Okay… what the f*ck did the two chicks in black dresses walking their dogs have to do with anything? Or the big cloud of volcanic fumes? Aside from that randomness, this was a decent video package.

OPENING SEGMENT- WHAT THE F*CK IS GOING ON?!
We’ve got an a capella band of IRS cos-players singing EC III’s theme as he is escorted to the ring by a pair of attractive women in sparkly dresses.
Well… at least Pope is on commentary!
Oh. Apparently Ethan is ranked #1 in the “some weeks they’re the most important thing in the world, sometimes we forget they exist” rankings in TNA, thus making him the #1 contender to the TNA World Heavyweight Title. How much do you want to bet that he won’t be the next person to get a title shot?
Now Ethan is being serenaded with a round of “For He’s the #1 Contender.” Now they’re teasing that we’ll see Tyrus dance. This whole “campaign” thing is f*cking idiotic. Whoever pitched it should have been publicly flogged for doing so, then fired.
Ethan cuts a dumb promo, then calls out Kurt… and the first thing Kurt says is that is Lou Thesz and Verne Gagne “would roll over in their graves if they saw this.” This was taped LESS THAN A WEEK AFTER VERNE’S FUNERAL! That’s TOO F*CKING SOON!
Kurt says Ethan isn’t the next guy in line for a title shot. What the f*ck? He’s the #1 contender, isn’t he? THAT’S WHAT THAT MEANS! I don’t give a sh*t if Destination X is next week. Then why wasn’t Ethan’s title shot scheduled for tonight? Well… instead of Ethan bringing this up, he decides to try to bribe/threaten/otherwise convince Spud to just not cash in for a title shot.
Then, just to be a dick, Kurt gives an innocent a cappella singer an Angle Slam. Your babyface, ladies and gentlemen: assaulting an innocent man for no reason. He wasn’t even angry. Kurt just beat this guy up for no other reason than that he felt like it.

ERIC YOUNG vs. LASHLEY- 4/10
Apparently this match is Lashley’s chance for revenge on EY because EY put him out of action for almost two months. Okay good. Of course, it would have been better if they had actually BUILT THIS UP IN ANY WAY! Seriously! I don’t think Lashley has even been mentioned since the aforementioned injury angle! Why not give us a video package tonight and do this match on next week’s show? Or even better… don’t use Lashley at these tapings (save some money!) and BOOK THIS BIG GRUDGE MATCH ON YOUR F*CKING PPV (you know… and try to actually MAKE some money)!
So during this dull grudge match, Chris Melendez came out because he, too, needs revenge on EY for the dastardly act EY he has committed against him. Then Lashley just beats EY with the spear in about five minutes (some grudge match this was). Melendez tries to go get his own revenge on EY, but, for some reason, Lashley stops him.

THE CAMERAMAN INTERVIEWS SPUD- good

DOLLHOUSE TALK- okay.

THE CAMERAMAN INTERVIEWS CHRIS MELENDEZ-decent. I just wish they did have to relate ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING to his military service. Let him be a person, not a one-note character.

AUSTIN ARIES & ROCKSTAR SPUD BACKSTAGE- okay

Yup. I was right about that f*cking Knockouts segment bumper being used every damn week.

BROOKE TESSMACHER vs. JADE (w/Marti Belle)- 2.25/10
Well… way to make the Dollhouse look like crap.

JB INTERVIEWS EC III- he asks him what he thinks Spud should do. What a stupid question! Didn’t JB watch the opening segment?
Anyway… it looks like we’ve got a mystery on our hands: who called Ethan?

BROOKE AND REBEL BACKSTAGE- apparently they’re best friends. Since when?! Maybe this wouldn’t feel like they were pulling it out of their asses if they had actually shown us any previous interacting between these two. Also, if they had done that, I might have actually been able to recognize Rebel without the Dollhouse telling me who she was.
Dollhouse showed up to lay a particularly lame-looking beatdown.

THE BDC vs. THE RISING- 6.25/10
So we’ve got a big six man tag team match between the top heel stable and the stable that was formed to fight these dastardly villains and save pro wrestling forever. Maybe this is something we should have built up last week with some promos?
Yeah, there was some intensity here, but it just felt like any other six man tag match in any other feud. This whole “Rising” think has been a complete and total failure. Eli and Micah don’t come off like stars at all, and the BDC has been constantly feeling like a smaller part of the show ever since this feud started.
MICKIE JAMES LOOKS FOR HER MEETING- who is filming this?

