TNA… Cross the Line again

[Butch2000]

I rescind any apology. Passive aggression earns that being taken back at a canter.

 

anyroads, considering they are the bare bones we were left with last night, it was a pretty quality show. Still not too enamoured with the marginalisation of Moose which has gone on over the past year or so though, he was a top flight top heel.

Edited April 18, 2023 by Butch2000

[garynysmon]

Yes, Aldis has been dismissive of Impact in the past. But I can’t believe that no one else would have taken him on though, so the fact that he willingly went back there speaks volumes about what a different company it is nowadays.

Its not like there’s a lack of options for wrestlers nowadays is it? And had he popped up on Dynamite, for instance, and given the usual “… is All Elite” treatment, I find it very hard to believe that a man of his background wouldn’t be hailed as a major signing (and rightfully so).

People like Alan Angels, Kazarian (Gresham to a degree) etc have given up deals with AEW to sign for Impact. That must stand for something, and clearly this isn’t the 2015 version of TNA that wasn’t paying anyone and the internet instructed people to laugh at.

Changing the entire ownership structure, channel, most of the roster, studio and management… I mean, there’s not much more you can do to distance yourself from the ills of the past without divorcing yourself completely of the historic successes that also should be celebrated.

@Butch2000 I read that Moose has been working hurt for a while, which would explain being relegated to mainly tags or quasi-comedy matches against Joe Hendry.

Edited April 18, 2023 by garynysmon

[Tsurutagun]

The Bully/ladder/refs beef was amusing but if the refs hated Bully so much why didn't they just count to 3 after the DVD even if Bully did kick out

13 hours ago, Fatty Facesitter said:

Crowd - I know the venue isn't massive but fucking hell, give it some wellie Toronto, would you

Impact crowds have been shit for awhile. The Alexander/Bailey match a bunch of people raved about had a crowd that sounded like it had never watched wrestling before. 

[garynysmon]

33 minutes ago, Tsurutagun said:

Impact crowds have been shit for awhile. The Alexander/Bailey match a bunch of people raved about had a crowd that sounded like it had never watched wrestling before. 

They seem to be very hit and miss. The crowd for the last set of tapings in Windsor, Ontario was very lively and its good they’re going back there to a larger venue for Slammiversary.

But yeah, as you said, Toronto turned out in force and sold out the original batch of tickets well in advance (before more seats were opened up by production), it didn’t come across well on TV. As nice as the Rebel looks on tv, the crowd is also hidden and it didn’t look like there was almost 2,000 in attendance and you could only see a couple of rows.

[Loki]

On 4/17/2023 at 1:04 PM, garynysmon said:

Watched it all apart from the women’s match (that main evented).

But that Hardcore War was a million times better than it had any right to be, and Tommy Dreamer even made me root for him. The bastard.

Bloody gorgeous venue too. As always, never fail to deliver on PPV.

@garynysmon, your enthusiasm for Impact made me chase this down and have a watch, as someone who was a big TNA fan.  I thought the match was rotten, although I'm quite impressed Dreamer is still able to walk and talk generally.  The venue may be nice but the crowd was rubbish and a lot of the production values were pretty low.

I really WANT to like Impact, but every time I watch it it makes me sad, as it's so much less than it was back in the days of Styles, Joe, Angle, Sting, Hogan and the Impact Zone with Bischoff's clever crowd setup.

 

[garynysmon]

In fairness my expectations for the match were low given that Tommy Dreamer was front and centre. But the format was decent enough, featured acts that I like, had some high spots and bits made me laugh. 

That’s good enough for me given how non seriously I take wrestling at this stage of my life.

I remember reading on my phone on a Wales Away trip at an eastern European airport in 2016 (I think) that the next tapings weren't going to take place as they had no money left and that WWE was snapping up the tape library.

So I suppose that my remaining and now unwavering affinity for Impact is mainly a gratitude of and a reflection of how bonkers it is that its still around at all. Little engine that could and all that.

I wasn’t watching much wrestling from 2002 to 2008 or so (other than brief hopes for the ECW revamp). Having gone to uni in 2002 and only dipping in while at home, the Ruthless Aggresion era felt like a massive downgrade compared to the Attitude days and the whole ‘feel’ of WWF/WWE felt a bit ‘off’.

I never was a fan of TNA early doors, it looked a bit bush league and I never fully came on board until Kurt Angle and the Main Event Mafia were around, it felt like the 'new WCW' I was craving so much.

Given its the proper stars that brought me in, you’d have thought I’d have stopped watching at the same time that most normal folk did. But for some reason I was so interested in the backstage shenanigans and the obvious money issues, that it kept up my interest.

In fairness the company now is a million miles away from the spike version, so I can see why @Lokiwould be disappointed.

