BRM Reviews the 2/6/2014 Impact

[Big Red Machine]

EY & ABYSS FIGHTING- They brawl out to the ramp and the ref decides to not follow standard procedure and wait for them to actually get into the ring to officially start t…

MOSNTER’S BALL MATCH: Abyss vs. Eric Young- 6/10
Remember when a Monster’s Ball meant that they locked you in a dark room with no food and no water for 24 hours before the match? Yeah. Those were the days.
So now that Abyss is a vicious monster again, TNA decides that the best thing to do with him would be to have him have a COMPETITIVE MATCH with a COMEDY JOBBER in HIS OWN F*CKING STIPULATION MATCH!
Look… I like EY a lot and the match was good… but it was a poor idea to have it be so competitive. Already in his first big match back, Abyss has pulled out the thumbtacks and threatened to use Janice. SO what is there left for him to do at Lockdown? We are coming off of two years of not seeing Abyss. Let us get exicted about seeing him for a bit first so that when a PPV comes around, we will buy it to see him do his extra-crazy Abyss spots.
Anyway, Abyss wins the with Black Hole Slam. Towards the end of the match, EY ripped his mask off, but it didn’t faze Abyss/Joseph one bit. Tenay and JB are trying to play this up like it is some sort of big deal saying “we’ve never seen the monster unmasked before.” My response: WHO GIVES A SH*T?!
You just spend two years establishing that Joseph Park is Abyss. We know his identity and we’ve seen his face. Why should we care if he get his mask taken off or not?

Oh. Wait. NOW he’s confused as to who he is. They took so long with this Joseph Park crap that I don’t give a sh*t anymore. Tenay and JB tried to play it off like this was Joseph finally realized that he is Abyss… but I thought he accepted that months ago.

DIXIE & ROODE BACKSTAGE- very well done. Roode is understandably outraged, but is still such a pussy when it comes to Joe that you can’t help but want to see him get his ass kicked. Dixie actually came off as intelligently manipulative for the first time in a long time.

MVP SPEAKS-
So MVP was in the ring and saw that some fan had a sign that said “I am the #NewInvestor” (BTW, anyone who pointlessly uses a hash-tag in a sign deserves to be pushed down a flight of stars), so MVP decides to hold this doofus’ sign up for everyone to see and he wanlks around the ring with it… but he didn’t realize that the back of the sign, which the hardcam could see when he was showing it to fans on the other side of the arena, said “Magnus = Ratings”… so in his first act as an on-screen character, the new babyface authority figure accidentally endorsed the top heel. I found that funny.


After that, though… I will admit that I was skeptical last week (and I am still skeptical because I have no faith in TNA creative), but I will say that MVP fit into the role of a babyface authority figure PERFECTLY. His little speech here was ABSOLUTELY PERFECT!

Then Spud came out and this got lame. Apparently MVP and Dixie have yet to meet, despite owning the same company. Talk about mismanagement. MVP announces that Magnus will face Kurt in a non-title match.

BULLY RAY PROMO- pretty good… until Bully vowed to put the next person he saw into the coffin. Bully just cut a good promo to hype up a big match next week? Why do anything else?

CHRIS SABIN PROMO- they’re setting up for something later tonight.

CURRY MAN COMES OUT TO THE RING- Okay, something is weird here. Curry Man appears to have hair coming out of the back of his mask.
Bully then shows up with the stupid casket. Then he beats up the jobber and puts him in the casket. I don’t give a f*ck. This did nothing to make me want to see next week’s casket match. , All this did was waste time and make me wonder why Anderson didn’t come out to help Curry Man. Bully promo was good. Why not just leave it at that?!

MAGNUS & DIXIE BACKSTAGE- more dissension. Who cares? Magnus leaves and EC III shows up. Spud kisses Dixie’s ass. Dixie bitches at EC III. They have dissension, too. WHY?! They are already pathetically weak for a top heel stable. Why are they making them look even weaker?

AUSTIN ARIES PROMO- he basically says that he will use the X-Division Title as a step-stone to the World Title, which is exactly what I feared it would be relegated to when “Option C” was first introduced.
Then things got good as Zema Ion jumped Aries from behind with the briefcase and said he is cashing in Feast or Fired…

TNA X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH: Austin Aries(c) vs. Zema Ion- 4/10
Yeah… Zema basically got buried here. He got the jump on Aries and beat him up, but got put down by only about four moves. At least Sandow got to last twenty minutes before being jobbed out to Super Cena.

