How does one come back from a segment like ‘The Final Deletion’? With monkeys, kangaroos, giraffes, and tigers that’s how!
Welcome to iMPACT Testing, I’m Tyler Fudge and we’ll be riding this slippery slope together watching TNA iMPACT week by week. This week is ‘Delete or Decay’, otherwise known as the September 8th, 2016 episode of TNA iMPACT. Now, before we get into ‘Delete of Decay’ let us run down the rest of the show first.
The show opens with a Senior Benjamin and Vanguard 1 and a beautiful rendition of ‘Obsolete’ sung by a classically trained opera singer. Then out comes “The Miracle” Mike Bennett and the TNA Knockouts Champion, Maria. Bennett explains his frustrations with Moose, pointing out the fact he brought him into TNA and paid Moose himself and that he owes him. After going over the same points again, Bennett announces that Moose is fired, effective immediately. Then, to my chagrin, out comes Dixie Carter and what does she have to say? “This is iMPACT Wrestling, not As the Miracle Turns.” Really?! Dixie continues, saying she has an announcement for Bennett, she just inked a deal with his opponent for Bound for Glory, Moose. Now, Moose. He comes out, the two stand toe to toe in their clam diggers and little loafers, causing us to get a glimpse of four of the smallest calves in the wrestling business today, not Kevin Nash levels, but still pretty tiny. Overall, the segment had no sizzle and no steak. Repetitive and something we’ve seen multiple times in the last five years, easily skippable.
It’s time to display the Knockouts with a tag match between Gail Kim & Jade taking on Sienna & Allie. The story here is that Maria and Sienna are having a grand old time embarrassing Allie any chance they get. Throughout the match, Sienna refuses to tag in Allie, who comes off as a heel with that horribly shrill voice. How can anyone feel empathy for a babyface getting wronged when all you want to say is “SHUT THE F**K UP!” All in all, Allie gets a tag, mistakenly hits Sienna with a diving double axe handle followed by Sienna hitting her with a lazy Monty Brown ‘Pounce’ and Jade picks up the victory. With that being said, the match may not be a good one, but at least there’s a story that you can follow without a Little Orphan Annie decoder pin.
The next talking point coming from iMPACT would be another “revolutionary” idea from the minds that brought you the AJ Styles-Claire Lynch storyline and the King of the Mountain match; penalty box and all. This time, Billy Corgan announced the TNA Grand Championship, a title defended under MMA style rules, similarly used in the AWF. Basically, its three rounds at three minutes apiece, based on a ten point system judged on aggression, control, and physicality. The match can end with a pinfall or submission victory at any time; only if the contest goes the distance will the judge’s scores come into play. So basically, if you’ve seen a UFC fight, you can follow what’s going on. The announcement was awful and confusing, out of nowhere Billy is gone, and there’s a breakdown video lasting at the most, seven seconds. You’re confused from the very beginning. Galloway interrupts, claiming he is the only choice for this championship. Aaron Rex interjects, and these two continue on their feud, while not selling me on their hatred for each other. Later in the night, when asked what’s on his mind following the altercation with Galloway, Rex reacts like anyone would; baffled that someone would actually ask that. That’s awesome, what’s not awesome is the fact that Rex comes across as someone who has never been in a fight, yet he’s trying to psych you out. I just didn’t by it, watching this in no way convinces me that Rex has ever been in a real life confrontation, it all comes off so forced, but then again I don’t get what people see in this character at all, to begin with.
Tonight we experienced the first two matches in the TNA Grand Championship tournament without a bracket, promoting nothing. The first match up being Drew Galloway vs. Braxton Sutter in what was basically Galloway punching Sutter for eight minutes. Nothing to really to say other than the fact that the point based system allowed me to become more invested in a match that generally, I wouldn’t waste my time watching. Galloway ends up winning in the third round with a piledriver followed by the Iron Maiden for the submission victory in round three. Our second match seen Jesse Godderz taking on Eli Drake, it started with a video package explaining how Godderz was the captain of his high school wrestling team making him a clear choice to go far int this tournament, but no. Godderz loses to Eli Drake who came off as a complete putz the whole match, wasting time in every round by either pandering to the crowd or getting frustrated. You could take a tournament like this which utilizes MMA rules and turn a character like Godderz, who has an outdated, bland gimmick. Not to mention the stench of reality television with his appearance in the US version of Big Brother. You could try and make him into a more legitimate athlete, given his background and the nature of the tournament. Instead, they take a guy who looks like an idiot and gives him the win instead.
We have one last thing to touch on before we dive into ‘Delete or Decay’, Lashley, Corgan, and EC3 are surrounded by children for a press conference to hype their main event battle at Bound for Glory, this October on pay-per-view. EC3 came across well, being a natural talker; Lashley, on the other hand, stumbled hard to start but towards the end began to turn it around some. The two would start to brawl all around the iMPACT zone for way too long, felt like forever. The one thing that stood out to me the most has to be the fact the Billy Corgan stated that we would be still talking about this match twenty years down the road, which is a complete lie. We will more than likely be talking about “Broken” Matt Hardy in twenty years, not EC3 vs. Bobby Lashley, give me a break.
Speaking of “Broken” Matt Hardy, it’s time for ‘Delete or Decay.’ Matt has gathered the Hardy clan at his zoo to learn from some of the great minds in history. Goerge Washington in the vessel of a giraffe toys with Matt, taking his hat and suggesting him to visit the boxing kangaroo. Not just any kangaroo, though, inside this vessel is the soul of “Smokin” Joe Fraser; ready to teach Brother Nero the ropes. What we get next is a short fight between the two, but somehow Matt takes the brunt of the kangaroo’s rage. That’s not all, we get Gengus Kahn as a tiger informing them that Decay is on their way and a delightful bit with the X-Division as “Spot” monkeys, the Young Bucks were even mentioned.
Cut to a man in a car who wisely turns off a Smashing Pumpkins song and starts rocking out to “Through the Pines.” He quickly comes across Rosemary and fails to bring her home and have really creepy babies. Instead, Decay knocks him out, leaving him pantsed in the middle of the road. Once Decay gets to the Hardy home an outlandish brawl featuring fireworks, the dilapidated boat, Joeseph Parks, underwater fighting and Vanguard 1 equipped with rockets ensues. Something that you just have to see to enjoy to its fullest, I can’t even begin to explain it. After dropkicking Abyss into a lake, attempting to drown Crazy Steve and spitting mist into Rosemary’s face, Brother Nero is taken out with a well placed “Janice” to the midsection. Decay then manages to kidnap Senior Benjamin and drive off into the figurative sunset, sticking a pin in this chapter of the “Great War” and this week’s TNA iMPACT.
Overall the show was enjoyable, especially with the atrocity that was RAW this week. For the most part, the show is easy to follow with the Knockouts segment and the Bennetts opener to be easily skippable. The only must see would be ‘Delete or Decay’ but unfortunately for TNA, most people will just wait until they upload it to YouTube instead of tuning in to watch iMPACT and see for themselves that the show is getting better.
3 out of 5
Delete or Decay: 4.5 out of 5