AW man this is a show that really points out the weakness of the "what worked/what didn’t work" format. It’s a format that doesn’t allow for the “thumbs in the middle” response. As this was show where really felt like all the "what worked" parts had enough flaws that I could see putting them on the "what didn’t" work side. Maybe I should split this "What's Ok" and "what's inexcusable"...Bah! And we start our thumbs in the middle section with “Hey Kids Its Squashes!!!”. Jay Lethal is good firey guy who eats a quick squash well. And Joe is good with his squashes and ex-Hot Shot Cassidy O’Reilly eats an atomic drop like no bodies business. I mean watched that Samoa Joe squash and went “HOLY SHIT look at that atomic drop.” Still at this point Joe and Abyss are long since established and I’m tired of seeing them in squashes. Give me real matches…this is another area where my proposal of more trios matches could help. Mix these guys up some. I’m tired of both Lethal and O’Reilly as squash material too. O’Reilly has really been with the fed since the beginning and was one of highlights of the fed during the Hotshots v. AMW period. A Lethal vs. Cassidy O ‘Reilly match could be really great and help make either guy. Instead I’m watching a squash where Reilly gets no offense. Shannon Moore steals Aj’s plaque. Not even a trophy but a plaque. They couldn’t afford a trophy? Stealing a trophy, smashing a trophy …that’s a wrestling angle. Stealing an employee of the month plaque and waving it around…that’s what the asshole cashier at Chick-Fil-A does to the suck-up cashier. Then post match Christopher Daniels runs in wearing his Target plaid shirt looking like a manager at Chik-Fil-a. I felt like I was watching wrestling angle built around the latest Ryan Reynolds movie. I mean I watched Ultimate Fight Night. I saw Spike trying to cross-promote "Blade… The Series" with UFC. Chuck Liddell’s gonna be a vampire and Spike is using an ex member of Onyx to play the Wesley Snipes role. Watching this match made me worried that they’re going to have Joe play the Luis Guzman role in "Waiting at Shenaniganz…The Series". Don't wan to see that. Sticky Fingaz is gonna be playing Blade???..The opening theme song is gonna be “BlacVampirafinda”????
BG James gets to do his angry mic work this week and it was good. Liked Kip’s facials during BG’s mic work as Kip did nice job playing friend uncomfortable watching his best friend break down. Kip’s own mic work was kind of weak as felt like awkward posturing as opposed to sincerity that this whole angle is built around. Kips thing was kept short so didn’t detract. Still this felt belated. The video package had nice points. But seemed to be doing too much. Video package both was about Konnan and about Bob in hospital. So you have package getting over Konnan’s motivations and Bob’s attempt at recovery. It's too much-you can't do the two at same time as they cancel each other out. You want to do package of Bob in hospital with son looking on to set up “He’s my DADDY”. Then next week you mix in the Konnan as guy who feels jilted video package and getting jumped by James Boys till his Konnan's own boys make the save and he intros them as LAX. Show ended with another video package remix here centered around where Killings stands. This whole thing post beating up Bob is all being done out of order. How bout some mic work setting up BG wanting to know where Killings stands…some Konnan mic work setting up same question before we move into that angle. Instead we get BG doing angry babyface mic work setting up the promise of an Ass whooping…leading to video package about Killings?? Huh. Promise ass whooping…should lead to either succesfull or failed attempt to enact ass-whooping. This should then lead to Killings. Liked the mic work liked the video packages…but the whole angle is so out of order it’s ridiculous. Three weeks ago this felt like an angle that could actually draw good house show numbers. Now it feels like I’m watching a blown angle that they have to work desperately to save.
