Is TNA Not Entirely Terrible Now? A Small Sample Curiosity.

So last night (6/7) for reasons I cannot entirely explain, I watched an episode of TNA Impact. Maybe it was because we're in a TV programming lull, maybe it's because Rachel was working on something downstairs so I couldn't watch anything that we typically watch together, maybe I somehow haven't learned my lesson after 14 years (btw, TNA has existed for FOURTEEN YEARS!! When TNA started I couldn't vote. What the fuck, Time??). Probably some combination of all of those things, plus I saw on the episode guide that Matt Hardy was going to face Drew Galloway on the show, and based on my cursory knowledge of who is actually on their current roster, these two are really two of the only guys I would care to see in a TNA match. So I DVR'd it, and...


I ended up enjoying the entire show. Now, to be clear, by "entire show" I mean "I fast forwarded through any and all talking segments and paid attention to three of the matches while casually paying attention to the other three matches". So there was a lot of fast forwarding, but not nearly as much as there could have been. For a promotion who never has gotten the detail work right, this was a surprisingly well paced show (even fast forwarding through 75% of your average Impact episode would tell you whether or not the pacing was good) with a more professional look than I'm used to after 14 years of blunders and bush league presentation (I should remind you again that TNA has been around for FOURTEEN YEARS! When TNA started, Kanye West was known as "Producer of The Blueprint", or "Kanye West: Man with Fully Functioning Jaw"). I enjoyed the announce crew of Josh Matthews and Pope. For a totally insufferable human being, Matthews plays nicely off Pope, who in turn does color commentary like the best parts of Tazz and Booker T. They complement each other nicely, which I don't think I've been able to say about any TNA commentary crew ever.


The matches were surprisingly enjoyable as well. Even when TNA has had workers I enjoy, the company style always felt detrimental to match quality, and it always felt like it had that early MLW or 2000s Guadalajara (and possibly current Guadalajara?) vibe where wrestlers I like go to have matches I dislike. There was a TNA stink on even their best workers and matches, and last night I didn't smell any sort of TNA stink. The short and inoffensive matches were short and inoffensive, and the matches given time to be something more delivered.


I really enjoyed Eddie Edwards/Trevor Lee as an interference clustered cruiser match, with Lee really throwing himself into Edwards' offense, a big Lee bump where Edwards caught the apron punt and swept Lee's leg to make him faceplant on the apron, a big Edwards dive, nice Lee suplex, good nearfall based on interference, just a fun match. More noteworthy was a 10 man tag that was probably just 8 minutes, but really good. TNA throughout its history has been hilariously inept at large multiman matches. This in theory should be one of the easiest matches to lay out, as with 10 guys even the worst wrestlers should have one or two cool tricks they can do so nobody has to be exposed, and you can keep action moving with constant saves and tag ins. Yet somehow TNA multimans (specifically the always laugh out loud bad multiman cage matches where you'd end up with 80% of the guys lying around the ring breathing heavily after just a few minutes) always flopped, always turned into an awful mess, never felt like they had enough action. So here were 10 men - 5 of whom I had at least heard of before, 3 of whom I could at least pick out of a lineup - 10 men of varying abilities working a tight 7 minutes with no filler, some smart, simple spots, and a satisfying finish. Jessie Godderz had a couple nice press slams, there were a couple stocky little guys in striped tights who came in gunning low with elbows and nice aggression, Crazzy Steve seems like he might be good, even Abyss had a cool moment where he made a save by just grabbing a guy by the throat.


The main event of Matt Hardy vs. Drew Galloway was really good and with an actual conclusive finish I was already prepared to nominate it for our MOTY list. Hardy looks insane right now, like a methier and/or draggier Toecutter, which...well would actually work pretty well as a wrestling character. But these guys beat the hell out of each other, constantly lobbing nice punches and elbows, Hardy takes a backbreaker on the ring apron, Galloway takes a side effect on the ring steps, Galloway threw a big belly to belly, they found a nice way to set up some tree of woe stuff with a blocked superplex leading to some Hardy headbutts, and then when Hardy was taking too long to set something up I thought it was going to look silly when Drew took a move after hanging out for so long, but instead Drew was just playing possum and sprang up to launch Hardy across the ring. More big chops, more great Hardy punches, more great Galloway elbows to Hardy's weird head. Yeah we got a run in finish but this was a fine match, exactly what I was hoping for out of these guys.


