Csonka’s TNA Impact Review 3.15.16

TNA Impact Review 3.15.16

OFFICIAL RESULTS
– Winner Gets a Spot In The Main Event: Jeff Hardy defeated Eric Young @ 9:45 via pin [**]
– Mike Bennett and Maria defeated Drew Galloway and Gail Kim @ 5:13 via [**½]
– The Decay defeated Beer Money and Eddie Edwards @ 7:20 via pin [**¾]
– Ladder Match: Grado defeated Eli Drake @ 7:07 [*]
– TNA World Title Match: Champion Matt Hardy vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Ethan Carter III went to a no contest @ 16:30 [**]
– TNA World Title Match: Drew Galloway defeated Champion Matt Hardy @ 0:23 via pin to become the NEW CHAMPION [NR]

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– Jeff Hardy made his way to the ring, and Eric Young ranted to Dixie Carter backstage. He promised to hurt Jeff, and that it would be on Dixie.

Winner Gets a Spot In The Main Event: Jeff Hardy vs. Eric Young: They brawled right away, playing off the fact that Young was the one that sent Jeff on his yearly “I’m not allowed in thee UK vacation.” They brawled for 45-seconds, and then Dixie came out and interrupted the match and said that the winner would get a shot in the main event title match. Seems as if we could have done that before the match, but ok. Jeff largely controlled after that, Young finally used some heel shenanigans but they still went back and forth here. Young got sent to the floor, and when Jeff tried his slingshot splash he ate knees, finally allowing Young to work the heat. It was his basic walk and brawl heat, but the crowd was into it, which is obviously a good thing. Young missed a head butt off the ropes, and then popped up to his feet and took a flair flop. Why? Because, reasons. Jeff made his big comeback, and did most of his usual stuff, but still feels slow due to his knee injury. They battled up top, Jeff tossed Young to the mat, ht the swanton and won. I am glad that they started off with a match, and I liked the brawl aspect at the beginning, but they completely lost the intensity as this broke down into a regular match. It wasn’t bad, but it was just there. I also hated Dixie’s little interruption; get that shit in before the match please.

– After Jeff’s win, Matt (with Reby and Maxell) made their way to the ring. He said that Jeff’s win was comeback of the year material, and then kissed his ass and even apologized for not saving him when Young piledrove him through a table. Reby played the family card and said, “uncle Jeff was Maxell’s second favorite wrestler” and allowed Jeff to hold him. Matt then said if Jeff gave up his spot tonight, so that he can pin EC3, he will give Jeff a title match; “Bound For Glory 2017, maybe even 2018!” Jeff refused and kept his spot in the main event. Jeff then flipped Matt the bird and hit the twist of fate to stand tall. POP TV missing the censoring there was great. I liked that way more than the opener, Matt & Reby come off as completely unlikable in every way.

– Earlier today, Eddie Edwards was talking about the injury to Avery Richards. The Decay then attacked him and laid him out backstage.

– Maria and Mike Bennett cut a backstage promo. He’s the miracle, he changes the whole company, and tonight they will beat Drew Galloway and Gail Kim.

– Beer Money checks on Eddie Edwards, and out of respect, offer to be his partners to battle the Decay tonight.

Mike Bennett and Maria vs. Drew Galloway and Gail Kim: Bennett finally dropped the black tights and went with pink to match Maria. Maria teased starting, but bailed right away as you’d expect. Kim and Galloway controlled and worked over Bennett, but Maria low bridged Kim as she hit the ropes and that allowed her to attack. It didn’t last long, and we got more of Bennett and Galloway. Bennett is working with more aggression tonight, which is nice to see. Good back and forth here, Maria slapped Galloway so he chopped the hell out of Bennett. She did it again, so Galloway lit up Bennett some more. Maria tried to stop Galloway from the tag, Kim finally got in and looked to work her over, but Bennett came in. Kim hit eat defeat on him, Galloway hit the claymore on Bennett but then Maria rolled up Kim with the tights for the win. Rock solid match there, with a lot of ballyhoo between Kim and Maria to build to their eventual match. I am still not a fan of the feud, but this was fine to advance it as well as Galloway vs. Bennett.

– We get footage of Angle’s final TNA match.

