The Impact Crater 02.07.08

Quick & Dirty Results

Segment #1: Seven thousand things that probably all should’ve gotten their own segment happened.
Segment #2: Amazing Kong def. Traci Brooks
Segment #3: Frankie Kazarian def. Chocolate Reign in a rat on a pole match
Segment #4: Homicide def. Johnny Devine by DQ in an X Division Title match . . . but, conveniently, TNA titles no longer change hands by DQ.
Segment #5: Shark Boy & Curry Man def. Jimmy Rave & Lance Hoyt
Segment #6: AJ Styles def. Tiger Mask IV
Segment #7: Christian/Travis Tomko Interview Segment
Segment #8: Christian def. Ricky Banderas

The Main Stuff

Angle Numero Uno: Forget Snakes on a Plane, it’s . . . RATS ON A POLE!

Okay, it wasn’t the primary angle of the week, but tonight’s Dustin Rhodes vs. Frankie Kazarian match featuring rats and rat traps on poles was the hardest that I have ever laughed while watching TNA, so I have to give it top billing this evening. Unfortunately, it wasn’t supposed to be funny. Somebody backstage actually thought that this would be a good way to get one or both men over and to draw a rating. Instead, it was one of the most ridiculous segments in pro wrestling history and an early contender for worst match of 2008.

For those of you who may have missed the match, let me lay out the rules and the backstory for you. See, Dustin Rhodes calls himself Black Reign these days, and he carries around a rat everywhere he goes. Young Frankie stole his rat. (He also stole Dustin’s wig and his spike. What a prick Kaz turned out to be.) Then Kazarian challenged his rival to a match in which the rat would be on a pole, with the winner being the first man to grab the rodent. However, there would also be poles on three other corners of the ring, and mousetraps would be attached to those poles. So, if you were to pick the wrong pole, your fingers would be pinched. Apparently, Kaz’s big plan all along was to steal the rat so that he could challenge Chocolate Reign to a match in which he could easily get the rat back. I couldn’t write better comedy than this if I were trying.

. . . but things got even worse when we actually made it to the match. If you didn’t see the setup for this thing, you need to either hunt down some screencaps or catch the replay. It looked so horrifically low rent. In order to hold the rat/mousetraps on TNA’s now-infamous poles, somebody on the promotion’s staff headed down to Home Depot and bought the four cheapest mailboxes they could find. The flags were then ripped off of the boxes, and the things were spraypainted black. WWE wants to do a special gimmick match, and we get the Elimination Chamber. TNA wants to do a special gimmick match, and we get wrestlers who look like they’re vying for the right to grab an envelope with Ed McMahon’s picture on it.

That’s not all, though. See, the whole gimmick behind this match was that the wrestlers had to reach in to the boxes to win, but they wouldn’t know if they were sticking their hands in to a mousetrap or in to the rodent-filled receptacle. Unfortunately, we had one small problem with this gimmick, namely that the poles weren’t as tall as they should have been. The boxes were at the top of said poles, but they were still low enough that, when a wrestler was standing on the top turnbuckle, he could easily see in to the open box. This resulted in at least one shot of Dustin Rhodes staring at a box and the bending his head DOWN so that he could pretend that the rat traps he was sticking his hand in to weren’t right at eye level. It was embarrassing, though not quite as embarrassing as the selling that the guys had to do when it was patently obvious that the mousetraps weren’t coming anywhere near being set off by their fingers.

Oh, and did I mention that the traps actually appeared to have CHEESE on them? Unfortunately, the presence of the dairy products did not play in to the story of the match, but it was definitely visible. You know what should’ve happened with this cheese? Rhodes should’ve looked in to a box and seen that he was about to grab a mousetrap. He should’ve stopped short, only to suddenly realize that he needed a mid-match snack. At that point, he should’ve tried to grab the cheddar off of the trap, only for it to THEN snap shot on him. That would’ve been comedy gold, right there.

As funny as the match was, I actually got a little bit sad during its climax. See, despite the fact that he was stuck in a ridiculous gimmick match and despite the fact that he was wrestling one of the least mobile guys on the roster, poor Frankie Kazarian was still going out there and busting his ass. He was throwing missile dropkicks, big dives, and plenty of other moves that will hurt like a mofo no matter how safe you are in their execution. The sad part is that, despite all of this man’s hard work, nobody was going to take his efforts seriously because the match and his opponent were both big jokes. Just give up, Kaz. Start dogging it. It’s pretty clear that working hard isn’t getting you anywhere in this company.

