BRM Reviews the 7/28/2016 Impact (atrocious)

[Big Red Machine]

Finally! Brackets and an explanation of the Bound For Glory Playoff. Could they really not spare the fifteen seconds to do this last week?

OPENING SEGMENT- horrible.
Matt summons Jeff. Jeff was actually moving his mouth in time with the words to his new Matt Hardy-sanctioned entrance music. Matt orders Jeff to help him beat EC III tonight. Didn’t we just see this same thing last year with Jeff as Ethan’s slave? Also, Matt has now publicly declared his intention to have someone interfere on his behalf in tonight’s match. Why doesn’t Dixie come out and ban Jeff from ringside. Surely if she’ll do it in a freakin’ steel cage match where it shouldn’t even be necessary, she’ll do that in a regular match as well, right?
Jeff says that if Matt is so great, he should win on his own, or maybe get Senior Benjamin or Vanguard 1 to help him. This would have been great if he had just left it at “if you’re so great, win on your own.” Babyfaces should not encourage cheating.
Matt says that Jeff MUST do as he commands. Matt then gestures up and down Jeff’s body and says “I own what is left of you: your intellectual property.” Once again: he said this after gesturing at Jeff’s BODY. It is now quite clear to me that Matt Hardy has no idea what the word “intellectual” means. Oh, who am I kidding? That’s been pretty clear for weeks now.
Ethan comes out, and Matt gets right in his face... and makes a series of goofy faces and noises that seem designed solely to make anyone who sees them burst into laughter. Then Ethan cut a goofy promo mocking Matt, then cut an even goofier one while talking about the tactics Matt could try to use against him that would fail. Yeah. Because f*cking comedy is how we build up a match in a tournament to determine who will main event the biggest show of the year. Do you guys remember that time in the G1 last year when AJ and Tanahashi played patty cake before their match? No? Me neither. Because THEY’RE SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW NOT TO DO IT!

BOUND FOR GLORY SERIES SEMI-FINAL MATCH: Ethan Carter III vs. “Broken” Matt Hardy (w/Jeff Hardy/Brother Nero & Reby Sky)- 5.5/10
Matt and Ethan were having a perfectly fine match with Matt working over Ethan’s ankle and showing his craziness with a lot of biting, but then the standard TNA overbooking got in the way. Reby gave Jeff a hammer (like the one they used last week to beat… whoever Matt beat. I watched the show two days ago and I don’t even remember. That’s how unimportant this tournament has felt) then distracted the referee. Jeff eventually did slide the hammer towards Matt but it was during a double-down so Matt and Ethan struggled over it. Matt got control of the hammer but the ref saw it and took it away from him… and while the ref was putting the hammer away, babyface EC III picked up… some unidentifiable mass that was sitting in the corner of the ring and hit Matt with it to pick up the win. Was Ethan cheating here really necessary? Is there some reason he couldn’t have just hit his finisher and won clean like a respectable, rule-abiding hero?
Then, with total seriousness, Josh Mathews said the following: “All of Matt Hardy’s shenanigans and ploys and schemes didn’t work tonight against EC III. No Vanguard 1. No dilapidated boat. No senorita.” If your announcer is saying things like this, you’ve taken a MAJOR wrong turn.

MARIA, ALLIE, & MADISON RAYNE BACKSTAGE- bad.
Even Maria finds Allie highly annoying. After turning heel last week, Madison is now back to acting like a babyface, putting Gail over and insulting Allie and Sienna. Madison wants to know what Maria will do for her if she beats Gail Kim. Well, Madison, if you respect Gail so much and don’t like Maria and her crew, maybe you should have asked this question BEFORE you jumped Gail from behind?

MATT YELLS AT JEFF BACKSTAGE- meh.
Matt blames Jeff for the loss. He wants Jeff to become “broken” like him. I don’t like this at all, but at least it has some sort of direction to it now.

