Against All Odds 2011
Date: February 13, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz

Well we’ve arrived at this show.  It doesn’t look terrible but at the same time it looks completely lackluster.  It’s more or less a rehash of Genesis that had a single night to prep for it due to the huge hype surrounding 2/3.  Either way this isn’t a show I’m particularly looking forward to.  That being said it’s still a PPV with a world title match.  Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about how awesome Immortal is and how much trouble Anderson is in tonight.  Basic but pretty well done.

The announcers remind us of the card that we’ve ordered already.

Robbie E comes out and says that tonight he’s not wrestling due to Gen Me not being here due to reasons of being scared of him.  He makes the referee count and he’s officially the #1 contender.  There’s a title match later tonight apparently.  Kaz stops them as they leave (they being Robbie and Cookie) and hits them with basic insults.  The match is RIGHT NOW!

X-Division Title: Robbie E vs. Kazarian

Kaz starts off hot and stomps on the hand of Cookie while she complains.  Robbie is knocked to the floor and Kaz gets set on the top rope.  In our first hokey smoke bump of the night, Robbie trips him up and he slams his face into the steps.  FREAKING OW MAN!!!  Robbie gets a boot up into the face of a charging Kaz to take over.  Falling fist gets two.

We actually get a let’s go Kaz chant.  Ah there’s a Robbie Sucks chant.  That helps a bit.  Not quite Rocky Sucks but it’s not bad.  Robbie wastes time though and gets caught by a springboard dropkick to put him down.  More dropkicks by Kaz as he takes over almost completely.  Spinning springboard legdrop gets two.

Kaz tries the reverse Piledriver but gets it reversed.  Robbie’s neckbreaker is reversed as well.  O’Connor Roll is blocked and Cookie gets a purse (I think) to the head of Kaz for a VERY close two.  Robbie tries to vault over Kaz in the corner but gets caught in the reverse tombstone (FINALLY gets a name with Fade to Black) for the pin to retain.

Rating: C+. This was fine but it’s the same X match we’ve seen a dozen times and it’ll be forgotten in about 40 minutes.  The division is completely nondescript at the moment with nothing standing out at all.  Still though, this wasn’t terrible and was even kind of fun at times.  Decent opener but it’s kind of sad that X Title has fallen so far.

Steiner and Beer Money talk about their match.  Steiner is his usual insane self and is completely hilarious with his stuttering.  Now he’s walking around like a Frankenstein Monster.  Storm starts a You Suck chant.

AJ comes out for commentary.

Gunner/Murphy/Rob Terry vs. Beer Money/Scott Steiner

This should be good.  We have Rob Terry vs. Scott Steiner.  That alone should sell the PPV.  Steiner’s muscles are scary.  Flair is going to be on Impact Thursday.  The fans chant Scotty.  He and Gunner start us off.  I can’t remember which is Gunner and which is Murphy so having Tazz tell us helps.  Murphy tries a leapfrog but gets caught in a belly to belly.

And now it’s Freak vs. Freak.  This should be awesome in various ways.  Steiner says pose, Beer Money distracts, Steiner hits a low blow which shouldn’t hurt due to the size of Terry’s testicles.  There are the pushups.  Off to Gunner vs. Storm now with the weather related guy doing better in this encounter.  He skins the cat and hits some clotheslines followed by a backdrop.

All Fourtune/Steroid dealer job insurance at the moment.  Terry interferes and here comes Goon #1.  We get an inset shot of AJ because I guess the wrestling isn’t important enough to look at?  Terry throws Storm around for a bit and a slam gets two.  Backstabber out of nowhere and it’s off to no one as Terry blocks the tag.  And so much for that as it’s off to Roode.

Roode misses a jumping forearm or there was miscommunication or something.  Gunner and Roode are the only ones off the floor.  Neckbreaker gets two for Roode.  Spinning Rock Bottom gets two as Murphy saves.  Beer Money both in now and they clean house.  We get the signature taunt and Terry thankfully takes out Storm who didn’t look at his opponents for about 40 seconds.  Roode hits spinebusters all around and it’s off to Steiner.  With Gunner on the top, Steiner busts out the Frankensteiner to end this.

Rating: C. This was your typical six man match.  Steiner was the star of it which is fine I guess as none of the heels mean anything and Beer Money is already well established.  Either way this was ok but really nothing special as we’ve seen it all a bunch of times before.  That’s the problem so far: nothing is unique or even special.  Granted we’re 35 minutes into the show so there’s more than enough time.

D-Von says that his sons aren’t in the match tonight.  That’s probably the best thing that they could do.  Yes, somehow Bubba vs. D-Von is the better option.

We recap Pope vs. Joe which is a storyline I’ve been rather interested in.  They’re trying something new here, but I would have liked Pope to be face more than a month.  Pope was collecting money but apparently was spending it on himself.  Then he said Joe was fat.

Samoa Joe vs. D’Angelo Dinero

Joe’s cameraman’s name is now Okato.  I give up.  That Joe’s Gonna Kill You chant never gets old.  Pope’s tights say Pope’s Gonna Kill You.  We enter a stall here as I guess we’re channeling our inner Memphis.  We get a few shots and then hey it’s more stalling!  Maybe we’re in Pittsburgh.  Pope tries to walk and Okato stops him.  Pope: “This is ridiculous!”

Joe is like screw it and hits a suicide elbow to crush Pope and we’re finally going at it.  Pope tries a suplex but the power of fat stops him.  Here comes Joe with right jabs and a modified Pele.  Tazz is talking like Fonzie for some reason.  And I mean the one from Happy Days.  Face Wash time including a running one has Pope in big trouble.

The referee stops Joe and Pope gets a thumb to the eye.  A running knee to Joe’s back sends Joe to the floor.  Pope in control now as things slow way down.  There are a lot of punches and forearms here.  Tazz talks about Okato and can’t be serious with it.  Nice to see your commentators earning their pay there.  Swinging neckbreaker by Pope gets two.

Pope tries a middle rope fist but jumps into an atomic drop.  Running boot and backsplash get two as does a powerslam.  Out of nowhere Pope gets a modified GTS without Joe leaving his feet.  Cool move there.  Pope rips a turnbuckle pad off and the referee is fine with it somehow.  Joe blocks the ramming and Pope tries an O’Connor Roll.  It’s reversed into the Clutch though and I think Pope was tapping before the hold was on.

Rating: C. I think they’re going somewhere with the tapping thing but this wasn’t much of a match anyway.  It’s ok but this could have been on any TV show.  I was expecting something good here but Pope as a heel is just dull in the ring.  It’s ok but at the same time a big disappointment.  I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this show.

Post match Pope offers a handshake and kicks Joe low.  Okada (forget that other name) is put down also and Joe’s face goes into the exposed buckle.  The double knees to the back into the buckle can’t feel good.  Naturally Joe is busted.

Mickie says she’s better than Madison and that she’ll win.  I love how easy these promos are to summarize.

We recap the Knockouts’ Title feud which more or less is Mickie saying I want to win and Madison saying you want to win.  Oh and Madison has a loaded glove and it’s a Last Man Standing match.

Knockouts Title: Madison Rayne vs. Mickie James

Madison’s song is irritating as hell.  Mickie is dressed like Pocahontas for some reason.  She’s sent into the steps and the count is on.  Remember that you have to answer a ten count or you lose.  They fight up the ramp a bit with Madison in control.  Mickie gets in a shot to send Madison into the post for about five.  Taz tries to take a shot at the Divas and it doesn’t work that well.

Mickie gets a kick in and clotheslines Madison using the rope to send her to the floor for seven.  Cross body off the apron by Mickie puts both girls down.  She tries to get the loaded glove off but can’t quite get there.  And now we have a shot of the empty ring as the girls are under the ring.  Madison comes out as you can hear the crowd talking.  Ah there’s Mickie.

She morphs into karate action Mickie to put Madison down with a series of kicks.  And then with Madison down Mickie picks her up like a moron.  Back in the ring Mickie goes up and gets shoved off to the floor.  That gets a long nine which probably should have been ten.  Madison loads up the glove but Mickie gets a shot to the arm.

Thesz Press off the top puts Madison down for two.  Spinning kick puts the champion down again and Mickie steals the glove.  At about 8 Tara (called Victoria by Tazz) comes out to break it up.  Madison pulls brass knucks out of her boot and drills Mickie to keep the freaking title.  Oh dang it just give Mickie her title already!

Rating: C+. Decent match here but the ending was just so stupid.  There is ZERO justification to keep the title on Madison here and yet they’re just going to keep on doing it.  Well sure why not.  It’s not like no one cares about her or she’s nothing special in the ring or her gimmick is boring.  Good match, bad decision at the end.

Jeff Hardy says he’ll win.

Here’s Matt Morgan who calls out Hernandez.  Morgan says explain why you cost me my title shot.  Hernandez plays the freaking race card, wondering where his title shot was.  He went to Mexico to be with his people where he was treated great.  Naturally we get a Hernandez chant.  He’s tired of white America and today the minority is the majority.  This is Mexican country apparently and Morgan needs to get out.  Low blow by Hernandez sets up an FU which I guess is his new finisher.

Matt Hardy says he’s awesome but being nice never got him anywhere.  He’s Cold Blooded now.  He talks about being punished for Jeff leaving (talking about WWE because it’s been five minutes since we referenced them).  RVD is a stepping stoned apparently.  I thought he was stepping stoned but you get the idea.

Matt Hardy vs. Rob Van Dam

At least Matt got rid of the braids.  RVD starts with kicks but tries to roll around too much and is dropped on the top buckle.  Matt hammers away in the corner and doesn’t do much beside punches.  Van Dam tries to speed things up but can’t hit his apron moonsault as Matt trips him and his face hits the apron.  Is that our theme for this?  RVD’s face is dropped onto stuff?

On the floor now and Matt can’t suplex him onto the railing.  He gets draped over it though and there’s the spinning legdrop to the back of Hardy.  Van Dam fires some kicks but gets caught in an Orton DDT as he comes back in.  Back to the floor and RVD’s face goes into the railing.  Matt grabs a double underhook and rolls through into a body scissors and facelock.  That’s a new one.

Full nelson goes on as Matt is in control here.  There are the dueling chants because what would a match be without them?  Hardy with a Cravate to take RVD down one more time.  Back up and Matt dodges a kick to get a guillotine drop over the ropes.  Matt tries to come off the ropes but RVD gets a kick in to get us back to even.

Van Dam gets some clotheslines and a kick to set up Rolling Thunder.  Matt moves so Van Dam backflips into a moonsault for two.  Starship Pain minus the twisting gets two.  Matt gets a Side Effect out of nowhere for two.  Spin kick puts Matt down but RVD can’t get the Five Star.  Matt goes up but gets knocked down while attempting a superplex.  Instead we get a backdrop off the top.  Never seen that I don’t think.

Matt tries a moonsault which misses of course, starting a small earthquake in Florida.  Ok to be fair he’s looking a lot slimmer.  Van Dam takes the advantage and the Five Star ends it.  This was just ok but somehow might have been the match of the night so far.  What does that say about this show?

Rating: C. Another so-so match with WAY too many rest holds.  It’s just another stop on the road to RVD vs. Jeff Hardy which is just an ok sounding match.  Either way this wasn’t much with Matt not being interesting at all and not being a threat to RVD on a level playing field.  We’re 92 minutes into this show now and we haven’t gotten a good match yet.  We’ve had some ok ones, but nothing I’ll remember in 3 days.  That’s really bad.

Christy tries to get a reaction from Bully Ray.  Instead he yells at her and makes her cry then….licks her ear?  Anyway he says that he wants to make men out of D-Von’s boys.  There has to be a Disney song in there somewhere.  Ray makes more weird lines about D-Von and the kids.  He wants to beat the kids.

We recap the Dudleys exploding.  Basically Ray is a bully and attacked D-Von’s kids to set this up.

Bully Ray vs. D-Von

This is a street fight and D-Von’s kids will NOT be involved.  I’ll believe that when I don’t see it I guess.  Bubba hides before D-Von comes out so he can jump him.  Ray has the chain but D-Von turns around and the fight is on.  All D-Von to start but Bubba gets some punches in.  D-Von hits him in the head with a beverage to break the momentum though and we continue the brawl.

We get the kendo stick as it’s all D-Von now.  Ray tries to beg and slaps D-Von.  This isn’t interesting in the slightest mind you but it’s not horrible.  With D-Von completely in control his kids come out.  He tells them to go and gets drilled by a chair.  Bubba spits on them and sets up for the Pillmanizing of the neck again.  The kids get in the ring to stop it as Bubba threatens them with the chain.

D-Von makes the save and beats up Ray.  He goes to backdrop the fat white guy and Bubba shouts OH CRAP!  The kids beat up Bubba a bit and help D-Von out with What’s Up.  DAD!  GET THE TABLES!  I kid you not, that just actually happened.  Here’s the table but Bubba gets a low blow in.  And now we enter the bondage segment of the show with D-Von being handcuffed to the corner.

Bubba enters his bullying mode while the kids come in to try to help.  One of them gets taken down while the other fights back.  Bubba kicks him in the face and pins him to win the match.  Oh sweet goodness are you kidding me?  I had to close my eyes for a second there due to how stupid that was.  Why is it stupid?  They weren’t in the match but it counts anyway.  Well sure why not.

Rating: D. This was your standard brawl with a bad ending.  This feud isn’t interesting, it doesn’t elevate anyone and the ending was stupid as hell.  Naturally this is leading to a tables match and it’s all about the anti-bullying movement that is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER!  I’m so over this bullying kick the country is on and I can’t stand it in wrestling.  All heels are bullies but only Bubba is an official one.

Bubba keeps yelling post match and threatens to hit the kids with a chair.  Is there no like, SECURITY or something?  Ah good at least D-Von yelled for them.  Yep there’s a powerbomb through the table and bad acting from D-Von.  Naturally the fans chant for another one.  Hey, IT’S A GUY TO GET D-VON OUT!  Good thing he wasn’t here EARLIER!  They do a stretcher ride to fill in more time.  Somehow the post match stuff was the best part of the show by far.  In a funny bit the kid that got kicked in the head is completely forgotten about until D-Von throws him over his shoulder like a bag of manure.

The Jarretts say this match is personal and about their kids.

Serious Kurt says he’s tired of Jeff messing with his kids and using them as pawns.  This is coming from the man using them as a stipulation to make a paycheck.

We recap Kurt vs. the Jarretts part 93, this time about Kurt’s kids.  They’ve been feuding for like 19 years so I don’t need to recap this.

Kurt Angle vs. Jeff Jarrett

Ok.  There are two matches left and it’s 10pm.  This has been one of the least interesting shows I have ever seen but up to this point it hasn’t been atrocious.  These two matches can bring this to a passable grade.  Don’t let me down TNA.  Crowd is totally behind Angle.  Shame he has no chance at all.  The fans chant sloppy seconds because this is a serious match.

They trade headlocks to start and Kurt gives Jarrett head.  His head I mean.  Dang I need to remember those possessive pronouns.  He lets Jeff grab his head.  In a headlock I mean.  Kurt lets Jeff grab a headlock.  Ok there I think that works.  Angle grabs the arm and bends Jeff over in front of him with it.  Would these two like some alone time?

Slow build so far with Jarrett only being able to get little shots in here and there while Kurt keeps control with relative ease.  Jeff is sent to the floor where Kurt hammers away.  Karen slaps him.  I’d love if the referee called it a DQ immediately.  Kurt fires shoulders in the corner but misses a charging one to send his shoulder into the post.  Top rope cross body by Jeff is rolled through for two.

Taz: “Kurt was that close to gaining custody of his children.”  I hate wrestling sometimes.  Kurt’s arm seems to be ok as he runs into a boot in the corner.  Back and forth a bit and Kurt can’t get the ankle lock.  Rolling Germans instead gets two.  There’s the ankle lock but Jarrett rolls through.  Angle Slam hits but Karen has the referee.  It’s not like it would have mattered as that hasn’t won a big match in years.

Jeff gets a low blow during that though and there’s the Stroke for two.  Down goes the ref (surprised?) and we hit the floor where Karen rakes Kurt’s back.  Kurt is sent into the steps a few times and we go back into the ring.  Jeff brings in a chair but Kurt gets it.  The referee stops Kurt from swinging it and Jeff gets a rollup for two.  Thank goodness on that as I would have cried it that had been the ending.  Ok not really.

Kurt goes up and Karen distracts him so that Jeff can hit something resembling the Stroke from the middle rope for two.  Well of course.  It’s an amplified finisher so why would you I expect it to get a win?  Angle grabs a quick German and there go the straps.  Ankle lock goes on, Karen distracts the referee, Jeff taps, ref is with Karen, Jeff gets a chair shot for two as these kickouts are getting absurd.  Angle gets a sunset flip but Jeff drops down onto him for the pin.  Yes, that’s the ending.

Rating: B. This was a good match but Karen held it back way too much.  Also constantly hearing about the kids was just freaking stupid.  The match was good and a clean ending was a breath of fresh air, but dang man this means we have to go through early March with this stupid feud.  By far the best match of the night and they’ve had far better ones in the past so this isn’t much.

Kurt leaves his boots in the ring which is a sign of retirement.  Oh not this again.

Anderson says that the odds are against him and goes a great imitation of Jesse Ventura.  Stop making me think of stuff I’d rather be watching.  There’s a Justin Bieber reference and I quit paying attention.

Long recap video on Hardy vs. Anderson which is supposed to be the epic feud in TNA but it’s just not there.  They talk about the pre-THEY stuff, 10/10/10, the concussion, the title change and Anderson thinking the belt looks stupid.

TNA World Title: Jeff Hardy vs. Mr. Anderson

They make a point to say there are two referees at ringside.  I don’t like where this is going.  Hardy spits at him and they slug it out after the big match intros.  There are multi-colored ladders at ringside including one with Christmas colors.  Anderson is still in his shirt which likely means nothing.  The first ladder is brought in and Anderson is rammed into it by Hardy to put both guys down.