So there I was, enjoying TNA, actually thinking about watching TNA one week from now, which is a thought I don't think I've ever had. Watching TNA has always been more of an accident, or something to throw on for a laugh when people are over and you remember it's on. I don't know if I've ever actively planned to watch TNA a week in advance. But this show won me over. There were still some silly moments, my favorite being their apparent heist of the WWE never-going-to-get-over name generator, - used here for Pepper Parks - who is now known as "Braxton Sutter". I recognize that it's entirely possible I just tuned in on the one competent week of programming they've had since joining Pop! I know I tuned in a couple of times when they were on Destination America and it was dreadful. So this could have been luck, or they may finally be onto something, 10 years too late.

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Rifling Through the Trash: The Unfinished Segunda Caida

We here at Segunda Caida all watch a lot of wrestling. We also start a lot of projects. More projects than we can ever ever possibly finish. We start watching something, write about it, don't finish writing about it, and there it sits. We have about 80 unfinished drafts dating back 4 years. Some of them may get finished some day (IWA-MS show reviews, WAR show reviews), others are kind of pointless to ever finish (old CMLL TV write-ups, reviews of WWE Superstars episodes). Still these write ups all took at least SOME time out of our schedules, and it's only fair that we get SOME use out of them. Tom used his best shitty tag team name from his "shitty indy name" rolodex AND made fun of RPGs in almost the same sentence.

The FINAL snippets from TomK's review of ROH's "Take No Prisoners":

Vulture Squad v No Remorse Corpse

TKG: Huh? Why? The bonus match from other show on ROH PPV is kind of a staple, but why this match? Did someone say “hey this show is missing a big moves workrate tag”? This whole entire card has been really well paced with every match being different than the one before, and matches ending without long finisher exchange sequences and excessive kickouts to protect the main event. There is a reason not to do a workrate tag with hot finisher train. The opening Ruckus v Rocky Romero mirror missed stuff was every bit as laughably bad as you’d expect. Where is Julius Smokes? Jigsaw without the mask looks like a guy who should have been on the second season of the Wire. Maybe not White Mike, but White Mike’s skinny cousin. When Ruckus eventually joins Eddy Kingston, I want a Smokes managed Jigsaw/Grim Reefer tag team. Is “Eight Myle” a shitty enough tag name? I also don’t think I’ve mentioned the shitty “pokemon” style tales of the tape that they’ve been doing before each match. I didn’t mind this when they used it for the Aries v Nigel main event as they where actually building the match around the idea that the two knew each others stuff. But really if these are the talking points, give them to the announcers to make. Putting it up on the screen really feels like someone is laying out the profile pages from a role playing game.

Notes for Phil: I think you liked this more than I did and thought the spike piledriver was a good finish and finish train wasn’t too long or something like that. You're wrong. But that's what you were arguing.

Phil reviewing IWRG 6/17/10:

Bombero Infernal v. Dr. Cerebro

PAS: This really felt like heavyweight professional wrestling. Just a pair of big guys throwing big bombs (indy lucha big, I am sure Dr. Cerebro is like 5'4). Infernal jumps Cerebro outside and whoops on him for the first fall. Cerebro has a really great looking trickle of blood rolling down his face. Cerebro fires back with some soup bones, including a spectacular elbow smash plancha which looked like the ghost of Misawa. Finish was decent, although the low blow finish is such a lucha cliche, I don't want to see it infecting IWRG.

