BRM Reviews the 9/8/2016 Impact (Delete vs. Decay vs. BRM)

[Big Red Machine]

In addition to Señor Benjamin reading us the “please don’t try this at home” speech in Spanish, we got assurances that “no animals were harmed in the documentation of this invasion.” OH F*CK THEY HIRED DISCO INFERNO TO BOOK!

We start off with Reby playing piano while someone sings an operatic version of Jeff’s theme song while we see Señor Benjamin digging graves in the woods in front of some sort of goofy symbol that isn’t one of the Hardys’ symbols.

Next we have Matt explaining that he, Jeff, and Reby “are here to do an exercise to get in touch with our primal insteeencts.” He then orders Señor Benjamin to “prepare the bazooloozu for visitation.”

THE SHOW IS BACK TO NORMAL! IT’S A MIRACLE!

MIKE & MARIA CUT A PROMO-
Now that she is the Knockouts Champion, Maria’s cast is back on her “injured” wrist, because she’s an awesome cowardly heel.
Bennett says that Moose is gone because he fired him. Isn’t Moose a TNA employee? That seems pretty dangerous for TNA to let a non-contracted wrestler run around attacking their talent (from a liability standpoint). Then Dixie Carter came out to argue with Bennett, and at one point said the following:
“You love to come out and talk about how much you know about this business, but I seriously question sooo many decisions that you make, and how good they are for this company.”
I fell out of my chair laughing when she said this. I was literally ROTFLOL. I cannot remember the last thing I laughed quite this hard at. The sheer lack of self-awareness is STAGGERING! This would be like… like Hogan complaining that Inoki won’t do a clean job!
Also… what decisions has Bennett made on behalf of TNA? He has never had any power. And he’s not a company executive, so it’s not his job to do what’s best for TNA. His job is to do what is best for Mike Bennett (within the rules, of course). Dixie announces that she has signed Moose to a TNA contract, and booked him to face Bennett at Bound For Glory. Yeah… this one probably won’t be so good.
Moose comes out and sets up for Go To Hell on Bennett but Maria distracts him, allowing Bennett to escape.

MIKE & MARIA ARGUE WITH DIXIE BACKSTAGE- terrible
Bennett refuses to face Moose, so Dixie threatens him by saying that “I will breach your contract.” Um… if Dixie is the one doing the “breaching” doesn’t that mean that she is the one doing the wrong? Isn’t Dixie supposed to be a businesswoman, and the owner of a company with many employees? You’d think she’d know the correct terms to use but apparently not. Also, no one else in TNA caught this mistake. There is no reason for this not to have been re-shot.
Dixie is also angry about how Maria won the Knockouts Title last week. Well then WHY DIDN’T YOU F*CKING DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT?! This is probably the single thing in TNA that irritates me the most: authority figures seem to only have the power (or worse, the will) to do something when it services the plot. When the plot wants the heel to get away with something like what Maria did last week, though, the babyface authority figures are nowhere to be seen.
So apparently Dixie Carter and Billy Corgan went to the TNA “Board of Directors” and decided that it was a conflict of interest for Maria to be both the champion of the division and be in charge of the division, so as long as she is champion, she will have no power. Why should the conflict of interest only be there is she is champion? Even if she isn’t champion, she could still set up matches that are favorable for her (like MVP did), or give herself a million title shots in a row or something like that. And shouldn’t this argument have been able to stop MVP’s reign of terror? Or Maria’s several months ago?
And if the Board of Directors is so f*cking concerned about this sort of thing, why haven’t they punished Matt Hardy for attacking a fan or Decay for MURDERING BRAM?
Then Dixie says that Maria will defend the title at BFG (yeah, let the undeserving champion hold onto the belt for a month without defending it) and her challenger will be determined next week. Wasn’t the whole reason Maria’s job was created because Dixie and Corgan were too busy to book the Knockouts? So why does Dixie suddenly have the time to book a match for next week? Or more to the point: booking that match took Dixie about six seconds… so why did they even need Mara to begin with?

GAIL KIM & JADE vs. ALLIE & SIENNA- 4.5/10
So we actually saw Gail come out before the commercial break, and then we got the backstage segment. I know it’s a nit-pick, but I’d rather they not have any interruptions other than commercial breaks between the first entrance and the start of the match. Shouldn’t the camera be on the ring to show us the entrances? And what was going on in the ring while the backstage segment was taking place. Were they really playing Gail’s music for five and a half minutes?

A fan at the top of the ramp put a hand out for Allie to slap and Allie got so excited, but Sienna yanked her back and Allie was sad. That was great.
The story here was that Allie was excited to wrestle but Sienna has finally learned her lesson and refuses to tag the little f*ck-up in. Sienna and Gail started off with an exchange that resulted in Sienna retreating to her corner, where Allie tagged herself in… and then immediately got charged by Gail and ran out of the ring. Sienna grabbed her and yelled at her, then tagged herself back in. She proceeded to wrestle the whole match by herself, getting the best of Gail for quite a while. Gail made her comeback and they did a double-down… and as Gail crawled towards her corner and Sienna towards hers, Sienna looked up and realized who her partner was, punched the canvas in frustration, got up, and did her best to stop Gail from tagging in. That was so great.
Gail eventually made the tag to Jade and got the best of Sienna. At one point Allie managed to make a blind tag without Jade noticing and while Jade was setting up for the package piledriver, Allie climbed to the top turnbuckle to go for a flying double axe-handle… but Jade just moved out of the way and Allie hit Sienna, who started to scream at her while Allie kept trying to tell her it was an accident. One or two moves later, Sienna just said f*ck it, got in the ring and then nailed Allie with the Silencer and let Jade pin her. Great storytelling, and Jade and Gail were good babyfaces checking on poor Allie after the match.

BORASH & CORGAN HAVE A POINTLESS, ANNOYING SEGMENT- this was one of those TNA segments where they do a backstage segment just for the sake of someone plugging a promo they are going to cut in the ring after this commercial break. This one was worse than usual for two reasons. 1) Billy Corgan came across like a complete and total tool, and insisted that this announcement would change wrestling forever. 2) Borash always has to be Borash so they waste time with Borash constantly asking Corgan what the announcement is, even after Corgan told him "I’m not going to tell you what it is right now." These two were so annoying I was hoping that all of the oxygen on the room would magically transform into sarin so I wouldn’t have to put up with them ever again.