Josh Mathews Interviews Lashley: Mathews was in the ring, and spoke about Lashley’s actions from last week and then brought him out to the ring. Mathews put over Lashley, and asked him about his actions from last week. Lashley said he waited a long time for the match with Angle; he’s a fighter and not anyone’s hero and is here to fight. He’s the most dominating guy in the business but is always overlooked. He questioned if it was politics, so he made sure he could be one of Angle’s final opponents t prove himself. He did what he said; he beat Angle and stood tall. Mathews asked if Lashley and Angle were friends, but Lashley said he has no friends. Lashley thought that Mathews was getting a bit uppity with him, so he attacked him and tossed him down, The Pope hit the ring to make the save, and ate a spear for his troubles. Pope sold that so well, taking an awesome bump. I love give no fucks Lashley, but having him beat up Josh and Pope makes him the biggest babyface in the company to me. Overall I felt that was a good segment to solidify Lashley’s turn from last week, but where is that Raquel chick that was talking to him and then disappeared?

– The Decay cut a promo about tonight’s match with Edwards and Beer Money.

– Josh is back on commentary, Jeremy Borash is replacing Pope.

– EC3 meets with Jeff Hardy backstage. Jeff is glad the old EC3 is gone, and likes this new EC3. They run down Matt, and EC3 says every time he has Matt beat something unforeseen happens. Jeff said that wasn’t going to be him because he wants to win the world title.

The Decay (Abyss, Steve and Rosemary) vs. Beer Money (Storm and Roode) and Eddie Edwards: The faces worked over Steve early, he then took the ref, Rosemary caused the distraction and Abyss took down Roode and they took control of things and worked the heat on Roode. Pretty good heat overall, it never got too slow and Roode sold well; it also helps that the crowd is into the face team. Storm got the hot tag, he worked over Steve, Edwards in and hit a backpack stunner for a near fall. It broke down, we got a dive by Edwards and then Steve had to save Rosemary from the Beer money suplex. They hit Steve with it, did their celebration and Storm hit an assisted dove onto Abyss. Rosemary misted Roode, Steve low blowed Edwards and picked up the victory. That was fun overall, and is likely setting the Decay for another shot at the titles soon. That is all well and good, but TNA needs to address the tag division depth just as much as they do with the X-Division. With Richards out, they need fresh blood. Hopefully Storm is ok, his final bump onto Abyss looked rough and he yelled out when he landed. Hopefully he was just selling and there is nothing to it.

– Grado spoke with Billy Corgan about the situation with Eli Drake. They will make a decision in the ring tonight.

– Matt and Reby tried to confront Dixie Carter about tonight’s main event. Reby said that Matt was bigger than the brand, but Dixie said that the match would still go on and that she does this for the fans. Matt said he was going to beat EC3 tonight, and threatens go get disqualified to keep his title. Dixie makes it a no countout and no disqualification match to counteract that. I am sure that’ll work out just fine and dandy.

Billy Corgan Settles The Score Between Grado and Eli Drake – Ladder Match: Eli Drake vs. Grado: We get highlights of the Feast or Fired gimmick, where Grado got fired. Grado kept claiming that he was screwed. They posted video proof online this week, and now Billy Corgan says we’re solving it tonight. Drake came to the ring first and said he came dressed to fight as Corgan asked. He wants the briefcase that was stolen from him returned. Corgan and Grado make their way out to the ring. Corgan makes Grado return the case, and Drake wants Grado gone. Corgan says they reviewed the evidence and Drake did “something” so he will fix the situation. Corgan then makes a ladder match between Drake and Grado; if Grado wins he gets a new contract, if he loses he is gone. You’d think that this would be the set up for something next week, instead we get the match now. I know it’s just Grado vs. Drake, but you can’t even build the ladder match for one week? After the commercial break, we returned for our match. We started with a bang as they did cartoon comedy spots (no, look that way) and then Drake missed a kick of the ropes when Grado was exiting, which Grado sold anyway. Drake controlled most of the early action as Mathews was completely useless, making Grado look like an idiot. I get that a lot of people aren’t Grado fans, but if Mathews makes no effort to get him over it’s completely counter productive. Grado made a comeback, and we got run ins from Godderz and Shera. Godderz and Drake attacked Shera, Grado climbed the ladder and then hit a dive onto all three on the floor. Grado and Drake battled to climb the ladder, and Grado hit an electric chair off the ladder. They both climbed again, Grado elbowed Drake to the mat and got the contract. So this was a ladder match, with five minutes of build, that went just over seven-minutes and had several run ins to try and cover up the fact that it wasn’t very good. Just because they did a couple of big spots doesn’t make it good. I haven’t been into this feud at all, it felt like they half assed it most of the time and used it as a way to keep Shera on TV, and worst of all no one was actually fired in the Feast or FIRED match.

