Impact wrestling thread - It's a Don West tribute thread now!

[The King Of Swing]

Su Yung is such a ridiculous gimmick. But like other silly shit before it, somehow works in Impact.

[garynysmon]

15 minutes ago, Ambulance Chaser said:

That was a fucking tremendous show. I'd recommend people give this a shot, the overriding thing I took away was this was Wrestling aimed at me, a 33 year old jaded bastard that is absolutely pig sick of pancake jokes, a 70 year olds fart jokes and fucking B-Team bollocks. This was gritty, raw, edgy, every match felt like something had to be settled and a personal grudge. I aint read many reviews or seen every post on here but Callihan/Pentagon is one of my favourite matches this year, proper scrap, Callihan is one despicable mess of a man. I thought Aries performance in the main event was outstanding, he bumped his arse off and made moose look good. Great crowd, callis added a sense of importance, it all just felt like a fucking grown up version of Wrestling.

 

 

Couldn't agree more. I don't really follow the independent or foreign scenes at all and half the current WWE roster are just names I couldn't put a face to. But Impact has brought in a load of nobodies (to my ignorant mind anyway) and given me a reason to care about who they are and why they're fighting.

That is such a stark contrast to why I loved TNA in 2008-13 or so, which was a way of having stars from my childhood like Hogan, Sting, Nash, Flair etc on my telly every week.  

It does seem somewhat reminiscent of the Attitude era in some ways, although eliminating some of the most adolescent stuff. The Impact roster is not a big one, but maybe that's its strength? A bit more time to concentrate on giving everyone a storyline or at least character development but on a two hour show as opposed to countless hours of product a week.

The comparative lack of content is what keeps me watching TNA and what kept me somewhat interested even when it was at its worst. Most anyone can find two hours a week to watch a wrestling show without having to miss anything.

If I had any major gripe it would be that Slammiversary (which is meant to be its nostalgia PPV) had no nod to the past, no cameo from anyone or an appearance from old wrestlers (unless you count the former incarnation of LAX.)

If I had to guess why, I suspect that was a deliberate attempt to differentiate the current regime to the TNA stink as the rehabilitation process is still a little fragile.

Edited July 23, 2018 by garynysmon

[Hannibal Scorch]

Maybe I have just got too old, or I feel differently as a parent, but that Sami Callahan match was absolute grot and I would be happy to never see him in a ring. The spit, snot and the spikes were just disgusting. I would be happy to never see him on a TV/PPV ever again. 

Other then that, I thought it was their best PPV in years

[Supremo]

First TNA show I’ve seen in years. Things have improved dramatically.

I thought the production values were brilliant. Last time I saw TNA they had the lights so low you could barely see what was happening. This bright, colourful, cool looking building looked great. 

[Ambulance Chaser]

The tall lad in LAX, Santana has something going for him, good looking bastard but comes across as rough and ready, that cannonball he did in the corner was brilliant.

[tiger_rick]

15 minutes ago, Supremo said:

I thought the production values were brilliant. Last time I saw TNA they had the lights so low you could barely see what was happening. This bright, colourful, cool looking building looked great. 

Have to somewhat agree. I know I said differently yesterday morning but I was wrong. Actually watching the early part of the show last night, it was well lit and the arena looked very good from most angles. I still don't like the hard camera angle but it is a massive improvement. Crowd came across very well.

[Supremo]

5 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

Have to somewhat agree. I know I said differently yesterday morning but I was wrong. Actually watching the early part of the show last night, it was well lit and the arena looked very good from most angles. I still don't like the hard camera angle but it is a massive improvement. Crowd came across very well.

Ah, yes. The hard camera did nearly give me vertigo it was so unusually high. That took some getting used to. Is it usually that high?

Rey Fenix is great.

Edited July 24, 2018 by Supremo

[Accident Prone]

When I first started seeing Santana & Ortiz on the indies, my first impression was "Bloody hell, Eddie Kingston lost some weight, hasn't he?". Guy looks the absolute spit of him. They're a great tag team, that elevated cannonball spot always looks amazing. Great at classic tag wrestling, great at brawling, great at spotfests. Looking forward to see how they develop.

Talking of Kingston, he should grab this opportunity with both of his burly hands and show off what made him so unique and unmissable back during his '05 - '08 hot streak. He has that long-alluded to 'big fight feel' and looks (and acts) like a hard bastard. Had the pleasure of seeing him in a few intimate venues and he's one guy that you instantly buy into as legit.

As for the show itself, still not had a chance to watch it outside of a few GIFs but I'll try and catch it tonight. I hope they go back to the blue ropes though, as those yellow ones give off a NXT/OVW/3PW vibe.

[tiger_rick]

It's good news that they're getting their shit together. They're not competition for WWE and hopefully they remember that and just do their own thing. They are an alternative though, which the business badly needs. They're also a very valuable development territory. They've got proper TV and occassional PPVs that give guys a big stage to work on and learn on. They produce differently and I think it shows when you see the confidence of guys like Styles, Joe and Roode on the mic in WWE.

