By Chris Reed, Torch Specialist

-- 7/30 TNA IMPACT HITS & MISSES

This week, Impact celebrated its 200th episode of weekly TV. It's hard to believe how far they've come since their weekly PPV offerings. Impact has been on somewhat of a slide lately, especially coming off that stinker of a PPV known as Victory Road. Let's see what Impact presented us this week:

IMPACT HITS

Hernandez vs. Samoa Joe (the match): Hernandez's re-packaging is now complete with new entrance music, new graphics, and a nice-looking set of Mexican-flag-themed tights with logos to push his "Super Mex" nickname. The match was just a classic example of power versus power. I loved the delayed suplex by Hernandez to set the tone for the match. Both Samoa Joe and Hernandez showed their power moves, but Hernandez needed the push more than Joe did and he got the (surprisingly) clean win. Nice to see TNA getting behind one of their most popular stars.

A.J. Styles vs. Matt Morgan: The little video clips just prior to this match gave it a little extra emphasis to show the importance of this best-of-three series to get a title shot at Hard Justice. My hit for this match comes mostly from that sweet 450 splash halfway across the ring to give Styles the first victory. Morgan held his own here and didn't look too stiff, whereas Styles was just his typical "phoenomenal" self.

Eric Young's Promo: Someone has seriously shoved a stick of dynamite up the rear end of Eric Young. Week after week for the past month or so (ever since his heel turn), Young has been cutting such seriously money promos, and it is so welcome to see this side of him after having to deal with his comedy character for so many years. He makes a perfect vocal leader for the new World's Elite faction as he is not as grating as Sheik Abdul Bashir. Young has been hitting those little comments that just make the fans want to boo him out of the building -- he's getting close to Vickie Guerrero heel heat, and that's a good thing. Keep it up Eric.

IMPACT MISSES


Hernandez vs. Samoa Joe (the timing): As much as I loved the match itself, I hated it being thrown away on free TV after just one week of conflict between these two. Joe vs. Hernandez could have been built up for weeks leading up to a PPV contest that the fans would have salivated over, but instead it was just given away without even a week's advance notice. I also would have loved to see Hernandez get his World Title shot briefcase back from the British Invasion before doing much else. Hernandez briefly mentioned that he wants to become the first Latino TNA World Champion, and I say more power to him for that goal, but get your business taken care of first.

British Invasion vs. Team 3D - New Japan Tag Team Title Tables Match: There are just so many things wrong with this setup here. First of all, I'm not a fan of having another promotion's titles being defended on a TNA show. TNA has enough trouble establishing any sort of legitimacy to their own titles; no need to drag another promotion down with you. Secondly, the finish was just one of those truly "WTF" moments in TNA history. If the ref didn't see Devon being physically put through the table, he shouldn't have made the call for that. But all the ref had to see was Devon lying on top of the broken table to award the match to the British Invasion team. I mean, come on, what if Devon had just accidentally tripped and fallen onto the broken table debris? Even the finish that did come out with Eric Young clocking Devon with a belt shot and just dumping him on top of the debris was just foolish. A bad finish ruined a halfway decent garbage brawl.

Kevin Nash & Kurt Angle vs. Mick Foley & Bobby Lashley - TNA World Title & TNA Legends Title On The Line: Singles belts DO NOT belong being defended in a tag team match. End of story. Foley took a tremendous amount of double-team punishment before the Sting interruption, and then Lashley comes back in to hit about three moves for Foley to get the pin. Is Lashley just that stiff in the ring that he couldn't wrestle for more than sixty seconds? And just in case no one has noticed yet, Kevin Nash (the man being pinned) wasn't even the legal man in the match at the time. I hope the Main Event Mafia points out this fact next week on Impact; it would be such a major storyline miss if they didn't.

Chris Reed is a PWTorch Specialist covering TNA Impact with a weekly Hits & Misses column.

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