TNA IMPACT WORKRATE REPORT EPISODE #43

So I came into this show with kind of really positive feelings toward TNA. The previous episode delivered two fun matches and a fun Nash/Alex Shelley segment. Plus I went to the Edison, NJ ROH show this weekend. Looking around that show I noticed that about 2% of the audience was kids 10 and under lots of them wearing TNA Samoa Joe shirts. For whatever else is wrong with ROH fans, they aren’t WWE fans. WWE fans are angered by enthusiastic little kids ruining the “wrestling experience” for them. ROH fans understand that they’re a cult and recruiting youth is something that they want to encourage. Watching little kids respond to Dragon v. Joe made me really hope that TNA has further success. So I came into this episode of Impact with good, positive feelings and I get this:

WHAT WORKED:

Monte Brown had a nice shirt. I don’t know what the fabric was but it was a nice shirt.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK:

Wow this was shitty episode. So they run an angle where they split up team Canada. Result of the split is that there is at least one Team Canada member in every TV segment? This show sucked!!

I'm not sure which was worse the shitty sports entertainment/mic segments or the shitty matches.

Just one bad match after another:

-X-Division three ways are pretty much always bad…but 4 ways are normally at minimum watchable. Normally when TNA runs an X division 4 way, people are smart enough to work it like a face/heel tag. Give the thing some structure. This had none of that and was a complete mess that just went on forever. Neither Williams or Devine really worked heel. Was Williams making a face turn? I mean this may have been the worst of the Impact X division multi-person matches. It appeared like Shark Boy was the smartest worker in the ring as there was some sense and build to what he was trying to do. Everyone else was just doing random shit. The other thing was it wasn’t that they where doing fast random shit. I mean spotty fast exchanges are one thing but they were working medium speed. I really can’t do justice to how bad this was. This was worse than some of the Lance Hoyt singles matches.

-Who was the jokester that laid out the James Gang and Eric Young vs. A1 and AMW match. A1 and Kip James work wrestling exchanges, Eric Young does shtick, AMW do miscommunication spots and BG James throws a dropkick. Now there is nothing wrong with building a 6 man match around two guys pairing off to do exchanges, face shtick, heel miscommunication spots and a dropkick. You can build a 6 man around having only two guys pair off and do wrestling exchanges while everyone else essentially does characterization. But who decided that two guys to pair off would be A1 and Kip James??

-So when they were building Samoa Joe v. Rhino as BATTLE OF MACHINES…I was fully aware that it wasn’t going to be as good as Junji Hirata v. Yoji Anjo. Aware that I’d rather see Joe vs. Hirata. Aware that I’d rather see Joe vs. Anjo. I was shocked when it wasn’t as good as Bill Eadie v. Black Jack Mulligan. This was mess. Samoa Joe does nice job bumping around and selling. But that was his role here. Samoa Joe is at his best when in role of playing “THE MAN”. Even when he was in the ring with the likes of Sting, Jarrett, and Steiner..Joe played role of “the man”. Here he played role of “afterthought”. The big table bump in end looked as convoluted as you can get. And really three way dance between three face/tweener guys who crowd like really feels like a burial of everyone. I don’t really give a rat’s ass about Rhino or Brown, so them being stuck against each other doesn’t bother me. Joe on the other hand. I think Joe vs. 2006 Blackjack Mulligan would have been better match. I am sure that Joe vs. 2006 Bill Eadie would have smoked this.


And then there were the endless awful sports entertainment/mic segments:

-Borash is saddened by the idea that he might be loosing young Eric Young to the James Boys. “This wasn’t part of our plan”. JEREMY BORASH TANNING WATCH: Last time we did one of these Borash had turned golden, this week he was more of a honey color.

-Christian does a long endless in ring mic segment with a strobe light going on behind him. Sting says some stuff. Then they do a backstage interview with Jarret. Christian and Sting segment really got nothing across. Normally Jarrett is good at hitting all the points and getting the storylines accross but I don’t have any idea of what they’re trying to push here. I’m guessing this was twenty minutes of an hour show that just did nothing to heat up their main. Two long mic segments and a video package and all that I got out of them was the realization that Jarrett and Sting have two of the worst looking goatee’s I’ve ever seen. They should bring in David Faustino as celebrity ref.

- Who thought the way to give Chris Sabin personality was to give him a backstage segment with Jerry Lynn. I’d love to see the booking meeting “Hey maybe some of that Jerry Lynn charisma will rub off” .

- TNA is filled with a million unexplained angles/mysteries that I really don’t care about. Of the million unexplained mysteries in TNA…”what is the definition of ‘hippophit’?” ranks just above “what’s Jackie Gayda’s secret”and just below “what was in Ryan Shamrock’s envelope?”. So not like I’m excited that we get the reveal. But figure should acknowledge it. A “hipophit” turns out to be a creature that is half elephant and half hippopotamus. You’d think that would be called a hippophant or a elapotamus. But you’d be wrong. Monte Brown adds more layers to his character as he is no longer working self hating black man as face, but rather self hating black as tweener. He has internalized racism so much that while he feels that he belongs in the jungle, he wants to rebuild the jungle as a restricted community. “Hippophits don’t deserve to live in Monte Brown’s Serengeti”. Like Steiner, Brown doesn’t want to interact with half-breeds and there will be no products of miscegenation in his dream village. “Rhinoceroses don’t deserve to live in the Serengeti either”.. I’m guessing that’s due to their hook nose. I guess this is an interesting bit of characterization but still just a painfully awful mic segment that does nothing to heat up the match. It was a really nice shirt.