Lance Storm reviewed last week’s episode of Impact at Storm Wrestling. Other than the four sided ring, he did not care for it. Here are some reasons why:
I’m not going to say this is wrong or even a definite bad idea, only time will tell for sure, but I hated AJ Styles as the new Nature Boy. There are a ton of things that needed fixing in TNA but AJ Styles isn’t one of them. One of the reasons the Nature Boy gimmick worked so well for Ric Flair was that he lived it; he really did live this life style. AJ Styles is about as far from this gimmick in real life as humanly possible. The only person that might be less suited for this gimmick is me.
TNA bait and switched 2 matches on the PPV (not delivering Bobby Lashley or Scott Hall), then they went back on the stipulation from the main event, and also did rematches of the World and Tag Team Title matches on Impact. What message is this sending to fans? It’s telling them that we don’t deliver what we promise you, so if you spend your money to support us we will screw you, and if you don’t spend your money to support us, we will give you the key matches for free the week after on TV anyway. They are punishing their paying fans and rewarded their nonpaying ones. This is not a good business model!
He also goes in to the convoluted TNA ownership situation, the lack of wrestling on the show, multiple workers being fired/quitting/working without a contract and then being fired anyway, and the Montreal Screwjob redux at the end of Angle vs. Styles:
And then for the Finale we got the Montreal finish. Are you F’N kidding me? The most over done, bullshit finish in wrestling and we not only got it again, we got an exact carbon copy of it; all we needed was for Kurt to draw WWE in the air at the finish. This finish is so old and so stale it doesn’t draw heat it draws groans of disappointment. My first reaction to this (after my groan of disappointment) was: “Hey that reminds me, WWE is finally doing the conclusion to this 12 year old angle on RAW, I’ll have to be sure to watch that show on Monday!â€
And then he points out four plot holes in the finish, although two are just pointing out that they could have screwed Angle over much earlier in the match (or just stuck to the stips and not given him the rematch).
