BRM Reviews the 4/19/2016 Impact (horrible)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 4/19/2016 Impact (horrible)

Post by Big Red Machine » Apr 20th, '16, 15:09

LADDER MATCH FOR “CONTROL” OF THE KNOCKOUTS DIVISION: Gail Kim vs. Madison Rayne vs. Velvet Sky vs. Marti Belle vs. Rebel vs. Maria Kanellis Bennett vs. Jade- 4.5/10
So what does “control” of the division actually mean? Can the winner just makes any matches she wants at any time and strip women of titles willy-nilly? Does she also become a TNA executive? And speaking thereof, why the hell are we even having this match? Can’t TNA just assign one of their execs to be commissioner of the division?
Josh and Pope were kind of talking about this and Pope said that the person with control of the division will still have to “follow the rulebook.” He then said something to the effect of “you can’t just start doing whatever you want once you get to the White House.” Of course, the reason that you can’t do whatever you want once you become President is that we have a system of checks and balances and rules articulating what can and cannot be done. As history has shown, pretty much every president since Jefferson has looked at any place where the rules were not clearly defined and insisted that he, as president, could do what he wanted in those areas. And that’s the issue here: What, exactly, can or can’t this woman do once she wins?
Also, why isn’t Rosemary in the match? She’s part of the division, isn’t she?
Please tell me I’m not the only one who laughed at Madison and Gail’s pointless demonstration of their ladder-climbing ability during their entrances.
So all three Dollhouse members are using the Dollhouse music, but Jade got her own entrance, while Marti and Rebel shared an entrance and were introduced as a “team.” That’s a little silly. Now Josh is saying the stable doesn’t exist anymore, calling them “the former Dollhouse,” making me even more confused.
The match went about five minutes. The story of the match was that Maria was trying to hide and stay out of the action, only emerging to try to get the contract once the standard Ladder Match chaos had taken pretty much everyone else out. They did one spot where Gail chased her up the ramp and grabbed her by the hair and was about to kick her ass, but for some reason Decay decided to show up and save Maria, with Rosemary conking Gail with a Kendo Stick and then Decay hauled Gail away. If Maria had Decay in her pocket, why not have them help her the whole time? This all seemed like a very clumsy way of either starting a Gail vs. Rosemary feud, protecting Gail from losing cleanly, or both. The problem is that this was interference in a five-minute Ladder Match whose basis for occurring made no sense and whose winner would get some nebulous, ill-defined “control of the division.” In other words, it’s just about the most TNA-ish thing there could ever be. And that’s not a good thing.

Also… not that I haven’t enjoyed Maria’s interactions with everyone, but I really don’t think this is a good spot for her. It’s very disconnected from whatever she is doing in her capacity as Mike Bennett’s manager, and whatever Bennett is doing should already be a big angle. Also, I really don’t want to see a heel authority figure in such a small division (or really in any division at all). They should start building Jade up with clean title defenses over Madison, Velvet, and whatever other babyfaces you have around, then cement her split with Dollhouse so she can feud with them with Gail eventually coming in to help her so that you can then build back up to a completely clean Jade vs. Gail match. (If you really think you need an authority figure, bring in Angelina Love to be a babyface authority figure. Then, after Velvet has lost her title shot, you can have her begging her BFF Angelina to give her one more chance but Angelina says she has to be impartial and can’t give Velvet any special treatment, which would lead to Velvet turning heel on Angelina to set up for Angelina’s in-ring return.

MIKE & MARIA IN WONDERLAND BACKSTAGE- Maria says that she now has all the power and things will start to change… but that will all start next week because I guess she’s lazy or something.

DECAY BRINGS GAIL KIM UP TO THE RAFTERS- Yeah. Let’s not get any security on that or anything to stop this “criminal action” (that’s the term Josh used).
Anyway, I assume they are taking her up there to sacrifice her in some sort of demonic rite in order to open a gateway to the Impact Zone to allow for the return of their banished leader, Sting.

