TNA Impact Wrestling Thread 9/22/16: Brother Cody I knew you'd come.
 

Cody Rhodes supposedly is debuting tonight. Also the simi finals of the Grand Championship tournament.

Galloway vs Eddie Edwards is first. Round 1 goes to to Drew 29-28.

OK, so I'm going to watch this bullshit again. What's wrong with me?

What is this round shit?

Grand Championship has a round format for matches. Not sure if its permanent or just for this tournament.

This might be the first one that goes to the judges.

That's really fucking stupid.

Did that match just end during the commercial break?

Yeah I don't like it as much as I thought I would. Its different but I hopes its just for this tournament. Hope the championship match has longer than 3 minutes.

No the time ran out.

So there's going to be a Grand Champion and a World Champion? Why?

So does Moose own his theme song? That's the exact same theme he had in ROH.

Its better than King of the Mountain Championship. Belts is petty good looking. I like the Grand Championship name though.

I guess, noticed that as well.

Why is the World champion competing to try and become the Grand champion? I don't get it.

Sandow looks weird.

Eli Drake isn't a bad promo.

He's not. Lashley will be facing EC3 at Bound for Glory. Drew is in the finals and will face either Eli Drake or Aron Rex.

One of my favorites on TNA.

I don't know if I'll be able to make it through this mess, but I'll try.

Broken Matt Hardy should make an appearance soon. I know you love him.

Also Cody Rhodes at some point I guess.

There's a football game on, I just realized.

Would like to see Drake win this but it will probably be Rex to set up him and Drew.

Dummy Yeah

Is he still doing the Sandow gimmick or what?

Been flipping back and forth. Don't have anyone in it on my fantasy teams so not really worried about it.

Not much of a difference other than the name really.

Galloway vs. Rex does not sound intriguing in the slightest to me.

Nor does Galloway v. Drake.

Nor does Galloway.

Nor does TNA, now that I think about it.

TNA continue s to push released WWE guys over guys like Drake. Galloway has been a lot better since being in TNA to me. Rex hasn't impressed me and its a lot of the same he did in WWE. Galloway vs Drake intrigue s me more than Galloway vs Rex.

I forgot I have Houston's defense.

Oh my fucking god, that was really, really, really, really stupid.

Yeah if that's Rex's finisher it weak.

No, I meant that Decay business.

First hour kind of sucked match wise. Only the Grand Championship matches and that's about 16 minutes of actual wrestling.

"Two rivals going one on one for the first time ever!"

How the fuck are they rivals if they've never had a match?

What the hell is MoonDirt doing in the Impact Zone???

I do dig Decay's theme, though.

I did a Jagerbomb with Abyss and Shark Boy once. Just in case you were wondering.

Cody will be at Bound for Glory. Haven't called him Cody Rhodes though just Cody. Funny thing is they have called his Brandi Rhodes. Hopefully he can be Cody Rhodes.

If he just goes by Cody, that might be the least threatening ring name in history.

Why the fuck does he have to talk like that?

How do you enjoy this shit, Simple Fan?

Did Moose go to Ahmed Johnson's Promo School? And then Ahmed Johnson's Hair School?

I like wrestling. Usually enjoy Impact more than I do Raw. This show hasn't been all that good though.

That Hardy shit is fucking abysmal. Do you have any sort of brain damage?

No. Think Hardy has been pretty entertaining since becoming Broken. Just like how invested he is in the character and how serious he takes him self makes him extremely funny. Decay is the perfect team to feud with.

Finally a real match.

Trevor Lee doesn't seem like an X-Division guy.

He's a former X division champion. Really wish they would go back to the No Limits type rules with the X division and sign so bigger guys that can fly around instead of just using it as a cruiserweight division.

That kid was holding up the most uninspired DJ Z sign of all time.

Remember when Maria was ditzy?

DJ
Z

Who the hell is this?

All of this is really fucking shitty. I don't think I'm gonna make it.

Gail Kim, probably.

See, that was easy.

OK Gail Kim. Pretty funny stuff there.

No. That was all very dumb. Maria's ass was the only saving grace.

Gail Kim's karate stuff with the referee was funny. I got a chuckle out of at least.

You really are a simple fan.

