BRM Reviews the 5/8/2014 Impact (same old sh*t)

[Big Red Machine]

BULLY & A CAMERAMAN IN HIS CAR- Bully is in Nashville to try to put Dixie through a table in Dixie’s office. So, for moral reasons or whatever, MVP won’t let them fight in the Impact Zone… but he is okay with them fighting elsewhere? It has been a week since Bully mentioned this plan. MVP hasn’t closed that loophole yet? And even if he can’t why would MVP allow this footage to air on his TV show?

They advertise some matches for tonight, including EC III vs. Angle, which they hype up as “after months of waiting, Kurt Angle finally gets EC III 1-on-1. This would be a lot more effective if these two hadn’t had physical confrontations every week for the past month.

EY PROMO- he says that he has had the first "hiccup" in his title reign because he promised to defend the belt every single week, but it isn’t being defended tonight. When the hell did he make this promise? I remember him promising to defend the belt whenever the fans wanted, but he never once promised to defend the belt every week on TV.
EY makes some dumb jokes, then declares himself to have booking power by booking himself in an open challenge title defense right now. Out comes Bobby Roode asking for a title shot… and EY turns him down. I know that EY just beat Roode last week, but EY still did issue an open challenge an Roode answered it, so what we have now is our babyface fighting champion ducking a challenger… and even worse, it’s one who he already knows he can beat!
Bobby Roode, the heel, then cuts a long babyface promo explaining why he should get a title shot… except that he gets some important facts wrong, including the fact that both he and EY are NOT TNA ORIGINALS! Anyway, the result of this is a last chance match to blow off something that just started last week.

EY & MVP SEGMENT- BAD!
MVP is upset that EY booked his own match tonight when MVP had something special planned for EY tonight. Well why didn’t you go out there and stop them, dipsh*t?!
MVP says that he is calling the EY vs. Bobby Roode match off because EY doesn’t have any booking power. Once again, if this was a problem for MVP, why didn’t he do something about it AS IT WAS HAPPENING? It would have eliminated a logical hole from the first segment and saved time because wouldn’t have needed to have this segment at all!
EY responds by saying “I’m the World Heavyweight Champion. I’m the exception.” In other words “TREAT ME SPECIAL!” which is one of the most un-babyface things you can say (it’s basically on par with “I love clubbing baby seals to death!”)
MVP promises to make things up to Eric by saying that he will book him against an opponent he has never faced before at Slammiversary. This mollifies EY… and EY just completely gives up on his promise to the fans about defending the belt every week. What a great babyface! MVP gives EY the night off, and at this point it would not surprise if he decided to use this vacation time to go make fun of some orphans.

TAG TEAM ELIMINATION EVENING GOWN MATCH: Madison Rayne & Brittany vs. The Beautiful People- 1.5/10
Velvet proves to be the smartest of these four women by being the only one to choose an evening gown that looks like it’d be a pain in the ass to pull off. Our babyfaces, on the other hand, are the polar opposite of intelligent, wearing what were essentially two-piece dresses. The heels proved how dumb this was by ripping Brittany’s dress off with one firm yank. Velvet flashes the ref to distract him, allowing Angelina to use hairspray to the eyes to win... which would be fine, except that Angelina’s previous use of Velvet’s dress to choke Madison.
Taz says that if this were a cocktail dress match, it would be shorter. That was funny. Taz then felt the need to explain the joke. That immediately made the joke a lot less funny.
Didn’t Gail Kim come out of last week’s show with physical possession of the Knockouts Title? I guess she just gave it back off-screen. I mean… it’s not like you could make an angle out of that or anything, right?

DIXIE & SPUD IN DIXIE’S OFFICE EARLIER TODAY- What a happy coincidence that we just happened to have a camera crew filming Dixie doing mundane things on the very day that Bully Ray decides to attack her at her office!
Dixie places Spud in charge of security. This would be the same Spud who hasn’t done anything right. Is she a moron?

