Impact: January 20, 2011 – All Angle All The Time!

Impact
Date: January 20, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Taz
Episode Title: Dirty Laundry

We’re now two weeks away from February 3 which is of course a big deal because I turn 23!  Clearly that’s why the show is a big deal right?  Oh and Hogan and THEY will be there.  There’s talk of a title match there too.  Maybe it’s not because of my birthday after all.  Anyway now that I’ve filled in the intro space, I’m rather excited about tonight’s show as I found last week’s good as I’ve found the last few weeks.  Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of Angle/the Jarretts from last week.  I still don’t get why Karen wanted to wait until this week instead of just saying what she has to say last week.

Angle gets here and walks past the production area, demanding his music be played right now.  If I’m not mistaken, Jimmy Hart was there working on the production team.  Awesome indeed.  Angle hits the arena and says that this is about him and Jeff, not him and Karen.  He talks about how Karen was always around Jarrett and she said it was always business.

Then a few months ago Jeff started talking about it all the time and rubbing it in Kurt’s face.  Big old nastycut on Kurt’s head.  The salt and pepper beard works on him.  He starts crying as he talks about how he was a good husband and father.  Kurt talks about how the only thing he’s guilty of is not being around enough but that was because he wanted his family to have everything they deserved.

Kurt says he and Karen can either bury the hatchet for the sake of their kids or on the other hand if she doesn’t let it go, he’ll pull out every skeleton in her closet.  Jarrett’s music hits and here comes Team Jarrett.  You know, because they’ve had SO much success against him before.  None of them can even get in the ring as Kurt knocks them all down while they’re on the apron.

Here are Bischoff and Flair, the real stars of the show.  They bring out five or six cops to arrest Kurt.  For once this makes sense as he’s not an active wrestler so why should he be in there?  Jeff and Karen aren’t here yet as we take a break.

The Jarretts get here and are sad about Kurt being gone.

Sarita vs. Velvet Sky vs. Mickie James vs. Madison Rayne

 

This is non-title I guess.  Madison has the left hand gloved again.  Velvet and Mickie argue over what pairing to start with so they start instead.  Wait you have to tag?  Mickie and Madison start for a bit but Sarita replaces Madison very quickly.  Nice nip-up by Mickie but Velvet tags herself in.  This tagging thing is kind of awkward as it looks like a tag match.

Velvet gets a nice headscissors on Sarita but Madison comes in to beat her down.  It turns into a de facto tag match as Mickie and Madison work together.  Nice arm drag out of a wheelbarrow by Velvet to Sarita.  Mickie and Sarita are left in the ring and mickie goes up.  Tara pops up to blast Mickie with the arm brace.  Sarita and Velvet smack heads and Madison loads up the glove.  She hits Velvet and Mickie rolls up Madison for the pin at 4:30.

Rating: D+. For a fatal fourway, this was awful.  For a tag match, this was ok.  I have no idea what the fourway aspect of this was there for as a tag match would have made perfect sense and probably more sense actually.  The match was ok and it sets up another Madison vs. Mickie match so I guess that was ok.

Beer Money says they’re ready for Anderson and RVD tonight.

Angle is still walking around in the back like nothing ever happened to him.

Back and Joe is sending Okada (guy that signed from I think NJPW a good while ago and has only been on Xplosion to this point I think) out as his spy on Pope.  If I’m not mistaken (and I very well may be) he was dressed like Kato from Green Hornet.  I wouldn’t have known who he was if not for Taz.

Matt Morgan vs. Rob Terry

 

Before this starts Flair says there isn’t a woman in the place that could last with Terry, not even all three of the good looking women in the front row.  Carbon Footprint ends this in 7 seconds.  Was there ANY point to this?  Flair goes after Morgan post match and can’t hurt him at all.  Abyss comes out and beats down Morgan a bit but Morgan fights off all three guys with ease.

Morgan yells at Flair and gets beaten….never mind as he beats down the enforcer and the TV Champion on his own.  They try to take him down a third time and FINALLY they get him down with a chop block.  A double chokeslam ends Morgan and Immortal stands tall.

Mike and Taz welcome us to the show, 35 minutes in.  They talk about the January 4th Tokyo Dome show and we get some clips of it.

Hardy vs. Dreamer later.  Wow he still has a job?  You pick which I mean by that.

Kaz and AJ talk about Bischoff and praise Fourtune.  Kaz leaves and Crimson chokes down AJ and says that THEY are coming again.

