Impact Wrestling Review
Black Friday, November 25, 2016
By Gerald Bocook of WrestleView.com
We started the night with Brother Nero basically doing Eddie Edwards’ promo from last week, saying he wouldn’t leave without a fight, while making a bit of fun of “Broken” Matt’s sayings. DCC said they would face Nero later in the night, but his destruction would begin right now. And sure enough, the DCC came to the ring and started an assault that went by quick. DCC’s music is still terrible and unfitting. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t have the computerized voices and blank masks and suits?
Thanksgiving with Matt Hardy
Matt Hardy at the compound preparing an ice cream social… brilliant. Love it. Vanguard 1.0 being saddened by Matt’s missing mind, warning Senor Benjamin, and enjoying lemonade… Great stuff. Poor little gizmo. Little flashes of “Broken” Matt filtering through as Matt prepared tangerine custard, and a referee arrived to help go over some video of Matt’s achievements in TNA, but none of them were shaking loose, despite all the jokes about Tyrus looking like a dinosaur and EC3 being his bitch. Reby getting fed up over the weeks with Matt’s amnesia has been great, and she finally had enough. Matt organized a ice cream social for Thanksgiving, and she brought in a damn hypnotist. And it worked. “Broken” Matt Hardy is back! For, like, a minute. The hypnotist told Matt he would become his one, true self, and with the snap of his fingers, Matt was back to worrying about gelato. And at the end, a fight between Reby and Matt lead to Matt yelling for the Nine – I mean, Seven – Deities to send him a sign. And boy, did he get it. A bolt of lightning from the sky, and the Broken Brilliance has returned.
Team X Gold
We had another Team X Gold triple threat match showcasing the only three Team X Gold teams, with the twists that it was elimination and the winning team would get an opportunity at the X-Division Championship. Was this the goal of Team X Gold the whole time? Does anyone know? Whatever. Watching Abyss wreck everybody was great, but they came up with another cheap reason to kick him out of the match and that was disappointing. Andrew Everett sold DJZ’ ZDT like a damn champion. The eliminations were quick, most were exciting, and I thought it was a fun match, especially when it came down to just Rockstar Spud and Marche Rockett representing their teams against Sutter and DJZ. And poor, poor Rockstar Spud. He hit Rock Bottom. Oh, sorry. Saito Suplex. Right. Anyway, we’ll get a boring all-faces buddy team X-Division Championship triple threat in the future.
Maria and Laurel were mean to Allie some more. There was a Thanksgiving dinner set-up in the center of the ring for the Bennetts and Laurel, and Allie was dragged out to the ring in a pilgrim outfit to an annoying, annoying repetitive turkey gobble. Laurel then brought out Braxton as her “date”, and Allie was going to be made to wait table for the “double date”. Everybody around the table gave their thanks, mostly about how thankful they are for Maria, except for Allie who was shut down. She eventually exploded at Laurel, which lead to the inevitable; Maria got a pie to the face. Allie ruined Thanksgiving!
EC3 vs. Eli Drake
Eli Drake vs EC3, Voice vs #1 Contendership, was way more fun that I was expecting. The finish was perfectly symbolic of the stipulation, and I liked that touch. Eli getting on the mic and taunting EC3 mid-match was beautiful. I think he should do that more often. It was fantastic and fit his character perfectly. Keep doin’ more of that, dummy, yeah. Well, when you can talk again, at least, dummy, yeah.
Where is Tyrus?
Mahabali Shera dragged Al Snow into some trunks for a match against The Tribunal. This hasn’t been the hottest feud of all time, but it was surprising to see Snow in tights again. I didn’t see the end coming – I thought either Snow would get the win or Shera would take the fall – but seeing The Tribunal get themselves disqualified gives some more legs to this and if Al Snow can keep workin’ this well, I’m all for it! But, does this mean that the whole Tyrus/Shera thing is over? They had that one bit a few weeks ago, but haven’t seen Tyrus since. Whassupwitdat?
Turkey Suit Challenge
Grado vs Robbie E, loser wears a turkey costume. Yep. That’s a thing that happened. Why is this a TNA tradition? Why doesn’t wrestling have any good traditions? We were all subjected to it. We all suffered that. Aiden O’Shea on the outside as the enforcer was great, stopping the guys from using the ropes. Grado looking embarrassed at having to put on the turkey costume… like, c’mon. That’s not even close to the most embarrassing thing Grado’s ever done.
Jeff Hardy vs. Bram
Brother Nero vs Bram went about as you’d expect; the DCC got involved pretty much from the jump and made nearly impossible for Nero to get any offence in. Nero had his flurry, looked like he might pull it off, but he just haaaaaad to go for the Swanton, didn’t he? At then end of the night, the DCC stood over the broken body of Brother Nero, holding the World Tag Team Championships high. What I was wondering the whole episode though, was, where in the heck is Eddie Edwards? I know he caught a whuppin’ last week, but, faces are dumb and’ll come out to help an ally no matter how hurt they are. It was a no-DQ match, and would’ve been perfect for Edwards to come out of nowhere to get some revenge on DCC (until they whupped him again, at least!)
A good episode of Impact on the Thanksgiving holiday in the States, and a much better offering than WWE tends to give when episodes will be ignored due to a holiday or some other event. I liked this episode a lot, aside from maybe the Maria segment, but, that’s because that’s her job. Good matches, good storyline progression, and I love the Hardy Compound segments. Keep it up, TNA! Another thumbs up!