Basic ladder spots to start which are good.  Hardy dropkicks it into Anderson’s balls and Ken is in trouble.  Anderson gets a Russian Leg Sweep to Hardy onto the ladder in the corner.  Ladder #2 is brought in and Anderson goes up.  He gets brought down with a sunset bomb to half kill Anderson.  Hardy sets Anderson up in front of the ladder in front of the corner.  He misses the leapfrog legdrop though and Anderson gets back up.

Anderson charges at Hardy but gets backdropped and bounces on the ladder.  FREAKING OW MAN!  Hardy opens a ladder and stands it upside down. Anderson fights back and goes after the legs which makes sense.  Shame it doesn’t get him anywhere as he’s sent to the floor.  Jeff wants the Christmas ladder and throws it at Anderson who catches it and throws it back.

Hardy sends him into the railing and Ken may have a bad wrist.  Poetry in Motion against the railing puts them both in the crowd.  Back in now and Jeff tries the release Gordbuster onto the upside down ladder.  Instead he gets suplexed onto it with the main landing being on his leg.  Anderson does the required slow climb and gets pulled down.  Diamond Cutter is called a Twist of Hate.

Jackson James, the possibly Immortal referee, hands Jeff a ladder as per his request.  It’s the colored one as Jeff didn’t want the black one.  Anderson counters and hits the rolling fireman’s carry slam (might be called the Green Bay Plunge) onto the ladder.  Anderson goes up and tries the Kenton Bomb but misses and hits the top of his head on the ladder.  Oh dear.

Jeff climbs again but can’t get there this time either as Anderson makes the save.  They’re both on a ladder up there and the slugout is on.  Anderson is almost down but manages to make the save.  He shoves the title away and it’s swinging back and forth.  And there go the ladders so everyone is more or less dead.  It was a Mic Check and I think Hardy was supposed to pull the belt down with him but to the shock of no one, they botched it.  Hardy throws him to the floor and goes up to get the title and wins it just like that.

Rating: B. Well the majority of the match was good but the ending was so abrupt that it was ridiculous.  Also I HATE the choice here as Hardy is such a boring champion but hey we have to push this Immortal thing right?  This was good but it wasn’t enough to save the show for sure.  I’m really bummed by this ending, but at the same time at least it was a good match.  Also, is there a reason Anderson had such a short reign?

Long celebration takes us out.

Overall Rating: D. This was bad but the Angle/Jarrett and ladder matches keep it from being a failure.  Now before you jump down my throat about the match grades being ok but the overall rating being bad, think about it.  There were about two worthless hours of ok at best matches that aren’t going to mean a thing.  Nothing was any good at all until the last hour which doesn’t make a show good.  When you have two hours of dull as hell the good matches are weighed down.  Bad show that we knew would be bad and it doesn’t look like anything is going to improve soon.  Weak PPV and one of the worst I’ve seen in a long time.

Results

Kazarian b. Robbie E – Fade to Black

Scott Steiner/Beer Money b. Gunner/Murphy/Rob Terry – Frankensteiner to Gunner

Samoa Joe b. D’Angelo Dinero – Coquina Clutch

Madison Rayne b. Mickie James – James couldn’t answer the ten count after a shot from brass knuckles

Rob Van Dam b. Matt Hardy – Five Star Frog Splash

Bully Ray b. D-Von – Ray pinned one of D-Von’s sons after a big boot

Jeff Jarrett b. Kurt Angle – Jarrett reversed a sunset flip into a cradle

Jeff Hardy b. Mr. Anderson – Hardy Grabbed the Belt

Lockdown 2005
Date: April 24, 2005
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 775
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Don West

This is the first in the series and has my favorite TNA match ever on it. This is a show I’ve tried to find for a long time so this is a good treat. This was a show that was really weird when you first heard about it as every match is in the cage which was unthinkable when it was first announced. There are 8 matches here and one gets less than 14 minutes so this is a wrestling packed show. The company is still in its infancy here so the angles and a lot of the guys are going to be odd. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is a creepy version of Ring Around the Rosey which is supposed to be about the cage. Wouldn’t that be Rosey Around the Ring in this case? The narrator talks about what the cage would say if it could talk. Apparently it’s more or less a haunted house.

West and Tenay tell us about all the different kind of matches we’re having. Yes, we’re actually having a TAG TEAM match in a cage. SHOCKING!

We see Nash sitting in the back and having a staff infection which means he’s out tonight.

Apollo/Sonny Siaki vs. Chris Candido/Lance Hoyt

Hoyt is Vance Archer. Tenay tries to tell us that all of these matches are going to be main event matches because they’re all in the cage. This isn’t a main event match anywhere in the country as Gorilla would not say I guess you would say. Apollo and Siaki are teaming together because they had a match together and are friends now or something. Sounds like a bromance to me.

Candido has been pretending to be hurt lately so no one can trust him. Or they can’t trust him because he’s a heel. That’s always a possibility. Apollo and Hoyt chop it out as the two big guys in this. Apollo gets a jumping back elbow to take him down. The fans chant shut the door for some reason. Candido is helped out of the cage. He had a broken leg and would be dead in four days due to a blood clot. He was 33.

So now it’s a handicap match with Hoyt hitting a moonsault for two. That was rather impressive actually. Siaki had a good look. I’m not sure why he never really did anything outside of this company. Siaki does the running Angle suplex on Hoyt as he’s in big trouble with the faces just picking him apart now. He misses a clothesline and kind of falls down. A TKO from Apollo sets up a top rope splash from Siaki for the pin.

Rating: D+. This was weak but at the same time it’s very hard to grade it fairly given the change they had to make maybe two minutes in. It really was a shame about Candido as he did nothing wrong and still died. I know often times we use the word tragedy loosely but this actually was as it was a pure accident. Anyway, the match isn’t very good but given what they had to work with it was ok.

Post match the Naturals, Candido’s team, comes out to yell at Hoyt who hurts them for a bit before the numbers catch up with him. I’d assume this is to fill in time due to the match likely having to be cut short. This goes on for a very long time.

Dusty is with Traci and Trinity which is a thing that was always disturbing. Apparently AMW and Team Canada got into a fight before the show started and nothing of note happens from that. We get the drawing for the first guys from both (three man) teams in Lethal Lockdown and it’s Jarrett vs. Waltman to start us off.

Dustin Rhodes talks about his match with Bobby (Robert) Roode which is about Texas vs. Canada. Yes, we get it, Texas has a lot of wrestlers and they’re all cowboys. Why are they fighting other than that? Who cares, as it’s a 2/3 Falls Prince of Darkness Death Match. The part that should shock no one is that the Prince of Darkness aspect means nothing at all. Roode was the henchman of Team Canada actually which is surprising.

Bobby Roode vs. Dustin Rhodes

That rock version of O Canada is kind of awesome. Oh ok apparently if we go to the third fall it’s a blindfold match. Why? Who care apparently as we have a gimmick! Roode gets a very fast pin. Or at least we think he did as there’s no signal from the referee, no bell, no announcement or anything like that. Thanks for letting us know that guys.

Dustin wants to do Shattered Dreams but is threatened with a DQ. He does it anyway and apparently that’s just fine. Perhaps it’s because this is a cage match? Top rope suplex to Roode which is saying a lot due to how tall Dustin is. Big powerslam gets two as it’s all Dustin at this point. Dustin gets another low blow but the bulldog is blocked and here comes Roode.

Roode does the multiple covers for two and we hit the chinlock. He shifts it into the rear naked choke. How is this really different than what Joe does where it’s lethal? It’s so weird hearing Roode being talked about as the muscle of the group. Ah apparently it’s not a choke but a camel clutch style grip. That explains a few things. Dustin counters with an electric chair and both guys are down.

Dustin sends him into the door and it pops open and knocks out the cameraman. That’s rather awesome. Set for the Final Curtain or whatever it’s called but Dustin stands around for about 45 seconds which is amazingly enough enough time for Roode to counter into his clothesline to the back of Dustin’s head which gets two because his foot is on the rope. Yes you can get out of a pin in a cage match with your foot on the rope. I give up.

Roode goes for a German off the top but he’s no Kurt Angle so Dustin rams his head into the cage and hits the bulldog to tie it up. I hate that move. And now we put on hoods for absolutely no reason at all. Is there ANY explanation for this being added in? Yep this is stupid as they stumble around trying to find each other and they’ve got nothing.

They finally back into each other so Dustin grabs a headlock but Roode shoves him off. Then they take out the referee as I look for a noose to attach to my neck. D’Amore throws in a chair and then climbs in himself. Roode doesn’t get who is there so he cracks his coach with a chair. Dustin gets the chair and cracks Roode with it for the pin. Sweet goodness this was stupid.

Rating: D-. This was stupid before the hoods and then ridiculous once they went on. What in the heck was the point to that? Also we get to hear Dustin’s stupid banjo/country song twice now. Someone explain the point to this gimmick to me? Can anyone do that? I can’t find any explanation for it. Ah Russo was in charge at this point. There’s your answer.

Christopher Daniels runs down XXX and Skipper, his partner in that team. Skipper comes up to yell at him and says the time is right. That match is later of course.

Xscape Match: Matt Bentley vs. Sonjay Dutt vs. Chris Sabin vs. Shocker

I miss the HAIL SABIN thing. The idea here is you have to get rid of two guys by traditional means and then get out of the cage once it’s one on one. This isn’t for anything apparently. Shocker is a luchador. Dang they have to tag in this. Does anyone think these things through? Sabin and Dutt give us a gymnastic routine to start which gets a well rounded golf clap.

Dutt was insane to watch. He wasn’t particularly good but he was fun to watch. Tenay tries to tell us that this is the tallest cage in wrestling. They’ve never been to an OVW cage match. That this is taller than the Cell. Dutt and Shocker double team Bentley. He never was very good but he’s Shawn Michaels cousin so there you go. Dutt is bleeding from the elbow. Bentley beats him up for a bit. Thankfully the Bentley Bounce isn’t part of this match.

More gymnastics from Dutt who brings in Sabin again. This is a spotfest if I’ve ever seen one. There’s no flow or anything to it as they just move from spot to spot. Not saying it’s bad mind you, but it’s just kind of all over the place. West: the wall of the steel cage is like a wall of steel. Somehow he’s still better than Tazz. Shocker comes back in and gets a cradle on Bentley for two.

Bentley gets a reverse Tarantula on Shocker, as in his legs are wrapped around Shocker’s head and he’s grabbing Shocker’s feet while their backs are facing each other. Dutt comes in to put a chinlock on Bentley so Sabin comes in to put a Boston Crab on Dutt. Cool looking spot but it’s not like it gets us anywhere as they break it in a few seconds.

Sabin hits a BIG running powerbomb on Dutt but Shocker saves for no apparent reason. Bentley sends Dutt into the cage but Shocker cleans house and hits a corkscrew elbow to get rid of Dutt. Shocker vs. Bentley now with Shocker going up but getting hit by a Northern Lights Suplex off the top for two.

Trinity, the chick there with Bentley, comes up to help him so Traci comes out to stop her. And so much for that as she gets shoved off and hurts her ankle. Trinity goes to the top of the cage and hits a BIG moonsault off the top to take out all three guys. Traci comes in again and AGAIN gets shoved out. Sabin gets Cradle Shock on Bentley to get us down to one on one.

Ok so now it’s an escape match. They both get crotched on the top rope and we’re both down. And then they both climb at the same time and fight on top of the cage before both drop down but Shocker hits first. I’d love someone to just jump off the top and run through the door instead of climbing down like that one time. Kind of a weak ending.

Rating: C+. Pretty fun match here but the ending and the tagging hurt it a good deal. That moonsault from Trinity was pretty freaking awesome though and I’m surprised it’s not on more highlight reels. It’s a shame this wasn’t like, for something other than bragging rights I guess. Not bad and I’ve never gotten why Shocker just kind of left as he was pretty good.

We’re told Candido’s leg was broken and we see clips of it. Naturally no one knew what would come of this so it’s not like they were exploiting it.

We recap Hardy vs. Raven which the idea was Raven wanted to hook up with Hardy or something and Hardy said no because he wrestled for his fans (who never got him anything but three WWE Titles and his job in TNA once he left WWE). Raven didn’t like him saying no so he hit him with a garbage can. That sounds like a recipe for a tables match if I’ve ever heard one.

Jeff Hardy vs. Raven

Tables match here because it needed a gimmick clearly. Hardy doesn’t get that apparently and comes out with chairs. TNA supplied the tables I guess since there’s at least one in there when we start. Hardy has been reborn apparently. Wow that happens to him a lot. I love that hole in the cage that TNA uses as it’s a really unique look for cage matches. Raven in control here with pretty basic stuff.

Hardy has some red/pink paint on his skin so it looks like he’s covered in blood. Raven gets the DDT and puts Hardy against a table in the corner. He misses his shoulder into it though so Jeff hasn’t won yet. At least they covered that earlier on. This is getting rather boring rather quickly. Raven is bleeding and it’s pretty bad after a bit. Raven goes up for what looks like the Stroke off the top but they just pretty much jump off the top with no contact at all.

Some New York Mets are here. Twist of Fate by Hardy and now it’s table time again. He’s a rock and roll star now too apparently. Raven is put on the table and Jeff goes all the way up to the top of the cage and takes forever to get there, meaning Raven of course gets out of the way for the big bump. Trinity’s was better. We waste a bit of time with Raven taking control and then Jeff fighting back.

Hardy tries to open Raven up a bit more and then hits him in the back. And there’s a low blow to take care of that offensive streak. Something TNA didn’t get back in the day: long matches don’t mean good matches. Jeff does Raven’s drop toehold to Raven which he isn’t the best at selling. He climbs out for no apparent reason and Raven shoves the door open to crotch Jeff on it.

Apparently when Jeff gets bored he climbs out of cages. It makes as much sense as anything else I suppose. Jeff jumps off as apparently drugs make you be able to no sell low blows and jumps into a boot. There are pieces of at least four tables in there. Think that’s enough? Actually make that six plus two chairs. Raven sets up two double stacks of tables and then climbs up like an idiot. Jeff knocks him onto them and hits a leg drop off the top to “drive” Raven through them but the lack of room and the high amount of tables made it look like it was in slow motion.

Rating: D. Did ANYONE want to see Raven vs. Jeff in a 15 minute tables match in a cage? Have you ever seen a one fall fifteen minute tables match? Just WAY too long here with Raven being boring for the most part and Jeff just wanting to jump off high things and no sell metal pipes hitting his balls. I fail to see the point here for the most part and this just didn’t do it for me in the slightest. What reason was there for this to be a tables match? Someone explain that to me please. I’d like a reason.

We recap the tag title match which is AMW vs. Team Canada. AMW is the original great tag team in TNA and basically this feud has been going on forever because Team Canada wants the titles.

We recap the Hardy vs. Raven match a bit first because they have to clear the ring.

Tag Titles: America’s Most Wanted vs. Team Canada

This is a strap match and Team Canada is Petey Williams and Eric Young. AMW made this a strap match earlier today so no one got to hear about it. I wonder if that was intentional. Young is just a generic heel here that was only a bit nuts but not quite. More eccentric than anything else. AMW is James Storm and Chris “Braden Walker” Harris. They were awesome and I want one of their trench coats.

AMW are cage veterans after the EPIC cage match they had with XXX which I’ll have to get to soon. Harris and Williams fight on the floor while Young tries to get out but Storm beats the tar out of him up on top. They crotch Young on top and ram his legs into the cage. A-1, the Canadian muscle dude, hits Harris with the belt so he’s stuck on the floor. He gets Storm with it too so the champions are in trouble.

With Harris outside the idiot security guard locks the cage. Does no one pay attention in this company? A-1 keeps beating up Harris on the floor which is fine apparently. Young is a daredevil apparently. He’s still annoying. The Canadians beat up Storm in the ring as we’re just waiting on Harris to make the Superman comeback and get in. Storm is bleeding.

About three fans try to get a let’s go cowboy (Storm’s nickname at the time) chant going and it’s just sad. A-1, back COVERED in acne, sends Harris into the table. Williams and Young get the American flag off the top of the cage and use it to choke Storm before the referee gets it away. Well that was pointless. Storm makes a brief comeback as Harris knocks A-1 into the railing. And so much for that as Young knocks Harris down off the cage and into the railing.

Storm just goes OFF on Young with the strap but walks into a tornado DDT from Williams for two. There’s a you F’D up chant about something but it’s not really clear what. Harris takes A-1 down again before trying to get in for like the 7th time. FINALLY he gets in and takes out Team Canada with a double clothesline that doesn’t hit Young at all but who cares?

This is an actual 2-2 match about ten minutes in. We get it to even or so before the fans chant TURKEY LEGS at something. Williams goes for a Sharpshooter as Young adds an elbow off the top which breaks up the Sharpshooter but only gets two. Young broke up Williams’ Sharpshooter if you missed that as it was a bit odd. Canadian Destroyer is broken up by a Harris spear for two.

Death Sentence (Trash Compactor) misses and A-1 slips the flag/hockey stick in through the camera hole and a shot from that to Harris gets two. When that doesn’t work A-1 slips some powder to Williams but it’s kicked back into his face. He can’t see so he low blows Young and hits the Destroyer on him. A Death Sentence to Williams ends this seconds later.

Rating: B-. Pretty good stuff here with AMW being on defense for the vast majority of the time but eventually winning when they, the champions, were united. Also the whole cheating backfiring thing worked very well too with the evil Canadians trying one time too many to cheat and it catching up with them. AMW was awesome but they had no competition which is what caught up with them eventually.

We recap Skipper vs. Daniels. They lost a match at Turning Point (which the video package gets wrong, saying it was in 2002 when it was 2004) meaning they couldn’t team together again. This led to a fatal fourway at Destination X where Daniels turned on Skipper and pinning him to get the title, setting this up. The voiceover guy is way too upbeat.

