BRM Reviews the 5/17/2016 Impact (worst thing I've seen all year?)

[Big Red Machine]

DREW & LASHLEY BRAWL BACKSTAGE EARLIER TODAY- I didn’t like this for a few reasons:
1. We’ve seen them brawl a few times already, and it was only a week or two ago where they started Impact with a similar brawl that occurred “earlier today.”
2. Redundancy aside, when compared to their first brawl, this one looked much more staged. They just happened to be coming into the building at the very same time and we just happened to have cameras on both of them, and they just happened to cross paths… IMO, this is the sort of thing that should be avoided as much as possible. If you want to do a brawl like this, give me a good reason for the camera to be there in the first place. The way TNA did the brawl a few weeks ago was much better.
(2b. The previous fight also helped make Drew a babyface because Lashley jumped him from behind. This fight was just them seeing each other and running at each other, and then it ended in a pull-apart. It served no purpose.)
3. Tonight is the big match, and you just showed me a very well-done video package to build up my anticipation. Having them engage in a short fight right here, right now will not build up my anticipation for the match. If anything, it will diminish it. The first reaction is always the strongest. You should save that for the real fight.

OPENING SEGMENT- painful.
They used this really annoying screen effect for Willow’s entrance, like a fish-eye lens with the part that isn’t the center completly blurred out. Then Willow started to cut a promo. To disguise his voice they had some distorting effect that sounded like someone inhaled helium and then was talking over a static-y microphone. It was bordering on painful to listen to.
Willow said that he was now free.
Then Jeff Hardy came out and Josh Mathews told us all that “Jeff Hardy is one of the most artistic professional wrestlers you’ll ever encounter.”
Look… Jeff is a very artistic person. He paints, he plays music, he writes songs, he writes poetry, he’s a sculptor, (those last two are off of Wikipedia)… but (in my opinion) Jeff is not an artistic professional wrestler. He does not particularly excel at the art of telling a story, either in the ring, on the mic, or in the booking. I don’t even think he is particularly creative with his character (Willow is not creative. It’s just a lame version of The Great Muta/Keiji Mutoh dynamic, and I’m sure Muta wasn’t even the first guy to do that in front of a large audience). Mike Quackenbush is an “artistic professional wrestler.” Mick Foley is an “artistic professional wrestler.” Christopher Daniels is an “artistic professional wrestler.” Jeff Hardy is not.

Sorry for the side-rant.
Anyway, the reason Josh said this was so he could drive home to us that “Willow is this man’s creation.” I can certainly sympathize with an artist who feels someone else is stealing his or her work, but it just isn’t effective in this situation because, well…
Jeff: “I don’t know who you are, Shadow Willow, but whatever you’re trying to do: it’s not going to work because there is only one Willow in this world, and he lives inside of me. He is from the imagination.”
Yeah… this is just soooo… zany, and hokey, and lame, and yet also somehow almost bordering on pretentious. It feels like an after-school special for people majoring in art theory about how to handle being plagiarized.


Jeff continued, first saying that the man standing in the ring dressed as Willow was “a fraud,” but then he said “I have no issue with you.” What? You mean this isn’t one of the people who dressed as Willow last week for the purposes of distracting Jeff to cost him his wrestling match and then later beat the sh*t out of him? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to assume? That’s certainly what I assumed.

“But I’m about to expose you.”
So you come out here and call this guy a “fraud” and say you’re about to “expose” his identity. Sounds to me like you do have an issue with him, Jeff.

“Creatures: should I expose him?” Jeff asked. (*cue screaming fangirls*) Then Jeff explained that “Willow has a special place in my heart. When Jeff Hardy needs to go dark, he turns to Willow.” Really? Because most of Jeff’s “darkest” times (in kayfabe) haven’t seen him turn to Willow (his heel run with Immortal immediately springs to mind… although I suppose that could be ret-conned).
“So, Shadow Willow, I have three questions for you: Creatures, are you ready? Do you love? Do you hate? Do you die forever late in Willow’s way (wake?)?” Then he let out some weird, high-pitched Willow noises. Then he shouted “I didn’t think so!” and attacked Shadow Willow.
This was just utter sh*t. This wasn’t even a wrestling segment. This felt like it was something that Jeff wrote to be a monologue delivered at the climax of his two-person, one-act play, but Jeff wanted to do it on TV and TNA needs all of the big names it can hold on to, so they let him go out there and do it.


