What is up wrestling fans, I am the WrestlingNerd bringing you another written review. Today, we take a look at TNA Impact Wrestling on 8/11/11. After a disastrous PPV, would TNA be able to recover or continue to dive deeper into mediocrity? Well, let's get this over with and start the review.
We open the show with Immortal for the 7800th time. Bully Ray says Abyss has been a major disappointment lately and he is on thin ice...with Eric Bischoff since Abyss was about to attack Bully it seemed. He also says it will be himself vs Scott Steiner vs Gunner vs Crimson in a BFG Series match, which totally sounds fair. He also goes up to Mr. Anderson and tells him even though he lost the match to Bully, he showed some balls and has gained a little bit of respect for him. Oh wow Anderson, you just got a compliment from Bully Ray. Now, you can officially retire as a somebody from the wrestling business because of Bully's compliment. Anyway, Bully says even though he showed balls, he is still a worse pro wrestler than him and he wants to shake his hand and be done with this. Since Anderson remembers this exact set up from last week, he doesn't buy this act of good will by Bully. Once Bully calls Anderson an idiot for not accepting a handshake, Anderson attacks. Anderson does ok for a while, but the numbers game was too much. Immortal finally takes down Anderson with a chained up fist. Anderson is actually busted open from this attack and now time for the most worthless security staff in the world, the TNA security staff. They show up to restrain Immortal, but they lose in like two seconds and I am not even exaggerating that. Finally, TNA road agents show up to separate Immortal from Anderson and the medical staff arrives. They take Anderson away on a stretcher. What I found odd about the hospital scene here is Immortal didn't do very much to take down Anderson. So, Gunner was ok just going through a table at the PPV, but Anderson can't stand up to a chained up fist? Isn't it a little early for wrestling logic's presence? It would have made a lot more sense to have Immortal use all sorts of weapons against Anderson to make the attack seem more life threatening, because isn't that the point of the hospital scene? Aside from that small detail, this was actually an ok way to open up the show. It sets up the main event and they continue to show the friction of Anderson being in the stable. It really seems they are already setting up Anderson getting out of the stable and fighting Immortal. Again, I have to ask what was the whole point in putting Anderson in Immortal if they took him out after about a month? I wouldn't be surprised if what happened is the creative staff had an idea, but they changed it and are now trying to wrong the mistake they are going with a cop out method. Still, this whole spot is just perplexing because it doesn't make any sense. Oh, but we haven't even begun to discuss things that make no sense on this show yet, so stay tuned......or not? There was a quick backstage scene between Eric Bischoff and Immortal. He tells Bully he was right about Anderson and he thanks Bully. He tells them to go prepare or something, but he quickly tells Abyss to stay there because they have more things to discuss with him. We are pretty much watching the "Abyss turning face" clock at this moment. Plus, whatever happened to the "Art of War" book? Did they just forget about that? The answer.....is yes.
Match #1: Madison Rayne vs Mickie James; winner is the #1 Contender for the TNA KO Championship
You could argue as to why this match is even happening since Mickie should be entitled a rematch based on one of the unwritten rules of pro wrestling. Then again, you also have to remember that this is TNA, where they don't believe in rematch clauses and/or contracts. Remember when Anderson was going ape s*** because he didn't get a rematch? Well, that lead to a series of events in which Anderson finally joined Immortal, but he still hasn't gotten his rematch nor is Anderson begging for one. Yeah, I know its pro wrestling and we are supposed to have a one-track mind about these sort of things, but its just so stupid. Then again, TNA and continuity don't go hand in hand. Anyway, the match was nothing special. It was ok in terms of KO matches. Rayne continues to show that she is probably the most interesting KO on the roster but keeps seeing her career fall lower and lower. Mickie wins with the Delayed DDT and Mickie gets a rematch. Again, TNA could have just saved up so much time by just stating Mickie gets a rematch because of a contract, but I already talked about that. It's TNA, so fill the plotholes yourself.
Winner via pinfall and "NEW" (see what I did there?) #1 Contender for the KO Title: Mickie James
Match #2: Brian Kendrick vs Robbie E
How the hell does Robbie E still have a job here? I thought they fired him already since the gimmick and character has already failed. Just another example of TNA not knowing when to get rid of a stupid idea. Austin Aries was on commentary for this match. Once again, the referee clearly sees the outside interference by Cookie; but because its scripted, he doesn't send her to the back or DQ them. I've seen better planned fights in Bugs Bunny cartoons than I do here. Anyway, the finish comes when Cookie gets the hair spray and is about to use it on Kendrick, but she gets Robbie by accident. Kendrick hits the Slice Bread, and Kendrick still looks like a paper champion. Like with Abyss, I think we are just counting down the days Kendrick drops the title to Aries. Come on, Kendrick looks like he just rolled out of bed with his pajama pants and his porn music. If Ron Jeremy shows up, I am getting the f*** out of here.