Speaking of simple, it appears that they are just going to call him Cody. Why on earth?

Love the Miracles theme so much.

Its was more entertaining than anything WWEs women did this week in my opinion.

Does seem weird. Cody Runnels would be fine with me. His wife having the Rhodes name though give me hope he'll be Cody Rhodes.

I'll take that back the Bliss/Lynch contract signing was pretty good.

Your opinion is wrong.

I'm gonna catch up on Atlanta. This shit is unwatchable. Have fun.

Lethal Lockdown next week should be pretty good. Not a lot of wrestling tonight. Bound for Glory not looking bad though.

What is that, all cage matches? Yuck.

That's your opinion and I think its wrong. I can see why people don't like TNA but it just suits me better than WWEs style of TV. I like wrestling so I'm going to watch as much as I can. ROH is my favorite wrestling show each week usally followed by Impact and Smackdown the Raw. Don't watch NXT weekly as I like watching them in bulk and skip what I don't want to see. Wish I still got Lucha Underground.

No its two teams in a cage that has a top on it with weapons hanging from it. Kind of like a War Games match. Love TNAs Lockdown show though were every match is in a cage.

I don't really like cage matches.

I found something Anybody Thrilla and I can agree on. :love:

The Grand Championship thing sounds really fucking stupid. Wrestling has its established rules that have been siphoned out of centuries of evolution. What works stays, what doesn't is thrown out. Well, in recent years more and more of the stuff that works is thrown out in favor of stuff that doesn't. But the point remains -- whenever "MMA" is introduced to wrestling, I groan, because it reminds people that wrestling is fake. People can watch wrestling ironically and be fine, but if all the characters on a reality show started saying "You know this isn't real, right?" who would fucking watch?

I know British wrestling used to have rounds or whatever, but this sounds less like that and more like the Brawl For All tournament, which FUCKING SUCKED! It killed careers and gimmicks, because it made guys do things that no one really wanted to see them do, and they blew at it. Drew Galloway and Aron Rex are American professional wrestlers that are trained to tell a certain type of story. This rounds bullshit completely ties their hands in those regards. Fuck that, fans are also conditioned to expect a certain kind of story. The ROH Pure Title this ain't.

Oh, by the way -- nice job putting Galloway and Rex against each other. The fresh heel against the fresh face at your PPV. Brilliant job. It's a good thing no one will order so the death of one act won't fucking matter.

How TNA can have The Hardys, Trevor Lee, Maria's ass, Mike Bennett, Eddie Edwards, Bobby freakin' Lashley and Moose and yet no one gives a flying fuck about them is absolutely baffling. You have to TRY to be this bad.

How serious he takes himself? If Matt Hardy were serious, he'd conduct himself with a bit more dignity.

Maybe Cody will stylize his name as CODY like a Japanese heel?

Young Boy Cody? "Raijin" Cody Gaijin?

The more I read about TNA the more I feel validated in not giving them a chance despite their roster. Literally nothing they do makes sense.

I sort of got excited when I heard that Dixie Carter was on her way out, but now I'm weary again.

The thing is - I know it's popular to laugh at TNA for bringing in WWE rejects, but it's never bothered me that much. In some instances they're bringing in guys who were generally underutilized.

For instance, whenever people would say "TNA have Derrick Bateman as their World Champion. What a joke." I couldn't really take them seriously because it was obvious that they were looking to discredit him or TNA for giving him a chance to reinvent himself as EC3.

And yet for every success story like EC3 they take 5 steps back with idiotic booking on the rest of the card.

Oh, it makes sense to take a lot of guys with that level of experience. Maybe not everybody and maybe not guys that were fired for, say, a lack of talent, or because they're not longer relevant. But they'd be foolish to not try and sign some of the guys that have willingly walked away from WWE recently -- namely Ryback, Barrett, Rhodes and Del Rio.

Dude takes himself extremely serious. That's why his gimmick is so good.

Never seen EC3 as Derrick Bateman so my first time seeing him was his TNA debuted and I've been a fan ever since. I don't have a problem with TNA bringing in ex WWE guys but don't like that they give them bigger pushes than their home grown guys. Big fan of Eli Drake and I think he'd be a better choice as first Impact Grand Champion. Never been a fan of Rex and haven't liked what I've seen of him in TNA.