SAMUEL SHAW & CHRISTY BACKSTAGE- VINDICATION FOR BRM!
FINALLY someone addresses the fact that this sh*t AIRS ON NATIONAL TV!
This is actually a good way to send Shaw in the direction they want.

MAGNUS & ROODE BACKSTAGE- more dissension between the heels. I don’t care.

DIXIE & MVP (& SPUD) BACKSTAGE- I didn’t really enjoy this, but by the end, it didn’t seem like a total waste of time. I thought it would have been awesome of Spud had only offered Dixie food and not MVP. For some reason, Dixie thinks MVP's promo from earlier happened in the morning.

KURT ANGLE vs. MAGNUS- 2/10
So they just stood around not doing anything for the whole commercial just so we could see all of this important match. Then, maybe a minute in, JB makes his big announcement about TNA's return to the UK. IT'S A TAPED SHOW! Here' an idea, make that announcement to the live crowd during the commercial break and let everyone not in the arena find out about it over the internet or later on or something, and HAVE THE ANNOUNCERS PAY ATTENTION TO THE F*CKING MATCH WHICH YOU ARE TRYING TO GET OVER AS A BIG DEAL!

So this week, Tenay has decided to care about eye rakes and other such heel tactics because the story they were telling was that Kurt would out-wrestle Magnus, but Magnus would cut him off with eye rakes. This would have been good if Kurt hadn't taken the advantage back from Magnus RIGHT AWAY, EVERY TIME! The way they did it, it just made Magnus look like a complete and total chump.
So Magnus is about to tap out to the Angle Lock (because we already have Roode and Joe established as title contenders, so why not also build up THE GUY WHO IS ABOUT TO TAKE TIME OFF FOR KNEE SURGERY AS A TITLE CONTENDER, too), but EC III comes out and clips Kurt's knee, causing a DQ. Then EC III goes to work on Kurt's knee... but Kurt actually FIGHTS HIM OFF and EC III... on the run in, against a guy who isn't fresh, and whose injured knee he has already attacked... has to resort to eye-gouging to get an advantage (because G-d knows that we need to protect KURT ANGLE or else no one will buy HIM as a top star). EC III then hits Kurt in the knee with a chair and locks in a submission.

NO ONE comes out to help Kurt. Not security, not any referees, not medical personnel, not MVP or the Wolves, and none of Kurt's friends in the back. This is made even more silly by the fact that the crowd is chanting "WE WANT JOE!" (I guess he was in the bathroom or something.) So has this painful submission locked in and only an ineffective referee is trying to get him to break the hold... and he just decides that he has hurt Kurt enough, so he breaks the hold.

This was SO STUPID! How hard would it have been to just f*cking have EC III jump Kurt while he was coming down the ramp and assault him with a chair and lock in the submission until Joe makes the save. This would have saved you show time by not putting on a disappointing match, not made your world champion look like a chump, allowed Magnus to take credit for a forfeit win over Kurt and not give EC III credit (which they seem to like to do), have MVP accused Dixie of sabotaging the match by encouraging EC III to go out there, furthering that feud, and put over both Joe as an individual and his friendship with Kurt, while not making your whole company look stupid.

JOE PROMO- oh. NOW he's here with Kurt. Where were you when EC III WAS ACTUALLY ATTACKING YOUR FRIEND, AND THE WHOLE ARENA WAS CHANTING FOR YOU?!
So Joe says that Dixie has been "sending her goons" "to take out" guys like AJ, Sting, and Jeff Hardy... and that's really not quite true. Jeff Hardy walked out of the company on his own. AJ isn't with TNA because he left the company. Even if he had beaten Magnus for the World Title, he still wouldn't have had a TNA contract. While Dixie's goons were responsible for Sting losing the match in which his career was on the line, STING was the one who offered that stip in the first place.
Other than that, a great promo, but that first part just annoys the hell out of me. Especially the Jeff Hardy thing. It's like they can't even remember their own f*cking angles.

