Impact Wrestling: Mr. Anderson-Eric Young angle was not-so-great
The angle with Mr. Anderson and Eric Young playing dress-up on Thursday night’s episode of Impact Wrestling was horrible even by TNA standards.
First of all, why is Anderson dressing up like Sting’s old blond-haired character every week? It might be cute to do it once, but three straight weeks? It really wasn’t all that entertaining the first time.
Anyway, Anderson’s plan to mock Sting this week was to recreate a match between Sting and one of his old rivals, The Great Muta. Why the real Sting should care, I have no idea. I also have no idea how any of this is supposed to get me to care that Sting is defending the TNA world title against Anderson at the Slammiversary pay-per-view on June 12.
Playing the part of Muta in the farce was Young, who was dubbed The Not-So-Great Muta. Clever.
As silly as it is to have a mid-card comedy act such as Young in an angle with a guy who is main-eventing the pay-per-view, it’s even sillier that Young actually pinned Anderson. And it wasn’t one of those slip-on-a-banana-peel wins either.
I suppose Anderson could attempt to get his heat back next week by destroying Young and/or Sting, but the damage has been done.
As I was watching this angle unfold, I kept thinking that it seemed more like it was intended to be a parody of pro wrestling rather than an angle designed to sell a pay-per-view.
Oh, and by the way, wrestling matters!
Other thoughts on Thursday’s show:
Another problem with the Anderson-Young angle is that the Sting-Muta feud took place in WCW about 20 years ago. How many of today’s fans even know who The Great Muta is? And by the way, how did the simple-minded Young suddenly become savy when Anderson was trying to talk him into dressing up as Muta? ...
The final segment with Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan was groan-inducing. It seemed throughout the show that The Network was going to get rid of Bischoff and Hogan, but of course we all knew it had to be a swerve. It ultimately was revealed that The Network had fired Mick Foley instead. I can’t wait to see how TNA makes sense of that (well, actually, I can wait). It’s just such bad story-telling. Let’s recap: Foley returns to TV after a lengthy absence and announces that he is the mysterious network consultant; then it seems as if he’s going to be out-smarted by Hogan when the two meet with network officials, but Foley ends up coming out of the meeting with the advantage; then Foley is fired. And this all unfolded within a matter of a few weeks. ...
Isn’t is kind of far-fetched that Bischoff, who was served papers from The Network at the beginning of the show, wouldn’t open the envelope until after Hulk Hogan arrived at the end of the show? ...
Here’s another classic “wrestling matters” moment: As a star-studded main event pitting Kurt Angle and Matt Morgan against Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner was taking place, TNA decided to do a split screen to show Hogan arriving at the Impact Zone and talking with Bischoff. Now here’s the best part: The action in the ring was shown in a small box, while Bischoff and Hogan standing around with an envelope was shown in the bigger one. ...
Speaking of the main event, it was pretty entertaining. Jarrett and Steiner won the match when Steiner pinned Morgan, but the real story was the injury angle with Karen Jarrett at the end of it. After Karen interfered while Angle and Jeff were fighting on the stage, Angle walked threateningly toward her and she began backing up. Just as Karen was out of view off to the side of the stage, Jeff attacked Kurt from behind, and all three of them disappeared behind the wall. The camera then showed Karen lying at the bottom of the stairs, as Angle and Jeff blamed each other for her fall. I thought the angle – which seemed like it was designed to write Karen out of the show for a while – was well-done. ...
It was a little odd seeing Angle and Steiner fighting each other. Didn’t Steiner return to TNA several months ago to form an alliance with his friend Angle? ...
The wild brawl between ODB and a bikini-clad Velvet Sky got the show off to a hot start – and I do mean hot. ...
It was pretty funny seeing ODB beat up three men in addition to Sky. ...
The verbal exchange between Bully Ray and A.J. Styles was very good. Ray carried the segment, but Styles was good in his role, as well. ...
Ray buried Tommy Dreamer during his promo. I wonder if that’s the end of Dreamer as an on-air performer. His contract with TNA reportedly is expiring within the next month. ...
The Crimson-Matt Hardy match was pretty good. It was a big win for Crimson, as TNA continues to do a solid job of building him up to be a star. ...
The Angelina Love-Miss Tessmacher match (won by Love) wasn’t bad. However, Love’s delivery of her lines during a backstage segment with Winter was brutally bad. Her zombie character is more effective when she doesn’t speak. ...
Judging by Love’s appearance, apparently the drugs Winter is putting in her drinks are rapid weight-loss pills. ...
I liked the angle with Alex Shelley volunteering to take the injured Bobby Roode’s place as James Storm’s tag team partner in Beer Money’s TNA world tag team title defense against The British Invasion at Slammiversary. Shelley has always handled himself well on the mic. ...
The Kazarian-Brian Kendrick match was good. After the two battled to a 10-minute draw and then were granted five more minutes by Bischoff, Abyss interfered and attacked both men, and the match was declared no-contest. Abyss declared that the X Division was dead. It appears if there will be a three-way match for the TNA X Division title at Slammiversary with Abyss defending against Kazarian and Kendrick.
