TNA Impact Hitlist: Final hype for Sting vs. Kurt Angle, Survivor star debuts, Mike Tenay bickers with a drunken Don West, Eric Young vs. Rocco, the broadcasters get more character development than the undercard wrestlers

TNA Impact Hits

Final hype for Sting vs. Kurt Angle: TNA did a really nice job of building up the pay-per-view main for a few weeks. The last two weeks took an odd turn when they put more focus on Jeff Jarrett and even Mick Foley's problems with Angle and the other Mafia members. The addition of Jarrett and Foley as the special referees still wasn't enough to justify the focus shift because this should have been more about Angle and Sting. Nevertheless, I give TNA credit for doing a much better job of making their pay-per-view main event seem more important than they have in recent months.

TNA Impact Misses

Overall show: I didn't despise this show despite what the lopsided "Hits" and Misses" ratio may seem to indicate. Angle, Sting, Jarrett, and Foley dominated the bulk of the show and it's good to see the company focus on their biggest angle. Unfortunately, there isn't much outside the top angle that really excites me about TNA right now. As much as I'm looking forward to the Ultimate X match, viewers have been trained to know that the X Division doesn't really matter. Really, everything other than the main program with the Mafia feels inconsequential, which is a real problem in TNA right now.

Survivor's Jenna Morasca: I've watched a few seasons of "Survivor" and I know she did Playboy, but I don't see how this helps TNA beyond the initial wave of publicity. I hope she works cheap because her appearance in TNA means nothing to pro wrestling fans. My guess is that she'll be revealed as the mystery female investor. She put over Kevin Nash already, so I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up playing a heel role as a Mafia investor.

Mike Tenay and Don West: The bickering announcers are horrible. West was a cheerleader for all the babyfaces one week and suddenly he's rooting for the heels and pretending to be drunk on camera. Tenay can't act and makes the worst facial expressions in pro wrestling, and the drunk antics will probably make people like West, which doesn't seem to be the point of this thing. Honestly, I'm not even sure what the point is. I enjoy heel color commentators, but listening to Tenay and West bitch at each other and West's weekly walkouts are totally bush league.

Abyss's girlfriend and horny Jeremy Borash: I generally enjoy the work of Lauren and Borash as the backstage interviewers, but they should stick to asking the questions. I'm all for letting them establish personalities and I think they've done that natrually, but I wish the creative team would refrain from featuring them in over the top segments such as Lauren getting all caught up in Abyss's life, and Borash getting dry humped by ODB. Throw in the Tenay and West drama and it feels like the creative team is more concerned with developing characters for the broadcast team than the young wrestlers in the company.

Eric Young vs. Rocco: Two tag teams were picking their partners on the same show in which Angle and Sting selected wrestlers to represent them in the ring. The odd TNA theme of the week was hard to follow and I didn't care for the end result as far as this match was concerned. It was the final show heading into a pay-per-view and we got the mediocre Young facing a wannabe Big Bubba Rogers.

Rhino vs. Sheik Abdul Bashir: It's obvious that TNA doesn't have anything planned for these two this month, so why in the world would they waste a segment of the go home edition of Impact by putting them in the ring together?

The Governor: I'm going to keep listing this character as a "Miss" until the TNA creative team finally comes to its senses and realizes how ridiculous the Sarah Palin impersonator gimmick is.