Impact
Date: April 14, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz
Episode Title: Hogan’s Law

It’s the final show before Lockdown and most of the card is set.  Tonight is likely going to be just the final push to the show which is standard operating procedure.  We’ll also likely see Hogan and Immortal trying to go after Anderson for him double crossing them last week and also more development in the three way feud for the world title.  Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the three way feud stuff from last week, including Anderson being the referee for the non-title main event.  The most important thing though is Anderson screwing over Hogan and Immortal and Hogan being furious.

Here’s Immortal in full force to open the show.  Gunner has the TV Title in his teeth.  Hogan says there’s nothing but top level talent here but he wants to get rid of the strength of rotten garbage.  He calls out Anderson and here he comes.  Wow Anderson looks really skinny here for some reason.  Hogan says that he’s tired of Anderson doing things the hard way and he’s going to make an example out of him.

Anderson goes off on Immortal, talking about how they’re all just riding their coattails and no one respects Hogan.  Especially Bischoff who made his entire career off of Hogan.  Wow that’s cutting a bit close.  Anderson sets to say his line and Hogan I think slaps him down and the beating is on.  With Immortal holding him in place, Hogan gets in Anderson’s face and says he’s going to take Anderson out tonight, because he’s “the baddest mamma jamma in this place.”  Anderson spits in Ray’s face and gets drilled by the Bully.

Velvet yells at Winter and wants to know what Winter has done to her.  Winter says that Angelina can make her own decisions.  Velvet says she’s going to call Angelina out herself and if it’s not accepted she’ll come drag Angelina out there herself.

Back with Immortal celebrating but Bischoff is a bit upset.  He just got a call from the Network and they want a best of 3 series between Immortal and Fourtune with the winner getting an advantage in the Lethal Lockdown match on Sunday.  Hogan says Bischoff was supposed to take care of the Network and gets on him about it.

Jesse Neal vs. Douglas Williams vs. Crimson vs. Orlando Jordan

Winner gets….a win I guess.  All of the partners are at ringside and Moore gets after Steiner.  Orlando looks to be in a purple dress for lack of a better term.  Neal vs. Williams to start but the British dude tags in Jordan quickly.  Side slam gets two and it’s off to Crimson vs. Neal.  T-Bone suplex gets two but Neal hits his spear on Crimson.  Moore keeps making fun of Steiner and distracting Neal.  Moore finally pushes him and the fight is on.  Steiner goes out to help him so we’re down to a three way.

Crimson goes off to help but here’s Abyss to jump Crimson.  Magnus and Young fight on the floor as Abyss rips up the railing.  Chokeslam onto the guardrail leaves Crimson laying as the match is down to Jordan vs. Williams for all intents and purposes.  Jordan grinds on Williams and gets a clothesline for two.  Young and Magnus come in which goes nowhere as Jordan hits something like Cross Rhodes (called the Gender Bender) to end it at 3:35.

Rating: D. Considering the fact that about seventy five percent of this match was spent on the stuff outside and what you saw in the ring was nothing special at all, what are you supposed to say here?  Weak match to build to a match that really shouldn’t be in a cage.  It’s always a problem with Lockdown but rarely a big one.  Weak match though.

Bully Ray comes in to tell RVD that Hogan is going to make him an offer where the grass is greener and there are fewer seeds.  I don’t get weed jokes but I guess that makes sense.

Matt Hardy vs. Kazarian

This is match #1 in the aforementioned best of three series.  Team Immortal is here with Matt.  The series is for the initial advantage in Lethal Lockdown.  Fourtune comes out with Kaz but Hebner sends them away and does the same to Immortal.  Flair freaks out and wants to fight Hebner.  Kaz grabs some rollups to start but only gets two on both.  Kaz charges but is sent to the apron where Matt kicks the rope for a low blow on the way back in.

Neckbreaker gets two as they’re moving rather quickly out there.  I guess Matt is moving due to the lack of dreads out there.  Matt focuses on the neck of Kaz, hitting the slingshot into the middle rope for two.  Later we get Storm vs. Abyss and Roode vs. Flair.  Cravate works on the neck even more but the Twist of Hate is reversed into a backslide for two.  Side Effect doesn’t work and Kaz grabs a pinning combination for another two.

Side Effect gets two and there’s another one.  Matt goes up but misses a moonsault to give Kaz a breather.  Forearm by Kazarian and here’s the comeback.  Hogan is going to force Anderson to run the Immortal gauntlet.  Springboard legdrop gets two for Kaz and Fade to Black (called Kryptonite Crunch by Taz) is reversed.  Missile dropkick gets two as Matt gets his foot on the rope.  They go to the corner and Matt shoves Hebner into the ropes, allowing him to grab Kaz in a double underhook bodyscissors hold for the pass out/submission.  Hard to tell but the hold is called the Ice Pick and it ends this at 5:16.

Rating: B-. I liked this actually.  They were moving out there and we got a lot of near falls and close finishes.  I’m really not sure what the point is in having the X Champion lose clean like that and get in next to no offense other than a quick flurry but he’s a Hardy so I guess he has to be made to look strong.  Pretty decent match here.

Madison is upset about something and Tara says just get it over with.

Back with Madison and Tara in the ring.  Madison says she hasn’t been able to sleep for a week over what happened last week.  She would have done something different: she would have backed up and run her over again.  Tara doesn’t like this that much.  Then Madison would have slapped Tara for questioning here.  Tara is getting too comfortable in her role so Madison reminds her that she works for Madison.  If Tara doesn’t chill, she’s going to be back selling lip gloss.

Tara has something to say but Mickie comes out instead.  She’s in a sling and has a separated shoulder.  TNA needs to really stop having Titantron videos playing during promos as they’re really distracting.  Mickie goes nuts and says she’s going to put Madison through more pain on Sunday than Mickie went through.  Sunday she’s going to take Madison out and get back at her for the last six months.  Very solid and intense promos here.

Jeff Jarrett/D’Angelo Dinero/Hernandez vs. Matt Morgan/Samoa Joe/Kurt Angle

Always a good sign to throw feuds into one match.  It’s the best possible way to get a bunch of them built at once and works almost every time.  That wasn’t sarcasm if it sounded like it.  Jarrett and Angle start us off here which is rather surprising.  Jarrett runs and tags in Hernandez maybe 10 seconds in.  We take a break after about 15 seconds.

Back with Morgan throwing the rapid fire elbows to Pope’s head in the corner.  Morgan loads up the Carbon Footprint but Pope takes the leg out and Morgan is in trouble.  Off to Hernandez who hammers away but a discus clothesline sends Morgan down and brings in Kurt.  Kurt is taken down by a simple boot to the ribs and Hernandez goes up top.  You don’t go up top against Kurt and Angle gets the running belly to belly to send Hernandez down.

Off to Joe and Jarrett as Joe cleans house.  Quick powerslam gets two for Joe but Pope breaks up a cross armbreaker.  Muscle Buster to Pope is blocked twice as Jarrett breaks it up.  Jeff throw Joe to the floor but runs into Kurt.  They run off to the back as Hernandez gets a slingshot shoulder block to take Joe down.  Border Toss is reversed into the Clutch but Pope comes off the top with an elbow to break it up.  Morgan back in as the tagging is completely abandoned.  Anarquia throws Hernandez some brass knuckles but Morgan takes him down.  Pope gets them and knocks Joe out cold for the pin at 9:20 total.

Rating: C-. Kind of a mess here but it got to the ending which is the right idea.  Also keeping Angle and Jeff from having any actual contact is always a good thing.  Not a terrible match but nothing all that great.  At least they built up the three matches the right way and it worked well enough.

The heels leave Morgan and Joe laying.

The Jarretts try to leave but Karen says she forgot her purse.  Jeff says screw it but she runs after it anyway, only to run into Kurt.  Jeff leaves without her and Kurt says what a great pick for a husband and leaves her there.

Here are Hogan and Bischoff.  Hulk calls RVD to the ring and lays it on thick, talking about how this is the new RVD who is all aggressive.  Hogan saw what happened last week where RVD pinned the TNA Champion, which was awesome.  Here’s Sting to say that what Hogan said was a lie.  Sting talks about how RVD needs to earn it and he won’t do that in Immortal.  If he beats Sting cleanly cool, but if it’s not clean it’s over Sting’s dead body.  RVD leaves.

Bischoff talks to Sting now and says that Hogan has been working Sting for his entire career and that Checkmate is in Sting’s future.  Sting disagrees, saying Checkmate is his.  He drills Bischoff in the ribs and hits the Death Drop on him.  Hogan is scared to death as he’s in a back braces still.  Sting says it’ll be on his time, not Hogan’s.

Abyss vs. James Storm

Abyss has new music.  Storm goes right at him, spitting beer in the face and we hit the floor early.  Apparently on Sunday the Angle/Jarrett match is now 2/3 falls.  First is pin, second is submission and third is escape only.  That match just got even more awesome.  Back in the ring and Abyss gets a big boot to take him down.

Storm pops up and hammers away, finally taking him down with a forearm.  Top rope cross body gets two and Storm counters a chokeslam into a Codebreaker and a Backstabber for two.  Chokeslam gets two and Abyss is surprised.  Shock Treatment and the Last Call both miss and the Black Hole Slam gets the pin clean at 3:50.  Immortal wins the man advantage.

Rating: C+. Nice little big man vs. little man here and it was a pretty surprising ending as you don’t have the predicted ending of having it go to the third fall.  Power vs. speed is always fun to see and it worked pretty well here.  The ending was a bit odd though as Storm seemed like he kicked out just in time.  Either way, fun little match.

Back with Bischoff talking to the Network and him being all upset about it.  He demands to know who is working with the Network and the Network apparently says in time.  Bischoff demands to know now and gets hung up on.

Here’s Velvet to call out Angelina.  She gets Winter’s music instead and Angelina is here in that trance still.  Velvet shoves/hits her to get her attention but gets speared down.  Angelina gets a chair and DDTs Velvet on it.  No emotion at all from Love here.  Winter beckons Angelina back and they leave together.

We run down the Lockdown card.

Mr. Anderson vs. Immortal

This is a gauntlet match.  First up is Murphy who gets a quick clothesline and a slam.  The slam puts Anderson’s leg into the rope and it might be injured.  DDT to the leg and Anderson is in trouble.  And never mind as the Mic Check sends Murphy out quickly.  Rob Terry is in second and Anderson grabs a small package and rollup for two each.  Terry goes after the knee some more and uses basic power.  Mic Check as a reversal ends him also.

In third is the TV Champion in I believe his first match since winning the title.  There’s not a lot to say here as you know Anderson is about to take this one with a quick win also.  Gunner works on the knee in the corner and Anderson is stuck.  Fourth is going to be Bully Ray and he’ll be last.  Anderson gets a boot in the corner and some strikes to set up a spinning neckbreaker for two.  Yep there it is as he sends Gunner into the corner and the Mic Check makes Anderson 3-0.

Finally it’s Bully Ray who hammers away and drops some elbows before hammering on the knee even more.  The fans chant you can’t wrestle at Ray.  There’s a WWE joke in there somewhere.  Anderson gets yelled at a lot and knocked down again.  The back splash from the middle rope of course doesn’t work as Anderson fires in some shots.  He manages to get Ray up in a fireman’s carry despite having a bad knee.  Well of course he can.

They slug it out and Anderson takes over.  Big boot puts him right back down though and Ray throws him to the floor.  Then he drills the referee and takes the fight to the floor.  Ray takes him up the ramp and sets for a powerbomb like he did to AJ a few weeks back.  As he sets for it Hogan comes out dancing a bit and walks to do it instead.  There goes the back brace and he sets for a powerbomb.  Here’s Sting with the bat though for the save.  Abyss pops up and Sting drills him with the bat.  Ray gets the same treatment and Hogan backs off.  We’ll say the match ended when Ray hit the referee so the match ran 9:30.

Rating: D+. Just a standard gauntlet match here with Anderson destroying everyone not named Ray, including the TV Champion, in short order with no real effort at all.  The ending was I guess to further Sting and Hogan which it did for the most part, but the ending made the match worse, which is bad since it wasn’t a terrible match to begin with.

Fourtune talks about how this ends Sunday.  Storm yells about Abyss.

RVD doesn’t say anything.

Anderson says nothing has changed with him and Sting.  He wants more mountains to climb and rants about the title.

Sting says he’ll keep the title on Sunday.

Hogan says Immortal is going to break Sting in half and if he wants a war, he’s got one.

Overall Rating: B. This was a very good go home show as everything was talked about I think.  We got some decent matches in there also and all in all the show worked.  There were some bad parts but at the same time everything worked.  However, this all comes down to Sunday as the PPV has to work right.  It depends on how that show goes to see if this works overall.

Results

Orlando Jordan b. Douglas Williams, Jesse Neal and Crimson – Gender Bender to Williams

Matt Hardy b. Kazarian – Ice Pick

Hernandez/Jeff Jarrett/D’Angelo Dinero b. Kurt Angle/Samoa Joe/Matt Morgan – Dinero pinned Joe after a punch with brass knuckles

Abyss b. James Storm – Black Hole Slam

Mr. Anderson vs. Immortal went to a no contest

Lockdown 2008
Date: April 13, 2008
Location: Tsongas Arena, Lowell, Massachusetts
Attendance: 5,500
Commentators: Don West, Mike Tenay

Lockdown very well may be the dumbest idea for a PPV that I’ve ever heard of in my life. Let’s think about this for a minute. For one thing, they’re actually putting matches like Gail Kim and ODB vs. Kong and Saed in there. That’s the biggest problem: so many of these matches flat out do not need to be inside a cage, which ties into the second problem: the matches that actually belong in the cage like Lethal Lockdown and Joe vs. Angle 19 or whatever it was are cheapened because weaker matches are in the cage as well.

As for matches tonight, TNA FINALLY is pulling the trigger on Joe, two years after they should have which means everything is all well and good. Other than that it’s of course Team Christian vs. Team Top Heel of the Month in Lethal Lockdown, their version of War Games. Let’s get to it.

Tenay says that tonight Joe’s life is on the line and that apparently all he knows is wrestling. Yeah TNA doesn’t get overdramatic at all. The video is about how EVIL, yes EVIL I say that steel is. They have a Latin prayer or something. TNA always went WAY too far with these things.

The fans are energetic if nothing else. JB and West are in the stands which is a cool idea I guess. It’s been done a million times but not in awhile.

X-Division Title: Jay Lethal vs. Johnny Devine vs. Shark Boy vs. Sonjay Dutt vs. Consequences Creed vs. Curry Man

So the idea here is elimination but once you get down to two you have to get out of the cage. I always liked Curry Man. He was based off of a commercial that Daniels saw in India I believe. If nothing else you certainly remember him don’t you. Good night Devine is bland. He’s the X-Division traitor at the moment and hanging out with Team 3D. It went nowhere.

Creed is a guy that had his character completely changed as he started out like R-Truth was supposed to be and is now a total comedy character. Sonjay is Lethal and Socal Val’s best friend, so of course he would turn on them in like a month to take the title and Val. And this is the era of Stone Cold Shark Boy. This was so stupid I actually got headaches from it. Oh and Lethal is still Macho Man.

So we have a guy that would become Apollo Creed, a guy impersonating Steve Austin, a guy impersonating Macho Man, a guy as an Indian guru, a guy imitating an Indian curry commercial, and a guy named Johnny Devine that is bland . Does anyone else thing that this sounds like a bad parody instead of a match? Also note that it’s taken 11 minutes and 49 seconds for the first bell to ring.

Wait, they have to TAG? Dutt and Devine start as my head is hurting more and more here every second. One thing that TNA got very right with the cage matches: putting a hole in the cage to get camera shots with nothing barring the shot. Now we just get completely ridiculous with the spots. I mean they just don’t even try to make it seem like they aren’t totally planned out.

After Dutt saves Lethal he gets rolled up by Devine for the pin to begin the wedge between the two of them. Creed hits a bad DDT on Shark Boy after Curry Man messes up and he’s out. Something tells me this is supposed to be epic and it’s just failing completely. We go back to nothing but big spots that are completely insane but make for good TV when you don’t think too hard about them.

After a dive off the top of the very tall cage that should have killed him, Curry Man hits a Burning Hammer which is called the Spice Rack to put Creed out. Devine, the idiot that he is, breaks up the pin on Lethal to hit the Devine Intervention, a double underhook piledriver, on Curry Man to get us down to one on one under elimination rules. Devine puts him down but Dutt won’t let him go through the door. What a great face move to do there. And Lethal dives out the door to win. That was just stupid for an ending.

Rating: C-. Well, considering what they were going for with the opener here, this was ok. The spots were RIDICULOUS looking though and I hated the ending. You could see Dutt getting ticked off slowly but surely and the feud was coming soon. It sucked too.

Frank Trigg is in the back and says that both guys are getting ready. Good to know. The problem here is that Trigg might as well be Angle’s twin. He had an ok TV presence but they went a bit stupid here by trying to make this an MMA fight when it was a wrestling match. To be fair though, this was a good idea to have a legit MMA guy come in and give an analysis here.

Roxxi vs. Angelina Love vs. Velvet Sky vs. Salinas vs. Rhaka Khan vs. Traci vs. Christy vs. Jacqueline

Yep 8 knockouts in a single cage is JUST fine. I still think Christy Hemme is a robot. No human can look that good. Has ANYONE, and I mean ANYONE, ever cared about Jackie? EVER? Traci Brooks comes out to Aerosmith’s Rag Doll. I hardly ever notice those things. Somehow the rules are as follows: you fight on the floor and the first two INSIDE the cage have a one on one match. Could this be any stupider?

So wait, the idea of this show is that every match is INSIDE the cage right? I’m not confused on that am I? And after about 2 minutes Love and Roxxi get in with ease. The match is about three minutes long and while it’s ok, that’s just it: it’s ok. It’s not particularly good or bad. It’s just ok. I think this one gets the it’s just there rating, as there’s nothing to talk about here and it’s hardly bad either. Roxxi gets a shot at Kong for this which she wouldn’t win.

Rating: F. It’s failing for just being stupid. At a show about cages, there was a match outside a cage where the point was to get into the cage. In what wrestling universe does that even begin to make sense in?

