BRM Reviews the 6/20/2013 Impact

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- Hogan wastes time listing off the credentials of Roode and Hardy (as if we didn’t already know them). He managed to remember the “Series” in Bound For Glory Series this week, but he once again forgot the “charismatic” in charismatic enigma... or not. He just forgot “Series” twice. Either that or Bound For Glory will be a months-long even that starts tonight.
We learn that Jeff Hardy won the fan-poll, then Aries and Daniels start cutting promos about why Hardy shouldn’t call them out before Jeff does what we all knew he would do and call out Roode (because that’s what last week’s segment built to). Roode shoves Hardy into Joe, so Joe shoves Roode… and then everyone else all just start fighting for no damn reason (aside from Anderson, who does the smart thing and bails). The whole thing just felt like a pointless, contrived reason for a lame schmoz.

We get new point-scoring metric for the BFG Series:
Submission win: 10 points
Pinfall win: 7 points
Countout win: 5 points
DQ win: 2 points
Draw: 2 points
DQ Loss: -10 points

Maybe this has happened in previous years but I just haven’t noticed it, but I really don’t like the fact that a DQ win is worth as much as a draw. A win is a win and should be worth more points than not winning.

BFG SERIES MATCH: Mr. Anderson vs. Joseph Park- 4.5/10
Anderson gets help in the form of a distraction from Doc. Yes Doc. The same Doc who was pissed about having to lose this BFG Series spot to Anderson just last week.


ACES & EIGHTS BACKSTAGE- oh. Wait. Now they are angry at each other again. Apparently both want to be the VP. I would assume that Doc blew his chances at that when he proved that he wasn’t a team player by not following the plan last week. Bully then shows up and tells them to stop arguing because they will decide who will be the new VP democratically.

BFG SERIES MATCH: Austin Aries vs. Jay Bradley- 4.5/10
Bradley looked pretty good here.

STING PROMO- he is dressed in a suit with no facepaint, just like in the MEM days he says the new Main Event Mafia will grow tonight.

STING RECRUITS A SHADOWY FIGURE BACKSTAGE- Sting asks if this person is willing to be in "again," so I assume that means it is Kurt. What really bothers me about this, though, is the camera shot style. The camera man is willing to blatantly shove his camera to record private conversations in the women's locker room or the bosses office, but when he is in a public backstage area he won't move his camera so he can see who Sting is talking to? I get that it is a dramatic device, but it is a poorly done one. It would work just as well to have Sting shoo him away so that we know he is talking to someone, but not who.

BFG SERIES MATCH: Hernandez vs. Christopher Daniels- 4/10

BFG SERIES MATCH: Kazarian vs. Magnus- 4/10
Kaz's pre-match promo was great.

BULLY RAY & HULK HOGAN BACKSTAGE- snore

KNOCKOUTS SEGMENT- Brooke spouts off the same crap she has been saying for the past two months about being proud of the Knockouts and "how far we've come" etc. etc. She asks for the Knockouts to come out and here her State of the Knockouts Division Address. Tara and Tessmancher (you know, the two who haven't been regularly featured on TV all year don't show up, but that is not even mentioned.
The first thing she does is ask EY and ODB to hand over the Knockouts' Tag Team Titles based on a conversation she and EY had "about a year and a half ago." SO WHAT THE F*CK TOOK YOU SO LONG TO GET AROUND TO DOING THIS?! EY and ODB then surrender the belts so were so happy to win last year without even an attempt to argue because they would rather roll around the ramp and make out.
Brook then does the standard Hogan family babyface authority figure thing where she shoves her head so far up a babyface's ass it need to be surgically extracted. She says that Velvet will have her rematch next week, and when TNA gets to Vegas, Gail and Taryn will have a ladder match for no reason. HOORAY SH*TTY BOOKING! Once again, the only thing even close to enjoyable about this segment was Mickie James.

HOGAN SENDS BROOKE HOME- Now that she has given her speech, Hogan tells Brooke that she has to go back to the hotel. SHE'S TWENTY-F*CKING-FIVE YEARS OLD! SHE'S A GROWN WOMAN! You can't just boss her around like she is thirteen, Hulk!

BFG SERIES MATCH: AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe- 6/10
Good match and good stuff afterwards, too. Tenay claims this was a fifteen minute time limit draw, but I'm almost certain this was ten. Oh, and Christie needs to get better at her job. Who the hell starts a countdown at six?

BULLY CALLS BROOKE- well... I guess Brooke is coming back. And I guess she is fine having a normal conversation over the phone with her ex-husband who screwed and used her and her family.

HOGAN & THE X-DIVISION GUYS BACKSTAGE- Hogan tells us that Social Media is all over a match we are just now hearing about for the first time. Despite that whole thing about "if you lose an X-Division Title match, who have to win a qualifier," we are getting a rematch with the same three guys from Slammiversary.

BFG SERIES MATCH: Jeff Hardy vs. Bobby Roode- 5/10
Very good for just five minutes, but there is no reason why the main event should only last five minutes.

STING & BULLY RAY SEGMENT- HORRIBLE! This was just plain boring. It turns out that someone beat up the three Aces & Eights members who weren't sent to get Brooke. That someone turns out to be Kurt Angle, who jumps Bully from behind and puts him in the Angle Lock. The Bully-Brooke stuff never happened, though, and while you might think I'd be happy about that, it means that we will likely get it next week, so I'm not.

