The Impact Crater 10.19.06
Posted by Ryan Byers on 10.20.2006
Orlando dealers rejoice as Jake Roberts visits the Imapct Zone.
RECAP: Angle hates Vince, Joe hates paper champs, Christian hates Joe, and Rhino hates Christian.
Mike Tenay opens up the show proper in the ring, letting us know that the amorphous "TNA management" conglomerate has decided that Samoa Joe must return the NWA Title belt before the end of the show or be removed from the roster immediately.
After the opening sequences, Abyss, Spike Dudley, and Raven brawl out by the announce table. They hit each other with chairs, and Spike tries to Acid Drop Raven off of the ring apron, only to be crotched on the post. Mr. Levy then hits the chair drop toe hold on Abyss but gets caught in a black hole slam off of the discus punch. Random music begins playing, and Jake flippin' Roberts walks out of one of the fallopian tubes. The TNA wardrobe department must have hooked him up, because he's not wearing the same blue shirt that I've seen him wearing for every public appearance over the course of the last year. Roberts gets in the ring with Abyss, who doesn't attack for some reason. Jim Mitchell hits the doomsday button, but Jake runs the monster off with a boa constrictor, and now it's Spike's turn to get in the ring. He gets caught up in the snake's bag and DDTed.
Roberts has the mic now, and he says TNA offered him a slot referring the Monster's Ball match at the pay per view. He refuses to ref but says that he wants to "be the guide that takes you through the labyrinth of your mind." Weird, I could've sworn his drug of choice was crack and not LSD.
Outside, Jeremy Borash walks up to a limo that he thinks contains Samoa Joe. Instead, it's Kurt Angle, who's wearing a red shirt and a robe that looks like one of his WWE outfits remade on a $3 budget. Maybe I'm just nitpicking, but I hate segments like this. Angle's first appearance on Imapct is something special, and just having him walk out of a car in segment number one like any other goof seems almost like they're almost downplaying his importance.
Hey, Saturday at midnight there's a Bound for Glory countdown special! Will I recap it, or will I actually spend my Saturday night doing something worthwhile? TUNE IN TO 411 TO FIND OUT!
After a commercial, Austin Aries tells us he's coming to Bound for Glory. Sadly, it doesn't look like he'll have Rod Strong with him.
Match Numero Uno: Christian vs. Norman Smiley in an Orlando Street Fight
"We want Angle" chants can be heard as Christian comes out with a couple of chairs. He's looking really big this week. Maybe Kurt's wife has been cooking for him. He gets one of the louder reactions that I've heard him get in a while. I can't tell if it's being piped in or whether Angle has the crowd so excited that they're reacting to anything. Norman Smiley has an entrance this week, complete with James Brown-esque music. Also, since this is a hardcore match, he's gone back to wearing football gear in the ring. The reason some becomes apparent, as Xian lands a chairshot that's ineffective due to Norman's helmet. Smiley goes for the big wiggle but gets low blowed, and there's a chairshot to the back. Interesting that Norman will wear shoulderpads and a helmet but doesn't think of wearing a cup. Cage removes the helmet and hits the Unprettier, which sets up the one-man con-chair-to. The pinfall is academic. It's not all, though, as Xian tries to put a straight jacket on Norm after the bell. Shark Boy runs out for the save but gets beaten with Smiley's helmet. Captain Charisma tries to put Sharky in the jacket at this point, but Rhino hits the ring and forces the Canadian to bail.
Match Thoughts: I don't like giving gimmick matches away on free TV with no build up, and I don't like squash gimmick matches. There was nothing done here that couldn't have been done in a straight up squash between Smiley and Cage . . . you 'd just need to save the hardware until after the bell. 1/2*
Borash is still in the parking lot, and he runs in to Eric Young, who is hanging around outside in a trench coat and a fedora. He's also a blond again. JB quickly mentions that, because of interference in the Eric Young "loser gets fired" match, Jim Cornette has decided to bring Young back for a PPV contest against Larry Zbyszko. The loser of that really will be fired, though he'll probably be back as soon as his hair plugs are put in, if you know what I mean.