Angle Numero Dos: If This PPV Draws, It’ll Have Done So Against All Odds

Believe it or not, TNA’s next pay per view is this weekend. You wouldn’t have known it from watching their show tonight, though, because virtually no time was devoted to making the main event of Against All Odds in to something that fans would want to see. That main event, for those who may have forgotten, is Christian against Kurt Angle for the TNA Title. That match received roughly five minutes of build on this show, some of which came in a brief backstage promo from Christian and some of which came during program-closing beatdown by Angle on the Instant Classic. The funny thing is that, despite the fact that TNA refused to build up the match that they’re supposed to be convincing people to buy this Sunday, they shot plenty of angles for other future matches featuring their main eventers, with those contests including:

– Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle
– Samoa Joe vs. Matt Morgan
– AJ Styles vs. Kurt Angle
– Travis Tomko vs. Kurt Angle

You’ll note that none of these matches are happening on this weekend’s pay per view. In fact, unless Kurt Angle decides that he’s doing another “three matches in one night” gimmick, half of them won’t be happening on the next pay per view, either. When TNA wastes time, they really waste time.

Angle Numero Tres: Bad Week for Bobbys

I’ve generally been a big proponent of the Booker T. vs. Bobby Roode feud. (And not just because “Roode feud” is fun to say.) Both men have done very well on the microphone throughout the duration of the rivalry, and TNA has, for once in its life, replayed the footage of Roode striking Sharmell so frequently that it feels like a big moment instead of just being your run of the mill pay per view angle. Unfortunately, on the go home show for the big Roode/T. match, we got a rare miscue.

In the opening segment this week, Roode was supposedly scheduled to wrestle Jay Lethal. However, before the match could get underway, the Prick Named Bob was run off by Booker. We cut away from their squabble for a little while, and we rejoined them minutes later, as Roode was getting in to an automobile and driving away. About fifteen minutes later, Booker cut a fairly decent promo with Jeremy Borash, and that was that. If you add up the three different occasions on which the two wrestlers appeared during this episode, the angle actually got a fairly decent amount of television time. Unfortunately, that time was so disjointed that nothing they did really had an opportunity to pick up steam and ramp the intensity of the feud up to eleven headed in to this Sunday’s big pay per view encounter. That’s unfortunate, because I’ve really been digging both performers lately and want all the best for them in this promotion. Oh well, at least we’re virtually guaranteed a good match from the two at AAO.

And the Rest . . .

~ Wait a second, TNA titles no longer change hands on a disqualification? According to Mike Tenay, that’s the case. Then again, Tenay also claims that he said this “last week,” though I’ll be damned if I heard it. Leave it to TNA to change the rules of their matches and not make it clear until AFTER the match is over. I’m waiting for the week that a referee rings the bell after a wrestler’s shoulders are down for a one count, after which Mike Tenay explains to us that the three count has been eliminated by TNA management.

~ Also according to Mike Tenay, Curry Man and Shark Boy had trouble communicating in part because “Shark Boy just started talking a couple of weeks ago.” So you mean to tell me that, in TNA’s kayfabe universe, Sharky NEVER said a word until he started doing his Steve Austin impression? I’ve heard of late bloomers, but that’s ridiculous.

~ And, during the main event, Teny gets the hat trick of idiotic comments, as he actually tells a group of TNA fans to NOT watch the Against All Odds pay per view because of the barbed wire match. How about accentuating the match’s positives before you tell some people that they’re going to be turned off by it, Mike?

~ Another great moment during the masked men vs. Rave/Hoyt match was Christy Hemme sticking her head in to the ring to jaw with one of the good guys, at which point Hoyt stepped on her. Yes, these two botched a spot, and the spot was Christy yelling at a man . . . and people wonder why she was 411’s Worst Manager of 2007.

~ Okay, TNA just ran a video package that told us how greedy Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Kevin Nash, Kurt Angle, and Christian are. EVERYBODY IN THIS COMPANY IS A HEEL.

~ Most of the time when I say that I like something on this show, it’s tongue in cheek. However, I can say completely without sarcasm that the promo the Road Dogg cut tonight was awesome. I hope he and Bullet Bob win the Tag Team Titles and hold them until the Bullet can’t go anymore.

~ Wow, did they choose a poor main event for this evening’s show or what? Here’s a tip, TNA: You want everybody having a major match on your pay per view to look strong heading in to their matches. This means that you don’t book those guys against each other on the go home show, and you certainly don’t book one of them to do the clean jobski to the other. Poor Mesias. You’re not in WSX anymore, pal.

