TNA iMPACT Review - Thursday 27th March 2008

In all the hullabuloo of Wrestlemania week TNA were this week trying to make an impact of their own with a live show instead of a pre-record and the much hyped return of Sting.

Good Points

Go live every week

A live iMPACT had a much better feel to it than their pre-record broadcasts they usually put out every week. I know it’s more risky and more costly to go live but for the viewer it adds an edge to a show. There were a few mistakes with bad camera shots and so forth but the positives far outweighed the negatives.

Unpredictability

The show kicked off with a shot of Booker T and Robert Roode fighting through the crowd. Its an unusual move to a start show mid action but I thought it was different and added an edge to the show. The viewers who were tuning in to the show for the first time may not have been able to follow what was happening to begin with but as it was exciting it will have encouraged them to get in to the show and as it happens the situation was explained straight after through Jim Cornette.

Highlighting a WWE contracted wrestler in the crowd

This was a great move by the TNA to do a shot with a strap over the bottom of one half of the WWE Highlanders tag team who was in the crowd. Although he didn’t wrestle it gave the feel of the Monday Night Wars again when wrestlers showed up on other promotions shows after making the switch.

Great use of Sting

Was a great comeback by Sting strong on the mic and strong in the main event. Was a nice twist to see his return overshadowed by James Storm who interfered after the 8 man Lethal Lockdown warm up match for Team Tomko to lay the beat on Team Cage.

Bad Points

Terrible acting by Karen Angle

I never thought I would have a bad word to say about Karen but this week she got exposed. In a one on one backstage interview with Mike Tenay she put over the fact that her marriage had fallen apart. Getting a storyline like this right is very hard and unfortunately Karen fell in to the over acting category. Karen needs other characters to work off and constructed situations not backstage one on one interviews.

Giving away PPV matches for free

It’s the old WCW trap of giving away PPV matches for free which TNA fell in to this week. They had the Lethal Lockdown match just minus the six sides of steel as the main event. In my opinion once you have a match in place for a PPV you shouldn’t give away that match for free on TV. You should build the feud by getting the competitors to compete against each other but in different ways like they could have broken down the eight man tag in to two tag team matches, that’s what I have would have done.

Booker T – Hot and Cold

The first five minutes of iMPACT was intense with Booker T and Robert Roode fighting through the crowd. Jim Cornette announced a match to take place later on in the evening between the two which turned out to be a first blood match. Before the match Roode cut a promo on how he enjoyed beating on Booker’s wife but instead of adding intensity Booker T then after winning the math proceeded to hit Roode a few more times before the ref dragged him off. If someone had said that about your wife you would normally need security to pull you off. It is hard to maintain intensity for a long period of weeks but they need to wok hard to be consistent.

Knockouts Division getting stale

It’s just seems to be Awesome Kong, O.D.B and Gail Kim just revolving around the same match and the same storyline every week. They need a more entertaining storyline than just a simple we want your title storyline and they need time given to other girls in the division.

Who can understand what TNA are doing with LAX

After one member of LAX losing to Sonjay Dutt last week it was LAX’s turn to beat Steiner, Petey Williams and Raka Khan in a six person tag. So Lax lose to someone who is just there for comedy value but this week beat a team who are on a push and have storyline time it makes no sense.

Overall

Although there were a lot of bad points going live made this an entertaining show and without it would have just been remembered as a booking mess. A combination of going live every week and good booking will get this promotion to where it needs to go.