Lauren makes her TNA debut here and GOOD FREAKING NIGHT she looks amazing. She looks like Jenny McCarthy back when McCarthy looked hot. Joe says he’s not retiring. No really? Apparently Joe will sacrifice his life to be champion. Again, TONE IT DOWN.

Kip James (Billy Gunn) cuts the most cue card based promo that I’ve ever heard about being an animal in a cage.

BG James (Road Dogg) says he’s coming for James.

BG James vs. Kip James

Seriously, how has this match not happened before? This started as Roadie won a tag title shot in Feast or Fired and had his 60+ year old father be his partner of all things. No one bought it and this is what it was setting up. This should have been the finals of the 99 KOTR but that would have made sense so there we go. Billy breaks out a Diamond Cutter of all things to counter the punches of Roadie. Sorry, I refuse to call him Kip James.

Roadie is easier to type than BG James also, even though that really is closer than Jesse James. The problem with this whole PPV shows up again: while this could actually be a decent feud/match, the first match of it simply doesn’t belong in a cage as it’s just a regular match but in a cage. A Fameasser gets two and then a low blow has both guys down.

Naturally the finish sucks: Billy stomps his foot three times before going for a splash which misses and Roadie rolls him up for the pin. They do the reunion for about two seconds and Kip does the heel turn which no one cares about but of course it’s evil and no one saw it coming. After a bad and short feud with Matt Morgan, Billy would be Cute Kip to just end any shred of credibility he had.

Rating: D-. What was the point of this again? Actually that’s not a fair question. This match actually had a point. However, giving them seven minutes in a pointless cage match is just freaking stupid by TNA as they throw away a potentially kind of big match with no time and a terrible finish. Makes sense at least.

Angle says he wanted to come to TNA to fight Joe. And he did: this is match number 5. Angle looks like he’s under 200lbs here. Oh and it’s personal here.

Rock N Rave Infection vs. MCMG vs. Eric Young/Kaz vs. LAX vs. Scott Steiner/Petey Williams vs. Black Reign/Rellik

This is Cuffed in the Cage: all 12 in the match at once and it’s elimination by being cuffed to a rope, last man standing gets his team a shot at the tag titles at a future date. Reign and Rellik (Killer backwards. Clever huh?) beat up Eric backstage before they can come out. The entrances take a few hours or so. Oh and Black Reign (Goldust but a cheap knockoff that no one bought) and Killer are supposed to be monsters. This is idiotic.

How in the WORLD have the Guns not been tag champions yet? There are two sets of tag titles in TNA (don’t even get me started on how freaking stupid that is) and they can’t get one of them. That’s just stupid. Oh LAX already have a title shot, so they’re getting a chance to get a second one here, because it would make NO SENSE to take two people out of here to, oh I don’t know, unclutter the stupid thing a tiny bit???

This was back when Petey was Maple Leaf Muscle, as in a tiny version of Steiner. Is this supposed to be Mexico or something? Steiner just beats the heck out of everyone until LAX takes him down. About four people get him cuffed to eliminate him. What would be smart here? Perhaps having him leave? Nope, that would make too much sense, so he just stays in the cage cuffed to the cage. Someone was actually paid to think of this. That’s just sad.

Young comes down and gets scared by the monsters. You can’t tell a thing that’s going on because THERE ARE ELEVEN PEOPLE IN THERE AT ONCE. Sabin and Shelley get cuffed at the same time. Petey is put out and I just couldn’t care less. The problem here is that you get some decent stuff and spots but there are just so many people in there and the camera jumps around so much that you can’t tell a stupid thing at all. LAX are both out.

Kaz is out as we have Killer and Rock N Rave and Black Reign left. The fans already get the idea as they chant Super Eric. The idea is this: Eric Young puts on a shirt, a mask and a cape and all of a sudden he’s not scared anymore and is a tough fighter. This is making me lose intelligence very rapidly. He does a HUGE dive off the top of the cage to put four guys down. Ok that was pretty cool looking. Hoyt (Vance Archer) is put out.

The other problem becomes that no one can move anywhere as there are people on so many parts of the cage. Oh Jimmy Rave is out too. Young gets the two monsters to win the thing. To further drain my intelligence, here’s how this played out. Eric and Kaz won the tag titles (why they’re not being defended here and why the X Title isn’t being defended here is beyond me.

Tomko and AJ FREAKING STYLES were the tag champions, yet they’re not on the PPV. Upon further review they’re in the Lethal Lockdown match so that makes it a bit better) at the next Impact but because Super Eric wasn’t the guy Kaz entered the match with they didn’t get the titles.

Instead they were held up and a whole PPV, Sacrifice, was dedicated to getting new champions with LAX and 3D fighting in the finals of the Deuces Wild tag tournament where you had random partners fighting established teams but the random partners WON NO MATCHES. THIS WAS PRAISED by TNA fans. They thought this was a good idea.

Rating: F-. This was just so freaking stupid that I can’t believe it exists. Seriously, TWELVE PEOPLE in the cage at once and you handcuff them to eliminate them. I wanted wrestling, not some screwed up sex fantasy that even Vince McMahon would say slow down when offered. Seriously, screw Dave Meltzer. He said that Edge vs. HHH vs. Kozlov was worse than this? Dave is a brilliant guy, but his anti-WWE bias gets out of hands at times.

And we go to Samoa Joe’s family who are dressed in “traditional” clothing. This makes my head hurt. Yes because Samoans apparently have no idea of what the modern world is like and they all wear grass for clothing. If nothing else though, Lauren is entering Hemme territory in hotness.

We recap the Knockouts tag match which again doesn’t belong in a cage match.

Gail Kim/ODB vs. Awesome Kong/Raisha Saeed

Please…make it quick. Don’t get me wrong, three of the four here are very talented, but WHY IS THIS IN A CAGE? You can’t just call it a grudge match and make it interesting. I get the feud here, and it should be a decent match, but the cage is just freaking pointless here. Kong and ODB start us off. Both of the faces want Saeed for some reason that isn’t covered at all because that would be too helpful.

Oh apparently she’s cost both faces the title which Kong holds. I found that online, not from here of course. She’s more commonly known as Cheerleader Melissa, who is amazingly talented and very good looking as well. Kong rams Kim’s head into the cage to turn the tide. Kong hasn’t actually been in the match yet by the way. Dang it how do I time these things so well?

She beats the living tar out of Kim who is half dead already. And Kong is already out again. ODB comes in to clean house as she was being pushed very hard around this time. Naturally nothing ever came of it as they had Kong beat her anyway. Everyone is in now and the referee says nothing, meaning they never needed to tag at all. Gail gets a SWEET hurricanrana from the top of the cage. Kong accidentally knocks the heck out of Saeed and a splash from ODB ends it.

Rating: D+. The match was indeed fine, but there was no point to having this on PPV. It’s ok, but it’s just ok, and that’s the problem here. Why should I pay money to see this? Nothing was accomplished as Roxxi had the title shot next and Kong wasn’t even involved in the pin. The wrestling is fine and even good at times, but why is this on PPV is what I want to know.

Karen Angle is here and it’s no shock now that Jarrett slept with her. She supports Kurt.

We take a SPECIAL look at Booker vs. Robert Roode. Why is it special? We’re never told but we know it’s SPECIAL. Roode makes a great point: he keeps moving up the charts and someone from WWE kept showing up and instantly being handed a push. He’s absolutely right. The feud is over Roode accidentally hitting Sharmell, and no one would want that of course.

The announce guy calls this a towering inferno of rage. Do I even need to make fun of this? Naturally it’s a mixed tag instead of one on one, because Booker was so nervous about his wife being hurt that he has her in a match here. Oh and it was a punch heard around the world. It wasn’t even heard around Wrestlezone.

Peyton Banks/Robert Roode vs. Booker T/Sharmell

They don’t even try to hide the theme music being a rip off here. Ok so the match is now over and I have the same complaints I had for the previous match: why is this in a cage and why is this on PPV? Literally, the girls are in there for 30 seconds total as it’s all Booker vs. Roode and then Sharmell is tagged in and rolls up Banks for the pin.

It’s just Booker vs. Roode again in a feud that went on for like 6 months and no one really cared about it. I mean the match is ok, but again that’s just it: it’s just ok. Why should I want to pay my money to watch this show? I can’t think of a reason to do so. Roode leaves Banks in the ring and goes back on his own.

Rating: D. This was the same thing as the previous match but the previous one had better wrestling in it. This is the big problem that the company has with this show and I’ve said it a dozen times now I think: not every match needs to be in a cage. It’s complete overkill and makes no sense at all, and that’s what’s going on here. If this was a regular match, it’s probably a C or so.

We go to the gorgeous Lauren who is with Marcus Davis who trained Joe for the fight. Again, I get the idea, but this is wrestling, not MMA.

We look at Lethal Lockdown. The rules are just like WarGames but with one ring and after the last person comes in the roof comes down and there are weapons attached, and only then can you win the match. It’s kind of a nice twist but this needs to be 3 on 3 and not 5 on 5 as one ring is just too much. Oh and you can win by pin. That’s fine.

Team Cage vs. Team Tomko

Christian, Nash, Sting, Rhino, Matt Morgan
Tomko, Bubba, D-Von, AJ Styles, James Storm

Remember that AJ is a comedy heel here so the talent is a bit one sided. Christian and AJ start as the smarks explode. Tomko teases being number one for his team but he sends AJ in instead. Now remember they’re going for five minutes and then after the coin toss whoever wins will have a two minute advantage and after that two minutes the losing team makes it 2-2.

That continues until all ten are in. Ten men are WAY too many but I love me some WarGames so this is fun. The heel team of course wins to continue the tradition. AJ is freaking amazing. He might be better at this point than he is now if you can believe that. AJ is dominating here and we have another heel coming. What is our future ECW Champion going to do???

Christian takes over for a bit but we get back to even as Brother Ray comes out. One of the beauties of this match is that you have seventeen minutes at least of wrestling before you get to the finale of the match. It’s a nice little break from those never ending matches that get rather boring.

Ray wears a Yankees jersey and remember we’re just outside of Boston (those teams hate each other for you non baseball fans). And Ray uses a Boston Crab. That’s just amusing. Rhyno ties us up. Didn’t they hate each other for like ever? The clock is ten kinds of messed up now so it’s anyone’s guess how close they get to the right time. James Storm comes out maybe a minute and twenty seconds later. He’s got Jackie with him. Yeah I don’t care either.

He and Roode would hook up soon. For no explainable reason AJ climbs the cage and he and Christian fight on the top but Christian climbs down on the outside and gets knocked to the floor. Nash ties it up but Christian is still on the floor. He launches an AWESOME high cross body to Bubba and Storm. That was sweet looking. D-Von comes in after maybe a minute.

The clock is completely insane, but I can’t criticize it as the Royal Rumble is never anywhere close. I never remember a team that turns face or heel faster than 3D. I like the booking here as they’re letting the heels dominate when they’re way behind in talent but the booking is realistic. Matt Morgan comes in next and he’s as green as possible. He had been Cornette’s bodyguard forever but never got in the ring until here. We know it’s Tomko and Sting left so that’s no mystery.

There’s a lot of laying around here but you have to do that in a sense here as there are just too many people in there. AJ and Matt hook up for awhile which is a PPV main event someday if they quit messing around with Morgan. Oh that’s right: we need to have Hogan’s boys in the main event. Christian and Tomko go at it as the two captains which is always interesting.

D-Von is bleeding pretty well. The fans want Sting. Everyone stops to meet Sting but he pulls a 96 WarGames and beats them all up by himself. In a cool spot, Sting throws AJ up like for a back body drop but just kicks him in the balls instead. The roof with the weapons is lowered. Everybody grabs one as they have them on the roof too. Yeah they’re not even bothering trying to hide that they’re going up there.

Oh ok there’s a trap door so it’s more obvious. I kind of like that. Storm and Christian go up there which unclutters the ring a bit as it badly needs. There’s a bit hole in the roof which is kind of a cool visual. Nash and Morgan do a double chokeslam on 3D. AJ grabs a kendo stick and just massacres people with it. We have a table on the roof and AJ heads up there too so there are three up there and seven in the ring. AJ sets up a ladder ON TOP OF THE CAGE. Once he climbs it, he might be higher up than on top of the HIAC. I’m pretty sure he is.

As someone afraid of heights, that’s scary to me. Christian climbs up too and Storm shoves the ladder over. Nothing at all is happening in the cage mind you. They couldn’t have gone any further without a potential serious injury. And then Rhyno gores Storm for the pin. What the heck was that???? It’s like they ran out of time all of a sudden and said go home NOW.

Rating: B-. That’s mainly for the bad ending. There was no big dramatic moment or anything and they just had the Gore for the pin. I’m not wild on that at all. The ten people are just WAY too many for one ring. This should have been 3-3 or so and nothing more. Actually 4-4 could work. There were also far too many dead spots too.

This is definitely a good idea but it needs a lot of tweaking with the main thing being an adjustment to the amount of people. I’m probably shortchanging this a bit, but there were too many people and too much laying around doing nothing because of the confined space. The two ring, 8 man matches were always, well at least almost always, awesome because they found that balance. If TNA can do that then these matches go WAY up in value.

We recap the Angle/Joe feud. Let me make this clear: counting the intros, this takes over 12 minutes. That’s not counting the JB intros where he says who each guy is. Counting that we hit 15 minutes. It is 18 minutes from the end of Lethal Lockdown to the start of this match. That’s just ridiculous.

TNA World Title: Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe

Now the first thing you notice is that this is more or less designed as a half MMA fight and half wrestling match. Now I get the idea here as they want to spread out the audience, but this isn’t something I can get into. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, but it’s just not the greatest idea in the world to me. It’s new though so I have to give them credit for not just doing the same match.

They use a lot of MMA techniques and it’s actually working pretty well. They have Frank Trigg on commentary which is a good idea as he offers a perspective that we wouldn’t usually get, much like Tenay used to do with the cruiserweights in WCW. This is about seventeen minutes of primarily submission based stuff and while it’s not my style, it’s certainly great stuff.

You can tell there’s been a lot of training done for both guys to incorporate a lot of new submissions. In a CREEPY moment, Joe gets a crossface on Angle and the fans chant Joe’s gonna kill you. I don’t think it was intentional or anything, but that’s rather chilling. After a ton of submission attempts, and I mean at least 12 apiece, Joe hits the Muscle Buster to get the pin. Massive posing and celebrating ends the show.

Rating: A-. That might be a bit high but after what I went through with the idiocy earlier, this was gold for me. It’s a completely different style but it worked exactly like they wanted it to so I can’t complain at all. This was named match of the year in TNA and I can buy that.

I’m glad this was a one off thing though as it’s not something I’d want to become the norm. Either way, this was a great way to put the belt on Joe, but because it came two freaking years too late, no one cared and he was a boring champion.

Overall Rating: D. Well, the two main events were really good, but that’s all this show has going for it. The all cage thing is just not a good idea at all. The last two matches belong in a cage and by having another I believe 6 matches before that, it just makes the last two seem weak.

If you take away the cage earlier for everything other than maybe the X match, then this is easily a C+ or so. The matches are ok, but the Women’s match and the tag match were just so freaking STUPID. What was the point of those gimmicks? Anyway, this was a bad idea but if tweaked could turn into a much better one. Show sucked for the most part though. Get Joe/Angle and the Lethal Lockdown if you’re very bored, but you’ll be better off with an old WarGames match. Other than that, not worth it.

It’s been about six months since this show and I thought it would be interesting to look back and see how things have gone since then.

Impact
Date: October 14, 2010
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Taz
Episode Title: THEY Have Arrived!!!

Well this is it. After four days of waiting we can finally get to the explanation from Jeff as to WHY he did what he did. This is something that is very important because you have the entire THEY angle riding on it. The importance of this show can’t be overblown as we begin the next chapter in TNA’s history.

The opening is likely to be about Jeff and THEY as well as set up the fairly obvious RVD vs. Jeff match, although I could see them postponing that one if need be. I’d also be interested in knowing how much actual wrestling we’ll have tonight but we’ll see. Let’s get to it.

We of course open with the recap of the ending of Bound For Glory.

Dixie’s attorney is here and as everyone thought we’re told that Dixie signed the contracts but they weren’t the ones she thought they were.

Hogan (still on crutches) and Bischoff are here to a MASSIVE pyro display. Of course Hogan is acting just like he did as a face. Tenay explains that Hogan and Bischoff now have the majority share of TNA….despite the fact that the attorney never said that.

Naturally Hogan gets a big face reaction with like two signs against him in the whole audience. Oh wait three fat chicks are booing. Well there’s a Hogan sucks chant so there’s something I suppose. Hogan wants Dixie here now. Apparently she promised him everything, much like Ted Turner did in 96. Hogan gets a text or something as he has his phone out and is messing with it.

Here we go: the explanation. It started with Abyss apparently and the Hall of Fame ring. Bischoff and Hogan knew why he randomly turned on Hogan. We bring him out and Hogan declares Abyss his son. THEY’RE HERE! Ok now that my pizzas are here we can get back. What did you think I meant by they?

None of the fans believed Abyss but they are now in control. The fans want RVD. Abyss follows them as Hogan and Bischoff’s soldier now. Hogan declares that Abyss with live forever and is now immortal. I think The Immortals might be the name. Eric brings out Jarrett. Wait was there an actual explanation in there for abyss? If there was I missed it.

Yeah this was no real surprise: he wanted control of his company back. I think that was the easiest of all to understand. And here’s FOURTUNE! Ok this just got good.

Flair talks to Hogan and says that Fourtune runs this company, not Hogan. LOUD Fourtune chant. One of them have to leave apparently. Hogan suggest him vs. Flair and it’s…..not on as they hug. Flair bows down to Hogan and it’s a massive Hogan orgy more or less. The explanation here makes sense though as Fourtune was mad at Dixie for bringing in EV. That actually makes sense. We get a reference to Flair’s five former ex wives and here comes Jeff!

No face paint here either. The fans think Jeff sold out. You can barely see the ropes with so many guys in there with him. He didn’t sell out but sold in. He blames the fans and doesn’t care about popularity. The fans drove him to this because he did everything with all those injuries for what?

