BRM Reviews the 2/13/2015 Impact (best one so far)

[Big Red Machine]

THE BDC SHOW UP AT THE ARENA- They’re all wearing “BDC” winter hats. Eric Young, who definitely isn’t a member of the group, is not only riding with them, but is also wearing one of the hats.
MVP gave them a lame pep talk, then Joe said they would get revenge on the babyfaces who oppose them.

Josh Matthews calls last week’s Lockdown show “gripping and riveting.” The show was neither of those. The guys who put the cage up were riveting, though (*rimshot*).

There is a kid in the front row wearing a Willow mask. That’s just bad parenting right there.

OPENING SEGMENT- Kurt monologues a bit, then calls Lashley out to thank him for joining his team last week… but then Kurt says he coming after the title. This came off a Kurt being kind of heelish to me. I don’t know if he actually ever said that he was in this to fight the BDC rather than to win the title, but the impression I got was that this pretense was why Lashley joined Kurt’s team… and now that he has used Lashley, Kurt is demanding a title shot from him.
The BDC came out and MVP said that Lashley was not a legal, sanctioned participant in the match, so Lashley pinning him last week doesn’t count (and Team Angle’s victory shouldn’t count, either). Didn’t I say that last week? Shouldn’t there be some sort of authority figure or committee or whatever that has dealt with this issue over the past week?
MVP says he and his group are going to beat them up, so Lashley challenges them to a tag team match: any two BDC guys vs. Lashley & Kurt. MVP never agrees to this, and nor as far as can tell, does anyone in authority, but right after Lashley finishes speaking, Taz and Josh take it as gospel.

ARIES & ROODE BACKSTAGE- I thought this was dumb.
Aries seems to be under the impression that Lockdown 2014 happened in the UK, but that’s not why I disliked it (although they really should have corrected this mistake).
They did the standard “I respect you.” “I respect you as well, but we are opponents tonight.” “I want the World Heavyweight Title because it means so much to me.” “Well I want the World Heavyweight Title because it means so much to me as well, so if I have to go through you tonight then I will.” Then they said that they would both “leave it all in the ring” and “give the fans something special” (those two were actual quotes; the others were just my simplified paraphrasing), and it really annoyed me because from a kayfabe point of view, who gives a sh*t about match quality? Yeah, I guess it can help you get attention as a young guy moving up the card, but in a kayfabe sense that is really just impressing people with your heart and fortitude rather than impressing people because you had a five star match… and even if it were about that, that case doesn’t apply here because both of these men are already main eventers.
I really didn’t like this as a way to build the importance of the title simply because the interaction felt forced and phony. It didn’t feel “scripted” per se, in that the words coming out of their mouths were definitely the words of Austin Aries and Bobby Roode, but I felt like I was seeing Gaburick or Lagana or whoever standing in front of the camera holding big cue cards with bullet points on them for me:
- Mutual respect
- World Heavyweight Title is important
- Match will be great
It felt like the characters were talking to each other, but like the writers were talking to me, which completely took me out of the (horribly generic) things that the characters were saying. The words were natural, but the interaction as a whole was not. I think it would have been a lot better to have them cut separate promos about what the title means to them and about how they’ll leave it all in the ring to ensure that they earn a title shot.

EC III (& TYURS) PROMO- okay… but they have completely killed this feud for me. I don’t give a f*ck about Spud’s hair. EC III already cut Spud’s hair… and then they went on hiatus, and by the time they were back, the hair had already grown back and Spud didn’t really seem to care about it that much. In some ways, this has been because the feud has been very watered down by the inclusion of Jeremy Borash. Half of the time it’s about EC III being mean to Spud, but the other half of the time it’s about him being mean to Borash. Consequently, half of the time the babyfaces get a big moment, it is about JB standing up to Ethan, not Spud. In fact, since the move to Destination America, Spud has had no real moments in this feud. The closest he came was last week’s dive from the top of the cage, but he still lost that match, and in the end, it was JB saving the day for him. Beating up Spud’s pal JB as revenge for Spud somehow humiliating Ethan would have been a good idea to do once, but making him a fixture as really hurt it.
(For the record, I think including Mandrews was a good idea as it gives Spud a fellow underdog to team with against EC III and Tyrus, but the main focus of the heat should remain on Spud and Ethan, with Mandrews getting over by simply getting the rub from Spud [and possibly to turn on him and join Ethan later])