HARDYS BULLSH*T- after that last segment, G-d apparently thought that I need a painful reminder that things can always get worse.
They are in Matt’s “personal zoo” where he claims to have collected the animals with the greatest souls or some such nonsense like that, and Matt says that his soul can commune with theirs. We start out with a giraffe (or “giroffe” as Matt pronounced it) which Matt claims contains the soul of George Washington. It ate Reby’s hat.
Next Matt tells Jeff he has arranged a “sparring match” between Jeff and Joe Frazier. Joe Frazier’s soul apparently resides in a kangaroo. We are supposed to believe that Jeff and Matt both fought a kangaroo. I’m sure PETA and the ASPCA will be happy with that.
Then they went to the cage of the “spot monkeys,” which Matt has named after the X-Division guys… so way to bury the X-Division for no reason. Two of the monkeys were “Matt and Nick: the Bucks of Youth.” A joke like this would have at least approached being funny if they had been subtle about it (like seeing two baby deer that Matt would say were named “Matt and Nick”). Jeff was also described as a “recovering spot monkey.”
Then a tiger that Matt claimed had the soul of Genghis Kahn told Matt that Decay was approaching. This was pointless and stupid. At this point I think Matt is just trying to see what they’ll let him get away with.

BILLY CORGAN MAKES HIS UNDERWHELMING ANNOUNCEMENT- the King of the Mountain Title is being retired, and there will be a new championship: the “Impact Grand Championship.” So TNA has barely been able to pay for their TV tapings… but they decided it was a good idea to spend money on a new belt. Even with Dixie out of power, TNA will still be the same bundle of idiocy it has been since day one.
He says some bullsh*t about how he hopes this title will be “the next evolution of professional wrestling.” Drew Galloway comes out and Josh Mathews condemns him for interrupting this moment where Corgan and TNA are “breaking new ground.” Oh shut up, Josh! You have no idea what- if anything- makes this title different from any other title that has ever existed, so how can you possibly claim to be “breaking new ground” with it? Then again, Josh claimed that the Knockouts Title- whose rules have never changed since its inception- was “always evolving.”
The fans chant “WHY, DREW? WHY?!” at Galloway, so I guess they weren’t paying attention to his big promo last week. Drew says that he is really tall and women think he’s hot and also he has been wrestling for a long time and wrestles a physical style that the fans enjoy, so he should just be given the belt. This was extremely out of character for Drew.
Corgan scolded Drew, telling him that “this title isn’t about politics. It’s about a new type of match.”
OOH! OOH! LET ME GUESS!
It’s a… King of the Molehill match, where you win by digging a hole in the ground of at least six feet and then jumping into while holding the title!
Or how about a Montreal Rules match, which is just like a regular wrestling match, but with the added stipulation that anyone who applies a sharpshooter automatically wins.
Maybe a Reverse Tuxedo match, where both wrestlers start in their underwear and the first guy to successfully dress his opponent in a tuxedo is the winner.
Or a Venice Street Fight! It’s like a street fight, but it takes place in a swimming pool!
Or maybe it’s a 99% Empty Arena Match? Wait. Never mind. Billy said it was a “new” match, and TNA used to do those all of the time when they did house shows. ZING!

Okay. I’m done.

We find out the rules in a video package narrated by Jeremy Borash. You know… the guy who had no idea what Corgan’s f*cking announcement would be.
The rules are as follows: 3 round of 3 minutes each, with a ten point must system. You can win by pinfall, submission, or, if it goes the distance, via judge’s decision. First of all… what is a “ten point must system?” Second of all, regardless of the answer, this is a really sh*tty idea. We’re going to have title where the matches can’t go more than NINE MINUTES? And of these nine minutes they’re going to break it up into three minute rounds each? That will kill the pacing. And are they really going to have matches decided via judges’ decision? F*ck that sh*t!

We go back to the ring where Billy Corgan says “We believe that our locker room is poised singularly to represent this title in a new way.”
WHAT THE F*CK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone use so many words to say absolutely nothing. Oh and the champ will be crowned a Bound For Glory. Drew also says something that doesn’t make much sense (“when you use Drew Galloway to his true potential, I am this bloody business!”), which brought out Aron Rex. He tells Galloway that the fans are the ones who “are” this business, and then says he is going to come beat Galloway up.
They are ready to fight but Billy Corgan lectures them, telling them that they should settle their business at another time because “this title is about evolving this business forward.” Every time they say the word “evolve” or some variant thereof it makes me want to throw things because it’s such a meaningless, nebulous word here, and their attempts to shoehorn it in as much as possible make it all sound so phony. And speaking of the word “evolve” and throwing things, I’m sure Gabe Sapolsky is having a conniption right now as his top heel is standing in the middle of TNA’s ring in this awful segment while Corgan holds up this silly new title and keeps saying the word “evolve.”
And Billy… of course the title would be “evolving this business forward” because evolution is moving forward BY DEFINITION.
Billy’s marble-mouthing continued, as he told Aron Rex that he would have his “in an opening-round match for this tournament” (so I guess there is going to be a tournament for the belt?), “and Mr. Galloway, you have the first debut match, and that match starts now.” Huh? So is Galloway facing Rex now in a tournament opener or is he facing a new wrestler making his debut, or did Corgan just misspeak? And if it’s any of those but the first, is this a title match or not?
This wasn’t quite as bad as Shane on Smackdown, but that’s only because Shane couldn’t get it right in three tries while Corgan just screwed up really badly in one long one.
Despite Billy having provided no details about this tournament other than the fact that it will be happening, it will culminate at BFG, and that Rex will be in it, Josh Mathews somehow immediately knows that it is an eight-man single-elimination tournament.
Oh, and the title is pretty hideous, too, so I think we can go ahead and just mark that down as 2016’s thing. I dread to find out what ROH’s new trios titles are going to look like. Also, the name is really lame.

