The Impact Crater 02.01.07

Posted by Ryan Byers on 02.02.2007

Usually I complain about too much happening on Impact, and now I'm confronted with a show on which nothing happens. Feast or famine, I suppose.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the first Impact Crater of February. I'm your host Ryan Byers, and I'll be walking you through the insanity that is TNA wrestling this week. Before we begin, we've got a few programming notes for the next couple of weeks. As many of you have already heard, TNA will be airing a two hour special on Monday, February 12 when Raw is preempted by USA's annual dog show. I will be covering that show in detail, reverting to my old tape review format since the majority of the program will be old pay per view matches. That's the good news. The bad news is that, when Imapct airs next week, I'll be on a plane to Cincinnati, so I can't cover the show. 411 mainstay Michael Melchor will be filling in as he has in the past. I'll be back on 2/15 with all of the Impact fun.

That said, let's move on to the show at hand.

Quick & Dirty Results

Segment #1: Austin Aries defeated Jay Lethal, Alex Shelley, Sonjay Dutt, & Jerry Lynn in a five-way match.
Segment #2: Samoa Joe and Christian cut dueling promos.
Segment #3: Bobby Roode defeated "Albino Pygmy" Petey Williams.
Segment #4: Jim Mitchell cut a hell of a promo on Sting.
Segment #5: Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles went to a no contest when Rhino ran in
Segment #6: Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe, Christian, and AJ Styles brawled

Angle Numero Uno: Didn't Bob Backlund and The Iron Sheik manage the con-Sultan?

So Samoa Joe is cutting a promo, then Christian interrupts him on a video monitor. Instead of finishing his thought after Christian leaves, Joe just slinks out of the ring without saying another word. Wow, way to make the biggest badass on your roster look like a neutered puppy dog. Honestly, neither promo seemed to serve much of a purpose, as the two men just reiterated a part of the angle that's already been well established. Yes, Xian has a consultant. We know. Yes, Joe will be at ringside, we know. For a company that always bitches about only having one hour of television, sometimes they sure do incredibly stupid things when it comes to time management. This time should have been used to advance the angle instead of keeping it in a holding pattern.

I felt the same way about the segment after the main event match. I suppose that the big payoff was supposed to be the fact that Samoa Joe is not the mysterious consultant, but that was already so obvious from the direction of the angle that it came off as flat. And what the hell was AJ Styles doing out there in the show-closing brawl? Is he feuding with Samoa Joe all of a sudden? Is he feuding with Angle? Are he and Christian going to be a team? I have a bad feeling that the answer to all of these questions will be "no," and AJ's post-match involvement will be completely ignored in coming weeks.

And can we talk about this text messaging deal a little bit? For those of you who may have missed it, TNA is doing a promotion in which fans can vote for who they think Christian's consultant will be. They can vote by text message, and the options are: Goldberg, Brock Lesnar, Samoa Joe, or none of the above. There are so many things wrong with this idea. First of all, TNA is stupid because they're just reaffirming the notion that Goldberg or Lesnar could be involved with the company, which will greatly disappoint whatever segment of the fanbase is dumb enough to believe that they could actually be on board with the Jarretts. Second of all, the people who are voting are stupid. Seriously. I don't get this whole text messaging phenomenon. Why would you spend ten cents per message to vote in a poll run by a pro wrestling promotion? I know that it's just a dime, but, if you're willing to waste any amount of money in a promotion like this, you need to quickly reexamine your priorities.

Angle Numero Dos: Around the (Darryl Van) Horn

There's another one of those obscure references that nobody will get. Anyway, we had some great microphone work from James Mitchell here tonight building up the Abyss vs. Sting match at the pay per view. I'm amazed that something so straightforward and old school made it on to a Vince Russo program. The reason this was so great was because Mitchell acted exactly how a heel should act. A heel should always have some motivation that can be understood by the people who are supposed to be booing him, even if they don't necessary agree with that motivation. Here the angle was set up in exactly that way. Sting really has been a jerk to Jim Mitchell and Abyss over the last couple of months. He went on this quest to reveal "Abyss' secret" for no good reason, publically humiliating the man last week and all for a purpose that has never been made clear. In the process, he kidnapped and brutally beat Mitchell. So, they've got perfectly valid reasons for being angry with him. However, there's still a reason to dislike Mitchell because he too is exploiting Abyss' weaknesses.

