Bryan Staebell
Impact Recap for 12/26
TNA was in a holding pattern on this episode of Impact. Most of their top storylines saw little to no advancement. The one thing they did focus on was the Sting/EC3 story. EC3 scored a fluke roll-up on Sting to win the 4-2 main event tag match for his team (Rockstar Spud and the Bro Mans) over Sting and Jeff Hardy. It was the exact right finish. Following the match Jeff Hardy announced he was quitting TNA. Hardy has to be written off of TV for a while because they’ll be filming 6 weeks of Impact in England…and Hardy isn’t allowed to travel there. The match wasn’t all that memorable aside from the image of the winners hoisting EC3 on their shoulders as they celebrated. It was refreshing to see new talent (and this goes for all 5 guys, including Ion as Bro Mans’ DJ) getting the focus instead of retreads.
Joseph Park defeated Bad Influence in a Monsters Ball match when he Abyss’d out and destroyed them. This was actually pretty good. Bad Influence spent a long time working Park over while taking care to not bust him open. Eventually, of course, he bled and you know what happened next. Hopefully this is the end of the Joseph Park character as we know it…as fun as the story of this match was this time…it isn’t one you can do over and over.
Lei’D Tapa beat ODB after Gail Kim interfered. Gail having to interfere is a joke…Tapa should have destroyed ODB. Match wasn’t that bad.
The only other match on the show saw James Storm and Gunner go to a double count-out in a match for Gunner’s World title shot briefcase. The animosity between the two finally came to a head although neither guy has turned heel yet. I’m under the impression that the turn will come at Genesis on 1/16 when they face off for the briefcase again.
The best thing on the show were a series of pre-taped videos of new TNA Champion Magnus telling the story of his career and how he became champion. These did a really good job of explaining everything from why he would side with Dixie to why EC3 attacked him first in the title match. It also allowed for him to look back at the major moments of his career through the eyes of a heel who made it to the top…which leads to a pretty funny burial of all the bad creative decisions he was saddled with.
The only other thing of note on this week’s Impact was a segment where Bully Ray continued to unveil his new character. This is a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that his slow methodical promos threatening a heightened level of violence are quite interesting. The bad news is they keep playing this ominous music in the background behind them. They need to drop that in a hurry as it makes something that should come off as different and compelling….come off like a joke. Anyway in the segment he got rid of Brook Tessmacher.
Impact Preview for 1/2
Another week…another preview for an already taped show. This will be a much more newsworthy show than this week’s episode.
Magnus will have his coronation ceremony and they’ll have the big angle they had to rush because AJ Styles contract ran out.
Austin Aries defends the X title against Chris Sabin
Samuel Shaw makes his debut (might be next week though…they tape out of order)
Gail Kim and EC3 have open challenges
Bobby Roode and Kurt Angle face off in a tag match where they actually pick some interesting partners. Especially Roode.
Random Words
Jeff Jarrett left the company this week. He had been slowly gaining back some of his power until his abrupt resignation. He still owns the minority share of the company. The Wrestling Observer reported that his leaving may have been due to a potential sale of the company (where his power would have been restored) falling through.
Word is starting to spread that AJ Styles has re-signed with TNA. Indy promoters around the country believe that it’s a done deal anyway.
The next live Impact will be Genesis from Huntsville Alabama (the site of their first ever show) on 1/16. After that show they head to the UK at the end of the month to tape 6 weeks of TV. So if Styles has re-signed we either see him on these shows…or not until sometime in March.
Speaking of running shows…they have a ton of them over the next couple of months compared to what they had been running. They are, as I right this, in the middle of a 4 night swing in the Northeast where they will tape 2 One Night Only shows. From there they have (in addition to the UK tour and Genesis) 15 house shows on the books before the end of February. They will also be doing Lockdown on actual PPV this spring (the first TNA live PPV since Bound For Glory in October) from a location that hasn’t been announced yet.
