wrestling / Columns
A Brace for Impact 01.01.09
Greetings, humanity! Welcome to A Brace for Impact, where two 411mania writers give you their real-time thoughts on the show as it happens. I’m your host Chris Lansdell, and each week a special guest will be joining me.
Greetings, all. Welcome to A Brace for Impact as hosted by yours truly, Jarrod Westerfeld. It’s my last week of covering for Lansdell, so fear not, balance and order will be restored next week when A Brace for Impact will return to its more cynically positive ways soon enough.
Before we get to the guest, I’ve noticed from the comments section that some people don’t seem to get the column, while some love it. Let me explain a few things about A Brace for Impact:
After copying and pasting a lot of the old template that Lansdell had so kindly forwarded to me let’s meet our guest, the unfortunate soul who signed away his holiday relaxation time to sit down and chat with me over a cold episode of TNA Impact, the writer of the Raw Live Coverage and Raw Report Rob McNew. Welcome one and all, once again for the second week in a row, Rob.
Rob: Rob McNew here, back again, and my new year’s resolution is actually to be positive to TNA…for now anyway. Pretty good lineup for the Best of 2008 tonight, I’m looking forward to this one.
Jarrod: Well, you’re willing to be positive and I’m willing to be realistic – if this doesn’t add up to 2006’s New Year’s show I’m crying into a bucket.
Cut to –
BANNER!
Bound For Glory IV: Jeff Jarrett vs. Kurt Angle
Jarrod: I guess I can’t complain too much about this opening. This was a pretty good match – up until the Jarrett ending. Why does Jeff insist on over booking his own matches?
Rob: I haven’t seen this one, but it makes sense to feature this to build up for the rematch next Sunday.
Jarrod: Yeah, but for this to be the opener when some of the other matches to be featured later on could be placed in this spot instead? It’s a main event feud. I guess they just wanted to kick this show off with one of the stronger matches to keep viewers hooked from the start.
Rob: Well with the exception of the knockouts match, they’re all main event matches. Nice touch with the inset interviews from the participants looking back at the match.
Jarrod: I’m not too big a fan on this as it tends to pulls you out of the kayfabe. Personally, I would rather they showed the highlights of the feud in a video package before going into the matches, but I’ll live with what they’re doing. At least it’s a nice touch and shows some work went into this episode.
Rob: Okay, at the beginning was one thing, but this is going to get annoying if it continues throughout the entire match.
Jarrod: What annoys me is the flash of the logo to go into these comments. There were a lot of other ways to slash in the videos of these guys talking about this matches that were less intrusive. Again, it’s not too bad given they’re doing those flashes at slow points in the match so you don’t miss too much of the bout.
Rob: Definately. Also less is more sometimes. Just put their face in a box in the corner. Not sure if you’re watching in HD, but since this match was shot before TNA began filming in HD the sides are already letter boxed. I’ve literally only got the match on 1/4th of my screen.
Jarrod: Yeah, that’s the problem with the HD transitions, the stuff before doesn’t fill up your screen. I’m assuming that the letter box isn’t designed in a special manner much like the WWE has been doing with their pre-HD filmed material used for video vignettes and promos?
Rob: No, actually it looks better than the WWE letterbox.
Jarrod: Ah, that’s a good thing then. At least it’s nice looking. I can’t help but point out that I hate these interviews for a reason – Angle talks about Jarrett being protected, politically, in the company as if completely forgetting that we’ve already talked about Jeff being the owner of the company. Of course he’d be protected politically in his own company. I don’t think anyone thought some of these comments through.
Rob: What they’re saying doesn’t bother me as much as it makes it very hard to actually follow the match. They seem to be taking for granted that most people watching have actually seen these matches.
Jarrod: They’re not playing up to people who may not have seen these matches before, and that’s a problem. Again, I would have rather the video vignette showcasing the evolution of the feud before the airing of the match, less intrusive and more inviting.
Rob: Exactly, I believe they average around 30,000 buys. But they have 1 million viewers for Impact. Give the people watching a reason to actually pay for one of these.
