The Final Impact
June 25, 2015
By: Josh Boutwell of WrestleView.com
To say that last night’s episode of Impact Wrestling was an eventful night would be the understatement of the year. It was a night full of shocking returns and exciting action that might go down as one of the bigger nights of the year for TNA. Where TNA goes from here and what they do is still up in the air but it was a much needed night of surprises. It is very hard to surprise anyone in 2015 in the internet age but I was truly surprised with the return of Jeff Jarrett. Even if it is just a brief return it was a crazy sight to see after everything that has happened.
The opening segment was decent enough to continue the feud between EC3 and Angle but my criticize for it is the biggest criticism I have for TNA right now. They are throwing “Slammiversary” out there in the same manner they did “Bound for Glory” last year, with barely any build or momentum like a tad bit bigger episode of a “One Night Only” PPV. The big title match they have been building for over a month and the finals to the Tag Titles Series will take place on an episode of Impact rather than the PPV. This is ridiculous and honestly just flat out stupid. They need to have big episodes of Impact and I love the “Bell to Bell” episodes that they do, but my God if you are going to do a damn PPV then treat it like something special. If it wasn’t for King of the Mountain and the Jeff Jarrett return it wouldn’t feel like anything more than a special episode of Impact.
The X-Division 3-Way was fine but way too short. I loved Tigre Uno winning as he is the first legit luchador to hold that belt so that was cool for me. The problem is that they have not treated him as anything special in months so they really have some building to do with him in the coming months. I would love it for Tigre Uno to be kind of rewarded for the winning the X-Division Title by being put in the King of the Mountain to give him a chance to shine in that match.
I couldn’t care less about the Angelina-Velvet stuff right now. It is beyond uninteresting.
Full Metal Mayhem was awesome and the best match they’ve had in the series thus far, but I think they are going to take it that much further in the Iron Man Match next week. I don’t know what the deal with Austin Aries’ contract right now but TNA really needs to lock this guy in.
The Jeff Jarrett promo was a surprise and it was one of Jeff’s best performances on the microphone in some time. It felt heartfelt and actually played into the “anniversary” aspect of Slammiversary which has been very rare this year. It will be interesting going forward to see what TNA and GFW do in the future, if anything, because it could be very beneficial for both companies. Just think if ROH got involved in they did a sort of 3-way invasion angle that leads to either a big special on Destination America or PPV. It could be a big deal for these companies right now.
Seeing Vader again was cool as hell and a really nice surprise. It brought back a lot of nostalgia without being too much. Morgan coming back was also cool and I’ve always felt like he has been very underutilized in his career. A feud between him and Bram could be extremely physical and entertaining.
I still don’t care about Eric Young and Eric Melendez’s feud, and I don’t know that it is possible to make me care.
Seeing my boy Hernandez return to TNA was really cool but at the same time was disheartening for Lucha Underground. With Ricochet/Prince Puma returning to Dragon Gate and now Hernandez returning to TNA that doesn’t bode well for a season two. I really hope this means that L.A.X. will reunite as a team when Homicide is healthy again as well especially now that Low-Ki has left TNA again. It looks like the feud between BDC and The Rising will come to an end next week.
Hardy-Angle was a cool rare singles match between the two but would have been much better if they weren’t trying to get across the angle between Kurt and EC3 more than let Kurt and Matt have a great match. It was kind of a sputter end to a pretty wild night.
– Segment/Promo of the Night: Jeff Jarrett’s return promo
– Match of the Night: Full Metal Mayhem (****)
– Overall Grade: B+
Until next week… PEACE!
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