By Hubert O'Hearn, Torch specialist

-- 7/16 TNA IMPACT HITS & MISSES

IMPACT HITS

Opening Notes: Now that - THAT - is how you book a wrestling show. After a fairly rocky episode of Impact last week, TNA came back this week with two hours of surprising, entertaining, and intriguing television. Faith has been restored, my teeth are whiter, dogs and cats are best friends, and peace reigns eternal ... okay maybe not. But it was a damn good show.

Vince Russo's Finest Hours - Part of being an American is that you salute the flag. Part of being a Canadian is that you salute the beer. Part of being a wrestling fan is that you hate Vince Russo. It's been like that since the death of WCW. But we need to at some point face the reality of life and humanity. No one - NO ONE - sets out to write a bad show. You do your level-headed best every hour of every day, putting your best ideas forward. Sometimes those ideas are gold - Bill Goldberg's winning streak. Sometimes those ideas are, as the Irish say, shite - how Bill Goldberg's winning streak ended. To whatever degree the booking and writing of Thursday's show was the harvest of Russo's ideas, I don't know. I may be an insider, but I'm not an inside insider, if that makes sense. But if Russo's modus opandi is constant surprise, acid comedy, hardcore violence, and overt sexuality, he made the best two hours of TV in his career on Impact.

Every segment was unique - No segment failed particularly. The audience kept wondering what would happen next. This was everything that made me be a fan of wrestling in the first place, all the way back to when I wept happy tears when Red Bastien and Hercules Cortez won the tag titles over the Vachon Brothers. I cared about every moment and character in this show. So we can all go back to hating Vince Russo next week, but for this week - clap clap clap clap clap.

Robert Roode - In an episode filled with good, solid wrestling matches I have to give my greatest hits to Robert Roode. The first time I ever watched TNA, the first guy through the tunnel was Roode and at the time I thought, "Okay, so this is TNA. Am I going to care about this guy?" At the time and in the months following he reminded me of a Triple H in the rough. Thursday night he took that to another level in the six-way elimination tag against Kevin Nash, Booker T, and Scott Steiner (Harlem Pump). I hadn't really been able to see Roode as a babyface before this match, but now I get it. He sold like a bandit, made plausible comebacks, showed tremendous strength and agility and best of all - he did the job at the end unlike Trips who would have beaten all odds and destroyed the other three, effectively burying them.

X Division Title Change - Last week, I mentioned my belief that all titles should change hands on free (ok, cable) TV at least once a year. The transition from Suicide to Homicide was neatly done and frankly a briefcase cash-in is better done on a weekly show than on a Pay-Per-View. On a PPV, you pay your money to see This Guy beat That Guy and if This Guy is then defeated by This Other Guy it is somehow cheaper and guarantees that This Other Guy is going to be a heel. Ever since the injury to Hernandez - and frankly ever since Konnan's departure from TNA - LAX has been under-utilized and nearly forgotten. Putting the X Division strap on Homicide brings them back into the main event picture where they belong. Also, much like the Knockout title change last week, it was really good and logical to have the backstage follow-up interview with Homicide and Lauren afterwards. The greatest jinx in wrestling is saying, "TNA is bringing the X Division back to prominence." But this time I think it's true.

Don West - This still amazes me. If I'd been appointed god of TNA three months ago, I'd have fired Don West in a heartbeat. Now? Let's be honest. I'd take Don West over Jerry Lawler's stale act in a heartbeat. I single him out for actually making the Sharmell vs. Jenna Morasca match sound interesting. He conducted an outstanding backstage interview with them with precisely the right amount of "wink wink nudge nudge yeah we know this is Wrestlecrap" humor. ("Professional! Remember! Professional!") Don, in the baseball card collection of wrestling color men, is Tris Speaker.

Sarita vs. Alissa Flash - I figured that Sarita would debut with lots of luchador highspots. I didn't know that her opponent would be given an equally exciting debut, with Alissa's Elvis-like pout and skills to match. That was the best women's match I've seen since Gail Kim took on Awesome Kong and matched speed and guile against power. With Sarita, who I will call the Blue Bomber in honor of her hometown of Winnipeg, and Alissa, TNA has such a luxury of riches in the Knockout Division. By quick count, here are the women wrestlers who can actually carry a match in TNA: Sarita, Flash, Kong, Angelina Love, Tara, Daffney, ODB, and Velvet Sky. There's eight, and I haven't included Madison Rayne, Anonymous Taylor, or Sojourner Bolt. Eight great wrestlers + three question marks = a show in itself. If TNA ever does a one-time head-to-head against Raw, they should advertise one hour as being an all-Knockout spectacular. My gut tells me they would win the ratings battle, particularly in the all-important demographic groups of 12-15-year-old-boys, and 40-50 year-old-men who still live in their mom's basement. But all seriousness aside (as Steve Allen would say), watching Sarita is like watching Rob Van Dam with breasts ... we will now pause ten seconds for that unfortunate image to wash from your mind.

IMPACT MISSES

What is Control? - In an otherwise strong opening segment among Mick Foley, Kurt Angle and Sting one thing kept bothering me. If the Main Event Mafia wins the three men's titles at Victory Road, how exactly do they "control" TNA? For a company that loves its stipulations, they need to clear this one up. Would holding three titles mean that the holding group controlled the booking for a month? That could work. Could the title holder name his first challenger? That too would work. But right now, it's like my pointing my index finger and saying: "BEWARE MY DEATH RAY!" Except there is no death ray.

Big Kev - This pains me because I really do like Kevin Nash, and always have. He can be an announcer, a manager, hell make him the new J.J. Dillon and he'd be in his glory. But he can't wrestle any more. Ever. Putting him over A.J. Styles in the six-way elimination made sense if you think that Nash needed a pinfall after a month of jobbing, but that's short-term thinking. He needs to be transitioned out of the ring now rather than later. It is just painful to watch and with that mop of gray hair flopping around it's like watching some weird street person having a fit. Sorry, Kevin, you're the king of the stick, but in terms of the ring bell, ask not for whom the bell tolls...it tolls for thee.

Hubert O'Hearn is a new PWTorch Specialist covering TNA Impact with a weekly Hits & Misses column. You can read Hubert's Hits & Misses column and Chris Reed's new TNA Hits & Misses column weekly on PWTorch.com

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