Jarrod: Every year they do these highlight shows they seem to miss out on the fact that the people buying the pay-per-views aren’t the same number of people watching free every week. They could be making good business off of these highlight shows, especially with good matches like this.
Rob: Yes, I must give Jarrett credit. For being his first match in two years he hasn’t really lost a step.
Jarrod: For me, this match showcased how good a talent Jarrett is; but this is why he’s not a main eventer, he just doesn’t have that big presence to command a crowd. WCW showed that, and TNA echoes that sentiment.
Rob: When paired with a good worker, he’s always been able to deliver. That can’t be denied.
Jarrod: Nope, it certainly can’t. And when you’re working with such a talent like Angle, you can only look better, not worse.
Rob: A real problem with showing PPV matches on free TV is the fact that their really isn’t a good spot for a commercial break.
Jarrod: True, but so far they’ve done that pretty well for the night.
Rob: And we got a Behind Enemy Lines: Columbia commercial. You know, I wanted to watch Impact because it was the only wrestling show you can watch without hearing that awful movie plugged. So much for that.
Jarrod: The night is young, there’s still time to play more ads for that film.
Rob: Looks like they had a nice crowd in a pretty good sized building. I know they can play camera tricks to make the arena look full, but thats still pretty impressive.
Jarrod: I don’t get why they didn’t do made for TV commentary for this, so you can showcase some of the stuff that happened during the commercial break – unless they’re playing the entire match with the commercial breaks not breaking up the flow, something I highly doubt.
Rob: They almost couldn’t do that. I don’t believe they’d have time to show everything they had on tap.
Jarrod: I still hate those time updates. I really fucking do.
Rob: They make a little more sense tonight on a recap show, but when they’re live you’re basically telling the audience everything is on a schedule, and you’re not watching real competition
Jarrod: Yeah, well that’s TNA – do it wrong when there’s a formula for doing it right. They do the promo ads early to show what’s in store; why not just show those again to remind people of what’s coming next as opposed to telling them how long before it actually shows up?
Rob: I find it very funny that Tenay has to refer to Socko as “The Famous Sock” WWE even trademarked Mr. Socko.
Jarrod: I find it funny that the footage now looks stretched and distorted. Why the hell is that?
Rob: I noticed that as well, wonder what happened there?
Jarrod: See, the promo ad. What was wrong with just showing that instead of telling you, “hey, in 9 minutes we’re going to show you the next match on line for tonight’s show?”
Rob: Yeah, the 9 minutes thing screams News Magazine and not sporting event.
Jarrett pins Angle (Guitar Shot)
Impact: TNA Knockouts Championship – Gail Kim © vs. Awesome Kong
Rob: They’re actually showing a Gail Kim match? Wow, I’m impressed.
Jarrod: And like I said, the video vignette showing the escalation of the feud works out so much better…I hope they do that more often for the night; I can’t take another in-character match synopsis.
Rob: Absolutely. Kudos to TNA for not trying to bury Gail either. Luckily since Kong doesn’t really speak and Gail is no longer with TNA we’ll get this match without the interruptions
Jarrod: Well, this is what a highlights show is about, letting the highlights do the talking for you.
Rob: I take it this match is no DQ?
Jarrod: No, I believe this was just TNA rules, which means the booker forgot what a DQ finish was and how one obtains such a goal.
Rob: I see, seems more like ECW rules. Although they were open about it. I’m of course referring to the original version
Jarrod: Did they edit the sound to make that crash sound more…cartoony?!
Rob: That was pretty bad, its like they miked up the stage
Jarrod: I knew it was too good to be true.
Rob: Seriously, Angelina Love comes with guest commentary? What the fuck was the point of that?
Jarrod: Plus, they redid the commentary for this match just to put over the Knockout’s since Gail left. Amazing.
Rob: Yep, we lost Gail, but we still have Christy Hemme! They’re not divas they’re really not!
