An In-Ring Gift, An Out-of-the-Ring Disaster From TNA

The in-ring action in last week’s edition of TNA Impact was a nice way to give back to their fans. While many of the storylines are still a bit weak, all the wrestling action was solid and was the type of action the company and its fans could be proud of.

After another week, it’s obvious that problems with the storylines on the show continue to hold the company back. The creative team in TNA has to be having problems working as a collective, as the whole “weigh-in” during the first 15 minutes of the show was brimming with possibilities, but was ultimately a waste of time.

Simply put, seeing Mick Foley and Ric Flair go at each other in a shoot-type setting could have been epic. There’s some genuine emotion there between the two and if the company could find a way to channel that, there could be something special. However, when the situation was about to hit its climax, it was all over, with nothing solved, nothing achieved.

The same thing can be said for Brian Kendrick’s angle. The guy is a talented wrestler. Why waste his ability by giving him this zen-master angle, which keeps him out of the ring? He should be challenging for the X-Division title, not wasting viewers’ time when he’s not good on the microphone in the first place.

On the other note, David Young is dressing up as animals and walking around with what should be the World Title. That is an absolute disaster that needs to be fixed as soon as possible. While the fans have always appreciated Young’s antics, this is one that does nothing for the company or him.

In the ring, the matches were solid, but the Iron Man match between AJ Styles and Douglas Williams was produced terribly. Why was there no timer on the screen during the match? Why did they cut to commercial before the match as well? Things like this, small things like this, keep TNA from being able to compete and ultimately surpass the WWE in viewership.

While Williams is a talented performer, no way will even the biggest TNA mark think for a second that he can keep pace with Styles the way he did this past week. With Styles focused and pissed off the way he was, that match shouldn’t have been a tie. Seeing them at the next pay per view will be a high quality match, but it won’t be the right one for a title that is becoming increasingly important as TNA continues to try to move forward.

Rather than even address the whole Jeff Jarrett MMA angle in any detail [because even writing about it, like the actual segment, is a waste of time] lets just say that TNA better have signed Chuck Liddell or someone of his stature to end this storyline soon. Otherwise, it’s an angle that can go down as one of the worst in the company’s history.

Like last week, high quality matches don’t always tell the whole story.

TNA needs help creatively and fast.

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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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