Hello crew. Filling in for Pulse Glazer, I’m R. Phillip Provencio, bringing you my own interpretation of 10 Thoughts on Impact. Enjoy this special edition that may or may not happen again.
1. Jeff Jarrett is in the opening montage despite not appearing onscreen in an in-ring manner since Sacrifice 2007. That’s over a year in time, folks. Not even Triple H strokes his own ego in that way. This guy must own the company or something.
2. TNA referees and officials have a reputation of coming across as very ineffective on TV. In the first five minutes of this program, they live up to that standard, as apparently James Storm was supposed to be banned from being involved in the Parking Lot Brawl between Robert Roode and Homicide, but got involved anyway. Referees tried to pull Storm away for literally 20 seconds, were fought off and were never seen again. Don’t ask me how a Parking Lot Brawl ended up inside the ring either. I generally prefer TNA’s stupidity to WWE’s as I don’t find it as insulting, but this segment was atrocious.
3. I don’t understand why wrestling companies like to forget their own history. Anyone who reads my Crackdown every week knows how surprised and frustrated I was that WWE didn’t make any mention that Batista and Umaga wrestled at ‘Mania when they main evented Smackdown two weeks ago. Don West claiming that this was the first time they’d ever seen Doug Williams in a TNA ring is a significantly less outlandish claim, however it is just as false, as he was used as a jobber there in the early days, once losing to James Storm. I just wish wrestling companies would stay true to their history.
4: Doug Williams and Masato Yoshino had a very good X Division match. It was a kind of fast paced match that you rarely see in WWE, the appealing kind that make TNA the most interesting alternative, the type of match that made the X Division famous in the first place. Doug Williams’ finishing move is the second finisher I remember marking out for the first time I saw it. Very enjoyable match.
5: Whoever writes the scripts (Russo cough cough) should leave the tasteless boner jokes to the people who write garbage like Epic Movie. Once is more than enough. Jeremy Borash and Sonjay Dutt playing the same role within five minutes of each other is much more than overkill.
6: Jim Cornette’s faith in Matt Morgan is amazing. I’ve heard before that he has a lot of belief in the man, but I’d never heard it from Corny’s mouth. The Rough Cut series seems to be intended for making the wrestlers more human, really introducing us to them and for seeing the kind of people they really are without being overly corny or sugar-coated.
7: Taylor Wilde pinned Awesome Kong clean to win the Knockouts Title and $25,000. I’m not sure how to react to this. Traditionally when a wrestler debuts by winning the title, they don’t succeed far after that (see: Gail Kim in WWE). However, the Knockouts division is so amazingly strong, having a newcomer like Taylor at the top for a short while may turn out to be a good thing. Kong needs to find a new finisher though, if a “fan†can kick out of the Implant Buster.
8: Kaz and Ultimo Guerrero had a fine World X Cup match as well, but a particularly bad springboard botch by Kaz puts it a rung or two under Williams vs. Yoshino.
9: Seriously, who writes the innuendo-laced promos? Hearing ODB tell the Beautiful People that she’d “I’m comin’ full force and you two are gonna get a facial you never forget†is just as needless as JB and Sonjay getting wood.
10: I can’t seem to figuree out a good explanation for Sting’s presence in TNA. Impact’s ratings are so stagnantly consistent that Sting’s presence has no effect, and TNA doesn’t release PPV buyrate information. All the while, Sting makes a strong six figure salary for occasionally showing up and doing very little, like tonight, where he hung out in the rafters, and interrupted Booker T’s apology segment to say he’ll be watching the PPV.
Tune in next week when Glazer reclaims his column as his own. Until then, see you next week and keep your teeth clean!
