BRM Reviews the 4/5/2016 Impact (bad)

[Big Red Machine]

Josh Mathews and Jeremy Borash are on commentary. We later learned that this was because Pope will be facing Lashley in a Street Fight later.

SIX SIDES OF STEEL MATCH: Jeff Hardy vs. Eric Young (w/Bram)- 6.5/10
So the big steel cage match blow-off to a feud that has been going on since their debut on Pop TV is the opener?
NO! NO! Stop this right now, TNA! There is absolutely no reason for Eric Young to be cutting a f*cking promo right now! Just get to the damn match! And why the hell is the referee even letting Bram into the cage?
Eric cut a promo saying he would murder Jeff via Piledriver off the top of the cage.
Eric and Bram beat Jeff up for a good five minutes on the outside before they actually got into the cage to start the match. Then they just kind of did stuff for a while and it was boring until they started teasing the piledriver. EY eventually hit one on a bunch of chairs but Jeff kicked out. Then Jeff made his comeback and hit Eric with a Swanton Bomb off the top of the cage and through a table for the win.

DIXIE CARTER, GAIL KIM, & MARIA HAVE A MEETING BACKSTAGE- idiotic
Remember that segment two weeks ago where Maria was supposed to get a title shot but instead she said that she had asked TNA Management if she could give up the title shot and have Dollhouse fight each other for it instead? Well apparently she was lying about having talked to someone in management… meaning that she went out onto TV, lied about having consulted with management and changed the card (including un-booking an advertised title match) without management’s approval… and NO ONE FROM MANAGEMENT DID ANYTHING ABOUT IT! And apparently last week Gail lied about talking to management when she said she had gotten approval for a #1 contendership match that she booked… and once again, NO ONE IN TNA MANAGEMENT DID ANYTHING ABOUT IT!
The whole purpose of this was so that Dixie could be angry at them and punish them by making Gail defend her title against the winners of both illegitimate #1 contenders at the same time. Gail was perfectly happy with this, so it wasn’t much of a punishment for her, and Maria gets exactly what she wants (a proxy to face Gail Kim instead of having to do it herself) so this isn’t much of a punishment for her, either. Why couldn’t they just book a f*cking triple threat title match and have that be that? Because they’re TNA. That’s why. They have their “story” that they need to tell, but of course they don’t bother to think the story through to make sure it isn’t moronic first.

JEFF HARDY PROMO- terrible.
He said the following sentence, verbatim: “Hardy’s revenge was successful.”

MATT HARDY & DREW GALLOWAY HAVE A POINTLESS IN-RING TALKING SEGMENT- terrible.
TNA wasted ten minutes having these two come out and talk at each other. They said nothing here that they haven’t said at some point over the past few weeks. The only bit of this that was in any way new was Tyrus grabbing the mic and reminding us all that he has a title shot in his back pocket because he won that horrible gauntlet match at Bound For Glory. He said that after Matt and Drew have their match, he might decide to cash in his title shot at “shock the world.” You’re not going to “shock” anyone if you TELL THEM ABOUT IT BEFOREHAND YOU BIG DUMB F*CKWAD!

POPE PROMO- awesome!

EC III TALKS TO TYRUS BACKSTAGE- he all but flat out tells Tyrus “if you try to cash in, I will screw you out of the match.” Why would you tell him this, you idiot?!

STREET FIGHT: Bobby Lashley vs. Pope- 6.5/10
Good while it lasted, which was just long enough to make us remember how great Pope can be while still letting Lashley look dominant. Lashley spears Pope two more times after the match because he’s a giant asshole. While Lashley was setting up for the second one, EC III started to slowly walk down to the ring rather than rushing to actually try to make the save like a good babyface. I have absolutely no idea why Ethan came out, but Lashley decided to back down from him.
Then Mike Bennett attacked Ethan with a chair. How much do you want to bet that the only reason they did the EC III/Lashley thing here was so Bennett could attack Ethan?

OH MY G-D THERE’S STILL AN HOUR LEFT?!

After the commercial break, Ethan is getting up from the chairshot. Bennett has apparently left so Ethan has to call him out again. He also claimed that Bennett was an EC III knock-off. I see no evidence for this whatsoever.
Maria comes out but Ethan interrupts her and demands that Bennett come out. Bennett does come out, the cuts a promo on Ethan. They trade barbs back and forth, ending in one hell of an awesome promo by Bennett. Bennett teases that he will fight Ethan right now, but then says that he will fight Ethan next week instead. Maria and Bennett head to the back but Ethan runs up the ramp after them. Bennett pulls Maria in the way to slow Ethan down but she trips so it doesn’t work. They brawl out into the parking lot, where there was a conveniently placed steel chair as well as some of those big equipment boxes for them to make use of in their brawl. There was also a conveniently placed car, with engine conveniently running and the driver’s door conveniently open so that Bennett could quickly escape in it.

