wrestling / TV Reports

The Impact Crater 11.22.07

November 23, 2007 | Posted by Ryan Byers

Quick & Dirty Results

Segment #1: Chris Sabin def. Abyss & D-Von Dudley in a first round Turkey Bowl match
Segment #2: Samoa Joe def. Billy Gunn & D-Vine Dudley in a first round Turkey Bowl match
Segment #3: AJ Styles def. Christian & Jay Lethal in a first round Turkey Bowl match
Segment #4: ODB def. Angel Williams & Talia Madison in what was sadly not a first round Turkey Bowl match
Segment #5: Samoa Joe def. AJ Styles & Chris Sabin in the finals of the Turkey Bowl

The Main Stuff

Angle Numero Uno: History’s Most Aptly Named Tournament

Tonight TNA decided to do a little bit a theme show, which they called the “Turkey Bowl.” The tournament featured three triple threat matches, with the winner of each moving on to a fourth triple threat match. The winner of the final match got $25,000, while the loser of the match had to wear a turkey suit.

First of all, let me say a little something about those stipulations. I don’t necessarily have a problem with somebody being forced to wear a turkey suit. Humiliating stipulations like that have been used throughout wrestling history, and they generally work pretty well for getting a crowd reaction if nothing else. However, I have to say that they put the wrong man in the suit here. Why would the loser of the final match be embarrassed? He actually winds up with a 1-1 record on the evening, whereas there are six other goofs who got eliminated earlier in the tournament and face no punishment whatsoever. If I were AJ Styles, I’d be pissed and demand that Abyss, D-Von Dudley, Billy Gunn, Johnny Devine, Christian, and Jay Lehtal all wrestle in turkey suits next week. (Preferably in a six man tag against each other.) Then we have the issue of the $25,000. Wrestling matches with fictitious cash prizes are just as old as the humiliation matches, but I think that it’s about time to get rid of them. Fans simply don’t care anymore. When audiences actually believed that faces were good guys and heels were bad guys, they would take pride in a person who they legitimately liked winning a large sum of money. Now that fans are well aware of wrestling’s fixed nature, I don’t think that there’s a single person who cares about a babyface walking away with his pockets allegedly lined by cash. If you’re going to give a guy a “cash prize,” at least throw in a nice trophy that a heel can smash up in order to further a feud.

As far as the rest of the tournament is concerned, there was a lot of stuff going on here, so I may as well take it match-by-match. I’d like to open by noting that things got off to a great nonsensical start when the wannabe NFL films announcer called the Turkey Bowl a “great tradition” despite the fact that it’s never happened before.

The opening match of the tournament and thus the opening match of the show was Abyss vs. Chris Sabin vs. D-Von Dudley. I knew that I was going to hate this tournament immediately because the opener featured four men (Rhino, Johnny Stamboli, Chocolate Reign, and Bubba Dudley) running in and fighting with various match participants. One of the reasons I’ve grown to hate triple threat matches is that TNA has figured out that such contests are a cheap way to throw all of the rules out the window, since there’s no logical way to do a DQ finish. (Though, come to think of it, when has logic stopped them from doing anything before?) Normally I wouldn’t mind the run-ins since this was the only match on the show that didn’t have a clean finish, but why the hell did they have to take place in the opening match of the show? Memo to TNA: Excitement is supposed to build throughout a show, and, if you give away too much in the opener, chances are good you’re going to kill off the crowd in later segments. This was made even more frustrating by the fact that the second tournament match, Joe vs. Devine vs. Gunn, was EXACTLY what the opener of a show needed to be, with enough excitement to capture fans’ interest but not with so many gimmicks that it would run the risk of burning out an audience. Had they just tweaked the order slightly, the entire show would’ve come off better.

The third of the first-round matches was AJ Styles vs. Christian vs. Jay Lethal, and this was a perfect example of one of my biggest TNA pet peeves. They took what could have been an entertaining matchup and completely ruined it with ridiculous bullshit that they think passes for good storytelling. First of all, Christian did not wrestle the first half of the match. He didn’t even make his entrance. Why? NOBODY KNOWS! Granted, they could theoretically explain this next week, but I’d be willing to bet $5 that we never get an answer as to why Cage was just magically not there for the match that could have potentially won him $25,000. When he did show up, AJ Styles ran off, which at least made a little bit of sense given that the company is running an angle in which Styles is trying to patch up a strained relationship with his former mentor.

