The Impact Crater 12.06.07

Posted by Ryan Byers on 12.07.2007

Inside: All of your regularly scheduled booking analysis AND fashion tips for Don West. How can you go wrong with that combination?

Quick & Dirty Results

Segment #1: LAX def. Chocolate Reign & Rebboj
Segment #2: Kurt Angle Interview Segment
Segment #3: ODB def. Gail Kim in a non-title match
Segment #4: Chris Daniels def. Low Ki in a match for Low Ki's accursed Feast or Fired briefcase with Elix Skipper as guest referee
Segment #5: Kurt Angle/Christian Interview Segment
Segment #6: Bubba, D-Von, & D-Vine Dudley def. Jay Lethal & The Murder City Machine Guns in a ladder match for the X Division belt. Not the X Division TITLE, but the X Division BELT. I hate this show.
Segment #7: Kevin Nash, Frankie Kazarian, Eric Young, Samoa Joe, & Booker T. def. Kurt Angle, Christian, Bobby Roode, Travis Tomko, & AJ Styles

The Main Stuff

Angle Numero Uno: Christian! Christian! At last, You're on Your Own!

The focus of tonight's show was the uneasy relationship between Kurt Angle, Christian, AJ Styles, and Travis Tomko. Oh, and for some reason they threw Bobby Roode in there too. Anyway, Angle kicked off the evening's plot by giving Christian and Roode and opportunity to join his little club. They did so, and a ten man tag against the promotion's top babyfaces was set for the main event. Everything appeared peachy until the finish of the match, as miscommunication between Roode and Christian resulted in the bad guys losing. After the bell, Angle and Roode put the boots to Cage, while AJ tried to play peacemaker and Tomko just walked off.

This angle confused me like no other. Presumably, since Christian was the one being double teamed as the show went off the air, he's the babyface in the situation. However, if tonight was meant to be a Christian face turn, it was executed in the least effective manner possible. Prior to accepting Angle's invitation to join the bad guys' faction, Cage cut a promo on Kurt, Roode, Styles, and Tomko that pinballed back and forth between being a face promo and being a heel promo. He laced in to Angle and Roode, which would presumably be a babyface move. He also had words with Styles and Tomko, though, and those statements made it sound like Christian was still a heel. He told both Tomko and Styles that they were nothing before he found them, that they would continue to be nothing once he left them, and that they make him sick. If he directed lines like that to Roode or Angle, it would have been an acceptable face promo. Unfortunately, he was directing them at Tomko and Styles. Styles is technically a heel, but he's really the goofy comedy character in the bad guy camp who the fans treat as a face. Tomko is also technically a heel, but he quietly rolls his eyes in the background while the villains engage in their maniacal plots and has teased a face turn several times. As a result, the fans have a certain level of sympathy for him. Thus, when Christian reads AJ and Tomko the riot act, he doesn't come across as a face for chewing out to two heels. He comes across as a massive dick for insulting two men who, though technically heels, the crowd supports on a certain level. Combine that with the fact that Cage cheated in the main event by attacking the referee and introducing a chair in to the match, and he never actually turned face.

That is, of course, unless you count getting beaten down by two heels as a face turn. I've seen that kind of turn before several times in wrestling, and, frankly, it never works. A guy who is getting ready to turn face should always do something active to initiate his change in role. He shouldn't simply be thrust in to it by the actions of others. When that happens, the turning party winds up look inept, like a man who is not in control of his own destiny. Fans have difficulty getting behind that sort of man. If you don't believe me, take a look at what happened when one Randall K. Orton "turned face" solely on the basis of his being beaten up by Evolution. Nobody cared, and I can't imagine anybody caring here either.

Angle Numero Dos: Ladder Day Saints

I've had a love-hate relationship with the Dudley Boys vs. The X Division storyline. On one hand, it's featured some pretty damn good matches and some promos by Bubba Dudley and Alex Shelley were an easy thumbs up. On the other hand, it's also featured some outright stupidity, like the X Division babyfaces doing six to two beatdowns on the heel Dudleys. It's simultaneously been the best and worst of TNA.

