The Impact Crater 03.01.07

Quick & Dirty Results

Segment #1: “Man Reluctant to Do His Impressions” Jay Lethal, Low Ki, & Jerry Lynn def. Alex Shelley, Austin Aries, & Chris Sabin (This was referred to as an “X Division Classic” in an show-opening graphic. It was probably the best X match on Impact in a while, but still far from a “classic.”)
Segment #2: Scott Steiner squashed Chase Stevens. Then a huge cluster broke out.
Segment #3: Alex Shelley/Bubba Ray Dudley Promo
Segment #4: THE STUPIDEST RESULT IN TNA HISTORY

Angle Numero Uno: Russo Rears His Ugly Head Once More

Last week, I gave TNA some credit. I said that the show was better than usual. In fact, I said that some parts of the show were outright good. I would like to take this opportunity to officially retract everything that I had said previously. This company is not improving. In fact, it’s probably getting worse. Why? Because, tonight, we saw the worst decision that Vince Russo has made since he started writing TNA again.

Normally I prefer to make this a column for people who have already watched the show. However, this is so monumentally dumb that I want to go ahead and spell out exactly what happened for those of you who may have missed the program but are reading this anyway: Samoa Joe was set to wrestle Tyson/Travis Tomko. The match took place, and things were going along well until the finish. What happened then? Christian snuck out to the ring and hit Joe across the back with a steel chair. Tomko then hit a clothesline and pinned Joe. One more time, just for those of you who might think that was a typo: Tomko then hit a clothesline and pinned Joe. BUT, WAIT, THERE’S MORE! Abyss saunters down to the ring after the bell rings and lays out Joe with the Black Hole Slam. Sigh.

Why was this so stupid? I’ll tell you why it was stupid. Samoa Joe, since coming to TNA, has been an unstoppable badass. He went on an eighteen month streak during which he was neither pinned nor made to submit. When that streak finally was broken, it was broken by Kurt Angle, who is easily the largest star in the company and somebody who is being portrayed as a world class professional wrestler. We’re just a few months removed from the most recent of those losses to Angle, and Joe is headed in to a match for the World Heavyweight Championship against Christian. So what does Vince Russo do? He has Tomko, a man who is essentially a glorified manager, pin Joe in the middle of the ring. This would have been stupid enough if Joe was just the number one contender. Why? Because people draw on pay per view when they’re made to look like CREDIBLE CONTENDERS. Fans need to believe that there’s an equal likelihood that either man in the main event will win. That’s why UFC has been doing such great buyrates over the course of the last year. Instead of making Joe credible, what Russo decided to do was have him pinned by a man on the roster who is completely insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

The stupidity is only compounded when you take in to consideration that previous persona of Joe’s that we talked about. The man was an unstoppable killing machine, and the results of his matches with Angle, even though they might not have destroyed that character, did put a little dent in it. What the company needed to focus on now is building Joe up again, not continuing to tear him down. Now he doesn’t just look like a guy who was beaten by Angle or a guy who just happened to have a flukey loss against Tomko. He’s a guy who has had both happen, so now your number one contender to the World Heavyweight Championship is on a bona fide losing streak instead of the winning streak that any number one contender (particularly a number one contender with Joe’s history) should be on.

But that’s not all, folks. Joe wasn’t just pinned. Joe wasn’t just pinned by a man that had no business pinning him. Joe wasn’t just pinned by a man who had no business pinning him at exactly the wrong time for him to be pinned. He was pinned after a CHAIR TO THE BACK and a CLOTHESLINE. In 2007. You just had an X Division match earlier on the show with men taking much bigger moves and not coming anywhere near close to staying down for a three count. Hell, it took a belly-to-belly superplex to pin Chase Stevens, a jobber. So now Joe’s not just a guy who can be beaten by a nobody, he’s a guy who can be beaten by a nobody using moves that haven’t gotten a pinfall since roughly 1985.

And then Abyss comes out, seemingly sides with Joe, and lays him out with the Black Hole Slam. So Joe has now been punked out twice in a span of about ninety seconds. Plus he trusted that Abyss would actually be helping him out, so he’s a moron in addition to being a guy who can’t win a fight. Once again, your number one contender is left with absolutely no redeeming qualities, leaving viewers no reason to order the pay per view. Way to make money for your company, Russo!

I can already see people writing in and making efforts to defend this dreck, so I may as well go ahead and address the counter-arguments that I anticipate rolling in:

“But Ryan!” people may exclaim. “This is a great idea because people will buy Joe as a credible wrestler as soon as he wins the title, and then Tomko also looks credible because he pinned the guy who won the title! You make two stars instead of just one!” No, that doesn’t work, kids. You know why? Because TNA has a pay per view headlined by Joe to sell NOW, not down the road. That means that he needs to be a credible force on the roster NOW, not down the road.

