Impact's X-Division Storyline and Props

A happy ending for Impact... rare.
Photo Credit: ImpactWrestling.com

Back when TNA got its rebrand into Impact and declared that "wrestling mattered", they started an angle about Eric Bischoff hating the X-Division and wanting to get rid of all the wrestlers. It involved him going over Generation Me with the help of Matt Hardy (funny, all three of those guys are gone from Impact, either permanently or "temporarily") and Abyss taking out Kazarian and winning the X-Division Championship, eliciting lulz around the Internet. With Impact's track record of emphasizing and then deemphasizing the division, I was not the only one who was pessimistic about their ability or desire to pay it off in a way that would be satisfying to the great number of fans who cared about the more exciting wrestlers in that subset.

A funny thing happened though, as at Destination X, an event dedicated to that troupe of wrestlers and their brand of exciting fare, they paid the angle off in a very satisfying manner. In the Brian Kendrick/Abyss title match, the former Spanky won when his compatriots came out and thwarted Bischoff and his minions from pulling a screwjob and keeping the belt on Abyss. Afterwards, they all celebrated the title coming back to their own kind, and we actually had a satisfying resolution to the whole storyline.

For a company that is known for start-stop angles with no resolutions, this is not trivial. In fact, it should be applauded. My guess is that one of two things happened to make sure that we had some kind of finality to this angle. One is that Vince Russo actually is changing and made the call for the simple ending. Two is that Russo had nothing to do with Destination X or that storyline, and it was someone else, be it Bischoff, Hulk Hogan or someone wholly different that we're not considering. My guess is the latter.

It's not often that Impact deserves credit for producing a mostly satisfying story, but hey, I guess a blind squirrel can find a nut every once in awhile. I'm not getting my hopes up as to this becoming the norm, because hey, if I did that, I'd just be setting myself up for disappointment. They need to prove they can produce good stories all the time before I can start getting into what they're doing without any skepticism as to whether it's going to turn out alright by me, the viewer.

But that doesn't mean that I can't call a spade a spade and give them credit when they earn it. They've certainly earned it here.