BRM Reviews the 10/3/2013 Impact

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- AJ cuts a great promo, then, just three weeks before their main-event match on the biggest show of the year, AJ and Bully Ray finally come face to face. They cut good promos, but I was extremely annoyed by the fact that the build-up of the match seems to be “is Dixie Carter in AJ’s head, and will this cause him to lose to Bully Ray?” Rather than “is AJ Styles better than Bully Ray?” or “can AJ finally complete his return from darkness and win the title?” or “can Bully Ray defend the title without help from Aces & Eights?” or something like that will gauge how good the competitors in the match are, rather than something that asks “what effect will Dixie have on the match?”

Apparently Bully Ray will face Joe tonight, but Hogan, the babyface GM, decided not to tell Bully this.
Also, if AJ isn’t under contract right now, why does Dixie keep letting him in the building? She has to let him into the building to compete at BFG, but there is no reason whys he has to let him in the building for Impacts. In fact, he is technically a liability.

DIXIE THROWS AJ OUT OF THE BUILDING- FINALLY! They listen to me! Of course… this is TNA so I’m certain the AJ will be allowed in the building with no problems at all next week, but at least I can call this a win for now.

JEFF HARDY & MANIK vs. KENNY KING & CHRIS SABIN (w/Velvet Sky)- 5.75/10
Sabin walks out on Kenny King, then jumps both babyfaces after the match. Austin Aries then made the save and challenged all of the guys out there aside from Kenny King to a four-way match. Jeff Hardy then got on the mic and said he wanted to be in an Ultimate X match. Manik then signified that he would put the title on the line, and without any okay from anyone in authority, Tenay starts announcing this match for BFG.
The fact that this match is happening in this form completely infuriates me. The reason the X-Division is in the sorry state that it has been in for the past few years is because TNA just figures that they can just throw together a random clusterf*ck Ultimate X match for the X-Division Title and people flock to see it. As a result of this, TNA has completely stopped bothering to come up with angles to make us care about the wrestlers involved in this clusterf*ck.
Sorry, TNA, but Ultimate X is not a draw anymore, and a big part the reason for that is that you just keep doing them completely randomly with no effective build up at all. This will be the 32nd Ultimate X-match in the just over ten years since the gimmick has existed (not counting house shows). That is utterly f*cking ridiculous for what is supposed to be your signature match. TNA had the building blocks for two perfectly good matches for BFG in place: Aries vs. King, and then Hardy vs. Manik vs. Sabin… but instead of do something that would actually make us care about the wrestlers and possibly elevate them on the card, TNA has instead chosen to take the lazy route and force their performers into a more dangerous match that will actually be less effective at helping anyone, even the winner of the match!

STING & HOGAN BACKSTAGE- apparently in just two weeks of being a heel, Sting and Hogan both agree that Dixie is a worse person than Bischoff. COME ON!
Apparently Dixie has sent Hogan a watch, which is identical to a watch which she gave Sting last year. Hogan somehow interprets this watch to mean that Dixie is metaphorically saying “let the games begin.” What?

STING & MAGNUS BACKSTAGE AFTER LAST WEEK’S MATCH- Great!

GAUNTLET MATCH: Magnus vs. E.G.O- 7/10

STING & MAGNUS SEGMENT- GREAT!... but now what are Joe and E.G.O. going to do at BFG?

HOGAN & ARIES BACKSTAGE- pointless.

VIDEO PACKAGE OF HULK HOGAN’S HISTORY IN TNA- GIGANTIC WASTE OF TIME! He’s not a f*cking wrestler anymore! He hasn’t had any real “moments” in TNA!

CHRIS SABIN PROMO- okay

E.G.O. BACKSTAGE- apparently they are going to have their own Hall of Fame ceremony next week and induct Bobby Roode. Obviously Kurt will return and face Roode at BFG.

WINNER GETS A KNOCKOUTS TITLE MATCH AT BFG: Velvet Sky vs. Brooke Tessmacher- no rating.
Actually, if you believe the graphic, her name is just “Brooke” now. Tenay actually referred to her as “Aces & Eights Brooke”… which leaves us with another question: Putting aside the fact that she hasn’t wrestled (and thus hasn’t won) a match in forever, who in TNA management would have given Tessmacher this opportunity. TNA management hates Aces & Eights and wants the titles off of them, so why give Brooke a title opportunity?
Anyway, the match never happens because Lei’D Tapa attacks Velvet.

