It's a shame that Impact is now the old "if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, did it fall", because this was a pretty good show. They had a clear focus on the World title, but still gave every other major act a chance to shine. Beer Money vs. Eli/Godderz was fun, while Kong vs. Gail was their closest-thing-to-good match they've had since Kong came back. I loved Gail turning the Rings of Saturn into a crucifix. Finish with HALF A DOZEN OTHER PEOPLE was a tad too much though.
Mike the motherfucking Miracle is doomed. He comes into TNA with shittier gear than he had in ROH and no tan, and other than a Rainmaker punch, did nothing that you wouldn't see a WWE mid-carder do. It was pretty obvious that Maria was the star of the duo in ROH for cosmetic reasons, but even without that as a crutch in TNA, she actually feels like a star, while he feels like a lower mid-card guy they're trying to elevate and just won't make it. Maybe he'll grow into this like EC3 did, but EC3 had far more star power the second that gimmick debuted than Bennett has.
The World title match itself was a very good hardcore match that didn't really use too much weaponry - just a few things used smartly. Matt debuted an off the apron Twist, and revived the chair-assisted Twist. That was one of the many things that smartly set up the heel turn since he only used that as a heel. Tyrus's turn on EC3 was set up in October, and like everything else here, finally paid off here when it logically would have after everything got finished up with the post-aired BFG tapngs.
Even the opener with Tyrus taking out Jeff played into all this perfectly since it showed that Matt is willing to even take out his own brother to win the World Title. Hopefully, they've re-signed Matt for a while - because I see him succeeding more in TNA than he could in WWE, while Jeff has at least an MITB win and cash-in in him in WWE. Matt cut a great heel promo too, and him talking about living a lavish life with a hot wife who has clearly had a few too much lip work done adds to this whole gimmick too.
http://jayreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2016/01/tna-impact-wrestling-1-19-16.html
Screens -
TNA is at least trying to make a $100 budget look like $1,000
http://www.imagebam.com/gallery/acfhub9680ggtjrutcxzt2642yepv2g5