Hopefully the fact that those guys, Eric Young, James Storm, Lashley, Aries, etc have been able to go to WWE (or NXT at least) when TNA guys previously seemed untouchable gives them an angle to get promising guys or ex-WWE who need rehabilitating. The roster for this show compared to the bare bones crew they were working with last year is night & day. In fairness to them, some are the same people, they've just brought them on.

[garynysmon]

It wouldn't surprise me if Impact announces more pay per view events after BFG, possibly for early 2019. Otherwise it seems odd they'd hold Redemption in April, Slammiversary in July, Bound for Glory in October and then nothing for six months. Is a PPV every 3 months the plan going forward?

(Please don't be fucking Lockdown though, I can't stand that show)

Edited July 24, 2018 by garynysmon

[HeavyT]

lockdown would be fine as long as they don't have every match be a cage match. I love the wargames concept and Lethal lockdown is close enough

[tiger_rick]

How have I not heard of that Eddie Edwards wants to murder Sami Callihan stuff? Fuck me, that's some of the worst pro-wrestling in history. The story of Eddie Edwards and Tommy Dreamer was actually well done if you completely ignore the fact that Dreamer's involvement was to stop an actual fucking murder. Jesus Christ TNA, the one day I give you some credit.

[Ambulance Chaser]

Eddie thinks Tommy's shaggin his wife aswel, heads gone.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

Remember those citrus polos you could get years ago? The ring ropes really made me fancy some. Cant get them anymore sadly.

Edited July 24, 2018 by IANdrewDiceClay

[garynysmon]

Don Callis appeared on his Killing The Town podcast this week, and it was a pretty interesting insight into their booking philosophy.

Austin Aries vs Moose:

It reminded me a lot, and this is one of the reasons why when we booked this, of course this comes up, 'well, you know, straight wrestling match'. For me, and I tend to put things into an ECW context because that's kind of my background. I'm like 'Austin Aries is Shane Douglas'. Amidst all the chaos and all the craziness, a great professional wrestler goes in, outwrestles his opponent and wins. That's what Shane used to do. And you know he would use like tables here and there or whatever but sure, that was the thing, and it worked. Now you have to have a guy like you were Shane in his heyday to be able to pull that off. But I thought it delivered a 100% and I love the fact that you didn't have all the bells and whistles because it was different. Because as you know when you have a card you don't want chocolate cake for every meal. You want to mix it up.

The main event following up two great matches:

It is a good problem to have because you want people to leave and be brought back to, 'well this is great wrestling. This is athletic. This is psychology. This is all of that stuff.' And that by the way is the hardest thing to imitate or duplicate is what you guys do. You could have people go out and do hardcore matches, it wouldn't be as good as what we saw last night, but top flight, athletic wrestling is hard to duplicate.

The clean finish in the main event:

And that's the thing, as we're talking about this, if you're in that booking room, it's easy to go down the rabbit hole of 'well, we're gonna be sending people home unhappy because the heel's up, maybe we should do a screw finish' and when Scott and I came here in January, one of the things that we both felt very strongly about is clean finishes. Clean finishes and if people don't wanna do jobs, we're happy to have a discussion. But then that's just not gonna work here. My thing last night was, and even yesterday we're talking like 'well maybe we should have the thing' and I'm like 'No. He's the best wrestler in the world. He beat the guy with his finish. It's an athletic contest. There's nothing wrong with that. It's a great match that people will be happy to see.'

The story they were telling with Moose:

And it's the perfect example of when it's done right, everyone benefits. I think Moose benefited huge from that last night. He looked great. The story that we got to tell as announcers, because it's what you guys were painting out there is Moose literally went all in on everything, and maybe he took it a little far and did the Undertaker dive and crashed and burned. He went all in on that, he took a chance and the guy who's the smart veteran took advantage of that on the floor and it was too much to overcome. That's the sports story that people understand.

Scripted promos:

Someone asked me like a week ago, 'well do you write promos for guys?' I'm like, 'No'. Then they're like, 'Yeah, but you're a great promo'. I'm like, 'Yeah, I can do a Don Callis promo better than anyone in this business. But if I start telling Eddie Edwards how to do a promo, he might sound a lot like Don Callis but that's not what we want!' I think it really is about the promo thing is about getting people comfortable with themselves and we're in a business where a lot of people come into this business not comfortable in their own skin. And now we're telling them, 'be this whole another character'.

Sami Callihan:

He's so good at being Sami Callihan and being the type of heel that he is that he's probably gonna end up being a huge babyface at some point, because he's like that undersized guy who never backs down and just fights.

Initial impressions of OVE:

Talking about being wrong about guys, I remember last October, and I told the Crists this yesterday, I remember calling Scott because I knew I was probably gonna end up coming in here, I just hadn't negotiated my deal yet. I remember watching the TV and just going, 'Oh my god. This is so bad. Who the hell are OVE? These guys are awful.' I'm like, 'Fire these two. This is brutal.' Now they're one of my favourite acts because they do so much nuanced comedy stuff with Sami that's sort of not supposed to be funny, and they're really talented wrestlers. You just gotta give them a chance and that's one of the best acts we've got, it's those three. It's awesome.