Mickie Segura/Trauma I/II v. Los Gringos VIP

PAS: 2010 IWRG is so good that the baseline for an average match is pretty high. It will consistently put out solidly worked excellent matches with occasional flashes of brilliance, that it is kind of hard for a match like this to stand out. This was six very good wrestlers having a very good trios title match. We got a long first fall of mat work, it isn't normally what you expect out of the Lucha Libre VIP team (outside of Avisman, who is the guy who doesn't work the mat in this match), but they are pretty good at it. I especially liked El Hijo Del Diablo v. Trauma I, which was really a pair of powerhouse using their strength to move in and out of hold, Diablo is having a hell of a year. Second fall was rudo triple teams and brawling, which was done well, although there was no huge bump or blood or anything to distinguish it. Third fall was a traditional title match third fall, down to the step over toe hold comedy spot which you see a ton of in classic lucha (the spot which ends with the Technico wiggling in a pinning all three guys.) Good workman like lucha libre, which won't register when we look back at 2010, but is certainly well worth spending 20 minutes watching

Notes from EricR watching the 3/27/14 TNA iMPACT:

~Davey/Edwards vs. Magnus/Abyss: Wow Davey Richards is just a hilariously bad wrestler. I mean, not as horrid as Abyss, who seems to fight every natural way to take bumps and go against every body instinct to fall in the most ridiculous way possible. So Eddie Edwards always does a spit take bump in his matches, and here he took an elbow from Magnus and ended up accidentally spitting directly into Davey's (on the apron) eyes. And what's amazing is Davey sold it! He didn't just casually pretend another human being, his partner, didn't just accidentally spit directly into his eyes. He sold it. But he didn't sell it like a normal human would sell the indignity of feeling another human's warm spit hit your eyes and face, he sold it like Eddie Edwards was a Dilophosaurus and he was Nedry getting acidic mucous spit into his eyes. The goggles! They do nothing!!! He also later took the most hilarious back bump, where it looked like he was jumping up and landing back first on a big trampoline, just 11 year old me getting bounced higher and getting sick air, landing on my back. Or doing a cannonball into a swimming pool, with all the grace of a "mom watch me dive!" child.

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ROH TV Workrate Report: 12/6/10

1. We start with Colt Cabana vs. Eddie Edwards and they take it to the mat and it's goofy but fun. Colt has some silly reversals that make me smile and Eddie does a real nice transition into a kneebar. Cabana reverses into a wristlock and really BENDS that hand back and it looks real painful. We're up and Edwards hits a dragon screw that Colt makes look GREAT by planting his knee directly into the mat and rolls to the floor. Eddie hits a big tope and this is pretty damn good. Cabana nails a clothesline to the back of Eddie's head lands some nice jabs and absolutely obliterates Edwards with his butt. Full on butt-butt right to the chest, just awesome. I can't decide whose jumping flying butt-butt I like more: Cabana's or Goldust's. It's like the difference between a lariat and a clothesline. Cabana runs at his opponent and leaps at them butt first, but Goldust throws his opponent in the ropes and lets their own momentum work against them by leaping up and making them run right into his butt. Ahhh I can't choose. We can just agree that butt offense is great.

Cabana goes for a butt-butt in the corner and Edwards hits a big flying knee and we go into a kinda sucky chop exchange but it doesn't matter because this is still good. Colt nails the corner butt and hits a really great moonsault. Match starts to go a little too long before Edwards' comeback and I think it's gonna go time limit but they SWERVE me and go to the finish. Plenty of stuff to like here, Colt looked really good throughout.

Christopher Daniels' eyeliner makes him look cross-eyed and he's still overshooting that moonsault. For a guy who was one of my favorites to see live in 1999, I sure don't want Daniels on my TV in 2010.

Corino and Steen are in the ring and Corino is in a SUIT and looks great. Steen is Henchman 21 pre-badass transformation and I'm still not loving his "I will destroy" promos about Generico.

Haze and Sara Del Ray have a backstage sit down interview and ROH does a good job of putting them in attractive lighting and they're fighting soon in a tag and Del Ray is cocky but realistic and Haze is likeable and affable and sick of Del Ray not giving her respect. Both gals did their thing and I want to see them fight. It's that easy.

