TNA iMPACT! (10.4.07)
-I couldn’t bring myself to watch two hours of TNA, so yeah…this is *real* late. Heh. These pretty much have to be done “random thoughts” style, because I’m not sure I can stomach this much of this show otherwise. Incredibly, though, Impact this week wasn’t all that bad, with the final hour making it more than worth watching. Perhaps there’s hope yet. Of course, I might also sprout another head tomorrow. The odds are against both of these things.
-They really overuse the James Earl Jones sounding voiceover guy and, by extension, the big melodramatic opening. Sometimes, you just need to let the action speak for itself. Therein lies the problem, I guess, since we haven’t gotten all that much that can be referred to as “action” as of late.
-First match they hype is Team 3D versus Team Pacman. Who gives a fuck about Pacman Jones? Really. ESPN bit for maybe three days and even then they shat on the angle and didn’t get the TNA name right. If you’re going down the “any press is good press” road, do it right and hire Michael Vick. Also, Gary Wolfe. I think you see where I’m going with this and it would be glorious. They’d get way more press than they could handle.
And why are they wrestling Team 3D? Disregarding the fact that the Dudz are the stalest act in the business, they’re both heels and this does nothing for either team. Or for me as a viewer, for that matter.
-The main event (XXX, Christian & AJ versus LAX, Junior Fatu & Samoa Joe) looks like it should rock. I’ve heard lots of complaints about Fatu, but people seem to forget that he was always really good. He definitely got stale, but the in ring stuff was always solid. I’ll take a guy who can work over some of the people TNA trots out any day of the week.
Black Reign v. Rhino
-Silverdust might just be the dumbest thing in TNA right now. That’s a tough competition to win, but they’re striving hard this time out.
-Violence! Fucking Violence! Josh might be the only person on the planet who remembers this, but GH & Joe (another arcane IWC reference!), I believe, put together this amazing Rhino mega mix that rocked my world back in the day. Whatever happened to GH & Joe, anyway? The Shooters needs to make a comeback. I don’t have enough Scott Christ “yellow bitches” recaps in my life right now.
-The announcers are talking about Black Reign being with Jim Mitchell. Did I miss that? It’s possible, because I watch large chunks of Impact in fast forward (including this one!).
-You know, Dustin could still be valuable to them. He seems to be moving around the ring pretty well and the punches look gorgeous. Why bog him down with this crap that’s never going to get over. They seemed to sign him just so WWE couldn’t, though, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
-Raven looks on backstage. How long before he’s with Mitchell as well? It’s the least logical thing they could do, what with Mitchell SCALPING him and all, but illogical is what TNA does best. Bank on it.
-The crowd is really into this. Or, the audio sweetening guy (Is it sexist to assume that it’s a man? I apologize to the many female audio enhancers who grace this blog with their presence) is, anyway. The crowd looks like it’s largely sitting on it’s collective hands.
-Here comes Raven. Cue the clusterfuck. Rhino gets a win in the mess. Heels beat him down. That brings Abyss, which brings Mitchell, which brings Havoc (another new member of Mitchell’s group, I guess). Brawl, brawl, brawl. Black Reign attacks Abyss with a scythe looking thing and Sting runs out to make the save. Ugh.
-If you’re keeping score, the entire point of that segment was to transition into the stupid Sting/Angle, err…angle that’s going to run through the rest of the show. At this point, we just see Angle on a football field.
-Looks like Angle is at Sting’s son’s high school football game. You’d think that Sting would recognize the field before Angle tells him where he was. You’d be wrong.
-Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt promo. I hate the Black Machismo gimmick. I don’t think a gimmick that’s solely designed to make you think of someone who’s not only not a part of the company, but who will likely never show up at all is a bad business move. How does this get Lethal over? In this case, it doesn’t. Team 3D attack and destroy both of them. Mike Tenay: “DID YOU SEE THAT!?! No, dumbass…I’m not even looking at the TV right now. Thanks for the random screaming that makes me aware of the exact points that I’m supposed to be excited.
