Please be an April Fool’s joke: Impact 4/5/10

Ah, the beginning of April – a time for jovial pranksters to play their merry tricks on unsuspecting targets.  And for TNA, it seems, a time for seemingly panicked writers to unleash pure muck upon an unsuspecting audience.  Remember all the stipulations set up at Destination X?  Well, you can forget them.  Let’s go!

You may recall last week that Abyss revealed Jeff Jarrett as the second member of Team Hogan for Lockdown.  This week, to the surprise of absolutely no one, Jeff Hardy and Rob Van Dam (apparently finished with their one week feud with the Band) filled the last two spots.  Team Flair is made up of Sting, Desmond Wolfe, and Beer Money, Inc.  Words were exchanged, threats made, and then Rob Van Dam defeated James Storm in a match.  But it wasn’t really important, as Storm finished the sequence off by shattering a beer bottle over RVD’s head.  And even though he’s done this countless times, Storm’s hit damaged RVD so badly, he stayed in the ring through a commercial break until Robert Roode had a chance to sneak attack Jeff Hardy.  That was nice of him.

But the real focus of the show (mentioned countless times through the broadcast) was the Knockout Lockbox Challenge.  An eight-lady tag match was set up with Angelina Love, Tara, Hamada (now a face, apparently) and ODB (also apparently a face) vs. The Beautiful People and Daffney.  Follow me here – whenever someone was pinned, both the pinner and the pinned are eliminated, with the pinner getting a key to a lockbox.  The possible prizes?  A contract for any match with anybody at any time, a notice forcing a striptease in the ring, Tara’s spider Poison, and the Knockouts Championship.  That’s right – the damn title belt.

When all was said and done (and this sequence closed out the show), Velvet Skye got the contract, Tara got her spider (thus losing her title), Angelina Love became the new Knockouts Champion, and Daffney was forced to strip.  Get your tongue back in, because she didn’t get very far.  First, Lacey Von Erich took her down and started stripping herself, but that was interrupted by Tara and Angelina Love (who apparently is a heel now) brawling over how stupid the whole thing was.  And the heavily hyped striptease?  Nope, sorry.  Bait and switch.

As for the rest of the show…

• Big Rob Terry (now known as “The Freak” and it’s hard to argue it) squashed Homicide to retain his Global Championship.
• Mr. Anderson defeated Kurt Angle in a ladder match to win the key to the door of their cage match at Lockdown.  Well, it wasn’t so much the key as a wooden stick that had “Cage Door” shoddily written on it.
• Hulk Hogan talked about stuff in TNA.  No Eric Bischoff this week.
• Matt Morgan, now referring to himself in plural, said that “they” will defend “their” tag belts against the winners of Team 3D and the Motor City Machine Guns next week…even though the Machine Guns won a title shot at Destination X.
• That match was interrupted by the Band, who let everyone know that they are running the show.  Just don’t give the keys to Scott Hall.
• Doug Williams defended his X-Division title in a Gauntlet match against both members of Generation Me.  At the end, Shannon Moore ran out and challenged him to a match at Lockdown…even though Kazarian won a title shot at Destination X.
• Team 3D challenged the Band to a match next week.
• D’Angelo Dinero continued his feud with Desmond Wolfe when Wolfe challenged him for his title shot.  Dinero defeated Wolfe pretty quickly, but AJ Styles came in for the beatdown.  See, Pope?  That’s what you get when you forget about your title shot.

Looking Back
Oh, wow.  That was really, really awful.  Really.  TNA is back into form of pointless stipulations and jumping storylines.  Faces and heels?  Who needs them?  Just book this show and you can change it next week!  It seems that both of the big X-Division matches from Destination X have been completely disregarded (the tag title shot in the Ultimate X and the X-Division title shot in the ladder match) and new challengers are being created.  The Knockouts title changed hands despite the champion WINNING her match, and Angelina’s feud with the Beautiful People seems to have completely been thrown away so she could feud with Tara.  The ongoing storyline of Daffney stealing Poison?  Forget that too.  All solved in a magical lottery.  This was pure crap.  Somebody should get fired for booking this.

Random thoughts on the rest of the show…

• Are Jeff Hardy and Rob Van Dam ever going to get storylines of their own, or are they going to just be placeholders for their entire stint?
• I know consistency is not one of TNA’s strong points, but Rob Van Dam really looked like a punk for going down for so long from the beer bottle.
• Rob Terry’s physique really is scary.  It’s kind of gross, too.
• So Kurt Angle and Mr. Anderson had a gimmick match to set a part of their gimmick match.  When will TNA learn that these matches lose their excitement if they’re tossed around for no reason?
• Why do the Machine Guns have to fight for a title shot they already won?  And why does nobody seem to care?
• Sorry, Kevin Nash.  Your group is about 12 years past their sell point.  No one is taking you seriously.
• Just what everyone wanted – more Shannon Moore.  No one cared the first time you couldn’t beat Williams.  Go away and let Kazarian take his shot.
• D’Angelo Dinero had far more interaction with Desmond Wolfe than AJ Styles.  Please remember that there’s a PPV two weeks away.
• And TNA, if you’re going to try to hook viewers by promising someone stripping, you may want to deliver or viewers are not going to tune in the next time you promise something.

Starting at 8 rather than 9 was a good move to try to curb the declining ratings (not as good as moving back to Thursday), but if you use that time to shovel crap at the audience, you’re only making new problems for yourself.