X-Division Title: Christopher Daniels vs. Elix Skipper

Let’s see if Daniels can have a match that doesn’t bore me to death. I know he’s like the king of the Indies or whatever but he just bores me to death for the most part other than when he’s fighting Joe or AJ. Feeling out process to start with no one being able to get an advantage. Both finishers are blocked early with a lot of takedowns and nice mat work, especially by Skipper who I’ve always liked a bit.

Can we do something other than a gymnastics competition? There were four attempts at leapfrogs which no one went under so they were just running and jumping. Daniels chops away but walks into a butterfly suplex to give Skipper something of an advantage. Daniels sends him into the cage to reverse that though as we’re almost five minutes in and it’s still little more than feeling out.

This works actually as they were talking about how they knew each other so well before the match so the counters and no one being able to get an extended advantage works. Skipper’s arm is hurt after going into the cage and we have some psychology coming into play. This goes on for a good while as Daniels pounds on it with basic moves for a good while.

An armdrag from the middle rope takes down Skipper again and more arm work follows. By that I mean about five minutes straight at this point. A one arm spinebuster gets Skipper some relief. The announcers are talking about Skipper’s cage walk being listed as the #1 cage match moment in TNA history. Yes apparently there’s a list of cage match moments for a company less than three years old.

Skipper hits a guillotine leg drop off the top to get two. He goes for something that looked like Orton’s backbreaker but the shoulder gives out. Best Moonsault Ever gets two so he goes all the way to the top for I’d assume another one but Skipper gets up to crotch him. He teases the cage walk again but Daniels gets down. Skipper is like screw it and jumps off the top to hit Daniels but takes out the referee too for just a bit. He goes for Sudden Death but his shoulder gives out and Angels Wings (a lifting sitout Pedigree) ends it.

Rating: B. Fun stuff here again with basically a mat based and technical match that happened to be in a cage. This of course begs the question of why was this in a cage. There was no point to having this in there as it would have been more or less the same match without it. Then again why am I looking for logic in a company like this? The match was good though with the psychology playing in throughout the whole match which is the best it’s going to get.

Dusty lets us know the next guy in the Lethal Lockdown match. There are six total so there won’t be a coin toss apparently. In third is….censored, but if you can read lips you can see he says The Outlaw.

We recap Lethal Lockdown which is WarGames light at this point. It’s only three on three here with the main feud being DDP vs. Jarrett who is world champion here. They keep censoring the word Outlaw on this which might be a DVD thing or something. We know who he is already so it’s kind of odd. Maybe a copyright thing. The other guys are Sean Waltman (X-Pac) and Nash (injured remember) with Page and Outlaw (censored) and Monty Brown. Outlaw’s name is censored again and it’s blurred out on the graphic but his face is shown. Very odd indeed.

Lethal Lockdown: Team Page vs. Team Jarrett

You can bring your own weapons and it’s five minutes to start. Waltman vs. Jarrett to start. Waltman is in street clothes and brings a trash can. I guess he brought his home with him and sold his gear for crack. Jarrett is in street clothes too. Please do not call this a bunkhouse match. He has his own trash can full of weapons too. They fight in the aisle to start.

They’re in the crowd now as the cage sits empty. That’s rather unfair to it. I bet it’s lonely. They fight in the crowd and there’s no camera so we can’t see anything. This is already making my head hurt. And now they separate for awhile as the clock for the five minutes continues to count down. On the announce table now with Jarrett getting destroyed. Blast it there’s a bullrope and cowbell. WHAT IS WRESTLING’S OBSESSION WITH THOSE THINGS???

A chair shot misses Jarrett and after three minutes we’re finally in the cage. Basic cage offense follows with Waltman in control. Bronco Buster misses and both guys are down with forty seconds left. Waltman takes him down as Kip James (not called Outlaw here) is in third. He’s on Team Jarrett and they have a two minute advantage now. What is with the street clothes here?

They spend the vast majority of these two minutes walking around with the occasional stomp coming. DDP comes in and pulls the Singapore cane out like Leonardo pulling out a sword, thereby making him awesome. Things pick up a bit but we’re just killing time here. Monty Brown comes in with DDP controlling for the most part. That’s the last heel to come in.

Brown has a bat and of course a shot to the back of Page doesn’t injure him severely. Jarrett breaks the cane over the back of Page which he still gets up from. The cameraman decides a shot of Jarrett’s legs is more important than whatever the other guys are doing. The final guy is BG James (Road Dogg, who is part of a rap stable with Konnan and R-Truth at this point).

BG hits the referee and we get the showdown between the Outlaws (censored) and it goes nowhere. Bronco Buster to Jarrett. Brown Pounces everyone but Page breaks up the pin. This is more or less just a glorified six man hardcore match. Diamond Cutter to Jarrett gets two as he makes sure to shift over so that Kip can break it up. Waltman and Brown do an awful looking sequence so then they do it again so that Waltman can get the pin.

Rating: D+. Just ok at best here with nothing of note going on. Page’s team wins and the feud more or less went nowhere after this. This was more or less absolutely nothing with too few people, nothing special in terms of violence and just dull overall. Waltman won on a victory roll of all things. A violent match won with a victory roll. Let that sink in a bit.

A bit more brawling goes on afterwards and the Outlaws stare at each other a bit.

We recap the main event. Basically Abyss had been a monster jerk and AJ stood up to him. The match is for the #1 contendership and gets Jarrett at Hard Justice. One of the earliest memories I have of TNA is this brawl they had on Impact where Abyss destroyed him.

Abyss vs. AJ Styles

For the few of you that might be wondering, this is my favorite TNA match ever. AJ is YOUNG looking here which is saying a lot as he’s still young today but here he looks like he’s about 19. He’s a two time world champion here though which is never mentioned anymore for no apparent reason. Abyss is listed at 350lbs here again but he’s a LOT slimmer looking here.

He still has the chains here which were a nice touch for him. I have no idea why but they are. AJ dives through the door to take down Abyss before he gets in. Abyss tries to whip him into the railing but AJ baseball slides UNDERNEATH the railing and jumps up onto it and hits a rana to take down Abyss. That was freaking awesome and happened inside of five seconds.

All AJ to start as we’re still on the floor. Abyss had more or less been unstoppable recently since splitting from his stablemate Alex Shelley (let that sink in for a bit) so this is a major showdown and seeing Abyss reeling is odd to see. Abyss fights him back and whips him into the railing again so this time AJ channels his inner Morrison and double jumps up to a platform into the crowd, spins around and jumps over FIVE ROWS of fans to his the forearm on Abyss. This is one of the most awesome performances I’ve ever seen and we’re maybe three minutes into this.

AJ dives at Abyss on the railing ala Sting but instead of crashing into it clears the railing by a good foot and hits the ground in the crowd. Abyss pounds on him a bit but AJ just kicks the tar out of him to escape for a bit. West talks about Kenny Chesney for absolutely no apparent reason.

They open the door of the cage after about six minutes of brawling. The difference between this and the stupid stuff before: this was INCREDIBLY entertaining and the fans were way into it as opposed to Jarrett and Waltman walking around and occasionally hitting each other with something. AJ and Abyss never stopped moving and the fans were into it because of it. The difference here: hard work works better than walking around hitting each other with weapons.

AJ punches Abyss HARD but gets the cage door slammed into his arm and then his face where he snaps down to the floor. It looked like he got hit by a bus or something as fast as he hit the ground. Great selling there. AJ is busted open and Abyss pounds away even more. AJ finally in the cage now as Abyss looks under the ring for the bag of tacks. About eight and a half minutes in they’re in the cage together.

Abyss chokes him with the chain and we play tug of war. AJ simply will not quit and keeps hammering away to no avail though. With the chain on the top turnbuckle, Abyss launches AJ over his head in kind of a forced leapfrog and his head slams into the chain. The fans think this is awesome and for once they’re right. They stop for a bit for the a neck crank and AJ sells the heck out of it too.

AJ charges again but Abyss grabs him in a gorilla press and LAUNCHES him up to just let him crash down. He tries it again but AJ counters into a DDT onto the chain. Two punches and an enziguri takes Abyss down as does a headscissors. AJ hits a moonsault press but Abyss just lets him bounce off which was cool looking. AJ sends him into a chair into the corner that Abyss set up and gets a German suplex for two that looked good.

He goes for the Styles Clash but Abyss is way too big for that. Chokeslam is countered into a rollup for two. AJ gets another running start but walks into the Black Hole Slam for a VERY long two. Dang Abyss looks awesome (what am I saying?) when he really uncorks that thing. Yep there are the tacks. Black Hole Slam into them are countered as is a powerbomb.

AJ gets the Styles Clash (ok more like a falling face first slam but we’ll give it to him) into the tacks for two. Wow I would have bet on that being the ending. You know if I didn’t know the ending already. Abyss is ROCKED here which was unthinkable until this match. AJ goes to the top of the cage and Abyss can’t catch him. His solution: throw the referee at the cage to knock AJ off. That was awesome.

Abyss climbs up as AJ is barely hanging on. He goes up with the chain and might be thinking to hang him as he had on Impact. Yep that’s what he’s going for. AJ is on the outside and Abyss on the inside and yep he’s hanging him. AJ gets the chain off somehow and Abyss grabs the chokeslam. AJ bites his fingers and opens those thing up! AJ jumps off the top of the cage and hits a freaking sunset flip powerbomb onto the tacks from the top of the cage to get the pin as Abyss is DEAD.

Rating: A+. OH YES! AJ was absolutely amazing here and it was definitely Abyss’ best match ever. This was just a total war for twenty minutes with AJ never stopping and taking it to Abyss much like Flair did back at Starrcade 93 to Vader. There was no gimmick here as it was just a big old fight in a cage with weapons brought in for fun. AJ would get the title the next month….and then lose it to Raven the next month because the world was clamoring for more Raven and less AJ. Uh…sure. He wouldn’t get it back for over four years.

Overall Rating: B. If you cut off about an hour of this show (as in three of the first four matches or so) this is an awesome show. The first two matches were pretty bad, the third was decent, Hardy vs. Raven got fifteen minutes which was just ridiculous and then the rest other than maybe Lethal Lockdown was very good. The early days of this company’s PPV era were very hit or miss and this one was a hit for the most part but for the most part this worked. Fun show but VERY dragging so I’d recommend a fast forward button here.a

Impact
Date: February 10, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz
Episode Title: Don’t Be Roode

It’s a new era for TNA as we have Fourtune now as faces, leading the TNA charge against Immortal.  With AJ as arguably top face again, things are looking a bit more familiar around the Impact Zone this week.  We’re a mere four days away from Against All Odds and there aren’t many matches announced on TV yet.  I’d expect to find out what else is coming tonight though.  Let’s get to it.

We open with a clip of Jarrett on a radio show talking about the Kurt Angle situation.  There are also some clips of Angle watching Jarrett at a house show.  We then shift over to Fourtune being revealed as THEY.  Roode has something to say tonight.

Immortal comes out to open the show.  No Flair again as I guess he’s either being held off TV or is out due to his shoulder injury.  Immortal looks a bit dressed down this week other than Jeff Jarrett and Karen.  Eric says that Immortal won’t miss a beat after last week.  He’s not going to give up power because for 15 years he’s made stars, built companies and changed the industry.  Bischoff just said he made stars.  Ok I regained my composure.  Almost died of laughter there.

Bischoff runs down Fourtune and says how worthless they are.  He hands the mic over to Jeff Jarrett who calls out Fourtune.  The fans chant for AJ.  Jarrett (when I say Jarrett I mean Jeff.  I’ll refer to Karen as Karen for clarification) says he gave all 4 of these guys a job 9 years ago.  Jarrett gets in their faces again but Roode grabs the mic from him.

Roode says that Fourtune is the backbone of the company and that they all had chances to go away for more money or better opportunities, but they were the ones that have stood by TNA.  They’ll continue to rise to the top no matter what Immortal wants to do.  He says for Jarrett to do something about it if he doesn’t like it and the brawl is on.  Good promo from Roode who I’ve never seen the superstar in him that is supposed to be there.  Angle, Crimson and Steiner run out to even the odds as Immortal runs.

Angle and Jarrett sign their contract tonight.

The world title is on the line as Anderson defends against Morgan.  The winner gets Jeff Hardy in a ladder match for the title on Sunday.  Well at least they announced the PPV main event.

Velvet and Winter are arguing in the back until Angelina breaks them up and has an official introduction.  They argue more and Angelina is frustrated as we take a break.

Back with Eric offering the returning Hernandez a spot in Immortal which he accepts.

Matt Hardy/Bully Ray/D’Angelo Dinero vs. D-Von/Samoa Joe/Rob Van Dam

This is a tables match.  These guys all have singles matches at the PPV which I think you can figure out.  Joe chases Pope out of the arena to start.  I think this is one table to a finish.  Van Dam vs. Matt in the ring as he hits Rolling Thunder.  D-Von beats up Bubba on the floor.  The Dudleys are in the ring now with Bubba hitting D-Von low.  Bubba gets a table set up but yells at D-Von’s kids.  They jump the rail and detain him, allowing D-Von to knock Bubba through the table for the win at 3:15.

Rating: C-. This was a total mess to say the least, but they got the right idea at least of having the three singles matches get pushed at the same time.  The Pope and Joe were out there maybe 4 seconds total, but the other matches got some camera time at least.  I’m a fan of this kind of booking, but this was too insane to really get much out of it.

The Angles have a surprise for Kurt.

Back with the Jarretts in the ring, flanked by security.  Karen says they have a hectic schedule but their perfect family works well enough to pull it off.  Here comes Kurt for the contract signing.  Karen says they need to get along for the sake of their kids while patronizing him terribly.  Kurt says let’s get this over with.  Jarrett says that there was no need for the violence at Genesis.

Jarrett says he’s going to raise the stakes.  If Kurt wins, he gets sole custody of Kurt’s two kids.  Three weeks from tonight however, the Jarretts are renewing their wedding vows.  If Jarrett wins, Kurt has to give Karen away on March 3^rd (three weeks from tonight).  Yes, they’re actually having a match for the custody of kids.  And yes I know WWE did it.  It was stupid then and it’s stupid now.  The contract is signed with no issues for perhaps the first time ever in professional wrestling.

Sarita/Rosita/Tara/Madison Rayne vs. Velvet Sky/Winter/Angelina Love/Mickie James

Winter tries to slide between Angelina’s legs like Velvet and almost knocks her over.  Then she blocks Velvet’s entrance.  Ah there it is.  Angelina vs. Sarita to start us off.  Rolling cradle into a sunset flip gets two for Love immediately.  The world title match is next apparently.  Top rope cross body gets two on Sarita but Rosita trips Angelina up before coming in.

Sarita back in as she and Rosita have decent chemistry.  Rosita is pretty tiny.  They’ve been the only members of their team in so far as it’s back to Rosita.  Angelina gets a front slam (World’s Strongest Slam) to break the momentum and it’s off to Velvet.  Winter gets mad at her for coming in and Rosita drills her.  More cousin double teaming results in Rosita hitting a moonsault for the pin on Velvet at 3:00.

Rating: C+. This was probably too short to grade but the chemistry between the cousins was impressive.  I would have liked more than half the girls to be in the match as this really should have been a tag match with Winter outside, but I get what they were going for here I guess.  The cousins carried this and I’d like to see more of them in the future.

Mickie wants to fight Madison right now as we go to a break.

Back with Mickie saying she wants to fight now.  Madison says that Mickie came here to prove that she’s the best in the world.  Madison says that Mickie talks a good game but can’t walk the walk.  She says she’ll see Mickie at Against All Odds.  This was kind of abrupt.

Jeff Hardy says it doesn’t matter who he faces at the ladder match as it’s his element.

World title match is next.

Angle goes into Fourtune’s locker room and tells Roode and AJ to hurt Jeff Jarrett tonight.  Angle says he wishes it were him tonight and Roode volunteers to put himself in there.  The pop for that makes it hard to hear the promo.  Listen to that TNA.

TNA World Title: Matt Morgan vs. Mr. Anderson

After Anderson’s usual introduction, here’s Hardy with a personalized ladder.  Hardy sits on top of it as we get started.  They feel each other out a lot to start with Morgan overpowering Anderson.  Side slam gets two.  Anderson grabs a rollup for one and Morgan gets a clothesline for two.  Anderson speeds things up and takes over.  That was some nice stuff from him there.

Mic Check is avoided as is the Carbon Footprint.  Anderson gets a middle rope clothesline for two.  Morgan is on the apron and snaps Anderson’s neck across the top and the champion goes flying into the referee.  Hernandez runs in through the crowd and beats down Morgan, allowing Anderson to get the easy pin at 5:40.  Anderson didn’t see Hernandez’s beatdown.

Rating: C-. Not a bad match here but it was pretty clear they were going through the motions.  I like the title being on the line on TV though as it makes things seem important.  Even a match like this where there was little doubt as to who would win is a good thing as you want to watch because you might see something important.  Smart TV there.

Post match Hernandez and Hardy beat down Anderson.  Hardy poses with the belt as we take a break.

Ray says that D-Von’s sons are bastards and they’re in over their heads.  He issues a challenge to D-Von to bring his sons to Against All Odds for a 3-1 street fight.  Oh dear.  His kids are teenagers if you’re curious.

Brian Kendrick vs. Robbie E vs. Suicide

The winner is in the triple threat at Against All Odds against Generation Me of which the winner will get the shot at Kaz.  Robbie E isn’t happy as he got robbed of his title.  Tonight is the road to regaining his bling.  Robbie jumps Suicide to start as Kendrick is rocking back and forth on the mat meditating or something.  Suicide takes over on Robbie but is sent over the top to the floor.

Kendrick pops up and goes off on Robbie while still in his cloak for lack of a better term.  In comes Suicide again and Kendrick accidentally nails him.  Suicide gets up and takes down both guys, knocking them into the corners.  Suicide takes down Kendrick with the Suicide Solution (kind of a weird belly to back suplex/Angle Slam combination) but Cookie distracts, allowing Robbie to knock him to the floor and steals the pin to advance to Against All Odds at 2:55.  No rating as it was too short, but this was the weakest of these matches.

