Impact Wrestling – August 25, 2011 – It’s Joe Time

Impact Wrestling
Date: August 25, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz

It’s another week closer to No Surrender, meaning the BFG Series is getting close to a finish. Tonight we have Angle vs. Crimson in what is almost guaranteed to have a screwy finish due to them both being big deals at the moment. Also I’m sure we’ll get more from the Hogan/Sting/Flair saga. Anyway let’s get to it.

Also I’m not watching live so the timing may be a bit off.

We open with a recap of the two major storylines in the form of Sting/Hogan/Flair plus Angle/Crimson.

Speaking of Angle, the champion opens us up and is in ring gear. He wants to talk to Crimson and here’s the big man. Angle says Crimson wants to be the big star and wants to be famous. Tonight he’ll face the consequences. Crimson talks about respect and Angle says Crimson has to earn it. Crimson says bring it and he’ll still be standing at the end of the match.

Cue Immortal with Ray saying that Crimson needs to respect Angle. Ray asks Kurt if he’s a part of them and Angle says he can handle this himself. He tells Immortal and especially Jeff to stay out of the match. It’s time to make Crimson famous.

ODB and Jackie talk to Velvet and are partners for some reason tonight. Velvet agrees to have their backs and the other chicks say they could take Velvet out and only the cameraman could see it. ODB just walks off.

The 8/16 episode of Impact was the highest rated ever in England and Ireland. That’s a perk.

Eric and Hogan yell at Flair, telling him to make Sting go away because Hogan isn’t getting in the ring with him, period. Flair says he’ll make it up to Hogan tonight. Hogan says he needs one thing from Ric and that is for Flair to keep his mouth shut. Nothing could possibly go wrong with this plan right?

Jackie/ODB/Velvet Sky vs. Angelina Love/Sarita/Rosita

Jackie and ODB are still trying to be all nice to get their contracts. Jackie rolls up Sarita for two quickly as I’m really trying to care about them. Off to Velvet and Rosita and it’s face miscommunication time! After a lot of tagging it’s off to Sarita vs. Velvet in an old feud rekindled. As almost always it goes badly for Sky and the triple team begins in the corner. It’s saying a lot that Velvet Sky being triple teamed by three hot chicks is so uninteresting.

Angelina hasn’t been in yet and is complaining that the team is only working between the two of them. She tags herself in to beat on Velvet a bit more and is promptly kicked off. Since Velvet is there for her looks though she doesn’t take the wide open tag. I guess she isn’t a fan of ODB/Jackie either. Everything breaks down and the unlikely partners tease beating up Velvet in a triple team but save her instead, giving Angelina a double suplex and putting Velvet on top for the pin at 4:07.

Rating: C-. I know I use this term a lot but this was just a six person tag. It’s nothing great but this advances the whole ODB/Jackie thing and possibly starts something with the Mexican chicks against Angelina. If we can get some fresh feuds in there I’m all for it. This wasn’t nearly as bad as some of them have been lately.

Jesse Sorensen vs. Kid Kash

This is #2 vs. #3 respectively but I doubt those numbers are going to mean much for awhile. Kash looks old and Sorensen is a face, carrying a football with him because he’s from Texas. Well I guess a weak gimmick is better than no gimmick. Kash dominates early, hitting a suplex into a release slam.

Moneymaker is blocked and Sorensen starts his comeback with a HHH leaping knee and a pretty sweet dropkick for two. Something resembling the McGillicutter gets two and Jesse goes up. Top rope cross body gets a very close two and I’m liking this Sorensen a bit. And never mind as Kash reverses a rollup and uses the tights for the pin at 3:01.

Rating: C. I liked Sorensen a lot more than I thought I would. The guy can jump pretty well and was trying to play to the crowd a bit also. The football thing doesn’t mean much but it needs time to develop obviously. Kash I don’t see the appeal to as he just looks old. He’s not bad or anything but he’s about as the same as you can be after many years.

Post match Kash yells at Sorensen, calling him a boy. Jesse is all bring it on but he gets pie faced and security breaks it up.

BFG Series stuff with Gunner saying he wants to win it. Roode and RVD say the same thing.

