The Impact Crater 01.03.08

Posted by Steve Cook on 01.04.2008

Byers just made up the whole “out of town” thing once he read the script for this show. I know he did!

Hello ladies and germs, and welcome to the Impact Crater! I'm your special guest cratologist Steve Cook. You may know me from my stewardship over Ask 411 Wrestling, but back in the day I wrote a little something called TNA Impact Insight. That earned me a reputation as somewhat of a TNA apologist, but I think I've done enough over the past three years to establish the fact that I'm nobody's bobo and call things the way I see them.

The esteemed Ryan Byers will be back in this slot next week. Until then you can read his blog, which contains some reader feedback from last week's edition of the Crater. And he'll be back on Sunday with the Custom News, so you'll get your Byers fix soon enough. On with the show!

Quick & Dirty Results
Segment 1: Jim Cornette books matches for Final Resolution, Samoa Joe comes out and complains, which leads to Kevin Nash coming out, which leads to them becoming TAG TEAM PARTNERS THAT HATE EACH OTHER~!
Segment 2: Tag Team Gauntlet: Motor City Machine Guns defeat Rock & Rave Infection, Team 3D, LAX & Voodoo Kin Mafia
Segment 3: Knockout Gauntlet: ODB defeats Roxxi Laveaux, Angelina Love, Miss Brooks, Jackie Moore, Velvet Sky, Christy Hemme & Awesome Kong
Segment 4: Tomko declares his independence from Kurt Angle & Christian Cage
Segment 5: X Division Gauntlet: Petey Williams defeats Senshi, Sonjay Dutt, Shark Boy, Elix Skipper & Johnny Devine
Segment 6: Heavyweight Gauntlet: Christian Cage beats Samoa Joe, Booker T, James Storm, Robert Roode, Eric Young, Chris Harris, Scott Steiner, Judas Mesias, Abyss, Kaz, Rellik, Black Reign & Kevin Nash

The Main Stuff

Angle Numeral Un: Gauntlets, Gauntlets & More Gauntlets

Let me just start off by saying this: I LIKE TNA's Gauntlet for the Gold. It's something they've been doing ever since their very first PPV telecast on June 19, 2002. It's basically like a Royal Rumble, except when you get down to the last two combatants it becomes a regular match that's decided by pinfall or submission. It's a good concept and TNA generally puts on a good show with it. It also serves the purpose of getting as many people on television as humanly possible, which is important for the workers that would like to work and get paid for it instead of sitting around backstage with their thumb up their ass all day long.

But do we really need four gauntlets in one night?

This illustrates a problem that comes up pretty often when discussing TNA, or any other wrestling promotion for that matter. When they find something that works, they run it into the ground until it doesn't matter anymore. I got WWE's "The Ladder Match" DVD for Christmas and spent parts of the next few days afterwards watching it. What did I discover? Ladder matches are great entertainment, but if you watch one after another for three hours or so, you become desensitized to the whole thing. When you see somebody fall off of a fifteen-foot ladder through two tables for the fifth time, you don't have the same reaction that you did when you saw it the first time.

TNA usually has four episodes of Impact between their pay per views. It doesn't always work out that way, but that seems to be the norm. If they need to have four Gauntlets for the Gold so they can determine the number one contender for each of the titles, wouldn't it make more sense to have one each week instead of four in one night? Sure, you might get a ratings bump on the one night for the novelty of it all, but if you spread it out over a month you can build interest and get people wondering what's going to happen in the next Gauntlet since the last one was so good. Sometimes wrestling writers are so focused on one week's ratings that they forget that there's a show to do next week, then the week after that, and then the week after that. TNA isn't the only promotion guilty of this, but they happen to be the subject of this particular column, so I have to single them out. And to be honest, they do it more often than most other promotions in this day and age.

Angle Numeral Deux: AJ Doesn't Decide, but Tomko Does

We were treated to some segments with Jeremy Borash at AJ Styles' grandmother's house…see, Young AJ is having a problem deciding between the Angle Alliance & the Christian Coalition, so he's locked himself in a room in his house. Thus, we got to see "hilarious" moments with JB interacting with AJ's family & friends. The best was probably AJ's sister MJ…of course, I'm biased in favor of girls with deep Southern accents. That's probably the thing I miss most about Louisville…you just don't get that up here in the ‘Nati. At the end of the day, we found out that AJ would reveal his choice at Final Resolution. I'm sure that'll result in a lot of extra PPV buys.

What?

Meanwhile, Tomko brought Kurt Angle out to the ring and declared that he would not join either the Angle Alliance or the Christian Coalition. He demanded respect, and gave a pretty damn good interview while doing so. I don't remember Tomko being given much interview time, if any, while he was in WWE, and he really impressed me with his work here. Could he be a breakout star in 2008?

