A look at the Dec. 31 episode of TNA Impact

Normally I wouldn't review the average episode of TNA Impact. But because last night's episode featured a TNA Knockouts tournament, a lot of fans have been asking me about it. Typically with TNA, the show was a mixed bag. It had some good things including Ayako Hamada's performance and some other things. And it had some of the usual overbooked pointless nonsense that we seem to get each week. And for some inexplicable reason TNA decided to intersperse matches that won some sort of Best of 2009 poll. That really affected the flow of the show. I don't know why they did that. We all know that the Knockout segments get the highest ratings on Impact. But TNA still seems to not trust the Knockouts segments despite that. I don't know exactly what Hulk Hogan will do when he starts with TNA next week. But some of his comments indicate that he seems to understand that TNA frequently outfoxes themselves with some of their decisions.





The opening match had Ayako Hamada vs Madison Rayne. This was probably Madison's best TNA match to date. Of course she lost but Ayako made her look much better than she has looked in other matches. Just because someone is a jobber doesn't mean she has to look bad. It was followed by ODB vs Tracy Brooks. I don't understand this emphasis commenting on Tracy's arm. She's been in the wrestling business for a long time and no one ever mentioned this until a few months ago. So obviously the match was a little odd and I hate ODB anyway. But I'll get to that later. Roxxi beat Velvet Sky and Roxxi looked very good and actually made Velvet look good. But I could have done without Lacey Von Erich's ridiculous attack on Roxxi. And then Awesome Kong squashed Daffney. This was followed by Taylor Wilde & Sarita vs April Hunter & Lorelei. Several wrestlers were brought in to audition  but those were the only two to make air. The match was OK but too short.






It was in the second round that we get to what I will charitably call questionable booking. Hamada vs Roxxi was a very good match. Both gave strong performances especially Roxxi when you consider that she broke her leg during the match. She had her ribs taped up to sell that overcooked Lacey Von Erich crap from earlier in the show. Ayako was great too and they worked very well together. So then they bring out ODB with an almost empty bottle of Jack Daniels. It's very insulting. No one can drink that much and have a coherent match. Awesome Kong comes out. The problem with the match is half of it is edited due to a commercial. So it's hard to sense the flow of the match. ODB gets quite a bit of offense. But then they try and sell AK as unbeatable by having ODB win by smashing the bottle over her head. That's called befuddled booking. TNA has no clue about how to book Awesome Kong.





So the final has ODB vs Hamada. This gets interrupted twice by commercials but I thought the match was very good. Ayako was definitely the best performer on this show. She had three very strong performances and even got a decent match out of the constantly mugging ODB. ODB got the win when Ayako missed a moonsault onto a table. Wait a minute. Didn't they just do ODB vs Tara on the last PPV and it sucked. So why are they doing it again? So Tara comes out and Borash does an interview in the ring. ODB suggests that Tara should go back to where the girls dance and prance and show skin. That's pretty funny coming from someone whose boobs are hanging out. That's TNA for you. The match will be on Monday's live Impact and Sarita & Taylor Wilde will defend their titles against Awesome Kong & Hamada. This episode had its moments of goodness. But for the most part it was the typical disjointed and illogical crap from TNA with an unsatyisfying conclusion. What else is new?