BRM Reviews the 1/5/2016 Impact (Pop TV Debut)

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING VIDEO- GREAT!
Much better than last year’s goofy thing on Destination America. This was all focused on people wanting to win matches and be the champion. Great stuff!

ACTUAL THEME- oddly subdued for a wrestling show. There are clips of Crazzy Steve in there. Why the hell is he still employed?
They misspelled Bethlehem.

DIXIE ANNOUNCEMENT- She gives the introductory speech and sets the table for tonight’s events. Ethan comes out to interrupt her and gives some history (about his world title reign) in the form of a speech. Then Matt came out and cut a promo. Then EY jumped Matt from behind and EY, Matt, and Tyrus beat Matt down until Lashley made the save.
They’ve brought new viewers up to speed and set the table for tonight well, but all of this drama is coming off as way too… I don’t know: WWE or even old TNA. I would have much preferred that we just built this up with video packages and stuff. This all felt very played out. I’m not saying what they did was bad. I’m just saying I’ve seen this enough from TNA that I really would have preferred something different.
Oka. Never mind. This brawl has gone on for WAY too long. The heels made a comeback, then the babyfaces made a second comeback. They were brawling for at least five minute with no security coming out to do anything about it. Why waste time by having these guys fight now when they are already scheduled to face off in big matches later on? (And how stupid would TNA have felt if one of these four got hurt taking a bump during this- like Matt’s big dive- and then couldn’t compete in the World Title Series matches?)

And apparently it STILL WENT ON during the commercial… and it was only during the commercial that the cool stuff happened like a chairshot (to Matt) and EY going for a piledriver (also on Matt). Also, apparently the referees decided that throwing each other into the guardrails was okay, but chairshots and piledrivers were not, so during the commercial they came out to break it up… and two referees pulled evil crazy man Eric Young off of Matt Hardy. Same old TNA.


TNA WORLD TITLE SERIES SEMIFINAL MATCH: Bobby Lashley vs. Ethan Carter III (w/Tyrus)- 5.5/10
Lashley is wearing a headband for some reason. It makes him look like a teenager.
The announcers are actually in the arena instead of in the “studio.”
Also, there appears to be a show on Pop TV called “Sh*t’s Creek.” I swear that’s what I heard Josh say, and everyone else in the room with me heard it, too, as did Pope. I am definitely filing that little kernel of information away for future jokes.
Josh tells us that “Lashley like to say he doesn’t get ready; he STAYS ready” because it’s a good idea to say something that will make the viewer make a mental connection between one of our top stars and Mojo Rawley.
The match was a lot less exciting than it should have been for the first match on a new channel. Also, I wouldn’t have put this match on first, simply because I don’t think it’s a good idea to immediately announce to everyone that your refs are incompetent by doing a bunch of heel shenanigans. Matt vs. EY would have been a better choice of opener (especially if you don’t do that dumb chair angle).

So it’s almost a quarter of the way into the show when we first see someone who isn’t Dixie, Ethan, Matt, Lashley, EY or Tyrus… and it’s KURT ANGLE! He’s walking around backstage right now, but he’ll be out next!

MIRACLE VIDEO- dull.

BOBBY ROODE SHOWS UP TO THE BUILDING (taped earlier)- a cameraman asks him about his “open challenge.” What open challenge?
Yeah, Roode explained it, but it was still weird. He made sure to stress that this was open to “anyone from ANY promotion.” He didn’t mention the fact that it will be for the King of the Mountain Title (unless it isn’t and Roode is actually wrestling twice tonight).

KURT ANGLE PROMO- he showed up just to tell everyone that he was leaving. Oh. But he’s got one more match on TNA TV first, and he has hand-picked Drew Galloway and that match will be next week. Cool!
Then Drew came out and was all nice to Kurt, but then Jesse Godderz interrupted him. He talked about being a “veteran on social media.” Thankfully, Eli Drake came out and interrupted Jesse. Eli’s promo was great, but I really hated the camera angles they used here because Eli was always in the background and thus looked insignificant.
Kurt offered to have a fight right now, so we got another brawl. The babyfaces beat the heels up quickly. I didn’t like this at all. IMO it would have been better to have Kurt come out and say he is facing Drew in the first match of his farewell tour, then have Drew go over Jesse clean in about eight minutes in a nice showcase win with Kurt on commentary to build up to that match (which should be next week’s main event).

