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

TNA Year In Review 2010

As I did with the WWE Year In Review, I’ll be looking at various aspects of the company and giving more or less a history of what happened along with some analysis of things I found intriguing. This one will be a good bit shorter than the other two with the obvious reason of there’s far less aired by TNA than WWE. Let’s get to it.

As always if you think I’m wrong on something, yell at me for it.

Since TNA tends to have the majority of their storylines built around one or two major things, I’m going to break this down differently and go month by months instead of looking at various aspects of the company and how they did through the year. First off though, the big things in the year.

Highlights

Monday Night Wars Redux

Back in January, TNA moved to Monday nights almost directly against Raw to try to fight them off. In short, this didn’t work very well. Ratings hit an all time high for Hogan’s debut and then actually held fairly steady. At this point the show began at 8 and had a one hour lead on Raw. For these 9 weeks, the show averaged a 1.25 rating.

Then on March 8 the shows moved head to head with each other and the ratings fell like a stone. Between March 8 and April 5, the average rating was a .86. Seeing the issues, the company shifted back to 8pm, regaining the hour advantage. For the following four weeks the show averaged a .75 and the writing was on the wall. The “war” ended on May 3 as Impact aired its final Monday night show.

While the results clearly didn’t go well like at all for TNA, they did put in a fresh energy on Monday nights as there was a question of which show to watch. They jumped too far too fast though and it caught them, but I’ll give them credit for jumping at all.

The Band/New Faces

With Hogan back in power, the old friends of his would begin to show up. Aside from a few random appearances, the main additions were Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Sean “X/Syxx-Pac” Waltman. The former NWO guys showed up and expected things to be like they had been earlier with Hulk.

This didn’t go exactly as planned as the trio eventually did some stuff in the tag division before going after Eric Young of all people. Young fought them and then of course joined them. After using the Feast or Fired case to win the tag titles, Waltman was phased out as he more or less couldn’t wrestle anymore and Young took his place. Hall left soon thereafter also and then Nash and Young split up, ending the concept.

Also in this period various other new named popped up, such as Sean Morely (lasted all of three weeks), Orlando Jordan (still around for some reason), Jeff Hardy (didn’t really do much for a few months), Mr. Anderson (Mr. Kennedy, big deal actually), Rob Van Dam (nice surprise) and Ric Flair (one of the top heels now for whatever reason). These guys would kind of force the TNA guys away for a bit which would of course become an issue later.

Other Early Year Stuff

Coming into the year, AJ Styles was world champion. He and Angle had an awesome match on January 4 and then another at Genesis, but at that show AJ turned heel for the first time as a serious wrestler in forever, joining with Ric Flair. About a month later, Mr. Anderson debuted at Against All Odds.

D’Angelo Dinero won a tournament at the same show to get a shot at AJ at Lockdown. During this time the main feud was Team Hogan vs. Team Flair because these two are freaking joined at the hip for all eternity for some reason. Aside from all that, this was also going on.

THEY

I go back and forth on this one. Apparently starting back in about March, the main storyline began, destined to be blown off at Bound For Glory. The idea was that after Abyss was mentored by Hogan, he would snap and talk about someone known as THEY who were going to take over the company.

Hogan and Bischoff braced for their arrival as Sting and Kevin Nash tried to warn TNA president Dixie Carter of something evil about Hogan and Bischoff. As anyone with a brain saw coming, Hogan and Bishcoff were the core of THEY along with the turned heel Jeff Hardy but we’ll get to that in a bit.

The angle was incredibly intricate but there are still plot holes in it which to be fair is almost a universal issue in wrestling. The problem with this was two fold. One was Abyss, as he managed to become the least interesting character you could possibly imagine. Also, the storyline got so intricate that by the time it was over and the payoff was given, most people didn’t want to sit down and figure it out. There were other aspects to the story besides Abyss, such as this one.

Top Ten

Around this time there was a rather brief concept of ranking the top ten challengers. In April Rob Van Dam won the world title and needed challengers. The first would be Sting in an angle I’ll touch on later. The concept became that Hogan, Bischoff and Carter would rank the top ten guys in the company and the #1 ranked guy would get the title shot. It lasted maybe two months or so and was more or less a joke.

