OPENING SEGMENT- bad. Bobby Roode cuts a pretty good promo, then RVD comes out and chases him away. So far, so good. Then Anderson comes out and if they had done the spot where one babyface throws the heel back into the ring so the other one can get heat back from him, it would have been fine. But instead they have both babyfaces start stomping a mudhole in Roode. Then Hardy comes out and he, too, joins in the beatdown. So we have three babyfaces beating down the heel in the corner. If you didn’t know any better, you would think that RVD, Hardy, and Anderson were a stable of heels beating down the babyface Bobby Roode. Then Anderson and Hardy’s intense hatred for each other (you know, that thing that showed up out of nowhere last week) flares up and they can’t even stand to be beating Roode down together… they have to pull each other off of Roode so that the other one can’t get the satisfaction of beating their mutual enemy down. They come to blows, then Hogan comes out and, if RVD agrees to it (it does make kayfabe sense for him to want Rob’s consent for this), he will make a match that will either switch two of the matches on the card a few days before the PPV, or give the babyface a major advantage going into the title match byvletting him pick his own stip. Bad booking.

BULLY RAY PROMO- good.

GAIL & MADISON SEGMENT- eh. I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to give a crap about this angle with Madison that they are trying to kick off.

VELVET SKY vs. BROOKE TESSMACHER- 2.5/10.
Not very good (Velvet loses after ONE move?), but the aftermath was good.

AJ STYLES PROMO- eh.

JEFF HARDY PROMO- decent

CRIMSON vs. MATT MORGAN- This had me scared, as, for a moment, I thought that TNA was actually stupid enough to give this away on free TV with no hype. A pretty good segment, although I really didn’t like the agents cowering away from Bubba.

CRIMSON PROMO- good

ROB VAN DAM VIDEO PACKAGES- um.. okay.

TNA X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH: Austin Aries(c) vs. Zema Ion- 4/10
Because Ion has definitely earned a title shot with his… ZERO appearances on Impact in the last month and a half. Why not give Sabin a title shot? At least he hasn’t actually lost to Aries yet! This match was very blah. Aries’ brainbuster looked awesome, though.

KAZ AND DANIELS BACKSTAGE- more dissension among heels. Snore.

RVD PROMO- horrible. RVD says that he has done great in the past winning World Titles in Ladder matches. Oh yeah, Rob? Which ones? I don’t think RVD has even BEEN IN A LADDER MATCH FOR A WORLD TITLE! They should have just had him say “Ladder matches are my specialty match, so if I win, I will choose one of those” and it would have been fine, but here Rob is saying something that is just plain untrue and makes him look like an idiot.

AJ, KAZ, AND DANIELS SEGMENT-Before this starts, let’s play a little guessing game. I am trying to figure out what this secret could be. My guess… something to do with either an illegitimate child or a woman other than his wife (a la Lesnar and Taker back in the fall of 2002)…



SCORE!
And not only that… it is with DIXIE!

When Hogan said that the TV Title would be defended every week, I assumed that maybe more people than just Robbie E. might be given title shots.
TNA TV TITLE MATCH: Devon(c) vs. Robbie E. (w/Rob Terry)- DUD! This was a squash, but you should not be having squashes for title matches! The aftermath was crap.

JAMES STORM VIDEO PACKAGE- eh. I doubt that anyone actually thinks that James Storm will retire.

DEVON PROMO- great!

ABYSS VIDEO PACKAGE- stupid. It just rubbed me the wrong way. It was too out of place.

JOSEPH PARK SEGMENT WITH BULLY RAY- snore. This angle has just been horrible.

MAIN EVENT WITH A BUNCH OF STIPS: Bobby Roode vs. Rob Van Dam vs. Mr. Anderson vs. Jeff Hardy- 6.25/10
Not good enough for a main event.
WHOA!

Well… that was random. Abyss tells his brother “you’re getting too close to the fire.” First of all… say it, don’t spray it, Abyss. Second of all, I think this was a very bad way to do this. If I were booking it (okay, if I were booking this angle wouldn’t have been booked, but you get the point), I would have had this done next week, and have the message delivered by a video tape sent to TNA HQ, telling them to play it on the PandaTron. Having Abyss cut this promo live takes away from some of the mysteriousness of the question of where Abyss has been. We still don’t know where he’s been, but seeing him live just takes away from the mystique.

Overall, a bad episode of Impact.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Tenay asked Taz who he thought Roode would pick to face if Roode won the main event, and Taz replied that Roode would not pick RVD because he would not want to have to compete in a ladder match. This shows such a ridiculous lack of understanding of the stipulation that it isn’t even funny.

Yeah, Impact was terrible. But I do like watching Aries and Ion. They always put on entertaining matches... Which makes me wonder why they don't do it more often, or why that match is on free TV and not at Sacrifice.

This crap with Hardy and Anderson and RVD and Roode is just too much I think. It feels like they're just throwing those guys into the title picture. "Hold up guys, we've got three ex-WWE guys that we have no plans for, what do we do?" "Eh, throw them in with Roode."

Seriously, that has to have been their idea, 'cause it makes no sense.

Serujuunin wrote:Yeah, Impact was terrible. But I do like watching Aries and Ion. They always put on entertaining matches... Which makes me wonder why they don't do it more often, or why that match is on free TV and not at Sacrifice.

Especially now that Aries is a babyface.

Big Red Machine wrote:

Serujuunin wrote:Yeah, Impact was terrible. But I do like watching Aries and Ion. They always put on entertaining matches... Which makes me wonder why they don't do it more often, or why that match is on free TV and not at Sacrifice.

Especially now that Aries is a babyface.

Which is a strange concept for me to wrap my head around so far.

Announcer Quote i picked up on that aswell

It's hard to do an a story about a secret involving another wrestler, as they usually turn out to be no good. I don't understand why it is supposed to be such a big deal about AJ and Dixie... I know Daniels and Kaz don't like how AJ has been the poster boy of TNA for such a long time, but that's just because he's "better" than Daniels and Kaz. It makes no sense to me.

I gotta say though, I'm liking what they're doing with Bully Ray.

Shogun Rua wrote:I don't understand why it is supposed to be such a big deal about AJ and Dixie...

Because both of them are married to other people.

Big Red Machine wrote:

Shogun Rua wrote:I don't understand why it is supposed to be such a big deal about AJ and Dixie...

Because both of them are married to other people.

either way, you would imagine that f'ing the boss would get you some titles here and there

I actually thought of this one while watching the replay of Abyss' return on Sacrifice, but why would Abyss go through all of the trouble of leaving wherever he was to come to the Impact Zone to stay away from Sacrifice. Why not just give him a phone call?