XWW presents The Xtreme Wrestling Review, TNA Impact 11/5/09

Welcome to the first ever Xtreme Wrestling Review, brought to you by XWW. This is Tommy Diesel, aka Pandemonic, and each week I'll be reviewing WWE's RAW, Smackdown, and ECW as well as TNA Impact. I'll also have some special bonuses like top ten lists and individual wrestler reviews, plus much more to come.

So let's kick things off with the 11/5 edition of TNA Impact.

The show opened with yet another *gag* video package highlighting Hogan coming to TNA, followed by TNA President Dixie Carter addressing the entire roster, telling them they have a choice; support Carter, her decisions, and TNA's direction, or find a new place to work.

Heavyweight Champ AJ Styles made his way to the ring to address the changes in TNA, saying that they are all positive, and to confront his mystery attacker. Daniels was the one to answer the call, though he denied being the one who has attacked AJ the last two weeks. Daniels, however, was insulted by AJ's insinuation that he even might be the culprit. The two are soon interrupted by the man who had sown the seeds of doubt in AJ's mind last week, Samoa Joe. After Joe made some comments about Daniels being jealous of AJ, Daniels snapped, saying “If I wanted to beat AJ Styles, I could do it in this ring, and there's no doubt about it.” This prompted AJ to challenge Daniels' to a match later in the show, a challenge Daniels immediately accepted as a pleased Joe looked on. Joe would later be announced the special referee for the contest.

This segment proved a couple of things to me; 1) The old AJ Styles is back. Maybe the changes in TNA are reigniting his passion. 2) TNA finally realizes the ME potential of Daniels and are giving him the push he deserves. 3) Joe is a natural at psychological warfare. I'm chalking this one up to the teachings of Taz, one of the greatest players of mind games the industry has ever seen. Personally, I hope to see more of Joe in this puppet master role, as it suites him so well. Overall, a great segment that really highlighted the talents of all three superstars.

The first match of the night featured World Elite (Eric Young and Rob Terry) facing off with Beer Money Incorporated. An average match, with BMI getting the three-count win after Young accidentally hit his partner with the “Global” title belt. The highlights of this match both came from Cowboy James Storm, including a vicious kick from the apron and a flying cross body to the outside after a boost from Roode. The British Invasion attacked BMI after the bell, but the real story happened after the two teams were separated, as the Motor City Machine Guns attacked the tag champs, perhaps signaling a return to their old form.

Next the Beautiful People tried to intimidate ODB, which of course, ended badly. This segment was quite frankly ridiculous and pointless, with ODB trying to get a cheap pop with a horrible joke that, in essence, went as such: “The leading man in my next movie wants to work with you, he's on the Yankees.” “Alex Jeter?” “No, Yank-Deez nuts!”

From ridiculous to ridiculous, Jay Lethal announced his “Black Machismo Invitational”, challanging any and every legend to a match. He teased a match with Flair (Team 3D would quote Naitch later in the show, teasing all the more), though sources have Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart as his first opponent. Anvil has been vocal on his intent to return to the ring, so the idea isn't far fetched. Now, I say ridiculous because, in my opinion, Lethal needs to rid himself of this “Macho Man” copycat gimmick if he's going to go anywhere anytime soon.

Moving on, a short Foley segment teased at a Foley vs Hogan storyline, with Mick accusing Jeremy Borash of being a “Hulkimaniac”. Foley left with a package saying he had a surprise for Abyss.

When I saw the competitors for the next match, I knew that we were in for a squash, but was shocked when it turned into the biggest throw away match I have ever witnessed. Desmond Wolfe defeated Cody Deaner with a clothesline in about 3¼ seconds. The promo McGuinness (Desmond Wolfe was a name Vince Russo cooked up after googling “Popular British Names”) made up for the crap match. Wolfe has to be considered for the “top heel” honors this week, as I have never seen anyone so uniformly hated in the modern era. He even was able to twist the bad puns he made to just add to his arrogance.

