By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

2008 HITS

Global Impact: This special highlighting TNA's trip to Japan and super show with New Japan Pro Wrestling was not a great show. While there was plenty to like about it, there was plenty to dislike as well. Yet for its faults, it was still a very interesting broadcast and totally different than anything else on a wrestling show. TNA did a very good job making the event feel special, like a big deal. It was interesting to see the press conferences with the wrestlers after their matches. It gave American fans a glimpse of what Japanese wrestling is like. The highlight was Kurt Angle vs. Yuji Nagata, which was a great 20 minute match that reminded me of some of the classic Angle vs. Chris Benoit matches. The show could have been better, but it was definitely worth watching and I look forward to another Global Impact coming soon.

Kim vs. Kong: This was one of the best feuds in TNA in 2008. The Knockouts were often the highest rated performers on Impact, and a large reason for that was the great work of Awesome Kong and Gail Kim. Kong hasn't been portrayed nearly as strong as she had been in the first half of the year which is a shame. Hopefully creative will get it together and someone in the division will step up to help create the type of magic that Kim and Kong had for so long.

Tomko: There was a time in 2008 when Tomko looked to be the breakout star of the year. He showed a quiet, cool demeanor that started winning over the fans. He was the coolest guy on Impact for quite awhile. Creative didn't always help. The whole switching teams from The Christian Coalition to Team Angle didn't go well. But throughout it all, Tomko constantly looked like he belonged in the main event in TNA. Of course, he is in WWE now, so he is definitely a wasted opportunity for TNA.

Little Petey Pump: I enjoyed the transformation of Petey Williams into Maple Leaf Muscle. Williams was always a talented worker, but he never had a chance to show much personality back in the Team Canada days. However, once he became Maple Leaf Muscle, doing that terrible Arnold Schwarzenegger impression, things got better. What really worked was his pairing with Scott Steiner. I didn't enjoy some of the initiation that Steiner put Williams through. But, it was a fun pairing. It is too bad that an injury to Steiner stopped the fun.

Team 3D Weighing In: This was a much better year for Team 3D (more later) than 2007. For now I will focus on some of their nice comedy from early in the year when they had to lose weight in order to compete. It was a bit cheesy, but still fun to see them have to get on the scale each week. They had some nice videos of them trying to lose weight. The comedy was hit or miss, but on the whole it stands out as a pretty funny storyline.

James Mitchell: Mitchell was the best manager in TNA or WWE in 2008. I'm not sure I can name another one, but that is beside the point. He is a free agent and TNA should bring him back, or WWE should sign him. He is very good at what he does. He is a great talker with the ability to get his wrestlers over with the crowd. He also looks sinister. I was not a fan of his feud with Abyss and his angle with Judas Mecias. I hoped TNA would go a different direction with him. Despite that, he was still compelling to watch even in lame storylines. That is a testament to his ability to perform in what has sadly become a lost role in pro wrestling.

The Beautiful People (For 7 Months): As I said above, the Knockouts were often featured in the highest rated segment of Impact. And, it wasn't just because of the great feud between Awesome Kong and Gail Kim. Angelina Love and Velvet Sky were a great duo for about the first seven months of the year. Angelina Love impressed me right from the start with her talking ability. She was pretty good in the ring too. Velvet Sky wasn't as impressive early on, but she certainly improved as the year proceeded. Their early brown bag treatments of various other Knockouts were great. They were a very good act for much of the year.

Styles Gets Serious: AJ Styles is at his best when he stops being goofy and starts getting serious. It was an up and down year for him. He had great moments and good matches, but some bad moments as well. For good or bad, much of what he did during the year was memorable, but what stands out was when he dropped the Prince AJ gimmick. The crown deal worked fine for when he was acting goofy and trying to kiss up to Angle. However, once he dropped it and got serious we were reminded how good a wrestler he is. The goofiness let him explore his acting and mic skills. I still kept waiting for him to get serious, and he finally did.

