TNA Impact Review- 8th October

Welcome to another Impact review, and with the culmination of the Tag Title series the main selling point for this Impact- which would undoubtedly be an amazing match, but would the rest of the episode stack up?

MVP, Bobby Roode, Kenny King Promo
This was a bit "meh" in my opinion. I think TNA should cut promo time down to the absolute bare minimum, similar to what they did with Joe when he faced Lashley about a month ago, and give more time to the in ring product. The men involved are good at promos don't get me wrong, but this seems a bit too forced for my liking- although the teasing of some tension between Lashley, King and MVP in a backstage vignette a bit later made me appreciate this segment more as its become pretty clear they're building to a Lashley-MVP feud and this segment sans Lashley helped to eventually build to it.

Madison Rayne v Angelina Love v Taryn Terrell- #1 Contender Match
The crowd didn't do this match any favours. I understand with the amount of wrestling they've condensed into a three day period the crowd won't be hot for every match, but the crowd was completely dead for the majority of this show- and in a match where there isn't a sublime in-ring performer you need the crowd to get into it to distract you (to an extent) from a relatively clunky match. Havok destroying Taryn appears to be setting something up *wink wink*, and Madison and Velvet are perfectly fine opposition until they renew the Gail feud, or add someone else into it *wink*.

Low Ki and Tigre Uno v James Storm and "The Great" Sanada
This was a great match, but once again the crowd affected it. The in-ring product was great, and there was lots of flips and dips- and the match was wrestled at a very fast pace- and it put over "The Great" Sanada and Storm very strongly, but when the crowd is flat its hard to get into the match when you're watching at home. Overall it was a great match, but its like watching something on mute- you can't really get fully into it.

Samuel Shaw v Bram
This match was very good for the time allotted to them. Considering they were given roughly 7 minutes to have a "hardcore" match I thought these two did very well to work as much in as they did, and get both men to look good. I thought the spots they worked in were good, and the Sunset-Flip Powerbomb onto the steel chairs looked brutal, and the finish managed to keep Brams momentum, while not making Shaw look weak. You can kind of tell where they're going with the Brittany angle, but the execution of the Brittany leading Shaw astray angle will determine whether or not its a good idea.

Bobby Roode v Kenny King and MVP
MVP still looks a step off the pace in my opinion, and I think the addition of King in the match was for the best on multiple levels. The DQ finish was interesting, as it once again can lead to tension in the future between MVP, King and Lashley with regard to costing them the match, although MVP taking the pinfall wasn't what I expected as King has been the third wheel for the majority of the run these three have put together.

EC3, Rockstar Spud Promo
If you look at what we had on RAW with those two women, a Gator vs a Bull among other things- then you look at EC3 who was released by WWE, and what he's doing now speaks very highly for "Michael Hutter" and paints WWE in a very bad light. The promos were perfectly serviceable and the build for this eventual match has been very good thus far and if they can keep this momentum up, Spud could be one of the better babyfaces TNA  has had in recent memory, and the reaction from the crowd when Spud got fired up proved this.

The Hardys v The Wolves v Team 3D- Full Metal Mayhem
The Wolves are made. Whoever does eventually take the Tag Belts off of The Wolves will get an unbelievable rub from beating them after this Tag Title Series.

Before I get onto the positives of which there were in abundance, you have to ask the question; Was giving every one of the Tag Series match on free TV "Best for Business"? Considering TNA always gets the same 1 (or just over/under)-1.5 (roughly) and they never seem to get above that, was it really worth giving 4 PPV quality matches away for free? I'm reminded of WCW when Goldberg won his first World Championship against Hogan on an episode of Nitro.

Now onto the positives, Wow! It amazed me The Hardys and Team 3D especially can "still" do what they do, to the level they do- and put their bodies on the line in the way they did in this match, and prior. There are too many notable spots to really go over all of them, so I'll just talk about my personal favourite ones. The spot where Hardy was pushed off the ladder onto Bully Ray looked sick, in every sense of the word- although these kind of spots are telegraphed by the way in which everything has to be set up beforehand, but it doesn't take away from the spot when it actually happens. This is most notable in the spot where Devon was pushed into the two tables, as you heard him tell the cameraman to get out of the way- which made you instantly go "Yep, He's going onto the outside".

The Wolves winning was the best outcome, in that The Wolves are the future of TNAs Tag Division- and this has truly made them no matter what they go on to do, and you have to believe that when The Wolves go on to lose the tag belts every team that subsequently wins the belts will look back at this match and you can look at it as "Well Team A, beat Team B who beat The Wolves, who beat Two of the best teams ever" and this has made the Tag Division in TNA made for the foreseeable future.

Thanks again for reading, Feedback is appreciated. I hope you're all still enjoying these reviews- and if you're not please tell me so I can move on to other types of blogs like the "Wrestlemania 31- 6 Months in Advance" blog I did last Sunday. Thanks again for reading.