By John Moore
TNA Impact Wrestling Hits
Cody, Brandi Rhodes, and Moose: This was a nice introduction of “The American Nightmare” to TNA and definitely way more interesting than randomly getting a title shot against Eddie Edwards. Cody did something similar on ROH TV a few weeks ago when by speaking with a darker cadence in a deeper tone of voice as a heel. He also utilizes more SAT words where this week he called Moose a “perfidious slut” as opposed to just a slut. Cody’s usage of buzzwords did strike a chord with the crowd which helped this segment out. If they take their time with this one this could be the feud Moose needs to finally etch in an identity. That’s still up in the air due to Cody having such a busy schedule elsewhere, even with Anthem’s spread out taping schedule. One thing I would suggest to Moose is that really should wear a cup given that he was kicked in the balls yet again.
Jade and Rosemary: This segment was a continuation of the segment that set up the Monster’s ball match. It was a good one. I’m really a huge fan of Jade’s new look where they aren’t trying to make her look like a doll house character or Gail Kim lite. She’s also starting to look like a badass which is how she should have looked and talked like in the first place. Rosemary is good in every single promo segment I’ve seen her in and this was no exception. What I didn’t like was how we’re starting to get into Sasha Banks vs. Charlotte territory where every promo segment needs to lead to a gimmick match.
Trevor Lee vs. DJ Z: While this match was short and did suffer from lack of advertising/build, at least we got a one on one X Division match which is a nice change of pace compared to the 5-6 men spotfests we usually get. Psychology wise, everything was on point. Lee got to have a decent match. Zema was protected due to selling a leg injury. Andrew Everett got to get a nice run in to avenge Lee’s betrayal. I hope we get more one on one matches in the future that aren’t involving the X Champ. One negative, and he did this several times, is DJZ making that annoying Bro Man noise that he used to do for go away heat.
The Impact Zone crowd: We saw something in this show that we haven’t seen in what feels like years. We got a seriously involved Impact Zone that actually enhanced a segment. They were more engaged than the times where the chanted “Delete” for Matt Hardy. Even though the Sutter and Van Ness wedding was a clustermuck, the Impact Zone salvaged a terrible segment somewhat with full-on participation and creativity which is something the Impact Zone usually never shows due to them being Universal Studios tourists.
TNA Impact Wrestling Misses
Braxton Sutter and Laurel Van Ness wedding: I’m guessing TNA really banked on building their shows around the Maria character at the tail end of the tapings and this is the result we got: a pro wrestling wedding that just went on too long. Not only that, we got more skits that thankfully were not as nauseating as last week’s. This wedding ultimately seemed bush league and unnecessary. Why the hell was Aron Rex there? He was just superfluous. Brooke running out to stop Maria makes sense based on the last two weeks of story. What was weird and another indication that this was a bad segment was we got a Robbie E run in to attack Mike Bennett for some reason.
The Hardys Quest for Gold: The quest for gold looked promising when Matt Hardy did his teleportation and power transferring. This segment was ultimately a step down from last week. Last week we got Konnan, Super Crazy, and Psichosis. This week we got indie wrestler A, B, and C. We also got a video montage again as opposed to an actual match.
Tyrus vs. Eli Drake: What was the point of turning Tyrus only to have him turn back a few weeks later? I get that he is a hired gun, but why tell a story like this if they were going to just double back on it?
DCC:I’m not going to put Jessie Godderz in this Miss since he is fine even though TNA doesn’t know how to continue off his last push as a credible amateur wrestler. DCC just continue to suck. They got beat by the former BroMan. Josh Mathews pointed out that Bram and Kingston did have the numbers advantage and still got defeated by the undercard guy. DCC just DC-Sucks!
Josh Barnett vs. Bad Bones: Josh Barnett looked good in his vest as opposed to a generic white t-shirt. I felt like this should have been quick and one sided since Barnett is facing Lashley next week. Instead, Bad Bones held his own while Barnett had to fight his way to a victory.
Again, I find it funny that PW.net seems to be the only wrestling publication that’s down on the wedding segment. I’ve seen nothing but praise for it everywhere else. I’m gonna have to go with the other guys on this one. Ya’ll really need to stop taking wrestling so seriously and just let it be fun sometimes.
I thought the wedding was highly entertaining and everyone else i know thought the same thing.
Im so sick of people saying the IZ is full of tourists. Im a regular there there probably isnt more than 20 tourists in the crowd. Universal tickets are over $100, why would they spend 3 hours watching wrestling. If they are all tourists how do they know the chants? Ridiculous comments by people who have never even been there.
Everyone has a right to their opinion, but seriously, what show were you watching? The wedding segment, while unavoidably soap operaish, was very entertaining. The crowd was great, Maria was great, everyone played their parts as well as you could have expected them to. Not only that, but it furthered some other storylines and even gave us an all too rare in wrestling nowadays happy ending. If you really didn’t like it that’s fine, but this reads a bit like you’re disliking stuff just for the sake of disliking stuff.