And now it’s on to RVD. He’s the whole F’N reason Abyss took RVD out because RVD had to be gone for this to work. They are Immortal. Sting and Nash are watching in the back. Eric and Hogan offer them spots on the team. We go to a break 22 minutes into the show with them coming to the ring.

Security escorts Dixie….somewhere.

Nash and Sting come out and Sting is in street clothes which isn’t something you see that often. Tenay is already annoying. Eric says this is about money and all that jazz. Nash whispers to Sting and says this is perfect for him because it’s always been about money and him in his career. He’s gotten wiser though and quotes the Bible of all things, saying gray hair is a sign of wisdom. He’s passing on the money and if THEY want to run the company into the ground, they can do it without him. I’m surprised.

Sting says this isn’t what he came here for and says he’s here because he loves TNA. He’s shouting the whole time mind you. Sting points to Hogan, Bischoff and Flair (I think) and says this is a no win situation, turning them down. Allegedly both of these guys are leaving TNA with Nash being permanent and Sting possibly being permanent. Bischoff says they can come back anytime. Hogan’s music plays the segment to an end at 9:32.

We cut to the back where Sting and Nash leave but Pope isn’t happy with it. They offer him a place in the car out with them but he’s staying to fight the fight which they’re cool with. Dixie comes up to them and says they can’t leave her. Sting says what everyone thought: if she had listened this wouldn’t be happening. She says he was cryptic. Dixie, he sent crows down at the NWO to demand a title match one night. He’s a weird guy.

Hogan and Bischoff come up to Dixie and she slaps the heck out of Bischoff. She tells Hogan to look her in the eye and tell her he didn’t screw her. He says we’ll talk about this in HIS office as we go to another break.

In the office we have MORE talking. Bischoff smokes a cigar and Hogan flat out tells her that he screwed her out of the company. This is a big Hogan ego trip of course. Hogan and Bischoff both say this is their company. Hogan has had enough and so has Dixie. She tells her security guards to get rid of them but they work for Hogan too. Dixie’s husband SURGE gets knocked out and we take ANOTHER break.

Some hot chick in a BMW shows up. And we’re just not going to talk about this at all. Ok then. Ah ok it’s the Jersey Short chick.

Madison comes out with a referee as I’m guessing this is going to be about Tara. She yells about how Tara has HER title. She wants a match RIGHT NOW. Here’s Tara, looking GOOD. Madison says they had a deal and apparently we’re getting a match….at 9:50pm.

Knockouts Title: Tara vs. Madison Rayne

And Tara lays down so Madison can pin her. I kid you not.

Madison celebrates and here’s Mickie to talk some more. She wants a title shot RIGHT NOW but Madison sends Tara after her. Mickie sends her running and stares her down.

J-Woww from Jersey Shore comes in and talks to the Beautiful People. Apparently she’s an honorary BP tonight.

Back from break and they’re still looking for Cookie. This results in Eric Young freaking out about J-Woww. Jordan comes up and nothing of note happens.

And here’s Angle for MORE talking. No music, no intro, nothing like that. He talks about how he’s all banged up but wants to know why Hogan and Bischoff screwed him before he officially retires. Angle says what we all expected him to say: he didn’t win but he didn’t get pinned either. Cue Jarrett’s music and here he is.

Jarrett more or less calls bull on what Angle is saying. He takes a jab at Angle being an ex-husband (the real meaning being that Jarrett literally married Angle’s wife and not in kayfabe). Angle says he put TNA on the map. Uh, not quite Kurt. He says Jarrett held down everyone but couldn’t hold Angle down.

Kurt Angle, the man that held the tag titles, X-Division and World titles at the same time is talking about holding others down. Jarrett says taking Angle’s career meant more than destroying his life. Angle goes for him and the security guards take him down and handcuff him. The beatdown is on. Uh, Joe anyone?

TAZ of all people comes out of the broadcast booth and calls off Jarrett and says that he has a censored up (censored of course) neck. Old school Taz chant takes us to another break.

70 minutes in, 6 seconds of “wrestling.”

Joe talks (shocking isn’t it) about Jarrett on a tape from Monday, still in Daytona. He’s coming for Jarrett of course.

GOOD NIGHT  IT’S A MATCH! And it’s Abyss. Oh joy.

Abyss vs. Samoa Joe

Yeah they’re officially called Immortal. Well ok then. Joe beats the heck out of him first and beats him into the corner. Chokeslam takes him down and Joe is in trouble. He goes to get a chair but Joe hits a suicide dive into the chair which more or less didn’t hit Abyss’s head at all but he stays down anyway. Sure why not? Bell to the head and we’re done in two minutes. No rating. RVD comes down for the save.

Wait, why didn’t Joe come down and massacre Jeff like 5 minutes ago?

Hey look RVD wants to talk. It’s about Hardy which makes sense. Jeff pops up on the screen and says it was an illusion as he brought RVD as close to him as he could and then destroyed him. Well ok so he told Abyss to destroy him. Hardy says he’s the Anti-Christ of wrestling. WOW.

Bischoff comes out and says if RVD wants Hardy at Turning Point he has to beat Anderson tonight, winner gets the shot.

Back from a break Tessmacher is propositioned by Bischoff for “a meeting later at his place”. He snaps on her and calls her easy. Bischoff knows about Nash and Pope apparently. She’s fired from the Knockouts authority job and can either wrestle or leave. Anderson comes up and declares Bischoff a douchebag and squeezes his hand really hard saying that Bischoff won’t win this war.

D’Angeol Dinero vs. Fourtune

Yep it’s 1 vs. 5 here. Morgan and Flair aren’t in this. Total dominance here of course but it’s better than more talking I suppose. AJ misses the Pele and kicks Kaz which Pope gets two off of. DWI hits him and Kaz gets the pin. Another short match so no grade.

Ad for Turning Point where Angle is named specifically as being there. Nice one guys.

Here’s The Shore to get on my nerves and be booed out of the building. They point out that this is on at the same time as Jersey Shore because that’s how TNA works. Cue up the Beautiful People and J-Woww. Cookie and J-Woww argue as usual and Cookie says go back to the hole you came from. You know, the same one she’s from. Catfight, Shore bails. 15k for a minute long segment and an EY joke.

We recap things to kill time so we can run over into ReAction as always.

Mr. Anderson vs. Rob Van Dam

No mic time for Anderson here as he’s mad. The bell rings at about 11pm as we just HAD to have a commercial as RVD made his entrance. Make that 11:01. Naturally to see the main event of Impact you have to watch ReAction. So would that mean the winner got the win on Impact or ReAction? Winner gets Hardy at the PPV mind you.

Basic stuff to start as Van Dam hits a moonsault off the apron to kick Anderson in the head, which might have been how he injured his head and Impact is OVER! And now REACTION has started and we didn’t miss a thing and it serves no purpose but screw that who cares? If you want to see the Impact main event, don’t watch Impact!

After I have a psychotic episode over the stupidity of some of the things this company does, it’s still a boring match. Rolling Thunder is countered into a fireman’s carry and the split legged moonsault gets two. Five Star eats knees and both guys are down. And here’s Bischoff to screw us over. He tells the referee to come with him and here’s Hardy, holding his ribs with a chair.

Chair to RVD. Chair to Anderson. Pillmanizer on the arm of Anderson. Anderson curses a lot and rolls to the floor. That’s your ending by the way.

Rating: D+. Match was pretty weak due to the crowd knowing the ridiculous ending was coming. This match never really got off the ground or anything but it could have been worse. The guys knew the ending was coming and clearly didn’t get going until the very end as they were just going through the motions. Nothing bad really, but nothing particularly good.

Overall Rating: D+. This is a VERY subjective grade to put it mildly. This show can be looked at their get out of jail free card. It was the first show after their biggest show ever and a huge angle. The show as a stand alone show was atrocious. However, this was a show where a lot of talking was actually required.

The explanations that they gave needed to be done. I can understand that and I’m mostly ok with it. However there comes a point where you need some wrestling to get you through a show. Having the show revolve around one angle is fine and makes sense, but you really need some wrestling to go with it. As was said in the LD, even a 4 minute throw away match would have helped tremendously. One or two of those thrown in somewhere and this show goes WAY up.

As for doing what needed to be done tonight, they got a lot out of the way. Jarrett, Dixie, Hogan and Bischoff are all explained. Nash and Sting are written off TV, Pope has a new thing to do, Anderson’s loyalty is pretty clear and RVD and Joe will fight on their own. Hardy was explained but to say it felt rushed is an understatement. Abyss wasn’t explained at all but did we really need to hear about him? All you really get from that is the beginning of the story and we can live without that.

This show did explain some things and kind of got things going for the angle, but at the same time this is showing signs of turning into one massive soap opera much like the NWO angle. The problem with that is back then you had some amazing matches on the side to compliment the drama. You’re not getting that in the first week.

That being said, it’s the first week and I can understand a ton of talking here. However if this is now the status quo, there are REAL problems for this company. This was kind of a disappointment but to say it was horrible isn’t fair. They got through a lot tonight, but what scares me are the weeks to come. There has to be some wrestling out there, and I’m not seeing it here so far. I’m neither thrilled nor optimistic, but I’m also not convinced this is bad. Definitely interested in next week’s offering, but I’ll be less lenient on it to say the least.

Impact
Date: April 7, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Tazz, Mike Tenay
Episode Title: The Rise of the Fallen Angel

After two back to back solid shows we now have two shows before Impact and now have the returning Christopher Daniels to replace AJ Styles in Lethal Lockdown.  Also we now have the main event set for the world title match as it’s Sting vs. RVD vs. Anderson which is probably the best option.  Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of Daniels’ return last week and presumably him being named to the Fourtune team at Lockdown.

Here’s Fourtune to open the show.  Daniels talks about how he’s been in and out of TNA a bunch of times now.  He’s had good times and bad times here but that’s not what matters because that’s the wrestling business.  What matters are the friendships you make in the business, like the one he made eight years ago with a guy named AJ Styles.  After seeing what Bully Ray did a few weeks ago, e Hehe knew it was time to come back.  He asks Fourtune if he can be on the team at Lockdown, but before they can answer here’s Immortal.

In this case it’s Flair, Ray, Matt and Abyss.  Flair says this is beyond fixing and rants about how this is wrestling and Daniels is nothing in this business.  There’s an offer to Daniels to leave now because someone is going to get hurt at Lockdown.  Daniels also has no contract so he needs to get out of here because he’s not going to be able to wrestle at the PPV.  Daniels says that Hogan, Flair and Bischoff aren’t going to matter because the Network says they want him here.

Cue Hogan and Bischoff who say that what the Network wants they get, so tonight it’s Daniels vs. Ray.  Ray gets in Daniels’ face and talks about how Daniels should go back to California and put on more makeup.  Daniels drills him and Hogan wants security who comes out and breaks it up.

Anderson is in the back on a laptop but sees a note for him.  It says “Last week was just a trailer.  Tonight it’s SHOWTIME!  Your friend, Stinger”.  He starts singing a version of the theme to Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and goes back to his laptop.

Back with Hogan complaining about the Network and he thinks the Network has a wrestler in it because they think like a wrestler.  He slams the door in the face of the cameraman as he rants about them.

Hernandez/Anarquia vs. Tommy Dreamer/D-Von

Well this is kind of an odd team.  Tenay asks who better than Dreamer for D-Von to recruit.  …a lot of people Tenay!  D-Von and Anarquia start but this stops being anything resembling a tag match very quickly.  What’s Up to Anarquia and then everything breaks down even further.  Rosita gets in the ring and D-Von kisses her, which allows Anarquia to pop D-Von with a chair and Hernandez falls on top for the pin at 2:00.  Barely even a match.

Post match the girls roll back the mats on the floor and Hernandez teases a Border Toss to Dreamer to the concrete but Matt Morgan makes the save and we take a break.

Back and Winter is brainwashing Angelina some more.  Winter says she loves her.  Angelina is drinking that drink again.

Samoa Joe vs. Murphy

Pope is on commentary of course.  Murphy jumps him to start as Tenay talks to Pope about the beginning of this angle for some reason.  And the Koquina Clutch ends this in 46 seconds.  Joe chases Pope off.

Anderson is looking for someone but stops to get coffee.  And there’s a note for him there too.  This one says “Tonight let’s finish what we started Kenny Boy.  Stinger.”  Anderson destroys the coffee stuff.

Knockout Tag Titles: Beautiful People vs. Rosita/Sarita

Angelina Love is in a trance here and can’t even do the entrance.  Sarita jumps Velvet as she gets in which doesn’t last long.  Angelina keeps staring forward.  Off to Rosita now who Velvet beats up also.  Angelina doesn’t react to an offer of a tag at all.  Winter comes to the stage and makes a sign of snap her in half so Angelina stuns Velvet over the ropes and hammers away at her.  Rosita gets the easy pin at 2:00.

Anderson is looking for Sting and has a pipe.  He runs into Jordan and Young and Young says Sting is probably in the rafters.  Jordan says he’s into Anderson’s catchphrase thing.

Jeff Jarrett has a Lockdown promise for Angle later.

Back with Anderson searching the rafters for Sting and finds….nothing.  Someone is following him though and the person seems to be kind of tall.  It doesn’t appear to be Sting as the hair is too short.  Oh it’s RVD.  He says it’s 4:20 so Anderson is about to get smoked.  Good looking knees to the face of Anderson as this is a total beating.  RVD falls down carrying him off but locks a modified triangle choke on Anderson who has no room to move around at all in the confined space.  Van Dam says that wouldn’t be enough to beat Sting and chokes Anderson out with the pipe as we go to another break.

After a quick video on RVD and Anderson and a recap of what we just saw, here’s Sting, calling out RVD.  Sting apologizes to RVD for what he did to him last year and says that he’s here to get rid of Hogan and Bischoff.  Hogan and Bischoff make RVD vs. Sting for tonight, presumably non-title.

Tara says Madison is insane and she won’t do what Madison wants her to do.  Madison says Tara has a job because of Madison.  They get on the motorcycle and leave.  No idea where to.

Generation Me/Robbie E vs. Brian Kendrick/Chris Sabin/Suicide

Where did they did some of these guys up from?  Sabin vs. Robbie to start and the face team destroys Robbie one by one.  Suicide hammers on Max as there isn’t much to say here.  This is to hype up the X-Division Xscape match at Lockdown.  Off to Kendrick who destroys everything in sight and it all breaks down quickly.  Jeremy sets for something off the top but Max crotches him and DDTs him off the top.  Kendrick steals the pin at 4:40.

Rating: C. Just a standard Cruiserweight match with a screwy ending.  I guess we lose another team from the tag team division but hey, I’m sure it’s still awesome because it was at one point right?  Not much of a match but they did what they could in the time given out there.

Hogan yells at Immortal and has Gunner slap Rob Terry and someone else that I couldn’t recognize.  Anderson comes in with the pipe and is tired of getting beaten up every week so he asks Hogan for a favor.  Anderson offers his “support” in exchange for protection and shakes hands with Hogan.  He’s now the referee in the main event and Hogan says take the pipe with you.

We see Madison and Tara leaving Mickie laying and speeding off on the bike.

Back with medics looking at Mickie.

Bully Ray vs. Christopher Daniels

This is a lumberjack match so we can have our big pull apart brawl.  Ray controls early but Daniels manages to send him to the floor for a bit.  He lands in front of Immortal though so no harm befalls him.  Back in and Ray drills him with some loud chops to take over again.  Ray tries to get the chain in but that gets him nowhere.  Daniels gets an enziguri and a rana to take over.  Running STO sets up the BME which gets the long two as Flair pulls the referee out.  Somehow that isn’t a DQ and the brawl allows Hogan to pop Daniels with the chain for the pin at 6:25.

Rating: D+. The lumberjacks were only there for the very ending.  Other than that they played no role whatsoever which tends to be a problem with TNA gimmick matches: the gimmicks don’t really need to be there but they’re around anyway.  Not much of a match here but it advances Lethal Lockdown well enough I guess.  Nice way to push your big returning star too.

After a break, here’s Jarrett in the cage.  He talks about Kurt being arrested last week like a common street thug.  He says that if the cage match had happened a few months ago, the cops would have arrested him (Jarrett) for hurting Angle.  The kids won’t be visiting Angle in prison because they need more of Daddy Jeff at the moment.

There’s some kind of special entrance set up for Karen but it’s Kurt’s theme instead.  He flies in like Spider-Man and locks the door.  Kurt runs into the cameraman and Jarrett (and Karen who came out) run.  This is all they put the cage up for?

Back and Kurt says he’s going to hurt Jeff at Lockdown.  Oh and the Network says there will be a stipulation for the match.  No word on what that is.

Rob Van Dam vs. Sting

Anderson is referee and this is non-title.  Sting grabs a headlock to start but Van Dam breaks that and gets some kicks from the middle and top rope.  Rolling Thunder gets two.  RVD argues about the count but it was fine.  Stinger Splash gets two and Sting argues a bit also.  There’s the Scorpion Death Drop out of nowhere but Anderson drops Sting with the Mic Check.  He counts them both out and jumps from 1 to 6 and then to 9 in about 3 seconds.  Five Star to Sting ends this at 3:16.

Rating: D. Well this was pointless but it was long enough to warrant a grading.  Was there a point to having RVD get the pin here?  I’d say the same thing about Sting pinning RVD, but I guess this is better than another no contest.  Also we get that Anderson is against both of them, which he was in the first place.

Anderson lays RVD out with the belt and asks Van Dam about the rematch.  Terry and Murphy come out and put Anderson on their shoulders to end the show.  Hogan comes out to clap.  Apparently we’re not done yet as it’s a Mic Check for Terry and Murphy.  Well at least they didn’t go with the obvious ending.  He points the pipe at Hogan and says he’s next.  Hogan rants about Anderson to really end the show.

Overall Rating: D+. This show was almost a chore to sit through.  Now even though most people probably aren’t going to read past the previous sentence, I’m not saying this was a horrible show because they’ve had far worse ones before.  However, you had to matches end in partners turning on each other, two matches ending in weapon shots and other than Immortal and the world title match, almost nothing new happened.  It was a very boring show that dragged really badly which isn’t a good sign in the slightest going into the second biggest show of the year.  Bad show and a disappointment after their last two shows.