Eliminate the Hate ad.

Ink Inc says that they’re unique and that they give it their all in the ring.  Just a quick 30 second promo but this was perhaps the first or second time we’ve heard these guys talk about themselves.  This is the kind of thing TNA needs to do more of with some of their lesser established characters.

Gunner/Murphy/Rob Terry vs. Steiner/Beer Money at the PPV.  We also run down the rest of the card.

D-Von says his boys will be in the match.  From a kayfabe perspective, I don’t get why D-Von would do this to someone that has no issue hurting them.  Isn’t he just putting them in danger?  Not criticizing it, just not really getting it.

Jeff Jarrett/Jeff Hardy vs. AJ Styles/Kurt Angle

Angle has a big smile on his face on the way to the ring.  We take a break before the bell.  Jarrett vs. AJ to start but Kurt is tagged in almost immediately.  Let the stalling begin.  You can always tell a guy that cut his teeth in Memphis.  They can stall like few others.  Angle and Hardy start us off proper here.  Angle gets the belly to belly for two.  Taz says he’s wrestled both of these men before.  He needs to say things like that more often as unless you started watching before about 2002, there’s a chance you might not know he was a wrestler.

Off to AJ vs. Hardy for a bit before Jarrett comes in to beat down AJ.  Jarrett keeps running from Angle and it’s Hardy vs. Kurt again.  Hardy hooks a chinlock on Angle for a bit and takes him down with a back elbow.  In true heel fashion we get Angle vs. Jarrett when Angle is beaten down.  Karen yells at Kurt a lot but Jeff misses an enziguri and it’s ankle lock time.  Hardy saves and is in now legally I guess.

Hardy puts on a chinlock/choke to Angle as we take a break.  Back with more Hardy beating on Angle.  It seems that they’re protecting AJ which makes sense as he might not be back to full speed yet.  Angle gets the running belly to belly off the top and both guys are down.  Hot tag to AJ who cleans house.  Angle wants the Slam on Jarrett but Jarrett escapes.  Kurt goes after Karen and the distraction allows AJ to hit the springboard forearm (love that move) for the pin at 14:26.

Rating: C+. This was a main event tag match and it worked for the most part.  Jarrett running from Angle was a nice touch as that was the focal point of the match.  This wasn’t a great match or anything but it did the job it was supposed to do.  Fun main event tag and a good way to end the show.

The Jeffs beat down Angle and AJ until Fourtune makes the save.  Immortal comes down for the second save and controls for a bit.  RVD comes out for save #3 but Matt gets a shot to the knee.  Here comes Anderson for the final save to take down Immortal to end the show.

Overall Rating: C+. This was a hard one to grade.  Due to having everything come together last week, this was more or less 2-3 weeks worth of build in one show for the PPV.  That being said, they got the matches announced and for the most part they work.  A lot of it is a rehash of Genesis, but that’s the best they’ve got right now.  It seems the main event picture is shaky to say the least as no real challenger for Anderson is there other than Hardy who doesn’t seem like a threat at all.  Either way, I thought they did the best they could with what they had.  I liked this for some reason despite some very stupid stuff on it.

Results

D-Von/Samoa Joe/Rob Van Dam b. D’Angelo Dinero/Bully Ray/Matt Hardy – D-Von put Ray through a table

Sarita/Rosita/Tara/Madison Rayne b. Velvet Sky/Winter/Angelina Love/Mickie James – Moonsault to Sky

Mr. Anderson b. Matt Morgan – Pin after Hernandez attacked Morgan

Robbie E. b. Suicide and Brian Kendrick – Pin after a Suicide Solution to Kendrick

AJ Styles/Kurt Angle b. Jeff Hardy/Jeff Jarrett – Springboard forearm to Jarrett

Against All Odds 2010
Date: February 14, 2010
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Tazz, Mike Tenay

Well we’re a month and a half into the Hogan regime and things are looking better from a wrestling perspective but from a ratings perspective not so much. Anyway, tonight we have Joe vs. Styles and a one night tournament for the title shot at Lockdown, which isn’t for another two months but whatever. I fail to see where the card game aspect comes from also but whatever, The tournament is intriguing looking so let’s get to it.

Here are the brackets.

Pope
Desmond Wolfe

Hernandez
Matt Morgan

Kurt Angle
Mr. Anderson

Abyss
Mick Foley

We open with Flair storming in and he’s ticked because Bischoff is the referee. Ok then. Flair stumbles over his words a lot. Does anyone buy Flair as a 60 year old man being physically intimidating?

The opening video is about the tournament and how winning it is the ultimate prize. I thought that would be the world title but whatever. Oh and we hear about the world title match too. For the life of me, why are they making Styles into a Flair clone? He’s the best in the world, so let’s change it up right? That makes LOADS of sense.

The music sounds like bad lounge music.

8 Card Stud Quarterfinals: Desmond Wolfe vs. D’Angelo Dinero

Sweet goodness Chelsea looks great. Good night though, shut up Tenay and West. Wlofe is a guy I like more and more every time I see him. Pope….I just don’t get it. He’s a wrestling Slick and somehow that’s a gimmick? Wait…Tenay just asked which young stud will break through. Angle, Abyss and Foley are all former world champions, Hernandez has been around forever and everyone knows Kennedy.

I get the idea of what he’s saying but it’s still kind of dumb. The people are behind Pope, but at the same time how serious can you take the Impact Zone fans? They’re starting out fast paced here which I like pretty well. Wolfe’s nipples are really close together. NICE DDT on Pope. Pope has a unique style of striking which is reminding me of Sting, which is a compliment.

A top rope cross body gets two. The big lariat misses and Pope gets a rollup for two. And then we get a very contrived ending on the levels of the 619 as Pope hits the dumbest finisher in the company at the moment with the double knee to the back of the conveniently placed opponent for the pin.

Rating: B. Not bad at all and a very solid opener. They went out there and had a fast paced match. I would have had Wolfe go further, but if they wanted Pope to go over strong, I can’t argue with how they did it as it was a completely clean win.

Flair yells at Bischoff again. He declares himself the wrestling god. Oh dang it they’re channeling JBL. That can’t be good. You can smell Flair vs. Hogan and Hogan going over from here.

JB is (back thank goodness. Not a huge fan of his but he’s not Bubba so he’s great by comparison) with Morgan and Hernandez who says they fight tonight but they’re still champions no matter what. Hernandez being that much shorter is funny for some reason.

8 Card Stud Quarterfinals: Hernandez vs. Matt Morgan

Not wild in the slightest about them having these two go at it so soon but I get the point again. Something I need to make clear: any company is going to get a lot of points for just having a direction and an idea that is clear. I likely won’t agree with it, but if something has a point that makes something resembling sense a lot of the time I’ll just go with it. This is one of those times. Don’t agree with it, but it’s passable.

Tazz thinks both guys want to win. Oh year that’s such great analysis. Winner gets Pope. Hernandez goes for a cross body and they botch the living heck out of is as Morgan tries to catch him but it fails completely. They’re being really tentative here which makes sense from a storyline perspective but at the same time it makes for some boring wrestling. Taz and Tenay are REALLY annoying. They finally crank it up a bit but not that much really.

We do get a 25-30 second delayed vertical suplex. That’s rather impressive. Uh oh Hernandez might be hurt. So Morgan goes for the shoulder and uses the tights to get the win. TNA…why are you trying to mess with things that are like your mother: NOT SOMETHING THAT YOU SHOULD BE MESSINGWITH! Yep they’re teasing tension between the two.

Rating: C-. This was too slow for my taste. It wasn’t bad at all but just not that good. I HATED the ending as these two simply do not need tension yet. I don’t like them as a team but it’s still stupid nonetheless. Morgan should have won though.

We recap Angle recently which is kind of odd but whatever. Ok this has gone on for about three minutes now. Angle apologizes to Hogan for….no apparent reason. Oh ok it’s for helping him Thursday. He also calls out Anderson, who is his first round opponent.

8 Card Stud Quarterfinals: Mr. Anderson vs. Kurt Angle

He misses the mic. “That was intentional.” I chuckled. Kennedy is another guy that has found something that works and has RAN with it. Sometimes that’s the best thing to do and it worked here. For some reason his music starts up again after his promo and plays for like 3 seconds before Angle’s starts up. Whatever. Angle is another interesting case as he’s proof that a reputation can be a character.

The screen behind him says The Greatest Wrestler In The World. What more do you need to know about him? They start rather quickly which is a perk. Angle hits the post with his shoulder which I don’t think was his initial idea. Anderson gets the dog tag that Angle wears and cuts him open with it really bad. Oh man he’s bleeding nice and hard.

I love that release belly to belly that Angle uses. Take note Scott Steiner: there are other moves than that and a bad chinlock. There goes the buckle pad thanks to the heel here. Naturally the Angle Slam doesn’t work. Has that gotten anyone in forever? Angle GOES OLYMPIC but it doesn’t work. After being rammed into the buckle, Angle gets pinned by the Mic Check. Uh, yeah. Anderson spits on the dog tag afterwards.

Rating: C-. It’s certainly not bad, but this felt like it was just a total crash course of a match. They flew through it and it felt like it was about 3 minutes long when it was closer to ten or so. That’s not good, but like I said this certainly wasn’t bad at all.

Bischoff is with Foley and Abyss and if they don’t fight then the mask comes off. The fans are chanting Angle which is amusing for some reason. Also there’s no reason that Abyss should freak over the mask coming off when he took it off on his own months ago. It’s now a No DQ match. To clarify something FTS was wondering about, I’m ok with this as it makes sense from Bischoff’s perspective. It follows the story and I don’t need a scorecard to keep track of what’s going on. That makes up for the inconsistencies. I don’t like it, but it makes something close to sense so I’ll let it go.

8 Card Stud Quarterfinals: Abyss vs. Mick Foley

Remember this is No DQ. Foley’s music isn’t bad and Abyss’ is at least easily recognizable. Eric made him get rid of the flannel. Naturally Tenay argues over what material it is. The fans of course want to see the bat used for no apparent reason. Foley slaps Abyss. Only Foley could slap a monster and get away with it. We hit the floor and I like the mats they have.

They’re really thick which I have no problem with. Foley busts out a chair and takes over. The fans aren’t sure what to do here as is often the case with two faces fighting. It’s thumbtacks time. Abyss keeps going against the hardcore stuff here as he chokeslams Foley but makes sure it’s not in the tacks. The fans still want the bat. And Abyss steals the sock from Foley’s pants, prompting a USE THE SOCK chant. Ok then.

Foley takes the referee down and gets his sock. Well that works I guess. The Claw goes onto Abyss but it only gets two. Foley comes at him with the bat and walks into the Black Hole Slam onto the tacks for the pin. He freaks because he hurt Foley.

Rating: B. This is a very different kind of match as it’s more about thinking and storytelling than action. Now the smart thing is that they took a guy like Foley who is as good at in ring psychology and character development as anyone in history and let him do this as it worked really well for me. This was a situation where it wasn’t about the wrestling but it really worked which is incredible rare.

Pope
Morgan

Anderson
Abyss

No reason for those names. Just a writing exercise I thought I’d try.

The Nasty Boys are with Christy and apparently Nastys vs. 3D is 15 years in the making. The Dudleys (the famous pairing that is) haven’t been around that long but whatever. The Nastys say they’re here to prove something or other. Whatever. Knobbs can’t say the name of their opponents. It’s a number and a letter. We recap the feud which was ok if nothing else. Again, yes they Nastys have feuded with a lot of great teams. How many have they actually beaten?

Nasty Boys vs. Team 3D

So now people are being asked to pay to see the Nasty Boys. Good to know. That lounge music is REALLY annoying. No one in TNA has ever taken it to Team 3D like the Nastys? REALLY? Sags looks slimmer and nearly in shape. Knobbs…not so much. 3D runs them off and I guess they’re the faces? It’s been 2 minutes so they might have turned since then.

We get to a regular tag match with Sags vs. Bubba. Both guys have pants with their team name on it. Is that in case they get lost? Sign in the front row: pipe down nerds. That’s rather funny. The fans want to sit down and eat. What else could they want tables for? This hasn’t been as bad as I expected, but it’s nothing compared to the Nasty Boys doing science experiments like they did in 1995.

You have to see that clip if you don’t know what I’m talking about. SuperBrawl 1995, opening of the tape. Go find it as it’s just bizarre. Oh look: Brooke Hogan is here. It has nothing to do with the show or the match, but it needs to be noted: Brooke Hogan is indeed HERE. The Nastys take over now.

Taz says lifting Knobbs is like lifting a small foreign car. That’s rather funny. Sags takes 3D and JIMMY FREAKING HART makes the save. Are you kidding me??? His helmet is slammed into Bubba for the pin. Love that voice.

Rating: C-. I’m very surprised as this wasn’t terrible by any means. It wasn’t particularly good but it was far from bad. I do not get the point in the Nasty Boys being on TV but having Hart there is never a bad thing.

Joe and Bischoff talk about the world title match.

8 Card Stud Semi-Finals: D’Angelo Dinero vs. Matt Morgan

Again I ask: what is a street pope? I don’t get it. Pope does the Bret Hart glasses thing which works. They’re going big man vs. little man here so that’s all well and good. We’re on the floor now and not a lot is going on. Oh I almost forgot: this is the feud that made me hate Burke. Back in OVW these two feuded FOREVER and it couldn’t have been more boring if their lives depended on it.

It was that feud that made me hate Burke and it’s why I have issues about him to this day. Expect a low grade here. Morgan is acting very heelish here and I’m not big on that at all. It’s bearhug time so they’re not doing themselves any favors at all. Morgan is dominating here and screw that as Pope is making his comeback.

Morgan BLUEPRINTS UP though and takes his head off with a clothesline. So one minute Pope is in survival mode and the next he’s hitting the knees to the back for the pin. Riiiight. Oh I especially love Morgan being on the corner and looking over his shoulder twice to see when he needs to be ready to sell.

Rating: D+. While I want to fail it because of the people in it, this didn’t do it for me. The story and psychology were pretty much non existent here and the ending was completely unbelievable as in yeah right that was stupid. Yes there’s likely some bias in there and it wasn’t jumping off the page bad or anything so don’t think that’s what I’m saying.

Anderson cuts a rather funny promo about how he beat Angle. It’s funnier than it sounds. He says his name once, leaves to the left and comes back from the right to say it again. The guy can talk no matter what you think of his in ring stuff.

8 Card Stud Semi-Finals: Abyss vs. Mr. Anderson

We start with a very long stalling session here which I guess is ok. The crowd is oddly quiet here. Why is Abyss being a former world champion NEVER mentioned? I know it’s a different world title but it’s just never talked about at all. They’ll talk about the WCW and WWE titles whenever it benefits them. Hey, we’re on the floor!

Always good to see TNA mixing things up. For some reason I always love dropkicks to the knee. There’s just something cool about that. Anderson works on the knee so at least that makes sense. He goes for the mask and when Abyss is trying to fix it, the Mic Check sends Anderson to the finals.

Rating: D. This was really weak to me. The knee stuff led nowhere and the ending did nothing for me. Abyss is in desperate need of credibility. This should have been Foley vs. Kennedy, period.

AJ cuts a very solid promo about being a great worker. Again I ask; WHAT POINT IS THERE TO FLAIR BEING THERE IF HE CAN TALK THIS WELL??? “But KB, he learned so much from talking to Flair.” And I have to see Flair on TV making AJ look like he needs a mentor WHY?

If you want to make him act like Flair then fine but we don’t need to see him there every five minutes. Sorry I just completely fail to see what Flair is there for. He’s the golden boy and the man in TNA and the best wrestler in the world so he needs a mentor all of a sudden? He’s the BEST. How much better can he get?

We recap Joe vs. AJ which needs no recapping but whatever.

Bischoff is coming to the ring. And Hogan is here too. Ok then.

TNA World Title: AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe

Remember Bischoff is referee here. Why is he referee? No clue but it’s TNA so that comes with the territory. I love the total lack of tattoo on his face. AJ has a Flair robe. Shoot me now. Ok the hood on it makes it a lot better than I thought. Why in the world are they making AJ a heel here? Seriously, he’s so insanely over and they make a fortune off his merchandise so let’s just throw that away.

He has blonde highlights now too. That’s just great. Fans are WAY behind Joe. There is something awesome about the way JB says “From the Isle of Samoa.” No idea why but I’ve always loved that. As soon as the robe came off AJ got about 10x more awesome. AJ simply doesn’t need Flair to be a heel. The interesting thing here is that Flair and Eric have legit heat. Some of you might not know why though.

Back in 1998, Flair’s son Reid was wrestling in an amateur tournament in North Carolina and Flair was dead set on being there to watch him compete. He gave warning to Bischoff that he would be there and that’s all there was to it. The thing is there was a Thunder, not Nitro or a PPV but THUNDER, that night. Flair, having a thing called common sense, thought that since he was Ric Flair and this was WCW and he gave sufficient warning that he would be able to have a night off.

Bischoff thought otherwise and suspended him. This literally went on for months and the fans reverted back to 1991 and spent the whole show chanting WE WANT FLAIR. So this led to a famous as well as awesome moment where Arn Anderson reformed the Horsemen (adding in Dean Malenko for the first time) and completely unannounced brought out Flair for the first time in about four months in NORTH CAROLINA. What do you think the reaction was?

Naturally Flair gets one of the biggest pops in WCW history and looks like a million bucks and the fans are FREAKING OUT. And of course they had Flair have a heart attack a few weeks later then had Bischoff beat him at Starrcade with a screwjob ending that the fans booed out of the freaking building. How did that company ever make a freaking dime?

The Horsemen were then, you guessed it, fed to the NWO and made to look like jokes while Hogan won the world title from Nash in the Fingerpoke of Doom, because of course having the guy the fans are cheering for like there’s no tomorrow being pushed as a serious character can’t work so let’s just stick with the same stuff that’s made us lose the biggest ratings lead in wrestling history while Austin and Vince are destroying us in the ratings right?

