The Impact Crater 10.26.06
Posted by Ryan Byers on 10.27.2006
I...HATE...RUSSO.
NOTE: I just watched the Monday Night War DVD before tuning in to Impact. As such, I have been reminded of several great moments in professional wrestling history, during which the programming was entertaining and compelling. I cannot be held responsible for any extra cynicism and creeps in to this TNA Impact review as a result.
A Bound for Glory recap opens the show. Monster's Ball, the Eight Mile Streetfight, Angle/Joe, and all tree title matches are featured. For all of the criticism Sting vs. Jarrett got, the finish with the no-sell of the guitar shot was AWESOME.
Once we go to the Impact Zone, the first thing that the announcers do is let us know that Kurt Angle and Samoa Joe will be facing each other at Genesis. The graphic for the matchup shows the two men's heads floating in orbs that look way too much like testicles.
Hybrid Sting is the first man to come out of the fallopian tubes, but Christian sneaks in to the ring during his entrance. Cage accuses Sting of stealing his thunder and mentions that he has to "fight in a tournament" tonight to get a title shot. Maybe the announcers should have explained that there was going to be a tournament tonight before Xian brought it up. Whatever this tournament is, it's going to involve eighteen wrestlers, none of whom can carry Christian's jock strap according to the former WWF Tag Champ. Cage alludes to the fact that he turned on Sting several months ago, which the majority of the fans have probably forgotten by now. He concludes by saying that he wants Sting to just go ahead and name him the number one contender for Genesis . . . but Sting refuses and then beats the crap out of him with a bat. So, let me get this straight, Sting ducks a challenge and then perpetrates an unprovoked attack on Christian? What a babyface. Also, for those of you who thought that this promo meant that Sting vs. Christian would be the main event of the pay per view, you're wrong. Later on the show, yet another Rhino vs. Christian match was announced for the PPV, which makes you wonder what the point of this opening segment was supposed to be.
Jeremy Borash is backstage, but he's interrupted by Samoa Joe, who is hunting Kurt Angle.
Christy Hemme is sadly still employed, and she's also hyping up this tournament, which they're now calling "Fight for the Right." Would somebody PLEASE take ten seconds and explain why this tournament is going on and how it works? Would that be too much to ask?
Shane Douglas is in the ring after the break, and he's hyping up the big title shot for the Naturals. Given that they lost on the pay per view, shouldn't he chastise them and take the shot away like he did the last time that they lost a match? Oh, wait, that happened pre-Russo, so it doesn't count.
Random aside: I'm not normally one to get in to wrestling women, but So Cal Val looks great tonight.
Match Numero Uno: LAX vs. The Naturals for the NWA Tag Team Championship
Before LAX can even get to the ring, they're jumped by America's Most Wanted, who are getting revenge for an injured Gail Kim. All four men brawl in the crowd while the Naturals just stand there and watch. When Harris and Storm toss LAX in to the ring, the Naturals take over on them as security takes AMW to the back. Of course, this leads to the Naturals having an early advantage, including a double shoulderblock on Hernandez and a facebuster/kneelift combo on Homicide. A wacky lariat variant gets two on Hotstuff, and now I'm wondering when the tag rules will be enforced. Andy Douglas gets tossed out of the ring at some point, which allows Homicide to hit the Cop Killa out of nowhere on Stevens. Douglas makes a save and brief comeback, but he's hit with the slapjack behind the referee's back. That sets up the Border Toss for the three count, and there's more beating for the Naturals after the bell.
Match Thoughts: Jesus, Douglas and Stevens just got BURIED here. After months of building them up as a hot new act with Shane Douglas, the get a title shot and get murdered in less than five minutes, even though they had an early advantage thanks to a run-in. The match itself was a disjointed piece of crap, with nobody caring about the basic rules of tag team wrestling or trying to do anything other than unstructured brawling and a couple of highspots. DUD.
After the match, Shane Douglas gets in the face of the Naturals and slaps one of them. This time they actually FIGHT BACK, which gets a "Kick his ass!" chant out of the crowd and a smile out of Douglas. Okay, so they lose to the Tag Champs but can beat the crap out of their over the hill manager. What's that supposed to prove?
Now it's time for NASH AND SHELLEY~! Johnny Devine has been cut from Paparazzi Productions for "refusing to edit German snuff films" according to Nash. Good, I never really liked that guy anyway. He seemed like somebody who was just tacked on to Shelley because management wanted to find a slot for him as opposed to being a natural fit for the gimmick. Anyway, Alex is jealous of Austin Aries after he won the Kevin Nash Invitational, and Aries himself shows up. Big Kev says that Austin single-handledly put the X Division back on the map, and Shelley is ordered to film everything that Aries does. Alex is not happy. This wasn't as funny as the usual work from Shelley and Nash, but I like the potential of an Aries/Alex feud for Big Daddy Cool's affection. It gives Nash a meaningful role, gives the other two guys the rub, and (at least hopefully) prevents the X Division from getting buried any further. Plus it sets up a good meaningful challenger for whoever the X Division Champion is at the end of the feud.
