SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
HITS
KM’s Push: It’s nice to see Impact finally do something with KM again. He started out in a series of entertaining segments that saw him bully a bunch of people for absolutely no reason. Then he started jobbing out to everyone. His attempt to join America’s Top Team has been fun so far, and hopefully the end result is him being taken more seriously.
The Opening Match: Minor hit here. Ishimori and Hakim Zane put on an entertaining four minute match, but that’s all it was. Four minutes. The Japanese wrestler has been great in the ring, but creative has yet to give us any real reason to care about him. Still, a feud with him against Trevor Lee could deliver some good matches in the coming weeks.
The Neck Brace Guy: The character development for everyone in America’s Top Team has been non-existent, so as a non-MMA fan, I couldn’t tell you who a single one of them is. With that all said, the neck brace guy is doing a fantastic job! The laugh of the night was him about to attack James Storm and yelling out “My mom watches this!” before getting the tables turned on him.
Impact vs. El Patron: Another minor hit here. While the match itself was good, this is the absolute biggest match the promotion can offer from a star power standpoint. And so, they give it away on free TV with only a week’s worth of hype on a holiday episode that no one watched. Of course, they probably don’t have the patience to save this until Slammiversary, but with so little going on, they could at leave have built this up two weeks in advance. Overall, though, the fight was intense and had a couple of chaotic, violent moments that fit the tone of the ongoing feud. Also, the second laugh of the night was El Patron doing the sign of the cross before he jumped off the top rope…and attempted a double axe handle. Yes, many lives have been lost trying to hit the incredibly dangerous double axe handle.
The LAX Clubhouse: I say it nearly every week here, but LAX continues to be the best thing going on Impact. They are infinitely cooler than Johnny Impact, and yet, the former WWE star is the one positioned as the prized possession of the promotion at the moment. No one in the business cuts a promo like Konnan, and no one feels as real as him.
MISSES
DEFY: I feel like I’m a pretty well-versed wrestling fan. I’ve been watching various promotions for over 20 years of my life. I’ve never heard of DEFY. Josh Mathews told us it’s the biggest company in Washington state. My answer to that is “so?” No disrespect to the people of the great state of Washington, but why would a casual viewer care about Sami Callihan beating a guy we had never seen or heard of before in a promotion that 99% of the audience has never seen live? The footage also looked amateurish, and once again, they cut out big portions of the match. This type of travelling gimmick needs to end. They don’t advance storylines and the production values look like garbage in a dumpster on a warm summer’s day.
Another Park: Ethan Page has been one of the more notable indy talents over the past few years and he’s finally made his debut in a “major” company. What did they do with him? Made him the cousin of Abyss/Joseph Park. While the video they showed was kind of fun (though it tried way too hard to look low budget, to the point where an actual crappy local commercial would look leagues above it), this act seems incredibly limiting. Though to be fair, EC III coming in as the nephew of Dixie Carter felt like it was a dead end act, so maybe they can make this work.
Impact’s Promo: Johnny Impact simply can’t cut a babyface promo to save his life. It seems only the creative team in Lucha Underground understood how to use this guy, as his work on the mic in WWE and Impact has been all kinds of lousy. His weird speaking style simply takes awkwardness to a whole new level.
The Women’s Tournament: To crown the new Knockouts Champion, Impact went with a random six-woman tournament that badly shows how depleted the division currently is. If the company didn’t have such massive financial problems, it would have been great to see other veterans or indy standouts join in. Instead, Madison Rayne was the only one they could afford to bring back…most likely because she’s married to Josh Mathews so getting another plane ticket for her was a minimal cost.
Bonus Match of the Week: It’s time for Impact to stop showing these matches on air. Yes, they need to sell their streaming service, but damn, do these old clips look infinitely better than the current product. Ten years ago the production values were better, there was more star power, the announcing was superior, and the fans were far more enthusiastic. It somehow makes me nostalgic for old TNA. That is a weird and bad thing.
Weekly Announce Team Reminder: Time to note the weekly commentary miss! Somehow, heelish announcer Mathews had the only good call of the night when he lambasted El Patron for his cheating ways. “This man is a pathetic S.O.B.” Now when is Borash ever going to find some outrage over…anything? If the announcers don’t care about good guys being beaten down unfairly, then it sends a message to the viewers that they shouldn’t either.
NOW CHECK OUT THE PREVIOUS COLUMN: 11/16 IMPACT HITS & MISSES: Gail Kim’s night, OVW vs. LAX, James Storm’s promo, So long Abyss, Eli Drake vs. Petey for Impact Title
You’re wrong about Defy. many major stars have appeared there including Cody Rhodes. They sell out almost every show and if you bothered to even watch more than what Impact showed. You’d realize you’re missing out on a product that’s way better than the one you’re doing “Hits And Misses” on.
He also seemed to miss that they said this was one of the new “partners”, which is why they showed the product. I thought the match was decent. Even Callihan’s opponent was pretty entertaining. Some of these guys are just WWE marks. 🙁 That’s all they know. It’s sad.
I notice Andrew never has any comments when he gets called out, hhhmmm.
He will respond every once in a while. I just wish they would get people to cover Impact that were not so heavily biased in favor of WWE. There are those of us who are more “wrestling” fans than “sports entertainment” fans. I get that the WWE and it’s news are a huge part of the Torch, but I don’t remember them taking a dump on other wrestling organizations nearly as much as they do now, and I go all the way back to the days of receiving the Torch in the mail.
Wow, I am going to guess the IP address on that first comment registers from the STate of Washington.
I disagree with most of this HIt and Miss column, but don’t I always? Heheheh.
Overall, a good show. It was better, in my opinion, than both Raw and Smackdown, both of which I found really boring this week.
Andrew, do you have the same thoughts about the lackluster announcing teams in WWE? From week to week Booker T says random things that don’t make sense and you often can’t tell who is the heel or face announcer. It is what I would call a clusterfuck. I think Matthews is a far better announcer than anyone WWE has at the moment. Borash is kind of meh. I agree with that.