Normally I leave my thoughts on Impact at the end of my weekly recap. After sitting through the two hour broadcast last week, I couldn’t muster the energy to write any in depth thoughts on the show. Instead it was a quick summary in which I stated that the first hour may have been the worst hour of any wrestling program I have ever seen and that it was a mostly unwatchable show.
I got an unusual amount of emails from people who spoke out against my opinion and I have responded to most of them personally. Due to this reaction, I decided to seek out other opinions and spent some time over the weekend scouring the Internet and reading what other fans thought about the show. After reading what other people had to say, I have to say that I am sticking with my original opinion on the show.
A majority of the fans who loved this week’s Impact seemed to have liked the change of pace and how hilarious Scott Steiner, Booker T and Kevin Nash were in their roles. I agree that Steiner did his role well with the ring introductions, and there were a few other funny bits, such as when Kevin Nash confused Mick Foley for Serj Tankian, but aside from those couple of instances I didn’t find any humor in what was being aired. Had it not been for the fact that I was writing a recap of the show, I would have turned Impact off, which is something that I have never done before.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, of course, but I am going to run down the list of what ruined Impact for me this past week.
Unoriginal rehash of nWo takeover of WCW Nitro
I should have known what kind of night we were all in for when the show opened with “The following message has been brought to you by the Main Event Mafia.” That sounded eerily similar to a video package opening for a distinct group of individuals about a decade ago. Once the package is over, we see that Kurt Angle and the rest of the Mafia is in control of the show. Where have I seen this before? Maybe in WCW in 1997 when Hollywood Hogan, Kevin Nash and the rest of the New World Order took over Monday Nitro.
It’s all about respect
For months the Main Event Mafia has been all about class and teaching the young stars what respect is all about. This past week’s episode had nothing to do with any of that. The first hour consisted of nothing but the MEM acting like little kids and putting the young stars up against insurmountable odds in the ring. Their whole demeanor had suddenly shifted and resembled very little of their smooth and classy image that they had built the group around.
Quality of wrestling
Normally the quality of wrestling on Impact is lacking somewhat, but last week’s episode went above and beyond the horrendous level that is usually aired. As I mentioned before, the matches were usually stacked to one side so the talent didn’t get much to work with. With that said, did we really need to sit through a match that involved two of the referees who never wrestle? To make matters worse, Booker T’s commentary on top of these matches nearly made my ears bleed.
The huge announcement for Against All Odds
Once some sense of normalcy returned to the show, Jim Cornette was standing by to make a huge announcement for the Against All Odds pay-per-view. He booked a “fight” between referee Shane Sewell and Booker T since Booker had his way against the referees earlier in the night. Forget the fact that just prior to this announcement Mick Foley awarded Hernandez another shot at the TNA World Championship as his last match ended in a disqualification. Why would they want to promote that more or give it some hype at all? The title shot, which is for the most prestigious title in the company got a passing mention during a promo by Foley.
Kurt Angle defeats the LAX in a handicap match
If the passing mention for the TNA World Championship wasn’t enough for Hernandez, he and his partner, Homicide, got to face Kurt Angle in a handicap match. Even with the odds in their favor and being one of the top tag teams in the division, it still wasn’t enough to defeat Kurt Angle. Not only did Angle defeat the LAX, but he did so by a clean pin fall. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise, though, as at one time Angle held every single title in TNA at the same time, including the tag team titles by himself.
Burying of the Front Line
The LAX isn’t technically part of the Front Line, but they were on the list of young stars that were crushed by the MEM during the night. Eric Young, Jay Lethal, and Consequences Creed, all who didn’t even wrestle in a match, were made out to look weak when they ran out to help their fallen partner, Petey Williams, and quickly got beat down. To make matters worse, Black Snow (a/k/a Booker T) came out from behind the announce table and joined in on the beat down, all while providing his own commentary.
All of those aforementioned topics were low points for the show in my mind. The real only redeeming factor of this past week’s Impact was the fact that Samoa Joe announced his return. That was the final 20 seconds, though, and didn’t nearly make up for the rest of the horrendous show that they put on. Surprisingly enough, this show scored a 1.18 cable television rating, which is pretty good for Impact. I am hoping that this strong rating doesn’t encourage more broadcasts like this one and that this episode was a small part of an overall plan to take this angle between the MEM and the Front Line somewhere.