IF GAIL WINS SHE CAN NEVER CHALLENGE FOR THE KNOCKOUTS TITLE AGAIN, AND MADISON WILL GET A SPECIAL REWARD FROM MARIA: Gail Kim vs. Madison Rayne- 4.5/10
The big grudge match with important stipulations the week after the big turn… and they don’t even get entrances. The match was given five minutes. They did a very good job for such a short match, but it didn’t do anything to make this turn feel like it mattered one bit. Gail wins clean (as we all know she would), so I guess the feud is over. Now that she has turned heel, Madison has… only Jade to feud with, and Jade is already involved in a feud with Marti Belle and also looking for a shot at Sienna’s title, so I doubt we will be seeing Madison on TV again for a while.

MIKE BENNETT & MOOSE PROMO- good.

ROSEMARY AND BRAM MEET UP ON A PATH IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FOREST- Yes really. Most of Rosemary’s facepaint is off. She refers to this place as “the Place of Secrets.” It is apparently the place where they first met. There is piano music playing the background. We get fade out, and then fade in on Rosemary’s origin story. Playing the role of Rosemary as a little girl is 100% adult Courtney Rush. This was extremely creepy. I know that’s the point, but it wasn’t, like… scary-creepy, where it made me afraid of what this Rosemary character is capable of doing because of how deranged she is. It was just visually disturbing.
Her cat got sick, so she gave it to her mother, who was played by a much less visually disturbing Courtney Rush. Her mother promised her that her cat would get better, but instead her mother killed the cat and threw it in the garbage. Young Rosemary couldn’t concentrate on her studies because she was worried about her cat, so she decided to go on a walk. While on her walk, she decided to look in the garbage can because I guess she was already weird before the trauma of seeing her dead cat in the garbage.
She was so sad that she climbed up a tree to think about things. She was also so sad that she started to bang her head on the tree trunk (or maybe she just got distracted, I’m not sure) and she fell out of the tree. When she woke up, the tree was talking to her. The tree is named Montgomery and she thinks it’s her brother. It taught her to listen to the voices in the forest, and taught her about their magic. In other words, she hears voices in her head. They talk to her. She understands.
We then fade out to Bram and Rosemary, and Bram says “to be honest, darling… I’m a little bit confused at what’s going on here, to be honest. You know what I mean? You’re talking about your brothers that don’t exist and… and… bloody… dead cats, and… uh… you know… you talk to trees and things and… I’m a little bit put out by all of this, you know what I mean? I’m a little bit confused.”
I feel ya, buddy. I feel ya.

Rosemary responds “I didn’t bring you out here to tell you about them. I’m brought you out here to tell you what happened in there.” She points to a dilapidated shed in the background and ominous music starts to play. Then we fade to black.

A few thoughts here:
1. You’re not Lucha Underground, so don’t try to be! Their style works because they stick to it 100%. You can’t go back and forth like this. You’re either a traditional wrestling show like WWE/ROH/New Japan etc., or you’re Lucha Underground where you’re a traditional TV show that happens to be about a wrestling promotion, and you can have things like flashbacks or a musical score. You can’t switch back and forth like this.

2. TNA seems to have fallen prey to this fallacy that in order to be a rich, interesting, and fleshed-out “character” you need to have some wacky backstory that must be told. Look at some of the most fleshed-out and well-developed characters in wrestling in the past twenty-five years or so, since TV watchers started putting a lot of emphasis on being a well-developed character: Jimmy Jacobs, Raven, CM Punk. Being well-developed is not about crafting some complicated backstory. It’s about setting an easy premise and showing us how the character reacts to situations because of this premise. How the character might change- or resist changing- over time. Showing us WHY Rosemary is crazy is worthless if it doesn’t play into her actions in some sort of way that you can point your finger at and draw connections to.