ERIC YOUNG PROMO- UTTER SH*T! He says that his goal in challenging Abyss to a Monster's Ball match was to make him realize that he and Joseph Park were one and the same. As I said before.. didn't this happen a few months ago? And if this was his goal why did he didn't he spend all match trying to unmask him?
And as for why he would do this, EY says "what's next? I don't know?"
SO WHY DID YOU F*CKING DO IT, YOU MORON!? Eric has just admitted that he had no real reason or endgame for turning Joseph back into Abyss. He just did it... because. That's why. And now, as a result HE HAS UNLEASHED A DANGEROUS, SADISTIC, PSYCHOPATHIC MONSTER ON THE WORLD! WHAT A F*CKING ASSHOLE?!

CHRIS SABIN & VELVET SKY SEGMENT- Sabin teases like he is going to propose to Velvet. But it runs out the box was empty. Everyone in the world saw this coming. Then he challenges Velvet to a match next week. Good heel stuff... but why is TNA giving Chris Sabin TV time to do this? I mean it. Explain to me, from akayfabe point of view, what TNA the company gains by doing this. This is the sort of thing they should do on 365 first, and then talk-up or show highlights of on TV.

RECAP OF MVP-RELATED STUFF- The purpose of this was for them to hype up a "Summit" between Dixie and MVP later tonight.
1) Don't call it a summit. This isn't the f*cking United Nations. It is a business meeting between the two owners of the company.
2) Aren't they already having a "summit" tonight? Right now? In Dixie's locker room? So what is the purpose of this?



#1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: Samoa Joe vs. Bobby Roode- 5/10
So if Dixie can make Joe defend his #1 contendership here, can't she make him defend it all of the time and try to screw him out of his title shot for someone she thinks Magnus can beat? Why is she so damn worried?
Anyway, they did about as well as they could in less than seven minutes. That's right. They gave them LESS THAN SEVEN MINUTES for a main event #1 contendership match. They should have started the match before the commercial to at least gave the appearance that it went at least a semi-respectable ten. Joe beats Roode handily.

The announcers kept playing up that Dixie is using Roode as a roadblock for Joe, but never once mentioned the fact that Dixie didn't want to do this and was forced into it because Roode demanded the title shot that she promised him for helping Magnus retain his title.

MVP & DIXIE CARTER HAVE A "SUMMIT"-
So apparently the reason they have to do this in the ring is so that the fans can see it. Okay... but we saw the earlier segment with MVP and Dixie in Dixie's office. So why do you have to do this now? Just tape their f*cking meeting and put it on the internet. Isn't that what 365 is for?
If they want to get the fans involved, surely a more responsible way of doing it would be through some online poll, rather than basing everything off of the opinions of just one arena, in a market where you rarely run shows?
So Dixie talks up Magnus and how great he is and says that everyone should listen to her. MVP says that Dixie's "reign of terror is over." This accomplished nothing that couldn't (and really, shouldn't) have been accomplished at the end of last week's show. The only thing that mattered here was MVP declaring that Dixie's reign was over, and he should have done that last week. It would have made his debut better.
MVP is awesome in this role... but I just don't care about anything he does.

I actually split my viewing of this show up into two chunks. I watched everything before Angle vs. Magnus last night, and when I went to bed, I was thinking "this show has been much better than usual. By the time the show was done, I cannot believe that I ever thought that. Yet another counter-productive show. Abyss had difficulty defeating ERIC YONG in Abyss' own match, Magnus was again made to look like a chump, as was Zema Ion, and those new big stars TNA just signed? The Wolves? Nowhere to be seen. Not even mentioned.
Lockdown is in ONE MONTH and they seem to have just about nothing going on aside from Joe vs. Magnus and Aries vs. Sabin (if that is even going to continue, which I assume it will, with Aries fighting on Velvet's behalf next week). They REALLY need to get their sh*t together creatively. I think booking Lockdown for March and not April was a big mistake this year, because doing it in April would give them another month to help establish things.


I would also like to point out that they went into this show with exactly ONE match announced. Just one. And that match was actually booked by the wrestlers themselves. So what the f*ck do they do at the TNA corporate offices all week?



STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Tenay "The natural rivalry between Scotland and England; it dates back over a hundred years, from sports to politics."
A HUNDRED? JUST A HUNDRED? It's closer to a thousand, and only saying "over a hundred" is the sort of thing that makes so sound like a total idiot with almost no understanding of the situation or its history.