JEFF HARDY vs. WILLOW- DUD!
So a referee comes out and calls for the bell to be rung and we have an official match, even though we have no idea who this imposter Willow really is, meaning that he might not even work for the company, which would both open TNA up to the possibility of lawsuits if any number of things happen. It also makes you wonder how TNA can force this man to wrestle a match if they have no authority over him.
Logic aside, this match still makes no sense because why does Jeff give a sh*t if he can best this man in a professional wrestling contest? He said he wants to “expose” him… so when he has this guy down on the mat, why is he trying to pin him instead of trying to rip his mask off? The match goes about a minute and Jeff wins via Twist of Fate. Then he wastes time celebrating instead of just going to take off the dude’s mask, so when he finally gets around to trying to take the mask off, another Willow shows up and beats him up with the umbrella. Then Willow's music plays again and a third Willow comes out to cut a promo (with the same voice as before). The promo was as follows:
“You want answers? You desire truths? I’ll give you those and it’ll become your worst nightmare.”
Who the hell thought this would be a good idea?
So anyway, these three mystery men assault one of the company’s most popular stars in the middle of the ring and absolutely no one comes out to help him.

We get our first commercial for Slammiversary. It will be Sunday, June 12.

Speaking of commercials, when we get back from this commercial break, Jeff Hardy is being restrained in the ring by the Willows. The Chief Willow tells Jeff to “put the puzzle together. All of the pieces fit.” Then he unmasks himself as Matt Hardy, which everyone had already figured out the moment this storyline started last week.
Matt has some stupid-looking facepaint on. He laments, in a constantly cracking voice, that “you loved Willow more than you ever loved me. That is, if you ever loved me at all, brother Nero. You used my brilliance. I am the reason we both succeeded and reached our heights. These people loathe me but they love you. How do you think that makes me feel?”
He continues cutting an annoying, terrible promo, talking about how Jeff didn’t finish him off, and thus his “fully-functioning brain” has “formulated a pathway to pain,” and now he wants to destroy Jeff and blah blah blah. This is so painful to sit through. I am SOOOO happy no one else is in the room right now. The Willows beat Jeff up but he fights back so he gets beaten up more and then Matt talks more and the Willows go away and Matt chokes Jeff out. FINALLY some referees decide to come out and see if Jeff is okay. This feud used to be the best thing and TNA and in one segment they turned it into the absolute worst.


VELVET TALKS TO ALLIE BACKSTAGE- “Allie” is Maria’s “apprentice” (get it?). I assume that her last name must be Dennis because she looks exactly like former TNA jobber Laura Dennis. They must be identical twins or something.
They have some back and forth in which Velvet tried to be both tough and snarky (which utterly failed) while Allie tried to be that fantastic combination of outwardly cheerful and yet also condescending that Maria pulls off so wonderfully with also a touch of sycophancy towards Maria mixed in, but it just didn’t work for me. When Maria does it she comes across like there is some danger underneath. It might not necessarily be that she herself can hurt you, but you know that she is not the sort of person who will forget any slight against her and who will pull whatever strings she can in order to make your life hell. Allie just came across as kind of a bimbo.
Allie tells Velvet she has been booked against Sienna tonight. Then Maria calls Allie to tell her to tell Velvet that if she loses tonight she will be fired. This seems like exactly the sort of abuse of power that TNA President Dixie Carter should be taking a stand against (especially considering that big mea culpa promo she cut last year to turn babyface).

Oh. Here is Dixie now!
JB INTERVIEWS DIXIE CARTER- Dixie says that “the personal issue between Lashley and Drew has gotten to the point where it has affected people backstage and it has really forced us into making a decision about tonight’s main event.” What the f*ck is she talking about? The best I can guess is that maybe someone got hurt breaking up a fight or something, but if the issue is that they keep wanting to fight backstage instead of waiting for their match, then once they have their match it won’t be affecting people backstage anymore.
Dixie’s solution to this nebulous problem is to make the match a Lumberjack Match. This makes no sense! It’s a gimmick purely for the sake of having a gimmick (or possibly even worse, it’s a gimmick for the sake of having a f*ck finish, but with no build to the stipulations to make it into a coherent story). This stip makes me a lot less excited for this match. AT BEST the lumberjacks will only get in the way, and at worst, it signals a f*ck finish. This is not the reaction I should have to them announcing a stipulation for the big world title match they have been building for weeks.
Also, why is THIS the thing that requires Dixie Carter to step in and police things? We’ve seen Matt Hardy, Eric Young, and Decay all do much worse things recently and Dixie has been completely silent, but now some nebulous something happens that we didn’t even see that has “affected people backstage” and G-d dammit this calls for someone to ensure that law and order are preserved.