Though the promo was quality, I have to say that I'm worried about this "prison yard match" that they plan on having at the pay per view. It's not clear what exactly the rules of this fight will be. When I first heard of it, I thought that it would be a pre-taped fight on a set that looks like an actual prison yard. This lead to bad memories of the Vampiro vs. Sting cemetery brawl that killed a WCW pay per view many years ago. However, during Mitchell's promo, he unveiled a tiny cage. I don't know why he would unveil this cage unless it somehow played in to the match stipulation. This reminded me of "shark cage match," which can be viewed on the Wrestling Gold series of DVDs. It involves two men fighting in a tiny cage, and there's absolutely no way to make it exciting because there's no room to move. So, unless TNA comes up with a third type of match that isn't nearly as abhorrent, we're in for some bad times on pay per view.

Angle Numero Tres: The Roode, The Roode, The Roode Wants Young Fired

Who would have thought that the feud between Bobby Roode and Eric Young would have made my top three list? This is an odd angle, because it started quite some time ago, and TNA has been waivering back and forth on whether they actually want to make it a big part of their shows. Sometimes it gets a decent amount of exposure, but sometimes it gets a twenty second mention and is buried not long thereafter. This week, however, TNA had the good sense to a.) recap the whole mess in a video package and b.) advance it in a way that could finally lead to the blowoff match. Granted, there are still problems with the angle – namely that we don't know why Roode hates Young or why Roode is suddenly wealthy. However, we may as well take good things from TNA whenever we can get them.

Anyway, it now looks like Eric Young will wind up with Traci Brooks. My initial reaction was "Who cares?" but actually there is some long term potential with this. We've already seen Jacqueline and James Storm interacting with Eric Young over the last couple of weeks, and that could wind up with a feud between these two men when once the Roode story arc is done with. If you're going to do with that feud, you may as well give Young a woman in his corner so that a couple of mixed tags can take place.

And one more question . . . how long has it been since Eric Young actually wrestled a match on Impact? I'm not complaining because he's an awesome worker who has had his wings clipped, but he was an entertaining little worker whose development was fun to watch, and I've missed it over the last couple of months.

And the Rest . . .

~ Growing Old Disgracefully: Remember when wrestlers dressing up as other wrestlers to make fun of them was actually amusing? Yeah, so do I . . . and it was 1998. Can wrestling bookers just agree to put a moratorium on that angle for a decade or two until it's funny again? In the meantime, let's find something that will actually get Chris Sabin over.

~ L.A.Xtra: So LAX beat the hell out of a chef at an Italian restaurant, and Mike Tenay says that this somehow ties in to their feud with the Dudley boys. Why? Is this the chef that cooked the food that made Bubba Ray so fat?

~ Who missed Miss Tennesee?: Petey Williams and Gail Kim against James Storm and Jacqueline has been made official for the next pay per view. It's rare that the women in a mixed tag match will be bigger mainstream stars than the men, but here's one example.

~ Hemme Hemme Cocoa Puff, Hemme Hemme Wow: So Christy gets to wrestle at the pay per view too, but they're not naming an opponent. Please don't let it be Billy Gunn. Please, please don't let it be Billy Gunn.

~ Ron's Killing Me Softly with his Song: Has anybody figured out the point of these "A Few Good Black Men" segments yet? I certainly haven't. At least the Christopher Daniels segment made it sound like he was gearing up for a World Title run. The Killings segment did nothing at all.

~ Ouch, That Hoyts: THE KISS DEMON~! is returning to the ring to face Lance Hoyt? If I wasn't buying the pay per view before, then I certainly am n . . . no, wait, I'm still not buying the pay per view.

Overall

This was a fairly ho hum edition of Impact. On one hand, I'm happy with it because nothing horrendously offensive happened as has been the case on the majority of the shows since Vince Russo took over. However, on the other hand, NOTHING HAPPENED. There was one good promo and a series of average matches, but it seemed like all of the storylines were treading water instead of actually building up further to the pay per view. Granted, "dead" weeks like this are inevitable in some situations. As such, I'm not ready to declare the promotion dead. However, let's just hope that this is an isolated incident as opposed to a pattern that repeats for the next few weeks. They're definitely in trouble if they can't rebuild their momentum heading in to the pay per view . . . but we'll see if that happens.

