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 the end seems near for the Sara Palin skits, Petey needs a new look, and Team 3D wants to work alone. But what else is there to notice? Let's see what we can spot. Cue the opening pyro.

Right off the bat, we get a hard-sell for tonight's show lineup. Tonight we will see a four-way match for the X Division Title, a First Blood match and Kurt Angle vs. A.J. Styles in a tables match. To quote Adam Sandler from The Wedding Singer, "That information really would have been more useful to me yesterday!"

Kudos to TNA for giving us some quality matches on free TV, but how are you supposed to get people to tune in if you don't advertise anything in advance? Maybe it's because most of the matches that look good on paper turn out to be four-minute throwaway matches like we saw in the X opener tonight.

I've never been to an Impact taping or Universal Studios in Florida, but I'm guessing the building TNA uses for TV tapings is one of the largest on the lot. Not only is there the ringside area and backstage interview sites, but plenty of locker rooms. On a weekly basis, we see locker rooms for the MEM, the Front Line, and Booker T. Add in a heel and babyface locker room for both the males and females not in those factions and you need a pretty large building.

Mike Tenay congratulates Team 3D during an interview tonight on their winning the IWGP tag titles. Tenay mentions only one other American team has held those titles in the last 15 years. That team is of course Tomko and A-Train, who held the titles for most of 2007. Going back further than 15 years, there have been some other American teams to hold the belts.

Rick and Scott Steiner held the belts on two occasions during the early '90s. Bam Bam Bigelow and Vader had a reign as did Hercules Hernandez and Scott Norton. Norton also enjoyed an IWGP tag title run with Tony Halme, better known to old-school WWF fans as Ludvig Borga.

I've been a fan of TNA's Rough Cuts segments from the beginning. They are a shoot interview of sorts and give the characters we see on TV more of a human side. I thought that was TNA's intention, but it may simply be nothing more than rewarding those who are made to look bad on TV. Beer Money's segments ended with them losing their tag team titles to Creed and Lethal. Now we've gotten Sojourner Bolt the last two weeks. Her results are a loss in a six-person tag and a DQ loss to ODB tonight via Awesome Kong's interference.

Of the five Main Event Mafia members, it seems as though Booker T is the one who is most about unity and teamwork. Looking at the ring attire of all five, Booker is the only one who wears ring gear with the MEM logo. The other four members have not changed their wrestling gear since the formation of the group.

We get a First Blood match tonight between Morgan/Abyss and Beer Money. This type of match means one of two things will happen. Either someone will blade or someone will run out from the back with a pre-bloodied towel. (Think Homicide going through a glass table or Morgan taking a beer bottle shot). It appears that someone in TNA got duplicate towel sets on a gift registry. We've seen towels brought out in the Homicide and Morgan incidents as well as officials standing around in tonight's match with towels in hand.

Back in the X Division's golden days, Samoa Joe bloodied Christopher Daniels and carried around that towel as a token. In fact, Joe has come to the ring with a white towel ever since that storyline. We also have Sheik Abdul Bashir, who carried around the towel used after Shane Sewell was busted open in their feud. Only on the Microscope do we analyze an inanimate object like a towel.

After Kurt Angle defeated A.J. Styles in the main event tables match, Angle proceeded to beat down A.J. Styles in the ring. The announcers told us that Angle is doing this since A.J. is without backup. They gave us reasons why Team 3D, Samoa Joe, Rhino, and Mick Foley would not be interfering. That was great to fill in that logic hole, but they stopped half way. Consequences Creed, Jay Lethal, ODB, Petey Williams, Eric Young, and the MCMG are all Front Line members. All but Creed and Lethal were seen on tonight's show, yet none of them came to the rescue to help a defenseless Styles.

The bleep counter hit a record tonight, although the instances were not very sporadic. Tonight's Impact featured 19 bleeps. One during Petey Williams's promo on Scott Steiner and an amazing 18 during the Beautiful People backstage attack.

Numbers crunched harder than an unprotected chair shot to the head: if you watched Raw this past Monday, you no doubt saw that WWE did their own "numbers crunch" about the annual Royal Rumble PPV. There's Warlord's two second elimination, Kane's eleven in one match, and a 70 percent success rate for the winner at WrestleMania. But what else do the numbers say about Royal Rumbles?

Eleven of TNA's current roster members have competed in the Rumble. Kip James leads the way, as he competed in seven as Billy Gunn. Booker T has been in six and Mick Foley has appeared in four, although he had three slots in one of those Rumbles. In 1998, Foley entered the match in three different spots - #1 as Cactus Jack, #16 as Mankind, and then #28 as Dude Love.

No current TNA wrestlers have won the Rumble, although two have been the final elimination. Diesel (Kevin Nash) was eliminated by HBK in 1996, and Kurt Angle was the final elimination in 2002 by Triple H. Two TNA wrestlers have entered at #1 - Scott Steiner in '94 and Foley in '98. Only one has drawn the #30 slot, as Booker T was the final entrant in 2002.

The longest run is Kurt Angle's 29:05 in 2004 when he entered at 19 and lasted until the final three. The shortest goes to Kip James, who lasted a whole 14 seconds in the '94 Rumble before being eliminated by Nash.

WWE pointed out that just as many #1 entrants have won as #30 entrants. There is a bit of a flaw to that logic, as there is no difference between entering at 1 or 2 since both start the match at the same time. Two have won at #30 (Cena and Taker) while two have won at #1 (Benoit and HBK). But there have been two who went all the way who were officially the second entrant - Vince McMahon in '99 and Rey Mysterio in '06.

Every year, a few guys who are early entrants last towards the end. Bob Backlund, Steve Austin, Mysterio, and Triple H have all lasted over an hour in a Rumble. But it's also interesting to notice who the quick eliminations will be every year. In the 21 Rumbles that have occurred, 39 participants have lasted for longer than 30 minutes while 68 did not even reach a full minute of match time.

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 resumes can be sent to Curtis at curtisshanks.torch@gmail.com.

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