BRM Reviews the 1/23/2015 Impact

[Big Red Machine]

OKAY! THEY’RE BRIEFCASES! WE GET IT! You don’t need to show us a million different angles of the same dull gray briefcases!

FEAST OR FIRED VIDEO PACKAGE- good, aside from that final tagline. “Be careful what you wish for, because you never know what lies inside.” Whoever wrote that should have been flogged for even suggesting it.

FEAST OR FIRED MATCH- 4/10
Oh yeah! Gunner exists! I had totally forgotten about him. The only homegrown talent TNA has come anywhere close to building up to a main event spot in YEARS... and he hasn’t even been mentioned since they moved to their new channel.

We don’t need to see the announcers talking! Quit it with this split-screen bullsh*t and let me watch the match on the whole f*cking screen! If you want to establish that they are watching from wherever they are, then do the damn split-screen during the entrances. Instead, TNA decides to go to a split-screen as soon as the actual action starts.
The first person to get a briefcase is Robbie E. Kind of. It was actually Velvet who got it for him, after she also distracted Crazzy Steve for him. Steve wasn’t into her at all, but she got in his way and he was too nice to shove her off the turnbuckle, which let Robbie take Steve out, and then help Velvet get the case. Velvet gave the case to Robbie and they ran off. Crazzy Steve ran off after them, which means that here in TNA’s new beginning, they are giving us the same f*cking feud that spent months going absolutely nowhere last year.
The match was what it was. They had some good spots in here, but large chunks of it were still very dull. The Spud stuff was good, but Spud pulling the briefcase really should have been saved for the end of the match. You want your biggest pop at the end, and I don’t think anyone would have gotten a bigger pop than babyface Spud, especially if they had done more with and spaced out the whole “Spud is too short to reach the briefcases” story.

Taz tried to sell this match to us as a great opportunity for wrestlers who are not ranked highly in TNA’s rankings to still earn a title shot. I guess Taz forgot that this is TNA, where people have been randomly thrown in #1 contendership matches for years, even if their last match was a loss in a #1 contendership match. And it’s a shame because that would be a great way to build this match up and make it seem like a bigger deal for a guy like Spud or Sam Shaw or Zema Ion, but TNA’s incompetent booking has killed that possibility.
Also, why were none of the BDC guys or Kurt Angle, or Bobby Roode, or the Hardys, or Eric Young, or James Storm’s guys in this match? They all want the world title or some other gold, right? So why weren’t they out here? Not having them here makes this match feel like Austin Aries and a bunch of midcarders and jobbers.
Anyway, the cases go to Aries, Spud, Magnus, and Robbie E. This means that neither Samuel Shaw nor Crazzy Steve will be getting fired, which makes this whole gimmick a waste. The best that we can hope for now is for Aries to get fired and go back to ROH.
Bram was mad that Magnus got the last briefcase.

LASHLEY PROMO- he’s going to take his title belt back from MVP.

MAGNUS & BRAM BACKSTAGE- Bram says Magnus double-crossed him to get the briefcase. Magnus says this isn’t true. Magnus then claims that he got Bram his job in TNA. OH COME ON! It hasn’t even been nine months and they can’t keep their own damn storyline straight!
Security pulled them apart, while Bram screamed “I’m gonna smash your head in!” and actually sounded really scary.

VIDEO RECAP OF LAST WEEK’S MAIN EVENT ANGLE- maybe I’m just having problems with the fact that they’ve never explicitly said “we’re not live anymore,” but I really didn’t like the way they did this. Would it have really been so hard to just play the video package first and then do the Lashley segment? When Lashley came out and then Matthews said “hey everyone, our producer has this video package about last week’s angle he wants you to watch right now,” I immediately got annoyed. I don’t want to see your damn video package. I want to see what Lashley is going to do, and you inserting this video package right here is just making me wait.

BOBBY LASHLEY & KENNY KING SEGMENT- Obviously it’s not TNA’s fault because they taped this weeks ago, but Lashley coming out and saying “give me my title. Now.” just came off as a terribly lame version of Brock Lesnar’s “Seth Rollins, get your ass out here, boy,” from this week’s Raw.
You know what? Kenny King’s got a damn good point. Lashley DIDN’T do anything to earn the title, and he probably would have lost without the BDC’s interference.

