Watching TNA online is a wonderful way to bypass commericals and pause and play at your leisure but it also added the extra bonus of watching Impact during the supplemented commercial breaks. It was silent of course but enjoy the little things.
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Why am I reviewing this infomercial? I don’t know. Why is Goliath (voice actor Keith David) from Disney’s animated show Gargoyles narrating it? You’ve got me. How did I travel into the future to watch this? I didn’t. It got leaked.
I’m seriously considering buying this one…
Spoilers ahead, sort of.
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And Hillbilly Jesus cried…..
Getting ahead of myself. After what should of been the greatest PPV of the year, but instead turned into false expectations and lukewarm matches (except for Austin Aries vs Kendrick, and Lynn/RVD) we have the aftermath.
Impact Wrestling starts with a Sting promo, which leads the former insane icon to call out Hogan. Hogan comes out and gives props to Stinger for the assist in getting back on the right track. He talks on about how it wasn’t Bischoff’s fault for what happened and he takes responsibility for his actions for being a follower instead of a leader. After Hogan leaves, in steps Dixie Carter. She goes on how Sting warned her 18 months ago about Bischoff/Hogan’s plan. Sting accepts her apology and is given the task as…Mick Foley’s Job?? Anyway he’s appointed in charge of Impact Wrestling. But Angle steps out next. He talks about how Dixie being back doesn’t make him happy and how he’s the world champion and will make decisions. Out steps Roode, he tells Kurt that he screwed him and Angle agrees telling Bobby he was a threat and couldn’t let him win. (Nice job making him look threatening) Tells Roode that when they signed the contract Angle took advice from Hogan/Bischoff and put in a no rematch clause.
And just as Kurt is about to mockingly steal Storm’s trademark line guess who’s music hits, James Storm says that since Roode can’t get his rematch he instead volunteers himself. Sting steps in and makes it official. Storm gives Angle the Shade eyes before saying “Sorry about your damn luck!”
Okay for it being what it was that whole segment including commercial breaks (which there where two) Lasted 40 minutes in length. By the time we came back to the show with the Knockout Tag match it was 44 after the hour. Sorry about being a watch Nazi but that was long. That could’ve of been resolved in backstage segments.
Whatever. We have the Knockouts Tag match with former MIA Tara. She and Ms Tessmacher have a match against the TTLV or as I all them Love and Winter with the titles on the line. After a decent match which besides Love’s attempts at offense was capitalized with Tessmacher flying throw the air Ricky Dragon style (flying crossbody) on Winter for the three. She is working her butt off for the respect of the fans without all the push behind her.
The Promos in no particular order include: Hogan being cornered in the parking lot by Immortal, Bischoff tells Hogan to face him like a man in the ring later.
Velvet Sky talks about everything she has went through to get the knockouts title. Which includes clips of her as the heel team the beautiful people alongside Madison Rayne holding the knockout tag titles while laughing heel like. Of course this is followed by her narration of being picked on as a child and through school and how she decided she would never allow that to happen again and to fight for everything she wants. This must include her putting bags on people who were not considered beautiful and spraying hairspray in peoples faces?
Eric Young is doing a photo shoot when Robbie E and Rob Terry confront him. Robbie E wants the television title which Eric obliges on the condition that Rob Terry doesn’t interfere or Eric will get his big time television friends to help him, this is before mentioning Ronnie from the Jersey Shore. (Sigh)
Abyss takes on Gunner. Gunner cuts an okay promo in which he describes how bad ass he is this is before Abyss comes out and destroys him. Gunner runs away to the back. Abyss wins by countout. Backstage Gunner runs into Immortal and tells them “That wasn’t Abyss out there, that was the monster”. They blow him off and proceed to take out Hogan.
In the ring Bischoff talks and eventually slaps Hogan only to cause Hogan to point his finger which the crowd chants “YOU” before Eric runs and Immortal runs in. Sting flies in with two baseball bats and scares off Immortal. Bischoff while walking up the ramp bumps into his son who he berates and even rips off his shirt revealing a Bischoff tattoo over his heart. Garrett B punches his dad before giving Hulk the thumbs up.
Velvet Sky comes out with the Knockouts belt. Talks about the sacrifice she put in and blah blah blah. Karen with Traci come out. First Karen has Traci removed from the arena before moving forward with her plan to physical hurt Velvet. Out comes Madision Rayne. While Velvet is distracted by her a returning Gail Kim runs in and ambushes her from behind. Soon both women Kim and Rayne are beating the tar out of Velvet before all three hug.
