+/- #’s: Impact Wrestling, 7/11

Positives: This reminded me a lot of last week’s X Division Title match in that once all the multi-man silliness was out of the way, a very good match broke out. Magnus and Roode worked really well together, which made me wonder why TNA didn’t just think of a more normal pretext for the two of them to wrestle each other.

Negatives: I know the illustrious history of TNA effectively started with a gauntlet, but the gauntlet match is really a broken gimmick. The only way to really get someone over is to have them run the entire gauntlet, which makes everybody else look like a chump. Even a battle royal would have been better, as weak as that gimmick is…

Positives: Sabin cut a spirited promo, in spite of some of the unnecessary moving parts he had to deal with in this segment. Rampage Jackson has the chance to attract some non-wrestling eyeballs toward TNA and the Main Event Mafia.

Negatives: Chris Sabin is 31, and while he isn’t as tall as most top-tier professional wrestlers, he is talented and experienced enough that he deserves not to be booked as a child. Everything that Hulk Hogan and Bully Ray said and did simply served to remind fans that Sabin is undersized and, relative to them, has not been given much time to define his character on TV. If you’re giving a guy from the midcard a shot at the title, your best bet for attracting eyeballs is to play up the top-notch work he’s been doing throughout his career and say anything BUT “he’s never been a main event star.” I’m sure there will be some great Chris Sabin video packages at Destination X, but by then it’s too late to promote, and nobody will be watching.

Also, it’s nice that the Main Event Mafia have Chris Sabin’s back, but I felt like they “bigfooted” the whole segment by appearing when they did. Why couldn’t Rampage be revealed earlier in the show, and then make the save to help Sabin at the end? That way, Sabin would have his own time to shine, but you could still give the “helping out the little guy” rub to Jackson.