By Curtis Shanks, PWTorch Specialist

Welcome to the Under the Microscope review of TNA Impact. This is not a detailed recap of the show, but a review for those of you that saw the show but didn't actually "watch" it. We're here to point out those little tidbits you may have missed, make some random observations, or use a little research to dig deeper into what was on the show. Cue the opening pyro.

I'm thankful that the tradition is dead

In years past, the Thanksgiving edition of Impact was usually one of the year's worst. Eye-rolling ensued each year, as wrestlers battled it out in the ring to avoid wearing a stupid turkey suit. The yearly tradition is over, as we get a new tournament this year. Instead of costumes, we're focusing on title opportunities. That's much easier to watch. While this year's tournament is leaps and bounds ahead of previous ones, it still may have been overshadowed by the round of matches on Raw this week.

Only non-world champs could qualify on Raw, a concept that could be interesting to watch on Impact. Raw gave us some fresh faces and fresh match-ups, but TNA has the potential to do the same. Who needs entrants like Angle, Lashley, and Abyss when you could have a non-world champ card consisting of The Guns, The Brits, Matt Morgan, Hernandez, Beer Money, Jay Lethal, Daniels, Desmond Wolfe, and a slew of X Division guys?

Tournament match(es)

Before our first tournament match was even finished, Mike Tenay made a slip-up that gave away a first-round result. With Kristal Lashley accompanying her husband to the ring, Tenay mentioned that TNA officials had given the okay for Kirstal to be out here for these "matches." Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but the fact that Tenay mentioned she would be out for more than one match immediately gave away the first result.

Super Super Super Super Impact

This week's tournament matches are important to the wrestlers in the ring, and those in charge at TNA realize this. While most Impact matches are given a ten-minute time limit, our first round matches were announced as having a 20-minute time limit. As the show progressed, we heard that second round matches had a 30-minute time limit and the final match had a 60-minute time limit.

It's a good thing all those matches didn't hit their time limit. Four first round, two second round, and one final match would have given us a total of three hours and twenty minutes of match time. That's not even including the KO battle royal, which didn't have an announced limit. A five-hour Impact might not have held my attention for its duration. However, I'm even more thankful that every match didn't reach its limit because I don't think I could have survived almost two hours of Bobby Lashley wrestling in one sitting.

A thumb to the throat

As Homicide applied a standard vice grip to the neck and shoulder of his opponent, Taz and Tenay gave us a little bit of a history lesson with an Ernie Ladd reference. As they mentioned, the move has a name (no, not a Vulcan nerve pinch) - the Asiatic Spike. Plenty of wrestlers aside from Ladd have used the spike throughout their careers. Don Muraco (Asian Spike), Necro Butcher, Terry Gordy (father of WWE's Slam Master J), Glacier (Ice Pick), Kevin Sullivan (Golden Spike), and Umaga (Samoan Spike) have used variations of the hold. Even the most basic and boring moves inside the wrestling ring have some sort of a history lesson behind them.

Coming soon

Mick Foley is desperate to know who Hogan is bringing to TNA with him. He tries to get a straight answer from Kevin Nash, but is only met with mentions of Virgil, Brian Knobbs, and The Disciple (Ed Leslie). The Disciple reference may have been lost to some, as Leslie was more famous for his Brutus the Beefcake persona during his WWF days.

Brutus was known as The Disciple during his WCW run, as it was a play off of the Disciples of Apocalypse faction in WWE at the time. Crush, Chainz, Skull, and 8Ball - who could forget a crew like that. To refresh your memory, they weren't known for much of anything other than being four big dudes with goatees and leather jackets. Brutus even named his finisher in WCW "The Apocalypse" to further reference the faction.

The Disciple mention wasn't just a name pulled out of a hat. Brutus is good friends with Hogan, and is currently wrestling on the Hulkamania tour through Australia. We all know that Ric Flair is also on the tour, but there are plenty of other names from WWE's past along for the ride. Eugene, Val Venis, Shannon Moore, Heidenreich, Mr. Kennedy, Rosey, Umaga, Orlando Jordan, and Rikishi are all touring down under with Hulk Hogan.