Nah dude. You don't talk in that voice AND take yourself seriously. It's not possible.

They could always announce cody with his wife

"Cody and Brandi Rhodes"

He takes himself very serious with the Broken Matt Hardy character. If anything the voice shows how serious he is, to constantly speak like that takes commitment. He stays in character on twitter and has done podcast in character. He doesn't put on like its an act and keeps it kayfabe.

He's trolling everyone in real life.

Is he committed to the character? Sure. But he's not taking himself or wrestling seriously.

He is taking the character seriously as opposed to someone like Nick Dinsmore smh.

The character seriously makes me want to take my own life, if that counts for anything.

thats a good angle call him mr brandi rhodes let him be the wife

You have more problems than Broken Matt Hardy then. Seriously though what is not to like about that gimmick. What ever the reason you don't have to like it but it is the best gimmick in wrestling this year and its not even close.

I second Thrilla's point on this. I think what you mean is that Hardy plays it straight? Even so, the creative diversion of this in the first place makes it a stylistic choice. It's annoying when people make stuff purposely bad -- true camp aims to be something good and falls hilariously short. Hardy's trying to make a joke out of himself and present these "so bad they're good segments." It's closer to anti-comedy.

POINT A:

It's hokey as fuck. Part of wrestling is getting an audience to suspend their disbelief. It obviously doesn't happen entirely -- the cat is out of the bag in that it is fake -- but people still value the attempt. Brad Pitt still tries to become a character when he is on screen. He doesn't constantly walk around in a movie saying "I'm Brad Pitt, remember."

This can do perceived damage to the credibility of things around it. For example, how is Joe Smith supposed to take Bobby Lashley's "super-serious MMA fighter" shtick seriously when Matt Hardy is on an earlier segment playing make-believe? You have a problem with cast-off WWE guys coming in and getting pushes that aren't proportionate to their WWE station, which is entirely logical, but you don't have a problem with Matt Hardy "feuding" with guys that have clearly worked on a shoot with him?

POINT B:

It's really bad. Matt Hardy is not a good actor. That might be "the point" to you, but when you consider his voice, his mannerisms and everything that goes into what he's doing, the ultimately evaluation is that it is bad. That's it. A viewer isn't under the obligation to find that funny, or clever, or endearing. Bad things can be just bad.

It reminds me of a joke by a famous American comedian, where he talks about the royal family, and how out-dated worshiping a family is. "Oh, but they don't really do anything..." is the common reply. That makes it even worse! If a layperson asked you "Why do you watch wrestling?" and you showed your layman the Broken Matt Hardy stuff, the layman might turn to you and ask "Is this supposed to be serious?" and you reply with "Of course not." They would be very justified in saying to you "That's even worse."

AGAIN: Enjoy what you want to enjoy. I realize I've been a bit of a cynic around these parts. But this is a guilty pleasure, because it is trash, and you're allowed to like trash, but liking trash isn't the logical conclusion to the evaluation of it. You guys enjoying it are in the minority. I think Thrilla and I would be cool with you being all "Meh, I like it." But when you say things like "I don't understand how people can think this is awful", please just apply a little critical thinking.

I don't mean to sound cunty, because I am glad you get genuine enjoyment out of it, but this is the dirt worst of the year, man. It is really, really, really, really bad, ha-ha.

I disagree, nothing in wrestling this year has been as good as Broken Matt Hardy. No way is it dirt worst though. Top 5 at least.

According to PWI, this week's Impact ended up being the highest since "Final Deletion" and 2nd week in a row the numbers improved.

For some reference, "Delete or Deacy" had around 337k for viewers.

377,000 viewers? What does that equate to? A 0.19?

1. AJ Styles
2. Chris Jericho crossing his legs
3. Charlotte's promo content
4. Enzo's mic work
5. CWC
6. Nakamura/Zayn
7. Becky Lynch winning the title
8. Two Cesaro uppercuts
9. The Cena/Ambrose exchange on SmackDown a few weeks ago
10. Alexa Bliss' new look

Those are just ten things that shit all over Matt Hardy, and I didn't even try to scrape the barrel.