BRM Reviews the 10/13/2016 Impact (bad)

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING VIDEO PACKAGE- WAY too long. The only important points were that Eddie won the belt and that Eddie was hand-picked by Lashley. All of the stuff with the other champions should have been cut out.

OPENING SEGMENT- bad.
They sent Eddie Edwards out there to cut the big babyface “I won the belt” promo. He was decent, which is the best you’re going to get from Eddie Edwards in a situation like this simply because of Eddie’s personality. The key is that never once did I ever doubt that Eddie Edwards was speaking from the heart. Eddie Edwards the professional wrestling persona and Eddie Edwards the man who plays the character were one and the same in that moment- and it’s perfectly okay to have one or two babyfaces on the roster for whom the fact that they come across as that genuine makes up for the fact that they aren’t the best promo.
Anyway, Eddie said he would never back down from any fight. Then Lashley came out and proceeded to destroy Eddie our new champion with ease. When combined with the fact that Eddie himself had acknowledged his two prior failures to defeat Lashley, it make Eddie come off as someone who just got lucky last week.
Lashley said he wanted his rematch right now. No referee came out, so Lashley went to get a chair to hit Eddie with, but EC III and Moose came out to protect Eddie.

Next we got a run-down of tonight’s top matches, which is always a good idea, especially when you have a show as big as tonight’s Impact seems to be. Maria is getting her rematch for the Knockouts Title in a No DQs match, Cody Rhodes makes his Impact in-ring debut against Mike Bennett, and... Aron Rex is defending the Grand Championship against Jesse Godderz.

THE TRIBUNAL WANT TO TALK TO BILLY CORGAN- Aiden O’Shea won’t let them. O’Shea is playing the role he has been given very well, but I don’t care for comedic overtones of the role, and more importantly (and perhaps related) it’s not working for me becomes he comes off as kind of a tool. And it’s not really even “his” fault (by which I mean the character’s kayfabe fault). I think that if Billy Corgan didn’t come off like such a tool in all of his segments and didn’t seem to constantly do business like a jerk (see last week’s segment with O’Shea and Maria for an example), I would actually enjoy this character. I could definitely see him working a lot better if you replaced Corgan with someone like Tod Gordon or a babyface version of 2005-2006 TNA era Larry Zbyszko.
O’Shea lets them know that Corgan doesn’t think they have been very impressive lately… which makes you wonder why he gave Baron Dax a title shot last week. He tells them they are “on the bubble” and need to do something to make an Impact or else they might soon be let go.

JB INTERVIEWS BILLY CORGAN- horrid.
Corgan says he doesn’t like it when wrestlers attack each other, which makes me wonder why has done so little to punish those who have done so since he first debuted as an on-screen authority figure a few months ago.
He also kept saying “in the name of” instead of “by the name of,” so what Billy actually said here means that Billy doesn’t like it that some star wrestler acting on behalf of Bobby Lashley attacked TNA World Heavyweight Champion Eddie Edwards on behalf of Eddie himself. This was made even worse by the fact that the phrase Billy meant to use, “by the name of” was COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY in his sentence (and cumbersome as well), unless he was trying to explain something to someone who had never seen the show before… except that they set this interview up via Josh Mathews giving us a video recap of this attack, so those people would have understood the situation without Billy’s explanation anyway.
So, to punish Lashley for attacking Eddie Edwards, Corgan is taking Lashley’s title shot away. Now this could theoretically make sense, but it’s very dangerous water to dive into. I found this out the hard way a few months ago in my on-going WWE fantasy booking where I realized I needed a reason for Steph to be angry and punish Paige so that I could have an explanation for why I was holding off on her title shot until Survivor Series, so I came up with the idea of Steph wanting to crack down on premeditated assaults (which an authority figure should theoretically want to do if want to present this as a legitimate sport). I quickly found myself having difficulty every time I wanted to do some sort of attack angle because I needed to either come up with some explanation (or at least a heel’s excuse that Steph could buy) for why the attack wasn’t premeditated, or else be willing to actually have Steph punish the attacker in some logical manner. It was either that or just not do the angle I wanted to do because to do the angle anyway without following it up with either a punishment or an excuse would have made my babyface authority figure come off as having double standards, which is just about the worst thing you can do to a babyface authority figure. The added pressures of not wanting to keep reusing the same excuses and not wanting to show the wrestlers having no fear of the repercussions by constantly attacking people anyway and just accepting punishments over and over again soon resulted in a noticeable decline in the number of such attacking segments.
Now… if you are a company that is trying to prove to the fanbase that you are going in a new direction in the hopes of regaining fans who have abandoned the company, pushing something like this very hard is a way that you could help do that if you are willing to commit to it 100%. But I don’t think TNA is, and here is why:
We had a situation extremely similar to this on last week’s show where a former champion (in this case, Maria) attacked the new champion and demanded her rematch right away. But instead of punishing Maria, Corgan decreed that she would get her title shot next week, and it would be No DQs, which favors her because then all of her minions can interfere. If they were trying to set a new direction, there would not be this double standard.

