TNA Impact TV report

Thursday, 26 February 2009 15:51

2.26 TNA Impact
By Jeff Hamlin ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

The Big News: Kurt Angle and Sting are official for Destination X. That’s the only good news coming out of a show that was incredible, if nothing else, for the ability by one company to make itself look as second-rate as possible.

Mike Tenay and Don West opened the show in an empty Impact zone and mentioned the record ratings from the previous week. They mentioned over 2 million viewers watched the show, the most in company history. How much you want to bet Raw on Monday night mentions the nearly 5 million viewers who watched this week’s show? Hell, how much you want to bet they exaggerate that number dramatically? Tenay said they would hear from the Main Event Mafia tonight.
 
1.    The Beautiful People defeated Madison Rayne and Taylor Wilde when Rayne turned on Wilde. Early, Wilde did some cool moves, including a La Magistral cradle. Velvet Sky threw punches from the mount on Rayne that looked horrid. There was a slight tease of a turn early when Rayne looked to tag Wilde, but Wilde wasn’t there because Cute Kip was arguing with her at ringside. Almost immediately after Rayne finally tagged Wilde, Rayne slapped her and walked out. Sky then pinned Wilde with a back stabber, which was called the beauty mark. Rayne didn’t outright join the Beautiful People yet. In other words, they did a turn for the sake of doing a turn in Rayne’s third appearance in the company, and her first in a tag match. The reaction to the turn was minimal, which brings the obvious question: if the audience hasn’t had time to get used to Rayne and Wilde as a team, who the hell cares about the turn? *1/4
 
The turn was barely acknowledged before they cut to videotape of the Main Event Mafia pulling up in a humvee limo earlier in the day. Jeremy Borash ran up to Kurt Angle, who didn’t say a word. The mafia just walked into the building. Is it too much to ask that when this company cuts away from an angle, that the segment they’re cutting to actually has a point?

Borash caught up to the mafia in their private locker room, sans Sting. He’s back in the rafters, you know. When Borash asked him if the match with Sting is happening at Destination X, Angle said of course it is because the depth of this company is shot to hell from its own booking killing every other babyface dead. Well, not really. He said the mafia would make a statement later. Then the police walked in, and Steiner blurted out “She was 19. I swear.” The officers informed them they were looking for a Mr. Huffman, Booker T’s shoot last name. The rest of the mafia laughed because they pretended not to know his last name was Huffman. Booker left with the officers.

2. Beer Money defeated The Rock n’ Rave Infection to retain the TNA tag team titles in an Off the Wagon Challenge match in 4:28. Roode pinned Lance Rock, so he’s now gone from the company. Naturally in their last match together, Rock and Rave looked as good as a team than ever before. Then again, they’ve wrestled almost exclusively as heels. Rave did a tornillo armbar on Storm and a cool 3-D like move where Rock hoisted Roode, who landed on Rave’s knee. Rave got the heat, but started his comeback with an STO. Rock got the hot tag and gave both Storm and Roode a choke slam, the latter ending with a two count. Finish saw Rock give Roode the blackout (inverted crucifix powerbomb) and had him pinned, but Jacqueline distracted the referee, allowing Storm to hit Rock with the tag belt leading to the pin. That’s the fourth time they’ve done a belt shot in two shows. Good, but short. Talk about going from one extreme to another in how they handled guys being fired from the company. Last week, Petey Williams was shown getting a standing ovation from the crowd in a scene that was played up at length. In this case, Rock was shown with a pained expression on his face, then they cut right to a video package. And you thought Victoria’s swan song was cold. To say Rock’s departure was barely played up would be greatly embellishing it. **

Sting pulled up to the building in a yellow Lamborghini. For this company, that’s solid attention to detail since that’s how a world champion should ride. Borash kept asking him if he would accept Angle’s challenge, but again he wasn’t talking. Someone in the background was watching. It was Styles, hiding out from the cops.

