IMPACT HITS & MISSES 10/19: Knockouts Main Event, Mitchell Returns, Eli Drake stripped, AAA five-way, Konnan’s challenge, Borash

HITS

Mitchell Returns: Jim Mitchell showing up on Impact is almost a guarantee for a hit. Quit having this guy disappear! If he’s interested in being a manager full-time again, give him a new monster to be the mouthpiece for. Yes, him hanging out in the back of Grado’s car was absurd and breaks every known narrative device known to wrestling, but I’ll admit I got a guilty chuckle out of Abyss’s theme song somehow playing on the radio.

Dan Lambert: This storyline stinks, the promo went on too long, and the content he had to deliver wasn’t that good, but hey, Dan Lambert is actually pretty good at cutting a wrestling promo. Not even joking, the guy is more interesting than 90 percent of the talent in WWE on the mic because what he says doesn’t feel overly-rehearsed. Much like Mitchell, if he wants to be a manager, let him stick around once this angle runs its course.

Knockout’s Main Event: Rosemary is one of the most popular acts in the company. Taya Valkyrie has been a solid addition to the roster. Having the two face off in the main event of the show is a rare victory for the Knockouts and is hopefully a sign of things to come. It seems it would have made a lot more sense to save this fresh match up for Bound For Glory, but it still served as an effective way to close the show.

MISSES

We Get It: It’s time to retire “_______  reminds me so much of myself.” This has become Josh Mathews’ lazy go-to phrase he pulls out every episode. It’s not an endearing term like “Slobberknocker,” it just reeks of him not knowing what to say so he goes to this tired line again and again.

Drake Stripped: Johnny Impact ripped off Eli Drake’s clothes after his match. Why? In the past, this sort of thing has been done, but they at least played it up like an embarrassing action used to humiliate the heel. The announcers didn’t bother to put that over; they didn’t even mention his clothes being torn off. Then why do it at all? Really, what is with this announce team? What is with this promotion?

The Five-Way Match Up: This is literally one of the weirdest chapters I’ve ever seen in a wrestling storyline. Impact is trying to get over an Impact vs. AAA war. So what do they do? They have a five-way match where AAA wrestlers wrestle each other and team up with their TV rivals. The sides weren’t even equal, because Impact had three men on their side! It was also completely jarring that they didn’t announce this ahead of time. I don’t care if this makes sense within the confines of a AAA story; that’s a completely different promotion, it’s not Impact. What happens on Impact should make logical sense within the show itself. If you watch WWE, you shouldn’t have to know the backstories of every ROH wrestler to understand what’s going on in their product. This match should have been heavily edited or not shown at all. Completely embarrassing and one of their dumbest segments in ages.

Konnan’s Challenge: Once again, some Impact babyfaces were made to look like complete idiots. Did OVE learn nothing from Moose? Don’t show up at the heel’s evil lair and expect to not get a beatdown. Also, the match looked awful from a production standpoint.

Andrew’s Conscious: Why did Andrew Everett attempt to stop Bobby Lashley and America’s Top Team? Seriously, could one single person on the creative team tell me why newly turned heel Everett gives a damn about who Dan Lambert’s team beats up? Do you think there will be an explanation next week? Me neither.

Borash: Yep. Jeremy Borash’s spot on here is almost guaranteed these days. Just one example, but after they cut back to him post-Mitchell and Grado, all he had to say was that the Sinister Minister was playing mind games. Now, considering Mitchell has only shown up on TV THREE TIMES IN THE PAST NINE years, you’d think the announce team could show some sort of emotion, like “surprise” for example. Nope. Hey, it’s hard to know exactly how to sell something so goofy and random but J.B. didn’t even try.

Overall Show: This was the worst episode of Impact all year. And that’s saying a lot. Bound For Glory is Impact’s version of WrestleMania, and with a few weeks to go until the event, this company is in shambles. The thought of spending actual money on their pay-per-view is more frightening than anything you’ll witness this Halloween. This was an amateurish effort and everyone on the creative team should be embarrassed for what they presented on national TV. There’s a reason why this show used to be watched by over a million people every week and now less than 300,000 remain. There’s no vision, there’s no storyline consistency, there’s almost no entertainment to be had in general. I compared the product to WCW Thunder in 1999 a few weeks ago, but at this point, that would be an insult to the rotting corpse of Thunder.

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S COLUMN: IMPACT WRESTLING HITS & MISSES 10/14: Impact vs. Garza, Konnan on the mic, Rosemary’s squash, Borash announcing, Video Packages

For more on this episode of Impact, check out the PWTorch Livecast Post-Impact podcast with Mike McMahon & Andrew Soucek… CLICK HERE

PWTorch Livecast Presents “Post-GFW Impact with Mike & Andrew” (10-19-17)