The Impact Crater 01.10.08

Welcome, one and all, to the Impact Crater. I’m Ryan Byers, and hope that everybody has had a productive 2008 thusfar. As most of you probably noticed, I was off last week, and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Steve Cook for filling in. Cook did a fine job, and you should all take some time to read his Ask 411 columns if you don’t already.

Quick & Dirty Results

Segment #1: The Murder City Machine Guns def. Low Ki & Elix Skipper
Segment #2: Ricky Banderas def. Chris Harris
Segment #3: Sonjay Dutt & Petey Williams def. The New Age Outlaws
Segment #4: Dudley Boys & Johnny Devine Interview Segment
Segment #5: Bobby Roode/Traci Brooks Interview Segment
Segment #6: LAX def. Jimmy Rave & Lance Hoyt
Segment #7: Travis Tomko def. Shark Boy
Segment #8: Kurt Angle/AJ Styles/Christian/Samoa Joe Interview Segment
Segment #9: The Amazing Kong def. Gail Kim to win the TNA Women’s Title

The Main Stuff

Angle Numero Uno: Kong/Kim: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

For months now, I’ve been saying that Gail Kim vs. Awesome Kong has been the best booked feud in TNA. The build between the matches has been simple, effective, and exactly the sort of thing that the company needs to do for all of its rivalries. The matches themselves have also been very good. Though I have seen better women’s wrestling, the vast majority of the North American audience has not, particularly within the last decade. As such, even though Mike Tenay’s claims that the feud has been “revolutionary” may sound like standard over the top hype from a wrestling announcer, they are actually true to a certain extent. Yet, despite the fact that the feud has been the best on Impact and despite the fact that it is a breath of fresh air on the national wrestling scene, it’s never been all that heavily featured on TNA programming. Generally the segments involving the two women have run no more than five minutes. That all changed tonight, when the encounter between Kim and Kong received more focus than just about anything else on the program. So, what’s the verdict? Did the rivalry retain its magic, or did the fact that the feud is no longer under the radar mean that TNA’s usual ineptness ruined it?

I think that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. The road to the match that was featured on this evening’s episode was a good one, as was evidenced by the live crowd’s reaction to the competitors. Putting the title bout in the main event slot and giving it the same treatment that would be given to a men’s World Title match (video package, tale of the tape, special intros) made it feel like a special moment. On top of that, the in-ring action that we saw was fairly good. However, TNA failed to knock this one completely out of the park. There were a few flaws in the execution, and, though I don’t think that those flaws completely ruined the evening, they do make me worry that the high quality women’s division may eventually be booked just as poorly as the rest of the company’s product.

The first problem that I had with the evening’s events was the series of comments given by members of the TNA roster about the title match. Normally I would highly endorse these comments, because they help to demonstrate that the promotion’s wrestlers care about the match. If the wrestlers care about the match, fans then begin to think that they should also care about the match. However, that’s not what two of the three segments were about. Though I commend Kurt Angle for doing his best to put the contest over as a meaningful title bout, there was no excuse for TNA running in-character comments from ODB and Jay Lethal. This promotion needs to learn that not everything in wrestling is comedy and that inserting comedy in to some angles can actually be detrimental to them. This was a prime example of detrimental comedy, as members of the promotion’s roster were on camera making bad jokes about the match and the championship. This does the exact opposite of what the promotion should be doing, as the bout and the belt then become just as big of a joke as ODB and Jay Lethal’s characters. This is the very definition of the word “counterproductive.” Problem number two was the commercial during the match. I wasn’t sitting around with a stopwatch keeping time (that’s Larry’s job), but I could tell that the match was just under ten minutes and that we lost over three of it to ads. The way I see it, that sort of thing is a bait and switch almost as bad as not delivering the match at all. It was clear that TNA was building up the contest as though it were an epic, yet, when we got to the wrestling, they created a situation in which it would be literally impossible for an epic to develop. Excellent, historic matches just don’t happen in six minutes of television time, but that’s all TNA gave to two performers who they expected to have an excellent, historic match. My only hope is that fans who watched this encounter don’t begin to think that they’re going to be ripped off in future Women’s Title bouts, because that could severely derail interest in the division.

