Tha Action Is Back!

We all thought it was crazy when ECW recently put on a better show than "Raw". Well, this is even crazier: TNA has put out a better show than "Raw"! And if you're not convinced, then read on and see what I mean.

"iMPACT!" started out with Kurt Angle, Christian Cage and Sting all in the ring. Strangely enough, the fans were popping for Cage the most. All three cut good, quick promos explaining their side of the story...as it relates to the main event finish at Sacrifice.

Then out comes Cornette, who dropped a line that I thought was absolute gold. For those of you who missed it, here it is - "By God, Christian, if you think I've screwed you in the past, then stay tuned, because it's about to get even better!".

Cornette went on to announce the upcoming "King Of The Mountain" match at Slammiversary, as well as the qualifying matches that would be taking place. I loved the promo he cut here, as he made it perfectly clear that whomever wins the aforementioned "Kong Of Tha Moontoon" (might as well start calling it that, you know it's gonna be an O-fest) is going to be portrayed as the face of the company. This furthers my belief that Joe is going to walk out of Nashville the champion.

Next up was the first match of the night. Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley teamed up again to take on Jerry Lynn and Tiger Mask IV. I normally shit all over Tenay in these articles, but he did a halfway respectable job of explaining the origins of the Tiger Mask character. Perhaps the professor has been studying some JBL tapes.

As for the match itself, it was a good match, with Shelley picking up the win. I'm glad that he's getting a push, he's long overdue for one and he deserves it like nobody's business.

My one complaint about this match though, was the appearance of Bob Backlund at the end of it. Why is this guy still even around? He botched every spot he took tonight, and an angle involving him and Sabin does nothing for anybody. This is one time where I will forgive TNA if they just inexplicably abandon an angle.

Christopher Daniels and Raven had a decent match by televised standards. Honestly, though, is there any gimmick running in wrestling right now that has as little interest as Serotonin does? TNA has given this group little to no attention, and they're dead flat because of it. You could hear crickets after the match when Kazarian tried to whip Raven with the kendo stick.

Why is Kazarian so angry at Raven to begin with? This storyline has been given such little airtime that I don't even know why there's dissension to begin with. All four guys in Serotonin are great workers, and could be really hot if just given a push, or even any exposure at all. No such luck. Raven is one of the most underused guys in TNA, so why he's being used in a stable is beyond me.

Eric Young and Robert Roode. No offense meant, but can we please end this storyline so that Roode can go fight for the TNA belt? I didn't write a Sacrifice re-cap (as anyone who listened to this week's audio show knows), but had I written one, I would have mentioned that with Roode's win over Jarrett, he now has instant credibility and he can be thrown into a main event program at any time.

End the Eric Young angle, let Young get involved in a storyline where he can actually wrestle, and put Roode where he belongs. I would love to see Roode involved in the Slammiversary main event.

Kurt Angle VS. Rhino was an amazing main event match, given the time they had to perform. These are two guys who deserve to be in a main event program, even though only one of them is. I agree with Donnie wholeheartedly - Rhino must have seriously pissed off somebody in the back, because, with one or two exceptions, he has been on job duty for quite some time now. It's a shame that Rhino can't be involved in King Of The Mountain (Angle won this match clean), but at least we got to see a good wrestling match out of it.

The final segment of the night took place in Jim Cornette's office, where he announced the main event for next week. In a King Of The Mountain qualifying match, it will be Samoa Joe VS. Sting. This match has the potential to be just as off-the-chart as this week's qualifier, so I'm looking forward to it.

It seems that even though TNA has lost the idea of using the homegrown talent that they've had ever since the Asylum days (such as Styles and Killings), they are at least getting back to what they prided themselves on in the first place - wrestling. Tonight's matches were free of run-ins, free of stupid gimmicks, and had the feel that TNA used to have before Russo returned. It was so good that I didn't even mind Tenay and West this week!

By the way, I would like to send a shout-out to Big Daddy Donnie for the "firing" segment on this week's show. I marked like you would not believe because it was funny as shit. Go Sabres.

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