My Weekly TNA Catch-up, Impact 26th Nov 09 reviewed

I know I'm late for the second week running due to having to request the posting of the show in the newsgroups, normally they are very good there & its up very quickly but for the last 2 weeks I have actually had to ask. Anyway I am done & dusted now so heres the catch-up.

The whole of this weeks Impact card was given over to the TNA Championship Series which is something completely new, basically everyone from every division of TNA was fighting to get the chance to become #1 contender for which ever belt their division contests. Essentially what was on the line here were #1 contender shots for the X Division title, the Tag title & the Heavyweight title.

Round 1 TNA Championship Series, Bobby Lashley (with wife Kristal) vs Abyss - Russo made sure you know he's still running the show with the announcement of the 20 minute time limit for this match. This match was going nowhere fast when Abyss & Lashley were fighting outside by the ring, Kristal tried to stop Abyss landing a punch & was knocked onto her ass but as the bad actress she was grabbed her ankle. Abyss was distracted after realising he'd decked her allowing Lashley to nail him with a Spear then synch in the Dragon Sleeper hold which Abyss tapped out of so the win went to Bobby Lashley & Kristal made a miracle recovery.

Round 1 TNA Championship Series, Suicide vs Desmond Wolfe - There was a big chance of interference for both guys in this match from Kurt Angle for Wolfe & D'Angelo Dinero for Suicide which oddly enough didn't happen. A pretty slow dull match, most of the decent moves came from Suicide & I'm not sure if this was Frankie "Kaz" Kazarian or Christopher Daniels in the costume, it was really hard to tell. Wolfe took the win off the worst Tower Of London he's ever done, frankly I think Suicide was no selling this big time.

Round 1 TNA Championship Series, D'Angelo Dinero vs Kurt Angle - A fairly decent match with most of the action coming from Angle quite surprisingly, Dinero made a nice Russian Leg Sweep that Angle sold well but he missed the DDE allowing Angle to counter with a Roll-up for a near fall but Angle took the win off the Angle Slam.

Round 1 TNA Championship Series, Homicide vs Robert Roode - Very dull match where Homicide pretty much owned Roode from the bell as he jumped him, Roode took the eventual win off a Spine Buster out of nowhere.

Boring backstage segment with JB & Kurt Angle, because they stayed with this we didn't see all the introductions for the following match. Way to show the women you care, TNA!

Knockout Battle Royal - By the time we joined the match Traci Brooks was being introduced & Hamada, Alissa Flash (yet again wearing her black sweater so they STILL haven't bought her a whole costume yet?) & Daffney were already in the ring. Next in were all 3 of The Beautiful People followed by Sarita & Taylor Wilde then came Tara & ODB was special guest referee. For some reason this wasn't completely classic rules as explained by Mike Tenay that you could be eliminated by going over the top or through the ropes getting eliminated when your feet touch the floor.

1st out was Daffney eliminated pretty quickly by Hamada, 2nd out was Alissa Flash eliminated by Sarita closely followed in 3rd by Traci Brooks eliminated by Taylor Wilde - Wilde & Sarita had dropkicked the pair of them off the apron.

During the commercial break Lacey Von Erich was 4th to be eliminated by Tara, 5th out was Sarita eliminated by Madison Rayne & Velvet Sky working together (no shock there really). 6th out was Taylor Wilde who eliminated herself with an overzealous Headscissors on Hamada who was 7th out after actually selling the Head Scissors that Wilde eliminated herself with.

Tara was left to fight Velvet Sky & Madison Rayne on her own but luckily Madison Rayne was 8th out after accidently being eliminated by Velvet Sky who bumped her off the apron after missing Tara, Tara & Velvet duked it out a bit but Tara took the win when Velvet Sky was the 9th eliminated & Tara was last woman standing to earn herself a shot at the Knockouts title @ Decembers PPV.