Christian's promo on the situation wasn't bad. Ryan questioned why Christian & Kurt would want AJ on their side, and I would answer it like this: Even if AJ is incompetent more often than not, he's still useful as a crash test dummy if nothing else. Why do you think Raven kept Stevie Richards & Blue Meanie around all those years? So they could get beat up instead of him. It's good stratigery.

And the Rest…

~Jim Cornette still makes a good authority figure despite being undermined at every turn…how many other people could make sense of TNA Management decisions and present them as something coherent? That being said…why would the Outsiders be up for a tag team title shot at Final Resolution? They haven't beaten anybody in the past couple of years, and Scott Hall no-showed Turning Point. Jeez, and people complain about the BCS.

~Nobody's explained the Robert Roode/Miss Brooks relationship to me…why on Earth would Roode keep paying Brooks to be his valet and make her be his tag team partner in mixed tags when she obviously doesn't like him and never does anything that helps him get victories? Don't get me wrong, I understand the appeal of Miss Brooks as well as anybody, but wouldn't it be better for Roode's career if he found somebody else to handle his affairs? Like that crazy chick in the crowd…

~And how about Roode claiming he found Brooks in a strip club and Brooks doing nothing to counter the claim? I guess we're supposed to forget about everything she did before becoming Miss Brooks. Ah, wrestling.

~Just when you think Kip James' fashion sense can't get any…weirder…he breaks out the pink daisy dukes. I'm begging a TNA fashion consultant to talk to the guy.

~I liked the psychology behind Team 3D trying to break the Machine Guns' wrists so they can't climb the Ultimate X structure. I'm not a big fan of the match being booked, but what the hell.

~Not only is Crystal a much better interviewer than Leticia Cline ever was, she's also better looking. And no, I'm not just saying that because Leticia went to the University of Kentucky and anybody who went there is obviously a fool.

~I really don't get the appeal of ODB. I mean, who wants to be with a woman that drinks even more alcohol than they do?

…..

Huh, I just realized that statement describes some of the women I've had crushes on. Never mind.

~If TNA really wants to do a MegaPowers deal with Black Machismo, they totally need to bring in The Showster. Brother.

~By the time Shark Boy's run in TNA ends, he'll probably resemble The Yeti. Not in height, of course…you know what I mean.

~How about Senshi almost becoming the number one contender for the X Division title in spite of the fact that he quit the company? Man, I need to quit my job so I can get that raise I've been wanting for a long time now. I'm impressed Petey can still hit the Canadian Destroyer despite all of his extra muscle.

~How come there wasn't a Beer Drinking Gauntlet for the Gold? Maybe they did that at the bar after taping this show. It's way too easy to make a joke about the TNA writing staff here, so I won't.

~Wow, we went a week without Abyss getting bloodied and beaten. You know, he's taken some of the worst beatings I've ever seen, but I don't really care while I'm watching them. It's like what I was talking about earlier…the more you see something the less it matters.

~Nice little finish to the Heavyweight Gauntlet, though I'm sure everybody on the Internet will complain about how it made Samoa Joe look like a bitch. It did, but hey…at least Joe wasn't the first man eliminated?

Overall

I didn't think the show was too bad, but it didn't do a whole lot to convince me that Final Resolution will be worth watching. Here's the card in case you're scoring at home (or even if you're alone):

-The DCS: James Storm vs. Eric Young
- Robert Roode & Ms. Brooks vs. Booker T. & Sharmell
- Kaz vs. Black Reign
- Abyss vs. Judas Mesias
- Rock N Rave Infection (Lance Hoyt & Jimmy Rave) vs. LAX (Homicide y Hernandez)
- Ultimate X Match for possession of the X-Division Title: Motor City Machine Guns (Alex Shelley & Chris Sabin) & "Black Machismo" Jay Lethal vs. Team 3D (Brother Ray & Devon) & Johnny Devine
- No DQ - TNA Knockout Title Match: Gail Kim © vs. Awesome Kong
- TNA World Tag Team Championship Title Match: AJ Styles & Tomko © vs. Samoa Joe & Kevin Nash
- TNA World Heavyweight Championship Match: Kurt Angle © vs. Christian Cage

The one positive thing about all the Gauntlets is that it got everybody on the PPV card on the show and helped promote all of the matches. But…are they matches that the Impact viewer wants to see? Heel vs. Heel has never drawn money, and that's what they're doing in the main event. By the way, the last time Angle vs. Cage was the main event for a TNA PPV was at Against All Odds 2007, which got approximately 23,000 buys. Their Triple Threat match with Sting at Sacrifice 2007 got about 21,000. On the bright side, Team Angle vs. Team Cage at Lockdown got 35,000 buys.

Kind of puts those disappointing WWE buyrates into perspective, doesn't it?

All right, I think that just about covers it. Byers will be back here next week, and you can check out more of me at Ask 411 Wrestling every week! Like Byers I also have a MySpace, but unlike him I've been too lazy to update it lately. Until next time, boooooooooohica!