-3D drags Lethal/Dutt to the ring and continues the slaughter. Shark Boy (in a neckbrace) runs out, but he’s killed as well. This is leading to Bubba talking. I just know it! 3D to Sharkboy. Superbomb on Dutt. Fuck. Bubba’s got a mic. He keeps it brief, demanding that the match tonight be for the title, or they’ll continue destroying people. Lethal gets a 3D through a table for good measure.
-Sting is in the production truck. He wants to talk to Angle. You think they’d have some headphones in the production truck, of all places, but again…you’d be wrong (ignoring the set that the producer is wearing, ‘natch).
-Any Robert Roode promo is a fast forward point for me. I gathered that the only reason Ms. Brooks continues to work for him is because her mother is sick, though. He storms off and the two backstage interview chicks argue. What a valuable use of television time! Imagine the ratings spike!
Jackie Moore v. Gail Kim
-Gail is looking lovely as always. We can discuss this in more depth, because there’s nothing happening in the ring that requires our attention. And as soon as I write that, Gail spills James Storm’s beer. Snap! Now it’s on! Jackie kicks her right in the friggin’ head. Okay, that was cool. VKM is out and we’re back to sucking. Then Christy Hemme comes out with Lance Hoyt and Jimmy Rave. I dig Rave a bunch and think he’s one of the few credible heels on the indy scene, so this is picking up again. It’s like a roller coaster!
-They just called Gail’s finisher the “Happy Ending.” Oy. The rest of the girls beat her down. She bails and then they brawl amongst themselves. Someone cares about this. I’m not that guy, though.
-Jim Cornette rewards Team 3D’s behavior by making it a title match tonight. Way to be in charge there, Jimmy! Sting storms in, looking for answers. Corny has none to offer.
-Angle updates us on the game, which looks to have as many as 15 people in attendance!
Team 3D vs. Team Pacman
-If we’re lucky, this will only suck a lot. I bet Truth will spin a bunch, though. It’s probably 75% of his offense these days. What happened to him, anyway? He used to be *awesome*. Bubba tries to tackle Pacman, but can’t. This is so stupid. The entire angle. The entire mindset that stupid random celebrity X (be it Toby Keith or Johnny Fairplay or Urlacher or Chris Rock or the NASCAR guy or the White Sox guy or so on or so on or so on) will add anything to the product or cause even one extra person to tune in. Ugh.
Anyway, this is every Dudz match from the past five years. VKM is out, but Pacman chases them away with a chair. And here comes the Steiners! Okay, I can support this part. I assume that the match is over, but the referee doesn’t seem to know either, so we’ll let it slide. Steiners hit their pose and I mark out like it’s 1992. At any rate, there’s some really creative booking at the end of this one. Who worries about sill things like a finish?
-Raven compares himself to Terry Funk, with people thinking that Funk was washed up when he retired in ‘82. And again in ‘85. Many retirements later, Funk beat him for the ECW Title. So he’s going to sit back and let everyone else kill themselves, then swoop in and pick the bones. He books himself in a match at BFG with Abyss and Rhino. Abyss walks in, turns it into Monster’s Ball and adds Black Reign to the mix. TNA: Where the inmates run the asylum!
Gauntlet Match
-Uh…I kinda fast forwarded through the reasoning behind this match. I assume it was really intelligent, though! You can’t possibly mess this match up, so this should be a nice respite from crap for however long it lasts.
-(1)James Storm starts with (2)Kaz. I’m liking Kazarian more and more as of late. His personality seems to be connecting with me. He used to come off as being kinda cheesy, but right now I dig him.
-Moving on, Storm spikes him with a Lungblower, which has made it’s way to TNA a year past any relevance the move ever had. It was the Shining Wizard of 2006. I’m still trying to work out what the big, overused indy move of 2007 is. The lariat, perhaps? Nigel McGuinness alone uses enough of them for every single wrestler on the planet twice over. I would have guessed that it would be variations on the Go2Sleep, but that hasn’t seemed to make a big splash in the US as of yet. There’s always 2008.
