After 4 weeks of great X division based action leading to a B+ kind of PPV there’s a lot riding on whether Impact Wrestling can maintain this level consistency when they have a wider focus. It’s either going to stay a tightly booked, wrestling based program or we’ll revert straight back into the over booked, Russo infused, ref bumping stew of mediocrity which has tended to typecast TNA broadcasting under the latest management. Hold your nose, we’re diving in…
We open with a Bully Ray narrated video about the whole Sting vs. Anderson feud. Hogan comes out in a tux along with Immortal who are all dressed in tuxedos even Abyss in most of a tuxedo. Eric says they’re here to gamble with some people’s careers, simply because they can. Tonight Immortal is throwing a party because Anderson is part of the family now. Here comes the champ in a camo tuxedo that looks all kinds of shite.
Hogan says he and Anderson haven’t seen things eye to eye but there’s always been the constant of them both wanting to be the best they could possibly be. Hulk says he’s calling him champ and formally welcomes him into Immortal with a handshake and hug. Anderson says some people may think it’s a gamble to join Immortal but as long as Bischoff and Hogan live up to their promise of him being the top card in the deck, it’s a gamble he’s willing to take. Ok, so that’s makes sense I guess. Kind of explains a bit why Anderson jumped over now and not before when he didn’t have the title.
The lights go out and Sting suddenly appears in the ring sat at the card table they’ve gtot set up. Eric explodes at Sting saying that actually he is the cancer in TNA and that tonight Anderson is going to get rid of him. Sting asks if Eric wants to bet on that because they have a poker table. Sting says he sees himself becoming champion tonight and that when he does he’ll truly kick off his crusade to have the company back under Dixie Carter. Sorry Sting but no one cares and no one wants Dixie Carter back in charge. Oh and your gimmick is staler than 2 week old bread.
Hogan says that’s not going to happen and that tonight Immortal is going to not only beat Sting but have him leave on a stretcher. Sting freaks out and says no …a lot. Sting says Hogan is wrong about that because he has a lot of aces in the hole, such as the Network Ace.He threatens that there is someone with a bigger bite than his bark to overrule Hogan if he interferes. Wait, so was this the network who fired Foley and put the company back in hogan’s hands? Christ, this flip flopping between good network and bad network is so annoying and so typically Russo.
Funnily enough I’m shouting no, no, no, no as well.
Sting says he has a lot of magic bullet aces. do we know why they’re magic? No and I don’t really care Sting but go ahead… because they’ll just appear out of nowhere. He points to the rafters and there are four clowns up there or it could be four Slipknot fans, who knows. Eric: calls Sting a freak!and Sting says that’s the nicest thing Eric has ever said to him. Sting says he’s all in tonight and flips over the poker table before leaving under the cover of darkness.
F*cking hell that was awful.
Bound For Glory Series Standings with 8 weeks to go:
Crimson 31
Gunner 21
Devon 21
Matt Morgan 14
AJ Styles 14
James Storm 14
Rob Van Dam 14
Bully Ray 14
Scott Steiner 7
D’Angelo Dinero 0
Bobby Roode 0
Samoa Joe 0
I still say this BFG series is a good thing and hyping up a PPV this far ahead is actually smart on TNA’s part. WWE has a very obvious big four and TNa really lacks that structure to it’s PPV’s. Making BFG a big deal means I’m actually looking forward to the PPV despite knowing nothing about the matches abit like Survivor Series or Summerslam.
We get a recap on the fact the three guys up next have 0 points including Pope giving the in to D-von before.
Bound For Glory Series: Samoa Joe vs. Bobby Roode vs. D’Angelo Dinero: We’re straight into the ring with all 3 guys. Joe jumps Roode to start us off and hammers him down in the corner. Pope heads to the floor as Roode gets crushed in the corner by Joe. pope pops back in try for a cover but only get 1 and is chucked out by Joe. Roode makes a comeback with the AA spinebuster but his arm gives out though and Pope comes back in to hit the STO for two on Roode. With Joe down Pope takes over on Roode, working over his arm.