“But Ryan!” people may exclaim. “This is a great idea because it sets up feuds with Abyss and Tomko after the Christian match! Now when Joe wins the title, he’ll immediately be able to feud with either of them!” Again, this completely ignores the pay per view that the company is currently trying to sell to its audience.

“But Ryan!” people may exclaim. “Wins and losses don’t mean anything in professional wrestling in 2007!” Again, I point you to UFC. What has been the formula that has made them successful? They convince the masses that the two guys in the main event both have an opportunity to beat one another, and then people pay to see exactly which one of them does win that match. Here, even if the fans are “smart” and not thinking about professional wrestling as a real sport, they could take the Joe loss as a sign that the company no longer has faith in him, resulting in a loss of confidence in the fact that the company would book him to win the championship.

If you still don’t believe that this is dumb, let me pose a little hypothetical to you. Let’s say that you’re watching a WWE program during the build to Wrestlemania 23 and somehow the main event winds up being the Undertaker wrestling Armando Alejandro Estrada. The Undertaker, as you all know, is headed in to a match for the World Heavyweight Championship in the main event of that pay per view program. Would you expect to see Armando pinning the Undertaker in the middle of the ring after some choking on the ropes and a big boot? No, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t because it’s BAD BOOKING, and people in WWE know better. People in TNA don’t, and that’s why the company will be second rate until they finally get some individuals with a clue writing their shows.

Angle Numero Dos: Enough with the Goddamn Pull-Aparts

Seriously. Ninety percent of Kurt Angle’s feud with Samoa Joe was pull-apart brawls. Now we see not one not two but three of them between Angle and Steiner in the same show. Much like guys jumping each other before the bell rings to start the match, this is quickly becoming a TNA cliche and losing any of the effect that it might have had otherwise. (Particularly when you consider the fact that WWE has also been doing a lot of them lately, first with Umaga and John Cena and again with Umaga and Bobby Lashley.) TNA needs to figure out another way to get people to anticipate these Kurt Angle matches. I propose having one or two feuds in which the guys don’t touch at all before the first meeting and instead rely on cutting promos on one another. Again, it’s something that has worked for UFC, and it’s something completely and utterly different than what the vast majority of pro wrestling promotions are doing these days. Ultimately, that’s what TNA needs to be . . . something fresh, something different. They can’t just keep copying WWE’s material or, even worse, copying their own material from a couple of months ago.

As far as the rest of the Angle segment is concerned, I could either take it or leave it. Cornette’s delivery in the promo was good, though I’m curious as to whether his interaction with Angle will actually lead somewhere or whether it was just an excuse to get our Olympic gold medalist out of the building for the rest of this show. If it was the latter, it’s pointless because it could have been done just as effectively in less than half the time. If it was the former, I can’t really complain about it until I see exactly where it goes.

Angle Numero Tres: You Can’t Spell Alex without LAX

For all of the other crap on this show, I’m happy to see Alex Shelley coming out to the ring and participating in a somewhat important angle as opposed to being confined to the thirty second long Paparazzi Productions segments. However, this is similar to the Cornette/Angle interaction from earlier. There have been so many forgotten angles in TNA and so many things that just haven’t made sense recently that I can’t trust that this is indicative of any sort of long term plans for Shelley. Hopefully it will be, though. Having him team with somebody (possibly Nash?) against the Dudley Boys at the next pay per view would likely produce an entertaining contest and space out the Dudleys versus LAX series of matches that we all know will be continuing. Plus, news broke on the internet recently that we’ll be getting a Best of Paparazzi Productions DVD on the market in the not too distant future, so maybe we’ll get an even bigger Shelley push to try to sell copies of that one. Hey, I’m all for doing whatever it takes to make the Border City Wrestling alum a staple of the professional wrestling world.

And is anybody else surprised that TNA didn’t take time out to introduce Johnny Rodz as a WWE Hall of Famer? They seem to take everybody else’s WWE accomplishments so seriously that I figured his would definitely get a mention.

And the Rest . . .

~ Okay, I’m sick of this Tomko/Christian dissension. They’ve been together for about two months, and Steiner has been with them for a matter of weeks. Can’t we have a new stable be COHESIVE for a little while before they tease breaking up? My favorite part of the show was probably Xian saying that, with Steiner occupied, he and Tomko being together would be “just like old times.” Again, I must point out that Steiner didn’t come in to their world until THREE WEEKS AGO. Old times?

~ When did Low Ki turn face?

~ Oh god. Last week, I joked when Don West basically said that Jay Lethal’s new gimmick is a “man reluctant to do his impressions.” So what did we get before his match? JAY LETHAL, MAN RELUCTANT TO DO HIS IMPRESSIONS~! Note to Russo supporters: This does not count as giving somebody a character.

~ Based on the vignette shown tonight, the contract that Eric Young signed with Bobby Roode didn’t make Young in to Roode’s employee. It made Young in to Roode’s preteen son.

~ Is that Chris Harris, or has Karl Oulette lost weight?

Overall