Semi Final TNA Championship Series, Desmond Wolfe vs Bobby Lashley (with Kristal) - This was as DULL AS HELL! Lashley got the win off a DQ when Wolfe failed to break a hold with Lashley in the ropes, somewhere during the match Wolfe cut his lip or something as he was bleeding from the mouth.

Semi Final TNA Championship Series, Robert Roode vs Kurt Angle - Quite frankly this match was never really going anywhere either, both guys had an even amount of time on top but Russo went crazy & sent Desmond Wolfe out who distracted Angle away from the ring long enough for Roode to take the win by a count out. P**s poor finish!

AJ Styles comes out to talk but is interupted by Daniels, that bad blood was old when they did it about 3 years ago.

TNA Championship Series Final, Robert Roode vs Bobby Lashley (with Kristal) - Lashley had finished previous match getting his arm stretched pretty violently by Desmond Wolfe, it was clearly Lashley was trying for the quick win as he went for the Dragon Sleeper hold but Roode found the ropes easily enough.

With less than 5 minutes of air time left I have zero clue why they decided to take another commercial break so late into the show but Roode was still on top having continued to work Lashleys bad arm during the break. Both guys had a very good end of the match but Lashley took the eventual win off the Spear to earn himself a title shot for the TNA Heavyweight Championship.

Ghost Lab s01e08

GDC Building - San Antonio, Texas.
Clearly not many people trusted or had heard of the Klinge brothers as they've had to return to the site of a previous investigation. During the 1st EVP one of the brothers claims to have heard "like a laugh" but the other brother didn't & neither did I, the K2 meter spikes.

In the accounting office they manage to capture a filing cabinet or something rectangular thinking its a shadow (@13:57), its debunked as a box (heck I sussed that with my own eyes on the tiny thermal screen) but Brad won't believe it. They go to try & recreate it with the thermal camera but really they should be checking the room with lights on with a normal camera to see what was in that spot. Its proved to be a box & Brad eats a slice of STFU pie.

In the day care centre they get another small K2 spike & 1 of them is convinced he's seen a shadow (again?) but they find nothing, Brads convinced something is following them (how? the last shadow was debunked as a BOX!) so you have to question his integrity as an investigator if he gets so het up about a possible shadow. Whatever happened to calm analysis? Even with zero proof of a shadow Brad says "We know your in here, we've established that fact", no we haven't Brad. Facts need PROOF! What you established was nothing with no evidence.

Moving downstairs Brad gets something that MIGHT be the outline of a figure (@20:18) , we know its the 1st time they used a thermal camera & he's already proved he can't be trusted to read it properly after the box incident. It is seen again during the evidence review but quite frankly the outline looks like the other Klinge brother Barry (the one without the hat). One of the team says its a water bottle & an independant expert from the company who made the thermal camera says the exact same thing but he is unable to fully debunk it. I find it odd they never went back to that door to look with the lights on as that would have confirmed 100% what the anomaly was. Barry claims he went back with the thermal to try & recreate it but we never saw that on camera so I call him a liar.

Volo Antique Mall - Volo, Illinois.
Movement is heard above them (its an old wooden building so its probably just settling), An alarm is heard going off (its unreal how slow they are to respond & start moving towards it!) which turns out to be an open door. The weird thing is the alarm by that door is turned off! Back in the lab we are shown the worlds grainest footage of the worlds smallest shadow right on the edge of an image. They try to recreate it with someone walking past inside the building. What they fail to try is someone walking past an exterior door that was shown during the indoor recreation, it could have even been a reflection of headlights through that doors window which is why nothing moved when that shadow was made. They also noted a heat spike on their data loggers when the alarm went off.

During this show they also schilled an advert saying the Ghost Lab dvd is now on sale in the Discovery Shop.

Ghosthunters Academy - S01E03 - Back to Basics

Eastern State Penitentiary, Pennsylvania.

