— Thursday’s Impact drew a 1.2 cable rating (rounded up from 1.16), which is the same number the show drew the week before, reports prowrestling.NET. The show was watched by 1.6 million viewers, down from the 1.8 million that watched the week before. The Soujourner Bolt vs. Christy Hemme match in the seventh quarter-hour was the highest rated segment of the show, scoring an impressive 1.28 rating. The rating dropped for the main event segment featuring Brother Ray vs. Kurt Angle, which drew a 1.21. It was still the second highest rated segment of the night. The X Division match in the second quarter-hour featuring Eric Young vs. Sheik Abdul Bashir was the least watched segment of the night, drawing a 1.01 rating.
— Following his “firing” from TNA on this past Thursday’s Impact, Curry Man’s profile has been removed and he is no longer on the roster page. It’s interesting to note that despite the change to the roster page, Karen Angle is still listed, and they have long since stopped promoting the Knockouts DVD, which features Karen on one of the covers. It was assumed that Karen would be removed from the website as soon as promotion for the DVD ceased, but as you can see, she’s still listed on the website.
— Lance Storm has posted yet another rant after watching Impact. He kept tabs on the actual amount of wrestling on the show. Storm wrote: “Am I the only one that noticed that TNA Impact this week had less than 18 minutes of actual wrestling on the program. Official match times totaled, I believe, 17 minutes and 55 second. ECW has had more wrestling minutes than that on their show and ECW is but half the length. If we break down the entire 120 minutes of the program we have 18 minutes of wrestling (I rounded up), 32 minutes of commercials, and 70 minutes of skits, promos, and general stupidity. Keep in mind the name of this company is Total Nonstop Action, yet only 15% of this show was action. This leaves 27% of the show for commercials, and 58% of the show skits, comedy, and talking. There was even one stretch where they went 37 minutes with out a wrestling match. Can this even be called a wrestling show anymore?”
He then criticizes TNA for devoting more television time to the Christy Hemme vs. Sojourner Bolt match than the Jay Lethal vs. Alex Shelley match. Storm pokes fun at Sojourner Bolt’s heel turn similar to how Tony Schiavone poked fun at Mick Foley winning the WWF Championship in 1999 by sarcastically saying that it will draw big ratings and that he’s on the edge of his seat. Although, Bolt’s match with Hemme drew a 1.28 cable rating, the highest rated portion of the show, if not one of the highest segments of the year. Storm wrote: “Why would any sane person book Jay Lethal vs. Alex Shelley and Christy Hemme vs. Sejourner Bolt on the same show and decide to give the latter match more than twice the time as the former? We had the opportunity to see Jay Lethal and Alex Shelly wrestling in TNA (Total Nonstop Action) and they were given less than 2 minutes for their match. What a wasted opportunity to entertain fans! I guess the thought process must be that the big Sejourner Bolt heel turn will draw ratings and PPV buys. I know I’m on the edge of my seat waiting to find out where that angle goes. Are there not already more heels than faces in the Knockouts division?”
You can read his latest rant at the following link.
Which recently fired WWE star could be coming to TNA?