WrestlingNerd Presents: TNA Impact Wrestling 5/23/13 Review

What up wrestling fans, I'm the WrestlingNerd bringing you another written review. Today we take a look at TNA Impact Wrestling 5/23/13. How does Impact look after this week? Let's find out and begin. 

Sugar Daddy!

We open up the show with Hulk Hogan whoring himself out for a pop. Hogan plugs his own restaurant/business. Some would consider this egotistical but after seeing how much WWE was ridin' the WWE App's dick, this would be considered subtly. So, why are Hogan and Sting buddies again? I thought there was tension between the two? I guess after only a few months, they just couldn't keep their true feelings hidden. Tell him how you feel….TELL HIM NOW!!! Old guy sex will have to wait since Brooke Hogan comes out and wants to resign from her job due to this being her fault. Bully Ray comes out and claims he's still in-love with Brooke, thus making sure that we get some more bad acting for the evening. The scene ends, but the cradle-robbing, Bully Ray continues to seek Brooke while Brooke is conflicted. They introduce this for two possible outcomes. I either see Brooke turning heel and ultimately joining with Bully, or she tries to screw over Bully only to end up costing Sting the title. But hey, at least you get to see her try to act. That's something, right?

La Parka > Suicide

So, how many different people have played the Suicide character? Why did people want this character back? I honestly thought he offered nothing to the table and his only purpose was the introduction of a TNA video game that mostly failed. Never understood the love for the Suicide character. I just thought the character was pointless, but there's some people out there that actually enjoyed this character. If that's your thing, cool? Not sure what everybody sees in this character that I don't. In fact, I'm just waiting for the fat incarnation of Suicide. Suicide makes his return and defeats Petey Williams and Joey Ryan. All you need is Kenny King doing commentary and the blandness would be comp….wait a minute! Those crafty bastards! This was the best match of the night. A good or bad thing? You be the judge of that. 

Velvet Sky's BDSM

What the hell is up with Velvet Sky in that backstage scene? Was she getting out of a Halloween costume? Was she practicing some bondage play? What the hell's going on here? I know some will argue she's just wrapping up her injury, but is there any reason for it to be around her neck? Somebody must've found Jeff Hardy's stash during the weekend. Later on in the show, Velvet defended the title against Mickie James. Mickie started to show signs of evil tonight by using a chop block on Velvet. Mickie becomes the new KO champion after an underwhelming DDT. Part of me wonders why they didn't wait until Slammiversary to do a title switch, but I quickly remember this is the KO division. Look for Mickie to release her bitchiness while Velvet tries to reclaim the gold for future events. 

Sam Shaw has friends?

We are about to see random Gut Check scrubs fight each other when Aces & Eights shows up since Wes Brisco claims he should be in this tournament since he was in the GC. They also took out Alex Silva, but you never see it. Yeah, they off-screened the attack. Why? What? Why? I'm guessing Silva wasn't available, but you could've done something to make it look better. 

Creative #1: Hey, we need to get Silva in this shot! 

Creative #2: He isn't available, so let's lie out of our ass. 

Creative #1: But won't people think we're being lazy? 

Creative #2: It isn't like we have to try…

If you need reminder as to what this is all about, TNA is putting together a tournament from previous GC winners to see who is the best. The winner of this tournament get put in the BFG Series, where they will end up getting about 20 unnecessary points for the next 3-4 months. Oh, what a joy! Magnus comes out since it turns out Card Games beat up one of Magnus' friends. Don't really see the point of bringing this detail up for the sake of storytelling. Magnus already has beef with Aces & Eights, so did we really need to find out that he knows this Sam Shaw guy? That's unnecessary detail if you ask me. Heck, can you even call it that? Replacing the GC guys are Magnus and Brisco. The match goes nowhere when shenanigans take over. Samoa Joe comes out and helps Magnus. The only purpose of this scene is to have Magnus and Joe team up to take on the Aces and Eights for the future. In fact, I'm predicting Joe/Magnus vs Brisco/Jerk-off. It's like Joe and Magnus are in the war against Aces & Eights but aren't at the same time. They are so underplayed that you forget they're apart of this. Does anyone else think the same way? 

