BRM Reviews the 3/22/2016 Impact (bad. And it always will be)

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT(S)- clusterf*ck.
First Drew comes out and gives a good and heartfelt “I’m the babyface champion now” speech. I can see people being unhappy that he said he was going to “put TNA on the map again,” but I think that is a perfectly fine thing to say at this point.
Then Matt Hardy and his entire crew (minus the baby) show up. Matt overacts a lot. It was quite annoying. Matt says he wants his rematch tonight. Drew seems fine with this. Then Jeff shows up and claims that he deserves a title shot because he didn’t get beaten last week. Sorry, Jeff, but “unable to continue” means that you lost. Drew says Jeff can have a title shot. Matt cuts a good promo on Jeff.
Then EY and Bram come out and attack Jeff because that’s what always happens on Impact. Matt’s crew took advantage of this distraction to attack Drew.
There is no security anywhere in sight. Now we’re going to commercial with the heels about to piledrive Jeff through a table…
But it turns out he made a comeback during the commercial, which I am honestly okay with (this is supposed to be live and unscripted, right?). The babyfaces get cut off and beaten down again and there is STILL no security out here.
Here comes EC III with a chair to make the save and all of the heels, including the two insane and hardcore guys all run away. Ethan now cuts a promo claiming that he deserves a title shot because he never got pinned or submitted when he lost the title. Sorry, pal, but that logic doesn’t work when one of the matches you lost was a Last Man Standing match. You still lost according to the rules of the match. What Ethan is doing here is like saying “you might have put me through a table to win our tables match… but you didn’t pin me, so that totally doesn’t count as beating me!” It’s childish and stupid. Making this all worse is the fact that the same logic by which Jeff is asking for his title shot applies just as well to Ethan.
Now Bennett and Maria show up and Bennett says that he heard Ethan blame all of his trouble last week on The Miracle. When did Ethan say that? (I mean… it’s true. But Ethan never said it, so Bennett came off like an idiot here). Bennett claims he deserves a title shot because he was the guy to pin the world champion last. It took me way too long to figure out that he meant that he had pinned Drew at some point in the past rather than that he had pinned Matt.
Drew screams for everyone to shut up. Then he declares that he will fight anyone and everyone. Dixie shows up and books a #1 contendership gauntlet match with everyone out here… which includes, Spud, EY, and Bram who have no claim to a title shot, and Tyrus, who already has one in his back pocket so if he wanted a title shot, he wouldn’t need to win this.
Why do a gauntlet match, which inherently gives someone an advantage? (Duh. Because this way they can protect Ethan’s pointless streak).
I was just so sick and tired of this segment by the time it ended that I almost just stopped watching Impact right here. This all felt like your standard TNA “chaos for the sake of chaos” and “oooh. Look at our big fancy gimmick match for tonight’s show. What an important show this will be!”
If I were booking this, I would have had Matt come out to confront Drew to set up Matt’s rematch for tonight, while later in the show I would have had, Ethan, Bennett, and Jeff cut promos stating their case for why they deserve a title shot. You could have Ethan and Jeff help fight off Tyrus and Spud in the main event and have it announced that they will be getting title matches over the next two weeks (next week we’d determine that Ethan will get his first so that Jeff can have a match against EY and Jeff will take EY out to ensure that EY doesn’t ruin his title match again). Drew would retain both times, then leading to a big match with Bennett the week after Jeff’s title shot. Now you’ve got FOUR big main events to build up to over the next month, plus you don’t waste so much time on this one show on this obnoxious segment.

BEER MONEY BACKSTAGE- they joke about former TNA tag teams. Storm is clearly already completely plastered, as he suggests that they wrestle AMW, and when Roode points out to him that this would be impossible, Storm says “come on! We have to beat them to the ring!” and runs off.

BENNETT GOES TO PICK HIS ENTRANCE NUMBER- Bennett cut a GREAT promo.

TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Beer Money(c) vs. Bro-Mans- 5.75/10
This is just a one-time reunion for Bro-Mans. This was actually an open challenge open only to former tag champion teams. Here’s a sad fact: Bro-Mans were the only team that could possibly accept this challenge. The only other former tag champ pairings on the roster are The Wolves (injured) or involved either Storm (w/Abyss) or Roode (w/EY). (EDIT: the Hardys are also former champions, so I guess they were possible, too).
The match was fine for what it was. I hope that Robbie getting pinned will lead to angle where Jesse and a “better partner” (read as: E. LI. DRAKE!) will challenge for the titles.

DECAY PROMO- Not going to lie: I thought Abyss was ridiculously goofy here… but it 100% worked. Rosemary, too (although I despise her gimmick where she repeats the word “decay” at the end of her promos).

EY PROMO- not as bad as usual, but still annoying. He and Bram picked their gauntlet numbers. Willow appeared in the background, but he ran off before anyone other than EY saw him.

NO DISQUALIFICATIONS MATCH: Eddie Edwards vs. Crazzy Steve (w/Rosemary)- 6/10
Fine for a short No DQ’s match. I’m not sure why Abyss didn’t interfere, though.

