TNA IMPACT! Review 6/28/16

Hey guys, it is Josh Masterson, the internet’s resident TNA and EVOLVE freak. I’m a few days late with this but better late than never, right?

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The show began with a Bennett and Maria promo. Bennett talked about Option C, as Destination X is only a few weeks away, and insulted Lashley. Lashley emerged and the two went back and forth on the mic. It was kind of weird to see two of the top heels in the company arguing on the mic as the heel world champion was getting cheered at one point. EC3 then came out and talked about how he wants the world championship. It was a fine segment and then Billy Corgan came out. I still really have no idea why they think making Billy Corgan an on-screen character is a good idea but whatever. Bennett tried to convince Corgan to not make him wrestle until Destination X but it was decided that Bennett would defend his championship against the winner of a battle royal. After this Lashley and Bennett teamed up to beat down EC3, which was a little strange as only a few minutes earlier Bennett was talking about how he was going to take Lashley’s championship and calling him a ‘big idiot.’ Galloway ended up coming out and attacking both Bennett and EC3 with Lashley quickly escaping. This was a fine segment that did a good job at setting up Bennett’s championship match tonight while also building up the main event. The ironic thing was how Corgan made a comment about how Bennett needs to defend the championship because of the “championship’s legacy,” but Bennett would definitely not be the champion if they really cared about that and the division would be a lot more relevant than it is. I’d be lying if I said the entire thing wasn’t somewhat entertaining but the X-Division should be seen as more than a stepping stone to the World Championsip and should be used for more than what it is being used for.

Knockouts Championship
Sienna (c) vs Gail Kim
In early 2016 before TNA (finally) signed Allysin Kay I stated that Allysin vs Gail was one of my top women’s dream matches. It ended up happening at Knockouts Knockdown and was good but not as good as it could have been because of involvement from Bennett and Maria. This, similarly to that match, was unable to come close to reaching its full potential because the match itself was not the main focus. It only got a few minutes and there was a lot going on during it. After Allie tried to interfere in the match, Jade came out and attacked her but was stopped by Marti Bell. This continued the two feuds going on in the division but was very short. I hope at some point these two get to have a long singles match with no interference because I think it could be really good. *1/2

Next up was another edition of Eli Drake’s talk show segment, Fact of Life. He talked about mashed potatoes so there’s that. Drake is pretty entertaining on the mic, I just wish he would learn to wrestle. James Storm ended up being the guest and it was a great segment. I’ve been hoping that they would do something with Storm as a singles wrestler as they hadn’t really been doing much with him since a few months ago when the Beer Money reunion was cut short due to Roode leaving for WWE. This was a lot of fun and did a great job at starting a feud between the two.

Broken Matt Hardy came out ‘confined to his chair with wheels’ and cut a promo, having Reby push him around the ring in his wheelchair as he talked about how disgusting the Creatures are and took credit for the Hardys’ success. Matt challenged him to a final match and said the winner would ‘own the Hardy name.’ The match will take place in Cameron, North Carolina and if the first video from North Carolina is any indication, this is gonna be so weird. This segment was bizarre but kind of fun, which seems to be the trend with this storyline. While it gets a lot of criticism, I’ve enjoyed the storyline as its produced quite a few good matches and one of my favorite matches of the year at Slammiversary. It has also done what very few things have been able to do recently and that is make people talk about TNA. For the first time in so long during a TNA PPV, Slammiversary was all anyone was talking about on Twitter and most of that has to do with this storyline. Even people in WWE such as Chris Jericho and Sasha Banks have referenced the feud between Broken Matt Hardy and Brother Nero.

X-Division Battle Royal
This was a short but decent battle royal. There were some fun eliminations and interactions but it wasn’t nearly as long as it should’ve been. The outcome was definitely unexpected but not really in a good way. *3/4

X-Division Championship
Mike Bennett (c) vs Braxton Sutter
This was basically nonexistent, I still don’t understand why Sutter is being used as a generic face when he is probably much more comfortable as a heel considering thats what he is used to doing on the indies. I don’t mind him not being with Allie (they’re together in real life and are almost always used together on the indies) because I love what she is doing right now but Sutter is very uninteresting and I don’t exactly understand what the point of this was.  N/R

Grado, Mahabali Shera, and Tyrus vs The Tribunal
I briefly zoned out for this match and didn’t care to rewind. I have never actually paid attention to anything from this feud and probably never will. I tried to watch it for reviewing purposes but I just can’t. N/R

World Heavyweight Championship

Lashley (c) vs EC3 vs Galloway
I was very excited for this match as Lashley and Galloway have had great matches together and EC3 is always great. TNA’s main event scene has been fantastic lately and this was no exception. There were so many great moments in this match, I loved it a lot. I definitely recommend it. You can hate on TNA all you want but these guys have been killing it for the last few months and this is the strongest heavyweight division they’ve had in a long time in terms of talent and booking. I’m not a fan of EC3 taking the fall here and hope that doesn’t become a regular thing. ***1/2

Final Thoughts: This was a pretty weak show but there were some decently fun segments that brought it up and the main event was great. I’m very much looking forward to the Final Deletion match and the eventual match between Eli Drake and James Storm. Mostly everything was watchable and it was a relatively easy show to get through. I hope next week is a more wrestling heavy show and they give more time to the X-Division and Knockouts. I have to give them credit though, even though they don’t seem to be moving in a direction that focuses a lot on wrestling, they’ve done a very good job at having at least one good to great match on most episodes of Impact and there were a bunch of great matches at their most recent Pay Per View. I hope they can continue to have a balance of entertaining segments and good wrestling without causing all of the non-Heavyweight divisions to lose credibility.

Final Rating: 5/10.