IMPACT GRAND CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNAMENT FIRST-ROUND MATCH: Drew Galloway vs. Braxton Sutter- 0.5/10
They still haven’t explained what a “must system” is. There are some judges in chairs around the ring. No word on who they are or how they have gotten this expertise, which is disappointing because I was ready to pop for the return of the old TNA “Championship Committee” that Larry Zbyszko used to be a member of.
Apparently a “must-system” is scored on “aggressiveness, controlling the action, and physicality.” Oh give me a break! That first one is pretty darn close to being bullsh*t, and that third one is complete and total bullsh*t. It’s a wrestling match! What does “physicality” even mean? That they touch each other? How can one guy possibly score higher than the other if physicality requires mutual physical contact?
There is a ten seconds remaining warning when there are tens seconds left in each round. When I first heard it I just thought it was fans clapping loudly.
Drew dominated the first round. I don’t think Sutter got in much more than one or two strikes, and certainly didn’t hit any actual maneuvers or take Drew down at all, but somehow all three judges scored it 10-9 in Drew’s favor. That’s total bullsh*t. It should be, like, 10-3 at most. Sutter did better in this round, finally making a comeback half way through. This round was scored 10-9 for Sutter by two judges and the third judge scored it 10-9 for Galloway. Drew nailed a quick piledriver and then locked in the Iron Maiden for the submission win early on in round two.
I really didn’t like this at all. Pretty much everything I was worried about happened. The match didn’t feel like it had much flow, I completely could not understand the scoring of the first round, and I know I would have been furious if someone had won this match by judges’ decision when it looked like neither man was beaten (and putting my booker’s hat on for a moment, the whole “there must be a winner because of the judges” gimmick takes away an important booking tool by not letting you have the babyface be the clear win but the heel escapes with the title due to the time limit expiring by the skin of his teeth).
On a positive note, they did up the production values for this with lots of graphics and a clock on the screen the entire time.

They teased this “shocking” thing that apparently happened at a press conference that we would find out about after the break. They introduced it by saying that Impact fans have “come to expect aggression, action, and physicality,” and that right there helped me nail down why the scoring system was bothering me possibly more than it should. After all… it’s a work, right? In order to not accidentally expose it as a work they need categories that they can make arbitrary so that they get the desired result without it looking suspicious. (I would argue that if you’re going to do a scoring system, it needs to be something that anyone watching at home should understand so the result should be a scoring system based on takedowns/knockdowns or time in control, and that the wrestlers should be asked to script the match more heavily, but that’s neither here nor there). The BS categories of “aggressiveness” and especially “physicality” should give them one category they can totally control and one category they can control nine times out of ten, with the tenth case being the wrestlers making it part of the story of the match, the desired result shouldn’t go against booker’s wishes anyway. But hearing Josh use those same two words here, in the same order, as meaningless hype words, with the only real term of substance replaced with yet another generic word that doesn’t mean anything other than “hype” in this context just makes it all feel even more- phony, scripted, lazy, and soulless.
And speaking of “phony” and bad hype, let’s see if we can guess what this “shocking” event at the press conference will be. Seeing as how Ethan and Lashely are both going to be there, I assume that they’re going to get into a fight at the press conference. You know… like what pretty much always happens when you show these things on your TV. If you want something like this to actually catch people by surprise, you also have to do some where you DON’T do a physical angle. If every time you do a press conference it winds up with a physical angle, it’s not going to shock anyone when you do a physical angle at the next press conference.

DURING THE COMMERCIAL, AN ANGLE HAPPENED- Spud assaulted Braxton Sutter, and smashed his teeth on the metal part of the exposed turnbuckle. This looked like it would have been a really great angle, but it doesn’t have anywhere near the effect as a recap as it would have had to show it live.

UM… WHAT THE F*CK IS HAPPENING?-
A random dude walks out of a liquor store in the middle of the night with a brown bag of something. He gets in his pick-up, changes the radio station to “In the Pines” and drives off into the night. He appears to be almost falling at the wheel until he spots Rosemary just walking along the side of the road. He assumes she is a prostitute and tries to pick her up (there is a joke about too much make-up/facepaint in here somewhere but I’m too lazy to make it). All of a sudden Abyss is at his other window while Crazzy Steve has somehow made it to the roof of the pick-up truck without him noticing. He gets beaten up (and maybe even murdered. They’ve done it before) and dumped in the middle of the road. Also, they apparently decided to pull his pants down just because. They steal the pick-up and drive off. Abyss says “I hear Cameron is beautiful this time of year” and they all give a sinister laugh as they drive into the city limits.
This was pointless and stupid. Never mind that Decay have committed YET ANOTHER crime on TNA TV and never mind the whole “how are we getting this footage” question (in Matt’s segments he always addresses the camera first, so it comes off like he is having someone document all of this silliness because he is a rich eccentric man who can afford it [in fact, didn’t we see that he had his own scribe in one of his videos])… are we really supposed to believe that Decay have WALKED all the way from Orlando to Cameron? Don’t they have a car? And if not they didn’t think to buy one? Or get some train tickets and then take a taxi to Matt Hardy’s house? COME ON. And, like the Matt Hardy segments, this adds NOTHING to the build to this. It’s just a wacky waste of time for the sake of having a wacky waste of time. Anyone who thinks it was a better idea to show THIS than the Spud-Mandrews angle (which apparently includes the people in charge of TNA) is a moron.

OH MY G-D HOW IS THIS SHOW ONLY HALF OVER?!

PRESS CONFERENCE- the harder they try, the more they fail.
They tried to hide it, but there is no hiding that they did this in the Impact Zone. At least when Ring of Honor did it, they had a real press conference with real reporters at a real TV studio… and that was back in 2011 (oh, and they did a physical angle at that one, too).
In this setting, Corgan came off 100% like an annoying, uncharismatic Dana White wannabe. He promises changes in TNA now that he is in charge (which has never been explained on-screen and Dixie seems to still have power). Yeah. Changes in TNA. Like we haven’t heard that one before. What’s next? Are you going to tell us about how you’re going to put more focus on the X-Division?
He also claims that this BFG main event will be one people will remember in twenty years. I’m calling BS on that because that would actually require people to WATCH the PPV, and at this point, even I who writes wrestling reviews on the internet, am doubtful as to whether or not I will bother with it.

