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Welcome to the TNA Impact edition of Under the Microscope. We're here to review all those little observations and tidbits you may have missed. This is not a detailed recap of the show, but a review for those of you that saw the show but didn't actually "watch" it.

After last week we know that the censors earned their paychecks, Eric Young is now a fan of pyro, and Don West loves the color orange. But what else is there to notice? Let's see what we can spot. Cue the opening pyro.

As the microscope tunes up for tonight's episode of Impact, let's take a quick look back at TNA's Turning Point PPV. Our opening X Division spotfest featured three international talents - Doug Williams, Hiroshi Tanahashi, and Volador, Jr. While the latter two have been featured on Impact the last two weeks, we haven't seen Williams since the X Cup earlier this year. Williams has wrestled in the U.K. and Japan to go along with a handful of appearances here in the U.S. for Ring of Honor, including winning the ROH Pure Championship. Williams of course has one of my favorite finishers in wrestling, the Chaos Theory, a sweet-looking roll through suplex.

Roxxi was knocked out of her match on last week's Impact due to a backstage altercation. The cameras zoomed in on the fallen Roxxi to reveal a nasty looking cut on her back, but apparently it was nothing more than a good makeup job. All camera shots of Roxxi this past Sunday showed no marks from the attack three days earlier. Not even the TNA Microscope could pick up a trace of the missing injury.

During the Abyss-Angle Falls Count Anywhere match, Angle reached across the guardrail at one point to grab an empty chair and bring it into play. The thought crossing most people's minds at this point involved what Angle would do with the chair, but my mind went a different direction. The chair was obviously a plant for them to use, but logically it should not have been there, as I was thinking more about the poor sap who left to go get a beer or use the restroom, only to return and find his seat is missing.

As Jeremy Borash is backstage interviewing Sting he states "I was there six and a half years ago when A.J. Styles, on the very first TNA show, became X Division Champion." However, there is a small amount of error in that statement by Borash. TNA taped their first two weekly PPV's on that night, including a four-way match were Styles won the first X Division title. However, that match did not air on the debut show, but the following week on episode two.

I caught a couple of interesting fan signs during the event, both from the same individual. The first sign stated "bring back Daniels," a sentiment I completely agree with as his future is now unknown with the apparent dissolving of the Prince Justice Brotherhood. The second sign was a bit harder to make out, but from my vantage point it said Chikara. Chikara is an independent promotion out of Philadelphia, PA that features strong influences from the Japanese and Lucha styles. Many roster members are masked, as they have outlandish characters to go along with some great in-ring action.

Back live in the Impact zone, Mick Foley is confronting the TNA young guns in the ring after their poor showing last Sunday. Foley tells Samoa Joe that at one time he wrote that Joe was one of the most convincing bad-asses in the business. For those of you unfamiliar with Foley's writing, this was from the book Hardcore Diaries, his latest work. Foley does not delve into the entire quote however, as his actual point was that despite being one of the most convincing bad-asses in the business, Joe doesn't have the WWE "look," something Foley can attest to.

The Eric Young transformation is now complete. The idiot persona is no more as TNA has phased him into a more credible wrestling role. The superhero costume is gone, the promos are more serious, the pyro fear has diminished, and now he's an X Division champ. One other factor that has slipped under the radar is during his ring intro. Ever since Young was portrayed as paranoid he was billed as "now residing in an undisclosed location." Young is now billed as simply being from Nashville, Tennessee.

Our latest TNA Rough Cuts segments feature LAX member Hernandez. This leads to a first-time mention of his first name, Shawn. Hernandez was of course known as Hotstuff Hernandez during his first TNA run when he was a member of Jeff Jarrett's mercenaries with Chad Collyer and Onyx. There was no mention of this however, as they treated the formation of LAX as Hernandez's TNA debut.

If you look at the actual phrasing of Jeremy Borash's ring intros for the World Title match tonight there was an error in his intro for Jay Lethal. Borash states, "For the first time in his career, he attempts to become the TNA World Heavyweight Champion..." This is actually not true, as Lethal faced Jeff Jarrett for the title on an episode of Impact a couple of years ago. Lethal won an eight-man match the week prior to win a shot at the title of his choosing, and chose Jarrett's World Title.

Am I watching an episode of Raw? Back from commercial break after the Petey Williams beat down we see two recap videos of the altercation in less than a minute. Despite the hectic pace and constant backstage cutaways, the nice thing about TNA has been the lack of "moments ago" and "earlier tonight" video recaps of what we just saw. TNA tends to cut away from an angle too soon without an update and WWE drills it into our brains. Just once, I'd like for a wrestling show to just split the difference.

I'm a proponent of making tag team wrestling important again and restoring prestige to the division, but TNA is doing too much as their tag team title situation is a mess. Beer Money, Inc. are the current champions and had to face The Guns last Sunday in a title match. This was of course three days after Matt Morgan and Abyss won a ladder match to become number one contenders to those titles. And now tonight, A.J. Styles and Samoa Joe get a title shot, all while Team 3D is at the announce table petitioning for their title shot after Beer Money cost them their shot the week before.

TNA should just run their shows from the backstage area. Whether it's a PPV or an episode of Impact, we are constantly whisked away from in-ring happenings to a backstage segment. Tonight alone, there were twelve segments which took place backstage. Backstage segments are extremely common in wrestling television shows today, but not if you watched ECW earlier this week. The announcers interviewed Matt Hardy, who was standing backstage, from the announcers table before his title match. Aside from that instance, everything you saw on the show took place in the ring.

The buzz in the internet world lately has been Christian Cage and his status with TNA. It now seems as though Christian is headed back to WWE, as his contract will be expiring within the next month. He is one of the bigger names to make the TNA to WWE transition, and it raises an interesting question. If Christian gets a sizeable push and is one day in the World Title hunt, will WWE acknowledge him as a former World champion? WWE loves to build up a wrestler by touting a former World Title reign, but will never mention TNA in any way. Christian is a two-time world champ in TNA, but if he were to actually win the big one in WWE would they credit him as a first time champ?

It appears as though we've seen the last of Christian Cage in TNA, as he was beat down in the ring tonight to end the show. As a TNA fan, I will miss Christian and wish him well in WWE. Christian could always be counted on to deliver a strong match and was one of the best at delivering a promo, whether it be serious or comedic. Here's hoping we see more of the same from Christian after he jumps ship.

Numbers crunched harder than an unprotected chair shot to the head: Championship titles are an important part of professional wrestling. Even with an outlandish storyline or asinine circumstances (Eric Young tonight), a title change is still noteworthy. The second a wrestler wins a title, questions are abound about who they will feud with next, who they will eventually drop the title to and how long they will remain a champion. So what do the numbers say about the average title range of the various types of championships out there?

Excluding ongoing title reigns, there is actually an eerie similarity between WWE and TNA title runs since June 2002 (TNA's debut). The shortest shelf life is a tag champion, as the average is 56.8 days in TNA and 61.4 for the Raw tag champs. The main secondary title for both is close as well, as 67.0 days is the average reign for an X Division champ while the Intercontinental Title holder has an average of 69.2. World titles are the least likely to change, but are even closer yet between the two. TNA World champs average a 103.2 day title run, while the Raw and Smackdown World Title holders have averaged a reign of 103.8 days apiece.

Curtis Shanks is a self-described wrestling nerd. Who else would lay claim to keeping up-to-date on the title histories of over 40 independent and foreign promotions? In the words of Adrian Monk, "It's a blessing...and a curse." Curtis encourages anyone with questions or comments to e-mail him at curtisshanks.torch@gmail.com.

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