BRM Reviews the 10/7/2015 Impact

[Big Red Machine]

ETHAN CARTER PROMO- he says he got an injunction against Matt, Jeff, and Dixie. He tells us it prevents Matt from appearing on Impact for a month (well… Ethan said forever, but Matt said one month, which seems a lot more likely). What is it that Jeff and Dixie have to refrain from doing? Details, please?

MATT PROMO- see above.

DIXIE PROMO- a bit of exposition re: Matt, but nothing that explains anything about the injunction against Dixie or Jeff.

BILLY CORGAN PROMO- he claims that since he came to TNA, there has been a focus on “clarifying out title picture.” How, exactly? People are usually just thrown into title matches or #1 contendership matches for no reason at all.
Wow. Corgan has only been talking for about thirty seconds and I already want to punch him in the face.

WORLD TITLE SERIES EXPLANATION- well done, aside from the fact that Josh and Pope were standing in front of the world’s most annoying green screen.
We’ve got eight round robin groups of four. You get 3 points for a win, one for a draw, and zero for a loss. Each match has a 15 minute time limit. The top two from each group advance to a sixteen person single elimination tournament for the title (that won’t have any time limits).
At some point in this whole deal someone should have made it a point to bring up that the women will be competing in this thing, too.

I really hate the cute group names/themes. If you’re going to do this, do it right: Everything should be random. Get a real-sports feel going. You’d never see FIFA decide to have a world cup group only containing countries who declared independence in 1957 or who had a head of state named “Joe” or whatever.

Also… Austin Aries will be in this tournament. The same Austin Aries who lost a match with his career on the line just two months ago on this very program. No explanation for that whatsoever.

DREW PROMO- very good


WORLD TITLE SERIES GROUP UK MATCH: Drew Galloway(0) vs. Bram(0)- 4.75/10
In the middle of this match they decided to go to a split screen to show us these two at a “roundtable” with the rest of Group UK. Drew talked about how everyone has been clamoring to see Drew vs. Bram, which was fantastically ironic considering that BY AIRING THIS FOOTAGE IN THE WAY THEY WERE, THEY WERE IMPEDING MY ABILITY TO SEE THE VERY MATCH THEY ARE SAYING EVERYONE WANTS TO SEE!
And why the hell would you air a promo hyping up a match that is already in progress. The only people who are going to see the promo are people who are ALREADY WATCHING THE MATCH!
Bram started to cut a promo about how he should have been brought over to the US before Drew and claims to have somehow “made” Spud and Grado. This is the sort of crap that smells of the exact type of “storyline” that this tournament doesn’t need.
They brawl around for a bit before Drew hits the running boot and gets the win… and what’s this? They immediately put up a scoreboard showing us everyone in the entire group, in order to make their big, long tournament easy to keep track of. That wasn’t so difficult now was it, Quack?

GAIL KIM PROMO- decent.

DREW GALLOWAY PROMO- fine. They are definitely going for a “real sports” feel for this, which is good.

WORLD TITLE SERIES GROUP KNOCKOUTS MATCH: Gail Kim(0) vs. Brooke(0)- 4.25/10
They once again cut to these “roundtable” promos, which were once again completely pointless. If what they have to say is so f*cking important, put it in a pre-match promo, or at the very least play it during the entrances instead of during the match.
Brooke locked in the world’s most atrocious Cattle Mutilation. It was embarrassingly bad. Gail then locked in a horse collar but then randomly let Brooke out of it when Brooke seemed to be on the verge of tapping.

EC III PROMO- very good.

WORLD TITLE SERIES GROUP UK MATCH: Rockstar Spud(0) vs. Grado(0)- DUD!
They show clips of them arguing at the roundtable. Then they waste the whole match copying signature spots from a bunch of other wrestlers and do comedy spots because they are comedy jobbers and shouldn’t be taken seriously in this tournament.

TYRUS PROMO- rather than participate in the tournament, he will wait to challenge the winner. Fine.

WORLD TITLE SERIES GROUP CHAMPIONS MATCH: Ethan Carter III(0) (w/Tyrus) vs. Austin Aries(0) (w/Thea Trinidad)- 7.25/10
Josh told us that Thea used to be Rosita but gave no explanation whatsoever for why she is now walking around with a totally different name or why she is out here with Austin Aries. And speaking of Aries, what was there explanation for why he is allowed back in the company even though he lost a match with his career on the line is… that there was a group called “Group Champions” and Aries is a former champion, therefore they let him back in. HOW THE F*CK DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE?! In fact, it would actually make more sense for JEFF JARRETT to be in this spot than it would Austin Aries.
These guys also had their match interrupted for pointless “roundtable” promos.
They had a great match, but the fact that they were going to a draw was telegraphed by the time cues, both from Christy and the clock that would occasionally appear on the screen, which never happened in any of the other matches. Why not just leave the clock on the screen in every match?
EC III attacked Aries after the match, but Aries fought back and laid him out because why would we want our top heel to come out of his match with any heat?

MR. ANDERSON PROMO- fine

AUSTIN ARIES PROMO- good

WORLD TITLE SERIES GROUP KNOCKOUTS MATCH: Awesome Kong(0) vs. Madison Rayne(0)- 4.25/10
Kong came across like a total goofball Undertaker wannabe in her “roundtable” promo.

LASHLEY PROMO- struggled at the beginning but got very good at the end.

JB INTERVIEWS MATT HARDY- felt redundant based on the earlier promo.

WORLD TITLE SERIES GROUP CHAMPIONS MATCH: Mr. Anderson(0) vs. Bobby Lashley(0)- 6.75/10
So… this match started when there were less than fifteen minutes left in the show. They really need to make sure they don’t do that in the future.

A very enjoyable show from TNA, aside from the “roundtable” promos.