BOBBY LASHLEY vs. KENNY KING (w/the BDC)- 2.25/10
They did some stuff, then the BDC interfered for the DQ when Lashley was about to win. Lashley got beat down and MVP told him that he was only champion because of MVP. MVP then told Lashley that he didn’t want to wrestle in front of the stupid fans, so if Lashley wants to get the belt back, he’ll have to face MVP “on the streets.” So basically, they repeated last week’s angle just to set up a street fight for later in the show.
Joe was walking with a noticeable limp at the end of this segment. Hopefully he’s okay.

LASHLEY SELLS BACKSTAGE- good.

AWSOME KONG VIDEO PACKAGE- it was… well… awesome.
I do have one nit-pick, though. If you’re trying to get Kong over as being extra tough by showing her beating up guys, you should probably get some clips of her beating up guys who are at least as big as she is. It doesn’t make her look impressive if you show her beating up X-Division jobbers and referees.

HAVOK vs. GAIL KIM- 2/10
They started off hot and did some good stuff, but then Havok, who had been dominating the match, went and got herself DQed for pushing the referee. I really didn’t like the DQ (especially after we just had one in the previous match), but the more I thought about it, the more okay with it I was. It lets Havok look dominant over a top competitor without actually beating Gail (who was still fighting back as best she could right before the DQ), and it also does establish Havok’s character a bit. The problems with the booking, though are that 1) they haven’t actually established Gail as a top competitor to the Destination America audience yet, and 2) Havok beat Gail up after the DQ. At that point you might as well just pin her because you are giving us, in essence, the same result: Havok beat Gail up to the point where Gail couldn’t fight back anymore. If Havok hadn’t gotten DQed, she could have easily pinned Gail.
I also hated the Kong appearance and brawl. We got a video package for Kong she doesn’t need to be on the show this week. At this point they’re just burning through angles without even having a target date in mind that they’re building things up for.
I also really didn’t like the way the fight went down. Kong knocking Havok down that easily actually took away from my desire to see the match. I also just didn’t buy that Havok wouldn’t want to get right back up in there and go after Kong, which didn’t happen.
Taz was back to his usual sh*ttiness in this match, talking about “the bonage area around your eyeball” and misusing the term “sacrificial lamb,” and making that stupid “if that is his real name” comment about Brian Stiffler, which even if it is some sort of inside joke rather than Taz just being dumb, must have ceased to be funny to everyone else about at least a year ago.

TIGRE UNO vs. KHOYA (w/James Storm’s Revolution)- DUD!
For some reason, the announcers are outraged that Storm has renamed Mahabali Shira to “Khoya,” which means “lost” in Hindi. He gave the guy a ring name. So what? Shira himself admitted that he felt a bit lost in those awesome video packages they introduced him in, so what is the problem with this?
Abyss was not at ringside with Storm. He also didn’t have his tag title belt with him. None of this was mentioned by the announcers.
So Tigre Uno is using his speed and striking ability to take it to Khoya, but then Khoya just stopped selling. Then Storm jumped up on the apron slapped him in the face really hard, and then yelled at him. I guess Storm wasn’t happy with the no-selling.
Khoya blocked Tigre Uno’s next move and went for a fall-away slam, but something funky happened and Tigre Uno basically landed on his feet and then rolled to the ground and started to sell. It looked like crap. Tigre Uno hit one or two more big dropkicks, but then Khoya pinned him with a Rydeen Bomb. They really should have had Khoya get more offense in, both so that Tigre Uno didn’t look so weak and to stretch more time out between the botch and the finish so that the crowd would hopefully forget it.

JAMES STORM PROMO- pretty good, but don’t you think a match between James Storm and Matt Hardy is something they probably should have mentioned at some point in the first forty-five minutes of the show?

THE SPY CAMERA SPIES ON KURT ANGLE TALKING TO BOBBY ROODE- didn’t like it at all for a lot of reasons.
WHAT?! Kurt Angle and Bobby Roode are teaming up tonight, and there hasn’t been any hype for this at all?
Kurt says he wants to win the world title. Well why weren’t you in Feast or Fired then, Kurt?
Roode yells about how much it sucks that he worked so hard to win the world title and then, “in a split second, my best friend took it from me.” Yeah. Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it, Bobby?
Actually, the more that I think about it, the more I think they are missing a big opportunity by not calling this out and trying to do something with Storm and Roode out of this. Not a feud or even a match, but some kind of segment, or at least EY mentioning it or something.
Roode came off as whiny here, and Kurt’s dialogue came off as scripted and a bit cliché, although Kurt’s delivery made it work.