Rough Cuts: With a few exceptions, TNA's use of the Rough Cut videos was very well done. They had features on several wrestlers during the year, including Gail Kim, Angelina Love, Roxxi, Matt Morgan and LAX. They were very well produced. They did a nice job of filling in some of the background of the wrestlers. We got to know more about who they really are and where they came from. They were not always great. I didn't enjoy the ones for Morgan or more recently for Beer Money. But, on the whole they have been a successful venture.

Team 3D: I brought up Team 3D's weigh ins, since that story itself was Hit-worthy. Now I am bringing up the team in general as they had a very good 2008. They were funny when they were supposed to be, and intense when they needed to be. Brother Ray has always been able to cut a promo and as I looked back on my Impact Hits & Misses from the year, I saw his name multiple times for strong mic work. Brother Devon got more chances to talk this year than I can ever remember before, and he delivered when called upon. There was some ambiguity in their characters later in the year when they seemed to be between the Main Event Mafia and the TNA Frontline which worked well. I liked the idea that they were in it for themselves better than actually having them chose a side. But, their involvement in the Frontline has been solid.

Beer Money Inc.: Another Team that had a great 2008 was Robert Roode and James Storm. Whoever decided to put those two together should be commended. They were o.k. as singles wrestlers, but hit their stride as a team. The odd couple formed a very unique chemistry. They had some really amusing moments. Their promos were strong. They did some plain goofy stuff that worked like Storm's beer cooler scooter. That was comedy gold. Poor booking never gave them a chance to shine in the ring the way they are capable of doing. Their matches have been either too short, or too predictable (with a beer bottle breaking over an opponent's head), or both. But, that is not their fault. Their team has been one of the best things in TNA.

New Look for Impact Zone: Not going on the road has its advantages. But, seeing the same old Impact Zone each Thursday night got very old. That is why it was nice to see the Impact Zone get a face lift when TNA went High Def in the fall. Going to HD was a good move, as was changing the look of the Zone.

2008 Misses

Rankings By Gauntlet: Last January, an episode of Impact featured three gauntlets, one for the X-Division, one for the Tag Teams, and one for the Heavyweights to determine the rankings in each division. This was bad on multiple levels. For one, it killed the gauntlet match by having three in one night. For another, the idea of the rankings was never fully defined during the broadcast and they failed to show why it was important to get a high ranking in your division. I guess that is fine, as the rankings were soon forgotten about all together.

Episode Titles: One of the innovations that TNA came up with for Impact in 2008 was episode titles. This was a bad innovation. Giving the episodes titles ruined any sense of the show being live. Obviously the show isn't live, but it should still play out as if it were. Often, the titles refer to something that happens on the show, which obviously was known ahead of time by the person naming he episodes. I don't understand who thinks this is a good idea.

Black Reign and Rellik: There have been few dark, menacing wrestlers who struck less fear into the hearts of their opponents than Black Reign and Rellik. I know that Rellik is Killer spelled backwards, but when he threatened to cut open his opponent's skull and drink a martini with his eyeballs as olives from it, I knew I couldn't take him seriously. I could never take Reign seriously either. His feud with Kaz went nowhere. His rat Misty was stupid, as was Kaz's calling her Marlena. These two "monsters" just sucked.

Tenay's Sit Down Interviews: Mike Tenay has done several sit down interviews with various wrestlers over the years. According to the ratings, I am not the only one who hates them, as they have typically been the lowest rated segment on each Impact that they appear on. They are cheesy. Tenay is not good. He might have an encyclopedic wrestling mind, but that doesn't mean he should be on camera. His interviews are terrible. He always over acts. I don't blame the many fans who change the channel when these interview segments come on.

MMA in TNA: In the Spring, Kurt Angle thought it would be a good idea to wrestle an MMA style with bad results. This was part of his feud with Samoa Joe over the TNA World Title. They had a pretty good feud, but Angle started training like he was an MMA fighter, not a professional wrestler. He gave interviews in the media talking about his upcoming match and how it was going to be different. He had on camera "training" and "sparing" sessions. The problem is that MMA works because it is real. Pro wrestling works because it is not. There is no value in staging an MMA fight. The style works since you know the two fighters are trying to knock each other out, or get the other to tap out. That makes it exciting. It was silly to see Angle wrestle Joe in bare feet and shorts instead of his usual singlet and boots for no reason at all.