MARIA PROMO- great.

DIXIE & LASHLEY BACKSTAGE- fine for what it was. This, to me, was a rare example of them building up a mystery (albeit a small one: what did Lashley want that Dixie has given him?) that actually increased my interest instead of increasing my ire.

ETHAN CARTER III & JEFF HARDY PICK THEIR NUMBERS AND CUT SOME PROMOS- fine.

TNA KNOCKOUTS TITLE MATCH: Gail Kim(c) vs. Maria Kanellis-Bennett- dumb segment.
Before the match started (but after Gail came out), Maria invited the Dollhouse out to the ring and told them to just end this embarrassment of a stable already. Marti Belle did not want to do this. Maria said that she asked TNA Management if she could give her title shot to a member of the Dollhouse… and TNA Management was apparently okay with this. So why didn’t TNA Management tell anyone about this? If they okayed this, then why did they send Gail out to the ring and not let the announcers know?

WINNER GETS MARIA’S KNOCKOUTS TITLE SHOT: Rebel vs. Jade vs. Marti Belle- 5.5/10
Maria was on commentary for this match. Things started off with Jade and Marti double-teaming Rebel until they both tried to pin her at the same time. Unfortunately, we missed big spot where they have their big argument because the idiots in the TNA production truck decided to cut to Maria on commentary right it when it became clear said important moment was about to happen. This company has been in business for almost fourteen years. This sort of thing should not be happening.
They had a bit of comedy between Marti and Jade when they had the same submission hold locked in on Rebel, which gave this match a very Dollhouse feel.
OH MY G-D STOP CUTTING TO MARIA! WE KNOW SHE’S THERE BECAUSE WE CAN HEAR HER!
Also, Maria’s presence on commentary caused everyone to completely ignore the match. The match would have been much more enjoyable without the commentary. Jade won.

MATT, TYRUS, & SPUD PICK THEIR NUMBERS- Matt was annoying, talking about their being a “conspiracy” against him. Matt drew a bad number and Spud drew a good number. Matt snatched Spud’s number from him… and Spud was completely okay with this. In other words, Spud is back to square one... except that this time around, no one will give a sh*t when he goes babyface again. TNA sucks.

MAHABALI SHERA & GRADO NEXT WEEK- stupid.
Grado says they will have a big party next week, and he will invite his “friends: Phil from Chicago, Scott from Chicago- he’s got a studio apartment, you know.” I’m guessing that Phil won’t be showing up, seeing as how he has made it clear just how disrespectful he finds it when people shout “HEY PHIL!” at him. Now Scott on the other hand… him I could actually see showing up in TNA.
Apparently Shera’s new gimmick is that he is moron, because he wants to know if Odarg will be there because Odarg owes him money. Grado seems to have no plans to pay Shera back, which shows you how good of a friend Grado is, and just makes me like him even less. Grado is still carrying the Odarg mask in his pocket because comedy.

DREW PROMO- Drew apparently came out here specifically to cut a promo announcing that there will be less talking and more action now that he is champion. You might want to rethink how you’re going about that, buddy.
LASHLEY & DREW HAVE A TALKING SEGMENT- yeah… Drew’s a total failure.
(Also, Lashley announced that he would be in the #1 contendership gauntlet. That’s quite the disappointing payoff).

#1 CONTENDERSHIP GAUNTLET MATCH- 6/10
Umm… what the hell? A TNA “Gauntlet Match” has always been a Royal Rumble that winds up as a singles match. This was just a rumble.
Pope runs in to eliminate Lashley, but he got back into the ring and Ethan eliminated him for real. I liked that. Oh look. Here is security, coming out to break up this small scuffle between Pope and Lashley. Where were you f*ckers at the beginning of the show?
The match came down to Hardy vs. Hardy, which it was WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY too early to do (and doubly so to have Jeff win). They should have save this for Slammiversary (Jeff can occupy himself with EY at this taping and Matt’s lackeys at the next).
At the beginning of this match, Josh once again brought up how Ethan has never been pinned and never submitted, and it almost made me pull my hair out. I’ve mentioned this quite a lot during the past few weeks, so I figured I would address it in more detail here:
The problem with Ethan’s “streak” is thus: While it is true that Ethan has never been pinned or made to submit, he has already lost so many one-on-one matches (cage match a few weeks ago, Last Man Standing against Matt, First Blood against Bully Ray) that it doesn’t matter anymore. It just feels hollow. The reason this didn’t happen with Joe was because Joe almost never lost one-on-one and because Joe was portrayed as the baddest of all badasses from the moment he walked into the company until he finally got beat (and for a long time after that). Ethan was a comedy joke who could barely win clean for his first year and a half.
The streak has also gone on way too long for anyone to care, to the point that it has become a detriment to the show because it feels like the only reason they are doing these gimmick matches all the time is because they want to preserve Ethan’s streak. This thing needs to end as soon as possible.

Anyway, a bad show from TNA. They’re doing the exact same crap that they have been doing for the past two years and it hasn’t gotten them anywhere. Consider any enthusiasm I had that things would be different on PopTV to be 100% gone.