Then we got the finish. The insipid, wretched finish. For those of you who may have missed it, Christian hit he Unprettier on Lethal. Then AJ ran down to the ring and hit Lethal with a top rope splash. As Christian sat in the middle of the ring with his thumb up his ass, Styles tried to get his attention. What AJ didn’t realize was that he was actually COVERING Jay Lethal as he nudged Cage, and the referee registered the three count. I understand what the promotion was trying to accomplish here, but the main thing that they got across was that Christian, AJ Styles, and Jay Lethal are all complete idiots and/or weaklings. First of all, Lethal got pinned despite the fact that Styles was putting no body weight whatsoever on him. Seriously. There was no physical contact between the two men at all as the referee was counting. I know that people might write in and say, “But, Ryan, he just took Christian’s finish! Of course he couldn’t move!” To counter that, I say the following: We see wrestlers hit their finishers and then pin a guy all the time. However, in at least 80% of these pinfalls, the victorious wrestler still hooks a leg, gets in to a proper lateral press position, or otherwise ensures that he’s actively holding his opponent down to the mat. This would lead me to believe that, in the kayfabe universe, rolling over slightly and getting out of pinning position is generally possible even after you’ve taken a finish. Jay Lethal failed to do this tonight, so he’s either an idiot for not thinking of it or a wimp for not physically being able to do it.

Worse than that was the light in which the finish portrayed AJ Styles and Christian. Granted, AJ Styles’ current character involves him being a little bit slow, but being so dumb that he doesn’t even realize that he’s pinning Jay Lethal downgrades him from “Southerner who lacks common sense” to “lobotomized Rhesus monkey.” First of all, the man is a professional wrestler, and we’re supposed to believe that he’s a pretty damn good one. So are we to believe that, despite all of the experience that he has in wrestling matches, he’s not aware of where his body is positioned in the ring? He’s so dense that he doesn’t know what constitutes a pinning predicament? Who is he, Kamala? Even if you’re willing to buy in to that, how could he be so dumb that he couldn’t see the referee counting the fall mere inches away from his body and realize what was going on? The same applies to Christian, who not only failed to realize what was going on when he heard the referee slapping the mat but also didn’t put two and two together when AJ Styles was tapping him on the shoulder and yelling, “Hey, look over here! Look at what is going on!” It was at this point I determined that an absolute ***** match was going to be necessary to prevent me from detesting this episode of Impact.

To be fair, we at least had the potential to get close to the ***** range in the main event, as Samoa Joe took on Chris Sabin and AJ Styles in the tournament final. Come to think of it, these guys could have had a ***** match. Hell, they could have had wrestling’s first ever ****** match for all I know. They could’ve cured cancer. I honestly can’t tell you how good the match was or what the three guys did against each other because, every time any sort of momentum started to build up, we got sent to a commercial break. The match, which ran for roughly twenty-five minutes, featured FOUR commercial breaks. I can understand having to pause for ads during a longer match. I’ll even understand two breaks in a match that starts to go over the twenty minute mark. But four? That, my friends, is overkill and indicates poor planning of a show that is taped several day in advance of its air date. It took what could have been an awesome encounter and made it impossible to get in to. Every time that I came close to finding myself emotionally invested in the work that the wrestlers were doing and every time that I was starting to get excited after a string of eye-popping moves, there was a break, thus killing all of the contest’s prior momentum. The guys were working their butts off, and this had the potential to be one of the best free TV matches of the month if not the year. Unfortunately, the poor editing resulted in it not even being the best free TV match of the week, as Jeff hardy vs. Umaga from Raw easily beats it out.

Angle Numero Dos: Why Couldn’t Kurt Take the Holiday Off?

The other big feature of the evening was a series of skits involving Kurt and Karen Angle hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for a random assortment of wrestlers from the TNA locker room. I’m not sure exactly where they were hosting this dinner, because at some points they said it was at their home and at some points they said it was in a studio, but we’ll ignore that detail. We’ll ignore it because there are bigger fish to fry.

The show opened with the first of the skits, which took place before the majority of the Angles’ guests arrived. This had its moments, and I actually would have been willing to call it pretty damn funny if it wasn’t the same schtick that we see week in and week out from the Angles. In saying grace, Kurt noted that he was thankful Pac-Man Jones was no longer with the company. That comment rubbed me the wrong way. It’s basically the company saying to fans, “Hey, remember when we pushed that football player for a couple of months? We know you didn’t like that. We know it sucked . . . but guess what? We put you through it anyway!” The WWF can get away with periodic gags about something like the Goobledygooker or Mantaur, because those lousy ideas were hatched years ago. TNA, though, made a bad choice of reminding everybody of Pac-Man while the wounds are still fresh. Fortunately the opening segment was saved by the Angles’ six year old daughter Kyra, who shot Kurt an AWESOME death stare from the kids’ table when he said that she could be a brat sometimes. She has now entertained me more in two seconds than her father has in the last two months, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s a better wrestler than Talia Madison. Get her in to the women’s division.