Tenay and West are with us after the break, and they finally get to explaining the "Fight for the Right" Tournament. Apparently the tournament isn't really tonight, but there is a match in which men will qualify for the tournament . . . and it may be the most confusing match in the history of professional wrestling. I know that I use that Schaovine-esque hyperbole a lot, but I mean it this time.
Anyway, eighteen men are going to start standing around the ring, and they have to fight to get in to the ring. The first seven men in continue in the match, and the other eleven are eliminated. Once seven men are in the ring, the match turns in to an over the top rope battle royale. All seven of these men will wind up being in the tournament, but the order of elimination determines the seeding. Then once there are two men left in the battle royale, it turns in to a singles match, and the winner of that gets an automatic bye in to the second round of the tournament.
I swear on my mother's grave that I did not make these rules up. They're legit.
Match Numero Dos: A Bunch of Random Dorks in a Fight for Your Right (To PARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR-TAY) Tournament Match
Eighteen random men start brawling at ringside, and there's so much going on that it's impossible to cover. I can barely even tell who the majority of the men are. James Storm is just standing around and drinking beer, not even trying to get in to the ring. Lance Hoyt is here, and his hair is well-conditioned. Bobby Roode is the first guy in the ring, and David Penzer tells us that there are "six remaining . . . entries left," as though even he doesn't know how to call this insanely complex match. Chris Sabin is in the ring. Matt Bentley is shown in the audience, and for some reason he's dressed like the Crow's gay cousin, complete with purple and fuscia hair. AJ Styles and Chris Daniels use some teamwork to make it in to the ring at the same time, and now Bubba Dudley is arguing with Shane Douglas at ringside. Neither of them are in the match, apparently. God knows what they're doing out there. Abyss is in. Lance Hoyt is in, leaving us with only one spot remaining. Christian and Ron Killings brawl on the apron, but Rhino runs in and pulls Cage off, allowing the Truth to get in. Now LAX and AMW are now out at ringside and brawling. Why were any of them there? I don't think they're in the match. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH THIS SHOW?!
Thankfully, it's time for a commercial break. I'll be using this opportunity to take several Advil in the hopes that the headache this match has given me will go away.
After the break, the battle royale starts. Ron Killings is out in ten seconds like the jobber that he is. Sabin goes for a tornado DDT on Roode but gets tossed. God forbid that a guy who holds a title outlasts LANCE FREAKING HOYT. AJ and Daniels double team Abyss, even hitting Total Elimination. Roode then takes the advantage by ambushing the former tag champs. He heads up top, but Daniels cuts him off and tries to hit the Iconoclasm. Traci Brooks grabs Daniels' leg and prevents the move from happening, which gives Roode an opening to knock him off the top and out to the floor. Bobby falls off the ropes and to the outside, seemingly for no reason. Abyss hiptosses AJ to the floor, and now we get a singles match between Abyss and Lance Hoyt as our Impact main event.
Abyss hits him with an avalanche to start, but Hoyt comes back quickly and lands a flying forearm. Winner of this gets to squash Ron Killings. Lance goes on to land ten punches in the corner, but Abyss refuses to sell it and lays his man out with a big boot. Now the monster has a chair, and apparently this is a no DQ match. Okay, maybe it's not, because the referee takes it. Hoyt hits a big boot of his own and then an impressive moonsault, for which he RAN up the ropes. Lance calls for sweet Hoyt music but fails miserably, getting caught in Abyss' torture rack backbreaker. Everybody stands around for a little while, and Abyss goes for another avalanche, only to miss and get hit with a dropkick. Then, as Jim Mitchell distracts the referee, Lance Hoyt places a chair on Abyss . . . VAN TERMINATOR BY LANCE HOYT! What in god's name am I watching?! Then, after taking this move, Abyss gets up immediately, hits a Black Hole Slam, and gets a three count.
Wow. Fuck TNA.
Match Thoughts: Where do I even start? This match wasn't just bad. This match was HISTORICALLY bad. Five to ten years down the road, we're going to be reading about this one in the same category as the WCW Chamber of Horrors Match, the Jackie Gayda tag match, and the Piper/Hogan Age in a Cage. Though I understand that the company wants to be innovative, you don't want to be innovative at the risk of completely losing your audience. Having a "three stage" match is bad enough. Having a three stage match in which one of the stages is a relatively new concept (fighting to get in the ring) is worse. Adding in the "order of elimination determines seeding" aspect is even worse, especially when seeding never comes in to play in professional wrestling tournaments. Then you had the singles match, which I see no point for. Why not just keep the match going as a battle royale and have the guy who gets the last elimination earn the bye?
