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The Specialists
TNA IMPACT HITS & MISSES 10/15 - Super Hour with Styles vs. Angle, X Division focus, Meaningless gimmick match and brawl Oct 17, 2009 - 5:55:45 PM
The go-home show before Bound For Glory was a three-hour Super Impact (I can't believe they called it that) trying to hype as much as possible for this Sunday's big PPV. How successful was the hype? Here's what worked and what didn't.
IMPACT HITS
Hour Number Three: If anything made people want to buy the PPV this Sunday, it was everything that made up this third hour of TV. The match between Kurt Angle and A.J. Styles was a clinic in wrestling by both men that was pure, simple, and honest wrestling action. And then you has all of the video segments for the top matches that are going to be the biggest selling points of the show. I wish these video segments had been broken up over the past few weeks of Impact, because these segments were probably some of the best produced and best written videos that made the PPV look like something worth spending money on.
Ultimate X Announced For X-Division Title: I'm still not certain whether or not Don West makes for a good "voice" for Amazing Red, but I'll reserve judgment on that until I see more of how they interact. But up until this week, the X Division Title wasn't even on the line at the PPV. This week, the signature match of the X Division with the Ultimate X match was announced, and Amazing Red even threw in his proverbial hat in there to put his new X Division Title on the line. A late addition to the card, but a welcomed addition nonetheless. Too bad Motor City Machine Guns and Lethal Consequences got stuck with the pre-show match instead of actually getting some hype enough to where they also belonged on the card.
IMPACT MISSES
D'Angelo Dinero - The Pitchman: Dinero's backstage interview was more of a in-show commercial for the Stacker energy drink than it was a promo for his match at the PPV. I don't mind when wrestlers do promos for product (heck, DX does it all the time), but right now I want to see the wrestlers focusing on what is supposed to be the biggest PPV of the year, not pitching a product in the middle of an interview. And then Dinero's promo was immediately followed by a commercial for the exact same product, good grief.
Bobby Lashley vs. Rhino - Stretcher Match: A slow brawl that really went nowhere fast and looked really ugly while getting there. Plus, once again, we got a gimmick match thrown down our throats from TNA without much hype or relevance to it. And it didn't really do anything to make us look forward to a match on the PPV. The attack from Samoa Joe on Babby Lashley later did a better job of hyping a match then this garbage brawl did.
Hernandez Doesn't Break A Sweat: Isn't The British Invasion supposed to be one of the key factors in World Elite? Aren't they the IWGP World Tag Team Champions? And yet Hernandez plowed through all three members in a gauntlet match that made each one of them look like nothing more than mere jobbers. I still like the push for Hernandez, but British Invasion could have at least gotten in a little more offense, and maybe at the same time pushed their four-team tag title ladder match this Sunday at the same time.
Brawls To The Wall: I've really had it with each episode of Impact having a brawl in the show somewhere. This week, the four-person interview to hype the tag-team ladder match on Sunday broke down into a brawl yet again. Week after week of Impact has had a brawl that security officials have had to break up. It's not interesting anymore, and it's gotten boring to be honest. I really hope the four-team match at the PPV can end this feud between these four teams and we can bring in some new angles.
Chris Reed is a Torch specialist covering TNA Impact with his weekly Hits & Misses column.
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