JB INTERVIEWS JEFF HARDY- he has a lame excuse for why he didn’t come out and help Matt before, but at least he put the effort in to think of a reason (looking at you, WWE babyfaces) Jeff says Matt will win, no matter how injured he might be.
I also couldn’t help but notice that right outside the Hardy’s dressing room there were a bunch of posters for a concerts and comedy shows in the early summer of 2015.

TNA WORLD TITLE SERIES SEMIFINAL MATCH: Matt Hardy vs. Eric Young-
EY doesn’t get an entrance, but he does get to cut a promo? That’s a lose-lose for everyone. Of course we have to do the bit where EY demands that the ref start to count Matt out for a forfeit if Matt doesn’t make it out to the ring, but Matt shows up before the ref could even start counting, so what was even the point?
Matt is still selling his… um… it’s either his back or his leg. Or maybe his hip? I’m not sure which because this important plot point HAPPENED DURING A COMMERCIAL BREAK!
Matt eats a piledriver onto the concrete floor. A minute later, he won the match by hitting the Twist of Fate. Well… now the piledriver is officially dead. That was f*cking stupid.

BACKSTAGE TEASE OF A DEBUTING WRESTLER- okay.

EY SCREAMS AND YELLS BACKSTAGE- Bad
He claims everyone is against him and claims it was two-on-one because Jeff came down to check on Matt. He claims that “everyone is gonna pay,” which means we’re probably going to get an overbooked main event.

ETHAN & TYRUS CONFRONT JEFF HARDY- boring.

TNA KING OF THE MOUNTAIN TITLE MATCH: Bobby Roode(c) vs. Bram- 5.25/10
They keep hyping that this could be someone from any promotion… and they give us BRAM? COME ON! In fact, Pope’s comments here seemed to indicate that the previous tease of a new wrestler was designed to troll the audience. Yeah. That’s a good thing to do for your debut on a new channel.
Josh Matthews claimed that Bram liked to take his opponents and “feast on their blood.” I don’t know what to say to that.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- EY attack Roode… so after a whole year, they’re still feuding and the feud has gone nowhere. Roode made a comeback, but then Bram gave Roode a low blow and okay, just get on with the Beer Money reunion already.
James Storm does indeed show up to make the save. Josh says “I thought James Storm wasn’t a part of Impact Wrestling anymore!” despite the fact that no mention of his leaving had ever been made to us the fans, and he was on the show less than two months ago.
Storm then cut a promo talking about people “five or six months ago” asking him why he left Impact Wrestling. It would have been SOOOO much better to just have Storm come down the ramp and make the save, with his music playing so that all of the fans could pop at the same time instead of each person popping as he or she noticed James coming through the crowd.
Anyway, Storm apparently stopped being an evil cult leader and turned babyface because he Grandma told him to. He then came back to TNA because he got some sort of negative version of the TNA Slammys for “biggest disappointment.” His delivery was awesome, as always, but the rest of it really annoyed me.

JB INTERVIEWS THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE- Angelina says she’s preggers so she can’t wrestle. Madison was supposed to be funny but wasn’t. Velvet cut a great promo. Angelina then announced that TNA management let them pick a partner to replace her and they heavily implied that said partner would be Gail Kim.
Oh. And speaking of the bun in Angelina’s oven: Where is daddy? We are over an hour and fifteen minutes into the show and the tag team champions have received one mention in passing (which didn’t actually even tell us that they were the tag team champions).

BEER MONEY PROMO- they challenge EY and Bram to a match at the PPV. They did stupid comedy by each trying to do the other’s catchphrase and getting upset about it.

CHRISTIE HEMME WELCOMES EVERYONE TO IMPACT WRESTLING ON POP TV- well… better late than never, I guess.
She tells us that “coming up next… the strong… the beautiful… the KNOCKOUTS!” Well… that was unnecessary.