DREW, SPUD, & TYRUS SEGMENT- Drew’s ribs are taped up after last week’s assault by Lashley. He’s selling them REALLY hard. He says he isn’t medically cleared to compete tonight, but he still wants to fight, so he is calling out Lashley right now!
Instead, we got Rockstar Spud who was pretty much unimportant to the actual happenings of this segment. The guy who really mattered was Tyrus, who came out and accused Drew of hiding behind a doctor’s note so Tyrus couldn’t cash in his title shot tonight. Drew said he’ll be cleared next week so he’d defend the belt against Tyrus then. Tyrus made Drew vow to defend the belt no matter what shape he’s in, which was a stupid thing to say. Without that line, Tyrus’ is merely being a heel, accusing Drew of cowardice when we all know that Drew would love to defend the title tonight but it’s TNA- with Drew’s best interests in mind- that is preventing him from doing so. With this comment, though, it is actually revealed that Tyrus is merely too stupid to understand what is actually going on here.
Anyway, Drew says he’ll defend the title next week. This satisfies Tyrus, who shows Drew respect, both verbally and with a handshake, and then Tyrus and Spud head off. A great way to end this segment.

Unfortunately, that was not the end of the segment. Dumbsh*t Drew decides to antagonize Spud and Tyrus because he wants to fight, so he antagonizes them… and they easily proceeded to beat the crap out of him because of his injury. What a moron!
Anyway, they spent so much time hammering home the fact that TNA doctors felt that Drew was too injured to wrestle tonight… and yet TNA management doesn’t send out anyone to try to stop this vicious assault on the injured man. Stupid TNA always feels the need to do some sort of stupid angle that always makes the segment worse. If you want to do an attack, it would make more sense for Tyrus to jump Drew later in the night, which avoids both of the above problems and makes the heels look more devious.

MATT HARDY PROMO- okay

DECAY HAS GAIL KIM UP IN THE RAFTERS- bad
You’ve got to love TNA’s logic here. One of their wrestlers has been abducted in their arena, and they know where the abductee is being held. Do they send people to free the abductee? Nope. But they do send a cameraman up there to record her abductors tormenting her.
Anyway, Rosemary was all weird and cryptic and sh*t. So we had to see this, but we couldn’t see the entrances for the TNA X-Division Title match.

TNA X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH: Trevor Lee(c) (w/Shane Helms) vs. Eddie Edwards vs. DJ Zema Ion- 4.5/10
I’m a huge fan of Eddie Edwards, but the man hasn’t done a damn thing to earn this title match, so why is he even in here? It would make so much more sense to do a singles match between the champion and the guy who actually pinned him clean last week while continuing to build Eddie up in the background for a title shot on a big show... but no. This is TNA, where nothing ever turns out well in the end.
Like the women, these guys did the best they could in the criminally short amount of time they were given. Eddie Edwards gets shoved off the top rope by Andrew Everett into a superkick by Lee. Then the Carolinians beat up the babyfaces.

EY VOWS TO “CHANGE WRESTLING FOREVER”- this will almost certainly be a lie. Even worse, it will almost certainly mean we’re in for a long EY promo.

HELMS DYNASTY PROMO- Shane Helms did all the talking. It was okay.

EY & BRAM SEGMENT- EY cuts a long, annoying promo, but the good news was that it ended with him declaring that he and Bram were quitting. HOORAY!
Bram says he doesn’t want to quit. EY yells at him so Bram goads EY into a title match. EY kicks Bram in the balls and hits him with a piledriver. A decent segment.

Or at least it would have been if it had ended there. Instead, EY went and grabbed a pair of scissors from a ringside attendant who just happened to be holding some. Then EY cut a promo declaring himself to be the first wrestler to have a beard and the only one allowed to have one, so he cut off Bram’s beard… by which I mean he took one snip off of it, and when he was done, Bram’s beard looked much neater. I get that this was supposed to get heat, but:
1. Bram is a heel, so no one cared.
2. Bram’s beard hasn’t been pushed or shown to be anything special to him, so no one cared.
3. There was no point to this other than to let EY be “CRAZY!” Bram has already turned babyface by saying that he wants to stay in TNA. In fact, I’d even argue that…
4. Doing the beard angle actually pulls attention away from the more patriotic reason for Bram’s turn- a reason that more fans can easily identify with- and will thus hurt his turn.

