BRM Reivews the 3/21/2013 Impact

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING VIDEO PACKAGE WITH BULLY RAY- Okay. They need to stop calling this thing “the biggest hoax/ruse/swerve” or whatever in wrestling history. It is just getting annoying, and the fact that everybody saw it coming just makes them sound dumb.
Another thing that annoyed me is that Bully says that everyone is wondering “how [he] pulled it off.” No. The “how?” is obvious. It’s the “why?” that everyone wants to know.

HOGAN PROMO- Hogan comes out and says that after the Impact roster got beaten up last week, he has realized that this is a war. Yeah, you’re about eight months late to the party there, Hulkster.
Hogan then pays respect to four guys for leading the charge against Aces & Eights last week: Jeff Hardy, Joe, Angle, & Magnus. Nice of Hulk to finally realize that someone that isn’t Sting and Bully Ray has been fighting Aces & Eights.
Hogan then says that he needs for TNA to get the World Heavyweight Title back. Why? It[s not like Aces & Eights have been shown to have some evil scheme where they need the title as leverage (actually, if the writers were smart, they could explain away the plot hole of why Aces & Eights are allowed into the building when the stipulations of the match at Bound For Glory only specifically mentioned access to “the Impact Zone” by saying that Bully was using the Title as leverage and threatening to shame it unless TNA let them in… but these are TNA writers rather than competent writers, so I highly doubt that will happen).

Then Hogan’s rambling just hit its worst. Jeff pitches an idea that maybe they should actually have a match between these four to determine who should get to challenge Bully Ray rather than Hogan just picking a challenger arbitrarily. The Hulkster liked this idea. So much so, in fact, that he said “I love that idea, brother. And tonight, the best man in this ring will become the number one contender, so I’m gonna speak your words again, because I love that.” So basically, Hulk said ‘I like that idea that you just said so much that I am going to say it again right now.’ Then, after saying that doing so would “put us back on track with the best man to put in the war zone” he did just that. Crap like this is why they need to get Hulk off of the mic. His style of promos was fine for 1985, but it just doesn’t work anymore. Wrestling fans want their promos to be coherent and to not waste time. Hulk’s rambling is neither.

BULLY’S EXPLANATION, PART 2- Bully reveals that the Aces & Eights were created to help him win the BFG Series, and that therefore, the first night of the BFG Series is the night that Sting was attacked. Um… okay… but Sting wasn’t in the BFG Series, so why did you attack him? He also says that he suggested to Bobby Roode to lie and say that James Storm was the leader of Aces & Eights. Okay… but why would Bobby Roode help a group designed to win a title that he expected to win back from Aries soon and felt was rightfully his?

WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Bobby Roode & Austin Aries(c) vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Hernandez- 4.5/10
Apparently TNA is intent on giving Team No Charisma this completely unearned tag team title shot that Aces & Eights screwed up last week. Anyway, a mostly dull match aside from Hernandez using the ramp as a runway and doing his usual plancha INTO the ring

X-DIVISION RULE CHANGES- MORONIC! First of all, do they really think this whole three-way thing is a good idea when there are only FOUR PEOPLE IN THE WHOLE DAMN DIVISION?! Having four people in the whole division (at least until Sabin comes back) also makes me question the whole “if you are pinned or made to submit, you don’t get into the next title match” thing.
Another reason that I really hate that stip is that, combined with the lack of people in the division and the “3-ways only” stip is that it pretty much ensures that title shots will not be earned at all, and that if you have a title shot, all you need to do to ensure another one is to not lose.
Then we come to the weight limit. The last time they announced a weight limit for the X-Division, it didn’t even last a year before being completely ignored. So why should this one be any different?

KENNY KING PROMO-FAN-F*CKING-TASTIC (although the product placement was a bit annoying).

TRIPLE THREAT MATCH FOR THE TNA X-DIVISION TITLE: Kenny King(c) vs. Zema Ion vs. Sonjay Dutt- 4.5/10
Yup… why don’t they just go right ahead and call it the “spotfest division,” because that’s what these new rules (combined with the lack of time TNA gives it) will do.

BULLY’S EXPLANATION #3- um… if Bully wanted to use Parks as bait to force a match for the chance to get access to the Impact Zone, why would he try to scare Park off?
Then he said something that really pissed me off. He says that “no one turns their back on my brother”- *pulls up clips of Bully turning on Devon after Turning Point 2010, then screams a scream of primal rage.* Yeah, they still haven’t explained why Bully and Devon don’t hate each other from that anymore.
And boy. Bully is sure lucky that Brooke acted like a stereotypical teenage girl and wanted to date a bad-boy. If she hadn’t been a lame stereotype, Aces & Eights would have been screwed.

