BRM Reviews the 3/13/2014 Impact (the day has finally come)
Posted: Mar 14th, '14, 00:07
PRE-OPENING SEGMENT- dumb
EC III, Spud, Bro-Mans, & Zema want to blame Bobby Roode for their loss last night. Why would they want to blame Roode instead of Bully? They bump into Roode and he tells them as much. What was the point of having the other heels be morons?
LOCKDOWN RECAP- reminded me how much I hated the show and it’s stupid f*ck finishes.
MVP PROMO- he says that he doesn’t know why Bully turned face, but he will not treat Bully differently than anyone else. I loved his whole “Motivate, Validate, Participate” thing. I’m just dreading how many times I will hear Tenay repeat the term.
Then Magnus comes out and talks for a bit. Then he brings out Abyss, who has an ugly new jacket and an ugly new mask. Magnus claims that this is an “upgrade.” Then he reveals why Abyss helped him beat Joe at Lockdown: Money. Yes. ABYSS sold out for money. Abyss is just about the only wrestler in history for whom this explanation doesn’t work!
MVP names Joe #1 contender, then brings Joe out. Joe is still selling his stomach from a shot with Janice from four days ago… and he should be, because that thing is f*cking SCARY. Joe will face Magnus for the title next week, but for right now, MVP books…
SAMOA JOE vs. ABYSS- 6.25/10
They gave this a decent amount of time, and I liked the finish, as it meant that neither guy had to lose. I also liked how tentative Hebner was when it came to Janice. He didn’t want to get anywhere near that thing.
What I didn’t like was EY getting the best of Abyss. Yeah. Joe couldn’t send Abyss running, but ERIC F*CKING YOUNG DID. That absolutely should not have happened. EY should have gotten some offense in, then gotten destroyed.
JB WAITS FOR BULLY RAY TO ARRIVE-
He’s not here yet? Why is he allowed to show up late? ANGELINA LOVE IS BACK!
WILLOW BACKSTAGE- yeah… Jeff’s on shrooms.
BRITTANY vs. GAIL KIM (w/Lei’D Tapa)- 1.75/10
Tenay says “we have been anticipating the debut of Brittany.” Have you, Mike? Because you haven’t mentioned it on the air at all. Her video package was horribly generic. When she said that she “looked up to Madison Rayne,” I completely rolled my eyes.
I have no idea when they renamed her, because she has already wrestled for them as Santana Garrett.
I was not impressed with Brittany at all. She was horribly generic in the ring and she didn’t have any babyface fire. She got a win because Gail and Tapa had a miscue. Gail then shoved Tapa and they brawled. Tapa won the brawl, but through painfully sh*tty punches which reminded me why I was dreading this inevitable break-up.
BULLY GETS JUMPED BY THE HEELS- good.
I would love for them to do a post-Generation Next Alex Shelley-type deal with these guys beating the sh*t out of Bully all the time but no one wanting to help Bully because of his past sins.
VIDEO PACKAGE OF MUTA & SANADA- FANTASTIC!
It would be very cool if they could turn Muta’s comments into a angle that would eventually lead to the return of the World X Cup as a singles deal
TIGRE UNO & SANADA vs. BRO-MANS (w/Zema Ion)-
A fantastic debut for Sanada & Uno… but why the hell would you job out the tag champs? This was the PERFECT spot for Bad Influence. If they’re about to leave the company, then follow the time-honored tradition of wrestling and JOB THEM OUT.
MADISON & VELVET BACKSTAGE- they put each other over for being hot. Then Madison asks Velvet how they are going to handle Angelina being back. Apparently Velvet did not know about this.
BULLY RAY DESTROYS ZEMA & BRO-MANS- NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! Once again the tag champs are made to be chumps. This is why you don’t make stooges champions!
SAM SHAW & CHIRSTY BACKSTAGE- we never saw Christy, which leads to be believe that she is tied up. Shaw was WAY too normal here.
EY & JOE BACKSTAGE-
Joe was overly confrontational. EY finally owns up to how idiotic of an idea bringing Abyss back was, and then Joe all of a sudden stops being angry at him. EY will be Joe’s backup next week. The thought of that is just laughable.
EC III & SPUD HAVE A TRIBUTE FOR DIXIE- F*CKING AWESOME!
The crowd fails at chanting “Dixie’s lapdog” in unison.
Anyway, why would MVP allow this to happen?
AH! Here he comes. And it turns out that he didn’t. So did he not schedule a match for this time? Why was the camera here instead of where it was supposed to be?
So the result of this is that Spud will now return to being a wrestler and will face Willow tonight. Lashley will face EC III next week. I have no interest in either match.
