4 Ups And Downs From This Week's TNA Impact Wrestling (Jan 25)

3. Poor Attempts At Being Meta

Before the new season of Impact started on Destination America, Dixie Carter was making the rounds on podcasts explaining that Impact would have this new feel to it, where we would get all access to different parts of backstage production like we€™ve never before seen in wrestling. It seemed pretty a bit terrifying to be honest, but Impact fans are nothing if not loyal, so with curiosity we waited to see what she meant. And what we have had so far is kind of the pro wrestling equivalent of a TV show that is trying to be Meta and self-reflexive, but doesn€™t really understand what either of those terms mean. Again €“ you have to give credit to Impact for trying to differentiate themselves in the market. But this approach has been very confusing to put it mildly. For example early in the show after Bobby Lashley made his way to the ring Josh Matthews informed us at home that he had just received a message that their producer had a video segment he wanted to show, and so they would be cutting to show this. This kind of €˜breaking the fourth wall€™ approach to the production would make sense if the show was live and the producer would interrupt things live. But if the show is taped then why have they not planned what they are doing in advance? Are we meant to believe that we are witnessing a live single recording of the commentary, as the commentators watch the taping of Impact? Or are we meant to think they are just making this up as they are going along? And if so, is that really the message you want to send? Either option is absolutely stupid. This technique is supposed to come off as natural but instead has the opposite effect, and simply makes the show look even faker than if it was just well organised and produced.