OH MY G-D WE’RE NOT EVEN HALF WAY THROUGH THE SHOW YET! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?!

JEFF HARDY CUTS A PROMO WHILE PUTTING ON HIS MAKE-UP- dull. Jeff had almost no emotion in his voice. Also, Jeff said the following: “Matt Hardy is building his brand. I have no idea what that means.” I found this funny coming from a guy whose Twitter account is @JEFFHARDYBRAND.

MIKE BENNETT PROMO & SEGMENT WITH EC III- bad and boring.
Doesn’t Ethan hate Bennett for screwing him out of the title? Shouldn’t he be attacking Bennett instead of standing here trading dull insults? This is the sort of segment that should have happened BEFORE Bennett cost Ethan the title.
Anyway, apparently next week is Sacrifice, and Ethan is challenging Bennett to a No DQ’s match. He says these stips will ensure that someone will be pinned… except that the very match that started this feud also had No DQs and Ethan was judged to have lost the match because he “was unable to continue” but was never pinned or made to submit.

MORE SCENES OF DECAY TORMENTING GAIL KIM- bad. Even worse, Gail came across very much as a damsel in distress rather than a captured heroine. I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense for her to be scared given the situation (anyone would be), but seeing her scream in terror and cry for help almost felt out of character. Compare this to that time MNM kidnapped Trish Stratus. Gail cried for help; Trish told Melina that she would kick her ass when she got free.

AL SNOW PROMO- he whines and cuts a promo about how the internet and internet fans have ruined wrestling forever.

AL SNOW vs. MAHABALI SHERA- 1/10
So two weeks ago Al Snow was told by company officials that he was being punished for assaulting Shera and Grado and he would be punished even more severely if he didn’t publicly apologize. Instead of apologizing, Al pretended to apologize, but then attacked Shera, committing the original crime a second time. Logically, you’d think TNA would punish Al for this… but no. Instead they let him cut a promo and then book him in a match.
Al grabs a mic in the middle of the match. TNA Senior Official Earl Hebner makes no effort to get this foreign object out of Al’s hands. Also, I’m sure management will be happy with Al challenging fans to hop the guardrail and come fight him.
THIS got more time than either the three-way X-Division Title match or the Ladder Match for control of the Knockouts Division.
Al beat Shera by hitting him with some sort of foreign object he hid in his tights. The announcers said that Al was a hypocrite for doing this because Al was complaining about “the younger talent and the way they go about doing things,” showing that they haven't understood anything Al has said over the past few weeks.

MORE OF DECAY TORMENTING GAIL- they’re threatening to “sacrifice” her.
Holy crap! My sarcastic prediction was right! Oh, who am I kidding? This is TNA. Sarcastic predictions coming true is pretty ordinary.

ELI DRAKE PROMO- he’ll have a segment next week. I look forward to it.

