The Impact Crater 11.01.07

Quick & Dirty Results

Segment #1: Kurt Angle/Sting/Kevin Nash Interview Segment
Segment #2: Frankie Kazarian def. James Storm in Fight for Your Right (TO PARRRRRRTY!) Tournament Match
Segment #3: Dudley Boys/Murder City Machine Guns Interview Segment
Segment #4: The Amazing Kong def. Christy Hemme
Segment #5: Samoa Joe & Gail Kim def. Bobby Roode & Traci Brooks
Segment #6: Christian def. Chris Harris in a Fight for Your Right (TO PARRRRRRTY!) Tournament Match
Segment #7: AJ Styles & Travis Tomko def. LAX to retain the TNA Tag Team Titles

The Main Stuff

Angle Numero Uno: It’s Not Scott

I know that I’ll probably catch some flack for discussing next week’s show before it’s happened, but I don’t think I can adequately discuss the main angle of this week’s show without coming out and saying that Scott Hall is not Sting’s partner for the pay per view. (However, he does appear as advertised on next week’s show.)

Now, the angle that got the most television time on this particular episode of Impact was Kurt Angle’s quest to determine who Sting’s mystery partner is. In the opening interview segment, he explained that he was going to do this. Kevin Nash also explained that, despite his swerve on the last pay per view, he doesn’t actually like Kurt Angle anymore. I’m fine with all of that. In fact, I would’ve been fine with a show-long angle in which Kurt attempts to uncover the partner’s identity with Nash conducting his own parallel investigation. I would’ve been fine with it in theory. Of course, there are times when the theory does not match up with the execution, and that’s exactly what happened here.

The investigation wound up being our regularly scheduled Kurt & Karen Angle Smile Time Comedic Variety Hour. I understand that, when Kurt Angle was in WWE, he did a lot of skits with Edge, Christian, and Mick Foley. I understand that these skits were damn funny. I understand that Angle, along with the TNA creative team, is probably attempting to recapture the magic of those skits. However, they’re missing out on a key difference between WWE at that point in time and TNA currently. When Angle was doing his dorky character in WWE, he was not the company’s main draw on pay per view. He was champion for some of his dork run, but, during those times, WWE was sure to book a second feud which was portrayed as equally important to the championship. Now, in TNA, Angle is one of the few guys in the promotion that has the potential to get viewers to consistently buy PPVs, but, no matter how funny a joke is, nobody is going to pay $30 to hear the punchline. History has proven time and time again that funny may hook in a TV audience but that it does not translate in to pay per view purchases. Again, given that TNA makes most of its money off of PPVs, they need to make sure that fans buy those shows. The comedy ain’t doing it.

It should also be noted that the comedy we saw tonight would not be particularly effective for the majority of TNA’s audience. I wasn’t writing these down as they happened, but, off the top of my head, I can recall references to the following in the Angle segments: The Ultimate Warrior, Jake “The Snake” Roberts, The Powers of Pain, Wahoo McDaniel, Billy Gunn’s “Mr. Ass” gimmick, Billy Gunn’s gay wedding, and the Shockmaster. I’m sure that the majority of the people reading this column get those references and probably even laughed at a few of them. However, when you look at who the majority of TNA’s viewers are, it becomes clear that the gags were a poor choice. I was just looking at the demographic breakdown of the TNA ratings for last week’s show, and do you know which two demographics make up the majority of the audience? Segments of the audience who are under thirty years of age, particularly teenagers. Teenagers may have gotten the jokes about Billy Gunn. However, you can’t tell me that fifteen year old wrestling fans are going to understand a joke about Wahoo McDaniel or the Powers of Pain. I’ve got no problem with periodically throwing a bone to older fans or slipping in an inside reference. However, they shouldn’t be present in every single backstage segment of a show that is primarily watched by younger viewers. What we really needed were jokes about Hannah Montana. That would’ve killed.

