BRM Reviews the 12/2/2015 Impact

[Big Red Machine]

WORLD TITLE SERIES ROUND OF 16 MATCH: DJ Zema Ion vs. Ethan Carter III (w/Tryus)- 4/.2510
The Josh Matthews pointed out that Tyrus could have warned Ethan that Zema was about to dive onto him but chose not to. Then Tyrus went and interfered on Ethan’s behalf, so rather than being a storyline, I guess this was just a random observation.
The match was fine, but pretty short for a match in a big tournament.

GAIL KIM PROMO- this came across as too over the top in trying to make’s point. Like Gail was trying way too hard (same problem as Michael Elgn’s promo after winning Survival of the Fittest last month).

WORLD TITLE SERIES ROUND OF 16 MATCH: Gail Kim vs. Tigre Uno- 5.5/10
They quickly told the story of Tigre Uno being uncomfortable wrestling a woman, had Gail force him to get over it in a way that didn’t come across as her trying to take advantage of his reluctance, and then moved on to start the match proper- which was EXACTLY what they should have done.
The match was good for what it was, and I understand that they didn’t want to pin the X-Division Champion, but they already pinned him a bunch of times in group play so why stop now?

WORLD TITLE SERIES ROUND OF 16 MATCH: Davey Richards vs. Bram- 5.5/10
Felt like it should have been better but was just so slow at times. It felt like a match that wanted to have a faster pace.

ELI DRAKE PROMO- awesome!

WORLD TITLE SERIES ROUND OF 16 MATCH: Mahabali Shera vs. Eli Drake- 2.75/10

MATT HARDY PROMO- eh.

WORLD TITLE SERIES ROUND OF 16 MATCH: Matt Hardy vs. Bobby Roode- 5/10
So we have the rightful TNA World Heavyweight Champion facing off against the current TNA King of the Mountain Champion. How the hell was this not the main event?
This was a lot shorter than I thought it should have been, and I thought that taing most of the match and then losing after taking one move made Roode look weak.

DREW GALLOWAY PROMO- decent

WORLD TITLE SERIES ROUND OF 16 MATCH: Awesome Kong vs. Jesse Godderz- no rating, BAD segment.
They did comedy in the beginning. I was amazed that the women in the crowd reacted so positively to Godderz. I would have preferred that Kong just KOed him with the spinning backfist, hit the Awesome Bomb and won the match. The rest of the time for this match should have gone to Matt vs. Roode.
Instead, they had Kong beat Jesse up for a long while… and then get rolled up with Godderz doing a bad job of pulling the tights and lose. Not only did this make Godderz look bad, but what was even the point of putting any of the women in the tournament if they were just going to get beaten in the first round?

WORLD TITLE SERIES ROUND OF 16 MATCH: Eric Young vs. Kenny King- 6/10
This was the first time EY has been tolerable on TV since turning heel. This is probably because he didn’t talk. This match also made be very thankful that Kenny King is now in a company that will value his tremendous talent.

G-D DAMN IT THEY LET EY TALK!
This one wasn’t as bad as usual, although it seemed like it was taped during the group play stage.

WORLD TITLE SERIES ROUND OF 16 MATCH: Drew Galloway vs. Bobby Lashley- 6.25/10
Drew lost? That was… unexpected. I was pretty surprised that they had this match as well as Roode vs. Hardy in the first round, which ensured that two of their top five guys would be out of after the first round. If they had something for these guys to do that would be one thing, but they don’t see to have any plans whatsoever for what comes after this.

An okay show from TNA.
I was very surprised that they stuffed all eight matches into one show. They now have only six taped matches left and four more weeks of TV to fill.