Aside from a few horrible filler segments, this past week’s edition of TNA Impact was full of energy, gearing up for what looks like an interesting Pay-PerView on September 5.
Even without a World Champion, due to a kayfabe injury to champion Rob VanDam [According to several wrestling websites, TNA used up all of his bookings and has yet to negotiate a new contract with him.], the show had plenty of drama, stemming from the company’s super clique, “Fortune.â€
Add in an excellent tag team match between Generation Me and the Motor City Machine Guns, a brutal tag match where Beer Money [who looked more like the tag team of Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard, showing excellent polish and grit] eviscerated the FBI and a match between Jeff Jarrett and Kevin Nash [where Sting and Hulk Hogan ended up showing up, further developing that angle] and this edition of Impact had much better wrestling showcased than what RAW managed to produce.
Right from the start of the show, Fortune’s manager Ric Flair was called out by TNA President Dixie Carter and “The Nature Boy†was on top of his game. Playing the dirty old man to a T, Flair got under Carter’s skin, eventually leading up to an encounter with Hogan, who booked an eight-man tag with Kurt Angle, Mr. Anderson, Jeff Hardy and The Pope against the rest of Fortune. While a bit slow at first, the match ended up ending nicely with a ton of moves being used by all the talent before Fortune ended up fighting with EV2.0, where Sabu ended up partially putting Doug Williams through a table and the four TNA stars tried to put their bygones aside.
Overall, it continues to prove that TNA is dedicated to developing this group of young stars, while incorporating the legends of yesteryear. Will it be enough for the company to hold water with the WWE? History says that just because you have better wrestling doesn’t necessarily mean your ratings will improve. Right now, TNA has to continue to develop its brand and style of story-telling and try to cater to more viewers.
What it can do to have that become a reality is limit its mistakes and keep the action as fast and fierce as possible. For instance, there were some missteps along the way though that held the show back. Firstly, there was entirely too much time paid to the Knockouts, as the angle between the Beautiful People and Madison Rayne needs to be settled in the ring already. The same thing goes for the drama between Abyss and EV2.0, which got extremely boring as Stevie Richards and “The Monster†battled backstage for what appeared to be an eternity.
Eliminating these filler segments or shortening them enough to have another match, even a quick job, could have been enough to make this a great show. In spite of that, this edition of Impact was a solid one.
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