Tha "iMPACT!" Dispatch

Let's hear it for TNA. They're once again slowly moving in the right direction. A lot of what I used to weekly criticize them for is now gone from my television. Noticeably less gimmicks last night, matches that had winners, and guys who deserve some shine got some.

The idea of an LAX split has been kicked around backstage for a while now. It seems that as time goes on, that idea might be picking up some steam, as Homicide was off of TV again this week while Hernandez had another singles match, this time beating Robert Roode.

Hopefully, should this split occur, they'll find something meaningful for Homicide to do, because he can work and is entertaining, even if he does want to stab most of the people who read this website. Hernandex, however, had better get pushed like a motherfucker, because he deserves it. Physical charisma, agility, dynamite workrate...he's got everything you could ask for in a worker.

Eric Young and BG James teamed up and beat the Motor City Machine Guns. These guys still have barely seen the light of day since taking heat earlier this year, which is a shame since they're over and could add a lot to a tag team division that, as I mentioned earlier, may be on the brink of losing one of their top teams.

TNA wanted to use Abyss as a special appearance kind of guy, much like WWE uses Undertaker. I don't think Abyss has the drawing power necessary to be that kind of guy, but sticking with the tag theme, I do think he and Matt Morgan (whom he saved from Team 3D last night) would make an awesome tag team, as either faces or heels. I'm interested to see where this goes.

I noted earlier that TNA did a better job of being less gimmicky this week, but they still have this urge to put some sort of lame moniker on an otherwise normal match. For instance, it's a Fatal Four Way or a Four Way Dance at No Surrender for Samoa Joe's TNA Heavyweight Championship. Not a "Four Ways To Glory Match".

Speaking of the aforementioned match, Booker T defeated Rhino to earn a spot in the match. I enjoyed this match, I thought both guys did their part in this, but again, poor Rhino. It seems like in TNA, they don't forgive or forget if you screw up. I'm not even sure what Rhino may have done wrong, but doesn't it sure seem like he's in the doghouse and has been for a while now?

Consequences Creed and Petey Williams had their rematch from Hard Justice last night. This was another good match, although it did feature a run-in by Sheik Abdul Bashir. I have one problem, though. This match officially ended with a disqualification. TNA rules state that the title changes hands on a disqualification. However, Consequences Creed is not the champion. Why does TNA seem to ignore this rule? Either come out and say that you've changed the rule, or don't have DQ endings in title matches anymore.

So Gail Kim is gone, but in classic (and hilarious) TNA fashion, she appeared last night, competing in a street fight against Awesome Kong. Obviously there's no story going on from here, since Kim left, but I noticed for the first time last night that as powerful as she is and as good at telling a story as she is, Kong is kinda slow in the ring. Kudos to TNA for being able to work around that for as long as they have. Hopefully she gets the belt back sometime soon, she was over as the monster champ.

AJ Styles is finally getting back in the main event picture. Well, sort of. He's at least feuding with main eventers instead of being their lackey. His ladder match with Kurt Angle last night wasn't the best ladder match I've ever seen, but it was respectable, and more importantly, it helped to drive the story between these two.

In the end, the lights went out and AJ Styles hit Angle with the softest looking guitar shot ever. But, in AJ's defense, when you're trying to balance yourself on a ladder, it's probably a bad idea to take a full, Jarrett-esque windup.

So next week, Sting is slated to come out and explain his bizarre actions. I don't think that TNA will pull the trigger on the whole storyline this early, so he will probably speak rather cryptically, which is fine with me, part of Sting's whole gimmick is being good at mind games anyway, so that not only preserves the storyline, it plays right into what he's best at.

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