Impactful Feedback: Turn the Page

A highlight of the show, but was it enough? Photo Credit: ImpactWrestling.com

Usually with Impactful Feedback, I like to pick a big happening from the show and focus mostly on that point. If I don't do that, I like to at least focus on the show as a whole and expound upon the overall story that was told throughout the show. Yet, as the show ended this week, there was a very small part of me that was hoping that Hogan would cower down and take the World Title from Chris Sabin and give it back to Bully Ray. At least if that happened I would have something to write about.

I sat here for ten minutes racking my brain just trying to think of something that might have happened on the show that I was forgetting about. I thought about the decent match that AJ Styles and Jeff Hardy had. I thought about the above average match that crowned a new Champion in Ultimate X.  I thought about the contest that Christopher Daniels and Samoa Joe had, one I quite enjoyed. I thought maybe I was forgetting some notable backstage segments. But that got me nowhere.

In fact, I would have to say that tonight's show was nothing more than the next page following last week's Destination X show, not the next chapter because we didn't get that far into the story. The funny thing is that I recognized the guy in the West Virginia shirt behind the announce table from last week's show. I didn't think  it would be an omen for how much a reprise from last week this week would be. The unfortunate thing for TNA and their fans is that they failed to capitalize on the momentum of their title switch from last week and instead turned up a real dud of a show story-wise.

There was still some decent action on the show. I enjoyed just about all of the matches that were presented, but as a complete fan, the story is just as important. Looking at it from a bigger picture, it seems that this could possibly be the wave of the future with TNA. In their constant struggle to turn a profit, TNA has not only dwindled their live broadcasts to once every two weeks, but also their number of pay-per-view shows as well. And now, here we are barely halfway through the calendar year, and TNA only has one more pay-per-view scheduled this year. It would seem as though we could be in for a very long chapter in the story that TNA is going to tell as we wait to see what happens at Bound for Glory.

The ironic thing that can also be taken away from tonight's show is that while TNA is apparently strapped for cash, they're going to give us yet another rendition of a former pay-per-view for free on Spike TV in three weeks. Hardcore Justice is now scheduled fro August 18th, and it will see Bully Ray get his rematch against Chris Sabin for the World Heavyweight Championship. As I stated last week, I am very excited about the fact that I'm getting pay-per-view shows for free, but it seems like TNA is giving away a whole lot of good action away when they could have people pay to see them. I know that one of the chief complaints against WCW during their heyday was that they showed too much off pay-per-view, such as Goldberg versus Hogan.

In any case, we're going to get a World Title rematch on free TV. We're also going to have to wait and see if Impact decides to ramp up the intensity at all in their story-telling or if we're going to start slowly setting the table for Bound for Glory in October. Personally, I'm hoping to see some bigger steps taken as we move along, because tonight's show moved at a snail's pace to me, and I can't say that there was really much that I took away from it at all.