I feel that I also need to take a moment to address the overwhelming volume of the reaction to the title change that I’ve seen on the internet. As soon as results for the tapings hit the web, numerous people began complaining about giving the title change away for free on television when it could just as easily have been done on the pay per view. I have to say that I do agree with the group who is arguing that a title switch at Final Resolution would have made more sense, both from a storyline perspective and a business perspective. However, I do not think that what TNA did here was nearly as bad as others are making it out to be. As far as giving away the match for free is concerned, big bouts typically should be held out for pay shows. Yet, over the past six months or so, TNA has been MUCH better about giving away things for free than they used to be, with the Kurt Angle/Sting title match being the last major event that arguably should have been stuck on pay per view. Every now and again a company does have to throw a major event on free television for the sake of appeasing networks and making sure that fans don’t begin to view the program as irrelevant. With the amount of time that elapsed between the Angle/Sting match and the Kong/Kim match, I do not think TNA is currently in a position in which they are giving away too much for too little. (You’ll certainly hear me complain when they cross that line, though.)

Additionally, I don’t think that having Kim pin Kong on the pay per view hurt the storyline. In fact, I can think of some positives to come out of it. The first is that it establishes that Gail is capable of pinning the monster before she begins her chase to regain the belt. This will help to make future nearfalls that she achieves over Kong all the more believable as potential finishes. The second is that, if Kim eventually does pin Kong to regain the strap, there will still be a logical rationale for one additional singles match between the women, as they will each have two pinfalls over the other. This would tend to necessitate a “tiebreaker” to determine once and for all who the superior wrestler is.

That’s certainly been a lot of booking talk. At the end of the day, though, I want to give one last tip of the hat to the efforts of both Gail Kim and the Amazing Kong. It is their performances that have truly made the feud among the best in the history of the promotion, and it will be their performances that continue to provide it with high points no matter what TNA’s booking may do to mangle the story.

Oh, and I also have to give a hearty welcome to Kong’s new mystery cheerleader.

Angle Numero Dos: It All Blurs Together

I have no clue what the hell is going on in the TNA World Title picture. Seriously. I don’t know who’s in the feud for the belt that will culminate at the next pay per view, and I don’t know who among the top contenders is a heel and who is a face. This is very aggravating.

For those of you who may have missed the show, there was a triple threat match signed for next week which will feature Christian wrestling AJ Styles and Samoa Joe with the winner getting the next title shot. (Or, if AJ wins, he has the option to give Angle two months off from defending the belt.) I’m looking at this match, and I’m trying to figure out who I, as a fan, am supposed to want to win. I honestly cannot tell. Who is the babyface that I am to get behind? Who is the heel that I am to detest? TNA has not made this clear in the slightest. Christian has been feuding with Angle, and it is clear that Angle is a heel. However, Christian never really did anything to turn face and has continually pulled out heel maneuvers during the rivalry with Kurt, so I’m not sure which side he is on. Samoa Joe has been a babyface for the last several months, but his whining promos and tonight’s attempt to jump Kevin Nash from behind are making him come off as more of a heel. AJ Styles looked like he was being positioned to turn face throughout the month of December, but at the last pay per view he betrayed his old friend Christian to team up with Kurt Angle. I think that this is supposed to make him a heel, but does turning on a bad guy to go work with another bad guy actually make AJ a bad guy? I don’t know. On top of that, he’s acting EXACTLY the same now as he did when the company was preparing to turn him face, so maybe they still mean for him to be a good guy. This is the problem with “shades of gray” in professional wrestling. As a fan, I want to have a favorite. I want to have somebody to root for in the title picture. It’s TNA’s job to tell me who that is. They have failed. Miserably.

