TNA Impact!

Re: TNA Impact!

It appears that Samoa Joe has suffered a knee injury at the iMPACT taping last night. People are fearing it was a serious injury that could keep him out for awhile.

That sucks.

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Damn! Joe is currently my favorite wrestler, including both WWE and TNA rosters. Hate to hear about the injury. Hopefully he'll be back soon.

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Oh man...just went he was going way over with the fans. Let's hope it's not too serious.

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From the Dave...


Damn, and Joe/Steiner was scheduled for Slammiversary.

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That's pretty serious. He could be gone for a year with that type of damage...

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More on Joe. Multiple reports have come out, most of the reports say that the injury isn't as serious as first feared and that TNA is under the impression that Joe won't miss any dates but will have to rest the knee.

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Alright episode this week, last week's was better.

I've really enjoyed Team 3D in TNA. Their promos as of late have really been entertaining.

Joe had a really good promo last week. I dig his cockiness.

Steiner seems better in the ring than when he was in WWE. He's still missing that snap that I think his moves should have.

What happened to Monty? He appeared a few weeks ago, I don't remember what happened, and now he's been gone again.

Billy Gunn seems to be a lot better in the ring these days.

Something TNA really needs to work on is their timing with various things such as when to start the music, when to have the security guards interrupt a fight, etc. Several seconds makes a huge difference.

~T

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God bless HighSpots.com for shipping me the following TNA DVDs today.

TNA: Turning Point 2005
TNA: Slammiversary 2005
TNA: Unbreakable 2005
TNA: Sacrifice 2005
TNA: Final Resolution 2006
TNA: The Best of the 3 Live Krew

This means that until the release of Against All Odds to Best Buy on 7/4, I have all the TNA DVDs that have ever been released save for 2. I am missing the Best of Americas Most Wanted DVD, it looks like Ebay might be my best resort to find that...and the original best of the bloodiest Brawls which is long since out of print, and again Ebay might be my best shot.

Speaking of DVDs, the Samoa Joe DVD is awesome. They show a match, followed by an interview clip with Joe. Unlike the Christopher Daniels DVd, this one is not clipped. I may just go watch the 9/11/2005 Unbreakable 3-way between Joe/AJ/Daniels to get the taste of last night's ECW PPV out of my mouth, (see the WWE thread for my thoughts on that)

In other TNA news, Rhino has signed a new multi-year deal with TNA, it was thought he might want to go to the new ECW.

There is a video Here of the end of the TNA show on Friday night and the chair throwing incident.

I am so looking forward to Samoa Joe Vs. Scott Steiner on Sunday.

Joe's gonna kill ya~!

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That chair incident is really lame.

I gotta say that TNA did a wise thing by putting their clips up on YouTube.

~T

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I actually own the original "Best Of The Bloodiest Brawls" DVD since I got it in a 3 pack that the back then NWA-TNA webstore was selling. The other two in the pack is the "Best Of The X Division" and "Best Of The Title Matches." The original "Bloodiest Brawls" DVD is worth getting ahold of for some of the fantastic hardcore matches from TNA's first year. Especially the Raven vs AJ Styles ladder match. While this match is also on Raven's best of DVD it is unedited/unclipped on the original "Brawls."

Speaking of which.... *looks at the mountain of NWA-TNA PPV VHS tapes*... I need to eventually finish transfering these tapes to DVD.

Edit: How is the quality on Slammiversary 2005, Unbreakable 2005, and Sacrifice 2005?

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What's up with that chair throwing incident? When and Why did it take place?

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It took place last Friday night at the Hardcore War show at the former ECW arena. It was a call-back to another similar incident that took place in ECW many years ago, involving I believe Public Enemy and Terry Funk/Mick Foley but not sure of that completely.

This occurred in much the same way in a match involving Team 3D, the James Gang and Americas Most Wanted and started with Brother Ray asking for a chair from the crowd much like the way the original started some 12 years ago.

Apparently, it was quite the live experience.

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I hope that my area of the world gets a TNA show soon. The house shows as of lately sound like a LOT of fun and I certainly would love to go. Hopefully by the time TNA heads up here Raven will be in better shape to work more. We'll see tho.

As far as the WWE and ROH shows (going a little off topic) I got Floor 6 seats for WWE and front row for ROH. I'm really psyched for the ROH show as Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, Austin Aries, and Roderick Strong amongst others are announced for the show.