THE DOLLHOUSE vs. VELVET SKY, MADISON RAYNE, & GAIL KIM- 0.25/10
So Taryn has left the company, but for some reason we still need to keep the Dollhouse around?
The match wasn’t very good, and to make matters worse, Jade’s shoulders appeared to be up during the pin, and Earl Hebner was counting from a position where it would have been impossible for him to see what he needed to see.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Dollhouse beat down the babyfaces, but Kong comes out to either make the save or join the Dollhouse. My guess is to join them because this is TNA and there must always be a swerve.

IT’S TIME FOR THE MIRACLE- Maria Kanellis comes out and cuts a promo introducing Michael Bennett… and then the strangest thing happened. People… cheered. For Bennett and Maria? This is just so backwards to me.
Bennett claims he is “the Miracle that is going to save TNA.” Bennett buries the entire wrestling industry, but says he will change it to make it better. It’s not that Bennett’s promo was bad or anything, but this all really seemed like much ado about nothing. He cut a promo in which he said generic stuff. That’s not really making much of a splash.

DREW & KURT BACKSTAGE- a random excuse for the Wolves to show up and talk to both of them and it’s gonna be KURT & DREW VS. THE WOLVES ON THE PPV and I was so happy and then they had to ruin my happiness by adding the team of Jesse Godderz and Eli Drake into the match. That’s like saying “Misawa & Kobashi vs. Kawada & Taue sounds cool and all… but do you know what would make it even better? Adding in KroniK!

TNA WORLD TITLE SERIES FINALS TO CROWN A NEW TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION: Matt Hardy vs. Ethan Carter III- 5.5/10
The bit with Jeff and Tyrus in the beginning was fine.
And then, right before the match was about to start… we were interrupted by a long commercial (like… at least three minutes) for this Sh*ts Creek show that Pop TV has had Josh push all night (it’s actually “Schitt’s Creek” but I’m going to keep calling it “Sh*ts Creek because it looks terrible). I know that this probably wasn’t something that TNA wanted, but this still annoyed me and hurt my enjoyment of the show.
The bell for the main event rang with just over five minutes left in the show.
Whichever idiot was putting this together in the truck probably shouldn’t have put up a replay of Matt throwing Ethan over the announcers’ table while the live Matt and Ethan were doing a spot where they teased finishers.
Ethan took a very painful looking bump where it looked the small of his back landed on the corner of the ring steps. He seemed okay, though.
They got about a five minute overrun, meaning that our main event world title match that we’ve been building up to for three months was a whole ten minutes long.

While this was certainly more my type of wrestling show than last year’s Destinaton America debut (it was a lot closer to ROH than to Raw), but this was not a good show. They did a fine job of establishing some things (Drew, Kurt, Beer Money, the situation in the Knockouts Division), but the most important part of this show- the conclusion of the World Title Series- was a huge disappointment. I also wish they had done something better with the Wolves and HOW THE HELL DID WE DO A SHOW INTENDED TO INTRODUCE TNA TO A NEW AUDIENCE AND NOT FEATURE THE X-DIVISION!

I’ll be uploading my ideas for what I would have done with show tomorrow.

[cero2k]

BOBBY ROODE SHOWS UP TO THE BUILDING (taped earlier)- a cameraman asks him about his “open challenge.” What open challenge?
Yeah, Roode explained it, but it was still weird. He made sure to stress that this was open to “anyone from ANY promotion.” He didn’t mention the fact that it will be for the King of the Mountain Title (unless it isn’t and Roode is actually wrestling twice tonight).
This was promoted for like two weeks, I even told you about it when talking about the Miracle

KURT ANGLE PROMO- he showed up just to tell everyone that he was leaving. Oh. But he’s got one more match on TNA TV first, and he has hand-picked Drew Galloway and that match will be next week. Cool!
Kurt offered to have a fight right now, so we got another brawl. The babyfaces beat the heels up quickly. I didn’t like this at all. IMO it would have been better to have Kurt come out and say he is facing Drew in the first match of his farewell tour, then have Drew go over Jesse clean in about eight minutes in a nice showcase win with Kurt on commentary to build up to that match (which should be next week’s main event).
I don't know why you don't like Jesse, he's an awesome cocky heel with an awesome looking submission

