The Impact Crater 04.19.07

Posted by Ryan Byers on 04.20.2007

Could Kurt Angle possibly whine any more?

Welcome, folks to the Impact Crater. As always, I'm Ryan, and, as always, this is TNA. I'm in a bit of a time crunch this week, so let's head straight in to the show.

Quick & Dirty Results

- Segment #1: Jeff Jarrett/Kurt Angle/Sting Interview
- Segment #2: Christopher Daniels def. Rhino, Samoa Joe, & AJ Styles in a four way
- Segment #3: Bobby Roode def. Chris Harris
- Segment #4: The Dudley Boys def. Christian Cage & Abyss to retain the tag titles

Angle Numero Uno: Whoa, Abyss!

After six months of teasing it, Abyss is finally a face. (Hopefully.) Honestly, this came off as a pretty darn fine little angle. I figured that all of Team Cage's berating of the monster leading in to Lockdown was just your typical TNA "These men are on a team, so they must all hate each other!" mentality, but I'm amazed that it actually wound up heading somewhere. Where did it lead? To a beatdown that was insanely violent compared to most things that you'll see on professional wrestling TV these days, which I'm willing to bet was booked by Dutch Mantell based on the sheer Puerto Rico-ness of it all. I'm hoping that this level of violence doesn't get reached every week on TNA TV, just because if you do something like this more than once every few months, it starts to mean less and less . . . plus, if you start down this road, you're only a few steps away from becoming a complete garbage promotion, which is the last thing that you'll want to see on national television in the United States.

However, the most effective part of the entire angle was probably the fact that they did it after taking Sting out of the equation. I complained a few weeks ago that having Sting exit the feud without having accomplished his end goal made him look completely incompetent, but Abyss turning on its own made him seem like he was finally his own man as opposed to being Sting's lapdog after months of being Mitchell's lapdog. Unless the company goes out of its way to play up the fact that a lot of this was Sting's doing, he'll still wind up looking like a loser, though at this point in his career I'd say that doesn't matter nearly as much as making your younger guys (such as Abyss) in to bigger stars.

The only problem with the whole situation? You have Abyss apparently going in to a feud with the members of Team Cage. Christian has a match for the next PPV. It looks like AJ is going to be involved with Joe. That means we have to see Abyss vs. Tomko or Abyss vs. Steiner. I just hope they keep that one short.

Angle Numero Dos: Angle's New Angle

Is it just me, or is Kurt Angle the biggest dick on the planet? I'm not talking about Kurt Angle the human being, I'm talking about Kurt Angle the character. First of all, he refuses to communicate with his Lockdown team about his mystery partner until the last possible minute, AND he brings in a guy who everybody hates. Then, when he doesn't get the pinfall at Lockdown, EVEN THOUGH HIS TEAM WON, he's out bitching at Jeff Jarett, the guy who he brought in for the purpose of GETTING HIS TEAM TO WIN. He's also out there bitching at Sting, who you'd think that he'd be happy for given the level of respect that traditionally exists between babyface wrestlers. Seriously, this guy is coming off as the biggest jerk on the planet, and I have no earthly clue why fans would be cheering him at this point if it wasn't for his past in the business. What he really needs to do is go get in to a feud with an actual heel instead of rehashing this "I'm going to turn" every week BS that we already saw enough of during the feud with Samoa Joe.

Speaking of, I'm rather interested to see what exactly Kurt Angle winds up doing on the next pay per view. It doesn't look like he'll actually be wrestling either of the two men that he was bitching at this evening. We all know that Sting is getting the title shot, so that won't be the match. Those of us who read the spoilers know what Jarrett is most likely doing for the pay per view, so he won't be wrestling Angle either. I'm sure that Kurt could use the night off, but I don't see his ego or TNA's desperation allowing that to happen. Of course, there's always the possibility of making the title match in to a three-way, but it seems as though that would make the stipulation of the War Games match meaningless. So, is Angle really the odd man out for the May pay per view? I suppose you could stick him in the ring against whichever member of Team Cage isn't wrestling Abyss, but that's far to big of a filler match for a man that the company considers their primary drawing card.

Oh well, at least he hasn't died in the ring yet.

And the Rest . . .

~ So AJ Styles and Samoa Joe are feuding again. I'm sure it will wind up being a great series of matches, but this drives me crazy. It's like the old WWF scenario in which Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho feuded against each other every couple of months because the logjam of guys at the top of the card wouldn't make way for them in the main event. It's time for these guys to get their crack at the title. Hell, it was time for Joe to be champion MONTHS ago.

~ Jackie and Gail Kim are still fighting? Seriously, go hire a new woman. This is tired.

~ Eric Young's friend is being revealed next week. Thank you TNA, for once again throwing away on free TV what you should be doing on PPV.

~ Looks like Sonjay Dutt is now going to wind up as a heel against Jay Lethal. I can live with that, but they could've gotten there a lot more quickly. How many months of seemingly pointless Paparazzi skits did we have to sit through just to get to this undercard feud that nobody will pay to see?

