By Chris Reed, Torch Specialist

-- 6/11 TNA IMPACT HITS & MISSES

(For an alternate Hits & Misses perspective, read Hubert O'Hearn's TNA Impact H&M column)

IMPACT HITS

Raven: Count me as a believer for once in Raven. I've said it before that I wasn't a big fan of Raven's character, but that's usually been because all he ever does is whine and complain that he doesn't get his way. This week, Raven kept his big trap shut and simply put the fear of Raven into those around him. He influenced both Lauren and Taylor Wilde into situations that he wanted to happen with Daffney and Dr. Stevie. I liked it, and it is progressing the storyline.

Beautiful People Segment: Angelina Love is perfectly playing the role of the heel you love to hate. The insults that TBP launched towards Tara were well-written, especially the not-so-veiled comments of her being a former WWE Diva coming into their TNA world. It builds up the title match between Tara and Love and also helped with the next hit of the night.

Tara vs. Madison Rayne: No doubt that Tara was going to win her introductory match in TNA, but at least Rayne gave her some decent competition. Tara's moves looked crisp and clean and she showed she hasn't had any ring rust since her departure from WWE. I was surprised to see TNA still call her finisher the Widow's Peak, as WWE is usually pretty sensitive about trademarking finisher names, but that's just a minor quibble.

Eric Young Slaps JB: Come on, we've all wanted to do it. Eric Young finally did something that each of us has wanted to do at least once with a smart slap to Jeremy Borash. And the slap continued to keep up the development of Young's heel character -- he'll no longer be treated as the comedy act of TNA. Hallelujah.

IMPACT MISSES

Interference Here, Interference There, Interference Everywhere: Too many matches this week had the same theme ending -- someone on the outside causes some sort of distraction that the referees (who apparently are subscribing to the Stevie Wonder vision plan) just don't see happening. First, the Shelly/Lethal vs. Team 3D match ended with The British Invasion causing a distraction. And then the main event of Kurt Angle vs. Sting (which was looking good at points) ends with Matt Morgan causing a distraction. This isn't the first time TNA has bailed out with this all-too-easy write-off, and its getting boring real quick.

Shane Douglas vs. A.J. Styles: Remember last week when I stated that I was looking forward to seeing Shane Douglas back in action? Forget I said that. Douglas looked stiff and A.J. Styles pretty much owned him during this short match. Douglas had to resort to a cheap weapons shot to keep Styles interested in this feud enough to get a PPV match out of them. And yet again, TNA dropped the ball by giving away this match on free TV first. It would have been so easy to have the two men meet in an interview in the ring ending with the same weapons shot, and then people would have been more interested in a Douglas vs. Styles PPV match. Now, not so much.

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