Booker took the police to his dressing room, which had police tape. Apparently, no one has been in the room since Styles jumped Booker two weeks ago, because it still had tables broken and furniture damaged. Even Booker’s prized photo with Muhammad Ali was knocked over, prompting the same line used months ago where Booker said there’s a picture of the greatest, and he was standing next to Muhammad Ali. Oh well, it’s not like every idea in this company isn’t used over and over again.

There was another Dr. Stevie session with Abyss. He compared cutting himself to opening a present on Christmas trees. The words “Abyss” and “Christmas trees” cause immediate flashbacks to barbed wire trees, Shark Boy in a four-way match for no reason and Brian and Vinny totally losing it on the air laughing. Abyss talked about opening up presents to find Jonas Brothers CDs and wondered if he could be a teen idol. He might as well try considering what happens to his wrestling career with each passing interview. While Dr. Stevie had his back to the camera, we saw more of his profile this week.

They ran a graphic lifted straight from a Raw facts segment that mentioned last week’s record rating.

Next up was the weekly One Night with ODB abomination. There are some moments that are just too weird for words, and this was one of them. They had the James Earl Jones soundalike voice this package about how ODB was really this hot girl, but it was done in a campy way. This was followed by some of the entrants. Since one of the “contestants” was an indy wrestler, it’s impossible to know exactly who was really a participant and who was a plant. But some of the contestants included someone who looked like Vincent Varhei in a 70’s porn mustache, someone in a Mike Awesome mullet curling a cinderblock while smoking, and someone belching into the camera at will. These segments are starting to remind me of “Ready to Rumble,” where instead of playing to the audience by entertaining them with wrestling, they insult their own fans by showing them how little respect they have for them. Why else would they show this?

Booker followed the cops out to order them to arrest Styles. As they drove away, Styles walked up from behind them. Those cops won’t exactly be at the top of the audition list for CSI: Orlando, huh? Styles and Booker brawled. Security ran up and held Styles, allowing Booker to get a free shot. TNA security ran in to break it up. So it appears there are two separate security crews, another Russo trademark.

In the mafia dressing room, Lauren asked Steiner about what is going to go down tonight between Angle and Sting, which prompted Steiner to say Lauren would go down on him tonight. Steiner compared Samoa Joe to the Boogey Man. Well, I don’t think he meant that Boogey Man. Then again, but men were more over three years ago than now. Anyway, the lights went out and Joe ran up from behind and held a knife to his throat and cut a promo on him. Even Steiner was astonished by that. So in essence, we just saw a man nearly commit murder on national TV. And I’m thinking, surely Tenay and West will want to play this up, since we just saw attempted murder. Maybe Booker will call the cops back. Well, no. Instead, they just cut to clips of Angle versus Sting from last week.

Jeff Jarrett then did an interview with Borash saying he knew the mafia would break up sooner or later because no team stays together long in pro wrestling. Yeah, like that’s rare in this company. We’ve seen two teams split up in the first half hour of this show, with two more still to come. Know why Beer Money is the most over act in the company? Because they’ve stayed together longer than six months.

Mick Foley’s Hardcore History 101 featured him talking about his favorite matches. If you think he talked about two matches from the WWE, give yourself a gold star. He mentioned his 1996 match with Shawn Michaels at In Your House: Mind Games. Then he spoke of the five-man handicap tag match at Wrestlemania with the Rock, where they lost to Evolution (Randy Orton, Batista and Ric Flair). Unless the Rock’s film career head south fast, that could very well be his last match. While that wasn’t his other favorite, it did motivate him to have a better match. That led to his hardcore bout with Randy Orton at Backlash 2004, which he called his all-time favorite. Foley put over Orton like hell. It would have been fine if it was mentioned in passing. Instead, he went on and on about it, like Orton was the rising superstar in the other company. That sure did wonders to put the rising heels in this company in their place. He said he was so fueled on music by Tori Amos going into that match, he knew he could deliver. I had two reactions to this. It’s always interesting listening to Foley talk about how he prepares for his matches, and this was no different. But watching Foley put over the top WWE heel on TNA television, on top of watching the ODB segment earlier where they did everything they could to make their own fans look like belligerent dorks, you would swear the creative team is out to sabotage this company.

