The Impact Crater 05.24.07

Posted by Ryan Byers on 05.24.2007

I'm back, and TNA is better than ever (for the most part).

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Impact Crater. I'm back after a bit of a hiatus necessitated by a recent move. You don't care about my personal life, so I won't go on a long tirade about how much moving sucks. (But it does.) However, what I will do is thank Mr. Stuart Carapola, who was kind enough to fill in last week. Be sure to check him out regularly in The Ominous Thoughts News Report, Friendly Competition, and That Was Then. Jesus, this guy's workload is starting to reach Csonka levels.

I've also got one more preliminary matter before we start with Impact. Those of you who have read my stuff for a while know that I'm quite the fan of SHIMMER: Women Athletes. The company is hosting two big events on June 1 and June 2, the main draw of which will be a tournament to crown their first champion. (Tickets and more details are available through their website.) As part of the promotion for the show, Rumble Radio, a program on 88.3 FM WXAV in Chicago will be doing what they've termed an "audio documentary" on SHIMMER. That will take place this coming Tuesday night from 7 - 9 PM central time. The best part? The folks interviewed for the show include me! Fellow 411'er Matt "Marquis" Adamson will also most likely be on board. If you're in the Chicago area, you can tune in to 88.3 FM to listen, and anybody can stream the show live through the station's website.

With that lengthy plug out of the way, let's head to the reason we're all actually here.

Quick & Dirty Results

Segment #1: Dudley Boys/Steiner Brothers Promo
Segment #2: Doug Basham & The Damaja def. Lance Hoyt & Billy Gunn
Segment #3: Christian & Tyson/Travis Tomko def. LAX
Segment #4: Samoa Joe def. Sting (No foolin'.)

Angle Numero Uno: Big Rock Candy Mountain

So we're seeing the newly created and newly vacated TNA Championship being put on the line in the King of the Mountain match at Slammiversary. Personally, I can't stand the King of the Mountain concept, as it's far too convoluted and multi-man matches as the main attraction of a PPV generally don't do too well compared to singles bouts. However, TNA seems to be intent on making it one of their traditions, so we're not going to escape the damn thing no matter how hard we try.

It appears that the deal for the next several weeks of Impact will be that a series of qualifying matches are going to occur. Kurt Angle made it in during my absence, and this week's matchup was Sting vs. Samoa Joe. I talked about this a lot already during the build to Lockdown, so I'm not going to belabor the point. However, I don't think that this is the best idea in the world. On one hand, it is nice to have something important on Imapct every week to get people to tune in. On the other hand, I'm a firm believer that you need to have that pay per view main event finalized as soon as possible after the preceding PPV so that there's more of an opportunity to promote it. Otherwise you're just heading out there saying, "Buy our show! We know there will be a big match, but we don't know what it is!" That's a hell of a lot less compelling than actually being able to say, "Buy our show! We'll have Wrestler X there! And Wrestler Y! And you want to see them fight each other because we've been building it up for five straight weeks!"

On the topic of Sting vs. Joe itself, I once again hate to sound like a broken record, but this is a first-time matchup that should not have been given away on free television. It could have legitimately headlined a pay per view, and now if it ever does you'll be down the allure of a "first time ever" meeting. Plus, if you're going to do it on free TV, you may as well build it up for more than a week. Why not announce all of the qualifying match at the same time that you announce the King of the Mountain match and make Sting versus Joe the last one? That way you can give it a little bit of a backstory before it happens and perhaps bump up your ratings for that episode. Sure beats just throwing the match out there, which will most likely result in the same 1.0 that this company has been hooked on for the last several months.

As far as the result is concerned, I am glad that Joe is getting the opportunity to pin Sting and the opportunity to head in to the title match, regardless of whether there is interference. The championship should have been put on this man months ago, but twist after twist and turn after turn has denied him this opportunity. Joe grabbing the championship at the fifth anniversary of the company could be a great moment and a springboard to a new era for the company. I don't have faith that things will actually play out that way, but the opportunity winds up being there, which makes me happier than I would have been otherwise. The result also means that we're most likely getting Christopher Daniels versus Sting at the pay per view, which I think will be a high quality match in terms of the in-ring product. It's also a nice move because, with a multi-man match up top, you need at least one other main event caliber pairing to prevent the undercard from being weak, and Daniels/Sting fits that bill perfectly.