As Aries was making his way to the ring, Josh Matthews informed us of the following:
Aries is ranked #3 in the TNA World Heavyweight Title Top Five. Roode is ranked #1. Next week, there will be a twenty-man gauntlet match (and props to Josh for explaining what a TNA gauntlet means this week instead of doing what TNA would usually do and wait until the beginning of the gauntlet match to do so) for a shot at the TNA World Heavyweight Title, and the final five entrants will be the guys in the top five in reverse order of rank (so #1 enters last). Therefore, a win would guarantee Roode the final spot, and with Aries, will certainly guarantee him either the top spot or (at worst) the penultimate spot… but a loss might knock one of them out of the top five.
In Roode’s case, getting knocked out of the top five from the #1 spot because of a loss to #3 seems a bit farfetched, but I guess it is possible in Aries’ case. I think this part of the idea would have been a lot more effective if they had told us who the other guys in the top five were and hyped up their matches, as well as some guys who are on the bubble, so we had more interest in those later matches, and to make the gauntlet seem like an even bigger deal (we only learned that Angle was #2 and MVP was #4 in the middle of the main event, and I have no idea who #5 is).
Speaking of things being a bigger deal, I was pretty disappointed when they announced this whole “gauntlet match” thing simply because Roode and Aries’ earlier segment gave me the impression that they were having a #1 contendership match tonight, and this match is significantly less important than that.
That being said, I like that these top five rankings give some sort of excuse as to why someone can lose a title match and then immediately be put in a #1 contendership match (it’s a dumb reason, but at least it’s some sort of reason), but if they really want to fix this problem, they’ll need to do what ROH eventually realized what they had to do with the Pick 6 Contenders Series, which was determine how actually losing a title match will affect your standing in the rankings.
Speaking of the Pick 6, the top five rankings, and other old discarded Ring of Honor ideas, I like that they are making these rankings matter, but I don’t think what they are doing with this gauntlet match is the best thing to do right at the beginning. I’m not saying that they should go as hardline as ROH did with both their top five rankings from back in the day and with the Pick 6 where you can only get a title shot if you are one of the people ranked in those groups, but I think that they should have gone with something more exclusive. What’s the point of having a top five if it only gives Austin Aries and Bobby Roode a slight edge over Crazzy Steve because the #1 contendership match is basically open invite (it’s a twenty man gauntlet, and I only counted about twenty-five guys on the roster, excluding champions and Jeff Hardy)?
I would have taken the top five, plus two guys on the bubble and had a seven-way elimination match, with the bubble guys starting and the top five guys having staggered entrances. Yes, I know that this would mean that SIX top guys have to get pinned, but Aries has the briefcase, so it won’t hurt your ability to book him in a title match, Roode and EY are having a blood feud so you can protect Roode by having EY screw him, you can have a BDC guy in there to get pinned, then get his heat back by attacking the babyface who pins him… there’s ways to protect some people, and even with that, having these guys still get pinned opens up a storyline where a lot of other guys see their chance to jump into the top five with a big win or two, and you can push angles for a few weeks about guys trying to get into the top five because everyone being pinned should open things up a lot.
Overall, I think this top five rankings business is a good idea IF they can set it up right, and the most important part of that is determining how people move up and down in the rankings. While doing the whole “TNA management decides it behind closed doors every week” deal will work, I think something similar to ROH’s Pick 6 where if you beat someone, you took their spot and everyone below them moved down a spot (meaning the old number six was kicked out) would work best because it sets up a situation where fans immediately understand what the consequences of victory and defeat are for everyone, from the wrestlers involved in the match to the other guys in the top five, to the world champion. Giving fans visible consequences in these matches takes what would otherwise be a random match and makes the result important, which gets people more invested in the match and the product.

