Impact Wrestling Final Thoughts
March 8, 2016
By: Josh Boutwell of Wrestleview.com
Well, that was sure as hell interesting. Suddenly, we have about six different guys in the World Title picture after the “Reign of Matt Hardy” comes to a close. I didn’t expect them to go with Drew Galloway this quick but it definitely works for me. Right off the bat Mike Bennett has a claim for a title shot, as he has defeated Drew twice now, along with Matt being the former champion. Jeff has a claim because he got screwed out of his shot and seemed to have the win before Bram and EY attacked him. Lashley has been on a tear and just beat Kurt Angle in his final match so he could lay claim to being a contender. Tyrus still hasn’t received his title shot. EC3 got screwed yet again so he still has a claim for a shot. EY is insane and the KOTM Champion so there is his claim. So there is several different ways this whole thing could go.
Jeff-EY was a good match and Dixie putting the Main Event stipulation really added even more intensity too it. I thought the Main Event was massively overbooked with all of the run-ins and Bennett joining in just seemed so random, but it worked as it looked like Matt Hardy would walk away champion and the No DQ stipulation having seemed to have played right into his hands until Galloway came out as the wild card. Bennett coming out needs to be explained in some way but just adds more drama between he and Galloway now.
The Miracle vs. Gail/Drew match was pretty solid and the Six Person Tag was good too. It seems like TNA is dipping their toes into the Intergender stuff that Lucha Underground has been getting involved in, but they really never went with it as the only contact men had with women was the women hitting the men. It will be interesting to see what former TNA Tag Team Champions get the shot against Beer Money now.
I loved the Lashley segment. He still didn’t seem as confident as he needs to on the microphone but that was by far his best mic work. I honestly thought Pope coming out was going to end up being him being Lashley’s mouthpiece, that could definitely work, but Lashley attacked him instead. I don’t know if this is going to lead to a return to the ring for Pope but that could be perfect. I felt oddly satisfied when Lashley tossed Matthews like a ragdoll though.
The Ladder Match was pretty entertaining but I hate when they just toss out gimmick matches like that with no previous warning. It was a tactic that Vince Russo did constantly did it so often that it made every gimmick match worthless. It is okay if done every now and then but a Ladder Match should be a special match that gets some hype.
The action in the Main Event was really good until all of the run ins which hurt the quality of the match for me. This was actually probably one of the weakest shows TNA has done since jumping to Pop, in terms of match quality and overall storyline progression, but still it was pretty fun with some good action along with a nice, big surprise with Galloway winning the title.
– Promo/Segment of the Night: Lashley
– Match of the Night: Triple Threat (***)
– Overall Grade: B-