10 Thoughts on TNA IMPACT WRESTLING 03.22.12 – Bobby Roode, Dixie Carter, Sting, James Storm, Crimson

Reviews, Shows, Top Story, TV Shows

Reviewing the 3/22/12 episode of IMPACT WRESTLING…

1. By filming stuff after the PPV is over, it provides a nice treat for the live audience as well as starts Impact off with something fresh to show viewers and something to sell to the audience to go see live any chance they can get. It was a nice move in a sorely needed start to the show which has become repetitive in it’s Bobby Roode selfish videos.

2. Speaking of Bobby Roode, it was a bit odd to show kayfabe Roode doing such dastardly deeds as he usually blurs the line with his alienation of real life family and friends and then contradict that a bit with the World Title Lockdown build up video. A very well done video featuring voiceovers of Roode and James Storm, the package showed early TNA clips with a very sincere sounding Roode. While this adds to the history and big match feel, it seems a tad out of place considering how dastardly they painted Roode at the start of the show.

3. Bully Ray ruined a very good match between X-Division wrestlers Anthony Nese, Kid Kash, Zema Ion and defending Champion Austin Aries. With the cheers Aries has been getting as well as Bully kicking him in the face when Aries was asking him why, could this be the official start of an Aries babyface turn?

4. Getting back to the X-Division title match, does it get any worse of a jobber like introduction than a very glossed over back from commercial introduction… “Already standing in the ring Kid Kash and Anthony Nese…” I think I’ve seen enhancement talent introduced better than that on WWE Superstars back in the day.

5. Samoa Joe and Magnus continue to dominate the tag team division with a very strong win over former champions Mexican America. I think with the recent promo pushing the return of the Motor City Machine Guns they are on a collision course with Joe/Magnus. This really has the potential to reignite a very stagnant Tag Team division again.

6. Move of the Night:

X-Division Match’s Tower of Doom.

Austin Aries powerbombing a Zema Ion who was putting a superplex giving Kid Kash on his shoulders from the second rope, who had Anthony Nese at the top rope for that superplex…whew.

7. Line of the Night:

a. On the Knockouts Titles being designed for women

Taz – “The person with the beard as you can see is not a woman. If he is a woman, he is a very disgusting looking woman.”

8. Match of the Night

X-Division 4-way Title Match

X-Division Champion A-Double Austin Aries vs. Zema Ion vs. Kid Kash vs. Anthony Nese 

Very entertaining match while it lasted spoiled by Bully Ray. Now if he ends up working with Austin Aries after this then the story is perfectly fine. If it was just to squash the “little guys” to show he’s a big bad bully, then shame on TNA for crapping on the best thing they have going(Aries).

9.  Final Show Thoughts:

Sting stepped down as GM will take time off and come back as a full time wrestler. Hulk Hogan is his replacement. Oh, brother. Dixie trusted Sting, which is the story. I don’t know if I can take that much more of the Hulkster this soon. TNA hyped the upcoming show Repo Games with host Josh Lewis, going so far to even use him in a storyline bringing back Mexican America to do it. Don’t get me started with the implications there. Both pairs of Mexican America, male and female lost their tag team title matches and the Mamacitas walked off with Josh Lewis in the end when Anarquia said he had no money. I guess Lewis repossessed Hernandez and Anarquia’s women as well as their car. Please, please let this be the end of their faction. Kurt Angle continues his over the top goofy promos and then challenged Garett Bischoff to a 3-minute challenge match. Garett was stalling after Kurt oddly threw him out of the ring and Gunner came down to the ring for the DQ. Jeff Hardy made the save. Speaking of Hardy, Joseph Park talked to Jeff Hardy about his missing “brother” Abyss backstage. The big man seemed to have completely slicked back hair now. Growing it back maybe?. ODB & Eric Young get married April 12th on Impact. They picked up a big win on former Knockout Champions Rosita and Sarita. Absolutely no segment or mention of Devon as the new TV Champion. I guess it’s still a meaningless title. Crimson in a very good segment insulted and challenged Matt Morgan next week to a match up. Would it have not made more sense to have Crimson defeat Devon since this feud is getting more TV time than the champion? Morgan attacked Crimson backstage to set up their match next week. Crimson could be good in the role as he comes across as a smarmy bastard you would love to hate. Being pushed down viewers throat and endlessly called undefeated even though he shares tag team losses doesn’t hurt his chances as a heel. Another good segment had Champion Roode not even show up live to the show this week as he sent out a lawyer to read a statement from him. Not the first time this has been done in wrestling history, David Otunga. It ended bad with the Last Call superkick to help get James Storm’s character over. This led to a handicapped match between Storm vs. Daniels and Kazarian who used tag tornado rules to beat on Storm instead of usual 2 on 1 rules where one guy is on the apron. Don’t ask me why since they offered no explanation why the match was operating like this instead of the tag rule. They had to tease the story of Kaz and Daniels constantly pushing each other out of the way to beat on Storm which completely contradicted the story they wanted to sell last week with Kaz buying into Daniels’ lead. Storm won the match of course. Not a lot of things stood out on this show and bringing back seldom used characters, some very bad seldom used characters(Hulk Hogan and Anarquia specifically) at that after a Post-PPV show where you might get some momentum from new viewers gives the impression that the show is not fresh, but rehashing some old garbage. The show seemed to even return to machine gunning(no offense to the Guns) a lot of stuff like they used to do before the show started slowing it’s pace in recent months.

10. IMPACT PLAYERs of the WEEK: 

Bobby Roode, Dixie Carter, Sting, James Storm, Crimson

Not a lot of stuff stood out, although the stuff with Roode, Carter and Sting did more than anything as did the well done history video with Roode and Storm, who’s on his game with his segments and big win over two guys at the same time. Crimson’s character went full heel which is probably a good idea for now.

That is all.

M.C. Brown

You can find me on Twitter as

ShocXwavE