Back and Angle is still wandering around.  Does no one watch these feeds?

X-Division Title: Jay Lethal vs. Kazarian

 

So on Lethal’s business card does it say X-Division challenger?  Lethal jumps him and it’s on early.  Lethal gets his cartwheel into seated dropkick spot and Kaz tries to leave.  Jay will have none of that though and the fight is on the floor.  The Jarrett segment will be next.  Kaz is thrown back in the ring and Lethal takes him down with a springboard missile dropkick for two.

Lethal Injection is blocked and Kaz fires off a nice three-kick combination.  Handspring elbow takes down Kaz and the Lethal Combination does the same.  Another nip-up tonight as Lethal pulls one off.  He points to the wrong corner and then goes up for the elbow.  After taking long enough to write a short novel he connects anyway.

Kaz rolls out to the floor and appears to be out cold.  Jay gets him back in but Kaz rakes his eyes.  It doesn’t seem to do much as Lethal gets a sunset flip but Kaz grabs the ropes for leverage to get the pin at 4:35.  The idea here again is that Jackson James, the referee, missed it again.  This is despite the fact that you can see he couldn’t see it from the perfect angle he was in.

Rating: C. Totally average match here that was nothing special.  The X-Division is painfully uninteresting at this point as it’s more or less just Lethal challenging whatever heel has the title at this point.  At least they seem to have dropped Robbie though.  Anyway this was seemingly just there to fill in time and had next to nothing special going on with it, although it wasn’t bad.  Call it acceptable if nothing else.

RVD, Anderson and Dreamer talk about how they all want Hardy but only Dreamer got him.  They exchange each others’ nicknames and that’s pretty much it.

 

The Jarretts are up next.

Kurt sneaks back into the arena.  Good thing there was a camera right there to catch it.

 

Here are Karen and Jeff.  Jeff talks about how awesome she is and she does look great tonight.  The fans chant sloppy seconds.  Karen is a victim here, a victim of Kurt Angle.  She points out that since Jeff is part owner of the company, she is too (not said but heavily implied).  Her voice is somehow more annoying than Vickie’s.  She says let’s go back to 1997 when Kurt was a lost little puppy.

Kurt pops up behind then and hits Jeff with a German.  Karen tries to take her shoe off but Kurt stops her.  They have a staredown and she slaps him.  Jeff gets a low blow to Kurt and the fans finally wake up a bit.  He hammers Kurt and tries to open up that cut on his head.  No such luck it seems but Kurt is left almost in the fetal position on the mat as the Jarretts leave and we take a break.

 

Eliminate the hate, as told to you by a group of men and women that solve their problems with their fists and say mean things about how they’re going to hurt each other.

 

In the back Angle destroys a bunch of stuff.  Again, if the police took him out earlier, why in the world aren’t they doing so now?

Tommy Dreamer vs. Jeff Hardy

 

I have a great new drinking game for you: every time TNA cuts to a different camera angle, take a shot.  I’ve counted eleven in the first 40 seconds of this match.  Dreamer takes it to the floor early and controls.  We get an ad for the world title match on February 3^rd.  Gee wouldn’t it be great if that had been the first title match instead of throwing it on the end of a PPV completely unadvertised?  Hardy whips Dreamer off the apron and takes over.

Dreamer’s wrist may not be at 100% still.  Jeff hammers away for a bit but here comes Tommy.  It’s a good thing I didn’t play my own drinking game or I’d be dead from alcohol poisoning already.  Dreamer goes to the middle rope but jumps into the Twist.  Dreamer reverses into the Dreamer Driver (thank goodness it’s not that stupid Spicolli name) which gets two.  And there’s the Twist of Hate to end it at 4:18.  It’s as abrupt as it sounds.  Oh apparently Tommy got low blowed.

Rating: C+. Are we just not allowed to go past four and a half minutes tonight?  I had this rated lower earlier but the point here was to reestablish Jeff’s dominance heading into the world title match and on that front it was a success.  Nothing special again but it was fine for what it was: a quick match to make Jeff look good.

Angle now has a baseball bat.  What is this, his 6^th time on camera tonight?

Back and Pope is talking to someone about just getting back.  He goes into an office and talks to a guy on a computer about some overseas transactions.  Apparently he doesn’t notice the camera guy looking into the room with a camera despite looking at the door.  He calls the guy’s phone which the camera picks up and steals the laptop.  So Pope is like a crime boss now or something?