An interview with Suicide showed just how much of a Spiderman/Batman copy he is with his artificially gruff voice and referring to himself as the “Dark Savior”. He said he would not remove his mask, as well as threatening Homicide, the man who saw his identity. Any smarks will now that Suicide is played by Frankie Kazarian, who recently asked for his release from TNA.

Rhyno once again tried to convince Team 3D that there is a conspiracy against the himself and the brothers, though Brother Ray once again called him crazy and paranoid. I loved this bit, as one of my biggest knock on Rhyno early in the year was his inability to promo well. This “paranoid delusional” angle, as Brother Ray called him, works so well for Rhyno and Team 3D sell it so well.

With Joe and Daniels in the ring awaiting the Heavyweight Champ, AJ was attacked while giving an interview, confirming that neither Joe or Daniels are the attacker. Daniels attempted to rush to Styles' aid, but was hit with the Muscle Buster from Joe before he could leave the ring. This raised the question: Is Joe in league with the attacker or did he just want to send a message to Daniels before the triple threat match at Turning Point?

Finally, after all those segments, one throw-away, and an incomplete match, we have the second actual match of the evening. Tara faced off with Hamada in a championship caliber match. Both women performed fantastically with Tara picking up the win off the Widow's Peak after several amazing maneuvers from Hamada, whose unique style always impresses. Awesome Kong attacked Tara after the match, which kind of overshadowed this great contest. Taz made several WWE references during this match, though maybe TNA management told him to stop as he made no more for the rest of the show.

Foley comes to the ring, and is soon joined by the monster, Abyss. Abyss doesn't talk at all, but Foley goes on apologizing to him and saying just how talented the monster is. Abyss seems to welcome the Hardcore Legend's apology as Mick give him the “gift-a-rooni” he brought to the ring, which turns out to be a caricature of the two. Foley congratulates Abyss on “passing the test” and, as he is about to leave the Impact Zone, announces that Abyss will face one more test. He will face Dr. Stevie in a match where, if Abyss pins Stevie, he's out of TNA for good. The executive shareholder specifically said pin, but made no mention as to if that was the only way for Abyss to rid TNA of Dr. Stevie, leaving the door wide open for another swerve that is so overused by TNA. Overall, a great segment and fantastic use of Mrs. Foley's baby boy's unique mic skills. (Did I leave out any of his monikers?)

An interview with Scott Steiner led to that same rant we heard last week about Bobby Lashley's wife. I'm not to thrilled about this storyline. I understand that TNA is trying to reach fans like me, who are tired of WWE's PG programing and trying to come off edgy, but this borders on distasteful. Hopefully it will end soon, so Lashley can do something useful with all that talent he has.

Speaking of “The Boss”, Lashley faced Homicide in a decent match. Lashley comes to the ring with his wife, though for unknown reasons she is sent to the back by referee Earl Hebner. Mike Tenay explains that the refs no have the power to lay down the law, including fines and suspensions.... Am I the only one who feels TNA is becoming more like WCW every week? Let's see, Vince Russo? Check. Eric Bischoff? Check. Hulk Hogan? Check. Anyway, I digress. This was a decent enough matchup if not for the awkward finish, Lashley hit some weird spinebuster thing for the win and Taz tried to pass it off as a dominator, and being yet another match overshadowed by post-match storyline as we see Steiner cornering Lashely's better half backstage, and “The Boss” quickly rushes to her aid.

After the show comes back from commercial, Homicide is still in the ring yelling at the referee to reverse his decision, saying Lashley should be DQ'd..... for what? Now, right here I'm expecting Suicide to attack his oppositely named rival here... however it is the X Division Champ, The Amazing Red who comes charging down the ramp instead. Homicide and Red are set to meet for the X Division belt at Turning Point, so I guess there's some sense behind it. Red, however, delivered big time with several acrobatic moves, sending Homicide flying out of the ring and showing everyone why he is the X Division Champ. Red lives up to his name, Amazing.

