TNA Impact Wrestling Review - October 21, 2015

Could Lashley earn points at EC3's expense?

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Austin Aries def. Mr. Anderson to Earn 3 Points in the World Title Series

Honestly, it's hard to care about any of these matches because you know going in that they weren't taped for the intent of this tournament, but I try to let that subside so I can enjoy the in-ring action. That was the case here as Aries and Anderson delivered a very good matchup. It also helped that it was fresh, too, and the final minute or so felt suspenseful because of the time limit (which should be brought back in all promotions). In any other situation, I would have been fine with Aries advancing because he's the better of the two, but seeing as how he's no longer with the company, they made one of their current roster members look weak for someone that's been gone for months.


X-Division Champion Tigre Uno def. Mark Andrews to Earn 3 Points in the World Title Series (Non-title)

We haven't seen much of Mandrews at all since he won British Bootcamp. In fact, the last time he was regularly featured on TNA TV was when he was Rockstar Spud's little buddy, but that was months ago. He doesn't have an established character, so his surfer-esque mannerisms were fairly strange. I've always been a big fan of Uno, but it's a tough task for him to "rejuvenate" the X-Division when there aren't any storylines going on over his title, just random matches.

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Austin Aries emerges victorious.

Manik def. DJ Z to Earn 3 Points in the World Title Series

I couldn't care less about either of these individuals, so I can't say I was too thrilled with this match. It was fun while it lasted and both of them are talented, but terrible gimmicks are holding them back from being so much more. DJ Z is a lost cause as I believe he enjoys being a DJ (despite it being awful for wrestling) and Manik has moved on from the mask but this was taped before that, so the logic of him wrestling in that gear was flawed and came across as stupid. He was the right wrestler to win between the two of them, but he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning that world title or even coming close for that matter.


Ethan Carter III def. Lashley to Earn 3 Points in the World Title Series

EC3 vs. Aries early on in the series was one of my favorite matches on Impact Wrestling in a while because it was something we hadn't seen before. EC3 vs. Lashley has been done before, but not too often, so I enjoyed this match as well. The contest was mostly focused on EC3 attempting to do all that he could to come out on top, which he did, so although I would have rather seen him go over strong, he garners heat from it and Lashley was protected in defeat.


​Overall Show

I'm going to tell you flat-out before you watch any of these editions of Impact Wrestling that you're wasting your time. If you're a die-hard fan, then by all means watch them in their entirety, but it's not justified when the two hours are made up of talking, meaningless matches and pay-per-view replays. Don't get me wrong, I liked the opener and the main event, but I skipped over everything that happened in between the matches because it's irrelevant and it has little storyline significance. It took me less than 45 minutes to watch this show online, but I'd recommend watching only the best parts/matches of the show and calling it a day instead of wasting two hours for nothing.

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