And another thing . . . why are we having a number one contender match? Wasn’t there just a Royal Rumble last week to determine the number one contender for the title? Didn’t Christian win it? If that’s the case, he should probably be getting another title shot without having to go through either AJ or Joe. (Because he had already been granted his Final Resolution title match before the Rumble took place.) Even if you want to argue that Cage’s loss at Final Resolution should have bumped him down in the “rankings,” why isn’t number two on the list (Joe) just moving up to number one?

At this rate, I’m all for TNA firing 75% of the men on their roster and just making the Women’s Title the permanent focus of the show.

Angle Numero Tres: It Paytons to be Roode

Even though the World Title picture is an absolute mess and even though I’m starting to have doubts about the future of the women’s division, I do have to say that TNA came through big time with one of the angles on this show. I’m talking about the saga of Bobby Roode, and I’m including both his confrontation with Traci Brooks and his building issue with Booker T. in that category.

As far as the Roode/T feud is concerned, I figured that it would be something quick and simple to get a couple of victories under Booker’s belt before he moved on to mix it up with the likes of Sting, Kurt Angle, and Christian. Frankly, I didn’t expect it to continue past Final Resolution. However, it looks like we have a long-term storyline on our hands, and I am fine with that. Both men have perfectly realistic and simple reasons to dislike each other, which is the basis for any good feud. Booker is obviously ticked off that Roode punched his wife in the face, and Roode is refusing to show remorse because the punch was not intended for Sharmell. Both men did an excellent job of getting over those points in their promos this evening, and I have full confidence in their ability to do the same in the future. Furthermore, I thought that Jim Cornette’s reasoning behind not punishing Roode for the incident at Final Resolution was sound, and it was an issue that needed to be addressed given how the punch was being treated.

On the Brooks/Roode front, I was a big fan of the mic work between the two of them this evening. I thought that Traci did go a little too far over the top at points, but she was solid overall while Roode may have been more convincing in his character tonight than he has been at any other point in his TNA career. Their interaction did a fine job of solidifying Roode as an absolute prick. I know that I have slammed TNA in the past for running an angle based on domestic abuse and that this was similar in some regards, but the company’s handling of the situation here was much more tasteful. The issue was not played for laughs as it was in the past, and the female end of the feud did get the upper hand before ultimately being confronted with her new (female) challenge. I would imagine that all of this will eventually lead to Brooks selecting a male partner and doing battle with Roode and Rain, but, even if it does not, I think that this evening’s promo did such a good job of solidifying Roode as a heel that it will still be worthwhile.

Thumbs up to TNA on this one. My only hope is that they can soon make the heel/face roles in their World Title picture as clear cut as they are in this rivalry.

And the Rest . . .

~ Tonight, Scott Steiner stole Petey Williams’ Feast or Fired briefcase. How is that actually going to benefit Steiner? Is TNA management really dumb enough that they’ll give him the World Title shot he didn’t win simply because he has physical possession of the box which contains it?

~ Stupidity in the angle aside, the visual of Scott Steiner attempting to sneak down to the ring was one of the funniest things I’ve seen on television in months.

~ The rat is named Marlena. Har dee har har.

~ So Shark Boy did a stretcher job tonight. I’m still trying to figure out how he got so badly injured in the first place. Exactly what happens to him during his matches that is any different than what happens to the rest of the roster?

Overall

Well, my first review of Impact for 2008 is going to be a positive one. The show certainly had its problems, the majority of which are outlined in more detail above. However, the good certainly outweighed the bad on this particular evening. As previously mentioned, everything involving Bobby Roode was high quality, as were certain aspects of the Women’s Title match. We also got strong wrestling throughout the card, with MCMG vs. Triple X, LAX vs. Hoyt Rave, and even Harris vs. Banderas being decent (if not very long) affairs that avoided the usual TNA trap of having too many things going on at once. As a matter of fact, the only segments that really left a bad taste in my mouth this evening were the ones related to the Angle/AJ/Christian/Joe situation. Though that is a pretty big problem given that it’s the storyline which is supposed to be the primary focus of the company, at least there’s only one feud in TNA giving me headaches this time around as opposed to five.