After some ads, Sonjay Dutt and Jay Lethal are wearing bald wigs, playing Mortal Kombat, and making fun of Low Ki. Jerry Lynn tells them they're morons and that they have a match. Low Ki then becomes my favorite person by beating the crap out of both of the X Division jackasses, throwing them in to lockers and doing it with gusto.
Match Numero Dos: Low Ki vs. Jay Lethal
Ki beats Lethal out of the fallopian tube and all the way down to the ring. He gets a back elbow when they hit the hexagon and a European uppercut as well. Lethal responds with a vertical suplex but misses the diving headbutt, which sets up the Tidal Crush and the Ki Crusher for three. Ki keeps going after the bell, and Chris Sabin tries to save. He fails miserably, as Ki dropkicks and double stomps in to oblivion. So much for Sabin looking like a viable contender.
Match Thoughts: This wasn't great technical masterpiece, but it's the kind of thing that the company has needed to do with Low Ki ever since he debuted. For some reason they've failed to let him showcase what actually makes him special, namely his ability to look like a badass and destroy people. These quick, stiff matches are exactly what he needs to be doing every week on Impact instead of being lost in the midst of the X Division tag match du jour. 1/4*
THE BAND IS BACK TOGETHER~! Kevin Nash and Alex Shelley are in a bar to announce Nash's X Division battle royale. Johnny Devine is MIA, but I can live with that since he never seemed to add anything to these segments. Big Kev makes sure that his first statement on camera buries Kurt Angle, which, like his involvement with the X Division, is both amusing and infuriating at the same time. Nash then intimates that "Hall" might be at Bound for Glory but says it'll be MONTY Hall. Bob Newhart, Cecil Fielder, Tom Zenk, Erik Watts, Carol Burnette, Foreigner, and the surviving members of ABBA may also be in the match according to Nash & Shelley. They're also negotiating with Paul Hogan. To use a Nash term, I was LOLing at the bizarre name dropping, but I think it may have gone over the heads of most of the company's target demographic.
Hey, Christy Hemme is still employed. Actually, I guess I don't know that for sure. They could've filmed 7,000 of these "coming up after the break" bumpers with her in about a day and then let her go.
Mike Tenay is now doing a sit-down interview with BG James. They're talking about a difference of opinion that James had with Billy Gunn last week on Impact. They apparently have differing opinions on Jeff Jarrett. Double J took BG in when he was young and stupid, so the Road Dogg is loyal and thinks the NWA Champ is a great person. I wonder where this loyalty was three years ago when BG was a part of Vince Russo's Sports Entertainment Extreme and beating the crap out of JJ on a weekly basis. Plot holes aside, I'm intrigued in this angle, because I have absolutely no idea where it could be going. Sadly WWE owns the rights to "With My Baby Tonight," because I want a duet of that song to be the first thing that Jarrett and James do if they team up.
Match Numero Tres: America's Most Wanted & LAX vs. The James Gang, Christopher Daniels, & AJ Styles
It's not explained why LAX are teaming up with filthy gringos. We've got an eight-man brawl to start, and Harris and James wind up in the ring. BG dances and jabs before hitting the shakey-shakey kneedrop. Hernandez and Daniels have made their own in to the crowd, while Billy Gunn and James Storm fight in the ring. Then the Spanish announcer throws water on Chris Daniels, so the Fallen Angel handcuffs him to LAX's "border" entrance as we cut to break. What the hell was that? Hernandez is hitting Daniels with a Canadian backbreaker in the ring when we come back, but that only gets two. Hotstuff then goes to a sloppy version of the dragon sleeper, but BG James runs in to breaks it up. That leads to a tag to Chris Harris, but AJ Styles hits him with a springboard forearm and then takes out all of the heels, including is backflip inverted DDT on Homicide and the Pele kick on Chris Harris. James Storm saves his partner from the Styles Clash, and we've got another big brawl. Homicide and Chris Harris then start arguing for no good reason, allowing AJ to sneak up behind Harris and hit him with an eznuguri for the pin. After the match, Konnan and Gail Kim get in to it, leading to an LAX beatdown on AMW. Hernandez even gives Gail the Border Toss, which appeared to kill her deader than dead. Heck of a bump by Kim, though she didn't have much of a choice in the matter.