AUSTIN ARIES vs. BOBBY ROODE- 7.5/10
GREAT match!
Until after the promo at the end, when Josh Matthews called this a “five star match.” So far this year, I have seen better matches I would consider MUCH better than this (like, at least an 8.5, which is a whole different stratosphere) from ROH, WWE, Lucha Underground, NOAH, and New Japan. None of those was the full five (although Ibushi vs. Nakamura was as close as you can possibly get without being it). My point with this is that there is putting something over, and there is lying, and I cannot possibly believe that Josh honestly thinks this was even close to a five star match. I don’t think that ANYONE- not even the biggest TNA mark in the world… not even DIXIE CARTER could possibly honestly believe this to be a five star match.
During this match, Josh tried to sell to us that these top five rankings are important because the wrestlers Tweet about them when they come out. They’ve had this system in place (although never explained before) for a few weeks now, and do you know what they haven’t done? HAD ANY OF THE WRESTLERS EVER MENTION IT ON THE SHOW!

EY JUMPS ROODE & GIVES HIM A PILEDRIVER- Oh look. We’re back to square one again. Also, it appears that EY’s luggage was lost at the airport so he had to borrow clothes from Samuel Shaw.

AFTER THE BREAK, HE DOES IT AGAIN- this time on the ramp. Security did not even TRY to help Bobby, nor did any of his friends come running out to protect him.

TAZ COMPLAINS THAT EY “BROKE THE CODE”- ah yes. One of TNA’s favorite fallbacks… and I call it a “fallback” because once they are done using it, they simply hold it by their buttocks and fall backwards until they hit the ground, firmly lodging it up their asses so that they always have it at the ready any time they decide to pull it out of there to use again.
How many times have we seen someone viciously assault another wrestler after a match, trying to injure them? It’s got to be at least once a month, right? And yet this time is somehow different and much more heinous and we should be much more angry at the heel because of some secret backstage rule that we have never heard anyone ever mention before?
If you want to do something like this, you need establish the existence of the code first, and then make sure it is applied consistently. Not trying toot my own horn here, but the best example I can come up with is the angle I used/am using to bring up Summer Rae up to the main roster in my on-going fantasy booking. There were a million ways I could have brought Summer Rae up to the main roster as a heel, but I chose the angle of her disrespecting Nattie (and other veterans, both male and female) for the specific purpose of establishing the existence of said code so that when I bring up someone else up for a future angle I have in the works, it won’t feel like I’m pulling the idea out of my ass.
WOW! Holy sh*t! Thanks for making this a great segue, TNA!

AL SNOW & GRADO SEGMENT- pretty good.
Josh was nice enough to catch those of us who don’t use Twitter (me!) up on some sort of angle involving Al Snow and Colt Cabana’s buddy Grado. Al Snow apparently thinks Grado has no respect for this business. Al was heavily booed, which I guess is good because apparently he is a heel now. He is going to give Grado one last chance to quit the wrestling business forever, or else Al will kick his ass next week.
Grado came out and told Al that he and the people of Glasgow don’t take any crap from anyone, and he came across like the biggest star on this show, BY FAR. Al found Grado’s mother in the crowd and told her that Grado was a disgrace, so she gave him a horribly lame-looking slap. Al got mad, and Grado chased Al off, saving his mother. Al cut a good promo on his way up the ramp.
This had all of the workings of a good segment, and I’m certain that if you have been watching British Bootcamp, you would enjoy this, but for those of us that haven’t been watching it (most of TNA’s audience), it felt like being dropped off right in the middle of someone else’s story (because that’s exactly what it was). I very much felt like an outsider, and felt weird because the crowd was going absolutely nuts for this guy I know almost nothing about, but who the company clearly expects me to care about.

COMMERCIAL FOR NEXT WEEK’S SHOW- they hype up the #1 contendership gauntlet by talking about how hard it will be to win and how the winner, whoever that person may be, will get a title shot… then they end the commercial by asking “will Kurt Angle finally get his title shot?”
*FACEPALM*
They ALMOST had it. They ALMOST managed to get through a whole commercial hyping next week’s show without spoiling anything, but they failed because they are TNA and always will be.


Josh Matthews: “It has been a very intriguing night thus far, and it’s about to get even more so with the appearance of Crazzy Steve.”
Another blatant lie. Has ANY segment with Crazzy Steve ever made things more intriguing? Ever?

CRAZZY STEVE vs. BRAM- DUD!
As they were explaining the angle between Bram and Magnus two weeks ago, they showed us footage of the announcers, and for some reason, Taz was standing up, facing Josh, making hand movements while he talked like he was having a normal conversation… except that instead of standing across from Taz and looking at him while he talked, Josh was seated in his chair and staring at the monitor, ninety degrees away from where Taz was. It made them both look like idiots.

