BRM Reviews the 12/12/2013 Impact

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING VIDEO PACKAGE- why would Dixie allow any of the parts of this that showed her in a negative light (especially things like AJ going around the world and saying that his TNA World Heavyweight Title was the real one)? And how did she get permission to use the material from the “Friends of AJ” commercials?

ROCKSTAR SPUD IN A CAR, CALLING DIXIE- So getting the TNA World Heavyweight Title back from AJ was so important for Dixie that she decided to wait an entire week to before trying to do so?
And even if getting the belt back wasn’t an immediate concern, of all of the times she could possibly send her chief of staff off on an important mission, Dixie picks the busiest day of her week?

ANGLE & ROODE SEGMENT- JB introduces the return of Feast or Fired, getting that out of the way quickly. The Angle comes out and breaks stuff and demands to fight with Roode. Roode comes out and says that he won’t fight Angle. Then he says that he has Kurt’s number recently and that he is better than Kurt is.
Kurt says that Roode will never beat him again, and he is so sure of it that he will beat Roode twice in one night. They then start to brawl, and refs and security try to separate them but failed at it, just like a few weeks ago (those completely ineffective Atlas Security chumps were nowhere to be seen, so maybe they actually were fired for incompetence. Roode gets the advantage after a low blow and challenges Kurt to a 2-out-of-3 falls match.

We then got a video package recapping Kaz and Daniels discovery that Park, Park, and Park hasn’t existed for thirteen years … and now that I think about it, didn’t Hulk Hogan hire them to do legal work for TNA last summer? That would mean that TNA DIDN’T DO A F*CKING BACKGROUND CHECK BEFORE ALLOWING A COMPANY TO HANDLE IMPORTANT LEGAL DOCUMENTS! HOW F*CKING STUPID ARE THEY?

EY & JOSEPH BACKSTAGE- Great stuff. It just shows you how much of Eric Young’s talent TNA has wasted over the past few years by pushing comedy WAY too hard.
I also think there is an interesting train of thought that they aren’t exploring here. When Joseph Abysses up, he seems to lose control, which can be scary thing for someone. I would love to see them do something where Joseph doesn’t WANT to become Abyss, but has to in order to save EY or something like that.
That all being said, how the hell has there been no fallout whatsoever from Bad Influence’s revelation that JOSEPH HAS BEEN LYING TO EVERYONE FOR OVER A YEAR AND A HALF?!
JOSEPH PARK & ERIC YOUNG vs. BAD INFLUENCE- no rating. Awesome segment.
Bad Influence just kick Joseph around and Joseph seems all pathetic until EY clears the ring and tries to fire Joseph up with a pep-talk… but it doesn’t work… so EY grabs Joseph in a headlock and starts punching him in the face until he bleeds. EY shows Joseph his blood and Joseph gets all Abyss-y and starts to bear down on EY, but Bad Influence jump him from behind, shifting his focus to them. Joseph then beats them pretty much on his own.
AFTERMATH- EY says that Joseph has been looking for Abyss for the past eighteen months. Bullsh*t. He was looking for Abyss for about three or four months, then decided to just go off and play wrestler instead. Anyway, EY tells Joseph that the reason he ahsn’t succeeded in finding Abyss is because Joseph is Abyss.
Oh really? Then explain how we have seen them in the same place at the same time? (the Bully vs. Joseph contract signing, and Slammiversary X)

Apparently TNA is going to be doing a live interactive Q&A on their website with Joseph Park at some point during tonight’s show. Tow problems here:
1. Of all the people to do a live Q&A, why would you pick the guy who you just found out has been lying about the last thirteen years of his life?
2. Why the hell would you do this DURING THE SHOW?! During the show is the worst time to do it, because if people are paying attention to your live, interactive Q&A session, THE’YRE NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO THE SHOW!

EC III PROMO- he says he will do something tonight that will “make social media explode.” How much do you want to bet that that doesn’t even come close to happening?

ETHAN CARTER III vs. JEREMY BORASH- yeah. Apparently someone thought THIS would make social media explode.
The match doesn’t happen because Sting comes out and mocks EC III’s success, saying that he hasn’t done sh*t in the business and that the only reason he even has a job is that he is Dixie’s nephew.
Sting says that what EC III did to Earl Hebner last week was despicable. Okay then, Stinger. THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU STOP IT?!
Sting challenges EC III to enter himself into the Feast or Fired match tonight. WHY? SO this little sh*t who hasn’t done anything in the business can win one multi-winner clusterduck of a match and if he gets lucky, come out of it with an MITB-style almost guaranteed title reign? How does this one win make him worthy all of a sudden.
Sting gives EC III the choice of either entering himself into Feast or Fired or fighting him right now. EC III teases facing Sting, then decides to enter himself into Feast or Fired. Way to go, Sting. Now that entitled little sh*t is the one win away from becoming #1 contender to a major title.