Reader Feedback

I obviously don’t have any feedback to respond to from last week’s column, as I didn’t write last week’s column. However, long-time reader Ryan S. sent in a general question about TNA that I feel is worth answering here:

Hello again, Mr. Byers. I really enjoyed the insight that you provided in the last email and I feel that it was unfortunately true. The damage done to the current X-Division outside of the MCMG has been damaged irreparably, which got me thinking about another question:

If TNA were to finally reach a point where they decide to make a change (which isn’t likely, but let’s hope), what would the next booking team do to repair the roster outside of making wholesale changes and completely gutting most of it? Is it even possible at this point to make TNA credible, since every time they seem to hit a point where they could be taking the next step, they do something stupid?

Actually, my view of the “strength” of the TNA roster isn’t quite as cynical as yours. I think that if the company has enough undamaged top level talent that they could successfully change their direction if they so desired. As you noted, in order to rebuild the company men like Christian, Angle, AJ, Abyss, and Joe would all need to be cycled out of the main event and put lower on the card for a period of time so that they could be rebuilt after spending so many months as jokes. However, I also think that TNA has more than enough people to take their places while such a rebuilding process is ongoing.

As you mentioned, Roode and Kazarian are still relatively strong and could probably be moved up the card if need be. I would also put Tomko in that category, as he looked very impressive coming out of his promo on Kurt Angle last week and seems to really be picking up steam with the TNA fans. Additionally, Booker T. has not been with the company long enough to be ruined, and his past accomplishments give them the credibility necessary to immediately have a run with the World Championship. Furthermore, Jeff Jarrett is always on the sidelines and capable of becoming a member of the company’s roster at the drop of a hat. Though there were times when putting Jarrett on top certainly did more harm than good, during his last run he seemed to be viewed as a legitimate superstar by the audience, and I don’t know why a second comeback would be any different.

So, yes, to truly make TNA in to a product I think would be successful, there are some men who would need to be taken out of the title hunt for a while. However, I think that there are also at least five guys who could easily replace them while their characters are being retooled, which is more than enough to get the company through six to eight months of rebuilding.

TNA Impact’s Year in Review

Though it sometimes feels like I’ve been reviewing TNA for no fewer than one hundred years, 2007 was actually the first full calendar year of Impact Craters. (The column debuted in August of 2006.) I agree with the many fans, critics, and Lance Storms on the internet who consider ’07 to have been the worst year in the history of TNA if not one of the worst years for any nationally televised wrestling promotion. However, in large part due to their ultra-talented roster, when TNA is hot, it’s very hot. This means that, despite all of the crap that last year dished out, there were still quite a few memorable moments in the company. As such, I figured that I would spend the next few weeks taking a look back at the highs and lows of TNA’s 2007 product in three categories: The Best and Worst Feuds of 2007, The Best and Worst Impact Episodes of 2007, and TNA’s Most and Least Valuable Players in 2007.

This week, we’re hitting the worst feuds of the year. Details on when the rest of the year in review material will be posted are forthcoming.

The Worst TNA Feuds of 2007

Number Five: VKM vs. VKM

This actually began in 2006 and only carried on through the first month or two of 2007, which is why it’s ranked at number five. Had the entire angle taken place in ’07, you can rest assured that it would be much higher on this list. Honestly, I cannot think of another storyline in history which has made the promotion running it look so bush league. For those who may have missed it, the angle saw the former New Age Outlaws rechristen themselves as the “Voodoo Kin Mafia” for no reason other than it would allow them to use the initials “VKM.” See, those are also the initials of one Vincent Kennedy McMahon, the guy who runs World Wrestling Entertainment. The plot saw the Road Dogg and Billy Gunn make repeated challenges to McMahon, Triple H, and Shawn Michaels, including one amazingly bad promo on January 4 in which HBK was dared to come and face the Jameses at the Alamo. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t. TNA apparently thought that stunts of this nature would make them look like a cool, rebellious alternative to fans who were fed up with the “establishment” WWE. Well, it failed. Instead of rebels who presented a credible threat to their opposition, TNA came off as an obnoxious gnat buzzing around the head of a far more powerful animal.

