BRM Reviews the 5/3/2016 Impact (too much Decay, not enough wrestling)

All Impact Wrestling (FKA TNA/GFW 2017) Reviews and Discussions
Post Reply
User avatar
Big Red Machine
Posts: 27378
Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 15:12

BRM Reviews the 5/3/2016 Impact (too much Decay, not enough wrestling)

Post by Big Red Machine » May 4th, '16, 02:26

LASHLEY JUMPS DREW IN A GYM- good.
He beat him up, tossed him into an MMA cage, locked the door, and went to town on him, telling him “now you’re in my world Drew.” Drew did get to fight back a bit. Also, apparently this is the official TNA gym or something because a bunch of other wrestlers got into the cage to break it up (so if this is the official TNA gym, does that mean that the purple-haired women behind Drew is Raquel? If so, how long ago was this taped?)

RECAP OF BENNETT BREAKING ETHAN’S STREAK- good.

OPENING SEGMENT- meh.
I am hereby declaring an official moratorium on wrestlers declaring themselves to be G-d (CHIKARA gets an exception if it works in their storylines, of course). We’ve hit the point where everyone has done it and it has been diluted to the point where it doesn’t mean anything and it doesn’t get any reaction aside from eye-rolling.
Bennett continued with his promo, saying that no one could beat him and that he should get a title shot. Jeff Hardy came out and they argued. They wanted to have a match so Bennett said he would go ask Dixie to book that match as the main event.
Then Jeff Hardy- ostensibly the babyface- attacked Bennett from behind. That was SOOOO stupid!
Then Bennett said “get me and ref let’s do this right now!” which just makes this whole thing even more stupid. If this is going to be your opener, why not just have Dixie come out with a ref and announce the match for right now? Why the hell would you have your babyface jump the heel from behind for no reason?

JEFF HARDY vs. MIKE BENNETT (w/Maria Kanellis Bennett)- DUD!
The match goes to a quick DQ when Lashley randomly spears Bennett. Then he attacks Bennett, too. I get what they were going for here, and I guess it had to happen in the first match so maybe giving this match a dud isn’t quite fair, but to be honest, I thought this would have been a perfect spot to give Bennett another big, clean win (Jeff is in a spot where he can take a clean loss right now, as all he is really doing is waiting for Matt to come back), so I was actually expecting a decent match here so was quite unhappy with the quick DQ. Maybe they’ll do a rematch next week and give us a real finish.

LASHLEY & DIXIE SEGMENT- Lashley says he’ll beat people up until he gets what he wants, which is a title shot. Dixie comes out and says that title shots must be earned. I’m calling bullsh*t here. How many times have we seen Dixie give people title shots either for no reason or because they attacked someone. Didn’t they do this with EY recently, where he attacked #1 contender Jeff Hardy so Dixie booked the two of them in #1 contendership match even though EY had done nothing to earn it?
Anyway, Dixie’s lecturing made this really annoying. She books Lashley vs. Bennett vs. Jeff in a #1 contendership match main event. So, what have we learned tonight, children? If you assault someone, you will get the chance to get what you want.
Then Dixie said “just to make sure everything plays out fairly, I have a very special guest referee.” When was the last time a guest referee resulted in things being 100% fair? I did some checking, and, of course, the last bunch of times there have been a special guest referee in TNA, sh*t hasn’t gone down fairly.
And then it got even worse when Dixie revealed her guest ref: Drew Galloway, a man who doesn’t like two of the three competitors in the match. Typical TNA stupid, pointless over-gimmicking.

DECAY BACKSTAGE- Rosemary says there will be a “transformation” tonight. She spits mist down Crazzy Steve’s throat. I’ll let you make your own obscene joke here. Then she asks Abyss to take off his mask. She spits mist into his eyes. I have no idea what the point of this was, and to be honest, I really don’t give a sh*t. This group comes off to me as being weird just for the sake of being weird. I’m not saying these three are not doing a fabulous job of doing exactly what they set out to do. I’m just saying that it doesn’t interest me in any way and, quite frankly, I find it to be an unnecessary waste of time on a show that already wastes way too much time as is.

DECAY IN THE RING- fine
Abyss and Steve have towels over their heads. Rosemary declares that Steve will be silent no longer, so now he just starts talking. Okay… why was he silent in the first place? He cut a promo saying that everyone else’s pain and suffering was their pleasure. Sure, buddy. Whatever gets you off?
Rosemary then talks about all of the people who have “sought to control” Abyss, and she made reference to both Dr. Stevie and James Mitchell (not by name, though), so I popped. That being said, the fact that she didn’t mention the most recent person who tried to control Abyss- James Storm, who is still very much a major part of the TNA roster- was silly. She takes the towel off Abyss’ head and now he’s got face-paint on. Abyss cut a fine promo explaining what this meant for him, but I still just don’t care. I get that this was supposed to be a big segment for them, but I just couldn’t wait for this to end.
Ah crap. It’s still going on. Rosemary says that they “banished” half of Beer Money. So that’s how we’re explaining this? Decay said “Bobby Roode, you can’t show up to the Impact Zone anymore” and everyone just went with it?
James Storm comes out and he, too, is acknowledging that Bobby Roode isn’t here anymore. If you were going to do in this direction and you really wanted to get Decay over, why not do some sort of big injury angle with Roode last week where he gets stretchered off?