It’s been two weeks… and apparently they don’t have an update on Magnus’ health yet.
Bram grabbed a mic to taunt Magnus with while he was beating Crazzy Steve up. TNA Senior Referee Earl Hebner made absolutely no move to try to get the foreign object away from Bram… but at one point, when Bram was both holding the mic and grabbing Steve by the hair, Earl did tell Bram off for pulling Steve’s hair. Really.
And of course, Crazzy Steve had to make a short comeback and get some offense in because G-d forbid that your crazy new heel should look like badass or anything.

SPUD, MANDREWS, & BORASH BACKSTAGE- Spud gives the other two a pep-talk, telling them that he has “backup.” You remember what I said before about this feud being watered down? Well bringing more people in will just make it worse.

ANGLE & GUNNER BACKSTAGE- terrible
He is suspicious of Lashley for absolutely no reason. In fact, he appears to be more suspicious of Lashley now that Lashley has helped them than he was BEFORE Lashley helped them. What a dick. Kurt said that he wants Lashley at the top of his game when he faces him for the world title, so that is why he is teaming with Lashley tonight. Not because he wants revenge on the BDC or because he wants to wrestle and win a match to support his family or because helping a man in a disadvantaged situation would be the right thing to do. Kurt just wants to make sure that Lashley does not suffer an injury in tonight’s match that will affect his health two weeks from now… which would have been a lot more effective if he hadn’t said this to a man who just one week ago got his arm destroyed with a steel chair, was told by a doctor not to wrestle and risk further injury, but still wrestled an entire sixteen minute Lethal Lockdown match an hour later and is perfectly okay just one week later.
This is the sort of thing that REALLY annoys me just because the pieces are all in place for this to actually be good. Gunner isn’t wrestling on this show, so why not CALL THAT OUT! Have his arm all taped up and have him point to his own injury at the hands of the BDC as the sort of thing that could happen to Kurt himself tonight (especially if Lashley concludes that the match is not worth the risk and walks out), and thus jeopardize his chances of both winning the gauntlet next week, and even if he does win the gauntlet, of beating Lashley the week after that.

HANDICAP MATCH: Ethan Carter III & Tyrus vs. Rockstar Spud, Mandrews, & Jeremy Borash- 4/10
This week EC III brought battery-powered clippers so that no one could unplug them like JB did last week. That was a good touch, and props to Taz for pointing it out.
Oh dear G-d Borash looks fat. He always used to look so skinny.
Matthews just said “the plan of Spud” instead of “Spud’s plan” like a normal person would. OH G-D! He’s turning into Mike Tenay! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
The match was okay for what it was. JB got to do a big dive rom the top rope onto Tyrus on the floor, but Ethan pinned Spud with the One Percenter then went to shave his head… but the lights went out and Ken Anderson magically teleported into the ring… and I mean MAGICALLY because the lights were off for LITERALLY five seconds and that’s it. Unless the switch for all of the lights in the arena is located at the Gorilla Position, there is no possible way Anderson could have made to the ring in time. And he wasn’t just in the ring. He was standing there, with his arms around Ethan and Tyrus’ shoulders like they were best pals hanging out…
Then he got between them and did COMEDY in the middle of what was supposed to be a big spot, and Ethan and Tyrus just looked at Anderson and looked at each other and at this point I REALLY wanted them to just beat the living sh*t out Anderson, but no. They stood there for a good thirty seconds while Anderson acted like a f*cking idiot. Then he poked Tyrus in the eye, and instead reacting like a logical person would in this situation, EC II just stood there and asked “what was that for” before Anderson waved at him and then punched him in the face. Anderson then made a big deal out of hitting Tyrus in the nuts, and then beat Ethan up.
This f*cking sucked. All of Anderson’s antics here made this whole thing into a joke. They used the magical lights on, lights off for no reason, and once again made the angle about someone who isn’t Spud. Spud lost to Ethan cleanly in a handicap match. This wasn’t big scary monster Tyrus he lost to, it was Ethan. Totally cleanly. Then he needed this giant f*cking douchebag to come save him. Spud’s not cool anymore. He’s a f*cking loser.