Results

Anarquia/Hernandez b. D-Von/Tommy Dreamer – Hernandez pinned D-Von after a chair shot from Anarquia

Samoa Joe b. Murphy – Koquina Clutch

Rosita/Sarita b. Beautiful People – Rosita pinned Sky after Love attacked Sky

Chris Sabin/Brian Kendrick/Suicide b. Generation Me/Robbie E – Kendrick pinned Jeremy Buck after a DDT from Max Buck

Final Resolution 2009
Date: December 20, 2009
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 1,200
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Taz

This is the final PPV before we got to the Hogan Era and the difference is remarkable.  AJ is world champion here and the main event is him vs. Christopher Daniels for the title.  On the undercard is Angle vs. Desmond Wolfe in a 2/3 falls match which should be awesome.  Notice how the emphasis is on the older guys mixing with the younger guys in order to make the younger ones look good.  That’s called giving someone a rub which you don’t see enough of anymore.  Let’s get to it.

Also expect the TNA shows to have a lot of 2009 coming as I found every show from that year which is a big plus since it’s hard finding TNA PPVs that are complete.

We open up here with a Christmas theme set in front of the wrestlers which then turns to fire and clips of the aforementioned main feuds.  This looks like the opening video to a TV show rather than a PPV.

Tag Titles: British Invasion vs. Motor City Machine Guns

The idea here is that the Brits are just there and the Guns are tired of being overlooked which is a very true statement.  At least we get the Motorcity song.  The Invasion is part of World Elite and is comprised of Magnus and Doug Williams.  The ropes are red and green here which is either cool or stupid.  Not sure which.

Sabin vs. Williams to start us off here.  Williams takes him down with a wristlock and they roll around on the mat a bit.  Off to Shelley and it’s a bit more of the same.  Magnus comes in and the fourth guy works on a wristlock.  Shelley tries to jump at Magnus and it just fails.  Right back to the arm because we’ve gone a full 8 seconds without doing that.  The Guns both come in and kick away to take both members of the Brits now.

Stereo double dives from the middle rope on the inside to the Brits on the floor in an awesome spot.  Back in now with Magnus taking Shelley down and it’s off to Williams.  Technically this has been very sound so far.  Williams gets an inverted Gory Special to drive Shelley into the top turnbuckle in a cool spot.  Shelley manages to get a top rope cross body for two.

Back off to Magnus now for some double teaming.  Shelley and Williams (these Brits tag too much) have a nice technical piece and Magnus takes down Sabin to prevent the tag.  Full nelson by Magnus gets him nowhere.  A Vader Bomb by Magnus eats knees and it’s off to Sabin vs. Williams now for a nice change of pace.  Tornado DDT by Sabin gets two.

Back off to Shelley and Magnus and Shelly hits a top rope kick to the chest (think RVD) for two.  The tagging thing is more or less being more forgotten by the second here.  Sabin dives through Shelley’s legs to take Williams into the guard rail.  Sliced Bread #2 to Magnus gets a close two.  Double stomp by Shelley misses and he runs into an exploder suplex by Williams.

Everyone in now as the Guns are taken down one by one.  That would be all as far as numbers go as there are only two Guns.  Shelley and Magnus slug it out in the ring as we’re back to a standard tag format now.  Back off to Sabin again and the Guns hit a double team downward spiral/missile dropkick for two.  Rolling Chaos doesn’t work as Sabin saves Alex by hitting a Cutter on Williams.  The unnamed Skull and Bones gets two on Magnus.  Double team Sliced Bread doesn’t work and Sabin gets caught in a sweet powerbomb/European Uppercut off the top combination to end this.

Rating: B. Good stuff here as it was fast paced and the fans were into it.  For the life of me though I don’t get why they waited for so long to put the belts on the Guns as they got them due to Hall being released for being Scott Hall.  This was a good match and I was getting into it by the end, which says a lot given that I knew who was winning.

We talk about Hogan and we all know how well that’s gone for the company.  Jeff Hardy appeared there too.  Oh dear.

We run down the remaining card in case someone decided to randomly buy a PPV 20 minutes in.  Oh it’s just the main event.  Ok then.

Knockout Title: Tara vs. ODB

These two feuded forever around this time and I think they’re both faces.  I get to hear the Broken song so I’m a bit happier.  She still has that stupid spider though which is rather stupid and I never got the point of it.  Dang Tara is hot.  Actually ODB might be a heel here.  She’s acting a bit cowardly.  I never got the appeal to her in the slightest.  And never mind as she jumps Tara when the referee is taking the belt away.

Tara grabs a quick Tarantula and adds a leg drop for two.  They do some sloppy stuff and ODB gets a knee to the ribs.  BAD shoulder breaker by ODB gets two.  Bronco Buster doesn’t work as instead it’s a kick to Tara’s shapely chest.  Almost all ODB to this point other than a quick attack at the beginning.  Fall away slam and a nip up by ODB.  After a LONG delay she gets two.

Tara grabs the sloppiest jackknife cover of all time for two.  There’s no Impact on Thursday due to it being Christmas Eve.  There’s a New Year’s Eve show with a Knockouts Tournament apparently.  Hey TNA is having a tournament.  I’m SHOCKED.  ODB tries….something and falls on her face.  Tara slugs away and gets a flapjack for no cover.  Standing moonsault gets two.  No shake first which makes me sad.  ODB puts her in a fireman’s carry but Tara reverses into something like a sunset flip/rollup for the pin.  Wow this was bad.

Rating: D-. The ONLY thing keeping this from failing is Tara looking great.  I mean this was terrible.  They were sloppy here and ODB constantly rubbing herself doesn’t help anything.  Weak match and I couldn’t wait to get this done.  Terrible match and a great example of why the Knockouts Division was dying around this time.

Tara is happy to have won.

We get a video on Hogan coming to Impact on 1/4.  That 1.5 rating they got is the highest they’ve gotten as of this writing, in March of 2011.

Feast or Fired

Jay Lethal, Consequences Creed, Cody Deaner, Robert Roode, James Storm, Eric Young, Homicide, Kiyoshi, Sheik Abdul Bashir, Rob Terry, Kevin Nash, Samoa Joe

Everyone from Young to Nash is in World Elite, making up half of the lineup here.  Simple concept: four cases, one has a world title shot, one has an X Title shot, one has a tag title shot, one has a pink slip.  You pull down a case, that’s what you get.  Like I said, simple concept.  This is of course almost impossible to call as everyone is doing random stuff and it’s a big fight so far.

Lethal goes up early, only to be stopped by Kiyoshi.  The idea here is that World Elite doesn’t want Beer Money or Lethal Consequences to get a case so that the Brits don’t have to fight them.  Smart actually.  Joe hammers on Young as we hear about how experienced Homicide is in these.  Deaner almost gets up but can’t quite get there.  Apparently all of World Elite is banned from going up.  Stupid but whatever.

Deaner goes up again but gets pulled down.  This is a total mess with two people in the ring and the other nine being outside.  Bashir goes up for the third time but Deaner stops him.  They have been the only two in the ring forever now.  Sheik rakes the eyes but he falls off and it’s Lethal Consequences beating on various people.

Lethal plays defense while Creed goes up but he gets knocked off by Bashir.  Deaner challenges him for it and it falls off.  They fight for it on the floor and Bashir kicks him in the knee and clocks him with it to get case #2.  In the ring Rob Terry gets #4.  Young gets all ticked off at him as does the rest of the World Elite team.  Beer Money is like screw this and jumps them.

Beer Money double teams Nash and then Young.  I can understand them not going up there as Nash was on his feet so that makes sense.  BEER MONEY runs into Kiyoshi who doesn’t last long.  All Beer Money here as they beat the tar out of everyone.  Roode goes up but it’s Nash with the save.  He goes up and easily gets case #1.  The people that get cases leave by the way.

Joe gets in the ring for the first time as the fans are clearly behind him.  He beats on Lethal Consequences because he can but he doesn’t have as much luck with Beer Money.  Finishers all around now with Homicide hitting a top rope cutter to take down Roode.  Deaner is up now but Joe is like boy what the world do you think you’re doing and kicks him to the floor and grabs #3 to end this.

Rating: D. No idea what to really think about these matches but this wasn’t very interesting.  It’s like a battle royal but it was messed up beyond belief.  Deaner being in there way too much always hurts things.  Nothing any good here but then again these matches never were worth anything.  Boring but it sets up future storylines so I guess it has that going for it.

Angle and AJ are in the back and Angle says that Wolfe is one of the best he’s ever faced.  He implies he’s coming after AJ once he beats Wolfe.  AJ says cool but first he has to get by Daniels.  Christy was there also and good grief she was gorgeous.

Time to unveil the cases.  Remember it’s World Title, Tag Titles, X Title and being fired.  First up is Nash and he gets a tag title shot.  He and Hall would use that in like May to give the Band the tag titles after not mentioning he had the case for four and a half months.

Joe goes second and gets a World Title shot which he would cash in at Against All Odds and lose.

We do the last two at the same time.  It’s Rob Terry and Sheik Abdul Bashir if you’ve lost track.  Terry gets the X Division Title shot which he gave to Douglas Williams who won the title.  Bashir is fired and then actually left the company.  He gets the future endeavored line and the Goodbye Song as parting gifts.

Taz insists this isn’t part of the show.  Yeah the last 17 minutes for that stuff wasn’t part of the show at all.

Matt Morgan/Hernandez/D’Angelo Dinero/Suicide vs. Rhyno/Team 3D/Jesse Neal

This is an elimination match so think Survivor Series.  Actually for the first five minutes it’s 1 on 4 and that would be Hernandez vs. the other four.  Why is that the case?  Who freaking cares?  Apparently not TNA as they barely mention it.  Leave it to TNA to be able to screw this up.  If Hernandez loses in this five minutes it’s over but it’s just an elimination for the other guys.  Leave it to TNA to manage to screw up an elimination tag with overly complicated rules.

Neal is a total jobber at this point and just a student of Team 3D.  Hernandez is coming off a super push where he was almost world champion but was then pushed down into a tag team with Morgan just because.  Ray beats on Hernandez a bit and it’s off to Rhyno.  Why are these teams feuding?  Not necessary information.  Gore hits for two so we know Rhyno won’t last long.  Another Gore misses and a rollup makes it 1-3 which is soon to be 4-3.

Neal is sent out to get a chair but the heels just stand around while the rest of the time runs out and here are the other three.  Morgan is also in the middle of a big push which would just die when Hogan got there.  Hernandez dives out on everyone at once and we get down to regular stuff.  Suicide (Kazarian) hammers on Neal to start.  They have this whole thing backwards at this point as the faces are dominating, which is the total wrong idea in matches like these.

Not being very intelligent, Neal picks up the chair and pops Suicide with it.  Hernandez, not being very intelligent either, picks up the same chair and pops Neal with it.  So it’s a DQ if you hit someone no longer in the match?  3D takes out Suicide so it’s 2-2 now….wait why is Neal still out there?  He cracked Suicide with the chair and the referee clearly saw it.  Heck he reacted to it.  Why does this surprise me?  What the heck ever man.

It’s Dinero vs. Ray at the moment and now Neal leaves as it’s a DQ for him.  How do you make a simple DQ complicated?  Pope gets a top rope clothesline for two.  3D takes Pope out and it’s 2-1 finally.  Team 3D hammers him together for awhile which the referee doesn’t seem to have much of an issue with.  Morgan hits a double clothesline and splashes them both in the corner.

D-Von takes the corner elbows but can still save Ray from a chokeslam.  Oh and the Dudleys are the IWGP Tag Champions here.  Not that it means anything to the vast majority of wrestling fans but TNA insisted it mattered so there we are.  There hasn’t been any time during the 2-1 part where a Dudley has been on the apron.

Big boot takes out D-Von, even though the hand didn’t hit the mat the third time and they wait 15 seconds to announce his elimination.  So it’s Ray vs. Morgan now which would be a win for Ray at the moment somehow.  Ray counters the Hellevator into a DDT and it’s chair time.  Carbon Footprint into the chair ends it.

Rating: D. What the heck were they thinking here?  Was there any need for the five minute thing or for this to take up sixteen minutes or air time?  I mean dude, seriously?  It wasn’t even anything special with the two DQs and the total lack of drama as the biggest star on the other team was who, Ray?  This was boring and another example ot TNA managing to take something simple and overcomplicate it.

We recap Abyss vs. Dr. Stevie which incorporated Foley on Abyss’ side and Raven on Richards’ side.  Richards lit Abyss’ leg on fire which I don’t remember at all.

Oh wait that’s not next.  This is next.

We recap Lashley vs. Steiner.  I’m not kidding here.  They just flat out said they aired the wrong video and this is the next match.  Steiner thinks Lashley’s wife loves her or something.

Scott Steiner vs. Bobby Lashley

Last man standing here as Steiner had hit him with a pipe last month in their match to end Lashley’s unbeaten streak.  Kristal, the wife, is thrown out before the match.  Steiner goes after her and Bobby chases.  Bobby catches Steiner and does nothing.  Steiner drills him and we start on the floor.  Back in the ring now and it’s a T-Bone by Bobby to take over.

Dragon sleeper goes on as Steiner is in trouble.  Since Lashley lets Steiner go, that isn’t enough to end it.  Scott’s leg may be messed up here.  Out to the floor and Lashley hits him with a chair.  Steiner hits him with a pipe and down goes Lashley.  Naturally a lead pipe to the head by a huge muscle man like Steiner isn’t enough to keep him down though as he’s up at 7.

Lashley goes into the post and then the steps.  Back in the ring and Steiner gets a downward spiral from the top rope (Lashley’s feet were on it and Steiner was on the mat) for 9.  Belly to belly suplex off the top (with Bobby landing on his head and Taz making a Cole Vintage joke) gets about 8.  Steiner jumps into a suplex of his own Powerslam for Bobby gets two and a Frankensteiner gets the same.  The pipe is retrieved but Kristal comes down to steal it.  A spear and a pipe shot from Steiner end this.

Rating: D+. This wasn’t much at all as Steiner was pretty uninteresting at this point to say the least.  Lashley would be gone in a month as he became a full time MMA guy and didn’t exactly do that well at it.  Boring match here that was more or less just there.  At least this ended the feud though.  The Lashleys would turn heel on January 4^th to no one really caring.

We talk about the upcoming tag match for a bit before it happens.

Raven/Dr. Stevie vs. Mick Foley/Abyss

Is there a reason why we’re supposed to believe that he’s a doctor?  This is now No DQ which makes things a bit better I guess.  Yep Foley makes it anything goes.  Total mess to start where you can barely keep track of what’s going on.  Abyss beats on Stevie near the announce booth and pulls out a table.  The fan on Tenay’s desk amuses me for some reason.

Abyss wanted to powerbomb Stevie off the stage through a table but Raven makes the save with a kendo stick.  It’s broken over Abyss’ back and jabbed into various parts of his body.  Foley is nowhere to be seen.  Back at ringside Raven rams into Abyss and bites him.  This isn’t much to look at.  Abyss’ leather pants have burn holes in them.  Raven pulls out some gasoline but Foley pops up with a shopping cart full of weapons.

A barbed wire bat is rammed into both heels stomachs and a Piledriver gets two on Raven.  He and Stevie are stacked on top of each other and Abyss sits on them.  Here comes Socko but Raven throws powder into Foley’s eyes.  Abyss saves his partner and puts Stevie in the Shock Treatment while at the same time dropping a leg on Raven in a cool spot.  Abyss has his own sock.  I give up.

Stereo Mandible Claws but Raven gets a low blow and the DDT for two on Abyss.  Foley makes more or less a lasso of barbed wire and wraps it around Richards.  He sets Richards on a table and dives off the stage onto the table with an elbow.  Daffney comes out and hits Abyss with a chair but Raven saves.  Black Hole Slam ends Raven and it’s over.

Rating: C-. If you’ve seen one of these hardcore matches you’ve seen them all.  There’s nothing special about them at all for the most part as they’re all the same thing after awhile.  The big ending spot if Foley diving off and it’s treated like any other elbow drop in a match instead of a huge spot like it was.  Not bad though.

Joe says he’d win and he did.  He isn’t sure when he’s cashing in but it could be tonight.  This is to fill in time to clear the ring.

We recap Wolfe vs. Angle which is the end of the feud.  Wolfe is brand new and keeps beating on Angle but can’t quite beat him by pin or submission (he won by a referee stoppage in a street fight).  This is 2/3 falls with the first being pin only, second being submission only and third is in a cage which is escape only.

Taz and Tenay talk for too long.  Oh it’s for the cage.  I see.  So all three falls are in the cage?  That’s kind of cool actually.

Desmond Wolfe vs. Kurt Angle

Angle is still in a Mafia shirt even though that’s long since dead.  They have a ton of time here so they start slowly with ground work.  Angle grabs the leg and down to the mat we go.  Off to a cobra clutch by Wolfe.  Lots of technical stuff here which is pretty solid of course given who is in there.  Hammerlock by Angle and we look at some guy and his kid in the crowd for no apparent reason at all.

Multiple covers get nothing for Wolfe.  A knee drop misses for Wolfe so Angle goes after the leg.  Headlock takedown and it’s Wolfe in control.  They’re in first gear here or maybe a mild second one but it’s still entertaining.  The dueling chants have already started.  Angle fights up and gets a buckle bomb for our first big high impact move.  We’ve been at this almost 8 minutes now so you can tell this is going slowly.

Wolfe in control again with Wolfe working on the arm a bit more.  Modified cobra clutch goes on for a bit but Kurt fights back.  Overhead belly to belly but Kurt can’t get the Angle Slam.  A single arm DDT hits but Wolfe misses a big clothesline misses.  Rolling Germans go on in a set of about five or six.

Angle goes up and gets caught in the Tower of London for two.  It’s a Diamond Cutter off the top if you’re wondering.  The lariat misses again and it’s another attempt at the Tower of London but Kurt escapes and the Angle Slam gets two.  Angle tries the moonsault and, say it with me, it misses by a mile.  Clothesline hits this time and the Tower of London gets the first fall for Wolfe.  Really should have been after the clothesline.

