{"id":220842,"date":"2026-08-14T11:28:03","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=220842"},"modified":"2026-08-14T11:28:03","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:28:03","slug":"tna-impact-hits-misses-8-14-cedric-needlessly-yells-the-worst-match-stipulation-ever-trey-miguels-surprise-return-aj-franciss-immersion-breaking-cinematic-segment-with-elijah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2026\/08\/14\/tna-impact-hits-misses-8-14-cedric-needlessly-yells-the-worst-match-stipulation-ever-trey-miguels-surprise-return-aj-franciss-immersion-breaking-cinematic-segment-with-elijah\/","title":{"rendered":"TNA IMPACT HITS &#038; MISSES (8\/14): Cedric needlessly yells the worst match stipulation ever, Trey Miguel&#8217;s surprise return, AJ Francis&#8217;s immersion-breaking &#8220;cinematic&#8221; segment with Elijah"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-498030356\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><h2>HITS<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Leon Slater evening the odds in Sosa vs. Myers<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>First off, I&#8217;m very happy that they put over Sosa in his match against Brian Myers. Sosa shouldn&#8217;t be losing, under any circumstances, to a lower-tier hand in the System. Secondly, I greatly enjoy the dynamic of Leon Slater and Ricky Sosa. It was a good idea to have Slater come down, even the odds, and stop the belt from being used against Sosa in the match. Slater didn&#8217;t cheat. He just made sure the playing field was level.<\/p>\n<p>It also made me a bit more excited for the X-Division Title match that was inevitably going to happen in a Lockdown match at Lockdown. I was sour on the build last week and this helped (now Cedric Alexander&#8217;s promo answering the challenge is a different story as you&#8217;ll see in my misses).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Video Package for the World Title main event<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I haven&#8217;t been a fan of the build to this match or the idea of having this match, in general, but if TNA is dead-set on having it, I&#8217;d be a hypocrite if I didn&#8217;t say that I&#8217;m glad they put together a video package hyping the main event and putting the match in the main event spot.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Trey Miguel as the surprise trios partner with Rich Swann and BDE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As far as surprise returns go, I think that Trey Miguel exceeds the bar that could be expected for a trios match on a weekly Impact. Miguel also has a history with Mustafa Ali so it makes sense to put him opposite of Ali in this match. I also like the idea that Ali has problems coming on multiple fronts. First, with Jason Hotch over the last after losing his International to him and now with his nemesis who was far away on the sidelines.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m curious how far TNA is willing to push Miguel. I could see him in the main event scene or treading water in mid-card purgatory. Hopefully Miguel can help Ali get out of this rut that he has been stuck in the last month or so. It was also a good idea to have Hotch come out, do the right thing and make the save. Keep building him and TNA may have found a diamond in the ruff. At this point, I hope that Hotch retains the title against Ali at Lockdown and then Ali is paired off against Trey Miguel.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-1057987300\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><em>ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Check out the latest episode of &#8220;Destination Impact&#8221; with Zac Clarke and Jerud Buhagiar, part of the PWTorch Dailycast line-up: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spreaker.com\/episode\/destination-impact-zac-jb-discuss-status-of-tna-s-championship-divisions-heading-into-lockdown-jason-hotch-mustafa-ali-the-righteous--73825668\">CLICK HERE<\/a> to stream (or search \u201cpwtorch\u201d on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other iOS or Android app to subscribe free)<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Destination Impact - Zac &amp; JB discuss status of TNA\u2019s championship divisions heading into Lockdown, Jason Hotch, Mustafa Ali, The Righteous\" src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?episode_id=73825668&amp;theme=light&amp;playlist=false&amp;playlist-continuous=false&amp;chapters-image=true&amp;episode_image_position=right&amp;hide-logo=false&amp;hide-likes=false&amp;hide-comments=false&amp;hide-sharing=false&amp;hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"200px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>KC Navarro defeating Eddie Edwards and Sosa and Navarro, sweeping The System<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>TNA booked the young men&#8217;s talent well tonight. It was absolutely the right call to have Navarro and Sosa go over their System opponents. It&#8217;s time to let the fans fully embrace these guys. I also like the construct of the Lethal Lockdown match between the System and Fabian Aichner, Navarro, Sosa and Jada Stone. I hope that tonight&#8217;s wins for the young guys weren&#8217;t an excuse to put the System over in Lethal Lockdown though. Aichner, Sosa, Navarro and Stone need to win this feud and Lethal Lockdown is the culmination. It makes sense to have Alisha Edwards and Jada Stone in the match, as well. It gives me a &#8220;Marina Shafir in AEW&#8221; feel and adds more credibility to the Knockouts division.