Moore’s TNA Impact Wrestling Hit List: EC3 and Rockstar Spud vs. Matt Hardy and Tyrus, Gail Kim and Madison Rayne vs. Dollhouse, The Wolves vs. Decay

By John Moore

TNA Impact Wrestling Misses

EC3 Opening Segment: This was a good babyface promo to start off Ethan Carter III’s run as the top babyface of the company. I like that we didn’t get a drastic character change and his change was more of a motivation change rather than a change in persona. His opening segment with Hardy and Tyrus was also a nice change in our usual Hardy Family opening, though, I do hope they move away from the stale 10-20 minute opening that TNA’s competitor WWE has made stale.

Mike Bennett vs. Mark Andrews: Since “Mandrews” has been positioned as one of the X-Division enhancement guys, this was fitting and more of a proper squash match to showcase Mike Bennett. A few weeks ago, Bennett went up against a guy probably bigger body wise than him. The smaller Mark Andrews works as a good contrast to Bennett. He’s like the British Norv Fernum (I’m not sure if Fernum is British on that note). Maybe if Andrews can drop the dumb “Mandrews” name and the strange random Bart Simpson skateboarding gimmick, he might mean something down the road.

The Wolves vs. Decay: This was a nice showcase for the Wolves in showing that Eddie Edwards and Davey Richards can adapt to any type of match you put them in, this one being a hardcore garbage-style match. Decay doesn’t lose too much since they are a newly budding tag team anyway. Hopefully Decay is built up over the next couple of months for another potential duel with the Wolves, maybe in a Crazzy Steve style match rather than the Abyss match.

EC3 and Rockstar Spud vs. Matt Hardy and Tyrus: The one flaw I see here is EC3 pinning the World Champion so quickly in this new feud, especially when it’s Tyrus’s job on most occasions to take the pin. That’s just nitpicking as overall this was another positive step in the character development of EC3 as a babyface. Spud also got to get in a good hot tag and show why he’s a good wrestler to complement his great promo ability. Spud and Carter are also doing a great job showing subtle friction due to their blood feud last year, and while Hardy vs. EC3 is the spotlighted feud, EC3 and Spud is a great side story.

TNA Impact Wrestling Misses

Gail Kim and Madison Rayne vs. Jade and Marti Belle: The in-ring action was passable, but this feud seems to be stretching and unnecessary. Dating since mid last year, we saw Gail Kim singlehandedly dominate Dollhouse in a handicap steel cage match. We also saw Gail Kim beat the current Dollhouse with Awesome Kong without any real help and all by herself (the Beautiful People are sadly inconsequential). Aside from those two matches, she continues to crush them at every turn. It’s cool to see Rayne pick up the win as she’s underutilized, but beating lowly Dollhouse doesn’t help. Hopefully TNA breaks up all of the Knockouts groups so they can have some singles Knockouts to work with.

Mahabali Shera and Odarg vs. Eli Drake and Jessie Godderz: The Grado and Eli Drake feud looked like it had potential last week when we got some nice referential attention and writing. Grado is also doing a good job letting his own natural charisma shine rather than trying to be an Eric Young clone. This week we took a huge step back on both Drake and Grado. Drake is back with Godderz for no reason (didn’t these two hate each other last year?). Mahabali Shera is still as green as ever. Odarg also reminds me of “Super Eric” which is going back into the Eric Young well of comedy.