Jarrod: Now commentary from Traci?! Why? Fucking why?! Now Roxxi?! WHAT THE FUCK?! Plus she’s still doing that annoying “I’m a hard up Tank Girl who’ll get bleeped every other word, so there’s really no point in me talking to begin with” character of hers.
Rob: Traci Brooks has no business being on my screen if she’s only being shot from the neck up.
Jarrod: …I give up…I really do. I think this may be the last time I put faith in this company to do the right thing.
Rob: That was the Knockout Match of the Year? Thats it?
Jarrod: Gail and Kong had better matches before the turn of 2008; plus they had good stuff with ODB involved. I don’t know who decided that was the better match, but it was filmed for television so it makes editing it for TV that much easier.
Rob: True enough. Seemed like just an excuse to say “Here’s our champ destroying a WWE girl. Enjoy!”
Jarrod: Not a bad idea, it just goes to show that their guys and girls are better than WWE talent, so it works on that front.
Rob: Except the casuals don’t realize that Gail is with WWE now, just that she’s gone.
Jarrod: It’s not like casuals are actually watching this show, or this promotion, anyway.
Rob: Also a very fair point.
Kong pins Kim (Awesome Bomb)
Lockdown: TNA World Championship – Kurt Angle © vs. Samoa Joe
Rob: Okay, now we’re talking
Jarrod: What. In. The. Fuck!?
Rob: This seems to be the most polarizing match of the year. People either love it or hate it, and there is no middle ground.
Jarrod: They just cut to this match in progress? Why? This was the selling point of Lockdown that gave it such huge buys, and you sell it to the free audience by not caring enough to introduce this match the same way you did Angle/Jarrett?!
Rob: I agree with you there, although they only cut out the entrances. Angle’s MMA outfit is laughable.
Jarrod: It just irks me that they just cut to it already in progress. This was a big deal for the company and they opted to just cut out the theatrics and just show it as if it was just a match.
Rob: And now we get comments from Mick Foley, who was the color commentator for Smackdown when this match took place.
Jarrod: I know a lot of people who love this match forget, or choose to ignore the beginning of this match, but this was the most boring fake MMA style ever. Too many rope breaks just pulling the fans out of the suspense of the bout.
Rob: The faux MMA was definately different, but it didn’t bother me that much. Like I said earlier though if there was an award for “Polarizing Match of the Year” This one would win in a landslide.
Jarrod: But I’ve seen faux MMA style done in wrestling matches that were better than this. This was just a boring style of MMA because it focused so much on the ground that it took out some of the striking combinations. But what’s worse was that their ground game would stop and restart every few seconds because of a rope break. It was like they stopped the match only to restart it again.
Rob: So I guess we’ll put you in the “hated it” column then.
Jarrod: The ending of the match was terrific; when they started working their usual program. That was good. I’m more stuck in the middle of, “begining sucked, but the rest of the match was great”. But you might as well slot me in the “hated it” column as I’m sure that’s where others will put me.
Rob: Well you have a point there. Honestly the MMA style didn’t bother me nearly as much as Angle in MMA dress.
Rob: STFU by Joe. The crowd starts chanting Cena Sucks here if I remember correctly. Sadly I can’t hear them because we’re getting more words from Angle.
Jarrod: Again with the fucking minute-to-minute update on what’s coming up. I hope someone over there realizes it and says, “this is fucking stupid. Can we stop it?”
Rob: The graphic just came up that said “Heavyweight Championship Match of the Year in 8 Minutes” This match was billed as the “TNA Match of the Year” Isn’t that kind of a contradiction?
Jarrod: It’s more like someone wanted to title the Styles/Sting bout just to give reason for it to be on this match, and they picked the worse possible name for it.
Rob: As much as I love this match, that finish always bugged me a bit. Kurt always had kicked out of the muscle buster in their previous encounters.
Jarrod: At no point did they play up the drama of Joe’s title chase in that highlight, or in that celebration…this is why I hate this company.
Rob: Well they’re strapped for time. Although you could have just cut about five minutes of the middle of the match during one of the commercial breaks.