-The opening segment here rocked. Lots of fast, athletic wrestling. For a few minutes, TNA really was the wrestling alternative. Best in ring stuff I’ve seen from TNA in months (though I understand that Bound For Glory supposedly rocked. I need to pick it up and see for myself.)
-(3)Robert Roode is out. Kaz quickly takes over on him. Looks like they’re setting him up to be the star of this one. No complaints. Anyway, I thought that Roode would be a star about a year ago. Just goes to show how fallible the human race really is. Roode does redeem his employment by trying to murder Kaz with a Waterwheel slam. Tremendous!
-(4) is Petey Williams. He drops Storm with an inverted Lungblower. Was the TNA crew hitting the indy tapes or something? He also hits his atrocious tilt-a-whirl into Russian Legsweep. People bag on the Canadian Destroyer, but that move is infinitely worse.
-(5) is Eric Young. Does anyone outside of that arena care about EY? He’s a one note character who’s long since lost whatever hook he might have had with the crowd. Has any “happy go lucky” goofball character ever managed to persevere over time? From Evad Sullivan to Eugene, it’s a one trick pony that ends up going nowhere. And what do you know…he goes directly after Roode. We’ve never seen that before!
-(6)Jimmy Rave is here! Tenay puts over his work in the Dragon Gate promotion. He hits From Dusk ’til Dawn (tilt-a-whirl into a crossface) on Kaz. I’d bitch because I don’t like the move, or any move out of a tilt-a-whirl that isn’t a slam or backbreaker really, but this looked damn good, so he gets a pass.
(7)Chris Sabin is next. He does his big multi-man match spot, kicking off the other wrestlers in the ring to hit a Tornado DDT. You know, there’s not a whole lot going on here. Each new guy comes out and hits his spots and then it’s just some lackluster brawling. Of course, it *is* a battle royal, so I guess that’s to be expected.
(8) is Alex Shelley! Yay! Murder City Machine Guns (Sabin & Shelley) rock your world. Probably the best team in the world as far as doubleteam work is concerned. Jimmy Rave charges him immediately. The Embassy EXPLODES! Prince Nana must be bummed. MCMGs work him over for a bit, then toss Petey Williams. Shelley snaps Rave’s throat across the top rope and Sabin dropkicks him off the apron to eliminate him
(9) Lance Hoyt is out. Who still thinks that this 5th rate Kevin Nash is worth keeping around? He cleans house, but the MCMGs team up and take control. Shelley whips Sabin toward him, but Hoyt drops out of sight and Sabin is eliminated. BOO!
-Finally, (10)Chris Harris is out. Remember when he was the better half of AMW? Storm has really stepped up. If anything, Harris seems to have regressed. He cleans house as well, quickly transitioning into the inevitable AMW brawl. There’s another “haven’t seen that one yet!” sort of pairing.
-Kaz connects with a ginormous dropkick off the top. He looks down at Ms. Brooks at ringside and Roode knees him in the back. He goes through the ropes, though, not over. Ms. Brooks checks on him. Roode isn’t happy and demonstrates this by beating the snot out of Kaz.
-Just for the sake of being a completionist, I’ll point out that Chris Harris was tossed during the break. Shows how important he’s viewed as these days.
-Shelley is eliminated after going up top and eating a big boot from that turd Hoyt. Double BOO!
-Eric Young and Robert Roode team up to toss Hoyt out. My mind? BLOWN! Or not.
-Kaz slides under the bottom rope and takes a moment to kiss Ms. Brooks’ hand. He manages to clothesline Roode out, but Storm then eliminates him as he tries to skin the cat back in. EY/Storm are the final two. Storm locks Young in a sleeper. EY kicks out of the corner and lands on top (a la Bret/Austin from Survivor Series) for the win.