MAGNUS & BRAM BACKSTAGE- apparently Bram signed a contract… and MVP decided to let this newbie book Magnus vs. Willow. So this nobody gets to book a match, but not the world champion?

KURT ANGLE vs. ETHAN CARTER III- DUD!
I absolutely hated this. So first Kurt beats the shit out of EC III, but then the knee that hasn’t given Kurt any trouble since he got back suddenly buckles on Kurt. Hebner throws up the X… but doesn’t actually stop the match. EC III works the knee over (the only good part of this), but then Kurt, busted knee and all, makes a comeback… then the knee buckles again (that’s right: EC III doesn’t beat Kurt- just like with Bobby Roode last year... because we wouldn’t want EC III to actually get over or anything, would we?)
Hebner throws the X up a few more times but still doesn’t end the match. Then EC III clips Kurt’s leg… and PINS him. If you’re going to do that, At least have EC OIII lock on his new knee-targeting submission finisher to get the win! Anyway… the dream match lasted three minutes.

MVP ANNOUNCES THE #1 CONTENDER FOR SLAMMIVERSARY-
The first thing I noticed about this was that, of all of the Sundays in June to do one of their only four PPVs of the year, these idiots picked Fathers’ Day.
Bobby Roode came out, upset that MVP said that his match with EY for the title was off tonight. This means that in the past FORTY-FIVE MINUTES, the Director of Wrestling Operations took absolutely ZERO steps to correct one of the wrestler’s misconceptions about tonight’s card. What a lazy schmuck!
Roode starts to be a heel again and calls MVP an SOB, so MVP tries to walk off, having never done what he came out here to do and announced the main event of Slammiversary. Roode stops him, though, so MVP threatens Roode. Roode shoves him, and they brawl… and I don’t give a sh*t because this is all MVP’s fault and is just the latest in a series of HORRIBLE decisions MVP has made.

BULLY IN TNA HEADQUARTERS- Is there no security in this building at all? They couldn’t have printed some signs with Bully’s picture on them that said “do not allow on premises” or something? Anyway, Bully makes Spud look like a b*tch. This is stupid.

KNUX & REBEL BACKSTAGE- Rebel is practicing her fire twirling. She seems pretty good at it. Knux has a guy bring a forklift with a big wooden box on it (right near Rebel doing her fire-twirling. That’s safe). Rebel asks “what’s this?” Knux replies “it’s their home.”
WHAT?!


AL SNOW AND BOBBY ROODE YELL AT EACH OTHER THROUGH A WALL OF SECURITY- dumb and pointless

LADDER MATCH FOR THE TNA WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES: The Wolves(c) vs. Bro-Mans (w/Zema Ion)- 5.5/10
It would have been nice to maybe mention this match more than once in the past hour. As you might expect, Mr. Fairness MVP has not done anything to prevent Zema Ion from interfering in this match.
They did some stuff that looked pretty hokey, but there were also some stuff in here that I hadn’t seen before. The finish was great… except for the part where they needed referee to hold the ladders steady for them. Taz had the nerve to call this “awesome,” while Tenay called it “spectacular.” They have some very, very, very low standards.
Taz claims that all of the talent involved in One Night Only: Jokers Wild II told him that it was their favorite PPV that they had ever been a part of. I appreciate that he is trying to hype the show up, but I don’t think there is a single person in the world who believes this statement is anywhere in the same galaxy as the truth.

KNUX & REBEL OPEN THE CRATE- according to Knux, these guys “love it in there!” They open the crate, and out walk a muscle man wearing a hood so that we won’t find out that he is really Rob Terry, and some sort of stupid clown hopping around while holding balloons. Rebel says “I don’t think this is a good idea” and I am left wondering how it is that this phrase was not spoken in the TNA creative meetings when this idea was discussed.

