So I figured that I would critique the firsts Impact of the New Year. Not to mention is a 3 hour show with Hulk Hogan making his first appearance. After 25 years of life and being a wrestling fan, I have decided that since this was “the biggest night in TNA history,” I would examine the whole show and see what we really have with Hogan coming in and taking charge. Now be fore warned that I am writing this from the notes I took while watching the show. I am a big TNA fan, but feel that three is a lot they can improve on. Too bad for them they didn’t improve on anything with this show.
TNA goes live and they show a flashback montage of the last 7 years. All the way back to the first show. Then Mike & Tazz hype the “card” that has been presented. Here is where the mistakes by TNA come. First, why tell people you are going to have these matches and then not have them? And why even say your gonna have a Barbed Wire match against 2 guys that have not wrestled each other in over 2 years. Makes not sense.
Needless to say the Barbed Wire & Full Metal Mayhem matches don’t happen.
They start off the show quickly with the Steel Asylum for the X Title. Nice start. And yes Tony Dabbs, that is a smart booking decision. However the match is more spot fest, which is always entertaining, but could be better. Alex Shelley even goes to climb the “structure” and no one goes after him. Did they forget that if he gets out of the asylum than he wins? So he has to sit and wait for someone to try to pull him down. Then Homicide pulls out a police baton and starts beating the hell out of people. DQ. WTF? Is this not a cage match? Thought there was no dq? The fans chant & I quote: “THIS IS BULLSH*T! THIS IS BULLSH*T!!!” I totally agree.
Then Jeff Hardy comes out, which pisses me off cause he goes back to TNA after how they done him before. WHAT? Is he high again? I mean he has to be. To me it makes no sense. Someone have him call me to explain it. Cause I don’t get it.
Cut to the Beautiful People playing poker. Made them out to be stupid and skanky. Not a fan of this.
ODB & Tara for the KO Titles should have been a classic 10-12 minute match. But they only got 3 minutes. WTF? That is horrible. What is TNA thinking? I mean come on. 3 minutes for a match in which the pride of the company, being the Knockouts, are being displayed. Morons.
Ric Flair shows up. Great, now its looking more and more like WCW to me.
30 minutes into this and its very lackluster.
Now they deny Foley in. Gotta be continuing the storyline. Then Lashley comes out and says he wants out of his TNA contract. Well actually he didn’t say a word. His wife did. She looked like she knew exactly what she was doing. Got some major heat. Always a fan of that though.
Hal & Waltman show up. Looking even more like WCW. Or the nWo maybe.
Hogan comes out finally after an hour of B/S. A lot of time was wasted in between the Tara/ODB match and this. Mindless dribble kind of stuff. The Hogan entrance happened about 3 minutes before Raw went live. Which I saw coming. They don’t want people changing over to see Bret when Hulk has something more important to say. I liked his entrance into the studio area though. Police escort, very nice. Hulk doesn’t get to say much before Hall and Waltman jump the guard rail, after they finally got in. Hulk tells them to get in the ring for more time wasting, and pandering kinda stuff. Hogan says “its time to grow up, its time to do the right thing for this business.” Agreed. Nash comes out. Eric Bischoff comes out and pretty much tells them how things are going to be. “Everybody has to got to earn their position in this company.” Cool. Eric then says the format for the show is not what they think it is going to be. Changing everything already huh?
Sting is shown in the rafters. Only once and he never made an actual “appearance” in the ring during the show.
Knockouts Tag Title match. Nicely done. Very physical. They actually gave them 9 or 10 minutes. Could have been more, but ok for what they needed in this match. Motor City Machine Guns are shown beat down in the back during the match.
Cut back to the Beautiful People playing poker. Sean Morely shows up; Val Venis for those who don’t know.
They promote TNA Epics only once from what I can remember.
Raven/Dr. Stevie vs Hernandez/Matt Morgan was a joke. Barely even 35 seconds. Could have been a good match.
Pope does a great interview. Orlando Jordan shows up kinda randomly while Pope is explaining why him and Wolfe is going have a good match. Pope vs Wolfe was given like 8 minutes maybe and they had a great match for it being only 8 minutes. TNA should have spent more time with actual wrestling and not all these backstage things. Wrestling fans want wrestling.
Jeff Jarrett comes in the building, Rhino is beat down in the back, looks more like nWo to me. They change the planned AJ Styles/Kurt Angle match for the ppv to tonight, which might save the show.
Double J comes out, says they will take over the world. Love to see Jeff’s passion in this promo. Hulk cuts him off and says that he has no power anymore. Jeff needs to get in line like everyone else. More storyline stuff. Good to see they are actually trying to work some storyline material into the show. After this Foley gets in.
Abyss vs Samoa Joe is next. Something we have never seen. Like it. Not given a lot of time though and then Abyss taps. Makes the “Monster” look way weak. They cut to Sting in the back during this. No reason. They just do it.
Ms. Lashley confronts Eric. She has attitude and im loving this. Very nicely done.
Beer Money laid out now. Stupid. People get beat up and they do nothing with it. Maybe nest week.
Nasty Boys throughout the whole thing is dumb. They are WAY over the hill. Why are they there? This is what I thought would happen when Hogan took over. All these old guys coming back in and killing all the new stars in the business.
Angle cuts an intense promo. Always good. No one can argue that fact.
Jeff Hardy & Shannon Moore moment was dumb. Nice car Jeff was driving though.
AJ Styles vs Kurt Angle needs no explanation. A wrestling clinic for sure. But what else would you expect from these two.
Show ends with Foley getting to his office and find Bischoff. What a good ending though as Hall and Waltman beat him down. Hulk wakes in & is disgusted I guess. Way to up close shot of Hogan as they go off.
All in all the show in my opinion sucked. They spent to much time trying to “build” stuff for the future and not enough time trying to showcase the talent, which has always been TNA’s problem. They are never gonna be the “number one wrestling company” as Hogan said doing things like this way. They need better booking and better ways of showcasing the talent. At the end of the day, the talent is what is going to make them great. TNA has a loyal following and I will continue to watch, as long as Hogan doesn’t continue to let things go on like this. Hogan is saying all the right things at this point, but only time will tell whether or not he goes through with what he is saying. Im all for bettering the business and I think TNA can do it. I, as many others, want the days of the WWE/WCW war to return. But I do NOT want the same guys trying to recreate history. Let the guys in TNA create their own history. That way the fans really are the winners...
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