{"id":62253,"date":"2018-06-30T11:55:12","date_gmt":"2018-06-30T16:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=62253"},"modified":"2018-06-30T11:56:19","modified_gmt":"2018-06-30T16:56:19","slug":"impact-hits-misses-6-28-rich-swann-debuts-blanchard-vs-rayne-mooses-video-katarina-is-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2018\/06\/30\/impact-hits-misses-6-28-rich-swann-debuts-blanchard-vs-rayne-mooses-video-katarina-is-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"IMPACT HITS &amp; MISSES 6\/28: Rich Swann debuts, Blanchard vs. Rayne, Moose&#8217;s video, Katarina is Winter!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-1590531858\" 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><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><b>IMPACT HITS<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Opening Segment<\/strong>: Tessa Blanchard looked more comfortable in her show opening promo with Madison Rayne than she has at anytime in her run on Impact so far (though she\u2019s still overacting way too much at this point). The two also delivered an entertaining main event later that night. And while I\u2019m not overly excited for Rayne vs. Su Yung, they\u2019re doing a nice job of making Rayne feel like a real person with real world responsibilities who wants one more shot at gold. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Moose\u2019s Video<\/strong>: Moose\u2019s babyface push has been botched for so many months now, it\u2019s going to be a challenge to ever take him seriously. He\u2019s been booked as the biggest idiot on the roster, making his sudden elevation to the main event of their second biggest show of the year feel like a big stretch. However, the video they aired highlighting his life in football and wrestling performed some much needed damage control. It&#8217;s the best he&#8217;s ever come across during his run in the company. It\u2019s too bad they didn\u2019t produce something like this long ago, but it\u2019s a nice start into making his match against Austin Aries feel important. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Kingston and Konnan<\/strong>: Once again, Konnan and Eddie Kingston blew away any other performance on the show. Can they start teaching acting classes to the rest of the roster?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Katarina is Winter<\/strong>: Well, Impact finally got around to admitting the obvious: we\u2019ve seen Winter before in a TNA ring. It\u2019s just a bit strange that Katarina had to tell us herself that she\u2019d won the Knockouts Title and the announce team never noticed it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>The Desi Hit Squad Debuts<\/strong>: The match itself was fine, but nothing spectacular. The hit here is for the fact that there\u2019s another tag team in the division! Now only three or four more to go to make holding the belts actually mean something.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Sydal vs. Xavier<\/strong>: A great seven minute match that highlighted the impressive athleticism of both men. It also put over that there are consequences to performing high-risk maneuvers when they played up Dezmond Xavier tweaking his knee after a big spot. Matt Sydal winning another match cleanly is refreshing to see, as the company continues to do a good job of pushing him as one of the most dominant X Division champions in years. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><b>IMPACT MISSES<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Production Values<\/strong>: Almost every week I complain that the company should get out of the Impact Zone. And while this Canadian crowd was more into the show than the Orlando tourists, it looked and sounded worse than what fans have grown accustomed to. One glaring problem was that the color grading was way off, Madison Rayne had a different skin tone from cut to cut. The hard camera angle was also distractingly shaky throughout the show. All in all, things looked pretty rough. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Swann Wins<\/strong>: Ah, the proud tradition of recently released WWE talent immediately going over TNA talent continues. Who has the potential of being a bigger star in two years: Rich Swann or Trevor Lee? The vast majority of fans would likely pick Lee. We\u2019ve seen what Swann can do in WWE. It was fine. Good wrestler. Bad promo. Goofy dancing gimmick. Impact hasn\u2019t tapped into what has made Lee such a standout on the indy scene and he was chosen to put over the new guy. I don&#8217;t get why they can&#8217;t have Swann, a former Cruiserweight Champion, come in and do the job in his first match. He could say he didn&#8217;t realize how incredible the talent in Impact is and needs to train harder. Then you put over the promotion and let people know we still haven&#8217;t seen the best of Swann. But it seems Sydal vs. Swann is something they&#8217;re likely going to build to in the next couple months, which means two guys cast off from WWE will be anchoring the division.