By Shane McKinley, PWTorch specialist

"No place to hide
You were fighting as a soldier on their side
You're still a soldier in your mind
Though nothing's on the line"
-"Intervention" by The Arcade Fire

A word of caution to any 40-plus-year-old walking the dimly-lit backstage halls of the Impact Zone: Paul Heyman is gonna chop your frickin' head off.




-The Sandman is with TNA. I know, shocking. Because all he does now are five second cameos. If you blink, he's gone. Did you see him? Oh man, he was right there. So we're going to play a game with this absurd article. See if you can find the word "Sandman" in this article. If you find it and email me the exact location where you found it, you'll get $50 bucks from me to spend on a WWE PPV. No fooling.

So, it looks like the Heyman deal has fallen through, but never fear, we have a brand feud in place: ECW vs. Fortune. You see, it's the poor slobs vs. the rich snobs. Oh no, Tommy D! Ya gotta save the local rec center from the mean real estate developer, Mr. Flair!

-Commercial break: George Clooney is the new James Bond. Because we killed the real one.

-Fortune comes out, Armani suits and Ray-Bans on. You know, real Main Event Mafia stuff. Just slap on a suit and sunglasses and you're a heel prick. The Mid-Card Mafia talks about how great they are and how much ECW sucked, when, suddenly, here comes ECW! These poor bums look like they don't even own a pair of glasses, or can afford one. They're just like me. I can totally relate.

ECW vs. MCM is better than nothing. I wouldn't mind seeing Raven vs. A.J. Styles, for example. But there are some things they should work on, namely one: it's hard to believe Flair when he says that he hates that hardcore wrestling crud. Pop quiz: Which TNA wrestler...

(1) Bleeds nearly every time he is front in people (matches, cub scout meetings, church choir, etc.). ... (2) Is mentally insane. ... (3) Has shown tendencies to be extremely violent and cruel in the ring?

A. Tommy Dreamer
B. Ric Flair
C. Both A & B
D. Stalk Dixie Carter on Twitter!

If they put a real scum bucket who the old ECW loathed (say, an Eric Bischoff-like figure), then I could start to feel real motivation in seeing ECW win this battle. And then hug afterwards and dance.

-Commercial break: That Ford All-American apple-pie eating prick who always wears a hat is now modeling jeans. It's like the late Jim Varney decided to show off his rear-end in denim.

-The second main angle that is going on is the Chase for the Gold championship tournament, which is fine and dandy, if you care about who wins that tinfoil belt. If Angle and Hardy win...yawn. Anderson or Pope winning would be fun, until they get dropped like Jay Lethal. It's pretty sad that the main reason why RVD was stripped of the title was because TNA used up RVD's dates. But that what happens when you're TNA management.

-Rob Terry...sorry to do this to you lad, but you're at the top of the list for worst wrestling character of 2010. We're supposed to do the happy dance when Mr. Supplements does a simple slam without messing it up too badly. But, to be fair, if Rob Terry was on NXT...

-They showed Anderson looking into a mirror. Directors do this "character looking into the mirror" trick to convey that the character is being introspective and looking into his soul. The only thing introspective about Anderson's character lately is the "asshole" chant.

-Commercial break: The American Revolution, or when George Washington ran over a lot of British Redcoats with a muscle car. Hells yeah.

-That mysterious biker chick hanging around the Beautiful People has an awfully huge black helmet. I feel like I'm seeing "Dark Helmet" from "Spaceballs."

-Now, whenever I turn off the lights, I expect to trip over Hulk Hogan taking a nap. Regarding the Hogan/Jarrett vs. Sting/Nash feud (or the Old Man WCW feud), the date of 10/10/10 (which apparently the feud will culminate in a match) seems so far away. Usually, a PPV feud features a story that a regular Joe can connect to, not just some petty personal grievances that are barely explained.

Luckily, the Mid-Card Mafia was there to beat up these old fools to save us from Jarrett's droning. Why did they do this? Um...no idea. But Fortune is just like Nexus...right? They are as feared, right? They're not just some directionless mid-carders who became Flair's goons, right? They have a British guy now (Doug Williams = Wade Barrett?), you know.

-Commercial break: The Mafia II videogame is coming out. Jersey Shore II is starting up. Italian-American stereotypes, you gotta love them.

-Kurt Angle delivered another satisfying Angle match, even though Angle is morphing to a scraggier version of Randy Couture every time I see him.

-It's amazing to me that the Motor City Machine Guns got big time love from TNA in that lengthy video package. TNA even announced that MCMG will be shown next week. Before this tag title run, we had to check if MCMG was still on the roster at certain times.

-Dreamer's idea of looking like a badass: space-age rocket boots and oversized batting gloves. The word is that Dreamer's urging to wear a cape and space goggles was shot down.

Overall, Impact was a ho-hum show. Flair vs. Dreamer is indeed surreal, and there could be some interesting match-ups, but I'm looking for more to this angle than just guys screaming about how much they are going to kick each other's ass. I'm hoping a real emotional connection can be made to make the fans really invest their emotions into this feud. Like "Jarrett's young daughters" or "Sting's unexplained heel turn." Oh wait, you have to sit through "TNA Reaction" and listen to confusing real-life/kayfabe comments from the TNA wrestlers to get the entire picture. (A Madison Rayne comment usually takes the cake. It's like, "What the hell are you talking about?")

That's it for me. Oh, did you remember The Sandman game? I lied. But, see if you can find him in this picture titled "Where's Sandman?"




Impact's Absurd Verdict: In The Middle Of Absurdity

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com

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