EV/ECW Return

Have you ever heard of a company called ECW? TNA might have but I’m not sure as they keep changing whether or not they can say it. Back in I think June, Tommy Dreamer and various other ECW guys started sitting in the Impact Zone and watching. The theory was that these guys were THEY but that was soon proven wrong.

Eventually a massive brawl broke out with EV and the team called Fourtune which was broken up by Dixie Carter, saying she invited the EV guys. The idea was that ECW was getting one more chance to shine because of their dedication to the business or some nonsense like that. They even got a PPV out of it called Hardcore Justice. The show was pretty bad unless you were a diehard ECW fan, but of course it was a huge part of the THEY angle, as was this.

Sting/Nash/Deception

This was something that was talked about for a good while then not talked about again then talked about again. Sting, ever the guy that said exactly what he was thinking, kept talking about how there was a massive deception going on but Dixie wouldn’t listen to him. Nash joined him, knowing something we all didn’t know. This eventually was revealed to be that he had figured out the Hogan/Bischoff conspiracy and was trying to tell us what was going on but Dixie wouldn’t listen. This all came out here.

10/10/10/Immortal

This was the blowoff to the whole thing. Abyss had said that THEY would make themselves known here. After RVD had been attacked by Abyss and a board with spikes in it called Janice, he had been stripped of the TNA Title and a tournament had been held with the finals being a three way dance here.

After a good match, Jeff Hardy fell to the floor and here came Eric and Hulk. Hogan was on crutches but handed them to Hardy to clobber Angle and Anderson and give him the world title. Jarrett and Abyss came down and THEY were here. Soon after, Flair’s team called Fourtune joined in and Immortal was formed.

Since that that has been the main story as Anderson had been trying to get a shot at the title but was given a concussion by a Hardy chair shot. After a feud with Matt Morgan who had been thrown out of Immortal, Hardy is looking for a new challenger as we end the new year.

Also going on right now, Jeff Jarrett thinks he’s an MMA god while we wait on the return of Kurt Angle to destroy him. This is something different at least but there isn’t much to it I don’t think.

Main Storylines: Much like everything else in TNA this was a love it or hate it area. The vast majority of the year was built around one major storyline and if you weren’t into it, too bad. I’ll go more into detail on that later near the end. The stories were ok for the most part, but with Abyss as the catalyst for the whole thing it’s kind of hard to get into. Hogan’s booking isn’t something I’ve ever been a fan of and this was no exception. Some ok stuff, but the problem was that the ok stuff was weighed down by all the bad stuff and the bad delivery and the slow buildup time.

You know, I had meant to make a month by month breakdown, but after all that there isn’t much left to talk about so I’ll just leave it with that and a few sections that are upcoming. The only major thing I haven’t talked about is this.

Tag Teams

This was an odd year for these belts. After a few weeks of the British Invasion holding the titles, Matt Morgan and Hernandez won them at Genesis. After about two months with them Morgan turned on his partner and defended the titles on his own.

After a title defense, Morgan was attacked by the Band who won the titles using a Feast or Fired case and defended them using the Freebird Rule. Hall would be arrested for an issue at a bar in Florida and therefore the titles were stripped. The Motor City Machine Guns had been the #1 contenders so there was a tournament instead, won by the Guns.

Something that a lot of people seem to overlook about the Guns getting the titles: they weren’t the first choice. Had Hall not gotten into trouble, there is no telling how long the Band would have held the titles for. The Guns holding the belts is a good thing as it’s long overdue, but had the Band not been forced to drop them, there’s no guarantee the Guns would have won them.

Soon after this the Guns and Beer Money had a best of five series of matches which were mostly awesome. After defeating the drunken rich dudes to keep the titles, the Guns continued a long feud with Generation Me in which the Guns still kept the belts. The “great” tag division is now back to Beer Money vs. the Guns, probably at the next PPV.

