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The Team 3-D promo was interesting due to the fact I thought it was gonna be those cliché tag-team promos where the team would demand a title shot. Very well done.
As for the X-Division tag-match, good (Alex Shelley reminds me of a young Chris Jericho with his charisma) but the crowd said it best with the Chris Sabin, Sonjay Dutt and Jay Lethal's current gimmick by chanting "No more Jackass".
The whole show progressed everything that would take 2-3 months and that's a good thing!
Overall an awesome show and if this is something I can expect from Russo, count me in on the bandwagon! Look out WWE, TNA is coming your way while you screw your chances up!
Book It!
Ricardo Guajardo
**********
I don't usually do Impact thoughts but as this is the first Impact of the new Russo era I thought I would and frankly, it left a lot to be desired for me.
First off, the big problem with TNA has been too much Jeff Jarrett and the drop in TV ratings since he regained the belt at Slammiversary corroborate this. So was do Russo do? Book MORE Jarrett on the show. Yup, that will help solve that problem. It's bad enough he gets to squash the alleged 6' 9" Lance Hoyt, then we get one of his interminable promos followed by loads more Jarrett in the many video packages to hype his PPV match with Sting and the backstage skit with Eric Young before the closing angle with Cornette. What I don't get is that we saw Jarrett watching Samoa Joe's match backstage (because it had been a whole 60 seconds since he was last on screen) - why didn't he go to the ring and take the belt back while Joe was in action? Duh! And if Eric Young has upset Jarrett and let him down so many times then why on Earth would he want to trust him again? Seriously, is there a contest between Jarrett and Vince McMahon to see who can find the most spurious way to justify appearing on TV so much?
Joe's match with Raven wasn't much and of course it wouldn't be a Russo match without a run-in would it? Whilst I like that Joe is finally being pushed as a big deal and big time player, why is he in the top TV angle yet he is only one quarter of the participants in an undercard match on the Bound for Glory PPV? Speaking of which, the card for the "biggest event in TNA history" is so far just a gimmicked repeat of No Surrender.
Team 3D are back. I guess while Ray was "focusing" on the tag titles, D-Von was focusing on the "All you can eat" dinner menus. So they want to earn their tag title spots now as opposed to when they arrived in TNA and wanted them straight away? Okay...
Okay, so the X-Division is supposed to the staple and big selling point of TNA right? So why did the X-Division 6 man match have to play second fiddle to the Christian vs Rhino brawl? That isn't capitalizing on your supposed strongest asset, that is burying it. I hope that the boos and the "No more Jackass" chants were hard and taken on board because this garbage is nor only ruining the matches but it is turning their babyface team heel which is not good.
Did Jim Cornette really describe Lex Luger and Buff Bagwell as "legends"? And how ugly was Luger's "bump" from Jarrett's lame punch? At least the brawl when Joe arrived left the show on a hot note rather than the usual Jarrett flat ending.
Oh, and apparently Kurt Angle has signed with TNA. I'm surprised they didn't mention that more...
Overall, the show was well paced and Joe was finally booked as the next breakout star but I can honestly say that I have enjoyed previous episodes far more in the past. I'll have to give this Russo run a few more weeks before I really form a definitive opinion but this wasn't the strongest of starts for me. At least it was much better than RAW....(but not ECW!)
Cheers
LEE RELPH, UK
**********
I watched this weeks Impact & I got to say that I wasn't very pleased. It's not necessarily with the storylines (although there are some that are questionable) but with the domination of recaps, interviews, press conferences & the matches that were booked that do absolutely nothing to make the show more interesting or are given lousy finishes like with all the Jackass stuff lately.
TNA is supposed to be an alternative to the WWE. They have the motto on their website "We Are Wrestling" but where is it? They do a good job with the recaps & stuff but shouldn't a company with that motto be putting more quality wrestling on a more weekly basis? Shouldn't it be about stuff that’s going on in the ring? They certainly have the talent to get the job done in that department so why don't they?
Mike from Toronto, Canada