– Eric Young yelled at Bram for not helping him earlier. Willow the Wisp then walked behind them and pointed at them with his umbrella. Not that shit again.

– Next week, Beer Money will have an open challenge against any former TNA Tag Team Champions.

TNA World Title Match: Champion Matt Hardy vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Ethan Carter III: EC3 and Jeff took turns beating on Matt to begin, which of course led to an argument. Fun moment as Matt tried to make a comeback and then called to Jeff to do poetry in mention, which e refused. He did do it when EC3 asked, but then tried to roll him up. Matt and Jeff would inadvertently work together a little bit, but ended up taking each other out. I really liked that they didn’t fall into the typical three-way formula right away, as all three stayed in the ring. EC3 powerslammed Jeff off the top rope and looked to take control of things; we went to a break. Post break, EC3 was sent to the floor and that allowed Matt vs. Jeff to happen for a bit. Matt controlled for a short time, leading to Jeff making the comeback and hitting the twist of fate. So then Eric Young and Bram ran in. if you were going to do this, in NO WAY should there have been a run in during the previous match. Hell the previous match should have not even been on the show if you wanted to promote it, but it shouldn’t have had run ins. They did the piledriver spot on Jeff on the floor, and security took them away. Jeff was out of things, leaving EC3 and Matt. EC3 ran wild, hit the corner splash AND THEN, Spud and Tyrus ran in, because we didn’t have enough people involved. EC3 fought them off, hitting a TKO on Tyrus and then press slamming Spud onto Tyrus on the floor. Matt would low blow EC3, but EC3 fought back and hit the one percenter. AND THEEEEEEEEEEN MIKE BENNETT attacked EC3 with a chair. EC3 would kick out, Matt hit a twist of fate and kicked out again. Bennett finally took EC3 to the crowd, and Bennett worked him over with some Lance Storm like soft chair shots. So everyone is dead or close to it, and only Matt is left. I get what they were trying to do here, but this felt like a tribute to the worst of the attitude era.

– Matt grabbed the mic and laughed like a villain and said he told us all that he would leave with the title. As he tried to leave, Drew Galloway attacked and cashed in his feast or fired briefcase.

DREW GALLOWAY CASHES IN HIS FEAST OR FIRED BRIEFCASE – TNA World Title Match: Champion Matt Hardy vs. Drew Galloway: Matt attacked, ate a claymore and the future shock and that was that; we have a new champion. Galloway celebrated with the fans to close the show. They were obviously trying to create some buzz with the title change, and I get that. The angle with Jeff feels like another reason to write him off so that he can get his knee taken care of, but we’ll have to wait and see. The world title scene is wide open right now, with Galloway as champion, Bennett is an obvious challenger, Matt Hardy as a rematch, EC3 as the guy that wants to get the title he got screwed out of and Lashley as well based off of last week. That is all well and good, but part of me REALLY dislikes that Matt dropped the title, and not to EC3. Matt screwed EC3, took his title, and thus far there has been no comeuppance on Matt. The thing is that EC3 may in fact get that revenge, but with the title out of the picture, it will feel a bit hollow when it happens.

* End scene.

* Thanks for reading.

“Byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye Felicia!”

6.0

The final score: review Average

The 411

Not a bad show tonight overall, but once again I do feel that TNA is their own worst enemy when it comes to booking their TV. The ladder match could have been a decent hook for next week, because people like gimmick matches; giving it away with no build is silly. Also, if you were going to do the match, you can’t have two run ins during it when you have FIVE RUN INS planned for your main event. But that’s just me. There are some parts I did enjoy, and we’ll see how it plays out, but they need to do something to get people watching and excited about the product. Overall TNA continues to be solid, unfortunately that’s just not enough for them to grow.