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nic Nemeth beating Jeff Hardy clean to retain the TNA World Title<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Good match that certainly got the crowd into it (although all the chants were &#8220;This is awesome!&#8221; and &#8220;TNA!&#8221;, not for either wrestler, in particular). I was slightly worried that TNA would feel the need to protect Jeff Hardy in this match even though he is primarily a tag team wrestler at this point in his career. Creative did the right thing and had Nic Nemeth go over Jeff Hardy clean. I feel as though this is also a signpost that the Hardys will retain their tag titles against the Nemeths at Lockdown.<\/p>\n<p><em>ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Check out the latest episode of &#8220;Wrestling Coast to Coast&#8221; with Chris Maitland and Justin McClelland, part of the PWTorch Dailycast line-up: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spreaker.com\/episode\/wrestling-coast-to-coast-maitland-mcclelland-review-hog-high-intensity-including-mason-vs-kingston-zilla-s-last-indy-match-mane-event--73923448\">CLICK HERE<\/a> to stream (or search \u201cpwtorch\u201d on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other iOS or Android app to subscribe free)<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Wrestling Coast to Coast - Maitland &amp; McClelland review HOG High Intensity including Mason vs. Kingston, Zilla's last indy match, Mane Event\" src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?episode_id=73923448&amp;theme=light&amp;playlist=false&amp;playlist-continuous=false&amp;chapters-image=true&amp;episode_image_position=right&amp;hide-logo=false&amp;hide-likes=false&amp;hide-comments=false&amp;hide-sharing=false&amp;hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"200px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>MISSES<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Cedric Alexander yells in the mic and demands a dumb, insignificant stipulation<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"pwtor-209929513\" class=\"pwtor-content-1 pwtor-entity-placement\"><!-- Tag ID: pwtorchcom_test_300x600 -->\r\n<div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __300x600\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Someone needs to tell Cedric Alexander to take it down ten notches. Last week, he was way too vitriolic relative to what Leon Slater was saying to him. This week he screamed into the microphone for his entire promo. It was hard to listen to and not in a &#8220;good heel&#8221; way. Also, Alexander&#8217;s stipulation demand might be one of the dumbest that I have ever heard and I&#8217;ve heard many dumb ones. If Slater wins, he gets the X-Division Title. If Slater loses his &#8220;second-longest X-Division Title reign is erased&#8221;? One, who cares about the second-longest reign of a mid-card title?<\/p>\n<p>If I were Slater, I wouldn&#8217;t even give a second thought to that stipulation. Second, you can&#8217;t just &#8220;erase&#8221; a title as a stipulation. Everyone will still know that he has the second-longest reign. There isn&#8217;t any physical record book in the TNA Hall of Fame, to my knowledge. TNA overthinking themselves, yet again. If there was actually a plan, they would&#8217;ve had Slater legitimately have the longest X-Division Title reign as Zac Clarke and I have been saying for months on &#8220;Destination Impact.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>AJ Francis&#8217; &#8220;cinematic&#8221; recording studio segment with Elijah<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s dumb, immersion-breaking things like this that TNA often does that makes my blood boil. Elijah just appears in Francis&#8217;s recording studio with post-produced music ready on a whim? An eight-year old wouldn&#8217;t believe that this is something remotely close to reality. And to spend that bullet on something so insignificant like a rehashed AJ Francis-Elijah feud makes it even worse.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Another dumb talk show segment between Frankie Kazarian and Moose<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What can TNA do to strongly differentiate itself from WWE? I know, yet another &#8220;talk-show&#8221; segment between Kazarian and Moose. I hate the idea of talk-shows in pro wrestling in 2026, in general, but this isn&#8217;t even the first time that they&#8217;ve done it in this feud. The only difference is they flipped it around and gave Moose the show, thus making him ever so slightly less cool. Congratulations.