The Main Event Mafia came out, including Sting, who wasn’t wearing face paint. He also wasn’t wearing a suit. Steiner looked like he had recovered from the death threat he received just before the commercial. When Tenay asked Sting if he would defend the title against Sting, Kevin Nash got on the mic and gave a speech about how they’re a family and they would remain that way. When Tenay sounded skeptical over that, Nash shouted him down and said he worked for Jarrett and Foley. Nash’s speech at least made sense, saying he begged Angle not to go through with the empty arena match last week, but Jarrett wanted it to happen so Angle and Sting would destroy each other, which is what Jarrett and TNA wanted. That also made the mafia out to be babyfaces, which is what they’ve been all along, albeit unintentionally. Nash tried to play peacemaker and said that everyone should respect each other. Jarrett came out and asked Sting where was his integrity after Angle spit right in his face last week? Jarrett announced that he would grant Angle’s wish, and that he would face Sting for the title at Destination X. Crowd seemed enthused by that announcement, which was a good sign. It would have been great if the segment had ended here. How many times a year do I type that? Booker grabbed the mic and asked Jarrett who died and made him the law. Since the company was doing everything it could to bury itself tonight, Booker then said that Jarrett, as founder of TNA, presided over a group of wannabees and nobodies. He said Jarrett started the company at a flea market and a building he painted himself. Can you imagine Vince McMahon allowing his own company to be portrayed so minor league? Jarrett then admitted painting the building in Nashville. My head was spinning at this point. Then he said look at us now. Yeah, running in a building that’s the modern day ECW Arena where the paid gate in 0 every two weeks. Jarrett said he would make the Angle-Sting match official later tonight to conclude one of the most mind-boggling hours of wrestling television you’ll ever see.

Then to get the second hour off to a great start, Don West turned heel. Tenay mentioned how Sting and Angle would have a contract signing later tonight when West interrupted him and said he should kiss Sting’s ass backstage. It was odd that whenever Booker used the word ass in his interview, it was bleeped. But West wasn’t. West got up and grabbed the house mic and claimed that Tenay was in a meeting earlier this week where West’s broadcasting future was being determined. West played it up like Tenay didn’t go to bat for him, even though they had been friends for seven years. West called him a selfish prick. He told Tenay to take this mic and shove it up his ass, which got a lot of cheers. In terms of execution, imagine Tony Schiavone’s heel interview from 2004. Make it three times worse, and it maybe it comes close to this. Just painful. It doesn’t help that this segment forced Tenay to act, and there’s not one good thing that results from that. Even worse, they actually aired replays of this in the next segment.

Sojourner Bolt and Rhaka Khan were arguing with Raisha Saeed and Awesome Kong backstage. Bolt and Khan stormed to the ring. To make the arrival into wrestling purgatory official, Khan started doing a promo. Is this a joke? Not just a promo, mind you, but everything rhymed like she was Jesse Jackson in 1978. It didn’t even begin to explain why they were arguing and what Khan had to do with Bolt getting a title shot at Kong. After that bit of mic work, you’ve could have heard a pin drop. Then we had to watch her wrestle.

3. Sojourner Bolt and Rhaka Khan defeated Raisha Saeed and Awesome Kong in 5:03.  Explain to me why this match got more time than Beer Money vs Rock n’ Rave Infection? Oh yeah, and Khan, who doesn’t know what she’s doing, got the most ring time of anyone. For those keeping score, 53 minutes passed without wrestling. Not to mentioned my entire life going past my eyes after the Khan promo. Crowd was largely dead. Tenay did the announcing by himself. Bolt’s punches from the mount were every bit as bad as Sky’s. Khan didn’t start off bad working high spots with Kong. But then she got lost, and watching her work with Saeed was excruciating in ways I can’t even describe. The editing was shoddy as hell. Kong delivered a slam on Khan, but just a second later, Khan was shown making the hot tag to Bolt, without any trace of a comeback. Bolt pinned Saeed with a backslide to no reaction at all. -*


 
Postmatch, we had another deal where a heel, with the odds against her 2-to-1, still laid out the babyfaces. Kong clotheslined both women, and it ended with Kong giving Bolt the Awesome Bomb onto Khan. Upon landing, Bolt’s arm hit Kahn across the face, which looked like it left Kahn knocked silly.

