The Impact Crater 03.22.07

Posted by Ryan Byers on 03.22.2007

Two good shows in two weeks! Is this the beginning of a hot streak for TNA?

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Impact Crater. As always, I'm Ryan, and I'm here to hold your hand as we journey through the strange and sometimes wonderful world that is Total Nonstop Action wrestling. We'll get to the Impact program in a little bit, but I had a few quick news stories that I wanted to hit before we went there.

News & Notes

~ As many of you are aware, I was a pretty big fan of Wrestling Society X and saddened to see its apparent demise. Well, there is good news. Episodes of the program are listed as airing on MTV 2 in the near future, so you can catch up if you missed the marathon. There is no word on whether they plan on airing the season finale that never saw the light of day on MTV. Be sure to check the MTV 2 website for all scheduling information.

~ USA Network has announced that they are going to be televising the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony on March 31. There's no word yet on whether it's going to be the entire ceremony or just a small chunk of it as was the case last year. The best part of this story? I've snagged the job of recapping the show for 411, just like I did last year. It should be a fun time.

~ Speaking of fun times, earlier this week I purchased my ticket to head to what should be a very entertaining indy wrestling card. SHIMMER: Women Athletes will be taping its ninth and tenth DVDs on April 7 in Berwyn, IL, and I will be there live and in living color, baby. Already signed for the card is MsChif vs. Amazing Kong, as well as the SHIMMER debut of Jazz. For more information on the promotion, check out their website or my MySpace blog for reviews of the first five SHIMMER DVDs. While you're there, add me as a friend to receive updates on my work with 411.

And that does it for personal crap that you may or may not have cared about. Let's move on to the Impacting.

TNA Imapct for March 22, 2007

Quick & Dirty Results

Segment #1: Samoa Joe, Kurt Angle, & Rhino def. Serotonin (Frankie Kazarian, Michael Shane, & Johnny Devine)
Segment #2: LAX/Dudley Boys Promo
Segment #3: Austin Aries def. Eric Young
Segment #4: James Storm Promo (No, seriously.)
Segment #5: AJ Styles & Christian Cage def. Abyss & Sting

Angle Numero Uno: Countdown to Lethal Lockdown

Interesting strategy by TNA this week, as there was actually very little build for their main event match at Lockdown. Instead, they chose of focus on a ton of the lower card angles. However, the limited build that did exist for the ten man Lethal Lockdown match was good and made sense.

Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe, and Rhino, the three men announced for the babyface team, squashed Serotonin. And by squashed them, I mean that they actually SQUASHED THEM. TNA has had a habit over the course of the past several months of booking matches that should be squashes. Then, even though they would have the right guy go over in the end, they would have the jobber get just as much offense as the star. (Ironically enough, the biggest offender in this category was Angle in a singles match against one of the Serotonin guys.) The problem is that, when you do that, your star winds up looking like a complete and utter loser. That's why, when Joe/Angle/Rhino completely and utterly destroyed their opposition here, I was smiling at my TV screen and giving a hardy thumbs up.

Part two of our build was Scott Steiner being introduced as the third member of Team Christian during the main event, interfering on behalf of the heels in the main event. This wasn't much of a surprise, but TNA still played it up as though it was a big deal, which is another good move in the leadup to this contest. My only problem with the angle is that he joined the team by attacking Sting, who is not actually involved in the Lockdown match . . . meaning that you've planted the seeds for a feud probably won't take place. It's entirely possible that Sting will wind up on the Angle team, thus negating this problem, though the ending of tonight's show makes it appear as though we're set for yet more Sting versus Abyss at Lockdown. I should probably change headings before I talk about that, though.

Angle Numero Dos: Momma, Just Shot a Man . . . Shot Him Three Times in the Back . . . Pulled the Trigger, Fade to Black . . . Momma, Life Had Just Begun . . . But Now I've Gone and Thrown It All Away . . .

Thanks for bearing with me during that musical interlude. I must say that I liked the video package leading in to the main event recapping the interaction between Sting and Abyss. It's always good to re-instill the roots of a feud in to your fans' minds, both because people forget things and because you're never entirely sure when new fans will be tuning in. However, I will note that it's a little bit odd for Sting to constantly be talking about how Abyss is his "own man now" when it really seems like he's just switched to taking his directions from Sting as opposed to taking them from Jim Mitchell. It's sort of like the WWF deal in which Christian's theme music began with "At last, you're on your own!" despite the fact that he was always teaming with people like the Alliance, the Unamericans, Chris Jericho, Tomko, etc., etc.

