TNA Impact thoughts - 2010-05-03

So I watched TNA Impact for the second week in a row. First time that's happened, ever. Maybe they really are doing something right.

- The first thing they do in the show is announce the show is moving back to Thursday, starting next week. So the new Monday Night War didn't quite last as long as the last one did. At least TNA threw in the towel quickly rather than run their company into the ground trying to compete with WWE. Though it's another reason why I think they should move Smackdown back to Thursdays. Nobody watches that show on Fridays, not only would more people watch in Thursday but they could knock TNA off of their night again.

- Speaking of which, still with the WWE rings? Ric Flair called his WWE ring his most prized possession, live on TNA TV. Meanwhile Bryan Danielson can't even call himself Bryan Danielson. Do folks like RVD and Jeff Hardy agree that a WWE Hall of Fame ring would be their most prized posession? Cause anyone who agrees with Ric Flair should be trying to get a WWE ring, not wasting their time in TNA.

- Black Naitch was pretty cool overall. Though I did notice, when Hogan came out and beat everyone up (did the former world champion just get taken out by one punch from a 60-year-old man?) and made about fifteen matches pitting all the brawlers against each other, Jay Lethal was left without a match, and indeed he didn't even appear on the rest of the show.

- Brian Kendrick is in TNA now? Still with that funky jacket he was using as The Brian Kendrick towards the end of his WWE run. Is he another who is with TNA primarily to get away from WWE's drug testing? That's at least three.

- TNA did something WWE was never able to do - they made Ken Kennedy promos boring. Even when he couldn't stay healthy for two weeks in a row, Kennedy's promos were always entertaining in WWE.

- Just when a fairly entertaining three-way tag match gets going, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall come out to interrupt. Because the Dudleys weren't slow and awkward enough already. I was momentarily glad to see the MCMG beat them down, until they promptly got beat down themselves.

- Overall, there were more people I didn't recognize on the show this week, which I think is good. It's not good when the show is entirely WWE rejects, they need to mix in TNA guys, which they did this week.

TNA Impact thoughts - 2010-04-26

Just watched this week's Impact cause I was curious to see RVD as champion, and I had some thoughts.

- The show opens with an RVD promo where he explains that the reason he's not with WWE is because of their Wellness Policy. We're apparently supposed to boo WWE because of this, and cheer TNA because they let the wrestlers drug it up, I guess by the same logic that makes CM Punk a hated heel because he doesn't abuse addictive substances. (A Punk-RVD feud would be EPIC, BTW.) My main reaction is that I'm surprised the Wellness Policy actually works / has enough teeth that it would be a reason for someone to avoid WWE. Maybe WWE folks aren't on as many drugs as I thought.

- WTF is with everyone fighting over their WWE Hall of Fame rings? If TNA TV were to involve WWE HOF rings at all, you'd think it'd just be to throw them in the gutter and exclaim "These ain't worth shit, now I'm in TNA!" If WWE HOF rings are so prized, why am I watching TNA instead of watching the future WWE HOFers on Raw?

- So Ric Flair has stolen JBL's gimmick as a "wrestling god"? And holy crap he got old in the last two years. He even flubbed his promo a few times.

- It's still weird to me that Hulk Hogan isn't using Hulk Hogan's theme, or even some TNA bastardization of Hulk Hogan's theme like they did with Christian, Booker T, Dudley Boys, etc.

- Speaking of which, how many people in TNA right now are WWE rejects? I don't think there were more than a handful of men's wrestlers on the entire show who weren't former WWE talent, and the vast majority of them are involuntarily not WWE employees. I guess that's why the ended the TNA Originals vs. carpetbaggers storyline - not enough originals left.

- All of that said, the show is markedly better than it used to be, but I'm not sure that's a good thing. I actually watched the whole thing, and didn't spend the whole time lamenting what a disaster the show was, like I usually do with TNA. But I'm not going to be a regular TNA viewer, I'm a WWE viewer. It took putting Hulk Hogan in charge and giving RVD the title just to get me to watch TNA on DVR five days later. Whatever TNA fans were enjoying about TNA for the last several years was not something that attracted me, so now that TNA has changed to get me to upgrade my opinion to "not a total disaster," are TNA fans still entertained? I obviously can't judge that, but I wonder.