-This was a really fun match. Lots of it didn’t make a lick of sense, but you sorta expect that with the battle royal format. So good, spotty action that they’ve been so sorely lacking as of late. It certainly wasn’t hyped as an X-Division match, but this is as close as they’ve come to that sort of match in ages. This is what sets (or could set) TNA apart from the WWE juggernaut and I just don’t understand why they don’t trot this sort of stuff out more often. It also went longer than five minutes. Imagine that!
-Earlier, AJ Styles was apparently trying to leave for Japan with Tomko (who was going to defend the IWGP Tag Titles, which he holds with Giant Bernard, AKA Albert). Christian put the kibosh on that. AJ is sad, but Tomko doesn’t seem to mind. If there’s any cooler guy in TNA right now that Tomko, I don’t know who it would be. Actually, this entire group is great. AJ had become overexposed, so putting him the lackey role has not only given him a personality, but it’s freshened him up quite a bit. Tomko as the laid back guy who ignores all the tomfoolery around him is a great character as well. As far as Christian goes, he’s really the one “WWE castoff” that has risen above what he was in the past to become something newer (and better) in TNA. Kudos to him, since he’s been given a whole lot of shit to work with and he’s turned it to gold more often than not.
-LAX versus XXX in an Ultimate X match at Bound For Glory. Why? Shouldn’t that be a feud ender? I wasn’t even aware that these two teams were feuding at all. Maybe they just like the number of Xs that they can roll out with this match. Xs are XTREME, after all.
-Angle pretty much intimates that he’s going to rape and/or kill Sting’s son. Good thing no one watches this show. He’ll get off scot free!
XXX (Daniels & Senshi), AJ Styles & Christian Cage v. LAX, Junior Fatu & Samoa Joe
-Only TNA could make me sick of seeing Samoa Joe. How is that even possible. It’s not even his fault, I guess, as he’s been booked like a chump for almost a year now. I almost typed “chimp” there before I caught it. Then I realized that it might be just as accurate. Heh.
-Hernandez is a friggin’ BEAST! As much as I love LAX, I wouldn’t mind seeing them split, with Homicide anchoring the X-Division and Hernandez moving into the heavyweight division. The thought of him tossing guys around like rag dolls makes me grin. He gives Senshi a backdrop here that pretty much sends him out of Earth’s orbit. Insane.
-Homicide hits a tope con hilo and lands directly in front of the announce table. Mike Tenay looks like he’s literally just seconds away from shitting himself. Dare I say tremendous?
-Joe is in complete wrecking ball mode here, so I take back any accusations of staleness. How can watching him beat the crap out of people ever get old?
-Daniels gets to be the lucky one that receives the Stinkface. I wonder if they drew straws before the match? It’s even worse these days, I guess, as there’s a hell of a lot more ass there to deal with.
-The sprint to the finish here is great. Really hot match overall. Hernandez dives over the top with a plancha that was just awe inspiring. It’s gotten to the point where it can almost come off as mundane when a little guy does it. When Hernandez does it, you mark out and mark out hard.
-Senshi tags into the match…in the complete opposite corner from where he started. The referee could at least try. If he doesn’t care, why should I?
-Fatu spikes Elix Skipper with the Island Driver. I was honestly expecting Skipper to get pinned, because that’s the sort of thing that happens in TNA, but I’m wrong again. Joe gives Senshi a Muscle Buster to pick up the win.
-This was a little short for my tastes. Overall, though, it was a hell of a match. Again, they just let a bunch of good workers go out and open things up and it resulted in some excitement on a show that desperately needed some. Imagine that!
-Angle kidnaps Sting’s son on national television. So, uh…why didn’t anyone ever call the cops, anyway? I understand what they want to do with this, but it’s so hard to suspend disbelief when there are holes big enough to drive a truck through in pretty much every angle they run. Eh.
-Second hour was really good and what I was hoping the two hour show would bring. First hour was like the old Impact, which is precisely what they want to avoid in the future.
