By John Moore
Impact Wrestling Hits
X Division 4-Way: As most of you know, this is usually a weekly Miss for me, but for two weeks in a row the multi-man X Division match has gotten a Hit. Impact is doing a great job building a star in Andrew Everett, who is actually connecting with the crowd in a positive manner. TNA tried to do a similar storyline with Hurricane and Tigre Uno in the past, only to execute Tigre’s actual matches in the poor and homogenous fashion that was the model of the X Division for the past several years. Everett got to stand out in a handful of singles matches and in the multi man matches his high flying style stood out. It helps that Suicide has an unorthodox style, Marshe Rockett is the heavyweight, and Shane Helms was solid in playing the shameless heel. A majority of that match was the opposite of homogenous and instead built to showcase Everett as a star rather than just another guy (the only head scratching part of the match was the choreographed triple DDT spot that Impact loves to do). The flaw of the multi-man format in this case was that it made Suicide and Rockett out to be cannon fodder, but at least they are building a future star out of this.
Reno Scum vs. Laredo Kid and Garza Jr. vs. Decay: The one downside of this match is Decay, which was a really innovative TNA creation, was buried yet again. Otherwise, this was a good tag team match that protected the Garza and Kid tag team while giving Reno Scum yet another win. I’m not sure what Impact sees in Reno Scum since they are just the Oi guys, but at least they are trying to make them really credible by handing them wins.
Davey Richards vs. DJ Z: In a similar way where Impact Wrestling is building Andrew Everett into a future babyface star, Davey Richards is being built up to be a very solid heel to plug into their main events down the road. His victories over Suicide and DJ Z have done him wonders in terms of giving him some wins and not making out to be a scrub. Davey also got to look vicious by attacking the injured leg of Z, and the commentators did a good job of pointing that out
Rosemary vs. Santana Garrett: A good enhancement win for Rosemary to help build her into the dominant champion that Impact wants to present her as. The problem initially was she only really dominated one person, Jade, yet they called her one of the most dominant knockouts in history (which doesn’t ring true when Awesome Kong is probably their 2nd most well known knockout). Hopefully they keep Santana Garrett on board as she is a great overall wrestler. She’s been in TNA before and even had a run under the name “Brittany” where TNA tried to recreate the Mickie James lesbian stalker angle with Madison Rayne playing Trish Stratus’s role.
Impact Wrestling Misses
Team JB vs. Team Mathews: The returns were good and the returnees got to showcase some of their greatest hits, but I couldn’t shake the fact that Impact Wrestling’s main even program is written around the broadcast team. The creative team at Impact might be overestimating the appeal of the announce team and Mathews’s heat. This feud also lacks any motivation from both sides. What exactly do the babyfaces really care if Mathews is here or not, and why would the heels fight so hard to keep him on board? Will he become yet another one of the many unnecessary authority figures? I hope I’m not giving them any ideas.
Braxton Sutter and Allie: This act truly seems like a remnant from the Billy Corgan and Dave Lagana creative team in that the current creative team knows they have something in this act yet they don’t know what to do with it. The match against KM and Sienna was okay for what it was, but there seems to be no real end goal other than being some sort of vessel for Karen Jarrett. Kongo Kong is an interesting introduction but I’ll wait to see on that one as he’s playing a stereotype savage straight from the eighties.
Bruce Prichard: I’ll combine the EC3/James Storm voting segment into this one. This is yet another Miss from the cornucopia of unnecessary and undefined authority figures in Impact Wrestling. I’m guessing they are trying to turn EC3 heel, but he came off as well justified in his encounter with Prichard, who is in this weird tweener role with no real reason to be there. It also doesn’t help that his video wall is just a title card for his podcast, which makes it seem like his character is there to pimp his podcast.
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