BRM Reviews the 2/27/2014 Impact (bad)

[Big Red Machine]

GUNNER BACKSTAGE- the cameraman asks Gunner what he will say to James Storm when he shows up. Have they really not seen each other before now? We know there was a house show over the weekend where the Wolves won the tag belts, so did one of them not work that house show?
I know this isn’t essential to the logic of the story, but it is a question that pops up and giving it an answer such as “Storm no-showed because he is afraid of Gunner” not only plugs this (admittedly unimportant) hole, but it gets the angle over more (and it would lead perfectly into a match at Lockdown if you keep having Storm run away from Gunner, then have MVP book them in a cage match at Lockdown so that Storm can’t run away).

Tenay tells us that he has “breaking news.” I assumed that this would be the fact that the Wolves won the tag belts on a house show over the weekend (which TNA has talked about on their Youtube channel)… but no. Apparently Dixie isn’t here tonight, so she has given match-making power to Magnus, Roode, and EC III. Of course there is also MVP, so we now have FOUR IDFFERENT PEOPLKE WITH BOOKING POWER (plus maybe Spud)! On one show! Of course we all know exactly what will happen, which is that Roode, Magnus, and EC III will bicker and not get along all night in boring repetitive segments (you know, exactly what WWE got smart and stopped doing a few months ago with Kane, Maddox and Vickie). I am really not looking forward to this.

Wait… Lockdown is in TEN DAYS?! Since when?! They have done a really poor job of hyping this show up.

WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE CONTRACT SIGNING SEGMENT- MVP recaps the finish to last week’s main event, announces the now-set in stone main event for Lockdown and assured us that if his team won at Lockdown there would be justice in the form of Gunner getting another TNA World Title match to make up for the one that Storm screwed him out of last week. Great stuff so far.
He brings out Joe, then brings out Magnus. Magnus tells us that Dixie isn’t here because he told her that London stinks. MVP then reminds us of how Magnus has defended his title recently, relying on outside interference and “unfair advantages,” but those won’t be able to help him when he faces Joe in a steel cage at Lockdown. PERFECT hype for the PPV main event.

Or at least it would have been if he had ended there. He says that Magnus won’t have any “unfair advantages” because their match at Lockdown will be under “Joe Rules” which means Submissions and Knockouts only. So right after talking about how despicable it is that Magnus that has been defending the title in matches whose rules favor him and saying that makes Magnus a paper champion, MVP announces that Joe’s title shot at Lockdown will have special rules that favor Joe. WHAT THE F*CK?!
We know Joe can beat Magnus because he did it back in 2012 for the TV Title and because he made him tap in a tag match to earn this very title shot. Magnus has been retaining his title because of outside interference, so you book the match in G-d damn steel cage to stop people from interfering, thus making it a fair fight which we know Joe can win but Magnus ahs no excuses if he loses. IT’S NOT THAT F*CKING HARD TO GET THIS RIGHT! Instead, TNA has to add in another gimmick (because apparently a cage match isn’t enough),and they do so in a way that will completely undermine the babyface’s win! (Taz and Tenay both brought up how heavily this favored Joe).

Magnus says he still has some tricks left up his sleeve, calls Joe a “dangerous animal” and says he will put Joe down. They get face to face, Magnus taunts Joe, so Joe gives him a headbutt and beats him up until MVP and some referee stop him.

Ah. Here’s the report on the Wolves winning the tag belts. It was good that they put it before the first commercial break.

ZEMA ION & THE BRO-MANS BACKSTAGE AT THE HOUSE SHOW AFTER LOSING THE TAG TITLES-
They say they want to get their revenge on the Wolves by joining Team Roode (no mention of a return match?), so they go find Bobby Roode and ask him if they can join his team. He points out to them that they JUST LOST TO THE WOLVES, so why would he want them on his team?
He does give them a chance to prove themselves, though, by booking Bro-Mans vs. Bad Influence vs. The Wolves, saying that if one of the heel teams wins, they will get to be on Roode’s team. Of course this all happened on Sunday night and Roode only has booking power for tonight’s show… so I will be generous and assume that Dixie is giving Roode full control over who is on his team and letting him book whatever matches he feels will help him choose the strongest team for Lockdown (see, I can use my powers of logic to be nice to TNA when possible)… though I’m not quite sure how Bro-Mans winning would qualify Zema to be on Roode’s team.

THE WOLVES vs. BAD INFLUENCE vs. BRO-MANS (w/Zema Ion)- 4.75/10
This match was taped weeks before the Wolves won the belts, so TNA does the best thing they could have done under the circumstances and just cut the entrances out entirely.
The Wolves got to show their tag team skills. Bad Influence also look good, but Bro-Mans steal the pin on Kaz. Now Roode is stuck teaming with these chumps.