-The next show will be up before the weekend. I should mention that even if I start doing the recaps as soon as I watch the show, it’ll still be over the weekend before they go up. Watching The Office is soooooo much more important to me than TNA right now, so it wins the Thursday Night battle every time. If TNA writers were even half as interesting, it would be the best wrestling show on the air.
-They really overuse the James Earl Jones sounding voiceover guy and, by extension, the big melodramatic opening. Sometimes, you just need to let the action speak for itself. Therein lies the problem, I guess, since we haven’t gotten all that much that can be referred to as “action” as of late.
-First match they hype is Team 3D versus Team Pacman. Who gives a fuck about Pacman Jones? Really. ESPN bit for maybe three days and even then they shat on the angle and didn’t get the TNA name right. If you’re going down the “any press is good press” road, do it right and hire Michael Vick. Also, Gary Wolfe. I think you see where I’m going with this and it would be glorious. They’d get way more press than they could handle.
And why are they wrestling Team 3D? Disregarding the fact that the Dudz are the stalest act in the business, they’re both heels and this does nothing for either team. Or for me as a viewer, for that matter.
-The main event (XXX, Christian & AJ versus LAX, Junior Fatu & Samoa Joe) looks like it should rock. I’ve heard lots of complaints about Fatu, but people seem to forget that he was always really good. He definitely got stale, but the in ring stuff was always solid. I’ll take a guy who can work over some of the people TNA trots out any day of the week.
Black Reign v. Rhino
-Silverdust might just be the dumbest thing in TNA right now. That’s a tough competition to win, but they’re striving hard this time out.
-Violence! Fucking Violence! Josh might be the only person on the planet who remembers this, but GH & Joe (another arcane IWC reference!), I believe, put together this amazing Rhino mega mix that rocked my world back in the day. Whatever happened to GH & Joe, anyway? The Shooters needs to make a comeback. I don’t have enough Scott Christ “yellow bitches” recaps in my life right now.
-The announcers are talking about Black Reign being with Jim Mitchell. Did I miss that? It’s possible, because I watch large chunks of Impact in fast forward (including this one!).
-You know, Dustin could still be valuable to them. He seems to be moving around the ring pretty well and the punches look gorgeous. Why bog him down with this crap that’s never going to get over. They seemed to sign him just so WWE couldn’t, though, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
-Raven looks on backstage. How long before he’s with Mitchell as well? It’s the least logical thing they could do, what with Mitchell SCALPING him and all, but illogical is what TNA does best. Bank on it.
-The crowd is really into this. Or, the audio sweetening guy (Is it sexist to assume that it’s a man? I apologize to the many female audio enhancers who grace this blog with their presence) is, anyway. The crowd looks like it’s largely sitting on it’s collective hands.
-Here comes Raven. Cue the clusterfuck. Rhino gets a win in the mess. Heels beat him down. That brings Abyss, which brings Mitchell, which brings Havoc (another new member of Mitchell’s group, I guess). Brawl, brawl, brawl. Black Reign attacks Abyss with a scythe looking thing and Sting runs out to make the save. Ugh.
-If you’re keeping score, the entire point of that segment was to transition into the stupid Sting/Angle, err…angle that’s going to run through the rest of the show. At this point, we just see Angle on a football field.
-Looks like Angle is at Sting’s son’s high school football game. You’d think that Sting would recognize the field before Angle tells him where he was. You’d be wrong.
-Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt promo. I hate the Black Machismo gimmick. I don’t think a gimmick that’s solely designed to make you think of someone who’s not only not a part of the company, but who will likely never show up at all is a bad business move. How does this get Lethal over? In this case, it doesn’t. Team 3D attack and destroy both of them. Mike Tenay: “DID YOU SEE THAT!?! No, dumbass…I’m not even looking at the TV right now. Thanks for the random screaming that makes me aware of the exact points that I’m supposed to be excited.