MOOSE (w/Mike Bennett) vs. DAVID STARR- squash
Moose is using a Discus Rainmaker (“the Gambreaker”) as a finisher… because I guess the idea of two huge bald black guys who both use the spear feuding against each other isn’t something TNA sees money in. Yeah, that sounds like TNA.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Lashley comes out. Josh Mathews teases that we’ll get the fight we’ve been waiting for... and we head into a commercial… and when we come back, they’re just having a stare-down in the ring. They tease the match, but Bennett says it won’t happen now because he needs Moose to watch his back during his Bound For Glory Playoff match later. Moose wants to fight Lashley, but eventually listens to Bennett. Lashley cuts a great promo on Moose, saying “one day your mommy is going to let you come out and play.” He also called Moose a b*tch, but Bennett got Moose to back down.

SECOND LASHLEY PROMO- he says he wants every singles title. DJ Zema Ion comes out, and apparently he won the #1 contendership match at Destination X. I had completely forgotten that that match even happened. He wants his title shot right now. He also said Lashley wasn’t an X-Division guy and can’t do X-Division stuff… so Lashley said he would let DJZ pick any match he wants, and he’d still kick his ass! Lashley was SOOOO great here.

DJZ wants a ladder match, so they set one up and they’re having it right now. Yeah. No need for anyone in authority to approve a gimmick match for a title or anything.

LADDER MATCH FOR THE TNA X-DIVISION TITLE: Bobby Lashley(c) vs. DJ Zema Ion- 6.5/10
Too short what should have been a big match, but I really liked the story they told: Lashley purposely trying to keep the ladder out of the way and win a regular match, so that he could then climb the ladder at his leisure. I wish the finish had reflected this more. Hell… I wish the only time Lashley had climbed the ladder at all was the finish.

DREW & ETHAN BACKSTAGE- Okay. We get it. They’re going to meet in the finals. Can we stop these segments now? Please?
Drew is worried about Moose interfering. Ethan offers to help, but Drew says “every time you try to help me you screw it up. I want you to stay away.” At least this part was good.
Also… Dixie bans Moose from Bennett’s match last week… but not this week?

MORE CRAP WITH BRAM AND ROSEMARY- please MAKE IT STOP!
Rosemary has a flashback. She’s talking to the tree, who tells her that her lover will come. “Johnny” didn’t come, so she wrote him a letter, which she signed in her own blood because she’s crazy. She stuck the letter in the tree so that “Johnny” would see it if he comes by.
She did some magic ritual and learned the Johnny would come tomorrow. He did. She told him she loved him, and then he did… something to her. She is having trouble saying what it is, but the picture implied that at the very least he molested her.
Bram has been very understanding and patient throughout this whole thing… which completely contradicts his character. Rosemary said that they have to go into the shed so that the ghosts can tell Bram what happened. Now they’ve got a f*cking outro graphic for this crap with a “to be continued.”

FACT OF LIFE WITH ELI DRAKE- meh
No entrance for this, either. Thankfully, he did exactly what she should have done, which was address Lashley’s comments from earlier. He starts to cut a good promo on Lashley when James Storm interrupts him like a dick. Storm seems to be under the impression that being the King of the Mountain Champion means you deserve to be #1 contender. Oh come on! That belt hasn’t even meant sh*t, and has been treated like a jobber belt since the moment it was created.
First James Storm notes that he should get a title shot because they had a title match a few weeks ago and Drake intentionally got DQed. Then he switches gears and buries Drake for drinking water instead of beer. Then he talks about Drake wasting his potential or some such. Storm asks for another title shot, but Drake says he won’t give him one, so Storm implies that Drake’s mother is cheating on his father with Storm’s father. That was WAY uncalled for, don’t you think?
Eli Drake reacts in a goofy manner, but then lays out a challenge for Storm: He’ll put his title on the line, but if Storm loses, he not only can never get another title shot, but he also can’t ride the Boozer Cruiser, use his entrance music, or drink beer ever again. Yeah… I don’t see James Storm losing this match. Storm walked off. Drake tried to attack him from behind but Storm sensed it coming and got the advantage, but then Drake hit him with a low blow and laid him out with his finisher.
These two are usually very good together, but the incoherence of Storm’s promo hurt this segment, as does the ridiculously one-sided stipulation.
This segment also exposes one of the things that really bugs me about TNA: Storm has an extremely legitimate claim to a title shot… so where the f*ck are Dixie Carter or Billy Corgan to book it? The authority figures are supposed to be babyfaces, but they are used so infrequently that it seems like they only care about certain wrestlers, which would usually make them heels.