I guess if I had to sum up my thoughts on this match, I'd say this: I don't really agree with where the company's long-term plans are headed for the PPV, but if those are the plans that they have, they've taken most of the right short-term steps to get there.

Angle Numero Dos: Oh, brothers.

Now we've got ourselves a little Steiner Brothers versus Dudley Boys action going on. It seems odd to me that TNA gets the concept of saving a match like this for the pay per view but won't do the same with Sting versus Joe, which if anything their fans would be more interested in buying. Though, if they are saving the Steiners and the Dudleys for the big show, they've done a fine job thusfar in terms of building up the match. Tonight's promo work by Scott Steiner and Bubba Dudley was off the charts. Things started off with the Dudleys trying to give the Steiners their due, but Scotty wasn't having it. He wasn't having it because he thought that the Dudleys were disrespecting them by virtue of promoting their legacy as being so great when the Steiners' is in fact much greater. It's the perfect pro wrestling scenario in which your heel has a believable rationale for doing what he does and saying what he says, but it's a rationale that's just wrong enough that fans won't get behind it and will cheer on the good guys instead. This in fact was a quality professional wrestling angle, and hopefully TNA can keep this level of promotion going for the next month or so until the pay per view.

My main concern at this point is that they're going to think that they need to throw something related to this angle out there every single week, which will result in them running out of ideas and leading in to some physical contact between the teams prior to when it should be happening (the pay per view). Hopefully they'll realize that all they need are promos, and they probably only need one or two more between now and then for the match to be a booking success.

And the Rest . . .

~ I loved Lance Hoyt's line to Billy Gunn stating that Gunn had "done so much for him." What, exactly? Preventing him from being fired by giving him a gig as a part-time VKM lackey? I also appreciated Hoyt's statement that he will beat women . . . despite the fact that he's supposed to be the babyface here. Quality stuff, TNA.

~ The Bashams really are delivering in TNA, ladies and gentlemen. It's amazing what these two talented individuals can do without the constraints that were placed on them by WWE.

~ Hector Guerrero looks like Gomez Addams these days.

~ The result in the Christian/Tomko vs. LAX has me torn. On one hand, I've very proud of TNA for finally being able to do a finish in which the right person (i.e. the World Champion) is put over somebody decisively. However, it was LAX, who I really just don't like to see losing, particularly since they've been on a rather nasty string of losses since dropping the belts. Oh well, I suppose I should let good booking win out over my own personal biases.

~ When did Chris Harris and Rhino get so close to each other? For that matter, when did they get so close to Hector? If they're doing the deal where guys get involved just because it's the "right thing to do," aren't they stealing Petey Williams' gimmick?

Overall

As I mentioned earlier, I don't necessarily agree with the choice of the main event for the pay per view, but TNA is taking most of the right steps to get to that match if it is there choice. If there's one good thing about the King of the Mountain, it's that making the qualifying matches the focus of Impact makes for a cleaner wrestling show than they normally put on, as earning the spot in the big title match is a simple story that can be told in the ring. There's no need to have lengthy promos or 5,000 run-ins, or any of the other trappings of your normal lousy TNA show. Combine that simple story with some good wrestling, as well as an excellent promo from the Steiner Brothers and the Dudley Boys, and you've got a recipe for an episode of Impact that isn't horrible in terms of stand-alone entertainment. It's certainly better than the clusfterfuck road to Lockdown or the march to Sacrifice in which there were seemingly no likeable characters in the main event. The cherry on top of the sundae? The Bashams, who I am still thrilled to see wrestling without limits being put on what they can do. Quite frankly, I don't have that much to complain about this week.

We'll see if that trend holds up next week. Until then, don't forget about the documentary Tuesday on WXAV and don't forget about my MySpace blog, where you can read exclusive content not found on 411 and add me as a friend to receive notices every time that I post something new on this here website.