EC III cuts a promo on Lashley in which he calls him a dick and lectures him for disrespecting the X-Division. OH COME ON! Not half an hour ago you aired a segment where Matt Hardy called them all spot-monkeys… and now you want me to be upset that Lashley said he could beat them all (and then proceeded to beat DJ in a match-type of DJZ’s choice, which Lashley had never even wrestled before)? You can’t have it both ways!
Ethan then says that he is going to fight and win. Generic, dull, stuff that, in Ethan’s verbose and restrained manner of speaking comes off as hot air.
Lashley, on the other hand, cut a better promo, although he looked quite silly making a Connor McGregor reference about three weeks late. I liked what Lashley said about he will eliminate the weak and although he will be polite on the outside, he doesn’t respect them. I didn’t like all of the stuff that he said about “defending this company” from “other wrestling promotions” and athletes in “MMA” and “other sports.” Did I miss some sort of angle where Serena Williams, Alex Ovechkin, Albert Pujols, Tom Brady, and Lebron James cut a promo promising to destroy TNA? Are they actually bringing in MMA guys or guys from another promotion? Because unless those things are happening, then everything they’re saying here about the champion needing to help “defend the promotion” is just plain silly.
Ethan once again says he will win. Then Lashley cut an awesome promo and Ethan got irrationally angry. Bobby Lashley is the best champion in all of professional wrestling right now. The only one even close to him in terms of coming across like megastar champion as well as a dominant force is Okada (don’t get me wrong: Cole, Shinsuke and Owens all come across like stars, but they don’t come across like dominant champions the way Lashley does. Joe was close, though. OMFG I wish we could see Lashley vs. Joe in 2016 SOOOOOO BADLY!)
Then, predictably, the photo op where they get in each other’s faces turned into a brawl… and despite them having tons of security there, NOT ONE OF THEM MADE A MOVE TO STOP THEM FROM FIGHTING! Didn’t Ethan and Drew get suspended for unauthorized brawling because innocent people almost got hurt? Well there were a ton of innocent people sitting in the front row here, very close to the edge of the stage (including SMALL CHILDREN) and these two started fighting and locked up and one of them could have easily been thrown off the stage into the crowd (in fact, one of them was thrown off the stage, but thankfully it was too the side).
Also, if this was all as “shocking” as Josh hyped it up as, you’d think that the assembled people have reacted with shock at this outbreak of violence where there wasn’t supposed to be any, but they barely reacted at all aside from a bit of clapping and one or two of the thirty people in the fake press pool saying “whoa!” They cheered when Ethan flipped Lashley off right before the fighting started, but were TOTALLY SILENT for a actual brawl itself, including a CHAIRSHOT and Ethan getting THROWN DOWN THE BLEACHERS (or a ramp, but it still didn’t look fun and should have elicited some sort of response). This was SOOOOOOOO f*cking lame! It was a pointless brawl (rather tame by usual standards) that no one tried to break up, and their entirely planted audience didn’t even react to.

JESSE GODDERZ VIDEO PACKAGE- he is going to be in the Grand Championship Tournament. This was fine.

TNA GRAND CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNAMENT FIRST-ROUND MATCH: Eli Drake vs. Jesse Godderz- 4.75/10
Better than the last match, but I think this would have been much better as a regular match with a ten-minute time limit.

POINTLESS RECAP OF ARON REX VS. DREW GALLOWAY STUFF- pointless

ARON REX PROMO- after this promo, I found it absolutely impossible to believe that these two guys didn’t fight earlier simply because Billy Corgan said so.
The other two first round matches will be Aron Rex vs. Trevor Lee and Eddie Edwards vs. Mahabali Shera. Really? Shera? We couldn’t get Andrew Everett or DJZ or Mike Bennett or Sylvester Lefort or anyone who is worth a damn? We had to have Mahabali f*cking Shera in this tournament?



DELETE VS. DECAY- here we go.
Decay arrive at the battlefield by walking through the woods. They couldn’t have walked up to it from front, where it would make sense? Really? After we wasted that time establishing that they stole a car, we couldn’t show them driving up?
They come across Señor Benjamin, still digging graves. Crazzy Steve asks him what he is doing, and they have to use this wacky voice-distorting audio effect for no reason. Señor Benjamin says that he is digging their graves. Abyss responds by saying “oh yeah? What are you gonna do about it, señor?” which is a response that doesn’t actually make any sense based on what Señor Benjamin said.
They walk through the battlefield/graveyard/whatever. Señor Benjamin then turns his shovel around and reveals that the word “DELETE” has been written on the back of it. SO WHAT?! That’s not artsy or ominous, it’s just… stuff for the sake of stuff (more on this later).
So we get some creepy but up-tempo music playing as Decay walk through another forest while the camera makes a lot of cuts and they use some sort of blue lighting filter. They emerge from the forest and Rosemary says “home sweet home.” She has the voice-effect, too. Have they all been possessed by Nazmaldun or something? What’s up with the voice effect?
They approach the Hardys’ house and spy on Reby holding Maxel, trying to burp him. Now they appear to be at a different elevation, looking into a different window of a different room. Maxel seems to be looking right at them. The voice effect seems to be gone now (yeah, there’s going to be a rant later). Crazzy Steve says “they won’t see us coming.” Yeah. I’m sure you engaging in conversation with their gardener didn’t give away your presence, and that white facepaint is sure great camouflage for the middle of the night. F*cking idiots.
Rosemary is looking at a spider.
Then Matt Hardy shouts “DECAY! I KNEW YOU’D COME!” and it is revealed that not only has Matt been standing about ten feet away from them, but that they were “hiding” on a WELL-LIT PORCH! Matt is also facing away from them for some reason.
Now we flash to some blonde woman pinning photos of missing people and newspaper clippings and disappearances and possible rapes and/or murders to big bulletin board. What does this have to do with anything?
Oh. That was a commercial.

So Matt walks away and Decay calmly walk and follow him. Then we see Matt, Jeff, and Reby all holding fireworks shooter things. Matt says “welcome to the Hardy compound” and they all flick on their lighters. Abyss says “this... is not beautiful” (because we’ve got to get the word “beautiful” in every damn thing he says) and they run away.
The Hardys give chase, shooting their firework-guns at Decay. I am amazed that nothing in this grassy field and gigantic forest caught fire. Matt then orders Reby off to go protect Maxel. Here’s an idea: DON’T HAVE MAXEL BE AT THE PLACE YOU INVITED HIS WOULD-BE KIDNAPPERS TO! Why not send him to his grandparents or something?
Matt and Jeff follow and keep shooting the fireworks guns. Decay takes refuge behind the dilapidated boat. Matt and Jeff are too dumb to flank them. Abyss tells Steve and Rosemary to “go! Get to the house!” They run off, with Matt giving chase. Jeff hits the boat with a running dropkick, sending it into the lake, with Abyss underneath it. Apparently doing a running dropkick and landing on the solid ground hurt Jeff. NO SH*T! Maybe these videos aren’t such a good idea after all.
Then Señor Benjamin randomly showed up and said that he had to go get the boat for Matt. Huh? Why? Also, shouldn’t Matt have commanded Señor Benjamin to refer to the boat by whatever stupid name he gave it?