WILL SPUD CASH-IN- I thought Kurt came off like a HUGE douche here. Almost heelish. Ethan was decent, and Spud was F*CKING AWESOME! They also did a good job of setting up the tag match.

ARIES & ROODE BACKSTAGE- very good. Now I really want to see where this goes.

JAMES STORM & MICKIE JAMES- and… they just totally killed the angle. Storm is no longer being sneaky and interesting. He just basically professed his love for Mickie and told her that he wants her to leave the man who is both her fiancé and the father of her child. And he wants her to bring the kid, too. I mean… WHAT THE F*CK DID HE THINK WOULD HAPPEN?! Did he really think she would leave Magnus and join his evil group?

MATCH 3 IN A BEST OF 5 SERIES TO CROWN NEW TNA WORLD TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS: The Wolves(2) vs. Bobby Roode & Austin Aries- 7.25/10
I really didn’t like the finish here. It would have been PERFECT for the next match or the fifth match, but here it just feels like too quick of a turn when the earlier segment seemed to hint at a slower one. If I were booking this, I’d have had Roode wrestle the entire match cleanly while Aries would do stuff like eyes pokes and rakes throughout the match, and the finish would be Roode wiping out one Wolf with a dive and then Aries pins the other one with his foot on the ropes for illegal leverage.
Next week we’d get the same backstage segment with Aries telling Roode that they’ve got to do whatever it takes to win- and why not? It worked last week. Roode would still be uncomfortable with it. The finish of that week’s match would be Aries kicking one of the Wolves in the nuts and then pinning him with a small package. The ref wouldn’t see the low blow because he is busy trying to keep Roode from leaving his corner- so this time Roode didn’t personally cheat, but he clearly saw Aries do so and didn’t say anything or try to stop him.
The next week I’d do a backstage segment with the Wolves confronting Roode about Aries’ cheating and Roode apologizing to them for it. To build to the PPV, we’d probably get one last segment with Roode and Aries, and then, in the fifth and final match, I’d do the finish they did here to turn Rood fully heel along with Aries.
Alternatively, if Aries isn’t staying, you rush the fifth match to the go-home show and have Roode refuse to cheat. This would build to a match between Aries and Roode at Slammiversary (and if you really wanted to, you could continue the feud over the tapings that are happening before the PPV but airing after it), with Roode going over clean, but the idea that he could have won the titles but chose not to because he didn’t want to cheat would haunt Bobby. During the summer we would build to Roode challenging EC III for the title. The match would build to a big spot after a ref bump where Ethan tries to hit Roode with a chair but Roode stops him. Roode contemplates hitting Ethan with the chair, but decides not to, which leads to Ethan getting the advantage and the win- with the announcers telling us that Bobby COULD have won the title if he had hit Ethan with the chair, but he didn’t. All of this would eventually lead to Roode getting another title shot at some point later and cheating to win it (possibly allying with the BDC to do so… maybe you even do a double turn to turn MVP babyface and have Roode become the BDC’s new leader?)

JAMES STORM & MICKIE JAMES- umm… was that an attempted murder?
okay…
1) Where did the mysterious cameraman who was filming everything go?
2) How did TNA get access to this security camera footage to show on their TV show?

JAMES STORM SHOVED MICKIE JAMES OFF OF A LEDGE AND INTO THE WAY OF AN ON-COMING TRAIN!
So… is Mickie dead? Has James Storm been arrested? WE DON’T KNOW BECAUSE THERE WAS NO FOLLOW-UP OF ANY KIND WHATSOEVER!