Pope lands a legsweep DDT for two, Pope sells a slow count. Dinero goes to the ropes and hits a middle rope fist drop for another two. Joe finally starts getting back in but Pope knocks him right back. DDE misses and Bobby fires back with a couple of clotheslines. A side Russian legsweep puts Pope down and Joe is knocked back to the floor again. Roode goes for the Blockbuster and hits it but only for two.
Everyone ends up back in the ring, Roode gets a Perfectplex on Joe for two broken up with a splash from Pope. Joe gets the Clutch but Roode climbs the ropes, kicks off of Pope and flips backwards over Joe with the hold still locked in. Roode starts tapping but Hebner has already counted to three. Joe freaks out on the referee post match and the other refs step in to split them up. I love Furious Earl.
Bad touch Earl, bad touch!!
Decent match and they made a decent fist of not making the fact one guy was out of the ring most of the time seem all that obvious. I’m assuming Roode now makes a massive comeback and gets into the BFG match. Joe is going to end up pointless or nearly pointless and Pope obviously has this angle with D-von going on.
The Jarrett’s are back from Mexico and they have lots of bags and presents for everyone.
We cut to the Immortal office and Hogan wants Sting eliminated tonight. Eric says that for some reason that it shouldn’t come back on Immortal because obviously no one watches the actual program to see them plotting to eliminate Sting. Abyys says it’s time to go and Eric blasts Abyss for losing the X divison Title and that they really had better get things done tonight. Abyss leaves and the Jarretts come in all smiles and Mexican sayings. They have sombreros for everyone because realistically no one brings anything else back from Mexico.Hogan gets the AAA World Title well it could be the AAA title as there was no mention of the company name. I think they tried to rename it the Immortal world title.Still it perks Hogan up. I have hopes we’ll get some Lucha’s coming into TNA to mix things up as they’ve got the people to work with them unlike the WWE.
Pope is with D-Von’s kids who are reassuring Dinero that he’s still got it. D-von appears and says to stay away from them. The kids leave and D-Von yells at Pope. Pope tries top say they look up to him but D-von appears to want his 5 minutes of air time and jumps all over him and calls him a con man and he can’t trust him. Pope says that he can trust him and points out he gave D-von 7 points last week. D-Von calls Pope stupid for giving up the seven points because being ungrateful is a great face emotion. eventually D-von pauses for breath and Pope says if the kids turn their backs on D-Von, that’s going to be D-von’s fault not his and he leaves. D-von said “say what your going to say” and then umped all over Pope after about 5 words.
Highlight package from Destination X. Just for the sake of saying so Destination X wasn’t too bad a PPV.
Austin Aries vs. Shannon Moore: Shannon gets some arm drags and Aries backs off complaining that Moore pulled his tights. Some back and forth leasding to Aries going for the Brainbuster but is blocked and Moore fires Aries over the top rope and Aries says he’s going to skin the cat back but he gets dropkicked to the floor though. Moore hits a flipping dive to take him down. Moore shoves Aries into the ring and goes up top and hits a sort of whisper in the wind but with a twist for two.Austin Aries grabs hold of the bottom rope and as Moore tries to pull him off and the ref intervenes he grabs the Book of Dilligaf. Moore than grabs the book off him but the ref sees to it that the book is disposed of. Aries grabs the actual chain the book was on though and levels Moore with it. Shannon rather blatantly shuffles into position though perhaps he shouldn’t because as Aries slingshots over the top rope to land a twisting Senton he lands on Shannon’s head pretty heavily.Aries picks up the win as Alex Shelley comes out to protest to him about using the chain. Austin doesn’t seem to care though, crowd is giving him a little stick which is amusing as they were chanting his name at the start. Ok match really for how short it was, Moore ended up looking a little weak since Aries pretty much did all the big work bar the couple of flips.
Abyss understand that Eric and Hulk are disgruntled with him. Really? Disgruntled? Abyss says he’s going to get his extreme title back but from behind him one of Slipknot blasts him with a baseball bat.
Shelley and Moore both comlpain about the fact Aries had to cheat to win. We then cut to Aries who says he’s the best pund for pound wrestler in the world and that he doesn’t think he can be beaten by anyone.
