Apparently tonight’s show is “Gold Rush,” and there will be four title matches. That’s right. They can’t even do the almost-live TV show after their first real PPV in eight months without giving it a stupid gimmick name and throwing a bunch of title matches on there. (It is possible that they have some MAJOR angle planned they don’t want spoiled that requires a bunch of these titles to be on the line, and if that is the case I will gladly recant this criticism… but considering that the last eighty-three times they’ve done this it has all just been pointless hot-shotting, I’m pretty confident I’ll be right about this one).
Also, if you’ve got these title matches already booked, why not tell us what they are here at the beginning of the show?
OPENING SEGMENT- Lashley came out and cut a GREAT heel promo about how he was the best. He ended it by saying “tonight is advertised as ‘Gold Rush.’ I have the gold, and everybody is rushing out of the building because they don’t want to have to face me.” Ethan Carter proved that statement to be false when he came out. Josh Mathews declared this to be “an incredible start” to the show. You might want to tone it down there a bit, buddy. It was a promo, and then a dude came out.
Ethan comes out and challenges Lashley to a title match tonight, so I guess that means it was the other four titles (Knockouts, tag, KOTM, and X-Division) that had title defenses scheduled. You can certainly make a case that three of the people who lost those title matches last night deserve rematches (champions rematches for Lee and Jade, and there were a whole bunch of shenanigans in Bro-Mans' loss), but I’d argue that it would be much better to spend two or three weeks setting up some of those rematches. After all, you don’t want to put on basically the same show you did on PPV just a few days later, right?
Ethan and Bobby continue to have a good exchange (although it felt very silly for Lashley to claim that once he beats Ethan there will be no one left to challenge for a championship he won less than forty-eight hours ago). This brought out Drew Galloway who said that Ethan would have to wait because he was invoking his rematch clause for tonight’s main event. The gist here is that Drew is being very brave by wanting to face Lashley again even though he still isn’t recovered from their match on Sunday. Great segment (with special extra credit going to Lashley).
Josh tells us that the King of the Mountain Title match tonight will be Eli Drake defending against Jeff Hardy. They promised us that there was an angle that set this up that they would show us later. Trevor Lee is indeed using his rematch clause to get a shot at Eddie Edwards’ X-Division Title, and Decay are defending their belts in a random four-way. Are there even three other teams in TNA (especially now that the Hardys are broken up, Davey Richards is injured, and Trevor Lee wrestling Eddie means that he can’t team with Andrew Everett)?
They made no mention of the Knockouts Title. If they are counting the world title defense as one of the four title defenses, that creates a continuity error because Josh told us about there being four title defenses at the very beginning of the show, but the world title match wasn’t signed until the talking segment. How did no one catch this screw-up? (This is yet another argument for advertising your title matches at the start of the show: because they would have realized this screw-up when they were talking about there being four title defenses tonight but they would only have three graphics set up).
ANGLE TO SET UP JEFF HARDY CHALLENGING FOR THE KING OF THE MOUNTAIN TITLE- not good.
JB was interviewing Jeff Hardy on Monday about something but then Eli Drake showed up. Jeff said he wanted a title shot. Drake cut a promo seeming to accept. Jeff said “I’ll see you tomorrow.” This probably all sounds fine to you. The problem was that they had cuts in the footage in all of the places that I ended sentences in my recap of it, and as a result, it didn’t come off well at all.
The cuts made it feel edited together which is just not how we see backstage segments in wrestling nowadays. They were also strange in that there really didn’t seem to be much (if any) missing time between them- which on one level I guess makes it good editing, but they made it so obvious that the cuts were there by having the screen flash each time that you wondered what the hell was going on. That naturally leads one to wonder what happened here, and because this was so short and simple, it seems like the only possible answers are that:
