We’re closing out the first month of this head-to-head battle and I’m as amped as James Franco would be getting a “Welcome Back to Acting” Cameo recorded by Ric Flair after an all-night bender in Gary, Indiana.
Impact #654 Genesis 2017 1/26/2017
Impact #654 Genesis 2017 1/26/2017
1. The Broken Hardys (Brother Nero & Matt Hardy) (c) vs. Decay (Abyss & Crazzy Steve) (w/Rosemary) vs. The Death Crew Council (Bram & Kingston) (w/James Storm) - TNA World Tag Team Title Three Corners Match - 5
2. Drew Galloway (c) vs. Moose - IMPACT Grand Title Match - 5
3. Rosemary (c) vs. Jade - TNA Women's Knockout Title Monster's Ball Match - 6
4. DJ Z (c) vs. Caleb Konley vs. Marshe Rockett vs. Andrew Everett vs. Trevor Lee (w/Gregory Shane Helms) - TNA X-Division Title Five Way Match - 4
5. Eddie Edwards (c) vs. Lashley - TNA World Heavyweight Title 30 Minute Iron Man Match - 8
Average score: 5.6
Genesis and several of the other original TNA pay-per-view spectaculars get demoted at some point to televisions specials. Liked Broken Hardyz getting entangled into the ongoing Decay and DCC feud. Something has really clicked on these Grand Championship bouts. Instead of utilizing the round system to stretch things out what we have gotten instead are these short 3 min. (rounds) bursts of hard-hitting offense. Moose has exceeded my expectations stringing together great combos and even seen here popping off a second buckle moonsault! Really liking vile Drew too. Jade and Rosemary are arguably my picks for top two in the Knockouts division at that time. So I was into this, and it being a Monster’s Ball with thumbtacks, tables, and a few sick barbed wire board spots made it even more delectable. If surprised by my lower score on the X-Division bout, which is sort of my jam, know it’s because it barely hit 4 minutes. Still got some sick dives ‘natch.
I wouldn’t have pegged myself for being a mark for the heavyweight title scene when I jumped into this project but this first month of 2017 they’ve been delivering the goods. It may be hard to believe with what we see today of Lashley in tepid mentor role with Street Profits in WWE, but he was in amazing shape here, still as muscular as ever, but much more slim, and seemingly always down to work his butt off. And you may want to grab your lunch pail because these boys went to work! 30 min. bomb fest I won’t detail blow-by-blow but so much good stuff. The biggest highlight being perhaps my favorite moment in all of January ’17 when Lashley unearthed a scorching powerbomb on the entrance ramp! He lifted him so high like a Razor’s Edge almost then just dropped him dead weight and Edwards’ carcass bounced disturbingly. Real cool finish, Lashley was pretty much passing out unconscious in a submission when the bell rang, so despite him being a dead man walking he still won the Iron Man by one fall and reclaimed the TNA World title. Awesome stuff.
TNA Xplosion
1. Bobby Lashley vs. Mahabali Shera (Ep. #642 1/7/17) – 3
2. Jessie Godderz vs. Bad Bones (Ep. #643 1/14/17) – 5
Genesis and several of the other original TNA pay-per-view spectaculars get demoted at some point to televisions specials. Liked Broken Hardyz getting entangled into the ongoing Decay and DCC feud. Something has really clicked on these Grand Championship bouts. Instead of utilizing the round system to stretch things out what we have gotten instead are these short 3 min. (rounds) bursts of hard-hitting offense. Moose has exceeded my expectations stringing together great combos and even seen here popping off a second buckle moonsault! Really liking vile Drew too. Jade and Rosemary are arguably my picks for top two in the Knockouts division at that time. So I was into this, and it being a Monster’s Ball with thumbtacks, tables, and a few sick barbed wire board spots made it even more delectable. If surprised by my lower score on the X-Division bout, which is sort of my jam, know it’s because it barely hit 4 minutes. Still got some sick dives ‘natch.
I wouldn’t have pegged myself for being a mark for the heavyweight title scene when I jumped into this project but this first month of 2017 they’ve been delivering the goods. It may be hard to believe with what we see today of Lashley in tepid mentor role with Street Profits in WWE, but he was in amazing shape here, still as muscular as ever, but much more slim, and seemingly always down to work his butt off. And you may want to grab your lunch pail because these boys went to work! 30 min. bomb fest I won’t detail blow-by-blow but so much good stuff. The biggest highlight being perhaps my favorite moment in all of January ’17 when Lashley unearthed a scorching powerbomb on the entrance ramp! He lifted him so high like a Razor’s Edge almost then just dropped him dead weight and Edwards’ carcass bounced disturbingly. Real cool finish, Lashley was pretty much passing out unconscious in a submission when the bell rang, so despite him being a dead man walking he still won the Iron Man by one fall and reclaimed the TNA World title. Awesome stuff.