GRADO & SHERA BACKSTAGE- bad.
Shera is pissed because he got jumped from behind last week. Grado calls Tyrus to help them, but apparently Tyrus won’t help them because they’re broke and don’t have any more money. There is going to be a match next week or something.

We cut to Josh Matthews, who starts talking about the BFG Playoff, but Josh is interrupted by something happening backstage. Not only are Bro-Mans and Decay brawling, but apparently they have a MONSTER’S BALL FOR THE TNA WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES, THAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT. I don’t remember the last time these two teams were even MENTIONED on TV… and here we are with a f*cking gimmick match for the tag titles, and they did literally nothing to build it up. Not even mention it.

MONSTER’S BALL MATCH FOR THE TNA WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES: Decay(c) vs. Bro-Mans (w/Raquel)- 5.5/10
We join the match already in progress with weapons already all over the place. We’ve been watching this match for barely a minute now and they’ve already gotten out the thumbtacks. A minute later and Abyss has taken a bump into them.
Look… these guys tried REALLY hard. They really did. But everything about this feud, from the booking, to the promos and characters involved, to the presentation of this on TV has made me just plain not give a sh*t about this. Even as they’re taking bumps into tacks and onto barbed wire. And it’s not even their fault.
Also, why the f*ck did the babyfaces need their manager to run in and hit a low blow? That’s heel stuff. Even in a no DQs match. It might be legal, but it’s still heelish. And they still lost. And if I remember correctly, wasn’t the whole thing with Bram that Steve and Abyss were upset that Rosemary was spending too much time with Bram and neglecting them, thus causing them to lose? So doesn’t having them win here despite Raquel getting involved completely fly in the face of that?

BOUND FOR GLORY PLAYOFFS SEMI-FINAL MATCH: Drew Galloway vs. Mike Bennett (w/Maria Kanellis Bennett)- 6/10
Moose jumps Drew from behind during his entrance. Bennett controls the match. It’s TNA, so of course there is a ref bump. Visual pinfall for Drew. Moose takes Drew out. Drew kicks out because of the slow referee count. Then the ref passes out again because I guess he exerted himself too much while counting or something. EC III runs in to take out Moose. Bennett tries to hit Drew with a Kendo stick but EC III stops him. Ethan then swings at Bennett but accidentally hits Drew, which causes Drew to lose. This finish would have worked a lot better if they hadn’t telegraphed it earlier.

I’ve always said there is nothing wrong with your stories being predictable if the story you’re telling is a good story and you’re telling it well, but with the Bound For Glory Playoffs it really feels like they’ve gone out of their way at every single step to make it abundantly clear what is going to happen. Good predictable is when I figure out what is going to happen because the general direction of your story leads me to that conclusion. This is basically TNA putting a slide up on the screen telling me exactly what is going to happen next. That is very much bad predictable.

Another terrible show from TNA. If they took all of the time they wasted on dumb sh*t with Matt Hardy or Rosemary and spent it on wrestling or hyping up matches, maybe things on this show would actually feel important. None of the BFG Playoff matches have hit the ten minute mark, and we’re already up to the finals. There was no follow up whatsoever from Eddie Edwards after his big loss last week, and no follow up of any sort on Lashley’s clear attempt to attack him after the match. No follow-up on Jade and Marti, and nothing from Dixie calling Maria out for playing favorites to Gail and Jade’s detriment. Meanwhile, the follow-up we do get with Madison is ass-backwards, and when it comes to the tag title match, TNA (not the wrestlers, but TNA themselves) literally did nothing right.