Tonight, it was the worst of TNA. Jim Cornette attempted to retrieve the X Division Title belt from the Dudleys, but Bubba said if Jay Lethal was a man he'd come and get it himself. Lethal, who conveniently overheard the conversation, said that he was a man and that he'd take the belt back in a six man ladder match between the three Dudleys, Lethal, and the Murder City Machine Guns. I've got two problems with this scenario. The first is the concept of having a match that is for possession of the X Division BELT without being for the X Division TITLE. (This is, as Mike Tenay made sure to point out, exactly what we had here.) Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but a champion of a division is supposed to be the best wrestler in that division, particularly when the champion is a babyface. Here we have Jay Lethal as a babyface champion of the X Division, but he's hardly ever portrayed as being a competent wrestler. Yes, he got an upset win over Kurt Angle a couple of months back. However, seconds after that win, he was being tossed around like a total goof by Samoa Joe, and he's been laid out on TNA programming numerous times since then with little to no revenge. So here we have a match in which he's theoretically going to be able to win his belt back . . . but he loses. This is yet another piece of evidence that, despite being the champion, Jay Lethal is not the best wrestler in the X Division. If that's really the case, and it's really the message that the company wants to send, why not just put the title on the line here and give it to D-Vine? At least that way at the end of the night you have a champion who managed to win that distinction in a match as opposed to a champion who has more losses than victories since winning the title.

My other issue here is with putting the ladder match on Impact. First of all, if you're going to give a gimmick match away for free, at least take the opportunity to announce it a couple of weeks in advance so that it actually has an opportunity to build up the rating. Furthermore, if you're going to give away a gimmick match for free, make sure that the wrestlers have the time to do it properly. I wasn't timing things tonight, but it felt like about seven minutes of this ladder match actually aired on television. This meant that, instead of doing a slow build up to the point where wrestlers are climbing the ladder, men immediately started climbing and the match consisted of little else. It felt like TNA decided to show us the last seven minutes of a ladder match instead of actually showing us a ladder match. This eliminated virtually any drama in the encounter and turned it in to a third-rate knockoff of the many excellent ladder matches that we've seen other companies produce throughout the years. Putting on a half-assed ladder match like this one has the potential to kill the stipulation, because now when TNA actually plans to do a twenty minute ladder match on pay per view with the proper build, a percentage of the audience will think back to this contest and say to themselves, "You know, I saw a TNA ladder match once. It wasn't that good. This one that's coming up probably isn't worth paying for." Needless to say, that's the exact opposite of what the promotion's goal should be.

And the Rest . . .

~ Is it just me, or was the crowd chanting "This match sucks!" during the opener? If so, that's a hell of a way to kick off the show.

~ Somebody backstage needs to take away Don West's right to dress himself. Somehow he managed to position his tie in such a manner that it was sticking up out of the side of his collar. I don't know how that's even possible unless he for some reason tied the tie around his neck instead of around the shirt collar.

~ So now there's a grand secret that Jim Mitchell wants Abyss to reveal. Christ, does nobody in TNA remember how much that storyline sucked the last time they did it? You know, four months ago?

~ We can officially add Jim Cornette and Matt Morgan to the official list of TNA TEAMS WHO DON'T GET ALONG~! Oh well, at least they were together for more than a week before they started bickering.

~ Oh, and add the New Age Outlaws too. The funny thing that is, if they split, the one with the most potential to become a singles star is Roxxi.

~ I know I say this every week, but it's because it's true every week: The women's division is the best-booked part of this show. Gail Kim drops a non-title match this week to ODB, which makes sense given that Gail is still not quite back at 100% due to the beating she took at the pay per view. This sets up ODB as a title contender, hopefully getting a title shot at the next PPV while Kong has to win a few more singles matches in order to earn another championship match (given that she technically lost her last shot).

~ Petey Williams now has an Arnold Schwarzenegger gimmick. Is there an X Division guy left who isn't a comedy character?