-3D drags Lethal/Dutt to the ring and continues the slaughter. Shark Boy (in a neckbrace) runs out, but he’s killed as well. This is leading to Bubba talking. I just know it! 3D to Sharkboy. Superbomb on Dutt. Fuck. Bubba’s got a mic. He keeps it brief, demanding that the match tonight be for the title, or they’ll continue destroying people. Lethal gets a 3D through a table for good measure.
-Sting is in the production truck. He wants to talk to Angle. You think they’d have some headphones in the production truck, of all places, but again…you’d be wrong (ignoring the set that the producer is wearing, ‘natch).
-Any Robert Roode promo is a fast forward point for me. I gathered that the only reason Ms. Brooks continues to work for him is because her mother is sick, though. He storms off and the two backstage interview chicks argue. What a valuable use of television time! Imagine the ratings spike!
Jackie Moore v. Gail Kim
-Gail is looking lovely as always. We can discuss this in more depth, because there’s nothing happening in the ring that requires our attention. And as soon as I write that, Gail spills James Storm’s beer. Snap! Now it’s on! Jackie kicks her right in the friggin’ head. Okay, that was cool. VKM is out and we’re back to sucking. Then Christy Hemme comes out with Lance Hoyt and Jimmy Rave. I dig Rave a bunch and think he’s one of the few credible heels on the indy scene, so this is picking up again. It’s like a roller coaster!
-They just called Gail’s finisher the “Happy Ending.” Oy. The rest of the girls beat her down. She bails and then they brawl amongst themselves. Someone cares about this. I’m not that guy, though.
-Jim Cornette rewards Team 3D’s behavior by making it a title match tonight. Way to be in charge there, Jimmy! Sting storms in, looking for answers. Corny has none to offer.
-Angle updates us on the game, which looks to have as many as 15 people in attendance!
Team 3D vs. Team Pacman
-If we’re lucky, this will only suck a lot. I bet Truth will spin a bunch, though. It’s probably 75% of his offense these days. What happened to him, anyway? He used to be *awesome*. Bubba tries to tackle Pacman, but can’t. This is so stupid. The entire angle. The entire mindset that stupid random celebrity X (be it Toby Keith or Johnny Fairplay or Urlacher or Chris Rock or the NASCAR guy or the White Sox guy or so on or so on or so on) will add anything to the product or cause even one extra person to tune in. Ugh.
Anyway, this is every Dudz match from the past five years. VKM is out, but Pacman chases them away with a chair. And here comes the Steiners! Okay, I can support this part. I assume that the match is over, but the referee doesn’t seem to know either, so we’ll let it slide. Steiners hit their pose and I mark out like it’s 1992. At any rate, there’s some really creative booking at the end of this one. Who worries about sill things like a finish?
-Raven compares himself to Terry Funk, with people thinking that Funk was washed up when he retired in ‘82. And again in ‘85. Many retirements later, Funk beat him for the ECW Title. So he’s going to sit back and let everyone else kill themselves, then swoop in and pick the bones. He books himself in a match at BFG with Abyss and Rhino. Abyss walks in, turns it into Monster’s Ball and adds Black Reign to the mix. TNA: Where the inmates run the asylum!
Gauntlet Match
-Uh…I kinda fast forwarded through the reasoning behind this match. I assume it was really intelligent, though! You can’t possibly mess this match up, so this should be a nice respite from crap for however long it lasts.
-(1)James Storm starts with (2)Kaz. I’m liking Kazarian more and more as of late. His personality seems to be connecting with me. He used to come off as being kinda cheesy, but right now I dig him.
-Moving on, Storm spikes him with a Lungblower, which has made it’s way to TNA a year past any relevance the move ever had. It was the Shining Wizard of 2006. I’m still trying to work out what the big, overused indy move of 2007 is. The lariat, perhaps? Nigel McGuinness alone uses enough of them for every single wrestler on the planet twice over. I would have guessed that it would be variations on the Go2Sleep, but that hasn’t seemed to make a big splash in the US as of yet. There’s always 2008.
