The Final Impact
January 31, 2014
By: Josh Boutwell of Wrestleview.com
The Glasgow crowd was hot all night last night which made for a fun atmosphere on a pretty below average night of wrestling. It was very nice to not have to hear Taz for two hours however, my ears thank you TNA.
The heat Magnus was getting was pretty crazy and from what I’ve been told it wasn’t a situation of TNA piping in boos (before the haters even start) as supposedly people in attendance couldn’t even hear what Magnus was saying over the boos. The question is will he get the same kind of heat in England? I highly doubt it and TNA might find themselves in a situation where the heel champion is getting cheered big time on a big show (think the Bret Hart-Stone Cold situation in the 90s where Hart would get cheered in Canada and booed in America).
MVP being the investor is a bit underwhelming for me but I really had no idea who it was going to be. The MVP rumors have been going for awhile about him coming to TNA and one thing I’ve learned about a lot of TNA fans is a lot of them HATE MVP for some reason. I don’t really get the hate as I always enjoyed his character. He was just okay in the ring but supposedly he’s improved vastly since being in Japan. I know the “WWE reject” tag is already been placed but he’s been away from American TV for long enough that he still feels like a fresh face. I have no clue where this whole thing is going to lead though, is he going to be an authority figure and a wrestler or will he, as an investor, just hire someone to be the authority figure. The investor angle definitely plays into his rich character he’s always played though. I’m assuming we will get Team MVP vs. Team Dixie in Lethal Lockdown at Lockdown this year.
It looks like Joe is the next in line for the World Title but are they going to stretch that out to Lockdown or just do it on a free-PPV special in the coming weeks? Joe has always been so much better when he’s the fired up, intense monster on the mic which he has been as of late. He tends to fall into a bit of a cookie cutter, almost whiny babyface at times when he’s not being intense for some reason.
The Knockouts match was pathetically short but it was still cool to see part of the Beautiful People back together again.
The tag match between Bad Influence and Storm/Gunner was okay but man it is really frustrating to see Bad Influence continuously used so poorly. Put these guys in a feud with the damn Wolves so they can show what tag team wrestling is supposed to be.
TNA needs to make their damn mind up about Storm, do you want him heel or not?
The Tag Titles was okay while it lasted and it’s good to finally see Abyss seemingly back as the monster full time. That Monsters Ball should be interesting. Abyss SHOULD be destroying everyone including his tag team partner, that’s who is, at least that’s who he WAS before he almost became a comedy character.
Great promo from Bully and Anderson and this feud has been way more fun than I ever thought it would have been.
Kurt Angle deserves a lot of props. This guys is obviously working with a ton of a pain right now in his knee, I’m going to assume it was the Moonsault off the cage that did that knee in, and he’s supposedly due a knee scope to get it fixed. He gutted through the match and I’m looking for them to do some type of angle during his Hall of Fame induction to write him off TV for awhile.
It was a fun show for the most part, nothing bad, but just too much talking and not enough action which has become a plague more times than not in TNA. When your company name is “Total Nonstop Action” it’s pretty lousy to continuously have 3-4 5 minute matches every week.
– Segment/Promo of the Night: Anderson/Bully
– Match of the Night: Angle & Joe vs. Magnus & ECIII (**)
– Overall Grade: C+
Until next week… PEACE!
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