MADISON RAYNE & VELVET SKY SEGMENT- F*CKING TERRIBLE!
The sad part is that while Madison is attempting to bury a babyface… she is 100% telling the truth!
So Velvet, who is not employed by TNA and who has now twice assaulted a TNA employee, is allowed to jump the barricade and get into the ring, with no security anywhere in sight. Madison slaps Velvet, so Velvet spears her and then gives her a terrible stunner.
Then Angelina Love comes out with her security to point out the stuff that Madison already pointed out. She also says that Madison is a “very good friend of hers.” Weren’t they feuding the last time we saw them together?
Velvet gets some shots in at Love’s Security but is quickly subdued. Then Angelina cut an annoying promo and slapped Velvet in the face a few times, but Velvet kept no-selling it and laughing, so Angelina forearmed her. That taught her a lesson.
Oh. Look. Real security finally got off of their lazy asses to do their jobs!
WAIT… WHAT THE F*CK?!
So the real security is coming to arrest Angelina for assaulting a fan. A few problems here:
1. VELVET JUMPED THE GUARDRAIL!
2. Velvet has a well-established history of jumping the guardrail and assaulting TNA employees!
3. Where the f*ck were these assholes a few minutes ago when Madison Rayne assaulted said fan.

This company is SO F*CKING DUMB!

TARYN PROMO- yeah… the crazy laughing happy stuff isn’t working for me. This whole time all I could think was “this promo would be so much better if she was acting intense instead of trying to be crazy.” I also think it would have been a MUCH better use of this time to let Gail cut a promo.

KURT ANGLE & ROCKSTAR SPUD vs. ETHAN CARTER III & TYRUS- 5/10
Wow… this dynamic with Josh being a babyface and then suddenly turning completely heel when Ethan is involved just plain doesn’t work. The match wasn’t even close to main event level. Wolves vs. Roode and Aries should have main evented, both because it was the better match and just for a change of pace (which would also put the tag titles over as being main event-level).

ARIES COMES OUT AND ANNOUNCES THAT HE WILL CASH IN HIS BRIEFCASE AFTER NEXT WEEK’S MAIN EVENT- why would Aries announce this in advance? That doesn’t seem to be his style at all.

Well… they had one good week, and now the show is back to sucking. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.




STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Josh says that Spud has the chance to “Spud has an opportunity to ruin EC III’s chance of becoming world champion.”
How? Even if Kurt loses the belt to Spud, wouldn’t Ethan still get the title shot?

Big Red Machine wrote:
Well… they had one good week, and now the show is back to sucking. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.

i was gonna break it up like usual, but it was too much. I thought this show was great, second best show of the Wednesday war. I honestly believe you come into TNA with a mentality of picking on them, and I understand that, because it happens to me with any WWE show

cero2k wrote:

Big Red Machine wrote:
Well… they had one good week, and now the show is back to sucking. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.

i was gonna break it up like usual, but it was too much. I thought this show was great, second best show of the Wednesday war. I honestly believe you come into TNA with a mentality of picking on them, and I understand that, because it happens to me with any WWE show

I really try not to.

But inevitably they always do things that offend me as a viewer because they don’t seem to put any thought into their product. There’s no logic in most of it. There is no internal consistency within storylines or within shows. They ignore important events and plot-points. They never think through the consequences of the events on the show. They don’t seem to have any understanding of how to build things up or make things important- of how to tell stories that move forward in a meaningful way.
They act like something is important one week, but then later, when they want to do something that contradicts it, they just say “Oh. They won’t remember that” (and I can give examples for all of these). Well f*ck them. They told me it was important, and now they are crossing their fingers and hoping I won’t remember it? Why should I care about anything they tell me is important if they might just want me to ignore it later?
That annoys me. You want to do a top 5 rankings? Fine. Then COMMIT TO IT. It needs to be portrayed as important EVERY WEEK, and movement needs to happen in a way that MAKES SENSE.

The part of pro wrestling that I enjoy the most are the stories. Whether it is the story of a feud, the story of a certain character, or the story of the match- that’s what I love the most. And that’s the part that TNA is the dirt worst at. In WWE the stories get boring because they don’t know how to use their TV time well, and they only really care about a few guys and the world title. But when they WANT to make someone a star, they know how to do it (see: Owens, Kevin). But when they don’t care about someone or something (let’s use Barrett or the IC Title as examples), they half-ass it. They’ll give Wade something like KOTR because they think that is enough to make us care about him, so they can just job him out all the time but we’ll still care about him because he is KOTR. Same thing with the way the IC Title has been booked.
In TNA, it feels like they do that all up and down the card, and not just with titles, but with wrestlers and gimmick matches and gimmick shows and everything there is that relates to everything. They half-ass it and expect me to care, and then tell me how great they are. And that pisses me off.