EC III PROMO- he says he will face one of the greatest wrestlers in the history of England tonight. He also says that he will “expose the truth” about Kurt Angle tonight.

ARIES & ROODE BACKSTAGE- okay

ETHAN CARTER III vs. DOUG WILLIAMS- 0.5/10
So out of nowhere instead of scrubs EC III now chooses to face DOUG WILLIAMS?! Not knocking it. Just saying it’s kind of an out of where change. Big pop for Doug Williams in his home country. EC III says he will win tonight’s match, “just like the United States is going to win the World Cup in soccer.” That’s some good heel stuff right there.
Yeah… they beat Doug in about two minutes. At least there was a low blow involved. Just to be a heel, EC III locks Doug in some sort of leg lock after the match.

STORM & GUNNER SEGMENT- AWESOME! Tons of awesome!

GUNNER PROMO- There’s only one way out of the arena? That seems like a major fire hazard.

MAGNUS PROMO- good. He has booked Joe against that guy who won the Global Gut Check thing.

SAMOA JOE vs. BAD BONES (w/Magnus)- SQUASH
Well… I guess this guy really isn’t that good if he lost in two minutes… and he was the best TNA could find with their “Global Gut Check?”

ARIES & MVP BACKSTAGE- Aries wants to see MVP up close and personal… and the only way he can do this is by being the special guest ref for tonight’s main event. MVP suspects a set up, but Aries says that if MVP wants him on his team, he has to trust him.

KURT ANGLE GETS INDUCTED INTO THE TNA HALL OF FAME-
Good for Kurt, but to be honest… I don’t give a sh*t, and the whole stupid Angle about Kurt not wanting to be inducted, then randomly deciding that beating Bobby Roode once means he now deserves to be inducted.
I also really didn’t like the video package. One of the first clips they had in this video package was Taz saying that Kurt being an Olympic gold medalist and choosing to be a professional wrestler “put an instant stamp of approval on our business.” BECAUSE WRESTLING IS FAKE, EVERYBODY! Taz is always saying things like this and it REALLY pisses me off. He tries to get someone like Joe or the Wolves over by describing them as “legit” or calls guys “credible” and sh*t like that. You’d think that someone who came up in the territory days would have more respect for the business than to say sh*t that strongly implies that wrestling is fake.
Oh, and let’s look at the timing Taz is talking about with this: 1998. Yeah. I’m sure it was Kurt signing with WWE that made wrestling cool again and not the Rock, Austin, D-X, the nWo, and Goldberg. And as a final bullet in the head to Taz’ statement, Kurt signed with the WWE in October 1998. Do you know who won the Intercontinental Title that same month? KEN SHAMROCK.
After that, it was pretty lame. They had one or two more clips of Jeff and Taz talking, but that was it. It was very underwhelming.
As Kurt comes out, Tenay told us that he can’t think of anyone who deserves to be inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame more than Kurt Angle. Really Mike? AJ Styles? Jeff Jarrett? I know why Mike said it, but as a longtime fan of TNA it still pissed me off.

Then EC III came out and played clips of himself jumping Kurt from a few weeks ago. Kurt did not seem upset by this at all, treating this man ruing his big moment as a joke. EC III gets in the ring a reads a statement claiming that Kurt has torn both his ACL and MCL, needs surgery, and might not be able to ever wrestle again. My uncle just did something similar and has been wearing a special knee brace and walking with crutches for a month. Kurt is barely limping.
And wouldn’t you know it, Kurt is perfectly fine. This made EC III look like a total f*cking moron and a pathetic twerp. Then Kurt knocked him down with just one punch and sent him scurrying, so why the hell would I want to pay to see Kurt beat this chump up on PPV? Speaking of which, it turns out that MVP booked Kurt vs. EC III for Lockdown. You’d think this would be something that TNA would want to hype up, but apparently they have been very tight-lipped about it because EC III, the owner’s nephew and ONE OF THE MEN INVOLVED IN THE MATCH didn’t even know about it.

MADISON RAYNE & VELVET SKY vs. LEI’D TAPA & ALPHA FEMALE (w/Gail Kim & Chris Sabin)- 2/10
Sabin wound up in the ring and the referee made no effort to get him out. Apparently we are getting Gail vs. Madison at Lockdown. Again. They’re like Cena and Orton, except that at least Cena and Orton’s matches together are usually good.
The heels win, with Tapa pinning Madison, then get some heat after the match… until ODB comes out and beats them all up, killing all of the heat just ten days before the PPV.

