By Chris Reed, Torch specialist

-- 8/13 TNA IMPACT HITS & MISSES

The previous week featured a backstage melee that pretty well had the entire roster involved on one side or the other. We were also on the fast track to the Hard Justice PPV on Sunday. Let's see what the final hype leads us to in the ways of lead-in Hits and Misses...

IMPACT HITS

A.J. Styles vs. Matt Morgan: By far and away this was the best match of their best-of-three series. Which means either Morgan is really starting to improve in the ring or Styles can wrestle a wet noodle and make it look good. I'm willing to give credit to both. Styles is one of those special athletes who just makes things look crisp and clean, and he knows how to tell a story. Morgan has taken his basics, polished them up a bit, and has gotten a slow but progressive push towards the top of the card, and this match with Styles made him look like he belonged in the main event. Add to the fact that we got to see the entire match without commercials and I'm a happy camper. I liked Morgan stating afterwards that he was going to go on his own. It led to there being a little bit of new blood in a TNA PPV main event.

Mick Foley - Kevin Nash Contract Signing: Both men were playing their respective parts at their best. Foley wrestles for the pride, for the passion, and for the love of the wrestling business. Nash is in it for the money, the money, and the money. Pretty plain and simple division of lines here, nothing too complicated, and easy to pick a side on. Plus I loved the part about Foley pointing out the obvious fact about there being a contract signing for a wrestling match and no one had gone through the table. Foley then doing so on purpose continues to show he's a few cards short of a full deck.

Hernandez Gets On Track With British Invasion: I mentioned a few weeks back when Hernandez returned that one of the first things he needed to do was get his old business taken care of and get back his Feast or Fired briefcase from The British Invasion. This week we had Hernandez defeat Brutus Magnus in fairly dominating fashion, and then there was the announcement of Hernandez taking on Rob Terry at the PPV for the rights to the briefcase. If Hernandez's push is to continue like it is, he needed to beat Terry like a red-headed step-child on Sunday, which he did.

IMPACT MISSES


Christy Hemme vs. Sojourner Bolt: Yes, we all know Hemme is hot. Yes, we all are glad to know that she was able to recover from her injury a few months back and that she's ok. But first of all, her return was done with absolutely no hype. And then during the match, she dropped Bolt on her head in an ugly fashion. That's just bad mat work folks.

Jethro Holliday Trying To Collect Abyss's Bounty: Did anyone out there seriously believe that Holliday had a snowball's chance in Hades of beating Abyss on Sunday? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Didn't think so. Don't make me laugh.

Rhino and Jesse Neal Split: Okay, on one side we have Jesse Neal who survived the USS Cole disaster and is trying to become a wrestler while wearing K-Mart sweats and the hairdo from hell. On the other side we have Rhino, the former TNA/NWA World Champion who apparently has no patience for his student and decides to Gore him to see if Neal has the guts to get back up for more. Dude, seriously, WTF over? What has Rhino done to be relegated to this bottom-of-the-card duty?

Lack Of Hard Sell For PPV: There were a few mentions of the PPV on Sunday, but not enough. If you weren't paying enough attention during the show, I think they only ran down the entire PPV card once. When they had a PPV coming up in just a few days, you would have thought that TNA would have pushed matches like the three-way TNA World Title match down our throats more often. Just not enough of a push.

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

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