Last night’s TNA Impact featured a strong main event between Kurt Angle and Samoa Joe, good wrestling throughout the show, just the right amount of comedy and no groan-inducing skits.

It was a total departure from last week’s nonsensical show and more in line with the tone of the previous four episodes. When I see shows like this one, I become a lot more optimistic about TNA’s future.

Once again, TNA did a great job of making the Angle-Joe rivalry seem special, including putting together another good video package that chronicled their feud. Angle was all business this week, and Joe was portrayed as a credible world champion.

The two wrestled each other on network television for the first time, and they didn’t disappoint. The TNA world title match took up the final half hour of the show, with Joe getting the win after Scott Steiner’s outside interference (which Joe was unaware of). It was announced after the match that Joe would defend the title against Steiner and Angle in a three-way bout at the Sacrifice pay-per-view on May 11.

Other thoughts on last night’s show:

Steiner costing Angle the match made sense based on an incident earlier in the program in which Angle talked about facing “Rick Steiner” at Sacrifice. It seemed like a throwaway line at the time, but Steiner’s attack on Angle at the end of the show was payback for disrespecting him and referring to him by his brother’s name. It made Angle come off like a babyface, however, which I don’t think was the intention – at least I hope not. …

As far as the new main event at the pay-per-view, obviously a three-way has more appeal than a Joe-Steiner singles match. …

During the Angle-Joe match, Don West referenced a remark that Kevin Nash had made earlier in the program – except that West actually stated the exact opposite of what Nash said. In talking about Joe, Nash said that winning the title was the easy part, and now that he’s champion, the work really begins. West said that Nash was right – the hard part was over because his career was on the line, and now he can just concentrate on “pure wrestling.” …

The two qualifying matches for the tag-team title tournament at Sacrifice were both good, especially Christian Cage and Rhino’s win over The Motor City Machine Guns. Team 3D defeated Rellik (the announcers didn’t say you-know-what this week) and Black Reign in the other match. …

Another tag-team match (not part of the tournament qualifying) that was entertaining saw Sting and Booker T. defeat Robert Roode and James Storm. …

Jeremy Borash was great in his “stooge” role, as he ran to tell Kurt Angle that his wife, Karen, was in the building with A.J. Styles after he had promised Karen and Styles that he wouldn’t say anything. The first time I realized that Borash had potential as an on-screen character was when he played a similar role briefly in WCW. As Vince Russo’s stooge, Borash would be shown lurking around backstage and taking notes whenever he witnessed something that he thought Russo should know about. The facial expressions that he would make were priceless. …

The only segment that I didn’t care for last night was the Eric Young and Kaz interview, in which they went back and forth on the Super Eric silliness from last week. Since Young cost them the tag-team titles, wouldn’t Kaz be totally justified in turning on him? …

It looks as if TNA is trying to get Matt Morgan over as a babyface with heel tendencies, as Morgan unleashed an unprovoked attack on Kip James backstage to open the show. It just might work. …

Jim Cornette seems to be doing a subtle heel turn. He was one of the greatest heel managers of all time, but I liked the fact that his TNA character tried to call things fairly. I’m sure Cornette would be entertaining as a heel authority figure, but that role has become passé as far as I’m concerned. …

Cornette announced that one of the women on the roster – excluding Awesome Kong – will get her head shaved on the pay-per-view. My money’s on Rhaka Khan or ODB.