The dissapearance of Telly from Sesame St is entirely unrealated to to this picture…probably.
We get a sort of recap of the Tara V Maddison feud which is just as well because we haven’t heard anything about it for the last month or so. Maddison says that she beat Tara when it mattered and will do tonight. Tara acts like she has forgiven Maddison and has a gift for Madison but it’s only for after the match.
There as big ad for Bound For Glory which will be in Philadelphia. It’s alright but having people like Crimson and Angle superimposed over shots of philadelphia looks truly awful for a company who must be able to afford to create decent vignettes.
Steiner shows off for one of the girls from earlier and is trying to impress her with his body. He gets jumped by a clown with a bat as well.
Madison Rayne vs. Tara: Maddison is wearing some kind of blue camo outfit for some reason. I love her entrance is perfect heel crowd baiting. Tara turns up on the motorcycle and has the gift for Madison but reminds Maddison it’s for after the match. Madison makes out that she expects Tara to lay down like before. Tara thumps her in the mouth a couple of time and then hits her standing moonsault buts doesn’t go for the cover. She pulls Maddison up and hits a big spinning side slam. Maddison tries to come back but Tara goes for the Widow’s Peak but it is countered. Maddison whips Tara into the corner but then counters a rana and Tara gets sent to the apron. Maddison baseball dropkicks Tara’s feet and she’s dropped face first onto the side of the ring. Maddison sends Tara is into the steelsteps whioch always strikes me as something that should be a DQ really. Anyway Madison goes for the present of course and it’s Tara’s spider who apparently is called Poison. Obviously I’ve missed the significance of this tarantula. Madison screams at it and Tara slides in hits the Widow’s Peak for the win.
Now I’m a Tara mark so the fact that essentially she squashed Maddison in a couple of minutes pleases me. However why do all this now? Seriously we’ve had weeks of Winter/Love/Sky which sucked shrivelled donkey balls, we then got Velvet/ODB/Jackie which sucked the same balls but also gave the donkey a rimjob. Why relegate this feud with a great worked and a capable worker who’s great on the mic to be the third rate angle? I mean really this angle is like over a year old and the ending is Tara chasing Maddison off with a spider? The other issue I have is that Tara is now face which makes a feud with Mickie fairly unlikely unless they can establish some sort of team for a bit against Winter/Love and then have a respect title match angle latern on. It all makes me so angry that a waste of space like Velvet sky gets weeks and weeks of exposure and these two get 3 minutes.
Angle is coming to the ring.
The Brits are backstage and Magnus says it’s time to focus on the tag titles. Williams says that with the BFG series now is the perfect time to strike and the match with Mexican America is for the number 1 contenders spot.
Angle to the ring and we get the same kind of Kurt spiel about respecting Sting, how he’s never beaten Sting and how he’s going to hurt Anderson. He finishes it off with the “oh it’s real, it’s damn real” which seriously is the worst catchphrase since “I’m the boogeyman and I’m going to get ya”. How can the WWE even copyright the phrase, it’s true, it’s damn true?
It’s… veridical, it’s damn veridical?
The Jarrett’s try to leave and a clown jumps Jeff in the car and takes him away with the bat to Jeff’s throat as Karen legs it on her high heels which always looks funny to me.
Mexican America vs. British Invasion: The Mexicans say their usual stuff pre-match which is getting so old it has a free bus pass. The Brits storm the ring and we go straight into the match. Williams dives out of the ring onto Hernandez and so it’s Magnus vs. Anarquia to start us off. Magnus works over Anarquia and tags to Williams. Williams looks to be ok but gets caught by Hernandez off a blind tag.
Flying Shoulder block sets up a shoulder high backbreaker and then into a sitout backbreaker for two. M.A double teaming keeps Williams down but he manages to get a middle rope European uppercut after fighting off both guys to bring in Magnus. Williams is bleeding a bit from his head from something so I assume that hardway. Magnus takes over and beats up both guys sending Hernandez to the outside. Anarquia gets double teamed and a top rope elbow get the pin.