Tag Teams: Once the belts got on the Guns, as in a young team that deserved a chance with them, things went way up for this division. And then something became clear: this division is nowhere near what it’s built up to be. You have the Guns, Beer Money, Gen Me, Ink Inc and Young/Jordan as a comedy team. That’s really about all you have too. The Guns vs. Beer Money is fine, but they had one real set of challengers in the last five months. That’s not depth, no matter how you slice it.

ReAction

No real other place to put this but it was kind of a highlight. On and off throughout the year there were specials called ReAction. More or less it was shot like a documentary and recapped a lot of what happened that night but also offered some more details in the form of candid interviews. Oftentimes the end of Impact’s main event would spill over into this. It was an interesting concept, but 3 hours of TNA was a bit much and the show airs it’s final episode tonight.

Superlatives

Just like in WWE, only Show and Wrestler of the year.

Show – Lockdown. This show worked rather well overall and had an excellent match with Anderson vs. Angle in what I thought was the best match of the year for any company. The main event kind of sucked but the show was fun throughout as much like TLC, they amped up the gimmicks and it worked in this case.

Wrestler – Kurt Angle. By default for the most part actually. No one really stood out to me so I went with Angle instead of anyone else. Hardy’s matches kind of suck, Anderson barely ever won a stupid thing, RVD is ok and not much more, and that leaves AJ who is stuck in Flair mode and has been for the majority of the year. Angle was his usual awesome self and always entertaining.

Overall Themes

Devaluing of the Titles

This is a big one. Aside from the world and tag titles, the belts all feel almost meaningless. Let’s take a quick look at how every title changed hands this year aside from the world and tag.

Knockout Singles:

Clean win
2/3 Falls win
Pulled out of a box
Champion not pinned in a tag match
Won via DQ
Title handed over
Clean win
Champion not pinned in a four way match
Champion lays down to lose title

In other words of the NINE title changes this year (think that’s a bit much?) 1/3 were clean pins over the champion with no shenanigans.

Knockout Tag:

Clean win
Titles vacated for lack of defenses
Won in a threeway
Champions not pinned in a tag match (Freebird Rule)
Titles vacated for lack of defenses
Tournament final with a woman throwing herself into the winning team

Again, one time where the initial champions and initial challengers won the titles, back at the beginning of the year.

TV/Global:

Won at a house show
Won with outside interference
Clean win

This is far better but in the entire year, there were a total of 11 televised title defenses, including PPVs. The title was changed to the TELEVISION Title in late July so we’ll say from the beginning of August to the end of the year, as in five months, that title was defended on Impact four times. With less than a title defense a month televised, how in the world can I take the title seriously? Why should I? No one is challenging the champion the vast majority of the time so apparently they don’t want it. Why should I care about it other than simply it’s a title?

X Title:

Feast or Fired cashed in (not by the person that owned the case)
Title stripped (due to travel issues so not TNA’s fault at all)
Clean win in a threeway
Clean win
Clean win
Changed at a house show
Changed at a house show
Win with outsider interference
Clean win

Now, out of all these, name one specific one that stands out in your mind (rhetorical for you lunkheads out there that don’t get what I’m talking about). Williams, Lethal, Kaz and Robbie E have held it on TV this year. When do you remember anything about the title other than it being won or lost? The title isn’t fought for anymore and it’s not like people talk about it. The division means nothing at all anymore and more or less is three guys fighting over it on occasion.

In short, aside from the world title and arguably the tag titles, the belts have been made to look like absolutely nothing.

Isn’t Nostalgia Supposed to be Fun?

Hulk Hogan (57), Eric Bischoff (55) and Ric Flair (61) are the three top heels in this company. Hardy, the world champion as of this writing, is a distant fourth. Why should we fear these guys? Are they going to run over us with their wheelchairs? Before they were the top heels, Nash (51) and Sting (51), were the top heels. I understand the idea of having your big stars be a major focus of your show, but at the end of the day there comes a point where that’s simply not working.