Aaaaaand I’ve got one last gripe about this whole angle, which ties in with the earlier spoiler. I’m not a fan of announcing that Scott Hall is the mystery partner when there’s no intention of actually following through on Scott Hall being the mystery partner. Yes, TNA is going to make it clear next week that Hall isn’t wrestling in the main event. Yet I have to wonder whether there are any hardcore Outsiders fans out there who, between now and next week, will have ordered the PPV expecting to see the bad guy in the ring. It’s not an outright bait and switch, but, for that demographic, it’s just as bad. For all I know, that number of people is relatively small, so I’m not going to knock TNA too badly for this one. However, I don’t know why they would risk creating bad will within any percentage of their fanbase, particularly given how few PPV buyers they have.

Angle Numero Dos: Fight for Your Right Fizzles

Excluding the inane reverse battle royale on the pay per view, I’ve been a pretty big fan of this year’s version of the Fight for Your Right (TO PARRRRRRTY!) tournament. It’s provided some good in-ring action, and the booking overall has been solid by TNA standards. However, tonight there were a couple of things that rubbed me the wrong way about the whole deal.

First of all, we had to have a last second replacement in the tournament because Rikishi has left TNA. Though I can’t fathom booking a guy in storyline that requires him to be on TV for several weeks without having him under contract, I’m here to talk about TNA’s booking, not their PR division. TNA explained the absence by saying that Rikishi was not there for “unknown reasons.” This is a minor point compared to some issues with this promotion, but why would you leave it at that? If a guy legitimately walks out on the company and you need an explanation, why not try to turn it in to some sort of angle? Of course, you’re not going to be able to use Rikishi, but you could easily blame his disappearance on an injury caused by Christian or even claim that Bobby Roode took him out to eliminate Samoa Joe’s backup. If you have an opportunity to put more heat on your heels, you probably should, and I don’t know why TNA wouldn’t take this one.

Now let’s talk about Frankie Kazarian. I would imagine that putting him in to this tournament and taking him all the way to the finals is supposed to be an avenue through which he is made in to a star. However, if that is TNA’s goal, you certainly wouldn’t have been able to figure it out from tonight’s show. Despite the fact that he’s been en route to the finals, Kazarian has regularly been booked in the shortest of the tournament matches. If the idea was to put him over as blowing through his opponents quickly, that’d be one thing. The company hasn’t taken that approach, though. Unless that is the goal, you’re going to need to make sure that the guy has ample time to showcase his abilities in the ring, otherwise fans aren’t going to be able to figure out that he’s a wrestler who they will pay to see put on matches. Also, you’ll note that Frankie got the win tonight in his match . . . but that win was not treated like it mattered in the slightest. Kazarian got no time to celebrate the win, and the announcers didn’t discuss it though it was a big deal. In fact, they couldn’t do that, because they immediately had to focus on a comedy bit between Eric Young and James Storm. I’m a fan of both Young and Storm, and, if the two become a tag team (which appears to be the plan), it’ll most likely be entertaining. Yet, at the same time, I can’t help but think that the post-match would be better used by giving Kazarian his due.

Angle Numero Tres: Bubba Dudley Wants to Fight Me

This week we saw the return of the Murder City Machine Guns, as they and the Dudley Boys had a verbal confrontation that culminated in the entire X Division beating the hell out of the Duds. There was some great stuff here, but, as with just about all of the segments in TNA, every silver lining has its cloud.

We’ll start with the good. First of all, when it came to the back and forth mic work between the two tag teams, things were hitting on all cylinders. Granted, nobody’s “Bubba is fat” jokes will be as good as Scott Steiner’s, but Shelley was a fair replacement, and the two units came across as having a legitimate beef with one another that they would settle at the next pay per view. Ideally, that’s what you want in a pro wrestling feud. Then, after you’ve got that, you let the guys fight. Of course, TNA wasn’t content to let the fight just happen. Instead, they had to interject the rest of the X Division, with literally ten men assaulting the Dudleys and taking them off of their feet. Now, I’d wager that the majority of people reading this column have watched wrestling before. I’d wager that they’ve also watched other professional sports and that they’ve watched television and major motion pictures. In wrestling, in sports, in movies, and in TV, who do people like to root for? Underdogs. Who do they despise? People who have an advantage and abuse it. So what do we have here? Our babyfaces outnumbering our heels FIVE TO ONE and beating them up. It’s good to know that the TNA bookers are so completely out of touch with reality that they can’t even grasp one of the most basic and universal concepts used in the entertainment industry. Also, you’ll note that these ten babyfaces came out to the ring with the intention of putting the Dudleys through tables. They failed. So, even though the good guys had every advantage imaginable, they couldn’t get the job done. Who could possibly cheer these faces?

