By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

IMPACT HITS

Kiyoshi vs. Suicide: I don't like that Kiyoshi never seems to win a match, yet he keeps getting X-Division Title matches, first against Alex Shelley a few weeks back, and now against new Champion Suicide. I have not been impressed with Kiyoshi and I hate the Suicide gimmick. Also, Don West and Mike Tenay talked about everything during this match, other than the match itself. However, I did enjoy the match. It wasn't great, but at 5 minutes was about 2 minutes longer than I expected, and it featured good high energy action.

Rough Cut: TNA can do Rough Cuts very well, when they do them in the right situations (as in not casting a positive light on heels like Beer Money). This was the case last week and this week with the look at Team 3D. It is interesting to get a glimpse of what their background is, and what makes them special as a team. It was interesting to hear Ray talk about checking their egos and understanding that the fans don't want to see them as singles wrestlers. They emphasized their bond as brothers making them a strong team. It was well done.

Sting - Foley: This is a marginal Hit, as Mick Foley and Sting both delivered good promos during their in ring face off. I don't like that Foley has been painted as an invalid with Sting saying he has pain just getting up from a chair. Why should I pay to see someone in that physical condition wrestle? I also don't understand who is a babyface and who is a heel in this situation. But as I said, the mic work from both was strong. Foley was good in his joking attempt at an explanation for his actions last week, and Sting was good in staying intense and focused and not being amused my Foley's antics. It wasn't great, but just good enough.

Gauntlet: Despite some reservations about the purpose of the match and the end of it, I am still giving the 20 Man Team Captain for Lethal Lockdown Gauntlet a Hit. I am doing so, because it featured 45 minutes of pretty good wrestling action. That is more wrestling in one match than we get total on most Impacts. There were some nice spots during the match. They booked it well for the most part to address some feuds like Matt Morgan vs. Abyss and Booker T vs. AJ Styles. It even told a story of the Main Event Mafia trying to work together to guarantee that Kurt Angle would win, while stopping Jeff Jarrett from stopping them. The ending was poor, but on the whole it was still fun to watch.

IMPACT MISSES

Opening Segment: This was rough because of the convoluted situation that TNA had on their hands with a qualifying gauntlet where wrestlers enter at two minute intervals to win a chance to captain a team for a PPV match where wrestlers enter at two minute intervals. I love it when Jim Cornette explains the rules of a gimmick match, as he always says upfront that the rules are simple, but they never are. I will give them credit for the fact that this gauntlet cage match does have simpler rules than a typical TNA gauntlet. However, having those rules described only a moment after rules for another complicated gimmick match have been explained was probably a mistake. The main problem with the opening segment is that it was setting up this huge match that didn't make any sense. Lethal Lockdown was described as a chance for two teams to settle their differences, but the gauntlet didn't guarantee captains who would want to settle differences against each other. What if one of the No Limit team had won against Sheik Abdual Bashir? What difference would their teams be fighting over. Sure, we all knew that it would be a Frontline vs. MEM match, but the way it was set up didn't guarantee that. What if AJ Styles and Samoa Joe were the final two? I had all of these questions running through my mind which meant I didn't look forward to what would be the bulk of the second half of Impact.

Three Tag Team Titles: Why are there three Tag Team Titles in TNA? I understand the desire to hype Global Impact, but having two teams in TNA, The Motor City Machine Guns and Team 3D both possessing IWGP Tag Titles seems like overkill to me. Nobody actually cares about No Limit do they? Does anyone actually care that they will get an upcoming Title match for the IWGP Junior Tag Team Titles? Does anyone really care that in addition to the TNA Tag Titles that will be up for grabs at Lockdown, that Team 3D's IWGP Tag Titles will be as well? Don't the fans in Japan miss having tag team champions in their country?

ECW/WWE Talk: While I liked Rough Cut, it once again had too many references to WWE and non-TNA talent. Brother Ray referenced WWE and quoted Steve Austin. Later in the sid down interview with Tenay which was solid, Team 3D continued to reference ECW and quoted Taz. It made sense for Beer Money in trying to place themselves in a historically significant spot to name drop the Steiners and the Road Warriors, but in the midst of all this ECW talk, it didn't work as well as if it had been a singular moment to bring up past legendary teams . And, I didn't need to hear Foley make the ridiculous claim that everyone is talking about Lockdown since nobody cares about the other wrestling PPV in April. WrestleMania 25 has had some seriously crappy hype and a card that doesn't look that good. But still, it will likely have 1 million buys. I don't follow the buy rates for TNA PPVs at all, so maybe someone can comment, but do they even get 100,000 buys (still far lower than the lowest WWE PPV)? I doubt it.

Heels and Faces: While I gave Kiyoshi vs. Suicide a Hit, you may have noticed that I had some negative things to say about it. Here is another. I thought Kiyoshi and No Limit were babyfaces. No Limit is feuding with the Motor City Machine Guns who are heels. Kiyoshi played the face role when he wrestled Shelley. He got beat up a few weeks ago by heel Kurt Angle. Yet this week they were the heels against Suicide. I am confused, and unfortunately my confusion didn't end there. Why are the Beautiful People suddenly feuding with Awesome Kong and Raisha Saeed? Aren't they all heels? And, I'm still not totally sure who I am supposed to cheer for, Sting or Foley? Plus, there is the on going issue of Samoa Joe's "babyface" character.

End of the Gauntlet: I was very disappointed in the last few minutes of the gauntlet, starting with Hernandez's elimination. When he came out as the 19th participant against Scott Steiner and Angle, I saw it as an opportunity to get Hernandez (who still has a World Title shot coming to him) a huge boost. Instead, he was pinned moments after entering the match. Why? A few months ago, I complained when BG James kicked out of the Angle Slam and I said at the time that it ruined the Angle Slam as a finisher. Someone left a comment saying that the Angle Slam wasn't Angle's finisher, so it wasn't a big deal. I guess it still is his finisher, considering he finished off several wrestlers in the match with the move that BG James kicked out of. Sure, some of those wrestlers had been in the match a long time, but that one move alone took out Hernandez, effectively killing off his credibility. To make matters worse for Super Mex, a few minutes later Samoa Joe would totally no sell the move! The whole thing about Jeff Jarrett coming out at the #20 spot, instead of the #20 wrestler was convoluted and silly. He hadn't been eliminated, so he should have come to the ring when he was physically able, instead of entering at a normal 2 minute interval. Then, what happened to the clock? There clearly was still a 20th wrestler to come, but TNA was trying to be too cute in hoping to trick everyone into thinking Jarrett would be the last. Why was Joe even in the match if he later claimed he didn't want to be a team captain? We sat through 45 minutes of pretty good wrestling only to be told in the end that the outcome didn't matter. Angle lost, but still got what he wanted, to be a team captain. Joe won, but didn't care about the prize. Ridiculous.

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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