As I’ve said numerous times on here, why pay out the likely big fat contracts to guys like these if they’re not going to get you even a slight push in the ratings? Without all of the numbers from this year and with only through September of last year (Hogan signed in late October), the ratings are down nearly 9% this year. Think about that for a minute. Not only are the salaries there, but ratings are down.

Since these guys showed up they have been the focal point of the company be they faces or heels. A lot of fans, myself included, like these guys but at some point even their big fans are going to start to say “Ok, we get it: Hogan and Flair are the biggest stars ever and Bischoff is slick. Can we see something else?” They’ve been doing the same stuff for 15 years now and it’s a little tiring. This ties into my next point.

Insert Witty Line About Too Much of the Same People Here

TNA doesn’t seem to get the concept of show us something different. Like I said, Hogan, Bischoff and Flair have been the focal points of the company. When I say focal points, I mean for awhile they were in seemingly every segment. For about 9-10 months this year, the vast majority of the show was about one thing at a time.

When the year started, the majority of the show was about Hogan and The Band with some stuff about AJ and his defenses thrown in. Then it became about Hogan vs. Flair. Then it became about THEY ARE COMING. Then it was about Sting and Deception. Then it was about THEY ARE STILL COMING/EV 2.0. Then it was about Immortal and since then it’s still been about Immortal.

When they’re not in the ring they’re in the back talking. When they’re not in the back talking they’re in the back fighting. When they’re not in the back fighting, they’re on a commercial. More or less, the main storyline takes up well over half of a show more often than not. While there may be individual storylines, they always tie into the main one (Pope vs. Abyss for example).

In short, if you don’t like the main storyline, you might as well only watch about half an hour of the show. Let’s take a look at the show from 12/23 for an example.

Immortal/Rob Terry introduced/Morgan weigh-in/Foley vs. Flair yelling
Jeff Hardy talks to Morgan
Jeff Jarrett’s MMA thing
Tara and Madison talk
X-Title #1 Contenders Match
Sarita beats up Velvet
Bischoff and Flair address Immortal
Kendrick talks to some lady in a cafeteria
Knockouts Tag Title match
Pope gets donations from Young/Jordan
Ironman Match
Team Beer Money talks
Anderson interview
Team MCMG talks
Main event – Team MCMG vs. Team Beer Money

That’s 15 segments in total. 8 (not counting the #1 contender match) involved Immortal or Fourtune. If that’s not enough, let’s go back a bit to the July 1 show.

Abyss and Eric talk/Hogan hits Abyss with a chair/Hardy saves
Tag match
Bischoff makes Abyss vs. Hardy the main event
Dixie Carter arrives
AJ vs. Joe
Dixie talks to Hogan and Eric
Kendrick vs. Wolfe
Dreamer talks
Video on Pope
Pope promo
Lethal vs. Morgan
Abyss makes Janice
Rayne vs. Wilde
Sarita beats up Wilde
Dixie talks to Sting
Abyss vs. Jeff Hardy

16 segments, 7 were about Hogan/Eric/Abyss/Dixie, all of which were about THEY. In other words, just shy of half was about the same thing. See what I mean? It’s fine to have a main story, but it can’t be half of your show because if a fan isn’t into that story, there’s little point in watching the whole show because they’ll get sick of it. I checked other shows and came up with approximately 50% as well. That’s overkill of an angle, period.

Overall

This was not a good year for TNA in my eyes. With the arrival of Hogan and Bischoff, everything was changed and the focus almost instantly was on them. The vast majority of the year has been the buildup to Immortal and then Immortal itself. The problem is that the payoff, Immortal being here, worked for maybe two weeks and since then has become boring quickly.

Hardy is intriguing as champion, but after that the whole team kind of falls apart. As I said earlier, having three guys that aren’t wrestlers anymore leading the top heel stable is not a good idea. In short, if you don’t like Immortal you’re not going to like Impact because the show completely revolves around that one story.

The major issue this year has been the writing. The storylines just aren’t intriguing at all for the most part. The shock value was definitely there on 10/10/10 but aside from that, nothing has really been a huge deal. Everything feels flat and there doesn’t seem to be a sign of that getting any better. That’s not a good sign as 2010 was a major step backwards for this organization.