Number Four: Christian & Company vs. Abyss

The sad thing is that this actually started off as a great angle. Christian and his various cohorts beat down Abyss in a fashion most violent (perhaps a little too violent), and he took a substantial amount of time off to sell the attack. Once he returned, it seemed obvious that he was going to slowly pick off members of Christian’s “coalition” before finally meeting up with and unseating the group’s ringleader. It had the potential to be a great story that truly could have moved Abyss up to the next level, making him a legitimate contender to the TNA Championship. For the first several weeks of the angle, things were going well. Abyss scored victories over Travis Tomko and AJ Styles in both singles and tag team action, and TNA even threw Bobby Roode in to Cage’s group for a couple of weeks so that Abyss would have somebody else to beat down. Just when the timing was right to blow off the rivalry with an epic Christian vs. Abyss match, things fell apart. Because a one-on-one match is never good enough for TNA, they decided that they’d make it a six man tag. Because a six man tag match is never good enough for TNA, they decided to turn this encounter in to a DOOMSDAY CHAMBER OF BLOOD MATCH. It was one of TNA’s trademark overcomplicated gimmick bouts, a barbed wire steel cage match in which a man could only be pinned if he was bleeding . . . and the guy who got the pinfall became the number one contender. To top it all off, the match for some reason included Andrew “Test” Martin, who had a cup of tea in TNA in which he may have been the least over man on the roster. This wouldn’t have been so bad if Abyss vs. Christian was finally blown off on the next pay per view. Instead, we got a first blood match between the two for free on the very next episode of Impact with no additional build. So, yes, TNA took one of its best storylines in years and completely pissed away any good that could have come of its conclusion. Abyss didn’t even manage to pin Christian during the feud, which is probably one of the many reasons that fans don’t take him seriously today.

Number Three: Sting vs. Kurt Angle

TNA wants to have what it perceives as its two biggest stars wrestle each other on what they perceive as their biggest pay per view of the year. Thus, they turn to Kurt Angle and Sting, one man who held numerous World Championships in WCW and one man who held numerous World Championships in the WWF. On top of that, the match was occurring in Atlanta, Georgia, the city in which Sting earned much of his WCW success and the city in which Angle won an Olympic gold medal in1996. This was all of the backstory that TNA needed in order to put together a great build to the match. Yet, for some reason, they felt that it wasn’t enough. Because they felt it wasn’t enough, they put together one of the most inane stories in the history of the promotion.

See, Kurt Angle had recently beaten Samoa Joe in a match in which the winner gained sole possession of the TNA Tag Team Championship. This was followed up by a bout in which several of the company’s top wrestlers faced each other for the right to become Angle’s championship partner. Before the match began, Kurt’s wife Karen met up with each of the competitors, trying to convince them that they should play nice with Kurt if they won. She was trying to make sure that her husband would hang on to the Tag Titles for as long as possible, and Sting was one of them men with which she had this conversation. It was Mr. Borden who won the match to become Kurt’s partner, and they actually seemed to be working together nicely heading in to their big title defense against Ron Killings and Pac-Man Jones. In that match, things started to fall apart. Karen pretended that Sting slapped her, which infuriated Kurt and caused him to turn on his partner. Naturally, they lost the championship as a result, and it appeared that we were going to get a Sting vs. Angle match for Kurt’s TNA World Title.

