The Final Impact
April 11, 2015
By: Josh Boutwell of Wrestleview.com
Coming off of the excellent “Bell to Bell” it was going to be a tough act to follow. TNA moved forward with new feuds and rivalries as “Bell to Bell” felt like a “season finale” type of episode of Impact. A lot went down in a very newsworthy episode of Impact. We have a Tag Tournament coming up to crown new champs, a new #1 Contender in the Knockouts division, a new member in the BDC as they feud with The Rising, a new challenger in the X-Division among other things.
The opening segment was decent enough to set up the Triple Threat and the opening match was okay if you compare it to many of the other Gail/Kong matches in the past. It was really a squash for the first half of the match with Kong beating the sh*t out of Gail and it really had just started to get going when Kong won.
Where TNA goes with this whole Storm/Mickie/Magnus thing still confuses me. The 3-Way with the Revolution members was decent but given more time could have gotten really crazy. I wonder what the deal with Sanada is, did he leave TNA or are they setting up a feud between he and Storm?
Davey-Zema was a really fun X-Division Match and probably the first time we’ve even seen a singles X-Division match on Impact in months. We really need to get more of that kind of stuff. If you give X-Division guys more chances to face each other then it gives whoever the champion is more good opponents down the line. Davey fits in perfect in the X-Division and it will be interesting to see what they do with him there.
The Rising-BDC match was really fun until it came to a close. Myka and Drake were really impressive and this was my first time ever seeing either one truly as I had only seen Myka briefly as Camacho in WWE. Homicide fits in perfect with the BDC and has history with Ki and MVP (Samoa Joe as well) which makes sense for the group. It will be interesting to see if they had a fourth member to The Rising.
The segment between the Tag Tournament teams was really good and it was cool to see all the teams wanting those belts, it made them feel important especially with the Hardyz starting things off. EC3 and Bram is kind of random as a team but I like that they set up with Bram saying that he hates everyone but hates EC3 the less so he can stomach teaming with him as long as he gets to beat everyone else up. I love the idea of the Dirty Heels (Roode & Aries) teaming up again because they barely even scratched the surface of the potential of that team during their first run. I think a feud between them and the Hardyz would be awesome.
The triple threat was as excellent as you would expect and with the addition of EY it only heightened things up with all three guys busting their asses. The story of the match was Lashley injuring his leg and Angle even Moonsaulting the leg to get the win. Lashley is still protected because of the way he lost again and gives Lashley an “in” for another shot down the line. What they do with Lashley in the coming months is going to be interesting because I think they are going to move Angle into another feud, likely with EY for now.
– Segment/Promo of the Night: The Tag Teams
– Match of the Night: Angle vs. Lashley vs. EY (****)
– Overall Grade: B+
Until next week… PEACE!
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