There were much simpler ways to accomplish the same objective that the company wanted to accomplish during this contest. There were more than eight matches on the pay per view this weekend. Why not just say that all of the winners from the PPV are in the tournament? Hell, why not just START THE TOURNAMENT with no need for wacky qualifications or seeding determinations? You've only got two or three weeks until the PPV, so it's not like you have to worry about filling time. Or, if you want to do a battle royale, why not just do a battle royale with the winner getting the title shot?
Aside from the mechanics of the match, the substance of the Abyss/Hoyt showdown as AWFUL. We'll ignore the fact that Lance Hoyt essentially went over sixteen men out of the blue tonight with no build whatsoever. Instead, let's focus on the fact that these men apparently have no clue how to put together a professional wrestling match. Did they both do moves that required a good deal of athletic ability and looked impressive? Sure they did, especially Hoyt. Did they get the crowd to pop a couple of times? Yup. However, there was absolutely no story told. It was just two men getting in there and exchanging moves as though the match were an exhibition and not a legitimate competition. I'm not saying that you have to go in there and work a quasi-MMA style, but dear lord have the come sense to sell for a little while after you hit a top rope moonsault. And, for the love of Christ, here are two things that should never happen: 1.) A man, especially a man who stands over 6' tall, busting out a Van Terminator in a free TV match that everybody will forget about in a week. 2.) That man's opponent completely ignoring such a major move, popping up ten seconds later, and hitting his finisher as though it never even connected with him. If Jim Cornette was backstage for this set of tapings, his head would have exploded.
In short, watching this match left me embarrassed to be a professional wrestling fan.
Instead of letting Abyss celebrate his victory, we're shown an interview with Jeff Jarrett, which was allegedly taped after Bound for Glory. Dramatic music plays in the background as Jarrett almost breaks down in tears and says that he's going home instead of pursuing a rematch. Double J puts himself over, saying that he carried the company for four years . . . but admits that he may have dropped the ball on some personal and professional things. He's going home. Pretty powerful promo there, with good acting by Jeff Jarrett. It's clear that they're turning him face, and they did it in a pretty effective way here, with Jarrett saying things that weren't a complete 180 from what his heel character would have said but that still made him sympathetic. As soon as I type that, Tenay and West come on screen and kill it by talking about how much they respect Jarrett now. God forbid they just run the interview and let the fans draw their own conclusions. We are smart enough to figure out where the company wants the storyline to go. Instead, the promotion took something that could have been subtle and effective and just had to slap a big, obvious sign on it that reads "OMG FEEL SORRY FOR HIM HE'Z TURNING DOODZ." Ugh.
After the final commercial break of the evening, Kurt Angle joins us. Kurt, you're going to need a phenomenal performance in order to save this horrendous show. He says that he quit WWE and came to TNA to wrestle for the best audience in the world. Jesus, man, you're the biggest star on the roster, you don't need to resort to this pathetic pandering bullshit. He also came to TNA because they have the best roster in the world, and he wanted to kick all of their asses. In fact, Samoa Joe is the one man who made him want to come to TNA more than any other. "Joe's gonna kill you!" chants the crowd. No, his dependency on painkillers is what's going to kill him. Get it right. Angle goes on to call Joe a "bleeder," which results in the big man running down to the ring. It's another pull-apart brawl. The locker room needs to empty in order to break this one up, which I guess is something a little bit different. We just suddenly fade to black in the middle of the pull-apart, so I guess that's the end of the show.
Overall
Wow. Just wow. This wasn't just one of the worst TNA shows that I've ever seen, it was one of the worst professional wrestling shows that I've ever seen. We're talking dying days of WCW Thunder bad. The Fight for Your Right match was a third of the program, and you've already read my thoughts on that one. However, the stupidity wasn't just confined to that contest. In addition, we had a horrible tag team match featuring a team that is being pushed on the basis of their beating up a fifty year old man. We also had an opening promo that is apparently leading nowhere and a Jeff Jarrett interview that was working until the announcers decided to bust out the sledgehammer of plot and beat us over the heads with it. Even the Samoa Joe versus Kurt Angle brawl felt flat, because we've seen it on the last two shows with no substantial advancement of the plot. They just do the exact same thing every week with the exact same result, and this is somehow supposed to make us want to watch a match between the two of them. This is why I'm a big proponent of saving physical contact between PPV opponents until the PPV, because otherwise you'll wind up having to be innovative in order to burn out the matchup before you even get there.
Ladies and gentlemen, Vince Russo has officially made me hate Imapct, and he may make me hate the idea of Joe vs. Angle before it gets a chance to happen.
