BRM Reviews the 1/12/2012 Impact

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- Bobby Roode's promo was good, aside from the part in the beginning where he made a bunch of delusional claims about dominating the match at Genesis and being the greatest champion of all-time, etc. I absolutely hate it when a heel becomes delusional when it is out of character for them.

Then Sting comes out and he and Bobby Roode have a moronic back and forth that was supposed to be funny but was completely irrelevant to everything. For my part, during this whole exchange, I couldn't stop thinking that, with those black pants and that striped shirt, if Sting had worn his face-paint tonight, people might have confused him for a mime. Then Sting gives Jeff Hardy a rematch tonight. This booking is just completely ass-backwards, and is a major reason why TNA PPV buys are so low. Normally, you would have a match on TV where the babyface winds up in control, then the heel either cheats to win or gets him/herself DQed or runs away or whatever, leading to a rematch on PPV. In TNA they have a match on PPV in which either the heel gets DQed or runs away or whatnot, or there is some other type of non-decisive finish (like the draw between Kurt and Jeff at No Surrender last year, then they have the rematch on free TV (although i don't see what is to stop Roode from just getting himself DQed again, so maybe this will add in to lead to a rematch at Against All Odds).

MORGAN & CRIMSON PLUG DIRECT AUTO-INSURANCE- It also established that there is a match tonight, so it did serve an additional purpose. Anytime you can plug your sponsor while still establishing something for your show, I think you've done a good job.

MATT MORGAN & CRIMSON vs. ROBBIE E. & ROB TERRY- squash. During this match, we are told that James Storm will be arriving at the Impact Zone shortly. Why is he allowed to show up to work late?

SAMOA JOE & MAGNUS ATTACK MORGAN & CRIMSON- okay, I guess.

ERIC BISCHOFF & GUNNER SEGMENT- eh promos by both guys. If you give a damn about this angle, raise you hand. No one? Didn't think so.

WINTER PROMO- great... then Angelina's promo afterwards killed it.

WINTER (w/Angelina Love) vs. ODB (w/Eric Young)- 3.5/10. Good comedy from EY, though. I popped for the airplane spin.

AJ, KAZ & DANIELS SEGMENT- not good (aside from the short fight). I just wasn't feeling it.

BULLY RAY & BOBBY ROODE BACKSTAGE- I didn't like it. I just thought the execution was off. It was clear that the writers were trying to get some laughs here. I also really hope that this isn't what I think it is (the beginning of a Bully Ray face turn).

JAMES STORM, KURT ANGLE, & STING SEGMENT- Storm & Angle were good. Sting's words were good, but the logic behind them was not. Sting says that we need to have a rubber match between Angle and Storm, as they each have won one match against each other so far. This comes less than two minutes after James Storm just finished pointing out to us that his TNA World Heavyweight Title win on Impact over Kurt the night after Bound For Glory means that Storm was won two matches while Kurt has only won one!

Then Sting makes Kurt wrestle on what Kurt tells us is his night off. This is also stupid as it isn't a night off if your boss can make you do your job anyway!

Sting adding on the "title can change hands on a DQ" stipulation to the world title match really felt like it was either something that Sting was supposed to say in the opening segment but had forgotten, or something that someone on the creative team came up with mid-taping, and they had him tack it on now.

WINNER BECOMES #1 CONTENDER TO THE TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE: Kurt Angle vs. James Storm- 7/10. This match started off with Kurt Angle, the heel, still finishing getting dressed and having to run to the ring to avoid being counted out... and just as he goes into the ring, the babyface attacks him as he comes through the ropes. I'm not saying it is out of character for Storm to do so... but I am saying that it is bad booking.

JEFF HARDY PROMO- eh.

TNA PLUGS TESSMACHER IN THE HOOTERS CONTEST- I didn't like this for several reasons. The first being that it broke kayfabe by saying her real name. The second was that I highly doubt that Tessmacher winning some Hooters contest will give TNA any sort of media attention or exposure. Third... if you want a female wrestler to be taken seriously as an athlete (especially one as limited in the ring as Tessmacher), telling us that she works at Hooters is going to be counterproductive. Working at Hooters gets over the fact that she has a nice rack... but anyone who has seen her on TV already knows that. Fourth, it breaks the perception that (televised) wrestlers are paid good money. Tessmacher is a TNA superstar (to borrow WWE's term, as TNA has occasionally used it too). She just came off of a four month reign holding a title. And she is paid so little money that she has to work at a Hooters in addition to wrestling for TNA? (I know that it is sad but true that this is indeed true, but, IMO, it shouldn't be acknowledged on TV, as it makes TNA look bad).

MADISON RAYNE & STING- good segment, but the camerawork was stupid. At one point we were actually being shown the "action" on the small screen of another camera! I actually like the announcement of this cage match. This isn't a grudge-match type of cage match. This is a punishment type of cage match, and seeing Madison get her ass kicked should be entertaining.

TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH IN WHICH THE TITLE CAN CHANGE HANDS ON A DQ: Bobby Roode(c) vs. Jeff Hardy- 7.5/10. I REALLY got into this match. A lot. I got SO pissed when Bully Ray pulled the ref out of the ring. And I was never much of a Jeff Hardy fan, so if I got that into the match, I can only imagine what others were feeling. Good shine on the babyface in the beginning, some great spots with Roode seizing the opportunity. Just great stuff. This was also the first time in a long time (at least since the beginning of his current run in TNA) that I felt like I was watching the old Jeff Hardy.

The one thing I didn't like about it was the lack of official ending. Bully Ray pulls the ref out of the ring and knocks him out. Then Taz and Tenay wonder who is going to make the official decision in this match now that the referee is knocked out (like they have never seen a ref bump before), while the sound guy just decides to play Jeff's music. Get another referee down there and CONTINUE THE MATCH! Why is that so hard? If someone else cause Roode to gets DQed he has plausible dependability, and Jeff gets the win so he looks strong and has a case to be added in to the title match at Against All Odds. Or even if Bully Ra distracts Jeff and Roode manages to pin him, the fact that Jeff seemed to have had the title won, and would have won if Bully Ray hadn't pulled the ref out of the ring should be cause enough to give Jeff another rematch at some point, and Jeff still looks strong in defeat because we all know that he had the champion beat.

Also, we had two corporate sponsor's this week, rather than just one, which makes me think that TNA's financial troubles are worsening.

Overall, this week's episode of Impact was pretty good, in the ring, but just riddled with problems outside of it.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Tenay COMPLETELY overreacts to Sting giving Jeff a rematch tonight, saying "THAT is why TNA President Dixie Carter put Sting in charge... because Sting GETS THINGS DONE!"- SIT THE F*CK DOWN AND SH*T THE F*CK UP, TENAY! All he did was MAKE A MATCH The guy who gets to decide what matches are on the show decided that a particular match should be on the show. That is all that happened. My little cousin who has never seen a wrestling show in her life could do that! And yet Tenay acts like Sting came up with some complex solution to a problem that had been vexing everyone else, then fought his way through layers of red tape to make it happen. Sting is the guy with the power, and he made a match that he wanted. There was no struggle here, Tenay.

2. As Bischoff is coming to the ring, Tenay says that the relationship between Bischoff & son was ruined because of Bischoff's "quest for the ultimate power, the ultimate control, with Immortal." I have two problems with this quote. First of all, is factually inaccurate. Bishcoff and Immortal already had control at the time the relationship between Eric and Garrett deteriorated. Bischoff's quest for control would have ended when Dixie signed the company over to him and Hogan. Also, the nature of their control at the time was not "ultimate" as they always had to do whatever The Network told them... and winning the match with Sting or beating him down afterwards would not have changed this in any way, so there not only was the control in question not ultimate, but there was no quest for it, either!

My other major problem with this quote is Tenay's word choice, from the angle of someone listening to him. "Ultimate power." "Ultimate control." Really? Describing it like that just makes it sound so ridiculous. He is a scumbag trying to run a wrestling promotion, not a super-villain looking for the Cosmic Cube. If I were a first-time viewer, and I heard Tenay tell me that this guy was trying to find "ultimate power," I would roll my eyes and change the channel. It is just such a cartoonish phrase, and such a ridiculous exaggeration that it makes it comical (man, I loved it when an analogy I pull in to show how bad of an announcer Tenay is plays perfectly into a pun).

3. Taz goes on about how Kurt isn't ready for his match and only came to the show tonight to visit his friends and has had time to warm up, etc. So what? Storm didn't have any time to warm up either, and why Kurt came here is irrelevant. It's not like he leaves his muscles at home when he doesn't need them! He is an active wrestler in great condition.

4. Tenay (about Bobby Roode's new attitude) "We've certainly seen that pattern develop with Bobby Roode from the very moment he became World Heavyweight Champion"- Shouldn't the beginning of this "pattern" (which is a dumb word to use in this situation, by the way) actually be before he became champion, when he hit Storm in the head with the beer bottle and cheated to win the title and crush his best friend's dreams for his own selfish reasons?

[yourcrapsweak]

MORGAN & CRIMSON PLUG DIRECT AUTO-INSURANCE- It also established that there is a match tonight, so it did serve an additional purpose. Anytime you can plug your sponsor while still establishing something for your show, I think you've done a good job.

You liked this? This was terrible! Like they said on the LAW, it was like Wayne's World where they're so blatantly plugging their sponsors, like "I drink Pepsi!" or whatever.

[Big Red Machine]

MORGAN & CRIMSON PLUG DIRECT AUTO-INSURANCE- It also established that there is a match tonight, so it did serve an additional purpose. Anytime you can plug your sponsor while still establishing something for your show, I think you've done a good job.

You liked this? This was terrible! Like they said on the LAW, it was like Wayne's World where they're so blatantly plugging their sponsors, like "I drink Pepsi!" or whatever.

I found it to be cute, and like I said, it actually did serve a purpose for the show itself (it informed us about the Morgan & Crimson vs. Robbie E. & Rob Terry match. It took what otherwise would have essentially been commercial time and managed to get it to help the show.