IF VELVET LOSES, SHE IS FIRED: Velvet Sky vs. Sienna- 1.75/10
Velvet got WAY too much offense here, especially if she is on her way out the door. I think it would have been a lot better to just have Sienna squash her like a bug to really put Sienna over as a big scary enforcer of Maria’s will.
Anyway, Velvet is fired. Well… she was fired last year, too, and was back within a few months so I really don’t care that she just got fired now because I’m sure she’ll be back soon enough.

MIKE & MARIA HANG OUT BY THEIR POOL- also, Bennett cut a promo on EC III and wanting to win the world title. Bennett’s promo was good and I enjoy Bennett and Maria doting on each other, but the whole “Maria swimming and splashing in a bikini” part was completely gratuitous.

After a commercial break we come back to find…
MIKE & MARIA IN THE RING CUTTING A PROMO- F*CKING ATROCIOUS SEGMENT.
Considering what we just saw, it seemed a little odd to not have Maria start this off by cutting a promo saying that all of the Knockouts should consider what just happened to Velvet to be a warning.
Bennett cut a promo declaring that if Ethan failed on his “road to redemption” he wouldn’t get a match with Bennett at Slammiversary. This whole thing makes no sense. Why did Ethan agree to this?
Then Bennett said he would fight a “TNA Hall of Famer” tonight and despite how they tried to build it up, it was completely obvious that he was going to call out Earl Hebner. Earl comes out and Bennett is standing there demanding to fight this now 67 year old (happy birthday by the way) non-wrestler, and NO ONE is coming out to tell him to stop his bullying and abuse of a TNA official. Not Dixie, not Corgan, not Gaburik, not Drew Galloway or James Storm one of the other babyfaces, or even the guy currently feuding with Bennett. Nope. Bennett wants Stiffler to come out and ring the bell and for some reason he does (with Maria still standing in the ring and Bennett holding a foreign object, so he’s a bad referee), and then Bennett just punches Earl right in the face. Stiffler goes to check on Earl (what did you think would happen if you rang the bell, dipsh*t?) Pope and Josh are acting all outraged… and yet no one has come out to put a stop to this. Didn’t Pope rush into the ring to stop Lashley from doing something similar to Josh? Well why isn’t he doing anything now?
Bennett goes for the pin and demands that Stiffler count it and now the f*cking moron is being all “no. I don’t want to do this” when he didn’t hesitate to have the match started just a few seconds ago. Stiffler finally goes for the cover and Earl gets his shoulder up. Then he hits Bennett in the nuts (right in front of Stiffler, and there was no DQ). Earl gets in Maria’s face and TAKES HIS SHIRT OFF but then Bennett boots him in the head and pins him. STILL no one has come out to stop Bennett. Now Bennett is going for a Piledriver even though the match is over and FINALLY Ethan comes out to put a stop to this. Right. Because forcing a match on an unwilling 67 year-old non-wrestler is a perfectly fine thing to do so there was no need to stop Bennett from doing that, but a post-match Piledriver is the point where we’ve crossed the line.
So Ethan shows up and walks slowly down the ramp. Way to run to the rescue there, buddy. Then Bennett starts to cut ANOTHER promo on EC III announcing that later tonight Ethan will face Tyrus in a Last Man Standing match, which is also happening right now. Are you telling me THEY WASTED ALL OF THIS TIME JUST TO SET UP A COMPLETELY UNADVERTISED LAST MAN STANDING MATCH?! THIS COMPANY SUCKS SO F*CKING MUCH! THEY DESERVE TO GO OUT OF BUSINESS!

This segment did absolutely nothing for anyone, was a giant waste of time, created gigantic inter-storyline logic problems, made all of the babyfaces look like sh*t, and was just plain bad booking.

LAST MAN STANDING MATCH: Tyrus vs. Ethan Carter III- 6/10
They did a bunch of big spots. Bennett came out to stare at Ethan from the ramp afterwards. It went eleven minutes. Why not just announce the match in advance and give this the time from both this segment and the Hebner one?

LASHLEY TRAINING VIDEO PACKAGE- really boring. If he was sparring and beating people up that would be one thing, but this was almost two minutes of nothing but Lashley using gym equipment. This was complete and total padding.

JEFF HARDY PROMO- terrible. I’m not usually an advocate of scripting promos, but someone needs to start doing this for Jeff because whenever he uses his own words, it sounds ridiculous and over-dramatic.

