The John Report: TNA Impact 11/11/10

Taped from Orlando, Florida let’s talk TNA Impact…

 


 

The opening segment was very long. Over 20 minutes. I used to watch WCW Nitro and it resembled that. All the bad guys in the heel group Immortal came out. They bragged about their success at Turning Point. Then they brought out Hulk Hogan. He introduced a new TNA World Title to give to Jeff Hardy. It’s silver and purple. The story is that Jeff & Shannon Moore had a friend design the belt so it’s specific to Jeff. Hogan dumped the old belt in the trash. In other words the belt is sticking around for a while. He cut a promo about the enemies of Immortal. And guess what, they all showed up? Pope was in the crowd. Bischoff asked how he got in there, “did you buy a ticket?” No dumbass, Impact Zone tickets are free. Way to pay attention. Then we saw Samoa Joe, RVD and Matt Morgan also scattered throughout the arena. Morgan’s promo kissed Hogan’s ass, saying how he idolized him going him and made him want to be a wrestler, but now he’s not the same guy. Hogan says he, Bischoff & Flair are going to go backstage to talk about what was going to happen in the show. Why do it in the arena where you can hear crowd reactions when you can go backstage? Oh right because Vince Russo loves those backstage segments. I forgot.

My buddy Sean on the TNA title: “It’s like the Ultimate Warrior had a love child with Jushin Liger. And KISS.” That belt gets around, eh?

Back from break, Hogan, Bischoff & Flair made the matches for later. I’ll get to them when they come. They celebrated them being great ideas. This really happened.

Backstage, Cookie wasn’t crazy about wrestling tonight, but since she’s from Jersey she knows how to fight. I’m sure one of the chicks on Jersey Shore said that once. Thrilling. In case you’re wondering Cookie/Becky Bayless is a trained wrestler and a pretty good one too.

Robbie E & Cookie d. Jay Lethal & Taylor Wilde (*)
This wasn’t very good. In fact, I read the taping results and they had to tape it twice, so I can only imagine how poor the first one was. The girls didn’t really wrestle. The guys did okay, but it was a very tame match. The match broke down with Cookie getting involved, then Taylor chased her and it was the slowest chase in the history of wrestling. It was like a fast walk. I think Mae Young can move faster. Cookie’s shoe, one of those chick shoes that has a six inch heel, got taken off and Robbie hit Jay with it. Jay solid it like it was something that might hurt. I guess it’s better than a NERF gun or something. Match over due to a shoe. The Shore push will continue because they’ll probably be bringing JWoww back.

Team 3D came out to say goodbye as a tag team. If they lost at Turning Point, which they did, they’d never team together again. They spoke, they said their lines, they hugged and then Bubba turned on TV. He hit him in the back a couple of times. Camera cut away to commercial as Bubba had a serious look on his face. They re-signed with TNA for 3 years a couple of months back. They are running a wrestling school in Florida too. If you were unable to see this heel turn coming then you haven’t seen enough Vince Russo booked wrestling shows. In that case I envy you.

The announcers ran down the lineup.

Backstage, Bischoff ripped the refs especially one named Jackson, who is Bischoff’s actual son although they won’t say that on TV. Morgan came in to say let the kid ref his match tonight. What happened at the PPV was Morgan had a three count on Hardy, Jeff accidentally hit the ref in the back with his foot and the ref stopped the count. Then Jeff won. Morgan defended the kid saying it was a mistake.

Samoa Joe d. Gunner & Murphy (*)
They are the security guys who just happen to wrestle. Shocking, I know. Joe won in about a minute. Finally booked right for once. Jeff Jarrett came out to hit Joe in the back with a knightstick. He’s the Big Bossman! They did a 3 on 1 on Joe until Kurt Angle showed up! Thank God he’s back. The show needs him. Best wrestler in the company and to me the best in American wrestling right now. Still. He’s the man. And he wished me a Happy Birthday last week, so more kudos for him. The heels bailed. Good to see Kurt back. The save was built up really well.

More backstage with Immortal and Bischoff leaves the room with Abyss as his protection.

Back from break, we get Eric Bischoff in the bathroom while Abyss is taking a shit. Not making it up. It actually happened. Bischoff shows his acting chops by selling the stench of the shit. Or did he look at the script of Impact? I can’t decide. Pope shows up and hits Bischoff in the gut. He goes over to Abyss in the stall and beats him up. At least he waited for him to pull his pants up. The only ass I want to see on this show are from the ladies. Pope grabbed Bischoff and left the room. That’s cute. Scenes in bathrooms equal ratings!

Kaz d. RVD (*)
This had the potential to be a great match, but the only got about four minutes. There was a ref bump (that’s vintage TNA) and then Flair came out with a chair. Rhino came out to save RVD. He stared down Kaz only to turn around and hit RVD with the GORE! GORE! GORE! I miss Paul Heyman. The ref’s blind and deaf, so he didn’t even react to any of that and made the count for the Kaz win. The announcers were shocked because they thought Rhino was done in TNA. There’s swerve #2 on this show.