EC III says that Lashley isn’t on the roster. MVP confirms this…meaning that at Lockdown Lashley just waltzed into the building and walked out to the ring despite not being under contract and no one stopped him?!
Anyway, MVP signs Lashley now. Just to be douche, Lashley takes the big picture of Dixie and hits Spud with it. I kind of want to see EC III kick Lashley’s ass for being such a dick to his friend… which is probably the exact opposite of the way TNA wants me to feel.
JB INTERVIEWS EC III- good promo by EC III. Then Bully beats EC III up.
STREET FIGHT: Mr. Anderson vs. Sam Shaw (w/half of a redheaded mannequin that kind of looks like Christy Hemme!)- no rating. Good segment.
Shaw loses decently quickly, but got in a lot of offense, too. Anderson threatens to beat up the mannequin Christy and actually kisses it, which made Shawn freak out. I feel like we missed a step in Shaw’s development here. He went straight from one type of creepy to another.
ANGELINA & VELVET SEGMENT-
Angelina looks pretty ugly. The combination of the gaudy bling and the bleached hair and the tattoos just doesn’t do it for me in any way. She cut a great promo, though, then called out Velvet and put her over and said they should get the Beautiful People back together. Velvet then delivered some painfully scripted dialogue saying that she feels that she has moved past the need for TBP. She says she needs more time to think.
ROCKSTAR SPUD vs. WILLOW- no rating. Good segment.
Now Jeff’s got a black and white umbrella. Tenay just says “It’s the alter-ego of Jeff Hardy!” like this is not big deal at all. IT’S SOMEONE HAVING A SECOND PERSONALITY! You can’t just shrug something like that off!
Props to Jeff for having very different offense in this new personality. He got DQed for hitting spud in the nuts with an umbrella.
Wait. Scratch that thing about different offense. He just gave the referee a Twist of Fate. Then he beat Spud up some more and gave him a f*cking Pillmanizer off of a ladder! If they are trying to make Willow a crazy heel Jeff Hardy, then mission accomplished.
BULLY RAY PROMO- he gives no explanation for his turn. He just says that if Roode’s team had won, Roode “would have turned into another Dixie Carter… and the last thing the wrestling business needs is another Dixie Carter.” He calls out Roode and they brawl, ending in Bully putting Roode through a table.
Not much in-ring action here, but a lot of stuff that seems to be setting things up for the future and some very good segments. There was some stuff that annoyed me but, on the whole...
I… liked… Impact.
UCH!
EC III, Spud, Bro-Mans, & Zema want to blame Bobby Roode for their loss last night. Why would they want to blame Roode instead of Bully? They bump into Roode and he tells them as much. What was the point of having the other heels be morons?
LOCKDOWN RECAP- reminded me how much I hated the show and it’s stupid f*ck finishes.
MVP PROMO- he says that he doesn’t know why Bully turned face, but he will not treat Bully differently than anyone else. I loved his whole “Motivate, Validate, Participate” thing. I’m just dreading how many times I will hear Tenay repeat the term.
Then Magnus comes out and talks for a bit. Then he brings out Abyss, who has an ugly new jacket and an ugly new mask. Magnus claims that this is an “upgrade.” Then he reveals why Abyss helped him beat Joe at Lockdown: Money. Yes. ABYSS sold out for money. Abyss is just about the only wrestler in history for whom this explanation doesn’t work!
MVP names Joe #1 contender, then brings Joe out. Joe is still selling his stomach from a shot with Janice from four days ago… and he should be, because that thing is f*cking SCARY. Joe will face Magnus for the title next week, but for right now, MVP books…
SAMOA JOE vs. ABYSS- 6.25/10
They gave this a decent amount of time, and I liked the finish, as it meant that neither guy had to lose. I also liked how tentative Hebner was when it came to Janice. He didn’t want to get anywhere near that thing.
What I didn’t like was EY getting the best of Abyss. Yeah. Joe couldn’t send Abyss running, but ERIC F*CKING YOUNG DID. That absolutely should not have happened. EY should have gotten some offense in, then gotten destroyed.
JB WAITS FOR BULLY RAY TO ARRIVE-
He’s not here yet? Why is he allowed to show up late? ANGELINA LOVE IS BACK!
WILLOW BACKSTAGE- yeah… Jeff’s on shrooms.
BRITTANY vs. GAIL KIM (w/Lei’D Tapa)- 1.75/10
Tenay says “we have been anticipating the debut of Brittany.” Have you, Mike? Because you haven’t mentioned it on the air at all. Her video package was horribly generic. When she said that she “looked up to Madison Rayne,” I completely rolled my eyes.
I have no idea when they renamed her, because she has already wrestled for them as Santana Garrett.