Jarrod: Instead this company insists on doing things that don’t need to be done for the sake of filling in time.
Joe pins Angle (Muscle Buster)
Turning Point: TNA World Championship – Sting © vs. AJ Styles
Rob: And there you go again. No background at all.
Jarrod: They did it again. Cut straight to the match in progress…
Rob: At least this match is in HD, so I won’t complain. AJ’s comments come off very forced. Its like he’s reading cue cards.
Jarrod: Seeing how this is all done all I can think about is how TNA fans claim that they can’t get into ROH because it doesn’t have stories, but yet here you have a show highlighting the best of 2008 and TNA strips the matches of the meaning and stories just to present to us nice looking matches. This is bothering the shit out of me. Can’t we get emotionally involved in these bouts, even if they’re just highlights from a previous event?!
Rob: Personally, I would have cut the Gail Kim match, and used that extra time to show the match previews that they aired on pay per view. That way they’re not featuring a WWE talent, and someone who may be new to TNA knows what they’re watching. I’m not sure if you had just started watching if you would even know who was the champ going into this match.
Jarrod: The only indication would be from listening to the commentary team, and who wants to do that when you have one guy trying to eat the mike, and the other guy trying his best to sound like Jim Ross and Gordon Solely, but butchering it because he’s an angry beaver.
Rob: I say it all the time. You’ve got Mick Foley AND Jim Cornette in “authority figure” roles. Couldn’t one of them replace Don West on color?
Jarrod: You have AJ trying to talk about this match in character, and you have Sting cutting a visual based promo about Styles which was only aired as audio. Again, video vignettes was a bad idea for this highlight show? Christ…I wish I had some liquor nearby.
Rob: AJ is awful in those comments. He reminds me of a young kid trying to cut a promo in the mirror.
Jarrod: This is why TNA is nowhere near the WWE – production values. This doesn’t look like a big time company, nor does it make its show look all that impressive. Can we PLEASE fire the producers and get new guys who actually know how to produce a television show?
Rob: I’m not sure I’d go that far. I’ve always thought TNA passed the eye test when it comes to looking like its a big deal. If we always compare them to the E, they’re always going to look somewhat inferior.
Jarrod: For me it’s not that they’re not like the WWE, but that they’re trying to do what the WWE has done and they fail miserably. Camera angles to catch emotions, but they miss things in trying to do that; the constant changes in camera angles, at times, are just based off of poor decisions. Then you have a highlight show in which they just cut to the action rather than set you up to understand the timeline and the story behind the match. Then you add these interviews? That’s just further proof that their production values aren’t up to where they need to be.
Rob: I won’t argue that this particular Best of 2008 show could definately be put together better than it has. Well that match was TNA in a nutshell. Awesome match, everything running smoothly. Then a totally overbooked screwy finish that sees Sting retain with an Oklahoma Roll?
Jarrod: For me, that match basically summed up the direction of this feud – that no matter what the Frontline just won’t mean as much as the MEM, so there’s no reason to care about the Frontline.
Rob: The first thing I thought when I saw Booker and Angle running to the ring, and AJ fighting them off was that it was basically Luger-Hogan on Nitro back in ’97. The night Luger won the title. Only Sting ended up winning, so the MEM is even more dominant than the NWO?
Sting pins AJ Styles (Oklahoma Roll)
TNA World Tag Team Championship – Beer Money Inc. © vs. L.A.X.
Jarrod: Hey, look, a video package to set up the emotion and story for a match. What was so wrong about doing this throughout the night?!
Rob: And this is actually a new match they’re showing.
Jarrod: Even when TNA opts to do an all wrestling show they manage to piss me off. Hopefully this match does well to restore my faith in this company and the possibilities they represent.
Rob: Just an observation, but I’m not sure why they’re running the “Best of” show tonight and not either last week on Christmas, or next week when they’re gonna killed by the BCS Championship Game.
Rob: This has really been a fantastic match.
Jarrod: So far this match has gotten a lot of time, so at least there’s the thrill of getting to really enjoy it.