Match Thoughts: This seemed massively disorganized, both in terms of the men wrestling the match and in terms of how it was edited together in post-production. The back and forth between the ring and the crowd brawling in the early going was just too much and detracted from both. The bit with the Spanish announcer was incredibly out of place and didn't add anything to the match. It may set up something later on, but, even if it does, it shouldn't be done in the middle of a match that already has eight bodies in it. After the break it seemed like things were going to take a turn for the better, as Styles' "house afire" was fast paced and impressive to behold. However, the finish just seemed to come out of nowhere, as Homicide and Storm literally started arguing for a reason that was either missed by the cameras or missed by me as I was taking notes. This could've been great with eight more minutes and better editing, but we've got to make do with what we have. *
Now Tenay's back in the ring, and he's got Earl Hebner with him. Earl appears to have aged twenty years in the last six months. Tenay calls Joe out to the ring, as it's time for his big decision. Nice shirt on Joe this week. I need to figure out where he shops. Anybody else ever notice a facial resemblance between Mike Tenay and Brent Spiner? Okay, that's enough random observations from me. Back to the segment.
The fans chant "Keep the Title!" as Tenay asks Joe for his decision. The big Samoan refuses to give it up, and here comes Kurt Angle. They built him a little Gangrel-esque elevator in front of one of the fallopian tubes. Both his singlet and his ring jacket look so low-rent compared to his WWE gear. Joe lays the belt down in front of Angle, daring him to cross it. The two men stare each other down, and then Angle headbutts Joe out of nowhere before hitting the Olympic Slam. He grabs the NWA Title belt, but Joe quickly recovers (busted open from the headbutt) and hits an AWESOME jumping enzuguri. The two men brawl, allowing Jeff Jarrett to run in out of nowhere and grab the belt. Nobody in the crowd gives a shit about him, though, as they're WAY too in to the Angle/Joe brawl to notice. We fade on the Impact zone with the two of them being separated by five thousand officials.
But that's not all, kids! The music video for Fozzy's "Enemy" airs, intercut with TNA highlights to hype up the PPV. The company made some good choices on the highlights, but Chris Jericho needs to stop singing immediately. I thought Fozzy's first two albums were fun, but the crap that they're doing now sounds so overproduced and poppy that the group no longer has anything distinguishing them from 50,000 other similar bands. It doesn't help that Jericho's posing for the camera while singing looks INCREDIBLY forced, almost as though he is some sort of bizarre Canadian marionette. I'm beginning to dislike putting these music videos on the ends of shows, as it only takes away from your main event, which should be the last impression that viewers are left with after watching your show.
Overall
Well, this episode of Imapct certainly had more happening on it than most of them do. The debut of Jake Roberts was an interesting surprise, and obviously Angle made his presence known in a big way, allowing us a preview of the one match that every TNA fan wants to see. However, I would almost argue that TNA is giving away too much for free right now. Last week we saw a ladder match between two people who had never faced before given away on TV with only forty minutes of build up. This week we saw a legend of professional wrestling enter the company with absolutely zero fanfare. We also saw another gimmick match given away with no build and the debut of (arguably) the biggest star to ever enter TNA wasted on a television program for which the company receives NO MONEY WHATSOEVER. If TNA was serious about maximizing the profit that they get out of Angle, they would've drawn his appearances out for months – getting people to buy a PPV to see his first appearance in the Impact Zone, getting people to buy a PPV to see his first encounter with Joe, and ultimately getting people to buy a PPV to see his first full-on match. Instead, the company has bended to this bizarre Vince Russo mentality in which television ratings mean everything, even though it is Spike TV and not TNA who is profiting as a result of television ratings. Though I understand that ratings need to be kept at a certain level in order to keep the program on television, throwing away what could be several thousand extra PPV buys in order to do so is a stupid move.
Even though I don't agree with the business strategy, I will say that Impact was entertaining this week. I would've liked to have seen a bit more going on in-ring, but the Ki squash was fun and Joe/Angle was excellent for a brief brawl, so I can't complain too much. We'll see if things get worse next week as Vince Russo presumably gets even more control.