DECAY DRAGS GAIL OUT TO THE RING- They came out from backstage… meaning that no one tried to help Gail even as Decay was dragging her right through the Gorilla position. If I were Gail, I’d quit.
Rosemary cut a wacky, crazy promo in which she also threatened to murder Gail if they didn’t get whatever it is that they want.
Abyss declared that the “the only thing that can save you now is Beer… Money.” Of course, his pause between “Beer” and “Money” made it sound like his sentence had ended and he had just declared that “the only thing that can save you now is beer,” which caused me to start giggling hysterically with how ridiculous this all was.
So Abyss calls out Beer Money and our babyfaces come out and Bobby Roode starts demanding that they “Let her go! Let Gail go right now! This has nothing to do with her!” Well then why the f*ck didn’t you go try saving her at any point during the last hour and a half?!
Abyss says they will MURDER Gail if Beer Money doesn’t give them a title shot. Roode agrees, so Decay lets Gail go… except Gail was so f*cking slow getting out of the ring that Rosemary just ran up behind her and grabbed her again and they started making more demands. Now they want “a match with no rules and no regulations.” So what type of match are we getting? NO ONE KNOWS! I think they are calling it “Valley of Shadows,” but even that was unclear. The problem, of course, is that NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THE F*CK A VALLEY OF SHADOWS MATCH IS! Then they just let Gail go and decide not to nab her again because I guess they’re just being nice.
This sucked on SOOOOOOOO many levels. I’ll start with the smallest one because that will make things flow better. Compounding my earlier comments about Gail’s portrayal was the whole “haha we got her again!” spot. It was just SOOOO stupid! If they wanted their special match why not just demand it when you were demanding the title match?! It would save time on the show, not make Decay look stupid and not make Gail look completely pathetic.
Secondly, why the hell did Decay wait an hour and half to come out and make this challenge? What was the point of bringing Gail up to the rafters at all, never mind all of those random little promos?
Then there is the obvious problem with advertising a match that NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD OF BEFORE WITHOUT EXPLAINING THE RULES! Sometimes we can guess from the name, like if you say there is going to be a “Boston Brawl” or something like that, we can just assume it’s some sort of No DQs match. But what hell is a Valley of Shadows match? It sounds like an Empty Arena match with the lights turned off.
And now here is the most frustrating part of all. TNA wanted to build up to a big No DQs tag team title match between Decay and Beer Money. Cool. They had two ways they could have gone about doing this:
Option A: Build Decay up by having them win matches to earn a title shot and then do a finish that builds to a No DQs rematch.
Option B: Have everyone in the tag division spend weeks brawling with each other, leading to Beer Money making a random open challenge that results in a whole bunch of teams including Decay getting a title shot in which Beer Money retain cleanly. Then, the week before you want to do the match, have Decay abduct Gail Kim, creating a situation that makes the company look horrible, then waste a bunch of time with a bunch of segments where Decay say nothing of consequence while Gail looks pathetic, all while a company employee films it, then do this long segment with Beer Money where they demand a match no one has ever heard of or else they will murder Gail.
Of course TNA picked option B because they’re TNA… and that is a problem. After losing critical acclaim, then viewers and ratings, then their viability as a touring brand, then getting cancelled by TWO networks in the span of just over a year… TNA still just doesn’t seem to realize that what they have been doing since mid-2008 just plain isn’t working!

I QUIT MATCH: Jeff Hardy vs. Matt Hardy- 8.5/10
Jeff sliding on his butt down the handrail to hit Matt with a chair during a f*cking I QUIT MATCH was stupid. Other than that, this was an awesome match. These two really put their bodies on the line. The problem is… IT NEVER FINISIHED! An I Quit Match only ends when one guy makes the other guy say “I Quit.” Jeff even pointed that out to us before the final spot, and no one said it after that spot… so THEY HAD AN I QUIT MATCH WITH NO FINISH (unless we’re counting Jeff saying it, in which case the finish is Jeff losing by accident, which is also stupid)! If you want to do this finish, just do a Last Man Standing match or something!

Anyway, even with the action of the main event, I HATED this show. Here are some facts about it:
There were only four matches. The first two each barely got five minutes. Those matches were a Ladder Match for control of the Knockouts Division and an X-Division Title match. That was it for the first hour of the show. Of the four total matches on the show, we had two gimmick matches and one title match. Three of the matches had interference and the fourth had a weapon-shot for the finish. The main event I Quit match technically did not have a winner.
Meanwhile, we had a segment where a babyface was booked like both a jerk and an idiot, a f*cking ABDUCTION SEGMENT in which the company made no move to help the abductee, which all resulted in the booking a title match for next week with a gimmick whose rules we don’t even know, and a couple of boring promos. And we already know that we will have two different gimmick matches next week. I have to ask in complete and total seriousness: Is Vince Russo back with TNA? Because that is exactly what this felt like.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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