BFG Series Standings:

Crimson 50

Bully Ray 42

Bobby Roode 42

James Storm 40

Gunner 35

Devon 30 (Injured)

Rob Van Dam 25

AJ Styles 24

Matt Morgan 24 (Injured)

Scott Steiner 21

D’Angelo Dinero 17

Samoa Joe -10

Does Joe ever get any matches anymore?

Bound For Glory Series: Rob Van Dam vs. D’Angelo Dinero

Morgan is on commentary because it’s a BFG Series match. Face vs. face here I think and there’s no Jerry Lynn. They’re going fast out there and Rolling Thunder hits knees. Thankfully Pope got his knees up above his chest instead of Rob just missing it which I can’t stand. Forearm gets two for Dinero.

Rob takes over again and gets a reverse bridging chinlock (Benoit used it a lot and their backs are to each other. You know the move) and then an abdominal stretch as he’s looking for the submission. They’re using the psychology here which is good to see. DDT gets two for Pope. Top rope fist drop gets two for Pope but he gets his head kicked off, resulting in a surfboard getting the submission (REALLY???) at 5:00. Rob won if that wasn’t clear.

Rating: D+. I wasn’t feeling this and while the psychology makes sense, I’m not wild on it at all as Rob using a submission just looks weird. Why wouldn’t he use the move like that the rest of the time if he can get a clean submission that fast? Not a horrible match or anything but it really could have been better given more time.

Back from a replay and Joe is here attacking Pope’s knee. He puts on a leg bar until D-Von hobbles out (he’s injured and out of the Series) and stops in front of his kids. The kids go make the save but he yells at them and eventually asks for a chair. Joe bails but D-Von did make the save.

Robbie E asks Rob Terry to be his partner/bodyguard. Terry says he’ll think about it and leaves.

Immortal has a meeting about their match and Steiner is mad.

Angelina is on the phone and the Mexican chicks come in and beat her down. Winter makes the save and FREAKS, choking I think Rosita with a curtain cord. The male Mexicans make the save.

For about the third time tonight we see some boots in the back.

Bischoff hits on Traci as she might be doing the Knockout Law thing again. Something important here: all that is mentioned here is Eric is thinking about Knockout Law. There’s no explanation about that or what Traci’s name is, so to someone new to the show, this is kind of confusing no? Eric wants to get together and sex is implied.

Here are Hogan and Flair to end the Sting situation. Hogan says the main problem right now is there’s a problem. He calls out Sting and the crazy dude is here. Hogan says this needs to end tonight because it’s gone way too far. Sting has no fries left in his Happy Meal now. Hulk says we can’t have all this craziness going on and even says he might be partially to blame. From this point forward the company will be run perfectly.

Sting says deal on one condition. Hogan says deal as he’ll do anything. Sting wants….milk and cookies for everyone. Maybe some balloons and a unicorn as well. What about puppies for all the people and some flowers (including a stereotypical gay voice for that one). This prompts some Mr. Nanny level acting from Hogan as he’s stunned. Sting kisses him on the cheek a few times and heeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Ric!

Flair goes into one of his usual insane moments, shoving Hogan and talking about how he’s the real insane one and he’ll beat Sting up when they fight because Sting respects him too much for the kill. An F Bomb is dropped in there also. Hogan is freaking Sting makes fun of Flair anyway. Sting doesn’t mind going through Flair to get to Hogan because he’s crazy like Flair. Sting wants Hogan at Bound For Glory, which I think we’ve all known was the ultimate end game for the last few months.

There’s supposed to be a hardcore BFG Series six man here but AJ comes out instead. He calls out Daniels who isn’t in the match tonight. AJ wants to talk about the rematch that Daniels wants. He doesn’t get why Chris wants the rematch and wants to know why right here. Daniels isn’t sure if he has it anymore and if he can do it at the top level anymore. He isn’t sure if he wants to be a wrestler anymore. AJ says one more time and it’s a big emotional moment. Daniels wants it at No Surrender but AJ says he’ll be in the BFG Series Final there so how about next week. Daniels says cool.