And the Rest . . .

~ The greatest “TNA moment” during the show was when, halfway through, Mike Teny and Don West just started talking about Matt Morgan making decisions for TNA management. What the hell happened to Jim Cornette, guys?

~ Jimmy Rave and the Amazing Kong were in the Impact Zone for the same match. Despite the fact that they were out there together, the segment did not end with Kong beating the shit out of Rave. This was an egregious error, and I can only hope that TNA does not repeat it in the future.

~ The Dustin Rhodes promo tonight was actually a nice touch that added to the Black Reign character. Of course, we still have many questions to answer about this character. First of all, why does he think that mice scare pro wrestlers? Who allowed him to build a workshop backstage? What does he use that workshop for? And, most importantly, why would he use a container the size of a mailbox to carry around a house key?

~ Okay, so he just challenged Abyss to a LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS MATCH~! I guess the winner is the one to shove his opponent in to the man-eating plant.

~ They need to stop calling the Women’s Championship the “Knockout Title” immediately. Every time I hear that name I don’t think of a ladies’ belt. I think of a championship that can only change hands in last man standing matches. Even worse is “Women’s Knockout Title,” a phrase used a few times on this episode.

~ Speaking of women, I just want to point out that I’ve been watching Traci Brooks in matches since around 2004, and tonight she put on the best performance that I’ve ever seen out of her BY FAR. I don’t know what, if anything, she’s changed recently, but she need to keep it up.

~ Boo-urns to whoever put together the Booby Roode/Samoa Joe brawl. There was a hell of a bladejob by Joe and some awesome fighting between the two, but why on earth did we have to have the most exciting part of the whole deal happen DURING THE COMMERCIAL BREAK? I know that we got a replay of it, but I don’t understand why they wouldn’t let us see something that big as it was happening. It’s a taped show, guys.

Overall

Though you may not realize it from reading all of the above, I do have to say that this edition of Impact was slightly better than the average episode. This was in large part due to the strength of the product provided by the performers in the ring. I can honestly say that there was not a single bad match on the show. Everything ranged between good and excellent for the amount of time that it was given, with Kong’s continued dominance and the Tag Title match being the highlights. Yet, despite all of the fun matches, I still can’t call this a good show. Of course, that is because of the booking. The storylines are still largely nonsensical, and I can’t imagine why they would compel anybody to buy a pay per view. (They certainly haven’t been working on me.) For the last several weeks, watching Impact has been like watching some sort of perverse game taking place. It’s as though the creative team knows that they have a roster of highly skilled wrestlers and they’re going out of their way to book such horrid shit around it for the express purpose of seeing to what extent they can transform what should be an awesome show in to a nightmare. At some point, this company needs to do some serious self-examination, realize what they do well, and jettison what they do poorly. The game needs to end.

Reader Feedback

We’ll start with an ENORMOUS batch of feedback with a brief note from MJH:

Yo bro – just wanted to let you know that I have watch approximately 2 hours of TNA the past three years…….but I never miss your column. It is more fun that the actual show itself. You have a talent, keep up the good work.

Thanks for the kind words. If I have a talent, I’d like it to be for something other than reviewing wrestling shows on the internet, but I guess we’ve all got to play the hands that we’re dealt, eh?

Here’s Chris J. with a couple of brief notes:

I would like to point out that the Kurt and Karen promo where he asks her to seduce kevin, and dances around telling her to amp it up like 50 times was hilarious.

The second is actually for the Hidden Highlight column. James Storm’s beer, have you noticed the label yet? It looks like budwieser, but look at it closely, and it is actually the cowboy skull logo that he uses. James Storm has his own brewery just for him. Which is good, all I see him drink is beer, so just get your own brewery for the employee discount, smart dont ya think, lol.

