BRM Reviews the 2/20/2015 Impact

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING VIDEO PACKAGE- the idea was good and they did a good job of making the top five rankings look important but the specifics here…OH MY G-D HOW F*CKING DUMB ARE THEY?!
1. They REALLY need to stop claiming that EC III is undefeated when he isn’t (and, in fact, him losing was actually supposed to be a big deal when it happened)… and if Ethan is undefeated, how the hell is he only #5? Shouldn’t he be #1?
2. Remember that match last week between Roode and Aries where they introduced this whole thing? Where Roode was #1 and Aries was #3 and they told us that by virtue of winning, Roode had guaranteed himself the #1 spot for next week? Well somehow, Bobby Roode isn’t even ranked anymore!
Yes. Somehow the #1 ranked guy beat the #3 ranked guy CLEAN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RING… and managed to DROP (at least) five spots. And who moved past him? Well the current #1 is the former #2 Kurt Angle. Kurt, if you’ll recall, LOST last week in the main event… and yet somehow he got MOVED UP while Roode completely dropped off. The current #2 is last week’s #4, MVP, who got the win in the main event so that makes sense… except his team beat Kurt’s team, so it just makes it look even stupider for him to be #2 to Kurt’s #1. #3 is Low Ki. Going into last week’s show, Ki was unranked, and did not wrestle at all. Somehow, this has allowed him to move up into the #3 slot. #4 was last week’s #5, Samoa Joe, who was on the winning team in last week’s again event. Again, his moving up makes sense, except when you realize that he won a match and got overtaken but a guy who didn’t even wrestle.
When you do a gimmick like a top five rankings, if you want the fans to care, you NEED to do it in such a way that the fans can at least have a good guess and who will move up or down based on the results of the matches that they see. It is ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE that you don’t just seem like you are pulling the rankings out of your ass every week based on the needs of your story… and that is EXACTLY what TNA has done here. I am 100% certain that only reason Ki got moved up was so that Kurt and/or Roode will face a 3-on-1 at the end, and I am equally certain that the only reason Roode was dropped from the list despite how completely illogical it is, is so that he can go all the way from very early on until the end (probably only to be screwed by EY).
So, in conclusion, they have killed this gimmick for me by revealing it to be nothing more than a magical plot device for the writers to use as a “reason” for why the deck is stacked a certain way when there is really no more reason behind it (and, in fact, LESS REASON behind it) than if they weren’t doing the gimmick at all. F*ck this company.

KURT ANGLE PROMO- short and kind of lame. He says he came back to win the world title and that he is the best and will win the gauntlet tonight, and all I can think is “of course Kurt will win! They haven’t spent any time at all building up anyone but Kurt. Even MVP pinning Lashley was used to build up Lashley and Kurt more than it was to build up Lashley and MVP.

THE CAMERAMAN TALKS TO LASHLEY- he asks Lashley for his thoughts on what Kurt Angle had to say just now, and I was really hoping that Bobby would say that he was reading a book or stretching or taking or dump or something and didn’t have his TV on so that he didn’t have any idea what Kurt just said. But alas.
Lashley said that he thinks that Kurt talks too much, so he’ll go talk have a talk with Kurt. What? Is Lashley upset because Kurt claimed to be the best? What an insecure little toad.

THE WOLVES & MATT HARDY vs. THE REVOLUTION (James Storm, Abyss, & Manik (w/the Revolution)-
SoCal Val only introduced Storm and Abyss, so either no one told her who the third partner was, or she somehow forgot to announce it. Both are equally bad. The bell also rang before the Revolution even got close to the ring, so it’s been no good so far from the ringside personnel side of things here.
They did a spot where Matt dove and made a hot tag to both Wolves at the same time… and apparently this means they are both legal because the referee just let them stay in for quite a long time. In fact, the referee didn’t make anyone get out of the ring ever in this match. Not even Khoya, who wasn’t event part of the match! At least the wrestlers paid attention to who the legal man was.
The match was decent, and the Wolves looked like a million bucks, so I guess it accomplished its goal. I just wish they had given it like fifteen minutes because these six guys really could have given us something great.
In the middle of this match, they promoted the fact that Dixie released the names of the first five entrants into tonight’s gauntlet on her Twitter. How about you just tell us who they are instead of ENCOURAGING PEOPLE TO GO CHECK TWITTER DURING A BIG MATCH?


Josh Matthews told us that Matt Hardy has a “personal vendetta” and against James Storm’s Revolution for what they did to Jeff. This is the sort of thing that really bugs me when we hear it from an announcer first. I’m not saying that it doesn’t make sense for Matt to have such a vendetta. I’m saying that if he does have one, we should hear about it from Matt first, in some sort of fiery babyface promo vowing revenge.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- the Revolution beat the babyfaces down after the match, which was pretty pointless. Let the babyfaces have their win.
Also, Manik got beaten down afterwards for losing the match.

ANDERSON & EC III SEGMENT- more stupid “comedy,” and just the fact that they are teasing someone other than Spud shaving EC III shows how inept TNA is. Spud and Mandews attacked Ethan two-on-one because why not make the babyfaces look bad? It should have just been Spud alone. Tyrus made the save for Ethan and beat all three babyfaces up, but then just did nothing, allowing Anderson to recover and hit him with a mic check. Then the babyfaces tied Tyrus to the ropes and shaved his mohawk, which is such a heelish thing to do. While the shaving was going on, Anderson was being intolerable on the mic.
Spud cut a decent promo afterwards that came nowhere close to saving this whole debacle.

BDC MEETING BACKSTAGE- pointless

MICKIE JAMES IS HERE TO TALK ABOUT MAGNUS’ CONDITION- why would she know anything? Since when has their relationship been kayfabe acknowledged? You can’t just randomly have sh*t like this matter (see: Kaz & Traci).

