By Hubert O'Hearn, Torch specialist

-- 9/10 TNA IMPACT HITS & MISSES

IMPACT HITS

Main Event - In what was an overall better show than the previous two weeks, TNA gave us an honest-to-goodness, worthwhile main event match. It's been mentioned a few times by Jason Powell on prowrestling.net that TNA has a bad habit of not matching their best workers against each other. Arguably, Angle, Joe, A.J. and Daniels are the best four workers in the whole company - certainly four out of the top ten. For nostalgia fans, it also brought back fond memories seeing A.J. Styles, Daniels, and Samoa Joe all in the same ring again.

Foley and Dr. Stevie - In all truth, this is a Hit not so much by what was done on Thursday night but by what it sets up for the future. Steven Richards has always been one of my favorite wrestlers and I've equally felt that he has been under-appreciated. He has the same taste for Clockwork Orange style Ultra-Violence as Mick Foley. At this point in his career, Foley would be well-placed in a tag team situation where he doesn't have to abuse his body for extended consecutive minutes. "Hmmm" I thought as I watched Foley encourage Richards back into the ring. "Wasn't Mick Foley in a pretty famous tag team at one time?" So get ready for the - you guessed it - Doc and Sock Connection. Granted it wasn't announced, but as a betting man I'm going all in on this guess and this could be a lot of fun to watch.

Three-Quarters of a Great Women's Tag Match - Not the Beautiful People tag match. More on that later. I'm talking about the Sarita/Tayor Wilde v. Daffney/Alissa Flash match. Three of these four are exciting, dynamic wrestlers who will be giving us great action along with eye candy for years to come. And Taylor Wilde was there too.

Jay Lethal vs. D'Angelo Dinero - While I'm not thrilled with former X Division champion Jay Lethal (like that means anything any more) being reduced to under-utilized jobber, there are only so many matches, feuds, and pushes to go around in any one company. It was good seeing him back on TV. Better yet, this was very good booking as Lethal's style meshed perfectly with Dinero. I don't know what WWE didn't like about Elijah Burke, but TNA has caught lightning in a bottle with Dinero and from their reaction the Impact Zone knows it.

The Comedy Match - As much as I hate the idea of the Deaner holding the Knockout Championship, I did like the Deaner v. Tara match. It was a good call putting the Motor City Machine Guns on commentary for it too, as Taz's work should be reserved for the 'serious' matches. To be honest, the Guns were anything but great on commentary and there is bound to be heat for the "child molesting van" line (yeah even though it was funny as hell). Still, it was their first time out of the box in that role, so we can be generous despots and give them a pass this time.

IMPACT MISSES

The World Elite - Every time Eric Young and crew came on I found myself slipping into a narcoleptic coma. If I didn't write this column, I'd have just fast forwarded past their spots. Because I do write this column I sat back and thought about why they're so boring. I started to think about successful factions - the Horsemen, NWO, Degeneration X, the Main Event Mafia - and what they all had in common. At their heart they all had at least one major champion. They were threats. They were title contenders. They could beat anyone because they had beat everyone. Now, as much as I like Eric Young, is he a major champion? Is he a threat? Is he a title contender? Oh heck no.

A repeating flaw of TNA is that sometimes they just don't take their time. If EY's push that began when he called out Jeff Jarrett had taken a normal progression leading to some pay-per-view win over one of the major players, THEN it would be interesting if he took a group of sneering heels under his wing. Now it's just ... well it's just a bunch of guys that exist to enhance Hernandez, the Mafia, and Team 3D.

No Surrender = No Buyrate - Let's be straight with one another. Are you excited about No Surrender? No, me either. I've rarely seen a pay-per-view that looked like more of a throwaway before "the big pay-per-view" than this one. Having two flat Impact episodes in a row definitely hurt, but even so, it just feels like there isn't going to be storyline settlement anywhere except for the women's tag belts. And this little brown duck ain't forking out no $29.95 for a ten-minute tag match. Now, if there are dubious gray market Internet sites streaming it for free...uh, no, not even then.

Angelina Love - Maybe this doesn't belong in this Hits and Misses column because the Beautiful People only had a forgettable tag match against Madison Rayne (and I came this close to writing Taylor Wilde - go ahead, you name me three differences), but I'm steaming mad about how the Angel Williams (Angelina Love) Visa issue has been handled. As I have a place to vent, I'm venting.

Will Rogers famously said he was not a member of any organized political party; he was a Democrat. I feel like saying that I'm not a fan of any organized sport; I'm a wrestling fan. If anything proves how the whole 'independent contractor' non-union environment of wrestling serves to its detriment, the Williams situation is it. Can you possibly imagine even the Detroit Lions or Pittsburgh Pirates signing a Canadian athlete without checking to make sure all the papers were in order? Of course not. Not even the Lions are that inept ... yeah okay, maybe the Lions would screw that up too. But not very likely.

Instead, we have one of the hottest acts in the company being lazy, forgetful, misinformed, or whatever about her work Visa and pfftttttt out you go. Leave your pictures at the door, don't call us we'll call you - slam! What in hell is that? Furthermore, can anyone tell me with a straight face that it wouldn't be possible to call up Congressman Smiley J. Bucktooth and in exchange for a couple of front rows and ten seconds of on screen time that there couldn't be a new Visa delivered faster than Superman on a pogo stick? But nawwww. It's just a wrestler. We'll let her go. There's lots more where she came from (yeah, Toronto).

TNA has this great Knockouts division, but first they lowball Gail Kim's contract offer (another Torontonian) and now throw away Angelina Love. Boy, I'll bet the company loyalty in the women's locker room is really underwhelming right about now.

Hubert O'Hearn is a new PWTorch Specialist covering TNA Impact with a weekly Hits & Misses column. You can read Hubert's Hits & Misses column and Chris Reed's new TNA Hits & Misses column weekly on PWTorch.com

[Art credit Grant Gould (c) PWTorch.com]

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