Powell’s TNA Impact Hit List: Nic Nemeth and Mustafa Ali, Ace Austin, Chris Bey, and Matt Hardy vs. JDC, Eddie Edwards, and Brian Myers, Jordynne Grace and Eric Young vs. Ash By Elegance and Hammerstone

By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)

TNA Impact Hits

Ace Austin, Chris Bey, and Matt Hardy vs. JDC, Eddie Edwards, and Brian Myers: An enjoyable main event with the babyface trio getting help from Joe Hendry, who countered the involvement of Moose. It was disappointing to see JDC take another loss after losing clean to Hardy at Slammiversary. The creative team did a nice job of rebooting JDC and making him feel like a wrestler who belonged in the upper mix. As such, it’s odd to see them tear him back down by having him revert back to taking losses.

Hammerstone and Ash By Elegance vs. Eric Young and Jordynne Grace: Hammerstone got his win back after taking a clean loss to Young at Slammiversary.

Steve Maclin vs. Cody Deaner: A nice match with Maclin reverting to a heel persona and getting a bounce back win after being the first man eliminated from the TNA World Championship match at Slammiversary. Deaner’s People’s Choice continues to click as a nice mid-card act.

TNA production: They turned the lights on! The same venue hosted Slammiversary and for some reason the company failed to show off the sold out crowd by only using the ring and stage lights. I wish they would have done this for the pay-per-view, but at least they got it right for the weekly television show.

TNA Impact Misses

Josh Alexander promo: This was the segment I was most looking forward to. Alexander’s heel turn was a legitimate surprise at Slammiversary and I was anxious to hear him explain his actions. Unfortunately, they took the approach of having Alexander insult the live crowd and choose not to explain himself. Alexander got good heat from the live crowd, but it made for a disappointing television segment.

Nic Nemeth and Mustafa Ali: Nemeth made his first appearance since winning the TNA Championship and delivered a decent Hit worthy promo. Nemeth is doing really well as the big fish in a small pond role after all of his years in WWE. Ali interrupting to set up a TNA World Championship match for next week was a welcome development. But the Ali character is still too sports entertainment for my taste. It’s impossible to get caught up in what he’s doing because he always comes off like he’s playing a character, and in this case he was overly concerned with playing to the hard camera when he should have been focused on Nemeth. Don’t get me wrong, I am definitely looking forward to their TNA World Championship match next week, but that’s actually in spite of this segment that falls into the minor Miss category.

AJ Francis vs. Sami Callihan: A forgettable match with the usual outside interference that occurs during Francis matches. Francis has the gift of gab and has turned out to be a solid mid-card heel act for TNA. Callihan is cold and his zany videos are a turnoff. Callihan has had some good moments as a babyface, but he is at his best when he’s an intelligent heel who is a step ahead of his opponents.