CheapShots: Impact Quickie #8

Cheap Shots are unfiltered, uncensored opinions, and those opinions reflect only the author!

Apologies in advance, the robots are in the shop. My readers are stuck with my cynical joy of the art form for a while. Why are current promotions obsessed with dead horses? Smart marks might wonder why bookers with decades of alleged experience in terms of planning this stuff out look like third graders sometimes? Unfortunately, wrestling fans are stuck with storyboards from the mind of Forrest Gump instead of Picasso after the crayons have already been used. Crayons can be impossible to erase. “Stupid is as stupid does.” Do us a favor. QUIT doing stupid! Some of us are getting sick of: “Don’t like it, don’t watch” logic. It’s lazy, and all it has done is create fans like me that are constantly angry. Boys and girls, we should not feel like we are better qualified to do this job. Guess what? Some of us are actually that insane, and it’s YOUR FAULT! “Come on Booker Man!” Prove us wrong or get out!

Sadly, Impact is the biggest bastard child left in The American Carnival on the outskirts of The Last Great Circus. Outside the orbits of two or three PPVs a year, they don’t take themselves seriously at all. This makes it excessively difficult for marks to swim against the current. Nobody cares, it’s just a carnival, right? Keep this in mind as this week’s show opens with a deadpan Josh Matthews standing in studio bringing us news and footage of a recent attack on one of the newest additions to the company, GASP! Wait, less than a month ago this goofy prick was literally gifted Impact Gold and doing jumping jacks in a “match” with a world class athlete. Now we’re supposed to believe that he cares about his coworkers? Anybody else see the disconnect here? It’s okay, it’s just a joke anyway.

Don Callis was to receive an award after an Impact event in Toronto. There just happened to be a hard camera there? This doesn’t end well. Cue Yakety Sax. I do not laugh at a bleeding man. However, a barely talented performer who has been working to gain sheepish sympathy for two weeks only to have his coin flipped to tails AGAIN gets laughed at for two hours. Why am I pulling my hair out for the entirety of the show? Sami Callihan turns Mr. Callis into a hospital patient, attacking him during the acceptance speech because wrestling. Third graders, crayolas, and construction paper, oh my!

I wonder what happens because of this prefabricated atrocity? Well, let’s see. Sami’s fate is “thrown into question” after the assault. Matthews must fake concern and act like athletes were competing in a Sunday Morning Church for three quarters of the show. Where’s the Daffy Duck shotgun when you need it? First, PLEASE break the fourth wall: Who are these people eating pizza and drinking beer while pretending to discuss this fake outrage? Next, why do we have to fire someone the week after we put someone in a coffin? Finally, if The Bad Mullet was gonna get fired, I can walk. My colleagues and I could come up with better material in a month. Of course, the “Unsanctioned Match” is coming because Eddie Edwards demands to get his pound of flesh. If there is legitimate concern regarding a performer’s future with the company, why are we bombarded with it for 90 minutes? Mention it at the show’s onset. Make sure the dude signed his non-compete clause and shut up. It’s not like they haven’t shoot fired someone in the last six weeks. PS: If a match is truly “unsanctioned” and raises legal concerns, why is Impact Wrestling showing it next week? Normally, I would break down results and provide opinion on the rest of the action. If those in Dallas and Orlando honestly think we are stupider than Stamford does, what’s the point? Why do I care about the art form so much?