BRM Reviews the 2/27/2015 Impact (pretty good)

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- awesome
They found a good reason for there to be heat between these two, they established the nature of the threat to Lashley’s title that has resulted from his inaction, established that Lashley is so confident in his abilities that he doesn’t care about anyone else (and thus a great tweener), and made the at this point inevitable Lashley vs. Angle match seem like a HUGE deal (although most of the props for that last one are due to Manchester crowd).
Kurt left and the BDC showed up and Joe and Lashley had a good verbal exchange (Joe was especially good). Then MVP cut a great promo, too.

ETHAN CARTER III & TYRUS vs. MR. ANDERSON & ROCKSTAR SPUD- 4.5/10
Spud has apparently decorated his Feast or Fired briefcase with “I’m with Spud” stickers, which just makes him come off like a huge dork.
Spud does a version of the Dudley Dog which he calls the “Under-dog.” I thought that was brilliant.
They had a decent tag match.

MVP-LASHLEY HISTORY PACKAGES- good for giving new viewers a sense of the history at work here.

EC III PROMO- okay.

KNOCKOUTS SEGMENT- decent
Taryn’s promo was overly scripted, but it was the type of promo she should have cut on the very first show. I didn’t like Gail coming out and doing the “I should warn you that you don’t know what you’re getting into deal.” It seemed way to patronizing for someone who just said “Taryn, I respect you” a bunch of times. Taryn’s response was pretty decent, though.

KONG & TARYN BRAWL- babyface champ shows no fear and gets some offense in. She makes Kong stumble, but the big scary monster doesn’t go down, then lays the babyface out. Good stuff.

THE BDC STRATEGIZE BACKSTAGE- an entirely pointless segment, but at least they caught the cameraman and closed the door. Of course, I’m certain that they won’t learn from this and will keep their locker room door open next week and in all future weeks.

CAMERAMAN INTERVIEWS ARIES- he implies that he will cash in his Feast or Fired briefcase tonight.

INTERGENDER TAG TEAM MATCH: Chris Melendez & Brooke Tessmacher vs. Angelina Love & Robbie E. (w/Jesse Godderz & DJ Zema Ion)- 2/10
So Angelina and the Bro-Mans do their entrance, which involves Angelina bending over and spreading her legs on the apron, making a tunnel for Robbie and Jesse to slide through while also letting the camera get a nice long shot of Angelina’s ass. Then, after this, Angelina proceeds to do the Stacy Keibler entrance while doing the standard TBO deal of telling the cameraman that he can’t film her ass, and Jesse runs over to cover her ass and do the finger-wagging hand-motion along with her… except that THEY JUST DID A SPOT 100% DESIGNED TO SHOW OFF HER ASS!
Not to be outdone, Brooke Tessmacher apparently watched Lucha Underground and thought Sexy Star’s butterfly wings were cool, so she went and made some out of some bed sheets. It looked dumb.
This was announced as an intergender tag team match and the wrestlers seemed to treat it like one, but Taz and Josh decided that it should be a Mixed Tag Team match and buried the referee. Dumbfucks.
The match was good for what it was.

HORRIBLE SEGMENT WITH SPUD & ETHAN- horrible!
Then we cut to a security camera in Spud’s locker room. Apparently we’re just allowed to spy on Spud and broadcast his private moments around the world. Well… it’s a good thing we just happened to cut this camera at this very moment because Ethan walked into the locker room and said “hello Spud” and held up a pair of clippers menacingly and the whole thing looked SO F*CKING LAME!
We then cut to commercial, and when we came back, someone had gone to find Mr. Anderson, who rushed into the locker room and found Spud and Ethan struggling over the clippers. Anderson attacked Ethan (so it’s two-on-one babyfaces) and then they cut off a MINISCULE amount of Ethan’s hair, which they then taunted him with until Tyrus ran in and made the save.

KURT ANGLE & GUNNER BACKSTAGE- good (aside from the part where he says that all hell will break lose if the heels win the title. WHY?)

JOE & ARIES SEGMENT- good, aside from one point that really prickles me. Aries accused Joe of being a sell-out, and Joe says that neither Aries nor the fans understand loyalty… but we never got any sort of explanation as to WHY Joe and Ki are loyal to MVP.

SAMOA JOE vs. AUSTIN ARIES- 7/10
Great match. Aries wins, but gets beaten down by the Beat Down Clan afterwards, including a Warrior’s Way on the table, which somehow didn’t break, so Joe did a running (yes RUNNING, as in, from the ground, not from the top rope!) senton to break it.

CAMERAMAN INTERVIEWS LASHLEY- okay.

MVP & EY BACKSTAGE- I’m not sure if EY is supposed to be gullible, or just a nutjob. MVP convinces EY to help him in the main event because Lashley was the one who actually physically put EY in the hospital. So EY remembers this part, but not that fact that Lashley was working for MVP at the time, and the countless other beatdowns their faction had laid upon him. This whole thing made EY look like a pawn, not a major player.
Also, since when is tonight’s main event a No DQ’s match?

NAOM DAR vs. RAMPAGE BROWN- DUD!
Taz is back to his old self, pointlessly picking fights with his announcing partner. He also misused the term sacrificial lamb. Well… non-crappy Taz was nice while it lasted. I was actually looking forward to seeing two exciting new wrestlers, but instead, Bram attacked them for a double DQ. Taz told us that this was a message to Magnus. How? Just beating up two random guys?
The Grado came out. He is someone who TNA is clearly trying to make something out of, so of course, they booked him to get destroyed by Bram.

TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Bobby Lashley(c) vs. MVP (w/the BDC)- 5.75/10
Apparently this isn’t a No DQ’s match.
Wait… didn’t the referee eject the BDC from ringside? The announcers are telling us that only Ki got ejected, which is stupid. How of often has the referee ejected just one member of an interfering heel group?
Oh look. A ref bumo in a TNA World Heavyweight Title match. Didn’t see that coming. And we got a second one. EY interfered, but Bobby Roode came out from backstage to take him out. Yes. From backstage. What was he doing all day? Just sitting around and not trying to get revenge on his mortal enemy until this moment?
The heel got a visual pinfall because this match must be a clusterf*ck. And here’s Drew Galloway to make the save. I had completely forgotten he was on the show. Good way to follow up on the acquisition of a major star, TNA. Is it any wonder Del Rio didn’t want to work for them?
I just didn’t like this at all. It is impossible for me to get excited about a word title match in TNA anymore because I’m just so SICK AND TIRED OF THE F*CKING INTERFERENCE AND THE F*CKING REF BUMPS! Can’t we have something clean for once? Please?

Also, remember TNA’s super-important new Top 5 Rankings for World Heavyweight Title contenders? They were NEVER MENTIONED ONCE. Can’t be that important then, can they?

This was a very good show from TNA (with a great crowd), but the main event really put me out of it. I’m not saying that it didn’t make sense structurally, to both the match itself and the overall angle with Kurt, Lashley, Gunner, and the BDC… I’m just tired of the damn ref bumps and interference. Why not do it all in the very beginning of the match and then let MVP and Lashley actually wrestle for a while (with Lashley selling the chairshots to the back so MVP can work his back over, and that can be the story of the match.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Taz pointed out that MVP was working over Lashley’s arm. Josh asked Taz if he thought this was designed to help MVP’s offense or to hurt Lashley’s offense.
BOTH, YOU DUMB F*CK!!!!!