TIGER UNO VIDEO PACKAGE- can we please get some clips of him actually DOING SOMETHING?! Like, you know, maybe a wrestling move?

SAMUEL SHAW INTERVIEW- yeah, this guy is crazy.

SAM SHAW & CHRISTY HEMME SEGMENT-
This got “boring!” chants, and I have to agree. I don’t care. They blew their wad with this already by having Christy find out about Shaw’s shrine. If Christy (and everyone else) know that this guy is clearly insane, the whole thing doesn’t work. Then Ken Anderson shows up and yells at Shaw that he is a “creepy bastard” and his relationship with Christy isn’t real. If TV has taught us anything, it is that saying something like this almost always results in the woman in question spending a period of time locked up in the creepy bastard’s basement.
Well… that was out of right field. Shaw just pretty much called Christy a slut. This really doesn’t seem to mesh with his earlier view of her. Christy slaps him in response to this. Yeah. She’s definitely getting kidnapped at some point.
Shaw grabs Christy and uses her as a shield, then shoves her into Anderson and chokes Anderson out. This segment seems to have turned this angle in a completely different direction which I don’t like, but with the way they have already screwed this up, it will probably work better.


STORM & GUNNER BRAWL IN THE PARKING LOT-
Okay… everyone knew this was going to happen. Tenay even hyped up that it was about to happen right before we went to commercial… so why the f*ck did it take them so long to get there to break it up? You would think that from the moment Gunner cut his earlier promo they would have dispatched some security or an agent or someone to stand there and try to stop with fight. Either they want people to fight or they don’t. You can’t have it both ways, TNA.

EY PROMO- he says that “the guy I was in the ring with a few weeks ago? We’d all better hope that he doesn’t come back.”
And whose fault is it that he came back in the first place, asshole?! Oh yeah! IT’S YOURS!

SINGLES MATCH WITH AUSTIN ARIES AS THE SPECIAL GUEST REFEREE: Bobby Roode vs. MVP- 6/10
Aries is wearing just a referee’s shirt and his wrestling trunks. He looks really stupid. He turns heel, just like everyone knew he would (or else this stupid situation wouldn’t have been set up in the first place).

Another bad Impact, but at least there was something to like on this show. There were WAY too many short matches and nothing aside from the Storm & Gunner segment made me want to see anything at Lockdown. They also did a poor job of hyping up the main event. I kept forgetting what it was. Compare this to Raw, which is an hour longer than Impact, but they NEVER let you forget what the main event will be.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Taz says something completely idiotic and obviously false about some complicated familial relationship between Bad Bones and Alpha Female.

2. Tenay says that we have an “uncomfortable situation” with both Shaw and Hemme being out here “in light of what happened one week ago.”
Yeah. Because him accidentally bonking into her while attacking someone else and then carrying her off is what makes this uncomfortable, not the fact that he has a CREEPY SHRINE TO HER IN HIS HOUSE AND TRIED TO STEAL HER HAIR FOR IT.” That was fine, but last week’s events are what made this become creepy.

[cero2k]

Another bad Impact, but at least there was something to like on this show. There were WAY too many short matches and nothing aside from the Storm & Gunner segment made me want to see anything at Lockdown. They also did a poor job of hyping up the main event. I kept forgetting what it was. Compare this to Raw, which is an hour longer than Impact, but they NEVER let you forget what the main event will be.

they showed the graphic like 5 times at least during the show, they escalated the stakes by adding Aries, if that is not hyping, i don't know what you're expecting.

RAW came up with the main event on the spot and for the rest of the show, i thought Kane vs Daniel Bryan was gonna be the main event, until that match came up and we still had a bunch of time left.

[Big Red Machine]

Another bad Impact, but at least there was something to like on this show. There were WAY too many short matches and nothing aside from the Storm & Gunner segment made me want to see anything at Lockdown. They also did a poor job of hyping up the main event. I kept forgetting what it was. Compare this to Raw, which is an hour longer than Impact, but they NEVER let you forget what the main event will be.

they showed the graphic like 5 times at least during the show, they escalated the stakes by adding Aries, if that is not hyping, i don't know what you're expecting.

RAW came up with the main event on the spot and for the rest of the show, i thought Kane vs Daniel Bryan was gonna be the main event, until that match came up and we still had a bunch of time left.

Raw wasn't clean on which of the two matches was going to be the main event, but I knew that both matches were happening. On Impact was often scratching my head asking "what's the main event tonight?" They only mentioned it when it was relevant to a segment that just happened. They never mentioned it other times, though.