BRM Reviews the 8/8/2013 Impact

[Big Red Machine]

ACES & EIGHTS INTIMIDATE MIKE TENAY- Taz is angry at Tenay for doing the show without him for the past three weeks. It is one thing for a heel to lie to demand that the world revolve around him to get heat… but this is just too far. This is the point where Taz just comes across like some sort of idiot.
If you remember correctly, after no-showing for two weeks, Taz showed up at the building last week and wasn’t allowed in by security. This week, he appears to have gotten in the building… so why doesn’t he just go to announce? Do they think that forcing Mike Tenay out of the announce booth for a week will get heat? No, no, no. Right now I am happier than I’ve ever been at the beginning of an Impact broadcast.

We got a quick video package recapping Tito Ortiz showing up last week and I’m not sure how I didn’t notice this last week, but Anderson looks completely bored by Tito’s appearance. They really should have edited that out of this video package.

OPENING SEGMENT- First Taz and Anderson go and intimidate JB while Bully shouts “ABUSE HIM!” None of the babyfaces come out to help poor JB. Bully then complains because when he and Devon got to the building, they were informed that they would be facing Sabin and a mystery partner tonight. Does TNA really not tell their wrestlers who they are facing until they show up on the day of the show? How are they supposed to do any scouting? And it’s not like this was a last minute decision, either, because it appeared a few days ago on the plot solicit for Impact in my cable guide.
Bully then says that this “doesn’t matter” because he will beat Sabin next week and win the TNA World Heavyweight Title match. Well if it doesn’t matter, why are you whining about it?
Sabin comes out and cuts an okay promo, then Brooke comes out with an official e-mail from Hulk Hogan, who is not here tonight because he is meeting with the TNA Board of Directors in Dallas. So the TNA Board of Directors scheduled their meetings at such a time as to prevent Hulk Hogan to making it to Impact… which is in Wichita Falls… less than two and a half hours away by car and only about forty-five minutes by air. Surely the TNA Board of Directors would be willing to end their meeting at such a time as to ensure that Hulk makes it to Impact on time.
Then we got it. The coup de grace of utter stupidity: Hulk’s e-mail says that because Bully tried to use legal trickery a few weeks ago and because he has caused such a ruckus with Aces & Eights, THEY HAVE DECIDED TO HOLD HIM TO THE LETTER OF THE LAW OF HIS CONTRACTS! Don’t they do that anyway? And if they don’t hold their wrestlers to the letter of the law of the contracts that they sign, it makes all of their stips COMPLETELY WORTHLESS! “Sting might have lost a match with a stip that he can never challenge for the TNA World Heavyweight Title again, but he hasn’t caused much of a fuss, so we won’t enforce that.” WHAT THE F*CK?! I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT THEY ACTUALLY SAID THAT ON THE AIR! Do these people not put any thought at all into the TV show that they write?
I came up with what I thought was a great way to introduce Sami Zayn/El Generico to the main roster in my WWE fantasy booking thread. I was going to have Daniel Bryan, the WWE Champion, do something similar to the “open contracts” thing he had done as ROH Champion. This would result in El Generico (using the Sami Zayn name) being portrayed as a major indy star coming in to have a title shot on Raw. He would put up a great fight against Dragon and, although he would lose, management would be so impressed by his performance that they would sign him. PRESTO! Instant upper-midcard star!
The problem is that after the whole CM Punk thing back in 2011, there is no way in hell that WWE would ever let someone who isn’t kayfabe under contract challenge for the WWE Title. A little bit of thinking about the implications of the story I wanted to tell would show that the company did not learn from a major mistake they made, and thus doing the story would make the company look bad… so I couldn’t do the story.
Here, a little bit of thinking about the implications of the story that they want to tell would reveal that EVERY STIP TNA HAS EVER DONE DOESN’T MEAN SH*T BECAUSE THE COMPANY USUALLY DECIDES NOT TO ENFORCE IT, THUS KILLING ALL FUTURE STIPS... and they did it anyway! WHAT THE F*CK?! I should not be putting more thought into this thing I do for fun than professional bookers put into the company that pays them to book professional wrestling! GRRRR!!!!
And it gets worse. The reason it is important that they have decided that they will now actually hold Bully to his contracts is because there was a clause in the contract for the title match at Destination X that if Bully lost, he would only get one rematch… so the babyfaces are now using legal trickery on the heel. Anyone else find this to be ass-backwards? And Bully, the guy who set up this kayfabe supposedly brilliant Aces & Eights plan to deceive everyone and win the TNA World Heavyweight Title didn’t notice this clause in the contract for his title match? Come on!
Then Brooke Hogan comes down to the ring being all “look at me, everyone I have a spunky attitude!” while Chris Sabin, THE TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION, takes a seat in the background. Brooke implies that Bully has a small penis, so Bully signs the contract… without reading it! Despite the fact that apparently not reading a contract for his last match has already burned him once today!