ROCKSTAR SPUD TALKS TO A GAS STATION ATTENDANT- Apparently Spud is lost. He is suing a giant roadmap, so I guess Dixie Carter’s chief of staff can’t afford a modern car with a f*cking GPS in it.
So Spud pulls over at a gas station and asks the attendant if he knows where AJ Styles is. The gas station attendant just happens to know that AJ and his friends hang out at a bar a mile down the road. Spud thanks him and leaves, without even asking for THE NAME OF THE BAR.
This whole segment really annoyed me. Would it have really been so hard to just WRITE SPUD TO BE COMPETENT?!

40 minutes into the show, Tenay reminded us that Jeff Hardy and Magnus will meet next week to crown a new TNA World Heavyweight Champion. This was the first time this had been mentioned all show.

GAIL KIM PROMO- she cuts her standard open challenge promo. ODB comes out and sucker punches Tapa. The heels get her with the numbers game and who should come out to make the save but MADISON RAYNE. Yeah. Madison Rayne (who is a redhead now). So much for this open challenge freshening up the division.

ROCKSTAR SPUD WALKS IN TO A BAR IN GEORGIA-
OUCH!

Anyway, he tries to get the bartenders attention, and fails, but then she finally responds to him mocking southern accents. He asks her if she knows “Allen Jones.” Why they used AJ’s shoot name in this segment and his ring name in the last one I have no idea. He orders a drink, but is not given the information he wanted.

ROCKSTAR GETS GOADED INTO SINGING A SONG WITH A LIVE BAND- He acts like a moron and gets tangled in some Christmas lights, then thrown out of the bar. WHAT THE F*CK WAS THE POINT OF THIS.

FEAST OR FIRED VIDEO PACKAGE- They called it “TNA’s most diabolical event.” Here is a hint for anyone who is ever writing video packages or commercials or lines in a speech or really anything that will be read in public: Before you put it in the final version, say it out loud. If it sounds stupid, TAKE IT OUT!
The “be careful what you reach for” tag line was awesome, though.

STORM & GUNNER BACKSTAGE- good. They put over the risk of Feast or Fired and the fact that they aren’t enemies… yet. But they certainly aren’t getting along.

ROCKSTAR SPUD GETS OUT OF HIS CAR FOR SOME REASON- dumb
Apparently he found out where AJ’s house is. Why didn’t they show us that instead of him looking like an idiot?
Wait. Sorry. He’s being an idiot here, too. He says that AJ’s house is three doors down. He leaves the car and walks into what appears to be an almost pitch black strip of road, with just a dinky little flashlight.

DIXIE CARTER PROMO- She is upset that Kurt destroyed the wheel of Dixie. That made me laugh. The she brings out Jeff and Magnus.
JEFF HARDY, MAGNUS & DIXIE SEGMENT-
Jeff and Magnus both cut very good promos. Then Dixie says that even though the wheel of Dixie was destroyed, there was only one match type left on it, so that is the type of match that the world title match will be. Since when was it stated that you can’t reuse a stip. And there were at least thirty spots on that thing and this is only a seven match tournament, so I find that very hard to believe. That match is called a “Dixieland Match,” and fortunately, TNA had a video package ready to explain it to us.

VIDEO PACKAGE FOR THE DIXIELAND MATCH-
They said that this was “a challenge so diabolical it can only be withstood by a true champion.” If this match is so diabolical that it can only be withstood by a true champion, but Feast or Fired is even more diabolical than this match because Feast or Fired is “TNA’s most diabolical event,” then shouldn’t it logically follow that Feast or Fired is also so diabolical that it can only be withstood by a true champion? If you want to ensure that your champion is worthy, why not pick THE most diabolical match in the company?
I know that I am nit-picking here, but it just really bothers me that they did this just because the whole “most diabolical match in TNA” thing would have been a great way to hype up this match (I especially like it because it is Dixie’s idea and she is top heel, hence her idea is “diabolical”), but they can’t use that because they used it earlier for a match that comes nowhere close to deserving that moniker AND for which they already had a MUCH better tagline (“be careful what you reach for”).
So how does a Dixieland match work? It starts off as an escape over the walls only steel cage match, and after you escape the cage, you then have to climb a ladder at the top of the ramp and retrieve the title.
The video package hyped up that there would be tons of obstacles in their way, but it never said what those obstacles would be. The only obstacle we saw in the video package was that there was fire constantly erupting form the turnbuckles and from a spigot in the middle of the ring, but I doubt that will be part of the actual match.