I was not impressed with Brittany at all. She was horribly generic in the ring and she didn’t have any babyface fire. She got a win because Gail and Tapa had a miscue. Gail then shoved Tapa and they brawled. Tapa won the brawl, but through painfully sh*tty punches which reminded me why I was dreading this inevitable break-up.
BULLY GETS JUMPED BY THE HEELS- good.
I would love for them to do a post-Generation Next Alex Shelley-type deal with these guys beating the sh*t out of Bully all the time but no one wanting to help Bully because of his past sins.
VIDEO PACKAGE OF MUTA & SANADA- FANTASTIC!
It would be very cool if they could turn Muta’s comments into a angle that would eventually lead to the return of the World X Cup as a singles deal
TIGRE UNO & SANADA vs. BRO-MANS (w/Zema Ion)-
A fantastic debut for Sanada & Uno… but why the hell would you job out the tag champs? This was the PERFECT spot for Bad Influence. If they’re about to leave the company, then follow the time-honored tradition of wrestling and JOB THEM OUT.
MADISON & VELVET BACKSTAGE- they put each other over for being hot. Then Madison asks Velvet how they are going to handle Angelina being back. Apparently Velvet did not know about this.
BULLY RAY DESTROYS ZEMA & BRO-MANS- NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! Once again the tag champs are made to be chumps. This is why you don’t make stooges champions!
SAM SHAW & CHIRSTY BACKSTAGE- we never saw Christy, which leads to be believe that she is tied up. Shaw was WAY too normal here.
EY & JOE BACKSTAGE-
Joe was overly confrontational. EY finally owns up to how idiotic of an idea bringing Abyss back was, and then Joe all of a sudden stops being angry at him. EY will be Joe’s backup next week. The thought of that is just laughable.
EC III & SPUD HAVE A TRIBUTE FOR DIXIE- F*CKING AWESOME!
The crowd fails at chanting “Dixie’s lapdog” in unison.
Anyway, why would MVP allow this to happen?
AH! Here he comes. And it turns out that he didn’t. So did he not schedule a match for this time? Why was the camera here instead of where it was supposed to be?
So the result of this is that Spud will now return to being a wrestler and will face Willow tonight. Lashley will face EC III next week. I have no interest in either match.
EC III says that Lashley isn’t on the roster. MVP confirms this…meaning that at Lockdown Lashley just waltzed into the building and walked out to the ring despite not being under contract and no one stopped him?!
Anyway, MVP signs Lashley now. Just to be douche, Lashley takes the big picture of Dixie and hits Spud with it. I kind of want to see EC III kick Lashley’s ass for being such a dick to his friend… which is probably the exact opposite of the way TNA wants me to feel.
JB INTERVIEWS EC III- good promo by EC III. Then Bully beats EC III up.
STREET FIGHT: Mr. Anderson vs. Sam Shaw (w/half of a redheaded mannequin that kind of looks like Christy Hemme!)- no rating. Good segment.
Shaw loses decently quickly, but got in a lot of offense, too. Anderson threatens to beat up the mannequin Christy and actually kisses it, which made Shawn freak out. I feel like we missed a step in Shaw’s development here. He went straight from one type of creepy to another.
ANGELINA & VELVET SEGMENT-
Angelina looks pretty ugly. The combination of the gaudy bling and the bleached hair and the tattoos just doesn’t do it for me in any way. She cut a great promo, though, then called out Velvet and put her over and said they should get the Beautiful People back together. Velvet then delivered some painfully scripted dialogue saying that she feels that she has moved past the need for TBP. She says she needs more time to think.
ROCKSTAR SPUD vs. WILLOW- no rating. Good segment.
Now Jeff’s got a black and white umbrella. Tenay just says “It’s the alter-ego of Jeff Hardy!” like this is not big deal at all. IT’S SOMEONE HAVING A SECOND PERSONALITY! You can’t just shrug something like that off!
Props to Jeff for having very different offense in this new personality. He got DQed for hitting spud in the nuts with an umbrella.
Wait. Scratch that thing about different offense. He just gave the referee a Twist of Fate. Then he beat Spud up some more and gave him a f*cking Pillmanizer off of a ladder! If they are trying to make Willow a crazy heel Jeff Hardy, then mission accomplished.
BULLY RAY PROMO- he gives no explanation for his turn. He just says that if Roode’s team had won, Roode “would have turned into another Dixie Carter… and the last thing the wrestling business needs is another Dixie Carter.” He calls out Roode and they brawl, ending in Bully putting Roode through a table.
Not much in-ring action here, but a lot of stuff that seems to be setting things up for the future and some very good segments. There was some stuff that annoyed me but, on the whole...
I… liked… Impact.
UCH!