So Corgan takes away Lashley’s title shot and instead says that Lashley will face the winner of tonight’s main event (Josh would later clarify that this match will take place next week, and that it would be for #1 contendership, with the idea being that Corgan was making Lashley earn the shot back. There is absolutely no reason that I should have needed Josh Mathews to explain this all to me. This is a pre-taped show. There is no excuse for a promo like this where important details are omitted). When JB asked him what the main event would be, Corgan replied that he was going to figure that out right now. Really? You’ve got two title matches and big singles match booked, you don’t have a main event yet, fifteen minutes into the show?
And speaking of those title matches, we saw Aron Rex come out for his match after Josh’s rundown of tonight’s card. That was OVER SEVEN MINUTES AGO. When we finally cut back to the ring, he is still pacing around the ring with his music playing. So has he been doing that or SEVEN FULL MINUTES? That must be SOOOOOOO boring live. That’s the sort of thing that would make me a lot less inclined to go to a TNA show. Also, why did he enter first if he is the champion?

TNA GRAND CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH: Aron Rex(c) vs. Jesse Godderz- 1.25/10
The story of the match was as follows. Godderz won the first round, so in the second round Rex came out and tried to finish him off as quickly as possible with roll-ups. He eventually got caught in Godderz Boston Crab finisher for a while and Godderz took over for the second half of the round and won that one, too, so now Rex was in even bigger trouble. You’d think that the way this story should progress is for Rex to come out of the gate even more ferociously in the third round, but instead he did stuff like waste time on the outside, seeming in no way like a man who, as Josh Mathews accurately described it, was two minutes away from losing his championship. Instead Rex won by basically turning heel, luring him into a trap based on not reciprocating the sportsmanship Godderz had just shown to him. Not only did this kill the story of the match, but it made Rex into a heel (and the fans were indeed booing him). They have a popular babyface who the fans want to see succeed… and they’re turning him heel. Why would you do this?

LASHLEY & AIDE O’SHEA BACKSTAGE- this was Aiden O’Shea being annoying for no reason while Lashley dropped cryptic hints about having made a “compromise” with Billy and there being a “surprise” in store later tonight for the guys in the main event.

BROKEN HARDYS PROMO- Jeff can’t do this. He sound just like regular Jeff Hardy. Then Matt told Jeff not to climb on ladders. Then Josh told us to stay tuned because up next would be an in-ring promo from the Hardys. Well then what the f*ck was the point of this segment?

MARIA & ALLIE BACKSTAGE- bad. Maria is informed via e-mail that Allie, Sienna, and Laurel are all banned from ringside for tonight’s match. It’s about time that someone in TNA management grew a brain. Or half of one anyway, because if you’re going to ban those three from ringside, why not ban Mike Bennett, too?
Maria yelled at Allie for not informing her sooner.