Wolfe goes straight for the arm and Kurt is in big trouble already.  The crank that Wolfe has it on there is INSANE.  Kurt rolls out of it though and it’s time for a figure four out of nowhere.  The rope is grabbed and we’re back to the arm again.  Wolfe puts on a ton of arm holds and they’re all at least somewhat different.  Kurt reverses one of them into the ankle lock and Wolfe is in trouble.

Wolfe reverses into the LeBell Lock minus the crossface.  That gets rolled through and it’s back to the ankle lock.  This is a technical masterpiece so far.  Angle reverses ANOTHER arm hold into the ankle lock which Wolfe reverses into an ankle lock of his own.  Angle grabs something like a triangle choke which gets reversed into an arm lock again.  Triangle choke goes on but Kurt runs through it into an ankle lock again and it’s the grapevine added that ends fall 2.

Ok so it’s now escape to win it.  Oh that guy they showed earlier is Jason Williams of the Orlando Magic.  WWE is in town tonight so they’re making fun of it somehow.  Angle puts Wolfe down and goes up so they fight on the ropes a bit.  Wolfe rams the arm into the cage which is rather smart and basic.  Wolfe goes up so Kurt does the same thing to Wolfe’s leg.  I like that as it’s nice storytelling.

Wolfe knocks him off the ropes so Kurt pops up and throws him off in the running suplex.  Desmond is busted BAD.  Kurt goes up but Wolfe gets a boot up which might have hit Angle’s bad arm.  It was Wolfe’s bad leg though so everyone is down.  Desmond calls for the door to be open but Kurt makes the save again.  Wolfe taps forever but Kurt won’t let go.  Desmond passes out and Kurt climbs out.  Wolfe almost made it but couldn’t quite do it.

Rating: A. Great match here with some incredible back and forth stuff in the submission round.  I don’t tend to like matches like these but this was very fun to see.  Wolfe being left laying like that at the end was great but I would have had him stay there until Kurt had won.  Either way, great match and the whole thing worked incredibly well.  Brutal match with a clear winner, which is the point of matches like these.

Mick Foley talks about Hogan for no apparent reason.

We recap Daniels vs. AJ.  There was a masked man running around jumping AJ and he thought it was Daniels.  There was a three way match at Turning Point where AJ pinned Joe, stealing Daniels’ pin.  The idea here is that Daniels is equal to AJ but Daniels has never gotten anything out of AJ’s friendship.  In short, it’s Anderson vs. Flair.

TNA World Title: Christopher Daniels vs. AJ Styles

Anyone that has read my reviews knows I don’t like Daniels at all for the most part.  This is AJ before they turned him into the Flair tribute character, therefore making him awesome.  The challenger is called Daniels here but I need more names to swap in and out so there you go.  They stare each other down for awhile and then lock up with no one really having control to start.

Daniels grabs the arm when AJ is talking to the referee and takes over.  AJ tries a nip up to escape but Daniels drops down onto him in a nice counter.  Daniels stays on the arm for a good while but tries a dropkick which AJ holds the ropes for.  We speed things up now and AJ pops off an awesome dropkick to take over.

We head to the floor with AJ doing his flips and dives to take down Daniels.  Back in and a hilo sets up a discus clothesline for no cover as it’s all AJ at the moment.  Off to the chinlock and the fans chant for Angle.  Or is it Angel?  Daniels goes with those palm strikes and a monkey flip to send AJ flying.  Clothesline sends AJ to the floor but his foot gets caught on the rope and he lands on his head.

On the floor and Daniels puts AJ in a chair.  He picks up another chair and tries to swing it.  The referee stops him but when he’s not looking Daniels hits a release Rock Bottom onto the chair AJ was sitting in.  Taz asks a good question: “Does the referee think the chair just exploded?”  Back in the ring a side slam gets two as Daniels keeps up the assault on the back of AJ.

A headscissors out of nowhere puts Daniels down but it’s only for a second.  Daniels sits AJ up on the ropes facing the crowd.  He picks AJ up for something like a belly to back suplex but rotates him a bit to drop AJ back first on the turnbuckle in a sick bump for two. Moonsault “hits” and Daniels locks on a crossface minus the arm trap.  Doesn’t go on long but it looked good.  I don’t get why AJ couldn’t just put his arms down to break the pressure but what do I know?

Lionsault minus the running start misses and AJ hits a suplex to put both guys down for a bit.  AJ goes to the apron so Daniels tries a rana to the floor.  AJ just drops him down in a powerbomb which sounded awesome.  He hammers on Daniels and we go back into the ring.  AJ hits an FU into a backbreaker and the backflip into the reverse DDT for two.

Daniels is able to get something like a backdrop onto the top rope to crotch AJ.  From there Daniels steps onto the middle rope and suplexes AJ back in with a unique move.  With AJ sitting on the top rope Daniels hits a HUGE palm strike to the head.  A Frankensteiner and a Shining Wizard gets two.  The fans say someone got served in this youth language that I’m not familiar with.  Stupid young whippersnappers.  BIG knot on Daniels’ head here.

They fight over a suplex but AJ settles for a big old brainbuster instead.  There’s the springboard forearm that I always love for a long two.  Styles Clash is blocked so it’s a Pele instead.  Another attempt is blocked by a palm strike.  Another release Rock Bottom by Daniels sets up the Best Moonsault Ever for a long two.

Daniels hammers away as I think that knot on his head could take over a small country at this point.  AJ sends him chest first into the corner and rolls through into the Styles Clash for two.  Daniels gets up and puts AJ on the second turnbuckle on the inside (I had to channel Gorilla once or twice) but goes for a rana and is caught in the Clash from the middle rope to end it.

Rating: B+. Good match but it’s definitely a step or two behind the previous one.  Daniels was never a real threat here as eventually he has to win something to be classified as a real threat.  This was when AJ had a lot of meaningless matches as champion, but they were good enough that you could overlook that.  Either way, this was good but not as good as the match before it, which hurts it a bit.

Overall Rating: B-. This show suffers from what came after it.  In 15 days, Hogan showed up and all of this was tossed out the window.  They were clearly just holding down the fort at this point and while some of it was good, parts of it are utterly forgettable or just weak.  After the opener, everything until Angle vs. Wolfe is AWFUL.  It’s definitely not the worst TNA show and it’s actually good, but as far as importance goes, this means nothing at all due to Hogan and Bischoff hitting the reset button.  Good show, but the definition of not important.

Impact
Date: March 31, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz
Episode Title: R-V-Damed!!!

So we’ve got three more shows before Lockdown which seems like a lot for some reason.  It’s nice to have them focusing on a PPV instead of a TV show though as this gives us something to look forward to at the PPV.  Last week’s show gives me some hope for this week although I really hope we won’t get another #1 contender’s match tonight.  Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the #1 contender’s match last week with Anderson getting disqualified.  Sting claims he didn’t call for the bell so Anderson accuses Sting of being afraid to face him.

In the arena and Anderson more or less runs Earl Hebner to the ring.  Anderson gets in Hebner’s face, yelling at him about ringing the bell and handing the match to RVD.  Hebner says that Anderson needs to show respect to the striped shirt and that Anderson was disqualified for disrespecting Sting, the referee last week.  Hebner says the decision stands and  if Anderson tries anything or disrespects him then Anderson will be suspended for 90 days period.

Hebner tries to leave but Anderson grabs him and sets for the Mic Check.  Hebner’s son, fellow referee Brian Hebner, comes out for the save so Anderson says go for it.  Anderson wants to know if Earl is going to screw him over now too since that’s what he does.  Earl pulls his fist back until Sting comes down for the save.  Sting says pick on him instead and Anderson says this is his country.  Sting drills him and the security comes out to pull them apart.

Cue RVD, now complete with his memory, comes out and says he doesn’t want the win like that and tells Hebner to make it a threeway at Lockdown.  He can’t do that though, but apparently he can make it stand?  Makes sense actually.  Cue Hogan to say ok let’s do that.  What a shock: the #1 contender’s match again meant nothing.  Bischoff has a ratings idea so tonight it’s the three in the ring vs. Flair’s team of Abyss, Matt and Bubba in a cage.  Sting and Anderson brawl as we go to a break.

Back and Anderson has no comment.

RVD says he likes having everyone in the ring at once because he can take care of all of them at once.

Sting says he’ll get an apology for the disrespect from Anderson.

Shannon Moore vs. Scott Steiner up next.  As Gorilla would say “A main event anywhere in the world.”

Shannon says he’s the new generation and he disrespected Steiner because he has no respect for Steiner.

Steiner says that’s not disrespect.  If he wanted to disrespect Shannon he’d spend the night with his girlfriend.  This is going to be a beatdown, not a match.

Bubba says that he’s not wanting to talk about AJ and he lets his attitude do the talking.  There’s a chip on his shoulder and Hogan wants to borrow it.  Ok then.

Jordan and Young are on their way to the ring.  I guess they’re up next now.

The Jarretts are talking to Hogan and Bischoff, more or less begging to call off the Angle match.  Didn’t Angle say he’d get the Jarretts if he tried to do this?  There’s a Rob Terry thing apparently to take care of Angle.  Hogan calls Karen the key to this.

Scott Steiner vs. Shannon Moore

Orlando Jordan and Eric Young are on commentary here…just because I guess.  Crimson and Neal are here as seconds.  Young has an announcement and they’re going to be in a four way tag match at Lockdown.  Steiner/Crimson vs. Ink Inc vs. Jordan/Young vs. a mystery team.  Jordan is dressed like a peacock.  I’ve got nothing.  Young says the mystery team might be Demolition.  That would be awesome.

Moore tries to run and gets thrown back in by Crimson to let the beating begin.  Steiner is destroying him here wit his power stuff.  The referee gets in the way a bit as Steiner drops Moore with a back elbow.  Belly to belly gets two.  Young speculates on the Beverly Brothers.  It’s always fun to hear obscure names like those dropped.  Moore gets in a shot to the leg and does some pushups to tick Scott off.

Shannon puts on Steiner’s headgear but misses a moonsault.  There are all kinds of sexual jokes from Jordan and Young here, none of which are really all that funny.  Steiner wakes up and starts the proper squashing here.  Frankensteiner from the top ends this at 4:25.  Was there ever any real doubt as to the ending?

Rating: D. Boring match here as Steiner was never in any real danger and it was just a step past an extended squash.  Nothing of note here at all but at least we got some wrestling here.  At least this stupid feud is mostly over now though.  I still don’t get the appeal of Moore and I never have.

Jordan and Young with Jordan in rainbow wings and what can best be described as feather briefs, go to the ring to congratulate the winners but are jumped by Doug Williams and Brutus Magnus who apparently are the fourth team.  Good job with Williams guys: from a face that is stealing the show with AJ to a heel in the same generic tag team he was in years ago.

Back with Anderson talking to a poster of himself.  The poster says that he won’t apologize to Sting.

The Jarretts are complaining about Anderson being on the poster.  HEY!  Did you know that ANDERSON is supposed to be the star of this show?  Didn’t know if they made that clear enough with his three of four appearances in 40 minutes.  Karen is mad at Jeff in case the plan doesn’t work and he has to face Kurt at Lockdown.  Jeff says it’s ok.

We recap Generation Me being awesome but apparently Jeremy has turned on Max and Max isn’t happy about it.  This is about one trying to get the title at the last PPV.

Max Buck vs. Jeremy Buck

Jeremy is mad about Max stealing the glory.  They go incredibly fast paced of course with Max being sent to the floor.  Jeremy invites Max back into the ring which is accepted.  Jeremy tries a handshake but is pulled into a headlock.  We’re getting a lot of quick covers and counters here but now Max is getting all ticked off.  Rana by Jeremy gets two.

Max sends him to the floor and Jeremy might have hurt his elbow.  Now Max holds the ropes open for Jeremy just like Jermy did for him earlier.  Max kicks him in the head though and adds a jumping flipping cutter from the top rope to end this at 4:00.  Cool finisher to say the least.

Rating: C. Pretty fun match here but the feud just came and went.  We haven’t heard from them since the PPV, they have a random match on Impact and now they’re done.  I guess that’s all there is to this though so at least it’s done.  Fun match with lots of fast spots so a nice alternative to the previous match.

Fourtune is here and are happy about someone arriving at an airport.

Back with Winter giving Angelina a drink and talking to her about Velvet.  Methinks hijinks are afoot with that cup.

We recap the Angelina and Winter stuff with Velvet not being able to see her at first and then Winter being all psycho protective over Angelina.  We get what is probably the 6^th use of the word witch in 50 minutes during this.

Winter vs. Velvet Sky

The match starts after the break.  Back with the bell and Velvet charging straight at Winter.  Lots of shoulders into the corner follow and Velvet is in control.  Never mind as it’s off to Winter as Taz babbles about how hot they look and something about Lelani Kai.  Winter keeps up the beating and gets a backbreaker for two.  Velvet comes back and gets some clothesline to take Winter down.  Bulldog puts her down again but Angelina comes down the aisle.  She’s all trance like as Winter drills Velvet.  A spinning backbreaker sets up a kind of choke to end Velvet at 3:57.  Angelina continues to just stand there and not move.

Rating: D. Pretty weak match here as the drink thing gave away the ending.  At least they’re finally going somewhere with the Winter being weird thing so at least we get some advancement other than Velvet and her whining every 8 seconds.  Weak match but the wrestling wasn’t the point here.

Here’s Anderson….again.  He calls out Sting and sucker punches him.  They brawl some more and go into the crowd.  After about two minutes, Immortal comes out for he beat down to get the advantage for the cage match later tonight.  Van Dam FINALLY comes out for the save and beats on Ray a bit.  He lets Immortal hammer on Anderson after saving Sting.  RVD leaves Anderson to the wolves.  Immortal throws Anderson to Sting who pops him and chases off Immortal.

The Jarretts pretend that Angle is attacking them on the phone, I’m assuming to the police.

Angle is up next against some mystery guy.  Gee I wonder if it could be the guy that Hogan mentioned by name as a potential solution for Kurt.

Back with Flair talking about how awesome Immortal is and how there’s no point to the match tonight as it’s a team against three individuals.  All three people talk about how awesome Immortal is.

Velvet complains about Winter and says you don’t come to TNA to mess with the Beautiful People.  She’s going to break the hold that Winter has on her no matter what it takes.

Here’s Kurt and he has no idea who he’s fighting tonight.  Kurt calls out Jeff Jarrett and here he comes, along with Rob Terry.  Yes, surprisingly enough it’s the guy that Hogan said was the solution to the Angle problem.  Is this supposed to be a surprise?

Rob Terry vs. Kurt Angle

Angle is in street clothes here.  Jarrett distracts Kurt to let Terry take over to start us off here.  Kurt gets a boot up but jumps into a front slam as he tries a cross body.  Terry gets him in a tombstone position but Kurt reverses into the ankle lock for the submission at 1:36.

Angle gets his hands on Jeff for a split second post match but only gets his shoe.  Kurt chases after Jarrett and chokes him with I think a shirt.  Angle Slam on the stage is reversed and Jeff runs backstage.  Kurt might catch him if he was actually running.  Jeff hides behind a wall or something and Kurt walks into some cops as Karen shouts.  Kurt is arrested and taken away.  I can’t wait to get to Lockdown so this can end already.  It was good to start but this has gone on far too long.

Fourtune isn’t sure what RVD is doing and they want to back up Sting tonight.  Roode talks about having a fourth person and that they need to go talk to someone.

Hogan and Bischoff say they can pick and choose whoever they want to join Immortal with how mad those three are at each other.

Matt Hardy/Abyss/Bully Ray vs. Sting/Rob Van Dam/Mr. Anderson

This is in a cage remember.  They have almost 25 minutes left in the show so this could get a lot of time.  Sting jumps Anderson as he’s doing the intro and suplexes him on the stage.  Flair hits RVD with a low blow and puts him in the cage.  Sting comes in and it’s 3-2 to start us off.  Stinger Splashes all around and the atomic drop by Hardy is no sold.  This is one of those annoying cage matches where you have to tag.

Immortal doesn’t seem to care about those rules though which is something I really like.  It’s a cage match where it’s supposed to be about survival, but make sure to tag in and out.  Anderson sits in a chair on the floor and watches as we take a break.  Back with Sting getting destroyed by all three Immortals.

As the beatdown continues here’s Hogan complete with back brace.  He tells Anderson to get in the cage but Anderson doesn’t want to.  Hogan calls him a jerk and Anderson wants to fight.  Hogan says he has glasses and a back brace and jumps Anderson.  Anderson is thrown in and I guess now the match REALLY begins.  Sting nails Anderson who gets rammed into the cage.

All Immortal here and Flair goes after a cameraman.  Ray wants to get the paint off Sting’s face.  Hardy gets two on Sting.  Ok, so now we’re going into tagging mode.  Uh…so why didn’t we do that in the first ten minutes?  Matt vs. Sting officially starts us I guess.  Sting hammers away but his knee is gone.  Off to Abyss with Ray shouting KILL HIM!  Off to Ray now as he and Abyss are in at the same time.

Sting avoids them and has them clothesline each other then clotheslines both of them to bring in Van Dam.  Anderson is down in a neutral corner.  Top rope kick looks to set up the Frog Splash but Anderson shoves him off and the Bubba Bomb ends Van Dam at 13:00.  Anderson bails as the beating continues on Sting and Van Dam.

Rating: C-. This was about what you expected.  The cage is there to preview Lockdown I guess but this wasn’t much of a match but rather an extended beatdown.  Not terrible, but kind of paint by numbers and nothing out of the ordinary.  That’s what the post match stuff is for, which we’ll get to now.

The beating continues but Fourtune hits the ring for the save.  Flair locks everyone in and Immortal takes over.  Kaz is busted open as there are a lot of chains in there for some reason.  Did Orlando visit the cage earlier?  With the beating continuing even longer, a bald man climbs the side of the cage.  It’s the returning CHRISTOPHER DANIELS who dives on Immortal and clears the cage as we take a break.

We get a quick recap of the match and post match stuff we just saw including Daniels with a big dive that looks pretty cool.

Flair rants about who Daniels is and Abyss says it’s AJ’s best friend.  Flair looks like the grandfather in a Shirley Temple movie.  Ray rants about how awesome the blood was.

