WrestlingNerd Presents: TNA Impact Wrestling Review 8/25/11

What up wrestling fans, I'm the WrestlingNerd bringing you another written review. Today, we take a look at TNA Impact Wrestling on 8/25/11. How good or bad was Impact? Let's just get this over with and start the review.

We open up the show with Kurt Angle. He immediately calls out Crimson, which brings forth the big guy. Angle says Crimson carried himself well last week and showed a lot of balls, but he also thinks he's an idiot for challenging him to a match. Angle says he will end Crimson's undefeated streak and career for disrespecting him. Crimson says Angle was the cause of all of this when he attacked him and has no problem earning his respect. Immortal interrupts....for some reason. Bully Ray says Crimson's an moron for wanting to go up against Angle, but Angle immediately cuts him off and tells him he has this under control and he doesn't want any Immortal interference. The segment ends with Immortal leaving while Angle gloats towards Crimson. The opening wasn't too bad, but why was Immortal out there? They added nothing to this scene and we still aren't clear if Angle has joined Immortal or not. This Angle heel turn is all over the place since he still hates the Jarretts but trust Hulk Hogan at the same time. This segment would have been fine without Immortal, so I don't even want to know what the writers where thinking when they wrote this part of the show. Crimson again was decent on the mic this week. Damn, if he can cut decent promos, why didn't TNA have him talk sooner? I almost guarantee Crimson's stock and popularity would be much higher if he was cutting promos sooner. The show is off to a decent start, but I remember this getting pretty dumb, so let's continue.

Backstage where Velvet Sky, ODB, and Jacki are talking about their match for tonight. Sky says she can trust them while Jacki's saying they will work together, but they can beat her up as well. Oh yeah, because the last two months have REALLY shown the dominance of ODB and Jacki? To add to all of this, ODB ends the scene by grunting and walking away while Jacki's talking about the cameraman. One of the worst backstage scenes put together since they saying "We hate you and want to kill you, so let's work together". Not to mention not one of these ladies can act a scene to save their life. Oh, and let's not forget these ladies hate each other and are now working together. This kinda makes no sense when you look at it, but I understand what they are trying here....I think. Then again, who really cares about this storyline? Another backstage scene with Hogan, Eric Bischoff, and Ric Flair. Hogan is acting like a pussy since he doesn't want to fight Sting, so he decides to talk to Sting and put this all behind them. Was there an innuendo in the last sentence? He tells Flair to keep his mouth shut and he will do the talking and Flair agrees, which of course means Flair WON'T say anything. Once again, Hogan says the weirdest lines ever. He referred to Sting as a Superhuman and claims he "wants to put the kabosh on this whole thing". Where the hell is that Hulktionary? It's the only way we will ever understand what Hogan is saying.

Match #1: Sarita, Rosita, and Angelina Love vs Velvet Sky, ODB, and Jacki
Opening with a ko match is really not the way to get the people excited. The match was not very good. What really makes the audience at home not care about a match is when the live audience doesn't care either. The Impact Zone had no idea who to cheer for during the match, so the match was basically dead. I can't blame them considering most of the people involved are heels. Great planning TNA. Oh, and where is Winter and Mickie James? Shouldn't they be competing since there the champ and #1 Contender? The finish comes when the Love takes out Sky and instructs ODB and Jacki to attack her, but they attack Love instead. They hit a finisher on Love and put Sky on top of Love (Now, that has to be an innuendo..) and they win the match. I guess the match finally gave us a possible direction with the storyline, but I just don't find it interesting. After the match, Sarita and Rosita argue with Love until she leaves. Ok....well, that was pointless. Sadly, there's more with this scene later in the show. All I can say is why?

Winner via pinfall: Velvet Sky, ODB, and Jacki

Match #2: Kid Kash vs Jesse Sorensen
Can we really call him Kid Kash when he's freakin' forty? Yeah, that ones a thinker. For an X Division match, it was kinda boring. It wasn't bad, but nothing about it really stands out. The finish comes when Kash grabs the tights and steals a pinfall. On last week's show, they set up a rivalry between Kash and Jesse, so I guess it makes sense to go through with it. For me personally, I would rather get an Austin Aries match than this match since he's entertaining. After the match, Kash mocks the audience for the sole purpose of being a dick. Jesse gets angry about this and TNA security holds off Jesse while Kash keeps teasing him. How does this security still have jobs when they restrain one guy, but don't do anything to the other? One of the biggest examples of wrestling logic. Oh, and Mike Tenay and Tazz were talking about X Division rankings for some reason. Is there some kinda of tournament going on with the X Division? They talked about this last week and I didn't take much from it, but a second week of it making the air, it has to mean something....unless Tenay's just spouting gibberish (which wouldn't surprise me).  What's the point of having rankings when Aries became the #1 Contender last week? Plus, didn't they remember the Top Ten Rankings from last year and how much garbage that was? Is anyone else falling asleep by this point. Come on TNA, do something exciting.

