OAO 4/20 Impact Thread

[TNABaddboi 0]

It just really hit me that TNA is back on tonight (I wonder how many other people that'll happen to and how it'll affect the rating), so I figured I'd go ahead and start the discussion for the show. Here's the official preview:

 

 

 

 

PREVIEW FOR THURSDAY’S “iMPACT!” – 11PM ON SPIKETV

Just days before Lockdown on Pay-Per-View

 

Thursday night on SpikeTV will be the final arena of warfare for the TNA stars before Sunday’s “Lockdown” live and exclusively on Pay-Per-View. Tune into the program for all the last-minute news on the epic event, including more matches to be announced, huge matches and more! The lineup for Thursday’s “iMPACT!” is as follows:

 

THE REUNITED TEAM 3D vs. JEFF JARRETT AND AMERICA’S MOST WANTED

The Team 3D family is back together and will be in action for the first time on Thursday night on SpikeTV! Brother Ray, Brother Devon and Brother Runt will be back in six-man action, but it won’t be easy as they face the trio of Jeff Jarrett and America’s Most Wanted just days before the Lockdown Pay-Per-View! Will it be a successful family reunion for Team 3D as they prepare for the Lockdown “Anthem Match” against Team Canada? Will the Canadians be watching? Are Jarrett and AMW smart to step in against Team 3D just days before the “Lethal Lockdown” match? Tune in and find out!

 

WORLD X CUP PREVIEW: TEAM USA VS. TEAM CANADA

The World X Cup Tournament will take center stage at May’s “Sacrifice” Pay-Per-View, but fans will be in for a preview of the international event on Thursday night as Team USA (Sabin, Shelley, Dutt and Lethal) will take on the Team Canada squad! Can Team USA pull off the win against the more experienced Team Canada as they prepare for the upcoming tournament? Watch SpikeTV on Thursday night!

 

STING’S TEAM IN ACTION: AJ STYLES, RHINO AND THE TRUTH VS. THE DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH

Fresh off being picked by Sting to join him in battle at Lockdown, it will be the trio of AJ Styles, Rhino and The Truth in action on Thursday night as they face The Diamonds In The Rough on “iMPACT!”. Styles, Rhino and Truth will be looking to sharpen their unity as they head into Sunday’s “Lethal Lockdown” with Sting, but the Diamonds of Simon, Primetime and David Young will be no small challenge to overcome! Without a doubt, Jarrett and is army will be watching closely.

 

AN APPEARANCE BY NWA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION “CAPTAIN CHARISMA” CHRISTIAN CAGE

Also on Thursday’s “iMPACT!”, we’ll hear from the NWA World Heavyweight Champion Christian Cage just days before he’s scheduled to step inside the Six Sides of Steel at the Pay-Per-View to defend against Abyss! The question is, will the diabolical James Mitchell and his monster be watching nearby? Will all hell break loose between Cage and Abyss before they are locked inside the unforgiving steel structure on Pay-Per-View? Tune in and find out!

 

All this and so much more Thursday night on “iMPACT!” – just days before Sunday’s “Lockdown” live and exclusively on Pay-Per-View!

 

It's kinda interesting that all tonight's matches are six-man tags. I guess that the price for only having an hour....they try to get more faces on the show with tags and mult-man matches. Either way, it's an interesting line-up. It doesn't have the obvious draws of Joe/Daniels and Sting like last week, but I'm interested in seeing what Spike Dudley (I refuse to call him Runt) can do since I can't even remember the last time I saw him work. Also, it's good that Christian's making an appearance in the arena. At this rate, it seems like Sting's in the Impact Zone more than Christian. Who woulda thought that three months ago? Any, here's hoping for a good show. Thoughts?

[Jingus 0]

Runt is a godawful name, I can't believe they couldn't come up with anything better than that.

 

Does Christian have a clause in his contract saying that he'll only wrestle on PPV or something? TNA is like WCW was during the nWo period when it comes to making damn sure the fans never get to see what they want on free TV.

[Guest Coffey]

I'll be watching The Ultimate Fighter anyway, so I'll stick around post-show to watch iMPACT! because I won't have anyhing else to do. If it bores me, I'll either go to bed or load up World of Warcraft.

