TNA iMPACT wORKRATE rEPORT 11/23/06

WHAT WORKED:

I liked Samoa Joe’s mic work and for the first time since he was seconding a Mummy in SMW, I actively enjoyed James Mitchell mic work. Sting talked about how he needed to be humble before Christ. And he looses his title for loosing his humbleness. Can you hold onto the title and also hold onto the path of dignity and righteousness? The Last Temptation of Sting is a good enough angle that even James Mitchell can’t fuck it up. Tenay and West kind of fuck it up on commentary as they talk about how they’ve never seen Sting snap like that before. Tenay and West pretending like this is a new side of Sting fucks up the angle. This is an old side that he was trying to overcome through the power of the creator. The whole Sting character has always been one of a headstrong guy who occasionally looses it, is easily pushed, needs a whole locker room to empty to get him to release the Scorpion Death Lock from Ric Rude, etc. Sting realizes the mistakes of the past and promised himself that he wouldn’t fall prey to those temptations again and would remain humble. He fails and is DQed. James Mitchell is on the same page as Sting in this angle. West and Tenay need to get with the program.

Low Ki as straight man barely tolerating Nash, Shelly and Starr’s horseshit amused me. He really carried the skits. His performance in those skits reminded me of Vicki Lawrence in a wig flustered by insufferable family. That type of straight man burning, which is funnier than any of the madcap stuff that she’s reacting to.

I’m assuming Terry Taylor decided he had some demons to exorcise and booked the wealthy evil executive vs. the naïve babyface with a wattle match. Now, as a general rule I think personal issues should be resolved through therapy and not through wrestling booking. That said, I liked Eric Young vs. Bobby Roode. I mean I guess one could argue that Hector Guerrero vs. Mike Rotunda would have been a better match. But really would Hector Guerrero in a turkey suit vs. VK Wallstreet have been better? Taylor v. Taylor? Young took a really nice big backdrop. Roode threw a nice lariat. You really don’t need more than one nice bump and one nice piece of offense for an undercard comedy angle where heel is upset by a flash roll up.


WHAT DIDN'T WORK:

You do need more than one nice piece of offense and a nice bump for the first ever in ring meeting between two guys who have been feuding for almost 10 months. Christian took a nice high backdrop. Sting had some nice chops and a good Stinger Splash..But these guys aren’t meaningless undercard comedy wrestlers. Christian and Sting have been feuding for almost a year. Christian blames Sting for costing him the title. Christian cost Sting the title. They have been feuding for almost a year and their first in ring one-on-one match is in this type of meaningless six minute iMPACT match with a two minute commercial break? People should expect more of a main event than they expect of undercard comedy. If you’re going to have Tomko run in and match end in no contest, is there really a need for a ref bump? STUUUPID. Undercard comedy match with flash roll up can go under two minutes. Main event between two guys who have been feuding for year shouldn’t be 6 minutes with a two minute commercial break. Actual competitive tag matches where faces win clean, while heels get their offense in during commercial break shouldn’t go under two minutes either. It’s not even a match it’s a squash. A squash that makes no booking sense. Heels just put the Dudleys through a table, faces are splitting up…heels get squashed. HUH? Also probably a mistake to have Rhino come out and raise Styles and Daniels arms.


Slow the fuck down!! This show opens with James Mitchell mic work interrupted by Christian mic work, which leads to Sting coming in to challenge Christian and somehow they end up agreeing to match stipulations and booking the match on their own, this is followed by the truncated tag match which ends with Douglas looking shocked and with Rhino running in and AJ stalking off which leads to Cornette calling out Petey Williams to raise the flag and sing the pledge which is interrupted by Konan, his lawyer (who appears to be mini-Penn Jillette) and LAX who in turn are jumped by AMW, Gail Kim, and Kurt Angle which leads to Samoa Joe coming out to confront Kurt Angle, as Samoa Joe comes down entrance ramp somehow Gail Kim, AMW, Petey Williams, and Jim Cornette all escape out a trap door in the floor, Kurt Angle agrees to a match under condition that Samoa Joe protects his back (why is Angle worried? Who is trying to attack him? Are they working a Angle as paranoid druggie storyline?)…Let me stop here…Shit that’s a lot of shit happening piled one on top of the other. Doing this much stuff piled up like that doesn’t make for a “action packed show” it makes for a chaotic show that appears completely disorganized. As nothing has time to mean anything.

