Welcome to 10 Thoughts on TNA Impact! I am your inconsistent host, Rhett Davis, and, now that I’m back doing Rasslin’ Roundtables, I figured it would be nice to catch up with some TNA. This show is ‘live’ from the United Kingdom and the audience is PACKED! Let’s get started!
1. We open the show with the team of Kazarian and Christopher Daniels dressed like Braveheart. They cut an excellent promo about how the Scotts were the muscle in the United Kingdom and that brings out Manchester’s own Magnus who cleans house and challenges D-Von Dudley. So D-Von is one of the head dogs in Aces and Eights and Magnus is getting big pops at home. Builds Aces and Eights as big heels by setting them against the hometown favorite. Smart way to open the show.
2. I haven’t seen too much of Magnus, but he has a good look and looked decent enough in this match with D-Von. I’ll be interested to see where he goes.
3. Has Joseph Parks seriously never fought on TNA Impact? I thought he had a hardcore match with Bully Ray sometime ago? Back when Ray was a heel. Either way, his story when he entered TNA was fantastic so this segment should be good. However, it amazes me that Robbie E gets more screen time than Zack Ryder with more or less the same character except as a heel. Parks wins the match in his first match on the show.
4. Austin Aries and Bobby Roode are now a team. Well… I think Aries works well as a heel but he’s very similar to Punk in the case of his character works either way. And honestly the team is a good idea although I’m not sure what pitted them together.
5. Chavo is getting a big-time push here in TNA so it seems. That’s a bit strange, but I’ve always been a Chavo fan so it’s nice to see some fresh blood near the title picture in TNA. I’m not too sure about sticking Hernandez with him to form LAX 7.0 is necessarily a good thing. Maybe TNA is trying to get some of the popularity of Chavo to rub off on SuperMex? We’ll see. Austin Aries wins with one of the nastiest finishers in the business with the brain buster. Good match here.
6. It’s so weird to see Bully Ray with Brooke Hogan. Who would’ve thought ten years ago that we’d see Hulk Hogan’s daughter get married to one of those damn Dudleys? That being said, Bully Ray is one of the most interesting characters in TNA, but I don’t think this is the way you elevate him to a top face status. At this point in TNA, I really think that Sting and Hogan do more to kill the product than help it. Because Hogan doesn’t wrestle and Sting shouldn’t be wrestling.
7. The one thing that I really like about TNA is they try to show how important their Knockout division is by separating it from everything else unlike WWE. They have their own referee, their own head of division, and their own lengthy segments. Tara as their champion is a good move as well as she is great in the ring. Although who is this Jesse guy? He looks like a ripped Miz.
8. James Storm’s rise has been stop and start, but here he gets a pretty big pop to aid Velvet Sky. They win over the heels in a brief mixed tag match.
9. Mr. Anderson is in Aces and Eights? Why isn’t he the leader of this group? Why are D-Von and Tazz bigger mouth pieces for the group than him? It’s weird although he fits with this group well and, in my opinion, should be the leader behind it. Fits the mold better than D-Von or Tazz. I loved the correlation between this match and their match two years ago. Continuity lives!
10. Pretty decent match between Angle and Anderson that leads to Wes Brisco and Garrett Bischoff turning on Angle and joining the Aces and Eights. Jeez. The Aces and Eights need some star power and quick. The group consists of Anderson, Tazz, D-Von, DOC (formerly Luke Gallows or Festus), whatever they’re calling Mike Knox, Wes Brisco, and Garrett Bischoff. I may be missing one or two, but that’s the bulk of their group.
Altogether a pretty solid show! I’m glad I decided to watch it and it was honestly better than Raw. Even with the return of Brock Lesnar. It will be interesting to see how well the arenas fill up now that TNA is going out on the road away from the Impact Zone. I’ll try to keep with this regularly but we’ll see. Thanks for reading!
And quite frankly my dear… that’s a wrap!