Winner via pinfall: Brian Kendrick
Backstage with Devon and Pope. They talk about the tag team match they have tonight, but Devon still doesn't trust him. What the hell TNA? Just when you were finally getting a plot point with this storyline, you quickly go back to the intro where Devon still can't trust Pope? I am convinced TNA has no idea what to do with this storyline and are intentionally just padding it. TNA.....I am starting to get irritated. Another backstage scene of Robbie and Cookie separating. You mean the worst on air couple just separated? Surly you jest. I know I should have more sympathy for this, but I don't. They realistically shouldn't even have jobs in this company. All Cookie does is scream while Robbie's in-ring style is not on the grounds of the X Division. He is more of a heelish brawler than anything else.
Match #3: Beer Money vs Pope and Devon vs RVD and AJ Styles in a BFG Series Match
My God, was this a mess. You have six guys basically competing for points and only one guy wins the points. Once again, I bring up the fact there is no point in having tag team matches in this tournament since only one guy wins the points. You would have been better off on making this a Six Pack Challenge or something like that. Not only that, but Styles and RVD served no purpose for this match other than the moment Christopher Daniels appeared. TNA, your cramming your tv shows again. As I mentioned, Daniels showed up out of nowhere. It was weird because one second Tazz and Mike Tenay are getting ready to call the match, then Daniels shows up sitting right next to them. Either more bad editing or more Harry Potter magic tricks. It's getting old TNA. Daniels went on the headset for a second to say he has been trying to get Styles to accept a rematch between the two. First of all, I freakin called it. I know I predicted that is where it would go, and I was right. Second, why wasn't this announcement made on a bigger scale? I mean, this is just being lazy. Instead of investing a backstage scene or tv time, you pencil in this announcement for a 1 minute cameo with the announcers? What about the audience watching this live? Do they have any idea what Daniels suggested? That would be like the WWE announcing their main event at WM at a house show. That is just plain dumb. Anyway, this was an ok match....if you ignore the fact there is too much stuff going on at one time. The finish comes when Pope and Devon screw up a tag team move, thus Devon hurts the Pope. James Storm takes out Devon, which allows for Robert Roode to hit the Fisherman Suplex on Pope for the seven points. Also, where was Jerry Lynn in this scene? This seemed like a chance to inform the audience who didn't watch the PPV to find out about what Lynn did to RVD. Instead, the only announcement you get regarding this storyline is by Tenay and Tazz. Just plain lazy.
Winner via pinfall: Beer Money
We are back in the ring with Kurt Angle. I warn you guys and girls, prepare to have your mind blown as you try to piece together this puzzle. So, Angle talks about how he expects respect but doesn't get it and that makes him mad. He apologizes to Sting for the chair shot, but claims this was about winning the title and about how this is all apart of a bigger picture. Angle then goes into a speech in how Jeff Jarrett was getting involved with his wife in the early stages and nobody told him about it. He claims that Dixie Carter told him she knew nothing about this affair and he believed her. Angle then says he received information for a third party member and this mysterious person told him that Dixie knew about the affair and lied to him. He says because Dixie lied to him, he will never trust her and he will make sure she never gets her company back. He also says Dixie wanted him to put over younger talent, but says he refuses to do that because he is pretty much a heel now. He is about to leave the arena, but Sting rises out of the gates like Michale Jackson and has the baseball bat. Angle and Sting duel with a steel chair and a bat until Sting has the only weapon left. Hulk Hogan comes from behind and lays out the Joker with another steel chair and takes out Sting. Angle gets on the mic and says the third party person is Hogan. They both continue to attack Sting and the scene ends with Hogan and Angle hugging....
