Impact Wrestling – June 30, 2011 – Two Good Impacts In A Row. No You’re Not Dreaming.

Impact Wrestling
Date: June 30, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz

We continue the build towards Destination X tonight with another triple threat qualifying match. Other than that we’ll likely see more of Sting being insane and staring at Anderson. The show was a lot better last week than it’s been in awhile so hopefully they can keep that streak going tonight. Let’s get to it.

We have limited commercial interruption tonight.

We open with a recap of Sting being insane last week and attacking Bischoff and Abyss.

Hogan welcomes Steiner to Immortal and says he’ll be taking care of business tonight. Steiner leaves and Sting’s voice is heard. Hogan walks over to a monitor and sees the back of Sting’s head. Sting talks about how the monster isn’t under Terry’s bed because he’s right here. Sting turns around and has the full on Joker face paint. Hogan walks into the arena and here we go.

He gets a huge face pop as almost always. He’ll take care of Sting on his own time but right now wants to talk to someone else: Mr. Anderson. Hogan says that when Anderson faces Sting, he has two choices: he can join Immortal and have an army of monsters with him or he can go alone and lose everything. Anderson mocks him of course and says he won at Slammiversary on his own.

Hogan says he sees dollar signs with Anderson and says Anderson owes him one. This doesn’t sit well with the champ but we cut to the back with Sting destroying Immortal with the bat, saying that he wants to talk to Hogan. He looks at the camera and says “The only thing for sure about Sting is…oh forget it.” Lights go out in the arena and Sting is in the ring with the bat. He hits Hogan in the knee as Anderson runs. Sting looks at Hogan and says hang on a second so he can yell at Anderson some more. He names the July 14th show Midsummer Nightmare and then hits Hogan again, this time in the ribs.

Sting talks about being a Hogan mark for his entire career and starting his career in the Sports Arena when he was breaking in. Sting is completely insane here. He talks about the vitamins that Hogan used to take and says the Pythons are down to 21 inches. He grabs a bottle of them in the corner and takes some with Hulk, pouring them down his throat. There’s a Scorpion as Hogan is defenseless.

Here’s Immortal for the save as we talks some more. Ray says that their paths have never crossed and that changes tonight. He can’t stand a bully because all the do is run their mouth. Therefore tonight, it’s Sting vs….Scott Steiner. They get Hulk up and he says cut the music. Tonight he’s going to wipe the smile off Sting’s face. Long segment but it kept my attention throughout, which is always a good sign. Good stuff.

There were some BFG Series matches over the weekend. Here are the updated standings.

Crimson 17
Gunner 14
Matt Morgan 14
AJ Styles 14
James Storm 14
Rob Van Dam 7
Scott Steiner 7
Bully Ray 7
D’Angelo Dinero 0
Robert Roode 0
Devon 0
Samoa Joe 0

Gunner vs. AJ and Joe vs. D-Von tonight.

Bound For Glory Series: D-Von vs. Samoa Joe

The bell is after the break. Joe vs. Kaz at Destination X is confirmed. Joe grabs the Clutch almost immediately but D-Von gets the rope. D-Von hammers away but Joe gets a kick to the chest to take over. Knee drop hits and D-Von is in trouble. Spear by D-Von takes Joe down and here coems the former Dudley. Spinning back elbow sets up a Rock Bottom and a flying headbutt. Clothesline gets two.

Joe gets some boots up in the corner to break the momentum and hits a leg lariat off the middle rope. He lets go of the pin and goes for a leg bar instead which makes sense from the points perspective. When that doesn’t work he throws on a key lock but D-Von makes the ropes again. D-Von gets some right hands in but gets caught in a powerslam to set up a cross armbreaker. The fans are way into D-Von here. He comes off the middle rope but Joe gets a boot up to keep him down. Clutch doesn’t work and Joe walks into a spinebuster for the big upset at 6:14.

Rating: C+. I liked this. The psychology was there as Joe wanted the submission so he could try to make a big jump in the points standings but now he gets nothing. I’m still a bit skeptical about the Series in general but it’s starting to take shape and I could see this working pretty well. Pretty good stuff here and it worked much better than what I was expecting.

Pope is with D-Von’s kids and is excited over the win for his new friend.

Steiner comes into Immortal’s locker room and yells at Ray about life in general. Ray gives him his chain for the match with Sting later.

