Christmas in TNA
A stream-of-consciousness look at last night’s TNA Impact:
Eric Young hosted a Christmas party for the TNA roster. Since several of the party guests also were wrestling on the show, it’s fortunate that Young lives only a few minutes away from the studio in Orlando – just like the Angles, who hosted the Thanksgiving festivities last month. …
Hey, look, it’s Luke from the Sheepherders/Bushwhackers! Wonder if the tag team’s former flag bearer, Johnny Ace, will show up. Probably not, but if he does, TNA shouldn’t let him get near Robert Roode. …
The double entendre dialogue scripted for Angelina Love and Velvet Sky sounded as if it was written by a 12-year-old. Vince Russo sure looks a lot older. …
When Brother Ray started doing his obnoxious Santa Claus bit, it immediately reminded me of the creepy Santa in A Christmas Story. Ray later left little doubt that he was channeling that character when he used the “you’ll shoot your eye out” line. …
Having midgets impersonate wrestling stars as a way to get heat has gotten old. However, Brother Ray was so funny in his interaction with the miniature Jay Lethal and Motor City Machine Guns that it was kind of entertaining. …
This has to be irony: As Team 3-D, both dressed in Santa suits, did their comedy segment with the three midget imposters, the camera cut to someone in the crowd holding up a sign that said “TNA: We are wrestling.” …
The double entendre scripted for Kevin Nash made the stuff with Love and Sky seem clever. …
Seriously, TNA needs to get a clue and knock off the unprotected chair shots to the head like the one Awesome Kong took from Gail Kim. …
I’m just not buying Samoa Joe as a guy constantly whining about his contract. Unless he is turning heel, this makes no sense. However, a feud between Joe and Matt Morgan would be intriguing. …
Rellik finally won a match, but it was over Shark Boy in a tag-team match, so I don’t think that really counts as a win. …
TNA really is overdoing it with the thumb tacks, broken glass and barbed wire. It seems like there are matches involving these elements every week on TV. Save it for pay-per-view – and don’t do it on every one. It’s pretty obvious that fans are becoming numb to it, which is unfortunate for the workers who are mutilating themselves. …
I’ve said repeatedly that the Angles have been overexposed and that it was a bad thing. However, last night, Karen Angle was overexposed – and it was a good thing. I really wanted to see more of her, although if we saw any more, the show wouldn’t have been allowed to air. I can’t believe Jeremy Borash didn’t do his bug-eyed deal when she walked in. …
A.J. Styles proved once again that he is phenomenal when – in one fluid motion – he did a moonsault off a ladder and hit an inverted DDT on Kaz. These guys had a pay-per-view quality ladder match. However, in a hard-hitting, intense match such as that, something more meaningful than having the loser put on a reindeer suit should have been at stake. …
Overall impression of the show: It wasn’t nearly as funny as the Thanksgiving episode, although I'm sure there are worse ways to spend two hours.
Comments
kevin, i can tell it must pain you so to say something positive about a tna program. some of us much prefer it to high $$$ wwe.
RESPONSE FROM KEVIN ECK: Actually, it pains me to have to be critical. As I've written in the past, I am a wrestling fan. I'm not just a WWE fan and I used to work for WCW. I want to like TNA, but they make it hard sometimes. It's especially frustrating because TNA has a nice roster, but the booking is just bad. If you think I am tough on them, take a look at what the critics are saying on other wrestling Web sites about last night's show. I was actually pretty restrained by comparison.
Posted by: jack in hebron | December 21, 2007 9:27 AM
i respect your answer.
Posted by: jack in hebron | December 23, 2007 7:31 PM
TNA is just pathetic. I try to watch it, but every week end up flipping the channel to ESPN or turning off the television altogether. Seriously, it's on par with ECW in its quality and thats clearly a minor league show, 3rd rate for WWE. Impact is the top dog for TNA.
The comedy bits usually fall flat, most segments are ridiculously bad and forced, there is no distinguishing top faces from top heels (and they keep changing), the feuds are awful, the show takes place from that same Orlando studio with the same annoying fans, too many cluttered tag matches...I could go on and on. And this company has a STACKED roster, maybe more talent than Vince has but see, Mr. McMahon knows how to put on entertaining, balanced wrestling shows (most of the time, anyway)
Give me Raw or Smackdown anyday of the week over this garbage. This is equal to WCW on its last legs. I hope ROH someday becomes number 2 because TNA does not deserve it.
Posted by: Ryan | December 27, 2007 2:10 AM
Kevin,
Just saw a link on NODQ.com checked out your blog and I gotta say its good to see a newspaper supporting the art of professional wrestling after all the BS that has happened in the last 6 months, but I do have to agree that TNA is overdoing the 'New ECW' angle that should have washed out about 4 months ago but its Spike TV and they want action and who can blame them? Now I'm trailing off my original point... This in my opinion was one of the worst iMPACT!'s in the last 4 or so months... The Ladder Match was the best match of the night and I agree that the stip was dumb but seeing AJ throw a mini-Christian temper tantrum got a smile on my face, too many blown spots in the cage match that was more of a cluster than anything... come on TAGS IN A 8 MAN CAGE MATCH? I would have rather seen an 4 team cage match then that, still would have blew but might have been a little more practial. I've been a fan of TNA sence they began on the Wednesday night PPV's back in '02 and I'm glad to see guys like Kaz and Eric Young get a push and guys like Bobby Roode if pulled off correctly this could be one of the best slow pushes I've seen... well ever, He performs at a high level every week, cuts a decent promo and has had a slow rise to the top I see big things for him and many of the other guys that have been pushed to the side like Chris Daniels, AJ and to a lesser extent Joe as I see something good coming out of this but if Russo is writing it it could blow up real quick because Joe in my opinion is one of the more over guys there and a heel turn would work because Joe seems to be a natural heel with his stick work but I'd rather see him as a tweener because he isn't 100% face or 100% heel he's kinda like Austin back in the day without the McMahon Feud you either boo'd him or you cheered him I hope too see Cage win the title and Joe reignite the fued with Cage with a savage beating like he did to Daniels a few years ago when Joe just killed people and could actually work a match unlike nameless others in the 'E', it worked then when Joe couldn't be stopped why not now. And one last thing, I haven't seen any of the TNA PPV's this year so I can't be entirely sure that the Turkey Bowl final will go down as match of the year but I would give it free tv match of the year just because it kept me on the edge of my couch for the entire match not sence Angle/Michaels at WM21 had that been done to me but I have rambled on longer than expected but limited internet access and a good blog will do that to me.. LoL.
Keep up the good work
Steve in Windsor, Ontario
Posted by: Steve in Windsor Ont. | December 27, 2007 2:22 AM