I probably left some stuff out but I think this definitely covers the high points. Oh and Samoa Joe was kidnapped by ninjas and then came back and that was just kind of never talked about again.

Impact
Date: December 30, 2010
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Taz
Episode Title: The Con Game

It’s the final Impact of the year and we have two more shows to go before Genesis.  Nothing has been announced that I’m aware of so everything tonight is going to be new to a degree.  Hopefully they can continue having good stuff like they did last week.  Let’s get to it.

We open with clips from last week of Foley talking to Bischoff and Flair about how everything is screwed up because of Foley and the hardcore stuff he’s done.  Foley wants to be part of the solution now instead of part of the problem.

Foley is in the Impact Zone.  He wants to talk to Anderson face to face.  Foley talks about how they met at a military hospital along with Miss America.  He mentioned this in his fourth book.  There was an odd bit of wording from her as she said, “You do me first then I’ll do both of you.”  I’ll let you figure out what they were talking about.

Mick says that he’s going to say something that he wished someone had said to him.  In essence he asks Anderson to make sure he’s ok because the repercussions of a concussion (say that three times fast) are life long.  Anderson takes offense to it because he’s said he’s fine and has been tested and all that jazz.  Basically he says to Foley either drop it or fight.

Morgan comes out and says that at the PPV he’s going to go full speed ahead no matter how Anderson is.  Anderson says we don’t have to wait for Sunday (it’s next Sunday but whatever) and we can fight right now.  Hardy comes out and says tonight Anderson and Morgan are going to be on opposite sides in a tag match with Hardy picking their partners.

Eric Young is dressed as Moses and talks about donuts and booze.  He’s getting ready for a party when Jordan comes up dressed up as a baby, complete with a bib and a diaper.  Young might be under some mistletoe.  I don’t like where this might be going.

Robert Roode vs. Chris Sabin

Apparently last week’s tag title match was only the first tag title shot for Beer Money and they get another one at Genesis.  Makes little sense as to why they should get multiple ones but whatever.  Sabin does an acrobatic routine to get out of a wristlock.  After a shoulder block Roode stops to pose and walks into an armdrag for his troubles.

Sabin sends Roode to the floor and gets a Christian-esque springboard cross body to the floor.  Back in the ring it gets two.  Roode uses his power to take over and hooks a chinlock to slow things down which would definitely be to his benefit.  Sabin fights him off pretty easily and gets a rana and springboard clothesline for two.

I didn’t realize Sabin wears shorts.  O’Connor Roll gets two for Roode but Sabin counters into a nice cradle for two as well.  Enziguri gets two.  Sabin’s big boot in the corner has Roode in trouble.  Springboard tornado DDT is blocked and Roode gets the spinebuster for the clean pin at 6:08.  Good match.

Rating: B. These two have great chemistry together as do all members of these teams.  This was a good power vs. speed match and the only dead spot was the chinlock which wasn’t anything all that bad at all.  They have great matches together, but dang I’m not really looking forward to the next match between these teams as we see it so often anymore than it’s rather uninteresting.  It’ll be good though.

Back with Young sitting on Jordan’s lap as they’re playing some kind of a game that’ll make them a better tag team which Young would like to have explained better to him.  Shark Boy of all people comes up and says he’d like to be on TV some more.  He sits on Jordan’s lap too but says he needs more beer to do that.  Let the bad comedy reign!

Van Dam comes out and says that it’s clear that Bischoff is in charge and he’s here waiting on his mystery opponent.  He’s not afraid of mind games so there’s nothing he can’t handle here.  Van Dam says he won’t be stopped until he’s facing Jeff Hardy.  Here’s his opponent.

Rob Van Dam vs. Robbie E

This is the best they can get for Van Dam?  They try to push the idea that Van Dam is going to have no time to prep here as Robbie was a surprise, but if that’s what they’re going for why not go with someone a bit more deadly?  They do their signature poses which ends with Van Dam kicking Robbie in the face.  Mike: “We finally got Cookie out of the situation.”  Cute Mike.  Cute.

