2007 Discussion

Discuss iMPACT in 2007.

Homicide vs. Brother Runt (IMPACT, 01/04/07)
Mexican Street Fight!!!! It's a Mexican Street fight with no Mexicans. Spike and Homicide are two of the top five guys in this fed and this had some giant sick bumps and nice strikes (I really liked the really violent Dusty elbow that Spike threw). It was way too short. Too short to even be the tercera caida of a EMLL main event. For some reason they have Konan distract the ref. Isn't this a No-DQ match? Why do you need to distract the ref? In last weeks nightstick on the pole match no one needed to distract the ref from the outside interference. But you need to distract the ref in a no-DQ Mexican Street Fight? This sets up LAX vs. Dudleys. Unfortunately Spike won't be in that match, so far less appealing. Some indy fed that gives matches time needs to book the rematch.

Daniels, Rhino, Petey Williams vs. Chris Sabin, James Storm, AJ Styles (IMPACT, 01/11/07)
The five minute midcard six man was better than I expected. You see a six man of Sabin,Storm, AJ Styles vs. Chris Daniels, Rhino and Petey Williams and you expect shit. You expect just awful unwatchable even match. Instead they work this with faces moving forward/heels moving back. The Williams/Sabin section is still bad but they actually had Sabin heeling and begging off instead of just trading stuff. Styles is always fun as heel prick and James Storm stays heel by refusing to keep punching when the crowd starts to count along. Styles does a spectacular job at eating Rhino's normally shitty looking spinebuster, and Storm does an amazing job of eating Daniels normally shitty looking stroke. Which is the glaring problem with this match. You have a pair of heels (AJ and Storm) who are really great at eating and selling offense against a set of faces who don't have particularly good looking offense and whose idea of working as babyface is all about shouting. Williams gets a section of babyface hits lots of moves and then does fired up screaming "YEAH", section of Daniels hits lots of moves and then does fired up shouting "AAUGH" and then Rhino doing the same. AJ Styles with the Finlay tribute finish was cool.

Tomko vs. Abyss (IMPACT, 01/11/07)
And the five minute main event was a lot of fun. Christian's mugging in the cage amused me. They put up a "reserved" seating sign on the cage. I assume this was put there to keep out that creepy old man who sits dead center every week "Hey I showed up first on line I can pick any seat I want to sit in". I'm not a big fan of the ringside cage but this really felt like a match setting up the cage "high above the ring" (which is where I like my cages). Tomko is a guy who will fly all over the ring to try to make Abyss look good. Tomko does an amazing chokeslam take. Most of Tomko's offense also looked crisp with a nice clothesline and a sharp big boot. Tomko did do some fists from the mount at the end which didn't look good. In his second to last Heat run Tomko was using some nasty looking knees from sidemount. He should stick with those. Abyss did do some of his garbage I am sandpapering the sky punches but Tomko kept this brawling and moving. They really should be protecting Tomko more than they do.

Kurt Angle vs. Maverick Matt (IMPACT, 01/11/07)
What the fuck was going on with Angle vs. Matt Bently? Bentley hit one nice lariat (his missed lariat leading Angle to transition to offense was laughably bad as it looked more like a callisthenic stretch than a missed lariat) but still why are they working a competitive squash with Bentley controlling 70% of the offense? So sometime in 2004/05 as I was regularly pimping the superiority of Smackdown wrestling to RAW wrestling, someone asked me to rank the RAW brand workers. Like many projects I take on I never finished it. I watched a lot of HEAT put together a list and started writing blurbs. At 14,15,16 were Angle, Tomko and Shelton Benjamin: athletic spot guys who couldn't actually lay out a match. I had a lot of trouble deciding on how to order those three: but really felt that despite his body falling apart, Angle should be ranked highest. Angle was getting a regular feature in 3 minute Kurt Angle Invitational matches. These were fun three minute squashes where Angle let opponent get a bit of fire before beating them. He was the one of the three guys in 2004 who could put together a fun under three minute squash ( both Benjamin and Tomko struggled at putting together compelling squashes). Being able to lay out a meaningful match means more to me than how spectacular your spots are, and Angle could lay out one type of match well. Tonight TNA runs Angle vs. Matt Bentley in a three minute competitive squash where Bentley controls 70% of the offence. Bentley hits a vertical suplex on Angle and then controls the former Olympian on the mat with a headlock that Angle has to throw strikes to escape. Angle can't even squash a jobber well anymore? After the match Raven comes out to discipline his jobber team. How many times has TNA booked the ex-ECW guy to mentor a team of jobbers through tough love? How many times have they done this? James Mitchell, Candido, Diamond, Raven at least twice, Shane Douglas - am I missing someone? Shane Douglas mentors Chase Stevens and Andy Douglas., Raven mentors Bentley,Kazarian and Stevens - The joke is - Whats next? Is Simon Diamond going to take Elix Skipper and David Young under his wing? Gawd and they now need to pump in crowd noise for Angle matches...they've exposed him faster than VKM. The whole show was filled with pumped in fake crowd heat which is really sad as this is the iMPACT zONE. This isn't a critical crowd.

