BRM Reviews the 12/29/2011 Impact (why TNA is failing)

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- eh. Tenay asks “who is more deserving than Mickie James (of a shot at the Knockouts’ Title)?”- Um… how about Velvet Sky. The former champion who still hasn’t gotten her rematch?

Before the next match, Taz and Tenay emphasized the difference between AJ & Kaz and the rest of the teams. That AJ & Kaz are friends who have worked together for years (they even claim that they have teamed together for years, which is false), while others haven’t. Yes, it is a tournament of teams composed by random draw, so it is possible for AJ and Kaz to wind up together… but giving the babyfaces such a huge advantage just seems like bad booking.

TNA WILD CARD TAG TEAM TOURNAMENT SEMI-FINAL MATCH: AJ Styles & Kaz vs. Scott Steiner & Abyss- 5.75/10. Was going fine until the finish. Abyss tags Steiner in, then Steiner says “Yeah! We’re a team!” so Abyss hits him with a Black Hole Slam and throws the match away? WTF?

BULLY RAY & ABYSS SEGMENT- Bad. Bully Ray figures that the best way to calm the enraged monster Abyss down would be to yell at him and insult him. Then they agree to a Monster’s Ball match at Genesis with the stipulation that if Bully Ray wins, Abyss must rejoin Immortal. This makes no sense. There is no special stipulation for what happens if Abyss wins, meaning that all he is interested in is kicking Bully Ray’s ass. If all Abyss wants to do is kick Bully Ray’s ass… why risk his own future with the possibility of having to join Immortal? And why wait? They are in the ring, together, face-to-face… so why doesn’t Abyss just kick his ass RIGHT NOW?!
Furthermore, if Abyss has wanted to get his hands on Bully Ray... why go through all of this stuff with Steiner? Steiner has been the one interacting with Abyss more regularly. If the continual pestering about rejoining Immortal and being a team pissed Abyss off… shouldn't he be having this match against Scott Steiner? It really feels like they are sticking Bubba into a spot meant for Steiner.

STING & ANGLE SEGMENT- felt a bit drawn out, but still good.

FLAIR & GUNNER PROMOS- Flair was eh. Gunner was good.

Before this match, Taz and Tenay introduced Austin Aries on commentary. This is the first time that anyone officially involved in this match aside from Nese and Ion (one of whom won’t make it in) has even been seen on TV this month.
CONTRACT ON A POLE MATCH AS THE 3RD MATCH IN THE BEST OF THREE SERIES TO DETERMINE WHO GETS ADDED TO THE X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH AT GENESIS: Anthony Nese vs. Zema Ion- 5/10

DOUG WILLIAMS vs. GUNNER (w/Ric Flair)- DUD! Same crap as the past few weeks. Gunner puts someone out with a piledriver on the floor. We get it! Enough already!

BOBBY ROODE SEGMENT- TERRIBLE! Some guy who is apparently Roode’s best friend comes out and they spend ten minutes rehashing everything that Bobby Roode’s family has been saying in those random videos every week for the past two months. Then Roode insults his family and says that they only want him now because now he has money because he is the World Champion (this might have worked with someone else, but not with the CEO of Robert Roode Industries.- the “Money” in “Beer Money”). Bobby then attacks this friend of his and Jeff Hardy comes out and makes the save.

This is a perfect example of how TNA has completely screwed this heel turn up. Bobby Roode turned heel when he (and here is the important part) after several seconds of consideration and hesitation, and taking a long, conflicted look at it, grabbed a beer bottle and smashed it over the head of his best friend and tag team partner, James Storm, cheating to take the TNA World Heavyweight Title from him. TNA has made two huge mistakes since then.
First of all, Bobby Roode has not been conflicted. He just magically became a heel, as if someone has gone into his brain and flipped a switch from “good” to “evil.” Second of all, the story of the turn (and the events leading into it, such as Bobby not winning the belt at BFG, Storm getting the title shot that really should have been Bobby’s and winning the belt with it, etc.) is the story of Bobby Roode and James Storm. The story of a long time friendship being shattered (perhaps irreparably?) by a moment of… greed or weakness or jealousy- or some combination of the three (we don’t know which, though, as the story hadn’t told us yet).
The story TNA has told us since then, however, has been the story of Bobby Roode. Someone hit the magic switch, and all of a sudden, Bobby became a heel. He went from considering Fortune to be his friends to considering them to be tag-alongs whom he carried on his own with his own excess talent. His family went from a support and a positive influence to becoming leeches who only wanted him for his money. He is feuding with Sting and Dixie for no real reason other than because he can. AJ chases him because all of a sudden, Bobby became a “douchebag.” Jeff Hardy is chasing him because Jeff wants the belt (this perfectly fine, but it doesn’t work with this particular segment). Jeff chasing Bobby off here is just Jeff being a babyface and doing the right thing (again nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t work as well here). Jeff Hardy could not bring the emotional impact that this segment needed (not through any fault of Jeff’s but rather) because Jeff has no real connection to Bobby Roode. This segment needed AJ or Kaz or James Storm to make the save.