SPUD & TYRUS TALK BACKSTAGE- bad. Spud is a complete and total lackey again.

TNA KNOCKOUTS TITLE MATCH: Gail Kim(c) vs. Jade vs. Madison Rayne- 5.75/10
Jade wins after Maria hit Gail with the title belt. Jade then hit Gail with an STO for the pin, which is so much lamer than the Package Piledriver which she had been using.

DREW GALLOWAY PROMO- fine.

GREG HELMS & TREVOR LEE PROMO- he wants an answer from Eddie Edwards about his offer to team with him to go after the tag team titles.

AL SNOW & BILLY CORGAN BACKSTAGE- Al apparently attacked Grado because “things have to be done a certain way” and “we can’t just open the doors and let anyone into this company.” So basically every feud Al Snow has ever had in TNA. In fact, didn’t already have this feud once WITH GRADO?
Billy Corgan says that Grado will be out for at least a month. Possibly longer. I popped huge. Billy says that Al is suspended for a week without pay and must also publicly apologize and if he doesn’t, he will be in even more trouble.

TAG TEAM DIVISION SEGMENT- great.
Eddie declines the offer, so Helms threatens to beat him up. Beer Money show up before any punches can be thrown. They say they’ll give Lee and Helms a title shot whenever they want. James Storm cut a great promo which led to Decay coming out (everyone else seems to have disappeared). Abyss and Rosemary cut promos, with Abyss finishing up by saying that “the time (for them to take the tag titles) “is near.” James Storm responded to this by saying the following: “The time is near? Where I come from it’s always Beer-thirty and Ass-kick o’clock.” I know it sounds horrid, but James Storm made it work. Decay and Beer Money then had a brawl.

MATT HARDY PROMO- great!
Also, Tyrus was sneaking up behind him the whole time. That was goofy and distracting.

BEER MONEY PROMO- great!
They want to prove that they are the best tag team in the world so they will take on all of the other teams at the same time.

TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Drew Galloway(c) vs. Matt Hardy (w/Matt Hardy Brand)- 6/10
They did a bit in the beginning where Tyrus teased joining the match, distracting Drew so that Matt could jump him from behind. Tyrus saved from losing at one point. Jeff then came out and beat Tyrus up with a chair. Drew went on to win. It wasn’t very exciting.

A bad show from TNA. Like this week’s ROH, they had a bunch of matches on this show that should have felt big but didn’t. Unlike this week’s ROH, TNA managed to completely fail to give any of those matches the time they needed… and they have a two hour show and ROH only has a one-hour show. If you cut out all of the sh*t with Tyrus, a good chunk of the Bennett vs. Ethan stuff, and that atrocious talking segment with Matt and Drew in the middle of the show, you would have found more than enough time to allow both the cage match and the world title match to deliver.

[XIV]

A major flaw in pre-taping so much at onc ...

Bobby Roode was spotted at NXT and publicised on Friday. And here he is now (but really a month or so ago) with TNA.

This sort of stuff has always bothered me. Don't know why. It just has.

[cero2k]

A major flaw in pre-taping so much at onc ...

Bobby Roode was spotted at NXT and publicised on Friday. And here he is now (but really a month or so ago) with TNA.

This sort of stuff has always bothered me. Don't know why. It just has.

this is gonna happen to everyone who pre-tapes. NXT was still showing Bullfit matches up until last week, Lucha Underground has wrestlers that have already left and stuff. I used to think the same, but now i rather not think of it because unless you're RAW, it's bound to happen

[Big Red Machine]

A major flaw in pre-taping so much at onc ...

Bobby Roode was spotted at NXT and publicised on Friday. And here he is now (but really a month or so ago) with TNA.

This sort of stuff has always bothered me. Don't know why. It just has.

this is gonna happen to everyone who pre-tapes. NXT was still showing Bullfit matches up until last week, Lucha Underground has wrestlers that have already left and stuff. I used to think the same, but now i rather not think of it because unless you're RAW, it's bound to happen

Yeah, I don't think it's such a big deal. Maybe if the guy is still your world champion or something and he has already shown up and started jobbing somewhere else, but that's about the only time I could see it maybe looking bad.