That's it for Impact this week, kids. Before we go, let's take a look at some reader feedback.

After having his letter published in last week's Crater, Marlen comes back for more:

You know Ryan, it's so ironic that you chose The Impact Crater 01/24/07 to respond to the 1/4/07 Impact that drove me over the edge -- because up until this point I actually stuck to my creedo of absolutely NO free-TV wrestling. Do you know what got me to watch Impact this week? Logging onto 411mania and seeing Christopher Daniels vs. Christian Cage booked for the main event. I watched because I was hoping TNA was back to featuring guys I actually want to see (Chris Daniels) without them being forced into retarded skits about musical chairs or doing the limbo. And it's not that I'm some X-Division small-guy freak or anything, what's killed so much of my interest in TNA was tuning in every week and seeing WWE castoffs like VKM being pushed to the moon while their homegrown talent floundered in garbage like the PCS.

But back to the Impact at hand, and to say the least, hoping for a better day was a mistake. Joe and Angle still can't decide if they are face or heel. AJ and Rhyno are still fighting for absolutely no reason. Only now, aside from Serotonin being the most heavily promoted/built-up jobbers in the history of pro-wrestling, they are also probably the stupidest since they somehow couldn't figure out that they weren't coming to the ring with their true leader. My favorite guy, Eric Young, is still tragically unfunny. Wow. Buying petite condoms is such comedic genius. I mean after all, Russo apparently knows how bringing a man's penis size into wrestling got Lance Storm so amazingly over, so why not rehash this along with a million other idiotic ideas.

And mentioning that leads me into a little rant about fireballs. I'm not sure if you were laying on some thick sarcasm or not when you said bringing them back was okay, but I can say that MY memories of them are not very fond. It's bad enough that trying to decipher the logic in the Sting/Abyss feud is dangerous enough to prompt brain tumors, but now we've got junk from the some of the worst moments in the Attitude Era. I'm just recollecting back to Kane shooting his "Ha-Dou-Ken" into the eyes of Chyna, and Hollywood failing to get his fireball lit in the "classic" Hogan vs. Warrior II. This kinda' shit represents everything that's wrong with wrestling today. Oh yeah, and that girl that pranced around half naked and ate pie with her sphincter is now suddenly a raging feminist that is suddenly going up against a suddenly heel VKM that suddenly (notice my use of the word suddenly) doesn't want to ruin WWE anymore and suddenly wants to drum all women out of wrestling. Whatever.

Oh well... at least the main event match was decent, and that's not because the in-ring action was amazing or anything. It's simply because it didn't feature a 30 second table match or some other random under 2 minute gimmick crapfest. It also didn't feature the X-Division champion being pinned in a match that was shorter than a piss break (that happened this week -- surprise, surprise).

A lot of TNA critics mention that ever since Russo's return, Impact is more and more like WWE-lite than it was when the jump to Spike happened. That would be true if TNA's storylines actually made any sense. With Russo booking all this nonsense alongside his constant hot potato-ing of the X-Division and NWA belts, I'm more reminded of WCW in its dying days. The illusion of TNA being WWE-lite is because McMahon's washouts are taking up more than half the airtime.

Anyhow, I'm done ranting for this week, maybe for good since I'm going straight back to abstaining from everything that doesn't have ROH written on it. I'll just say one last thing in that I agree with your sentiments about the complete idiocy of having a match on free-tv that is planned for an upcoming PPV. I also wanted to respond to those that actually think that Russo has improved Impact ratings. Newsflash guys, ratings improved only because of the better timeslot coupled with the simple fact that the regular football season is now over. Ratings ALWAYS improve at this time of the year. TNA isn't bringing in any new viewers. Nor are they bringing back those that left after WWE monopolized the business. You've got the same die-hards watching that would still tune in even if McMahon or Russo walked into center ring, proceeded to take a dump and then called it a match.

I'm not watching this dreck though. And like you hinted at Ryan, I don't buy TNA PPVs like I used to.