A new team member Jane is introduced which is completely unfair on everyone else, this girl has been given no training on equipment, set-up, tagging or anything. Why introduce a new person in week 3, its pointless. Basically shes eye candy. The students are told they have to train Jane & get her up to their level.

So let me get this straight, students with just 2 weeks of training are expected to teach a complete novice? Have Steve & Tango got that lazy already, or just completely lost interest? And as I said last week Steve & Tango confirm someone is going home this week, they show Heathyr looking worried & quite rightly too as she's the #1 candidate.

Breaking with tradition Heathyr went on the tour, Steve pulls Jane up for not taking notes. Steve rags on Brian Harnois for having run out during his investigation (who WAS with him when he did that?) & they even try to embarrass him further by showing the clip too. Steve, like YOU are SO perfect? If we showed all the clips of you screwing around it'd fill a whole freaking show!

Ben takes control in set-up & everything seems to be going fine until all the cameras drop out & Chris reports there isn't enough cable so Steve gets on his case straight away. Steve pulls the plug without even giving them the chance to fix things & makes them pack up so no investigation gets done on night 1.

Night 2 - Steve takes charge (so yet again he shows he hasn't taught them well enough to set up on their own yet), its a poor reflection on his abilities as a teacher, not their abilities as students.

Chris & Susan in Cell Block 14, Chris hears a footstep but I think it was one of them. Chris mentions something called Active Rewind, yet another technique we never heard of before. Chris finds "fog" (and totally fails to spot the bowl probably full of dry ice set up almost certainly by Steve & Tango to test them - this is revealed to be correct less than a minute later), I debunked it in under a second so even in this show Steve & Tango are STILL pulling pranks but trying to pass it off as "tuition".

Susan & Karl (she calls him Chris, he gets annoyed at that mistake) on Death Row, they end up having to reposition a camera that newbie Jane had placed. Susan tags a train horn.

Newbie Jane & Ben in the Guard Tower, Ben mentions tagging background noises then we get a huge lecture on it from Steve. Jane shows poor EVP technique by not leaving long enough gaps for answers to her questions. They respond to yelling that they can't find the source of. What Ben was doing with Jane is called Mirroring, its a psychological thing you do when you want to show support for someone. I guess Steve isn't any good at using wiki [ look HERE Steve!:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_(psychology) ].

Heathyr & Chris in Cell Block 12, Chris gets a slight EMF spike off an electrical box even though its not working. During an EVP they hear what sounds like a voice & movement. Steve & Tango rag on Chris for wanting to investigate somewhere new with Heathyr when they knew about activity elsewhere. They also really violently rag on Heathyr for the same reason & manage to REALLY upset her.

Whats so wrong about looking for activity in new places Steve? You knew level 2 had stuff happen there so why not let them see if level 3 did too?

Ben & Karl in the Medical Ward, they react to a sound I never heard but they think was something falling off the ceiling.

After the equipment breakdown Steve rags on Jane for the camera in Death Row, what does he expect from someone with NO training? Little wonder she cried & walked off as he was berating her, she did come back after a brief moment to recover.

Evidence presentation - Ben presents an audio clip of Chris & Susan in Cell Block 14, I can't hear it but they say it was a moan.

Chris presents audio of him & Susan in Cell Block 14, I can't hear anything there either & Steve says its not paranormal.

Tango demonstrates how sounds travel, dance monkey, dance!

Steve narrows it down to Jane & Heathyr for who is getting sent home. He rags on Jane for not knowing how to use a thermal camera (something the rest of the students only learned LAST WEEK!). Steve marks Heathyr down on her mediumship & Heathyr gets booted off the show. No shock there at all as she was my #1 pick from the 1st show.

My Weekly TNA Catch-up, Impact 19th Nov 09 reviewed

Mick Foley & Abyss come out to talk & are interupted by Raven, Dr. Stevie & Daffney. BLAH.

