Well, I missed Impact, so I might as well try and make up for it with 10 thoughts on the promotion as a whole.

1. Sting vs. Joe and Angle vs. Foley or Jarrett (I honestly have no idea which one they’re aiming for after last week; I assume Mick, mind you) are both dream matches. In the sense that they can only possibly be any good in your dreams.

2. Okay, that’s not fair. Angle vs. whoever is at least a solid *** these days, unless he gets saddled with someone like Steiner or… pretty much just Scott Steiner. Even his match with Sting at BFG last year had its moments in between the crappy parts.

3. Really, a more accurate way of describing the double main event at BFG would be that those matches would be awesome if you had a time machine. Imagine Sting in his prime vs. Joe giving a crap and playing a portly Samoan Vader? Or Angle from 2000-2006 vs. Cactus Jack-era Mick? You could pretty much pluck Jarett out of any period in his career from like 1995 on and have the same guy, relatively. Those are the kind of expectations that the performers in their current state can’t (or won’t) be able to live up to (see also Foley vs. Flair in ‘06).

3a. That whole time machine analogy breaks down because, if you had a time machine, why would you waste your time booking TNA, mind you.

4. I’m spending a lot of time with the upper card stuff because TNA’s midcard is pretty dire right now. Outside of a possible AJ/Christian match (they sure seemed to be foreshadowing that on Impact), there’s just not a lot to get excited about there right now. The tag team and X-Division matches at BFG appear to be of the “let’s get as many people a PPV payday as possible”, which is admirable, but that kind of thing births reverse battle royals (which amuse me on a perverse level, but even I know they suck as matches) and spotfests. Hell, I could live with a good X-Division spot fest at this point.

5. The Knockouts, the best/only well booked part of the show, are as of yet unecumbered. I figure we’ll get a multi-gal match of some sort to accomodate Kong, the Beautiful People, ODB, Roxxi, and Taylor, all of whom have their own things going on. Maybe another Gauntlet? The lack of Gail Kim is really hurting them. Taylor’s a solid hand, but she simply isn’t as good as Gail was in the ring, and is an exceptionally bland character. Really, I think BFG is a good time to finally give ODB the belt, unless they have someone cool to debut instead.

6. I was really excited by AJ and Christian vs. MCMG on Impact, though. As good a free TV match as you’d expect. If AJ and Christian don’t feud, I’d love to see more of these four in every combination they could come up with. Of course, you could say that about a lot of random combos of guys in TNA, but still; imagine what these guys could do given 20 minutes? You’re salivating, aren’t you?

7. I finally get why people hate TNA. I’ve never been able to summon up more than bemusement at their foibles. Until I finally watched Joe vs. AJ’s X-Division Title Match from December of ‘05 on Joe’s best of DVD. There is absolutely no reason why they can’t put on at least one match like that every month, even if Vince Russo’s on creative. Just lock him in a closet when laying out one match a month! They seemed to do that with the X-Cup 12 man hullaballoo in July that was so awesome.

But this AJ/Joe thing; it was hard hitting, told an excellent big man vs. little man (or heavy man vs. thinner man, I guess) story, built to an excellent finish, and led in to further matches. It was great. It was what ROH puts on regularly, and TNA could be doing it too, and possibly better, given that they have Joe, AJ, Daniels, MCMG, Kaz, LAX, Cage, Lethal, and at least half of Angle on a given day. That could possibly make up for a lack of AmDrag by volume, I think.

They just decided that functioning more like a fourth WWE brand (or more like a retarded, in bred cousin of WCW and WWE’s worst traits with the occasional good match slipping in by accident, it seems) was the direction they should go in. At least that’s what I can decipher from their product. It’s just a shame that they pretty much threw these wonderful infant matches out with the bland bathwater cast off by bringing Vinnie Ru back.

8. Although, really, Russo has pretty much failed there too. Impact doesn’t even have the manic energy of a Crash TV era WWE or WCW show. It’s just another wrestling show. I don’t know if that’s Russo or the rest of the booking team or what, but if he’s not bringing that, what is he doing beyond the stuff that has his fingerprints on it (that Val/Lethal/Sanjay love triangle mess, for instance)? I mean, RAW has felt more unpredictable and exciting lately, and that show was more rote than a year of Geoff Johns comics.

9. My main problem with TNA is that they have no identity. I think it’s a problem a lot of people have, really. They’ll never be WWE and they lost their alternative cred to ROH a while back. They’re just kind of there for people like me, who will watch whatever wrestling’s on TV, and even I’m losing my patience with them. Really, if I didn’t have the 10 Thoughts gig and a DVR, Impact would be damn near unbearable these days. And I sat through the end of WCW!

10. I never wanted to be the guy that wrote the bitchy columns about TNA, because that’s pretty much everyone who writes about them around here. But at this point, I have no real emotional investment in them other than liking half their roster a whole lot. I stopped expecting them to be competition for WWE a long time ago. Now I just wish they’d live up to the potential they have in that amazing roster of theirs. It would be nice if they could get the best out of their patchwork ROH/WWE/WCW/OGECW roster, instead of the mess they have now. Or fire everyone but Christian, Nash, and Tomko and create a two hour comedy show around them cracking wise (Tomko would, of course, be the world’s tallest straight man). I could get in on that.