WWE References: Does TNA need to reference WWE (and by extension WCW and ECW) every week? Apparently they do, because they do. They really don't need to. They have an inferiority complex which makes them reference these wrestlers and events from other companies instead of embracing who they are. I wish they would go even a month without referencing WWE. Why not? What could it hurt?

Lethal, Val and Dutt: There were some fun moments in the storyline of Jay Lethal, So Cal Val, and Sanjay Dutt, particularly when Dutt kept showing up on Lethal and Val's dates. But, despite those moments, the storyline didn't work. Part of the problem was that it was too predictable. Another part was when Lethal proposed to Val, and Dutt showed disapproval with a shocked facial reaction which the announcers ignored which made them look stupid. Lethal's bachelor party was embarrassing, especially when Kip James showed up to dance. Val was a total idiot for siding with the man who broke up her wedding. In the end, she screwed Lethal in a wedding ring ladder match which made no sense. We then found out that she is a gold digger and is after Dutt's father's fortune. Now, the story has been dropped, which is good.

Kong's $25,000 Challenge: I never got into this storyline. It seemed to end the great momentum that Awesome Kong had as the Champion. It was an interesting concept, that she had no competition among the TNA Knockouts, so she was going to find some herself. But, it just didn't work. It got very redundant after a while. It did ultimately introduce us to Taylor Wilde, but she never did get that over with the crowd.

Angle Family Melodrama: As I was going through my Impact Hits & Misses from the year, I came across several references to the storyline between the Angles and AJ Styles. Some of what happened ended up as Hits, and some of it ended up as Misses. There was good and bad in the angle. So I kept looking through the old lists trying to decide if the melodrama was a Hit or a Miss for the year. Then I remembered something that I had blocked from my memory. AJ Styles married Karen Angle when Kurt and Karen were renewing their vows. I know it wasn't a real marriage, but that horrible moment tipped the scales to the Miss column. There was some good in that story, but in the end there was a little more bad.

Foreign X-Division Wrestlers: Three times during 2008, TNA randomly brought in X-Division wrestlers from around the world and expected us to take them seriously. I am all for finding the best talent, but no matter where a wrestler comes from, he has to be introduced in a well thought out way. TNA didn't do that. They didn't do it with the World X-Cup in June, when they had unknown talent from Mexico, Japan, Canada and Europe competing in what is apparently a prestigious tournament, yet we knew nothing about most of the competitors in that tournament. The same was true in October when Tanahashi and Volador faced the Motor City Machine Guns. They may be big deals in Japan and Mexico, but you have to do a better job introducing them to American fans, the vast majority of whom don't follow New Japan, or All Japan, or AAA, or CMLL. The same was true late in the year when The Great Muta's student, Kiyoshi suddenly appeared in the X-Division Title Tournament to face Consequences Creed. He wasn't even an impressive wrestler and just saying he trained with Muta doesn't mean anything.

Prince Justice Brotherhood: I was going to list Curry Man as a Miss. Then I was going to list Sharkboy as a Miss too. Then I was going to do the same for Super Eric. Then I realized that just as TNA put these three idiotic characters together to form my least favorite faction in the history of wrestling (yes, that even includes 3 Count), that I could save time and space and just include all three in one big Miss. Curry Man was ridiculous. He wrestled with a plate of food on his head. Shark Boy can never get over on his own, so he tried to get over by impersonating Steve Austin. That didn't work. Eric Young became a super hero which didn't work. I am a fan of Christopher Daniels and Eric Young. I am glad that both seem to have better prospects in 2009 now that their alter egos are gone from TNA.

The Beautiful People (For 5 Months): As I said above, the first 7 months of 2008 were very good for The Beautiful People. Then, they were teamed up with Kip James, and they started to get stale fast. Their act hasn't been good sense. They have had some individual nice moments, but most weeks they have been involved with crap. The latest crap has been the Sarah Palin impersonator. They look like idiots. Hopefully they will dump Palin, dump James, and get back to doing what they had been doing, being a consistently entertaining duo.

