TNA Impact Coverage: Can it Get Any Worse?

With boring angles, short matches and a lack of general excitement, TNA continues to provide some of the most sluggish professional wrestling on television.

Between the angles involving Ink Inc and Mexican America and Sting and Hulk Hogan, TNA doesn’t have their best foot forward. No one cares about either one of these angles. What happened to Fourtune and Immortal? Anyone remember “them”?

Didn’t think so. The script on Impact is so poor right now that if you miss a week or two, it’s fair to expect to be completely lost.

The fact that Kurt Angle has Bobby Roode competing in bouts against his Fourtune teammates alone is a joke. With all this “network” nonsense, how is Angle logically able to make matches.

None of this makes sense.

But wait, it gets better. What about this utterly insane feud between Christopher Daniels and AJ Styles? These guys are supposed to be on the same team. In the end, it seems similar to the Sting/Hogan encounter. Simply put, TNA can try to turn back the clock all it wants, but the magic that made Daniels/Styles and Hogan/Sting so special died a long time ago.

Sure, it’s professional wrestling; it doesn’t have to be perfectly streamlined. Nothing has to make sense entirely. But fans ultimately deserve so much more than this tripe.

The Jeff Hardy situation is another one completely void of any intrigue. Hardy was never the man to listen to on the microphone. The lame shoots during this episode of Impact proved it.

This show is in desperate need of a jolt, one that doesn’t appear to be on its way anytime soon.

Oh, but wait. Hogan has a “blockbuster” announcement for next week, one which will “change the face of wrestling forever.”

We won’t hold our breath.

Matches:

Queens Qualifier Match: Miss Tessmacher vs. Mickie James:
This was your typical James match, as she went through most of her routine maneuvers. Tessmacher sold well and hit a few of her own moves though. Overall, she’s gotten much better than she was a few months ago, but is still for the most part, just a gorgeous face with a fantastic body. She does have promise though. Ultimately, not enough for TNA creative to get her to kick out of James’ spike DDT, which caused to her to lose via pinfall.

X-Division Champion Austin Aries vs. Jesse Sorensen:
Interference from Kid Kash was the most exciting part of this match. Generic posturing and wanton wastes of time made this one a clunker. Aries won with a flying dropkick from behind and an interesting rollup, but overall, this one was forgettable.

Mr. Anderson vs. Jerry Lynn and Bully Ray:
This could have been the best match of the night, with these four veterans given a decent amount of time. A nice amount of near-falls and offense, including a Mic Check and a Senton Bomb from Anderson made this a quality contest. At the same time, it builds heat for the singles matches the three of these guys are involved in for the next PPV. But in typical TNA fashion, the finish, which involved Ray hitting Anderson with a steel chain, robbed the match of any originality.

James Storm vs. TNA Heavyweight Champion Kurt Angle: This could have been a decent TV main event. These two dished out a nice amount of punishment to one another. Storm makes his cheddar as a tag team competitor, but he is more than capable as a singles wrestler too, as he hit a variety of clotheslines and a top rope elbow on Angle. However, Angle, in spite of his age and continued weight loss, is still a one of a kind performer, worthy of a World Title. A nice assortment of Belly to Belly and German suplexes and the Ankle lock had this match going at a solid pace, but thanks to interference from Gunner and Bobby Roode, this match never reached a conclusion. It was an utter waste of time.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13819 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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