EDDIE EDWARDS & DJ ZEMA ION vs. THE HELMS DYNASTY (w/Gregory Shane Helms)- 5.75/10
Josh Mathews claims that Eddie and Zema have become great friends and even travel together now. I don’t but that for a second. Their characters are so completely opposite.
They did a great job with the time they had. Ion pinned Everett which is completely idiotic, as Ion should be on his way own the card while Everett desperately needs a victory for some credibility, seeing as how he has yet to win a single match in TNA.

DREW GALLOWAY TRAINING PACKAGE- MUCH better, because they had him cutting a promo in the background so it wasn’t just two minutes of watching someone else exercise. The fact that the promo was pretty good didn’t hurt, either.

FACTS OF LIFE WITH ELI DRAKE & SPECIAL GUEST BRAM- loved it!
Now they’ve added an annoying graphic to the annoying “dummy” sound effect button. Fortunately they didn’t use it after the first minute or so. After that (once he really started talking about Bram), this got GREAT! Drake’s ability to run his mouth makes him a great first heel to face the babyfae Bram.


BENNETT, MARIA, & EC III BACKSTAGE- Ethan wants to face Bennett tonight, but Bennett says that he’ll have to face Matt Hardy next week. This whole thing doesn’t feel like a “road to redemption” so much as it feels like Matt Hardy’s stable is randomly working for Bennett and feuding with Ethan.
Also… how ridiculous is it that they are advertising a regular match a week in advance, but did not advertise a Last Man Standing match or a Cage match in advance at all?

LUMBERJACK MATCH FOR THE TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE: Drew Galloway(c) vs. Bobby Lashley- DUD!
Josh wants to tweet all of our friends and let them know that this is a Lumberjack Match. First of all, making this a Lumberjack match has severely decreased my interest in it, and I’m sure it will do the same for others as well because most people don’t like f*ck finishes like the one that is sure to happen tonight with this random stip added out of nowhere that almost guarantees interference. Secondly… do they have any idea how pathetic they sound, begging for viewers like this?
There are some notable absences from the ranks of the lumberjacks, particularly James Storm and Decay. These were guys who weren’t otherwise on this show so this would have been a good opportunity to get them on the TV, but for whatever reason TNA didn’t go that. Also absent were Tyrus, who I assume was selling the beating he took in the Last Man Standing match (which is something the announcers should have mentioned) and Matt Hardy who isn’t out here I guess because he’s crazy now and crazy people don’t work as lumberjacks.
They did a lot of very basic "knock each other down" stuff for about twelve minutes and then Drew was setting up for Claymore when…
Hey, look: a f*ck finish for no reason.
Trevor Lee grabbed his ankles and pulled him out of the ring for a DQ. Why? Trevor has shown no affinity for Lashley nor any animosity towards Drew… so why the hell would he do this?
Because the plot demanded it. That’s why.
So we had a lame schmoz highlighted by some guys doing dives onto the pile for no other reason than because DIVES! That’s the problem with TNA. They gave us a pointless f*ck-finish in a much-anticipated and well-built world title match for no other reason than to give us a big giant schmoz with some dives because they think that dives and chaos are so totally cool and are the sort of thing that will “get people talking” (and I will guarantee you that that is exactly how Josh will describe this on next week’s show: as a “wild” brawl and something that “everyone is talking about”), completely failing to realize that we’ve been seeing this stuff on a semi-frequent basis for almost twenty years now, and here is TNA doing the exact same thing but with no actual reasoning behind it, meaning that it’s just spots.

Once the dives were over we got the obligatory sequence of individual match-ups in the ring. First we saw the #1 contender to the World Heavyweight Title Bobby Lashley get taken out by… Bram. Then Eli Drake took out Bram so at least that made some sense… but then Eli was immediately disposed of by… Jeff Hardy. Matt Hardy came out and he and Jeff brawled. Bennett took out Drake and then he had a stare-down with EC III from which he ran away. Then Lashley speared Ethan. Then Drew took out Lashley with a Claymore, then he did his dive.
This was all completely pointless, as it either built up things that had already been built up on this very show or was a completely random laying out of a heel who shouldn’t be laid out right now. Drew taking Lashley out at the end was the worst of it. The finish of the match as Lashley, the challenger and big scary monster, getting DQed when Drew was about to hit his finisher. The only argument Lashley has is that the DQ wasn’t his fault and he totally would have kicked out if Drew had hit the Claymore… except now they had Drew hit the Claymore and Lashley stayed down so that argument is gone. None of this did anything to make me want to see any of these matches more than I did before.

This was an absolutely f*cking DREADFUL show from TNA. It’s not impossible that this was the worst wrestling TV show I have watched all year. It’s shows like this that remind you why this company has been synonymous with failure for the vast majority of the past decade.