Morgan & Abyss: This is my least favorite team in TNA. I have never been a fan of Abyss. His character since returning from the mental hospital has been lame. TNA tried to go somewhere with the idea that he wasn't going to use weapons any more, but that fizzled. Teaming him with Matt "I have no identity of my own" Morgan hasn't worked. I'm just not into this team at all.

Karen's Angle: I was glad when TNA eventually gave Karen Angle a job, as she had stuck around after breaking up with Kurt without serving a purpose. Unfortunately, her sit down talk show was no better than the Mike Tenay interviews mentioned above. Karen wasn't particularly good at the job, and the material was poor. Each interview ended with some type of violence. Security had to be called in every week. It was a nice recurring joke for awhile.

Return of Jeff Jarrett: The long awaited return of Jeff Jarrett never got too many fans excited. Part of the problem was that it came on the heels of the return of Sting, and it wasn't handled well. It never made sense that when Sting's return was hinted at, everyone referenced the possibility that Sting might return, yet when Jarrett's return was hinted at, nobody said his name. It made the announcers look like idiots for not saying his name. Once he came back, things didn't get much better. For the most part, his role in TNA in late 2008 will most likely be remembered for the way that he has let Kurt Angle use his real life family tragedy to get heat on himself. It has been in poor taste, and I don't see anyone really that happy to see Jarrett back in the ring.

Mick Foley: Foley should have plenty of time in TNA to do something interesting, because he hasn't yet. According to the storyline, he was hired to make one appearance in a non-defined role, which eventually was defined as guest enforcer for Jarrett vs. Angle, which wasn't going to be a match until after Foley had debuted. Then he gave a mind-numbing farewell speech after a few weeks in TNA. He should have been embarrassed for that. He took an unprotected chair shot to the head and called it "fun." TNA's disregard for the danger of those shots could have been a Miss itself. He has not been inspiring on the mic. His nebulous role as Executive Share Holder needs to be defined. Now, he is going back to the ring, and I can only assume he will turn on the TNA Frontline. If that happens, 2009 won't be off to a better start for Foley.

Trashy Knockouts: The Knockouts were the best thing in the first half of 2008. Between the great work of the Beautiful People, the great feud of Kong vs. Kim, and other nice moments from ODB and Roxxi, the division was very strong. After Gail Kim left the company, things took a turn for the worse. I mentioned how the Beautiful People had a bad final five months of the year and they got trashier as the year proceeded. ODB was always trashy which worked well for her and would have been fine if she were the only trashy Knockout. But she isn't. Roxxi had a nice Rough Cut series, then suddenly she started cursing every other word. Taylor Wilde hung out with her and she got trashy too. Christy Hemme got less trashy, but a guest stint on ODB's Angle and she was right back there with the rest of the division. TNA needs to learn that women don't have to act like that in order to get over with the crowd.

Main Event Mafia vs. TNA Frontline: TNA ended the year with the domination of this storyline, and it hasn't worked. It is a replay of the failed Millionaires Club vs. The New Blood from WCW back in the day. That didn't work, and this isn't working either. Sting's first heel turn ever was treated as no big deal. It took too long to come up with a name for the young group of talent. Samoa Joe's role has been diminished by his association with the Frontline. It is hard to take the group seriously, when members like Eric Young have been jokes most of their careers. Let's face it, Kevin Nash and Scott Steiner can't go in the ring any more. Sting is solid, but past his prime. So is Booker T. Even Kurt Angle has been slowed down by so many neck injuries. The injection of Team 3D into the TNA Frontline was good. There have been some good moments and some nice mic work from the two groups. But, it is sort of the same thing over and over again. Hopefully something positive will come out of it. But for now, we are left with Rhino as the top babyface in TNA. We are left with Angle (not the World Champion Sting) as the centerpiece of Impact, along with Jeff Jarrett who just came out of retirement. And, on the last new Impact of 2008, we were left with Mick Foley able to physically dissect the Main Event Mafia, despite the fact that a roster of younger talent couldn't do the same.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's Hitlist Specialist, providing his point of view in the Torch's hitlist format for Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and TNA Impact each week. Email him at jmezz-torch@sbcglobal.net.

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