Home ▸ Drowgoddess ▸ “Impact” Impressions 8/5/10

It’s the go-home show for the ECW pay-per-view, and TNA wants you to join them on Sunday for all the old school hardcore. Will you? Tommy Dreamer limps to the ring, clearly distressed. He calls out Raven, who strikes the Crucifixion pose on the ramp. Dreamer asks why Raven would attack him and ruin the final shining moment of the original ECW (though not in those words, Mr. McDevitt). Dreamer’s kids call Raven “Uncle Scotty,” so how could Raven destroy family? The Impact Zone crowd picks up the chant of “Uncle Scotty!” Yes, I’m serious. Raven asks how Dreamer ever could have thought that all was patched up and well between them, and how Raven ever could have forgiven him for stealing his girl. Dreamer’s kids shouldn’t be calling Raven “Uncle Scotty,” they should be calling him “Daddy.” Raven has waited for years, quietly biding his time, for a moment like this. Raven will cripple Dreamer on Sunday in their ppv match, and after that, he’ll find his ex and deliver her some “hardcore justice” of his own. She AND Dreamer’s kids will be calling Raven “Daddy.” Dreamer attacks Raven. Abyss attacks Dreamer. Rob Van Dam attacks Abyss. Hooray. Most of the action here was painful to watch, and not in a good way. I’ve seen scraps in a junior high hallway with greater realism. Raven hits the Evenflow DDT on Dreamer at the top of the ramp. The end.

The Beautiful People (Velvet Sky and Lacey Von Erich) vs. Taylor Wilde and Hamada: This was a title match for the Knockouts Tag Team titles. Not the slightest mention was made of a title defense last week, nor of how and why Taylor Wilde and Hamada would suddenly team up. Whether you personally find the existence of  the Knockouts Tag Team titles unnecessary, title belts should be treated as a hugely important deal. Period. LVE needs to go away. No, I will most certainly NOT give her credit for improving. Why not? Has anyone else noticed that the spinning kicks and flips that LVE has recently been taught to do are the exact same types of moves for which guys in the X-Division were mocked by the HHHogan/Bischoff regime, and told that they couldn’t work? If a guy who does those moves is written off as an incompetent wrestler, I refuse to accept those moves from LVE simply because she’s a hot chick. Poor Hamada was really stuck in a Special Ed class here. The woman can really go, but you wouldn’t know it from watching her TNA work. The title match itself didn’t matter at all, as the main story was the internal dissension between The Beautiful People. Madison Rayne comes out and stands on the ramp during the match, and Biker Chick rode out to ringside. We get a ref bump from Velvet Sky slapping the ref. Read that again. Yes, really. Velvet Sky slapped the ref, and essentially laid him out for a time. Jeebus. During this down-and-out period, Biker Chick hands LVE a chair. I kid you not, LVE stands there holding the chair and smiling like a beauty pageant contestant, waiting for someone else to do something. It was truly that obvious. Taylor Wilde obliges by dropkicking the chair into LVE’s face, which made your friendly neighborhood Drowgoddess very happy. Wilde gets the pin on LVE, and we have new champions! Hamada wins a title belt! Xander loves you, Hamada! Velvet Sky completely explodes, and LVE is all apologetic sweetness as Madison Rayne stands on the ramp with a strange expression on her face. It may have been intended as displeasure, but even after a lifetime in theatre, I can’t tell what that expression was. No time whatever was given to the new champs for celebration or comments.

Winners (and NEW Knockouts Tag Team Champions): Taylor Wilde and Hamada

Rob Terry vs. AJ Styles: AJ enters with Antonio Banderas’s younger brother, Kazarian. The referee orders Kazarian to the back, and when he is slow to comply, Terry chases him off. Terry dominates AJ at first in his slow, lumbering, “I can’t wrestle” sort of way. AJ gains the upper hand with a lower blow (see what I did there?), and follows up with a Pele kick and a beautiful springboard 450 splash for the pin. This match was really short, and is hopefully the end of Rob Terry with gold or shots at gold. Kazarian celebrates with AJ. Anyone else hoping for an AJ face turn and an explosion between these two?

