Monday, August 7, 2017

TNA iMPACT 9/4/08

1. Sheik Abdul Bashir vs. Consequences Creed - 2
2. Prince Justice Brotherhood (Super Eric & Shark Boy) vs. Beer Money - 2
3. Abyss vs. Johnny Devine - Hardcore Match - 3
4. ODB vs. Raisha Saeed - 4
5. Christian Cage vs. AJ Styles - X

I feel like a beat reporter given a particularly oddball assignment. Anybody remember all that fun they had with the TNA video game? I didn't think so. Thank me later for not writing up the previous week's show which featured a (completely gray-haired) Kevin Nash vs. Kurt Angle marquee bout. Opening segment sees Booker T and Angle cut an in-ring promo wearing T.J. Maxx suits. Christian interrupted and a brief melee ensued ending with a red-faced Jim Cornette bellowing at ringside.

Is Samoa Joe, backstage in a locker room with protein powders and athletic tape carefully left in frame, wearing a bad Hot Topic necklace or are those Velvet Sky's anal beads? 25 minutes into the show and no wrestling yet. If you had to pinpoint the one thing that Abdul Bashir does best what would it be? I'm at a loss. Creed is The New Day's Xavier Woods pre-Internet gaming channel and hokey cereal hocking. The only thing he's selling here is Sheik's subpar offense. Sheik's baggy pants were more glittery than Kesha's dick. Nash interviewed backstage looking like the Ghost of Bumps' Past.


The third member of PJB is Curry Man but he gets seduced by Christy Hemme backstage. Shark Boy, in his moderately good Steve Austin voice, gets in a good Brokeback Mountain crack at Beer Money backstage. Too bad the in-ring action that followed wasn't as amusing. Eric looks like an aborted Chikara character in his baggy vinyl superhero gear. At some point during the match I fell asleep in a weird David Lynch-like dream haze. Waking up the next morning it took all of the willpower I could muster to turn the DVD back on.

Abyss being the Kane equivalent in TNA is frighteningly exact. Tall, monster-like gimmick with laughably uneven track record of mostly middling matches and propensity to work lazily safe style that doesn't raise eyebrows or ennoble risks and flies under radar for over a decade. Devine ate few nasty shots. Probably regrettably as he now suffers chronic headaches working as an overnight stocker in his town's grocery store. Abyss got him up nicely for a chokeslam and a spot where he punched a steel chair into Devine's face looked appropriately vicious. Women's match was best thing yet with some quality bumps into the guardrails and some Fight Club-like subliminal messages "cut in" to the feed about Suicide a grappler promoting killing yourself marketed as a hip character to teens in a video game. How novel. Match had all your favorite ODB staples, her smacking her own tits, taking a swig from a flask, and nominally selling.

Unsure of when/if I'll finish this disc but if I do I'll update this post with thoughts on the main event. All praise be to Cute Kip.