The storyline had its problems right off the bat, because, for several weeks, Angle was still laboring under the false impression that Sting slapped his wife. Apparently nobody decided to show him the video of the pay per view, which would have made it abundantly clear that Sting’s hand came nowhere near Karen’s face. Of course, angles like this have happened in wrestling before. They’ve always been stupid, but I would’ve been willing to let this one go if that was the only logic gap. Unfortunately, somebody in TNA creative decided that this “hole” needed to be plugged, and the company’s attempt to plug it resulted in the plot becoming even more ridiculous than it had been before. Ultimately, it was explained that Kurt and Karen had planned the fake slap all along so that Kurt could get a match with Sting.

Let’s go back and outline this one. Kurt Angle wants to have a match with Sting. The first thing that he does to get this match is have his wife convince Sting that he should work together with Kurt in their Tag Team Championship pairing. Then, at the pay per view, Kurt has his wife pretend to be slapped so that Kurt appears justified in attacking his own partner. This winds up costing Kurt the Tag Team Titles, which is odd given that just weeks earlier his bride was running around and convincing all of Angle’s potential partners to play nice with him. This would seemingly be indicative of a desire to keep the title, but, for some reason that was never explained, that desire dissipated quickly. Then, Kurt continued to act like he thought Sting slapped his wife, only to reveal at a completely arbitrarily point that he never believed it. Again, Angle’s goal in doing all of this was supposedly to get a match with Sting. Memo to TNA creative: If Kurt Angle wants to have a match with Sting, all he has to do in storyline terms is ASK FOR IT. There’s no need for all of the convoluted bullshit that you put out there on television.

The idiocy didn’t stop there, though. See, the entire time that Angle was messing around with Sting, Kurt’s “therapist” Kevin Nash was warning the Olympic gold medalist that Sting had a dark side with which Angle did not want to get involved. There was at least one entire episode of Impact devoted to Angle’s “fear” of Sting’s dark side and his efforts to make up with the man in the paint. Then, out of nowhere, Angle did a complete 180 and beat the crap out of Sting’s son. The point of this, Kurt explained, was to bring out Sting’s dark side. Yes, I’m talking about the exact same dark side that Kurt was afraid of not even a month ago. There was so much idiocy and inconsistency in this angle that it made me want to put my foot through my television several times.

Number Two: Sting vs. Abyss vs. Jim Mitchell

Here we go. Early this year, it was revealed that Jim Mitchell managed and controlled Abyss due to a horrible secret from the monster’s past. Some people were curious about what this secret could be, but nobody was more curious than Sting. Abyss, though, didn’t want his secret to be revealed. One would think that the Stinger, a born-again Christian and supposed man of god, would respect Abyss’ wishes and continue to allow the secret to be a secret. That’s not what happened, though. Instead, Sting repeatedly proved himself to be the world’s lousiest Christian, as week in and week out he would be shown harassing Abyss about the secret, letting him know that he wouldn’t rest until it was spilled to the general public. He also chained Jim Mitchell to a fence and beat the crap out of him, despite the fact that Sting was not provoked and despite the fact that Mitchell is not a trained professional wrestler. CHRISTIANITY~!

Ultimately, Sting came out to the ring on the January 24 episode of Impact and spilled the beans for Abyss. He revealed that the monster had done time in prison because, several years ago, he shot his father three times in the back. Given that Abyss had already paid his debt to society and had managed to obtain good, honest work for TNA, I don’t know why he would have considered the revelation of his secret to be so problematic. Despite the fact that the secret was out, Abyss continued to side with Mitchell in the Sinister Minister’s war against Sting. Nobody knew exactly why this was, and, once we found out, most of it wished that it had never been revealed. On March 22, Abyss’ mother made her TNA debut, appearing with Jim Mitchell and seemingly holding some bizarre power of mind control over her son. A week later, it was revealed that Abyss was still working with Mitchell because it was actually the big man’s mom who shot daddy dearest. Father Jim was holding this information over Abyss’ head, telling him that if he didn’t do his bidding he would let the authorities know who had actually pulled the trigger all those years ago. At that point, Abyss should’ve immediately turned on Mitchell, because the information was publically available and probably would’ve made its way to the police regardless of what Mitchell did. Unfortunately for the character of Abyss, he is painfully stupid. Apparently Sting is stupid as well, because he also did not pick up on this fact.

