2/5 TNA Impact TV Reax

Terrie Neilson of Las Vegas, Nev. (7.0): Best: Sabin/Shelley vs. Lethal/Creed; Shane vs. Bashir. Worst: Booker. Definitely a lot better than last week, but still a long way to go before the feeling of deja vu goes away. TNA tried to build Kiyoshi on par with Muta, but it may be too little too late. Lethal has pretty much stopped doing it in the ring, but really needs to give up being Savage on the mic. It ruined a decent enough promo started by Creed. The Rockers-Guns analogy only fits in athleticism and not the total package. For Mick Foley only having that brief and fairly meaningless promo, I would have rather had another Cornette segment since he was in charge for the most part. Beautiful People are back where they started...sorta. Brutus Magnus did all right in his debut. He was actually allowed to look reasonably good in his debut, but his finisher leaves plenty to be desired. It's almost an F5, so why not take it all the way there? Shane and Bashir had a good match. The only way to book the finish toward the Shane-Booker match and not be redundant and predictable was what we saw, which was more total referee non-sense. Angle-Sting has bent a corner rather than turned it. Much like the Michaels-JBL feud which suddenly "looks" like it will finish at No Way Out, the Angle-Sting tension seems to have escalated a little faster than seems natural. The deja vu feeling here is that Team 3D has teased dissension to this level before, only to swerve the situation. The storyline hasn't been working like that, and Sting will probably finish the face turn come Sunday. Just wish I could shake the feeling that something's wrong with that picture.

Alex Roberts in the U.K. (3.0): Best Match: Angle/Sting vs. Team 3D. Worst Match: Rhino vs. Morgan. The opening Mafia promo highlights the general problem TNA has with this angle. I have no idea what this stable is trying to accomplish and it seems to me as if TNA doesn't know themselves. Are they trying to take over the company? Protect their spots? Get respect from fans and the roster? There's so many mixed messages within this stable. If I don't know what the point of the Mafia is, then why would I care about the Frontline since their entire existence is to counter MEM? With that said, tonight's show was all about problems within MEM and building toward the Sting turn, which is essentially the only selling point of the Against All Odds main event. I would be fine with that if there was a sense of tension or drama about it, but there isn't. Of course, knowing TNA, we'll get a swerve of Sting throwing Angle out of the MEM on Sunday just because no one will see it coming. Elsewhere on the show, apparently the Muta appearance TNA promised was on a video package. That's a little disappointing. Brutus Magnus made his debut and looked okay in a generic undercard heel way. I still think he has a lot of upside if used right. Eric Young randomly added himself to a tag match he wasn't booked in and then won it, which was made even more ridiculous by the way in which the main event ended, via run-in from Booker T. Am I supposed to believe that if Booker had tagged himself into the match it would have been fine? Apparently the Sarah Palin impersonator is now a fulltime member of the roster, because everyone was clamoring to see more of that angle, right? I can however give TNA some credit this week. They set out with the simple message of pushing Against All Odds on Sunday and just about every segment and match on the show did in some way promote the PPV. I can't say much of what I saw this week made me want to watch the PPV - the Abyss promo for example made me less inclined to watch - but at least there was a consistent agenda to the show.

We welcome your 0-10 score and comments on this show for a "TNA TV Reax" feature in the Torch Feedback section of PWTorch.com. Just to add a twist to this feature, include not just your hometown, but also your occupation (mechanic, lawyer, stay-at-home-dad, college student, etc.) so readers get a flavor for what everyone does as "day jobs." To contribute your thoughts on Impact, click here.

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