out. But no. Let's give the fans a four-minute match and just piss away the notion of "cashing in the feast or fired briefcase" meaning a damn thing.

TNA gets to hook viewers in with a "championship title match," but old Impact viewers know that the match will be short, Sewell will get involved, the match will end in DQ, and the bigger picture will be what happens after the match.

Sewell holds up the Legends Championship. Whimper. Whole lot of ringing the bell during the evitable MEM beatdown: "DINGDINGDINGPAYATTENTIONTOTHISBITWEARENOTDESPERATEATALLDINGDINGDING!" Is this bit going somewhere?

To answer my question, Homicide, A.J. Styles, Ray, and Devon all make an appearance. Ray, looking somewhat like Robert De Niro in the movie "Taxi Driver," comes back. Nice touch with Ray in the crowd.

So it's Devon vs. Angle at Against All Odds. Indeed, why the hell not? TNA next random guy to be shoved in main event: Devon! TNA random guy #2: Ray! "Why Sting? Let me explain it to you." Oh, would you? Because I was going under the notion that somebody going after the frickin' TNA World Championship did not need to be believable at all! Or that two guys who were involved in the "Fish Market Match" with Shark Boy and Curryman needed any sort of credibility!

According to Ray, Sting's main offense was that he did nothing during MEM's beat down of Ray. Ray describes the MEM beat down as evil. "You knew it was wrong, Sting."

Uh, Ray, you just put Angle through a table. You weren't in a match.

Sting is a hypocrite and a liar. That's serviceable for Ray vs. Sting. "You wanted the bull? Well, at Against All Odds, you're going to get the s--t!"

Right after this bit, another random "TNA rah rah video package" talks about TNA's philosophy. Well whoopee doo. How is this video package any different from all of the endless video packages fans have seen in the past year? All of these promos and video packages become just one big blur. Give fans something to hook onto, instead of just pumping out mindless propaganda of how cool TNA looks. These "TNA rah rah video pacakges" are much easier to digest than WWE's "Did You Know?" crap, but both of them are pointless.

Hey, it's the Beautiful People! there's going to be six hours of martial arts on Spike TV January 25! Afro Samurai, baby! Needless to say I stopped paying attention to these Beautiful People skits. I don't get the whole appeal.

Kurt Angle DVD: "I pine for MMA." Nice touch here with the announcers describing the Jarrett's injury.

Whoa. What a turnaround for TNA. Angle says this: "Every match matters, Scott!" TNA shows that Angle will wrestle even with a broken neck in order to take out Styles and Foley. I liked this, considering that TNA had their wrestlers often saying that "individual matches don't matter, it's about winning the war."

It's "The Road to the White House." Angelina Love and Velvet Sky come down to the ring all dressed in white. "Look! It's those plastic, phony biatches!" Of course, I'm talking about Roxxi and Taylor Wilde.

Oh my. Muck falls from the ceiling onto the Beautiful People. For one, that was like a squirt of muck. Two, Beautiful People didn't sell it at all. To bring a better version of this bit, I direct your attention to the DX-Spirit Squad bit from years ago. Trips says, "Look up." A huge pile of green slime drop onto Spirit Squad. They slip and fall down with arms failing. You know. Actually selling. Somewhat amusing.

In this Beautiful People bit, we have just a smidgen of muck falling down. We have the Beautiful People just standing there with some muck on them for an absurdly long time. Giving how second-rate this bit was, I'm surprised that the cleanup crew didn't bring out paper towels to do the clean up. Please, please go away "Palin."

All of this could have been ignored, but Don West and Mike Tenay come into the viewer's screens with big s--t-eating grins and going, "Wow! Wasn't that really funny? Ha ha." Were the announcers high? Because they were selling a frankly ordinary segment like it was the funniest thing in the world (credit to slam.canoe.ca for pic).

Second-rate bits are ok. I'm used to second-rate bits, because I know that the intended effect is more important than the bit itself. But I cannot handle when wrestling companies have the announcers basically lie to viewers and showing certain emotions that I am not convinced are "real." It's going with predetermined, unconvincing announcer reactions regardless of how the fans actually feel.