So after we come back from the video package, Dixie says “That’s great, right?!” Which I found hilarious. Jeff Hardy had a look on his face that clearly said “What the f*ck? Are they serious about this?” Magnus had a determined look on his face. Dixie then promises that the champion will be get to travel the world with her in her private jet and be the face of TNA in every endeavor. She also invites them to her “VIP Table” tonight to drink wine with her. Okay…

CHRIS SABIN & VELVET SKY BACKSTAGE- Apparently Sabin is facing Aries for the X-Division Title tonight. I had completely forgotten about this match. Perhaps they should have mentioned it at some point in the seventy minutes of this show that have already elapsed.
ROCKSTAR SPUD BREAKS INTO SOMEONE’S HOUSE- Rather than knock on the front door, he goes around the back and TRIES TO BREAK INTO THE HOUSE. He thought it would be a good idea to bring along his cameraman, so that this crime would be BROADCAST AROUND THE WORLD. He finds that one of the doors is unlocked, so he enters the house. He stumbles around, bumping into everything in the room that could possibly make noise. He then finds the title belt sitting out on a table… and AJ Styles was apparently lying in wait right there.
AJ says that Spud asking around for him caused people to call him, tipping AJ off that Spud was coming. So apparently AJ Styles, who loves wrestling and is a very cool guy DOES NOT WATCH IMPACT.
AJ tells Spud that he can either get some friends to come over and beat Spud up (because I guess AJ just can’t do that himself) or he can call the cops. Spud runs off in fear.

Yeah. Apparently on this mission to forcibly take the TNA World Heavyweight Title belt from AJ Styles, Dixie thought that a lone Rockstar Spud would be able to do the job. WHAT THE F*CK?! Why not send a bunch of guys in vans or something?
Even worse is the fact that THIS WENT ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE! AJ didn’t get so furious at this attempt at burglary that he said he was going to show up next week and give Dixie a piece of her mind. Spud didn’t steal the belt, thus forcing AJ to show up to AJ to try to get it back. AJ just said the equivalent of “sorry. You failed at stealing my belt. Too bad for you.” and that was it. WHAT A F*CKING POINTLESS WASTE OF TIME!

Tickets go on sale tomorrow for shows on January 10th and 11th. That is LESS THAN A MONTH! How the f*ck are you supposed to draw with ticket s only being on sale for less than a month?

KEN ANDERSON PROMO- Good
He says it is time to focus on regaining the TNA World Heavyweight Title.

TNA X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH: Chris Sabin(c) (w/Velvet Sky) vs. Austin Aries- 5.75/10
This is Sabin’s first title defense since winning the belt more than a month and a half ago. The challenger, Austin Aries, has done absolutely nothing to earn this title show. The former champion, Manik, has not only not been given his return match yet, but he HASN’T EVEN BEEN ON TV SINCE LOSING THE BELT!
Anyway, these guys did the absolute best that they possibly could in the LESS THAN SEVEN MINUTES that this big title match between two former world champions was given (I guess all of those idiotic segments with Rockstar Spud were more important). They told a nice little story with Sabin working over Aries’ stomach. Anyway, they put the belt on Aries in this random title match with almost no build. WHY?!
Don’t the bookers know how to tell a f*cking story?
If the angle is that Sabin is using Velvet as a human shield to gain the advantage in his matches, then you have him get a bunch of wins (including some title defenses) where that is the major turning point in the match which leads to Sabin gaining the advantage and winning the match. Then, when you have a good challenger really well built up, you do the same finish. Then you have the challenger call Sabin out on using Velvet as a shield and you either have an authority figure bar Velvet from ringside (or, if you want to separate them and have Sabin go heel and Velvet stay face, you have Velvet refuse to come to ringside because Sabin is using her as a human shield… and you do the f*cking title change in THAT match! GRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!! This sh*t is SO F*CKING SIMPLE TO DO RIGHT, AND YET TNA ALWAYS F*CKING FAILS AT IT!

During the One Night Only: World Cup commercial I couldn’t help but notice that Rockstar Spud is on Team UK. SO they go and reintroduce Spud as an important character on TV with a new gimmick… and then two weeks later they start airing a PPV where he is running around in his old gimmick? And this is also the same PPV that has an Aces & Eights team on it, despite airing right after the stable was forced to disband forever… and that team has two men on it who had left the group MONTHS AGO at that point! Obviously Doc leaving was unexpected, but they absolutely 100% knew what their plans for Anderson were the moment they started pushing him into a leadership role in the group back in May. If you knew Anderson was going to leave the group at some point, why wouldn’t you air this one as soon as possible to ensure that there are as few continuity problems as possible?!
The lack of effort that TNA has put into these One Night Only shows absolutely disgusts me. Every facet of these shows has absolutely sucked, from the recycled video packages to the order the damn shows are in to the lack of time they gave the talent. I cannot possibly believe that they thought they would make enough money on these things to replace the money they got form the monthly PPVs… and knowing that they needed to get that money with these things and that they then put such little effort into it just annoys me.