Overall

This show had two distinct halves. One was really good, and the other was just flat-out lousy. On one side, you had the Abyss angle, which was one of the better things that TNA has done in quite some time. If they keep airing replays of this and do a several month storyline in which he continually picks off members of Team Cage building up to a title match with Christian, this could be a hell of a feud. However, long time booking has never been one of this company's strong suits, so I'm not going to be holding my breath. Then on the other side of the show was the Angle stuff. They need to just pick a role for this guy and stick with it, because the constant oscillating between face and heel will just wind up confusing viewers and result in their not wanting to watch this guy. Just get him in to a feud with a strong heel and stick with it heading in to the pay per view. Is wrestling really that hard to book?

That's it for the show. Let's head in to some reader feedback and then call it a night.

"Spector of Knight" wants to nit-pick my nit-picking. Sorry, pal, doesn't quite work that way:

When did James Storm and Bobby Roode become such good friends? Why is Storm interfering on Roode's behalf all of a sudden?

Probably because his gal-pal Jackie Moore was also in the match. Thus meaning he was helping her win too. Guess you missed the forest for the trees.

See, I could understand that line of thinking if Storm ran in to save Jackie from a bad situation . . . but he ran in specifically for the purpose of helping Roode out of a scrape. Why does he care if Roode gets a pinfall victory or not? Roode looking good doesn't really help Jackie at all. Or, if they were going to go that way, they could've at the very least had a commentator yell out, "James Storm is here to help out Jackie Moore's team!" It's just one of those small things that would make things more clear and help the TNA product out a lot.

And we'll let Mel wrap things up with a little bit of TNA and a little bit of the wrestling that I'm actually enjoying these days:

Just wanted to say that I watched that SHIMMER clip that you posted on your TNA review and that was amazing. They are women that can actually wrestle and their attractive. How about that? WWE could learn something from that, eh?

They certainly could. However, WWE has a certain preconceived notion about what a female television star should look like, which is why we constantly get the Christ Hemmes and the Ashley Massaros of the world signed to contracts. They've let a few women who don't quite fit their mold make it on TV for the sake of matches not completely falling apart (e.g. Molly Holly, Jazz), but it's obvious what their priorities are when you look at the types of women that they are recruiting on a consistent basis. The good news is that WWE HAS picked up a few of the women who have worked for SHIMMER and put them in developmental, including Beth Phoenix (who was on Raw for a while before she broke her jaw), Krissy Vaine, and Nattie Neidhart (Jim Neidhart's daughter). All three women were in the highlights that I posted.

And, if you liked the SHIMMER clip, I strongly suggest checking them out on DVD. All seven of their releases can be purchased through ROHwrestling.com, and Volume 8 is due out sometime in May. They also have some of their DVDs out in national retailers like Best Buy.

1)What is the logic behind Vince making wrestlers "lay out their matches" prior to going out there? I never understood that.

Honestly, I'm not certain what you're talking about. It's my understanding that the vast majority of WWE matches are called in the ring with the exception of the finish and any other key spots that may be necessary to furthering angles. In fact, several months ago there was a "format sheet" for an episode of Raw that got leaked out to the internet. On that format, the interviews were scripted out word for word, but the matches only listed a finish. There are a few cases in which wrestlers have laid out matches move for move and then recreated them in the ring. (Examples include Savage/Steamboat from WM III, Hogan/Warrior from WMVI, Angle/Taker from No Way Out) . . . however those matches are the exception and not the rule. Why were the matches heavily scripted in these cases? Your guess is as good as mine, but I'd wager that it had something to do with the wrestlers/management wanting to make CERTAIN that they had something that would get a crowd going instead of leaving part of it to chance.

2)I think that Jay Lethal as Macho Man was fucking hilarious! I don't think I've seen him prior to this because I don't get a chance to see TNA regularly, but when he came out dressed as Savage I nearly pissed myself. He has the mannerisms and voice down PERFECTLY! Could you give me a brief history on him? I noticed that he is always referred to as "the generic guy that does the impressions", so what other impressions has he done that I've missed?

I always called Jay Lethal the "man reluctant to do his impressions" because that's what Don West and Mike Tenay called him for about four straight weeks on Impact. Savage is the only impression that he's done on TV.

As far as the rest of his career is concerned, there isn't much of one, because the guy is damn young. I want to say he's 21 or 22. He started on the indies, where he got his first big exposure in Jersey All Pro Wrestling. He debuted in Ring of Honor in late 2002/early 2003 as "Hydro," one of the members of Special K, a heel stable whose gimmick was that they were a bunch of ravers who were always high during their matches. Eventually they did an angle where ROH Champion Samoa Joe saw talent in Hydro and told him to take his career more seriously. That lead to Hydro leaving Special K, becoming Jay Lethal in ROH, and getting booked as Joe's protege. Eventually he turned heel on Joe, and that was the role he was in when he left the company. IIRC, he first came to TNA around the same time that they debuted on SpikeTV, though he hasn't done much of note there. He's mainly been the resident X Division babyface job guy, though he did have a couple of TV matches with Jeff Jarrett that were considered to be very good.

That'll do it for this week. If anybody is in the New Jersey area and looking for something to do tonight, check out my friends at Gung Ho Wrestling, who are running a show tonight in Lake Hiawatha with Steve "Monsta" Mack, Eddie Kingston, Violent J of the Insane Clown Posse, and a little match that I helped put together with Kevin Steen taking on Gran Akuma.