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Christian probably gave his best promo in TNA.

Shane Douglas is awesome on the mic. I'd rather see him as a backstage interview than as The Naturals' manager, though.

Nash's X-Division debut was pretty funny. Liked the splash front the bottom rope. Shelley is getting a very good rub from Nash.

I found out who's the new face of TNA management, and I think they've been overhyping it. Pretty disappointing and it's someone I don't care for seeing on TV.

Not sure if I'm going to order the PPV or not. I'm most excited about Steiner and Joe, but I don't know if Steiner can deliver his end of the match. How have the past King of the Mountain matches been? The concept doesn't sound like it makes for a good match.

~T

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I'm stunned. I am completely looking forward to this. I don't think you realize just how good of a promo this guy really is, maybe its due to not having seen him in so long, but I personally can not wait. I hope his first promo contains a shot or 10 at the new ECW while he's at it. Besides, after the shoot interviews he has done, I can never not want to hear him talk ever again. In fact, I wouldn't mind him eventually booking the company.

As for the PPV.

Here's the thing about King of the Mountain, the stipulations are really sort of weird. But, they're not so weird that you can't eventually figure out just from watching it how it works.
As for the match quality, last year's King of the Mountain was not what I would call exelent or a legendary TNA match, but was somewhere between good and great. I'm actually working my way through last year's Slammiversary right now, a show I haven't seen since its initial airing, but I remember it being a pretty good match and that is born out by some recent audio I heard from the Torch and they like nothing or close to it.

My PPV Preview follows.

This is actually a stacked card IMO.

*Preshow match, The Naturals Vs. Team Canada a-1 and Eric Young.
I'd like to see more done with Eric Young. First Naturals/Douglas together match, should be fun. I say the Naturals go over.

*AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels Vs. Americas Most Wanted, NWA World Tag Team Titles.
Last month was a ****1/4 match and could've been better had the finish not irked a lot of people, I personally enjoyed the finish myself, it was something a little different. This month could be just as good if not better, so I give this match taking place a big thumbs up.

*Samoa Joe Vs. Scott Steiner
Here's the thing, if you want to know if Scott Steiner can deliver. This is a question that is a perfectly reasonable one to ask so I will try to answer it. Here is his job, to hit Samoa Joe really hard, to let Joe hit him really hard, and to get beat in the end (at least I hope that's the finish). I think he can handle it, this match will probably go something like 7-8 minutes. Big thumbs up.

*Kevin Nash Vs. Chris Sabin.
I feel sorry for Sabin for having to work this match and probably get buried. This is not the end of the X-division feud just the beginning. Thumbs Down.

*Alex Shelley Vs. Senshi Vs. Jay Lethal Vs. Sharkboy Vs. Petey Williams Vs. Sonjay Dutt.
Woohoo, X-Division spotfest, where do I sign up? Big thumbs up!

*Team 3D Vs. The James Gang, Bingo Hall Brawl.
Last month they had a straight wrestling match and it was passable. This month they are playing more to the strengths of the 2 teams. It should be alright. Thumbs in the middle leaning slightly up for this match.

*Rhino Vs. Bobby Rude & Scott D'Amore.
The Rude and Rhino parts should be good, the Rhino and D'Amore parts should see D'Amore end up on the wrong end of a Gore. Thumbs in the middle.

*Introduction of new management. 2 big thumbs up for the first promo and any to follow. He also owes the WWE 1 or 22 shots after comments made about him on a recent DVD.

*King of the Mountain, Christian Vs. Sting Vs. Jeff Jarrett Vs. Ron Killings Vs. Abyss.
Here's the thing about this match, I have a prediction on the winner. I predict that the winner is not going to be who a majority of the audience wants to see win but I have no problem with it.
Warning Spoiler! Click to show Having said that, they've got the right mix of guys in this match that I could see it ending up being very good. However, your opinion of that will depend largely on how you are able to follow the rules of the match. So given that, only a slight thumbs up.

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I know he's a good talker but I just don't care for him.

The problem with Steiner is that his moves don't come across as hard-hitting. They have a slow flow to them rather than the snap that guys like Goldberg and Batista have.

I think Nash will win with the help of Shelley. There's a funny outtake of Nash and Shelley: http://www.tnawrestling.com/news/fullnews2.php?all=707

~T

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This is where you were hurt by missing last month's PPV. Had you seen it, you would not have that same impression of Steiner's offense today.