Van Dam beats on Robbie to start until Cookie hooks Rob’s foot so that Robbie can stomp on him a bit and hooks a chinlock.  Van Dam is having none of that and kicks Robbie in the face.  Rolling Thunder sets up the Five Star to end this clean in 2:11.  More or less a squash and no rating.

Hardy pops up on the screen to talk to RVD and says that he’ll get revenge in due time.  Van Dam has a test at the PPV but he has to survive to get a shot at Jeff at a later date.  It’s another mystery opponent.

Sarita says she’s going to whip Skye later.  MORE LESBIAN KNOCKOUT S&M!  OH YES!!!

Here’s Kaz with some random girls.  He talks about how there’s a bounty on all titles so he’s going to claim the TNA Title from the current champion, Jay Lethal.  We see some clips of Lethal’s home and his family including his mother.  Kaz makes some really weak jokes about them until Lethal charges down to ringside.  Kaz pulls out a baton and hits Lethal with it to stop him deal.  He puts a watch on Lethal’s chest and says your time is almost up.  That was quick.

Foley is up next.

Foley comes into Flair and Bischoff’s office.  Flair wants Foley to knock for some reason.  Foley makes another plea for Anderson and Morgan’s health because they need to know who they’re facing.  Flair says go away and Foley says he’ll be at ringside for it.

Velvet Skye vs. Sarita

This is a strap match.  Velvet has the strap with her and slaps it on the mat a lot before Sarita comes out.  Sarita has on the Mexican/Christmas colors here.  It’s the touch all four corners to win variety.  We hit the floor almost immediately and Velvet is sent into the apron.  Back in the ring Sarita ties the arms of Velvet up and drags her around.  She gets two corners but Velvet fights back to break the streak.

Velvet pulls the strap so hard that it comes off Sarita’s wrist.  We have to stop for a bit as it’s put back on her.  Some weak shots to the back of Sarita until Velvet ties it around her Sarita’s neck.  And then we get the incredibly stupid ending that nearly all of these matches have with Velvet dragging Sarita around as both girls touch all three corners until Sarita gets the fourth at the very end off a counter to win at 3:00.  No rating again due to this being short and pretty stupid.

Sarita beats up Velvet some more until Angelina makes the save.

Back to the “party” with Shark Boy talking to Jordan.  Kendrick is here now too.  Let the gay jokes abound.

During the break we see the Beautiful People arguing which turns out to be more Velvet being mad than a fight.  Love goes looking for Sarita and beats her up a bit.  Sarita fights back until Winter makes the save.

We get a look back at TNA in 2010, which I’m pretty sure is what ReAction was supposed to be tonight.  Various people say they’ll become legends and we talk about dreams, nightmares and the unknown.  This is about the future apparently.

Williams says he has a match tonight but no partner.  Magnus comes in and says he’ll do it.

Time for another Jarrett MMA thing.  Jarrett talks about Red getting beaten up last week and how Red mentioned having a brother.  The challenger tonight is said brother.  Jarrett is going to let the brother have the first shot.  The brother is of course, a monster.  It’s that Tommy Mercer dude.  This is MMA rules I think but they’re setting it up as a wrestling match.

Whatever we’ll call it MMA instead since they talk about the MMA and the 100k being on the line.  Heel hook by Mercer (not named that but it’s easier to call him that than Red’s brother) but Jarrett gets the ropes.  Jarrett pounds away which gets him nowhere.  Ankle lock by Mercer but the security dudes pull him to the ropes.  Jarrett grabs the guitar but Red makes the save.  There’s a bell as I guess this is thrown out.

Back from a break Jarrett wants to tweak the MMA challenge thing.  For one thing the guys have to be Jarrett’s height or shorter.  They’re also exhibitions now.  There’s a waiver they have to sign now also.

