Bax Reax: TNA Impact 10/20
By Matt Baxendell, PWTorch Impact specialist

Why does TNA do this every year after Bound for Glory? Coming off of the biggest show of the year in 2010, TNA absolutely killed momentum (and ratings) by starting the show off with a 40-minute talking segment. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like they learned their lesson from that debacle, as this week’s show had a similarly long and dragging opening segment.

The result was a show with a mere seven minutes of wrestling. Remember how wrestling was supposed to matter? Instead, the show had what felt like hours of talking, from Immortal, from the Knockouts, from Jeff Jarrett, from Eric Bischoff, and from Sting. Note to TNA: There is no audience outside of the Bischoff Family that cares about Bischoff and his son feuding. Just two more non-wrestlers taking up valuable air time on a show where non-wrestlers already get entirely too much focus.

Then, there was the World Championship “match” that saw James Storm become the new champion. Before I tear the booking apart here, let me make one thing clear: I could not be happier that "Cowboy" James Storm is the champ. I advocated for him to be the winner of the BFG Series and I think he’s a cross between Dusty Rhodes and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. High praise, I know, but I think he has the potential to be a real breakout star.

But, all of that aside, if Storm was going to win the title, then it should have been him, not Roode, who faced Kurt Angle at Bound for Glory. Instead, Storm looks like he picked up the scraps after Bobby Roode wore Angle down and winning a World Title in less than three minutes boggles my mind. It was up there with Sting-Hardy at Victory Road for one of the shortest title matches since Nash-Backlund in 1994. Either way, if TNA is going to really establish Storm as the next breakout champion, then they need to have him hold the belt for a few months to build credibility after such a quick title change.

I have to earnestly hope that this is an aberration show, which reset the company with Sting as the Commissioner and James Storm as a World Champion. I hope they don’t hotshot Storm-Roode as a headline feud when that is the kind of story you can build over six months or a year and have it culminate at Lockout or BFG 2012. If there really is a new Creative regime, then maybe there is some hope.

Either way, this was a tough episode of Impact to watch because there was virtually no wrestling. I hope the Sting/Storm era focuses a lot more on the great young talent and their ability to go inside the squared circle instead of endless amounts of talking like on Thursday's show.

***

I’ll be in Macon, Georgia, next week to cover the Impact TV taping for the Pro Wrestling Torch. Much like my trip to Huntsville in August, I’ll be tweeting updates and photos @MattBaxendell, so be sure to follow along next Wednesday!

I also had the opportunity to join the A1Wrestling Podcast this past week to discuss all things Impact at-length. We discussed Vince Russo’s removal, Bound for Glory, James Storm’s big win, and what legend I think would be a slam-dunk on color commentary, so check out the show at A1-Wrestling.com.

Matt Baxendell is PWTorch’s specialist covering Impact Wrestling. He strongly believes that Impact needs to start focusing on their young stars and building up the importance of their championships if they ever want to really grow. Follow him on Twitter @MattBaxendell or hit him up on email at matt.baxendell@gmail.com.

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