Up next we have the Kongtourage. At this point my brain was starting to get fried. Need...an...actual...match...too...much...talking...

The old days of simplicity in the Knockout Division (credit to img.thesun.co.uk for pic).

Sojo Bolt comes out and talks about she is from the streets. In the Rough Cut, it mentions something about Sojo's boyfriend taking her to a fast food joint and she gets two cheeseburgers...personally I feel that the Knockout Division is too bloated nowadays and largely unfocused.

If you're a wrestler you can be rest assured that in TNA "everybody gets a piece of the pie." Put Sojo Bolt and Khan along with Kong, even though Kong should just do her own thing. Have Devon vs. Angle. Have Ray vs. Sting. It's great for wrestlers. But it's not so good for fans.

Let's do an experiment: let's chart the hype that Rhino, the "leader of Frontline," gets this month. Putting seemingly random people into the spotlight...on one hand it does keep things fresh and fans get to see new blood. But on the other I wouldn't pay to see Devon vs. Angle nor Ray vs. Sting right now. I have a difficult time in emotionally involving myself with wrestlers who seemingly come out of the blue.

I don't doubt that Devon and Ray won't be pumped up leading up to the PPV. That's not the problem. The main problem is the month after Against All Odds. It's the problem of viewing certain wrestlers as credible if TNA's track record shows that these "random wrestlers" will be dropped next month. That shows a lack of focus and a failure of long-term planning (credit to img.thesun.co.uk and i257.photobucket.com for pics).

-->


I'm a big fan of Ray on the microphone. I believe that any wrestling organization can make anybody believable with smart writing and well-executed booking. I put into question TNA's long-term planning, because I feel that they could become tremendously better if they bothered to work on that.

Ah, Matt Morgan vs. Abyss at Against All Odds in a "Match of 1,000 tacks" or "Exploding Barbwire Match" or a "Swimsuit Contest" or a...

Here's the picture. You hear about Styles vs. Angle. You decide that you're just going to tune into the Main Event. You know from experience that you should check Impact with 30 or 15 minutes left in the show to see the main event. You see Steiner coming down the ramp. So it's Steiner vs. Styles for the main event? Nah.

This being said, viewers who did stick around got to see a nice outing by both Steiner and Styles. Petey Williams coming back to take his revenge on Steiner was a nice touch.

No showcase of the new X Division champion Alex Shelley. But Booker gets his stock video package played.

POSITIVES

-- Pros of Ray and Devon in Spotlight: Unique, fresh
-- Return of Ray, Team 3D owned that bit
-- Steiner vs. A.J., return of Petey Williams
-- Angle's "every match matters!" quote
-- Sojo Bolt, although at that point I was sick of promos and video packages
-- Possibility of Morgan vs. Abyss in Hardcore match
-- Jeff Jarrett Emotional Injury Description

NEGATIVES

-- Cons of Ray and Devon in Spotlight: Both could be dropped out of sight next month given TNA's track record; heavy work needs to be done for both men to be seen as credible
-- Not surprising that Hernandez would "waste" his World Championship opportunity; Feast or Fired results are shockingly pointless
-- Sewell vs. Booker for Legends Championship? Um...
-- Beautiful People dumb segments, Muck bit
-- Kongtourage, stale Knockout Division
-- After first hour, I wasn't too convinced to watch the rest of the show. Poor pacing and execution.

IMPACT'S FINAL VERDICT: In The Middle Of Absurdity

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com.

We suggest these recent related articles...

10/5 WWE Raw Hits & Misses: Natalya vs. Paige, Owens vs. Cara, Stephanie McMahon, Sasha Banks, Xavier Woods

COLLECTIBLES COLUMN: The History of Foam Hands in Pro Wrestling

9/28 WWE Raw Hits & Misses: Kane's Split Personality, Divas Revolution, Heyman & Big Show, Reigns vs. Wyatt