Eh, to each his own, but I have a hard time laughing at a lot of the attempted comedy with the Angles. It comes off as horrendously forced, and from watching the skits it’s clear that so much more time goes in to coming up with these gags than does writing storylines that will actually get people to buy pay per views. Don’t get me wrong, comedy has its place in wrestling, but it should be secondary to making sure fans care about characters enough that they’ll pay to watch them.

And I had noticed the Storm beer bottles before. They remind me of wacky internet rumors on half-cocked “news” sites years ago which always seemed to report that Steve Austin was close to signing a deal with Budweiser that would result in his own brand of brewski being created.

Jeremy T. wants to rave about Raven:

You what stinks about Impact lately, Black Reign. His feud with Abyss, hast taken the monster from an interesting (albeit not completely original) potential money making feud with Judas Mesias, to lingering pile of crap in the midcard. Now the feud is making Abyss less interesting and isn’t doing anything to make Black Reign any more over than he already is. What I can’t understand is with the great performance by Raven in The Monster’s Ball at BFG, why didn’t they let him feud with Abyss until Mesias got back. I mean I sort of understand the idea that Abyss is knocking down the pins that are set in front of him until he gets to Mesias, but Raven deserves this. Plus if there is anything that Raven has proven in his career its that he knows how to get feuds over better than most anybody. His feuds with Dreamer and Sandman are the stuff of legends and his feud with DDP was one of the best things going during wrestling’s hottest period.

TNA should know this, through first hand experience. This is the same man that actually made their World Title scene important for the first time in their history. Throughout TNA’s entire existence it had always been about the X-division. It took Raven coming in and having one of the greatest feud’s in the company’s existence with Jeff Jarrett, to finally make TNA’s main event scene the most important and over thing in the company. Plus later on his World Title reign was one of the key things that kept TNA on the radar, also the debut of Samoa Joe, when they lost Fox Sports. If TNA doesn’t want Abyss to become stale and languish in a nowhere feud, then they should’ve given Raven the opportunity here. Everyone knows that historically Raven and Abyss gel well together, and it could’ve been cool to see Raven butt heads with Mitchell over leadership. Personally I believe the diabolical Raven would be more likely to discover another one of Abyss’s secret fears, rather than the moronic Black Reign. Plus the whole idea of Abyss being afraid of rats is pretty crappy. It was awesome during the Sabu/Abyss feud when Sabu re-introduced Abyss to his fear of barbwire that made for a good twist, because you wouldn’t expect Abyss to be afraid of barbwire and of course Sabu is the king of barbwire. Anyway it just stinks that Raven worked so hard and took some serious bumps at Bound For Glory, and he isn’t even rewarded with a continued spot on the show in a feud that was tailor made for him.

I actually haven’t watched the Monsters’ Ball match yet, but I definitely agree that in recent matches Raven appears to have rededicated himself to his craft and ratcheted up the level of effort. (And he’s trimmed down a good deal after dealing with his thyroid condition, which doesn’t hurt matters.) He’s certainly looked better in the ring recently than Dustin Rhodes has, though that doesn’t take much.

However, I don’t necessarily know that I would want to see Raven in Rhodes’ current position, and perhaps my reasoning behind this will provide a little bit of comfort to you. What, exactly, has occurred so far in the feud between Abyss and Rhodes? There have been a pair of beatdowns by Rhodes, one of which literally only lasted a minute and the another which didn’t get that much more television time. If you’re really an advocate of Raven having a bigger role in the promotion due to the quality of his recent performances, you probably don’t want him to be involved in this angle because it’s not a primary focus of the show. For lack of a better term, it’s filler. Raven wouldn’t have the opportunity to cut any of the great promos that he’s known for, and he wouldn’t be able to use whatever creative clout he has to come up with innovative ways in which to further the feud. More likely than not, the best that he would be able to pull off is the same barrage of one minute attacks that they’ve had Rhodes doing. As such, I’d almost prefer that Raven not be involved with anything until they can find the time to properly showcase his performances.