BOUND FOR GLORY SERIES MATCH: Samoa Joe vs. Jeff Hardy- 6/10

DANIELS PROMO- he was pouring it on too heavy here. I don’t think anyone thinks TNA will break up the most entertaining act in the company, so I can see them doing a Fingerpoke of Doom hear just to f*ck with the fans.

BOUND FOR GLORY SERIES MATCH: Mr. Anderson vs. Magnus- no rating. Great segment.
They just do some random clotheslines and stuff until Bobby Roode comes out and gets Magnus DQed, lcausing him to lose the points and thus making it easier for Roode to catch him. Aside from the fact that the ref made no attempt to stop Bobby from getting in the ring and didn’t try to take the chair away from him, this was great. A new an interesting story idea… in TNA? Who’d have thunk it?

BOBBY ROODE PROMO- good.

MAGNUS & THE REF BACKSTAGE- good.

BRO-MANS & MICKIE JAMES BACKSTAGE- acknowledging Tara’s lack of presence was good. Apparently we will get an intergender tag match later tonight with these three taking on Storm, Gunner, and ODB.

ANGLE, STING, & SABIN BACKSTAGE- Sabin has a plan which will apparently require the MEM to trust him a lot. Why the babyface world champion just pick one of the legendary babyfaces to be his tag partner and they just have as normal wrestling match?!

KURT ANGLE, BULLY RAY, & TITO ORTIZ SEGMENT- JB is inter the ring interviewing Tito, but Kurt barely lets Tito get a full sentence out before he shows up to interrupt him. Kurt gives Tito the whole “I respect you, but you’re stepping into my world now” speech he gave Rampage Jackson when he showed up a few months ago. Kurt then tells Tito that he will respect his space, but asks that Tito do the same for him. The problem here is that while Kurt was telling Tito how he would respect his space, Kurt was right up in Tito’s face and talking to him by speaking into a microphone!
Then Bully Ray comes out and tells them that he doesn’t respect either one of them and claims that he can beat them both up, then leaves. This was completely pointless.
Kurt then leaves, and the segment ends without us ever getting an answer about why Tito is here in TNA… which is what JB was supposed to be finding out from him! They just ignored the entire premise of this segment!

MICKIE JAMES & BRO-MANS vs. JAMES STORM, GUNNER, & ODB- 3/10
Hey, look! The tag champs are wrestling for the first time in over a month. Remember a few years ago when the Thirty Days Rule was enforced? Yeah… now the tag champs can go an entire month without even showing up on TV. Anyway, they dispatch Bro-Mans with about the same amount of difficulty that they beat them last month, which would be none. Gail Kim jumped ODB after the match.

KAZARIAN PROMO- decent

TEAM 3-D BACKSTAGE- Bubba and Devon pointlessly argue about whether they are 23 time champions or 24 time champions.