Daniels, looking like he’s wearing eyeliner, says that it’s time to be back.  He says he’ll have Ray’s blood on his hands at Lockdown.  Kaz says he’s willing to bleed.  Apparently Daniels is the fourth man at Lockdown.  If AJ is out that’s as good a replacement as they can get I think so I can’t complain here.  Storm rants about how awesome Fourtune is and Daniels says TNA was built on blood.

Sting says that was just a warmup.  At Lockdown it’s SHOWTIME!

Anderson leaves with no comment.  Oh ok he just makes them in another room.  He’s mad about getting screwed over and Ran Dam jumps him.  Van Dam says thanks for tonight and leaves Anderson laying.  Anderson curses a lot as we go off the air.

Overall Rating: C. This wasn’t too bad but nothing that stood out here.  This was kind of a filler show to get to Lockdown but it was passable.  The cage match seemed a bit unnecessary but it served its purpose.  It’s got me wondering who is going to turn at Lockdown but I have a feeling it’s going to be the one that is least expected.  Also I’ve never been a fan of Daniels but if they need someone to fill in for Styles at the PPV he’s a nice surprise for a replacement.  Anyway not a bad show tonight but nothing worth going out of your way to see.

Results

Scott Steiner b. Shannon Moore – Frankensteiner

Max Buck b. Jeremy Buck – Flipping Cutter off the top

Winter b. Velvet Sky – Choke

Kurt Angle b. Rob Terry – Ankle Lock

Bully Ray/Matt Hardy/Abyss b. Sting/Mr. Anderson/Rob Van Dam – Bubba Bomb to Van Dam

Impact
Date: August 12, 2010
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz
Episode Title: The Whole F’N Show

This is the PPV caliber show, since they NEVER have PPV style matches on TV. Nope, not TNA. I guess this is supposed to be like their Clash of the Champions or whatever. The ratings here should be most interesting. Hopefully there are no ECW guys tonight and remember: NO TALKING ALL NIGHT. Any bets on that one?

AJ Styles vs. Kurt Angle

If Angle loses he retires. AJ has a tattoo on his side which looks weird but it has his initials and his kids’ birthdays so I can live with that. Angle gets a SWEET suplex on the floor. This is non-title which just about gives away the ending as well as you could want it to. AJ is freaking awesome to watch, which is what irritates me about the whole Flair tribute thing. There’s no need to add that in with his great stuff.

AJ does all of his usual stuff but can’t get the pin. He hits the forearm and the Pele but none of them work. This isn’t Angle’s usual formula yet but of course it’s good given who is out there. AJ avoids the running belly to belly but Angle hits a middle rope moonsault press which was NICE.

Ankle lock goes on and from that angle Kurt looks FAT! AJ misses his moonsault DDT thing which he hasn’t busted out in years but the recovery was fine. Angle Slam gets two as this is a very fast paced match. Angle blocks the low blow into the ankle lock with the grapevine for the tap. Nice match but they needed more time, as in like twice the time.

Rating: B. Solid match here but with more time, as in like ten more minutes, this could have been a classic. They were WORKING out there though and everything flowed quite well. These two have mad chemistry together and it’s clear why they get put on TV so often. I can live with the TV Champion losing, but I still see little reason to not make this a title match since the career thing is only for the top ten guys.

Knockouts Title: Angelina Love vs. Madison Rayne

Now, can we break the streak of title changes without an actual pin? How are we supposed to take this division seriously with the commentary the way it is? Naturally a lot of the moves from Madison are shall we say suggestive? And make sure you get the back shots. Love kills her with a bunch of stuff and here’s the motorcycle chick.

The crowd chants Tara as they know what’s coming. Skye pops up from behind and DRILLS her with a chair. The helmet comes off and she’s wearing a mask underneath. It comes half off but all we see is a mouth. Back in the ring Lights Out ends this and Love is a five time champion.

Rating: D. Crap match but did you expect anything else? Love looked like Mr. Perfect with the outfit and that was more or less the high point. This whole biker thing is going on to not make it look like Tara just returned a week later which is stupid since clearly the crowd knows who she is. This was a really short match but it did the job….whatever that was supposed to be.

Mr. Anderson vs. D’Angelo Dinero vs. Matt Morgan

Anderson is the only one to get a TV intro. The faces go after Morgan which doesn’t work at all naturally as they wind up fighting over it. The rankings will be announced next week due to….something. Anderson with a Thesz Press as Morgan sits on the floor and lets them fight, which isn’t a bad idea at all. Mic Check to Dinero and Morgan slides in for the save and to steal the pin. I’m not sure if this was longer than the women’s match or not.

Rating: D+. Better than the previous one but more disappointing at the same time. This has been built up for weeks and technically months and it gets four minutes? This could have been much better than it came off as which is never a good sign. It’s ok but it’s just ok, which is never a good thing given what they could have likely done with more time. Imagine that: TNA needing more time for their wrestling.

Jeff Hardy vs. ???

I’ve heard that this is supposed to be a debut and that this isn’t a debut. If it’s a debut, the common guess would be Helms, which would be somewhat exciting. And it’s Shannon Moore.

Jeff Hardy vs. Shannon Moore

When will wrestling companies get that no one cares about Moore? Why does this guy keep getting a job? They’re brothers apparently, or at least that’s what Shannon says. No reason why but whatever. We’re told they’re friends which is news to about 90% of the wrestling audience but whatever. Jeff keeps running into the corners after Shannon and ramming into the buckle like an idiot in a bad comedy movie.

Moore dominates for the most part until Hardy realizes he’s a three time world champion and Shannon Moore is Shannon Moore. A name change might help him a lot actually. Twist of Fate sets up the Swanton into the knees. Shannon gets shoved off the ropes and lands in perfect position for the Swanton and the pin.

Rating: C. Better than I expected here, but again I ask: Shannon Moore? Is that the best they can come up with? Wrestling companies have tried to push this guy for years and it hasn’t worked so why do they keep trying it? This didn’t work back in the days of the WWF and it’s not working here. Anyway, this was an ok match but really nothing special at all. And remember, this is PPV quality baby!

Tag Titles: Beer Money vs. Motor City Machine Guns

This is 2/3 falls. I’ll give TNA this: when they find something that works, they RUN with it. Shelley and Roode start us off and the crowd is WAY behind Shelley. The Guns do their usual insane speed stuff which is always cool looking. Roode does the old classic heel tactic of slapping his hands to convince the ref that there was a tag. It doesn’t work but it’s always awesome.

Sabin breaks through the endless domination of the heels as the fans are just getting irritating. NICE (I think) double team spot from the Guns as we get a downward spiral combined with a DDT and a missile dropkick. Roode takes Sabin’s head off with a big boot and the Guns clear the ring. Back in the ring a Backstabber sets up DWI on Shelley to make it 1-0 Beer Money.

Never a fan of challengers getting clean pins in the first fall of a 2/3 match. It makes the champions look like they lost completely clean. Nice double dropkick by Sabin to clean house again. The splash/neckbreaker ties it up after about two minutes. That move needs a name.

Roode does a HUGE dive over the ropes which they screw up by changing the camera at the last second. After a break it’s more even fighting. This has been a great match. Sabin hits a springboard DDT on Roode which I loved. Granted that might be because the DDT is my favorite move. Both teams hit a sweet double team sequence.

Sliced Bread #2 is countered as is DWI. Last Call superkick ends Roode and the double team combo DOESN’T get the pin on Storm. I would have bet on that ending it. Another one does in fact end it though, which is a bit anticlimactic but still, GREAT match here, although just a step behind the initial win at the PPV. Still though, great match.

Rating: A. This was indeed a great match but it makes me wonder where they’re going to go now that these two have fought so many times now. This is more about a back and forth insanity pitch rather than psychology or storytelling and that’s fine a lot of the time, especially in tags. This was very entertaining and the false finish was great for drama. These two teams have insane chemistry and this was no exception at all. Great match and well worth finding, although most of their matches are.

TNA World Title: Abyss vs. Rob Van Dam

Janice, the board with nails in it, is above the ring and can be used as a weapon, which of course it won’t be. You win by pinfall. Eric Bischoff is the referee for no apparent reason. I mean that literally: no one can come up with a reason for him to be out there. Abyss goes up the ladder as RVD is coming to the ring but gets caught. That was very smart.

Rolling Thunder misses and RVD hits the ladder. After a break Abyss misses a chokeslam onto the ladder. They do the run up the ladder as a ramp spot which is ok. This is about 5 minutes into it not counting the commercial and it’s 10:33. This is going to be a long match or the announcement is going to take forever.

This is a pretty standard ladder based match but it’s not bad. The pinfall being the way to win makes Abyss a much bigger threat here which is very smart thinking. There are the thumbtacks of course since those are perfectly normal in a match like this. Let’s pour some glass on top of that too. Abyss of course lands on them since he has the shirt on which telegraphs it completely. His leg landed on them but whatever.

Barbed wire board is brought in and of course Van Dam puts Abyss into it plus a few more spots which look cool if nothing else. Van Dam gets his hand on the board and they botch a spot as he gets shoved off and BANGS HIS FACE on a ladder that is set up like a bridge between the ring and the barrier. Holy crap that looked terrible. Abyss gets the board.

Naturally he puts it down to punch RVD a bit. For like the third time it gets stuck in the buckle. RVD looks ok and at least his face is still in one piece. He gets some chair shots in and then the Van Terminator into the barbed wire board into Abyss and the Five Star eventually gets the pin. Solid fun match but again I ask: WHY WAS BISCHOFF THE REFEREE?

Rating: B. Solid hardcore style match. The nail board of course meant nothing at all as you would expect. This was a fun main event, although I really wonder where they’re going with Van Dam now as he’s beaten EVERYONE now. I get that they wanted to make him dominant, but the smart move here was to put the title on Abyss, which they passed on so there we are.

Hogan comes down and we go to a break. RVD is still here and Hogan talks, since there can’t be any talking right? Hogan declares that TNA is the top wrestling company in the world and that Hardcore Justice set the bar. He brings out the ECW guys, or at least the main ones. Even Sabu is here.

Hogan says he gives them the ring in a show of respect. There are like 10 or more guys in there. Dreamer is the mouthpiece and thanks everyone. RVD kisses him on the cheek and the lights go out. And here’s Fourtune plus Williams and Morgan. Raven and Sandman come out to even the odds as it’s a massive beatdown.

Abyss comes back and beats up Van Dam some more. Flair comes out as the fans cheer this. In the back Van Dam is covered in blood and Abyss holds up Janice. Flair yells at Dixie, saying she caused this, as we end it.

Overall Rating: A. This was a GREAT show. Everything hit on almost all cylinders although the Hardy/Moore match and the triple threat left a bit to be desired. This was a very fun show though and I had a good time watching it. I’m skeptical about how it’s going to go after this week though as they’re banking everything on this one big angle and if it doesn’t work, they’re in trouble. We’ll see though, and we get a good show here so that’s a success if nothing else. Worth seeing for sure.

Impact
Date: March 17, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Taz

Well it’s the first show after the disaster that was the ending of Victory Road.  Hardy is not here tonight apparently which is about as little as you could ask for.  Jeff Jarrett said that he would call out Angle for a truce on tonight’s show, meaning their feud is likely going to continue until Lockdown.  We’re on the road to said PPV now, so let’s get to it.

Immediately Sting is here and he has a new TNA World Title belt which looks a bit like a UFC belt.  He has the Hardy belt in his hand.  Sting says that before Hogan’s show starts he wants Hogan and Bischoff down here now, or the show won’t start.  With the men in power in the ring, Sting hands Hulk the belt and says that’s all that’s left of Jeff Hardy.  Hogan throws it to the floor.

Sting wants to know how it feels to ruin a superstar like Jeff Hardy.  Sting says that Jeff is a grown man but Hogan and Bischoff turned him into something twisted and dark.  If they try to turn Jeff face out of this, I’m not sure what to think of that.  Sting says he can’t help Jeff Hardy but he can help the 50 guys in the back that are ready to go.

Hogan says he’s a Johnny Come Lately and that Hardy cost Immortal, not the other way around.  Hulk says that Jeff’s demise was his own fault and he couldn’t live up to the Immortal standards.  Hogan asks Sting why Immortal is all at the top of its game, even Matt Hardy.  Did he really just say that?  Hogan threatens Sting, saying don’t worry about saving the boys in the back, but rather saving himself.

Since he came back two weeks ago there have been main event guys calling him all the time wanting to come here and wanting to take Sting’s place.  Sting wants to know who’s been calling.  Cue, I kid you not, Bully Ray.  Ray says that he’s been ringing the phone off the hook because he’s been waiting for this chance all his life.  Ray kisses up to Hogan a bit, saying without him there would be no wrestling business.  True, but why is Bully Ray saying this?

He talks about how no matter what Sting does, he’ll never be able to beat Hogan.  The Bully asks to be part of Immortal and wants to become world champion.  The interesting thing is that Ray can actually talk well enough to be on this level, but at the end of the day he’s Bubba Ray Dudley.  Hogan says don’t worry about Sting and here’s Fourtune as we take a break.

Back with AJ saying Fourtune has Sting’s back.  He says Ray has always wanted to be a singles wrestler but he had a partner for the last 15 years that carried the load.  Bully wants to smack the silver spoon out of AJ’s mouth because Dixie has been carrying AJ the whole time.  Ray says without D-Von he would have been a 23 time world champion.  AJ slaps Bubba and here’s Anderson because there aren’t enough people out here already.

Anderson wants his rematch and says he’s a jerk about 10 times.  The fans laugh, proving why this is stupid.  It’s not a moment where people are supposed to laugh.  Hogan says Anderson couldn’t beat RVD.  Anderson says RVD couldn’t beat him either, so “it’s your call, TERRANCE.”  Oh yeah, he went there.  Bischoff does the ratings thing, four way is made: AJ vs. Ray vs. Anderson vs. RVD.  Great.

Angle is here with a big present for the newlyweds.

Back with AJ talking to RVD and wanting a partnership tonight in the main event.  RVD isn’t sure but more or less says no.

Knockouts Title: Madison Rayne vs. Alissa Flash

It’s another open challenge here.  Flash is more commonly known as Cheerleader Melissa or Raisha Saed.  And the Rayne Drop ends this in 19 seconds.  Why did this happen again?  Oh so Mickie James can come down.  Let me guess: that’s Lockdown because we didn’t have it enough in previous months?  Mickie makes the obvious challenge but Madison says Mickie has to put her hair up.  Mickie says cool.

Pope, looking like Orlando Jordan, is with a bunch of people that are pretending to have various ailments such as being fat, blind and in a wheelchair that he’s going to pretend to heal.  Oh dear.

Back with Anderson yelling at Hogan more.  He wants to know why he has to fight for a title shot he already owns.  That’s a great question since he won a #1 contenders match about three weeks ago.  Hogan says Anderson couldn’t beat RVD like always.  Hogan says do things the hard way or our way and he throws the cameraman out.

Time for Pope who is in a white suit.  He says that miracles need to be performed and tonight there will be miracles happening.  Pope says that Jesus can do this and so can he.  He takes the “blind” man’s glasses off and spits on his own hands, calling it holy oil.  The man can see now.  Next up is the lame man who he kicks in the legs and smacks him in the head.  The man pops up and kind of dances a bit.  Up last is the chick in the fat suit.  Pope grabs her…stomach I think and says that no one including Jesus could help her lose weight.

FINALLY Joe comes out to end this along with Okato.  This feud couldn’t be stupider if they tried to make it worse.  Pope yells at Joe for ruining Pope’s stuff.  Joe is getting fatter by the second I think.  Pope throws the people into it and pulls Okato out.  He puts a knife to Okato’s throat and in a funny bit keeps hitting Okato in the head for stepping on Pope’s shoes.  Pope kicks him in the cuts and throws him into the entrance area before jabbing his knife into his throat, showing that it’s fake.

Back and Pope is beating on Okato who is tied up.  Wait….where is Joe?  He takes the mask off and says he doesn’t like how Okato looks so put the mask back on.  He beats on Okato forever with a stick or a pole or something until Joe FINALLY shows up.  I guess they ran out of catering.  Also he calls him Okada when he comes up.  Joe is all mad or something.

RVD comes up to Anderson in the back and accuses him of joining Immortal.  Nothing of note is said but Anderson denies it.

Velvet and Winter argue about who gets to team up with Angelina as we hit one hour into the show.  Angelina leaves with Winter.

Here’s are the Jarretts for MORE TALKING.  Seriously, 60 minutes in, 19 seconds of wrestling.  Jeff calls himself the Ultra Male now.  I give up.  He says he has nothing left to prove but gets stopped by a Jarrett sucks chant.  There is nothing left for him to do to Angle so for the good of the kids, he’s offering a truce.  He says that they need to get along for the sake of their kids (are they breaking up or something?) and he’ll let Kurt beg for forgiveness.

Angle comes out with the big gift from earlier.  It’s pretty good sized, probably about four feet long and two feet wide.  I’d die of laughter if it’s an axe.  Angle says that Jeff is the better man and the father/husband that Kurt never could be.  He has a peace offering but Jeff is skeptical.  Jeff opens the paper like it’s Christmas morning and it’s…another box.  It’s a guitar with an American flag on it.  Naturally it winds up around Jeff’s head.  Karen tries to hit Angle in the balls butt there’s no effect.  I knew those steroids would catch up with him.  Ah it’s a cup.

He takes it out and smiles but then turns to yell at Jeff more.  Hey Karen, HIT HIM NOW!  Jeff is bleeding as Kurt says he’ll go medieval on him.  Kurt wants a match at Lockdown or he’ll come and hurt both of them.  Jeff, bleeding from the eye, says yes.  Kurt says don’t bother going to Hogan or Bischoff because he’ll find Jeff and hurt him.  Tell me that’s the end of the feud.

Bischoff is talking to Gunner/Murphy/Terry in the back and we hear the WE MUST HAVE ALL THE TITLES speech again.  Abyss has been stripped of the title (finally) and one of those three will win the title.

There’s a six person street fight coming later.

Back with Karen wanting the police here and shouting into the phone about it.  Jeff is mad at Kurt.