My wrists are killing me at this point, but next we have two of the Knockouts competing in the all-or-nothing match at Turning Point, Taylor Wilde and Madison Rayne. This was a bit of a yawner, but Taylor Wilde picks up the win with an athletic rollup-to-bridge. Once again post-match antics eclipse the match (does anyone see a trend?) as the Beautiful People attack Wilde, followed by retaliation from Sarita and then ODB. Now I know I've been critical of these post-match segments overshadowing the matches themselves, but this one was unavoidable. No one would have believed the Beautiful People would just sit back and go “Ok, we lost this one, good job, see you at Turning Point.” So I'll let this one slide.

Morgan and Hernandez make an intimidating tag combination, but who would have thought the two would be funny as well? The two do an interview telling Team 3D that they were the best team in history, but that Morgan/Hernandez is the future, with Hernandez finishing off with “Te Gusta o No!”, which translates to “Whether you like it or not!”, and Morgan saying “YEAH!!....What he said...”

We try for the second time to get the Styles/Daniels match underway, and this time both men make it to the ring safely. What follows can be described only as a phenomenal, PPV quality match, ending with Styles hitting the Styles Clash for the win. All three men put on career performances and, combining that with the relatively med-short length of the match, builds anticipation for the triple threat at Turning Point. Joe seemed to be content to just raise AJ's hand and give him the belt after the win, but this was short lived as Joe rolled back into the ring to choke the Champ out with a rear-naked choke.

An unremarkable response from Dr. Stevie and Daffney followed, not worth the time to review. In fact, I've probably written too much about it as it is.... wait, I just wrote more didn't I?.....Crap.

Moving on to the main event of the evening (FINALLY!!!), we see Team 3D facing off against Matt Morgan and Hernandez. At first I wondered why this was the ME. Was it to make the program more authentic? Then why all the crappy segments? It seemed inconsistent, but after watching the match, I understood. This fantastic match up showed just how good TNA's Tag division is when two teams who aren't even in the title picture right now can put on a match this good. Halfway through the match Ryno comes out, urging Brother Ray to listen to him. Ray keeps waving “The War Machine” off, telling him he's paranoid and to get the “frig” outta' here. Rhyno tries to hand Ray a chair, pointing and Morgan and saying “Use it, Use it!” Ray refuses but the chair remains on the apron and, as Devon looks ready to tap, Ray finally charges in with the chair, delivering shots to both opponents. Team 3D loses by DQ as Rhyno slides into the ring, looking overjoyed, and tries to celebrate with the brothers, though Devon looks confused and Ray seems distraught over his actions. Rhyno finished the night by hitting the Gore on both Morgan and Hernandez, but I'd have to say the highlight of the match was watching Super-Mex “Skin the Cat”. Who knew the big guy was so acrobatic?

Overall, I give the 11/5/2009 edition of Impact a B-, and that's a generous B-. I felt overloaded by too many segments on too many different topics, plus all the Hogan video packages (The show had several “What do you think of Hogan coming to TNA” bits as lead ins from commercials, featuring several TNA stars). I tried several times to give the show a C, but I felt that would be an injustice to those who had actually performed extremely well. After looking back at this week's Impact, I now look forward to next week's Impact, as well as Turning Point which airs live on PPV 11/15 (I should really get paid for this crap...).

This week's Impact Bonus: The dark match from the 11/5 Impact featuring Jay Lethal vs X Division Champion The Amazing Red for the X Division belt. Enjoy folks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upN4HjeQd1o...player_embedded

That just leaves this week's Impact Question of the Week: Who do you think will be among the “major acquisitions” Bischoff and Hogan have promised?

That's all for this week's Impact, leave your answers in a reply, this is Tommy Diesel, aka Pandemonic, signing off.

Nice review man, good job

Gratzi, Will. I guess I'll start off the QOTW answers. I think Ken Anderson (Ken Kennedy) will most likely be on the TNA roster shortly, as well as Eddy Fatu (Umaga).

Seems that Fatu is renegotiating with WWE to ruin the Hulkamania Tour , where he will be one of the main attractions .

Kennedy is actually wrestling in the indys waiting for his contract clause to end.