Winner via pinfall: Old Man Kash

Match #3: RVD vs Pope in a BFG Series Match
This was probably the second best match of the night, but it's not really saying much. RVD did the Cattle Mutilation during the match. Matt Morgan added commentary and continues to be the only announcer to actually show something over the headset on TNA programming. Anyway, the finish comes when RVD gets a Surfboard type submission hold for the win. Feel free to correct me on the submission move because I'm sure I got it wrong. After the match, RVD and Pope shake hands and RVD leaves. Samoa Joe attacks Pope from behind and targets the knee. Devon's kids are pleading for help and a banged up Devon arrives. He tells his kids to shut up and hand him a chair (Devon for Parent of the Year?) and Joe retreats. You know what TNA? Either do something with this whole Pope/Devon deal or just end the storyline because it has been at a standstill for weeks and it's losing viewers. It was announced Devon is out of the tournament because of an injury or "injury". This probably has to do with the established kayfabe of Joe attacking Devon last week. Actually, TNA didn't even announce the injury and I only found out by watching the BFG Standings. Great job in telling the audience TNA since I only found out by being observant. Speaking of the BFG Series, I also found out RVD once again has 35 points. I understand he was down to 15 points last week and get 10 points tonight, but what about the other 10 points? This is why I hate the idea of putting the BFG Series matches in house shows. BFG is your WM, so anything regarding it should be featured on television and not at some random location without a camera crew. I wonder who's idea was that? So, Joe proves his dominance by taking out the two names nobody cared about in this tournament. Umm....go Joe?

Winner via submission: RVD

Backstage where Robbie E finds Rob Terry and ask him to be his bodyguard. Terry tells him he will think about it. TNA's really running out of ideas for Terry at this point. Reckon he's pretty boring and shouldn't have anything big, but they have tossed him around all year. He was with Immortal, lost his way out of the group, joined back up with a tag team that never appears on this show, and now this. Not only that, but doesn't Zack Ryder have some big guy on his Youtube show (The Big O I believe. Correct me if I'm wrong)? This just seems like TNA continuing to rip off WWE and/or Ryder's ideas. I said it last week and I will say it again, Robbie E is a poor man's Ryder and it's a miracle he still gets paid. Oh, and then we get to THIS backstage scene.....ugh. Love is sitting down on a couch until Sarita and Rosita arrive to attack her. They fight for a while until Winter shows up and goes ape s*** and takes out the ladies. Mexican America arrive to check up on their ladies to end the scene. What was the point of this scene? It really didn't add up considering all of these ladies are heels. So, are we supposed to feel bad for Love now? I understand they did the scene to show what Winter's capable of, but they could have thought of something a little better. Even with that said, I found this scene to be pointless since it really didn't add anything to the show or the storyline. Then we get another backstage scene between Traci Brooks and Bischoff. She's trying for the Knockout Law title while Bischoff is just making sure his pants don't show up on screen. They agree to meet up after the show for 3 cocktails.....what a bad joke. Bischoff might as well say "Traci, suck my cock". I swear TNA clouded this entire scene with innuendos. I wonder how Women's Rights feels about Traci whoring herself to Bischoff? I'm not even sure if we are supposed to be pulling for Traci in this situation or not since she's using her body to get what she wants. Was that another innuendo? What's up with this show tonight?

Back in the ring where Hogan and Flair arrive. Once Sting's in the ring, we finally get down to business....kinda. Hogan tells Sting he has completely lost it and claims this is a family show (UGH!!!). Hogan claims him and Bischoff have made mistakes running TNA (.......I have no comment), but claim it will be smooth sailing from here on out. He also wants him and Sting to be on the same page and give him whatever he wants, just as long as there's no match. Sting says the match will be off unless he gets a unicorn, cookies, puppy dogs, and pretty little flowers while talking in a lisp. Homosexual stereotypes for the win? Anyway, he kisses Hogan and Flair immediately gets in between and instantly goes crazy. There goes that jacket, so you know Flair means business. Flair says he's crazier than Sting and he will beat him in a wrestling match. Sting says he will do what it takes to get to Hogan and purposes Sting vs Hogan at BFG, which ends the segment. Yeah, so all that speculation I've been saying for weeks appears to be coming true, Sting vs Hogan is almost a guarantee at BFG. Oh......that's going to be a disaster when it comes. I can almost picture the Philly audience watching Sting and Hogan square off. I don't want to see this match. I don't even want to see Sting vs Flair. I just pray that nothing bad happens to either of this guys when that day comes. Maybe to end the day, they will have a Triple Threat Match where the winner gets a lifetime supply of goofball pills. This was an alright scene, so I have to at least be fair. By the way, did anyone pay closer attention to the Sting kissing bit? If you look at Hogan, he seemed liked he was more angry at Flair for pulling him away. I don't want to speculate anything, but this scene isn't doing Hogan any favors with the recent rumors. Hogan: "Whatcha doing brother? I was enjoying that. Get ready for these 24 inch c....I mean....pythons.....*that was a close one*...".

