Impact back in a serious vein
After producing one of the sillier episodes of Impact last week, TNA cut way back on the “humor” last night and delivered a solid go-home show for Sunday’s Hard Justice pay-per-view.
Instead of torturing viewers with five segments involving faux superheroes, TNA upped the violence quotient and focused on hyping the pay-per-view. It made for a compelling show, although there were some negative consequences to doing a more extreme style (more on that later).
I know that TNA goes overboard with all the gimmick matches on Impact and the pay-per-views, but I enjoyed the eight-man gauntlet-with-weapons match. It was intense and helped get over the top two matches at Hard Justice -- Samoa Joe versus Booker T., and Kurt Angle versus A.J. Styles.
Of course, what really added to the drama was the fact that Angle bled a gusher hard-way due to catching his head on a sharp part of a ladder. Seconds after he hit the ladder, there was a puddle of blood on the mat. And that wasn’t even the scariest moment of the night.
Earlier in the show, Homicide had a lot of little shards of glass near his eye after being put through a glass table by Beer Money Inc. I know the glass breaking looks cool and all and it gets a pop from the crowd, but I’m not sure the risk is worth the reward. Angle and Homicide were both lucky to have escaped serious injuries.
Other thoughts on last night’s show:
I’m officially on the Frank Trigg bandwagon. His natural heel charisma came across during his interview segment with Karen Angle. However, if Trigg wants to get involved in pro wrestling, he really has to learn how to pull a punch. When a member of TNA security (TNA producer Bruno Sassi) tried to restrain Trigg from going after Karen, Trigg connected with a hard punch to the face that reportedly broke the guy’s nose. …
Samoa Joe came off a lot more likable than he has on recent shows. Conspicuous by his absence was Joe's mentor, Kevin Nash, who reportedly walked out during the taping last week because he disagreed with how the gauntlet match (which he was supposed to have been involved in) was booked. Apparently, things have been smoothed over. ...
The Motor City Machine Guns and the team of Jay Lethal and Consequences Creed put on an entertaining match, but I initially didn’t like the fact that an exceptional and established team such as TMCMG lost to a team that was just put together. Then it became apparent in the post-match that the result is part of a developing angle. TMCMG shook hands with Lethal, but Alex Shelley refused to shake Creed’s hand and shoved him. A heel turn for TMCMG might be a good thing if that’s where this is headed. I just hope that it’s not Shelley alone who turns and the team is broken up. …
Roxxi and Jacqueline had a decent match, but I hate that the women’s hardcore matches are called Bimbo Brawls. The women have worked too hard to bring respect to the women’s division to be referred to in such a disrespectful manner. …
During his promo, Brother Ray said: “Who would want to see an old-school wrestling match?” I’d bet anything that line was scripted by Vince Russo. …
It was good to see Kip James back on TV. No, I’m not being sarcastic. I think he’s a good heel and TNA is under-utilizing him. …
I liked that TNA did something a little different with the opening of the show. Mike Tenay stood in the ring and hyped the pay-per-view, while Jeremy Borash and the tandem of Lauren and B.G. James were stationed in the crowd to run down the lineup for Impact. The hot crowd really made it seem as if the Impact Zone was the place to be.
Comments
Kevin, I enjoy your work greatly. I have a question though. How come you have not taken Angelina Love to task for calling Gail Kim Chinese? Doesn't that go with the stereotype of all Asians looking alike?
RESPONSE FROM KEVIN ECK: I didn't care for it all. She also refererd to Taylor Wilde as "pure white bread."
However, while I do not like the practice of using race-baiting to get cheap heat, the reason I didn't mention it was because a comment that I received after I took Cody Rhodes to task for a racial comment helped me take somewhat of a more open-minded view. HIs argument was that Rhodes is a heel and heels say bad things. With Love's character, she feels she is above everyone else, so saying that Gail is Chinese (she is Korean-Canadian) shows that she is ignorant as well as arrogant.
I still think it's cheap heat, but heels aren't supposed to be nice people, so I guess they should say things like that. I found it a lot more offensive when Steve Austin, a babyface, said "I see sand people" when talking about Hassan and Daiviri a few years ago. When a hero says that stuff, it tells the fans that racial comments are acceptable.
