TV Review: TNA Impact Wrestling – “Runnin’ Wild”

The Episode: 10-20-2011 – “Runnin’ Wild”

In one of the worst episodes of TNA Impact Wrestling ever, promos are the order of the day as this two-hour program is overstuffed with people grunting into microphones while not doing any actual wrestling.

Guy’s Take:

This was seriously one of the worst episodes of TNA ever produced. If TNA Impact Wrestling shows were towns built at the foothills of active volcanoes, then this one would definitely be the Pompeii of them all. The night started with Sting recapping Bound for Glory and talking about finally getting the “real” Hulk Hogan to come out, as Hogan turned on Immortal at the PPV and has reverted to his red and yellow persona. Hogan came out, said he’s all about doing the right thing and thanked Sting and all the fans before leaving. Sting then called out Dixie Carter, whom now has control of the company thanks to Sting beating Hogan, and in as many words as possible he told Carter to use this second chance to really succeed with the company. She agreed with him and they blathered on and it was painful because no one really cares about this crap.

Just when this incredibly long and boring segment threatened to end, out came World Champ Kurt Angle to run down Sting and Dixie Carter and Robert Roode, which brought out his Bound for Glory opponent Roode to the ring. As Angle beat Roode with an illegal pin at the PPV, Roode rightly felt cheated and wanted a rematch, but Angle noted that their contract said no rematches. Finally, thirty-five minutes and two commercial breaks later, James Storm joined the party to challenge Angle to a title match in order to honor his cheated tag team partner, and Sting used his new GM status to make the match so. This was seriously the opening segment that would never end; someone should consider telling TNA that a forty-minute South Park WTF style opening bit does not reflect the company motto “wrestling matters.”

Finally we got the our first match, as Knockouts tag team champs Tara and Brooke Tessmacher defended their titles against Winter and Angelina Love, and the match was unfortunately both short and sloppy and didn’t do anything to keep the first hour of the show from being a complete waste. The champs retained their titles when Tessmacher got the win with the flying body press, and they celebrated with their belts in the ring while the audience looked on in boredom because, once again, no one really cares.

So just when things couldn’t get worse, there you go.

The night of a million promos continued with Jeff Jarrett calling out Jeff Hardy for being a drug addict and a liability. Hardy responded by saying the people loved him (to which the audience did indeed cheer), and after a few minutes of banter they got into a the typical brawl, full of fat security guys holding people back while they pretend to want to fight. This was followed by Jersey Shore inspired Robbie E. challenging TV Champ Eric Young to another title shot, and Young said he would make it happen, name dropping real Jersey Shore persona Ronnie as his possible back up for the match. So just when things couldn’t get worse, there you go.

About an hour and a half in we got our second match – Gunner challenged Abyss to finally kick him out of Immortal, but after about two minutes of wrestling, Gunner decided to leave the ring and take the count out, apparently freaked out by the intensity of Abyss. But Abyss didn’t do anything that he hasn’t done before; actually he’s been much more intense and scary in the past, so it felt so hollow and stupid when Gunner found the rest of Immortal and told them that Abyss is some new monster that they can still use. So awful. This was followed by a double Velvet Sky segment, as she got to talk both backstage and in the ring about winning the Knockouts Title for the first time. Her rambling was interrupted by Karen Jarrett and Madison Rayne, and while they distracted Velvet Sky, she was jumped from behind by Gail Kim, who is a former WWE Women’s Champ and also the first TNA Knockouts Champ, making this an old school meets new school type of match up, I guess.

There was yet another promo with Immortal and Eric Bischoff running down Hogan, and it somehow involved Eric Bischoff’s son who was apparently a TNA referee for the past eight months, and the segment ended with Immortal threatening to jump Hogan before Sting came out with baseball bats to save the day. Meanwhile, Eric Bischoff ran into his son on the ramp way and got punched out, so it looks like he’ll be entering the fray as a new wrestler. Yay for nepotism. And the main event was a laughable mess, as Champ Kurt Angle literally punched and kicked James Storm for about forty seconds before taking a superkick to the chin and getting pinned. Look for yourself, the entire match is right here and lasts about a minute:

So why on Earth would TNA do this? Why would they spend an entire summer building up the Bound for Glory series and the last month spending every week on building up Robert Roode as the number one contender, just to have Angle beat Roode at the PPV and then get pinned the next night by James Storm? It’s possible that an injury was exacerbated in Angle’s match with Roode, and while they thought he could tough it out, they found out it was worse then originally suspected, hence the title change and short nature of the match. In any case, James Storm is the new TNA World Champ, and it comes during an actual behind the scenes regime change, as Bruce Prichard has been brought in to oversee the creative direction of the company.

hopefully this atrocious episode will be a kind of “night is darkest before the dawn” type of scenarios.

End Credit:

A new era is underway in TNA Impact Wrestling, and hopefully this atrocious episode will be a kind of “night is darkest before the dawn” type of scenarios, because I can’t take much more of this kind of thoughtless garbage.

Rating: 2 out of 10