Latest Impact Gives Wrestling Fans Something To Talk About

Unlike this week’s edition of Monday Night Raw, TNA Impact actually features some quality wrestling action and intriguing storylines.

While the overall action wasn’t fantastic, the match between Rob Van Dam and Samoa Joe was light years ahead of anything on RAW this week, and shows fans that TNA, unlike RAW has several legitimate World Heavyweight contenders on its roster.

To see two guys wrestle and get tired out there, on Cable TV, makes you think that TNA understands what the fans want and aren’t about to waste two hours so their advertisers are happy.

Because that’s what RAW felt like this week.

While some of the other matches featured on Impact this week were on the short side, they did the job, as far as leading into the next pay per view. AJ Styles and Kazarian went back and forth for about six minutes before being counted out, and getting a stern talking to from the “Nature Boy” Ric Flair. Soon after, Flair announced the duo will be tagging against mystery opponents at the next pay per view.

Styles and Kazarian as a tag team? Sign our eyes up right now.

Eager to start his own stable, in the vein of “The Four Horsemen,” Flair has so far started scouting Beer Money, Matt Morgan, Styles and Kazarian.

Pretty interesting stuff. All that we can say here is that the industry could use a cool stable right about now, especially considering all the bad ones that have failed over the past few years.

Anyone remember the Main Event Mafia?

Think we just heard someone throwing up in the corner.

Moving on…

Giving TNA an opportunity to start a bad ass group with four of its top young stars, that started out there, would be an interesting idea and one that would showcase why this company is so different from the WWE.

Other interesting and developing storylines include the Jay Lethal Flair angle, which will be a stinker in the ring, but featured a great, livid interview from Flair that probably scared the bejesus out of any small children or attractive women in the Impact Zone. While he can’t compete the way he used to and shouldn’t compete at all, Flair could make one heck of a manager and a great mouthpiece for a faction or big ogre with no mic skills.

This new Flair faction idea is looking better each second.

In the main event, Jeff Hardy proved he’s a step ahead of Mr. Anderson in the ring but on the same page otherwise. Say what you want about the guy but, Anderson is easily the most charismatic wrestler in the promotion right now. People like Joe, Styles, VanDam and Hardy can still wrestle, but this cat is the whole package. Giving him a title run would be a pretty fun endeavor, to say the very least.

We can see it now, signs calling Anderson their favorite a**hole.

However, a rarity nowadays, Anderson doesn’t need a belt to get over, while many of his opponents do, which means he’ll be a worker until TNA feels he’s really ready for the spotlight.

Make no mistake about it, he’s ready right now.

Aside from that, seeing Kurt Angle work his way up the food chain is going to be fun and give a bunch of young wrestlers [The Pope, especially] a chance to go with the best pure wrestler in the sport today. The angle with Kevin Nash trying to get a meeting was fun as well, as listening to “Big Sexy” talk about the “Dungeon of Doom” brought back some great memories.

However, the storyline with Team 3D looks to be a real stinker and unless the ECW dudes that have joined the company over the past few weeks [Tommy Dreamer, Stevie Richards and a healthy Raven and Rhino] this angle will fall faster than Duane Gill’s career.

The same thing goes with Doug Williams, who is easily the worst X-Division champion the company has ever had. Scared to walk up a ladder? Horrible stuff indeed.

Here’s us hoping Brian Kendrick brings some slices of bread with him to the pay per view.

In spite of all of the sidesteps though, TNA Impact this week was a more than watchable show and proved that the company is at least trying to keep an audience.

That’s more than one can say for the WWE right now.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 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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