Wow, and people think I'm bitter. As with last week, I'll let Marlen's venom stand on its own for the most part, though I do have to defend my comments about fireballs. First of all, I was not being sarcastic when I applauded the use of fire. Using fire in wrestling was not an invention of the "Attitude era." It goes back much further than that. The Original Sheik, who started terrorizing wrestling rings across the country in the 1950's, was infamous for throwing fireballs in to the faces of his opponents. That's why I like the spot . . . not because it's something "edgy" and "hip" but because it's a throwback to the olden days of professional wrestling. It is true that there can be some technical difficulties with throwing fire (e.g. Hogan), but it's not that big of a problem when you're dealing with a taped show like Impact. Just make sure that you've got several different camera angles and pick the one that looks the least fake. Hell, you can even do a few different takes if necessary. Plus, near as I can remember, nobody's ever been hurt by a simple fireball in pro wrestling, so that's not even a factor.

Veej has a few comments that I'll tackle line-by-line:

Hey, Ryan, I just wanted to shoot you a few comments on your latest Impact Crater:

- I really like the new style of the TV Report. Dunn is really the master at play-by-play, doing something different is not only smart, it's a damn good read.

- I've always thought that if Steiner hadn't had that heel turn and "Wellness adjustment" back in WCW, he'd be as good as Angle right now. A match between the two might be interesting, especially if Joe's involved.

First of all, I think people overestimate how much mass Steiner put on during the late 90's in WCW. The guy was ALWAYS huge, and, with that, there was always the possibility that his mass would slow him down in his later years unless he dropped some of it. Further, it wasn't just bulking up that slowed Steiner down. He had a series of really bad back injuries during the height of Monday Nitro's popularity that put him on the shelf and resulted in him slowing down his in-ring game. As far as a match with Angle is concerned, I'm sure that it has the potential to be good. After all, Joe got Steiner to a match that most people regard as being around ***, and I'm still willing to say that Angle is a better wrestler than Joe.

- I'm loving the Serotonin gimmick. It has a very "A Clockwork Orange" feel and the whole thing makes usual jobbers Kazarian, Bentley and Devine noticiable. Sure, they're still jobbers, but they're jobbers with style.

To each his own, I suppose. I just think that when you're limited to an hour of television programming, you shouldn't spend time on giving your jobbers style and should focus on building up the people who are actually going to sell pay per views. If TNA ever gets a second hour, then they can worry about fleshing out personalities for the lower tier guys.

- The whole AJ taking off the mask thing was totally unexpected from me (my "Smark Sense" must be off) so I really got a kick out of it.

I can't say that I saw it coming either.

- " Ron Killings is "going Hollywood." Any twelve year old kid could've made that "A Few Good Black Men" picture on his iPod." I actually get that joke, I know I've heard it before, probably on the Colbert Report. Problem with that joke is, most people will be e-mailing you to tell you "that's not the way an iPod works".

The iPod joke actually comes from Impact, not Steven Colbert. There was an episode of Impact several months ago in which a heel was claiming a picture was doctored and yelled that "Any twelve year old kid could have made that on his iPod!" (I forget which heel exactly said the line.) Mike Tenay, proving that he is in fact computer literate, yelled back, "Don't you mean Photoshop?!"

- I would love Christopher Daniels to get a run at the NWA Heavyweight title. He's good enough, and it would make him the 2nd TNA Triple Crown Champion. And also, I'm a Fallen Angel mark.

I'd also like to see the Angel involved in the NWA Title hunt. The vignette that they ran for him on this week's episode made it sound like he was going to be moving up in to that division, though I'm worried that won't actually be the case given how crowded TNA's main event scene is these days. With Christian, Angle, Joe, Sting, Steiner, and Abyss running around, it will be difficult for Daniels to actually break through. Ultimately, though, it's all in the hands of the bookers.

- Konnan is awesome. that is all.

Amen. I hope to see him back in the Impact Zone sooner rather than later. Moody Jack just doesn't cut it on his own.

Anyway, great column, I'll check you out next week.

I hope that you enjoyed it this week as well . . . and that doesn't just go for Veej. It goes for everybody. I'm gone now but will be back in two weeks with Impact and a look at the "This is TNA" special on SpikeTV. You can also catch me filling in on Ask 411 for one more week, and my friends at Gung Ho Wrestling would love to hear from you as well.