Impact – December 23, 2010

Impact
Date: December 23, 2010
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Taz, Mike Tenay
Episode Title: All the Gold is Worth a Fourtune

It’s Christmas time around the Impact Zone so expect a theme to tonight’s show. Tonight we have AJ vs. Williams in an Iron Man Match which most of you likely haven’t heard about prior to this as it was announced on ReAction instead of when the vast audience was, you know, watching. Other than that there hasn’t been anything major announced. Oh and the tag title tournament ends tonight. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the tag match main event from last week where Anderson’s head was all messed up and Rob Terry cost Morgan/Anderson the match.

In the arena here’s Fourtune/Immortal. They really need a name for that whole team. Ok apparently their full name is Immortal and Fourtune is just a part of that. Terry is with them too. This is for the weigh-in for the #1 contenders match. Flair talks about their greatness as is his custom but shifts his attention to Terry.

He’s being offered a job as a bodyguard according to Flair but we hand the mic to Bischoff. Eric talks about how there are doctors here to check both guys and make sure they’re ok for Genesis. Morgan comes out and blows the crowd so far away that they can’t even move. Morgan says this is all a sham and that Bischoff is hitting new lows by having Anderson fight hurt because that’s beyond wrestling.

Eric disagrees and the doctors he has here are going to check Anderson and Morgan tonight. Flair tries to tell Morgan that it’s ok and here comes Mick Foley of all people. He says his career is probably over due to the amount of concussions he’s had. Foley says that if he has anything to say about it, the match doesn’t happen.

Flair says that Foley is a whiny, pathetic human being. He blames Foley for the rise in kids hurting themselves for the sake of violence. They get into their usual wrestler vs. non-wrestler thing. Foley wants to be part of the solution, which Flair says is to kiss up to him. Foley knocks the mic out of Flair’s hand and talks about coming into a morgue to check their brains when they’re dead. Flair says he’ll die in a ring or on top of a wild woman. Ok then.

Bischoff says Foley is here to try to be the hero now that his books and comedy career are failures. Apparently Foley is riding the coattails of people that have to follow Foley now because he set the bar too high with violence.

Cue theme song.

Mike and Taz run down the card which is the stuff I told you about already, plus the tag titles on the line in an 8 man tag with Beer Money/Abyss/Jeff Hardy vs. The Guns/RVD/Morgan. Whichever team wins, their tag team gets the belts.

Back from a break with Jeff Hardy coming to talk to Morgan. This isn’t about either of them but rather about professional wrestling. Basically Jeff asks who are Anderson and Flair to tell Morgan what to do. Jeff tries to get Morgan back to the Dark Side.

It’s time for another Jarrett MMA thing. We do get a Gracie Train here which is sort of funny. Jarrett says he’s tired of all the people in the Impact Zone losing so he’s going to open it up to the professionals. Amazing Red impressed him last week so he’s going to get another shot tonight.

Red comes out and is checked but gets Vaseline or something similar to it in his eyes which screws him up. Jarrett gets an ankle lock on for a long time but Red taps in less than a minute. Red has a brother so next week it’s Jarrett vs. the brother apparently. The fans chant for Angle and Jeff gets scared.

Tara and Rayne talk about the match later on and Tara’s arm is still messed up. Tara wants to make this go by fast to get to a party with Generation Me.

RVD is really excited about getting his hands on Hardy later.

Jeremy Buck vs. Max Buck vs. Kazarian vs. Robbie E

Winner gets Lethal at some point which is probably at Genesis. I’m kind of surprised we’re getting a match this early. We’re only 35 minutes into the show. They had that two week stretch where they got stuff in earlier. Yeah the match is at Genesis. You have to tag in and out here and we start with Gen Me facing off.

Robbie fist pumps on the apron so Gen Me double teams him for awhile. Kaz breaks up a pin attempt on Max which gets two for Robbie. He’s playing spoiler tonight apparently as he keeps breaking up covers. Basically this is Gen Me in a semi tag match where the partners don’t work together.

They dominate for the most part as Kaz hasn’t been in yet, pretty clearly forecasting his victory. They set for More Bang For Your Buck but here comes Kaz. He destroys everyone and hits his reverse Piledriver on Max for the win at 3:30. He and Kaz have a staredown for awhile.

Rating: C. Nothing special here aside from the usual Gen Me spots which are always pretty cool. Kaz was always going to win this and it was about as obvious as you could ask for. It wasn’t bad or anything but for three and a half minutes it’s not like they could really get anything going.

Sarita goes into Velvet’s locker room with a belt and closes the door. SWEET! KNOCKOUT BONDAGE ACTION!

During the break we missed Sarita destroying Velvet with the belt and choking her. Nice job of the cameraman to sit back and watch an assault and attempted strangulation. Sarita keeps yelling about how Angelina won’t always be there to save her, prompting Angelina to bounce in after Sarita left.

Eric and Flair talk about how Immortal is in checkmate because of Dixie and her attorneys and the judge so they need all the belts they can get. They need to live up to Hardy and Flair’s standards.

Kendrick talks to some chick about being lied to and gets a cookie. It looks like a cafeteria or something. Does TNA have any idea where they’re going with all these things or do they just throw random things out there and hope we make sense out of them?

Knockouts Tag Titles: Madison Rayne/Tara vs. Angelina Love

I forgot Madison was champion. That’s just not good at all. Angelina is introduced as being on her own due to Velvet being beaten down. It’s more or less Angelina vs. Madison as Tara can’t go because of her arm. Tara comes in for a few seconds but can’t do much at all due to the injury. She comes in, gets three stomps and a left handed choke and leaves. Not her fault of course but it makes the whole tag title thing a bit of a stretch.