I feel like I’ve missed loads of things out but the match was actually longer than that recap makes it look. I’m bored of the Mexicans and realistically The Brits would make much better champs. I hope the reasoning is that it’s better for the heel team to win the belts and then the Brits take them off the heels but I fear this was a 2 week push for the British Invasion and we’ll see not much from them after a couple more weeks.
Back to Immortals office and Eric says it’s up to Gunner and Bully Ray to take Sting down. Gunner wants to go find the clowns and Sting instead of just waiting around. Bully agress and says he’s right behind him but then stays in the office.
Video of Kendrick winning the title on Sunday.We get a Kendrick speech about what the title means to him. I really don’t think Kendrick should sound as monged out as he does when he speaks, it makes him sound as if he’s got brain damage. Shelley also talks about going up against Kendrick for the title. I presume at Hardcore Justice.
Main event is next. I notice only this match is getting the Midsummer Nightmare graphic which sucks really because it made this show sound important and really I think they should have made some “theme” out of it for all the matches. Now it’s just a stupid thing mental Sting said.
Gunner has a pipe (look closely you can see the dent in it from an earlier take!) and is looking for the clowns and here they come, pounding their bats on the ground like the big fight in Zulu (classic film reference for you there kids!). They surround him and take him down with a shot to the knee and the clowns take turns beating him down. They take their masks off band it’s Fourtune (minus Roode). They say Ray is next but AJ says he is already taken care of.
It’s the world worst Slipknot tribute band and it’s fronted by Chad Kroegger as well!
TNA World Title: Mr. Anderson vs. Sting: Anderson goes for the mic during his entrance but doesn’t say anything this week not sure if that’s because they messed up the mic drop or not as he kind of batted it away. Pretty slow start as they’re feeling each other out. Anderson hits some punches that Sting no sells in his maniac way. Sting works on Anderson with an atomic drop and a dropkick to send Anderson to the floor. Back in Anderson goes for a sunset flip but Sting punches him in the face. Stinger Splash hits but a second one misses and Anderson dropkicks the knee. Anderson works on the knee and tries the get the Scorpion Death Lock on him.
Sting makes it to the rope so Anderson works on the leg a bit more. Anderson goes for a high angle single leg Boston Crab, Sting manages to kick him off holding onto his knee. Sting fights back and Sting manages to hit a Mic Check for a close two. Oh look a ref bump, who would have guessed. Sting gets the Scorpion Death Lock. Anderson taps but there’s no ref. Here’s Bully Ray who Fourtune said was taken care of? Oh well…
He hits Sting and pulls out his chain. Anderson is told to hold Sting up but The lights go out and suddenly there’s another clown in the ring. He takes out Ray and looks at Anderson but the lights go out again. When they come back Anderson is alone in the ring and the clown is on the ramp. Sting rolls in and hits the Death Drop. the ref crawls in and Sting wins the title. Seriously? What the f*ck is wrong with TNA? Can they simply not bear to have the title on someone who isn’t above 40? I have no words, really I don’t.
Oh the clown was Angle by the way.
What a pile of shite that was. Felt like some crappy live action kids TV show not a wrestling show. Overbooked again and God damn it why can’t TNA be happy to settle on a stroyline to be the f*cking focus of each division? Russo, it doesn’t make you look smart to run 12 million angle all at the same time, it just means no one knows what the f*ck is going on half the time because you have to watch every single show just to keep up. It’s no wonder people don’t come back to TNA once they’ve stopped watching because half the time the angles are impenetrable if you don’t keep watching and wait for the moment they decide to remind you exactly why X hates Y.
Only really highlight is Aries who looks like being an awesome addition to the roster and damn fine heel at that. You have to try pretty hard to turn a crowd round in one match like that and Austin looks like he can work the crowd well. Actually I guess the 3 way wasn’t all that bad either but really with Joe, Pope and Roode in the ring they’d have to try hard to f*ck that up
All the good work leading to Destination X was pretty much undone here and it makes me nearly weep in frustration that you spend 4 weeks telling people TNA is doing stuff right and probably the first week people bother to tune in to see if you’re right you get this order of cold sh*t burrito shoved under your nose.
This isn’t a shit burrito because there’s no way I’m risking my delicate mind searching for that image on Google.