ANYWAY, the point is that Bischoff more or less said that Flair was just one of the wrestlers and that carrying the company for as many years as he did was NOTHING in comparison to guys like Hogan and Savage who came in and tanked the company for two years before the one good idea that Bischoff had (read as stole from two Japanese companies that did the same thing years before the NWO was even heard of) made any money before he ran the company into the freaking ground. Flair was disrespected and the fans chanted WE WANT FLAIR very loudly and Bischoff had to back down and let Flair come back before embarrassing him again.

Oh yeah there’s a PPV here. There is something just freaking awesome about the fans chanting JOE’S GONNA KILL YOU. How can that not get into your head? AJ works on the knee. Ok, that’s fine if he does it a bit but you have AJ Styles in there. Have him use his stuff, not Flair’s as his primary offense. We’re on the floor (I know I’m shocked too) and AJ is trying to suplex Joe which fails more than Flair’s hair.

I’m glad Joe is in the shorts again. They work better for him. Joe counters a top rope hurricanrana and goes aerial and hits kind of an enziguri to the front of the face. Flair goes after the leg. Never mind that it’s the WRONG ONE as AJ had worked on the right leg and Flair went after the left one but whatever. AJ uses an Indian Deathlock and bends back to more or less have his hands like you would for a reverse neckbreaker.

Benoit did that to Booker T once on Thunder and WCW went to a commercial just as he locked it in. Brilliance I tell you, brilliance. There’s the figure four that you knew was coming. Love that snap powerslam Joe does. I know I tend to skip around a lot on my reviewing but here’s my thought on why I don’t just list off play by play: if you wanted that, you could just go watch the match yourself.

Just thought I’d make that clear in case people think I fast forward and just watch pieces of the match. I write out what pops into my head and at times there isn’t much. Doesn’t mean the match is bad or anything but just nothing strikes me about it. And end of random tangent.

And Bischoff punches Flair. Ok then. Joe hits the Muscle Buster while this is happening and is ticked off that nothing can be done about it. Joe pulls Bischoff back in and walks into the Pele and the Clash for the pin. Flair demands that Bischoff raise AJ’s hand.

Rating: B+. Solid stuff here but it was missing a little something that I just can’t place. This is another match that you just can’t mess up and they didn’t here. Another solid showing here and it was certainly worthy of being the world title match.

We recap the tournament to this point which seems like a way to kill 3 minutes.

Anderson is with the red hot Christy who talks very well again. He’s wearing a different shirt here too. I have no idea what he’s saying here as Christy is just ridiculously good looking here. The gum is a great touch for Anderson.

Pope is with JB. Ah I get why I hate Pope again: he talks once in awhile. I was liking him a bit earlier and that’s all gone now. And it’s Hall and X-Pac. TNA security running in to stop them reminds me of a Keystone Cops segment as they’re constantly chasing these two around the building trying to stop them from getting into the building. They say something to Hogan and it’s whatever. Does anyone care about them at this point?

8 Card Stud Finals: Mr. Anderson vs. D’Angelo Dinero

Pope takes forever getting out there because he got beaten up. Ok then. The referee starts counting and you know he’ll be there in time so this is kind of pointless. Yep there he is. Anderson beats on him on the ramp. Even money says they’ll brawl on the floor too. Hey they’re fighting on the floor! They haven’t actually been in the ring yet. AJ and Flair are watching in the back.

This has been ALL Anderson, making the ending a tad obvious. Pope of course is ok after that much of a beating. Most of the match is Anderson beating on Pope and there’s your comeback. The DDE gets two and Anderson is in control again. Pope uses an STO which is Kennedy’s finisher in reverse.

Kennedy cuts a promo mid match and stops to hit the Mic Check for two and a pop from the fans. That’s….a bit too much from Pope. Anderson misses a Swanton and Pope hits the double knees to the back. He REALLY needs a new finisher.

Rating: B. They kept it simple here and it worked. This was fun. That’s the best way to put it I think as it wasn’t particularly great or even very good but it was fun. That’s all you can ask for here I guess. Either way it worked fine though so all in all this was a good main event.

Overall Rating: B. This was a good show. It put me in mind of Survival of the Fittest that I did from ROH: nothing great but nothing resembling a bad match at all. This was solid and it worked rather well I thought. The whole show was based around the tournament and that’s all well and good. My main problem was how all of the tournament matches other than the final were so short.

They averaged about 8 minutes which just isn’t long enough for that many matches. That’s my only major criticism with the show. Other than that though, I liked this show and while it’s no classic or anything, it’s good. That’s how I would describe it: good. Check it out if you have some time to kill.

Impact
Date: February 3, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz
Episode Title: Expect the Unexpected

THEY arrive tonight.  After so much speculation, we finally find out who THEY are.  Also we see Mr. Anderson vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Kurt Angle for the world title.  It’s good to finally have a champion since RVD was attacked.  This should be….oh wait hang on I put in the wrong review.  Be right back.

Ah here we are.

THEY arrive tonight.  After so much speculation, we finally find out who THEY are.  Also we see Mr. Anderson vs. Jeff Hardy for the world title.  Yes, TNA is more or less running the same story three months later which isn’t as bad as it sounds, but it doesn’t bode well.  Allegedly THEY were the returning Main Event Mafia but that doesn’t seem to be the case now, due to the departures of Booker T and Kevin Nash.  Anyway, let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of Steiner coming back last week and what probably was the Mafia angle, despite what Bischoff wants you to believe apparently.  We get a ton of quick interviews ala ReAction saying nothing of note.

In the arena we open up properly with Bischoff and Immortal in the ring.  The fans chant we want Flair.  I hear he’s too busy to be here but he’ll show up for an advance in pay.  Bischoff calls out Steiner who he isn’t happy with.  First things first: Hogan isn’t here tonight.  Yes, the guy they’ve hyped for weeks on this show, the biggest draw in the company (allegedly), STILL isn’t here.  He was last seen on a TNA show on Thanksgiving.

According to Eric, there is no THEY.  Bischoff tells Steiner that he told Nash to leave and take the money.  Sting isn’t coming back and no one cares about Booker.  Yeah nonsenseon it never being the Mafia until right now.  Eric offers Steiner a spot on the team and says his options are join or get beaten up.  Steiner takes option 3: he beats up Bischoff instead.

Scott says Bischoff is making the same mistake everyone does and assumes he knows Steiner when he doesn’t.  He says call him sir or he’ll snap Bischoff’s neck.  This brings out Crimson and Angle.  All three are in suits mind you.  Angle says THEY are indeed here and it’s real.  Bischoff looks a bit nervous as we take a break.

Back with Jeff Hardy being worried about tonight but Bischoff says it’s ok.  He wants Flair though and Angle/Crimson/Steiner pop up to say THEY’RE HERE!

Ink Inc vs. Gunner/Murphy

Big brawl to start us off with the security guys in control.  We get down to business with Neal vs. Murphy.  Off to Gunner quickly though as the security guys are moving quickly.  Ink Inc has had nothing yet.  Off to a chinlock by Gunner.  Moore finally gets the tag and fights them both off for a bit.  Heel miscommunication sets up the Mooregasm to Murphy to end it.

Rating: C-. This was really short at just barely over three minutes.  That being said they still managed to keep things fast paced.  I think they were trying to play up the idea of Immortal being shaken up, but I’m not sure this was an actual upset like the announcers would like you to believe.

Angle, Steiner and Crimson are in the back.  Crimson says THEY haven’t touched base yet.  He also calls Angle boss which means he’s the leader I guess.  Kurt gets a phone call and is told we’re still on.  They leave to go over the plan.

Christy Hemme is in Dallas apparently where she says that the judge issued a continuance until March 3, which is when we’ll hear the ruling.  Great way to earn that paycheck and trip to Dallas Christy!  Also nice job of hyping Hogan for a month and then not delivering him.

In the same shot Eric Young pops up and says Angle is a cyborg and he knows who THEY are.  This is another one of those insane bits that makes no difference at all for the most part.  Apparently he thinks they’re off air.

We get a video of the Jarretts’ house including the kids.  This is about what you would expect.

Anderson wants to talk to Hardy before the match, out in the ring.

Back with Bubba Ray (I will not refer to him as Bully Ray unless I have to) in the ring with Pope who is apparently his partner.  Ray talks about how he beat up D-Von last week and was the real star of the team.  The fans want D-Von.  Pope says that it’s Joe vs. Pope at the PPV.

This is one of the three storylines going on in TNA at the moment and it’s probably the best one.  The reason for that: it’s basic.  This isn’t something that is supposed to be huge.  It’s been built up over a few weeks and months and they haven’t gotten in the ring yet.  That’s how you build a feud.  I’d like to see them fight actually.

D’Angelo Dinero/Bully Ray vs. Samoa Joe/Brother D-Von

I didn’t hear a bell so I’m assuming this was an official match.  The respective feuds break off with the Dudleys in the ring and the other two in the aisle.  Pope tries to run but Okada stops him in the aisle.  Who is Okada you ask?  Well he’s the guy that Joe had filming Pope.  Well ok, that’s fine and good.  However, this is a great example of TNA asking the fans to do too much.

Okada has never appeared on Impact until he popped up in this.  He’s been on Xplosion, but since that show is referenced maybe once every six months on Impact, unless you pay really close attention to TNA or know him from his Japan days, this guy is a totally random addition that you’ve never seen before but apparently you’re supposed to be familiar with.

It confuses the viewer because the viewer is guided by the announcers.  The announcers treat Okada like someone they’re completely familiar with rather than someone that has never been seen on Impact before.  This makes fans think they’ve forgotten someone or even confuses them because they try to figure out why they don’t know who he is.

What that does is distract them from what’s going on in the story.  This is another shining example of a very easily solved problem that TNA just lets happen.  Here’s how you fix it.  Tenay: “Ladies and gentlemen that man’s name is Okada.  He’s been a member of TNA’s roster for a few months now and has been appearing on our syndicated program Xplosion.”

Bam ten seconds and you accomplish two things.  You establish this guy isn’t a stranger to TNA and does have a connection to the company.  You also let people know there is more TNA wrestling out there if they’re interested.  See?  Instead, we got this.  Tenay: “It’s Okada.”

Ok, who’s Okada?  Why should I care that he’s here?  Should I be surprised?  Is this a twist?  Is this expected?  Does he have a history with Pope?  With Joe?  Is he a wrestler?  A businessman?  A mercenary?  All we know about him is that his name is Okada and he’s done some work for Joe and he dresses like Kato from Green Hornet.  It’s confusing and it doesn’t have to be.  That’s not good and it happens way too much in TNA.

Back in the ring, Ray has a chain but gets dropped with a clothesline.  If there was a bell I missed it completely.  There’s a referee in there so I’m assuming this is a match.  D-Von hammers away and we hit the floor.  They’re having a street fight at the PPV.  D-Von drills him with a chair and Ray is in trouble.  Tenay says it was a scheduled match but security is pulling D-Von off Bubba so I guess it was thrown out.  Bubba spits on D-Von’s kids as D-Von is being held back.

Mickie vs. Sarita in a taped fist match later.

Jay Lethal vs. Jeremy Buck vs. Douglas Williams

This is another of those X-Division qualifying things.  Max Buck, the one that has already qualified, is at the announce table.  Great to see guys like Williams and Lethal staying in the upper midcard like they got pushes to isn’t it?  Buck gets on both other guys and manages to get out of the way before they massacre him, resulting in Lethal nailing Williams.

Jeremy sends Williams to the floor and lands a sweet Asai Moonsault.  He gets taken out by a suicide dive by Lethal though as they’re moving out there.  Jeremy gets a DDT on Lethal but at the same time Williams gets a Russian Leg Sweep on Jeremy.  With everyone in trouble, Max determines that Jeremy’s shoe is untied so he heads to the ring.  Tower of Doom has Buck in trouble.

Williams gets a small package for two.  Next week it’s Robbie E vs. Suicide vs. Kendrick for the last spot in the #1 contenders match.  Buck is on the floor for a long while Lethal and Williams do the work.  Williams hits Rolling Chaos but gets kicked low by Jeremy who steals the pin on Lethal to advance.

Rating: D+. I wasn’t impressed here at all.  The spots were nice so points for that but this went by really quickly.  Somehow this was four and a half minutes long which blows my mind.  Either way this wasn’t much as this flew by.  These matches are getting more spottish every week, which isn’t a good thing at all.

Bischoff is talking to Flair’s attorney and doesn’t know where Flair is.  Beer Money says it’s ok.  Fourtune leaves but AJ says not to worry about anything.  AJ says WE are in the driver’s seat.

Sarita says she doesn’t have a strategy for her match with Mickie because she doesn’t need one.  Her cousin Rosita is here next week.

We get some quick promos from Anderson and Hardy about their match tonight.  This is some of Jeff’s best talking in a long time as you can understand him perfectly well.

Anderson calls out Hardy and here he comes.  Hardy looks exactly like he did “last week in Germany” as the promos were from.  There is literally water/sweat dripping from Jeff’s hair.  You can see it and it looks like a leaky faucet.  Anderson asks how many jerks  there are here and gets a nice reaction.  He asks the same about the Creatures of the Night.  Not so good of a reaction, which translates to me that there aren’t many Taker fans tonight.

Anderson makes fun of the title belt but says that he’s worked for 11 years to win what it represents.  Both guys don’t respect authority and he talks about the gum chewing thing again.  Anderson can’t seem to decide if this is a serious promo or a comedy one.  Ken wants a fair match tonight.  Hardy talks about how he doesn’t need Immortal to win here so the fans of course keep talking and ranting about things that don’t need to be chanted about.

Mickie is taping up her fist.

Back to the Jarretts and in this case it’s about their kids and family life.  Apparently they’re going to have a talent show.

Mickie James vs. Sarita

This is the taped fist match which means you can tape your fists.  Shouldn’t this be Velvet instead of Mickie though?  Apparently Mickie’s title shot is in a Last Knockout Standing match.  Seated dropkick puts down Sarita and Mickie adds in some splits.  You have to win by knockout apparently.  We head to the floor and Mickie might have punches the post.  Sarita works on the hand, because that’s clearly the easiest way to knock someone out right?

Hand goes into the steps and it’s all Sarita.  This is rather boring indeed.  Sarita keeps dancing and locks in an armbar, in a match where you have to win by knockout.  Are they even trying here?  In the cheapest of cheap endings, Mickie dodges some shots and gets a single left hand in to end it.  So let me get this straight.  A single shot with one of those fists can end it?  THEN WHY DID WE NEED TO SPEND SIX MINUTES GETTING HERE???  Whatever just end this.

Rating: F. Can someone, anyone, tell me what the freaking point to the tape was?  It’s a classic example of a gimmick match not being needed and being there for the sake of a gimmick.  This was boring as heck and I absolutely hate the lazy booking of one person is beaten down the whole time and then a single shot ends it.  Bad booking and I hate it.

Madison blasts Mickie with the cast and stands over her all evil and such.

Bischoff tells Hardy that he’s a bit worried while Jeff says he’s ready.  Hardy says no one from Immortal can be out there.

The Jarretts are going to renew their wedding vows.  This of course is absolutely sickening.  Oh and it’ll be on Impact of course.

TNA World Title: Mr. Anderson vs. Jeff Hardy

Hey look it’s the match that they should have built up for weeks but instead hot shotted it on a PPV for shock value!  Hardy jumps Anderson during his intro and the fight is on as we’re still on the ramp.  Since this is a title match that is scheduled, a bunch of referees pull them apart and we get swearing.  Anderson had some kind of arm hold on Hardy that apparently worked a bit.

The match hasn’t started yet either.  We take a break before we start which is a bit stupid but not bad.  Here’s the bell.  Let me clarify that: I have no problem with a break before the bell which is probably the best idea.  I don’t get the point in having a big brawl instead of just starting the match.  Anderson controls to start and gets some elbow drops for two.

Hardy fights back and takes over.  This is the complete opposite of epic as we knew that Anderson would win the first time but it still felt big.  We talk about THEY because the world title match isn’t interesting enough I guess.  Off to a choke/chinlock by Jeff.  Hardy gets a leg drop as this is needing to pick up a lot.  Now Hardy wants to work on the leg for no apparent reason.

Anderson’s balls go into the post and Hardy works on the head.  Wow that sounded very bad indeed.  Back to the chinlock now.  Whisper in the Wind takes Anderson down but of course here comes Anderson.  They slug it out from their knees and are now back up with some nice sequences still of punches.  Anderson gets a spinning neckbreaker for two.

Mic Check can’t hit but Anderson gets a double spin kick (not joking) much like the one Red hits on Lethal in the package from the New York house show that they air every week.  That was kind of awesome.  Front suplex by Hardy gets two.  Dueling chants here.  Great job of getting Hardy over as a heel there Hogan/Bischoff.  Twist of Hate is reversed and down goes the referee of course.

Here’s the Twist of Hate and here comes Immortal.  Terry kills Anderson with a clothesline and the beatdown is imminent.  AJ hands Anderson to Hardy and throws up the Fourtune sign.  And then Fourtune beats up Immortal and it’s a Styles Clash for Hardy.  The fans are liking this a lot as Anderson gets the pin on Hardy to retain.

Rating: D+. This just did not ever get off the ground.  We knew that something was coming and while the ending is good, there’s no big pop here.  THIS should have been Hardy dropping the title to Anderson rather than at the PPV, but since that would be logical booking and TNA doesn’t want that at all, this was what we got and it was just ok.  It’s pretty clear this was supposed to be epic and that the company thinks this is their big feud, it’s never clicked for me.  Match wasn’t terrible to be sure, but it was nothing great at all.

After a break, AJ says look what we have here.  Fourtune isn’t taking a back seat to anyone and this is on Eric’s head.  Fourtune is THEY of course.  Eric comes out to call AJ an ungrateful son of a gun.  Fourtne was nothing without Hogan and Bischoff and all that jazz.  Angle, Crimson and Steiner are in there now too but this is AJ vs. Bischoff.

