Home ▸ Impact ▸ I saw this match in WCW – iMPACT, 6/26/08

Well, at least this week, the announcers weren’t surprised when the episode title came true.  In fact, after seeing “Karen’s Return” on the screen, Mike Tenay actually said that tonight, we’ll be seeing the return to the iMPACT Zone of Karen Angle.  There was really nothing interesting to talk about with that story though, other than the fact that next week on the show, Brother Ray is going to look to his chicktionary to set Kurt up on a couple of blind dates.  In Kurt’s words, “no fat chicks.”

While there were a few other things of note, I think they’ll be pretty well covered in the review, so let’s get right to it, after the jump!

iMPACT kicks off with Consequences Creed, who – given his look – I’m surprised TNA creative hasn’t given the gimmick of “Black Carlito.”  Anyway, we’re told that A.J. Styles was instrumental in bringing Creed to TNA.  Why were we given this information?  Simple – because Creed’s opponent for the night is The Phenomenal one himself.  Apparently A.J. is relieved about this match, because he’s putting the whole Kurt and Karen Angle drama behind him and moving on with his career.  Which totally explains why, after A.J. picked up the win with the Styles Clash, he rushed to the parking lot when Jeremy Borash told him that Kurt was out there waiting for Karen.

When we come back from the commercial break, A.J. has made it outside, and Karen has finally shown up for work.  Security breaks up the potential brawl before it starts.

Team 3D’s Brother Ray is in the ring by himself, and has a microphone.  He tells us not to get up and get a snack, because we’re going to see something that we’ve never seen in a wrestling ring before.  He says he hopes that they broke Rhino’s neck last week, and that this week we’ll be seeing Christian Cage stretchered out of the iMPACT Zone.  Brother Ray vs. Christian Cage is up next.

Cage and Brother Ray battle back and forth before Johnny Devine comes out, swinging for the fences with his kendo stick.  After Christian disposes of Devine, Brother Ray earns a disqualification by cracking Cage across the back with the kendo stick.  As he starts to beat down Christian, we find out where Brother Devon was – hanging out in the back with Tomko, waiting for the right opportunity to bring out… A GLASS TABLE!  Devon and Tomko set up the table in the ring, and hand the unconcious body of Christian Cage to Brother Ray, who is perched on the middle rope.  In a spot that was unlike anything I’d ever seen, Brother Ray brings Cage crashing through the glass table with a powerbomb.  Medics came to the assistance of Cage, who was supposedly bleeding pretty badly.  They stuck with it for a while before Mike Tenay begged the production truck to cut to a commercial.

Back from break, JB is with Kevin Nash, who is sitting around instead of warming up for his match tonight with Booker T.  Samoa Joe comes in and questions him as to why he’s sitting around watching “Skinemax on the boob tube” instead of getting ready.  Nash says that he’s getting mentally prepared, and that at his age he can’t do all the things Joe does to get physically warmed up for matches.  Joe cracks a few jokes about Nash’s knee injuries.

Awesome Kong comes to the ring with Raisha Saeed and Jeremy Borash, as we’re set for another $25,000 challenge.  Kong’s opponent from last week, Taylor, is back and wants to try again.  Will she get a second shot at the Knockout Champion?  We’ll have to wait until after the break to find out – and the answer is no.  Kong’s choice this week was Danielle, from right here in Western New York – Buffalo, to be precise.  The Glamazon, however, she is not, as Kong squashed her before beckoning Taylor into the ring.  As the two of them brawl, security comes to break it up, as does TNA Management’s Jim Cornette.  Corny tells Taylor she has to go through channels to fight Kong.  Taylor says she can beat her, and that she can beat Saeed as well.  Cornette says “let’s go talk about this.”  Apparently, if Taylor can beat Saeed at some point, she’ll get Kong.

Kurt Angle’s best friend, MMA fighter Frank Trigg, comes to the ring, though given the music and the introduction, we were expecting Team Japan for a first round X-cup match.  Trigg is pissed because A.J. Styles inadvertantly attacked him last week, thinking he was Kurt Angle.  He demands A.J. come to the ring.  Meanwhile, backstage in the locker room, Karen pleads with A.J. not to go – but he doesn’t listen.  As he’s making his way to the ring, we see that Kurt has found Karen by herself in the locker room – and that he’s brought The Beautiful People with him.  When A.J. arrives in the ring, Trigg tells him that he’s dumber than he thought, as the big screen in the iMPACT Zone shows the altercation backstage – which led to Karen getting the brown paper bag treatment from Angelina Love and Velvet Sky.  A.J. rushes to her aid, but it was too late.