And finally we have the conclusion of the program, which include the best 6 minutes in main event history and this includes Jeremy Borash’s introductions of the wrestlers. Welcome Time Nazi, from Midwest time. From 9:50-9:56pm, We have Kurt Angle VS James Storm. But before that we have the Roode pep talk about how Storm’s been preparing for this a long time. Anyway when the bell rings at 9:54pm and Kurt starts beating on Storm in what looks like a not so typical Kurt Angle match getting Storm into the corner before the ref pulls him off twice well on the second attempt Storm busts out the Last Call AKA Super kick and floors Angle for the 3, all by 9:56pm.
What a way to win the title. I know that being a time nazi is not fun but Kurt mentioned in the earlier promo from the opening of the show that him and Roode went for 30 minutes, which means Angle is slowly losing take of time. Because from my recollection it was more like 14 minutes. But who’s counting.
After a brief celebration in which Storm tries to hand Roode the belt which he respectfully declines. We close out at 10:01pm. Bound For Glory is TNA’s Wrestlemania, Starrcade and so on but after Thursday all it really says is that no fan needs to waste money on the program because they can watch a painfully talkative show with a face finish for free. Oh yeah since Impact is being lazy so am I. Here is my one picture.
Sorry about my damn luck!
Welcome everybody to a special Tuesday edition of ThinkSoJoE’s Thoughts. This column usually comes to you on Saturdays, but it’s a special occasion. Last night was the night – TNA finally tried to battle RAW with a head to head live show. Both shows had their high points – but in my opinion, WWE won the battle.
Eric Bischoff knows television. Eric Bischoff will tell you that’s his business. He’ll tell you that he was the one who put Nitro on three minutes earlier than RAW and he was the one who knew enough to beat RAW back from commercial breaks to get the viewers watching and hooked. It didn’t quite work out for TNA last night, and here’s why. TNA aired the first hour unopposed by WWE, and in the first 30 minutes had Jeff Hardy, Shannon Moore, and Ric Flair pop up on their program – but they also had a match that is unique to TNA and it’s X-Division end in a no-contest and fan chants of “This-Is-Bull-Shit.” Tara and ODB managed to change the word “bullshit” to “awesome” before Scott Hall and Sean Waltman showed up and TNA aired nearly 10 minutes in commercials. Credit to TNA where it’s due – they did what any of us would’ve done and had Hulk Hogan debut at 9:57 EST.
Many of us didn’t care and switched to RAW anyway, knowing full well that Bret Hart would kick off the show. Those who continued to watch TNA got to hear Hall, Waltman, Hogan, Kevin Nash, and Bischoff repeat themselves for 10 minutes. The moment TNA went to commercial – which would likely be the moment that fans changed the channel to see what was going on over on RAW, Bret Hart shook Shawn Michaels’ hand, and the duo hugged. This is the point for me when WWE won the battle – hands down.
TNA’s show continued to put on good wrestling matches in between the myriad of talk segments, including an awesome match for the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championships in which Hamada and Awesome Kong defeated Taylor Wilde and Sarita for the titles, and a short but good match between Pope D’Angelo Dinero and Desmond Wolfe. RAW had an excellent tag title match pitting DX against JeriShow, and the WWE Champion Sheamus in action against “Little Evan Bourne.”
WWE’s main match of the night pit Randy Orton against recent rival Kofi Kingston, but anybody who didn’t tune in to iMPACT for the TNA Championship match featuring the Champion, The Phenomenal AJ Styles, defending his title against Kurt Angle missed an early Match of the Year candidate. Throughout this match, fan chants ranged from the usual “Let’s Go AJ/Let’s Go Angle” to “This Is Epic” and the hilarious considering Earl Hebner was the referee “Who needs Bret?” Styles won this match, which was so amazing that Ric Flair watched from the top of the aisle and Hulk Hogan came out to commend the duo after the match. iMPACT ended with an old school nWo beat down as Hall, Nash, and Waltman beat down Mick Foley, much to the apparent surprise of Hulk Hogan.
As soon as the show went off the air, the Chairman made his way to the ring. With the knowledge that Bret Hart was on the show, fans probably knew, no matter which show they watched, that a confrontation was eminent. Indeed, Hart confronted McMahon, the duo seemingly made up, and McMahon kicked Hart square in the grapefruits to end the show.
I haven’t seen the ratings. Given that they were the number 3 Trending Topic on Twitter for most of the night, TNA likely popped a higher rating than normal. Going head to head with WWE on a historic night for the company, however, probably didn’t allow them to maintain it. Time will tell if last night was good or bad for TNA, but for the first time in nearly nine years, it was just awesome to be a wrestling fan on Monday nights.
Before I take off, I’d like to take a moment to thank chjpacheco for his iMPACT coverage and Legend Killer for stepping in to cover RAW so that I could sit back and be a fan rather than a critic on this spectacular night.