HOGAN & STING SEGMENT- fine

GAIL-TARYN VIDEO PACKAGE- Velvet Sky, the top female babyface, says that Taryn, the referee who attacked a competitor in the middle of a match was “calling it down the middle.”

GAIL, BROOKE, & TARYN SEGMENT- what is Taryn talking about by “taking her consequences.” She is already facing her consequences by accepting probation! The rest of the segment was good, but it should have taken place two months from now to so these two could have their first match with each other at Slammiversary.
Then Bully comes out just to tease Brooke. Sure. Why not?

BULLY’S EXPLANATION #4- more crap. Knox and Doc apparently joined Aces & Eights because they had been “wronged.” It never says by who, so I think that means they are implying that they were wronged by WWE by being released. And of course, if they were wronged by WWE, they decided that the best way to work their frustrations out would be to wait two years, then go f*ck with the closest thing WWE has to competition? COME ON!

Bully flat out admits that they had Garrett lose intentionally to Wes to help him get the Gut Check contract and that D’Lo and Taz being on the judges panel was done to ensure that he get in. Except that if you look back on it, TAZ VOTED AGAINST WES! Why the hell would he do that? And don’t say “oh, they did it so no one would get suspicious” because no one WAS suspicious!

Having Garrett deliberately job to Wes to make him look more impressive by winning his Gut Check match would have been a lot more effective if we hadn’t seen Ivelisse win her match a few weeks ago and not even get considered for a contract. Oh, and I’m pretty sure that revealing that Wes’ win over Garrett was a work might actually take away THE ONLY TELEVISED WIN WES BRISCO HAS!

Bully says that Anderson joined the group because Hogan never checked on him in the hospital after Aces & Eights jumped him. While this is a great reason for Anderson to be pissed at Hogan and Sting, it is not in Anderson’s character to then join the group that beat him up just to get his revenge on Hogan and Sting… and especially not if the group’s entire purpose is to get the TNA World Heavyweight Title around the waist of the leader of the group that attacked him and a man who Anderson has had major problems with in the past. I think it would have been a lot more in character to have Anderson come back as a loner who would fight against both Aces & Eights and the babyfaces.

Bully also said that after he was awarded the title shot he chose for all of the members aside from himself to be revealed before Lockdown, and I absolutely have to call bullsh*t on this. The only member who was revealed after Hogan gave Bully the title shot was D’Lo, and the only reason D’Lo revealed himself is that Kurt Angle was about to out him! It absolutely drives me nuts that they planned far enough in advance to have D’Lo be the judge when Wes was on Gut Check, but that they can’t be bothered to remember even approximate dates for major events in the damn storyline or to even bother trying to check their video packages for kayfabe accuracy before putting them on the air. People talk about WWE’s storylines being aimed at kids and therefore being “insulting to the fans’ intelligence,” but to me, this lack of care given to the product, events, and characters that I invest my time and emotion into is MUCH more insulting. I would rather watch a product that is aimed at a younger demographic but still makes sense than a product that says “what happens now won’t matter in a few months because we don’t think that you’ll even remember it.”

KURT ANGLE PROMO- eh.

MATT MORGAN vs. JOSEPH PARK- 3/10
Typical Joseph Park match, but not as fun now that we have seen it a few times.

JEFF HARDY PROMO- good

EVERYONE WANTS ANSWERS FROM AJ STYLES SEGMENT- eh. I really didn’t like that AJ didn’t speak the entire time because it seemed like he came out there just for the sake of standing out in the ring. I think it would have been better if he had started to say something and then Storm came out and interrupted him, and then AJ left after Storm’s promo.
One thing that I really liked in this segment was the fact that AJ left his hood on the whole time because he always made such a big deal of taking it off on the way to his ring.

BULLY EXPLAINS IT ALL SEGMENT #6- okay, this one was actually pretty good. My one gripe about that this thing is really more of an issue with the whole angle and that is that, while this explains why Aces & Eights have been such wimps whenever Bully showed up, it doesn’t fix the fact that they have been booked so damn weakly where others like Sting, Kurt, and Joe were involved.

WINNER BECOMES #1 CONTENDER TO THE TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE: Jeff Hardy vs. Kurt Angle vs. Magnus vs. Samoa Joe- 5.5/10
Just not good enough for a main event.


Overall, not a good episode of Impact, but at least it explained some things.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. I gave Hogan a pass for saying that he was now going to “empower” the TNA roster to fight Aces & Eights because I figured it was Hogan rambling and using the wrong word and that it really wasn’t what the writers wanted him to say, but Tenay should not be repeating that mistake this week. Saying that Hogan “empowered” the TNA roster to fight Aces & Eights makes no sense because it implies that they couldn’t do so before, which is obviously not true because… you know… they’ve been doing it for about eight months now.

