As we get ready for a big Bound for Glory weekend, we get the latest Impact from the Impact! Zone in Orlando, Florida!

In recent weeks, I notice that I’ve been turning this column into a play by play review of the show, which I do not want it to be. So for tonight (and hopefully I remember this in the future), I’m going to focus on some of the “major impact” moments as I saw them.

First of all, I was completely awed by TNA’s new Knockout – the Amazing Kong. This woman is massive! She was one-on-one tonight against Gail Kim and she beat the living hell out of poor Gail. I’m hoping for some more major impact moments from the Amazing Kong in the coming weeks and months. This is the type of woman that puts a women’s division on the map – she’s not much for those who like to see women in bikinis, but she’s definitely the type of performer you want if you want some alternative (read: normal) female wrestling. Take a look at her destruction of Gail Kim…

Anyone who was a fan of WCW in the late 1990’s had to enjoy the segment with Sting and Kevin Nash backstage on the staircase leading up to the rafters. Kevin Nash had a funny comment where he said that meeting Sting back there reminded him of being in the nWo (read “Quote of the Night” below). Nice, quick nostalgia blast. Sorta funny, though, since the nWo is now a WWE-owned intellectual property…of course Junior Fatu brought up the WWE a little bit later on that night and The Steiner Brothers taunted Team 3D by saying they were bingo hall, backyard wrestling champions in an obvious dig at ECW.

Oh, and I completely agree with Scott Steiner about how history will remember Team 3D. I wrote a column about it once upon a time – feel free to go read it!

Then we had a really bad (and I mean bad on an epic level) backstage interview with Team 3D led by Brother Ray. At this point, I’d rather just have these guys in the ring wrestling and never behind the microphone again. Blech! It was that bad.

The other major impact moment of the night, for me, was the atrocious match between Team Pacman and Triple X. Ugh. Someone in TNA please read this loud and clear: When one-half of your Tag Team Champions cannot do anything physical, it looks like crap on television! Nobody wants to see Ron Killings jumping around the ring while Pacman simply spikes a football in some guy’s nether regions. It’s a waste of television time and it’s boring.

And while it’s not major impact worthy, the gratuitous use of a gang atmosphere to get LAX over in their backstage interviews is disgusting. It’s actually reprehensible and really ought to be stopped as soon as possible.

The main event was good for what it was good for – nothing more and nothing less. I hope that Junior Fatu has a nice run in TNA, but I really think that will depend on getting rid of the obvious ring rust as well as dropping just a few pounds (not much, don’t want to ruin the gimmick). He got the old Stinkface off on Kurt Angle – it was gross – I laughed.

Impact gave me exactly what I expected heading into this weekend’s big Bound for Glory pay-per-view. One of the failings of TNA is that each of their pay-per-views gets the same hype machine behind it, no matter what the event’s weight is supposed to be. So the Hard Justice and Slammiversary pay-per-views are pushed the same way as their Bound for Glory event. This is fine except that Bound for Glory is supposed to be the SuperBowl of TNA! They need to crank up the hype machine for next year’s Bound for Glory – maybe steal a line from the guys up in New York and start promoting the pay-per-view months in advance.

Good effort on all parts tonight – I look forward to a great pay-per-view this Sunday!

Quote of the Night:

“I mean I figured I’d find you up here. How long since I’ve been up in the rafters with you, buddy? Seems like old times – nWo days.” – Kevin Nash talking with Sting

“Kevin, don’t lose your edge, man.” – Sting offering some advice to Kevin Nash

- Joe
joe1897 [at] gmail [dot] com

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