By Jason Powell
TNA Impact Wrestling Hits
Cody Rhodes vignette: A terrific addition to the TNA roster and a nice push for the Bound For Glory pay-per-view. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that the suit wearing, sports car driving Cody just joined the Four Horsemen.
Allie and Maria: The sympathy for Allie is building and she continues to be one of the best characters in wrestling. Meanwhile, Maria shines on the mic as the villain. It’s amazing to think that Ring of Honor limited her to showing off her ass rather than her mic skills.
Drew Galloway vs. Eddie Edwards: Easily the best match of the Grand Championship tournament. It was so good that Galloway and Aron Rex will have a hard time topping it at Bound For Glory. It has felt obvious from the beginning that the tournament finals would feature Galloway and Rex, yet Galloway and Edwards delivered a good enough match that it was easy to enjoy despite the feeling that the outcome was inevitable. More importantly, it provided a glimpse at how entertaining the rounds format can be when the right wrestlers are involved.
Mike Bennett and Lashley vs. EC3 and Moose: Did we just become best friends? Sadly, Mike Bennett asking Lashley that question did not result in the two of them doing karate in the garage or building bunkbeds together to make more room for activities. Anyway, the main event showcased the BFG main event and one of the bigger non-title matches. The post-match angle with Billy Corgan provided some last minute hype for the BFG go-home show.
DJ Z vs. Trevor Lee: A Hit for match quality alone. It was stunning to see this match given away complete with a clean finish without any build. Yes, they set up DJ Z vs. Eddie Edwards for next week, but Lee easily could have been protected by having someone else in his position. I mentioned how crazy it seems that ROH didn’t do more with Maria when they had her under contract. At this point, I suspect I will end up writing something similar a few years from now about Lee’s TNA career.
Overall show: A good episode with everything building toward Bound For Glory and no filler content. Broken Matt and Brother Nero also had a solid segment with Decay. They have found a good balance with the Broken Matt saga in that there are weeks when it dominates the show and then weeks like this one where the Broken Universe is present, yet not overexposed.
TNA Impact Wrestling Misses
Aron Rex vs. Eli Drake: The recent flat reactions to Rex are not hard to explain. He stripped away everything about the Damien Sandow character and is now just the guy who played him on TV. It doesn’t mean the fans won’t like the guy behind the character, but there are no guarantees. At the very least, it’s going to take time for him to establish whatever his new persona is. Is it too late to turn Rex heel and return Galloway to the white meat babyface role he thrived in?
Really fun show and as usual the Broken stuff was great but we got a lot of good Bound for Glory set ups too.
Does WWE ‘own’ the Rhodes name? Is that why it’s apparently just Cody? I don’t know much about him myself as kinda gave up on WWE in the past few years or so but he’s appearing in two of my regular shows (Impact and Arrow) and of course I saw plenty of his dads’s work in WWF when I was growing up so I’m keen to see what he can do in TNA. 🙂