ETHAN, MOOSE, & LASHLEY BACKSTAGE- also bad.
It seems that Corgan just gave Lashley his rematch back and that the winner of Eddie vs. Lashley (which will apparently happen tonight) will defend the title next week against the winner of tonight’s main event. Also, the two guys in the main event will be Ethan and Moose. The dialogue here was terrible, and this segment makes the previous segment with Lashley and Aiden O’Shea completely pointless.

HARDYS IN-RING PROMO- bad. They say they’re better than the “Bucks of Youth” or the “Day of New,” neither of whom will show up, so this just makes TNA look desperate for attention and second-rate. Then sang the obsolete song and talked about other crap. Matt had a premonition that their next challengers will be determined tonight. This was all extremely annoying, to the point where I popped huge when The Tribunal came out and beat the crap out of them.

BENNETTS VS. RHODESES VIDEO PACKAGE- went on WAY too long.

MIKE BENNETT (w/Maria Kanellis Bennett) vs. CODY RHODES (w/Brandi Rhodes)- 7/10
Anyway, after that video package talking about what would happen “when you and your wife step into the ring against The Miracle and the First Lady of Professional Wrestling,” we are now getting a singles match.
The match was great to the point where I was extremely disappointed when it ended because if TNA would have given them 15-25 minutes instead of just nine they might have gotten the sort of buzz that EVOLVE and PWG failed to get despite Cody’s much-hyped matches there (especially EVOLVE where his matches have been awesome) simply because of the advantage of their national TV audience, but instead we got just another nine minute singles match between guys who are high enough on the card they shouldn’t be going any less than thirteen or fourteen when they face off and go to a clean finish.

TNA X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH: DJ Zema Ion(c) vs. Marshe Rockett- 4/10
Rockett is 0-1 in TNA, and yet is being given an X-Division Title shot. Josh Mathews all but said that Rockett doesn’t deserve this title shot, and did outright say that he thinks Corgan booked this match because he and Rockett are both from Chicago and have known each other for a long time. So either Corgan is playing favorites (which makes him a bad babyface) or they’re already laying the seeds for YET ANOTHER “heel authority figure with a stable” angle.
So yeah... DJZ wins clean in four and a half minutes. Rockett has only been in the company for eight days and they’ve already turned him into just another nameless, faceless, interchangeable body in the X-Division. And that’s a huge shame. This guy has the right look and wrestles the right style to be the “bigger, better, stronger” X-Division wrestler. Instead of jobbing to DJZ in five minutes they should have had him pin DZ in last week’s tag match to earn a title shot, then beat DJZ clean and win the belt and have him basically be the cocky heel who can actually back it up, asserting his dominance over the smaller X-Division wrestlers until they can build up someone like an Andrew Everett to take the title off of him. Because that’s what the X-Division needs right now: a story that shakes up the status quo while also making the title look important. But TNA has shown us that they have absolutely no interest in giving us that. They’ll keep making the same old mistakes until they die, which at this point is looking imminent.
Oh. And that big fancy new “Team X Gold” concept they started last week? It was never even directly mentioned tonight. Pope made one passing reference to DJZ having come up with a new concept last week, but that was it.

ALLIE, BENNETT, & MARIA BACKSTAGE- it turns out Mike Bennett actually is banned from ringside for the Knockouts Title match. Allie had tried to tell Maria this earlier but she couldn’t because Maria was yelling at her. Did this really need its own segment? Just add Bennett to the list in the first segment and give this time to Bennett vs. Cody.

NO DISQUALIFICATIONS TITLE VS. POWER MATCH: Gail Kim(TNA Knockouts Title) vs. Maria Kanellis Bennett(“Leader of the Knockouts Division”)- 3.5/10
Madison is on commentary again. Her delivery in her attempts to put over the idea that it is good for the division for Maria to lose was absolutely horrendous.
Didn’t Dixie declare that Maria couldn’t be both champion and commissioner at the same time? So doesn’t Maria loser power either way?
The match was short and dull. Gail pulled Maria up at two to punish her some more, but then won right afterwards. There was absolutely no reason for this to be a weapons match other than to have a weapons match on the show.