Matt stalks Rosemary for a few moments while there is a funny color-filter on. Then we cut back to Señor Benjamin getting the boat. Jeff has apparently disappeared, and there are several cars behind Señor Benjamin with their lights on. WYATT FAMILY RUN-IN?!
Señor Benjamin stops to check his phone, and then a wet Joseph Park comes out of the water. I screamed. For what is so wrong with this, see my comments on Jeff emerging from the lake as Willow in my review of The Final Deletion.
Also… are we supposed to take this to mean that the way to turn Abyss back into Chris Park is to poor water on him? So does that mean that for his first dozen years as a pro wrestler, Abyss never once took a bath or shower?
Then it got even worse as Joseph asked Señor Benjamin in Spanish if he had seen his brother, Chris. You know, Abyss. Because that’s what this needs. F*cking comedy. Señor Benjamin indicated that he had, and Joseph was so excited that he tried to hug Señor Benjamin, but Señor Benjamin tazed him. Then Señor Benjamin loaded the unconscious Joseph onto a front-end loader and deposited him in the grave.

We then cut to Jeff Hardy randomly walking around. Crazzy Steve popped up somewhere and Jeff went to grab him, but Steve bit Jeff’s face. Then Steve tried to burn Jeff’s face in a conveniently placed and lit fire-pit. This fire-pit was also right by a pool, which Jeff suplexed Steve into, and then they started fighting.

Matt kept looking for Rosemary as weird lighting and camera effects happened. Also, not only has Señor Benjamin dumped Joseph Park into the grave, but he has also apparently BURIED HIM ALIVE. He laughed maniacally while this was happening.

We then cut back to Jeff and Steve in their Venice Street Fight. Jeff gave him a sleeper hold underwater, but Steve apparently played possum to make Jeff think he was dead, as when Jeff released the hold and tried to leave the pool Steve pulled him back in.

Now we’re back to Señor Benjamin finishing the job via shovel. Then he bent down for no real reason at all, and Abyss emerged from the grave as Abyss again and goozled him. While Abyss tried to choke Señor Benjamin to death Crazzy Steve tried to do the same to Jeff using a pool toy. Jeff escaped and fled the pool. Steve followed, but took a moment where he said “paint regenerate” and a funny screen effect happened and his paint grew back.

Matt has finally cornered Rosemary. There was a screen cut and all of a sudden Rosemary was behind a tree. Matt gave chase but was almost killed when Janice whizzed right by his head and got lodged in the tree, which was a worse-looking version of the spot that Bray Wyatt and Xavier Woods did with the pickaxe. How the f*ck did Janice get there? Abyss wasn’t carrying it before!

(Side note: until I started watching Delete vs. Decay I had completely forgotten about the swampground/Wyatt Family Compound Brawl or whatever they called it).

Matt and Abyss fought while Rosemary ran off. Abyss was about to kill Matt with Janice but Jeff ran in and took the shot for Matt (the contact being off-screen, of course). Matt was touched by Jeff’s selflessness. Abyss and Steve bore down on Matt, but then Vanguard 1 showed up to make the save, shooting some sort of missiles. Something finally caught fire in the shape of the Broken Matt Hardy symbol all around Steve and Abyss, who were apparently too scared to try to jump over these flames that didn’t really look to be very high at all.

We cut to the inside of the house when Rosemary has disposed of Reby off-screen and taken Maxel. He seems remarkably calm for a toddler being carried off by a stranger painted up to look like an evil clown. Vanguard 1 came to stop Rosemary. Vanguard 1 talks in subtitles, but apparently Rosemary can understand it somehow. Apparently Rosemary had to put Maxel down in order to spit mist, which, for some reason, put Vanguard 1 out of commission (I presume this will eventually make it turn on the Hardys).
In the three seconds it should have taken her to spit the mist, Maxel has apparently gotten so far away that Rosemary can’t find him. Instead she runs into Matt. He says words. She spits green mist at him…which Matt catches in his mouth and spits back at her. It clearly hits her in the face, although there seems to be none of it on her. Rosemary runs away.
Next we see Matt, Maxel, and Reby all huddled together. Then we cut to Jeff lying in pain in the field. Then we cut to Crazzy Steve, who has apparently escaped from the firewall trap, looming over the unmoving body of Señor Benjamin in the bed of the pick-up truck as it drives off.
The end.
THANK G-D!







THIS F*CKING SUCKED!
The Final Deletion was a bold experiment. It’s pretty much on the far outskirts of what I would consider to be professional wrestling, but it is still professional wrestling nonetheless. It was big blow-off match to a feud with something on the line. There was build-up to it that made its own kind of strange sense. Matt kept failing in his quest to destroy Jeff, and after several months of this he had gotten so “broken” that, in his damaged mind, the only way to settle the feud between them was on this wacky “battlefield” that he had constructed specifically for this purpose. Jeff, on the other hand, was just fed up with Matt’s bullsh*t and was willing to go along with that to get the whole thing over with.
For this, we got wacky Matt Hardy having a premonition that Decay would abduct his child, and wacky Rosemary decided “yeah. Sure. Kidnapping a toddler sounds like a swell idea.” There was no explanation of what Decay would possibly want with this toddler. Not even an attempt to explain it. We were just left with the lazy explanation that “they’re CRAZY! Therefore nothing they do needs to have any logic to it at all.”

Now let’s look at the segments we got to build this up on this show alone, once again as compared to The Final Deletion. On that show we got the birthday segment, which introduced Señor Benjamin as well as the candle on the birthday cupcake that would be called back to at the finish of the match.
Then we got the drone-attack segment, which not only introduced Vanguard 1, but showed Matt’s destruction of Jeff’s emblem on his lawn, symbolic of Matt’s attempt to delete Jeff. Then we got the segment that teased both the fireworks and the fire. Then we got the match itself, which used the setting the medium provided to set up some interesting, creative spots, including a spot for Señor Benjamin, justifying his including earlier on, and the finish which called back to both the birthday candle and an important spot from a previous match in their feud.
On this show we got the Hardys f*cking around doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING OF CONSEQUENCE (oh, and they buried the X-Divisoin). Then we got Decay randomly committing some felonies. I will admit that his theoretically played into the ending, but not in any way that couldn’t have been solved by just having them drive up in a pick-up… or even better, instead of ending with the pick-up truck, end it with them dragging Señor Benjamin’s body through the woods, just like they did with Bram. The point is, that these segments were both giant wastes of time that were both stupid and accomplished nothing.