AJ is talking to Flair about how THEY are coming and Flair says THEY are here and he is God.  Flair ices AJ and he’s ticked as goodness about it.  The alcohol burns his throat and he has to stop.  Kurt drills him with the bat and comes after Flair with it.  He chokes Flair down and says have Jarrett in the Impact Zone or he’s coming after Flair next.

So Kurt opened the show, was shown in the back three times, had an in ring segment, had another two backstage moments, jumped Flair and is going to close the show.  You think that’s enough for a guy that isn’t a wrestler?

Beer Money vs. Rob Van Dam/Mr. Anderson

 

Non-Title here again.  Anderson does his thing pre-match. Beer Money hits the floor and we take a break before the bell.  Roode and Van Dam start us off.  Standing moonsault gets two.  Off to Storm and Anderson with the champion dominating.  We get the fake tag with Storm slapping his hands together so Roode can come in and the referee is fine with it.  If this referee is supposed to be awful, why would he keep getting main event refereeing assignments?

Back over to Storm who works Anderson over a bit.  Hey we broke four and a half minutes for the first time tonight!  On the crawl for house shows, they’re holding a show on the night of their big show, February 3^rd.  Doesn’t that seem a little counteractive?  Anderson can’t get the Mic Check but can get a DDT to bring in Van Dam.  Storm is tagged in as well.

RVD takes out both champions with ease and it’s not quite Rolling Thunder as Roode makes the save.  Storm gets a Backstabber for two.  Anderson comes in and everyone is in at once.  Scratch that as Anderson and Roode go outside.  RVD heads up and it’s a Five Star for Storm.  Jeff hardy comes out to distract the referee though and there’s no cover.  Matt Hardy, looking like a homeless man, comes in with a Twist of Hate so that Storm can get the pin at 8:10.

Rating: C. This was your run of the mill main event tag match here.  It’s not bad but it’s nothing we haven’t see a dozen times?  Thankfully we didn’t have Anderson get pinned a second time.  This was probably the best possible outcome and it worked pretty well for the most part.  Decent main event.

Kendrick tries to calm down Ray (after almost getting killed for calling him Brother instead of Bully) with some breathing techniques.  He slams Kendrick into a locker in the textbook definition of a pointless segment.

Flair and Bischoff send Jarrett to the ring with Eric saying he’s got this.

Here’s D-Von.  Yes, this is the second to last segment on the show: D-Von Dudley yelling at Bubba.  Ray comes out and stands on the ramp.  Kendrick runs down the ramp and sends Bubba into the ring.  Bubba pulls out a chain but D-Von beats him to the punch.  D-Von gets the chain and security stops him.  Bubba beats up security after knocking down D-Von.  He puts a chair around the head of D-Von and swings the chain down onto it to leave D-Von laying.

Kurt is up next.

Back with Angle in the ring for the third time tonight.  Here comes Jeff in his gear along with Gunner and Murphy.  Wow he got changed quickly.  The goons hit the ring and Kurt beats on them for the 9000^th time.  Why can’t a body guard ever be successful in their defense of someone?  They slow him down a bit so I guess they did their job.  Jarrett comes in and it’s a 3-1 beatdown.

And so much for that as Angle takes down both guards and Jeff.  Kurt slaps on a choke and Karen runs out.  Kaz and Fourtune/Immortal come in for the save.  No Abyss for some reason.  AJ throws a single punch and that’s about all he’s able to do on his bad leg.  Here’s Abyss coming down the ramp with his arms open.  He hits his knees and Janice is stuck in his back!  Crimson comes out and stands over him, saying THEY are coming.  Angle clears the ring and grabs a quick ankle lock on Flair to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. Well the wrestling was uh…short tonight.  The stories were advanced though, which is kind of the important part I suppose.  The main thing holding this show back though is Angle vs. Jarrett.  That is probably 20-30% of this entire show, and that’s WAY too much.  They had probably 15 combined appearances tonight and two showdowns.  This was all about them.  If you’re not a fan of that story, you hated this show.  That’s a dangerous style to use as it’s hit or miss.  The show wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as the previous two weeks.

Results

Mickie James b. Sarita, Madison Rayne and Velvet Sky – Rollup to Rayne

Matt Morgan b. Rob Terry – Carbon Footprint

Kazarian b. Jay Lethal – Cradle

Jeff Hardy b. Tommy Dreamer – Twist of Hate

Beer Money b. Rob Van Dam/Mr. Anderson – Storm pinned Van Dam after a Twist of Hate from Matt Hardy