Post by Richard on Sept 25, 2007 11:32:38 GMT -5
The man who sent in the spoilers later sent in his thoughts on them. Its a little more detailed:
THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS FROM FIRST REGULAR TWO-HOUR IMPACT TAPING
by Richard Trionfo @ 12:25:00 PM on 9/25/2007
On Monday night, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling taped the first episode of Impact for the new two hour timeslot. Here are my thoughts and observations from this historic taping.
The Matches
I did not expect to see the first person to come out for a wrestling match in the New Era of TNA to be Black Reign. The match between Rhino and Black Reign was average and not the way that I would have started the show, but the crowd was really into the match. I don’t know why Raven came out during the match. Is there an alliance between Black Reign and Raven? I did like that Raven pulled Black Reign out of the way of the GORE, but why couldn’t he take the GORE instead of getting pinned by a rollup?
The Jackie Moore match against Gail Kim was okay. The match was really too short to get into the action but I liked the finish to the match. It seemed like the purpose of this match was to build for the Women’s Title Gauntlet Match at Bound for Glory than anything else on this show.
The Team 3D match against Team Pacman was okay, but it could have been a lot better. I will discuss in more detail the angle to get Team 3D the title match, but they did a 180 from the way will be acting on this week’s episode of Impact as well as the way they handled Jay Lethal, Shark Boy, and Sonjay Dutt. This match seemed out of place as a TNA Tag Team Title Match because Team 3D did not appear to take this match seriously. They demanded a title match earlier in the show, but then they wrestle this type of match. I really hope there was a backstage segment to explain the interference by Kip and BG James during the match.
The Gauntlet Match was okay, but I did not think they needed to do this type of match on this show. While it gets ten people onto television, thing are so frenetic during this match that the wrestlers do not have a chance to get over. This match also felt like it was a way to get the people who were not already in matches on the show. There were a lot of things that they packed into this thirteen minute match. I did like that the Motor City Machine Guns were able to dominate for a short period of time and eliminate two people. It would have been more if not for Hoyt moving out of the way and Sabin going over the top rope to the floor. It was weird to see Roode and Young eliminate someone together. There were a few things that occurred in this match that also happened in the Gauntlet Match at No Surrender. They did the spots with Jimmy Rave applying the Fujiwara arm bar and Eric Young with the side head lock from the pay per view match. There were a lot of spots with a wrestler being sent to the apron only to hang on. The only ‘why are they doing this in a Battle Royale’ spot was when Alex Shelley went up top and he got eliminated by Lance Hoyt. There were a lot of similarities with the other gauntlet because the ‘wrestling match’ at the end of the gauntlet was around 90 seconds in length. I was very surprised that Eric Young won the match, but maybe they are going to give him a push.
I had some fears going into the main event because of the first three matches having outside interference or run ins and with the people involved in the match, I expected it to happen. I was pleasantly surprised and thought this was a great eleven and a half minute television match. This might have been the match that benefited most from the two hour time slot because there was no need to try to fit twelve minutes of moves and spots into an eight minute match. Nothing seemed rushed during the match. It did a lot to build the matches at Bound for Glory involving these wrestlers. The best thing about this match was that there was a clean finish and no outside interference at all during the match. I don’t consider Elix Skipper getting involved as ‘outside interference’. The only thing I didn’t like about the match was that Junior Fatu gave Elix Skipper the Fatu Driver because he was not in the match. I also wish that it would have been Christian who took the pin, but the way that he got out of the muscle buster was well done with Senshi knocking him off the top turnbuckle with a Tidal Crush that missed the target.
The Angles
There was not much that we between Kurt Angle and Sting since Angle was not in the building. The only thing we saw was Kurt Angle appear on the screen after Sting cleared the ring at the end of the Black Reign match against Rhino. With Angle at Sting’s son’s school, it seems like they are portraying Angle as the face in this match while Sting is being portrayed as the bad guy for not being there for his family. Didn’t we already see Sting’s family involved in a storyline with Christian Cage? I would assume that we will see more from Angle and Sting on the show that was pre-recorded.
For a while, I thought that Team 3D was getting stale both in the ring and with their promos when they were faces. Since they have turned heel, they have regained the spark that they had when they were the top heel tag team in the business. While I might not like the tag teams that they have gone through, they have shown the intensity that they had when they first sought the NWA Tag Team Titles. With the way that the crowd reacts to Team 3D, they have taken the heel role perfectly. I like that they are willing to do anything to get their title match.
