BRM Reviews the 4/10/2014 Impact

[Big Red Machine]

MVP INTRODUCES THE GAUNTLET- apparently Joe has informed TNA that he is “not available” to be in the gauntlet, but TNA has found a replacement. Sure.

GAUNTLET MATCH FOR A TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH AT SACRIFICE- 5.25/10
Christy forgot to tell everyone that the winner of this match gets a TNA World Heavyweight Title match at Sacrifice. She didn’t announce it at the end of the match, either. I cannot remember a ring announcer who screws up as often as Christy.
Props to Tenay for immediately explaining the rules, because I had forgotten that in TNA “Gauntlet match” means “battle royale ending in a normal match.”
Abyss was in this match. Didn’t they just have a segment TWO WEEKS AGO where they made it EXPLICITLY CLEAR that Abyss could not be in any match that Magnus was not in. Magnus then came out to do commentary and did not mention this at all. Instead he claimed to have run through everyone on the roster. Mike Tenay did not even attempt to call him out on this bald-faced lie.
Bobby Lashley did nothing of any importance and was eliminated cleanly, as the second man eliminated. TNA seems so intent on telling us that Lashley is a big star, but never present him as such in the ring.
The match was dull until EY fired up and beat the three heels. I’m very glad to see EY get a title shot on PPV. He is a great worker and I would actually be behind him winning the title.

EY & MVP SEGMENT- EY decides that he wants his title match tonight, after he has already wrestled and gotten injured, instead two and a half weeks from now at Sacrifice. This was stupid. For some reason MVP used air quotes when describing Magnus’ “private locker room.”
Magnus then grabs a mic and says that he is okay defending the title tonight because all of his title matches are under “Magnus Rules.” Since when is this the default for all title matches?
Because we have only had one “Magnus Rules” match so far, I had to go look up that it means “No DQ’s, no count-outs.” MVP then decides that the match will be contested with normal rules (what a novel concept)... then adds that the belt will change hands on a DQ or a count-out. MVP then says that he didn’t forget about how Abyss used a chair to cost Joe a title match a few weeks ago… so he is banning Abyss from ringside! Then he says that anyone who interferes in the match will be fired.
Great. Except that the situation there was the same as here: MVP needed a way to prevent Abyss from interfering in the match. So why didn’t he just ban Abyss from ringside in the Joe match? Or announce that anyone who interfered in Magnus’ previous title match would be fired?

DIXIE CARTER & SPUD BACKSTAGE- stupid.
Then Willow randomly ran into the room and beat Spud up. The sooner Willow goes away, the better.

Then, with one commercial break’s worth of warning, we got a…
#1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: Brittney vs. Gail Kim vs. ODB vs. Angelina Love (w/Velvet Sky)- 4/10
Velvet stole Prince Nana and Jimmy Rave’s “the fans are smelly and dirty so I will bring air freshening spray” gimmick. When they rang the bell for this match, Angelina was not facing forward and VELVET SKY WAS STILL IN THE RING.
The match was eh. We got exactly the finish I expected (and probably the right finish). I can’t get behind Brittney as a babyface. She just doesn’t have any fire. Gail, on the other hand… TURN HER BABYFACE RIGHT NOW!

MVP & DIXIE SEGMENT- COMPLETE AND TOTAL SH*T
The segment started with MVP angrily telling Dixie “you have ten seconds to state your case before I have security drag you out of here.”
WHAT?!
1. She’s been in the building for almost an hour, which you would know if you were actually WATCHING THE SHOW THAT YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR RUNNING.
2. Her return was announced at the end of LAST WEEK’S SHOW. MVP should have known about this for at least a week! If he doesn’t want Dixie in the building, shouldn’t he have taken precautions to stop her from entering?
3. And most importantly, as Dixie proceeded to point out: she is THE PRESIDENT OF THE COMPANY. How the hell is MVP going to throw her out of the building?

Then it got worse.
Dixie says that she isn’t happy about MVP getting into a fight with Kenny King and claims he is abusing his power; power that she says he doesn’t deserve to have, and only has because of Bully Ray. MVP completely blows off Dixie’s accusation that he didn’t earn his position. WORST BABYFACE AUTHORITY FIGURE EVER. Making this even worse is the fact that, while it is true that MVP’s team might not have won at Lethal Lockdown if it wasn’t for Bully Ray, MVP had power BEFORE Lockdown, which he acquired by buying up TNA stock with the money he has most certainly legitimately earned during his wrestling career.
Dixie then says that she is going to go out to the ring now and take care of Bully Ray, and she wants MVP to sit in the front row and watch. So Dixie is just taking over the show now? How? Didn’t MVP win “total control of wrestling operations?” Anyway, it now seems that both MVP and Dixie can do whatever they want… meaning we are right back to where we were a month ago before Lockdown, with no explanation whatsoever… making the main event of their second biggest PPV of the year (and one of only four live PPVs a year) COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY NULL AND VOID. Why should anyone ever buy a TNA PPV again?