Mrrrrrrrrr……Annnnndeeee--eh, who cares……

I wonder how many Kurt Angle vs Mr. Anderson matches we've seen in the last 3 years. The match was very dull to say the least. That's a bit surprising considering Kurt Angle's in the match, but I mostly contribute the dullness towards Anderson's performance. It's like he woke up this morning and said 'I'm just not gonna give a s*** today'. Apparently, Aces & Eights are proud of Anderson defeating Kurt via a rollup. Incredibly pointless, so let's move on. 

Tag Team Clusterf***

James Storm comes out and introduces his new tag partner. TNA gave you the false hope that they did something different with the tag division by adding another team into the triple threat tag rivalry. Oh, well now it's completely different! I guess I was wrong all along. Bravo for introducing this new storyline…..You suck! After some arguing, Shark Boy comes out and continues to do more SCSA copyright infringement since some a-hole in TNA's creative staff still thinks this is funny. I hate this freakin' character. Shark Boy might be one of the worst gimmicks possible. It's just Stone Cold if he were retarded and thought he was a shark in his past life. Sounds stupid, right? That's because it is. Robbie E comes out since we didn't have enough annoying gimmicks in the ring. I'm a bro! Bro this and bro that! Just shut the bro up! After TNA jumped the Shark Boy, it's finally revealed that Gunner is his partner for Slammiversary. Wow, that shark is going for some hang-time if you ask me. I know I've been critical about Gunner in the past. Hell, he still looks like your local garbage man. He hasn't been on television for a while, so I'm hoping he used that time period to buy himself a personality and acting lessons. I hope Gunner learned something from his previous push (If that's what you want to call it) and makes the changes to help his career, but don't be surprised if he's literally playing the same guy. I'm always willing to give a guy a second chance, but just remember what I said earlier. 

AJ Stinger

I love Sting's logic. Instead of recruiting to homicidal monster, let's pick the bumbling lawyer to be your partner next week. I'm not even shocked anymore. He could've picked his toilet brush and it wouldn't matter. Throughout the whole night, TNA was hyping up AJ Styles joining the Aces and Eights. He never said he joined the group, but we have to make it look like Styles is a bad guy since we need to resort to Monday Night War cliches. It appears Styles has joined Aces & Eights by drinking a beer and wearing the jacket. Yeah, this isn't gonna blow up in their face at all. Once Kurt Angle comes out and gets a dose of….

After Styles takes out Kurt with the hammer, he uses the hammer to attack a couple members of Aces &Eights. What? Styles didn't join Card Games? Wow! I haven't been this shocked since I found exercising is healthy for you! I want to admit something. As predictable as it was for Styles to attack Aces & Eights, the scene wasn't that bad. In fact, I was actually entertained during this spot. It was one of the few moments where I enjoyed tonight's show. While this idea is a rip-off of Sting/NWO back in the day, there's something about it that makes it stand out. It's hard to explain, but there's something about it that works. And I'll even admit that Styles has done a decent job with this character. And that's coming from somebody who honestly hasn't bought into the Styles hype. I've always admitted he's a good wrestler, but his charisma reeks of boredom and I would say is one of the most overhyped wrestlers ever. I'm gonna get a lot of flag for that comment, but that's honestly what I've always thought about Styles. For the time being, I'm enjoying him work with this character. He isn't doing wonders with it, but he's making it entertaining and that's all I want to see at the end of the day. 

Overall Impression:

While I did enjoy the ending to the show, I can't say the same for the majority of the evening. The only match that really stood out was the X Division match. It was okay, but so okay that it doesn't really warrant a ton of attention. The segments for the evening weren't that engaging either. The tag team segment was hilariously bad/annoying, but the reveal of Gunner is a bit disappointing. Again, I'll give him a chance to see if he's made some changes in his time off. The KO segment was blah while the Gut Check/Magnus switch-out was just pointless. It just wasn't a show with a lot going on for itself. It seemed as if the whole idea for tonight's show was just to focus on AJ Styles. There's nothing wrong with that, but you need substance throughout the whole evening. In this case, you don't. At the same time, I can't be overly harsh on this episode since both companies have had episodes like this in the past. They can be underwhelming, but at least there's something in the episode that can at least keep you interested for just a bit. The only reason this show worked is because of Styles and that's really saying something since I'm not really that big of an AJ Styles fan. That's gonna do it for the review and I hope you enjoyed it. Tell me what you thought of my review or tonight's show. I will see you guys and girls in the next one.