Are you serious? Please, somebody tell me this was a joke? So, you mean to tell me that Angle, the guy who has fought against Hogan, Immortal, and the Jarretts for the better part of a year now, is all of the sudden listening to Hogan and he actually believes him? Not only that, but Hogan is still aligned with the Jarretts, the people that wish death upon Angle and vica versa. Why would Angle actually listen to what Hogan had to say when he has said in kayfabe he can't trust Hogan? Why would he align himself with Hogan, but not exactly as of this moment join Immortal? Why is he so angry at Dixie for something that happened three years ago? Wouldn't he have brought this up at an earlier time? Why would he be so pissed off about this affair when he expressed during the Jarretts storyline that he could honestly care less about Karen? Why wouldn't Hogan force Angle to join Immortal to get what he wants as opposed to just telling him and him looking like Angle's bitch? Why would Angle help Sting win the title? Why? What? Why? This makes no sense at all. MAKES NO F***ING SENSE!!! Actually, if you piece together this madness, it really isn't that confusing, but its still stupid. Of course, I understand it because I watch it every week, but imagine someone who missed a few shows? Yeah, I am pretty sure they would have no idea what is going on with this scene. There was a point where Angle was trying to create a group to take down Immortal because he doesn't like Hogan, but now he likes Hogan and hates Dixie? Didn't Angle say back when 4Tune broke away from Immortal that they were all with Dixie? TNA, are you even trying anymore? How can you expect people to buy this when it doesn't make sense and there are plotholes up the ass? I am sorry people, but this is beyond stupid because it just shows the creative staff is just pulling stuff out of their ass. It also shows the creative staff has no creativity if they couldn't think of a better solution than this. This Immortal storyline has gotten worse and worse over the last year. I'm sorry, but this is just way too much of a clusterf*** to keep track of anymore. If the storyline is already on life support, why not just kill it already? To be fair, they are showing shades of the stable dying, but it should have happened a lot sooner because they come up with a swerve involving the Immortal storyline every two months and it doesn't make it any better. Then again, that goes back to what I said earlier about TNA not knowing when to kill a storyline. The only way this storyline can get any dumber is if Angle just flat out joins Immortal and hugs the Jarretts in the ring. This is ridiculous.
Match #4: ODB and Jacki vs Tara and Tessmacher
Honestly, the show should be over now since TNA already jumped the shark......like 50 million times. Well, guess what? There is still another hour of this show to go. This is an endurance test. Ok, the story with this match is this. According to Tenay, Bischoff told ODB and Jacki to keep themselves under control and if they can do that, they will get jobs in TNA. There was moments where ODB was trying to land a cheap shot, but Jacki was playing babysitter with her to keep her in check. As much as I criticize Tessmacher, I actually find her more developed in the ring than Kelly Kelly. That's kinda sad. The finish comes when Tessmacher uses her finisher in the rollup to win the match. Again with the rollup? Oh well.... The match was ok for KO standards.
Winner via pinfall: Tara and Tessmacher
Backstage scene where Bischoff is talking to the X Division guys. He has Abyss present to witness his screw up as he says the weight limit for the title is at 225 pounds. He also says there will be a Gauntlet Match to determine the #1 Contender to the X Division belt. Aries gets in the scene and says he is way better than these other guys and claims he wants to have a good working relationship with Bischoff. Bischoff chases away all the other X Division guys while Aries, Abyss, and Bischoff talk behind closed doors. Pretty basic scene. Anyway, back to the ring for another cringing moment. The Jarretts arrive and Jeff gloats about his AAA Championship belt and says he wants the people of Mexico to endorse him. He brings out the Lopez Brothers, who look like they are half asleep and drunk because TNA wants to be as racist as possible. We are told they do yard work for TNA and they are called Jose and Jos B....get it? Oh, that's funny TNA. You should work for Seth MacFarlane. Anyway, he continues to insult the people of Mexico and.....no, let me change that. He continues to insult anyone that is of Hispanic decent and tells the Lopez Brothers to endorse the Jarretts. They go down this route where the brothers can't speak any English and keep saying "Que?" as Jarretts are acting like any person who insults other cultures. Its like two stereotypes are getting burned at the same time. At some point, the brothers see Hector Guerrero and they show lots of praise for him. They even said in spanish how the Guerrero family are the kings of Mexico. Finally, Jeff is sick of their crap and he attacks them. Hector runs out there for the save to end the scene. You know. Being a fellow Hispanic (Chicano to be exact), I can deal with a lot of the stereotypes that go around the pro wrestling world. In fact, I was one of the people who actually liked the Mexicools. Plus, stereotypes has been in pro wrestling for as long as I can remember. Heck, go talk to guys like the Iron Sheik and I bet he has some stories. Even with all of that said, TNA still found a way to offend me. They offended my culture because they wanted to get every Mexican stereotype thrown out there and they offended me as a wrestling fan, because this scene was just terrible. The jokes that were in this scene weren't even funny and were just plain stupid. Plus, what does this scene accomplish? Is Hector going to get back in the ring or is Chavo Guerrero going to TNA and plans to challenge Jeff? Are AAA wrestlers going to be showing up on Impact to take back their title? I guess you can say they were planting the seeds for this storyline, but could we have done something that was less offensive? Oh well. It wasn't the most offensive thing I have ever seen, but TNA ought to quit while they are ahead sometimes.