Ron M. recently made his return to Impact viewing, and it sounds like he’s not coming back anytime soon:

Well, this is the first Impact I’ve watched since June. I was going off of some of your more positive reviews and thought maybe this one would be decent…

-AJ taking a bump in the beginning of his video would have made some sense in his “X-Division guy” mode. But you’re right, not in the past couple of years. Honestly I think they just like their new “glass breaking graphic” toy.

Yes, you definitely picked the wrong time to tune in to TNA. I think that the promotion’s inconsistency is just as frustrating as their poor booking, if not moreso. For the longest time I would allow them to get my hopes up with the periodic good episode or angle, only for those hopes to be crushed weeks later. This has happened so many times that I’ve recently stopped giving the promotion the benefit of the doubt in any situation, which I’m sure has come across in my writing.

On the Billy Gunn front, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was going out of his way to look effeminate. He’s a heel now, and there are a lot of wrestlers who go out of their way to dress like tools when they’re heels as a means of getting some additional heat. Shawn Michaels and Jeff Jarrett are good examples.

Let’s wrap things up with an e-mail from Charles C., which is probably one of the longest pieces of feedback in Crater history. Since it’s lengthy, I’m going to break things up with Charles’ comments in italics and mine following them in regular text:

Great columns. Just a few minor disagreements/questions for you:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Taker-Batista at Wrestlemania and when they fought, Batista – Triple H were just straight up one on one matches. At the next PPV, Batista and Undertaker met in a Last Man Standing match. Wouldn;’t the Last Man Standing match seem “bigger” or more special than just a regular one on one match up? Simarily, Batista-Triple H had a hell in the cell match. Again, wouldn’t the hell in the cell stipulation make that match seem more “important” to the fans then their regular one on one match at Mania? Those gimmick matches are feud-enders, no?

Even though they have bigger stipulations, I would disagree that the later matches in the two feuds that you mentioned are more important than the Wrestlemania bouts that the competitors had. If you look at the Wrestlemania matches in both cases, there were MONTHS worth of storyline that preceded the encounter, meaning that stage of the rivalry is going to mean much more to fans than the follow-ups. Contrast this to the rematches, which typically only have a month’s worth of build after the initial encounter. Granted, I haven’t gone out and done empirical studies on this matter, but I’d be willing to bet that far more fans remember the tension within Evolution that lead to the Hunter/Batista Wrestlemania match than they do whatever angles were used to extend the feud in between subsequent contests between the two. Also, twenty years from now, it’s the Wrestlemania encounter between these rivals that will be remembered far more fondly than any of the follow-ups, even those that supposedly ended the feud. After all, even fifteen year old kids today talk about the Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant match from Wrestlemania III, but only the folks who were fans at the time can tell you that Hogan and Andre kept their rivalry going for over a year after that battle with more matches.

Also, why was Angle-Sting in the middle of the show?? It’s the World title, the main belt in TNA. Shouldn’t the match have gone on last, and then they could’ve ended the show with the segment by Cornette?

A good question. The only theory that I can think of is that, if you look at the demographic breakdown for TNA’s ratings, they actually have their highest numbers among teenagers and kids. It could’ve been that the company wanted the youngsters to see the match before they went to bed, similar to how the WWF would always put Hulk Hogan’s matches on halfway through the show on a Saturday Night’s Main Event.

Of course, I’ve since seen the quarter hour ratings for last week’s Impact, and the quarters during which Sting/Angle took place were actually among the lowest rated on the show, so, if that was the plan, it didn’t work.

A small point, I guess TNA makes all these gimmick matches because they feel they can’t compete with WWE if they just have straight up wrestling matches, so they try to add on to the intruge?

I haven’t heard anything definitive on this front, but it wouldn’t surprise me. It’s as though they’re trying to distinguish themselves from WWE, but they’re using methods that have a track record of not working. Unfortunately, they choose not to change these methods despite their constant poor numbers on pay per view.