TNA Xplosion
1. Bobby Lashley vs. Mahabali Shera (Ep. #642 1/7/17) – 3
2. Jessie Godderz vs. Bad Bones (Ep. #643 1/14/17) – 5
3. Davey Richards vs. Kingston (Ep. #644 1/21/17) – 4
4. Spud vs. Mahabali Shera (Ep. #645 1/28/17) – 3
4. Spud vs. Mahabali Shera (Ep. #645 1/28/17) – 3
Average Score: 3.8
So little shake up of sorts here. My goal was to review all available TNA and ROH footage from 2017 until present day, lo and behold around February 1st an Xplosion section appeared on the TNA+ service. I’m like 90% sure it wasn’t there a few days prior as I’d been on there pretty much daily since I launched this project unless I miraculously missed it. Anyway, I’m adding Xplosion, their weekly show into the festivities here. Xplosion usually only features one original match (we’ll see a brief period later in ’17 when they’d feature two bouts). In the future I’ll have it chronologically placed with the other shows, but since this was a late last min. add I’m dumping all of January’s Xplosion stuff into this edition of Ring of Impact.
Shera, an Xplosion regular if ever there were to be one, featured twice. Lashley walked him around the ring leading him through a forgettable bout, but the Spud encounter at least had the bonus morsel of Shera stealing away Spud’s ridiculous Sgt. Pepper’s hat and wearing it. I’ve got to recommend this Bad Bones match. Never heard of this guy. He looks like an overstuffed sausage version of Perry Saturn fresh from a biker bar. And he kicked the ever-loving crap out of Godderz! This was presumably a Godderz squash yet Bones took easily 85-90% of the offense and he laid his stuff in. Just blistering Jessie with stiff forearms and errant kicks to the stomach. On paper this match meant the least to me of any all month yet I have a feeling it’ll be one of the ones I remember most clearly into the future. Richards vs. Kingston at one point would have been kind of an Indy dream match, no? ROH vs. Chikara? PWG vs. CZW? But this wasn’t it. Enjoyed watching Kingston selling (as I always do), less so Richards barely clearing Eddie on a leapfrog.
Ring of Honor ROH TV #280 1/28/2017
So little shake up of sorts here. My goal was to review all available TNA and ROH footage from 2017 until present day, lo and behold around February 1st an Xplosion section appeared on the TNA+ service. I’m like 90% sure it wasn’t there a few days prior as I’d been on there pretty much daily since I launched this project unless I miraculously missed it. Anyway, I’m adding Xplosion, their weekly show into the festivities here. Xplosion usually only features one original match (we’ll see a brief period later in ’17 when they’d feature two bouts). In the future I’ll have it chronologically placed with the other shows, but since this was a late last min. add I’m dumping all of January’s Xplosion stuff into this edition of Ring of Impact.
Shera, an Xplosion regular if ever there were to be one, featured twice. Lashley walked him around the ring leading him through a forgettable bout, but the Spud encounter at least had the bonus morsel of Shera stealing away Spud’s ridiculous Sgt. Pepper’s hat and wearing it. I’ve got to recommend this Bad Bones match. Never heard of this guy. He looks like an overstuffed sausage version of Perry Saturn fresh from a biker bar. And he kicked the ever-loving crap out of Godderz! This was presumably a Godderz squash yet Bones took easily 85-90% of the offense and he laid his stuff in. Just blistering Jessie with stiff forearms and errant kicks to the stomach. On paper this match meant the least to me of any all month yet I have a feeling it’ll be one of the ones I remember most clearly into the future. Richards vs. Kingston at one point would have been kind of an Indy dream match, no? ROH vs. Chikara? PWG vs. CZW? But this wasn’t it. Enjoyed watching Kingston selling (as I always do), less so Richards barely clearing Eddie on a leapfrog.