ETHAN VIDEO PACKAGE- I have no idea who this guy is, but he came off like a HUGE f*cking star!

STORM & GUNNER VIDEO PACKAGE- pointless. This time needed to be spent building up CHALLENGERS for the tag titles!
Wait… no… apparently TNA thinks it would be better to just have a random gauntlet match with the entire tag team division on the pre-show to determine who the challengers for the tag titles will be because wins and losses are totally irrelevant in this idiotic company.

SAMOA JOE vs. BULLY RAY (w/Brooke Tessmacher)- 3/10!
I completely forgot about this match! You would think that TNA would actually hype up a main event which had the extremely popular Samoa Joe face their heel world champion, but then again they are TNA, so not hyping things up well is their forté.
So this was the main event: HALF of it took place DURING A COMMERCIAL, and it ended in Bully Ray getting DQed… after Joe got the visual win on him by making him tap when the ref was down. Did you really need to bury Bully like this? Why not just give him a dirty win? Why do you have to have him tap out, then rob the fans of a finish by having him get DQed? You get the same result (Joe laid out with the chain and Bully standing tall), but the fans get a lot less pissed off at your idiotic booking!
After the match Bully goes to piledrive Joe onto the concrete floor but AJ makes the save. Then security chases AJ off. They were never anywhere to be seen when Aces & Eights showed up last summer, but now that AJ Styles is running around, they are actually doing their jobs.

CLOSING SEGMENT- yeah… it was quite clear from her awkward phrasing here that Dixie was trying her best to avoid saying the words “best for business.” This rip-off of an angle is coming from the woman who accused WWE of copying their angles just because their was an accusation that someone named AJ was having an affair.
Dixie implies that she will fire Hogan if he doesn’t “take a ride on the Dixie train.” Sexual harassment, much?
Hogan then talks about wanting to be in a power couple, talks up how beautiful Dixie is, and then says that Dixie has “more power than anybody in this business.” BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH

Sorry guys. I just… BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I have heard quite a few outright lies on wrestling shows, but that takes the f*cking cake!

So Hogan quits (first leading everyone on and trying to swerve the crowd. It is TNA after all) and walks up the ramp… and Dixie chases after him and even gets down on her knees and grabs Hulk around the angle, begging him to stay. And THIS is the woman who is supposed to be the big heel. FAILURE!

Overall, another bad episode of Impact, but at least they got some stuff in place for Bound For Glory.

[cero2k]

ETHAN VIDEO PACKAGE- I have no idea who this guy is, but he came off like a HUGE f*cking star!

my new assumption is that this could be Derrick Bateman

STORM & GUNNER VIDEO PACKAGE- pointless. This time needed to be spent building up CHALLENGERS for the tag titles!
Wait… no… apparently TNA thinks it would be better to just have a random gauntlet match with the entire tag team division on the pre-show to determine who the challengers for the tag titles will be because wins and losses are totally irrelevant in this idiotic company.

i don't see the problem here, its not like this is a new low that TNA came up with, we've been seeing it in other promotions forever. and I think it's actually better to do this since there isn't any build at all for a tag feud, sure they still have time to build one, but it won't feel real, this way it will be a straight up title match, no shenanigans around it.

[cero2k]

Apparently Bully Ray will face Joe tonight, but Hogan, the babyface GM, decided not to tell Bully this.

makes sense, Hogan knows he's quitting tonight, fuck it, why help the dude that made his last months in TNA a living hell.

[Big Red Machine]

STORM & GUNNER VIDEO PACKAGE- pointless. This time needed to be spent building up CHALLENGERS for the tag titles!
Wait… no… apparently TNA thinks it would be better to just have a random gauntlet match with the entire tag team division on the pre-show to determine who the challengers for the tag titles will be because wins and losses are totally irrelevant in this idiotic company.

i don't see the problem here, its not like this is a new low that TNA came up with, we've been seeing it in other promotions forever. and I think it's actually better to do this since there isn't any build at all for a tag feud, sure they still have time to build one, but it won't feel real, this way it will be a straight up title match, no shenanigans around it.