They have done a lot to build interest in the Women’s division over the last few weeks with the five way match that will air this week on Impact and the women’s match on this week’s show. I expected to see the other women come to the ring to watch the match between Gail and Jackie so I was surprised that Traci did not come out during the match since Roxxi Laveaux and Christy Hemme came out. I wonder if we will see any of the other five women in the match
Xplosion Matches
The Jimmy Rave match against Eric Young was okay. I don’t know if they have properly utilized Jimmy Rave in his time in the company. I would hope that he would do more because he did not get much done during this match and the only major offensive spot was due to Lance Hoyt’s interference.
The Havok match against Jay Lethal was the better of the Xplosion matches but it was interesting to see how they booked Lethal in this match. It was a continuation of the way that he has been built since the pay per view. He got laid out again during Impact, this time by Team 3D and then he is outwrestled by Havok. I did not subscribe to the theory that since Daniels beat Lethal, it makes Lethal’s victory over Angle worthless. However, with the way that Lethal has been beaten up and wrestled over the last few weeks, it might have affected him. Havok controlled the match until he missed a moonsault.
Other Thoughts and Observations
I know that it was reported that the first show would be done ‘live to tape’ so I was a bit surprised that they taped the two hour show in about one hour and thirty five minutes. I was also surprised that they did not air any of the backstage segments besides the Team 3D segment where they attacked Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt. There are a lot of times when things happen during the tapings where people wonder what the deal is but it would have been cleared up if they had shown the segment in the back.
I was someone who has been critical of the amount of wrestling that is usually on the one hour editions of Impact, but for those of you who were worried that we would not get that much wrestling on this show, there was over forty minutes of wrestling. With the magic of editing, they can stretch the matches even longer.
Like I mentioned above, I was surprised that Black Reign was in the first match for the new two-hour Impact.
I assume that with the reports of Judas Mesias’s injury, if they are going to do a Monster’s Ball Match at Bound for Glory, they need to add people to what appeared to be a match that had Abyss, Judas Mesias, and Rhino. I don’t know if they are going to add Black Reign or Raven into this match but it would make it a match with two faces and two heels.
One thing that TNA has been guilty of is throwing too much out in a short period of time. As I mentioned in my discussion above, the main event benefited the most from the two hours because the match did not seem rushed. However, was it really necessary for five people to get involved in the post match activities of the Black Reign/Rhino match? That does not even include Kurt Angle’s cameo on the video screen. Then during the women’s match, in addition to the other two women, you had the Voodoo Kin Mafia, Jimmy Rave, and Lance Hoyt at ringside. There was too much clutter at that point. I have no idea why the Voodoo Kin Mafia interfered in the TNA Tag Title Match. Are they feuding with Team Pacman? I could see A.J. Styles and Tomko interfere to keep the titles on Team Pacman, but not the Voodoo Kin Mafia.
Where was Tomko? He did not come to ringside with Christian and A.J. Styles during the main event and I expected to see him interfere in the main event if there was going to be any interference.
After the women’s match, when Gail Kim was able to escape the three-on-one attack, I was almost expecting to see one of the five new women get involved in the action and attack Gail from behind since her back was to the Chute of Facial Impact.
It seemed a bit strange that they would have the first regular two hour episode of Impact with so little from Kurt Angle. He is the champion and probably one of the most recognizable people on the roster to the general wrestling fan.
I don’t know why they did a Gauntlet Match on this show? Were they showing this match to give people who might be watching Impact for the first time an idea of what they are going to see at the pay per view? I did not hear them announce what the winner of the Gauntlet Match would get so it felt like a ‘we need to get more people on the show’ match.
Of the wrestlers who were never in the WWE or WCW, the most popular wrestlers in the Impact Zone are Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin. I like that they are now coming out of the Chute of Facial Impact because it is strange to see them come out of the Chute of Heelish Impact and get cheered.
Does there have to be a dueling chant every match? I was talking to a friend of mine at the show and we both commented that there are few wrestlers in the company who are ‘hated’.
The best match of the night by far was the main event. The thing that made me like the main event so much is that there was no outside interference, other than what Elix Skipper did. However, Elix was already at ringside so it did not feel the same as all of the interference during the first three matches. It did not feel rushed and there was enough action that allowed the crowd to stay in the match and not get burned out by any sequence that threw in too much action in a short time.
THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS FROM FIRST REGULAR TWO-HOUR IMPACT TAPING
by Richard Trionfo @ 12:25:00 PM on 9/25/2007
On Monday night, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling taped the first episode of Impact for the new two hour timeslot. Here are my thoughts and observations from this historic taping.
The Matches
I did not expect to see the first person to come out for a wrestling match in the New Era of TNA to be Black Reign. The match between Rhino and Black Reign was average and not the way that I would have started the show, but the crowd was really into the match. I don’t know why Raven came out during the match. Is there an alliance between Black Reign and Raven? I did like that Raven pulled Black Reign out of the way of the GORE, but why couldn’t he take the GORE instead of getting pinned by a rollup?
The Jackie Moore match against Gail Kim was okay. The match was really too short to get into the action but I liked the finish to the match. It seemed like the purpose of this match was to build for the Women’s Title Gauntlet Match at Bound for Glory than anything else on this show.
The Team 3D match against Team Pacman was okay, but it could have been a lot better. I will discuss in more detail the angle to get Team 3D the title match, but they did a 180 from the way will be acting on this week’s episode of Impact as well as the way they handled Jay Lethal, Shark Boy, and Sonjay Dutt. This match seemed out of place as a TNA Tag Team Title Match because Team 3D did not appear to take this match seriously. They demanded a title match earlier in the show, but then they wrestle this type of match. I really hope there was a backstage segment to explain the interference by Kip and BG James during the match.
The Gauntlet Match was okay, but I did not think they needed to do this type of match on this show. While it gets ten people onto television, thing are so frenetic during this match that the wrestlers do not have a chance to get over. This match also felt like it was a way to get the people who were not already in matches on the show. There were a lot of things that they packed into this thirteen minute match. I did like that the Motor City Machine Guns were able to dominate for a short period of time and eliminate two people. It would have been more if not for Hoyt moving out of the way and Sabin going over the top rope to the floor. It was weird to see Roode and Young eliminate someone together. There were a few things that occurred in this match that also happened in the Gauntlet Match at No Surrender. They did the spots with Jimmy Rave applying the Fujiwara arm bar and Eric Young with the side head lock from the pay per view match. There were a lot of spots with a wrestler being sent to the apron only to hang on. The only ‘why are they doing this in a Battle Royale’ spot was when Alex Shelley went up top and he got eliminated by Lance Hoyt. There were a lot of similarities with the other gauntlet because the ‘wrestling match’ at the end of the gauntlet was around 90 seconds in length. I was very surprised that Eric Young won the match, but maybe they are going to give him a push.
I had some fears going into the main event because of the first three matches having outside interference or run ins and with the people involved in the match, I expected it to happen. I was pleasantly surprised and thought this was a great eleven and a half minute television match. This might have been the match that benefited most from the two hour time slot because there was no need to try to fit twelve minutes of moves and spots into an eight minute match. Nothing seemed rushed during the match. It did a lot to build the matches at Bound for Glory involving these wrestlers. The best thing about this match was that there was a clean finish and no outside interference at all during the match. I don’t consider Elix Skipper getting involved as ‘outside interference’. The only thing I didn’t like about the match was that Junior Fatu gave Elix Skipper the Fatu Driver because he was not in the match. I also wish that it would have been Christian who took the pin, but the way that he got out of the muscle buster was well done with Senshi knocking him off the top turnbuckle with a Tidal Crush that missed the target.
The Angles
There was not much that we between Kurt Angle and Sting since Angle was not in the building. The only thing we saw was Kurt Angle appear on the screen after Sting cleared the ring at the end of the Black Reign match against Rhino. With Angle at Sting’s son’s school, it seems like they are portraying Angle as the face in this match while Sting is being portrayed as the bad guy for not being there for his family. Didn’t we already see Sting’s family involved in a storyline with Christian Cage? I would assume that we will see more from Angle and Sting on the show that was pre-recorded.
For a while, I thought that Team 3D was getting stale both in the ring and with their promos when they were faces. Since they have turned heel, they have regained the spark that they had when they were the top heel tag team in the business. While I might not like the tag teams that they have gone through, they have shown the intensity that they had when they first sought the NWA Tag Team Titles. With the way that the crowd reacts to Team 3D, they have taken the heel role perfectly. I like that they are willing to do anything to get their title match.