I can respect the fact that you don't care for said new authority figure in TNA. I personally have been a fan of his since the days of the Midnight Express.

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My exposure to him was in WWF.

I'll probably order the PPV. I have the NBA finals to watch so I'll record it. My cable box has been acting up lately by freezing and powering off, so I hope it'll be fine during the show.

~T

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question, is the "bingo hall brawl" match between team 3d and the james gang going to actually take place in the old ecw arena, or just a match at the regular place just with alot of weopons in place.

has anyone else heard rumors that for "bound for glory" tna wants to try to have it in a different arena?

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It'll be at the Impact Zone.

I don't know about BFG, but yes TNA is trying to hold their PPVs at different places.

~T

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Thi, your exposure to him only coming from the WWF explains a lot, no wonder you don't like him. The WWF and forces inside it really screwed him over the entire time he was there, especially when Vince Russo was in charge and sticking him with the New Midnight Express, he is far better than that run would lead you to believe.


Yes, they are looking at holding Pay Per Views outside of Orlando as early as Bound for Glory. Jeff Jarrett all but confirmed that's what they'd do on Between the Ropes wednesday night.

The Pay Per View gets a big thumbs up, from the wrestling company that provides the most consistently good pay per views month after month. I don't even have a problem with the climactic ending, not wanting to say too much in case Thi reads this before watching.

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Wow. Big Thumps up? I thought it was so-so.

The Bingo Hall Brawl was a let-down. The match had that name to live up to and you'd think the teams would step it up big time after the ECW show, but it was a standard hardcore match. I think it's time to ban trash can lids from these matches.

The Canadians vs. Rhyno match went on too long.

X-Division was great. I first saw Senshi when he made his return recently and thought he was okay, but I was really impressed with him this time. Those stomps are brutal! (my cable box only turned off during the PPV for about a minute in the middle of this match)

Nash and Sabin had a pretty good match. I liked the finish because it helps out all three guys involved.

The tag match was good, not great. I'm most interested in your opinion, Casey, on this particular match, how it compared to their last PPV match.

Btw, they really messed up on the camera shots for this PPV.

The video recap of TNA's 4 years was well done.

Cornette gave a good promo but it went on a little too long and it was redundant.

Steiner and Joe couldn't have had a better match. More reaction from the crowd would have made this match awesome. Steiner looked really good, but his chops and kicks still look weak. I'd love to see a series of matches between these two. They could do what was going to be done with Goldberg and Steiner, each guy getting a win and building up to one final match.

I didn't like the King of the Mountain match, way too convoluted and there was no buildup during the match. If the past matches were anything like this one, I'm surprised they've still kept this idea. No need to comment about the ending, but it was nice to see the fans react the way they did.

~T

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Warning: I wrote a book in this post!

Thi, thank you for wondering what my opinion was on the tag match, I am curious to see your more detailed response once you see where I’m coming from.

I really enjoyed this match, so much so that I think it’s a TNA Match of the Year Candidate. I would put it in the ****1/2 range at least.

I thought this match had everything I could want in a match. It had solid and believable moves nothing was seriously botched that I saw, it had some believable nearfalls by both teams and the crowd was into it and it made sense from a storyline perspective. So in that sense it was tag wrestling at it’s finest.

Here’s the thing, I am willing to face the possibility that my enjoyment of this match was due in large part to having seen the entire feud play out and had this been only my first or second exposure to this it wouldn’t have meant as much. This is why I said it made sense in terms of the storyline psychology.

Match 1: New Year’s Day 2006, AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels lose to Americas Most Wanted due to Gail Kim interference.

Match 2: Impact, May 2006, Daniels/Styles lose to AMW again because of Kim interference.

Match 3, Sacrifice 2006, Styles/Daniels think they’ve got AMW as Kim is banned from Ringside. They lose again because Kim drops a baton from the rafters into the ring and AMW uses it to get the victory. Thus, Kim followed the letter of the law for the match, but not the spirit.

So, now you go to Slammiversary and the last shot for Daniels/Styles. They know she’s going to interfere, she always does and this time they take the more direct approach and instead of trying to prevent the interference by having her barred they try to neutralize it. So, they find a woman that is bigger and stronger than Gail Kim and she takes care of her. Now that’s all well and great, but the reason it works is because that didn’t play into the finish of the match.

