Pro Wrestling Power

Just like Raw this week, I thought TNA Impact made a significant improvement from last week’s show. While the February 25 edition of Impact was the most disappointing show so far of the Hulk Hogan/Eric Bischoff era for me, last night’s show came off much better and it really felt like they recaptured their momentum heading into the big live show this Monday night.

More than anything else, this show needed to be one giant endorsement of their March 8 show, both in how it was booked and in actual advertising, and on both fronts, I thought they did a very good job. I thought the opening segment with Ric Flair, AJ Styles, Hogan, Abyss and Bischoff was excellent. Hogan’s promos were very good all night. He sold the fact that he shouldn’t be in the ring and he knows his limitations, but he’s also committed to this match and he is going through with it no matter what. Even Bubba wasn’t bad in his segment with Hulk.

Bischoff was also great all night. Actually, I don’t think he’s had an off night yet as an on-air character for TNA. I am starting to warm up to his angle with Jeff Jarrett, and I do think it will lead to big things for Double J later on. I also really liked the Mick Foley segments tonight. I didn’t really care for this angle at first either, and when the first video package of Foley Etiquette school started, I thought it was about to get worse. But to my surprise, all of the vignettes were amusing, with Foley’s unique sense of humor shining through, and I feel better about the future of this angle as well.

The tag match was decent, and I like what was accomplished. Beer Money went over and looks to be getting a push again, while Matt Morgan and Hernandez hinted at a potential break up down the road, which I think would be beneficial for both men, particularly Morgan.

Rob Terry beat Doug Williams in a two minute glorified squash, which featured the Global and X Division champions. This was probably the worst part of the show, and it wasn’t even that bad, unless you consider this a major hit to the X Division title 17 days before the Destination X pay per view.

The Knockout segment was even entertaining last night. It looks like TNA is at least putting a little thought into where the angle with Angelina Love and The Beautiful People is headed.

It was a good move to delay the next Kevin Nash/Eric Young vs. Scott Hall/Syxx-Pac encounter until Monday, as many non-IWC fans are actually interested to see where this is going. Like several other TNA angles right now, you get the feeling that there could be a big swerve coming up.

I’m really liking Jeff Jarrett’s old school style of wrestling lately. Maybe he’s been doing that all along, but I’ve only been watching TNA since late last year and didn’t see Jarrett perform since WCW in 2001 before now. Hell, he managed to have a solid match with Tomko, who looks like he forgot how to get to the gym.

The main event four corners TNA world title match, between Styles, Abyss, Desmond Wolfe and The Pope D’Angelo Dinero could have gone longer and maybe wasn’t as good as it should have been considering the participants. But when combined with the post match brawl, this main event of Impact was exciting and really left you anxious to see what they have in store for Monday night.

I like how Pope actually sold the leg injury the whole time…what a novel idea. Again, I wish the WWE would take notes from this. And it ended up costing him at the finish, with Styles making him tap out to the figure four leg lock. Hogan making the save for Abyss and attacking Flair with the barbed wire bat was awesome, and of course Flair did his trademark blade job, which is the best in the business if you ask me. This was a great last segment and a very good overall last Thursday night edition of Impact.

Unless you don’t have a pulse, you have to be somewhat excited for the new Monday night wars starting next week. Both WWE and TNA are putting on quality programs right now, and things are only going to better as time wears on. Both companies will be taking it up a notch starting this Monday. And TNA will be working especially hard to pull out all the stops like they did on January 4. One thing we do know for the Monday night live Impact already is that TNA will be debuting their newest huge signee, the Whole F’n Show, Rob Van Dam!