A POINTLESS WASTE OF TIME WITH JOSH MATTHEWS-
I have heard a lot of things from TNA announcers on this show over the years that came off as completely and totally unbelievable bullsh*t, but this right here has to be the absolute bottom of the barrel: Josh claimed that Taz was “working on his notes for an upcoming tag team match.”
Josh also put over the sound guy. He then built up the Roode vs. EY feud. He said that they had been best friends for twelve years… which is complete and utter bullsh*t. Every interaction they had until last spring usually involved Roode treating EY like a bitch. Now they’ve magically been retconned into having this friendship since day one? F*ck off. I can believe that there was some level of mutual respect at times, and that over this spring and summer, that blossomed into a deep friendship, but don’t try to sell me something that is contradicted by the visual evidence stored in almost every single TNA DVD on my shelf.
Most of what Josh said about this feud could have been done with quick replays during the entrances and comments from the announcers during the match. He also quickly plugged the Feast or Fired cases, which I had honestly completely forgotten about.

SPUD PROMO- F*CKING AWESOME!
Then they plugged and recapped the Feast or Fired briefcases again, making Josh’s entire spiel a few moments ago a redundant waste of time.

LOW KI & ERIC YOUNG vs. BOBBY ROODE & KURT ANGLE- 4.75/10
EY definitely isn’t part of the BDC… but he and Low Ki entered together to the same music.
The match was short, but had a great finish.

MVP PROMO- a good promo, but if he didn’t want to wrestle in front of the fans, shouldn’t he be telling the official TNA Impact Wrestling on Destination America cameraman to go away?

ETHAN CARTER III (w/Tyrus) vs. JEREMY BORASH (w/Rockstar Spud)- DUD!
The referee clearly did not check them for weapons before ordering for the bell to be rung because ETHAN WAS STILL HOLDING THE MICROPHONE WHEN IT RANG. The first actual offense in the match was Borash hitting Ethan with microphone. Again- this is AFTER the bell has rung… so why wasn’t there a disqualification? Ethan’s punches looked like sh*t. Spud then GOT IN THE RING, JUMPED ON EC III, AND STARTED PUNCHING HIM. STILL NO DQ. Then this year’s British Bootcamp winner (who goes by the absolutely awful name of “Mandrews”) jumped the guardrail, and this skinny midget managed to chase Ethan off. He and Spud then took Tyrus down with a double dropkick, then he did a shooting star press to the outside. I didn’t care one bit. This match had no official finish.

JAMES STORM vs. MATT HARDY- 3.75/10
They seemed to be going way too slow towards the finish.
Oh. There’s Abyss. He jumped Matt after the match. He went to impale Matt with Janice, but Jeff came out to make the saved, and when I say he made the save, I mean just kind of froze while Jeff ran down the ramp and stood there, not moving, until Jeff smacked Janice out of his hands with the chair. Abyss wound up taking Jeff’s Twist of Fate Stunner variation, but didn’t really sell it at all other than stumbling out of the ring. Jeff then cut a promo challenging Abyss to a Monster’s Ball match next week, so they will be starting off with at least four straight weeks of gimmick matches.



COMMERCIAL FOR NEXT WEEK’S SHOW- you know how they have started using actual clips from the show in these? Well this one showed Lashley walking out to the ring with his title belt, which pretty much spoils the main event angle of this show. Is it really too much for them to just show us cool clips of the wrestlers in action from the past rather than poop on kayfabe with his schizophrenic “we’re live/we’re not live” crap?

MVP & JOE ARGUE OUTSIDE- obviously a swerve, and everyone sees it coming.