AJ Styles/Rob Terry vs. Douglas Williams/Magnus

AJ vs. Magnus starts us off.  AJ wants Williams and the champion is happy to oblige.  We talk about the TV Title match which has no gimmick after the gimmick match they already had.  AJ immediately tags out to Terry and the beating is on.  Terry uses his basic power stuff as always which again does not mean that he’s bad, contrary to popular opinion.

Williams takes a beating as AJ comes in.  A suplex gets the champion out of trouble and it’s off to Magnus.  Everything breaks down and AJ gets Rolling Chaos on Magnus to steal the pin at 5:00.

Rating: C-. I wasn’t feeling this at all.  It made perfect sense to have the tag match thing going on as we’ve seen the two guys in the title match fight recently, but for some reason this never got going.  It’s not bad at all, but there was something missing from it and I’m not sure what that was.

Tara and Gen Me show up at the party and Jordan says the shirts have to come off to be here.  Gen Me disrobes but Jordan was surprisingly talking about Tara.  The young jerks start fighting with Moses and the diapered adult but Kendrick tries to stop them.  Never mind actually as he says have at it.

Madison brings out four guys in tuxedoes along with her in a very pretty black dress.  After the guys leave, So Cal Val hands her a mic.  She tries to be all nice and then screeches at everyone to be quiet.  Madison talks about how she’s the champion and is very beautiful and classy and all that jazz.  She makes fun of Mickie and according to wrestling laws, here she is.  There’s the beatdown and Madison of course gets stripped.

Back from a break with Pope talking to someone about getting some kids some puppies for Christmas.  Pope wants pitbulls.  For the love of all that is good and holy, please do not try to turn this into something related to Michael Vick.  Please, I’m still trying to get over the Jersey Shore characters.

Foley comes out for commentary on the main event.

Mr. Anderson/??? Vs. Matt Morgan/???

And the partners are the Dudleys.  It was a rather good show up to this point so you knew they were going to screw it up somehow.

Mr. Anderson/Brother Ray vs. Matt Morgan/Brother D-Von

Ray is now BULLY Ray.  Oh dear.  Can we get Big Bully Bushwick instead?  Ray runs away when Anderson wants to tag him.  Gunner and Murphy come out to get Foley away.  This is what we see instead of the match because I guess that’s more interesting.  Back to the match, Ray gets a blind tag.  Not that we get to see this as Foley is putting Socko in the mouth of a security guard.
We go to ReAction for the last time (thank goodness) with Foley beaten down, handcuffed and carried out.  Back to the ring (finally) with Ray beating down D-Von.  Anderson comes in and D-Von fights him off to bring in Morgan.  Anderson gets a DDT for two but jumps into a chokeslam for two as Ray saves.  The Dudleys hit the floor but Bubba slides back in.  Morgan misses a discus clothesline and it hits Anderson in the back of the head for the pin at approximately 5:35.

Rating: C. Very hard to grade this as the majority of it was the Foley thing so we’ll say it’s right in the middle.  The ending fit perfectly with the whole head injury deal as it furthers that angle.  Ray and D-Von still are about as uninteresting as you could possibly ask an angle to be but I guess they had to plug it somehow.  Decent main event but there was no one else they could have put in there as the partners?

Post match Anderson goes after Morgan but he can’t stand up straight.  He stumbles to the floor to end this part of ReAction/Impact.

Overall Rating: B-. I liked this a lot actually.  The wrestling was pretty subpar after the great opener, but other than that the show worked pretty well.  Feuds were pushed for the PPV and there wasn’t anything that really made me want to change the channel.  Five matches is a good total for TNA and overall this worked pretty well.  Good show, but again the weak wrestling after the opener hurt it.  See what happens when you have less Bischoff and Flair or less of any one given thing for that matter?  You get a better show.

Results

Robert Roode b. Chris Sabin – Spinebuster

Rob Van Dam b. Robbie E – Five Star Frog Splash

Sarita b. Velvet Skye – Sarita touched the fourth corner

AJ Styles/Rob Terry b. Magnus/Douglas Williams – Rolling Chaos Theory to Magnus

Matt Morgan/Brother D-Von b. Brother Ray/Mr. Anderson – Discus Lariat to Anderson