Although it should be said that the only two things that were given time ( Voodoo Kin Mafia and Petey Williams, American hero) sucked.

The “ Canadian superstar turns red white and blue“ angle inexplicably continues along. I mean it is true that sometimes a religious convert is more devout than someone raised in the religion. I guess someone could make an argument that this is an angle built around a stable of a Puerto Rican, a Texican and a Cuban American who take the flag for granted, in a way that a first generation immigrant (Williams) never would. But that’s not the way it’s been presented. In SMW they had Tracy Smothers defend the confederate flag. That makes sense. They had Barry Horrowitz under contract. They could have had him run out and do a speech about how he has come to love the confederate flag for how it doesn’t represent racism but rather represents honor and pride in place and family and how those values bring him comfort as they make him nostalgic for the values taught to him in Hebrew School and how when he sees the confederate flag it makes him feel the cozy warmth of home. They could have brought out Rocky King to defend the Stars and Bars and his southern heritage and how as a child it was rough being raised with the last name King in Georgia but as he grew older he realized that those nights when the crosses burnt on his yard were some of the few nights they had heat and how he’s come to appreciate the warmth and beauty of those fires. They could have done that but no matter how many times King or Horrowitz sang Dixie it wouldn’t have made sense. (1) They are converts and so their devotion to cause will always come across as unnatural. (2) Convert defending confederate flag, leaves all the actual southern faces looking weak ( why do they have to have a Jew defend the flag, the actual southerners aren’t man enough to defend their own heritage?) (3) the angle is about appealing to the audience’s racism—having a Jewish or black face kills that. Now lets look at TNA:(1) Petey Williams is Canadian…him defending the US flag is silly and comes off unnatural. (2) Petey Williams defending US flag makes all the actual American wrestlers come off as though they don’t care ( I’ve seen AJ Styles pray and cry during “the Star Spangled Banner”…you mean to tell me he’s not the first guy out the door to defend the flag..some Canadian is?) (3) This angle is meant to appeal to anti-immigration sentiment in the audience…Petey Williams is an immigrant—this only works if Russo decided fuck anti-immigration sentiment, lets just appeal to our natural dislike of the colored folk.

BG James “Have you seen these stupid skits. They need to stop”.
Yes BG, yes they do.
This Voodoo Kin Mafia thing is bad. The actual story of DX and the James Gang is an amusing story. HHH and Vince when they restarted DX wanted to bring back the New Age Outlaws, but then they found out that the Outlaws had been talking all kinds of shit.
No one minded that they were talking about Vince but when Helmsley found out that they were talking about him, his ego was bruised and he nixed bringing them back. Its amusing story that makes Helmsley look pathetic. Some how they totally fail to get that across and instead make themselves look pathetic and silly. These skits make Voodoo Kin Mafia (and in turn TNA) look like ineffective pests that aren't even on WWE's radar.
IF WWE actually cared about TNA, they wouldn’t do lots of sketches where Edge went to a Church’s Fried Chicken cause he was told the best place to find Christians was in Church.
No. The WWE would hire Ed Ferrera and Scott D’Amore to work as comedy tag team “The Nerd Army”. They’d build matches around making fun of their height, their bodies, them chanting at each other from the apron and have them do a heel miscommunication spot where Damore accidentally Canadian Destroyers Ferrera in every match.
The purpose of this type of “shoot” angle is to make your opponent’s company look like pathetic losers not to make yourself look like pathetic losers. The Voodoo Kin Mafia skits have it backwards.