The last two weeks of December, Impact Wrestling will be running “Best of 2017” shows. This is a good time to look back at how Impact fared this year review wise. Below are all the grades Impact received here on Cageside this year.
Jan 5: B+ (Continuing Along)
Jan 12: B- (A Wolves Nation Divided)
Jan 19: D (The Grandest Champion)
Jan. 26: B- (The Iron Man)
Feb. 2: B- (The DCC Dominates)
Feb. 9: B- (Betrayals Galore)
Feb. 17: D+ (Who Are You Again?)
Feb. 23: B (A Time Honored Tradition)
Mar. 2: C (Lame Duck)
Mar. 9: F (White Noise)
Mar. 16: C (One Step Forward)
Mar. 23: D+ (Two Steps Back)
Mar. 30: C- (We Built this City)*
Apr. 6: D+ (All About the Announcers)
Apr. 14: D- (End of an Error)
Apr. 20: C (Still At It)
Apr. 27: B- (Reborn)
May 4: B- (GFW Title Town)
May 11: C (Oversaturation)
May 18: C (Genital Reflection)
May 25: C- (“Kayfabe, mom!”)
June 1: C (A Rocky Road)
June 8: D (Jet lagged)
June 15: B- (Hometown Heroes)
June 22: C (Standard Fare)
June 29: B (15 Years and Still Kicking)*
July 6: B- (Growing Membership)
July 13: B- (The Main Focus)
July 20: B- (Return of the X Division)
July 27: B- (What’s Next?)
Aug. 3: C- (Don’t Bring Me Down, Bruce)
Aug. 10: C (On to Destination X)
Aug: 17: C (Meet the New Boss)
Aug. 24: B (That’s Just a Fact of Life)
Aug. 31: C+ (New Title Scene)
Sept. 7: B- (Keep it in the Zone)
Sept. 14: B+ (American Top Tools)
Sept. 21: B (Tonto, Sí!)*
Sept. 28: B+ (Sweetest Victory)
Oct. 5: C+ (Building to Bound for Glory)
Oct. 12: C (Poor Pacing)
Oct. 19: D- (Stumbling to the Finish)
Oct. 26: F (Slumping When It Counts)
Nov. 2: C (On to Bound for Glory)
Nov. 9: B (Welcome to Brawl Town)
Nov. 16: B- (The Destroyer that didn’t Destroy)
Nov. 30: B- (Slamtown, Ontario, Canada)
Dec. 7: B- (Choke Artist)
Dec. 14: B+ (New Knockouts Champion)
Breakdown:
A: 0
B: 24
C: 16
D: 7
F: 2
The episodes with the asterisks were reviewed by Stella Cheeks when I was out of town. However, I did watch those episodes and mainly agreed with her takes on those episodes. The Thanksgiving episode was largely a clip show and I didn’t assign it a grade.
So what to make of this?
First, this is one reviewers take on the show, meaning it’s at the whims of my moods and feelings going into it. So by no means is this looking at an objective, scientific breakdown of the quality of Impact this year. Someone else’s list could be much higher or much lower. But I like to think I am as fair as possible.
The most interesting bit in this for me are the trends because. Especially the trend of terrible grades starting March 9 when the Jeff Jarrett regime took over. Before that, I thought the shows were overall decent, with a couple duds. But that first episode of the new era was an F. To note, I didn’t give out a single F at all last year. Then it’s a slew of Ds and Cs.
July 6 was the first episode after Slammiversary and they started getting on track. However, they lost it towards the end of that taping. Then Aug. 17 was a live episode and started the brief Cornette era. That started strong but it was such a long taping (they taped 3 months in a week) and they didn’t have enough material to properly fill all the TV time. Because of that, they started slumping heavily going into Bound for Glory.
After Bound for Glory, the shows were rather solid.
We did this last year so we can compare what I thought of last year compared to this year. Last year, I handed out 4 As compared to zero this year. I am stringent with As, and I largely use Bs instead. However to have zero shows that impress me enough to get at least an A- shows they capped at above average. They did get 2 Fs and 7 Ds this year, compared to just 1 D and no Fs last year.
So in my eyes, this year didn’t just have the ceiling of above average but had lower lows and more of them. Out of 49 shows, 24 were Bs, meaning I felt more than half were average at best. This isn’t a good benchmark.
But again, that’s just one man’s opinion. What did you think of Impact this year? Was I too harsh? Not harsh enough? “That show’s still on?”
Sound off below.