Okay... some of the stuff we saw tonight was fairly ridiculous. Having freaking Mr. Ass and Road Dogg declare war on three people they'll probably never see face-to-face again, let alone be on an equal playing field with, the LAX flag-burning, that bathroom shit that had a very bad end, pun intended >_< ... but everything else considered, do you think TNA impressed enough people tonight with the better half of the matches?

Using WWE-lite just reminds people of WWE. It's counterproductive. Their attempts to leech of the success of their roster's old WWE gimmicks just emphasises their own inadequacies (using old ideas from their "enemy" because they lack any of their own) while reminding their viewers of the number 1 company in the business right now. If they have to refer to WWE, it shouldn't be so obvious since it makes them look like bitter bush leaguers. When Monty Brown debuts I doubt he'll send any verbal barbs towards TNA simply because WWE would sooner put their heads in deep fat fryers than acknowledge TNA, see: Jeff Hardy.

From an action standpoint it was pretty good, but there were still some problems with the show, primarily from a production and pacing point of view. Too often a match or an angle would conclude and before you could blink the next segment would be thrown at you. That creates viewer heartburn, and it makes each subsequent event that much harder to digest. It meant that what should have been a big deal of The Naturals beating Team 3D in their own specialty match and laying them out with their own finisher had no time to sink in before they rushed into a commercial break. Once again, TNA's biggest problem isn't with the talent but with creative, and while the show was fine it was so much that I'd bet a lot of it never had time to sink in and register.

Pop-ups.con says the rating was a 1.04.

--Poll on Thursday's Impact

 

Excellent 41.3%

Good 38.5%

Average 7.3%

Fair 6.1%

Poor 6.9%

24.0% of those responding didn't see the show. All I know is I watched with a group of what I'd call casual fans, and within 15 minutes, they had lost complete interest in the show (although they did like the Angle match until Jim Mitchell spread the thumb tacks and at that point it was like a collective who cares). The response in general was the show had every reason they stopped watching WWE. There was so much bad that the only positive I could say is it was like watching a badly written and badly acted Raw, but with much better wrestling and great heat. But some of those segments were atrocious.

WO.com

 

I'd have to agree with that. The wrestling was good to great and the heat was always there, but some of the skits, especially the stuff with Nash, were terrible. It was the kind of stupid 'comedy' that you'd see on Raw, and the last thing TNA needs to do is anything that looks like something stolen from Raw. The formatting also needed work, because too often a match would end and before you could blink they'd be right into a bumper for a commercial. This really hurt something like The Naturals win over Team 3D, where they went over very strong, not only laying them out with their own finisher and also beating them in their own specialty match, but before you could even take it in they were off into the next commercial break. The least they could have done was have Tenay and West looking shocked and talking about how they have never seen Team 3D dominated like that. And I hated the post-main event where they kept switching from the ring to the back then back to the ring to show the two different angles. The PPV is being sold entirely on Joe vs. Angle, so they should have picked that angle and just stayed on that. Something like this makes me wonder why TNA still don't go to a split screen. That is something they really need to start doing.

 

All in all, the prime time special was classic TNA in that the wrestling and heat was spot on, but the production and presentation had some serious flaws.