Post match, Dreamer came out. Rhino didn’t say anything to him. Tommy checked on RVD, so Rhino snuck in from behind and hit Dreamer in the back with a chair. That’s vintage TNA too because the babyfaces are idiots.

Backstage with Bischoff continued as Pope berated him. He was mad that Bischoff got his brother and family to turn on him at Turning Point. He put his Pope gear on Bischoff and made him act like the Pope although Eric was reluctant. He told Eric to rap so Eric said something like “sizzle” – I guess he’s heard of Snoop Dogg? It was almost funny. Almost.

Backstage again, Hogan was watching on the monitor and told Abyss he wasn’t supposed to let Bischoff out of his sight. Didn’t he see was taking a shit while Bischoff was smelling it in that amazing segment? Come on Hulk, you’re missing out brother!

The announcers went over what we’ve seen on the show. I already forgot some of them.

AJ Styles d. Stevie Richards (*1/2)
I think Kurt’s the best wrestler in TNA with AJ in second. Big fan of his. They worked really hard here, so kudos for that. What was interesting was the announcers were talking up how prestigious the TV title used to be. It hasn’t really been seeing in wrestling for over a decade when it was WCW and it was booked by Bischoff, Hogan & Russo, who also booked this show. What I’m saying is stop talking about WCW shit. The company is dead. Move on. At least in this match they were smart enough to book a clean finish. AJ won with the Styles Clash although I wasn’t a fan of Richards taking the bump on the back of his head/neck. I assume they did it to put over the move, but it’s not worth potentially injuring somebody to put over a move of a guy who is already very established. I’m glad Richards is okay, though. It looked brutal. Tommy Dreamer posted a pic of the move on his Twitter page. Ouch!

Here comes Pope out with the casket. Remember when they used the casket, Abyss trashed it and Pope showed up the next week with no ill effects? Continuity would have been good. Pope fought with Abyss and then Bischoff popped out of the casket to low blow Pope. They put Pope in there, rolled it up the aisle and slammed it into the stage. I’m sure he’ll be fine next week with no injuries. I hope he sells it a little. That would be nice.

They showed the PPV main event finish with the ref botching it due to Hardy’s leg accidentally grazing him across the back.

Matt Morgan d. Beer Money & Doug Williams (*)
Bischoff was on commentary. He was yelling at Tenay for a lot of it. I didn’t mind that too much. The story was the heels were working on Morgan for much of it, but there’s no hot tag in a 3 on 1 match. Tenay asked Bischoff if Morgan would get a title shot should he win this match. Eric kept telling him that he would. Near the end of the match, Beer Money tried to suplex Morgan only for the big man to counter it. Then Impact ended and Reaction started. Why not just wait til the main event is over? Beer Money bailed at this point while Morgan took out Flair. Williams was left alone, he turned around and got KO’d by the Carbon Footprint as Morgan got the win. Bischoff was yelling “Fire that referee!” If you can’t tell where this is going I’ll explain after the post match part.

Jeff Hardy appeared on the screen talking to Morgan. It was a ruse, however, as Hardy appeared through the crowd and hit Morgan with the Twist of Hate. He adjusted his tie (that’s a nice touch), then climbed up top and hit the Swanton Bomb. Then he held up his purple Transformers belt to end the show.

The rest of Reaction aired after that. I’m not recapping it. I watched it on FF. The highlight to me was Bubba Ray yelling at Wayne Arnold (Wonder Years, people!) for getting in his face asking why he did what he did. Wayne was played by Jason Hervey, who is Eric Bischoff’s production business partner.

At the PPV, expect the Jackson kid to be the ref for Morgan vs. Hardy only this time he’ll screw Morgan blatantly as Eric reveals it is his son. I can see it coming a mile away. Go watch WWF Survivor Series 1998 when Shane screwed Mankind. Same thing. And Russo booked that show too.

Final Thoughts
This was slightly better than the last two weeks, which were both pretty bad. It helped that Jeff Hardy was actually on the show because he has a lot of star power and seeing Kurt Angle back was great to see. I still don’t love how Samoa Joe is being booked. The Pope/Bischoff stuff was more lame than good. I’m really getting tired of Bischoff all over the show. Use your wrestlers. Not yourself.

Of course like every TNA show they had two heel turns (Bubba & Rhino) while they also had a ref bump. They do these things way too often and it kills the effectiveness of them. Nobody on this “creative team” seems to care or realize it. It’s a shame.

I think it was silly that there was no follow-up to the Mickie/Tara match at Turning Point that generated a great crowd response. I know people will say I’m biased due to being friends with Mickie, but there’s no denying that it was a great match that warranted something more. Instead, neither woman was on this show and though this is a minor spoiler I can tell you there’s no interaction with them next week. It makes no sense to me. Of course you can always read the 20 Question interview I did with Mickie earlier in the week.

On the plus side, at least that god-awful Jordan/Young team is over. Eric Young left the company earlier in the week, but he’s already back now. Can you blame him if he left with the way they booked him so poorly?

Rating: 5 out of 10
Last week: 4

I think I was too nice with that score, but I guess I was happy to see Angle back.

Thanks for reading.

John Canton – [email protected]
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