The Impact Crater 08.30.07

Posted by Ryan Byers on 08.30.2007

TNA welcomes me back with what was, for once, a good show!

Welcome, one and all, to the Impact Crater. I'm Ryan Byers, and I'm back after taking last week off. Big thanks to Nick Marsico for filling in, though I must say that the reasons he gave for my absence are unfounded allegations and that, at this time, I must assert my Fifth Amendment privilege to refrain from discussing them. I don't know how those two miniature dachsunds in my back yard got so scarred up, honest.

Anyway, we need to put that ugliness behind us. We need to move on to the logo. Meehan, if you please . . .



Quick & Dirty Results

Segment #1: Scott Steiner/Dudley Boys brawl
Segment #2: The Road Dogg w/ Roxxi LeVeaux & Billy Gunn w/ Torrie Wilson's pants def. The Murder City Machine Guns
Segment #3: Skits involving Karen Angle and James Storm
Segment #4: Sting def. Christian, AJ Styles, & Samoa Joe to become one half of the TNA Tag Team Champions

Angle Numero Uno: Angle's New Partner (Hope Karen isn't the Jealous Type)

The primary focus of our show this evening was a four corners match in which the winner would become Kurt Angle's Tag Team Championship partner. Nobody seemed to explain why four men were fighting for this spot, but I missed a week of programming and therefore will have to give the company the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Anyway, throughout the show we saw Karen Angle approaching the four participants in the match and attempting to convince them to play nice with Kurt in the event that they became her husband's partner. The skits were a departure from the recent show long angles involving the Angles, as these were sincere attempts by Karen to get the four men to side with her husband as opposed to bits mainly played up for comedy. (Although there were a couple of gags involving AJ Styles, who apparently now has the intelligence of a mop.) Though I hated the skits with Kurt Angle running around in his underwear, Kurt Angle consulting with "Dr. Nash," and Kurt Angle berating his family, these actually worked and helped to further an important storyline. They made it clear that Kurt wants to retain the Tag Titles coming out of the next pay per view, which in turn explains why he – normally an egotistical heel – would try to get along with the victor of the evening's main event.

The match itself was rather good. There were a couple of annoying spots (Christian not knowing how to sell a rear naked choke, AJ Style still not knowing how to work like a heel), but on the whole it was a solid bit of wrestling for a free television program, as it was given plenty of time and had a slow build of action throughout the body of the bout. Joe was even allowed to bust out a few of his big spots which haven't seen the light of day on Impact in quite some time. I don't know why they've made him wrestle like the Samoan Dusty Rhodes for the last couple of months, but that shtick was gone this week, and the results got a big thumbs up from yours truly. In the end, Sting wound up getting the pinfall victory over Styles. For the time being, I have no problem with that. I see the potential for problems arising as it relates to Angle's heel/face alignment on the pay per view, as he's going up against faces in two of his title defenses but heels in the third. However, none of those problems manifested themselves on this show specifically, so I'll leave the issue alone for the time being and address it when and if they actually surface.

And, after the match, we had Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man laying out and spray painting Sting, with Angle making the belated save. Usually this would set off a big rant about how Angle shouldn't care one bit about saving Sting, but it made sense given that they spent so much of the show's early segments establishing that Kurt wanted to keep the titles coming out of the pay per view.

So the primary angle on an episode of Impact was fine. There weren't any major problems with it. Save this review for the record books, because I think this might be the first time I've said that in a year.

Angle Numero Dos: Still the Greatest

Since it began, the Steiner Brothers' war with the Dudley Boys has been the best storyline on Impact, and this week continued that trend. After Rick was taken out of commission by the Duds on last week's show, Bubba and D-Von did the same to Scotty on this week's Impact. The beatdown by the ECW alums was well-executed, as they not only managed to get in their trademark table spot but also played off of Scott Steiner's recent trachea injury by driving a chair in to his chest as though it were a "railroad spike." The words are the announcers', not mine, but that really is the best way to describe what they did. I'm a big fan of unique spots like that one which go on to cause kayfabed injuries. Not only do they look cool and add to the feud, but it's inevitable that the heels will go to do the same spot again in the eventual blowoff match against the babyfaces, and it's GUARANTEED to get a great crowd reaction so long as the promotion plays it up in the right way. (For a fine example, look no further than Brock Lesnar using a bearhug to make Hulk Hogan cough up his own blood and then going on to use the exact same move against the Rock in a title match not long thereafter. It was the most over bearhug in the last fifty years.)