Ring of Honor ROH TV #280 1/28/2017
1. Cheeseburger & Will Ferrara vs. The Tempura Boyz (Sho & Yohei) vs. Coast 2 Coast (Leon St. Giovanni & Shaheem Ali) - ROH World Tag Team Title #1 Contendership Three Way Match - 4
2. Marty Scurll (c) vs. Juice Robinson - ROH World Television Title Match - 5
3. Jay Lethal vs. Jay Briscoe - Decade Of Excellence Semi Final Match - 7
Average Score: 5.3
Honor Club was down for a day and I was having withdrawals. Glad to be back. Opening tag three-way was all go all the time which can usually be fun. Young Bucks came to ringside to join on commentary. I know their shtick isn’t for everybody. But they were very good here doing some of the old Two Dudes with Attitude (HBK & Diesel) nonchalance. Post-match they enter the ring and say “we were just over there doing some sweet color with Kevin Kelly” which got a chuckle from me, then let those Tempura Boyz know they’d deemed that victory title-shot worthy and would see them next week. Juice is known for his New Japan tenure, and I think he’s really absorbed that style and implements it well wherever he performs. You’d think it’d be power and explosiveness from Robinson against cunning and deviousness from Scrull, which while true, Marty was laying in stuff too. Love how recklessly Juice flies into the metal barriers around ringside. Jay and Jay have a lot of history. I was literally just watching a month or so ago at random Best in the World ’15 I believe it was? And they were in the main event and both of their sets of parents were there in the crowd. Very cool main event program they had. So, while this is a compact version of the hits, they still sound pretty groovy like some CCR popping up on the Waffle House jukebox at 2:13A when you’re chowing down on those smothered, covered, diced, chunked hashbrowns.
Who won?
It’s not a real wide margin, but I’ll say TNA nudged out the victory this week, bringing us to a (2-2) tie in weekly rankings. The Xplosion stuff didn’t really harm or help TNA’s cause much on this entry. But the strength of their Genesis edition of Impact cemented the victory.
Who won the month?
I’d thought about making this its own post every time I finish a calendar month but think I can be succinct in my summary. It’s surprisingly, to my eyes, really quite neck and neck, so to speak. As predicted, ROH’s in-ring constituency is unparalleled, as even the “minor” matches were good. They had that great Cody promo on 1/14 and the 1/21 episode was the single best episode of TV all month with an average match score of 7. But I’m going to give the slight lean to TNA making it (3-2) as move into February 2017. My memories of this era of them on Pop TV was faint and not entirely favorable. While the shows could rightfully be called zany (tons of “Broken” Matt Hardy’s eccentric promos, Laurel Van Ness on awkward date with Braxton Sutter, etc.) and not everything sticks, they’ve been entertaining as hell and the big deciding factor were those big heavyweight showcases like the Last Man Standing and Iron Man matches we got. Genuinely surprised at how good that stuff was. I’m only a month into this years-long project and absolutely loving it! I hope you all are too.
Honor Club was down for a day and I was having withdrawals. Glad to be back. Opening tag three-way was all go all the time which can usually be fun. Young Bucks came to ringside to join on commentary. I know their shtick isn’t for everybody. But they were very good here doing some of the old Two Dudes with Attitude (HBK & Diesel) nonchalance. Post-match they enter the ring and say “we were just over there doing some sweet color with Kevin Kelly” which got a chuckle from me, then let those Tempura Boyz know they’d deemed that victory title-shot worthy and would see them next week. Juice is known for his New Japan tenure, and I think he’s really absorbed that style and implements it well wherever he performs. You’d think it’d be power and explosiveness from Robinson against cunning and deviousness from Scrull, which while true, Marty was laying in stuff too. Love how recklessly Juice flies into the metal barriers around ringside. Jay and Jay have a lot of history. I was literally just watching a month or so ago at random Best in the World ’15 I believe it was? And they were in the main event and both of their sets of parents were there in the crowd. Very cool main event program they had. So, while this is a compact version of the hits, they still sound pretty groovy like some CCR popping up on the Waffle House jukebox at 2:13A when you’re chowing down on those smothered, covered, diced, chunked hashbrowns.
Who won?
It’s not a real wide margin, but I’ll say TNA nudged out the victory this week, bringing us to a (2-2) tie in weekly rankings. The Xplosion stuff didn’t really harm or help TNA’s cause much on this entry. But the strength of their Genesis edition of Impact cemented the victory.
Who won the month?
I’d thought about making this its own post every time I finish a calendar month but think I can be succinct in my summary. It’s surprisingly, to my eyes, really quite neck and neck, so to speak. As predicted, ROH’s in-ring constituency is unparalleled, as even the “minor” matches were good. They had that great Cody promo on 1/14 and the 1/21 episode was the single best episode of TV all month with an average match score of 7. But I’m going to give the slight lean to TNA making it (3-2) as move into February 2017. My memories of this era of them on Pop TV was faint and not entirely favorable. While the shows could rightfully be called zany (tons of “Broken” Matt Hardy’s eccentric promos, Laurel Van Ness on awkward date with Braxton Sutter, etc.) and not everything sticks, they’ve been entertaining as hell and the big deciding factor were those big heavyweight showcases like the Last Man Standing and Iron Man matches we got. Genuinely surprised at how good that stuff was. I’m only a month into this years-long project and absolutely loving it! I hope you all are too.
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