Scott Steiner vs Amazing Red - Why the hell are they booking matches like this? It doesn't help Red & it certainly doesn't help Steiner either. Beyond awful match that ended when Steiner beaned Red with his lead pipe so Amazing Red took the win off a DQ for the use of a foreign object. Bobby Lashley made the save. You know it comes to something when the X Division Championship is considered so lowly as a throwaway in a c***py feud that isn't over with the fans & 1 wrestler involved is on his way out of TNA anyway. Amazing Red is a brilliant worker and doesn't deserve to be treated like this.

8 Man Tag Match, The Motor City Machine Guns vs Beer Money vs Kiyoshi & Sheik Abdul Bashir vs The British Invasion - With all of World Elite involved in this match you had a feeling it was always going to go their way or break down into complete chaos, exactly as predicted this broke down & Alex Shelley took the win off Brutus Magnus from a Crossbody Block. Very poor low quality match, get this feud over & done with soon please? Its F**KING S**T!

Hamada vs Taylor Wilde - A very decent match, Wilde nailing a nice early Headscissors only to be caught by a wicked DDT from Hamada. Hamada seemed unwilling to sell Wildes Armdrag off the ropes but hit quite a nice Thrust Kick that Wilde sold very well, Hamada overcooked her Reverse Moonsault (hitting a lot of canvas & bearly any of Taylor Wilde) & yet again Hamada seemed unwilling to sell Wildes Victory Roll Hurricanrana. Wilde sold Hamadas kick to the head as well as the Spin Kick but Hamada took the win off The Hamada Driver.

Wilde was giving Hamada a lot of signals to execute moves or indicate ring positioning so I'm not sure if a lot of Hamada's no-sells were down to misunderstanding or communication issues. I don't think shes done any interviews yet so I have no idea if she actually speaks any English but you feel she must speak some Spanish if she did all that time in CMLL.

Tag Team Grudge Match, Raven & Dr Stevie vs Abyss & Mick Foley - Shortly before this match we'd seen Abyss blocking Foleys office door with a table so it was no surprise when Foley didn't show at his entrance music, Abyss jumped Raven & Stevie as they stood at the bottom of the ramp waiting for Foley. Abyss & Raven took a hard bump on the floor into the guard rail when Raven hit the Russian Legsweep then this thing finally got going legally. Initially this was Abyss selling the beatdown until he got his 2nd wind hitting Stevie with Shock Treatment, Raven nailed him from behind & was about to use fire when Abyss hit the lighter from his hands so Ref Slick Johnson called for the bell & Abyss took the win off a DQ.

Abyss either didn't trust Raven or refused to sell the Evenflow DDT on the ringside mats & as they choked out Abyss with a cable I am not sure why they left the beatdown to go to "Trash Talk with ODB" with Homicide as her guest. On a point of wrestling history this is a gimmick they did with The Sandman back in the early days of ECW & it really upset Kurt Angle who was visiting them as potential talent at the time.

Alissa Flash vs Sarita - Again yet another match where Flash seems to only have half a costume as she kept her leather jacket on here, are TNA really THAT strapped for cash they can't afford a few yellow lycra crop tops for Flash? This wasn't anywhere near the quality of the previous 2 women as Sarita seemed to be really off her game or unsure how to work Flash but Sarita took the eventual win off a Reverse Thrust Kick.

6 Man Tag Team Street Fight, Team 3D & Rhino vs D'Angelo Dinero, Matt Morgan & Hernadez - This week 3D & Rhino came out of the heel tunnel but Dinero actually came out of the face tunnel with his team mates so it seems he's turned face? Very poor quality hardcore weapons match where Hernandez pretty much had the thing won off a Spear on Rhino when the ref was dragged out & Jesse Neal came out with a mohican, goatee & tattoos (looking like a cross between Giant Bernand & Tomko) then nailed Hernandez with a chair before throwing Rhino over Hernandez allowing Rhino to get the win off interference.

