Impact Wrestling Review Sep 8th 2016 (Delete or Decay, Impact Grand Championship and Press conferences)

Columns, Reviews

Impact focused on Delete or Decay this week – the sequel to the final deletion. Oddly, some other aspects of the show this week were more on the realistic side. So Impact acted as a bit of a catchall this week – as it really has since characters like Decay and broken Matt have been on the show. Delete or Decay has gone down well, as have many other aspects of the show.


Where else can we start, than with Delete or Decay, an epic battle between the Hardys and Decay. Just as was with final deletion, this is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. You either have to really suspend your disbelief, or just accept that the whole thing is a big production. Unlike much of what you see the World Champion, Lashley, do; you are never really going to be able to lose yourself in the performance and look at it as a real competition. Part of what made Delete or Decay good was the comedy aspect, another part that made it good would be how unbelievable some of the things the two groups did. An appearance from Joe Parks – the “brother” of Abyss – was pretty great. The ending was also pretty cool, as Matt Hardy caught the mist Rosemary spat at him in his mouth, spitting it back at her. That didn’t stop Decay running off, kidnapping Senior Benjamin however. As I said last week, it seems as though this feud is heading for a Bound for Glory match. My question is how do they top this? How will the Hardy’s and Decay manage to take this feud to a climax? It will be interesting to see what they try and do.

From the bizarre and fantasy world of Decay and the Hardy’s, to a new, very realistic type of championship for TNA. When I read the spoilers for this set of tapings, I was confused at first as to why TNA would do this. A lot of others seemed to dislike the idea of this title and the ruleset that surrounded the matches for it. The longer I’ve thought about it though, and now I’ve seen the title and a match using the ruleset, I’m excited about it and see a lot of positives in the title and its rules. Firstly, it seems this tournament will revolve around the ongoing feud of Drew Galloway and Aron Rex. This not only gives them something to fight over, but also adds more intrigue to the tournament.

The match rules in themselves give benefits to the title. As many of you will know, there is a lot of wrestling to be watched right now. If you’re watching TNA, there is a good chance you’ve watched around 6 or 7 hours of wrestling that week already – and that’s just WWE, some fans watch many more hours, by the time Thursday night rolls around – so that gives multiple reasons for something like this. First of all, with so much competition for viewer’s time and money, you want to offer something different. TNA has learned time and time again, being exactly the same as WWE doesn’t work. As WWE will do it better than anyone else and even if they don’t, they have a loyal fan base. Therefore you need Decay and you need the Grand championship, so you can offer viewers something they won’t see elsewhere. Additionally, with some much content, it’s easy for viewers to become bored. When you’ve already watched almost 10 hours of wrestling in the week, a meaningless 10 minute match on Impact isn’t necessarily going to suck you in. Five minutes in, you might already be looking at your phone. With the short three minute rounds, those matches feels a lot more action packed and a lot more minutes of that match end up meaning more. We will have to see how everything works out, although I am very optimistic about this title and the tournament going forward.

One thing I’ve seen TNA do a few times throughout the years, although we’ve seen it more often in the past few months, are press conferences. This is what happened on Impact this week, with EC3 and Lashley appearing at this press conference to promote their Bound for Glory match. As you’d expect, this did end up in a brawl. I thought this was really good though. At the end of the day, this does basically serve the same purpose of an in ring promo. However, by having a bit of a different environment, a different format, it’s again different. It feels different for the viewer and therefore instantly makes you a little bit more engaged with what’s on the screen. Additionally, as many pointed out, a press conference is similar to the UFC, it gives a legitimate feel.

In terms of what is going on with the Knockouts, it’s a shame that with so much going on elsewhere on Impact, a lot of focus is lost on the Knockouts. I feel the character development of Allie has been excellent. The hope will be that she will go and receive “training” and then we can see the former Cherry Bomb compete to her full potential. Many were frustrated that Cherry Bomb was given a character who couldn’t wrestle. However, if the character of Allie does eventually reach the level of Cherry Bomb, this character development will be well worth it. TNA has had many women who are good wrestlers, but come into the company and end up leaving, after little success. This is because while they were fantastic wrestlers, they weren’t given much of a character, or time to develop that character on screen.


Next week we will see the full out from Delete or Decay. Additionally, the ‘Impact Grand Championship’ tournament continues with the in ring debut of Aron Rex. Not a whole lot being promoted for next week, however the debut of Aron Rex will for sure be interesting, so I’ll be watching for that one.

I am 18 years old, and a journalism student at university. I write about professional wrestling and soccer. Twitter - LewisMichie0