Overall

In a way, this episode was a vast improvement over recent editions of Impact. I didn't have to deal with hundreds of backstage skits featuring poorly acted attempts at comedy by Kurt Angle, Christian, and AJ Styles. This actually felt like a professional wrestling show instead of a sitcom in which the writers were forced against their will to periodically insert a wrestling match. On top of that, I really enjoyed the main event. Eric Young worked his ass off, there was a solid exchange between Joe and Tomko, and (get ready for this one) Kevin Nash's performance was AWESOME. It was one of the rare TNA matches that actually made me forget about all of the stupidity that I had watched in the prior hour and forty-five minutes, and, as a result, I wound up walking away from the program feeling much better than I would have otherwise. Of course, in evaluating the show, I can't simply disregard the non-main event segments. Aside from the women's division, virtually everything else on the show was the usual convoluted, nonsensical B.S. that the promotion has been churning out for a little over a year now. Aside from Gail Kim, there are no babyface characters compelling enough for a fan to get behind, and, aside from the Amazing Kong, there are no heels serious enough to be hated. It's no wonder that TNA has difficulty getting people to buy their pay per views, and I won't be surprised at all if they wind up being beaten in their head-to-head ratings "war" with WWE's Velocity ECW show.

Reader Feedback

We'll open things up with Yannick, who asks a question that I get every couple of months:

Dude, I just read your Impact Crater and I have to wonder : why the hell are you so concerned with how TNA is doing financially ? Why does it matter ? And more importantly : what exactly makes you an expert on this company's buisness model?

I want to be entertained and I am. I can't complain much about their PPV either. So why pick on things wich are none of your concern ?

Stick with what you do best : reviewing the shows for what they are. If they are good, wich was the case this week, simply say so.

TNA's financial condition matters because they are in a position in which they have either never turned a profit or have made small amounts of money in the last year that are not nearly enough to offset the millions of dollars that they lost in their first five years of operation. Only caring about whether the show is entertaining is short-sighted, because if the show is just entertaining and not effective in bringing in revenue, there will not be a TNA to watch within a few years. As much as the booking aggravates me from time to time, I want the company to remain around as long as humanly possible for the benefit of the wrestlers if nothing else.

As far as my "expertise" is concerned, I do not consider myself an expert on anything. I'm just a fan with a particularly large forum in which to express my opinions. However, any fan of professional wrestling can get plenty of information on TNA's business by subscribing to either the Wrestling Observer or Figure Four Weekly.

Next we'll got to a man simply known as K, who made an prediction that I was incapable of making as it relates to the "Feast or Fired" match:

I don't think it'll be a very GOOD match, but I think there are some interesting things they can spin out of it -- e.g., a singles wrestler searching for a tag partner after winning a shot, Scott Steiner challenging for the X Title, stuff like that.

As for the "what if the pink slip is the only one left?" question, the smart thing to do would be to make it so that no one gets to open any of the cases until after the entire match is over. (Who knows, of course, if they'll do that.)

Believe it or not, K's call as to opening the cases after the match wound up being correct. Of course, this just highlights another problem with TNA: Instead of clearly explaining the rules of the match prior to it occurring, they left this detail hanging out there until the match had begun. The other thing that they never really made clear was whether men could be eliminated from the match by being thrown over the top rope as in a traditional battle royale. I was also waiting on a explanation for that one until the pay per view.

Now we'll hit Scott M., who wants to talk Rock:

I'm digging your TNA Impact recaps. I like the format, and your take on the promotion and all it's self-defeating decisions is entertaining. I'm more of a Christian Cage fan than you are, and I don't mind wrestlers being funny as much as you do, but I do agree with most of the points you make.

And you know what, I never thought about it before, but I totally agree with your comment about the Rock and how his "cooler than everybody" promo style was kind of a bad influence on other wrestlers. Don't get me wrong, the dude's charisma and mic work were off the charts; in fact he's the reason I started watching wrestling in the first place, back in '99. But now that I have WWE 24/7 and I'm getting a chance to see old RAWs and PPVS from back in his heyday, I can see how he just buried everyone with his promos and his character, and made everyone he was up against seem not nearly as cool and not on his level (at least he didn't make people look bad in the ring). And you know what, as entertaining as his character was, it was pretty limited as far as what he could do with it. He couldn't show any range of emotion, couldn't get convincingly angry, couldn't show fear or cowardice, etc. I know it sounds like I'm dumping on the guy, but I'm really not. I just never realized the downside to his awesomeness until I read your comment.