BOUND FOR GLORY SERIES MATCH: Christopher Daniels vs. Kazarian- no rating. Decent segment.
A good storyline finish, but why would TNA let this match go so long before getting to the finish? The time could have better been used elsewhere.
After the match, Bobby Roode comes out to the ring with a chair. He then drops it, grabs a mic, and announces that he, Daniels, and Kaz are all buddies now and that one of them will win the BFG Series and TNA World Heavyweight Title.

Backstage, a cameraman tries to get some answers out of Tito. He says that he might not have many answers, but that at HardCore Justice his “hands might just be all over it.” Umm… okay… whatever that means.

TEAM 3-D vs. CHRIS SABIN & KURT ANGLE- 7/10
Sting came out with Sabin and JB announced Sting as Sabin’s partner… but Kurt jumped Bully & Devon from behind and it turns out that he was actually Sabin’s partner. Two problems here, one minor and one major. The minor problem is how, exactly, did this relatively simple and no-risk plan require the MEM to trust Sabin? The major problem, of course, is that the babyfaces’ plan is to deceive their opponents about who will be wrestling in the match and then have someone jump them from behind! That is just about the most heelish plan ever!
Why did the ref just leave the table in the corner and make no attempt to get it out of the ring?
Anyway, I really liked this match aside from the very beginning and the very end. I described my issues with the beginning above, and my issue with the end was that this finish was not productive in any way. They should be building up to this title match by asking the question “can Sabin beat Bully clean (because he used a hammer to win the belt)?” Having Sabin pin Bully after Bully goes through a table doesn’t help build to the match at all. The smaller guy won after the bigger guy put himself through a table… which is something that won’t be able to happen next week.

Overall, a decent show in the ring, but a completely moronic show outside the ring. I still can’t believe that they actually said the things they said in that opening segment.

[cero2k]

Bully then complains because when he and Devon got to the building, they were informed that they would be facing Sabin and a mystery partner tonight. Does TNA really not tell their wrestlers who they are facing until they show up on the day of the show? How are they supposed to do any scouting? And it’s not like this was a last minute decision, either, because it appeared a few days ago on the plot solicit for Impact in my cable guide.

you're just picking on this one, this is how wrestling has been for years and years

[Big Red Machine]

Bully then complains because when he and Devon got to the building, they were informed that they would be facing Sabin and a mystery partner tonight. Does TNA really not tell their wrestlers who they are facing until they show up on the day of the show? How are they supposed to do any scouting? And it’s not like this was a last minute decision, either, because it appeared a few days ago on the plot solicit for Impact in my cable guide.

you're just picking on this one, this is how wrestling has been for years and years

Not at all. Matches are either made beforehand and everyone knows about them or they are made on the spot. Only in TNA does the company tell one person about the match, but not the other.

[cero2k]

Bully then complains because when he and Devon got to the building, they were informed that they would be facing Sabin and a mystery partner tonight. Does TNA really not tell their wrestlers who they are facing until they show up on the day of the show? How are they supposed to do any scouting? And it’s not like this was a last minute decision, either, because it appeared a few days ago on the plot solicit for Impact in my cable guide.

you're just picking on this one, this is how wrestling has been for years and years

Not at all. Matches are either made beforehand and everyone knows about them or they are made on the spot. Only in TNA does the company tell one person about the match, but not the other.

it happens all the time with mystery opponents, RAWctive matches, Mystery partners, etc

[Big Red Machine]

you're just picking on this one, this is how wrestling has been for years and years

Not at all. Matches are either made beforehand and everyone knows about them or they are made on the spot. Only in TNA does the company tell one person about the match, but not the other.

it happens all the time with mystery opponents, RAWctive matches, Mystery partners, etc

But in those cases that is the gimmick. Bully wasn't complaining that he had to face Sabin and a mystery partner. He was complaining that he was not told that he would have to face Sabin and a mystery partner until he got to the arena today.