Rob: Well there’s no vignettes to throw it to, so they’ve got nothing but time.
Jarrod: It just hit me, thanks to Tenay’s commentary, why are LAX getting this tag title match when Homicide and Hernandez have individual title shots and Lethal has the tag title shot? How did they end up the number one contenders here?
Rob: Well I don’t really have a problem with that so much. Lethal isn’t the number one contender, he just has the automatic shot. I’m willing to buy them as being the number one contenders.
Jarrod: Meh, I just thought it worth mentioning. It’s just a small oddity, really.
Rob: Yeah, its kind of different, but its a great match so I’m not complaining.
Jarrod: You know, the timing of Roode and Storm couldn’t be any more off if they tried. They need to really need more time together to get some of their tandem work down better.
Rob: Roode off the top rope was a pretty bad botch
Jarrod: I don’t think it a botch so much as just they don’t have that air tight chemistry as a team that’s been working together for years. The communication needs cleaning up.
Rob: Wow, worst finish ever.
Jarrod: I hope that TNA continues to build up Beer Money so they turn into a really great tag team. Just some time and they could get their act down pact both in the ring much in the way they’ve gotten their characters synched up.
Rob: Roode kicks out of Homicide levelling him with the belt, but Homicide runs into the chair and he’s down for the count?
Jarrod: Yeah, that was a pretty bad finish. That was just weak. I saw what they were trying to do, but the execution wasn’t where they wanted it.
Roode pins Homicide (Chair Shot and Roll-up)
Jarrod: A tremendous tag bout that got a lot of time falls apart for two reasons: Beer Money still need time together to get their chemistry down, and their timing, and the finish was a good concept but the execution was weak and left you thinking, “wow, that was fake.” Overall, it was still good, and was worth kicking off the year with. ***
Rob: Absolutely agree with pretty much the entire sentiment. The match was everything this company should be given the talent involved. The finish was awful, but it is what it is. ***1/4
TNA 2008: The Video Package
Jarrod: This is an oddity of a video package…this year was scattered bullshit. A lot of this stuff could have been forgotten about. Shame it wasn’t.
Rob: Weddings, video game characters, Guys imitating WWE legends, its the best of TNA 2008… Well put together package, but some of that stuff wasn’t worth reliving
Jarrod: Thank God 2008 is over. Maybe this year will be better for TNA…I’m hoping.
Rob: There’s certainly some reason for hope. I thought the two shows before Christmas were pretty good, and the Christmas show was a throw away for obvious reasons. We’ll see if they can pick up the momentum again next Thursday.
Show Synopsis
Rob: Presentation was awful. No build up for any of the matches. They just assume that if you’re watching you’re already a fan and you already know all of this stuff. Thats not exactly the road to go when you’re trying to build a fan base. However, the match quality was fantastic and a nice treat for free TV. The one live match delivered big time, and we had none of the comedy crap. In short, they could have done a better job of presenting it, but it was still two hours of quality wrestling so I can’t complain too much.
Jarrod:
For me, that’s the right sentiment about this show. The presentation was poor, the productions were still low grade but the wrestling for this show was amazing even if it was stripped of the emotion, meaning and story in its presentation. But again, TNA proves that they cannot find the proper balance for their program as this was heavy on the wrestling without any of the build and emotion. A highlight show isn’t just meant to show you great spots or amazing matches, it’s to fill you in on what you missed throughout the year and this show didn’t invite those who missed these matches to understand what happened to build to them or why you should have cared that you missed it in the first place. It could have been better presented, but it wasn’t. Overall it was still a good show but it catered only to those in the know, ignoring anyone who didn’t order every TNA pay-per-view for the year, and just presented itself as just pure wrestling for this one night. It could have been better, but it certainly wasn’t a bad way to kick off the New Year.
And that’ll do it for me. I’d like to once again thank Rob for being so willing to join me once again and for being the only one alive on New Year’s Day to recap this show with me. Once again, Lansdell will return next week and I probably won’t be featured on the report as two weeks of me was probably more than enough for some of you. Until next time, children.
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