AJ Styles/Beer Money vs. Immortal

Ray/Gunner/Steiner here. This is Hardcore remember. Big brawl to start and Storm spits beer at someone, just like Steiner does at Roode. No one has been in the ring yet but they don’t have to be here. I think whoever gets the fall here gets the points. Gunner vs. AJ in the ring now and Abyss is watching from the ramp. Dang AJ has a great dropkick. It only gets one and here’s Steiner with a belly to belly.

Roode comes in and gets the Blockbuster for two. Ray kicks his head off for two and there have been no tags at all so far. Now it’s Storm with a kick to the head and a cross body for two on Ray. The former champs hit a double suplex on Ray and SHOUT THOSE NAMES. Roode looks jacked here. AJ wakes up and hits a HUGE dive to the floor to take out Ray. He’s holding his knee though.

Gunner sends Storm into the set for two and Steiner misses a chair shot. Abyss is still lookint down at them. We go split screen which for once is a good idea. The fans boo because as usual, THEY CAN’T SEE ANYTHING. Beer Money is getting beaten down and Storm has a locker dropped on his knees. Gunner, ever the smart dude, walks away as AJ hits the springboard clothesline for two on Ray back in the ring. Gunner comes back and AJ is distracted, letting Ray hit the Bubba Bomb for the pin on AJ at 6:00.

Rating: C. Meh just another six man hardcore match. It’s not bad or anything but it wasn’t great. Right in the middle works pretty well I think. It’s good to see someone move up in the ranks in the form of Ray but I’d like to see someone with an actual chance of going to BFG get the points instead. At the moment it’s looking like Beer Money, Ray and Crimson. For some reason, that doesn’t blow my skirt up.

Immortal sets for a beatdown but Anderson comes into the back in a Hummer for the save. He gets the chain from Ray and leaves Gunner gushing blood. I guess Anderson vs. Gunner or Ray can be penciled in for BFG. Granted it’s Anderson so who knows with him. Abyss walks away. I forgot he was even there.

Mickie rants about Winter/Angelina (not by name for awhile because that could tell people what they’re talking about) cheating and how she’s getting the title back next week.

Now it’s time for some Eric Young shenanigans as he finally finds Scott Baio. It actually turns into a chase scene and Young, in his underwear, jumps out of a tree onto Baio and counts the pin himself. Ladies and gentlemen, the TELEVISION CHAMPION!!! (for those counting, this would be the 12^th Impact in a row where the TV Title hasn’t been defended).

Crimson vs. Kurt Angle

There are some big match intros for you. This is non-title. The fans are split here and Crimson shoves him around to start. It’s almost all red man so far. There’s the cravate which have some knees and a neckbreaker added in for two. Angle finally gets in a shot to the bad knee and it’s time for a break.

Back with Angle holding a weird kind of arm/chinlock on Crimson. Double shoulder block puts both guys down and there’s a suplex for two. The German is no sold and the spear from Crimson gets two. There’s the ankle lock with the grapevine and Crimson actually manages to escape. The leg is no sold again and the Red Sky hits. Joe comes in for the DQ at 10:45 total as you would expect.

Rating: C+. Not horrible but the ending was all they could do. The problem here was that they had nothing else to do. With Crimson possibly looking to be in the main event of BFG and being undefeated, we can’t have him lose here. At the same time Angle can’t lose clean to him so the DQ ending was all they could do.

Joe and Angle have a brief staredown but Angle leaves so Joe can beat on him even more. Crimson no sells THAT and Joe runs.

Mike and Taz run down the card for next week.

Crimson says he wants Joe next week. Joe jumps him and beats him down (with ease) and breaks his leg using a cinder block, the steps and the power of fat.

Overall Rating: C. We’ll go with right in the middle here as there’s nothing too horrible on it but there’s nothing all that great either. Joe was the main focus of this show as it seems like he might be trying to take out everyone else and get in the back door of the tournament, which isn’t a horrible idea actually. I’m hoping they don’t do that as I wouldn’t want the whole thing to be wasted, but I’ve heard of worse ideas. Anyway not bad here but nothing great.