<\/span><\/p><div id=\"pwtor-3657746253\" 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><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>PCW Footage<\/strong>: Don Callis and Josh Mathews yelled for OVE to not unmask Pentagon Jr. They pleaded that the stable must be stopped! Um&#8230;that footage wasn\u2019t live. They knew it wasn\u2019t live. Why did they pretend it was live? Within their storytelling universe, how are these cutaway portions of matches supposed to be framed? Are we supposed to believe they are going to the PCW shows to commentate them? To make things easier, why don\u2019t they just have the announcers say \u201ccheck out this sickening footage of PCW sent us of OVE trying to take off Pentagon\u2019s mask?\u201d Then they comment on it while acknowledging it already happened. Also, they made it seem OVE stole Pentagon\u2019s mask, then he showed up later in the night in a pre-taped promo wearing a mask. Guess he has a closet full of them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Mask vs. Hair:<\/strong> As far as I can recall, Sami Callihan has not once, ever, talked about his hair on Impact television. Therefore, why would I care if he loses it? The stipulation doesn\u2019t even seem to fit his character. If he was a Rick Martel or Jessie Godderz type act, it would be infinitely easier to buy into. This angle also exposes the overall tone mismatch issue Impact has going on at the moment. A couple of weeks ago, Eddie Edwards straight up threatened to murder Callihan in the woods, and then he attempted to do so. Now, Pentagon Jr. is threatening to cut off Callihan\u2019s hair. Big whoop. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>GWN Flashback<\/strong>: This week they jumped right into the middle of a King of the Mountain match, one of the the crappiest gimmick matches the company has ever created. The timers on the screen likely confused a good portion of the audience. But hey, they got to show Abyss getting shot in the privates with a staple gun. Take my money GWN Network!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Blanchard Loses<\/strong>: The announcers sure seem foolish now for hyping Tessa Blanchard as a major signing. She lost again to Madison Rayne, which seems pretty absurd. Much like Swann and Lee, Tessa has far more upside than her opponent. Oh well, guess they\u2019ll just have to sign another talented woman from the indy scene, and this time not screw it up. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Commentary Weirdness<\/strong>: Shouldn\u2019t Josh Mathews have been more concerned (or shown <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">any <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">concern) that his wife was being beaten up by six women? They\u2019ve acknowledged that they\u2019re married on-air, so his non-chanlant approach to what he was watching was bizarre. Even if they\u2019re back to pretending the two aren\u2019t living together, the announcers should have still been fearing for the life of Madison, considering Rosemary was apparently burnt to death in a casket. To top it off, Allie chasing off six women was ridiculous and damaged the mystique of Yung. A lousy and weird way to end the night.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Overall Show<\/strong>: Three weeks in a row of mediocre to bad episodes. The ratings have reflected this as Impact has hit year lows for the year. Blame nice weather or other televised competition if you\u2019d like, but the booking is chaotic and nonsensical far too often. The hundred thousand extra people who were watching not long ago seem no longer interested in continuing to watch this mess. <strong>5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-622134442\"><div id=\"pwtor-2574718405\"><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>IMPACT HITS Opening Segment: Tessa Blanchard looked more comfortable in her show opening promo with Madison Rayne than she has at anytime in her run on Impact so far (though she\u2019s still overacting way too <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2018\/06\/30\/impact-hits-misses-6-28-rich-swann-debuts-blanchard-vs-rayne-mooses-video-katarina-is-winter\/\" title=\"IMPACT HITS &amp; MISSES 6\/28: Rich Swann debuts, Blanchard vs. Rayne, Moose&#8217;s video, Katarina is Winter!\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":45534,"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_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,28,27],"tags":[4328,1056,5987,674,5940],"class_list":["post-62253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opnionandanalysis","category-specialists_hitsandmisses","category-specialists","tag-allie","tag-josh-mathews","tag-madison-rayne","tag-rich-swann","tag-su-yung"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2017\/07\/SydalMatt_WK3x2_600.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62253","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\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62253"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62257,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62253\/revisions\/62257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}