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By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

IMPACT HITS

Booker and Joe: Impact got off to a bit of a shaky start, but picked up nicely with the in ring confrontation between Booker T and Samoa Joe. They played their parts well and delivered on the mic. Joe gave one of his better recent promos (maybe it was the suit?). Booker was his usual great self. After the very convoluted and ridiculous ending to Victory Road, TNA seems to be getting back to basics. Here are two great wrestlers who hate each other and both want to be TNA World Champion. Their first match didn’t prove anything, so they will have another. It is not as simple as it could be, but it is fairly straightforward, and simple by TNA’s standards. Plus as I said above, they did deliver in their confrontation.

Beer Money: One of TNA’s problems over the years has been the lack of clear cut heels. In the past, I have praised Robert Roode for playing a clear cut heel, and now I will do the same for him and his partner James Storm. There isn’t anything ambiguous about two guys who like to whip innocent people. They came off as huge heels this week. They weren’t trying to be cool. They were just trying to be hated, and it worked. It is unbelievable that TNA management wouldn’t suspend them for their actions, which hurt the overall product. Plus, it took LAX forever to come to Hector Guerrero’s aid, which hurt as well. But, that can’t be blamed on Beer Money. They are playing their parts to perfection, and getting a ton of heat for it.

Karen Gets a Job: I have complained for several weeks in a row that Karen Angle had no actual role in TNA. Now, TNA has given her a role, as the host of her own talk show, Karen’s Angle. I don’t care what the idea is. I don’t even care if it turns out to be a terrible idea. I just care that they finally came up with an idea to justify her having a TNA contract.

Hyping Next Week: TNA did a very good job of hyping next week’s Impact. They announced the debut of Karen’s Angle. Christian Cage, Rhino (who needs to turn heel, or at least stop looking bored out of his mind), and AJ Styles challenged Team Angle to an elimination tables match, with Team Angle promising Sting would be in their corner. Velvet Sky won the Knockout Gauntlet to earn a title shot against Taylor Wild next week. And, they announced that the Motor City Machine Guns had challenged Beer Money to a strap match, also for next week. Now, I’m not saying that I am necessarily looking forward to everything that was announced for next week. Let’s just say that I am looking forward to some more than others. But, it is important to hype these things a week in advance. Give the fans a reason to tune in next week. In generally, TNA probably does this better than WWE, and that is definitely true this week.

IMPACT MISSES

Kaz: Does this guy take himself too seriously, or what? He lost a match. Now he is acting like he let down the entire history of the X-Division. Do Americans feel entitled to win every sporting event they participate in? His whinny interview with Jeremy Borash was bad. He lost to Mexico, therefore he apparently has to apologize. He lost a big match at a PPV, and somehow still earned a Title match? That makes no sense. His match vs. Petey Williams wasn’t very good. They did the X-Division quick reversals way too many times during the match. There didn’t seem to be a single offensive move during the match. Of course, it couldn’t end without some referee incompetence. Then, when Kaz lost and was just starting to show some emotion over the loss, it cut to the back to Jeremy Borash. Everything with Kaz was bad.

Prince Justice Brotherhood: I groaned when Eric Young told Borash that he had some scoop on the Prince Justice Brotherhood. I didn’t want to know what he was talking about. It is getting harder to cheer for Young each week when he is portrayed as such an idiot. It was one thing when he was portrayed as sort of innocent and naive. Now he is the stupidest man in the world. He hasn’t had a single good moment in months, with the stupid Super Eric crap, the Elvis crap, and now this. He was too stupid to know that he was on camera, despite Borash pointing it out to him, then he threatened to kill Borash. Later, we learned that the Brotherhood includes my two least favorite TNA characters, Curry Man and Shark Boy. The only good thing to come out of it was when they were whipped by Beer Money.

Knockouts Video: As usual, Impact had way too much going on. The show is too hectic. One of the reasons is that they insist on playing way too many of these history videos. Did we really need to see a video on the history of the Knockouts? Are we that stupid? Just have the Gauntlet. They didn’t need the video. It didn’t add to the show. It took away by making the show feel more rushed than it already was (and it was!).

Dutt - Lethal - Val: TNA is playing this angle totally by the books. They haven’t done a single unpredictable thing. Everyone knew what would happen at the wedding. Everyone knew what would happen at Victory Road. And everyone knew So Cal Val would eventually turn on Jay Lethal. It is unbelievable how poorly her character is being written. There is not a woman alive who would forgive the man who ruined her wedding, other than Val. If she hasn’t learned the truth about what Sanjay Dutt did, pretending to be hit by the chair, by next week, then this will be the most brain dead angle in TNA history (which is saying something).

Treatment of Women: It isn’t surprising that Val would be written to be such a bitch and an idiot, because the TNA writers hate women. They were presented in Jim Cornette’s office as being a bunch of screeching harpies. Cornette even said that if any of them are married, their husbands would kill themselves. Very classy. I don’t need to say any more about how poorly Val has been written. But, I will say that it is terribly offensive for Don West (a babyface color commentator) to say that she is just acting like a typical woman. I guess so, since all women fall in love with their stalkers. He then went on to talk about his own bad marriage. I’m far from the first person on this site to point out that the TNA writers have some major women issues that they should probably take care of.

Stretcher Match: I can’t believe TNA keeps watering down gimmick matches by giving them away for free in totally meaningless situations like this. Consequences Creed looked like an idiot on the way to the ring for saying he was going to win the TNA Championship. It makes sense for Booker to call himself Champion, but for Creed to believe it makes no sense. Booker dominated Creed, but he hardly beat him down enough to justify him being taken out on a stretcher. Booker beat a jobber, and I’m not sure what that accomplishes. He didn’t even beat him up that much so it didn’t make him look strong or tough or like a bad ass. I don’t know why this match was a stretcher match. It didn’t need to be, other than the fact that they wanted Joe to be hiding in the ambulance to ambush Booker, which isn’t a good enough reason.

Sting Follow-Up: The opening video highlights of Victory Road seemed to indicate that Sting attacked Samoa Joe for no reason. Anyone watching, or more likely reading the results knows that it was not an unprovoked attack. That makes those who paid to see it feel like chumps, as not only was the ending terrible, but now TNA is ignoring what actually happened to make it look like Sting was the bad guy. All in all, TNA did a poor job of following up on that major angle that ended the PPV. Instead of focusing on his involvement in the Main Event, they shifted gears to Team Angle claiming he was joining them. That was so random and convoluted. Apparently Team Angle wanted to do an nWo impression so they showed up wearing Sting masks. Having them concentrate on Sting took away from the idea that Sting was involved in the PPV Main Event. I don’t know what TNA is thinking in watering down Sting’s involvement. Then they tried to interject him back into that situation with the mysterious baseball bat at the end, which was just stupid.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and TNA Impact each week. Email him at jmezz-torch@sbcglobal.net.

For another view from the original Hitlist author, compare Jason Powell's views to mine by visiting prowrestling.NET's "Hitlist" section here.

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