Madison does her head scissors stomp thing and even her shapely form can’t even get the crowd into this. Winter comes down and cleans house as Angelina tags her in. Apparently she’s taking over. A really bad Catatonic (spinning Rock Bottom from a slam position) ends Madison at 4:50.

Rating: D. The crowd was dead for this. For a tag match having a total of three tags is a bit of a stretch. These belts don’t need to exist at all and you can see that more and more often every week. This wasn’t interesting at all and with the roster getting slimmer and slimmer, they need to do something with it soon. Winter will help, but they need more girls and fast.

Back from a break Pope is on the phone and says things need to go down the way he wants it to or things will be bad. Jordan and Young, in a freaking reindeer costume, presents Pope with a donation to the Congregation which is apparently raising money for kids. Pope talks to the person on the phone and says make the deal because he has some more funds.

TV Title: AJ Styles vs. Doug Williams

15 minute Iron Man match here. It’s a technical match to start us off here. They go to the mat with some very nice stuff. In a slick counter, AJ tries to nip up off the mat and Williams just dives on him and grabs a headlock. Williams gets a knee in the corner and we take a break to make sure we don’t see 15 minutes of good wrestling in one sitting.

Back with AJ holding a chinlock on Williams. During the break AJ got the first fall with a Styles Clash. Well of course he did. Not like anyone would want to see a champion get pinned as it happens right? AJ goes into a clock freeze which is smart and puts Williams down on the floor. Would it be too hard to give us a clock?

Ok apparently we have 4 minutes left. With maybe two and a half left they crank it way up and things get good. The springboard forearm is caught in a suplex. AJ’s eyes are awesome as he lays on the mat. Under two minutes now. One minute left as Williams is still down one. Rolling Chaos Theory kills AJ with under thirty seconds left. Both guys are down as the clock runs out.

Rating: B-. Solid stuff here with some psychology thrown in on the side. That’s not something you often get on TV matches today so that’s a definite perk. Seeing about 66% of the match isn’t a good thing really though but it could have been a lot worse. Good match as both guys can work a lot of styles (no pun intended) and it makes for good TV.

We’re going to get a five minute overtime, so of course we take a break.

Back with the overtime having already started. Tornado DDT gets two for Williams almost immediately. Springboard forearm gets two as well. There isn’t much other than laying around in between if you were wondering. Styles Clash is reversed into an Alabama Alsm for two. After some blocked suplexes from both guys the Pele gets two. Over three minutes are done already.

And now we have one minute left, meaning we missed about a minute during a commercial. Still no clock as I guess all the technology resources went to Dixie’s Twitter even though she has no affiliation to the company in storyline terms but still announces all the official business. We get a clock with 30 seconds left and Douglas gets a belly to back off the top but can’t get a cover before the bell rings. I won’t give a rating to the overtime but it was about on the same level as the earlier part if not a bit better.

AJ grabs a mic and says the people want a winner. He wants one more time at Genesis but Doug says no. Who’s the face here again? AJ runs down Williams a bit and Doug gives in and agrees to a match. If Williams wins, AJ has to leave Fourtune. AJ says no but Bischoff comes out and says do it or leave Fourtune, Immortal and TNA.

Team Beer Money has a powwow and Hardy says RVD can come get him.

Anderson will be on the phone next.

Apparently on the phone means a satellite interview. Anderson is cleared to return to the ring at Genesis. This would apparently be his return after the long time since his match last week. Taz and Anderson have a bit of an incident about Anderson not being totally back to full health. Anderson walks off after Tenay asks about proper paperwork.

Team MCMG is ready but Morgan isn’t happy about what Anderson said.

Tag Titles: Beer Money/Jeff Hardy/Abyss vs. Motor City Machine Guns/Matt Morgan/Rob Van Dam

Surprised there wasn’t a commercial before the entrances here. The champions’ team clears the ring and we take a break before the bell. Naturally they lied to us and the bell rang during the break. RVD vs. Storm is the first thing we see when we get back. Morgan comes in to beat on people for awhile. Is there a reason this isn’t a straight up tag title match?

The Guns do their awesome stuff to Roode as their team has controlled throughout so far. Sliced Bread is blocked though and Storm crotched Shelley to take over. Abyss comes in and Shelly, his former tag partner of all things, takes a beating. A few people boo when Hardy comes in. I’d like to see them take the show on the road to see if that would be the case elsewhere.

Hardy spits at RVD and Rob’s attempts to get at him only cause more pain for Shelley. Where’s Hardy to write bad songs about it when you need him? BEER! MONEY! Is that in case they get lost or something? Eye of the Storm is reversed but Hardy stops the tag. We go to ReAction (meaning I should cut off the review right now but whatever) as RVD gets the hot tag and Hardy runs.

Rolling Thunder gets two on Roode. Morgan comes in and hits the footprint on Abyss but goes down to a Twist of Hate. Hardy gets away from RVD again and they go to the floor. Sabin gets a tornado DDT out of nowhere to Roode for the pin to retain at approximately 8:50. JB sounds about as bored and uninterested as you could ask for him to be.

Rating: C+. Pretty fun match but it kind of begs the question of does Beer Money get another title shot at Genesis and if so, why? They just got a shot and they lost it. Why would they receive another one? This was pretty fast paced and formula based but good speed and pacing pulled it through to be pretty solid.

Overall Rating: C-. Not a horrible show at all although nothing really great. The Iron Man match is rather good, annoying times for commercials aside. This was really just a show to build up Genesis and there’s nothing wrong with that. Aside from the Iron Man match though, there were some problems here. The opening match was about as worthless as you could ask for and the women’s match was rather bad. The main event was ok but the booking is kind of a head scratcher. Not a bad show at all, but nothing great either.