FEAST OR FIRED BRIEFCASE REVEAL- very bad.
You don’t have to tell us that “these four briefcases sit in front of the person who retrieved it earlier tonight.” We’ve already figured that part out, and even you hadn’t, it’s actually irrelevant at this point. It’s just annoying.
Just like last year, I despised the mood music in the background.
Spud gets the X-Division Title shot. His demeanor in this, both in the room and in his promo afterwards, felt like a step backwards for him. Like the confidence he has shown in recent months completely disappeared. When someone calls him a loser, he shouldn’t mumble “I’m not a loser” under his breath. He should shout it back at him!
Magnus gets the tag title shot.
Robbie E. is a moron and has a mental breakdown because he doesn’t understand the rules of this gimmick match because he’s a f*cking idiot. Does anyone find this entertaining?
Yeah… this segment didn’t need to stretch over a commercial break.
OH MY F*CKING G-D! Robbie insists that the case actually belongs to Velvet because she was the one who unhooked it, and it turns out that Velvet is the one who gets fired. SHE WASN’T EVEN IN THE F*CKING MATCH! HOW CAN SHE WIN A MATCH IF SHE ISN’T EVEN F*CKING COMPETING IN IT?! IS THERE SOME SORT OF F*CKING 24/7 RULE OR SOME DUMB SH*T LIKE THAT THAT THEY NEVER TOLD US ABOUT?! GGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!
ONE SHOW. ONE F*CKING SHOW IS ALL I ASK, TNA. CAN YOU POSSIBLY PUT ON ONE F*CKING EPISODE OF IMPACT- 120 MINUTES, INCLUDING COMMERCIAL TIME- WHERE YOU MANAGE TO NOT DO ONE THING SO F*CKING STUPID IT SENDS ME FLYING INTO A RAGE?! JUST ONCE?! PLEASE! GGRRRRRRR!

So Robbie starts making fun of Velvet and making cawing noises like a f*cking bird and jumping and jumping the table and it’s just embarrassing to watch.
So Velvet has lost her job. She’s crying about it, and Christy is trying to console her… and TNA plays it all for comedy by interspersing it with Robbie jumping up and down and smiling while happy music plays in the background.
So… let’s take some inventory for a second:
Crazzy Steve, an obnoxious spot monkey who never wins and has a gimmick that is downright embarrassing- STILL EMPLOYED
Rebel, a random girl who has a good body, but she’s green as Piccolo’s dick and seems to constantly have a completely bewildered look on her face- STILL EMPLOYED
Knux- a completely mediocre wrestler with almost no charisma- STILL EMPLOYED
Samuel Shaw- a terrible wrestler and an even worse gimmick that completely failed to get over despite a storyline with a popular babyface and a hot chick, and then a second with the company’s fastest-rising babyface star- STILL EMPLOYED
Christy Hemme- a hot chick, but a bad ring announcer, and someone who (as of last report, at least), was grossly overpaid, especially when compared to what some of the in-ring talent was making, and whose duties could easily be replaced by JB, Mike Tenay, or basically anyone they want to pull off of the indies- STILL EMPLOYED
Velvet Sky- certainly not a good wrestler, but she’s really hot, has tons of charisma, cuts great promos, and has (literally) been the company’s poster-girl for years- FIRED!

This company is stupid.

Also, for those wondering, GARRETT BISCHOFF is still listed as being on the TNA roster page. He’s been working indies for over eight months now.

With Velvet fired, who does Brooke wrestle in her feud with Robbie?
Also, this all means that Aries got the world title shot. They won’t give it to him, of course, because that would be entertaining, but at least he’ll give Lashley a good match.

MVP & LASHLEY HAVE A STREET FIGHT IN THE STREETS-
If MVP didn’t want to fight in front of the fans, why is he letting the cameraman stand there and film it all?
If you film something like this outside, you need to file it with the city so they can send cops to block off the sidewalk. The problem with this is that WE SEE THE COPS STANDING RIGHT THERE IN THE BACKGROUND, NOT BREAKING IT UP! Why couldn’t they just do this in the ring, in front of the fans, like a normal wrestling show?
For anyone wondering, the room beyond those triple doors in the building they brawled into is the Hammerstein Ballroom.
Oh look. The earlier segment was a swerve and this whole thing was an ambush. What a surprise. I sure couldn’t have predicted this.
Also, Eric Young, who definitely isn’t a member of the BDC, was there to help with the beatdown. Kurt and Roode made the save. Roode picked up and belt and looked at it longingly, then had a staredown with Lashley. That part was good, but the rest of this stunk.

They really need to stop calling the show “Friday Night Impact.” It makes it sound like a WWE rip-off. “Impact Wrestling” was a MUCH better name.” Whatever they call it, though, the show still sucks.



STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Taz referred to TNA X-Division Champion Low Ki beating Bobby Roode as “an upset.” Way to bury both the champion and the title, Taz.