Home ▸ Impact ▸ Beer Money whips everybody – iMPACT 7/17/08

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it – I’m a huge fan of Robert Roode and James Storm as a tag team.  Which is why I actually enjoyed last night’s episode of iMPACT.  Despite all the crap that happened in the main event at Victory Road, iMPACT focused more on Beer Money than any other performers.  They went around whipping virtually everybody, including wrestlers, security guards, and fans.  Meanwhile, Samoa Joe is letting Booker T keep the TNA Championship belt, while Team 3D and Kurt Angle swear that Sting is on their side.

Results and what will probably be some not-so-in-depth analysis after the jump!

Booker T, who took a page out of Batista’s book and stole the World Champion’s belt (and yes, I know it’s been done a gazillion times before, but Batista was the most recent).  Unlike Edge, however, Samoa Joe doesn’t want his belt back.  Despite Jim Cornette’s pleas for Booker to give Joe his belt back, Joe tells Book he can keep the belt on two conditions.  One, every day he holds the belt, he’s a target to Joe, and Joe will keep on hitting until Book realises the mistake he’s made, and two, at Hard Justice, Joe is going to take back his belt, and a piece of Booker’s ass with it.  Book tells Joe that Joe can’t beat him.  Joe tells Book to shine the champs belt up real nice, and to tell the “Boogeyman, Sting” that after Joe’s done with Book, he’s next.  (Sting’s the Boogeyman?  No wonder we haven’t seen him around ECW lately!)

Storm and Roode are backstage with Lauren.  They tell her that tonight isn’t fan’s revenge, it’s Beer Money’s revenge.  They’re going to whip everybody backstage, they’re going to whip tourists at the park, they’re going to whip everybody in the iMPACT Zone.

Kaz tells JB that he feels like he let down the entire X Division by losing the World X Cup for Team TNA at Victory Road.  He’s going to try to redeem himself tonight against Little Petey Pump in an X Division Championship match.

A back and forth, hard fought match for the title, but Petey fought off a Flux Capacitor attempt by Kaz, then rolled him up and pulled the tights to retain his championship.

JB is waiting to interview Petey backstage, but gets Eric Young instead.  Eric says he’s got big news, but it’s a secret.  Tonight is the first meeting of the Prince Justice Brotherhood.  Don’t tell anybody!

After a commercial, JB is in Jim Cornette’s office with Samoa Joe.  They’re joined by Kevin Nash, who apologizes for being a jerk.  Joe says that Nash was right, that Joe couldn’t beat Booker T.  Nash tells him it’s not always about who gets the pin, and that Joe won the fight on Sunday.  Joe reminds him who walked out with the belt.  Nash tells him that Booker didn’t beat him.  He departs by telling Joe that when a man doesn’t believe in himself, he’s got nothing left.

Beer Money is whipping the production crew.  Despite being in the process of being beaten to hell with leather belts, they still managed to cut to commercial.

JB is outside, because Sting has arrived!  Except, it wasn’t Sting – it was Kurt Angle and Team 3D in Sting getup.  They’re going to welcome Sting into their fraternity tonight.

Meanwhile, JB stumbles upon the Prince Justice Brotherhood secret meeting – it’s Shark Boy, Curry Man, and Super Eric.  The three gimmicks together make for a hilarious promo.  Unfortunately for those three, they got whipped by Beer Money.

Jimmy Rave gets destroyed by Matt Morgan.  Lance Hoyt, who has now changed his name to Lance Rock, says that Morgan hasn’t proven anything because he hasn’t beaten “the lead guitarist.”  So, we get a second Matt Morgan match, and a second Matt Morgan squash.

The Knockouts all want the next shot at Taylor’s TNA Women’s Championship.  They’re all fighting about it in the back.  Jim Cornette tells them that they’re going to have a 10 Knockout Gauntlet match a little later on.  Winner gets Taylor next week.  Traci asks JC if he wants to take her up on her offer.  He says maybe.  No idea what that was all about.

Karen’s Angle debuts next week.  Apparently it’s a talk show.

Beer Money whips some security guards out back of the iMPACT Zone.

Kurt Angle and Team 3D, in full Sting garb, make their way to the ring.  They brag about their win last night, and say that Sting is going to join them.  Christian Cage, AJ Styles, and Rhino interrupt.  They want a rematch.  Brother Ray tells Christian that his ego is as big as Awesome Kong’s toilet seat.  How about a match at Hard Justice?  A table match.  Christian says that the last time Brother Ray had an order anybody took seriously, the response was “Thank you, please drive through.”  We shouldn’t wait, and it shouldn’t just be a table match.  No, let’s do a five table elimination match, and let’s do it next week.  Sounds good to Team 3D and Kurt Angle.  Christian tells them to get ready to hear “RHINO!  GET THE TABLES!”

The Knockout Gauntlet match was pretty decent.  It came down to Gail Kim and The Beautiful People.  After Kim eliminated Angelina Love, she was rolled up and pinned by an opportunistic Velvet Sky, who wins the match and the right to face Taylor for the title next week.