MEETING ABOUT THE TAG TITLE MATCH- crap!
Davey Richards now has a blonde mohawk on top of his short hair. He looks horrible. We are now an hour into the show, and this is the first mention of this big tag team title match. Apparently the match won’t happen tonight because Robbie E’s flight got cancelled. MVP informs us that according to TNA’s travel guy, this was legit. Then he tells the Bro-Mans that he is tired of them “mistaking my kindness for weakness.” What is he talking about? You JUST SAID THAT THIS WAS LEGIT! They’re not doing anything wrong here!
He then gives Robbie E. until “bell time” to make it to the arena tonight (which is, presumably, impossible seeing as how he needed to take a plane to get to the Impact Zone and couldn’t) or else he will force Zema and Jesse to defend the tag titles against the Wolves.
To recap: The heels have a legitimate reason why one of them could not get to the arena, so MVP, the babyface, decides to force them to defend the titles against his guys with one of the champs teaming with someone who is not his regular partner. WORST BABYFACE AUTHORITY FIGURE EVER.
MVP also said that the match would be “in a few hours.” WHAT? It’s only a two hour show and we are already an hour in! Is the match going to take place after the show goes off the air?

BULLY RAY & DIXIE SEGMENT- bad
“This is not your company. This is their [the fans] company.” A horribly shameful rip-off of WWE. Bully then admits that he spent the money Dixie paid him to be a crooked referee. What a terrible babyface. The only thing I popped for was Dixie slapping the mic out of Bully’s hand and asking “do you know who I am?”
Dixie winds up slapping Bully, and as Bully is bearing down on her, Roode attacks him, making the heel save. Dixie orders Roode to put Bully through a table, but Bully fights back and Roode runs away. So Bully bears down on Dixie and we go to a commercial… and when we come back from the commercial, Dixie is just walking around backstage.

DIXIE & MAGNUS BACKSTAGE- sh*t. Magnus is purposely antagonistic to Dixie for no reason. The segment was boring.

TNA WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Jesse Godderz & Zema Ion (substituting for Robbie E.)(c) vs. The Wolves- 4/10
Tenay goes on a rant about how Bro-Mans “always” have excuses to not defend the tag titles. This has happened exactly ONCE. Tonight is only the second time it has happened, and tonight their excuse is legit (MVP said that TNA's travel guy said this was the truth). So they wrestled for a bit… then Robbie E. showed up and caused a DQ. WHAT THE F*CK?! Is TNA’s travel guy a moron? Anyway, with everything he has done to stop Magnus from keeping the title by DQ, MVP decides to take no action whatsoever against Bro-Mans.

CHRISTY HEMME PROMO- she has thought about things, and she wants Sam Shaw to meet her out in the ring so they can talk about commitment. She is obviously laying some sort of trap for him.

Tickets for house shows in May go on sale TOMORROW. In mid-April. Just ONE MONTH for people to buy tickets. Is it any wonder they are drawing just a few hundred people to each house show?

SAM SHAW & CHRISTY HEMME SEGMENT- HORRID
You know that scene in stereotypical teen movies where the hot cheerleader lures the gullible but hopelessly in love nerd into a situation where the jock football player beats him up and humiliates him in front of everyone? Think about that scene. How does it make you feel? What is your reaction to it? Do you say “haha! Stupid nerd!” Or do you say “geez! What a pair of jerks! I sure hope they get their comeuppance in the end!”
There’s a reason that Revenge of the Nerds was such a big hit, but TNA creative clearly has no idea why, because this was that scene… but ANDERSON AND CHRISTY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THE BABYFACES!
I swear they would all turn to each other in confusion and say “geez. I don’t get it. Why is she so upset?” when Carrie starts to burn the school down.
Anyway, Shaw managed to avoid being put into the van at the last second and ran off into the night, and with the way this whole segment went, I would be perfectly fine (from a kayfabe POV) if Sam Shaw showed up on Impact next week and actually murdered Ken Anderson and Christy Hemme. That is how much I hated this because of how bad I felt for Samuel Shaw.

WILLOW PROMO- crap. He challenged EC III and Spud to a handicap match next week and told them to “be there or be triangular.” Yeah. This character needs to go away forever.

TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Magnus(c) vs. Eric Young- 6/10
Bearded man wins opener, has injured shoulder, but still fights through it and wins the world title in the main event. Hmmm... where have I seen that before? (Hint: it was earlier this week)
Am I happy for EY? Yes. But if they were going to do this… WHY THE F*CK WOULD THEY NOT DO IT ON PPV?!
And as for Magnus… he didn’t put on great matches as champion, he was booked like crap, and the story line of his entire reign was that he was a totally undeserving champion who could not possibly do things on his own. How is anyone ever supposed to take him seriously as a main eventer ever again?

Another bad episode of Impact

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Easter is coming up, so what better time for Taz to go to his sh*tty announcer roots and misuse the term “sacrificial lamb.”

2. Taz (to Tenay)- “use the right grammar for G-d’s sake.”
As if Taz telling someone else to use proper grammar wasn’t ridiculous enough, he then realized that “I guess the word I meant to say was ‘vocabulary.’”
Of course, the correct word to use in this situation would actually be “diction.”

3. Taz “Magnus has got a plethora of size on the challenger.”
Yes. He actually said this.