They have done a lot to build interest in the Women’s division over the last few weeks with the five way match that will air this week on Impact and the women’s match on this week’s show. I expected to see the other women come to the ring to watch the match between Gail and Jackie so I was surprised that Traci did not come out during the match since Roxxi Laveaux and Christy Hemme came out. I wonder if we will see any of the other five women in the match
Xplosion Matches
The Jimmy Rave match against Eric Young was okay. I don’t know if they have properly utilized Jimmy Rave in his time in the company. I would hope that he would do more because he did not get much done during this match and the only major offensive spot was due to Lance Hoyt’s interference.
The Havok match against Jay Lethal was the better of the Xplosion matches but it was interesting to see how they booked Lethal in this match. It was a continuation of the way that he has been built since the pay per view. He got laid out again during Impact, this time by Team 3D and then he is outwrestled by Havok. I did not subscribe to the theory that since Daniels beat Lethal, it makes Lethal’s victory over Angle worthless. However, with the way that Lethal has been beaten up and wrestled over the last few weeks, it might have affected him. Havok controlled the match until he missed a moonsault.
Other Thoughts and Observations
I know that it was reported that the first show would be done ‘live to tape’ so I was a bit surprised that they taped the two hour show in about one hour and thirty five minutes. I was also surprised that they did not air any of the backstage segments besides the Team 3D segment where they attacked Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt. There are a lot of times when things happen during the tapings where people wonder what the deal is but it would have been cleared up if they had shown the segment in the back.
I was someone who has been critical of the amount of wrestling that is usually on the one hour editions of Impact, but for those of you who were worried that we would not get that much wrestling on this show, there was over forty minutes of wrestling. With the magic of editing, they can stretch the matches even longer.
Like I mentioned above, I was surprised that Black Reign was in the first match for the new two-hour Impact.
I assume that with the reports of Judas Mesias’s injury, if they are going to do a Monster’s Ball Match at Bound for Glory, they need to add people to what appeared to be a match that had Abyss, Judas Mesias, and Rhino. I don’t know if they are going to add Black Reign or Raven into this match but it would make it a match with two faces and two heels.
One thing that TNA has been guilty of is throwing too much out in a short period of time. As I mentioned in my discussion above, the main event benefited the most from the two hours because the match did not seem rushed. However, was it really necessary for five people to get involved in the post match activities of the Black Reign/Rhino match? That does not even include Kurt Angle’s cameo on the video screen. Then during the women’s match, in addition to the other two women, you had the Voodoo Kin Mafia, Jimmy Rave, and Lance Hoyt at ringside. There was too much clutter at that point. I have no idea why the Voodoo Kin Mafia interfered in the TNA Tag Title Match. Are they feuding with Team Pacman? I could see A.J. Styles and Tomko interfere to keep the titles on Team Pacman, but not the Voodoo Kin Mafia.
Where was Tomko? He did not come to ringside with Christian and A.J. Styles during the main event and I expected to see him interfere in the main event if there was going to be any interference.
After the women’s match, when Gail Kim was able to escape the three-on-one attack, I was almost expecting to see one of the five new women get involved in the action and attack Gail from behind since her back was to the Chute of Facial Impact.
It seemed a bit strange that they would have the first regular two hour episode of Impact with so little from Kurt Angle. He is the champion and probably one of the most recognizable people on the roster to the general wrestling fan.
I don’t know why they did a Gauntlet Match on this show? Were they showing this match to give people who might be watching Impact for the first time an idea of what they are going to see at the pay per view? I did not hear them announce what the winner of the Gauntlet Match would get so it felt like a ‘we need to get more people on the show’ match.
Of the wrestlers who were never in the WWE or WCW, the most popular wrestlers in the Impact Zone are Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin. I like that they are now coming out of the Chute of Facial Impact because it is strange to see them come out of the Chute of Heelish Impact and get cheered.
Does there have to be a dueling chant every match? I was talking to a friend of mine at the show and we both commented that there are few wrestlers in the company who are ‘hated’.
The best match of the night by far was the main event. The thing that made me like the main event so much is that there was no outside interference, other than what Elix Skipper did. However, Elix was already at ringside so it did not feel the same as all of the interference during the first three matches. It did not feel rushed and there was enough action that allowed the crowd to stay in the match and not get burned out by any sequence that threw in too much action in a short time.