AL SNOW vs. GRADO- DUD!
Grado comes out, and Taz immediately marginalizes him by telling us that he is only popular in some places, and certainly not some sort of major superstar. Way to go, Taz.
Okay… if Grado was eliminated from British Bootcamp TWICE, then why the hell was he even invited to the show these past two weeks?
Al Snow hit his finisher, but Taz and Josh ignored it because they were too busy plugging Taz’s podcast. In fact, not only did they miss Al hitting his finisher, but they missed him being a jerk and not going for the cover, too.
Grado was not impressive in any way here. His cannonball looked like crap, his big boot was passable, and he failed at getting his straps all the way down on his comeback. He’s was a generic guy who just seemed like he was over because they were in Scotland, and if they had done this show anywhere else in the world, he would have gotten crickets. Al Snow, on the other hand, looked ripped, and was doing multiple moonsaults. I also just don’t buy that losing one match will make Al Snow the grizzled veteran respect someone who he thinks doesn’t respect the business.

THE BDC BEAT AL & GRADO DOWN- HOLY SH*T! I didn’t know Low Ki could grow hair!
AND HOLY SH*T IT’S DREW GALLOWAY!

And the next match will feature Taryn Terrell…
AAWWWKKWAAAARD

BRO-MANS & ANGELINA BACKSTAGE- Kong is spying on them. Or maybe she was just hanging out in the background and looked up because they were being loud and annoying.

TNA KNOCKSOUTS TITLE MATCH: Taryn Terrell(c) vs. Angelina Love (w/the Bro-Mans)- 1.75/10
Right. Because why should anyone do anything to earn a title shot when you can just wait for it to be your turn in the line?
Hey Angelina? Do you see Taryn? That’s what you could look like if you didn’t get those trashy tattoos.
Anyway, I love Taryn, but this match REALLY boring, and when Josh called her finish the “Taryn Cutter” I screamed “IT’S BEEEN MONTHS, AND THAT WAS THE BEST YOU COULD COME UP WITH?!”
Apparently Angelina’s Twitter handle is “ActualALove,” which means that “Angelina_Love” “TNAAngelinaLove” “TNAAngelina” “RealAngelinaLove” and a myriad of other combinations of those were already taken by fake accounts, which is really pathetic, and all of those people need to find something better to do with their lives impersonate celebrities on Twitter.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- the lights go off and Kong shows up.
Okay: ATTENTION EVERYONE IN WRESTLING: If your gimmick has never in any way been connected with mystical powers, DON’T MAGICALLY APPEAR AND DISAPPEAR VIA SHUTTING THE LIGHTS OFF! It’s 2015!
Aside from that, I really liked this. Taryn showed no fear, but Kong was a big monster. Then Gail Kim showed up and it stunk because Kong backed down from Gail for some reason. And is that a new title belt?

PROMOS TO BUILD UP THE GAUNTLET- good, but the fact that it was all heels was weird. It would have been a lot better to have a credible babyface like Bobby Roode or Kurt Angle cut a promo instead of the freakin’ Bro-Mans.

TOMMY DREAMER IS IN ENGLAND- oh boy. It’s Tommy Dreamer. In 2015. Still. This company is losing money. Did they really need to fly Tommy Dreamer all the way to the UK?
He calls out Eric Young. EY won’t come out, so Tommy goes to find him. EY jumps him from behind, ten they brawl back out to the ring.
Oh. Maybe that’s why they brought Tommy along. Apparently he’s the booker, because he booked himself and EY in a No DQ’s match.

NO DISQUALIFICATIONS MATCH: Tommy Dreamer vs. Eric Young- 4.25/10
The match was pretty short. Dreamer bled all over the place.



HALF-WAY THROUGH THE SHOW, Josh Matthews finally tells us that Bobby Roode won’t compete in tonight’s gauntlet because EY injured him last week. THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE FIRST F*CKING THING THEY TOLD US ALL NIGHT!

BRAM VS. MAGNUS VIDEO PACKAGE- decent. I didn’t like some of the audio effects.

MICKIE JAMES PROMO- Matthews reminds us that Magnus showed Bram a picture of his child and “obviously Mickie James [is] the mother of that child.”
NO, Josh! It’s NOT obvious. You can’t f*cking assume that everyone knows every little inside thing.
Mickie said that she and Magnus were only engaged, but Josh had earlier said that they were married. Josh’s statement should have been fixed in post-production.
Anyway, Mickie cut an AWESOME promo. Then Bram came out and he was awesome, too. He blames Mickie for making Magnus soft. This might well have been THE BEST THING TNA HAS DONE IN YEARS!

KURT & LASHLEY BACKSTAGE- Soooo stupid and pointless!

20 MAN #1 CONTENDERSHIP GAUNTLET MATCH- 2/10
Yeah… there’s NO WAY that these guys are coming out every minute like they claimed.
This whole thing was rushed and boring, with no real story at all aside from previous-predicted bit with Angle facing off against the BDC (the Spud-Tyrus bit was the only thing that comes to mind), and the fact that the only person they built up in any way was Kurt Angle made me not care about anyone else- so as a result, I really don’t care that MVP is getting a title shot next week. And don’t TNA gauntlet matches always end in a pinfall?
Taz explained the Menagerie’s “we need to make money to pay the bills for the carnival” angle perfectly, and then said “I still don’t get that whole thing.” Really.

Another bad, boring episode of Impact, aside from that Mickie James/Bram segment which every MUST SEE!

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Taz- “we’ve got six sides here, and Hardy is singled out on three sides of the ring.”
What?

2. Josh Matthews- “I can’t imagine what Mickie has to talk about here.”
Did you not hear what she just said? She is here to update us on Magnus’ condition.