AJ yells about how Eric and Hogan changed everything and how they messed up a ton of stuff.  The fans of course decide that they need to speak up and let us know they want six sides.  Hogan is back on March 3^rd.  Really.  We mean it this time.  Hogan WILL be here this time unlike tonight when we promised he would be here.  He hasn’t been seen since Thanksgiving and is somehow the #2 or #3 heel in the company.  The big staredown ends the show.

Overall Rating: D-. There’s a lot to get to here so let’s get started.  First the good: Fourtune.  This is exactly what TNA needs at this point: TNA originals (kind of) vs. the outsiders.  That’s the perfect story given how they’ve set all this up.  I’m very happy with that.  Now for the bad.

Number one: This should have happened FOUR MONTHS AGO!  Fourtune has been the popular faction in TNA for MONTHS.  There was never any need at all for them to join up with Immortal and again, IT MADE NO SENSE!  Flair wanted to tick off Dixie and did that and then his boys were far more powerful than Immortal but kept the alliance anyway to be lackies.  THAT MAKES NO SENSE!

So now it’s Fourtune/Angle/Steiner/Crimson/Anderson/probably Morgan vs. Gunner/Murphy/Hardys/Jarrett.  That doesn’t exactly sound riveting as you have the titles and the power with Fourtune who are supposed to be the underdogs as the, you know, good guys.  Here’s where you see the criticisms of Bischoff and Russo shining through.

This is, once again, the NWO vs. WCW and the Millionaires Club vs. New Blood.  It’s a faction war with the heels being led by the corrupt leader and the good guys being all about keeping things like they were before.  Like I said, this is the right choice but it’s not like this is something we’re going to be riveted by as we’ve seen it before.  That’s not good but it’s what Russo and Bischoff do: they have one idea and that’s all you see out of them.

One last good thing I forgot to mention: AJ.  This is what TNA needed to have months ago (notice that I’m kind of harping on that).  AJ Styles is the golden boy in TNA and represents everything that the company is about.  FINALLY he’s standing up to fight off these guys that have wanted to change everything about the company and while it’s not exactly interesting, AJ belongs as a face in this company and that’s all there is to it.

Other than this, the show is worthless.  There isn’t a good match to be seen, the whole thing is thrown together around the basic premise of THEY coming back.  The BFG show did such an incredible job of building up the tension and atmosphere before the reveal that even I, one of TNA’s harshest critics on here, was dying to know who THEY were.  This time though, there was nothing.  It happened and that was it.

The show was just bad overall with only AJ and the reveal being the good parts.  I’m curious as to where this will go but only to an extent.  Hogan coming back on March 3^rd does nothing for me.  He can’t wrestle, he can barely walk, but he’s supposed to be a big deal?  Just get to the destruction of Immortal and let it go.  Bad show this week but there was a somewhat redeeming quality to it.oganglaksj

Results

Ink Inc b. Gunner/Murphy – Mooregasm to Murphy

Samoa Joe/D-Von vs. Bully Ray/D’Angelo Dinero went to a no contest

Jeremy Buck b. Jay Lethal and Douglas Williams – Buck pinned Lethal after Rolling Chaos Theory

Mickie James b. Sarita by knockout

Mr. Anderson b. Jeff Hardy – Pin after a Styles Clash from AJ Styles

Victory Road 2004
Date: November 7, 2004
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 700
Commentators: Don West, Mike Tenay

Well you knew I would start doing these eventually so here’s the first one. TNA is officially the number two company in the world, but back in the day they were more or less fighting for their lives every night. This was a major step for them though as all of a sudden they were mainstream with a show on FOX Sports South and now PPV.

The main two matches here are Jeff Jarrett vs. Jeff Hardy (pre-main event appeal) in a ladder match and the X-Division Title match with AJ Styles taking on Petey Williams. Oh and Hall and Nash are debuting here. This sound familiar to anyone? Let’s get to it.

The intro is kind of a western theme about how we make our own destinies. It’s pretty basic really but it sets the stage I guess. We do however begin the idea of having every announcement be overblown and made to see huge when they just aren’t. It’s not bad but it’s fine I guess.

X-Division Gauntlet

The winner gets a cup. Ok then. This is called a reverse battle royal which in reality is a Royal Rumble and then the final two have a singles match. Kaz is number one and Sonjay Dutt is number two. It’s out of 20 mind you. In other words it’s the main event of the first weekly PPV. The time is sixty seconds here. Michael Shane and Kaz hold the X-Division Title at this point mind you.

Puma, a Japanese wrestler is 3rd. This is pure spotfest stuff here but that’s really all it needs to be for the most part. La Parka is number four. Oh he’s LA Park now. Good to know. I wonder if his brother is named Central and lives on the east coast. He has the chair and does that stupid dance of his. Jerelle Clark, a guy that did nothing at all ever, is number 5.

He’s Mr. 630 because he could do a 630 flip. Yeah I’m not impressed either. Miyamoto is number 6. He’s on Team Japan which is an actual team of Japanese wrestlers. There was a thing called the World X Cup which was way too complicated and not a lot of people cared about it but whatever. They keep the clock on the screen here which is nice. Michael Shane, the co-X-Division champion is number 7.

More importantly than anything else in his career, he’s Shawn Michaels’ cousin, hence the name. Puma is the first guy out. Clark is too. Miyamoto is out We have the champions, LA Parka and Dutt. Number 8 is Hector Garza, who is the captain of Team Mexico. The clock is messed up now of course. Nosawa, another Japanese guy, is 9th. This is taking way too long and there aren’t enough stars in there. You can’t use this crowd to grade it though as they’ll cheer for everything.

Mikey Batts is 10th. See what I’m having to deal with here? There’s just nothing interesting happening at all here. Alex Shelley, a more or less unknown heel at this point, is 11th. He puts Dutt out to clean out a bit of the clutter in there. There goes Parka also. Matt Sydal is number 12. He’s more commonly known as Evan Bourne which is what he’ll be called here.

Shelley goes through the ropes so he’s still in and has a back injury. Sonny Siaki who I think signed with WWE for awhile is 13th. What do you expect: he’s a musclehead. Nosawa is gone. Jason Cross is number 14. Oh great it’s Shark Boy. That’s just who I wanted to see in here. Shelley pulls out Bourne and Psycosis is 16th. D-Ray 3000, perhaps the most worthless wrestler ever, is 17th.

They’re just killing time out here and it’s not interesting in the slightest. Both he and Shark Boy are put out by Siaki. Eighteenth is Amazing Red. Shelley finally goes out. Kendrick, called Spanky here, is 19th. Chris Sabin is 20th as this just needs to end. Seriously, THIS is opening the show. It’s 1/6 of the entire show and everyone is ok with that. Siaki is out. Spanky puts out Shane. I hate that name.

In the most contrived spot I’ve ever seen, we get a seven man Tower of Doom. Give me a break. Jason Cross is gone, no word yet on if anyone not related to him cares. Red gets a nice superkick and puts out Psychosis. And Red is out next. Spanky is out and we’re down to Sabin, Garza and Kaz who started it. Sabin goes out so it’s Garza vs. Kaz for the cup. This is SO much more entertaining than say, the X Champions fighting EACH OTHER?

Garza hits a sweet moonsault that gets a long two. Garza takes a DDT and gets up at four which is called two for some reason. He then misses his big corkscrew move and rolls up Kaz to get the win. I hated this match. Naturally his interview is all in Spanish and there’s no translation. That’s perfect right? Oh there is one. I just don’t care.

Rating: D. The spots were cool, but this was WAY too long. Seriously, we just spent half an hour on a match for a cup. Does anyone else see why this was freaking stupid or is it just me? TNA doesn’t get it, so things are all normal I guess. Garza would be deported in like a month.

Ron Killings/Erik Watts/Johnny B. Badd/Pat Kenney vs. Dallas/Kid Kash/Naturals

Oh look MORE people in the same match. Could this get any worse? Why would you sign Mero at this point? Seriously, why? Dallas is now known as Vance Archer and Killings is R-Truth in case you didn’t know. This is just what you would expect it to be: bad wrestling but overhyped to heck and back by West and Tenay. Badd is said to be a legend.

Even in his own mind I don’t think he’s that dumb. To the shock of no one, this turns into a big brawl. They do the random people jump into the ring and get knocked out again spots as this has no flow to it at all. Badd hits a hurricanrana to set up something resembling a Pedigree from Truth for the pin. Badd was gone in a few months as was Watts. Kenney (Simon Diamond for you ECW guys) was seen once in awhile I think.

Rating: D+. There was just no point to this at all. It was all over the place and had no flow to it. This makes 28 wrestlers in two matches. Do you think that’s enough? It’s complete overkill at this point and is just insane.

Some actor from Dodgeball says that Nash isn’t in a limo with him.

Mascarita Sagrada vs, Piratita Morgan

And we have a midget match. Morgan is a pirate. We hear the history of midget wrestling from Tenay who tries to make this interesting and fails. This is incredibly short and Sagrada wins with a small package. This is exactly what you would have expected it to be.

Rating: N/A. It was no more interesting or boring than any other match not having Max Mini in it.

Hall says Nash isn’t here. Shock and surprise, he’ll be here later. Can no one get to a show on time?

Tag Titles: 3 Live Kru vs. Team Canada

Team Canada here is Bobby (Robert) Roode and Eric Young while 3LK is Konnan and Road Dogg. They use the Freebird rule to fight and will use it if they win the belts here, along with Ron Killings. Anyway, this is the finale of a long feud between them which of course didn’t end here. We start with Roadie and Roode. For the life of me I do not get the hype on this guy. He’s ok and that’s it.

People to this day think he could be a main event guy. Why? Tell me one thing that he could do that would validate him as a main event guy. And I don’t mean a line like just watch him or how can’t you see it. Pretend I’m stupid and tell me what it is that this guy has that makes him a big star. Konnan is in now with Young and these two just amuse me to no end.

We have a guy that no one cares about that tries desperately to play up the gimmick of being from another country which makes him interesting when he’s just bland otherwise and no one cares about him, and then we have Eric Young. We hit the formula portion of our event with the heels working over Roadie to build up Konnan for the hot tag.

Does anyone else see this sucking harder than a Diva wanting to get a job? I miss Scott D’Amore. The guy was a fat waste of oxygen but he was a decent talker and heel manager. Nothing great here but it’s kind of like the first Mania where the tag titles changed: it allows you to have a title change so the show is memorable and has some impact to steal a pun from myself.

Konnan finally gets the tag after a heel miscommunication (remember folks: TNA is breaking NEW ground!) spot and cleans house. It of course turns into a brawl with Roadie being fine after getting taken out for about 4 minutes. D’Amore tries to use the hockey stick but Killings comes in for the save and a BAD looking X-Factor gives the Kru the titles.

Rating: C. It was average, plain and simple. This match could have been on any TV or house show or PPV and it would have been fine. At seven minutes long they didn’t have much time to get anything substantial going but still, this wasn’t much but it was fine for what it was I suppose.

And now we have Piper’s Pit with Jimmy Snuka. This has seriously been done to death and for the life of me I don’t get it. We understand: Snuka got hit with a coconut twenty years ago at this point. WE GET IT! Piper apparently wants to make amends by letting Snuka, who looks BAD hit him with a coconut.

This goes on for a few minutes until Kid Kash comes out. Naturally there’s a brawl, including the Naturals in a nice pun that was unintentional, and everyone leaves as the fat man takes his jacket off. I have no clue why this happened.

Trinity vs. ???

She issued an open challenge, Jacqueline accepts it, the guys she manages interfere, Trinity wins with a moonsault to prove she can wrestle and doesn’t just have a job because she looks decent and that’s it.

Rating: N/A. Can you tell I didn’t care? I hope I was subtle with it.

Abyss vs. Monty Brown vs. Raven

This is the original Monster’s Ball match, which originally was far different. The idea here is that the guys have been locked up without light or food for 24 hours. This aspect has since completely disappeared due to reasons of sanity and now it’s just a regular hardcore match. The announcers say that Raven has the advantage here as he’s smaller and crazier which makes sense, at least in the lack of food and light idea.

We have a table set up inside of 30 seconds. Abyss is dominating here for the most part. It’s really more of an intense triple threat rather than a hardcore match and now we have chairs coming in. Raven really is underrated in the ring. I love what Brown does by just chucking a chair at Raven’s head. That’s awesome. Naturally we have a ref bump because they’re required I suppose.

Now we move to the big spots of the match as we have Brown sitting on the top rope and Abyss busts out the tacks. Since he’s the only one wearing a shirt you know that he’s the guy that’s going to wind up going through them. Yep, Raven comes in to powerbomb him while he’s trying to suplex Brown. That wasn’t predictable at all. Not a bit. Raven gets two off of it and then we set up another stupid spot as the table is set up in the corner and Raven gets Pounced (a spear/tackle) through it. It was a mess of course.

Rating: D+. These things are going to happen and while I can’t stand them, I get that there’s a point to them. There is a market for these I guess and at least they’re keeping it shorter. There’s really no way to make these good without going too far, but this was really lackluster even for one of these.

AJ wants to be champion again.

X-Division Title: Petey Williams vs. AJ Styles

AJ was a huge star almost at this point but he was still the king of the midcard as he would be for a long time to come, as in like 5 years. These two just go freaking nuts like an old school cruiserweight match. AJ hits a perfect backflip off the apron to the floor and then a senton over the top rope to the floor. Petey takes over with a jawbreaker and we get down to a bit more of a standard match to set up AJ’s big comeback.

For a crowd the all loves AJ that’s a heck of a dueling chant they have going. Ok that was cool. Petey puts AJ in the Tree of Woe and stands on his crotch. He does it again and AJ does more or less a really bit sit up and grabs AJ to pull him back in a German suplex which he follows with a Pele. I LOVE that springboard forearm. It just looks awesome.

Both guys counter each other’s finisher and then AJ just chucks Petey into the corner. That’s one way to do it I guess. AJ has the pin but the fat Canadian coach interrupts it. AJ kicks out of a belt shot so at least the match should be ok for the ending as that would have killed it for me. After more interference, we get the awesome finish as Petey hits the Canadian Destroyer, which is just completely awesome. It’s a jumping flip piledriver. In other words he’s got him in a regular piledriver but jumps forward and does a full flip before hitting it. That’s just amazing on a lot of levels.

Rating: B. This was very fun but AJ should have gone over here. I mean it’s your biggest show and your top face for the most part goes over to a generic guy with a cool finisher. That just doesn’t make sense to me, but it’s TNA so why am I surprised? Fun match though.

Dang there haven’t been many interviews tonight.

We recap this way too long of a feud with nothing of note to talk about. They hate each other, end of recap.

XXX vs. America’s Most Wanted

So this feud more or less went on for about two years. That’s not overkill at all though is it? XXX is Daniels, Skipper and Low-Ki, but here’s it’s minus the third guy. This is elimination, last man standing rules although they use the Texas Deathmatch formula of pin then the count starts here instead. It’s also tag rules which makes even less sense but whatever.

Storm and Skipper begin the match after a huge brawl that I guess actually began the match which makes even less sense. Ok we’re two minutes in and we’re at about our fifth double team move including a Hart Attack and a Death Sentence. Why do the names of moves have to be so freaking violent??? We get a pinfall on Daniels but he’s up at about 8.

To be fair this makes it seem like XXX lost inside of 5 minutes but also it could be said that he let himself get pinned so that he could have the 9 second breather, which at least makes sense. They brawl a good bit but for the most part they’re staying in the ring and keeping this as a normal tag match. There’s a chair being used a fair amount which strikes me as odd.

Speaking of striking a shot to Storm’s knee puts him down for thirteen to make it 2-1. After some miscommunication that sends Skipper to the floor, a guillotine legdrop makes it Skipper vs. Harris. Skipper is messed up bad and he looks like he’s got one heck of a concussion. To my surprise the other two are gone. They need to end this, like now. Skipper looks like Brock did at Mania 19 if that tells you anything.

So what does TNA do when the guy can’t even set up his one big move? They have him take a Catatonic, a big spinning slam onto a chair. You couldn’t improvise a leg injury and have him just not be able to stand? To prove how out of it he is, he tries to get up at 10 but the referee more or less shoves him back down to end this. Thank you. At least the referee had some intelligence and decency about him.

Rating: D+. The injury just completely destroyed the ending here and it hurt the match a lot. The point here though is the complete lack of care for Skipper though as he was clearly injured badly but the match kept going anyway. I get that this is supposed to be a brutal match and so forth, but this was just ridiculous on a lot of levels. It’s ok to change something if a guy is clearly injured. Either way, the match wasn’t that good with no violence or brutality to warrant such a gimmick.

Dusty Rhodes has been elected Director of Authority or something. He makes a speech, I need a drink.

Finally it’s main event time. Hardy beat Monty and Raven on Impact to get this. It’s a ladder match here. Jarrett beat him up a few times. This somehow takes five minutes to say.

NWA World Title: Jeff Hardy vs. Jeff Jarrett

It took 9 minutes to get from package to bell. Oh and remember Hall and Nash are both here and allegedly they’re both in Jarrett’s corner. Now in case you don’t know, Jeff Hardy has had ladder matches before. I need to make sure you know this, because the announcers only tell us about 49 times so because they don’t go with the full 50, make sure you know: Jeff Hardy has been in ladder matches before.

West is surprised that Hardy is using the ladder as a weapon. Has he never watched WWF television? Why do the announcers have to keep repeating themselves? There’s really no attempt at getting the ladder and it’s just moves to hurt each other. There’s no flow to this at all and it’s just spot after spot. I know the others have that also, but there’s a clear flow to it and you can easily see the differences between the two.

Hall comes out and hits a Razor’s Edge on Hardy which does nothing at all. The fans for the most part look bored as they have all night. That’s the problem here: all of these spots have not only been done but they’ve been done better by more interesting characters. There’s just no reason to care at all here and it’s painfully showing. And now we have a big ladder. Where have I seen this before?