-The opening segment here rocked. Lots of fast, athletic wrestling. For a few minutes, TNA really was the wrestling alternative. Best in ring stuff I’ve seen from TNA in months (though I understand that Bound For Glory supposedly rocked. I need to pick it up and see for myself.)
-(3)Robert Roode is out. Kaz quickly takes over on him. Looks like they’re setting him up to be the star of this one. No complaints. Anyway, I thought that Roode would be a star about a year ago. Just goes to show how fallible the human race really is. Roode does redeem his employment by trying to murder Kaz with a Waterwheel slam. Tremendous!
-(4) is Petey Williams. He drops Storm with an inverted Lungblower. Was the TNA crew hitting the indy tapes or something? He also hits his atrocious tilt-a-whirl into Russian Legsweep. People bag on the Canadian Destroyer, but that move is infinitely worse.
-(5) is Eric Young. Does anyone outside of that arena care about EY? He’s a one note character who’s long since lost whatever hook he might have had with the crowd. Has any “happy go lucky” goofball character ever managed to persevere over time? From Evad Sullivan to Eugene, it’s a one trick pony that ends up going nowhere. And what do you know…he goes directly after Roode. We’ve never seen that before!
-(6)Jimmy Rave is here! Tenay puts over his work in the Dragon Gate promotion. He hits From Dusk ’til Dawn (tilt-a-whirl into a crossface) on Kaz. I’d bitch because I don’t like the move, or any move out of a tilt-a-whirl that isn’t a slam or backbreaker really, but this looked damn good, so he gets a pass.
(7)Chris Sabin is next. He does his big multi-man match spot, kicking off the other wrestlers in the ring to hit a Tornado DDT. You know, there’s not a whole lot going on here. Each new guy comes out and hits his spots and then it’s just some lackluster brawling. Of course, it *is* a battle royal, so I guess that’s to be expected.
(8) is Alex Shelley! Yay! Murder City Machine Guns (Sabin & Shelley) rock your world. Probably the best team in the world as far as doubleteam work is concerned. Jimmy Rave charges him immediately. The Embassy EXPLODES! Prince Nana must be bummed. MCMGs work him over for a bit, then toss Petey Williams. Shelley snaps Rave’s throat across the top rope and Sabin dropkicks him off the apron to eliminate him
(9) Lance Hoyt is out. Who still thinks that this 5th rate Kevin Nash is worth keeping around? He cleans house, but the MCMGs team up and take control. Shelley whips Sabin toward him, but Hoyt drops out of sight and Sabin is eliminated. BOO!
-Finally, (10)Chris Harris is out. Remember when he was the better half of AMW? Storm has really stepped up. If anything, Harris seems to have regressed. He cleans house as well, quickly transitioning into the inevitable AMW brawl. There’s another “haven’t seen that one yet!” sort of pairing.
-Kaz connects with a ginormous dropkick off the top. He looks down at Ms. Brooks at ringside and Roode knees him in the back. He goes through the ropes, though, not over. Ms. Brooks checks on him. Roode isn’t happy and demonstrates this by beating the snot out of Kaz.
-Just for the sake of being a completionist, I’ll point out that Chris Harris was tossed during the break. Shows how important he’s viewed as these days.
-Shelley is eliminated after going up top and eating a big boot from that turd Hoyt. Double BOO!
-Eric Young and Robert Roode team up to toss Hoyt out. My mind? BLOWN! Or not.
-Kaz slides under the bottom rope and takes a moment to kiss Ms. Brooks’ hand. He manages to clothesline Roode out, but Storm then eliminates him as he tries to skin the cat back in. EY/Storm are the final two. Storm locks Young in a sleeper. EY kicks out of the corner and lands on top (a la Bret/Austin from Survivor Series) for the win.
-This was a really fun match. Lots of it didn’t make a lick of sense, but you sorta expect that with the battle royal format. So good, spotty action that they’ve been so sorely lacking as of late. It certainly wasn’t hyped as an X-Division match, but this is as close as they’ve come to that sort of match in ages. This is what sets (or could set) TNA apart from the WWE juggernaut and I just don’t understand why they don’t trot this sort of stuff out more often. It also went longer than five minutes. Imagine that!