Now let’s look at the matches themselves:
The Final Deletion was easy to follow. It started off in a wrestling ring and had wrestling moves being performed for quite a while, until the finish, which was Matt preventing Jeff from hitting his signature finishing maneuver. This was very difficult to follow, feeling more like the New Day vs. Wyatt Family swamp brawl with people just randomly popping up places and way too many cuts. There was also almost nothing resembling pro wrestling moves. There was some punching, but aside from Jeff’s one dropkick and suplex into the pool (which should hardly count) what was there?
I also felt that the creativity was extremely lacking in this one. The beginning in particular just felt like a repeat of stuff we had seen in The Final Deletion (fireworks missile launcher, taking cover behind the boat, knocked into the water but coming out in a different gimmick Señor Benjamin with tazer). Obviously it is harder to come up with new stuff the second time around, but this felt like it had almost nothing new in it (Steve coming out of the water when he was presumed defeated mirrored Jeff in The Final Deletion, etc.).
On this front, I think that they made a big mistake by splitting up into a bunch of one-on-one spots. The new element here is the team dynamic, so that will be where most of your new stuff comes from. I would have had Steve and Abyss face Matt and Jeff outside (sometimes separating for a bit but then coming back together) while Rosemary stalks Reby and Maxel inside the house with more of a slasher-style predator vs. prey dynamic to make it feel different.

Another big flaw this match had was the lack of an end-goal. The Final Deletion was still a wrestling match. It ended when someone got a pinfall or submission victory. This was just fighting with no end in sight, and thus it did a poor job escalating. I guess the end goal was to get to Maxel, but even that happened off screen.

The other two things that really bothered me were all of the magical transformation bullsh*t (which I addressed in my review of The Final Deletion) and the completely out of place comedy. Any comedy in The Final Deletion was achieved through the wrestlers being in character. Matt said wacky things because that’s what he does and Jeff said things that were funny because of the believable frustrating in his voice. The comedy there was a kind of in-character absurdity of the situation. In this they did a spot where the mean killer monster randomly transformed into a gimmick from several years ago, apparently with no memory of anything whatsoever, just for the sake of the callback joke. In all of its strangeness and absurdity, The Final Deletion was very serious. This was not.

I’m not comparing this to The Final Deletion to say “that was great, this wasn’t as good as that, therefore this sucks.” I keep comparing this to The Final Deletion to show where I think they went completely down the completely wrong path with this.
The Final Deletion was a form of professional wrestling, and had an art to it. This was neither. It was just a bunch of people f*cking around! The build-up segments had nothing to do with the match, there was almost no actual professional wrestling in here (kicks and punches at best). There was pointless, stupid comedy, magical transformations happening for no reason rather than for an artistic reason, and tons of audio and visual effects that were there solely for the sake of being there. The Final Deletion had convinced me that at least something interesting and entertaining could come out of Matt Hardy’s crazy mind and that the existence of “Broken” Matt Hardy was something that I could put up with so long as it was toned down a bit because we would occasionally get something great out of it. Everything since then, though, has been sapping me of that feeling, and this was final nail in the coffin. They took that good thing and they tried to do it again, but they got it all wrong. A terrible big giant event on yet another absolutely terrible episode of Impact. This was yet another episode that shows just how ass-backwards the mindset of the decision-makers in this company is.

[KILLdozer]

I was really hoping they'd finally delete the decay...

[cero2k]

i loved it

[Big Red Machine]

i loved it

So did both Alvarez and Lance... and I just don't understand it. It was just a bunch of random sh*t. If Matt wants to keep doing these on his own that's fine, but TNA shouldn't be airing them because they have no merit from a wrestling or artistic standpoint.

[cero2k]

i loved it

So did both Alvarez and Lance... and I just don't understand it. It was just a bunch of random sh*t. If Matt wants to keep doing these on his own that's fine, but TNA shouldn't be airing them because they have no merit from a wrestling or artistic standpoint.

but it has made more for TNA than anything else, they had the best wrestling since 06-07 and no one pays attention, they booked the most credible champion in the world, and still no one was paying attention, they fired Dixie Carter, and still no one pays attention, but the final deletion thing IS doing it, so by all means keep doing it. Just because it's non-traditional wrestling and because it's 'wacky' doesn't mean it's bad in a wrestling show. Wrestling shouldn't be all Cornette nor all Quackenbush

[Big Red Machine]

i loved it

So did both Alvarez and Lance... and I just don't understand it. It was just a bunch of random sh*t. If Matt wants to keep doing these on his own that's fine, but TNA shouldn't be airing them because they have no merit from a wrestling or artistic standpoint.

but it has made more for TNA than anything else, they had the best wrestling since 06-07 and no one pays attention, they booked the most credible champion in the world, and still no one was paying attention, they fired Dixie Carter, and still no one pays attention, but the final deletion thing IS doing it, so by all means keep doing it. Just because it's non-traditional wrestling and because it's 'wacky' doesn't mean it's bad in a wrestling show. Wrestling shouldn't be all Cornette nor all Quackenbush

They haven't had the best wrestling for a long time. Even if we limit it to promotions that are on TV, ROH has ben better than them since the HDnet show started in 2009, and WWE has been better than them since at least 2012 (probably because the three hour gives them time for longer matches, but that doesn't change the fact that they're better.
Wacky isn't always bad, but in order to be worth the amount of time TNA spent on this, it needs to have some other merit as well. You cannot possibly tell me that this show wouldn't have been better if they had cut out the zoo segment and the carjacking segment and used that time for matches. You can still put that stuff on the website/YouTube if you want to (hell, it would probably get more people hyped if the zoo segment had just been put up on YouTube the day before), but if it's not going to do anything for the "match" it shouldn't be on the show.
Also, please keep in mind that I did enjoy The Final Deletion. My problem with this wasn't the fact that it is wacky, but rather the fact that it was unexciting, and that it was a serious situation occasionally randomly played for laughs. And the pointless camera effects need to stop. It's kind of like the JJ Abrams Star Trek movies, where they think that adding in this extra screen/camera effect makes it more sophisticated/artsy, but it serves no real purpose other than to exist for its own sake, and so it just gets in the way.

[cero2k]

I didn't mean better wrestling overall, but TNA alone, there were years where the wrestling was ok but not amazing, now we're getting better matches and better characters than some years past.

As per the wacky stuff, it was all part of delete and decay, you take it in together, otherwise you end up with a crap segment like Wyatt's vs new day, the story started since the week prior, it's all that preparation and build up so that things make the most possible sense in the match, and it's telling us more about this Hardy thing, whether the vessels ever become relevant is something else. I don't disagree that some stuff could have made it via YouTube, but I also don't think it hurt the show either, this show didn't have much else to pit there other than those segments, the two important matches had time limits anyway and you already mentioned there were worse segments like the Borash/Corgan stuff.

[Big Red Machine]

I didn't mean better wrestling overall, but TNA alone, there were years where the wrestling was ok but not amazing, now we're getting better matches and better characters than some years past.