2. Generico is out and DARK and BROODING and is a man on the edge. Bobby Shields looks like young Jerry Lynn and throws shitty elbows like present Jerry Lynn and then Generico throws two really lame yakuza kicks that graze Shields' shoulder and then gets the pin with the brainbuster. This wasn't much. Steen and Generico aren't convincing me with their spittle-beard promos and angry eyes.

3. KOW with Shane Hagadorn are in the ring and Shane is wearing basketball shorts and Claudio is wearing AWESOME dickish white slacks and suede slip-on loafers and a perfectly too-tight ref's shirt while drinking a latte. They do a public workout and bring in a short juiced up orange-tanned guy name Blaine Rage (wow) and Prazak is fucking terrible parroting every fucking thing Hero yells over the mic. Rage has the shittiest "intense guy about to snap" face you've ever seen and he SNAPS due to all the unfair cheating going on and that lasts about 1 second before he takes the KRS-1 and Hagadorn does a great shuffle with a little elbow drop for the pin.

4. And now the main event, Davey Richards vs. Erick Stevens. We start with some waistlock reversals and Davey does a cartwheel out of an exchange then waits in the middle of the ring goofily just so Stevens can run at him and get armdragged. Listless slap exchange follows and Davey at least brings some stiffness with kicks. Stevens misses a charge to the floor, Davey misses a baseball slide dropkick and Stevens slams him into the guardrail back first, looked really rough.

Back in and Stevens keeps working over the stomach and back with some convincing shoulderblocks in the corner and some decent knees. His knees in the clinch looked really good and Richards sold them nicely, really looking like the wind got knocked out of him. Stevens has gotten kinda skinny and it's done weird things to his face as he's all crazy eyes and jawbone. Stevens goes to the top and of course it wouldn't be a Davey match without a strike exchange. Davey does 8 or 10 really awkward headbutts as they battle up top, just kinda headbutting his own hand over and over. Maybe a better camera angle could have saved those.

We head into an extended run of Richards offense, with him hitting a nice running elbow to the corner, a silly handspring knee, and a diving headbutt. We go into a moves trade off for a bit with Stevens hitting a Dr. Bomb, Richards getting a big kick, Stevens hitting a release German suplex, then Davey turning a caught kick into an ankle lock (which Kurt Angle has flat out killed at this point. Once every single one of your opponents reverses your finisher numerous times per match, it's time to move on), Stevens fights for the ropes with his crazy eyes and what seems like a lot of teeth, and they kinda futz around for a bit until Richards locks on a totally bad ass Cloverleaf/Ankle Lock combo (starts out as a Texas Cloverleaf and then sits down with it, still grapevining the legs while grabbing and twisting the ankle. Really cool and painful looking) for the instant tap out.

Match wasn't bad but wasn't good either and seemed really really planned out. I have no ill will against guys planning out their matches to a tee (in fact I really loved a whole bunch of DDP matches) but I really think Davey could benefit from having a little more organic feel to his matches. Too many times during this match he had a blank expression (like Tom Hanks' Polar Express eyes) as if he was concentrating too much on the reversal sequences. Instead of missing a kick and then wisely countering with an enziguiri, it came off like he already knew he was missing that initial kick and following up with the enziguiri.

It has to be very tough to work a sequence when you know how you planned it out, and still make it feel like you don't know what's coming next. When a guy knows he's missing a splash off the top, it's hard to do the splash as if you're hitting it. You know it's a planned spot to miss the splash, so you naturally brace yourself and do the move slightly different.

A big key to why so many of Necro Butcher's matches work is because even though he has spots he regularly hits, all his matches have the feel that they can careen out of control at any minute. Nothing looks rehearsed, and Necro rarely awkwardly shuffles into position for something because he was out of place for a rehearsed sequence. He always seems like he's flying by the seat of his pants, and Davey could really benefit from a little of that spontaneity. He really comes off like a robot that's been programmed to approximate wrestling.

I'm not saying I want Davey to wrestle the same style as Necro, I just really wish he wasn't so rigid and set in his sequences.

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