Angling For a Comeback

Segment 4: Jesse vs. ODB

Positives: Nobody got hurt.

Negatives: You read that right. Jesse from Big Brother vs. Knockouts Champion ODB. It’s all well and good to portray ODB as unafraid of even the most gassed-up guy, but there’s a reason WWE has a strict “no man on woman wrestling” policy, and it goes beyond P.R.

Lei’D Tapa feels like a character created by someone who once saw one match featuring Awesome Kong and thought they could “improve upon” the idea.

Segment Score: -1

***

Segment 5: EGO Hall of Fame Ceremony

Positives: The “fake” video package retrospective EGO did for Roode was incredible. It felt like a producer had actually watched the pay per view hype packages for TNA from 2002 – 2007 and was parodying them en masse. Whoever wrote the voiceover also really captured the way Kaz and Daniels talk. In short, it was funny.
Kurt Angle vs. Bobby Roode at Bound For Glory is a great match-up, and it gives TNA a redo on the finish they gave this match two years ago, when Angle went over to the shock and dismay of anybody who’d actually watched Roode’s rise as a singles star.

Negatives: As Nick would say, you’re entering into a serious wrestling nerd conversation here:

This segment felt like it went on forever. In the days when 90% of big time wrestling shows occurred in front of live arena crowds with no camera taping for TV, it made sense for the heels to hijack the show and drone on and on and on.

This poured the heat on them so that when the babyface came out to shut them up, the roof would blow off the building because people hated the heel so much for being boring and self-centered. However, this strategy just isn’t effective anymore because the vast majority of Impact’s viewers (read: everybody except the two or three thousand people in the building) have the option of either listening to heels drone on and on and on OR watching, say, a football game, or, say Big Bang Theory. Having the heels talk forever was an effective strategy to build a pop for the babyface back in the day, but now it just leads to people changing the channel.

I correctly predicted in my preview that there would be babyface homophobic jokes in this segment, but I miscalculated who would deliver them. Game recognizes game, Kurt, you drunken, homophobic rogue.

Segment Score: +0

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