We get a video package about the TV Title match.  Why in the world do we need a hype video for that?

TV Title: Rob Terry vs. Gunner vs. Murphy

Gunner has the tattoos.  Got it.  The tag team jumps Terry but then splits up soon.  Hogan’s wife and Brooke (looks JUST like Linda) are here.  We split the screen for a bit to show that the cops are here for Angle.  People keep trying to steal wins which gets them nowhere.  Murphy and Terry slug it out with Terry winning.  Gunner pops up to spear him and then hits a modified F5 to win the title at 1:47.  The match didn’t even make it to two minutes.  Wow indeed.  Bischoff comes out to applaud.

AJ says he was trying to help RVD, not himself.

Back with the cops telling the Jarretts to chill.  Karen mentions a restraining order.

Hernandez/Sarita/Rosita vs. Matt Morgan/Winter/Angelina Love

Well I’ve always been a fan of mixing feuds like this.  Also, oddly enough Sarita might look better in long pants which is surprising.  Hernandez says welcome to Mexican America.  He says they’re taking over and whistles into the microphone.  Winter’s music is like a messed up lullaby which is pretty freaking awesome.  She has the blindfold on again.  This is a street fight.

Morgan hits the ring in jeans and the fight is on.  Oh and it’s one of those street fights where you have to tag.  The guys start as the girls fight on the floor.  The corner thing didn’t last long.  Morgan hammers away but the girls jump on him (lucky bastard).  He throws them off and Winter/Angelina destroy them.  A spinning backbreaker ends Rosita in 1:24.

Post match some Mexican guy (who appears to be Matt “Lowrider” Barela who was OVW Champion for the majority of last year) comes in but Morgan fights them off.

We come back with a recap video of the Anderson/RVD match at the PPV.

AJ Styles vs. Bully Ray vs. Mr. Anderson vs. Rob Van Dam

It’s 10:36 when these entrances start so there’s a ton of time here.  Surprisingly there’s no bell before we start.  Anderson vs. RVD and AJ vs. Ray to start.  No tagging here and it’s one fall to a finish which helps a bit.  Ray runs over AJ who nips up and takes him down with a rana.  Jumping forearm in the corner and AJ is in control.

Monkey flip is blocked and Anderson fights Ray.  RVD vs. Ray as AJ and Anderson have been knocked to the floor.  Van Dam gets Rolling Thunder but Anderson pulls Rob to the floor.  AJ gets a sunset flip on Anderson for two.  We’re firmly into the formula here of having each guy dominate for a bit but no one is really moving towards a finish.  At the moment it’s Ray taking over.

RVD takes down Ray but the Five Star misses.  Spinning Rock Bottom takes Anderson down but AJ gets a top rope cross body on Ray for two.  Middle rope kick to AJ gets two.  Neckbreaker to RVD gets two.  AJ dives out at Ray to the floor but lands on the ground.  Ray grabs a chair but Hebner pulls it away to save Styles.  The chair goes into the ring and Anderson suplexes RVD onto it and it’s a double pin at 5:55.  Ray drills the referee before the finish can be announced.  Are you serious?  RVD wasn’t on Anderson in any way at all.

Rating: C-. Decent match but dang it all GIVE US A CLEAN FINISH ALREADY!!!  Why is that so complicated?  I get that the triple threat at Lockdown is more or less a given, but dang it just announce that already.  This is beyond annoying at this point and the main event not even going six minutes is just pitiful at this point.

AJ and Ray fight up to the stage and Flair comes out to save Ray.  It’s a HUGE sitout powerbomb off the stage to put AJ through something that resembled a table next to the stage.  Everyone is out and we throw up an X.  They have to turn straightedge now?  We take a break with everyone down.

Back with Anderson and Ray having to be separated.  AJ is put in a neck brace and taken out on a stretcher.  So now their either first or second top face is doing an injury angle?  This is how the show ends.  We see replays and AJ is taken out.  That’s Impact for you this week folks.  Enjoy it TNA fans.  This is what you guys wanted right?  Give me a break.

Overall Rating: F. We get three and a half minutes out of the first 95 for actual wrestling and then we get that finish to the show?  Why does TNA always have to give us the “Thank you fans, but your #1 contender is on another show” finish every time?  We had 9:25 of total wrestling tonight.  I’m sorry but that’s ridiculous.  TNA had people paying attention after the Hardy fiasco and this is what we get?  Are you kidding me?  Terrible show where NOTHING happened.  This is one of the worst TV shows I’ve seen in months if not years.  Just awful.

Results

Madison Rayne b. Alissa Flash – Rayne Drop

Gunner b. Rob Terry and Murphy – F5 to Murphy

Matt Morgan/Winter/Angelina Love b. Rosita/Sarita/Hernandez – Winter pinned Rosita after a spinning backbreaker

Rob Van Dam vs. AJ Styles vs. Bully Ray vs. Mr. Anderson went to a no contest

Sorry for the delay.  I actually wasn’t sure what to think of the end of the show.

Victory Road 2011
Date: March 13, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz

Well this is TNA’s offering for the month.  It’s another show with the majority of it added on at the very end with no real build to it.  Yes there are stories for the matches, but that doesn’t mean there’s justification for asking something like 40 dollars for a show.  The main event is the rematch of Sting vs. Jeff Hardy and the third #1 contender situation for Anderson.  Let’s get to this as it’s one of the least interesting shows I can remember in forever.

The opening video is the Sting mask being crawled on by a scorpion.  Wow they’re banking a lot on this push.

Bully Ray vs. Tommy Dreamer

Pre match Ray runs his mouth about how awesome Hogan and Bischoff are for letting him have a run.  Dreamer comes out and Ray talks about how he’s run Dreamer into the ground over the years and mentions breaking his wife’s neck.  This is now hardcore.  They brawl to start us off and Dreamer sends him to the floor as we imply Ray going to Immortal.  Well if they want to drive it off a cliff why not?

A fan holds a up a chair and Dreamer rams Bubba into it.  There’s some water spit into Bubba’s head.  This is opening a PPV in 2011.  Dreamer grabs some big yellow stuffed animal (apparently from Despicable Me) to drill Ray with.  Into the crowd now as my head is already hurting from this.  Granted that might be due to Florida getting a 2 seed in the NCAA tournament but who knows.

They go into the balcony with the traditional carry the guy around style. Dreamer hits him in the head with something that looked like it was made of metal to continue his dominance so far.  Back to ringside with Bubba getting in a big shot with some other unidentifiable weapon.  Crowd is hating on Ray pretty well.  He’s played the character well, but why in the world is it Bubba Ray Dudley getting this push?

Ray goes after Dreamer’s hand which only works to an extent.  Dreamer throws some garbage cans with weapons into the ring.  Good thing he had those just in case this was made hardcore I guess.  They have a road block thing that has a name that I can’t think of in there.  It’s the orange/white fence thing that is moved up when you drive through it.  And there’s an inflatable doll in there which Bubba lands in a 69 position with.

Splash on the doll onto Bubba gets two.  Ray gets a trashcan lid shot to the head of Dreamer as Dreamer goes up top.  Superplex gets no cover.  Bubba Bomb is blocked into a DDT for two.  Dreamer brings in a table (moving it off the love doll) which is set up in the ring like a small ramp.  The fans want D-Von as Ray gets a spinning Rock Bottom for two.  He sets the table for Dreamer and calls out at D-Von.  The kids of D-Von come out as does D-Von and Ray takes a 3D through the table to end it.

Rating: D+. There was a blowup doll in this as well as a Despicable Me doll.  I get that it’s a comedy match, but dude it’s Tommy Dreamer vs. Bubba Ray Dudley opening a PPV in a semi-comedy match in the year 2011.  Just get to the table match that is coming for Bubba vs. D-Von so they can move into midcard purgatory.

Winter and the Beautiful People insist they’re cool.  Winter says the issues have been Velvet’s fault.  This gets a WTF look from Velvet.

Knockout Tag Titles: Rosita/Sarita vs. Winter/Angelina Love

The Mexican chicks say basic Spanish stuff.  Winter is blindfolded or something and there’s no Velvet, making me think the titles are changing here.  Rosita and Angelina start us off but it’s off to Winter quickly as the champions are dominating.  Bridging Northern Lights gets two.  Angelina back in now as the fans chant USA for two Mexican chicks, Angelina (Canadian) and the British chick Winter.

Sarita is in now and has about as much luck as Rosita had.  There’s some heel cheating and Rosita misses a front flip legdrop that was aimed at Angelina’s ankles.  More fast tags by the champions as they regain control quickly.  Everything breaks down slightly and Sarita grabs a belt.  She drops it and Rosita gets ahold of it but Velvet runs in to steal it.  Winter rolls her up but no referee.  Rosita reverses it and wins the titles with a pin.

Rating: D. Well this was predictable.  I don’t think this lasted very long but I don’t time PPV matches so it’s not like it matters.  Granted these titles have been worthless since they debuted.  Velvet has to explain herself.  Wouldn’t Winter know that she was never hit by a belt and that would be enough validation?  Whatever.

We’re going to have the Jarretts on vacation tonight.  They’re at Universal Studios and Karen is bored out of her mind with the rollercoasters.  The kids are with them and Karen hates the kid stuff.

Morgan talks about (Shawn) Hernandez and how the Mexican company dropped him.  Morgan says that after this he’s going after the world title.  The recap for the match is just that Hernandez came back and played the race card, setting this up.  He’s in Immortal also.

Hernandez vs. Matt Morgan

This is first blood.  Hernandez came out to the LAX theme which is a rarity.  They head to the floor almost immediately as Morgan rushes the ring.  Hernandez gets a sharp wooden stick and tries to jab it into Morgan’s face ala Magnum TA vs. Tully Blanchard.  I apologize for comparing this to a classic like that.  Hernandez ribs as the face as the fans want blood.  Morgan fights back by a side slam.

Hernandez hits a Pounce as we hear about how awesome he was in AAA.  He was so awesome he wasn’t at their biggest show of the year last year.  Hernandez hammers away until Morgan gets a discus lariat.  This is rather boring if you didn’t get that.  Fall away slam continues Morgan’s lack of head shots.  He grabs the stick from earlier but gets kicked in the gut to drop it.

A fan runs in and Hernandez pulls out a chain.  Morgan kicks it out of his hand and drills Hernandez with it.  The referee is down and Hernandez is busted open.  Hernandez comes out of the corner and sprays Morgan with something that looks like fake blood or something like that.  The other referee comes out of the back (I guess not watching on a monitor or something) and gives it to Hernandez.

Rating: F+. Well the ending was original as I don’t think I’ve ever seen that done.  However, this is more or less every other first blood match with the heel bleeding and getting the win anyway in a screwy finish.  This was nothing at all of note, but granted you can say that about the first 45 minutes entirely here of Impact on Sunday.

It’s Max Buck’s birthday and he works as a team with his brother.  Shenanigans are implied.

Kazarian interviews JB in a weird moment.  He busts out a Charlie Sheen reference, making me want to end Kazarian.

Robbie E yells at someone that we can’t see.  Cookie is panicking about Ultimate X and Robbie says he’s fine.  This was idiotic if you didn’t get that.

Video on Ultimate X.  It’s so awesome that it got thrown on at the last minute.

X-Division Title: Kazarian vs. Max Buck vs. Jeremy Buck vs. Robbie E

The idea here is the title is hung over the ring on cables that cross to form an X.  You have to climb across to grab the title and can’t use a ladder.  It’s supposed to be all about Maz remember.  This is the 24^th Ultimate X match in history apparently and Kaz’s fifth.  This is kind of a weird triple that with Gen Me vs. Robbie vs. Kaz.  The team beats up both guys to start us off.

Kaz fights them off for a bit and manages a springboard up to the X in a cool spot.  That gets him nowhere as Robbie comes in and stomps away.  Max goes up but it’s Robbie stopping him.  Cookie is hot but the voice is annoying.  Gen Me gets everyone down and goes for the belt until Robbie stops them again.  Kaz is back in now and faces off with Jersey Boy.

Robbie escapes the Fade to Black (that reverse Piledriver) and gets backdropped to the floor, hitting his ankle on the steps.  Gen Me wakes up again and takes down both guys one more time.  Jeremy gets a sweet assisted moonsault to take Robbie and Kaz down.  Max is all alone but wants Jeremy to help him up instead.  Jeremy holds off Kaz and Max makes a run at it.  Kaz of course saves as Robbie has a bad ankle still.

Double dropkick puts down Kaz and a baseball slide does the same to Robbie.  Jeremy does this weird reverse jump to get up and holds off Kaz.  This again fails and Maz, who also was trying to get the belt, is swung backwards and gets knocked off and caught in a cutter to put him down.  Robbie gets up and goes for the title, only to get pulled down by Max.  And never mind as Max is sent into the structure by Kaz and gets stuck.  That’s different if nothing else.

Everyone is down now and Max is unhooked for a change.  Kaz hits Fade to Black on Robbie but gets kicked by Jeremy.  Jeremy tries to go up only to take an enziguri from the champion to put him down.  Flux Capacitor (suplex/rock bottom) off the top by Kaz puts Jeremy down again.  Robbie and Kaz both go across at the same time.  Gen Me kicks Robbie down and swing the champion down too in a nice bump.

Jeremy goes up and Max isn’t happy.  Max pulls him down which is the point of the match.  They both go from opposite corners and both are hung by their legs upside down in the middle.  They slug it out up there until Robbie grabs a ladder to take them down.  Kaz goes above the X and grabs the title at the same time as Robbie.  Kaz pulls it up but there’s no bell.  Oh there it is.

Rating: C+. It’s ok but this is a match that has been done so many times that there wasn’t much here.  It’s definitely one of the weaker matches they’ve had with this gimmick but it’s still good.  Fun match but they kept trying to play up the Bucks only for them to break up and not play a factor in the end.  Fun, but definitely not great.

More honeymoon stuff and Karen wants champagne.  Instead it’s a pizza.  Next up: a water park.

Beer Money hits on Christy and try to get her to do the BEER MONEY thing.  Basically it’s to hit on her and stare at her figure.  Can’t say I blame them.  They get serious and say they’re awesome but Ink Inc is overstepping their bounds.  Something about respect is mentioned.

We recap the feud, which was Ink Inc saying they want a title shot and Beer Money saying ok.

Tag Titles: Ink Inc vs. Beer Money

I could see this being good.  Neal vs. Storm starts us off With no one taking over we get a double tag and some technical stuff follows.  The fans are split which makes sense for once as they’re both face teams.  Moore gets a leg lariat for two.  Neal comes in now and takes a powerslam for two.  This is taking a bit to get off the ground here.

Moore back in now and we hit the chinlock.  They do some basic stuff and it’s one of those moments where stuff happens but nothing is going on.  It’s ok but there is no interest in this at all.  It could be because there’s no history here and it’s there for the sake of having a title match.  Roode gets a spinebuster on Neal for two.  Ink Inc takes over again as Taz isn’t even sure who is legal.

Roode gets the formerly Northern Lariat (clothesline to the back of the head) to Neal and goes up top with Moore.  Down goes Roode and a Whisper in the Wind to Storm gets no cover.  Roode with a Rock Bottom for two.  BEER MONEY thing kind of gets the crowd hot but Neal hits the spear on Storm.  Neckbreaker gets two on Roode.  Moore wants to use the chain but Neal disagrees.  Beer Money comes back and the DWI ends Moore.  I guess they’re splitting one of the two active teams worth anything.

Rating: C+. This was just there for the most part.  It wasn’t great at all but it wasn’t bad.  Like I said: just kind of there.  The total lack of story hurt it a lot which is due to the booking and not the guys.  This wasn’t bad but it was really not interesting at all.  Granted that might be Shannon Moore.

Neal shakes their hands post match but Moore spits beer in their faces, I guess turning heel.  He talks about having to be tough to win.  Whatever.

Matt Hardy talks about how he’s cold blood/cold blooded and will hurt AJ.

AJ Styles vs. Matt Hardy

This is just Immortal vs. Fourtune.  AJ uses speed to take over and grabs a front facelock.  Sweet dropkick takes Matt down.  Flair interferes and here comes Matt.  Here come the dueling chants also.  Matt has the braided hair back too.  He’s in jeans and no armbands either, making him look like a bum.

Out to the floor again where AJ is sent into the post.  He counters by hitting his always awesome slide under the railing and springboard forearm.  Back in the ring now with AJ taking over for awhile.  Matt sends him to the floor and Flair hammers away.  That’s Lockdown for these two next month people.  Back in Matt grabs a submission hold which is like a body vice.  Picture him setting for a double arm DDT and jumping up to wrap his legs around AJ.  It looked good if nothing else.

The rope is reached so it’s not like it means anything.  Taz says there’s no escape to it, which is stupid as AJ just escaped.  Flair grabs AJ’s balls for a bit and Matt grabs a cravate.  This is boring if that wasn’t clear.  AJ comes back and hammers away as the crowd seems a bit restless.  Enziguri puts Matt down and AJ does the same.  More punching follows and a big kick to the head sets up a backbreaker for two.

AJ misses a discus lariat and the Side Effect gets two.  This needs to end rather soon here.  Matt gets an elbow to the back of AJ’s head and it’s Twist of whatever time.  It’s blocked into a backslide for two and down goes AJ again.  AJ gets back up and tries the Clash but Matt escapes that and gets two.  Styles kind of botches his backflip into the reverse DDT but Flair distracts the referee.

Flair pokes AJ in the eye and takes a Pele for his efforts.  Matt gets a DDT and a moonsault for two.  END THIS ALREADY.  Hey they listen to me as AJ takes Matt down and Spiral Tap of all things which AJ hasn’t used in years (it’s a top rope twisting moonsault/splash) gets him the pin.

Rating: D+. AJ was good, Matt was sluggish.  What else were you expecting here?  For the life of me I don’t get why people see money in Matt Hardy as he’s just big and slow at this point with the fans cheering him for some reason.  AJ needs to just beat Flair and get it over with already.  At least Matt didn’t win so there is that at least.

Back to the honeymoon with Karen snapping on Jeff.  She wants sex apparently.  Jeff thinks she means Kurt.  This storyline has died so many times it’s insane.  Thursday on Impact Jeff is going to call for a truce.  They’re not sure where their kids are but they all get soaked.  Jeff has been a total face the entire night now.