-Earlier, AJ Styles was apparently trying to leave for Japan with Tomko (who was going to defend the IWGP Tag Titles, which he holds with Giant Bernard, AKA Albert). Christian put the kibosh on that. AJ is sad, but Tomko doesn’t seem to mind. If there’s any cooler guy in TNA right now that Tomko, I don’t know who it would be. Actually, this entire group is great. AJ had become overexposed, so putting him the lackey role has not only given him a personality, but it’s freshened him up quite a bit. Tomko as the laid back guy who ignores all the tomfoolery around him is a great character as well. As far as Christian goes, he’s really the one “WWE castoff” that has risen above what he was in the past to become something newer (and better) in TNA. Kudos to him, since he’s been given a whole lot of shit to work with and he’s turned it to gold more often than not.
-LAX versus XXX in an Ultimate X match at Bound For Glory. Why? Shouldn’t that be a feud ender? I wasn’t even aware that these two teams were feuding at all. Maybe they just like the number of Xs that they can roll out with this match. Xs are XTREME, after all.
-Angle pretty much intimates that he’s going to rape and/or kill Sting’s son. Good thing no one watches this show. He’ll get off scot free!
XXX (Daniels & Senshi), AJ Styles & Christian Cage v. LAX, Junior Fatu & Samoa Joe
-Only TNA could make me sick of seeing Samoa Joe. How is that even possible. It’s not even his fault, I guess, as he’s been booked like a chump for almost a year now. I almost typed “chimp” there before I caught it. Then I realized that it might be just as accurate. Heh.
-Hernandez is a friggin’ BEAST! As much as I love LAX, I wouldn’t mind seeing them split, with Homicide anchoring the X-Division and Hernandez moving into the heavyweight division. The thought of him tossing guys around like rag dolls makes me grin. He gives Senshi a backdrop here that pretty much sends him out of Earth’s orbit. Insane.
-Homicide hits a tope con hilo and lands directly in front of the announce table. Mike Tenay looks like he’s literally just seconds away from shitting himself. Dare I say tremendous?
-Joe is in complete wrecking ball mode here, so I take back any accusations of staleness. How can watching him beat the crap out of people ever get old?
-Daniels gets to be the lucky one that receives the Stinkface. I wonder if they drew straws before the match? It’s even worse these days, I guess, as there’s a hell of a lot more ass there to deal with.
-The sprint to the finish here is great. Really hot match overall. Hernandez dives over the top with a plancha that was just awe inspiring. It’s gotten to the point where it can almost come off as mundane when a little guy does it. When Hernandez does it, you mark out and mark out hard.
-Senshi tags into the match…in the complete opposite corner from where he started. The referee could at least try. If he doesn’t care, why should I?
-Fatu spikes Elix Skipper with the Island Driver. I was honestly expecting Skipper to get pinned, because that’s the sort of thing that happens in TNA, but I’m wrong again. Joe gives Senshi a Muscle Buster to pick up the win.
-This was a little short for my tastes. Overall, though, it was a hell of a match. Again, they just let a bunch of good workers go out and open things up and it resulted in some excitement on a show that desperately needed some. Imagine that!
-Angle kidnaps Sting’s son on national television. So, uh…why didn’t anyone ever call the cops, anyway? I understand what they want to do with this, but it’s so hard to suspend disbelief when there are holes big enough to drive a truck through in pretty much every angle they run. Eh.
-Second hour was really good and what I was hoping the two hour show would bring. First hour was like the old Impact, which is precisely what they want to avoid in the future.
-The next show will be up before the weekend. I should mention that even if I start doing the recaps as soon as I watch the show, it’ll still be over the weekend before they go up. Watching The Office is soooooo much more important to me than TNA right now, so it wins the Thursday Night battle every time. If TNA writers were even half as interesting, it would be the best wrestling show on the air.
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