GUNNER PROMO- very good, but unfortunately for him, he started it off by reminding everyone of how big a star he was last winter… and it just made me realize how f*cking far he fell… and it was all due to TNA having NO F*CKING CLUE ABOUT ANYTHING.
Kenny King showed up to talk trash and also distract him so Low Ki could jump him and they beat him up. This was pretty good, and Kenny King mockingly singing Taps as they walked off was AWESOME.

MADISON RAYNE vs. AWESOME KONG- squash
Josh Matthews tells us that Madison had a very impressive outing in a three way match a few weeks ago against Gail Kim and Knockouts Champion Taryn Terrell, and that because of that many people believe she is in line for a title shot. What Josh didn’t say was that that match WAS a title match… AND SHE LOST! CLEANLY! GETTING PINNED BY THE CHAMP! This should make her THE VERY LAST WOMAN IN LINE FOR A TITLE SHOT!
GGGGGRRRRRRRRRR!! It amazes me that this company can come up with a rankings system to rank the top challengers for one title, but then tells us that someone who just lost a title match to the champion 100% cleanly is in line for another shot at that title.

Madison tried to cut a promo, but someone interrupted her by playing drums over the arena PA. Madison told us that she is only one title reign away from tying the all-time record. Then she claimed no one could beat her, so Awesome Kong showed up and did just that. Figures. Right when they seem to have a decent idea for an angle for a title shot, they have the challenger involved get squashed.

KURT & ARIES BACKSTAGE- Kurt was upset because Aries is in his seat. There were, like, ten chairs right there. This made Kurt look petty. They had a decent segment talking about being world champion.

MATT HARDY UPDATES US ON JEFF’S CONDITION- awesome segment!
They have done a great job of building up Jeff’s injury. Matt cut a great promo saying that this was the first time that Jeff wasn’t able to in some way tell Matt that everything was okay and that he would recover.
Then the Revolution came out to interrupt. James Storm cut an awesome promo listing off the legendary wrestlers who were unable to do what he finally did and put Jeff Hardy out forever. He then gave Matt an ultimatum: either join the Revolution... or get sent to the hospital. Matt went after the heels but got beaten when the numbers game caught up to him. Storm wanted to break Matt’s arm, but the Wolves showed up to make the save.

AUSTIN ARIES BACKSTAGE- he chews out the cameraman for asking a stupid question, then manages to see the BDC’s ambush coming and gets some good shots in on Kenny before getting his ass kicked by Joe and MVP. Josh Matthews could not figure out why the BDC would want to attack a guy who just sided against them in a Lethal Lockdown match last week.

KURT ANGLE & BOBBY LASHLEY vs. THE BEATDOWN CLAN (MVP & Samoa Joe) (w/Kenny King & Low Ki)- 6.75/10
They had a good match with a poorly executed finish (Lashley’s shoulder was clearly off the canvas, and the reason that Brian Hebner missed that is because he was clearly looking straight down as he was counting rather than actually looking at Bobby’s shoulders to make sure that the pin he was counting was actually still happening). What led to this was that Kurt had Joe in the ankle lock, but Joe kicked him off sending Kurt at Lashley, who had to move to avoid him, and this allowed MVP to roll Lashley up for the pin. Lashley is upset at Kurt for this, which makes no sense because he saw exactly why Kurt was sent towards him because he was looking right at him the whole time, and they argued because when you have a twenty-man gauntlet to determine who the next #1 contender will be, it’s always the best strategy to only have one guy on the entire roster have an sort of interaction with the world champion.

Josh Matthews said that Angle’s first match back from injury was against Samoa Joe. It was actually against MVP in a street fight, and it was THE VERY FIRST TNA MATCH ON DESTINATION AMERICA. Tonight is only the SIXTH show… and Josh has already forgotten what their big monumental first match was.
Of those six shows, this one was definitely the best (the Wolves vs. Hardys match just beats out tonight’s Aries vs. Roode match for the best match of the run). There was a lot of good stuff and stuff that showed promise, but there are also a lot of areas in which they need to improve. Definitely a good show, though (aside from Josh Matthews, who needs to be replaced).

[Big Red Machine]

Whoops. Just noticed that they finally managed to do a show without a gimmick match. Hooray for TNA!