BRM Reviews the 7/8/2015 Impact

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- eh.
Now that Ethan is the champ, he’s got a gold tie and handkerchief.
Apparently the Board of Directors is letting him book tonight’s show. Are they dumb? After all of the trouble they had with Dixie last year (and let’s not forget that Ethan was a big part of that)?
Ethan announces that he will defend the world title three times tonight. Matt Hardy comes out and wants a title shot. Ethan declines. He has booked Matt in a handicap match against Roode and Aries instead.

HANDICAP MATCH: Matt Hardy vs. Austin Aries & Bobby Roode- 6.25/10
Good for what it was. I like the heel finish here even though it was a handicap match.

A FINAL MESSAGE FROM THE RISING- didn’t like it.
Eli Drake is on crutches after his injury last week. He said some very ominous lines. He’s definitely turning heel. The question is will he do so by screwing Drew out of a match, or will he do so by helping Drew in a match and Drew will object to his help because that is the type of thing they’ve been (supposedly) fighting against.
And speaking of fighting against things like that… despite their loss last week, Drew vowed that his stupid feud with the BDC isn’t over. So basically THIS FEUD IS RIGHT BACK TO SQUARE ONE. GRRR!
Then EC was annoying for a while (and not in the heel heat way; he was doing it in the “I can’t believe I’m watching a grown man act like this” way) so once again EC III claimed to have a tag match booked by the babyface’s partners were unavailable so now it’s a handicap match. Twice in a row.

HANDICAP MATCH: Drew McIntyre vs. The Revolution (Abyss, Khoya, & Manik)- 3/10
James Storm was not at ringside with his cronies. Oh great. Now the Revolution are fighting for the pinfall in a meaningless match, and this is completely out of nowhere. This allows Drew to pick up the win.

EC III & ANDERSON BACKSTAGE- similar to the Matt Hardy segment. Anderson will be facing Bram.

BRAM vs. MR. ANDERSON- DUD!
Bram gets DQed on purpose. This feels like a Bram match from this time last year. That’s not a good thing.
POST-MATCH ANGLE- Bram intimidates production staff into lowering Anderson’s entrance mic so he can hit Anderson with it and cut a promo in Anderson’s face. This was a good angle, but it would have been a lot better if Anderson had won a match against someone else and Bram had jumped him afterwards. I’m just sick and tired of these DQs with Bram.

STREET FIGHT: Robbie E. vs. Jesse Godderz- 7.25/10
Robbie is now being billed as from Holmdel, NJ rather than the Jersey Shore. I get that they’re trying to move him away from the old character, but I’d prefer if they left his hometown what it was. Not everyone from the Jersey Shore is a walking stereotype.
This was a very good weapons match (if you ignore the fact that sitting on the chair would actually make the finishing hold hurt less, not more). This really did a good job of presenting these two in a much different light than usual, and I am enjoying it quite a bit.

EC III & LASHLEY SEGMENT- some set up for Lashley vs. Tyrus.
At this point I’m certain they are going to bring back Dewey Barnes and Norv Fernum to face Ethan.

A CAMERAMAN INTERVIEWS KURT ANGLE- he teases that he will screw with Ethan’s gauntlet.

JEFF JARRETT INTERVIEW PART 2- Jeff says that he will use the King of the Mountain Title in GFW. Okay… he does realize it says “TNA” on it in big letters, right?

GAUNTLET MATCH FOR THE TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE: Ethan Carter III(c) (w/Tyrus) vs. Norv Fernum vs. Shark Boy vs. Kurt Angle- no rating. Bad segment.
Yeah. Flying Peter Avalon in from California was a good use of money. EC III squashes the first two, but then Kurt comes out with a contract saying he can have his rematch whenever he wants it, and he wants it TONIGHT… but not right now? That’s weird. At least give Kurt his match right now and have Ethan immediately kick him in the nuts for the DQ.
I thought the first two matches here were just a HUGE waste of time, and the idea that they are giving Kurt his rematch with about half an hour of build is just silly. But if you REALLY want to do this whole “my contract says I can have my rematch whenever I want” thing, why not replace the Lashley backstage segment with one where Kurt comes up to EC III and starts to talk about a rematch but Ethan cuts him off just like he did to Matt Hardy and Mr. Anderson, saying that he doesn’t want to defend against Kurt tonight… but then have Kurt pull out the contract saying he can have his rematch whenever he wants, and he wants it tonight? (and to avoid the gauntlet non-sense as a set-up for this you just have Ethan only hype up that he will be defending the title for the first time tonight, not that he will be defending it three times).
Part of this also felt like something that should come weeks from now. Kurt saying he was “tired” of EC III being scared to defend his title makes no sense because this has only been Ethan’s first chance to defend it.

TYRUS vs. BOBBY LASHLEY- 5/10

JEFF JARRETT INTERVIEW PART 2 II- decent

VELVET SKY vs. MADISON RAYNE- 0.25/10
Madison cut a dumb pre-match promo on Velvet saying she didn’t belong in the ring anymore. The match wasn’t much better.

TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Ethan Carter III(c) vs. Kurt Angle- no rating. Good segment. I thought the set-up and execution on the DQ was very good as they found a way for Kurt to plausibly not realize that his win would be via DQ, and thus it would make sense for him to release the hold after hearing the bell. It was a Dusty Finish for Kurt, but not for the rest of us.

DIXIE SEGMENT- NO reaction for Dixie when she comes out. She did get a reaction when she yanked the mic away from Ethan, though. So she is now turning babyface. Dixie’s emotion and stuff was very fantastic, but I don’t in any way see how Ethan is “out of control” or how he has been “lying.” That whole thing, like the Kurt segment earlier, felt to me like there were supposed to be a few weeks of Ethan’s title defense shenanigans before this when in reality this is the first time.
Dixie thinks that we need an authority figure but it shouldn’t be her. I guess the board of directors will be making that decision between now and next Wednesday.

No promo from the Wolves about winning the tag titles?

This was a bad show with the exception of the street fight (that’s right. The Robbie E. vs. Jesse Godderz match saved the show!), but it flew by quickly and did a pretty effective job of setting up a big hook for next week’s show.