Speaking of Jim Mitchell, he of course made his return tonight, but he wasn't alone. There was an actress with him, and this actress apparently had some sort of "power" over the monster. I believe that the idea is to ultimately reveal that this woman is Abyss' mother, and she's Mitchell's latest tool to get his creature back under his control. I suppose that I'll hold off on being overly critical of the angle until we see how it plays out, but, boy, is this a dumb idea on paper. Angles involving wrestlers' non-wrestling family members, whether they're legit family or not, always seem to be trouble. Just look at the ridiculous Eddy Guerrero/Rey Misterio custody battle from a couple of years ago or the promiscuous behavior of Ken Shamrock's little sister Ryan. (Though fortunately that didn't lead to the incest angle that Vince Russo allegedly wanted to do.) And, if that's not enough, I've got six words for you: WCW Tag Team Champion Judy Bagwell.

And, even before the angle gets going, there's already one major logic gap that becomes apparent. If the idea is for Abyss' mom to reunite him with Mitchell, what is her incentive for hanging around with the Sinister Minister? Won't she be able to see after a couple of days with the guy that he is, in fact, a complete prick who does not have her son's best interest at heart? What's going to stop Sting from showing her a few video tapes of Mitchell's mistreatment of Abyss over the last year or two? Hopefully those questions are sufficiently addressed, though I can't say that I have much faith in that taking place.

Angle Numero Tres: To Live and Die . . . in an Electrified Steel Cage?

I'm no huge fan of the Dudley Boys, but, when Bubba Ray needs to deliver the goods on the mic, he always manages to rise to the occasion. That's exactly what happened here tonight. Combine that with the always-impressive Konnan, and you've got yourself a recipe for the most entertaining segment of the evening. But do you know what the best part of the whole thing was? After Bubba Ray and D-Von pulled out their collection of replica title belts, Konnan clearly stated that he DIDN'T WANT THEM. He said that the TNA Tag Team Titles were enough for his men. That's exactly the sort of message that the company needs to be sending. A couple of years ago, TNA probably would have booked this segment with LAX going crazy with envy at the sight of WWE gold, which is the wrong way to go. If TNA is going to mention WWE at all, they should be doing it in a way that emphasizes that their talent believes what is going on in Orlando is far more important than anything that's going on in New York. Making it clear that the wrestlers care about the company is one of the first steps to making sure that the fans care about the company.

As far as the electrified cage is concerned, the news about the angle heading in this direction was first broken a few weeks ago, and I've seen people on the 'net making fun of it ever since. Frankly, I don't know why. Just because they're doing an electrified cage match doesn't mean that there needs to be a series of super-hokey, WSX-like explosions. You just have guys sell it a little bit more when they get whipped in to the mesh. It's no big deal.

And the Rest . . .

~ There's a stereotype that indy guys are tiny. I never realized just how false that stereotype could be until tonight when I realized that Kurt Angle and Frankie Kazarian are the same size.

~ I just realized who Raven is ripping off in these Serotonin promos. It's Kevin Sullivan.

~ It was nice to be reminded that Austin Aries and Eric Young can go out there and put on a fun TV match even though they've both been relegated to lame comedy for the last several months. However, Aries' backne is ridiculously out of control.

~ And now Petey Williams is going to be the one to liberate Eric Young from Bobby Roode. I can't say that I'm particularly thrilled by the pairing, but at least Roode is finally moving up the card somewhat. It feels like he's been stuck dicking around with Eric Young in the opener forever.

~ Chris Harris chases James Storm around the ring. Jacqueline and Gail Kim have a pull-apart. You know what this angle needs? PROGRESSION.

~ Okay, a second Jackie/Gail pull-apart on the same show? What is this, a Kurt Angle feud?

