Impact Report: We Now Return To Your Regularly Scheduled Wrestling Program

It's all about EC3, as it should be
Photo Credit: ImpactWrestling.com

Did you guys miss me? I promise I won’t leave you so long next time, but honestly Impact can be an exhausting program to write about on a weekly basis and the show was just not giving me that confidence. I got tired of writing the same thing every week but they’ve been giving me so little to build on lately it’s hard to pull content out of thin air. But the past three weeks have been good to me, so it’s time to excitedly pick apart this carcass of a wrestling show.

Honestly, the past few weeks of Impact have given me some stuff to be hopeful for. I can continue to praise the brilliant Ethan Carter III Meltdown angle, which is honestly some of the smartest storytelling the show has told. I was iffy on Dixie Carter going through the table and I still don’t really think we needed that to happen, but EC3 beating the ever-loving CRAP out of Rhino and shunning his best friend Rockstar Spud as he continues to spiral downwards has been a weird treat. I’m still hoping that he realizes the real enemy here is Bully Ray and the veteran puts over Carter on his way out of TNA. I have low expectations that that’s where this is going but I will continue to enjoy the ride for the time being. This feud not featuring on last week’s show really put a damper on my enjoyment of it, so that should tell you how great it is and really how bad the rest of TNA is right now.

Another new talent getting some good screen time that I’m slightly less excited for is Havok (née Jessicka). With ODB gone Havok gets to fill the “non-traditional female wrestler” hole left behind, and it’s really just nice to see such a great talent get some TV time. The thing that really bugs me about her debut and time spent so far in the Impact ring is that I wish she wasn’t with TNA. While everyone is excited about the future of NXT with all the great new signings they’ve made, let’s lament that fact that so many great women working the indies have probably gotten shamefully passed over. I want to believe that it’s not purely misogyny keeping them from getting WWE jobs they so rightly deserve, but I don’t really know anymore. There’s no excuse for them to still be hiring fashion models and arm wrestlers to fill out their women’s roster and considering the fact that so many of their new hires on the women’s end have left I’m hoping above all hope that their hiring practices change and more women (and men) who are legitimately happy to get in the ring get looked at and get hired. The women’s division can’t be bolstered by Sasha Banks and Bayley forever, folks.

Of course, it wouldn’t be an Impact Report with a lot of complaining, so here we go folks: this Best Of Three Tag Team Title Whatever is so infuriating. They’re going the direction everyone said they were going to go and it makes no sense. Would it have killed them to put The Wolves over hard and then start building some tag teams from people who are going to be sticking around for a while? Instead we’ve got Team 3D, The Hardys, and The Wolves all tied up so nobody really gets the rub from any of this. Matt Hardy and Brother Devon will leave, Bully Ray will leave, and The Wolves will be left looking ok. Maybe with Davey Richards having a broken leg, Eddie Edwards can team up with Jeff Hardy.

But yeah, the past month of Impact Wrestling has been “just ok” with some highlights. But really, “just ok” is better than nothing.