Kaz tells Joe that he’s better than this. They yell at each other and it’s implied that we’ll get a brawl later tonight.

We recap the X-Division Showcase stuff. Low Ki is back tonight, as is Matt Bentley and Jimmy Yang. Low Ki is more famous as Kaval. He and Yang were in the first ever TNA match I believe. Bentley is famous for having a cousin that you may have heard of: Shawn Michaels.

Matt Bentley vs. Jimmy Yang vs. Low Ki

Yang thinks he’s Elvis. If I remember right his original gimmick was part of a three man team called the Flying Elvises so that’s some continuity. Low Ki sends Yang flying and gets a big chant to start. Handspring elbow into a cross body gets two as we start very fast. Yang hits a cross body of his own before we get down to Low Ki vs. Bentley. They trade chops before a clothesline puts Low Ki on the floor.

Yang is back in but he’s all alone. He fires off a huge dive to knock Low Ki down and it’s a good thing he was there because otherwise Yang would have faceplanted. Yang throws on an armlock but gets caught in a crucifix for two. Spinwheel kick that looked awesome puts Low Ki down. Low Ki unleashes the kicks and there the Warrior’s Way to Yang. Big springboard spin kick gets two on Bentley.

Bentley gets a Stunner to Low Ki and a DDT to Yang at the same time. Superkick puts Low Ki down for two. Top rope cross body lands in a gutbuster and it’s Yang Time. It’s a corkscrew moonsault but Bentley moves out of the way. Not that it matters because he would have missed by two feet but whatever. Warrior’s Way ends Yang clean at 6:40.

Rating: B-. Another fast paced and fun match here. Yang was really exciting with his dives and his kicks. I have a feeling this is going to all go away after Destination X but at least it’s fun to watch while it lasts. They were going very fast out there and it worked quite well for the most part. Fun stuff.

Video on Ultimate X which still doesn’t have any competitors listed yet.

Madison Rayne is freaking out over her lip gloss missing. Winter and Angelina Love come up and Angelina is all fine now. Madison yells a lot and leaves. Winter says she should be champion and she’ll get the title at Hardcore Justice. Angelina says she’s glad someone finally appreciates her, in the form of Winter. The other life and past stuff isn’t mentioned at all.

Back and we get some fan cam stuff of Joe beating up Kaz at a bar.

Hogan is taping his fist and says he’s going to get Sting tonight.

Winter/Angelina Love/Madison Rayne vs. Mickie James/Miss Tessmacher/Tara

Elimination rules here. Mickie and Winter start us off and Winter loses her belt quickly. Angelina comes in sans tag so I guess it’s lucha tagging rules, meaning you can come in whenever your partner hits the floor. Tessmacher hits what she calls the, and I’m not making this up, Asstastic on Winter. Basically it’s a Stinkface but much more fun to look at. She walks into a bridging suplex though and it’s 3-2. Madison and Love are in different corners for some reason.

Tara comes in and beats on Winter a bit, hitting the standing moonsault for two. Winter and Angelina hit a Botox Injection/Samoan Drop combo but Madison steals the pin. It’s 3-1 now but Mickie hits a spinning kick to Madison for the pin. Winter and Angelina don’t seem to mind it being 2-1. All those pins happened in less than 90 seconds or so. Angelina and Winter double team Mickey but mess up that same double team move as Angelina kicks Winter which gets two for Mickie.

Angelina tries that spinning backbreaker of hers but gets reversed into a jumping DDT attempt. Winter makes the save into a backbreaker of her own, allowing Angelina to hit the backbreaker on Mickie. Winter and Angelina argue over who gets the pin as Winter says it’s her turn now. Angelina isn’t thrilled with it and Mickie is back up and able to get a neckbreaker to end Angelina and get us down to one on one. Rollup with tights gets two for Winter. Jumping DDT ends Winter at 6:41 overall.

Rating: C. Well Mickie just pinned all three of them in a row in maybe three minutes with none of them ever leaving the ring. With that it’s kind of hard to think Winter has much of a chance at the PPV but I guess that’s the point of the match. Not a terrible match but I kind of don’t see the point in the eliminations or the total dominance by Mickie.

Gunner says he’ll take out AJ tonight.

Kendrick talks about his match with Abyss while Abyss reads from The Art Of War.