1. They used a weird and distracting visual effect for no reason.
2. Jeff and Eli somehow failed to get this simple segment correct after so many takes that they had to do this.
3. We’re supposed to think that someone edited the footage together like this for the purposes of some unknown agenda.
Also, there was the following extremely weird thing: I said that “JB was interviewing Jeff Hardy on Monday about something” because they cut into this in the middle of the interview, just moments before Eli showed up, so we never found out what they were talking about. When it started, the cameraman was not standing in front of the wrestlers like he normally would but instead was off to the side and had to move to get the shot, which I assume was intended to make this feel more “real” because it “wasn’t supposed to happen.” The problem is that while the camera was moving, we saw who was recording this interview… or more importantly, which recording device he was using: some sort of phone or tablet type device. So TNA has a guy with a TV-quality camera just hanging around right there, but instead they chose to record this interview on a PHONE?
I know that this is a nit-pick, but I think it exposes a larger issue here. As I said above, I think they set it up this way to make it feel more “real” because it “wasn’t supposed to happen,” and that it was fortunate that the cameraman acted quickly to capture this footage for us. The problem with that is that the very PREMISE OF THIS SEGMENT was that Eli Drake interrupted an interview that TNA WAS RECORDING TO PUT ON THEIR FACEBOOK PAGE.
I’ve talked in the past about my dislike for TNA’s “secret spy camera” style of taping backstage segments, (which they adopted in an attempt to feel more “real” than WWE’s “just pretend the camera isn’t there/suspension of disbelief” style), because I feel that it opens up its own cans of worms in terms of suspension of disbelief (if no one knows that any of this is going to happen, why do they cut to a random camera walking around backstage?). Personally, I find it a lot more frustrating when someone has clearly put enough thought into something to recognize that there is a logical issue that needs to be solved but then doesn’t apply the same level of thought to test their solution for any flaws it might have (especially if they are similar flaws) than when someone wants to invoke suspension of disbelief right from the get-go. This segment here was TNA going so far in their attempt to make it feel more “real” that they tried to apply this suspension of disbelief “fix” to a place where no suspension of disbelief was necessary, and as a result, applying their “fix” actually CREATED the very issues they were trying to prevent. We’ve had televised interview segments in wrestling for decades because they make perfect sense and thus feel more real (premise-wise. Dialogue is an unrelated issue), but TNA is so devoted to their attempts to make the show seem more “real” that they wound up making it seem more fake, despite the obvious answer that was literally right there in front of them the entire time.
This doesn’t just apply to this one aspect of the promotion, either. For years they’ve been booking a bunch of swerves, top heel stables, and gimmick matches, and even as ratings, attendance, and PPVs buys have fallen to point where all are pretty much non-existent, they still insist on doing the same things. They get kicked off of SPIKE TV and what’s the first thing they do? A top heel stable, logic-defying swerves, hot-shotting title shots, and gimmick matches all over the place. They get knocked off of Destination America and what do they do? Top heel stable, a bunch of swerves, and constant hot-shotting of title matches and over-gimmickry.
Now back to the show:
TNA KING OF THE MOUNTAIN TITLE MATCH: Eli Drake(c) vs. Jeff Hardy- 5.75/10
Jeff had a Full Metal Mayhem match two days ago and he is selling less than Drew Galloway is. Oh. Wait. Never mind. There we go. He wasn’t selling it while he was walking around like Drew was, but once Drake knocks him down he starts selling big.
I guess Earl Hebner didn’t read my review of Slammiversary because he is still wasting time trying to make sure Eli Drake stands all the way across the ring instead of doing his job and counting Jeff Hardy out.
They did stuff and Drake got heat and the crowd was into and it looked like it was about to get good when Jeff hit a Twist of Fate and a Swanton and had the match won but then Matt Hardy ran in and stopped Hebner from counting and bit him to cause a DQ. Matt and Jeff fought for about fifteen seconds afterwards until Matt retreated up the ramp and Jeff just let him go, even at one point turning his back to him. So in just one segment we managed to:
1) Start our four big title defenses that we’re hyping up tongih off with a DQ
2) Buried King of the Mountain Champion and up-and-coming star Eli Drake for all but losing his title to Jeff Hardy even while Jeff was FAR from 100%
3) Told everyone that the big, violent gimmick match you spent months building up to on your first real PPV in eight months didn’t matter at all because this feud will just keep going.
