Hello! The Impact Reviews are back baybay! Yes, I'm back after the boycott of the last two weeks of TV when Impact actually managed to send me over the edge despite all of the shit I've seen in the past- and I'm back just in time for the GFW invasion angle. Oh, the joy. I'm not saying I'm on board with this angle at all, but we get to see some good people on TV like Trevor Lee, Hawkins, Masters, Gabriel so I'm all for it in the very short-term- basically last night when it wasn't actually an invasion angle.
Jeff Jarrett & Eric Young Promo
If you GLOBAL FORCE WRESTLING take out the fact Jarrett is GLOBAL FORCE WRESTLING just using impact to GLOBAL FORCE WRESTLING promote GLOBAL FORCE WRESTLING and nothing else his GLOBAL FORCE WRESTLING promo was pretty good all in all and it set-up the rest of the GLOBAL FORCE WRESTLING show nicely. I love Eric Young so it's no surprise I liked his promo, it's hard to really pinpoint why EY is so great- he just is. I didn't even mind the GFW/TNA brawl type thing that happened when EY attacked Jarrett, because at least it had some meaning and I don't know how they filmed it- but chances are it was a good way of establishing the GFW guys as GFW guys to the crowd so they "knew what to do" for their matches.
Lei'D Tapa v Awesome Kong
For what this was it was fine. I actually missed the first maybe 30 seconds because I was laughing so much at Christy Hemme announcing Kong from Tokyo. It pretty much summed up this godforsaken company. They do realise they aren't live? If anyone from TNA is reading this, you do realise there's thing thing called "editing" specifically something called "dubbing".
But what this match was, was a way of establishing Tapa as being on an equal footing with Kong so presumably further along in the Invasion Angle they have a blow-off match that means something. Tapa still looked quite green, but she's definitely better than she was when she was first in Impact as Gail's valet etc. The main talking point as far as this segment goes from my perspective was Tapa's manager.
I genuinely thought it was Rodney Mack, I saw a couple of people suggesting it was Suge Knight but it turns out "Royal Red" is about as obscure a person I can remember being on National TV in god knows how long. Firstly, his name is one of those names that get's an absolute tonne of different types of hits on Google. So you have to Google "Royal Red Wrestler" and even then the only things that come up is one link to Internet Wrestling Database and the rest of stuff related to him is just the Impact Spoilers saying a bloke called Royal Red showed up.
Bobby Roode & Rockstar Spud Segment
This annoyed me. The Promos were fine, Spud knows his character and plays it to perfection at least as far as Promos go. I did end up watching Impact last week, and the Spud v Aries match was great so at this point he's developed an absolute tonne of goodwill with me. But the second half of this segment just completely pissed me off. It's not Spud's fault, but this whole segment was booked the wrong way round up to the just after the first punch. It might not mean anything to some, but Spud coming out to confront Roode was wrong- Roode should have come out wanting to kill Spud. Then Spud threw the first punch, that's right the Babyface wanted to get the upper-hand on the Heel- and then to cap it all off Bobby completely killed Spud. This made Spud look like an absolute fool, and all of that just a week after arguably Spud's most important match- and without a doubt his most important win.
Lashley v Jessie Godderz
I nearly spelt it "Gooderz". I suppose that's being saved for his Babyface run. This match was just strange. Lashley is great, I actually like Jessie- but this just didn't work for me. I was expecting the "heat" part of the match pretty much the whole way through, it was never going to be a complete squash because Jessie does have some value- and it never really came. I think this match can be perfectly summed up with the Spear that ended the match that- well wasn't a Spear, it was more like Lashley ran in for a hug on Jessie's legs. This actually annoyed me, fair enough if it's a botched finish- but as I said earlier with the Christy Hemme botch IT'S A TAPED SHOW. Bobby Lashley has been in Wrestling since 2004, surely he'd have enough common sense to call an audible and re-position and redo the Spear so it actually, Ya Know- Looked mildly effective.
Jarrett/Dixie Backstage Promo
I found this oddly hilarious. We all know it's going to be an Invasion angle, I don't even think it's worth flagging it as a Spoiler. This segment made me laugh just because I got to thinking, How many times has Dixie "lost" the Company due to her own incompetency? It's hilarious that even within kayfabe Dixie is an incompetent fool who doesn't learn from her mistakes.