[King Cucaracha 0]

I agree with Jingus, Brother Runt is terrible.

 

Is Skipper really Canadian? If so, they need to get him out of Diamonds In The Rough, stick him in Team Canada and actually do something with the guy because right now he's a virtual nobody.

[Dangerous A 0]

Skipper is not Canadian. He's from the south somewhere. Heard it on a wrestling podcast about 6 months ago.

 

Brother Runt sounds goofy. Runt is too close to that C-word that got Randy Orton into so much trouble recently.

[Guest Princess Leena]

Brother Runt is seriously Spike's name?

 

Good Golly...

[daileyxplanet 0]

I expect him to go through 13 name changes until "Brother Matt" is finally decided on. Much like Kip James did a year ago.

[Carnival 0]

I can't think of a better combination than getting really high and watching some Jeff Jarrett action.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

Well, here comes the party now!

[ChrisMWaters 0]

Shelly adding an interesting dynamic to Team USA (plus India).

[HollywoodSpikeJenkins 0]

Alex Shelly owns your face.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

Daniels vs. Mystery Man for Lockdown.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

YAY! RAVEN MENTION!

 

Bout TIME he was at least MENTIONED again.

[Si82 0]

YAY! RAVEN MENTION!

 

Bout TIME he was at least MENTIONED again.

I agree but I'm glad they've managed to keep him off TV for a while rather than just bringing him back straight away due to some loophole.

[TNABaddboi 0]

Ratings, from Keller:

 

TNA Impact last night drew a 0.9 rating, down from the 1.1 last week. The ten weeks before the move to Thursdays, Impact drew 0.8 on average. The main event last night was Team 3D vs. Jeff Jarrett & America's Most Wanted, and they opened with Team Canada in a tag match, a big step down from Sting's first national cable match in five years and Samoa Joe vs. Christopher Daniels.

[RedJed 0]

Good and bad to the rating - its ok (better than Sat average) but bad or unfortunate in that I could have clearly seen where the number probably dropped significantly about half way through the show as it was just literally putting me to sleep. It just seemed like they went back to being "just Impact" after the first segment, almost like I was watching it on FSN- like the great show they did last week just was offset by this filler material feeling show. The match w/ Diamonds in the Rough reeked of glorified squash that I couldnt get into, as well as Canada v. USA I wasnt really feeling. ME was decent enough (but not promoted that well ahead of time in a way as it may have drawn a decent rating under the right circumstances, but didn't come across well enough to save the show.

[TNABaddboi 0]

More numbers, from Johnson:

 

TNA Impact scored a .94 rating for it's second Thursday episode, down from their debut 1.1 rating last week. A total of 1 million viewers tuned in. Among Males 18-49, Impact garnered a 1.1. Among Makes 18-34, they scored a 1.1. The show scored a 1.3 among Males 25-34.

[RedJed 0]

More numbers, from Johnson:

 

TNA Impact scored a .94 rating for it's second Thursday episode, down from their debut 1.1 rating last week. A total of 1 million viewers tuned in. Among Males 18-49, Impact garnered a 1.1. Among Makes 18-34, they scored a 1.1. The show scored a 1.3 among Males 25-34.

 

Do they post quarter hours?

[TNABaddboi 0]

Do they post quarter hours?

 

I haven't seen any yet....

[Richard 0]

They should call Spike LSD and bring back the tie-dyed shirts.

[Guest CWMwasmurdered]

I really loved the last segment. It definetly made me want to buy the PPV, which I will be doing.

[TNABaddboi 0]

Mike Johnson reported that unlike last week, TNA could not hold the UFC audience at all. Here's what he posted:

 

As noted yesterday, TNA scored a .94 rating for Impact this past Thursday (rounded down, the final number is a .9). The big story coming out of the night is that the promotion failed to maintain the UFC audience that preceded it.

 

UFC Unleashed at 9 PM scored a 1.4 rating with a 2.1 share, while the latest edition of the Ultimate Fighter 3 reality series jumped back to a 1.9 with a 3.0 share from last week's 1.3. TNA lost an entire rating point, nearly back to their Saturday night numbers although their numbers in the male demographics were solid.

