The Katz Files – Arnie Katz
My Weekly (4/5) TNA Notebook

The Kingfish Arnie Katz provides insight and analysis based on the 4/5 episode of iMPACT.

Bad Night for the Knockouts
If TNA wanted a way to cheapen the Knockout Championship and give the entire division a kick in the head, the company certainly found it with the Eight-Woman Elimination Match.

It took just one show to destroy the Knockout championship and make eight of their best female performers look terrible in a match format that suffered from a lack of advance planning.

The match itself was a mess. It didn’t make any sense to have eight women in the ring and two of them wrestle while the others stood around. This would have worked much better as a series of four singles matches, evenly spaced through the two-hour show.

There are good reasons to put the Knockout Title back around the slender waist of Angelina Love, but why this way? Admittedly, it gives Tara a little extra cachet as the champion who didn’t actually lose her belt, but it cheapened the title itself.

The mandatory strip came off badly. Daffney looked uncomfortable and when Lacy took her place, the camera pretty much lost interest.

Though the match was pitiful, at least it did set up some programs going forward. It speeded up the inevitable break-up of Tara and Angelina Love, which should quickly lead to some interesting title matches. (The fact that Velvet Sky chose to make a match for the next iMPACT instead of Lockdown suggests that their feud is coming to a near-future resolution.)

Monster on the Rise
One wrestler who has benefited from association with the new TNA regime is Abyss. They have steered him away from echoing Mick Foley.

He did a strong rant on the 4/5 iMPACT. He comes across as much more formidable when he roars than when he whines.

“Abyssamania” sounds awful. How about “Monstermania”?

Team Hogan vs. Team Flair
The quality of the actual match remains to be seen at Lockdown, but this could be a very exciting little war. It’s also likely to spin off some interesting match-ups.

Maybe the best thing about it is that, at least as things stand about 10 days before the pay per view, neither Hogan nor Flair will do more than cheer from the sidelines. That’s the best place for them.

Let’s hope they do a little testing of this new match format before they try to wrestle it on Lockdown. And as a side note, it’s hard for fans to get too excited about a match when they don’t know the rules under which it will be contested.

That’s all for today, but I’ll be back on Thursday with another installment of the Internet’s fastest-rising pro wrestling column. I hope you’ll come back then and, please, tell your friends about the column, too.

– Arnie Katz
Executive Editor
Crossfire4@cox.net
(4/6/10)