Another bad episode of Impact. I hate the BFG Series because it feels like it dominates the entire show and that they try way too hard to squeeze six BFG Series matches into the show (reducing the time and quality of all of those matches). I hate Open Fight Night because it always feels redundant. Guy A calls out Guy B and they have a match. Then Guy C calls out Guy D and they have a match. Together, these two concepts are insufferable. Guy A calls out only gone of 11 other possible guys (despite the OFN rules stating you can call out anyone you want), then they have a match during which the announcers put over everything related to the BFG Series (the standings, how important submission wins are, etc.) Then one of the ten remaining guys comes out and calls out someone else and the process repeats itself, with the announcers putting over the same concepts all night.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Taz (about Anderson) “the man missed a big front flip”
So Taz doesn’t know the name of one of the finishers of his good buddy and stablemate? Oh, and to make matters worse, Taz would later explain to us that when Jay Bradley said he would hit Aries with "the Boomstick," that meant his lariat finisher. SO Taz knows the name of the finisher of the guy who has barely ever been on Impact before, but not the guy who has been one of the company's top stars for the past three and a half years.

2. Taz first says that Bradley's finisher is a lariat, but then later says it is a clothesline. There is a difference between the two. A good announcer knows the difference... or at least knows that there is a difference.

[badnewzxl]

1. You're dead on about the KO's Tag stuff; they coulda at least tried to pawn it off on EY being away for his Animal Planet show, not some bs meeting that went down and was never followed through on. I mean, ODB's been there, why was she still saying they were the KO Tag champs if this convo had occurred?

2. Brooke and Bully are STILL married; remember, Bully said he'd never divorce her.

3. That ending segment was awful. Sting is an idiot "yeah, I need a new group to watch my back. I know, I'll reform the group I started that ended up KICKING ME OUT, and I'll reveal the first guy tonight!....the guy who totally took my spot the first time" smh. I smell Rampage coming soon; but they're gonna have to make a MAJOR acquisition if they expect the new MEM to actually draw. I thought RVD coulda been a guy, but that was before I realized he was going back to WWE...

4. I wish the BFG Series matches were better; Joe v AJ was good, but that show needed a GREAT BFG Series match, esp when you have (in addition to Joe v. AJ) Hardy v. Roode. If they aren't gonna have ppvs monthly, they need to start giving us more high quality matches on tv. Their storytelling is so horrendous at times, they need that work rate to keep ppl from changing the channel. If they're gonna have those BFG matches, they need to put n end to all this crap with Hulk and Brooke and Sting and Dixie coming out to the ring to make an announcement; do that on the website and let the powers that be and Aces & Eights do the storytelling in those pre-taped backstage segments (which I like bc they waste WAAAAY less time; I almost threw up last week when Hogan wasted time doing a promo at the beginning of the show, with that lame ass Voodoo Child reference. It spoke volumes about him....

[cero2k]

1. You're dead on about the KO's Tag stuff; they coulda at least tried to pawn it off on EY being away for his Animal Planet show, not some bs meeting that went down and was never followed through on. I mean, ODB's been there, why was she still saying they were the KO Tag champs if this convo had occurred?

3. That ending segment was awful. Sting is an idiot "yeah, I need a new group to watch my back. I know, I'll reform the group I started that ended up KICKING ME OUT, and I'll reveal the first guy tonight!....the guy who totally took my spot the first time" smh. I smell Rampage coming soon; but they're gonna have to make a MAJOR acquisition if they expect the new MEM to actually draw. I thought RVD coulda been a guy, but that was before I realized he was going back to WWE...

What i find troublesome here is that they took the titles on tv, like reminding us they exist and so we should expect those titles to be given to someone else in the future, which is the thing i don't wanna see. I would have been perfectly ok if they just killed them behind the scenes to never be talked about again.

Only thing i thought about this was that 'was angle the guy that didn't come out to help you?'
Also, didn't hogan say something during the show about three new guys coming in? i think i heard something like that.

finally, i find it kinda good that wwe and tna are indeed trying to up one another with their women's divisions, but a ladder match with Taryn and Gail makes no sense. that feud needs to continue in the ground, and Mickey vs Velvet needs to escalate to a ladder match by BFG. especially if they keep the whole velvet injury thing.

[Big Red Machine]

What i find troublesome here is that they took the titles on tv, like reminding us they exist and so we should expect those titles to be given to someone else in the future, which is the thing i don't wanna see. I would have been perfectly ok if they just killed them behind the scenes to never be talked about again.

Same here. You can't have tag titles and a siongles title in a division that only has six women.

Only thing i thought about this was that 'was angle the guy that didn't come out to help you?'
Also, didn't hogan say something during the show about three new guys coming in? i think i heard something like that.

I know, right?!

finally, i find it kinda good that wwe and tna are indeed trying to up one another with their women's divisions, but a ladder match with Taryn and Gail makes no sense. that feud needs to continue in the ground, and Mickey vs Velvet needs to escalate to a ladder match by BFG. especially if they keep the whole velvet injury thing.

This is pretty genius. I'm really jealous that I didn't think of it.

[Big Bad Booty Daddy]

One thing I don't get is if nobody came out to help Sting why would he recruit from the roster if nobody helped him in the first place

[Big Red Machine]

One thing I don't get is if nobody came out to help Sting why would he recruit from the roster if nobody helped him in the first place

Because this is TNA and it makes no sense.

[Big Bad Booty Daddy]

One thing I don't get is if nobody came out to help Sting why would he recruit from the roster if nobody helped him in the first place

Because this is TNA and it makes no sense.

That's true, I find this will be an epic fail but I guess TNA would have to pay WWE to bring the nwo back