KAZARIAN vs. KNUX (w/the Menagerie)- 2/10
Menagerie’s entrance isn’t bad, although Rebel’s part would have been much cooler if we hadn’t seen her doing similar stuff with FIRE backstage. The stilt guys were good, but they should have stayed on the ramp. Rebel and Knux are definitely in some sort of sexual relationship. Once again, I will remind everyone that they are BROTHER AND SISTER!
The good news is that TNA was smart enough to put Menagerie against the only guy left on the roster who could sell it well. The bad news is that he is about to leave the company.

BULLY RUNS A STAFF MEETING- I hope that the person who came up with this idea burns alive.

GUNNER & ANDERSON BACKSTAGE- pointless and stupid. Props to Gunner for at least trying to be understanding when it comes to Sam Shaw’s mental problems.

BULLY RAY RUNS A STAFF MEETING, PART 2- there are some crimes for which being burnt alive is not punishment enough. This is quickly becoming one of them.
Maybe I just don’t get this, but why, exactly, are we supposed to like Bully? He is a liar and a bully and he is bullying and lying to poor loyal Spud.

WILLOW PROMO- bad… but the “I do not fear your reign because I have an umbrella” line was enough to make up for it.

WILLOW vs. MAGNUS (w/Bram)- DUD!
As they are walking out to the ring, Tenay says “we’ve seen Bram attempt to bring out a more aggressive side of Mangus.” WHAT?! No we haven’t! We haven’t seen him do a damn thing except talk cryptically about how he and Magnus used to be, whatever that means. As sh*tty as this show is, it would become so much more bearable if they got rid of Taz and Tenay.
Out of nowhere, Tenay also says that Bram has an “iron-clad” contract. Didn’t they learn from how much trouble WWE got into by using that phrase? Of course not! Because when was the last time TNA learned from any mistake that anyone ever made?
Anyway, this main event match went two minutes, then had a DQ finish. Why the hell would you make this the main event instead of the ladder match for the world tag teams titles with a clean finish?
Bram beats the crap out of Willow, including handcuffing him to the ropes and beating him up with a turnbuckle. No one came out to help Willow because he has no friends. Then Willow totally killed it for me by crying out in pain in his Willow voice, which sounded horrible. Magnus was appalled by this and walked away.
During this match, Tenay advertised a Bellator MMA fight between Rampage Jackson and King Mo. Aren’t those guys both in TNA? How’s that working out for you, TNA?


KURT ANGLE IN THE TRAINER’S ROOM- BAD!
Apparently Kurt’s ACL is torn. Kurt asks “what does that mean?” Didn’t EC III just tear Kurt’s ACL a few months ago? Can these idiots really not think of ANYTHING new? (how little I knew)


MVP REVEALS EY’S OPPONENT AT SLAMMIVERSARY-
MVP punches EY out and then announces that HE will challenge EY for the TNA World Heavyweight Title at Slammiversary. So they are doing the Heel Authority Figure angle… AGAIN! IT HASN’T EVEN BEEN TWO MONTHS SINCE WE HAD A MATCH TO GET RID OF A HEEL AUTHORITY FIGURE, AND NOW WE’RE BACK THERE AGAIN! MVP hasn’t even been in the company for five months, and they have already turned him heel! Does TNA even know any angles other than “big heel stable” and “heel authority figure”? Because it really doesn’t seem that way.
So the main event of TNA’s third-biggest show of the year will be Eric Young vs. MVP. Gee, I can’t image why this company isn’t succeeding.


We still have no resolution about whether or not Abyss has a contract.

Another crappy episode of Impact that will once again damage any faith anyone might have had that they might actually try something new or interesting.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Tenay (about Menagerie) “It’s a carnival come to life.”
No. It’s just the people from a carnival!

[Big Red Machine]

Oh. I just realized this now, but I will definitely give TNA credit for having the entire card in place before the show began. This was the first time in the MVP Era where it didn't feel like he was booking the show on the fly during a live broadcast, which is just plain kayfabe stupidity.