Impact Report: Take It Like A Champ

How much value does A Double add to the X Title by holding it?
Photo Credit: ImpactWrestling.com

In this past week’s “Championship” edition of Impact, we had four matches either for titles or with title implications. Despite being promoted as an exceptionally exciting evening, it was really just more of the same, not just from the past month or so, but from the past two years. TNA continues to circle the drain as it prepares for its upcoming NYC tapings, and the big reset that Kurt Angle has promised is finally here.

Angle’s Red White And Blue Reset Button has brought an end to Sanada’s X Division title run, putting it in the hands of Austin Aries. Aries, perhaps the most well-known of division, promises to cash in the title at Destination X to give himself a shot at the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. If his whole goal is to go for the “true” champion, what purpose does killing the momentum of an up-and-comer in the company serve to get him ahead? Sure, Aries walks back his original promise to cash in “Option C”, the concept he invented to allow the current X Division champion to challenge the current World Heavyweight Champion at the Destination X event.

But the fact that it doesn’t seem like Aries cares about the title at all, claiming that only now that the title is back around his waist is the X Division relevant again. It devalues the months of work that Sanada has put into the division since winning the title. Now we’re back to square one with the new X Division champ possibly giving up the title in a month. The X Division used to be the biggest thing in TNA, and they could get back there, but I don’t think this is the best way to do it.

The other big reset for this week might be the silliest, especially with what has come before it. Angle called out Willow at the start of the show, saying that Angle needed Jeff Hardy back in time for the #1 Contender Battle Royal. After a little brooding, we got the Charismatic Enigma back. If all it took was simply talking to Willow to turn him back into Hardy, why didn’t someone do that to begin with?

I mean, ultimately it doesn’t really matter. Willow and Hardy wrestle basically the same, and look the same minus the mask. But yay, we lost an interesting gimmick in favor of a Known Entity who can now challenge Bobby Lashley in New York. We’re again, back to square one in the title race. It’s not like there’s any new blood in TNA right now to really push a decent program through, with Ethan Carter III still tied up in an angle against Bully Ray and the ECW Originals, but it’s frustrating to see TNA run back to tried tactics instead of attempting and taking a risk on something new. You’re never going to be the biggest wrestling company in America, but you can be different and we need different. The fact that TNA has rested its laurels on old wrestlers and past glories is incredibly disheartening.

I have a bad feeling that this is going to be a recurring theme in my reviews. We’re onto New York next week. God help us all.