BRM Reviews the 6/7/2016 Impact (um... what the f*ck was that?)

[Big Red Machine]

I don’t know what the f*ck was on before Impact, but the first thing I heard after my DVR started was someone joyfully saying “it’s event one, and a new kid has already been violated anally.” I chose to fast forward until Impact started.

OPENING SEGMENT- meh
It’s really weird for “Broken” Matt Hardy to be coming out to the “Iconic” Matt Hardy music. Of all of the sh*t they came up with for this angle they couldn’t have come up with a new theme song for Matt?
Matt comes out says that he put Jeff out for good last week and we’ll never see him again. We’ve seen Jeff get up from a lot more than that one bump. Or did they do something to him off air as well? Either way, no one believes that Jeff won’t be at the PPV, so why even say it?
Matt says he won’t be whole again until he gets his title back, so he wants his rematch tonight. Drew says he’ll defend his title tonight. You’d think Dixie Carter would have to approve this match which could very well screw up the big match for her PPV but apparently not.

It turns out that thing that aired before Impact was about the New Kids on the Block, so the whole “a new kid has already been violated anally” isn’t quite as terrible as it seems. At least it’s a grown adult and not an actual child who just moved into the neighborhood.

#1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: Madison Rayne vs. Sienna (w/Allie)- 2.75/10
When was the last time Madison even won a match? Wouldn’t it fit the storyline better to have Maria just give Sienna the title shot? Or do something where Maria awards Sienna the title shot and then Madison comes out and says “Here in the Knockouts Division we EARN things” so Maria books this match as a #1 contendership match with Madison’s career also on the line (it’s not like she’s done anything important in years, and you can always bring her back once Maria loses power, which we all know she eventually will).
Jade came out to watch this match from ringside and when I saw her the first thought in my head was “oh yeah. That’s right. Mia Yim works here. And she’s the champion.” This is like the dynamic WWE had between John Cena and WWE Champion CM Punk dialed up to 100.

Allie’s pre-match spiel was completely intolerable. This might seem like a weird thing to say, but I think that the less important that Allie’s talking is to the segment, the better she is. When she is making (for lack of a better term) background noises like cheering for Sienna or squealing in fear of Gail Kim, she is completely awesome, but whenever they have her cut a promo it’s completely horrible.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Sienna goes after Madison again for no reason but Jade makes the save. This felt forced because it seemed out of character for Sienna. She has always come across as the “down to business” type of monster and yet all of a sudden she is doing things just to be a dick.\

MIKE & MARIA CUT A BACKSTAGE PROMO- fine.

WILLOW APPEARED, LAUGHED, AND FOUGHT FOR SCREEN TIME WITH A TEST PATTERN- sh*t.

KING OF THE MOUNTAIN CHAMPION ELI DRAKE CUTS A PROMO FROM ON TOP OF A MOUNTAIN- good.
He’s defending the title against Bram at Slammiversary and he is doing a special “champions’ edition” of the Fact of Life.

FACT OF LIFE SEGMENT- an extremely awkward and clumsy set-up for a ten-person tag team match.
Eli tries to interview Decay about their title match with Bro-Mans. Everything up until Abyss started talking was good, but after that it stunk. Then the Bro-Mans and Raquel came out. Then, for some unknown reason, Mahabali Shera and Grado came out so that Grado to cut a promo on behalf of Bram. Then Eli Drake cut a promo on behalf of Al Snow and the tribunal to hype up their feud with Grado and Shera. This was all very weird.
Al Snow, Basile Baraca, and Baron Dax jumped Grado and Shera from behind and a brawl broke out on the floor between everyone aside from Eli Drake, who just stood in the ring talking. Then they cut away to Mahabali Shera taking a horribly pathetic bump on the floor, and when they cut back to the ring Bram had materialized and was standing behind Eli Drake. It would have been SOOOOO much better to just stay on Drake and let us see Bram sneaking up behind him. Being a good babyface, Bram waited for Drake to turn around before punching him. Then we took a rather sudden cut to commercial. I went to fast forward and almost cried when I realized the show wasn’t even a third of the way over (This f*cking show is standing between me and Takeover: The End). When we returned from commercial, Drake’s podium had disappeared and there was a match going on. If you want to do a tag team match why not just BOOK THE MATCH! That way you can give the match more time because you don’t have to waste time with a dumb segment to set it up (never mind making it look like the kayfabe promotion actually puts some effort into the show by booking some of it beforehand).

BRAM, GRADO, MAHABALI SHERA, & THE BRO-MANS (w/Raquel) vs. ELI DRAKE, THE TRIBUNAL, & DECAY (w/Al Snow & Rosemary)- 4/10
Stuff happened. Among that stuff appears to be that Al Snow stole Bill Alfonso’s whistle gimmick. At least Grado lost. I was quite concerned that they were going to beat the Frenchmen their first match in.

GAIL KIM & EC III PROMO- Gail was fine. Ethan stunk. He was trying way too hard to sound both cool and profound.

MATT HARDY & BOBBY LASHLEY BACKSTAGE- decent
Holy sh*t Matt is almost as tall as Lashley. Lashley was GREAT here.

ETHAN/BENNETT WEIGH-IN VIDEO- bad.
This came off like they are all of a sudden trying to e UFC. We all knew that this would be an angle because TNA never does this type of thing. This is why I advocate occasionally doing contract signings that don’t wind up in brawls- just to make the ones that do feel less predictable and thus more real… and that was the problem here. It was so obvious what was going to happen from the moment they cut to it that it felt scripted. It didn’t feel spontaneous at all. (That being said, I think Drew and Lashley would have had a better chance at making this work).
The other issue I had with this is the fact that they are showing it right before having these two face off in a match. If this is supposed to make me want to see them fight (nothing was mentioned here about Ethan’s “redemption”) then I’m about to get that for free… so why should I pay to see it yet again on PPV in a few days?
Oh. And the backdrop they were doing this in front of? It was promoting Impact on Tuesdays at 9pm on PopTV instead of the actual PPV where this match would take place.