<\/p>\n<p>The content of the segment was, at best, meat and potatoes. Even if Kazarian wins this match there is almost no argument that he is &#8220;the face of TNA&#8221; so the main premise promoting this match is incongruent with what most fans know to be true. It isn&#8217;t getting them pumped, it&#8217;s insulting their intelligence.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Making the Elayna Black-Xia Brookside feud about getting a bad makeup job backstage<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This was one of those stereotypical backstage segments that all but confirms my suspicions that almost exclusively men are booking TNA (and most of pro wrestling, in general). It made the women look catty, non-serious ,and not focused on the title, which should almost always be the primary goal of a build to a world title feud. The fact that this fake looking brawl made its way into the ring causing disruption in a serious Knockouts TV Title Tournament match between Indi Hartwell and M by Elegance is a total joke.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Knockouts TV Title tournament has turned into a complete joke<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>My first thought, prior to this tournament, was that it would make too much sense to use this as a vehicle to elevate Mara Sade or Elayna Black on the card. Mara left the company in the middle of the tournament (which seemed like it was a surprise and unaccounted for as a possibility) and then Elayna Black was unceremoniously turned face (which she hasn&#8217;t been very good at) to feud for the Knockouts Title against Xia Brookside because TNA had failed to build anyone else credible enough, okay.<\/p>\n<p>Then I thought that the only logical conclusion would be to give Indi Hartwell the push she has long been due for, but nope. Instead, they use a really bad backstage angle and brawl from the Black-Brookside feud to cause a cheap finish in the Knockout TV Tournament semi-final between Indi Hartwell and M by Elegance to put M by Elegance over and have her in the tournament final.<\/p>\n<p>This is a mind-boggling convolution to me. If Jada Stone doesn&#8217;t go over Heather by Elegance next week and ultimately win the tournament as a fun underdog story, I may have lost all faith in TNA booking. An all Elegance tournament final would likely get my award for &#8220;worst booking of decision for a major wrestling company in 2026 and possibly in 2025.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rosemary is missing and Moose got beat down by a &#8220;mystery person&#8221; backstage<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Two similar angles shouldn&#8217;t be highlighted on the same episode of your wrestling program. TNA, much like WWE and AEW, needs someone managing storyline quality control.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Bunny looking for Rosemary in pre-taped vignettes<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll continue to criticize this immersion breaking &#8220;Undead Realm&#8221; nonsense similar to how I criticized the Francis-Elijah recording studio pre-tape.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"PWT Talks NXT - PWTorch NXT Post-Show (8\/11) w\/Lindberg &amp; Miller\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/C1-tb_2iGaU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-2025907625\"><div id=\"pwtor-335716276\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>HITS Leon Slater evening the odds in Sosa vs. Myers First off, I&#8217;m very happy that they put over Sosa in his match against Brian Myers. Sosa shouldn&#8217;t be losing, under any circumstances, to a <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2026\/08\/14\/tna-impact-hits-misses-8-14-cedric-needlessly-yells-the-worst-match-stipulation-ever-trey-miguels-surprise-return-aj-franciss-immersion-breaking-cinematic-segment-with-elijah\/\" title=\"TNA IMPACT HITS &#038; MISSES (8\/14): Cedric needlessly yells the worst match stipulation ever, Trey Miguel&#8217;s surprise return, AJ Francis&#8217;s immersion-breaking &#8220;cinematic&#8221; segment with Elijah\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":220844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,28,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opnionandanalysis","category-specialists_hitsandmisses","category-specialists"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-14-at-11.26.32-AM.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220842"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220845,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220842\/revisions\/220845"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}