Hulkamania and TNA Limp Through First Real Monday

Hulk Hogan headlined his first Monday Night in quite sometime a few nights ago, playing a part in an episode of TNA Impact that was, for the most part, mediocre.

Battered by shoddy directing and a poor flow overall, TNA still has some work to do before it can tread water with the WWE. Sure, the actual in-ring action was excellent, as the X-Division match and Ladies Tag Team Title matches were solid [of course excluding the disastrous, but emotional showing by a bloodied Ric Flair and Hogan], but the transitions and interviews need some serious polishing. Unlike the last show the company did on a Monday night, where things felt unpredictable, this past show lacked the same emotion.

For example, right before Rob Van Dam was set to make his TNA debut, color commentator Tazz gave it away to the hardcore fans by saying something along the lines of “What will you do this year on 420.”

Not cool.

During the segment between Sean Waltman, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and Eric Young, things felt lackluster and were developing far too slow for a live show. A snafu in production cut to an unaware Eric Bischoff in the beginning of the segment as well, confusing the audience and making it obvious that things need to be tightened up some more before this show is truly ready for the prime time.

In addition, the return of Shannon Moore was unspectacular and makes little to no sense. Nothing against Moore, but the match between Frankie Kazarian and Doug Williams is a much better bout than any one involving Moore. Perhaps the brass at TNA feel the crazy-looking Moore will put more butts in the seats come pay per view time. Only time will tell on that one though.

Nonetheless, the biggest disaster on the night was when the company cut the show off right before Jeff Hardy was about to land a swanton bomb on Heavyweight Champion AJ Styles.

Definitely not cool.

If TNA is going to step up their game, mistakes like this have to fixed. The card for the upcoming PPV looks solid, but with the production values and big names of the WWE, TNA needs to be as close to perfect as possible. Otherwise, the new Monday night war will be over before it starts.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13856 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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