MIXED TAG TEAM MATCH: Ethan Carter III & Gail Kim vs. Mike Bennett & Maria Kanellis Bennett (w/Allie)-…
Or not. Apparently Maria can just un-book herself and book Allie in her place instead.

MIXED TAG TEAM MATCH: Ethan Carter III & Gail Kim vs. Mike Bennett & Allie (w/Maria Kanellis Bennett)- DUD!
This was mostly a dull comedy match in which Gail Kim had to use a roll-up to defeat Allie the comedy dork.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Gail gets beaten up by Maria, Allie, and Sienna. They go to do a con-chair-to style Pillmanizer on Gail’s leg except they didn’t actually wrap the first chair around her leg so they just hit one chair with another, which would actually hurt less than just hitting her in the leg with a chair. The announcers tried to sell it like a Pillmanizer so they came off looking like crap, too.

JOSH’S HYPE FOR THE X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH- it was interrupted by round 2 of Willow vs. Test Pattern.

TNA X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH: Trevor Lee(c) (w/Gregory Shane Helms) vs. Eddie Edwards- 6.25/10
The Wolves’ PandaTron video is atrocious and needs to change immediately.
The match was good and had a perfectly fine heel finish, although it’d have been nice to have an authority figure come out right here and now and announce that Eddie is getting a title shot at Slammiversary.

DREW & LASHLEY BACKSTAGE- good.

GAIL GETS CHECKED ON BY MEDICAL PEOPLE BACKSTAGE- meh.

BRAXTON SUTTER vs. A NAMELESS JOBBER- squash
By far the most notable thing in this match is that TNA appears to have hired a new referee.

JB INTERVIEWS BRAXTON SUTTER- meh. Apparently he’ll be doing something at Slammiversary.

WILLOW PROMO- sh*t.
Willow worked out so well the first time that they just had to bring him back, right? He rambled, including saying the following: “The surprises are so unknown, as if it’s a predetermined war from the last chapter of the Bible.” Can anyone decipher this?

EC III PROMO- bad.

SLAMMIVERSARY RUN-DOWN- Apparently we’re getting a four-way between Lee, Edwards, DJZ, and Everett. Why the f*ck are DJZ and Everett getting title shots? This right here is evidence that TNA has no idea how to tell a story because giving those two title shots at this point is moving backwards.

TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Drew Galloway(c) vs. Matt Hardy- 6.5/10
Everyone ready for yet another f*ck finish in a world title match main event? Yup. There we go.
I feel bad because these two tried hard to make the best out of the time they had, but I just didn’t care. The DQ was caused by Lashley attacking Drew, so they brawled.
Once they had brawled to the back, the lights went off and when they went back on, all of the fans in the first few rows on the hard camera side were wearing Willow masks and chanting Willow. Then the lights dimmed and Willow’s laugh was heard and his music played and four Willows came out from the back onto the stage. Two of them appeared to be wearing nothing but masks and shoes. One of those two also appears to have painted himself completely white. Who are these people and why were they backstage? And why are some of them naked? Then Willow appeared on the PandaTron and a cut a promo. WHO THE F*CK THOUGHT ANY OF THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!

Oh. Right. The Hardys.

To add to the confusion, Jeff Hardy comes out from backstage. He runs into the ring and brawls with Matt as the show goes off the air. So what the f*ck was the point of the Willows?


A bad episode of Impact, and an even worse go-home show. The only match this show made me really want to see is Lee vs. Edwards… and then they told me I’m not getting that match at the PPV.

[KILLdozer]

Sounds stupidly hilarious. Too bad it's not on Hulu with Raw and NXT.

Regular television?

Ain't nobody got time for that.

[cero2k]

KING OF THE MOUNTAIN CHAMPION ELI DRAKE CUTS A PROMO FROM ON TOP OF A MOUNTAIN- good.
He’s defending the title against Bram at Slammiversary and he is doing a special “champions’ edition” of the Fact of Life.
it should be a rule now that every King of the Mountain champion needs to climb a mountain

BRAXTON SUTTER vs. A NAMELESS JOBBER- squash
By far the most notable thing in this match is that TNA appears to have hired a new referee.
and here i thought Braxton was the jobber, I had to look him up

[Big Red Machine]

KING OF THE MOUNTAIN CHAMPION ELI DRAKE CUTS A PROMO FROM ON TOP OF A MOUNTAIN- good.
He’s defending the title against Bram at Slammiversary and he is doing a special “champions’ edition” of the Fact of Life.
it should be a rule now that every King of the Mountain champion needs to climb a mountain
They can change King of the Mountain to be "the ultimate ladder match" where the title is on top of a mountain and whoever climbs the mountain and grabs the title first is the winner.

BRAXTON SUTTER vs. A NAMELESS JOBBER- squash
By far the most notable thing in this match is that TNA appears to have hired a new referee.
and here i thought Braxton was the jobber, I had to look him up
He usually is. It's funny how it works that if the company wants to book your spouse, you usually get brought in, too.

[Big Red Machine]

Sounds stupidly hilarious. Too bad it's not on Hulu with Raw and NXT.

Regular television?

Ain't nobody got time for that.

It was indeed stupidly hilarious. It's probably on YouTube.

[KILLdozer]

I can fully believe TNA would do that and attempt to actually "throw someone off the side of the mountain"

"Oh my goodness! Please help him!"

Idiots.