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The Specialists
HITS & MISSES - TNA IMPACT 6/18: Raven sums up Abyss's TNA life, Daniels vs. Red, Giving away Gimmick matches, Eric Young off the show Jun 20, 2009 - 1:15:49 PM
Raven, Daffney, Dr. Stevie, Abyss, Lauren: Two weeks in a row Raven makes my Hit list. Hell is officially frozen over. But his promo backstage was a perfect fit for his character. I'm still not a Raven fan, but when he plays his mind games to this level and is able to sum up Abyss's entire career in one promo, he obviously has some chops on the mic. Just leave the "what about Raven" attitude out of his character, leave him dark and twisted, and I'll be happy. Plus, Daffney as psycho-gal is working well. And am I the only one who thinks Daffney is hot? Apparently not if you listened to Don West's comments. This whole angle between the psycho gang and Abyss was then counter-punched by Abyss's promo with Lauren later in the show. I'm still not a fan of this laughing lunatic Abyss, but at least this storyline is going somewhere, and right now, it's one of the more intriguing angles in all of TNA.
Daniels vs. Amazing Red: You had to know that when Amazing Red didn't even get his entrance that he wasn't winning this match. But the time that he gave in the ring with Daniels was white-hot action where if you blinked you missed it. I had to rewind the corkscrew plancha by Red; it was just that pretty to watch. Please give these two more time in the future.
IMPACT MISSES
Raven vs. Jethro Holliday - Clockwork Orange House of Fun Match: Once again, I have to give TNA a Miss for giving away a PPV-style gimmick match away on free TV without even so much as an advance notice. Raven briefly mentioned the match during his interview, but no one even mentioned the fact the Clockwork Orange match is a creation of Raven himself. I'll give Raven credit for putting on a decent show in his return match (unlike Shane Douglas last week), but there was no need for this hardcore-style match to be given away for no reason with no hype. I am going to keep trumpeting this theory until someone out there in TNA-land listens. STOP GIVING AWAY USELESS GIMMICK MATCHES!
Set Your Stopwatches: Four minutes. Outside of the three-way tag match at the end of the show, every other match on the card lasted no longer than four minutes. What kind of stamina do these guys have that they can lose a match in about four minutes? It's been an ongoing problem in TNA -- they want to feature as much of their talent as they can from top to bottom each week, so they cram everything together and wind up making hodgepodge results. The Knockouts match didn't really do anything for me, the Foley opening party segment was just so-so, there were just way too many backstage interviews for one show, and not enough in-ring action. And the one person who has been giving away some serious money promos, Eric Young, was a person TNA decides to leave off the card this week. What genius decided this?
Chris Reed is a new PWTorch Specialist covering TNA Impact with a weekly Hits & Misses column, replacing John Mezzera who is shifting his Thursday duties to the new WWE Superstars program instead.
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