THE 8 WEEK STREAK IS OVER!
There are many mixed opinions of last Thursday’s Impact. While the show wasn’t bad, and wasn’t great, one thing was for certain; the Streak is Over! The streak I am referring to is the series of Impacts from Sacrifice leading all the way up to Victory Road. The streak of TV Shows that saw TNA receive some of its highest praise ever.
I attribute the improvement of shows to the change in format: the TNA-Style documentary backstage pretapes, the slowing down of the show, the focus on in-ring action and finally the focus on storylines. Many of those features were seen this past week but they were joined by many Russorific features as well such as: a multitude of gimmick matches, rushed segments and a Legend beating the crap out of a rising star followed by a semi-shoot promo.
This column is not here to criticize this past week’s Impact but rather to highlight what made the 8 Week Streak I am talking about into something to remember. I just want to clarify that I thought the first four weeks were better than the last four weeks (probably because of them being taped together) but in total, we saw many great things.
Top Ten Rankings System
The new rankings system promised before Against All Odds debuted months later after Sacrifice. TNA did a VERY good job with the first segment announcing the top ten contenders. While many don’t agree with how the rankings system is set up, it does a very good job of having a background theme behind many of these feuds where wins and losses matter.
The second aspect of the rankings is Kurt Angle’s climb through them. Angle is so awesome and when he said he would go through each of the top ten contenders until he reached the champion, I knew we would be in a crapload of good matches, which in fact we were. The storyline can lead us into Bound For Glory where Angle can challenge the World Champion.
Sting and Deception
For almost the entirety of his career, Sting was a babyface. On many occasions, WCW and TNA tried to turn Sting heel but for one reason or another, it didn’t pan out. Somehow Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan convinced Sting to turn heel and ever since he did, his character has been extremely intriguing.
This leads to the deception angle, which was highlighted for the first four weeks leading up to Slammiversary. Sting talked about deception and how white is actually black and vice versa. When he was about to tell Dixie Carter about the Deception, Eric Bischoff walked in and had security escort the Scorpion out for his suspension, putting the storyline on hold. This begs the question on if Sting is actually a bad guy or if Eric Bischoff/Hulk Hogan are doing something deceptive. I can’t wait to see this thing pan out.
“Nature Boy” Jay Lethal
One of the rising stars for the past eight weeks has been Jay Lethal. Ever since dropping the Black Machismo gimmick, Jay Lethal has had a rocket strapped to his ass. He has recently been embroiled in a feud with Ric Flair. Lethal has been impersonating Flair leading to Ric being pissed off and attempting to take out Lethal, which on almost every front has been a failure.
What has been so great about the Lethal vs Flair feuds are their promos, notably the “Whoo” battle the two had where Lethal was impersonating Flair and doing all of his mannerisms pissing the real Nature Boy off. The segment was one of the funniest thing I have seen in wrestling the past two or three years.
The A**hole
Mr. Anderson was an awesome heel in his feud with Kurt Angle. At Sacrifice, he cut another one of his funny promos about him being an asshole, where he ended up turning face. After fighting Jeff Hardy at Sacrifice, Mr. Anderson starting helping Hardy confusing the Charismatic Enigma and leading to the two teaming up. The intrigue on when Mr. Anderson turning heel helped this storyline. One of my favorites though was the promo between Beer Money and Mr. Anderson/Jeff Hardy leading to their tag match at Slammiversary which was gold.
The Two Brothers
By the brothers, I am referring to AJ Styles and Kazarian. Kazarian caught the eye of the Nature Boy Ric Flair during an X Division battle royal. Over the next 8 weeks, Kazarian and AJ Styles played the game of one upsmanship. It seemed like Kazarian was gaining the favor of Nature Boy who was blaming AJ Styles for the losses. The Triple Threat involving these two and Jay Lethal where the two constantly argued over what move to do, which in turn lead to AJ getting pinned was excellent. Also the backstage pretape where AJ gloated about his action figure leading to Kazarian telling him to play with himself was funny as well.
Xplosion
During this time, Xplosion (the UK Show) was relaunched in the UK with a new logo, theme song and format featuring more storylines and matches. Watching the shows on youtube showed me a completely unique and different show than Impact. It’s a fun half hour of TV for us and I hope it makes its way to Spike TV very soon.
Abyss once again a Monster
For the past few years, Abyss has transformed from a Monster into a Muppet. He would laugh like an idiot, be paranoid and be a hardcore puppet. Hulk Hogan transformed him from a hardcore goon into a Hulk Hogan goon, with ring and all. While I didn’t like Abyss being a Hogan ripoff, I thought it did a good job setting up the Monster’s return.
The Impact after Slammiversary saw Abyss turn fully fledged heel destroying Jeff Hardy and Mr. Anderson. The following week he would shove Hulk Hogan’s hall of fame ring down the throat of the man who committed so much to Abyss. TNA did such a good job rebuilding Abyss that he has become one of the top heels in TNA and is actually a force to be reckoned with. Abyss became a Monster once again with his board with nails, Janice by his side.
Everything Else
There are many other things I didn’t mention but so many other angles such as TNA building Madison Rayne into a career killer, the Brian Kendrick vs Douglas Williams feud, the Tag Team Tournament, the Hernandez vs Morgan feud and the drama between Team 3D and Jesse Neal have all added to the program. Even the bad things about the show like The Band no longer being around (thank god) were put on the back burner.
Overall, things felt much more casual and easy going. The camera angles are crisper, we have gotten some great TV Matches and things are just more fun. There is no more pressure competing on Monday Nights and there were no major changes announced. At the time people thought TNA had hit their formula and that things would just get better.
I think TNA can get back to that place when Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan return. It is evident that they were a huge part in the quality product, even though the critics would like to say otherwise.