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- EY attack Roode… so after a whole year, they’re still feuding and the feud has gone nowhere. Roode made a comeback, but then Bram gave Roode a low blow and okay, just get on with the Beer Money reunion already.
James Storm does indeed show up to make the save. Josh says “I thought James Storm wasn’t a part of Impact Wrestling anymore!” despite the fact that no mention of his leaving had ever been made to us the fans, and he was on the show less than two months ago.
I wanna give credit where credit is due. Eric Young said everyone was going to pay, and he came out to attack someone in the very next match. Granted it was Roode, but I liked that they didn't wait several matches for him to come out

CHRISTIE HEMME WELCOMES EVERYONE TO IMPACT WRESTLING ON POP TV- well… better late than never, I guess.
She tells us that “coming up next… the strong… the beautiful… the KNOCKOUTS!” Well… that was unnecessary.
Do you want to go back to the video? let's just be happy Hemme is on tv instead

THE DOLLHOUSE vs. VELVET SKY, MADISON RAYNE, & GAIL KIM- 0.25/10
So Taryn has left the company, but for some reason we still need to keep the Dollhouse around?
The match wasn’t very good, and to make matters worse, Jade’s shoulders appeared to be up during the pin, and Earl Hebner was counting from a position where it would have been impossible for him to see what he needed to see.
I think we can agree that the Dollhouse gimmick is good and worth trying to make it work. I have never heard Rebel talk, so here's hoping she can cut a better promo than her wrestling.

IT’S TIME FOR THE MIRACLE- Maria Kanellis comes out and cuts a promo introducing Michael Bennett… and then the strangest thing happened. People… cheered. For Bennett and Maria? This is just so backwards to me.
Bennett claims he is “the Miracle that is going to save TNA.” Bennett buries the entire wrestling industry, but says he will change it to make it better. It’s not that Bennett’s promo was bad or anything, but this all really seemed like much ado about nothing. He cut a promo in which he said generic stuff. That’s not really making much of a splash.
I wouldn't be surprised if the people in the crowd are familiar with his work in ROH, and even NJPW. Like he said, he's an indie darlin' now + Maria is hot as hell

DREW & KURT BACKSTAGE- a random excuse for the Wolves to show up and talk to both of them and it’s gonna be KURT & DREW VS. THE WOLVES ON THE PPV and I was so happy and then they had to ruin my happiness by adding the team of Jesse Godderz and Eli Drake into the match. That’s like saying “Misawa & Kobashi vs. Kawada & Taue sounds cool and all… but do you know what would make it even better? Adding in KroniK!
C'MON!! Brian Clark vs Misawa would have been a 5* match

While this was certainly more my type of wrestling show than last year’s Destinaton America debut (it was a lot closer to ROH than to Raw), but this was not a good show. They did a fine job of establishing some things (Drew, Kurt, Beer Money, the situation in the Knockouts Division), but the most important part of this show- the conclusion of the World Title Series- was a huge disappointment. I also wish they had done something better with the Wolves and HOW THE HELL DID WE DO A SHOW INTENDED TO INTRODUCE TNA TO A NEW AUDIENCE AND NOT FEATURE THE X-DIVISION!
I know it was all timing and there wasn't much they could have done, but it was bad that they had to debut with the finals of the Title Series, they were forced to use to match spots on the Semis and so we couldn't get more wrestlers.

[Big Red Machine]

BOBBY ROODE SHOWS UP TO THE BUILDING (taped earlier)- a cameraman asks him about his “open challenge.” What open challenge?
Yeah, Roode explained it, but it was still weird. He made sure to stress that this was open to “anyone from ANY promotion.” He didn’t mention the fact that it will be for the King of the Mountain Title (unless it isn’t and Roode is actually wrestling twice tonight).
This was promoted for like two weeks, I even told you about it when talking about the Miracle
Yes. But they didn't mention it on TV or in this promo, which they should have. You're trying to get a new audience excited for the show. Or even an old audience that isn't made up of internet fans.