I'd disagree that we're getting better characters than years past. Keep in mind the people they've lost: Aries, Roode, MVP, Kenny King, Magnus, Taryn, Kurt, Velvet Sky, MCMG, Bram during the Magnus feud... even Gunner was headed somewhere good before they lost interest and stopped using him. Since then they've gotten... who? Maria is awesome, Lashley has drastically improved, Drew is pretty great, Bennett usually pretty good, they've got Sandow (who would be a lot better if he didn't have to go so overboard with the "it's all about the fans" stuff), Eli Drake (who they never use well), Ethan has been pretty bad as a babyface, Spud has been pretty bad since he turned heel again, they won't Sylvester Lefort cut promos...
Then again, they also got rid of EY, so that's a plus... but they added Al Snow and Grado, so that cancels out.

As per the wacky stuff, it was all part of delete and decay, you take it in together, otherwise you end up with a crap segment like Wyatt's vs new day, the story started since the week prior, it's all that preparation and build up so that things make the most possible sense in the match, and it's telling us more about this Hardy thing, whether the vessels ever become relevant is something else. I don't disagree that some stuff could have made it via YouTube, but I also don't think it hurt the show either, this show didn't have much else to pit there other than those segments, the two important matches had time limits anyway and you already mentioned there were worse segments like the Borash/Corgan stuff.

But the wacky stuff WASN'T part of Delete or Decay, though. It added nothing to it. What effect did the Hardys at the zoo have on the "match?" NONE. The only relevant bit of Decay stealing he pick-up truck was that they had it in the end, which was something that didn't need to be explained because it would make sense that they would have a automobile of some sort (and it was very strange that they didn't have one in the first place), or, as I suggested, they could have made it more artistic by having them drag Señor off through the woods like they did to Bram.

These segments don't "tell us more" about the Hardys in any way. Matt is crazy. We already knew that. How does whether or not he has a zoo on his property affect our understanding of his character?

I don't want to repeat everything I said above, when you compare the "preparatory" segments for Delete or Decay to those for The Final Deletion, there is a major difference. Those segments all added something to The Final Deletion. These were just people f*cking around.

Wyatts vs. New Day was bad because it was done mostly out of the blue, because the execution was bad, and the ending/follow up was bad. This was bad for different reasons (although the execution was bad here, too).
Annoying as it was, Corgan and Borash only last a minute or so, and wasn't something they have spent a month building to.

As for it not hurting the show: how about an X-Division match given actual time? Hell... how about instead of a stupid, pointless Ultimate X match with the entire division for the title that we've seen a million times, they actually booked a tournament, culminating at BFG where a new champion would be crowned (and, you know, just don't do the stupid MMA Rounds/Scoring System Title yet), and giving the matches time to mean something? How about spending time actually trying to have a tag team undercard that hasn't been doing the same boring, go-nowhere feuds for four months? How about taking a segment where you try to explain the million, zillion plot-holes involved in the whole Maria thing? How about letting Sienna cut a promo so we can get her feelings on what Maria did last week... because after all, doesn't she deserve a rematch, in which she would have surely destroyed Allie and won the title back? There were a million different ways they could have made this show (and the overall product) better, and cutting out giant wastes of time (which is what these segments amounted to) would have helped them do that.

[cero2k]

I'd disagree that we're getting better characters than years past. Keep in mind the people they've lost: Aries, Roode, MVP, Kenny King, Magnus, Taryn, Kurt, Velvet Sky, MCMG, Bram during the Magnus feud... even Gunner was headed somewhere good before they lost interest and stopped using him. Since then they've gotten... who? Maria is awesome, Lashley has drastically improved, Drew is pretty great, Bennett usually pretty good, they've got Sandow (who would be a lot better if he didn't have to go so overboard with the "it's all about the fans" stuff), Eli Drake (who they never use well), Ethan has been pretty bad as a babyface, Spud has been pretty bad since he turned heel again, they won't Sylvester Lefort cut promos...
Then again, they also got rid of EY, so that's a plus... but they added Al Snow and Grado, so that cancels out.
I'll give you Aries, Roode, Taryn, and Bully Ray and Bad Influence that you didn't list, but Gunner, Velvet, MVP, Kenny, Bram, all of the A&8s, Menagerie, both Brookes, Joker Sting, they were all sucking in TNA, even Joe, Sabin, or Angle were wasted roster spots towards the end, they were having great matches, but they all felt overdone and were doing nothing note worthy. Now we have ECIII, Moose, Lashley, Bennett, Broken Matt Hardy, Reby, The Wolves, Eli Drake, Galloway, Maria, Sienna, Jade, Decay, all of them are faaar better characters than Aces & 8s, better than Immortal, better than the menagerie. The main event scene is simply far better than it had been in previous years. They even got rid of Dixie from the main event.

But the wacky stuff WASN'T part of Delete or Decay, though. It added nothing to it. What effect did the Hardys at the zoo have on the "match?" NONE. The only relevant bit of Decay stealing he pick-up truck was that they had it in the end, which was something that didn't need to be explained because it would make sense that they would have a automobile of some sort (and it was very strange that they didn't have one in the first place), or, as I suggested, they could have made it more artistic by having them drag Señor off through the woods like they did to Bram.
These segments don't "tell us more" about the Hardys in any way. Matt is crazy. We already knew that. How does whether or not he has a zoo on his property affect our understanding of his character?
Matt is not crazy, he has been awaken, the zoo are vessels of old souls that are now helping the Hardys. We wouldn't know any of this if it was just matches like every other pro wrestling company.

I don't want to repeat everything I said above, when you compare the "preparatory" segments for Delete or Decay to those for The Final Deletion, there is a major difference. Those segments all added something to The Final Deletion. These were just people f*cking around.
yeah, the first one was just like 1 minute of Sr. Benjamin moving stuff around, now we actually saw more of Hardy and his compound, the vessels, now we know where Hardy learned the moves he used against Crazzy Steve.