So James Storm runs into the ring and immediately beats up both tag champs all by himself. That was dumb. Storm says he wants a match with Abyss, so we get…

JAMES STORM vs. ABYSS (w/Decay)- 3/10
Rosemary attacked Storm right in front of the ref but there was no DQ. Then Crazzy Steve did the same thing and there was still no DQ. Now he’s doing it again and there is still no DQ. At this point, Earl Hebner needs to be fired. Both in kayfabe and out of it (and the wrestlers in this match all need a severe talking-to). Or at the very least have Josh and Pope claim is this is a No DQs match or something (we didn’t see the official announcement, so you could definitely get away with it retconning this).
In case you were wondering, the “newly transformed” Abyss wrestles just like the old Abyss.

MARIA YELLS AT SOMEONE BACKSTAGE- she wants Dixie to sign some papers. Then she cuts a promo saying that she will show Jade what will happen to those who try to oppose Maria.

JEFF HARDY BACKSTAGE PROMO- fine.

MARIA & JADE SEGMENT- good
Maria demands that Jade lay down for her and forfeit the title. Jade won’t do it, so Maria books her against the debuting Sienna. Unfortunately, no one in the crowd knew who she was (nor did Josh or Pope) so she got no reaction whatsoever.

JADE vs. SIENNA (w/Maria Kanellis Bennett)- no rating.
This was just a short brawl. I was pretty sure this was an official match but the referee just kind of disappeared in the middle of it. Sienna left Jade saying.

BRAM BACKSTAGE PROMO- good.
He’s going to be a fighing champion.

JB INTERVIEWS ETHAN CARTER III- or not. Ethan no-shows it. Luckily for TNA, Mike Bennett shows up instead to save this from being a huge embarrassment. He cut a good promo saying he will tonight’s main event.

KING OF THE MOUNTAIN MATCH FOR THE KING OF THE MOUNTAIN TITLE: Bram(c) vs. Eli Drake vs. Jesse Godderz vs. Eddie Edwards vs. Andrew Everett (w/Gregory Shane Helms)- 4.25/10
Anyone remember about fifty minutes ago when Dixie said that you have to earn title shots in TNA? So what did any of these guys do to earn title shots?
Andrew Everett gets pinned in one minute so he’s a chump. Eddie Edwards got pinned less than two minutes after that, so he’s a chump, too. Everett got pinned again another minute later, so he’s a super extra double chump.
Eddie Edwards and Andrew Everett brawled to the back. The last two fighting were Bram and Eli Drake, which killed any suspense because Drake currently holds the Feast or Fired briefcase for a shot at the King of the Mountain Title so we all knew he wasn’t winning it here (and to remind us of that fact, he used the briefcase as a weapon in this match).

This was a completely pointless gimmick match purely for the sake of having a gimmick match. As a result of this, they had two guys get pinned in a match that didn’t go much more than five minutes (one of them TWICE), had four guys lose a title match instead of just one, asked the wrestlers to put their bodies on the line even more than normal by having a freakin’ ladder match for no reason…
Would it really have been that hard to have Bram come out and cut a promo saying he wants to be a fighting champion and defend his belt, have Robbie E. come out and accept and let them have a normal match with a clean finish?

ELI DRAKE TEASES CASHING IN HIS CONTRACT- see, this right here… this would have actually justified doing the KOTM match and having Drake in and I would have actually thought the whole thing was extremely clever… except that they have Bram get up right away and Drake runs off without cashing in, completely wasting a fantastic idea of a set-up for a cash-in and justifying all of my above criticisms.

DREW GALLOWAY BACKSTAGE PROMO- fine

MATT HARDY BACKSTAGE PROMO- a good promo, but having Matt’s reappearance happen here, in a random backstage promo with no build whatsoever, felt like a HUGE waste.

EC III & MIKE BENNETT PROMO- Ethan showed respect to Bennett, which had me pleasantly surprised. I do think it went a little too long, though.

#1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH WITH DREW GALLOWAY AS THE SPECIAL GUEST REFEREE: Jeff Hardy vs. Bobby Lashley vs. Mike Bennett (w/Maria Kanellis Bennett)- 6.75/10
A fine match until the overbooking started. Jeff getting a visual pin on Lashley was completely counterproductive. Then Decay came out to beat up Jeff Hardy because I gets this is part of their master plan or something. The spot with Lashley spearing Jeff off the steps and into the ringpost was extremely cool.
LASHLEY AND GALLOWAY BRAWL- but of course they had to because you put them in the same place by making Drew the ref. So these two brawl for the second time on this show.

I know I ranted about pretty much everything on this show, but it was actually a pretty easy show to sit through. That aside, though, this show continued the trend of their being very little wrestling per show, the pointless over-gimmicking, and a few other trends I we’ve seen on Impact recently that I really don’t like. I have a feeling that every show up until Slammiversary is going to feel similarly full of padding rather than actual substance (especially the in-ring kind).


There was only ONE match on this show that was booked in advance. What the f*ck do Dixie and Gaburick and Billy Corgan and Maria do all day?
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 11 guests