OK, that's enough rambling out of me. Keep up the good work

I couldn't agree more. There's a general rule that I hear constantly espoused by old school wrestlers in shoot interviews, namely that, in a promo, you never say that your opponent is a poor wrestler. If you do that and then you beat him, the win means nothing because you just pinned a nobody. If you do that and he beats you, you look doubly bad because you just lost to a lousy wrestler. The Rock's insane levels of popularity and charisma allowed him to be one of the very few exceptions to that rule, as he could immediately regain his heat with the crowd after a loss simply by cutting a promo and any of his opponents became more over simply by interacting with him, regardless of what he said on the stick. Unfortunately, there are now many wrestlers who don't realize why Rock was an exception to those rules, and they copy various parts of his schtick on the mic despite the fact that they don't have the Brahma Bull's greatest attributes.

Brian T. responds to a comment I made last week about grown men in real life not fighting over a "drinking championship" as Eric Young and James Storm are doing:

Russo logic would state: "Uh, they're stupid enough to fight over it because they're alcoholics! And Jesus hates the drinkers, so by making them out to be idiots puts Jesus over!"

Unfortunately, Brian used "Vince Russo" and "logic" in the same sentence, thereby rendering his argument invalid.

With a lengthy rant on why he can't stand TNA, it's David G!

I read your "Impact Crater" every week to figure out if Impact is worth watching on the replay (since Thursday night is full of NBC stuff to watch). I couldn't agree with you more about the state of Impact. TNA has to be the most aggravatingly stupid not just wrestling promotion, but television program anywhere on TV in the United States. It's like the Chinese food of television - you watch it, but then 15 minutes later, you find yourself forgetting what you just watched! TNA makes network soap operas seem like completely believable, gripping storytelling. Things rarely make sense and even when they do, it's more of a, "Well it may be stupid and I don't want to see it, but at least they are following the "logic" of their own convoluted storyline" sort of way.
I was originally ecstatic when TNA got 2 hours, but now I hate it!! I literally feel stupid whenever I watch it, so I've stopped. At least when it was only an hour, I could Tivo it and have it watched in 15-20 minutes. Now having to sit through twice that time with stuff just as stupid as ever is too much to ask. How Spike and TNA can both be satisfied with what is essentially a dormant business model is beyond me. If I was in charge of Spike programming, saw that the show has literally gained NO VIEWERS since the expansion to 2 hours, and then sat down to actually watch an episode, I would be completely EMBARRASSED to be associated with it. Sure they've expanded they're touring, but you will always draw hardcore fans to those "bingo halls" since they can just sit and watch the WRESTLING and not have to put up with all of the TV bullshit. I don't understand how anyone associated with TNA not named Vince Russo can possibly think they are doing themselves a favor with the way they book their TV. When you move to 2 hours which would theoretically will allow for a better product, and you manage to drive viewers away instead, you have a problem. When you turn Kurt Fucking Angle into a character that gets "X-Pac Heat," you are a RETARD. Even when they have intriguing PPV matchups (By the way, are there ANY singles matches on this upcoming PPV??), it's not enough to get me to buy it because I know the Russo-fucking-riffic booking will keep it from having either a clean finish or a meaningful outcome.

Well, this turned into quite the rant, so I'll stop with this thought: While I will keep my fingers crossed for the sake of the wrestlers and their job security, from a business perspective, the TNA higher-ups have done everything possible to completely DESERVE having their business go under.

This was certainly a very passionate little tirade, and I don't have much to add to it. I agree with the vast majority of what was said, although I have actually enjoyed Impact more since the two hour expansion simply because it's allowed for lengthier matches. For everything that it does wrong in terms of storytelling, TNA typically puts the right people in the ring for those longer matches, which are rather good if you can tune out the commentary and poor production choices.

And that'll do it for next week. I'll be back in seven, and, until then, add me as a friend at MySpace in order to get a bulletin notification every time I post a new article on 411. For those of you who were my friend prior to last week, you're going to have to re-add me, as I had some technical problems and determined that the quickest way to resolve them would be to delete my profile and start from scratch with a new one.