Just when you think you've seen enough talking, AJ Styles arrives to invite Christopher Daniels to the ring. I have to say TNA, you didn't do a good job in spacing out the in-ring action/promos since its been around 30 minutes since the last match. AJ says even though he isn't angry, he didn't like the way Daniels went about addressing the rematch deal. He finally wants to know why he wants this rematch so badly. Daniels claims Dest X was a great night, but he lost. He's starting to think he doesn't have it anymore and he wants this rematch to find out if he can still go or he needs to leave. Styles says he will give him a rematch, but tells him it will be on next week's show since he's going to be in the final four of the BFG Series at No Surrender (Umm AJ? I looked at the standings and you're nowhere close to the Final Four. I think the Pope's closer to the final four than Styles). I'm not sure about this. I keep thinking Daniels will turn heel since he always plays heel in a AJ/Daniels feud and this will end up carrying over into BFG. The promo here was ok. In fact, it was probably the best I've seen out of Daniels since he's really bland on a mic. At least here, he showed a little bit of emotion. Still, he was almost crying like a little girl, so kinda difficult to take him seriously. So, we have a match for next week's show, which might be pretty good but I have to think shenanigans will be taking place to keep this going into BFG.

Match #4: AJ Styles, Beer Money vs Bully Ray, Gunner, and Scott Steiner; Falls Count Anyway/No DQ Match for BFG Series
Holy crap....was this a clusterf***. Is it mandatory for TNA to overbook one match per episode? I swear, overbooked matches happen way too often in TNA. You have no idea how terrible this was. There was action on the inside, outside, and backstage. There was a point where Gunner tossed a member of BM into the locker room. Why is the match going this far away from the ring? Abyss was standing on the entrance ramp. He didn't add anything to the match, but he's there since TNA wants to put everything possible in one scene. There was a split screen during this match. If you have a split screen with one of your wrestling matches, you're cramming too much into the scene. This type of writing just reeks of Vince Russo since he's notorious for this type of stuff. The match shouldn't have this many stipulations and should be a basic, six man tag team match. The finish comes when Bully hits the Bully Bomb on Styles and wins the seven points. I wonder if the five other people involved in this match felt accomplished? After the match, Immortal wants to add insult to injury. They get a table set up until we see a Hummer arrive and it's Mr. Anderson. He gets in the ring and takes out Gunner and puts Steiner through a table while Bully runs away. Anderson grabs Bully's chain and punches Gunner to death. The scene ends with Anderson hovering over Gunner and Steiner as if he's a hunter posing in front of his kill. As if there wasn't enough stuff to digest, we have this? I'll be fair and say the Anderson attack was manageable. It basically sets up another Anderson/Bully match down the road. Probably for BFG. Well, I gotta give TNA credit for at least putting time and energy to building up their version of WM. Still, TNA needs to stop with these overbooked matches since it makes you feel like you're on an acid trip.... or in the mind of Jeff Hardy.

Winner via pinfall: Bully Ray, Gunner, and Scott Steiner

Mickie James had a short backstage scene to illustrate her title match is on next week's show. Why aren't Mickie and Winter competing in actual matches as opposed to doing stupid backstage scenes? Yeah, that REALLY makes me want to watch this match? Oh, and now time for the payoff of the on location deal with Eric Young. This week, Eric goes to a golf course and sees Scott Baio. Baio is waiving a golf club, but then Young rips off his pants to reveal a speedo. Baio runs like a little girl. Young climbs up a tree, tackles him, and does a cheap pinfall since we're lead to believe this was a TV Championship match. This ends the scene, most likely the bit, and I die a little more inside. So, you're telling me after ALL OF THAT.....THAT was your payoff? F*** you TNA. If you're going to do a comedy scene, you need humor. Where's the joke? What were the funny parts? This was just plain stupid and I honestly feel this was nothing more than a waste of time. On top of that, you making your midcard championship look even more ridiculous than ever. Scott Baio, what are you doing? Are you so desperate for money that you would agree to this? If it weren't for the ko match earlier, I would've considered this the worst segment of the night. How the hell did this get the green light from TNA? Who wrote this? I'm positive it took multiple idiots to think of this concept. What's next, Young challenging David Arquette....oh, no no NO!!! Let's not even think about THAT.