ETHAN & DREW TALK IN A HALLWAY- meh.
Apparently they’re good buddies now. Ethan puts over Drew’s work ethic and the hectic schedule he took upon himself as champion. Drew says that he isn’t at 100%, but he knows Lashley isn’t either, and they tease that eventually these two will face each other for the title. This segment wasn’t bad or anything, but it did feel like they are starting to go into “beating a dead horse” territory with this “Drew isn’t at 100%” thing. It was the focus of the opening segment, then the announcers spent some time talking about it during the KOTM Title match, and now we’ve got a backstage segment where we’ve got two guys who were already in that opening segment about it sitting around and putting it over.
I also didn’t like Drew’s line about how he and Lashley “too the physicality to another level” etc. etc. It sounded too much like something an announcer says to put over a match to feel organic in this situation. It felt like Drew himself was trying to tell me that he and Lashley had a great wrestling match and I should give it many snowflakes.
HARDYS SEGMENT-
Apparently Jeff stayed out in the ring not doing anything throughout an entire commercial break and an that whole backstage segment. He cuts a promo saying that he wants to end his feud with Matt tonight. Wasn’t that what the PPV on Sunday people gave their money to see was for? Jeff calls out “Brother Moore,” saying that “If I’m ‘Brother Nero’ than you’re Brother Moore,” which tells us that Jeff isn’t smart enough to understand the comparison Matt is trying to make by calling him “Brother Nero.”
Matt appeared at the top of the staircase that Jeff jumped off of for the finish of their I Quit match. They traded promos that, if not for the fact that they referenced fighting each other at Slammiversary could easily have taken place before the PPV, showing that nothing in this feud has moved forward at all.
Jeff goes to fight Matt. He grabs a table on his way, but Matt demands that he put it down and “fight me with honor” except that he pronounced “honor” as “on-na.” Throughout this whole segment he was stumbling over words (although I’m not certain he didn’t do it intentionally to push the idea of being “broken”), and, of course, used the horrible, terrible, voice and diction that he has been using since this “Broken” Matt Hardy character began.
They fought on the stairs, but of course once Matt challenged Jeff to leave the weapons downstairs and fight him with honor you knew Matt would do something dishonorable, and in this case it was have Reby run in and spray Jeff in the face with a fire extinguisher. Matt beat Jeff up and pushed him stomach first onto the railing and grabbed his pants and shouted “farewell, Brother Nero” and it looked for all the world like he was doing to shove Jeff over the railing, which would make poetic sense because Jeff flying off the balcony to the floor (and Matt and a table) below was the bump that “broke” Matt, so it makes sense for Matt to do the same thing to Jeff, resulting in either:
1. Jeff being off TV but then coming back as not a crazy person to prove that he is mentally stronger than Matt or
2a. Jeff taking the bump and becoming similarly “broken” (perhaps Willow is Jeff’s “broken” form?) and the feud continuing with both of them “broken” or
2b. Jeff taking the bump and becoming “broken” while the horror of what he has done un-“breaks” Matt and we get normal Matt (and Reby) who wants to put the family back together while “broken” Jeff is the one out for revenge.
What we got was Matt laying Jeff on the railing and then pushing him down the stairs so he slid down on the railing and landed on the floor, which was both awkward (if he hates Jeff so much and wants to end his career and he could have thrown him over the railing, why didn’t he?) and also looked unintentionally hilarious, which kind of kills the drama of the moment. (Yes, I know a bump over the railing is dangerous, but they could have gimmicked something to make it safer). He kind of went through a table. It looked lame.
MATT HARDY PROMO- bad. They’re having a cage match next week. I’m so glad I watched their big gimmick match on the PPV two days ago.