Overall

I have to say that there were some small nuggets of wrestling goodness buried in this show. As previously mentioned, Road Dogg’s promo was an easy thumbs up, and there were short bursts of quality in-ring action in the tag match, Styles/TMIV, Homicide/Devine, and even Christian/Banderas. However, an handful of two to three minute snippets of good wrestling isn’t enough for me to recommend the show. The bad still far outweighed the good, with the worst part of the evening being the company continuing to book as though the concept of promoting a pay per view is completely foreign to them. The Against All Odds main event of Christian versus Angle felt like a total afterthought by the time that this show was all said and done, as evidenced by the young female fan wearing a gray hoodie in the front row who rested her chin in her hand and looked like she was going to fall asleep when AJ Styles attacked Christian. (She did politely applaud when Christian and Tomko made their comeback on AJ and Angle, but it still looked like she was at a golf match and not a wrestling show.) Top that off with the rat on a pole match, which was one of the worst bouts that I’ve ever seen – both in terms of concept and execution – and you’ve got all of the ingredients for a skippable edition of what is supposed to be your Thursday night adrenaline rush.

Reader Feedback

We’ll kick it off with Amit, who has a fairly long e-mail. I’m going to go paragraph-by-paragraph on this one, with his comments in italics and mine in plain type:

I read your Impact crater on 411 every week and I wanna say that you are a fantastic writer and must replace Larry Csonska as the boss of 411.

I appreciate your confidence in my abilities, but there’s no way that I could replace the boss. He does far more than simply writing for the site, and Larry’s “real life” schedule allows him to handle that far better than mine would ever allow me to. Besides, replacing Larry means doing the podcasts, and I would break down and cry live on the air if I had to deal with some of the verbal barbs that Christi throws his way.

I sent you a letter a few months ago criticizing TNA, and I agree with most of your arguments in the Impact Crater, but I disagree with two things. The first is that you called Christian Cage a heel, but I don’t think he’s a heel. He’s a TWEENER and he’s excellent as the tweener. Sometimes fans can root for him and sometimes they can hate him. I think he’s perfect in the role of a tweener, and I don’t know why everyone calls him a heel.

The biggest reason that I call him a heel is that TNA referred to him as a heel in the script that was leaked for the January 3 edition of Impact.

As far as “tweener” status is concerned, I personally don’t think that it exists . . . or, if it does exist, it shouldn’t. Every time that I’ve had somebody tell me that a particular wrestler is a “tweener,” it arises from a situation in which the guy is being booked so poorly that nobody can tell what the heck he’s supposed to be. The whole point of professional wrestling is to get fans to pay to see a character that they love win and a character that they hate lose. That’s why faces and heels work. If you muddy the waters by giving fans somebody that they’re supposed to hate half of the time and love the other half of the time, they’re never going to get behind that person as much as they do a pure babyface or hate that person as much as they do a pure heel.

Of course, this is the point at which some folks write in and tell me that in real life that there aren’t people who are “good guys” 100% of the time and that there aren’t people who are “bad guys” 100% of the time. However, what those people fail to realize is that professional wrestling and numerous other entertainment genres are not about providing accurate portrayals of what happens in the world around us. The villains in Die Hard didn’t do anything halfway through the movie that was supposed to make you root for them, and Bruce Willis sure as hell didn’t punch any little old ladies in the face prior to the film’s climax. Pro wrestling is at its best when it works in the same way.

Secondly, I hate it when I hear everyone saying that the Joe/Angle feud was the worst feud in TNA. I feel that the Joe/Angle feud was the BEST feud in TNA, and I will tell you why:

Okay, let’s do it.

1. It brought huge profits to the company. The Hard Justice DVD was number three in Billboard’s list of recreational DVDs. The PPVs in which these two competed also got huge buyrates to TNA.

I do recall reading the news about the Hard Justice DVD selling well, and that is good for the company. However, pay per view is still the promotion’s primary revenue stream, and, despite your contention, the buyrates for the shows headlined by Joe and Angle were not “huge.” Granted, the initial Joe/Angle match at Genesis in 2006 did net the company its highest buyrate in history, which was almost double the company’s average. (Though it was still lower than WWE’s December to Dismember, which was a huge disaster by that company’s standards.) However, things got significantly worse after the first match. Though 2007 buyrates did reveal that shows on which Joe received shots at the TNA title garnered higher than average buyrates for the promotion, they were only between five to ten thousands buys up from the average. Plus, Joe’s title shot against Christian at Destination X 2007 was at the same level of buys. As a result, I think that the conclusion to draw is that Joe challenging for the title creates a slight bump in PPV viewership . . . not the Joe/Angle feud.

