The Impact Crater 06.28.07
Posted by Ryan Byers on 06.29.2007
Why are all of these men around the ring? Are they doing another reverse battle royale? No? Thank god.
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Impact Crater.
TNA tried something different this week. They scrapped their usual format and decided to devote their entire hour to just one match – Rhino vs. Kurt Angle vs. Christian for the TNA Championship, with the winner getting both the title and the chance to participate in the company's wacky "every champion is in this match with his title on the line" match at the next pay per view. Well, at least the theory was to devote the entire hour to one match. As we'll see in a little bit, things veered away from that goal just a little bit.
The program started off very well, as they aired an awesome video package for all three men and did a tale of the tape comparing the wrestlers' statistics. (And my god is it hard to believe that Angle only has eight years of experience compared to Christian's twelve and Rhino's thirteen.) Both of these were nice touches and did a fine, fine job of making the match feel like it was something important. Frankly, TNA has had problems with doing exactly that in the past, as everything they do feels like just another show. Nothing stands out. This, however, is the sort of thing that they need to do more frequently. My only problem with it here is that they waited until the episode in which the match was airing to make it feel important. The whole idea behind promoting any event (professional wrestling included) is to make it feel special BEFORE it happens, thus enticing people to tune in.
The match itself was delayed for a bit, as guest commentator Samoa Joe attacked Kurt Angle before the opening bell, leading to a pull apart brawl between the two. Honestly, there is no bigger cliche in professional wrestling right now than Kurt Angle getting in to a pull apart brawl with his rival. It seems to happen on a bi-weekly basis. Joe's actions resulted in Jim Cornette ejecting him from the building, and he was not to return for the rest of the night. With that bit of business taken care of, the match began. It was solid, back and forth action between the three men for roughly thirty minutes (including commercials). Not long after the episode was taped, people within the company were putting it over as the best match in company history. I certainly wouldn't go that far. In fact, I could name at least five off the top of my head that were better and probably numerous others if I was given time to think. I wouldn't even call it the best free TV match in company history. Really, with Harris vs. Storm, it wasn't even the best free TV match to take place this month. However, the wrestling was solid. It's nothing that I'll remember three months from now, but it was solid. Everybody hit their relatively early in the match, there was a table used, and there were a few big dives off of the top rope. The highlight for me personally was Angle simultaneously putting both of his opponents in to the ankle lock, which is a spot that I can't believe hasn't been done prior to this.
So we had a pretty good pre-match hype package and above average in-ring work for about half of the show. Then, because this is TNA, things started getting a little bit goofy. Abyss hit the ring and went after Christian, still seeking revenge from the big beatdown. He chased the former champion outside the building and began assaulting him in an alleyway, including slamming his head in to a pile of ice and canned beverages sitting in a conveniently placed cooler. At this point AJ Styles and Tom Coe ran in on the run-in to save their boss, taking Abyss down and pummeling him. This included Coe grabbing a plastic barricade and slamming it over Abyss' back several times. (Note to TNA: Don't use things that obviously bend on impact as foreign objects.) The flunkies' intervention allowed Christian to make his way back to the ring, where he looked to steal a pin from Rhino. However, before the three count could be registered, Chris Harris suddenly appeared out of nowhere and pulled Christian from the ring. Oh, did I mention the match was no DQ? Yeah, neither did TNA until about fifteen minutes in. Harris began tossing Christian around the ringside area, which resulted in Cage stealing the Mick Foley spot in which he gets whipped in to the ring steps and slams in to them knees first. He did this not once but TWICE. I do not envy Christian for his future ability to walk. The entire Harris run-in was just a poor idea. First of all, the man is supposed to be a babyface, and here he is doing a completely unprovoked attack on another man. At least when I was growing up, that was the kind of thing that bad guys did, not good guys. The second problem was that we just saw one run-in from Abyss, and the second was overkill . . .
. . . but boy did it get worse from there. Styles and Coe made their way back in to the mix, this time saving Christian from the Wildcat. After that, Abyss was suddenly back, once again going after Cage and his cronies. Then, completely out of the blue, Sting shows up and starts aiding the babyfaces. Mike Tenay speculates that Sting is out to help Abyss because "after all these months" Abyss has finally earned Sting's respect, which completely contradicts everything that we had previously learned from the Sting/Abyss angle. The whole point was that Sting STARTED OFF respecting Abyss and trying to help him through life, not that Abyss had to do anything to gain the Stinger's trust. Besides, why Sting would suddenly stand by this man's side now instead of helping him when he first returned to the company – or, god forbid, when he was receiving one of the most brutal beatdowns in professional wrestling history – is beyond me. So not only have all of these men run in, they've all gotten in to the ring as well, making this look more like a battle royale than a three-way. To top it off Tom Coe has bladed himself in a most gruesome manner and started brawling in the bleachers with Abyss.