Team 3D vs. LAX (IMPACT, 01/18/07)
So 3D lost the match on the PPV because drunk Spike ran in. I kind of liked the long Bubba mad at Spike promo a couple weeks ago, with older brother Bubba threatening youngest brother Spike, and middle brother Devon refusing to let the oldest brother abuse the runt. It reminded me of the Brazos interactions. I've seen Konan and Devine Storm vs. the SATS work a fine match built around a basic lucha trios format: everyone matches up for matwork, match up again for power offense, match up again for dives and brawling. It's a really basic formula that if you follow works no matter who is in it, no matter how shitty and primitive their mat work or their fast exchanges, etc are, (again Divine Storm, an immobile 2003 Konan and the SATS). So I thought the combination of the Dudley family squabbling horseshit and a trios format and the LAX vs. 3D thing might have some potential. Moody Jack can probably do enough moves to replace Konan. So I was optimistic about the Dudleys vs. LAX program. BUT FUCK~!!! 3D sell nothing. And this was really the epitome of veterans burying your hot young act. I have seen Road Warriors vs. the Hit Squad in Jersey indies, where the Road Warriors did more to make the match look competitive. THE Road Warriors!!! Hawk and Animal!! Guys who spent their entire career no selling, did more to make their opponents look credible. Homicide does a nice eat of a backdrop on his tail bone bump, and Hernandez takes a cool ring post bump. But this was ass. After no selling everything, the Dudleys loose in a total Kevin Nash slips on a banana peel and gets accidentally pinned fashion. Even if the work in the match hadn't buried LAX, the booked finish still did.

James Storm vs. Lance Hoyt (IMPACT, 01/18/07)
I like James Storm's belligerent drunk cowboy act. I like Miss Texas. James Storm and Miss Tennessee is a poor man's Eric Embry and Miss Texas but still feels like an act with potential. This match though was a nothing as Storm and Hoyt were there just to kill time before the clusterfuck run ins. Dale Torborg interferes, then AJ Pierzynski interferes then Gail Kim interferes to even the score, then Miss Tennessee goes after Kim, then in comes Petey Williams. I kept waiting for Eric Young to run out and hit someone with a diaphragm. The match was just backdrop for the run ins. And running three separate run in stories at same time just means none of them have potential to mean anything. Does Pierzynski have anything to do with Petey Williams? What the fuck!?? Pierzynski's autographing Hoyt's forehead is a really clever celebrity heel spot. But it almost goes unnoticed. If they would only focus on one thing.Pierzynski taking out a pen in center of ring, Don West going "Whats he going to do with that pen?", Pierzynski autographing Hoyt's head and then calling for a home run and miming like he's at bat would be a great "holy shit that guys a heel spot". Instead it's kind of an afterthought done in the corner where half of the audience can't see it, and while 16 other things are going on simultaneous. Idiotic.

AJ Styles vs. Kurt Angle (IMPACT, 01/18/07)
The booking of AJ vs. Angle as a three minute TV main event is dumb enough but the actual work and layout of the match was just embarrassing. The Dudleys did more to put over LAX, Kurt Angle did more to put over Michael Shane. Michael Shane who is a jobber gets a 4 minute match where Shane controls 70%. AJ Styles is one of your pushed guys and he is treated like a jobber for the first two minutes. Just absolutely manhandled and given nothing but one eye poke and a low blow. They run a 4 minute commercial break and come back with Angle stuck in a headlock. I don't know how long AJ had him in that headlock..the Olympian throws some blows to escape a headlock. AJ gets in a enziguri and a forearm and Angle beats him. Angle worked a 4 minute competitive match with a jobber last week and worked an Angle invitational match that made one of the pushed guys look like a jobber this week. Its dumb enough to run this match up as a throw away TV match up, but really this made me go "Nothing here would make me want to see these two working in a bigger match context". Well I guess it might be good if Angle concusses himself a minute in. But barring a concussion, I have no interest in any Angle match unless they can promise me a fixed time for the match and a concussion in opening exchange.