KURT ANGLE PROMO- he showed up just to tell everyone that he was leaving. Oh. But he’s got one more match on TNA TV first, and he has hand-picked Drew Galloway and that match will be next week. Cool!
Kurt offered to have a fight right now, so we got another brawl. The babyfaces beat the heels up quickly. I didn’t like this at all. IMO it would have been better to have Kurt come out and say he is facing Drew in the first match of his farewell tour, then have Drew go over Jesse clean in about eight minutes in a nice showcase win with Kurt on commentary to build up to that match (which should be next week’s main event).
I don't know why you don't like Jesse, he's an awesome cocky heel with an awesome looking submission
He came across like a moron here. He comes off like a joke.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- EY attack Roode… so after a whole year, they’re still feuding and the feud has gone nowhere. Roode made a comeback, but then Bram gave Roode a low blow and okay, just get on with the Beer Money reunion already.
James Storm does indeed show up to make the save. Josh says “I thought James Storm wasn’t a part of Impact Wrestling anymore!” despite the fact that no mention of his leaving had ever been made to us the fans, and he was on the show less than two months ago.
I wanna give credit where credit is due. Eric Young said everyone was going to pay, and he came out to attack someone in the very next match. Granted it was Roode, but I liked that they didn't wait several matches for him to come out
Except that "everyone" didn't pay. It was just one dude who he already doesn't like. If he says "everyone's gonna pay" I expect him to be running around all night beating people up until someone stops him.



THE DOLLHOUSE vs. VELVET SKY, MADISON RAYNE, & GAIL KIM- 0.25/10
So Taryn has left the company, but for some reason we still need to keep the Dollhouse around?
The match wasn’t very good, and to make matters worse, Jade’s shoulders appeared to be up during the pin, and Earl Hebner was counting from a position where it would have been impossible for him to see what he needed to see.
I think we can agree that the Dollhouse gimmick is good and worth trying to make it work. I have never heard Rebel talk, so here's hoping she can cut a better promo than her wrestling.

The Dollhouse gimmick only worked because Taryn made it work. Rebel is terrible at all facets of professional wrestling, Martie Belle is meh at best and Mia Yim is totally wasted in this role. She's the good worker half of a tag team in a tag team division that doesn't even exist. Kong is a vicious monster and doesn't need cronies. In fact, having cronies diminishes Kong.

IT’S TIME FOR THE MIRACLE- Maria Kanellis comes out and cuts a promo introducing Michael Bennett… and then the strangest thing happened. People… cheered. For Bennett and Maria? This is just so backwards to me.
Bennett claims he is “the Miracle that is going to save TNA.” Bennett buries the entire wrestling industry, but says he will change it to make it better. It’s not that Bennett’s promo was bad or anything, but this all really seemed like much ado about nothing. He cut a promo in which he said generic stuff. That’s not really making much of a splash.
I wouldn't be surprised if the people in the crowd are familiar with his work in ROH, and even NJPW. Like he said, he's an indie darlin' now + Maria is hot as hell
Yeah but... he's Mike Bennett! You can't cheer for him! It just doesn't work that way.


While this was certainly more my type of wrestling show than last year’s Destinaton America debut (it was a lot closer to ROH than to Raw), but this was not a good show. They did a fine job of establishing some things (Drew, Kurt, Beer Money, the situation in the Knockouts Division), but the most important part of this show- the conclusion of the World Title Series- was a huge disappointment. I also wish they had done something better with the Wolves and HOW THE HELL DID WE DO A SHOW INTENDED TO INTRODUCE TNA TO A NEW AUDIENCE AND NOT FEATURE THE X-DIVISION!
I know it was all timing and there wasn't much they could have done, but it was bad that they had to debut with the finals of the Title Series, they were forced to use to match spots on the Semis and so we couldn't get more wrestlers.
There was plenty of time if you cut out the unimportant sh*t (as I plan on demonstrating later today) and streamline the other stuff. None of that Eric Young stuff (and especially the Matt Hardy injury stuff) was necessary at all, nor was anything Bram did or the talking with Kurt, Drew, Eli, and Jesse, and with the whole "take a piledriver on the concrete then win the match a minute later" thing, I'd argue that it actually made the show a lot worse. It's typical TNA always wanting to do some kind of angle instead of letting the big tournament itself be the angle.