Ultimately, all of the extraneous players make their way out of the Impact Zone, and we're left with Kurt Angle and Rhino for roughly five more minutes of straight up professional wrestling action. As was the case in the early going, they engaged in a match that was good and pretty hard fought but hardly the best match in the history of the company. It looked like Rhino was setting up for the gore, but James Storm made his way down to ringside and poured beer on the Manbeast. This distracted Rhino, and Kurt Angle was able to pin him, thus retaining his championship and moving on to the pay per view to team with Samoa Joe against whoever the Tag Team Champions may be. The holder of that championship will be determined next week, with titleholders the Dudley Boys defending against LAX and AJ Styles/Christopher Daniels (allegedly the winners of a text messaging poll) on Impact next week.
And that was really everything that happened on Impact. Obviously, this was a fairly big break from the company's norms, and, as with any major change, there will be both pros and cons.
First, the pros. As I mentioned earlier, when we weren't dealing with run-ins, this WAS a good wrestling match. Rhino, Angle, and Christian are all capable performers between the ropes, and they did a great job of reminding everybody why they earned those reputations. Granted, the company promoting this as a "once in a lifetime" match that is among the best in history is going way too far, but the three men did work hard and patch together a quality contest, so hats off to them. Furthermore, I believe that a lengthy match like this on free TV goes a long way in promoting TNA's pay per views. For far too long now, Impact's matches have run seven minutes at the longest, and they're normally hacked up by a commercial break. I can understand that being the case most weeks, as they legitimately do need time to do other types of segments to build up their angles. (Of course, they do too many angles, but that's a different issue for a different time.) However, if you don't periodically do a longer match on free television, potential pay per view buyers have no clue what kind of in-ring product your company is capable of putting on during a PPV which matches will naturally tend to be longer. Doing a match of this nature every few weeks tells potential PPV buyers, "Yes, we do have some great matches that go longer than three minutes, and you can see more just like them when you buy our product once a month!"
Now on to the cons. Anybody who's read this column for more than a week knows that I'm going to drag the company over the coals for the number of run-ins that occurred. I'm guessing that the idea behind them was that other storylines in the company needed to be kept in the forefront of fans' minds despite the fact that this match, part of the current main event angle, was taking up the entire length of the show. However, I don't see how anybody could honestly argue that the run-ins helped the subordinate feuds that they were supposedly benefitting. In fact, they may have gone as far as hurting the primary angle in the company right now, and, as history has proven, it's that big main event angle that generally sells people on pay per views. First of all, does everybody really need to be reminded every single week that Chris Harris and Christian are feuding? Do we really need a weekly update on the James Storm/Rhino situation? I submit that we do not. The hardcore fans who are watching the show every week will remember that the storyline is ongoing if there's a week off from it, particularly when dealing with a longer term story like Christian & Co. vs. Abyss. As far as causal fans are concerned, they're far more likely to be hooked on the main event than anything that's going on during the middle of a pay per view event, so briefly letting them know that these other, minor feuds exist probably isn't going to do any good. As far as hurting the main events scene is concerned, I believe that TNA was definitely in danger of doing that here. If you look at the finish of the match, the focus was really on the James Storm/Rhino feud. (Speaking of, why does James Storm have an issue with this guy? Why has his feud with Harris magically been blown off? Neither has been explained.) Anyway, you're taking a feud that's going to be solidly in the midcard of the next pay per view, and, by making it the focus at the end of the show, you're telling fans that it's more important than the main event feud. Then, when Storm/Rhino isn't actually treated as anything of note – as it won't be over the next couple of weeks – you've essentially devalued your main event for no reason.
On the whole, I do appreciate trying something different. Far too often they try to be an alternative to WWE while booking their product as WWE-lite. However, this episode was definitely something different. I don't know that it was the sort of difference that will actually help the company, but it was a noble effort.
That does it for this week. I'll be back in seven. Until then, be sure to hit up the blog, just updated this week with more WCW wackiness!