Tag Match, Daniels & Desmond Wolfe vs Kurt Angle & AJ Styles - I'm not sure why they bothered to announce the 20 minute time limit (unless Russo is THAT insecure about his future at TNA) as there was only 7 minutes left in airtime when the bell rang, quite frankly this match was going nowhere until Styles came in to work Wolfe hitting a Pele out of the blue, Wolfe distracted Angle away into the back of the arena but Daniels tagged himsel in and took the win off the BME on Styles.

Now Hulk Hogan has fulfilled his committments in Australia I hope he gets his fat overtanned arse to the Impact Zone to start filming stuff sooner rather than later as the longer they delay his arrival the more likely fans will leave from being jaded off the overly long build-up. Did TNA not learn their lesson with Triton? Clearly it appears not.

Ghosthunters Academy - S01E02 - The Honeymoons Over

Battleship North Carolina, Wilmington NC.

As per usual during the briefing Heathyr acts like a complete kiddy by sticking her fingers in her ears as to not be "biased" & scores herself no points there, she also refuses to go on the hotspot tour & further shoots herself in the foot by doing so. My only issue with Heathyr NOT going on the hotspot tour so she wasn't biased is that this is a location GH have been to before on the show so surely she must have already seen that episode of the show therefore is ALREADY biased. I guess her logic doesn't work that way?

Steve gets annoyed that the students didn't take notes during his hotspot tour & had gone off to go give themselves another tour to establish where they were going to locate equipment.

Steve pretty much tells Heathyr to her face she won't be joining them right then, Susan suggests doing some set-up which earns her brownie points. Chris tries to take charge.

Mess Hall - Chris, Ben & Susan. We hear something metallic move & Chris sees movement but its him wiggling his torch like crazy casting all sorts of shadows. Susan wanders off on her own, I expect her to get chewed out for that.

Kitchen - Susan, we hear something metallic move twice then she realises she is alone.

Steve chews out Karl & Heathyr for not checking a camera that he'd set up.

Chris & Ben find Susan & do an EVP, Susan gets a weird feeling that turns out to be super high EMF from cabling.

Night 2 - Steve & Tango feel they have to show the students how to do set-up again. Why did they think they'd learn to do set-up JUST from 1 previous investigation. Idiots. You have to bet it took both of them longer than 1 investigation to learn how to do set-up. Some instruction is given on the usage of the thermal camera.

Chris hears a noise & Susan catches a figure on the thermal. My guess is it was her reflection which is exactly what it turned out to be.

Heathyr picks up the name Tommy Greenwell & felt he died of some kind of illness.

Chris manages to see yet another shadow that was completely behind the camera filming him, he also manages to hear nonexistant banging just before we hear an actual bang (which may have been caused by either Chris or Heathyr sitting back against the wall).

Analysis, Steve & Tango tell everyone to work alone & not ask each other questions. So they don't want anyone corroborating anyone elses evidence? Thats pretty stupid.

The reveal - For some reason Steve asks the student to talk about personal experiences. Weren't we always taught you can't present those as evidence because you have no physical proof yet here is their team leader telling them otherwise. Again, pretty darn stupid.

Heathyr didn't find anyone with the same name she picked up, Chris presents audio evidence which is debunked as a siren & a sneeze which turned out to be Susan who didn't tag it so Steve castigates her about that. Ben presents audio evidence which is debunked as a noise, Steve & Tango start griping about Tagging audio which quite frankly I have NEVER heard ANYONE ever mention prior to this show airing.

Ben presents a possible EVP of a womans voice which is thrown out because they didn't do this tagging thing we've never heard about ever before this show. Steve says they have to raise their game & do tagging as well as better set-up but no-one is eliminated this week.

Tango tells us someone IS getting eliminated next week though.