Now both Steiners are out of action, and the Dudleys presumably have a couple of weeks to stand tall. This was the perfect point in this feud to do such an angle. First of all, it makes the Dudleys look like credible threats again after the they were beaten cleanly by Rick and Scott at the last pay per view. Additionally, it prevents the feud from being overexposed, as now TNA will be able to keep the teams apart for a couple of weeks before allowing them to do the last push in to the blowoff. Finally, let's not forget that Scott Steiner legitimately is working against doctor's orders after suffering a life-threatening injury that many thought would keep him out of action until January. Given that fact, I'm all for writing the storyline in such a way that he's given a hiatus so that he doesn't over-exert himself. Just about any way you slice it, this continues to be my favorite feud currently in TNA and may in fact be one of my favorite feuds currently in all of wrestling.

And the Rest . . .

~ Programming Note: As 411mania's biggest SHIMMER mark (SHIMMark?), I feel the need to point out that SHIMMER alumna Nikki Roxx – a.k.a. Roxxi LaVeaux – wrestled her first match for TNA at the last set of tapings. It was shot for either this week or next week's TNA Xplosion show. If you get Xplosion in your area, I recommend checking it out. If she's allowed to wrestle like she did on the indies, Nikki may already be the best female wrestler in TNA.

~ Sometimes, I think that maybe I should be reviewing Who Wants to Be a Superhero? instead of Impact. I've been checking out the show during TNA's commercial breaks, and usually it's more entertaining than Impact. However, my enjoyment of the "reality" show has declined with the exit of Ms. Limelight.

~ The James Storm segment tonight was pointless. Harmless, but pointless.

~ Speaking of pointless, can somebody tell me why we saw the ninety second New Age Outlaws/Machine Guns match and a brawl involving everybody in the tag team division? My guess would be that this sets up some sort of tag gauntlet or battle royale for the PPV, but, if that's the case, couldn't they just have had Road Dogg challenge the other teams in a promo with the brawl ensuing? Was jobbing out Sabin and Shelley really necessary?

~ I probably wouldn't be questioning the Machine Guns being squashed nearly as much if it weren't for the fact that it elicited an audible "This is bullshit!" chant from the crowd. Nice editing, TNA.

Overall

After the Impact spoilers came out this week, the internet was boiling over with hatred for a few of the booking decisions that were made, but, quite frankly, this wound up being one of Impact's best shows of the last several months. It was just as good as, if not slightly better than, the episode with the three way tag match involving the Dudleys, LAX and Styles/Daniels that I praised so heavily a little while back. The primary reason that this episode gets such high marks is that, for once, it looked like the company accepted the fact that it only has one hour to work with and booked one hour's worth of material. This wasn't a show that had two hours worth of angles crammed in to sixty minutes. This was a show in which the primary storyline in the company received at least 60% of the TV time, the second most important storyline in the company received about 25% of the TV time, and the remaining 15% of the show was allotted to a few smaller angles and skits. That's the system of booking that I have been advocating virtually since I began writing this column, and it's good to see that on a few occasions it actually does get put in to play. Based on what I've heard about next week's show, more build for the World and X Division Title matches will be taking place, and we'll see if TNA can handle that just as well as they did the build for the Tag Title contest.

Normally this is the post in which I would respond to reader feedback, but we don't have any since I didn't write anything last week. Be sure to get that e-mail rolling in so I'm not in a similar situation in seven days. Until then, take care and be sure to read some Marsico to thank him for his recent fill-in work.