TNA X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH: Eddie Edwards(c) vs Trevor Lee (w/Gregory Shane Helms)- 3.75/10
To address why Helms is allowed at ringside tonight when he was banned by TNA officials from being at ringside at Slammiversary because he had been interfering in matches, they said that he had “appealed the decision” to TNA officials, and this time around the officials agreed with him. What made them change their minds? And oh look. Here is Helms interfering in the match. Those TNA officials sure are morons.
The wrestlers did what they could with the FOUR AND A HALF MINUTES they were given. Yes really. Just four and a half minutes. Eddie retained the title with a move Josh described as an “enzugiri” which he then told us was called the “Boston Knee Party,” which makes no sense because the “giri” part of “enzugiri” literally means “kick.” (And, for the record, Eddie’s Boston Knee Party” has always been a flying Codebreaker, which would make the name make sense, so it’s Josh who is the idiot, and not Eddie).
BRO-MANS BACKSTAGE- a large part of this was once extended plug for “Big Brother After Dark” on PopTV, so I can’t fault TNA for that. What I can fault them for is the part where they thought it would be a good idea to have Jesse Godderz somehow hack into the Impact Zone’s security cameras and use it to spy on Raquel as she got changed. THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE BABYFACES!
ETHAN & LASHLEY BACKSTAGE- builds up Ethan vs. Lashley.
WHO WILL BE THE 2016 INDUCTEE INTO THE TNA HALL OF FAME-
Dixie comes out and starts to talk about how the hall of fame lets them honor someone who has had “a tremendous impact on the company.” YOU INDUCTED A F*CKING REFEREE LAST YEAR WHO THE ONLY THINGS ANYONE REMEMBERS HIS DOING IN YOUR COMPANY IS SCREWING PEOPLE OUT OF TITLES FOR NO REASON! TWICE! He should have fired multiple times over!
Anyway, the inductee is Gail Kim. Well deserved. They had a nice video package (although it might just be her PandaTron video), although it was an odd choice to include that big spot where it was Taryn hitting Gail with the big bulldog off the ramp to the floor from their Slammiversary match.
Gail gave a speech. It was good for what it was. This did seem like a perfect opportunity to do an angle where Maria is upset by this, but oh well. They can still do that later. I just think it’s better heat for Maria to interrupt Gail’s speech (and because of the way TNA does things with the announcement after Slammiversary but the actual induction BFG weekend, this wouldn’t stop Gail from being able to make her big non-kayfabe speech).
The announcers plugged the tag title match and it was at this point that I realized that we are over half way done with the show and we still only know half of the participants. If you’ve got some surprise coming, why not put up a graphic to tell us that there is a “mystery team” to pique our curiosity? If there isn’t a surprise coming, then why aren’t you telling us who else is in the match?
DECAY PROMO- terrible. If I have to hear Abyss screech the word “beautiful” one more time I was throw something. Rosemary said that she could sense a dark presence or something like that so she needs Steve and Abyss to retain the tag titles so she can contact the dark one. This sh*t is so f*cking dumb.
JB INTERVIEWS MARTI BELLE- decent.
It occurred to me that this was the first time that they had mentioned the result of the Knockouts Title match. If you didn’t see the PPV but only saw this show, at this point you would also think that the Gail vs. Maria match actually happened. Even after watching the clip they showed us, you wouldn’t know that Gail was in this title match because she wasn’t in the clip, either.
Marti cut a promo on Jade. Apparently they’ve been best friends for nine years and made a pact to never let anything come between them and so on and so forth but Marti says that Jade let the title get between them. This the sort of thing is certainly plausible and might even be completely 100% shoot, but it is hampered by the fact that none of it has ever been mentioned before so it comes off like they needed a reason for Marti to turn heel so they pulled it out of their asses.
That being said, Marti’s delivery was great. One particular touch that I absolutely loved was her comment that “you didn’t even have to do anything. I could see it in your eyes.” Normally letting a title destroy your friendship is a bad thing and in this situation it is Marti who would theoretically be the wronged party, but this line flips that all on its head. It tells us that our babyface isn’t guilty of being a bad friend, but rather that these claims are the distorted conclusions reach by the twisted mind of a crazy woman (who, now that I think about it, we have never seen be anything other than a crazy woman).