EC III PROMO- he was interrupted by Eli Drake. They had a decent segment in which Eli Drake told Etha to try not to choke.

CODY RHODES & EDDIE EDWARDS BACKSTAGE- not bad or anything, but not necessary to do right now, either. This could have been put off until at least next week, if not the week after, once Eddie has dispatched his first challenger.
Wait. Or not. Apparently Eddie vs. Cody is next week… so what’s the whole deal with Moose, Ethan, and Lashley and that #1 contendership?
Josh says that we’re getting Moose vs. Ethan tonight for the right to face Lashley in a #1 contendership match this week. There is no reason I should have been so confused about any of this. GRAPHICS, people. USE THEM. Also… maybe do a little “proofreading” on your show to make sure things are explained clearly. You tape your sh*t months in advance. Use that to your advantage!
And… we have some sort of spinning clock thing happening. I’d make my standard joke of assuming this is Minoru Suzuki but TNA isn’t cool enough to warrant that. Plus, when I made that joke about Sanity in NXT I was punished by it turning out to be Eric Young so I don’t want to jinx this one. Whatever it is I just hope it isn’t sh*t.

And now we’ve got an interruption in the feed and... yeah. Nothing says crap like the Albino Knights of the Rising Dawn. I guess TNA has gone through their entire playbook of lame WWE, WCW, and ECW angles to rip off and do an even crappier job with, so now they’re onto ripping off lame Ring of Honor angles and doing an even shittier job with them.
They talk about being “anti-establishmentarians” while “DOC” flashes quickly on the screen… which makes some sense if “DOC” stands for “Director of Chaos,” which seems to indicate a return of the Aces & Eights. Nah. I’m just kidding. Can you imagine if Luke Gallows actually left WWE to come to TNA right now? That would probably be the single dumbest career move anyone has ever made in wrestling.
They said some stuff, including that “these masks are not here to hide faces, but they show that we are here to take a stand.” Then we got a quick flash on the screen of a long quote, and my deft hands managed to hit pause at exactly the right moment. Here is the quote in full:
“The thing that we need in the world today is a group of men and women who will stand up for right and to be opposed to wrong, wherever it is. A group of people who have come to see that some things are wrong, whether they're never caught up with. And some things are right, whether nobody sees you doing them or not.”
-Martin Luther King
(BTW, I did some further research and the whole paragraph the quote is taken from is fantastic condemnation of moral relativism and well worth reading. For context, it’s from a Feb. 28, 1954 speech in a Baptist church in Detroit.)

But back to Impact… yeah. The last thing this company needs is another goofy mystery stable, and especially not one that feels like a rip-off of one of the lamest angles in ROH history (which wasn’t even two years ago). None of this crap will turn the company around because they’ve tried it and failed so many times that no one has any faith anymore. They need to stay away from the types of things that have made them a laughingstock over the past decade (yes, it’s been that long since they dumped D’Amore for Russo, which is like trading prime rib for roadkill) and focus on basic, simple, quality professional wrestling, which is the only thing that will show the fans that the company has changed enough to deserve our faith once again.

WINNER FACES LASHLEY IN A #1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH NEXT WEEK: Ethan Carter III vs. Moose- 6.5/10
They did what they could in the mere seven and a half minutes they were given. Moose wins so we’re finally getting the Moose vs. Lashley match they’ve been teasing since Moose first debuted, but instead of for the world title, it’s now a mere #1 contendership match and probably won’t even be the main event all because TNA decided to have Eddie Edwards beat Moose for the world title for absolutely no reason.

Another bad show from TNA. They continue to focus on all the wrong things.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Josh Mathews claims that Jesse Godderz “did very well in the eight-man tournament” to crown the inaugural TNA Grand Champion.
HE LOST IN THE FIRST ROUND!