TNA Impact Coverage: New Champ; Same Old Story

James Storm’s first Impact Wrestling as the TNA World Champion was an uneventful one; one that will be ultimately be remembered as lackluster in terms of matches and promo work.

Storm is a great tag team wrestler, but it’s apparent that he’s completely over his head. In the end though, it’s not his fault. With no push and no way to get the kind of support needed to be the face of a company, he was set up to fail.

The same way Garrett Bischoff is being set up to be a joke. If he really wanted to be taken seriously by fans, the last thing TNA should have did was say he was Eric Bischoff’s son. But now that they did, they made it even worse; they didn’t have to put him in an angle with his Dad. Remember what that did for David Flair’s career?

Aside from this, the Jeff Hardy/Jeff Jarrett angle is being set up well. Like CM Punk, Jarrett is shooting on Hardy, but sadly, TNA fans don’t get it. They don’t care that Hardy has battled drug problems and no showed events. They see the high-flying charismatic star of the late ‘90s trying to relight his fledgling career. I get that. It’s a nice “engine that could story.”

That doesn’t mean I like it though.

If only TNA’s fans demanded better. Maybe if they stopped putting up with all the mediocrity and changed the channel, the company would get it and focus on the wrestling that got them the hardcore audience that stands by this company through these seemingly obvious “lean” years.

Rather than fix their problems, TNA continues to paint over it with another color, or in this case, a new champion.

Their problems are so much more than having the wrong champion. They have the wrong writing team and don’t learn from their mistakes.

Time is running out.

Matches:

Christopher Daniels vs. Rob Van Dam:A good opening match in spite of its routine nature. If you’ve seen these guys wrestle before, you didn’t miss anything. They went through their usual assortment of moves with little passion. The most interesting part of the match was when Daniels hit RVD with a toolbox outside the ring to earn the DQ. AJ Style provided ringside commentary and was quick to make sure Daniels didn’t hit Van Dam with a screw driver.

Gail Kim vs. Tara: Kim took it to Tara throughout the match. Highlights included several clotheslines and an Octopus Stretch. Tara attempted a comeback with a nice neckbreaker, but Kim was on her game. A modified Zack-Attack finisher, where she used her foot to the back of the head, rather than her knee, gave her the win.

Robbie E. w/ Rob Terry vs. TNA Television Champion Eric Young: A quick match that ended with an inside cradle from Young. After the match, Terry and E. laid into him a bit, before Young told the two Ronnie from “The Jersey Shore” will have his back next week.

Bully Ray vs. Jeff Hardy: Ray is a great upper-mid card singles performer and when combined with the speed and high-flying style of Hardy, this was a good match. However, it ran about three minutes too long. The less than stellar Swanton Bomb from Hardy earned him the win, but he nearly broke his neck as he missed Ray’s belly and landed his rump on it instead.

Number one contenders match: Bobby Roode vs. Samoa Joe: Match of the night with plenty of near-falls and high impact offense. After he kicked out of a Death valley Driver, Roode caught Joe with the Fisherman Suplex for the win.