Anderson talks about getting screwed over and more or less says he’s a tweener.

We recap RVD vs. Anderson.  In short, they both want the title and both say they got screwed.  Somehow we’re talking about football.  They’re grasping at whatever straws grasp at to come up with a backstory for this match.  They talk about Lockdown in the voiceover but I stopped caring a long time ago.

Rob Van Dam vs. Mr. Anderson

This is ANOTHER #1 contenders match for Anderson after he won one already.  They stare it down to start and it’s dueling chant time with Anderson’s being louder.  Technical stuff goes on and it’s a standoff.  More technical stuff follows as I think this is supposed to be an epic match.  They botch a leapfrog spot with Van Dam taking a head to the balls.  This show is almost a comedy of errors at this point.

Rolling Thunder to Anderson as I just want this match to end at this point.  Spinning legdrop to the railing misses Anderson and the leg hits the railing to give Anderson control.  Anderson works the leg and it’s all basic stuff here.  Mic Check is blocked and Rolling Thunder doesn’t work either.  Van Dam gets a suplex to put both guys down.

Both guys go down again and this is just dragging like every other match so far.  Van Dam goes shoulder first into the post and they ram heads to go down AGAIN.  Now they head to the floor off a cross body and they lay around AGAIN.  Anderson gets the Mic Check on the stage and Van Dam is more of less dead.

And it’s a double count out.  The fans boo the HECK out of that and I’d be with them.  This somehow was 15 minutes long.  Where in the world was the 15 minutes?  Oh and look: MORE multi-man title matches.  The fans chant to restart it and half chant no.  Now it’s a 5 more minutes chant.  Get on with it already.

Rating: F. This was just boring as all goodness and the ending hurt it even more.  They have zero chemistry together and this show has sucked so hard so far that this made it even worse.  It’s obvious they’re doing a multi-man match at Lockdown but that isn’t helping anything as far as tonight goes.  This is one of the worst PPVs I’ve seen in a very long time which is saying a lot when it comes to TNA.

We recap Sting winning the title on 3/3.  He was a surprise, read the other reviews for the details.

Hardy says that he was treated unfairly and he’ll win tonight to bring everyone back to reality.

Sting talks about getting into the business and it’s music video time.  I’ve heard this interview before.  Probably was on Impact or something.  Yeah I think it was.  He was at home and felt a burn.  Call a doctor dude.

TNA World Title: Jeff Hardy vs. Sting

It’s 10:30 and Jeff is wasting time getting to the ring.  Before the match Bischoff comes out to waste MORE time.  He makes it No DQ which somehow takes like two minutes.  Sting drops him and the Scorpion Death Drop ends this in less than a minute.  That was their first contact of the “match.”  I kid you not.  Are they serious?

We get a highlight video to fill in 6 minutes to end the show.

Overall Rating: F-. The show has been over for 15 minutes now (final bell rang at 10:38) and I don’t know what to say.  Early word is that Hardy was in no condition to perform.  If that’s the case, TNA’s creative and management team all should refund the fan’s money and resign.  You had 150 minutes to come up with ANYTHING else to put out there and this is what they gave us.  Put Bully Freaking Ray out there and it’s a better than this.

I’m still not sure what to think about what just happened but this is awful even by TNA standards.  It’s a big slap in the face to the people that bought this show and they’ve cost themselves dearly.  I was going to go to Lockdown and now I have no interest in going at all.  Absolutely awful ending and a disgrace all around.  Jeff being high or not, you do not let this happen.  Period.

As for the rest of the show, it was bad.  There was nothing at all of note worth seeing and that makes the ending even worse.  This show didn’t need to happen at the end of the day.  It’s a speed bump on the road to Lockdown and nothing was advanced here.  Now, because of this, TNA has another fire to put out.  I have no idea where they go from here but it’s nowhere good.

Results

Tommy Dreamer b. Bully Ray – 3D with help from D-Von

Rosita/Sarita b. Winter/Angelina Love – Rollup to Winter

Hernandez b. Matt Morgan – Hernandez squirted blood on Morgan

Kazarian b. Max Buck, Jeremy Buck and Robbie E – Kazarian pulled down the Title

Beer Money b. Ink Inc – DWI to Moore

AJ Styles b. Matt Hardy – Spiral Tap

Mr. Anderson vs. Rob Van Dam went to a double countout

Sting b. Jeff Hardy – Scorpion Death Drop

Impact
Date: March 3, 2011
Location: Crown Coliseum, Fayetteville, North Carolina
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz

We’re finally to the big night for TNA where we’re out of the Impact Zone for the first time in years.  Tonight we have the revelation of the 3-3-11 video (I wonder if the fans there will be confused by it as the show was taped while Impact was aired last week), the final verdict in the Dixie vs. Hogan court case and the renewal of the wedding vows of the Jarretts.  Let’s get to it.

We open with Dixie looking very sad.  After thanking the fans for their support, she says things didn’t go the way she planned in the court case and here’s Immortal.  Bischoff more or less says hit the bricks but that he respects her.  He says she has a massive set of guts for being a woman in a man’s sport.  Flair says that if she had slept with him back in Orlando none of this would have happened.  He says it’s about money and power and whoever has the most wins.  Here’s Hulk for the first time in I think 14 weeks?

Hogan says he was in court earlier today and he now controls all of TNA.  Ok so now can we do something other than a power struggle?  Dixie gets fired to no one’s shock.  The place looks far better than the Impact Zone.  Dixie starts crying as Hulk says he and Eric used her to get back on top of the wrestling business.  She supplies the money and that’s it apparently.  So what was the point in firing her then?  Hogan does a freaky country accent when he says he’s about to take her dignity.

Dixie tries to say that the fans can do something about this which isn’t really clear.  After Hogan earlier said she was fired, Hogan says it’s him and her running TNA now.  Cue Fourtune with AJ saying they like doing it the hard way.  He says there’s a woman in the ring and she brought them there.  The arena looks kind of like the final days of Nitro but with the tron videos instead of the WCW logo on the big screen.

Roode says Hogan was his idol but now he’s let Roode down.  Flair says he and Hogan are friends but Roode cuts him off.  Flair keeps talking anyway.  Fourtune storms the ring but security stops them as we go to a break.

Back with Immortal celebrating in the back and Hogan introduces them to Bart Scott, a member of the New York Jets.  Scott and Matt go somewhere.  Neither of the Jeffs have been seen so far.  Matt and Bart run into Dixie who is with Fourtune and they shout stuff at her while Dixie runs.  Kaz and AJ get in a fight with them as I guess Immortal went somewhere else.  Security breaks it up.  While this is going on the Jarretts show up and walk between the brawling guys.

Here’s a video recapping the Jarretts vs. Angle which is finally done tonight.  Tonight Kurt walks Karen down the aisle for the renewal of the Jarretts’ wedding vows.

Back with Bischoff telling Hogan that Jeff Hardy has to defend the title tonight but the network won’t tell him the opponent.  Hogan says they’ll be ready.

Tag Titles: Beer Money vs. Gunner/Murphy

Amazing how much better Gunner and Murphy look in actual tights.  I actually buy them as challengers….kind of.  Storm has the stupid Boozer Cruiser back again.  The ring looks smaller than usual.  Gunner/Murphy jump the champions to start but Storm fights out of it and hits a Codebreaker to I think Gunner.  Off to Roode who gets a nice pop.  He cleans house as this arena looks and feels a lot better than the Impact Zone already.  Spinebuster gets two on Gunner but Murphy kicks Roode’s head off.  After some heel miscommunication, Beer Money hits DWI on Gunner to end this at 3:07.

Rating: C-. Well Gunner and Murphy didn’t look quite like jobbers here.  They looked even lower than that somehow.  This was just a workout for Beer Money as no one bought Gunner/Murphy as legit challengers.  This was no challenge at all with no drama.  Pretty weak match but at least the champions looked strong.

Ink Inc comes out post match and say they want a title match.  Moore says DILLIGAF means do I look like I give a, and here he throws it to the crowd, and it’s censored.  That was a bit odd but whatever.  Beer Money accepts the challenge and apparently it’s at the PPV.

The Jarretts are ready and Young pops up in a tuxedo t-shirt and wants to be the best man.  He’s turned down and wants to be the maid of honor, flower girl or ring bearer.  Apparently the last one is accepted.

Some Jersey Shore chick is here.

Kurt is here with his son.

Sarita vs. Velvet Sky

I’m pretty sure Sarita swore she would be here alone but Rosita is there too.  If Velvet loses she’s gone.  No sexy entrance for the Beautiful People to lower this match already.  Velvet pulls Sarita by the hair and takes her down with a clothesline.  Belly to back is reversed by Sky for two.  Dropkick by Saita misses and Velvet gets an armdrag.  Rosita tries to come in and Angelina makes the save.  They both get thrown out and it’s one on one.

Sarita takes over with some knees to the back and then dances a bit.  After Tenay plugs a new Spike TV show, Sarita tries a Pedigree or something like one but Velvet reversed into a DDT for the pin at 2:00.  No rating due to the shortness but at least that ends it clean once and for all.

Post match Cookie and Robbie E come out with the other Jersey Shore chick: Angelina.  This is about J-Woww, the other Jersey Short chick that was here.  Jersey Angelina says she wants J-Woww there and wants the Beautiful People to tell her.  Velvet says do it yourself and turns to leave.  Catfight of course breaks out and Sarita helps in the beatdown.  Angelina Love says there will be a six way next week, so the Jersey Shore chick is fighting.  No clue if the Beautiful People will have J-Woww or likely Winter with them.

Back with Anderson saying he’ll get his title back and that he is ratings.  He sounds very, very drunk.

Eric says that he’s the ring bearer and Orlando is flower girl.  Eric says that Jordan stole Karen’s ring which is in his nose.  The ring is actually in Eric’s shoe.  Uh…yeah.

Jeff Jarrett is in the bathroom getting ready and they have a ten foot tall wedding cake.  Flair comes in to talk about the honeymoon.  Jeff has a big honeymoon plan and they’re going to Orlando to take the family to the Harry Potter park.  I want to go!  Flair says he’s an idiot.

Kurt is taping his fists and his son leaves with a production guy.  The wedding is next.

Back with Hogan talking on the phone to someone in Paris.  I think it’s the network people.  Yeah it is as Hogan is complaining about not knowing the opponent as he wants Anderson.  Hogan says he doesn’t like the idea of surprises = ratings.  He agrees to whatever the network guy says and hangs up, clearly annoyed.

Time for the wedding.  Eric Young is the ring bearer and Orlando Jordan is the flower girl.  Jeff comes out thankfully not to his theme music.  Tazz keeps calling Karen by the name Karen Angle.  And of course here’s Kurt and the brawl is on.  Jeff almost goes into the definitely not ten foot cake.  Kurt hits a clothesline and here’s Karen.  She slaps Kurt and goes into the cake.  Angle’s music plays it out.  This whole thing might have lasted two and a half minutes.

Hogan is in the back with Jeff Hardy and Hogan says no more ladder matches.  That’s something they can control.  What they can’t control is that Jeff is labeled as a fighting champion and he has to fight tonight.  Jeff doesn’t like not knowing his opponent.  Hogan blames the ratings for the problem.  He says Jeff is like a son to him and gives him a pep talk.  Jeff says he’ll do it and we go to a break.

The Jarretts are all ticked off and yell at Flair and Bischoff.  Even Flair is scared of her.  Eric says the wedding will still take place while Karen screams.  Hogan pops up and asks if Eric knows who’s coming from the Network but they might have an idea.  They don’t say a name though.  Flair is sent to take care of the wedding thing.

Rob Terry vs. Scott Steiner

Oh this could be bad.  During Terry’s entrance we get a clip of him jumping Steiner last week during the posedown.  Scott dominates to start and sends Terry to the floor.  Steiner goes into the post with both his face and his back.  Powerslam by Terry gets two.  Steiner gets a boot up and a belly to belly to set up a Downward Spiral.  Steiner Line puts him down again.  There’s the elbow and the pushups.  Angle Slam from the middle rope sets up the Recliner and it’s over at 3:15.

Rating: C. Considering who was in here this was a near miracle.  Steiner more or less did a greatest hits collection here minus the Frankensteiner.  That’s probably the best thing they could do as Steiner is the far more talented guy out there.  Not nearly as terrible as it could have been but that’s because they kept it short.

Flair and Bart Scott go up to Angle in the locker room and apparently Bart is going to be the enforcer for the wedding.

Some MMA guy (I don’t follow MMA so I only vaguely know what Bellator is) is here for commentary on this match.

Hernandez vs. Matt Morgan

Hernandez jumps him quickly but Morgan takes him down.  The MMA guy has energy if nothing else.  I don’t have a problem with guest commentators that aren’t wrestling guys as long as they sound like they want to be there, which he does.  Hernandez tries to leave so Morgan grabs him and brings him back in.

Hernandez blocks a side slam and tries the shirt throw.  Morgan blocks and Hernandez goes flying.  That looked great.  Hernandez takes a clothesline to take him to the floor.  Out to the floor and Hernandez suckers him into the stairs to take over.  Morgan gets rammed in again and again and Hebner throws it out at 4:30 for the longest match of the night so far.

Rating: D. Weak match here that really didn’t solve anything.  They’ll keep feuding and likely have the match at Victory Road.  Not interesting in the slightest and it was sloppy on top of that.  Also that commentator was trying but he was out of his element, which is understandable.

Hogan more or less cuts a promo on some guy on the phone, demanding to know the opponent.  Anderson comes in and is told he doesn’t get his shot again.  Hogan is upset about not knowing what happens to Immortal after this.  Anderson doesn’t seem to care.  Hogan has to stop to put on a back brace.  That’s like the ending to a bad joke.   Anderson says Hogan disgusts him now.  Hogan says let him know when he slams a 700lb giant.  Good line.

Now we get a preview for the new Spike show.

Time for wedding #2.  Young it still wedding bearer and Jordan is still flower girl.  Jeff doesn’t have a coat on this time.  Kurt walks Karen down the aisle.  He’s smiling and Karen seems to still have cake on her face.  Kurt is all happy here and it’s rather amusing.  No Bart Scott in sight.  The fans boo at the or forever hold your piece line.  They both say I will and all that jazz.  The minister asks the fans if they’ll support the Jarretts.  Take a guess how that goes over.

Now we get to hear CUSTOM vows.  We’ve had a combined 12 minutes of wrestling and we’re getting custom vows.  Wow indeed.  Jeff says he’s long winded and would be nervous so he wrote his out.  He runs down Kurt the whole time and Kurt just keeps smiling away.  He’s looking over Jeff’s shoulder and it’s rather creepy.  Karen is the wind beneath his wings.

Karen says Jeff is a real man and the princess is taken care of.  Oh and Kurt didn’t screw her enough apparently.  Jeff completes her.  The minister announces them as husband and wife through the power vested in him by the department of motor vehicles.  The unintentional comedy is helping here.  They actually get through the kissing of the bride, so Kurt busts out an axe and starts hacking the set to pieces, all with that creepy grin on his face.  That was kind of awesome.

Bischoff sends out Bart Scott.  Yes send your celebrity out to the CRAZY MAN WITH AN AXE!  Surprisingly enough they go at it and Kurt grabs the ankle lock and cranks on it.  Didn’t expect that.  Segment went WAY too long but the ending helped it a lot.

Hardy says he’s ready.

Some feet get out of a limo.  Yeah that hasn’t been done recently either.

TNA World Title: Jeff Hardy vs. ???

Ok so this is the announcement that’s going to CHANGE WRESTLING FOREVER!  It’s 11pm and the opponent is…..Sting.  HAHA WWE couldn’t do it so TNA can.  Yes Eric you’re very cute.  Sting is winning the title tonight isn’t he?  And Sting is in sequins.  There’s red in his paint though so I guess this is a bit different now?  He has red sequins on his legs and crotch but points for the actual ring jacket/robe instead of a big trenchcoat.

Taz flat out says this was about where Sting would wind up so yes this is yet again shifting the entire main event around for a shot at WWE.  Sting goes right for him and Hardy bails.  Back in and Hardy beats Sting down with three shots.  COME ON HERO (ten points to whoever knows what I’m referencing).  Hardy can’t get a suplex and there’s the Scorpion already but Jeff is on his hands.  Sting looks like he’s ordering dinner.

A rope is grabbed and we head to the aisle.  Suplex by Sting on the ramp as it’s more or less all Sting here.  Sting (of course) misses the splash on the railing and we hit the chinlock back in the ring.  That gets him nowhere as Sting thumps his chest and hits the Scorpion Death Drop for two.  Whisper in the Wind is crotched and Sting gets another Death Drop from the ropes.  Another gets the pin and the title at 6:15 for the longest match of the night by far.

Rating: C-. So let me get this straight.  Anderson had a rematch clause, won a #1 contender’s match last week, and Sting wins the title here, likely owing Jeff a rematch now?  In other words, we now have no reason to ever buy a #1 contender match again right?  The surprise is good and the match was just a main event WWE style brawl from the late 90s.  It wasn’t terrible but the booking is a BIG question mark for me.  Not terrible though.

Big celebration ends the show.

Overall Rating: C-. Well this one was hard.  There were good and bad things here for sure.  First of all, the arena looked great and there’s definitely an energy about being out of the Impact Zone.  A lot of stuff was taken care of tonight and we moved forward on some stuff.  The bad stuff however though was there too and I think was more prevalent.

First of all, the wedding was way too long and ate up too much time.  Coupling that with about 20 minutes of wrestling, this was another talking heavy show which is getting old.  I’m getting fed up with a bunch of 3 minute matches and a ten minute main event.  Also the Sting title win makes the whole main event scene all turned around again, but it does set up Victory Road…kind of.  Either way, this wasn’t bad and was definitely better than Raw this week.

Results

Beer Money b. Gunner/Murphy – DWI to Gunner

Velvet Sky b. Sarita – DDT

Scott Steiner b. Rob Terry – Steiner Recliner

Matt Morgan b. Hernandez via DQ when Hernandez rammed Morgan into the stairs multiple times

Sting b. Jeff Hardy – Scorpion Death Drop