The Impact Crater 05.31.07

Posted by Ryan Byers on 05.31.2007

If you don't want to read the Crater to find out about the worst episode of Impact in months, you should read the Crater because I'm giving away FREE STUFF~!

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to your NWA TNA Impact Crater on 411mania. I'm Ryan, and we've got yet another edition of Impact to get through this week. They just won't stop making these damn things. However, before we go there, I've got a couple of indy wrestling notes that I want to hit:

- First and foremost, here's an opportunity for my readers to get FREE STUFF. The fine folks at Pro Wrestling Unplugged got ahold of me and let me know that they had two free tickets to their June 16 "Crazy 8" show to give away to my readers. So, if you're in the Philadelphia area and want to watch some free indy wrestling, shoot me an e-mail and I'll put your name in to a drawing for the tickets. I will accept submissions until June 7 and announce the winner in this very column next week. The show should be an interesting one, as it features a main event held in a ring that will be surrounded by a cage and also feature a couple of trampolines and swinging ropes for extra high flying goodness. Appearing will be Too Cold Scorpio, The Maximos, Joey Mercury, Johnny Kashmere, Eddie Kingston, The Nasty Boys, Tammy "Sunny" Sytch, and many more.

- If you're in the greater Chicago area, you definitely need to head to the Berwyn, Illinois Eagles Club on June 1 and 2 for two huge events put on by SHIMMER: Women Athletes. Bell time for the June 1 show is 7:30 PM CDT, and bell time for the June 2 show is 4 PM CDT. You'll see some of the absolute best female professional wrestlers in the country competing in a tournament to crown the first SHIMMER Champion, and both nights will be taped for a huge national DVD release. For more information on SHIMMER and their shows, you can obviously go to their website. However, you can also check out my MySpace blog, where I have been running special previews for this weekend's shows. And, if that wasn't enough, fellow 411 writer Matt Adamson and I were part of a special "audio documentary" on SHIMMER this past Tuesday on WXAV 88.3 FM's Rumble Radio program. Those of you who missed the radio program can now download it in MP3 format. It's a fine piece, and thanks to everybody at Rumble Radio for having us on board.

Jeez, that's a lot of indy stuff. Let's head on to the "big league," shall we?

Quick & Dirty Results

Segment #1: Christian/Jim Cornette Interview Segment
Segment #2: Sting/Christopher Daniels Brawl
Segment #3: Rhino def. Homicide
Segment #4: Chris Sabin def. Frankie Kazarian
Segment #5: AJ Styles def. Tom Coe

Angle Numero Uno: AJ Climbs the Mountain

The build to the King of the Mountain Match continues, this week with AJ Styles and Tom Coe fighting over a spot in the main event. I'll just note that, first and foremost, I'm going to refrain from comment on Jeff Jarrett being written out of this match, as it was unavoidable and due to circumstances best not discussed in public.

As far as the rest of the night's plot is concerned, it managed to highlight numerous things that I find annoying about TNA in this day and age. First of all, I'm sick and tired of this constant bickering amongst the members of Christian's little stable. It's been going on since the day that they first got together. Here's the thing about tension amongst members of a stable: It gets people interested in the developing story AFTER the stable has had a period of dominating as a successful, cohesive unit. People got interested when the Wolfpac started to break away from the nWo because the nWo had already been established as a major force in its own right. People got behind Dave Batista when he was splitting with Evolution because they'd worked together for so long and so hard that people began to wonder what would happen if the members went at it. Christian's stable was never successful as a unit, so, when they start fighting against each other NOBODY CARES. Wrestling is all about building things up and then having the pay off, and events are meaningless without that build.

Then we got the actual qualifying match between the two men. This was an odd, odd encounter. First of all, it was a heel versus heel match. When you've got two heels (or, for that matter, two faces) going against each other, usually one will be a bigger dick during the course of the match so that the crowd will actually have somebody to boo and somebody to cheer. Presumably during this match the idea was for Tom Coe to be the de facto babyface since Christian was in AJ's corner. However, this meant that your heel in the match was the guy doing a bunch of springboard and flippy moves. Maybe it's just me, but your heel shouldn't be doing flashy moves that the audience will want to pop for. If you watch somebody like Chris Sabin, he intentionally toned down his style after turning heel just to avoid that problem, but nobody has clued AJ in on this little tip.

So we've got an angle which isn't all that interesting because it wasn't built up properly and a match that isn't all that interesting because the heel/face roles are the opposite of what they should be. What do we get to top it off? Hey, let's do an old TNA classic and have too much stuff going on at the same time by throwing in a Kurt Angle/Samoa Joe stare down during the middle of the contest. Ugh . . . this was not a good night for me to be watching TNA.