Posted by: Zach Ruth | August 8, 2008 9:04 AM
How come they never explained why Roxxi Laveaux went from being a VooDoo
queen to a hard core specialist.
Last night's episode was fine, but TNA has to recognize that its not 1995 anymore. Using so many weapons and such is a thing of the past and just asking for an injury.
The glass table spot was sick. Why would TNA make their performers go through something like that?
Posted by: Elevation | August 8, 2008 11:05 AM
Impact was much improved over a week ago, although not still where you could call it good. While it was good to see clean finishes, the post match festivities always seemed to overshadow the matches themselves.
That gusher on Kurt was nasty, I thought there were going to have to remove him from the match. I'm sure somewhere the Great Muta was smiling....
I think it's time for MCMG to turn, right now they're a pretty generic face team, a heel turn could give them some edge. I think last night's loss is OK if it's leading to that direction. Otherwise, it was pointless.
The glass table thing was pointless, it was violence merely for the sake of violence, and put a wrestler in harm's way for no real reason. The Dudleys, err, Team 3D looked perturbed that Beer Money used the table first, I wonder if that will lead anywhere.
Not going back to reshoot the JB interview with Booker T (where JB hypes a "10 man gauntlet match") was just bush league. Speaking of Booker, TNA blew a big hole in the logic (what little there was to begin with) of the Sting situation by having Booker T coming to the ring with a black bat then having Sting (or maybe not Sting) standing from the rafters also holding a black bat. The implication has always been that it's been Sting's black bat hitting Joe, yet we saw two separate black bats last night. Of course no one in the telecast mentioned this fact.
Posted by: Joe Barber | August 8, 2008 1:28 PM
Everyone in TNA should give their notice. Maybe then they'd get booked as strongly as Tomko (who is now gone from the company) was in the main event.
Posted by: chris | August 8, 2008 1:54 PM
They probably used more wrestlers at Impact than ever. Two 8 man matches. More knockouts appeared. The only Knockout not there was Christy Hemme. It was more action than talk and I really enjoyed the show. That gash on Kurt's head was unbelievable. Never seen so much blood from a human being before. I think the scariest moment was when Homicide went thru the glass table. Looked like he was afraid to open his eyes. I didn't miss Kevin Nash at all, to me he is like Hulk Hogan always wanting to be the main focus of the show. So much action glad I taped it because I didn't want to miss anything.
Posted by: Dave | August 8, 2008 4:14 PM
Kev, you don't have to post this comment if it ruins some of the illusion but I go to iMpact often and know a few employees pretty well, the "glass" used in the table is actually sugar glass made in Universal's candy shop by the "Disaster" ride. (Formerly Earthquake). It's not 100% safe but it's better than actual glass.
RESPONSE FROM KEVIN ECK: I figured it was "gimmicked" in some way, but like you said, it's still not entirely safe, as evidenced by the cuts on Homicide's arm.
Posted by: Mr. Bronson | August 8, 2008 6:49 PM
i found it weird also how strong Tomko was booked. i thought he was going to be just a space filler. it just seems odd to make a guy who is out the door a runner up in a main event before a ppv. ah well good for Tomko
Posted by: dank | August 9, 2008 2:02 AM
Why the fuss over a "glass" table, am I the only one that saw the farce that was Christian Cage helping the tables debut on TNA? to me it was plain Christian was unhurt, my sympathies was with the towel, the poor thing was bleeding before it even got in the ring! and the wood that was cut out to make way for the glass was given the job of "dabbing away" Christians blood.
I am just settlin' down to watch this weeks (oooops now know it's Homicide's turn this week!), let's all hope it's better than the last few.
As for Kevin being A WWE mark, NAH he just tells it as he (and I for one) see it, both WWE & TNA have their less than perfect moments, unfortunately TNA seem to have got hold of a copy of WWE's worst moments and are insisting of recreating them. I still love it though X
Posted by: Andy Martin | August 9, 2008 11:29 PM
I'm surprised no one has noted Salinas' booty shorts. I liked Salinas' booty shorts. I also liked the fact that we repeatedly saw them before Awesome Kong would power bomb her. Alright, time for a cold shower.
Posted by: Aaron Goldstein | August 11, 2008 12:34 PM