[cero2k]

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- EY attack Roode… so after a whole year, they’re still feuding and the feud has gone nowhere. Roode made a comeback, but then Bram gave Roode a low blow and okay, just get on with the Beer Money reunion already.
James Storm does indeed show up to make the save. Josh says “I thought James Storm wasn’t a part of Impact Wrestling anymore!” despite the fact that no mention of his leaving had ever been made to us the fans, and he was on the show less than two months ago.
I wanna give credit where credit is due. Eric Young said everyone was going to pay, and he came out to attack someone in the very next match. Granted it was Roode, but I liked that they didn't wait several matches for him to come out
Except that "everyone" didn't pay. It was just one dude who he already doesn't like. If he says "everyone's gonna pay" I expect him to be running around all night beating people up until someone stops him.
he got his ass kicked in the first try, why continue if there now is a big chance that Beer Money will come out to stop you over and over

THE DOLLHOUSE vs. VELVET SKY, MADISON RAYNE, & GAIL KIM- 0.25/10
So Taryn has left the company, but for some reason we still need to keep the Dollhouse around?
The match wasn’t very good, and to make matters worse, Jade’s shoulders appeared to be up during the pin, and Earl Hebner was counting from a position where it would have been impossible for him to see what he needed to see.
I think we can agree that the Dollhouse gimmick is good and worth trying to make it work. I have never heard Rebel talk, so here's hoping she can cut a better promo than her wrestling.

The Dollhouse gimmick only worked because Taryn made it work. Rebel is terrible at all facets of professional wrestling, Martie Belle is meh at best and Mia Yim is totally wasted in this role. She's the good worker half of a tag team in a tag team division that doesn't even exist. Kong is a vicious monster and doesn't need cronies. In fact, having cronies diminishes Kong.
Kong doesn't have cronies, she is the cronie. I'll wait to their first promo to see if Rebel is bad for that gimmick

There was plenty of time if you cut out the unimportant sh*t (as I plan on demonstrating later today) and streamline the other stuff. None of that Eric Young stuff (and especially the Matt Hardy injury stuff) was necessary at all, nor was anything Bram did or the talking with Kurt, Drew, Eli, and Jesse, and with the whole "take a piledriver on the concrete then win the match a minute later" thing, I'd argue that it actually made the show a lot worse. It's typical TNA always wanting to do some kind of angle instead of letting the big tournament itself be the angle.

Remember to build up the matches they're promoting for the friday PPV

[Big Red Machine]

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- EY attack Roode… so after a whole year, they’re still feuding and the feud has gone nowhere. Roode made a comeback, but then Bram gave Roode a low blow and okay, just get on with the Beer Money reunion already.
James Storm does indeed show up to make the save. Josh says “I thought James Storm wasn’t a part of Impact Wrestling anymore!” despite the fact that no mention of his leaving had ever been made to us the fans, and he was on the show less than two months ago.
I wanna give credit where credit is due. Eric Young said everyone was going to pay, and he came out to attack someone in the very next match. Granted it was Roode, but I liked that they didn't wait several matches for him to come out
Except that "everyone" didn't pay. It was just one dude who he already doesn't like. If he says "everyone's gonna pay" I expect him to be running around all night beating people up until someone stops him.
he got his ass kicked in the first try, why continue if there now is a big chance that Beer Money will come out to stop you over and over
Because he's a psychopath angry at the world and looking to take his frustrations out on everyone, and that's what they do.

THE DOLLHOUSE vs. VELVET SKY, MADISON RAYNE, & GAIL KIM- 0.25/10
So Taryn has left the company, but for some reason we still need to keep the Dollhouse around?
The match wasn’t very good, and to make matters worse, Jade’s shoulders appeared to be up during the pin, and Earl Hebner was counting from a position where it would have been impossible for him to see what he needed to see.
I think we can agree that the Dollhouse gimmick is good and worth trying to make it work. I have never heard Rebel talk, so here's hoping she can cut a better promo than her wrestling.

