TNA iMPACT Review - Thursday 3rd July 2008

After an average iMPACT last week and with WWE starting to pick up TNA need to start working hard again. With Victory Road getting closer some more matches need to be made for it and soon to give them enough time to build them correctly.

Good Points

Finally Samoa Joe has match on iMPACT as he partnered with Kevin Nash against Robert Roode and James Storm in the main event. It was also good to see Roode and Storm in a main event and was one of the best main event matches for a little while on iMPACT.

Great match made for Victory Road

With Angle injured the TNA are doing well to keep him around this time putting him in to a six man tag match at Victory Road as he partners with Team 3D to take on Rhino, Christian Cage and AJ Styles. This has the potential to be match of the night although it will be AJ’s team who will have to do most of the work.

Bad Points

Angle loses intensity and credibility

After being involved in some tense stuff with AJ Kurt has now been withdrawn in to a comedy role. The show had many segments with Angle from during the week where he had been set up on dates by Team 3D. This made all the previous weeks of building his intensity worthless.

Booker T

For someone who is suppose to be in a PPV main event to only have one backstage interview during the show with less than two weeks to go before the PPV is crazy. This makes even less sense than not having Samoa Joe wrestle on a regular basis.

No build for Two PPV matches

Tonight there was no build for Jay Lethal vs. Sonjay Dutt after TNA finally gave Sonjay Dutt some good TV time last week. We also saw no build for LAX vs. Roode and Storm except for a backstage LAX promo.

Overall

A terrible mess I don’t know who wrote this nightmare of a show. Probably the same person who was directing as some of the camera angles were shocking.

TNA iMPACT Review - Thursday 12th June 2008

After a mediocre at best Slammiversary it was time to see if TNA could deliver with a strong iMPACT.

Good Points

Great build for tag team feud

TNA did a great job of building a feud between the team or Roode & Storm and LAX. First Storm and Roode cheated to get the win and the belts then the ref reversed the decision and started the match over. Then LAX picked up the win but it was after that when Roode and Storm got LAX handcuffed to the ring posts and started strapping them mercilessly which has put the real fuel on this fire.

Good develop of the Karen / Kurt storyline

Karen was confirmed as a signed talent to TNA meaning Kurt Angle could no longer hit her. This meant that Kurt was going to get a female wrestler to do his dirty work for him. It wasn’t until the end of the show that with surprise Awesome Kong cam down to knock Karen out. Wonder what’s going to happen next?

Abyss is back on iMPACT

Great to see Abyss back on iMPACT and after beating on Scott Steiner at the PPV I assumed he would stuck in a feud with Scott but Abyss made his presence felt on the main event scene as he cleared house after the AJ vs Angle main event.

Bad Points

Build up for World Cup

There was a big too much time given to the upcoming X-Division tournament with many wrestlers featuring in preview matches for the tournament that the crowd had never seen. This as a viewer took you out of the action for lengthy spots during the two hour show. I know they have to build it but should build more steadily over a longer period.

Dropping the ball with Kaz

After having Kazz win in the best match on iMPACT last week to secure a shot at the champion on iMPACT this week I was disappointed to se this match out first. They should have main evented this match an made it something special so they could push Kaz. With so much going on in TNA right now I think Kaz just got lost in the shuffle.

Overall

A superb show. I love the pace of TNA shows they always have me feverishly scribbling notes in order to keep up. They’ve got some good feuds already set for the next PPV so am looking forward to see how they develop.

TNA iMPACT Review - Thursday 3rd April 2008

After WWE’s recent Wrestlemania extravaganza TNA needed to start pushing this week to get hold of those viewers who are excited for wrestling again and get some attention to their upcoming PPV Lockdown. So as always here are my good and bad points of this week’s show.

Good Points

Formula

Every week the formula of TNA shows gets better and better. This week the show started with a video recap of all the recent incidents in TNA. I believe that every weekly show should start with a video recap as weekly shows are about getting new viewers to your show so that they will buy the PPV so they need to know what is going on and your existing fan base needs to be reminded of recent events just in case they have forgotten something that happened or missed a recent episode.

Good booking of Lethal Lockdown feud

After my plea last week TNA have improved their booking of Lethal Lockdown and as per my suggestion they broke the feuds down in to singles and tag matches with AJ Styles & Tomko going up against Rhino & Cage whilst Sting headlined against James Storm. It was good to see James Storm getting a big push but they have to be careful not to do it at the expense of Tomko and Cage.

Use of Matt Morgan

This show was about pushing Matt Morgan which they did by featuring him in many segments throughout the show. All episode they had been building the fact that he was on Team Tomko’s side by letting them add Storm to their team for him to then turn on Storm in the main event as in his capacity as referee assisted Sting to the win and to rip off his Ref’s shirt to unveil his Team Cage T-Shirt. The storyline was telegraphed and you could see it happening a mile off but it was still good TV.

Bad Points

Superhero or Superidiot Eric Young

This is cringeworthy TV at best with the Eric Young segments. Now it’s bad enough that it takes up TV time but when they have him interrupting other people like Kurt Angle and ruining their segments. Now Eric is doing his best with this storyline but TNA need to find him something new and fast.

Lighting and Camera angle of backstage segments

This is something TNA need to improve on. Their backstage segments went from being overly bright to overly dark and back again throughout the show. The camera angles are also very interesting as throughout backstage segments the cameramen seem to want to be consistently changing angles with no direction or purpose. Changing the lighting or a camera angle for a reason is good production but this currently seems to be inconsistent at best.

Overall

A great show more of the same please TNA creative team just remember to work on production and try and keep us guessing.

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.

TNA Impact Review - Thursday 28th February 2008

The show got off to a great start with a backstage segment featuring the continuing breakdown of Karen and Kurt Angle’s marriage. Kurt is really doing well at trying to make himself the top heel in the promotion which is hard for him considering how many fans he has. The first in ring segment was the right storyline to push next which was the Booker T / Robert Roode feud. Unfortunately though after Booker T called Robert out it was Payton banks that made her way down to ringside to slap Booker with Traci Brooks making the save. It was a good idea to build the Booker T can’t hit a woman like Robert Roode side of the storyline but it was poorly executed with the segment leaving the focus on the girls and no Booker & Roode.

I’m loving the 3D weight loss storyline at the moment. At first I was annoyed with their invasion in to the X-Division but now that they are away from the title and playing comedy heels instead of angry heels it works a lot better. Their out of ring segments which follow them trying to lose weight backstage and during the week are hilarious.

The two storylines which I’m not in to at the moment are the Eric Young monsters angle and the James Storm / Rhino feud. I think the Eric young being scared of Rellik and Black Reign storyline could get interesting if he decides to take on a superhero alter-ego but if not done right could look very bad. With the James Storm / Rhino storyline I am not buying James Storm’s work. What should be an intense feud has got too much comedy in it with Storm’s fear of heights and his drinking championship matches whereas Rhino is playing this feud with the intensity its back story deserves.

After the poor start to the continuation to the Booker T / Robert Roode feud it ended well on the night with Robert Roode finally making getting inside the venue. At first this didn’t make any sense as he had been running from Booker T for the last couple of weeks as a villain should so to actually come to the venue made no sense for me. The ending was superb though with Robert Roode handcuffing Booker T and laying a beat down in the ring on him until security broke it up. The only problem with this intense finish is that thy need to continue at this same level of intensity up until their PPV match or this night will be lost.

The main event wasn’t much to write home about. What Nash is doing in a main event I will never know but at least it was a non title bout with Kurt. So overall a solid outing with nothing spectacular for TNA this week.