Just because other companies have done something stupid doesn't mean it isn't stupid for TNA to do it as well.
If they are just going to give all of the teams a chance, I would much rather it be a short little BS tournament (as you can tell from my WWE fantasy booking, I'm quite fond of those) so that the winning team actually gets some build going in (and this is why). I cannot possibly care about any of the teams in the tag division right now, but doing a tournament where EY and Joseph get to look like tough, scrappy, never-give-up babyfaces or where Chavo & Hernandez cheat to win their matches will give me a chance to develop a reason to want to see the winning team either succeed or fail in their attempt to win the tag titles

[Big Red Machine]

Apparently Bully Ray will face Joe tonight, but Hogan, the babyface GM, decided not to tell Bully this.

makes sense, Hogan knows he's quitting tonight, f**k it, why help the dude that made his last months in TNA a living hell.

I wasn't sure that Hogan knew he was quitting. I thought that his conversations Aries and Sting (and Dixie sending him the watch) were what helped him make that decision. If they weren't then they served no purpose at all.
And telling Bully ay about his match isn't "helping" him. It is just playing fair. As Aries said to Hogan, sometimes things are back and white. There is right and there is wrong. Babyfaces should (most of the time) do right. He is already screwing Bully over by putting him in a match Samoa Freakin' Joe.

[cero2k]

Just because other companies have done something stupid doesn't mean it isn't stupid for TNA to do it as well.
If they are just going to give all of the teams a chance, I would much rather it be a short little BS tournament (as you can tell from my WWE fantasy booking, I'm quite fond of those) so that the winning team actually gets some build going in (and this is why). I cannot possibly care about any of the teams in the tag division right now, but doing a tournament where EY and Joseph get to look like tough, scrappy, never-give-up babyfaces or where Chavo & Hernandez cheat to win their matches will give me a chance to develop a reason to want to see the winning team either succeed or fail in their attempt to win the tag titles

why not just enjoy the wrestling match for what it is? a match with two teams that may or may have not crossed paths before, titles on the line. it's almost like watching an indy match.

[Big Red Machine]

Just because other companies have done something stupid doesn't mean it isn't stupid for TNA to do it as well.
If they are just going to give all of the teams a chance, I would much rather it be a short little BS tournament (as you can tell from my WWE fantasy booking, I'm quite fond of those) so that the winning team actually gets some build going in (and this is why). I cannot possibly care about any of the teams in the tag division right now, but doing a tournament where EY and Joseph get to look like tough, scrappy, never-give-up babyfaces or where Chavo & Hernandez cheat to win their matches will give me a chance to develop a reason to want to see the winning team either succeed or fail in their attempt to win the tag titles

why not just enjoy the wrestling match for what it is? a match with two teams that may or may have not crossed paths before, titles on the line. it's almost like watching an indy match.

That's fine for the undercard, but this is a title match at Bound For Glory! It just makes me root for Storm and Gunner by default if I don' think the challengers are worthy.

I think that, at this point, it is also just a summation of my frustration with TNA. Like with the Ultimate X Match, if they had put in just a little bit of effort, they could have made a match for their biggest PPV of the year that would make the titles important and would give me a reason to care about the wrestlers, but instead they just do this lazy-ass crap that makes the titles look worthless. The fact that they have put almost no thought into the tag title match at BFG just goes to show that the new PPV strategy combined with the expenses of going on the road will kill this company, and all because of an extremely predicable and fixable problem that the company has made no effort to fix whatsoever!

[cero2k]

That's fine for the undercard, but this is a title match at Bound For Glory! It just makes me root for Storm and Gunner by default if I don' think the challengers are worthy.

I think that, at this point, it is also just a summation of my frustration with TNA. Like with the Ultimate X Match, if they had put in just a little bit of effort, they could have made a match for their biggest PPV of the year that would make the titles important and would give me a reason to care about the wrestlers, but instead they just do this lazy-ass crap that makes the titles look worthless. The fact that they have put almost no thought into the tag title match at BFG just goes to show that the new PPV strategy combined with the expenses of going on the road will kill this company, and all because of an extremely predicable and fixable problem that the company has made no effort to fix whatsoever!

i completely understand where you're coming from, that's why at this point, there's no reason to let it get to you. TNA has become a product that we should enjoy it for what it is, we know logic runs low, we know that while they tend to start interesting storylines, they'll go to crap sooner or later. But at the end of the day, they do deliver good matches every now and then. If you try to get into the storylines, chances are you're gonna have a bad time.