2. These two had awesome matches like the thirty minute iron man match and the match at Hard Justice. This feud provided excellent wrestling to wrestling fans.

I won’t disagree with that statement.

3. Many feel that what Karen Angle did to Joe was very predictable, but I went to many websites including 411 and nobody had predicted what Karen would do. Everyone was saying that Joe will be champion. After it happened everyone called it predictable.

Go back and read the 411mania staff’s Roundtable Preview of Hard Justice 2007.

In that column, Andy Clark said, “The only way we get swerved in this match is if Karen Angle DOESN’T screw Joe out of the titles.”

Bayani Domingo said, “Either Angle’s wife swerves everyone by helping him win the match and Joe ends up looking like a moron for falling for the 5th oldest trick in the book, or Angle gets a little help from his buddies Team 3D . . . and takes the pinfall in exchange for giving them the belts.”

John Meehan said, “Though my heart is telling me to pull for Joe in this one, my gut is telling me that something is amiss going into this ‘final’ showdown between our Olympic Hero and the Samoan Submission Machine, and so I can’t help but second guess things. Maybe it’s Joe’s ‘unsigned’ TNA contract. Maybe it’s the rumors of the X-Division title being phased out. Maybe it’s the ‘ringside presence’ of Karen Angle, or maybe it’s just because this entire feud has consistently failed to live up to its potential . . . but I’m just gonna’ have to buck the odds on this one and say [Kurt Angle].”

Larry Csonka said, “Karen Angle at ringside, Vince Russo booking, yeah, swerve that isn’t a swerve coming.”

And, finally, I said, “Karen Angle will be in Joe’s corner, and you know that Vince Russo can’t resist pulling the trigger on a SWERVE~!”

Plenty of people were predicting the result.

4. This feud’s culmination at Hard Justice made Kurt Angle the most hated man in TNA, and it’s good for their business. I agree Joe was hurt by this feud, but TNA profited from it.

This point seems a bit redundant given what you’ve already said.

5. This feud did no damage to TNA as their ratings have become better than they were. Karen Angle as Kurt’s valet helped establish his character.

You’re right, ratings were not damaged. However, the booking of the feud did manage to take a match that drew the company’s highest buyrate and turn it in to a match that struggled to beat the company’s average numbers. As far as ratings being better than ever, I’ll hold off on addressing that one because . . .

6. This feud PUT TNA ON THE MAP. Nobody watched TNA before Angle came there, and nobody took them seriously. Earlier TNA used to get 0.8 ratings, but ratings improved after Kurt’s coming there and Angle’s first feud with Joe really put TNA on the map.

Angle joining the TNA roster was announced on September 24. He made his first Impact appearance on October 19. The ratings for that four week period were 0.8, 0.8, 0.9, and 0.8. The next two weeks were also 0.8’s. TNA did not consistently climb above the 1.0 mark until mid-November. You could argue that it took wrestling fans a few weeks to catch on to the fact that Angle was a part of the promotion, after which they tuned in to watch him. However, it’s also worth noting one another important event that happened in mid-November: Impact was granted its current, earlier timeslot.

As such, there is no way to know for sure whether TNA’s ratings growth in late 2006 and early 2007 was due to Angle, the new time, or some combination of the two factors. But, because the growth did not actually take place until the time change occurred and because Angle’s segments are currently no more highly rated than the segments of any other performer on the show, I lean more towards the timeslot theory.

I honestly feel that they should end the X Division as most of the X Division wrestlers have become tag teams or impersonators or midcarders. No high flying moves are seen these days. So what’s the use of the X Division? Let’s end it

Honestly, I don’t know that I disagree with you. The X Division is nowhere near what it used to be, and, with the exception of the Machine Guns, the wrestlers have all been run down to the point that they mean little to nothing to the fans. The division could be revived through a combination of bringing in new talent and allowing some of the older names to pick up key victories, but I think that process would take several months that could be better spent pushing wrestlers that may someday be credible threats to the TNA Title.

And we’ll follow that up with the music zone’s own Dan “Hard Boiled” Haggerty.

I’m a big fan of your column and enjoy the analysis you give every week. What separates you from many other writers is the fact you think in fundamentals on how a wrestling show should be booked, and then apply that thinking consistently to your writing on the subject. That’s probably why you can be polarizing with the readers, because it gives you a clear opinion. People, as a rule of thumb, either really like that or they don’t.