An angry Jade showed up and they started to fight. Jade kicked Marti’s butt until a dude came in to hold her back. He was pretty big dude, but she is the Knockouts Champion, so I’d prefer that it take at least two people to restrain her.
TNA WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Decay(c) (w/Rosemary) vs. Mahabali Shera & Grado vs. Bro-Mans (w/Raquel) vs. The Tribunal (w/Al Snow)- 4.5/10
Everyone’s entrance aside from Decay’s got skipped. The Tribunal have a grand total of ONE win in TNA. Shera & Grado have ZERO. Why the f*ck are they getting tag title shots?
Decay’s entrance feels like Steve and Rosemary are doing their own entrance and Abyss is the awkward third wheel.
The way they set this match up they had one team on the two farthest ends of the ring and the other two teams in the corners facing the hard-cam. It’s probably the best way to do it for TV, but it just seems odd to not put all four teams an equal distance away from each other by doing what you would normally do in a four sided ring and ignoring the two “extra” sides.
Constant chaos due to people constantly tagging themselves in to the point where it was impossible to keep track of anything. This would have worked a lot better as a tornado match. Al Snow costs Grado a match, Decay retain their titles: this is all stuff we saw at Slammiversary. It was basically two Slammiversary matches mushed together. No mention was made by the commentators of Decay pretty much screwing the Bro-Mans out of the titles on the PPV, either.
So… we’ve been through three of the four title matches so far, and there has been absolutely nothing that couldn’t have been done without rushing a title defense, and quite frankly a lot of stuff that would have been a lot better to spend time building up to first instead of just rushing into it. This entire show was nothing but pointless hot-shotting.
MIKE & MARIA ARE ANGRY BACKSTAGE- so angry, in fact, that Maria rudely sends Allie away when she was just trying to help. Maria is furious that Gail is being inducted into the Hall of Fame and Bennett thinks he got screwed at Slammiversary in his match against EC III (he did, because Earl Hebner doesn’t know how count-outs work, but that’s not actually part of the storyline. It’s just Earl being incompetent and TNA inexplicably still employing him). Bennett is ready to quit, but Maria says she has a plan, and it apparently starts with the two of them going out to the ring to cut a promo.
I usually rail against these segments that TNA likes to do where someone will cut a backstage promo for the specific purpose of telling that that they are about to go out to the ring to cut a promo (which is totally pointless), but this was an example of the right way to do that. This wasn’t a promo. It was two characters reacting to the situation, resulting in them deciding to go out to the ring and cut a promo. I’m sure they will repeat some of the things they just said, but the context will be different.
Also, Bennett is wearing a black tank top with pineapples all over it.
JEFF HARDY PROMO- good. He’s angry and accepts Matt’s challenge to a cage match next week.
MIKE & MARIA CUT A PROMO IN THE RING- hated it.
Oh G-d. Bennett has decided to complement his pineapple shirt with blue jeans. He looks horrid.
They claim there is a conspiracy against them. Bennett demands that TNA management come out and strike his loss to Ethan from the record books. They want Dixie Carter but they get Billy Corgan instead. Corgan comes off like such a loser. Like someone who has seen a cool person on TV and is trying really hard to come off as cool and completely failing because of how hard he is trying.
He says that if they have grievances to air, they should set up a private meeting with him instead of doing it on the air. Maria insists that Dixie has sent Corgan out to talk to them because she is too afraid. She demands that Dixie “get her happy butt out here.” That made me laugh.
Maria says her spiel but
Dixie goes on to say (in a very condescending manner) that they brought Maria in to wrestle. Wow. They’re dumber than I thought. She yells at Maria because Maria hasn’t wrestled a single one-on-one match since coming to TNA. WELL WHOSE FAULT IS THAT, DIXIE? Aren’t YOU the president of the company? We’ve seen you book matches before, so why haven’t you booked Maria in a single one-on-one match in the five and a half months she’s been here? It wasn’t even you who booked her in the Slammiversary match you are implying that she faked her way out of! It was Ethan who did that.