They set it up on the floor and climb it which is completely pointless as it’s about even with what a regular ladder in the ring would be at. Oh look, Hardy is in control and Nash, with his own entrance music, is coming down. Nothing but good can come of this right? Oh you know it’s coming. They beat up Hardy and Jarrett keeps the title. They call themselves the Kings of Wrestling as they try to do the NWO thing all over again.

AJ comes out to fight them and gets beaten down then Three Live Crew (because I like literacy) comes out and fight to something resembling a stalemate before Macho Man debuts and we go off the air. Yep, the six man was your main event next month and then Savage was gone. What a mess this was.

Rating: D. This was awful. It felt like they said we’re going to have a ladder match then looked around and asked if anyone knew how to do that. It wasn’t interesting at all and it wasn’t any good. None of the spots made you want to see more and nowhere in here did I think Hardy would win. The Outsiders as usual meant nothing. They had one big moment 14 years ago and they’ve ridden it ever since. This felt like an imitation of something better but they knew it was bad.

Overall Rating: D-. I get that this was the first PPV and I’m grading it as such. This was just a failure on almost all levels. Seriously, the two top faces both lose their title matches in favor of Petey Williams, Jeff Jarrett, the Outsiders and a weak NWO parody. 1/6 of the show was one boring match, and the rest was more or less filler.

There wasn’t one moment here where I wanted to see what would happen next. This felt more like a final show than a first show, and that’s just not good, MAYBE hardcore TNA fans will like this, but casual fans will hate it. Avoid for the most part.

Impact
Date: January 27, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz
Episode Title: Crimson Sees Red

It’s almost a go home show tonight as they’ve spent more time building up to February 3^rd than Against All Odds which is perfectly fine as 2/3 is a huge show.  Also, it’s nice to see TNA building up to a major event for weeks rather than hours.  When you do that, more people might actually watch.  Anyway, tonight we’ll likely be focusing on the new THEY and hopefully finding out some more about how Crimson is connected to this.  Also expect more about Angle vs. Jarrett.  Let’s get to it.

As usual we open with a recap of last week, mainly focusing on Jarrett/Angle and then Crimson.

Angle opens the show properly without music for some reason this week.  He talks about last week and everything that happened before moving on to how he made a promise not to wrestle again.  But sometimes there are things you have to deal with, and in this case it’s Jarrett.  He’s the best in the world and he does it for the people.  Would the people want to see Kurt in the ring one more time?  Based on the cheers it seems that they would.

Bischoff and Immortal come out and Bischoff says that there’s no way he’s wrestling again because he’s retired.  Kurt apparently needs to find a new hobby.  Eric sends Immortal down and they beat the heck out of Kurt.  Taz mentions that Eric took away the pyro and music so that’s covered.  Crimson runs in with a bat for the save and clears the ring.

Flair goes on a classic rant, saying that THEY is him, Bischoff and Hogan and are already here.  Hogan hasn’t been seen in two months but he’s still here I guess.  Flair, as Kurt’s god, lifts the ban on Angle wrestling and makes Angle vs. Jarrett tonight.  Jeff loses it but Flair finishes his statement and makes it Angle/Crimson vs. all of Immortal.  Flair’s face is beet red.  He screams more as we go to a break.

Back with Eric taking credit for making Angle says he’d retire if he lost.  “Ric, have you lost your mind?”  Flair of course responds with taking off his jacket, shouting at the top of his lungs and talking about Kool-Aid.  This is absolutely hilarious and I really don’t know if that’s intentional or not.

Dixie speaks tonight.

Sarita/Tara/Madison Rayne vs. Velvet Skye/Mickie James/Angelina Love

We see the Beautiful People in the back but Winter grabs Angelina and asks why are you doing this to us?  Love says chill because Velvet is my BFF.  Winter is crushed and screams, beating the tar out of a wall or something.  Dang it quit having the camera on anything other than Velvet during her entrance?  This is under elimination rules because a gimmick is needed in at least half the matches on a Russo show.

They brawl before the match starts and then we get a bell.  Tara vs. Angelina to start but it’s off to Sarita and Mickie soon.  Dixie is the topic of course and we get the legal ruling on Immortal and TNA next week.  Also she’s still President.  I’m assuming that means a figurehead spot at the moment?  Off to Velvet and Sarita now as Velvet is still obsessed with beating her.

Madison tries to come in but Mickie counters her.  Madison tries to load up the glove but is thrown out by Velvet.  The distraction allows Sarita to roll her up to make it 3-2.  Mickie gets in but is sent to the apron soon.  She gets rammed by Tara’s elbow pad and Madison comes in.  Madison is knocked down and falls on her own glove to knock herself out and Mickie gets the pin.  A second later Sarita rolls up Mickie to get us down to Angelina vs. Sarita/Tara.

Angelina gets a small package on Sarita for two as we take a break.  Back with Anelina vs. Sarita still.  Angelina reverses a belly to back and gets a spin kick for two.  They show a reply of the Madison elimination and see that she completely missed the glove that knocked her out but that’s an understandable error as fast as she was falling.  We cut to the back with Velvet on the ground holding her head.  Winter vs. Velvet for Angelina’s affections works for me.

Over to Tara now after a long body scissors by Angelina.  Tara lasts just a few seconds as it’s back to Sarita.  Sarita gets something close to a snap suplex for two.  We’re over 12 minutes into this match now with a lot of it being this handicap match.  I don’t remember a Knockouts match this long in awhile other than maybe the cage match.  The heels double team Angelina a bit but Love fights them off and hits the Botox Injection to Tara to make it 1-1.  Sarita gets a rollup reversed and Angelina gets the win at 13:35.

Rating: C-. The match got a lot better once we got down to 2-1.  The first half was incredibly sloppy and they were going too fast with the eliminations.  I’m not sure what the point was to it going so long but it wasn’t a bad match.  I like them having an angle in the division if not multiple angles too.  Nice to see that for a change.

Angle is on the phone with someone and says they have to accelerate their plans.  Kurt wants the person here tonight.

Back with Matt making fun of Anderson’s saying things twice deal.  Matt says Anderson won’t make it to February 3.  He also mentions having Cold Blood which gets some emphasis.

Kaz is at the announce table.  We’re going to have three triple threats over the next three weeks.  The winners will meet at Against All Odds for a final triple threat for the #1 contender spot.  Wow think they’re taking enough time getting to that?

Max Buck vs. Amazing Red vs. Chris Sabin

We get comments from everyone with Red saying he’s the original face of the X Division, Max saying it’s either his or his brother’s time and Sabin says destiny is knocking at his door (Kaz: wouldn’t that upset Velvet Sky?  Sabin and her date if that makes no sense).  It’s a wild match as you would expect to start with Max being sent to the floor a few times.

Big dive by Sabin takes out Red and it’s Max vs. Sabin in the ring.  A low dropkick gets two.  Surprisingly enough Kaz is the most entertaining part of this match.  Jeremy chokes Red on the floor for a bit.  That apparently doesn’t work as he gets a dropkick off the top to take out both guys.  Red gets his speed going to take down Max with a spinning DDT.  Red dives at Sabin who catches him in a suplex position and slams him down into a neckbreaker for two.

Max vs. Sabin now with a nice gymnastics routine resulting in a faceplant by Max which gets two for him.  Nice kind of sunset bomb by Red for two as Jeremy pops up so his brother can still win.  Red goes up but gets crotched by Jeremy.  Elevated DDT out of the corner by Max is enough to pin Red at 5:10.  Fun match.

Rating: B. Fun match indeed here in the vein of the old school Cruiserweight matches in WCW.  This was a spot fest and that’s exactly what the X Division should be.  These matches are great ways to get a crowd going and it was short enough to not get dull.  Fun match and exactly what it needed to be.

Karen is paranoid about Kurt being on the phone.  Jeff says to calm down but Karen is still worried.

Jeff Hardy is up next.

Back with Velvet saying she’s fed up with Winter who attacked her.  She tells Angelina to deal with Winter or she will.

We recap Jeff vs. Anderson and their feud to hype up next week.

Here’s Jeff.  I still don’t see him as a big star when I look at him.  I didn’t in WWE and I don’t here.  He yells at the fans and says that they’re all a bunch of smarks and internet junkies.  At BFG he took the title and the money because he is TNA.  Half the fans chant for him and half of them chant where’s your title.  Now let’s talk about the jerk.  Jeff says he’s going to win the title back next week and shove it in all the fans’ faces.  This was just…bad.  He sounded like a guy in OVW that has been around for three months.

Anderson comes down to the ring and holds up the title.  He says Jeff complains and moans a lot, sounding like Charlie Brown’s mom.  Everything in wrestling is about wins and losses apparently and right now Anderson has the big win.  Anderson says that even after what Hardy has put the fans through, they still like him.  Next week it’s all about the title and when the match is over, Anderson will still be the Total Nonstop Action Total Nonstop Anderson.  I’m not a fan of Anderson but he destroyed Hardy here.

Eliminate the Hate PSA.

Crimson says a few weeks ago he was here for his brother Red.  Recently though he was given an offer he couldn’t refuse.  Next week we’ll find out who that offer came from.  Could they make this any more obvious?

We get a recap of what Crimson has done.  Abyss is hurt badly apparently and is out indefinitely.  No word on the TV Title.

Here’s Velvet with no music.  She calls out Winter with a ton of profanity.  Winter comes out and Velvet drills her before she can get in.  This goes on for awhile until Winter beats her down with some shots.  Angelina finally comes out to break it up.  The fans chant She’s a Screamer.  I want to end the Impact Zone audience.

Pope is on his way to the ring as we take a break.

Here’s Pope who says that maybe he said some things that shouldn’t have been said but he said some things that should have been said.  Pope is pure which is why he always wears white.  Tonight he’s going to confess to something.  Pope talks about how so many people aren’t honest with themselves and don’t like the people they’re around.

He’s better than all of us apparently, so he’s going to kneel down and confess.  He gets about one knee down but pulls up saying that he doesn’t like Joe.  Pope goes on a rant saying he is going to fix things like he always has.  Next week someone is going to confess just like he did.

Flair is giving Fourtune a pep talk and for no apparent reason Eric Young is there.  Fourtune leaves and Eric stays.  Flair goes off on him and says the title Eric has means nothing.  Eric leaves saying good talk Ric.  This was kind of pointless.  The Eric aspect I mean.

Back with a recap of Hogan’s arrival in TNA and how it led to the whole THEY story.  When you condense it really well like this the angle actually looks and sounds pretty awesome.

Dixie is on the phone and says that the day in court will be next Thursday and we’ll hear the decision that night.  This phone call lasted all of 30 seconds.  So in other words control of a major company and a fraudulent contract signing can be settled in court in a single day along with the action of that day in court being enacted on the same day?

Eric offers a rebuttal, saying next week Immortal will get the gold back and Hogan is back too.

Matt Hardy vs. Mr. Anderson

Matt hammers Anderson down a bit but can’t get a move off the top.  He does manage to drape Anderson’s arm over the top though and gets a one arm DDT for two.  Anderson’s arm goes into the post while the announcers plug next week’s major show.  The top of Anderson’s calves near his legs are really pale.  Lots of arm work here but Anderson gets a spinning neckbreaker for two.

Anderson’s rolling fireman’s carry slam is reversed and Matt uses an FU for two.  Twist of Hate is countered into the rolling fireman’s carry slam for two.  Mic Check is blocked and there’s the Side Effect for two but Anderson rolls him up for the pin at 4:12.  That came out of nowhere.

Rating: C+. Quick match but pretty good here.  They used a lot of counters and it was pretty fast paced.  They kept this short which is probably a good thing at this point.  It gave Anderson a slight injury going into the title defense next week, so I have very few complaints here for once.

Post match Jeff comes out for the beatdown.  RVD runs out for the save but the Hardys get away.  You know maybe RVD would be able to sneak up on them better if he didn’t have loud music saying ROB VAN DAM as soon as he came out.

Angle and Crimson are coming to the ring.  Angle says they’re not alone out there.

Kurt Angle/Crimson vs. Immortal

Immortal here is represented by Beer Money/Kaz/Rob Terry and Gunner/Murphy.  AJ is in street clothes as is Flair.  They’re staying on the floor it seems.  No Jarrett?  AJ is on the apron now and you have to tag here.  The referee makes them switch corners for some reason.  It seems like they’re wasting time.  Crimson vs. Roode to start with Roode hammering him back in the corner.  Is this Crimson’s official debut?

He takes over on Roode very quickly with a shoulder block and a Falcon Arrow for two.  Off to Angle who gets only a moderate pop for his first official match in months.  Kaz comes in and Angle takes over.  Off to Storm now who takes a suplex.  Angle knocks all of Immortal off the apron but Storm is able to hit a Backstabber.  Superkick misses and down goes the referee.

Angle Slam to Storm and it breaks down rather quickly.  With Angle in trouble we get Jarrett’s music.  He and Karen come out and Jeff wants Kurt on his own.  Kurt easily grabs a German but Immortal beats him down.  I’m assuming the match was thrown out at some point earlier.  Stroke to Angle and Jackson James runs out for the pin at 3:35.  No rating as the vast majority was a big beatdown.

Morgan runs out as apparently the call recipient.  I was wondering where he was tonight.  The numbers catch up with him though…and there go the lights.  A siren goes off and SCOTT STEINER is back, pipe in hand.  He clears the ring to end the show.

Overall Rating: C+. This was very similar to Raw in that the only point of it was to build up to the big show.  In that sends it certainly worked, but at the same time the lack of wrestling hurts it a bit.  This was good for a go home show but as a regular show it wasn’t that great overall.  I want to see the show next week though, so that’s definitely a win for them.

Also I won’t be here for the review next week so I’ll see you in two weeks.

Results

Angelina Love/Velvet Sky/Mickie James b. Tara/Madison Rayne/Sarita – Angelina last eliminated Sarita to win
Max Buck b. Amazing Red and Chris Sabin – Elevated DDT to Red
Mr. Anderson b. Matt Hardy – Cradle
Immortal b. Kurt Angle/Crimson – Stroke to Angle

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

Impact
Date: January 13, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz
Episode Title: The One That Got Away

It’s the first Impact after Genesis and things are looking a bit different. Mr. Anderson is the new world champion following an unannounced title match and title switch at Genesis which I’ll spare you my thoughts on because I’ll yet again be told I don’t get it or I’m an idiot or I don’t like the company or some other short sighted answer like that. Anyway, also at Genesis we saw the debut of Matt Hardy which already is forming our main event tonight. It should be interesting to see where TNA goes from here so let’s get to it.

The opening video is of Genesis from Sunday.  Featured are Angle vs. Jarrett and the announcement of the retirement party plus the whole world title scenario.  Anderson is considering giving Morgan the first title shot but isn’t sure.  Also he hates the look of the belt.

Jarrett and Karen got here earlier today.

Here’s Anderson who says that he’s worked forever to attain his dream.  He was hired over there and was the next world champion.  Anderson beat ten world champions but a little birdy (said in a HHH voice) got into the boss’ (Vince) head and said that he isn’t ready for it.  After being told everything he couldn’t do over there, he got a call from Eric Bischoff.

Eric, Hogan, Dixie and Russo told him he could be himself and now he’s the jerk that he is today.  This jerk just became the TNA World Heavyweight Champion.  He could have done it without the fans but he’ll thank them anyway.  The other jerk that he has to thank is Matt Morgan so could he please come out here.

Morgan comes out and Anderson thanks him.  Morgan says that the only reason Anderson has that title around his waist (Anderson: “It’s not around my waist.”) is because Morgan let himself down.  All Matt is thinking about is how to get the title and his next shot.  2011 is the year of the Blueprint and he’s coming for the title.  He’s being serious but civil/respectful here.  Anderson earned it and Morgan’s hat is off to him.  Morgan shakes his head and leaves.

Before we can go to a break here’s Bischoff.  He wants to know who Anderson thinks he is.  The only thing he accomplished is putting a bull’s-eye on his back.  Eric says mark his calendar for February 3^rd, 2011 (my birthday) that on Impact Hardy is getting his rematch and Hogan will be back.

Anderson gets in Eric’s face and Hardy pops up on the screen and says that in three weeks he gets his title back.  RVD jumps Hardy but the other Hardy makes the save.  Anderson runs off to make the save for RVD and luckily the interview area is right behind the curtain.  The rest of Immortal comes in to beat down Anderson and RVD.  The guys being laid out takes us to our first break.

Back and the main event is announced of Hardys vs. Anderson/RVD.  Can’t argue with the logic there.

We see Karen and Jeff Jarrett going into Immortal’s locker room and closing the door.

Tag Titles: Beer Money vs. Motor City Machineguns

Oh look: it’s this match again.  I get that it’s a good pairing, but can we PLEASE get a fresh team in there?  This TNA’s tag division is awesome theory is bogus.  Before they go to the Guns say to expect a good match.  The Guns hit the ring and it’s on early.  Tonight is the first of four weeks of Genesis rematches.  Well of course.  I mean it’s not like it’s supposed to mean anything to buy the PPV right?  Why buy it when you can just see the big matches over the next month?  What a great way to get fans to buy future shows!

After a big beatdown by the Guns a trip up of Shelley gives Beer Money control and we get down to a traditional match.  It’s my first night watching the show in HD and it makes the ring look much smaller.  Off to a chinlock by Storm on Sabin.  Double tag brings in Shelley and a double stomp gets two on Roode who Tazz thinks is Storm for some reason.

Here comes the double teaming by the Guns which is fun to watch as usual.  Skull and Bones hit Roode.  Storm is busted open.  Elevated DDT a la Orton takes down Sabin.  Shelley sets for a superplex but Storm pulls him down into the Eye of the Storm.  Shelley counters but gets caught in what looked like a TKO and a splash from Roode for two.  DWI can’t hit and here comes Sabin.  The Guns hit a combination downward spiral/missile dropkick but Shelly accidentally kicks Sabin on the ASCS Rush and DWI ends Shelley at 7:50.