TNA Rough Cut again looked at Ultimate X. I guess they’ve run out of heels to profile and make look as appealing as possible. This led to a music video by the group Hoobastank featuring the best of Ultimate X, which only reminded me how far this company has gotten off path. It was such an exciting brand in 2005, full of titles that meant something and brilliant A.J. Styles matches. Now, Rhaka Khan is cutting promos and getting more ring time than Robert Roode.

4. Alex Shelley won the 4-way X Division ladder match over Chris Sabin, Black Machismo and Consequences Creed in 8:32. It was basically a match with the respective tag teams doing spots against each other. From what I’m led to believe, the Motor City Machine Guns are now heels. So how did they start this match? By doing face spots, of course. Machismo and Creed went to ringside to get the ladders, but Shelley and Sabin did simultaneous baseball slides into them. Sabin did a high angle spinning neckbreaker onto the ladder on Machismo, which looked dangerous as hell. Creed bridged one ladder across the ropes onto the standing ladder under the belt. Creed gave Shelly a facebuster, but Sabin responded by giving Creed a TKO onto the ladder. Machismo did a STO onto Sabin, who fell onto the ladder. Shelley and Machismo climbed up, where Shelley jumped off with a jawbreaker, followed by a sliced bread #2 coming off the ladder to get the belt and win. Again, rushed, but easily the best thing on the show. **3/4.

Immediately afterward, Suicide floated in to knock Shelley off the ladder. Suicide cleaned house on everyone, including Machismo and Creed. He then picked up the X Division title and dropped it on Shelley. Lots of piped in cheers because this gimmick still isn’t over.
 
The main event was the contract signing between Angle and Sting. I guess as a rib, as Sting was shown walking out of his dressing room, in the background there was a movie poster of “Milk,” the film where Sean Penn won the Best Actor Academy Award, instead of Mickey Rourke.

Jarrett showed up in the ring first to introduce Angle. For some reason, Jarrett carried his guitar with him. I guess he did it to protect himself, but it sure made him look foolish based on what was ahead. Sting didn’t come out next because, well, I don’t know why. I guess they needed someone to make the save after Jarrett got laid out. The very idea of Jarrett being in the ring alone against the mafia didn’t exactly bode well for him. Jarrett thought Angle was supposed to be the leader of the mafia like Tony Soprano and Al Pacino. But he said since Nash and Booker had been doing the talking for him, Angle was no leader, and perhaps didn’t have any balls. Angle signed the contract, then hit Jarrett with the clipboard. For some reason, mafia security tried to stop Angle. Then Foley ran in. Watching a 350-pound Foley with awful knees is another thing the company could do without. Angle laid out Foley and put him in the ankle lock. Finally, Sting came down to lay out Angle with baseball bat shots. The show mercifully ended with Sting signing the deal, dropping the clipboard on Angle’s chest then helping Jarrett and Foley up while the rest of the mafia watched on.

SUMMARY: At least there’s a decent main event to build on. But the first hour of this show reminded me of 1999 WCW, when the company seemed destined to just eradicate itself. I know many people remember January 4th, 1999 as the one-finger title switch with Nash and Hulk Hogan. In retrospect, that was truly the night the Monday Night Ward ended, for reasons that have been well documented by Brian and Dave. I’m beginning to wonder if the first eight weeks of 2009 will be similar for TNA. If so, the show from four weeks ago when the mafia took over will be remembered as their January 4th. But in many ways, this show was just as damaging. I’ve never seen a show so willing to portray themselves as second-rate. That’s a killer whenever it’s done. But to do it now, when WWE has a good build toward Wrestlemania going, makes it seem like TNA is destined to be minor league for life.