As for it not hurting the show: how about an X-Division match given actual time? Hell... how about instead of a stupid, pointless Ultimate X match with the entire division for the title that we've seen a million times, they actually booked a tournament, culminating at BFG where a new champion would be crowned (and, you know, just don't do the stupid MMA Rounds/Scoring System Title yet), and giving the matches time to mean something? How about spending time actually trying to have a tag team undercard that hasn't been doing the same boring, go-nowhere feuds for four months? How about taking a segment where you try to explain the million, zillion plot-holes involved in the whole Maria thing? How about letting Sienna cut a promo so we can get her feelings on what Maria did last week... because after all, doesn't she deserve a rematch, in which she would have surely destroyed Allie and won the title back? There were a million different ways they could have made this show (and the overall product) better, and cutting out giant wastes of time (which is what these segments amounted to) would have helped them do that.
you listed a ton of things that could have been done, they're all good, but that doesn't mean this stuff hurt the show, it was a show designed to end with that DorD , that was building up toward the final match of the show, you show that stuff to not just randomly go to a match that is not even booked in a house in North Carolina, showing some buildup segments keeps you tuned waiting for the final match

[Big Red Machine]

I'd disagree that we're getting better characters than years past. Keep in mind the people they've lost: Aries, Roode, MVP, Kenny King, Magnus, Taryn, Kurt, Velvet Sky, MCMG, Bram during the Magnus feud... even Gunner was headed somewhere good before they lost interest and stopped using him. Since then they've gotten... who? Maria is awesome, Lashley has drastically improved, Drew is pretty great, Bennett usually pretty good, they've got Sandow (who would be a lot better if he didn't have to go so overboard with the "it's all about the fans" stuff), Eli Drake (who they never use well), Ethan has been pretty bad as a babyface, Spud has been pretty bad since he turned heel again, they won't Sylvester Lefort cut promos...
Then again, they also got rid of EY, so that's a plus... but they added Al Snow and Grado, so that cancels out.
I'll give you Aries, Roode, Taryn, and Bully Ray and Bad Influence that you didn't list, but Gunner, Velvet, MVP, Kenny, Bram, all of the A&8s, Menagerie, both Brookes, Joker Sting, they were all sucking in TNA, even Joe, Sabin, or Angle were wasted roster spots towards the end, they were having great matches, but they all felt overdone and were doing nothing note worthy. Now we have ECIII, Moose, Lashley, Bennett, Broken Matt Hardy, Reby, The Wolves, Eli Drake, Galloway, Maria, Sienna, Jade, Decay, all of them are faaar better characters than Aces & 8s, better than Immortal, better than the menagerie. The main event scene is simply far better than it had been in previous years. They even got rid of Dixie from the main event.
I didn't list Bully and Bad Influence because I didn't think they were particularly good.
MVP and Kenny were almost always great when give promo time, Velvet was usually a fun character as a heel, and Bram was quite great during the Magnus feud.
As for the "great" characters you list: clearly we disagree on the Hardys and Decay. Jade doesn't seem to have much of a personality beyond generic babyface (which hurts her because she's the #2 babyface when the #1 babyface is also just a generic babyface), the Wolves are... fine as babyfaces, but have not been portrayed as the ass-kickers they need to be in order to be great babyface characters. Sienna's personality only seems to come out when she is yelling at Allie. Ethan has been a lot worse in the past few months, IMO (and in general since turning babyface).
I'll agree with you that Joe was wasted towards the end of his run, but Kurt certainly wasn't.
Yes, Joker Sting, Menagire, EY, etc. sucked, but we've now got Al Snow, Grado, Shera, a wasted Lefort, wasted Helms dynasty, Mandrews, Sutter, Tyus, crappy heel Spud, more Grado, and Bro-Mans (Robbie hasn't been good and Jesse is worse with Robbie than he was as a singles guy)... and now we have to put up with not just Dixie but Billy Corgan as well, and he is even worse!

But the wacky stuff WASN'T part of Delete or Decay, though. It added nothing to it. What effect did the Hardys at the zoo have on the "match?" NONE. The only relevant bit of Decay stealing he pick-up truck was that they had it in the end, which was something that didn't need to be explained because it would make sense that they would have a automobile of some sort (and it was very strange that they didn't have one in the first place), or, as I suggested, they could have made it more artistic by having them drag Señor off through the woods like they did to Bram.
These segments don't "tell us more" about the Hardys in any way. Matt is crazy. We already knew that. How does whether or not he has a zoo on his property affect our understanding of his character?
Matt is not crazy, he has been awaken, the zoo are vessels of old souls that are now helping the Hardys. We wouldn't know any of this if it was just matches like every other pro wrestling company.
Helped them? His brother got stabbed in the stomach and his gardener got kidnapped. Seems to me like they lost.
I don't want to repeat everything I said above, when you compare the "preparatory" segments for Delete or Decay to those for The Final Deletion, there is a major difference. Those segments all added something to The Final Deletion. These were just people f*cking around.
yeah, the first one was just like 1 minute of Sr. Benjamin moving stuff around, now we actually saw more of Hardy and his compound, the vessels, now we know where Hardy learned the moves he used against Crazzy Steve.
Right. Because it was the monkeys that taught Jeff how do to a suplex? I've got years of visual evidence to prove you wrong
As for it not hurting the show: how about an X-Division match given actual time? Hell... how about instead of a stupid, pointless Ultimate X match with the entire division for the title that we've seen a million times, they actually booked a tournament, culminating at BFG where a new champion would be crowned (and, you know, just don't do the stupid MMA Rounds/Scoring System Title yet), and giving the matches time to mean something? How about spending time actually trying to have a tag team undercard that hasn't been doing the same boring, go-nowhere feuds for four months? How about taking a segment where you try to explain the million, zillion plot-holes involved in the whole Maria thing? How about letting Sienna cut a promo so we can get her feelings on what Maria did last week... because after all, doesn't she deserve a rematch, in which she would have surely destroyed Allie and won the title back? There were a million different ways they could have made this show (and the overall product) better, and cutting out giant wastes of time (which is what these segments amounted to) would have helped them do that.
you listed a ton of things that could have been done, they're all good, but that doesn't mean this stuff hurt the show, it was a show designed to end with that DorD , that was building up toward the final match of the show, you show that stuff to not just randomly go to a match that is not even booked in a house in North Carolina, showing some buildup segments keeps you tuned waiting for the final match
1. If the things I listed were better for the show than the bullsh*t we got here, then yes, doing this crap instead of them hurt the show.
2. It's not "random." It's been built up for a few weeks. If you want to build it up, do a recap video. Don't give me bullsh*t with motherf*ckers f*cking around at the zoo.

You are completely failing to address my point that these segments did not add anything to the match. Not artistically and not in terms of an "in-ring" story.

You are also failing to address my criticism that the tone of this match (particularly the Joseph Park appearance) and the tone of all of the set-up segments made the tone of this match too comedic. The Final Deletion didn't work because it was goofy. It worked because it managed to include moments of utter absurdity while still managing to remain completely serious. Nothing happened in The Final Deletion that was purely a joke.

What TNA did here is like what WWE always does when they see something that works once they latch onto the wrong aspects of it and push those, which ruins the mixture that led to the original success.