The match continued and there were some nearfalls that went in favor of both teams. This says that while AMW used Kim’s interference to win they were good enough to win without her, which makes you hate them even more. At least theoretically, not in terms of how I view matches anyway but were I a casual fan it might. Plus, while Styles and Daniels used the help this time, the help didn’t make them victorious they won on their own. In other words it would’ve been bad if the woman had attacked one of the opponents instead of Gail Kim, but she had no interaction with AMW in any meaningful way that might cause them to lose and so Daniels and Styles were not put in a position where you think they could have only won with the help.

So, strong psychology during the match and in the storyline sense, believable false finishes with good crowd heat, and a satisfying payoff to a long-standing feud, say great match to me.

How it compares to the prior PPV match. That match was good, and while the finish was clever and unique in that match it wasn’t satisfying because the heels still won and it wasn’t exactly clean. Both were good matches with a lot of similarities in believable false finishes and the like, but this was a much more satisfying match from a storyline standpoint.

So, that Thi is my reason for finding it to be a great match instead of just ok. Again, I realize that I might feel differently had I not followed the feud from chapter 1 to its conclusion, so I could see where you were coming from, and that’s why we discuss these things. I’m curious as to what you think now that you’ve read my thoughts. I realize its not the same thing as actually seeing the feud unfold step by step but hopefully it’s a bit better of a guide.

As for the rest of the show.

*The Bingo Brawl, I thought it was fine because it was the only thing on the show like it. While I can see why Thi is tired of the trash can lid, to me they are preferable to the cookie sheets. I can see a reason for trash can lids to be in an arena, but I have a harder time with cookie sheets.

*Rhino Vs. Canadians, I agree with Thi it went way too long. This was the worst thing on the show for me by far. Only good thing, right guy went over.

*6 Way X-Division match, there were several things about this match I liked. Firstly, I liked that it set up title contender rankings, and if TNA follows those rankings it will be another way to differentiate them from the WWE. In fact, strictly speaking now Lethal/Shelley and Dutt/Petey have logical reasons to feud because they can move up and down the rankings with wins and losses. Plus it sets up Senshi Vs. Samoa Joe at some point and that’s all kinds of fine with me.
Thi, its interesting that this was your first real exposure to Senshi these past couple of months. He along with Jerry Lynn and AJ Styles were involved in the first great X-Division and first great TNA feud. So, I knew what he was capable of before tonight although that top rope double stomp was something I hadn’t seen him do until his return to TNA. I might also add that he Elix Skipper and Christopher Daniels as XXX were a solid tag team unit.

*Kevin Nash Vs. Chris Sabin, it was fine. It wasn’t what I feared it was going to be and Sabin was neither helped nor hurt by this match and if this feud is to continue Nash had to win here or else there’s no reason for Sabin to continue to seek revenge.

I already hit the tag match.

*Samoa Joe Vs. Scott Steiner. This was better than I thought it was going to be and it did a good job of not exposing Steiner’s weaknesses. The right man went over, I don’t think it hurt Steiner, I think they can do a rematch out of this if they’d like, so Thumbs up for this match. TNA is getting more out of Scott Steiner now than the WWE did 3 years ago.

*King of the Mountain, ok here’s the thing. This was not the best King of the Mountain match and this 1 was over-booked beyond all get-out. The match stipulations alone put it right on the line of over-bookiness to begin with and so anything you do on top of that is overkill. We had 2 heel-turns essentially in the one match and that coupled by the match ending with questions of penalty box time elapsed and who was allowed to hang the belt and who wasn’t sent it careening off a cliff to overbooked oblivion.
Leave it to TNA to do this very thing the day after I defended the match concept. Sometimes, I think they do it to annoy me. Anyway, I watched last years match before tonights and it was a zillion times less complicated even though they had the same rules. They didn’t pack the extra stuff on top of it that made it impossible to figure out who was doing what. Its also not like last year’s had much better workers, compare Sting/Abyss/Killings/Jarrett/Christian to Styles/Monty Brown/Abyss/Sean Waltman/Raven and I think other than Styles and Abyss because of being in both this year had superior workers. But last year’s worked a ton better as a match.
I think they should either simplify the match a little bit by either get rid of the pin as a qualifier to hang the title or by getting rid of the penalty box rule and still requiring a pin. Personally, the penalty box thing makes sense because a smart strategy would be to try and pin as many of your opponents as you can in a quick time so you have an easier path to the title, but this year they didn’t really have 2 guys in the box at the same time like last year which I think made last year’s better as well. But, if they’re going to keep the stips as complicated as they are, that’s all they can do, don’t toss in multiple in match complicators like refs turning heel and stuff because then you easily fall over that cliff.