Angle Numero Dos: Angels in Angles

Well, I am happy that the trigger has finally been pulled on Sting versus Christopher Daniels, which will presumably be happening on the pay per view. I also like the fact that Sting came after Christopher Daniels after Daniels cost him his big title shot, since it puts over the importance of the title to Sting, and the championship should be the most important part of any wrestling company. However, depending on what they plan on doing over the course of the next couple of weeks, the absolute destruction of Daniels this week may have been going a little bit too far. The Fallen Angel was absolutely ripped limb from limb with virtually no offense on his part. In professional wrestling, the goal is usually to make people pay to see the babyface to get his big revenge against the heel who has had the advantage for the majority of the feud. So, if Daniels doesn't do anything between now and the pay per view to give Sting a new reason to want revenge against him, this angle is basically dead in the water. After all, why would Sting want to wrestle Daniels and the PPV (and why would the fans want to watch) if Sting has already decisively beaten him in a street fight, as happened here?

I'm not going to complain about it yet, but I definitely hope that we're getting a little bit of follow up in the next couple of weeks.

Angle Numero Tres: To Live and Die in the Midcard

Perhaps my least favorite TNA angle since I started reviewing this show was AJ Styles versus Rhino. Why? Because never once did the company explain why exactly Rhino and AJ hated each other. They just decided one week that they were going to dislike one another, and then, all of a sudden, the were rivals for three straight months. Apparently this is going to become a trademark of Rhino feuds, because now he's got an issue with LAX and we don't know why. Yes, we saw him run in a week or so ago to save Hector Guerrero, but we still don't know what his connection with Hector is. On top of that, I don't think there's every been an adequate explanation of why Hector is all up in arms about LAX's routine. One can assume that he's not happy about how Konnan and his posse have been portraying Latinos, but this has never been stated explicitly. Fans need to be able to understand why rivalries are taking place in order to get behind them, and this is especially true when the guy instigating the feud is a face, as Hector happens to be. If there's no reason for the fighting and it was started by a good guy, your hero winds up looking like a massive jerk, because he's just screwing with his opponents for no good reason.

Somewhat related highlight of the show: Mike Tenay attempting to throw to the next segment, seeing that Hector Guerrero being buried under a flag, and yelling "THEY'RE BURYING HIM UNDER THE FLAG!" in his indignant voice as quickly as possible before returning to his throw to the next segment.

And the Rest . . .

~ Jeremy Borash plugging "TNA Mobile" brought back memories of Mean Gene Okerlund and his WCW Hotline. No, that's not a good thing.

~ Once again, I feel so bad for Jim Cornette. (The character, not the actual man.) His office is constantly being invaded by the most obnoxious string of human beings imaginable. I would've quit after my first week on the job if I were him.

~ Bob Backlund needs to calm down. I'm assuming that something he said somewhere in his sixty second scream-fest furthered his angle with Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin, but I couldn't understand a damn word of it. Maybe he could borrow the Great Khali's interpreter.

~ "Always sold out . . ." says Mike Tenay in reference to the Impact Zone. Let's see the receipts from those ticket purchases, Mike.

~ The Road Dogg reminded me tonight that he's awesome on the mic. Twenty or thirty years from now, when he no longer looks like a professional wrestler, he will make a great manager for an up and coming star.

~ We're getting an all new Sonjay Dutt next week. In my nightmares, this results in him accompanying Jay Lethal to the ring while dressed as Miss Elizabeth.

~ So not only was the main event a heel versus heel match, but the semi-main was a heel versus heel match as well. All things considered, it was a pretty good back and forth contest, and I hope that the company will start taking Kazarian seriously again. He and Michael Shane were a hell of a little tag team way back when, and it amazes me that they were only used to job to NASCAR drivers.

Overall

This was a huge step back for Impact. After last week's show, which wasn't too bad, and the build towards Lockdown, which I didn't mind either, it seems like this program crawled out of the black hole that was November 2006. That's right, I'm talking about the very worst point of the Vince Russo area. This show featured angles that were not explained fully, heels feuding with heels, and faces getting their revenge prior to the pay per view. It was utterly confusing to watch as a fan, and I further don't understand how it was supposed to make any viewer want to buy the pay per view that it was building towards. Fortunately, Frankie Kazarian and Chris Sabin prevented it from being a complete waste of a show, as their match was a very fun (albeit quick) television encounter, and provided me with one bright spot in an otherwise dismal episode of Impact.

And that does it for another week in TNA. Remember to e-mail me if you're interested in those free Pro Wrestling Unplugged tickets. Also, as always, you can check out my MySpace to read exclusive blog content (including a huge rant about Raw's Bikini Beach Blast Battle Royale) and add me as a friend to receive updates when I post new columns on 411.