Dixie implies that Maria faked the injury that got her out of her Slammiversary match, which completely contradicts what was said on the PPV, which is that both TNA physicians and Billy Corgan’s personal doctor verified Maria’s x-rays.
And why are we so annoyed at the Bennetts for coming out here and complaining about things. Someone does that at least every other week. Why is it now that this is all of a sudden considered to be such terribly inappropriate behavior?
Maria tells Dixie to “stop pointing fingers at everybody else and start pointing them at yourself. You’re the problem.” It’s no good, Maria. People have telling her that for years and she never listens. That’s why they’re on PopTV right now doing a lot fewer viewers on prime time on Tuesday night as they were doing a decade ago at 11pm on Saturday nights without over a decade’s worth of national television exposure on which to build an audience.
Maria says that she and Bennett (and Billy Corgan) should be running Impact and also that she and Bennett should be in the TNA Hall of Fame. Dixie accuses her of being “self-absorbed” and says that she shouldn’t be running the Knockouts Division anymore. The gimmick from day one has been that Maria is abusing her power to get what she wants, but apparently Dixie has only figured this out now. This leaves us with three possibilities:
1. Dixie doesn’t actually watch Impact and has ignored anyone who might have tried to contact her about an abuse of power in her company, even letting two long-time employees be fired without giving it a second thought.
2. Dixie is so mentally slow that she really is only figuring this out now.
3. In reality Dixie doesn’t give a sh*t about anyone else and was perfectly content to let Maria abuse the entire Knockouts Division (including the woman Dixie put over as a big heroine earlier tonight), but she’s only doing something about it now because Maria is being mean to her.
Maria goes off on Dixie, including pointing out that unlike Dixie, she is “a self-made woman.” Maria starts poking her finger in Dixie’s chest, pushing Dixie back until Dixie finally swings out with a weak-looking slap that knocks Maria off of her feet. Maria and Bennett are both stunned at this. Dixie walks off. They had so better not be building to an actual match between Maria Kanellis and Dixie Carter.
TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Bobby Lashley(c) vs. Drew Galloway- 6.75/10
Drew’s ribs were taped up. EC III was on commentary. He and Lashley had an altercation when Lashley went over to kind of mock-punch him while Ethan stood up and didn’t flinch. I don’t think my description of it makes it sound very good, but trust me: it worked really well.
Josh called Drew a “consummate professional” for sliding into the ring to break up a ten count so he doesn’t get counted out. Yes. Apparently basic knowledge of the rules makes you a “consummate professional.”
I was liking this more than their PPV match until the ref bump, which seemed to exist only so that Lashley could be sadistic and try to hurt Drew more. He got a chair, but Ethan came in to stop him. They fought a bit until Lashley speared him, then he beat Drew.
I thought this was a pretty bad show, simply because so much of it felt irrelevant. As I said above, most if was complete and total hot-shotting, with only the world title and KOTM title matches feeling like they served a real purpose and that they had to be done tonight (the KOTM title match could have been any match with Jeff, but I do like the idea of Matt costing him a title here because it would make Jeff extra angry. I just wish it could have been done without Eli Drake being made to look like such a chump).
My big problem with this show was that so much of felt like it was completely directionless (or at the very best it was Matt and Jeff following the same direction they were going in before the PPV). The EC III stuff, the Jade/Marti stuff and Rosemary’s promo all had direction, but nothing was done to establish any new direction in the X-Division, nothing for the King of the Mountain Champion or the new Knockouts Champion (who wasn’t on the show at all aside from one quick replay and standing on the stage with the rest of the roster during the HOF announcement), and the stuff in the tag team division didn’t only lack direction but in fact cut off new possible directions. Oh. Yeah. The Maria and Dixie stuff had direction, but that’s not a direction I want to see them go in. In fact, I completely dread it.
So yeah. Mostly a bad episode of Impact.