Overall

Though I'd say that it was a slight step down from last week's show, this was another good edition of Impact. The main reason that I say it was a step down is because not nearly as much of the focus was placed on the main event of the next pay per view, which, of course, is going to be the match that actually entices people to buy it. I think that what they should be doing is focusing more on the past rivalries between the men involved, perhaps doing some of those awesome Dave Sahadi video packages showing their past interactions intercut with current promo footage. You could do Christian/Angle, Steiner Angle, Joe/Christian, AJ/Rhino, Christian/Rhino, and several more as additional men are added to the teams. Pushing the fact that there are so many rivalries between the two teams could really get over the notion that fans are going to see an all-out war when the main event rolls around.

There are two smaller factors that also result in this being a slightly worse show than last week's. The first of those is the segment involving Abyss' mother, which, though not phenomenally stupid yet, certainly has the potential to get there. The second is that the in-ring was weaker, as they missed a solid longer match like last week's LAX/Shelley vs. Dudleys encounter. The main event and the opening squash were both fine, but neither match was worth going out of your way to see.

As a whole, though, I would still give the show a thumbs up. In seven days, we'll see if TNA can extend their streak to three weeks.

Reader Feedback

Ryan S. thinks that I'm bad luck:

If possible, you should stop praising Impact when they put on a good show. All they're going to do is go down the same road of shit next week. This means that every single person on the roster will be crammed into 45 minutes. And as you said, the show is much better when they hold back everyone. You have jinxed us for sure!

Well, other Ryan, your prediction was wrong. Though this week's episode was a little bit more packed than last's, I would say that the amount of men on screen was still acceptable. Off the top of my head, this week we had no James Gang, no Alex Shelley, no Kevin Nash, no Sonjay Dutt, no "Man Reluctant to Do His Impressions" Jay Lethal, no Chris Sabin, and no Ron Killings.

There's always next week, though.

And, making his third straight appearance, here's 411's own Nick Marsico, commenting on last week's show:

I also really enjoyed Impact this week, and I expected you to say just about everything you said. The LAX/3D match was only about 12 minutes long, and I watched it after the fact on tape, so it was only about 7 and a half for me, and it felt like a really long match. In a good way, not in a Orton/Lashley from the 3/13 ECW show kind of way. It actually felt special, if only because nothing seemed rushed and it was quite a well done match. The show itself had a lot of direction and felt the way a one hour show should feel -- not like it was a 20 minute car crash, but like an hour long television show.

On the Abyss stuff, maybe that's why we disagree like we do. I don't give a flying fuck what the rubes think or about pandering to them. If I see something on a show that I implicitly understand and 'get', then I'm happy. Maybe the Abyss/Sting angle is better to me than it is to others because everything I explained last week was quite simple and clear to me as it happened. Maybe it was to you as well, but at least I understand why you don't like it. You think more in line of 'does this work to make the masses want to buy the product' instead of simply 'does this work for me'. And I respect that, because it means you care about what the people think. I never have, because fuck 'em.

Also, on the AJ/Rhino thing, once again maybe this is one of those 'it is implicitly obvious to me' deals. AJ and Rhino started feuding because Rhino didn't want to see AJ's friendship with Daniels disintegrating just like his friendship with Christian did. AJ took issue with that because, and rightly so, he didn't feel it was any of Rhino's business. Rhino kept prying and AJ kept rejecting him, and it ended up with both of them being pissed at the other and it came to blows. Then AJ started to be a bigger dick than Rhino (since really, Rhino wasn't being much of a face in how the feud started, although maybe his intentions were good), and the feud continued. It stopped being about Rhino trying to help AJ and just became Rhino trying to beat the shit out of him for being such an asshole, and AJ continually running and just making Rhino want to kick his ass more. Yeah, it's basically another one of those things where I didn't have a problem understanding any of it, so it works for me.

I can't say that I have much to add to this. You're right, there are two different ways to watch the show – one with an eye to what you personally enjoy and one with an eye to what the common man will enjoy. I fully admit that I've watched shows in the past and gained great amounts of personal enjoyment from them while realizing at the same time that it would not work for the vast majority of fans. (Hell, my love of WSX should be all the proof that you need of that one.) However, the majority of Impact since the hiring of Vince Russo has been unpleasant for me on both levels. Then they seem to be turning things around, so I'll keep my mouth shut for the time being.

And that's it, kids. Be good to yourselves and each other.