Time for the contract signing for the Destination X main event which is Styles vs. Daniels. AJ asks if Daniels is sure and Daniels signs up. Daniels says it won’t become personal and after the match he’ll shake his best friend’s hand. AJ signs and Taz says he doesn’t buy it. Everything looks to be ok but here’s Jerry Lynn of all people. He says he was part of the team that built the X-Division and the two guys seem to agree.

Here’s RVD who calls himself a pioneer and says he was X-Division before the X-Division. Lynn yells at him and Daniels says that if these are the two big matches, it could be the best PPV ever. They were all part of the X-Division movement apparently. I’d hardly call it a movement but whatever. Daniels proposes a match on Impact next week in the form of a four corners match which everyone agrees to.

AJ is leaving but Gunner jumps him. He sends AJ into the railing and we go into the ring. There goes the table for the contract signing and AJ hammers away. There’s a referee in ther ebut I don’t think this is a match. Certainly doesn’t appear to be. Apparently it is now though.

Bound For Glory Series: AJ Styles vs. Gunner

There’s a red carpet on the mat which is a rather weird look. AJ jumps him in the corner and hits a forearm. Gunner pounds away as this is more of a brawl. AJ takes over and gets a belly to back suplex to put Gunner down. Flying knee gets two. Pele sends Gunner to the apron and a dropkick puts him on the floor. There’s a big old dive over the top and everyone is down. Gunner gets a shot in and tries the F5 but AJ reverses and sets for the springboard forearm. Gunner gets a low blow in and the F5 ends this clean at 5:02.

Rating: C. Not too bad here but nothing all that great. Gunner is a guy that has stalled pretty badly recently and his matches aren’t helping him. The red mat took a bit of getting used to but it wasn’t all that bad of a thing eventually. Either way not bad here but it was pretty average overall.

Sting says it’s the wrong place and wrong time for Steiner.

Package on ODB vs. Velvet and all that jazz. Velvet says she’s used to being bullied so this is nothing new. She’s done being the runt of the litter and she’s not taking it anymore. How many hot chicks do you remember being bullied? Something doesn’t fit here.

Crimson vs. Roode next week.

Here’s Mexican America to complain. Hernandez is the president of the team apparently. Anarquia says that Hernandez is mad now and that’s not good. They should be in the BFG Series but Beer Money is in there instead. They’re the best tag team but they’re not in the series for some reason.

They’re interrupted by the British Invasion who say they’re foreigners also. We’ll ignore that only Sarita is a foreigner and she’s Canadian. The Brits are apparently faces now and want a match with Mexican America for the #1 contender spot. They want the girls, or “los prostitutos” left out of it though. Brawl starts and the Brits get beaten down. Rob Freaking Terry of all people comes out for the save.

Jeff Jarrett has a message from Mexico and is with Karen. They’re in the middle of Mexico City and Kren says they’ll have presents for everyone. They’ll be back in a few weeks apparently. So what was the point in sending him to Mexico if he can just come back?

Ray says that Steiner will take care of Sting tonight and tells Gunner they might as well hand him the world title. He has the rest of the night off apparently. Abyss is reading his book which Ray thinks is adult in nature. He can’t find his mask and freaks out.

Scott Steiner vs. Sting

We do big match intros but Steiner jumps Joker Sting in the corner before they get through either name. Belly to belly gets two. Sting starts a comeback but Scott counters the Splash in the corner and goes for the Recliner. That gets reversed into the Scoprion but Scott gets the ropes. T-bone suplex puts Sting down but another charge misses and the Death Drop ends this at 4:40.

Rating: C-. Pretty weak main event here as the new member of Immortal gets dominated for the most part here. He got in some stuff but Sting more or less brushed it off and didn’t even break a sweat in doing so. Not terrible or anything but really just kind of there, which isn’t a good thing for the main event.

Sting goes for the makeup/paint but Ray makes the save. Anderson comes out for an ugly Mic Check on Sting and then leaves. Immortal beats Sting down and they call in Hogan for some big right hands. Of all people Kurt Angle makes the save. Didn’t see that one coming. Angle stares Hulk down to end the show.

Overall Rating: B-. Another good show tonight as they’re on a hot streak at the moment. I’m really not sure what that says because this streak has been going on since they stopped the majority of their regular stuff and brought in a bunch of guys that haven’t been around in awhile. Definitely an entertaining show though with some decent matches and advancement of the angles. Not great but by Impact standards I was well pleased.