If that's what you're looking for then AEW is the obvious product to watch. There are aspects of Dynamite that give me the fuzzies, it feels so much like Nitro. Its just a shame that some aspects of the fanbase and Tony Khan grate me so much.    

Impact's production isn't what it should be and you're not going to see 10,000 seat arenas on Impact every week.

But christ, its a solid two hour show that features a strong core roster and wrestlers from all over the place popping up because Impact works with everyone that's willing.

Its probably attracting more paid attendees to shows than it ever did during its Spike heyday, and there’s something interesting about following a product that’s showing baby steps of (re)growth.

I can't think of anything worse than having to catch up with 2-3 shows a week, so at this stage I'm more than happy with my lot.

I'm very seldom left disappointed.

Edited April 20, 2023 by garynysmon

[Guest]

I only dip in and out, but it feels like Impact made the best pick ups from the Covid fires from wwe in that anyone they picked up enhanced their product. Can’t say that about most of the 20 odd that AEW picked up. It gave them a very wrestler looking wrestlers roster again, is that fair @garynysmon?

[garynysmon]

I mean, we all have our personal favourites and often without any rhyme nor reason.

But they lost complete shithouses like Joey Ryan and Michael Elgin, and a completely disinterested RVD. Tessa Blanchard should have been a massive hit if her head was screwed on.

The most successful pickups seem to be NXT releases with something to prove, Deonna Purazzo or Steve Maclin for instance, or indy wrestlers slightly off the beaten track (i.e Canadians) like Josh Alexander or Speedball Mike Bailey who Scott D’Amore knows well.

’Bigger name’ pickups like the Good Brothers or the Iconics don’t seem to work as well.

Mia Yim was fine during her 6 month run though, and Taya was only ever going to be a non-contract thing as she angled for an AEW gig.

For a company that should have been fucked the second AEW came into being, they generally do quite well at resigning wrestlers though.

Don Callis leaving seems to have caused fewer HR issues too…

Edited April 21, 2023 by garynysmon

[Fatty Facesitter]

👍 Maclin/PCO business - Not who I was expecting in terms of Maclin’s first challenger but a great bit of business here. Maclin looked the part as champion and he was presented nicely with the personal security element and he came across well in terms of how he delivered his promo. PCO being revealed as the challenge was a surprise, but he’s been great to watch of late and that’s a match that definitely piques my interest. On a separate note, Aldis' promo was perfectly fine as well, so now we've got two intriguing challengers to Maclin's gold. 

👍 Moose vs Yuya Uemura - Power and speed respectively here blending really well together. After the fast-food serving of a fast-paced opener, this was more of a delightfully slow-cooked steak. The interference on the outside kept you guessing in terms of the outcome, but this was a good re-heater for Moose and it’ll be interesting to see what they do next with him from here. 

👍 Joe Hendry vs Sheldon Jean - Solid if unspectacular in terms of the action, but Hendry is always essential viewing every week. The audience participation factor with him - especially when it comes to my previous gripes about Impact crowds - is so welcome and he stands out so much from the rest of the roster. 

👍 Time Machine vs Gresham/Miguel/Speedball - Another Fatty Facesitter cheat code tag opener special with some really eye-catching transitions between the teams and some great individual performances from the likes of Mike Bailey in particular. However, this thumbs up is for the action only...

👎 …admittedly the booking of the match is a bit of a question mark for me - Kushida has just gone from headlining in a world title match to jerking the curtain in a tag match on the very next show, while the three combatants in another title match were all paired together, again on the very next show and with no prior build-up? This could have been with some sort of transitional segment either at the top of the show or mid-way through to set something up for next week, i.e Kushida wants to address the crowd following his loss only to get interrupted, then you can gradually bring the other players int the mix from there. Also, Sabin getting the pin seems like a strange move when you’ve got Kushida in there who’s just featured in one of the higher-profile PPV matches. Again, no complaints about the action because it was an absolute ripper from start to finish, and there’s several interesting match combinations you can build on from here. The dynamic of the triple-threat team having to co-exist was also interesting. It’s just important to take the audience on a bit of a journey with all of this first before you get to this point. 

👎 Aiisha Edwards/Tara Rysing - Too short to be anything of note, and Edwards going from a extremely concerned wife to all of a sudden being totally ready to compete in an impromptu match setup by Santino was too much of a jolt in terms of juxtaposition. 

👎 Kazarian vs Good Hands - Nothing particularly bad here from the match itself. But at 45, do we really need to be giving Kazarian a big showcase and single-handedly beating a tag team they’re trying to establish? 

👎 Crowd - I'd be remiss if I didn't mention them again - another poor showing despite a good product taking place before them. 