Rating: B. Usual good match from these teams but the division is dying for new teams.  These two teams have had so many matches that while good are getting a bit monotonous.  If they’re planning a split between the Guns I question their sanity as they’re more or less the only serious face team the company has.  This was one of their weaker matches but certainly still good.

Jarrett is nervous about something after coming out of Immortal’s locker room.

Kurt gets here.

Back and RVD and Anderson aren’t happy about getting beaten down and say they need to take the fight to them.  Anderson has the same blood on his head that he had in the promo from after the PPV.  Did he not take a shower since then?  They grab some weapons which are a chair for RVD and what looked like a big board for Anderson.

Pope is here and the money is able to rain down from the ceiling again.  His hair looks kind of different and I think it’s braided now or something.  He talks about how Joe has been following him around and he hasn’t done anything wrong.  Pope says he’s a Pope that the people can look up to.  He forgives Joe but wants to know what would happen if the roles were reversed and Pope was following Joe.  Well apparently he did just that and we’re going to look at the Dixietron to see what Joe and his wife look like.

And it’s a picture of two pigs mating.  Next up is a picture of Joe’s wife giving birth and it’s a video of a pig nursing it’s babies.  Here comes Joe and Pope bails.  Uh, what’s stopping Joe from going after him?  Joe grabs the mic and says that for a man that is always pimping, he always runs like a little whiny an.  At some point in the future, Joe is coming after him and Joe’s Gonna Kill You.

RVD and Anderson storm the Immortal locker room and find Beer Money.  I didn’t see the previously mentioned weapons with them but whatever.  The door closes and sound effects imply a big old beatdown.  Anderson and RVD walk out and say that’s two down and now they’re looking for the Hardys.  Van Dam does have his chair with him as they leave so I’d assume he had it when he goes in.

Back with Eric, Flair and AJ talking about how to get the title off Anderson.  AJ wants to be able to soften him up but Flair says no because he needs to heal.  They walk into the locker room and find Beer Money down and Flair says Jesus a lot.  If they want a war they’ve got one.

We recap Jarrett vs. Angle which is one of the longest running feuds in company history.  And it’s still just a tease as Jarrett and Karen talk about how on Sunday Angle took it too far so tonight Jarrett is going to hang up his MMA boots.

Angle says that he and his ex have some catching up to do.

Here comes Jeff for his retirement party.  If nothing else we can look at Karen.  Maybe we can’t actually as Jarrett comes out with the security dudes.  Has he always had that mustache?  A guy in an Elmo shirt yells at Jarrett.  No idea why but that made me laugh.  He says that no one has come close to defeating him in an MMA fight and he’s certainly never lost.

At Genesis he could have injured Kurt but he didn’t.  He has nothing left to prove in MMA so he’s done.  Behind every great warrior there’s a great woman so here’s Karen.  Instead we get Kurt so Jarrett sends out the security dudes again.  They work about as well as an umbrella in a hurricane so Angle storms the ring.  After hitting Germans on Gunner and Murphy he corners Jarrett but here’s Karen with a mic of her own.

The distraction lets Jarrett get away.  In a voice that could make Vickie Guerrero jealous, she talks about how Kurt has played games with their personal lives and he’s not going to steal their happiness anymore.  Next week she’s going to tell her side of the story.  Uh, why not say it now?  You have a mic, you have him in front of you and your husband right next to you.  What’s stopping you honey?  Whatever as we go to another break.

Back with Angle cursing up a storm and breaking a lot of stuff.

Holy crap it’s a wrestling match!

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

Is there any reason to have these belts anymore?  We barely have enough girls for a singles title let alone tag belts.  Before the champions come to the ring Velvet rants about Winter and for some reason is surprised that she’s here for the title defense.  After the referee holds up the titles for a very long time we’re ready to go.  Angelina vs. Madison to start.  Angelina gets two rollups to start and dominates this part of the match.

Madison has that glove on her hand which is apparently loaded.  Off to Tara for some double teaming.  After about a minute and a half here’s Mickie to pull Madison out and drill Tara as well.  Mickie tries to get the glove off Madison and chases her out of the arena.  Bicycle Kick to Tara takes her down and Winter adds a double axe from the top.  She snaps and gets a choke on Tara for the submission/pass out at 3:00.  No rating as probably half of this was Mickie’s involvement.

The Hardys, from behind a cage no less, say that the business is all about making money and they’re blood, rather than a thief and a wrestler paired together.

Matt Morgan vs. Abyss

Non-title of course because you don’t want to have the TV Title defended on TV right?  Morgan charges right ahead and beats on Abyss for about a minute but can’t hit the Carbon Footprint due to a distraction for Flair.  A corner charge by the champion eats elbow but he gets a clothesline to Morgan to keep control.  He takes too long on another charge though and gets caught by a Discus Lariat.  Chokeslam by Abyss is blocked and the Carbon Footprint hits.  Flair tries to save but can’t stop the count and Morgan gets the pin at 3:20.

Post match Flair goes after Morgan but gets caught.  Terry comes down and it’s a 3-1 beatdown.

Rating: D+. This was watchable but not much more.  Great to see a new champion get pinned in less than 4 minutes despite attempted interference.  I get that they need to keep Morgan strong, so maybe they shouldn’t have booked him against a champion?  Just a thought.  Anyway this was nothing special at all and was just to set up the beatdown post match.

After a break Abyss is in the back and someone (might have been Tommy Mercer/Red’s brother) jumps Abyss and says that on February 3^rd they’re coming for every member of Immortal.  He chokes Abyss out and leaves him laying.

Tenay and Tazz confirm that it was him and his name is apparently Crimson.

Abyss goes into the locker room to talk to Eric but he’s talking to the Hardys so it has to be later.  Eric says that everything goes down on February 3^rd.  After the Hardys leave Abyss tells them what happed.  Eric and Flair say he’s having a flashback because Immortal is already here.

Hardys vs. Rob Van Dam/Mr. Anderson

It’s 10:38 when the entrances start so there’s a lot of time for this.  Back and the non-brothers go straight for the Hardys in the aisle.  Oddly enough RVD goes after Matt.  We get the bell and it’s on with a big brawl.  We get it down to an actual match with RVD vs. Matt.  I can’t say Hardy anymore which is taking some getting used to.  Matt hammers away in the corner as the bare arms look isn’t working for him at all.

Tenay tells us that Matt is officially in Immortal which I think was pretty clear but it’s nice to have it be made official.  Jeff and Anderson in now and Jeff reopens the wound on Anderson’s head.  Tenay suggest that if the Hardys had stayed together they might be recognized as the best tag team ever.  They weren’t even the best team in the company back in the day.

Matt goes up and misses a moonsault.  In a related story, Florida’s ground has been pushed into the ground by 9 feet.  We take a break after RVD dives on the Hardys on the floor.  Back with RVD hammering on Matt.  After some Jeff interference a Side Effect gets two.  Off to Anderson vs. Jeff again and there’s the Mic Check with ease.  Matt saves but it was kind of odd to see him hit it that easily.

Matt sets for the Twist but Anderson fights out of it.  Down goes the referee and Matt gets a Mic Check of his own.  Instead they just beat down the Hardys but Beer Money comes out to uneven the odds.  After the big beating from Beer Money the Twist and Swanton pin Anderson at 13:50.  Great way to treat your world champion in his first match as champion.

Rating: C. This was your basic main event tag match with a screwy finish.  I really don’t like Anderson getting pinned and Immortal standing tall again but they’re setting up for three weeks from now which should be a good thing at least.  The match wasn’t anything great at all but it certainly worked for a main event and thankfully got some time.  Right in the middle here.

Immortal hits the ring to beat the guys down and stand tall as the show ends.

Overall Rating: B. The lack of wrestling is really the only thing holding this back.  Well that and the champions getting pinned twice.  I quite liked this show overall as it seems we’re away from the whole Immortal dominance thing and are shifting over to the THEY are coming again.  I like this for once as it’s a nice bit of continuity to the big storyline.  I’m interested in seeing where this is going, which is exactly the point of what they’re trying to do.  Good show and a good sign of things to come hopefully.

Results

Beer Money b. Motor City Machineguns – DWI to Shelley

Angelina Love/Winter b. Tara/Madison Rayne – Winter choked Tara out

Matt Morgan b. Abyss – Carbon Footprint

The Hardys b. Rob Van Dam/Mr. Anderson – Swanton Bomb to Anderson

Impact
Date: January 6, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz
Episode Title: Genesis….the Beginning…or the End?

It’s the go home show for Genesis where the card is more or less complete I think barring maybe a match or two being added tonight. Hopefully Impact can keep up what it’s been doing recently of having good television. Let’s get to it.
We open with a recap of the whole Morgan vs. Anderson issue with Foley being worried about Anderson and how bad his head might be. This is mainly focused on Morgan hitting Anderson and getting the pin after the shot to his head.

Immortal opens the show in the arena with Bischoff talking about how Genesis is the beginning. He promises nothing underhanded in the title matches on Sunday where he’s put a bounty on all the titles. Tonight is a night of champions apparently. Bischoff wants to talk to some champions, starting with Lethal.

The X-Division Champion comes out looking rather cocky. Bischoff says that with that attitude he can’t guarantee that Immortal will be good to him. Jay gets in rather hesitantly. Here come the Guns by invitation also. Finally it’s Williams who is very skeptical as well. Bischoff talks about how these people are going to steal the show on Sunday because that’s what champions do.

He makes matches for later: Lethal vs. Abyss, Guns vs. AJ/Kaz and Williams Rob Terry. The Guns have an issue with shaking AJ’s hand. There’s no handshake as it breaks down into a brawl. Bischoff acting all calm with the mic is funny for some reason. Van Dam comes in for the save and Immortal scatters.

Van Dam demands Jeff Hardy again to Bischoff and also wants to know who the opponent is. Bischoff says he’ll say when he’s good and ready. Van Dam says he’ll find out tonight.

Ray talks about how he’s been using D-Von for 15 years and challenges D-Von to a fight in the parking lot right now as we go to a break.

Back with a quick recap of last week’s Tommy Mercer vs. Jarrett in the MMA challenger. Here’s Jarrett with Angle’s entrance still. He announces the tweeks that were made to the competition last week and are official tonight. First up, they have to be his size or shorter. Also it’s an exhibition, so I’m not sure if the money is still going or not. Apparently it isn’t.

Someone from the Twilight Saga is here. Egads you can’t escape the freaking things. The guy is something called a junior black belt. It’s not happening though because his dad is taller than Jeff so the other guy isn’t eligible. Jarrett sees a fan in the back that works here. Naturally it’s a massacre with Jarrett beating the tar out of him and ending him with the ankle lock.

He won’t let go of the hold though and here’s Kurt Angle! He’s back and gets after Jarrett to break up the hold. Why is it that wrestling security will let people jump the guard rail so often? As Punk says, security here sucks. Angle says he’s about the same height as Jarrett and since it’s an exhibition he’s not breaking his promise of not wrestling. The showdown is made for Genesis as we take a break.

Back with a brief recap of what we just saw.

Motor City Machineguns vs. AJ Styles/Kazarian

The Guns jump them to start as they’re such nice guys. After a skirmish on the floor we start with Sabin vs. AJ in the ring. Double teaming and chops have Sabin in big trouble. Kaz has a thing for slingshot legdrops as two of them both get two. The announcers would rather talk about the PPV than the match which is something I’ve never been a fan of at all.

Sabin finally gets loose and we get double tags to bring in AJ and Shelley. Shelley gets rid of Kaz to get us down to Shelley s. AJ. This works for me. Rolling Chaos doesn’t work for AJ but he manages to counter Sliced Bread. The moonsault into a reverse DDT by AJ can’t hit either. A belt shot misses and Sliced Bread #2 finishes AJ at 4:50.

Back with a brief recap of what we just saw.

Rating: B-. This was very short for who you had in ther ebut it was certainly fun. I think they’re trying to push the idea of AJ being on the verge of getting thrown out of the group which is fine. The Guns getting a clean win like that over a big name is a great thing to see. Fun little match.

Post match Beer Money beats down the Guns.

Pope is going to call out whomever is following him around.

After another break AJ is getting chewed out by Bischoff saying it’s not as simple as it sounds. Flair says that they just want AJ to be the best he can be. AJ asks if Flair won every match he was in and Flair says no. Eric says it’s not about Flair and more or less says again that if AJ doesn’t get the TV Title on Sunday he’s gone.

Pope is in the ring to address being followed everywhere. He yells about the invasion of privacy and wants the guy to come out here right now. And it’s….Joe? Joe talks about how we’ve seen Pope in the back of the strip club and how no one has gotten their stuff at orphanages and shelters and how there are no puppies there.

Pope goes on a rant talking about how he’s been judged all his life and how he doesn’t need a Samoan in his way now. He has reasons for everything going on, including that he’s just talking to the strippers and telling them that they don’t have to do this to make a buck. His answer for the dog thing is more or less that he loves pit bulls and kids would too. That doesn’t really address Joe saying the kids don’t have them. Pope has spoken though so that’s that.

Sarita/Madison Rayne vs. Velvet Sky/Mickie James

Velvet and Sarita start us off. Always a fan of these tags that get both feuds into a single match as they’re as good of a way to save time as I can think of. Madison breaks up the momentum as we get a great back shot of Sarita. Rayne chokes away at Velvet while Tenay teases Tazz about a slip of the tongue that wasn’t funny.

Rayne keeps making sure Mickie can’t get in because she knows Mickie would destroy her. She does her mat humping move which rams Velvet’s head into the mat. Off to Sarita again with Velvet getting a jumping DDT to counter. Mickie comes in illegally and beats up the champion for awhile. While the referee tries to get her out, Tara pops Velvet with the elbow brace and a punch from Madison lets Sarita get the pin in 4:45.

Rating: C+. This was better than I expected actually. They played up both angles here and did it rather efficiently indeed. The girls looked good, the wrestling wasn’t bad and the angles were given a bit of time. I think I’ve talked myself into giving it a slightly higher grade. Not bad at all.

RVD is talking to Bischoff and he still wants Hardy. Eric gives him a match tonight but won’t say against who. RVD says ok and Hardy is next.

Rob Terry vs. Douglas Williams

Tazz touches on the former alliance here in some nice continuity. Shame that’s such a rarity in wrestling anymore. Doug tries to use some speed moves to start us off. Cravate sets up some knees to the head which Terry simply shrugs off. And here’s AJ to destroy Williams in maybe a minute. He slams Doug’s hand into the steps and post to destroy it before the PPV.

Bubba is heading to the parking lot.

Back with Bubba in the parking lot and D-Von is ready to go. Security holds them back while Bubba runs his mouth. They stay separated until Bubba gets a cheap shot. He says D-Von should think of himself and not show up Sunday for the sake of his kids.

Jarrett says he has a plan for Sunday and an insurance policy. Eric wants to have RVD taken care of tonight and makes a No DQ match which Jarrett seems happy with.

Abyss vs. Jay Lethal

We take a break before the match starts. This is non-title of course because you wouldn’t have a big guy like Abyss go after a title that has no weight limit right? Why would you want your monster to try to claim a title in a match that on paper shouldn’t be a challenge for him? Lethal uses lots of hit and run offense and gets a missile dropkick for two.

Abyss takes over with power but misses a quick splash in the corner. And never mind as the Black Hole Slam kills Lethal. Abyss pauses before covering though and pulls Lethal up at two. Apparently Immortal wants Abyss to soften up Lethal so that Kaz can take the title. Why not have Abyss take the title if he can destroy Lethal that easily? Anyway he chokes in the corner a bit too long and it’s a DQ at 3:40.

Rating: D+. Let’s see. Lethal more or less got destroyed, the lack of this being a title match makes little sense given that Bischoff said get all titles no matter what so there’s no reason to insist on having Kaz get it when Abyss easily could have apparently, and the match was way too short. Weak match.

Kaz comes out and has Abyss hold up Lethal so he can look him in the eye, even though he’s more or less dead.

We get a music video hyping up the PPV and running down the card.

There’s a sitdown interview with Morgan and Anderson which is almost all about the head injury. Morgan says Anderson should be careful while Anderson says wrestlers get injured. Morgan asks who has seen the paperwork saying Anderson is ok and Anderson says it’s none of his business. Tenay wants to know if Anderson is working everyone. Anderson says you’ll find out at Genesis. They stare each other down to end this.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Rob Van Dam

Remember this is No DQ. Jarrett tries to kick with RVD for no apparent reason. He hits what looked a bit like a Superman punch which is about all of his offense for the opening part of this match. Rolling Thunder is aborted as Jarrett hits the floor for a bit. He takes a few laps around the ring and comes back in to get knocked down again.

Murphy trips Van Dam up and Jarrett takes over. If it’s No DQ, why don’t they just come in and pummel him? After some more basic offense they do just that. RVD gets a chair but the numbers are too much for him. RVD fights them off for a bit but Hardy runs in for his cameo and the Twist of Hate ends this at about 5:30.

Rating: C. We’ll say this is right in the middle as they got the psychology correct by having Jarrett’s goons run in for the help somewhat shortly into this. Not a great match at all but the thinking worked and it was kind of entertaining. This was ok and it set up the ending stuff well enough.

Morgan comes out to save RVD as Hardy gets the chair. Anderson comes out and swings the chair, naturally hitting Morgan. He gets all ticked off to end the show.

Overall Rating: B-. The lack of wrestling hurt this a lot. This was a very good go home show that I would have put up probably a full letter higher if the in ring stuff had been more prolific and a bit better. Everything on the PPV got at least some time tonight and I’m kind of interested in what looks like a pretty weak PPV on paper. Not a great show in general, but a very good go home show.

Results
Motor City Machineguns b. Kazarian/AJ Styles – Sliced Bread #2 to Styles
Sarita/Madison Rayne b. Velvet Sky/Mickie James – Punch to Sky
Douglas Williams b. Rob Terry via DQ when AJ Styles interfered
Jay Lethal b. Abyss via DQ when Abyss refused to break a choke hold
Jeff Jarrett b. Rob Van Dam – Twist of Hate from Jeff Hardy