Lastly, the ending. I didn’t have a problem with it from this standpoint. A valid criticism of a lot of these TNA shows is that they are self-contained, that you could watch a PPV and not need to watch the Impact’s before or the one’s that follow because the PPV would rap everything up. This ending gives people a reason to tune in to the show Thursday night; it’s not a self-contained event. However, I don’t like non-finishes and while I can be ok with it for this show, TNA had better not have an inconclusive finish to a PPV main event for a very long time to come.
If Jarrett ends up with the title, this is what I think. I think it’s the wrong move for the company, but I will say this much, the heat for a Joe/Jarrett title match would be off-the-charts because of how much those fans hate Jarrett and love Joe. That’s not what I’d go with personally, but there are worse ways they could do it.

As a bonus, this show had some good mic work. Joe and Steiner’s video was awesome, their promos were also strong, and the video package for the history segment was one of the best. Jim Cornette had a good but not great promo that I thought could’ve been a little better and a little bit more attacking of the WWE and ECW product. Plus, on the Preshow Shane Douglas brought the awesome in his promo with the Naturals and Team 3D cut a good promo as well. So the mic work was strong.

So for my overall thoughts, and yes I’m ending this book soon.

*Good mic work.
*A brawl that wasn’t hurt by another one like it later in the show.
*A great 6-way X-contender match.
*A better than hoped for Sabin/Nash match.
*A fantastic Tag Match.
*Samoa Joe and Scott Steiner living up to the billing and then some.

And the negatives
*King of the Mountain overbooked
*Rhino match going too long.

Compare that to your typical WWE single brand PPV and that’s how you get the thumbs way up from me. I don’t want to see some of this booking every month but a lot of it was effective tonight.

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Here's the thing about King of the Mountain, this match was a classic case of overbooking ruining hard work. All 5 guys worked hard but it was buried by the weight of the overbooking.

As I said I hate non-finishes and I don't want to see this again, I suppose the only reason I am forgiving of tonight's finish is because of the egg ECW laid on Tuesday, but even there I'm willing to forgive ECW though as well.

The other thing, is if you're going to have a non-finish like they did in that match, they should've ended with a match that had a finish. In other words if I were to book this thing over, I'd put Joe/Steiner on last.

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An Impact spoiler...
Warning Spoiler! Click to show that came from PWInsider.com and hopefully that means
Warning Spoiler! Click to show

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Full Impact spoilers, and one of them makes me very happy and the only hint I'll give is that it has nothing to do with Samoa Joe. I'll leave it up to the reader to guess. PWInsider.com


Warning Spoiler! Click to show

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I didn't feel like we got to see AJ and Daniels show their best as a tag team; I can only remember two good double team moves. Also, AMW didn't seem to get much offense in. The use of that mystery woman to get Gail Kim out of the way was a bad interuption in the match; they should've had her barred from the arena so she wouldn't interfere.

That Joe/Steiner video was really awesome and got me pumped up for their match.

I have to say that Sting, Nash and Steiner looked really good in the ring.

I think Monty or Abyss needs a brief run with the world title before Joe gets it.

~T

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OK, so last month they bar her from ringside so she can't interfere and so she interferes from the rafters instead.
So this month, you get her banned from the arena so she can't interfere. I can already see the work-around on that one, can you? Much better to say, we know she'll interfere and we're ready for it. Now, here was my biggest flaw with the match, Gail interfered like 3 times before the woman came out. Half a star deduction right there.

While Daniels and Styles didn't use a lot of double team moves, that's only part of being a good tag team, so its not really something that hurt my enjoyment of the match.

I think Abyss would be a good champion. I think Monty has more flaws and the office isn't high on him right now. I think there should be a long title chase for Joe. The money is in the chase.

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I find it funny when Steiner calls Joe a "half-breed".

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I'm glad they're giving Joe a push to the heavyweight title. He's the best thing in wrestling at the moment. He's got good mic skills, is fast and agile for a man of his size, and is an excellent wrestler. Plus he has that intangible something. I bet the WWE is kicking themselves right now for not signing Joe.

For anyone else that is a fan of Joe, check out youtube.com for some past matches of his. His first match against Necro Butcher is one of the bloodiest matches I've seen in a long time.