I can live with a lot of things. Wrestlers no-showing promised appearances, a match that does not live up to expectations, etc; however, one thing in professional wrestling that really gripes me is storylines not making logical sense. Last night’s edition of TNA iMPACT had so many flaws in the booking I felt the only way to clear my frustration was to write about it. The company made so many errors last night I wondered if anyone on the creative team or in upper management is following their own product. This is not intended to be a complete show review but is intended to highlight what I felt like were major mistakes made by TNA Wrestling during last night’s airing of iMPACT.
The show opened with the briefcase winners from the “Feast or Fired” match from Turning Point arriving at iMPACT with their cases. However, the cases ended up in the possession of Jim Cornette where he instructed Matt Morgan to “guard” them. When Morgan let the winners of the cases re-claim possession of them throughout the show, Cornette got pissed off and proclaimed that they are going to end up revealing the contents. First off all it would be nice if they would reveal the contents since I’ve already paid $30 to find out what is in the damn things, but if the wrestlers arrived at the arena with the cases that would mean they have been in possession of them for more three days. If they couldn’t open them earlier in the week, then why is Cornette upset about them having them at the show now? Why did I pay to see this match on PPV when I’ve had to wait until iMPACT and still don’t know what is them? Was Cornette not watching the show earlier when all of the winners arrived with the cases?
TNA actually held a ladder match between Black Machismo Jay Lethal and The Motor City Machine Guns vs. Johnny Devine and Team 3D to see who got possession of the X Division Title. What the %@$%? Jay Lethal is your X DIVISION CHAMPION! He does not have the belt because it was stolen from him. Why does he have to work a match to get a belt that is his back? This made no sense what-so-ever to me. If they wanted to have a ladder match for the X Division title, then have a ladder match for the X Division title. If they want to continue to play up the fact that Team 3D stole the belt, then play up the storyline. But to have a match to see who gets possession of the championship is ridiculous. There are not even words to describe how frustrated this makes me. How is TNA management going sanction a match to see who gets the possession of a stolen belt? Another storyline that makes no logical sense!
The company tried to play off an extremely good Gail Kim vs. Awesome Kong match at Turning Point by booking Gail Kim against ODB on last night’s iMPACT. However, they booked it in a way that made no logical sense. TNA had ODB hit Gail Kim with her flask when the referee wasn’t looking, giving ODB the pinfall in the nontitle match. I understood that part but the trick came when Awesome Kong came out and started to beat up on Gail Kim. Kim was already knocked out so why was Kong sent out to further destroy her? Shouldn’t the company have booked their Knockouts Champion over ODB only to have Awesome Kong come out and destroy her while she was celebrating?
The last thing that TNA did on this week’s episode of iMPACT that really got on my nerves was the way that they aligned Samoa Joe, Kevin Nash, Kaz, Booker T, and Eric Young. This made for a good 10 man tag team main event, however, on Turning Point Nash got so mad at Joe that he didn’t even celebrate with him or Young and even refused to sell his spots. On this week’s edition of iMPACT they made it look like Kevin Nash and Samoa Joe were now boyfriends! None of what happened at Turning Point was explained and we were led on to believe that everything is fine between Joe and Nash. Samoa Joe cut such a dramatic promo that it cut the lackluster main event short at Turning Point and TNA did nothing what-so-ever to follow up on it. Why did they waste all of the PPV time with the promo if they weren’t going to play it up? Joe might have gotten carried away but the fact is that he said it and you must play that up! To forget about it makes me feel like I wasted my $30 to hear it in the first place! Talking on a PPV is generally a no-no but when it happens, it better be for a damn good explanation!
I don’t know who it is messing all of this up in TNA, but someone needs to show them the Turning Point pay-per-view and this week’s edition of iMPACT. There was no correlation, no fallout, and several storylines that did not make logical sense. I’m out $30 (as is anyone that ordered Turning Point) and not only did we get two significant no-shows at Turning Point but we still do not know who won the Feast or Fired bout. The company better get their act together because it is stuff like this that is going to chase loyal fans away. We as fans are not stupid and do not deserve to be treated like idiots. Last night’s show seemed like it was booked by someone that had never followed the TNA product.
Richard can be contacted at richard [at] grayinternet.com
Richard Gray is a professional wrestling journalist and frequent contributor to Rajah.com. He has been covering the world of professional wrestling since 1999 and has had the opportunity to cover ground breaking stories such as the demise of ECW, the WCW buyout, the Benoit tragedy, and more. For more on Richard check out his web site at WrestlingNewsWorld.com.