 

It will be interesting to see how TNA formats their next set of TV shows at this week's Impact tapings as their debut week, packed with a tremendous Samoe Joe vs. Christopher Daniels match and the return of Sting to the ring, fared much better then last Thursday's go home episode promoting tomorrow's Lockdown PPV with a number of six man tag bouts.

[Jingus 0]

I'm not surprised the numbers dropped, cuz that just wasn't a good show, plain and simple. There were a lot of major flaws here, not just a couple, but a LOT. I bet I can list a baker's dozen of them:

 

1. Having every match be a big multi-person tag makes the show awfully repetitive. "Aw man, ANOTHER six-man tag? Let's see what's on Adult Swim." It's a good way to get as many people on the show as possible, but bad for providing a variety of different kinds of actions.

 

2. Speaking of getting all those people on the show: TNA just employs too many wrestlers, period. On a one-hour show, they have TWENTY people actually wrestling in matches, plus managers, promos, run-ins, and all that, and there's still a couple dozen regular characters who don't even get airtime? Cut your losses and cut your roster. There's no way to make people care about any single wrestler, they'll get lost in the massive pool of talent.

 

3. Team Canada going over via shenanigans: YAWN. There's no "heat" there, it's just "aw crap not AGAIN, let's see what's on the news".

 

4. As per usual, the X-Division flippy-floppy spots looked contrived and choreographed. They looked like crappy lucha matches on Galavision, with too much running around and bullshit reversals. There's no sense of violent people trying to beat each other up.

 

5. Alex Shelley is the only guy on the Team America roster who even HAS a character. The others are all bland, interchangeable personalities who have no motivation or backstory. And for that matter, why does Shelley even WANT to be in this tournament? Why does he want to represent a team he obviously doesn't even like? Shouldn't he be off filming his Horseman knockoff home videos of Sting and Christian?

 

6. Larry Zybysco's promo segment was the very definition of "waste of time". It wasn't entertaining. It didn't advance any storylines at all. All it did was tease us with maddening hints of something that MIGHT happen (new talent, Raven, etc) and feature a lot of really bad overacting and terrible "comedy".

 

7. Diamonds in the Rough vs. Team Former Champions Who'll Never Get The Belt Back probably had the best action of the night. Too bad the Diamonds are portrayed as total jobbers with no hope of winning. Also, why are the three babyfaces teaming together with Sting at Lockdown, beyond "well they hate Jarrett too"?

 

8. Christian hasn't wrestled ONCE on TV since getting the belt. And none of his promos have been any good. And Abyss beats him up AGAIN. And why didn't he call the cops on those guys who broke into his house? Total cruise-control booking that makes him look like a paper champion.

 

9. AMW vs. Dudleys... boy, never seen this match before.

 

10. Spike being back is cool. Spike being back NOW with no explanation why he left his "brothers" to get the shit beat out of them on a weekly basis for MONTHS and never helped them til last week is not so cool. And Spike's new name is the very definition of Not Fucking Cool.

 

11. A Jeff Jarrett match that has a bunch of run-ins and interference, ending in a bullshit non-finish with no closure or telling us definitively which wrestlers are the better competitors? The hell you say. "Aw man, Jarrett doesn't get his ass kicked AGAIN, fuck the pay-per-view, I'm gonna watch Family Guy or Sopranos."

 

12. Sting does his run-in on the nWo Team Jarrett and is about to get beat up again before Savage, Luger, and DDP Rhino, Truth, and AJ come out to save him. Followed by a big general clusterfuck and the show fades to black while the announcer yells "Oh my god, it's chaos! It's crazy! What's going on?! Be sure to order the PPV!!!" Sound familiar?

 

13. And is it just me, or does TNA seem to take a LOT more commercial breaks and spend less time on actual wrestling than even Raw does?

[Stephen Joseph 0]

I liked the Slick Johnson referee segment, imho

 

Truth is waaayyyyy over

[luke-o 0]

Well I wont get to see this episode untill next week, but from the sounds of things it wasnt very good. Shame.

 

Brother Runt is seriously Spike's name?

 

Good Golly...

 

You should have said, "Good Golly, Molly Holly"