Because you asked for me, more on location with Eric Young. This week, he almost trades the old TNA world title for a map, but quickly steals the title because the writers still think this is funny. He looks for various celebrities, but is having troubles reading the map. Exciting, huh? Back in TNA land where Anderson has either escaped the hospital, killed the medical staff and hijacked the ambulance, or beat up the doctors and jumped out of a moving ambulance to head to the Impact Zone. He finds Bully and is about to attack him, but Gunner shows up and they take out Anderson....again. So, what was the point of this scene? The sad part is Anderson's story of how he got back to the Impact Zone is a lot more interesting than anything else going on tonight.
Match #5: Crimson vs Bully Ray vs Gunner vs Scott Steiner; Four Corners Match in the BFG Series
As you would have guessed, Crimson was the odd man out in this match. Immortal would sneak a double team here and there. Crimson continues to fight, but he eventually goes back to playing defense. The finish comes when Crimson sneaks a rollup on Gunner for the win. Again, Crimson winning like this does nothing for him. Crimson is a guy who looks like a bad ass and thus he should fight back like a bad ass. How does a rollup make him a bad ass? It just makes him look more lucky than anything else. To be fair, TNA has done some good things with Crimson during this push, but they have also made several mistakes during it. They should be showcasing him every week and have him be pushed to the limit and have to really dig down deep to fight back and win. Crimson needs to have one of those 10-20 minute matches in which he wins to show he is the real deal. It's amazing how Immortal jumped all over Abyss for not dealing with Kendrick, while three Immortal members couldn't deal with one guy. Really, this entire stable is just a joke at this point.
Winner via pinfall: Crimson
After the match, Angle arrives and attacks Crimson. Immortal leaves while Angle continues the attack. He takes off Crimson's knee brace and uses it as a weapon on the guy. The show ends with Angle still punishing Crimson. Well, Angle did mention he wouldn't bow down to the younger talents and Crimson would fall in that category. While I am glad to see a potential rivalry between Crimson and Angle since this would be the match Crimson needs to show he is for real, I don't like the fact they are pushing it. In case you haven't noticed, the BFG Series isn't over yet and with Angle going after Crimson, its basically saying outloud that Crimson is going to win the series and the tournament doesn't even matter anymore. Again, if they are building up Angle vs Crimson at BFG, I am ok with that. Still, this is so perplexing since wasn't Angle the guy who brought in Crimson to help him work on 4Tune breaking free from Immortal? Then again, that goes back to Angle's forced heel turn and I don't want to go into THAT again. Crimson also leads the BFG Series by 15 points. I want to see TNA push Crimson hard from now until BFG if he is the guy who wins the tournament. They need to have Crimson go out there and really look like a bad ass and win matches in dominate fashion as opposed to shenanigans or crappy rollups. If they do that, it will put a lot of value into the title match. Then again, with Hogan vs Sting as a possible match, the old farts will probably steal any free time between Angle and Crimson to reveal the Pacemaker on a Pole Match.
Overall Impression:
What can I really say? Some of the segments were ok since I kinda like the idea of Angle vs Crimson and the opening, but I really didn't like some of the directions they did this week. I am fine with Angle turning heel, but it has to make some sense and this one is really forced since it doesn't make any sense as to why he has such hatred for Dixie and is now on the same page as Hogan. It also doesn't help when there was two KO matches this week. When will TNA realize KOs is just a filler part of the show and thus they shouldn't have so many storylines within the division? Not to mention the Jarrett scene was a little offensive. Still, I had a hard time watching this show because of the stuff that made no sense. How am I going to get invested in a storyline when there is plotholes and it doesn't add up? Again, I know its wrestling and wrestling is always going to have wrestling logic come into play, but TNA goes way beyond that. It almost feels like the creative staff is saying" It's only wrestling and thus it doesn't always have to make sense". What will get more people interested in TNA would be better storylines, and when the current storylines are difficult to follow, that's a problem. Plus, Hogan and Sting isn't going to get me interested in the show. You want to know the sad part.....the REALLY sad part? I saw a few of the spoilers for next week's show, and I have a feeling its only going to get worse. What happened here? Prior to the Dest X PPV, things were going ok in TNA. They weren't great, but it was watchable. Since then, it just seems like TNA has flipped the s*** switch and went back into their old habits. I know I should be surprised they did that, but I am not because its still the same creative staff writing the show. TNA, why won't you let me like you? Anyway, that's going to do it for the review and I hope you enjoy it. As always, tell me what you thought of my review and tonight's show. SD will either be a Running Diary or a full review, but its looking like a Running Diary based on my schedule. Since the Summerslam card only has four matches at this moment, I won't be doing a Rundown for it. I will talk about the show for a bit with the SD review. I will see you guys and girls on the next WrestlingNerd show, see you next time and WHHHHHHHHHY?
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