Winner (and STILL Television Champion): AJ Styles

To the Kurt Angle video package! He explains that taking himself out of the Top Ten Contenders for the World Heavyweight Championship wasn’t about ego, it was about proving that he truly was the best. He will defeat everyone who stands in his way because he isn’t ready to retire.

To the Jay Lethal video package! Enough of the hero-worship of Ric Flair, already! After everything that has happened between the two, Lethal should have more of an edge and be less in awe. The idol has fallen, and the former worshipper should show nothing but disdain for him now.

To the back! The Beautiful People scrap and shriek, with Lacey Von Erich trying to stand between them and play the peacemaker. Velvet Sky shoves LVE into some crates, and security pulls Madison Rayne away. Sky may or may not have looked sorry for attacking LVE.

Beer Money vs. the Motor City Machine Guns: This is match #4 in the “best of five” series for the Tag Team titles. It’s an Ultimate X match, a stipulation chosen by the MCMG after they won match #3. Sure, I’ll take the MCMG in an Ultimate X match any day, but this is really a bad idea. Firstly, Ultimate X is supposed to be special. It should be saved for ppv because people WILL pay to see it. Secondly, if the Guns win tonight, there will be a fifth and final match. What can top Ultimate X? The final match of a series for a title belt should never be anticlimactic, and under these circumstances, it almost has to.

The Ultimate X match begins! With talking in the ring. Yes, really. Robert Roode said that, while Beer Money and the MCMG don’t like each other, they’ve taken tag team wrestling to new heights. Beer Money can only be the best when they defeat the MCMG at their own game tonight and win the TNA Tag Team Championship titles. Chris Sabin has the mic, and the future Mr. Drowgoddess is all serious intensity. Rowr! He asks if Beer Money can see the title belts that the MCMG wear. They are the champs, they are the greatest tag team in the world, and Beer Money can have the belts when they pry them from the Guns’ cold, dead fingers. Nothing at all was wrong with this exchange, but it would have been much more effective as a backstage interview segment or in some other setting besides in the ring at the start of this particular match.

The match itself was, again, the best of the night. Much was made of the fact that Beer Money are physically larger and less experienced in Ultimate X matches, so much so that a Beer Money victory seemed frighteningly certain. Great back-and-forth action, with reversals and double-teams galore. Alex Shelley hit a DDT on Robert Roode that spiked him perfectly vertically. D-iz-amn, that looked brutal! Shelley then goes for the X, but James Storm pulls him down. Other sequences of note include Sabin going after the X, Storm stopping him from the top turnbuckle, Sabin hitting a hurricanrana on Storm to the mat, and Roode hitting an RR spinebuster on Sabin. Nice! Roode goes after the X, but both Guns pull him down to land on Storm. Beer Money tried to get to the X with one standing on the other’s shoulders. Storm repeatedly refused to climb up and go for the X, claiming that he had been drinking, and that Roode should go. Funny! At one point, Shelley hits a Sliced Bread #2 on Storm on the ring apron. This looked sick! Towards the end of the match, Roode climbed up to the top of the Ultimate X structure and inched across, walking on the ropes and holding on the the metal frame above it. Sabin Spidermans his way across the ropes, knocks Roode to the mat, and grabs the X! YES!!! There will now be a fifth and final match of the series for the Tag Team titles, and it will air on next Thursday’s “Impact.” The MCMG choose the stipulation for that match.

Winners (and STILL Tag Team Champions): the Motor City Machine Guns

HHHogan, Bischoff, Miss Tessmacher, and her breasts come to the ring. Bischoff announces that next week’s “Impact” will be a ppv-quality show appropriately titled “The Whole F’n Show.” There will be no talk and all action. You know, because the company’s name hasn’t implied that for the past eight years. Heavily pushing each match on the card as being shown for free (Bischoff must not know how few people bother to stream TNA ppvs in the first place), Bischoff announces the card. The main point is that he will be the special guest referee in the Abyss versus RVD World Heavyweight Championship title match. Really? Really? I think that we all know how this will play out. Bischoff is interrupted by Kevin Nash. Yet another Nash/HHHogan exchange over politics in wrestling ensues. That’s all I’m writing. They fight. Yes, you read that correctly. Jeff Jarrett runs out to stop Nash, and is joined by Sting. In red face paint. Yup…. Please don’t let this be what I’m positive that it means!!! Nobody cares anymore! This could have been tv time or a match for Daffney or Rosie Lottalove, post-match comments from Taylor Wilde and Hamada, some mention whatever of Brian Kendrick or the X-Division title, ANYTHING other than Nash, HHHogan, Jarrett, Sting, and Bischoff doing what they’re doing.