Compare Bobby Roode’s heel turn and subsequent feud to that of Christopher Daniels this year (in TNA, not in ROH). With Daniels, people tried to keep the group together. Even after their huge brawl, you had Kaz talking to both men and trying to calm them down. We got an explanation for Daniels’ heel turn as being part of a personality flaw of Daniels’, and Kaz urging AJ to just wait it out so they can all go back to being friends again. With Bobby Roode, nothing like that has happened. Fortune was dissolved off-screen, which we were informed of in a passing comment by Mike Tenay. James Storm is off doing something else, and after his feud with Roode ended, AJ is also off doing something else.
This turn should have had a conflicted Bobby Roode having to justify what he did, either in his own mind, to James Storm and Fortune, to the fans, or any combination of the three. We could have had the story of a man who had a shot at something that he has been working for so long to achieve, and wanted it so badly that, in a moment of weakness? Jealousy? Greed? He did something which he knew was wrong/otherwise would have dismissed as wrong… but did it anyway, in order to achieve his life’s dream. At the same time, he knew that doing so would crush the dream of a man whom he had considered a brother. Does he come to the conclusion that the ends justify the means, and keep doing things which he knows/ would otherwise believe are wrong in order to retain the title? Does he apologize and try to make amends? If he does, do his friends accept his apologies and accept him back into the fold? Maybe the larger group of his friends does… but what about the “brother” whose dreams he crushed in order to accomplish his own? Do the fans understand why he acted the way he acted? Can they sympathize with him? Even if they can, do they sympathize more with the man who had someone else cheat and betray him to crush his lifelong dreams?
Instead, we got the story of a man who woke up one day and decided to be evil, and his friends really didn’t care. Which one of those makes more sense to you? Which one seems more normal? Which one tells the better story? Here’s a hint: It isn’t the one that TNA is giving us.

EY & ODB SEGMENT- dumb and no one cares.

KURT ANGLE PROMO- eh.


TNA WILD CARD TAG TEAM TOURNAMENT SEMI-FINAL MATCH: Samoa Joe & Magnus vs. Eric Young & ODB- 3.5/10. Before this match, EY wastes some TV time by going over to Mike Tenay to lock up with him. This annoyed me, but mostly because it was such a tease. I saw EY put his hand near Tenay’s throat and I got excited and thought that maybe EY was going to choke the life out of Tenay so that I wouldn’t have to listen to him again. And, as it turned out, Tenay would have deserved it. He and Taz both utterly failed to put over the story of this match/the EY-ODB angle.
After the spot where Magnus and ODB were rolling around the ring, EY tags himself in, charges at Magnus, spears him down and starts wailing on him. Taz and Tenay completely failed to grasp the point of this. EY thinks that he and ODB are in a relationship. Magnus was just rolling around on the ground with ODB. EY is, understandably (well, from his own crazy POV, anyway) furious, so he gets in there and starts wailing on Magnus. At one point during the Invasion angle they did a backstage segment which had Kanyon hitting on Lita, Lita rejecting him, and Kanyon then saying something back to her. Later that night, during the Hardy Boyz vs. Kanyon and (I believe) Lance Storm, the minute Matt got tagged in, he charged at Kanyon, took him down and started wailing on him. The announcer (I believe it was Coach) then said something along the lines of “Right now, Matt Hardy is sending Kanyon a message. He is saying ‘Lita is my girl. She doesn’t want you. You stay away from her and stop harassing her!'”

Anyone who had seen the backstage segment already understood this, but the announcer saying it like that just added an extra bit of emotion to it. You wanted to get up out of your chair and shout “YEAH! Go get him, Matt! Teach that punk not to mess with your woman!” In this match, that feeling was almost completely absent (I realize that these cases are different, but there should be some sort of energy there). You really didn’t feel the fire that you should have felt as EY was going after someone who had been doing something with someone he thought he was in a relationship with. I am also certain that the finish (ODB being tossed head-first into EY’s crotch, allowing Joe to hit him with the Muscle Buster for the win) will be relevant in the EY-ODB angle, and Taz and Tenay did nothing to acknowledge this either.

MICKIE JAMES PROMO- she did a good job answering some bad questions. Props to Mickie for that.