That Jarrett and Brown segment was well done. Jarrett is growing out his hair to look more like the character that Christian parodied which is kind of amusing. This was done as prerecorded segment and actually built to the match on PPV. Effective segment in the way all the giant brawling segments have really felt stale and like show has the most uncreative bookers out there. Show of course ends with a big brawl and this is probably the time you want to do it. Unfortunately they’ve really killed the big show ending face v heel brawl spot at this point as it is as tired and thrown away as the NWO beats everyone up spot at this point. Amusing as they record these shows two at a time and you can see the diminished returns when crowd sees you repeat the same spot. Stings actual voice lifts the crowd but still…
So if you've read the last 14 of these or so you know that I have mixed emotions about the Naturals/AMW double turn. AMW was better as faces as they really had that down. And the Naturals were better as heels as they also knew how to work cut off opponent well. And its really felt like over the 16 episodes of Impact on Spike that we're watching these teams re-learn to work as they have to figure out how to play these new roles. AMW are getting legit heel response but I've found there stuff to be lacking...they were doing a stooge/back off into double team well but...I don't know as faces they had their formula down tight enough that they could work a good match against any heel team. This episode first time I felt the same way about their heel work as they say screw the stooging early portions and just go all out cutting off ring double teaming, tandem moves etc. Both faces get a seperate face in peril section and well neither of them do much with that but AMW just controls the entire match. First time since move to Spike that Chris Harris has looked really comfortable with his role in the ring. And all of his stuff looked sharp. Christian does take the huge belly to belly to floor bump and the Harris/Christian reversal section which looked real bad a couple weeks back actually comes accross nice here. And holy shit when did James Storm start headbutting people like that?? Not sure if I get the booking of the finish as don't know if that's gonna help sell anyones match for PPV...may hurt it...but still good match.
WHAT DIDN'T WORK:
Every week you think you’ve seen the peak of awful Jackie Gayda mic work, and then she goes out and tops it. This week they went all out and had her interact with Shane Douglas and Scott DÁmore. At the same time!!! Is this a rib? Wow that Jackie Gayda back stage segment was painful. I mean I guess they should be commended for putting Dámore and Gayda in one section together. Concentrate all the suck in one place. But it would be smarter to have neither on the mic than put both on it together. You know I shit on Vince Russo as being one of the stupidest bookers in the history of wrestling. But he had this idea that you could just take professional actors and with minimum of training plug them into wrestling angles. People pretty universally mocked him for this idea. But you watch Raw and Thea Vidale is really the best thing on that show. With no wrestling experience she seems to be a better second than Dámore or Mitchell. Watching Jackie Gayda, I couldn't help but think "you know Adele Givens has big tits and a horse’s face put her in the same outfit and I’m sure that she could have pulled off this backstage skit". It's TNA they might not be able to afford her but still. There must be an Onyx back up dancer who could do better than Gayda. I mean you don't need to be Adele Givens to do better than Gayda. Fuck is there a Comedy Sportz in Orlando? Any three guys from the Orlando Comedy Sportz could do better than this segment..
That video package to set up Tanahashi v. Styles showed no Tanahashi outside of him slapping on an arm bar. I mean I’m not a guy who pimps Tanahashi but you should be able to put a couple more impressive clips that that together.
So last week I praise the TNA trios matches. And then this week they give me this atrocity. Not enough Eric Young, too much of the rest of Team Canada. Where is Ruffy Silverstein? Johnny Devine? And the face team stunk too. I mean a better face team might be able to do something with this version of Team Canada...and a better heel team might be able to do something with Dutt,Sabin, Bentley...This was bad match up leading to a mind numbing match. But I'll say that no matter how awfull this was it was still better than any of the X division three ways that these guys were in the first couple weeks of Impact. So my point that six mans are good ways to use the talent still stands and maybe if they went to full on EMLL format they could've clipped this into momentos espectaculares and people would be tricked into saying "ooh I wish they showed us that". But still this was bad bad bad. I mean at least DÁmore wasn't ring side. Oddly enough this is the most I think I've enjoyed a Canadian Destoyer. Normally the move is just silly and buisness exposing... as the set up for move is Williams stomping his feet then doing Marcel Marceau rope pull and then waving his hands in the air and then hitting ridiculously fake move. Here he hit it off the ropes and it came across as semi plausible really violent sunset flip. So yeah clip it into momentos.
Matt Hardy has always been a lot more popular than his push, there's no denying that. Even as Matt Hardy's Dad in 2009-10, people still loved him -- listen to the pop he gets at the Royal Rumble before being dumped out in ten seconds.