So, Sting’s effort to free Abyss from Mitchell were completely fruitless. He grew sullen and had a sitdown interview with Mike Tenay on the April 4 Impact. He moaned about how he had failed “Chris” and about how disappointed he was in himself. He said that he was going to leave TNA for a while to think about what he had done. Eventually, he did wind up making an historic comeback . . . fifteen minutes after he said he was leaving. I’ve heard of hotshotting an angle, but this took it to a whole new level.

Number One: Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe

It really takes a special wrestling promotion to screw up the same “can’t miss” feud twice. TNA managed to do it with Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe, though. In fact, I’d have to say that the 2007 version of their rivalry was even worse than the 2006 version, because at least in 2006 there was roughly a month’s worth of television leading in to the first match that didn’t completely and utterly suck.

We had no such month in ’07, though. The feud was lousy right from its rekindling, kicking off the year with an atrocious segment on the January 4 Impact in which the two men brawled backstage in the Impact Zone. That may not sound too offensive on paper, but they brawled . . . and brawled . . . and brawled . . . and brawled for seemingly eight hours. The fight dragged on and on with virtually nothing of note happening aside from Joe looking like a doofus in trying to pull Angle around by his non-existent hair. After that Impact and another pay per view match between the wrestlers, the feud laid dormant for several months before picking up again in the summer. When that happened, I was beginning to wish that it just would have stayed dead.

July 12 was the date of one of the handful of Impact episodes that actually made me contemplate giving up this column and never watching TNA ever again. On this particular show, Kurt Angle was tanning, only to find his clothes missing when he popped out of the bed. Kurt spent the duration of the show walking around backstage in nothing but a speedo, trying to figure out who had taken his property. This lead to numerous moments that were supposedly “funny,” though at the end of the day they failed to accomplish that goal and instead just made a wrestler who we are supposed to take seriously in to a total putz. When the episode concluded, it was revealed that Joe had stolen Kurt’s clothes to the surprise of absolutely nobody. Yeehaw. July 12 wasn’t the only Impact that made me want to give up on TNA, though. August 2 was perhaps even worse in that regard. This was the show on which Karen Angle made her debut. On the whole, I don’t mind Karen. I think she’s actually pretty good in the heel manager role, especially for somebody who came in to TNA with no background in the wrestling business. However, the manner in which she made her debut sickened me. The entire episode focused on Kurt verbally abusing Karen and the couple’s six year old daughter Kyra in a manner frighteningly similar to that of perpetrators of domestic violence. Yes, TNA was doing a domestic abuse angle mere weeks after the culmination of one such abusive relationship caused the biggest tragedy in the history of professional wrestling. It was disturbing, it was offensive, and it was absolutely unnecessary to get fans interested in to a matchup between Kurt Angle and Samoa Joe. Though I haven’t stopped watching or covering Impact since that episode, I have stopped giving the promotion my money. I’m not buying their pay per views anymore, I’m not buying their merchandise anymore, and the situation made me so uncomfortable that my spending habits likely won’t change anytime soon. It’s one thing to book an angle that contains numerous logic gaps or that fails to get people to buy a pay per view. It’s another thing altogether to book an angle that mirrors recent tragedies in such a crass manner. That is why Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe is your worst TNA storyline of 2007.

And, on that note, we’ll wrap up the Impact Crater for another week. I’ll be back in seven days with your regular breakdown of the show AND more year in review material AND a look at the Global Impact special. It’s going to be a busy week. Until then, you can check out my MySpace page and add me as a friend to get a bulletin notification every time that I post a new article on 411.