[cero2k]

X-DIVISION RULE CHANGES- MORONIC! First of all, do they really think this whole three-way thing is a good idea when there are only FOUR PEOPLE IN THE WHOLE DAMN DIVISION?! Having four people in the whole division (at least until Sabin comes back) also makes me question the whole “if you are pinned or made to submit, you don’t get into the next title match” thing.
Another reason that I really hate that stip is that, combined with the lack of people in the division and the “3-ways only” stip is that it pretty much ensures that title shots will not be earned at all, and that if you have a title shot, all you need to do to ensure another one is to not lose.
Then we come to the weight limit. The last time they announced a weight limit for the X-Division, it didn’t even last a year before being completely ignored. So why should this one be any different?

I find it quite interesting that they set the weight limit on 230 just 10 lbs over the guy that had been built to become the new babyface of the x division Chris York. Does anyone remember what used to be the limits for the cruiserweight or the light heavyweight ??

[Big Red Machine]

X-DIVISION RULE CHANGES- MORONIC! First of all, do they really think this whole three-way thing is a good idea when there are only FOUR PEOPLE IN THE WHOLE DAMN DIVISION?! Having four people in the whole division (at least until Sabin comes back) also makes me question the whole “if you are pinned or made to submit, you don’t get into the next title match” thing.
Another reason that I really hate that stip is that, combined with the lack of people in the division and the “3-ways only” stip is that it pretty much ensures that title shots will not be earned at all, and that if you have a title shot, all you need to do to ensure another one is to not lose.
Then we come to the weight limit. The last time they announced a weight limit for the X-Division, it didn’t even last a year before being completely ignored. So why should this one be any different?

I find it quite interesting that they set the weight limit on 230 just 10 lbs over the guy that had been built to become the new babyface of the x division Chris York. Does anyone remember what used to be the limits for the cruiserweight or the light heavyweight ??

The only number I ever remember hearing was 220

[Big Bad Booty Daddy]

Didnt Brisco have a tv win over Aces & eights at Final Resolution with ANgle, Bischoff and Joe???

[Big Red Machine]

Didnt Brisco have a tv win over Aces & eights at Final Resolution with ANgle, Bischoff and Joe???

1) I'm 99% sure that they didn't get the pin
2) If they did, it automatically becomes suspect because Aces & Eights have now admitted to resorting taking falls on purpose before (as in Garrett vs. Brisco). Indeed, any offense they got in becomes suspect because the Aces & Eights guys might well have just been taking the bumps without really fighting back to, in a kayfabe sense, shine Wes and Garrett.

[Big Bad Booty Daddy]

Didnt Brisco have a tv win over Aces & eights at Final Resolution with ANgle, Bischoff and Joe???

1) I'm 99% sure that they didn't get the pin
2) If they did, it automatically becomes suspect because Aces & Eights have now admitted to resorting taking falls on purpose before (as in Garrett vs. Brisco). Indeed, any offense they got in becomes suspect because the Aces & Eights guys might well have just been taking the bumps without really fighting back to, in a kayfabe sense, shine Wes and Garrett.

Is it just me or does this story become either more and more confusing, or more and more stupid

[cero2k]

Is it just me or does this story become either more and more confusing, or more and more stupid

personally, i think that some things were not really necessary to explain, particularly things like Why DOC and Knox are there and why Wes won the match against Bischoff, it would have been enough to say that they got D'Lo as a judge. We don't need to know every single detail of the story, BRM may disagree on me with this, but some things could have been left to speculation.

[Big Bad Booty Daddy]

Yeah i know what you mean,

[Big Red Machine]

Is it just me or does this story become either more and more confusing, or more and more stupid

personally, i think that some things were not really necessary to explain, particularly things like Why DOC and Knox are there and why Wes won the match against Bischoff, it would have been enough to say that they got D'Lo as a judge. We don't need to know every single detail of the story, BRM may disagree on me with this, but some things could have been left to speculation.

Explanations needs to exist. They don't need to be elaborate, or even necessarily explicitly stated, but they have to exist. For example, all that they needed to say about Knox and Doc was some random, offhand remark by someone at any point along the line that they are "good friends of the president" or that they have always been members of the brotherhood or something like that. Seeing these guys have to get patched-in (meaning that they are relatively new to the group) combined with Bully just saying that they are "angry" doesn't really explain why they would 1) risk major kayfabe legal trouble to 2) help Bully Ray win the TNA World Heavyweight Title (because the kayfabe goal of every wrestler should be to win the top title in their division)

With Wes and Garrett... if Aces & Eights had their plan in place to stop Al Snow from getting to the show so that D'Lo and Taz could both judge Wes' Gut Check, then why did they need to have Garrett throw the match? All it does is take away Wes' only actual win.

Like BBBD said, some of the things they said here actually just make this more confusing because they close off the possibility of the simple explanations that many fans have been assuming.