A world title in limbo

We've done a lot of number crunches over the history of the Microscope. Many of them involve numbers with heavyweight title reigns. But WWE's view of one of their titles may skew those numbers. I've always thought of WWE having three World titles - World Heavyweight, WWE, and ECW. But WWE might view the ECW belt as nothing more than a secondary title. Three former ECW champs were allowed to compete in qualifying matches this past Monday, despite the no world champs allowed rule. Chavo Guerrero, Jack Swagger, and Mark Henry have all held World titles in my view, but apparently not in the WWE world.

Double or nothing?

As mentioned on the Torch main page earlier this week, TNA established betting odds for all of the participants in this week's number one contender tournament. This seems quite ridiculous for a staged wrestling show, but I appreciate the effort by TNA to try something unique. You can bet on anything and everything in the world of sports, so why not in the wrestling world? Here's a few odds I've posted for the next edition of Impact.

Odds on A.J. Styles getting booked like a world champ - 300:1
Odds on security appearing in two of the first three segments - 3:1
Odds on the entire X Division being misused - 2:1
Odds on a silly overbooked match finish causing us all to scratch our heads - Even

For all of you gamblers out there, Bobby Lashley won with his 3:1 odds. It would have been best to play it safe and not bet against the odds this week. Only one tournament match (Roode defeating Angle) saw the underdog pull out the victory.

Numbers crunch - Stepping stones

Raw definitely pleased many in the Internet world this week, as most smart fans are tired of the same old faces in the main events and are desperate for some new blood. But you can't just throw anybody into the fold, you've got to build them up and let them get experience in the ring, on the mic, and playing off the crowd. In my opinion, that should be the purpose of a lot of the secondary titles in promotions - stepping stones to main event status and World titles. But what do the numbers say about secondary titleholders winning world titles?

There have been plenty of main-event caliber wrestlers to hold secondary titles, but plenty of one-hit wonders as well. If we look through the history of some of WWE's and TNA's titles, we see that far more of WWE's wrestlers have added a heavyweight title to their resume. Here's a look at the percentage of individuals who have held each title who have also held a World Title at some point.

WWE United States - 8 of 16 (50 percent)
WWE Intercontinental - 31 of 63 (49 percent)
WWE European - 12 of 37 (32 percent)
WWE Tag Team - 42 of 181 (23 percent)
TNA Tag Team - 9 of 42 (21 percent)
TNA X Division - 4 of 20 (20 percent)
WWE Lightweight/Cruiserweight - 5 of 28 (18 percent)

WWE is clearly leading the way in secondary holders with World titles, but that doesn't necessarily mean that each one was a wrestler rising through the ranks. The Rock winning the IC Ttle before becoming a main-eventer is much different that Ric Flair winning the IC Title long after his main event days. So we'll look at secondary titleholders to win a World Title after a secondary. We'll also look at each and every reign, not just individual wrestlers. Here's the total percentage of title reigns that saw the individual later win a World Title.

WWE Intercontinental - 74 percent
WWE United States - 71 percent
WWE European - 36 percent
WWE Tag Team - 28 percent
TNA X Division - 24 percent
WWE Lightweight/Cruiserweight - 22 percent
TNA Tag Team - 10 percent

Of all the reigns during the history of the Intercontinental Title, nearly three-fourths saw that individual later win a World Title. When Rob Van Dam won the IC title on March 17, 2002, that began a streak of 16 IC reigns where the holder would go on to later win a World Title. It wasn't until Shelton Benjamin won the title on October 19, 2004 that we saw a wrestler fail to win a World Title after holding the IC title. In the history of TNA's X and Tag Team titles, there has been only one instance of three consecutive reigns of future world champs - the tag titles going from Joe to Angle to Angle & Sting.

Curtis Shanks is a self-described wrestling nerd who, contrary to popular belief, does have a social life. Feedback is welcome as comments, suggestions and questions can be sent to Curtis at curtisshanks.torch@gmail.com.

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