The Dollhouse gimmick only worked because Taryn made it work. Rebel is terrible at all facets of professional wrestling, Martie Belle is meh at best and Mia Yim is totally wasted in this role. She's the good worker half of a tag team in a tag team division that doesn't even exist. Kong is a vicious monster and doesn't need cronies. In fact, having cronies diminishes Kong.
Kong doesn't have cronies, she is the cronie. I'll wait to their first promo to see if Rebel is bad for that gimmick
Rebel has cut promos before. She's bad.
As for Kong, I got the impression that she was the leader.

There was plenty of time if you cut out the unimportant sh*t (as I plan on demonstrating later today) and streamline the other stuff. None of that Eric Young stuff (and especially the Matt Hardy injury stuff) was necessary at all, nor was anything Bram did or the talking with Kurt, Drew, Eli, and Jesse, and with the whole "take a piledriver on the concrete then win the match a minute later" thing, I'd argue that it actually made the show a lot worse. It's typical TNA always wanting to do some kind of angle instead of letting the big tournament itself be the angle.

Remember to build up the matches they're promoting for the friday PPV
Which could have been done easily with some simple graphics, a video package, and maybe something to really push your main event, like what they did with Drew, Kurt, and the Wolves (excluding the other two, of course). The least they could have done was a video package for the X-Division and announce that Tigre Uno is defending his title against someone. Or a quick promo by someone (Robbie E. would work well) responding to Bennett promo to set up Bennett's first TNA match at the PPV.

[cero2k]

Remember to build up the matches they're promoting for the friday PPV
Which could have been done easily with some simple graphics, a video package, and maybe something to really push your main event, like what they did with Drew, Kurt, and the Wolves (excluding the other two, of course). The least they could have done was a video package for the X-Division and announce that Tigre Uno is defending his title against someone. Or a quick promo by someone (Robbie E. would work well) responding to Bennett promo to set up Bennett's first TNA match at the PPV.
I don't disagree with you, I think that every championship should have been defended. But I can also see the value of the backstage segments they did with Angle/Galloway, Beer Money ones, TBP one. I would have only reduced the opening segment to quick promos and remove the Jeff Hardy interview, maybe the ECIII one too

[Big Red Machine]

Remember to build up the matches they're promoting for the friday PPV
Which could have been done easily with some simple graphics, a video package, and maybe something to really push your main event, like what they did with Drew, Kurt, and the Wolves (excluding the other two, of course). The least they could have done was a video package for the X-Division and announce that Tigre Uno is defending his title against someone. Or a quick promo by someone (Robbie E. would work well) responding to Bennett promo to set up Bennett's first TNA match at the PPV.
I don't disagree with you, I think that every championship should have been defended. But I can also see the value of the backstage segments they did with Angle/Galloway, Beer Money ones, TBP one. I would have only reduced the opening segment to quick promos and remove the Jeff Hardy interview, maybe the ECIII one too
I'm not saying those segments didn't have a purpose or have value. I'm saying that value was nowhere near enough to justify killing the World Title Series matches for.
Even the TBP match was unnecessary if you're not doing Gail vs. Kong at the PPV. All you needed to do was get in, get Gail over, get out. Gail wins clean non-title in seven minutes at most. You can do a video package for Kong tonight to hype up her debut on next week's show. We didn't need a promo and a woman tag and a post-match segment. If it were up to me, I wouldn't have even put Angelina on TV until she's ready to come back from maternity leave so that when she does, you can treat her return as a big deal.

[Big Red Machine]

My other concern after seeing this show is that I really can't tell if TNA actually has any sort of plan for where they are going. Obviously they have the whole set of tapings booked out, but I don't think that they have any sort of real final destination in mind. One of TNA's biggest problems over the last two years is that it has never felt like they are actually building towards some big blow-off supercard show. There is no WreslteMania or CHIKARA Season Finale or Ultima Lucha or Wrestle Kingdom to build to, so some feuds feel like they drag on forever with no movement at all, while others end abruptly while feeling only half-finished. With the next set of tapings after this week being the UK tour, TNA was in a perfect position to set something up because they have known for months who was committed to the UK tour and who wasn't, so they should have booked these tapings and those tapings specifically to build up to a big live PPV. I don't think the thought of doing that ever even crossed their minds.