Next, I agree about the tag partners who hate each other thing is overdone, but not necessarily about a tag match as the main event of the next PPV. Isn’t it a little overkill to have the champion defend his title on every PPV. You could make some PPVs seem more important than others by having a World Title match on maybe 8 PPVs out of 12 in the year, it seems. IMO, it beats seeing the same two guys in the same match for two or three PPV’s in a row…

Actually, the title is being defended on the next PPV. Cornette said that the person who gets the fall in the tag team match will get the championship.

Am I the only one who has a hard time believing this whole Traci’s scared of Roode angle? That sort of angle is when you use your big, “ripped” wrestlers like a Scott Steiner or Test. I found it easier to believe that Stacy was afraid of Test than I did that Marlena was afraid of Pilman or Traci’s scared of Roode.

I think the vast majority of women should fear a man who is physically threatening them. You don’t have to look like Scott Steiner to severely hurt somebody who’s half your body weight.

Whats wrong with Joe not being able to beat Angle, but largely able to dominate every one else? Every wrestler should have another who they don’t beat most of the time or can’t beat.. otherwise, they’ll run out of credible opponents because they’ve beaten everyone they can (Triple H, Cena….)

I don’t know why you’re asking me of all people that question, because I’ve never said that there’s anything wrong with Joe dominating everybody except Angle. I’ve never said it because that’s not what is actually happening. If you look at the way Joe has been booked for the last year or so, he hasn’t been dominant against any of his opponents. He’s repeatedly lost to Angle, he’s been portrayed as being on the same level as Christian, and now he’s a few weeks in to being portrayed as on the same level as Bobby Roode. His matches have also suffered in quality, because instead of going out there and being the unstoppable asskicker with babyfaces fighting from underneath, he’s now the TNA version of Dusty Rhodes.

Now, for just general gripes on my part, it seems like every one is bashing TNA for signing ex WWE guys and giving them a world title match nearly right off the bat, but need I remind you of WCW screwing up the seemingly unscrewupable, Bret Hart’s run. Midcard fueds galore, switching face and heel a lot…. these made Bret seem not so special anymore. You think Sting and Angle’s fans they got to watch by signing them.. (and there are some) would keep watching if Sting and Angle were in the midcard and lost every important match they were in?

I’ve never complained about TNA using WWE guys over the so-called “homegrown talent,” so I’m not the best guy to take this argument up with. Frankly, I don’t care who is on the show as long as the feuds around them are booked well and the matches are exciting. Granted, I have taken issue with TNA booking matches like Angle vs. Christian. However, it’s not because I’m mad that somebody like Christopher Daniels isn’t in the main event. It’s because doing a match that would’ve been midcard at best on Smackdown three years ago sends the message to new fans that, “Hey, our product is a watered down version of something you’ve already seen! Oh, and the something you’ve already seen wasn’t too important the first time around!”

And finally, for now, Summerslam was seen by many as a “$40 raw?” (And you can’t tell me ALL of that had to do with the booking? At some point, it is the WRESTLERS whose job it is to create memorable moments..) How long until the TNA PPV’s are seen as just a “$35 or $40” Impact? I blame the two hour shows. Fans demand competitive, quality matches for the TV show, and that takes away from the PPV. If you see say, Jeff Hardy vs. Kennedy have a 15 minute match on the TV show, or Rhino- Harris or something like that, what would make you want to pay for it again when it is booked on the PPV a few weeks later??

At some point, there’s a happy medium you have to strike. Clearly, booking all of your television matches to be competitive fifteen to twenty minute contests is a mistake because it does take away from pay per view. However, at the same time, you do need to periodically put high quality matches on television because a.) it helps to keep the network happy and b.) if you never give the fans a good match for free, they’ll start to believe that the promotion never puts on good matches and won’t buy PPVs to see them. If anything, I’d say that this is one thing TNA has done well since expanding to two hours, in that they’re not giving away too much of their best in ring product for free, but they are giving viewers just enough of a taste so that they’re aware a talented roster exists.

And that’ll do it for this week. I’ll be back on Sunday with the Custom Made News Report. Until then, check out the MySpace blog and add me as a friend to get updates when I post new content here on the site.