VELVET, ARIES, AND SABIN BACKSTAGE- good words, but it made no sense in the overall scheme of things.
There must have been some communication issue at some point because after Aries won the belt, Velvet kept saying “I’m sorry” and Taz and Tenay kept saying that they thought the loss was somehow slightly her fault, but in this segment, Sabin blamed Aries for putting Velvet in danger, rather than blaming Velvet for costing him the match.
Anyway, Sabin reminds Aries that he still has his return match. If the champ has a contractually obligated rematch, then why hasn’t Manik used his yet? Doesn’t he care about the title?
First Sabin and then Aries decide that they are going to book themselves into Feast or Fired. Why is this allowed? We have seen multiple times now that Dixie gets angry when people try to book themselves into matches, including with Angle and Roode EARLIER ON THIS SAME SHOW.


MAGNUS PROMO- Bad
“I can’t be concerned about what Dixieland may or may not be. I can’t be concerned about cocktails. I can’t be concerned about having a drink. I’m concerned about becoming the world champion.”
If you are concerned about becoming the world champion, then shouldn’t you be concerned about the rules of the world title match?
Magnus then pulls out his phone, says he has to take this call, and asks if the cameramen can turn the camera off… and, surprisingly, they do. These are the same cameramen who stalk and spy on everyone and air it on national TV.
There was absolutely no reason to do this segment except for the whole middle part about not being able to be concerned about getting a cocktail, which tells us that he isn’t going to Dixie’s VIP party. Okay. So? He’s a babyface. No one thought that he would. This was a bad promo and if not cut out entirely, it certainly should have been reshot. They had WEEKS to get this right.

FINAL RESOLUTION HYPE VIDEO PACKAGE- GREAT!

So Anderson comes out to do his mic-drop entrance, but just one forearm to the back from Bully puts him out of it for long enough for Bully to give Anderson a piledriver onto the stage. I’m not saying that this wasn’t very well done (aside from just one forearm taking Anderson down), but we have already seen Bully give Anderson a piledriver onto the stage. This doesn’t feel like it is going anywhere new.
Then Bully cuts some nice, poetic, Biblical-sounding promo… but the fans ruin it with “WHAT?!” chants. Bully is talking about how good used to overpower man’s sins, but not anymore, and there are dark hates lurking in Hades and “he who is fear” or some other quasi-religious-sounding gobbledygook like that which made it sound like a time-travelling APA from 1999 abducted him and brainwashed him to serve The Undertaker.
Then sh*t got heavy when Bully says that Anderson “raped me of my future” then said that he would make sure that he was responsible for the future of Anderson’s unborn twins.
When we came back from commercial, we saw medical personnel stretchering Anderson off.

FEAST OR FIRED MATCH: Samoa Joe vs. Mr. Anderson vs. Curry Man vs. Hernandez vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr. vs. Norv Furnam vs. Dewey Barnes vs. Zema Ion vs. James Storm vs. Gunner vs. Austin Aries vs. Chris Sabin vs. EC III- 4/10
So two jobbers and one comedy jobber who don’t even work for TNA are in this match. Remember how they have been making such a big deal about how AJ won the title but wasn’t under contract? Well then why are there three men in this match where the reward is a title shot who aren’t under contract?
And who isn’t in this match? Kenny King, Manik, Kurt Angle, Bobby Roode, Sam Shaw (that guy with the new character you are trying out), Jay Bradley (you know, that guy that was part of the BFG Series and hasn’t been seen since?) But instead TNA decided to book some comedy jobbers who don’t even work for the company.
Curry Man walks off because he doesn’t want to risk getting fired again. I guess the reward of a title shot really isn’t worth the risk of getting fired.
And of all the people to walk off… CURRY MAN?! I know he was fired once before in this match, but the whole thing won’t mean anything because we never see him anyway, so it won’t matter if he gets fired or not.

So everyone decides to be an idiot and dive onto a pile of guys on the outside instead of going to get a briefcase.
Wait. No. EC III goes to and just gets a briefcase. Yeah. He really proved himself there. I hope you’re happy now, Sting.
EC III, Zema Ion, Chavo, and Gunner get the cases, with Gunner turning on Storm.
Apparently the cases will be opened next week.

JEFF HARDY IN DIXIE’S VIP LOUNGE- Of course TNA can’t help but tease a heel turn that everyone knows won’t happen (simply because they already did this with Jeff with Immortal a few years ago).

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Taz- In an effort to both call Joseph Park fat and say that he doesn’t belong in a wrestling ring, Taz says that Joseph is like “a sea lion out of water.” Sea lions, of course, spend a lot of time living out of the water.
2. Tenay completely misuses the expression “going to the well”

Overall, another bad Impact, but at least they made next week’s show look like a big deal.