Thanks, and keep up the great work!

I think that is accurate for the most part. If you read any interviews with folks who are involved in the development of the TNA product, whether it’s Vince Russo or Kurt Angle or Dixie Carter or Disco Inferno, it becomes clear that they think of themselves as far more of a regular television show than they do a traditional wrestling promotion. Unfortunately, what they forget is that they don’t make one red cent directly from their television program. Thus, they’re not even really using matches to “sell” the show. Yes, they’re using their storylines in an effort to get people to watch the show . . . but, to “sell” something, somebody has to be giving you money somewhere along the line. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been happening nearly enough for TNA.

TNA Impact’s Year in Review

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Year in Review is FINALLY coming to an end. For those of you who have missed the last month’s worst of columns, I’ve been giving my thoughts on the best and worst of TNA from 2007 in order to . . . well, actually, I don’t know what I’ve been attempting to accomplish. Anyway, you can check my archives to take a look at the five best and worst episodes of Impact from last year as well as the five best and worst TNA storylines from the same period of time. Now let’s head to the company’s Most and Least Valuable Players for 2007!

TNA’s Least Valuable Players of 2007

5.) Jay Lethal – Jay Lethal is a talented little wrestler. Unfortunately, he’s also a guy who got saddled with a gimmick that was funny exactly once before becoming painfully unfunny for about six months or so. The worst part of it all? The promotion decided to make him the face of their X Division, which was already on life support. Thanks in part to Lethtal’s reign, it’s now flatlining.

4.) Pac-Man Jones – This guy was nothing but a bottomless hole in to which TNA could throw money with absolutely no prospect of getting a return.

3.) Kevin Nash – In a lot of ways, Nash in 2007 was like Jay Lethal. However, Big Kev managed to last a couple of months before his comedy schtick got painfully unfunny. At least he redeemed himself earlier this year with the line about how he showed up at the Impact Zone just to get paid for doing nothing. That was classic.

2.) Samoa Joe – I’ll also compare Joe to Jay Lethal in that, at one point, I loved to watch our big Samoan friend wrestle. However, TNA repeatedly painting him as a guy who couldn’t get the job done has made me never want to pay to watch him again. That’s the opposite of what you’re supposed to be doing, guys.

1.) Kurt Angle – He’s still an awesome in-ring performer, but sweet Jesus is Kurt Angle now the most obnoxious man on pro wrestling television or what? The sad thing is that he’s the one wrestler on the company’s roster with enough pull that he could legitimately change the flow of the promotion’s booking if he wanted to, though he chooses not to use that power. It could be because he thinks the current product is great, or it could be because he just doesn’t care. Either way, it’s disappointing.

TNA’s Most Valuable Players of 2007

5.) Konnan – He left TNA halfway through the year, but Konnan may be one of the best performers on the microphone in the promotion’s history. Even three months of his quality promos of his quality promos is enough to pop him up on to this list in an otherwise disappointing year for the company.

4.) Jim Cornette – Speaking of promos, Jim Cornette seems to be the last person left in TNA who realizes that they exist to actually PROMOTE things instead of simply being there to provide cheap laughs to the crowd. The buildup he does for pay per views makes even the most inane matches sound halfway appealing.

3.) Amazing Kong – If you don’t get this woman’s appeal, you should probably ditch wrestling and find a new hobby.

2.) Scott Steiner – As quarter of the tag team pairing that brought us the best ’07 TNA feud BY FAR, Scott Steiner was a shoo-in for the list. His performances in the ring are nowhere near as great as they were fifteen years ago, but the man has finally developed a charisma and an “it” factor that make him in to somebody that I want to watch no matter how poor his actual bouts wind up being. Scott Steiner is my hero.

1.) Bubba Ray Dudley – He gets a lot of flack on other parts of the internet, but we here at the Impact Crater will show Bubba nothing but love for everything that he accomplished in 2007. Even when he’s booked in a feud that makes absolutely no sense, he still manages to pump out some quite good heel promos, and, though his critics like to point to how out of shape he is, he ALWAYS steps it up in the ring when he’s required to do so. No other TNA wrestler was as consistently entertaining as Bubba, whether it was on the stick or in matches, and I can only hope that his hot streak continues throughout 2008.

And that does it for this week. I’ll be back with more Impact goodness in just seven days. Until then, be sure to check out my MySpace, where you can add me as a friend to get a bulletin notification every time I post new content here on 411.