TNA Impact - March 19, 2009

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

They managed to make Foley hitting Sting with the chair make sense. Good for them. Foley's promos last night were great, especially the one after the match. The Beer Money/3D promo was good too. So they've set up two matches with good promos.

[Eugenius 0]

Hey BPS21, what did Foley say in the closing promo? My DVR cut out right as he started talking.

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

He said that he was proud that he hit Sting because as Angle was kicking the crap out of him he heard Sting say "Just pin him already" and asked who the hell Sting was to decide when Foley had had enough. It played back into Foley's asking Sting who he was to decide that Foley was had wrestled his last match in the opener. Then he got all intense and accepted the match at Lockdown in that good Foley promo voice.

[LuckyLopez 0]

Yeah, he won me over with "You condescending son of a bitch, Sting!" Made it feel right that Foley really was understandable in hitting Sting with the chair. Sting's pity insulted him.

 

I don't know how I feel about the Joe stuff with Bashir. I know how I feel about it the last month with Steiner. There's some kind of line that exists for me with what sort of violence wrestlers can do before it all just seems goofy and fake and contrived. HHH busting into Orton's home and Matt Hardy trying to run people off the road crosses it for me. Joe threatening Steiner with a huge knife did and Joe dragging him away and returning with no Steiner but dried up blood on his blade DEFINITELY did.

 

But dragging some dude off, stringing him up, and caning him? I think I'm ok with that. Which is not to say I think it made Joe look good, because I don't know. But I didn't think it made him look bad. And I thought it was a definite step up from his antics with Steiner. So there's probably a case of if it was stupid its getting a pass because it wasn't as stupid as Sunday's thing.

 

Joe had a weird bit of exposition during the beatdown I kind of liked though where he explained to Bashir that he was doing this to him because no one liked him or wanted him in TNA. It was almost justification for no one caring he was strung up. I was joking with friends that Impact had a weird special Exposition theme. Cornette and AJ attempted to rationalize the Legends Title. AJ was trying to save the angle by acknowledging that the "Frontline" failed and that the "Originals" had to step up. Foley explained his motivations. The Beautiful People even addressed the absence of Cute Kip. It was like for 1 day TNA tried to explain any questions they saw present and it made us chuckle.

[iggymcfly 0]

Just wanted to say that I'm really enjoying Impact right now. I've found the WWE consistently unwatchable for years, and while I've been watching TNA sporadically for a while, it wasn't until this Sting/Angle/Foley stuff that I've started recording Impact every week and watching every single episode.

 

I know Sting and Foley aren't in the best shape right now, and it may not make for a **** PPV match at Lockdown, but from the POV of having an entertaining television program week in and week out, TNA is top-notch right now. It seems like every week, there's a storyline that builds throughout the program and leads to something significant happening. Even during the typically throwaway pre-PPV show, Angle pushing Jarrett over the line ended up leading to him naming himself and Foley as the guest referee/enforcer which ended up costing Angle his shot at the title. Foley's end of show promo was fantastic, and has me legitimately pumped for the Foley/Sting feud when I wouldn't have cared much otherwise.

 

Also, I really like how they're letting this Sting/Angle conflict within the stable storyline run for a while. If this were the WWE, it would have been 3 weeks tops before the MEM turned on Sting to make sure the heel/face lines were demarcated as clearly as possible. The fact that Nash and the other heels seem to be siding more with Sting than Angle is a refreshing dose of realism into the old face turn within a heel stable. I thought luke-o's point about Russo trying to book wrestlers to act as realistic as possible instead of trying to fit them into the heel/face box was very well taken, and it made this show very entertaining.

 

I also agree with most of what has been said about Joe. Some of the execution of this new character has been a little off as the tribal blade looks really fake, and some of the things he's doing are a little bit cartoonish, but it's still a massive improvement from the "fat MMA guy" character he had before. His new look is fantastic, and when he came out and destroyed Bashir in about 30 seconds in the ring before taking him backstage, he looked pretty fucking badass.

 

I still fast-forward through a few things every show like just about every match with the Beautiful People, and some of the vanilla low-card wrestlers, but even that was better this week as the Guns had a really fun match with No Limit, and I like the tag storylines they're running right now. Overall, I think TNA's definitely going in the right direction.