IMPACT HITS & MISSES 10/26: The Company Jeff Jarrett Used To Be In Charge Of Proudly Presents: Random Nonsense For Two Hours!

HITS

Moose vs. Bobby Lashley: The last match of the show was the only good part about it. Moose and Lashley are two wrestlers who are among the most over in the company and they delivered a hard-hitting contest the crowd was into. If the entire show had this kind of energy, it would get a thumbs up. As we’ll soon discuss, that was far, far, far from the case. However, this match should also get its own miss for Impact AGAIN giving us a big preview of something fans will be paying to see in just over a week. But I have to be generous on something. So here it is, your one hit in two hours.

MISSES

Opening Match: I’d be angrier about this nonsense if they hadn’t already botched their own storyline beyond repair last week with the AAA and Impact guys fighting each other during the invasion storyline. This week was another jarring way to start the show and only continued this craptastic angle. James Storm and EC III had a decent feud heading into Slammiversary, but going into Bound For Glory, two of the top stars the company has are being completely wasted. And whatever happened to Pagano the evil clown? You know the guy they spent time and money on shooting vignettes for? Oh well. He’s forgotten, just like this entire storyline should be.

Marketing Mess: Who behind the scenes at Impact thought “with 10 days left to go before our biggest show of the year, what we REALLY need to entice fans to order the show is an angle involving Dutch Mantell being mad at Eli Drake for missing marketing appearances?” Fire this man/woman/child (and let’s hope it was a child because an adult coming up with that is quite sad) immediately. If this leads to Jim Cornette and Mantell screwing Drake out of the title, it’s an idiotic decision, but will at least make (some) sense. If it goes nowhere, it was an idiotic waste of TV time. I’m not sure which one to root for. And while Mantell and Cornette have proven in the past they can cut good promos, Scott D’Amore remains the most irrelevant and unnecessary on-air character in the promotion. His line about Impact having momentum was one of the unintentionally laughable lines all year. Hey Scott, check the ratings, attendance, merchandise figures, and overall public perception, then get back to me on the whole momentum thing.

Border City Wrestling: I’ve never seen Phil Atlas and Brent Banks on Impact TV before and I may never see them again. So maybe introducing them right now is not such a great idea. Also, this match looked awful from a production quality standpoint, meaning they should have left it in their vault. If they were missing footage due to the Jeff Jarrett/Alberto El Patron match having to be scrapped, they should have come up with a better backup plan. For example, take one of the production team members and have them fly around the country to shoot new interviews with Gail Kim, Allie, Grado, Joseph Park, etc., you know people who are actually going to be at Bound For Glory. Last I checked Atlas and Banks are not booked. Yes, it would have cost money to shoot new content, but the perception of putting this amateurish footage on worldwide TV will be far more damaging to their bottom line in the future than a couple grand for plane tickets.

GHC Title Match: Marufuji and Eddie Edwards appeared to put on an entertaining 26 match… and we saw a whole six minutes of it. What they should have done is scrapped every other international match they had on the episode and just aired this one in its entirety. Yes, it still has nothing to do with Bound For Glory, but we would have at least got one really good match on the show.

The X-Division Match: Petey Williams vs. Idris Abraham vs. Tarik vs. Kyomia has to be one of the most pointless matches in the history of Impact. What did it accomplish? What did it set up? Who are Tarik and Kyomia? Why does Abraham show up every few months for a night and then disappear? Are they ever going to get back to the angle they started THREE weeks ago of Petey trying to get a shot at the X Division Title at Bound For Glory? Will they ever get back to airing matches where I don’t have to put in a bunch of question marks?

Trevor Lee vs. Ultimo Ninja: I’ve been watching TNA since 2002. At no point has anyone ever explained to me who Ultimo Ninja is. Therefore, he is another new character we know nothing about. Will he ever return? Who knows! Also, believe it or not, this match too looked like leftover garbage from a production standpoint.

The J.B. Honorary Commentary Miss of the Night: I’ve come to realize that Jeremy Borash isn’t so much an announcer, as he is just a guy who repeats things we just heard. After the six sides of steel match was revealed in the main event, this is where he should have been losing his mind “Oh my God! Six sides of steel? This is going to be a can’t miss match! The chaos! The carnage! What will happen? You have to see this!” Not “Six sides of steel. The challenge has been thrown out.” Uh…thanks J.B., they uh…just said that. I could have got my niece to do the same thing.

Missing Knockouts: Gail Kim, the most popular woman in TNA/Impact history has her final match at BFG. She did not show up on Impact. Her name was not mentioned. This alone is worth a good rant but I only have so much space and sanity left at the moment.

Overall Show: Was this even an episode of Impact? Can it really qualify as that? It felt more like “The Company Jeff Jarrett Used To Be In Charge Of Proudly Presents: Random Nonsense For Two Hours!” Imagine watching this show with someone who’d never seen Impact before and trying to get them hooked on the product. Good luck trying to explain who half the people on the show were, or their backstories, or why they’re wrestling in all these different arenas, or what any of it has to do with anything. Give me a video camera, $10 for lunch, 20 wrestling action figures, and two hours and I’ll come up with something more logical and entertaining than this complete atrocity of an episode.