JB is in Booker T’s locker room.  Booker can face anybody he wants, in any kind of match he wants.  He chooses Consequences Creed, and then calls 911 and asks for an ambulance outside of the iMPACT Zone.

Jay Lethal and his cornrows are in full blown Randy Savage mode, even going as far as calling JB “Mean JB”, and he’s still mad as all hell at Sonjay Dutt.  So Cal Val comes by and tells Lethal that she thinks he’s being too hard on Sonjay.

The next wrestler on the card is from Calgary, Alberta, Canada.  No, not Lance Storm.  It’s Johnny Devine, with paparazzi cam in one hand and a singapore cane in the other.  He’s in a three way dance tonight, his opponents are Eric Young and Sonjay Dutt.  With Devine rocking the Cobra symbol on his gear, I think that if CM Punk ever turns heel, WWE should try to get Devine away from TNA.  He could team with Punk, doing like a Cobra faction, and they could feud with Sgt. Slaughter.  Yes, these are the kind of things I think about while watching TNA Wrestling.  Anyways, this match was pretty good, with a lot of back and forth action.  Sonjay picked up the win, rolling up Eric Young from behind after Young took down Devine.  Lethal attacked Dutt after the match, but Devine came to the rescue.  Or at least he tried to.  Black Machismo took Devine out of the equasion, and continued to work on Dutt.  So Cal Val came to the ring, begging Lethal to stop.  Lethal goes for a chair shot, but Val took the chair away.  Dutt picked it up as Lethal and Val are arguing in the ramp.  As Val turns to go back up the aisle, Dutt swings the chair – not at Lethal, but at the ringpost.  He tossed the chair back to Lethal and fell to the ground clutching his head.  Val, apparently never having seen an Eddie Guerrero match before, thought that Lethal hit Sonjay with the chair, and storms off angry.

Robert Roode tells James Storm that they can’t whip the female fans because of fines from Spike TV.  Storm says screw Spike, let them fine Beer Money.  Roode’s got the money, right?

After a quick commercial break, Beer Money are in the iMPACT Zone looking for fans to whip.  They drag in an LAX fan, whipping him, then whipping the security guards who came to stop them before going after Hector Guerrero at the Spanish announce table.  They drag Eddie’s brother into the ring and start whipping him.  They handcuff him to the turnbuckle and pull his shirt up over his head as they continue to whip him.  After what seemed like an eternity of Hector getting whipped, LAX came out to make the save, as Beer Money took off.

Kurt Angle, Team 3D, and Tomko are sitting in the back with JB.  They think that Christian Cage, Rhino, and AJ Styles are crazy.  After all, tables matches are Team 3D’s specialty.  Add that to the fact that Sting is on their side, according to Kurt, and the other guys don’t stand a chance.  He’s also got a job for Tomko – crash Karen’s show next week.

Every time I see Consequences Creed, I wonder how long it’s going to take before TNA decides to make him Black Carlito.  Anyways, he’s telling Lauren how excited he is to be facing Booker T, even giving us a Creedarooni.  He’s got a stretcher match with Booker T, next!

BoredWrestlingFan Observation Time. Booker stole the World Championship belt from Joe, much like Batista did to Edge a few weeks back.  Booker T chose to fight Creed in a stretcher match.  Batista faced HBK in a stretcher match back at One Night Stand.  Anybody else think we can get away with calling the 5 time WCW Champion “Batista T?”

Anyways, back to the show.  Batista T dominates in the early going.  Creed starts battling back with some “Soul Man” Rocky Johnson style moves.  Going into the last commercial break, Creed has the advantage.  Of course when we came back, that was all over.  While we’re watching Creed face the consequences of facing Bookah, we find out that LAX and Beer Money will be in a strap match next week.  Book continues the offense on Creed, nailing his trademark axe kick.  Book throws Creed to the outside, beats him up a little more, and places him on the stretcher.   EMTs wheel the stretcher out the LAX entrance, giving Book the win.  As they’re going to put Creed in the ambulance, Joe pops out and throws Booker into it and closes the door.  As the ambulance is taking off, Joe takes a black baseball bat away from Sharmell, asking who gave it to her.  Joe throws the bat to the ground as iMPACT goes off the air.

My thoughts? I think tonight’s show was pretty good.  It wasn’t a huge clusterf*** like the show usually is.  There were still some pacing problems, and I think it’s amazing that JB just happens to be in the right place at the right time all the time.  In any event, if they can keep delivering shows like this, but fix the pacing problems, TNA’s got a chance to break out of their funk.  Not saying that they’re anywhere near being a viable threat to World Wrestling Entertainment, but they can carve themselves out a little niche with shows like this that center around certain performers but still give everybody else a chance to shine as well.  I saw guys I haven’t seen in a while – The Rock and Rave Infection, Johnny Devine, Consequences Creed, and Traci Brooks all come to mind.  We got to see all of those people in action, while still giving significant airtime to Beer Money, Kurt Angle and Team 3D, and Samoa Joe and Booker T.  Hell, thinking about it, this was a pretty damned good show!

Like this post? Subscribe to our RSS Feed today and never miss another!