10 Thoughts on… TNA Impact on Pop TV 03.22.2016 (Gauntlet Match, Jade vs. Marti Bell vs. Rebel, Bro-Mans vs. Beer Money, Drew Galloway vs. Lashley)

10 Thoughts, Top Story

After last week’s live show, TNA settles into a new multi-week pattern from the last tapings. Let’s get to it!

drewgalloway

1. Drew Galloway came out to start the show and the new era of TNA with him as champion. He will be a fighting champion! The opening segment was a cavalcade of guys coming down and talking and brawling. It was a bit of a mess.

2. There was a funny bit between Josh Matthews and The Pope where Matthews noted that he tried to enter them in the tag team invitational because Pope “took a spear” for him last week.

beermoneybackstage

3. First Beer Money was backstage speculating about various tag teams that they could face, and name dropped LAX, XXX and the Naturals. Finally Storm suggested AMW and Roode objected saying Storm would be on both teams. Storm thought this would be cool.

4. The actual team ended up being a re-uninted Bro-Mans, Robbie E and Jessie Goddarz. Not sure how many fans were clamoring for this team to return. They lost in their return to Beer Money. This segment made TNA seem bush league to me.

bromans

5. Eddie Edwards called out Decay and Crazzy Steve came out. They had a brawl but Edwards ended up on top. This also seemed somewhat low rent.

mariatna

6. Maria came out and called out the Dollhouse. She challenged them to break up and become women. Maria is giving her title shot to one of the Doll House, and books a three way dance between Rebel, Jade and Marti Bell. Jade came out on top.

jade

7. Throughout the night there were scenes around a tumbler to choose numbers in a Gauntlet match. These segments reminded me of the old Royal Rumble segments in a good way. It was sort of weird to see scenes of the match as clips in the “coming up later”, as if to really show it’s pre-taped.

8. There was another random segment with main eventers near the end of the show, with Drew Galloway, Bobby Lashley and EC3. Ah it’s the start of the Gauntlet match. The first segment of the match was various heels ganging up on EC3, including Mike Bennett, Rockstar Spud and Tyrus. Really long heat sequence that had no heat.

9. Lashley goes on a tear and eliminates most of the guys from the match. This gets nearly no reaction. Then the Pope(!) comes from the announce table and tries to eliminate Lashley. And does! Then Lashley comes back in and he gets tossed again by EC3. Lashley and Pope brawl to the back. Book that match!

10. The Gauntlet ended up with Matt vs. Jeff, and Jeff ended up winning. Sets up Jeff vs. Drew Galloway next week.

This was by far my least favorite Impact since doing these 10 Thoughts recaps. The show was overbooked by a million and everything came off as low rent or bush league. I really did not like what they had to offer tonight.

Jonathan Widro is the owner and founder of Inside Pulse. Over a decade ago he burst onto the scene with a pro-WCW reporting style that earned him the nickname WCWidro. Check him out on Twitter for mostly inane non sequiturs