Overall - Some good, some bad, but absolutely nothing that was bowling shoe ugly. Third week or so now of being fully invested in Impact again and there's definitely still some potential with the company. I'm quite excited to see how things develop over the coming months. 

Edited April 22, 2023 by Fatty Facesitter

[Jazzy G]

I should start watching again, especially now I have a laptop so I can WATCH wrestling again...

[Fatty Facesitter]

28 minutes ago, jazzygeofferz said:

I should start watching again, especially now I have a laptop so I can WATCH wrestling again...

If you’re hinting at what I think you’re hinting at, that’s my main resource now for watching stuff. Live is a bit hit and miss and you sometimes need to keep keep switching tabs but other than that it’s usually pretty good. 

[Jazzy G]

I watched Impact religiously until Josh Alexander won the title, then was just so burned out by the emotion of it all that I didn't really watch much of anything, but it used to be my favourite wrestling viewing at the time. Josh is great, Moose is really good at what he does as well. There were also other great guys on the roster as well at the time. Wrestle House and Throwback Throwdown were always a lot of fun as well.

[Nick James]

PW Insider are reporting that (spoilers) 

Spoiler

Naomi

has signed with Impact and should be starting up this week. Not sure what to make of that one to be honest and think time will tell. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

13 minutes ago, Nick James said:

PW Insider are reporting that (spoilers) 

  Reveal hidden contents

Naomi

has signed with Impact and should be starting up this week. Not sure what to make of that one to be honest and think time will tell. 

Spoiler

I think she could be a good signing. I've always liked her and it's a good addition to the roster. I don't think she is a needle mover, but she'll fit into the division well.

 

[Fatty Facesitter]

👍 Jordynne Grace/Maria Slamovich - Very good standard here in the opener. Aside from the action itself being entertaining they made a real effort with the audience participation factor too - not that this terrible audience for this set of Toronto tapings deserve it. No moans about the roll-up finish either, because even that was creatively done with Grace’s strength ultimately giving her that extra edge. A fine way to kick off this broadcast.

👍 Nick Aldis - Most Aldis entries will earn thumbs ups purely because of geographical bias from me, but I genuinely thought the vignette featuring him was another well put together presentation from Impact’s production team. It made him look like a big star, putting over his previous TNA exploits as well as his NWA World title travels. This is exactly the sort of treatment they should employ around this signing and it’s so far, so good in terms of the wider presentation. Big pop for the on-location shot of the world famous King's Lynn docks. 

👍 PCO/Champagne Singh - 55-year-old PCO continues to amaze. This wasn’t squeaky clean, but that’s not what you want from a PCO match anyway - he awkwardly and viciously uses his body as a weapon to gain the advantage. Singh did his bit here as a part-comedy villain, part-victim, selling as if he’d literally been attacked by a monster. Good few minutes of madness. The eventual clash with Maclin could be quite the hoss-fest. 

👍 Swinger - This is so, so daft. And you know what? I love it. I love Swinger’s music, his charisma, his knack for comedy, his gear including the golden fannypack, the lot. Looking at it as a daft comedy angle, thoroughly entertaining. 

👍 Jody Threat/Seleziya Spark - Another good showcase for a Knockout here in terms of Jody Threat and it was short but sweet. 

👍 Kazarian feature - Nicely executed here. Interesting that they didn’t shy away from some controversial topics around the TNA management of the time etc. Far more interesting than I expected this to be - this was like a tastefully done shoot interview without being a snarky work-shoot type of scenario (take note, AEW) and it made for a good feature. Overall this was another winner for Impact’s production team who continue to impress me with their output. 

👎 Donna Purazzo vs Taylor Wylde - These two didn’t quite click as well as I’d hoped - there were a couple of sloppy spots and it felt to me like Wylde struggled a bit to keep up with Purazzo’s pace. Certainly not hideously bad by any stretch and it still had some good moments, but it didn’t quite work as the main event. Purazzo though remains a thoroughly convincing Knockouts champion and I’m interested to see where her reign goes. A decent night for the Knockouts looking at the bigger picture. 

👎 ABC vs The Design - Again, nothing terribly wrong with the action but nothing that stood out as must-see. The wider backdrop of the issues with the Design and Callahan just isn’t very appealing despite their collective best efforts. I will say though that Chris Bey deserves some credit for battling through an apparent ankle problem after a blown spot early in the match. With Kon. 

👎 Joe Hendry’s broken his nose! Gutting. 

Overall - Impact continue to promote their knockouts prominently and the performers are repaying that faith with their efforts. Both WWE and AEW’s higher ups and performers should take note on both those counts. At the risk of repeating myself I’m really, really impressed with Impact’s production team who continue to produce excellent vignettes and features. Lots to like about Impact this week - definitely has the feel of a promotion back on the up.