KURT ANGLE vs. ROB VAN DAM- 5.75/10. We get what should have obviously been a DQ, and the ref calls for the bell, but nothing is ever announced. Dear TNA: I would rather have a competent ring announcer than be able to look at Christy Hemme for a few random moments during Impact. If I want to look at Christy Hemme, I can use the pictures that your website so nicely provides for me.
This was absolutely the wrong finish for this match! What we had here was (as Kurt mentioned in his promo) Kurt Angle vs. a guy who does a lot of kicks. The Angle vs. Storm feud (at least from the stories that their matches have told) seems to be about Kurt Angle’s inability to beat James Storm because, no matter how much of a pounding Angle puts on him, Storm always manages to catch him out of nowhere with a Superkick to put Kurt down for just long enough to get the win. Storm has already beaten Kurt like this twice, and they have a PPV match coming up soon. They need to build up some suspense. They need to make it seem like Kurt might win this time. He hasn’t been able to the last two times, so why should this one be any different? Something has to change. If I were booking this, I would have had Kurt taking and keeping the advantage, then had RVD hit him with a superkick… but have Kurt catch RVD’s leg, put him in the Ankle Lock, and have RVD tap out. This way, Kurt seems to have eliminated the whole in his defense, and we are left with the question of whether or not Storm will be able to beat him now.

Instead, TNA decides to do this dumb crap with Angle mocking Storm and beating up his friends, etc. Both this feud, and, as I alluded to a bit before, the Bobby Roode heel turn, illustrate a major problem that TNA seems to be having. The feuds seem to be telling different stories than the matches in them (aside from AJ vs. Roode when Roode went after AJ’s leg). Look at Jeff Hardy vs. Jeff Jarrett. The feud wanted to tell a story about Jeff Hardy’s redemption… but the match told the story that Jeff Hardy is so much better than Jeff Jarrett that Jeff can’t beat him… even with help. These two don’t mesh up. They could have had Jarrett injure Hardy, then taunt him with pain killers (with Jeff fighting through the pain, and earning the respect of the lockerroom, etc.) They could have had Jarrett taunt Hardy about the sins of his past… instead... they had Karen Jarrett claim that Hardy’s girlfriend told her that he was impotent, and created a moronic running gag about Karen Jarrett having testicles. The matches and the feuds are telling very different stories, and it hurts the overall product (although this would be less of an issue if the stories of the feuds weren’t as bad as they are)… and when the matches do tell the stories (like in the EY & ODB vs. Joe & Magnus match) the announcers don’t mention it at all.

ANGLE, STORM, & VAN DAM VIDEO PACKAGE- pretty good, but now we seem to be going in a third direction. Kurt’s delusional heel logic also doesn’t fit in here (the first one doesn’t count because I only had 90 minutes to prepare”- SO DID STORM!)

TNA KNOCKOUTS’ TITLE MATCH: Gail Kim(c) vs. Mickie James- 6.25/10. A good match, but not good enough to be a main event. I am fine with the dirty finish, as it builds to a match on PPV without resorting to that old TNA standby of having a title change on TV then having it change right back on the PPV (like they did with Winter TWICE this summer). But if you had to do a finish like that, it shouldn’t have been in the main event. They should have given RVD and Angle more time and then did the finish that I suggested above, so you have a good enough main event with a clean finish.

Overall, this week’s Impact stunk. So many things that either didn’t make sense or flat out stunk. Gail vs. Mickie was good, though, and it was nice to see them given time.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Tenay (after the Bully Ray- Abyss segment)- “Nobody stands up to the Bully.” Really, Tenay? Or do I have to pull out all of the clips from this year of Fortune, Sting, and Anderson doing just that?

2. Tenay calls and Angle Slam a “back drop suplex.” IT’S KURT’S F*CKING FINISHER… AND YOU DON’T SELL IT AT ALL? WTF? (Taz didn’t sell it either).

3. Tenay (after Storm interferes and hits Angle with the Last Call, and the ref calls for the bell)- “Referee Brian Hebner has thrown this match out.” No he hasn’t! It is a disqualification! There is a HUGE difference between the two (mainly that one has a winner and a loser, while the other does not)!

4. Tenay (commenting on Mickie’s game plan of going for quick roll-ups in the beginning)- “I think so much of this game plan is predicated on the fact that there no longer are all those political issues she has to deal with. She knows that she can’t be held back.” First of all, if they were political issues, they would be preventing her from getting the title shot in the first place, rather than affecting her matches themselves. What Tenay really means, of course, is that Karen Jarrett and Madison Rayne can’t come down and interfere. The problem, though, is that when you look at the game plan in question (trying to roll Gail up quickly in the beginning)… THIS MAKES NO SENSE! If Madison and Karen were still around (and I’m not sure why Madison can’t do anything- she wasn’t fired or anything) and Mickie would have to worry about interference or ref bumps or distractions or whatever… then going for quick roll-ups to get the win before the heels can screw her over makes perfect sense. But Tenay (being pretty much the opposite of sense) said that Mickie was using this game plan… because she DOESN’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT MADISON AND KAREN ANYMORE. WTF?!

5. Tenay says that Gail’s Eat Defeat finisher is a submission. It isn’t.