Ghost Lab s01e07

Catfish Plantation Restaurant, Waxahachie, Texas.
After bailing on the investigation a door handle is seen to move when the place is empty with cameras on both sides of the door. The door moving when 1 brother tests it is debunked.
When reloading cameras a spoon is found on the floor, its movement was not captured.
Knives & Forks are seen to have been moved, the movement was not captured.
Thinking they can get a Paranormal event on demand the brothers demand something to happen & few moments later there is a bang on the outside of the window (which quite frankly I think was 1 of their team members).
On debriefing the owner a piece of cutlury is heard moving behind them, a knife is caught moving on film. It is debunked as having fallen off.

Hotel Lawrence, Dallas, Texas.
1 brother has trouble with a hotel door but when he knocks & asks to come in it just opens 1st time.
The other brother manages to repeat this, they also catch footprints on the thermal camera which can be replicated but don't fade away like the ones they make themselves.
One of the team volunteers to sleep in the most haunted room in the hotel & catches a "yes" during an EVP.

My TNA Catch-up, Turning Point PPV Nov 09

X Division Championship, Homicide vs Amazing Red - This was an excellent match where both guys had a decent amount of time on top, I think Red winded Homicide when he landed the Standing Shooting Star Press. Red really sold well when he did the Reverse Moonsault that Homicide turned into a Gringo Cutter but Amazing Red took the win off the Code Red to retain his title.

6 Woman Tag Match, The Beautiful People vs Sarita, Taylor Wilde & ODB - All the TNA womens belts are on the line in this match, if ODB gets pinned she loses the Knockout title & if either Taylor or Sarita get pinned they lose the Knockout Tag titles. Fans certainly hate Lacey Von Erich as they were giving her a "you can't wrestle" chant on her 1st legal entry to the match, obviously the match broke down with everyone in the ring but ODB used her power to make the pin off Madison Rayne so all the faces retain their titles.

Tag Team Championship Match, Beer Money vs The Motor City Machine Guns vs The British Invasion - Quite frankly this match had zero spots & was going nowhere fast hence Russo sending Eric Young out to interfere which didn't really help the match in any way but Brutus Magnus took the win off Robert Roode to retain the title for his team.

6 Sides Of Steel Grudge Match, Tara vs Awesome Kong - This match always looked like it was just going to be a scrap, it went back & forth but Tara made a nice Powerbomb then climbed the top of the cage and hit the Thesz Press (which Tenay miscalled as a Crossbody Block) to take the eventual win.

6 Man Tag Match, Rhino & Team 3D vs D'Angelo Dinero, Hernandez & Matt Morgan - In case you all missed the "tell" yet again, Dinero came out of the heel entrance which was further reinforced by him distracting Hernandez in the opening minute. This was always the case of when Dinero was going to betray or turn on his own team, this one also broke down into everyone in the ring as well but Dinero was noticable in his absence for the face team just to prove my point of prediction even further. Morgan took a bad landing when Rhino tossed him over the top rope hurting his knee, Ray distracted the ref allowing Devon to nail Hernandez with the chair so Rhino could take the easy win off a Gore. It seems Dineros betrayal was clearly too predictable so they decided against it?

Falls Count Anywhere No DQ Match, Scott Steiner vs Bobby Lashley - P**s poor quality match where Steiner took all the knocks and got busted open but took the win after nailing Lashley with a steel pipe he took from the stand behind the Spanish announce desk.

Grudge Match, Desmond Wolfe vs Kurt Angle - This was too slow & far too boring, sadly all complaints I'd made about Nigel McGuiness in his past in ROH which he doesn't seem to have learnt from. All this slow mat c**p & technical wrestling might be over with the Japs but it has no place in modern sports entertainment, Kurt Angle took the eventual win off a submission when Wolfe tapped out. Now THAT is a s**t finish, I wouldn't have given this away for free on Youtube, let alone Impact or a PPV.

3 Way World Heavyweight Championship, Daniels Vs Samoa Joe vs AJ Styles - Extremely boring until about the last 10 minutes, Styles took the win off the Springboard 450 Splash on Joe to retain his title.