Match #5: Crimson vs Kurt Angle
Why do I have to wait til the last 15 minutes to watch something that resembles entertainment? This was not a bad match. I can actually recommend watching this match. This match did show me Crimson is improving, but he still needs some polishing. Again, I still see a bright future for this guy. The finish comes when Joe arrives and attacks Crimson, thus calling for the bell. You had to figure some sort of interference was bound to happen since it would be stupid to have Crimson's streak end while you don't want to make Angle look bad. After the match, Joe wants to continue the attack and Angle is ok with it. Joe's about to take out Crimson until he fights back. Joe retreats and this ends the show......at least that's what I thought, but there's still more. Tenay and Tazz give a quick rundown on what will happen on next week's show. This is actually a good thing since TNA is actually hyping up the next show. That's a good thing so you can get the audience to return the follow week. The problem is TNA doesn't do this all the time and they realistically should be doing this every week. We have one more thing to address with this show, so back in a second.

Winner via DQ: Crimson

Backstage reaction with Crimson. He talks about Joe's attack and calls him out for next week's show. Joe shows up to attack him. He takes out Crimson and even the cameraman. The camera is lying on the ground as Joe's setting up an object on Crimson's leg. He smashes his leg and says he just broke his leg. The show ends with Crimson screaming in pain. There's some good and bad things with this scene. I don't really see the point of Joe taking out Crimson backstage when he could have done it in the ring. It would have painted a better visual and would have looked much better in the ring as opposed to a passed out cameraman. Then again, that goes back to what I've said about TNA's filming. They tend to go for that "reality" filming in which the camera man is hiding from the wrestlers. I know some people like this type of filming, but I don't. I much prefer a cameraman with a steady hand or the use of a tripod as opposed to the "peeping Tom" filming. This adds more to Joe in how he's serious of taking out the BFG competition. This is what I was talking about last week since Joe showed up to attack Devon, but didn't do anything else. So, it makes sense for him to attack multiple people in one evening. Part of me thinks they may have written Crimson out of the show. While Crimson has a lot of potential, he isn't ready for a world title match. He can easily become a Jack Swagger if they put the title around him, and you don't want to do that to your best young talent. He did look good against Angle tonight, but they should really take their time with him since Crimson needs to polish up on some things. Writing him off the show will still keep his undefeated streak in tact, and they can also bring him back better than ever. At least.....that's my theory as to why Joe did the "injury" angle tonight. If they did the attack only for Crimson to show up and kill Joe in a week or two, I would really have to question TNA with the booking/writing for this one. Still, this does make me want to watch next week's show since you want to find out if Crimson will compete or not, so I gotta give TNA credit in that department. Based on my earlier theory, this BFG Series will either come down to Robert Roode or James Storm. I think they might be relying on Roode for this one since they have been preping him to do something big as a singles competitor.

Overall Impression:
TNA did do some good things tonight. The opening was pretty good and I liked how the show ended, and I felt they did a good job in hyping up next week's show. Still, there was some flaws. The in-ring action wasn't very good. Outside of the Crimson/Angle match, everything else was average to horrible. Plus, do we need to go into detail of the Falls Count Anywhere match? Some promos/segment were ok, but others were really dumb at times. There was a lot of backstage scenes in this episodes and they were either tolerable to really bad. The payoff to the Young/Scott Baio was really stupid. It was moments like this which really hurt the show. Still, there was some good moments. Kinda a mixed bag sort of evening, but I do wish there was a better balance with the good and the bad. Next week's show should be interesting. I think the biggest reason I looking forward to next week is the fact the show's taking place OUTSIDE the Impact Zone. TNA really needs to have more shows out of Orlando because I get tired of seeing the same audience every week. Not a show I can recommend, but there was some good and I can definitely recommend watching the good parts. Some people asked me about the Matt Hardy deal. What happened is Matt got a DWI and nearly killed himself in a car accident. Once TNA found out about this, he was released from the company. Yeah, that was something. In other news, the sun rose in the morning. It's hard for me to feel sorry for Matt when he does all of this stupid stuff. When will the Hardys realize they are not 16 years old and need to start acting like grown ups? Probably never. I honestly can't blame TNA for releasing Matt. He showed up out of shape and just when he starts to put a little effort in the ring, he starts ditching shows and gets suspended. If there's one thing that pisses me off, it's seeing talented people piss away their talents because they can't stay clean or are immature. The same thing applies to Jeff Hardy. I would like to hope this release will be a wake up call to Matt since there isn't much options after this. WWE won't take you back and I doubt Ring of Honor would take a gamble on you. Maybe this forces Matt to buckle down and start taking care of himself better, but maybe not? I've heard about the Jeff Hardy rumors, and I would like to keep that stuff silent until next time. That's going to do it for the review and I hope you enjoyed it. If you hated this review.....it's your fault. As always, tell me what you thought of my review or tonight's show. I will see you guys and girls on the next WrestlingNerd show, see you next time.