[cero2k]

My other concern after seeing this show is that I really can't tell if TNA actually has any sort of plan for where they are going. Obviously they have the whole set of tapings booked out, but I don't think that they have any sort of real final destination in mind. One of TNA's biggest problems over the last two years is that it has never felt like they are actually building towards some big blow-off supercard show. There is no WreslteMania or CHIKARA Season Finale or Ultima Lucha or Wrestle Kingdom to build to, so some feuds feel like they drag on forever with no movement at all, while others end abruptly while feeling only half-finished. With the next set of tapings after this week being the UK tour, TNA was in a perfect position to set something up because they have known for months who was committed to the UK tour and who wasn't, so they should have booked these tapings and those tapings specifically to build up to a big live PPV. I don't think the thought of doing that ever even crossed their minds.

i don't know if they have or not, chances are they don't, but I think it's the same problem, they were in the middle of this series thing and they had to finish it. We've already been hinted at some stuff with Angle's retirement tour, Matt Hardy being seriously pissed at losing (I also think Reby Sky will become a character now), Hardy vs Bennett should be a thing soon, Tyrus is no 1 contender to his boss, Dollhouse Kong, Beer Money i'm guessing will be built to feud with the Wolves eventually. They do have plans, but I can't really tell what is the end point, we know Lockdown will happen during the UK tour, but that's it. This being the first episode and the end of the Series, i'm glad they just allowed ECIII to celebrate his win tbh

The end point i would be booking to is the eventual ECIII pin, but there is no one in the roster I would give that pin to. MAAAYBE Galloway, but not really

[Big Red Machine]

My other concern after seeing this show is that I really can't tell if TNA actually has any sort of plan for where they are going. Obviously they have the whole set of tapings booked out, but I don't think that they have any sort of real final destination in mind. One of TNA's biggest problems over the last two years is that it has never felt like they are actually building towards some big blow-off supercard show. There is no WreslteMania or CHIKARA Season Finale or Ultima Lucha or Wrestle Kingdom to build to, so some feuds feel like they drag on forever with no movement at all, while others end abruptly while feeling only half-finished. With the next set of tapings after this week being the UK tour, TNA was in a perfect position to set something up because they have known for months who was committed to the UK tour and who wasn't, so they should have booked these tapings and those tapings specifically to build up to a big live PPV. I don't think the thought of doing that ever even crossed their minds.

i don't know if they have or not, chances are they don't, but I think it's the same problem, they were in the middle of this series thing and they had to finish it. We've already been hinted at some stuff with Angle's retirement tour, Matt Hardy being seriously pissed at losing (I also think Reby Sky will become a character now), Hardy vs Bennett should be a thing soon, Tyrus is no 1 contender to his boss, Dollhouse Kong, Beer Money i'm guessing will be built to feud with the Wolves eventually. They do have plans, but I can't really tell what is the end point, we know Lockdown will happen during the UK tour, but that's it. This being the first episode and the end of the Series, i'm glad they just allowed ECIII to celebrate his win tbh

The end point i would be booking to is the eventual ECIII pin, but there is no one in the roster I would give that pin to. MAAAYBE Galloway, but not really

I don't think they had anywhere near as much baggage as you are saying they are. I think they just continued stuff because they couldn't think of anything new, and because they wanted to get a bunch of people on the show. Both Dollhouse vs. TBP and Kong vs. Gail (and Gail vs. Dollhouse) are things that did not need to continue, but they chose to anyway.

Definitely agree that EC III getting pinned and losing the title has to be the end-point. I'd probably give it to Galloway, not so much for the pinning EC III part as for the wining the big title and being the conquering babyface hero part. He's the guy for whom it will do the most good.

I also think you're right about Reby Sky. I definitely got that feeling from the way she was glaring at Ethan and the fact that it felt like they almost paid more attention to her emotion than they did to Matt's

[KILLdozer]

Eric Young isn't going to make everyone pay.

He's already made them pay.