After that, the skits really took a nosedive. They aired before and after virtually every commercial break during the show, save for the breaks that were taking place in the middle of a match. They all followed the same basic pattern, in that the Angles would get a knock on the door, followed by a new guest arriving. Once the guest walked through the door, EVERYBODY WOULD START YELLING. I’m not kidding. A new person would show up in the room, and it was as though this was everybody else’s cue to start talking over each other. All of them were miced as well, so it’s not as though you heard one or two guys over what was essentially background noise. Instead, everybody’s voice was at the same level, and we were left to just listen to EVERYBODY YELLING for two minute periods. Occasionally something would happen that was supposed to be funny, though I couldn’t tell you whether I would’ve laughed at it because I never had an opportunity to hear enough to get any jokes. Has anybody in TNA production even watched television before? Do they realize that on other shows, when there are scenes involving ten people on camera at once, only two or three characters can be heard by the audience? Do they realize that there’s a DAMN GOOD REASON for this? Apparently not. Welcome to TNA, now featuring the slogan “The louder it is, the better it is.”

And the Rest . . .

~ So they’re hyping a Booker T. match for next week. Good to see that they’re still trying to make his appearances out to be something fairly special. That’s not going to be possible forever, so you may as well try to keep it going for as long as you can.

~ Would it have killed the company to photoshop Ricky Banderas out of those Turning Point posters?

~ Chris Daniels is suddenly religious again after that aspect of his character was completely ignored for months. Great.

Overall

When I first read the spoilers for this edition of Impact, I was looking forward to the show. It looked like the company realized that they weren’t going to have a lot of viewers for a holiday episode and thus decided to put together a show which was light on angles and heavy on wrestling. It looked like a filler show but a perfectly acceptable filler show which may even have featured a good match or two. Needless to say, that is not what happened. What we got wasn’t just the average lousy episode of Impact. It was as though somebody made a conscious decision to pick two or three of TNA’s worst qualities (unfunny “comedy,” bullshit finishes to matches, and poor editing come to mind) and magnify them a thousandfold. If I wasn’t writing this column, I can guarantee you that I would have turned the show off at about the halfway point, when I assumed we were about ten minutes away from being done but then looked at a clock and realized I had to sit through another sixty of utter crap. Good shows are supposed to make time fly, not make it feel as though you’ve watched twice as much television as you actually have. This was easily the worst Impact since the move to two hours, and I can say without hyperbole that it is in contention for worst Impact of the year. I just hope that Kurt and Karen Angle aren’t brought up on child abuse charges for exposing their daughter to a show this bad.

Reader Feedback

We’ll kick it off with a quick note from regular John R.:

Can’t say too much more than what you’ve already said on the Crater. Great job, hope they keep building up Kaz and the MCMG’s, and way to put people like Alex K in their place! Peace!

I too certainly have my fingers crossed when it comes to the continued ascension of some new stars in TNA, though I think at the end of the day good writing will get them much further no matter who they’re pushing.

Myles L. has a question about my advocating an Amazing Kong vs. Jimmy Rave squash match:

Not sure as to why you would want to see Jimmy Rave buried. In ROH, he was one of the better heels I have seen in quite some time. I fully understand that LAX are a great team and that Lance Hoyt’s most successful run was with Dale Torborg. Just looking to a reason why there’s so much hate for Jimmy Rave.

Well, Myles is certainly entitled to his own opinion, but I honestly thought that Rave was fairly worthless in ROH without Prince Nana there to compliment him. They were two guys made for each other, and it always felt like one never really worked without the other. Rave does have Christy Hemme in TNA, but I think we can all agree that Christy Hemme is no Prince Nana. As such, I don’t see much use for Rave and would enjoy seeing him used as Kong fodder.

From Rave to Kaz, Ron M. continues our discussion of TNA midcarders:

I just happened to be home to see the last half hour of Impact. Very good stuff. With Kaz, this is the first time TNA has built someone up well from next to nothing. And the match was excellent too.

But like you said, there’s always an opportunity to for them to throw it all away just around the corner. Here’s hoping they don’t screw up.

Kazarian definitely has done his absolute best with the opportunities that he’s been given, so, if his push fails at this point, I think that it will definitely be the fault of the office and not the man. I did catch a different review of last week’s Impact which argued that TNA made Kazarian look weak because he just vanished after the main event as opposed to hanging around to get potential rub from the Outsiders and Samoa Joe during their run-in. That certainly wasn’t the vibe that I got from the segment, and hopefully it’s not indicative of company’s feelings towards Frankie.

And we’ll wrap it up with Brian, who has a prediction about the main event for the next pay per view:

TNA is all about thinly veiled swerves. That being said, I think it’s obvious that in the six man tag between Angle/Tomko/Styles vs Hall/Nash/Joe is going to just be a five on one beat down on Joe. (Probably six on one as Christian will likely join in on the festivities.) Remember, you heard it here first.

How sad is it that this would not surprise me in the least?

And that’s a wrap for this week. I’ll be back in seven days to do this again, though I’m beginning to wonder why. Until then, check out the MySpace and add me as a friend to get a bulletin notification every time I put a new column up on the site.

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Ryan Byers

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