Team International and Team TNA come out to the stages to watch the following contest between Team Japan’s Naruki Doi & Masato Yoshino and Team Mexico’s Ultimo Guerrero (no relation) and Rey Bucanero.  I’m going to tell you right now that a written review will NOT do this match any justice.  Team Japan is so fast that they had me searching my remote for a slo-mo button (which it doesn’t have) just to keep up.  In the end though, Team Mexico won the match, tying them with Team TNA for first place at one point apiece.

So Cal Val tells Black Machismo that with everything going on, they should probably postpone their wedding plans.

The Guru, Sonjay Dutt, and a bunch of little gurus come to the ring.  They have, I don’t know, a seance or something, with the main point being that Sonjay doesn’t want Val trapped by the shackles of marriage, as he starts changing “set Val free.”  Val comes out, distracting Sonjay, who is blindsided by Jay Lethal and chased from the iMPACT Zone.

Remember when Samoa Joe gave Booker T his locker room a few weeks back?  Well, Book finally decorated it to his liking, and he gives us a tour.  The room is painted red, with a red velvet couch, and pictures on the wall.  JB sees a picture, and asks “is that a picture of the great one?”  to which Booker replies “yes, and I’m with Muhammed Ali.”  The room looks like something out of The Sims, if you ask me.  Anyways, he brags about ratings being up because he’s such a big star.  Which is totally not true – ratings are down as far as I know.

Tomko and JB are trying to talk some sense into Kurt Angle.  After all, nobody’s really seen A.J. and Karen together, there’s no proof they slept together.  Kurt says he’s seen it – every freakin’ night in his nightmares.  Team 3D wonder how he ever did her in the first place, since he’s such a huge star he should be getting the hottest women.  Bubba tells him that next week, he’ll set him up on some blind dates with some of the hot women in his little black book.  Kurt says no fat chicks, because he knows Devon’s reputation.  Devon says he likes them big to a point.

Moose takes on ODB in a no-DQ bimbo brawl.  ODB hits Moose with everything she’s got, but Moose can take the punishment.  Moose winds up picking up the victory with a DDT on a chair.

Main event time!  Kevin Nash dominates Booker T in this no disqualification matchup, and is beating the hell out of Booker T on the outside as we go to a commercial.  When we come back, we’re still outside, and Nash is still beating the crap out of Booker.  He rolls him back inside and goes for the pin – three straight times.  Book kicked out, all three times.  Booker starts making a comeback, and goes for a chair, when he’s stopped by Samoa Joe.  Booker knocks Joe off the apron and takes the chair anyway.  He nails Nash with the chair, and Joe gets into the ring and goes off on Booker T!  Joe goes for a superkick, but Booker ducks out of the way in time, and Joe hits Nash instead!  Book tosses Joe out of the ring and pins Nash for the win!  Nash is PISSED, and confronts Joe.  Security breaks them up as we fade to black.

My thoughts – iMPACT was pretty decent tonight.  I’m still getting tired of the Angle saga, and think it’s dumb that A.J. supposedly is done with it but still rushes to Karen’s rescue.  Team 3D and Tomko putting Christian Cage through a glass table was pretty cool.  Although there were clues to look to if you want to analyze how it was done, and prove that Christian wasn’t really hurt by it, they weren’t as painfully obvious as Mr. McMahon’s supposed injury on RAW this past Monday.  It’ll be interesting to see where the story between Kong and Taylor goes from here.  Team Japan is too lightning fast for words.  Lastly, I don’t really care that much about the Joe/Nash thing, but hey, whatever.  It seems like they may be leading up to a match between the two down the line, but I guess time will tell.  Again, it was a pretty decent iMPACT tonight, there wasn’t a whole lot of nonsensical bullshit tonight.  If you didn’t watch last night, catch the replay on Saturday night on Spike TV, if only for the World X Cup match.

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