EC3/The Glorious Unicorn of Swoll/Matt Hardy Segment
There's some times in Wrestling when it takes me a minute to process what's going on just because of the complete absurdity of it. Tyrus having "I'm a Glorious Unicorn of Swoll" on his singlet is one of those times. The actual Promo stuff was pretty good, EC3 is still very good- I didn't even mind Matt Hardy tonight. The Full Metal Mayhem match last week was actually pretty good, I've ended up liking the EC3/Matt Hardy stuff a lot more than I thought I would I'll freely admit it. I'm not sure if the feud has already peaked with the Full Metal Mayhem match, I know the Spoilers- but until it actually comes across on TV I can't really judge it.
The Wolves v Brian Myers & Trevor Lee
I usually go on a Recap just so I don't miss anything, and whoever's done the Recap on WrestlingINC for this has listed this match as Bryan Meyers & Travis Lee. Unless that was meant to be an intentional "What's X doing in the Impact Zone?!" joke I think it's safe to say YOU'RE NOT EVEN A REAL JOURNALISM.
Onto the match, I really liked it. It was shorter than I thought it would be, If I find out the match was edited down then I'll scream. But Yeah, this match was a lot of fun- the only issue I had with it was Josh fucking Matthews. I'm not sure if I'm going to do a "Worldwide" awards post as well as The Sammy's this year- but if I do then I'll do a Worst Announcer Category, and JBL might not win it.
Tigre Uno v Sonjay Dutt
As far as at the very top end 2 minute matches go this was quite a fun one. Two things I have to say about this match and the show in general up to this point. Firstly, they've pretty much killed the invasion angle already- the GFW "representatives" didn't win any of the matches they were involved in up to this point. So they pretty much established that the TNA guys are better when it comes to Wrestling matches. Second point, I don't know how they ended the Donald Trump stuff or they just forgot about it- either way for the sake of my sanity thank god they did.
Mr Anderson Promo
This was when I almost officially washed my hands of Impact. Vince Russo is back, it really is that simple now. When I said it a few weeks ago I was speculating but had somewhat of a base for it with all the horrendous booking decisions. Now, we're getting a Mic on a Pole match. No, Really. Anyone who doesn't think Russo is back is lying to themselves.
King of the Mountain w/ Lashley, Mordetzky, PJ Black (who I nearly typed as PJ Polaco), Eric Young and Robbie E
The Recap has Mordetzky listed as "The Adonis", whoever's done it has had a bad day.
Couple of issues I had with this right off the bat. They were building up the angle of having Galloway taken out etc. throughout the night leading to the surprise replacement for the match. So naturally you'd assume given the angle the surprise entrant would be a big name and/or come out last for a pop. Nope, it was Robbie E and he came out first. I've learned to just not give a fuck about the King of the Mountain rules. I like to think I'm a pretty smart person, the rules aren't that complicated- but it's a complete clusterfuck and for Wrestling it's just too much. Is it not enough to simply have a Reverse Ladder Match?
The actual match was quite fun provided you didn't try to understand what was going on at any point. I very briefly got sucked into that trap when I wondered if you had to get a pin to become re-eligible if you were pinned (I still don't know the answer to that) but in general I just sat back and let it wash over me. For a match that was designed to be on PPV and have "big" spots on TV when the guys involved had to work multiple times so couldn't really risk doing the "big" spots it was pretty good. The one criticism I'd have is that there were too many pins, I honestly lost track- and there being so many pins was what prompted my eligibility question in the first place. But in general I liked it, Black's 450 Knee thing looked brutal- I honestly thought it was a botch but because the commentators acknowledged it I'm assuming it wasn't. The finish was pretty good with the Top Rope Spear from Lashley that kept him looking strong while giving PJ the win and I suppose that's that.
Overall this was a pretty enjoyable show. I didn't care about anything on it- and I'll probably forget the majority of what happened as soon as I stop writing this. It's like one of those films that are enjoyable while you're watching it- and then you get out and you've instantly forgotten everything that happened. I don't know if it's because I simply don't give a fuck about the Invasion angle or the fact TNA will either be dead, absorbed by Jarrett or almost completely different come the end of their Destination America run which is fast approaching. It basically stops you caring about anything going on- or at least it does for me, because I know there won't be any long-term pay-off.
Thanks for reading as always, the Impact Reviews are back for now- but I've got a very short temper with them now and if that isn't a reason to come back week after week I don't know what is. So Yeah, I'm not planning another Wrestling post before the RAW Review, but if you come here for both topic then I'll have quite a few before then. Next week is of course Summerslam week and my god is it going to be busy on here. From next Monday through to the following Wednesday I've got at least one post out pretty much every day. Basically, there won't be a shortage of posts coming on here- and I hope you stay tuned for either the Wrestling, Football or both. Thanks again for reading, and let's all officially welcome Vince Russo back to TNA with open arms.
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