Orlando Jordan vs. “The Pope” D’Angelo Dinero: I honestly feel badly for Orlando Jordan. Just let the guy wrestle and leave his sex life out of it. Cheap homophobic heel heat is not worth it. Sucking on a lollipop as you enter and rubbing it over your nipple before trying to force it on SoCal Val accomplishes what, precisely? Gay jokes by the announce team are not necessary, and do NOT make your product edgy and adult. It makes you look pathetic and sad. “The Pope” has the greatest entrance in wrestling. Jordan simulates oral sex on his finger, angering “The Pope,” who demands that they just wrestle, already. Look how not-PG we are! We’re so cool because we’re raunchy! Um, yeah. The match here is a complete afterthought, anyway. While it is in progress, Eric Young runs down the ramp, grabbing up all of the Dinero Bucks that fell from the ceiling during “The Pope”‘s entrance. Yes, his head trauma from X-plosion has made him special like the Olympics. Jordan is distracted enough for “The Pope” to hit the DDE, and the Congregation rejoices at the victory. Post-match, Matt Morgan attacks “The Pope,” presumably because the upcoming “Whole F’n Show” involves a three-way match between Morgan, “The Pope,” and Mr. Anderson. Anderson just so happens to make the save with a steel chair at this point. Morgan bails. The security guys from last week, Gunner and Murphy, step up to Anderson and send him to the back.

Winner: “The Pope” D’Angelo Dinero

To the back! Christy Hemme tries to interview Ric Flair. He will be suspended without pay for 90 days if anyone from Fortune interferes in his match. That match happens to be a street fight against Jay Lethal. Wait. It’s a no-DQ street fight, and one party is not allowed to have interference. Great…. My soul hurts.

Jay Lethal vs. Ric Flair: For this street fight, Lethal wears actual street clothes. Flair wears a suit, and Taz won’t shut up about how much every piece of it probably costs. Mumm-Ra the Everliving bleeds everywhere and gets stripped down to his underwear, one sock, and one shoe. We are also treated to the contractually obligated Ancient Undead Man-butt. WHY??? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, as Douglas Williams, current and totally unmentioned X-Division champion, runs down and smashes his title belt into Lethal’s head. He also pulled Lethal’s leg from the ropes so that Flair got the pin. I guess we know who will be added to Fortune next week.

Winner: Ric Flair

To the back! Christy Hemme interviews RVD about his “Stairway to Janice” match against Abyss. Jerry Lynn appears (ROH allowed this?) and says that he’s looking forward to “HArdcore Justice” because he and RVD will get to tear down the house one more time. Then he leaves. That’s it??? Seriously, that couldn’t have been made a bigger deal? What is wrong with these people? The RVD/Jerry Lynn feud made both guys, and was epic in its own way. In the words of Gob Bluth, come on!

Abyss and Raven vs. Tommy Dreamer and Rob Van Dam: Not much here. Raven and Abyss ran up the ramp and started brawling with Dreamer and RVD. Stevie Richards runs out. Rhino runs out. Team 3D run out. Raven and Abyss clean house and the light go out. When they come back on, Sandman stands in the ring, cane in hand. Sandman cleans house on his own. Mick Foley enters as the good guys celebrate in the ring, followed by Al Snow, Pat Kenney, and Jerry Lynn, who carry a beer cooler. James Storm must be mad….

Winners: Heckifiknow

For a go-home show, there wasn’t much to inspire buying. Some people are all about the nostalgia, and while I can understand and respect that, I don’t share it. Unless this leads to a serious invasion angle of the young and disgruntled TNA guys finally having enough at being bumped from their own company’s ppv schedule so that a group of washed-up has-beens from another company can have one more day in the sun, and taking back the company that they created, it’s a complete waste. It seems that Lance Storm and I had the same idea, but he posted it first, so I’m giving credit where it’s due. At least Hamada has a title belt and the MCMG are still Tag Team Champions.

Peace out,

Drowgoddess

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