EC III PROMO- fine

WORLD TITLE SERIES GROUP TAG TEAM SPECIALISTS MATCH: Matt Hardy(3) vs. Robbie E.(3)- 6/10
Matt now controls his own destiny, needing either a win or a draw to clinch a spot in the playoffs.

GAIL KIM PROMO- great babyface promo!
This woman should never ever ever be a heel again.

MATT HARDY PROMO & ROBBIE E. PROMO- these were separate promos, but they both had the same goal, which was to get over the idea that Robbie E. is shedding his previous taint of being being a comedy jobber.

MATT HARDY & GRADO SEGMENT- Matt Hardy is trying to cut a promo when Grado comes over and interrupts Matt in order to ask if he can take a selfie with Matt:
1. What a f*cking mark!
2. What a f*cking jerk!
3. IT’S NOT A SELFIE IF THERE IS SOMEONE ELSE IN IT! IT’S JUST A PICTURE!

Then Matt asked Grado who he was… meaning that Grado has been on the show for months now, AND MATT HARDY STILL HAS NO IDEA WHO THIS LOSER IS!
And then, to make this even more intolerable, the segment ended with a picture of their picture and Josh Matthews saying “you’ve got to love social media, folk!”
No, Josh, I don’t. Social media can f*ck off.

But back to the segment at hand… I just don’t understand how anyone can possibly like this Grado sh*thead. He is SOOOOO annoying. If I saw him on the street, I would be hard-pressed to resist the urge to punch him in his pudgy, round face.

DREW GALLOWAY VIDEO PACKAGE- good

WORLD TITLE SERIES GROUP UK MATCH: Drew Galloway(3) vs. Grado(0)- 2.75/10
Grado starts the match off going for a Figure Four, but he’s got to say “Figure Four Leg Lock” and “WOOO!” first so we know that he’s doing a supposed homage to Ric Flair. If you’ll remember, he spend the entirety of his last match going moves from Attitude Era WWF stars. Basically he’s a mark doing an low-level indy loser gimmick and doing comedy spots I’ve spend years watching Colt Cabana do a million times better, except that when Cabana does them he comes off like a tough guy being a jokester rather than a fat dweeb who has no other way to get offense in… and he is doing this on NATIONAL TV. Why are they even paying this loser?

And speaking of people who I don’t understand why they are still employed, we got the following match:
WORLD TITLE SERIES GROUP WILD CARD MATCH: Aiden O’Shea(0) vs. Crazzy Steve(0)- 1.75/10

ABYSS PROMO- bad.

GRADO PROMO- he babbles and tries to be funny. He isn’t.

WORLD TITLE SERIES GROUP TNA ORIGINALS MATCH: James Storm(0) vs. Abyss(3)- 4/10
So Hebner yells at them for bringing a chair into the ring… but he makes no effort to remove it and doesn’t DQ Abyss for slamming Storm’s head into it. Abyss swing at Storm with Janice- basically a MURDER WEAPON- there was no DQ. Janice got stuck in the turnbuckle like happens in every single match. The over 300 lbs monster Abyss couldn’t pull Janice out of this soft piece of padding, but puny referee Earl Hebner apparently thought he might be able to, which was basically a ridiculously contrived referee distraction so Storm could Abyss with a cowbell (so chairs are okay but Janice and cowbells are not) for the… false finish. The actual finish was two Last Calls by Storm… and this was about two minutes after Abyss has completely no-sold the very first Last Call of the match.
And to make things sillier, Earl DID, in fact succeed where Abyss had failed at dislodging Janice, so he is apparently stronger than Abyss.
A good match marred by poor logic in its weapon use.

JB INTERVIEWS MAHABALI SHERA- Very good, aside from the part where he claimed Crazzy Steve was “a little bit funny.” In reality, Crazzy Steve is not funny at all, but I’ll forgive him by chalking that one up to cultural differences.

WORLD TITLE SERIES GROUP X-DIVISION MATCH: Tigre Uno(3) vs. DJ Zema Ion(3)- 5.5/10
The same six minute X-Division match we’ve all seen three million times by now.

WORLD TITLE SERIES GROUP KNOCKOUTS MATCH: Awesome Kong(3) vs. Gail Kim(0)- 6.75/10

An okay show from TNA (mostly saved by the main event, though). While this show was worse in the ring than TNA has been since the World Title Series began, it was the first show that I didn’t get bored during (the video packages helped with that, giving us filler that was actually useful and entertaining), and they have done away with those awful “round table” interviews.

Pope has grown to be extremely grating to me. He is just too overboard with his character. Every sentence it’s “Pope thinks” this or “if you will” that. He’s too over the top for me to take him seriously, and that’ not something I like in an announcer.

An announcers job is to sell the story in the ring to the viewer at home. Using it to further yourself is just a no-no. I'm not saying Pope's doing that per say, but he hasn't mastered talking in the third person like Austin & The Rock could. Mainly because he over does it, and you're right BRM, it's not what you look for in an announcer at all.

XIV wrote:An announcers job is to sell the story in the ring to the viewer at home. Using it to further yourself is just a no-no. I'm not saying Pope's doing that per say, but he hasn't mastered talking in the third person like Austin & The Rock could. Mainly because he over does it, and you're right BRM, it's not what you look for in an announcer at all.

In terms of advancing the story, I think he leaves too much of it to Josh and just tries to be a color guy, which is a problem of having two babyface announcers. My issue is more that the way he does it- which, as you said, is an attempt to get himself over (although I don't think he is doing it in the selfish sense where he is doing it at the expense of others so much as he thinks "my job is to be this character, so I shall be him to an extreme" sense)- just doesn't mesh with the sort of "real sports" announcer that I like.

For the record, I'm not saying an announce team with only babyfaces can't work. It can work in some circumstances, like when you have two guys who are babyfaces but one is able to easily pivot to defend SOME heel actions with the mantra of "you do whatever you have to do to win or talking about "disrespect" or whatever if they can make it feel believable (early 2000s Taz was very good at this). I just think that the Heenan & Monsoon style "one babyface, one heel, but both reasonable people" way of doing things is by far the best.

3. IT’S NOT A SELFIE IF THERE IS SOMEONE ELSE IN IT! IT’S JUST A PICTURE!

isn't a selfie a picture that you take of yourself, regardless if there is other people there?

also, you're becoming Jim Cornette