Home ▸ Impact ▸ TNA Impact 30/01/2014; Better Than RAW

I barely slept this past week and followed that up by watching TNA and reviewing it. What a terrible idea. At least it’s a UK show. This could be fun.

The show is not just in the UK, but it’s also live. Take that yanks! Before anything can even happen there’s an altercation backstage between Spud, Ethan, Magnus, Kurt Angle and Samoa Joe. Spud actually stuck two fingers up which is the UK version of flipping the bird. He technically cursed on national live TV. Hardcore.

He’d continue to do it too. This is how you tell people to fuck off in England. Remember it.

Magnus, Spud and Ethan then come out to start the show. They actually get booed out the building. They’re in Scotland. The Scots hate us. Magnus uses this to heel on them. The boos are so loud he can barely be heard. He ended Sting, and now Dixie is getting rid of the dinosaurs. TNA is about the young guys now. He mentions Zema Ion, the Bromanz, and Spud, but deliberately ignores Ethan. Magnus says he single handedly got rid of Sting, Jeff Hardy, and AJ. Ethan calls him out on his bullshit but Angle and Joe come out before they can really argue.

Angle calls Magnus a paper champion and Magnus tells him to shut up before he regrets something. They wanted him to be somebody and now he is; he’s the world heavyweight champion. That’s what really kills them according to Magnus. Joe says the only thing killing them is that Magnus is alive. Magnus makes a tag match between himself and Ethan against Joe and Angle. If the heels win then both Joe and Angle will leave TNA. Joe raises the stakes ;If he or Angle win, they become number one contender. Magnus accepts the match. Dixie comes out to ruin the day. She calls for the music to be cut, after it’s been cut, and says the match isn’t happening. Dixie says she can’t risk him losing the title to Joe or Kurt. Way to show faith in your hand picked champion. Magnus ignores her and tells the faces the match is still on. The corporate structure is gone too. Dixie ruins things more than Batista.

True story.

Before the break a van appears and they tease the investor is in there. Post break the Wolves come out of the van and say that anyone who wants to talk to the investor has to go through them.

Velvet Sky and Madison Rayne vs ODB and Lei’d Tapa
The Beautiful People are back people. Gail Kim attacks Rayne before the match begins and it’s typical tag fare. Hot tags and heeling everywhere. Velvet Sky wins with whatever her finisher is called. Hail Satan hits and Chris Sabin comes to the ring. He calls Rayne a tramp and tells her to get out the ring. Velvet hasn’t been returning his calls and Sabin says she’s on her period and offers her one more chance. If she apologises he’ll let it go. Velvet breaks up with him and walks off.

Joe and Angle are backstage and they’re talking about what’s going to go down. They bring up how everyone else who did what they’re doing was assaulted, so they’re off to find Bobby Roode. Joe crushes his windpipe and doesn’t kill him because he wants Roode to think about what’ll happen if he interferes. Was Joe always this cool?

TNA is the one on the right. RAW is the one on the left.

James Storm comes out to the ring and somone makes the mistake of handing him a mic. He doesn’t do too bad this time though. He calls out Gunner, saying he wants to put an end to things. Gunner, of course, walks out. Gunner talks about their history and says things blew up when he got that briefcase. Gunner says he did right by his family and Storm would too in the same situation. Storm knows the stories Gunner hasn’t told anyone else about his army days. He fought for the guys standing besides him and the Scots start a USA chant. Fuck you British Canadia. You can go independent. Gunner says he did the same thing for Storm. He fought beside him. Storm acknowledges this and calls Gunner one hell of a wrestler. The most important thing to Storm is his kids. His daughter asked him why he’s mad at Gunner and Storm said he wasn’t mad at Gunner. He was mad at himself, and he wants to be the bigger man. He’s wants to put things behind them. They reconcile and Bad Influence come out. Kaz calls Storm out on his bullshit and says no one believes him. Kaz says Storm desires beer and ugly fat women. What he wants more than anything is the title though. Daniels grabs the mic and makes a match between Bad Influence and Gunner and Storm, with the title shot on the line. A brawl kicks off and a match starts after the break.

My reaction to every Bad Influence segment.

Storm and Gunner vs Bad Influence
So basically if Bad Influence win, they get the briefcase. Bad Influence remind us why they’re the best and tag team Gunner and heel all over him. Gunner gets a visual pin while the ref is distracted. Gunner reverses the Angel’s Wings for the tag and Storm has his way with Daniels. Kaz and Gunner end up in the ring together and Gunner botches a flying headbutt for the win. Storm saved him from Daniels’s interference and handed him the briefcase after the win. So Storm and Gunner are back together.

Dixie and Spud are backstage. Dixie is freaking out and tells Spud to find out who the investor is.

There’s a badass video package on Somoa Joe.

Dixie is still backstage. Bobby Roode walks in and Dixie says she doesn’t have time for him. Roode says he wants what Dixie promised; a title shot. He wants it at Lockdown too. Dixie says she has too much on her plate and Dixie tries to write him a cheque. Roode says he doesn’t want her money and that she has one week to figure things out. Until she does, he’s not doing anything for her.

EY is with ODB, and hypes up winning the tag team belt. ODB is worried about him teaming with Abyss and says they call him a monster for a reason. ODB walks off, and Abyss walks in, complete with thumb tacks.

More backstage segments. Spud is off to confront the Wolves about the investor but the segment ends before he can.

Spud comes out to the ring instead and Tenay blames Borasch for Spud because Spud won British Bootcamp, and Borasch was in charge of that. Borasch clarifies that Spud was voted by for by the people. Spud heels on the Scots and calls them the England B Team. I love this guy. He’s so awesome. He calls out the Wolves and gets what he wants. He asks who the investor is and gets no answer. He interrogates them Magnum TA style and tries to be intimidating. He’s actually the same size as the smaller Wolf. I think he could fit in the X-Division. Speaking of midget Wolf, he gets a slap in the face. The Wolves take their jackets off and double team Spud. The larger Wolf tells Spud to tell Dixie she’ll find out who the investor is when everyone else is. The investor is also interested in the main event and, if anyone interferes, they’ll be fired.

The one guy who wanted Batista to win.

Bromanz vs Abyss and EY for the Tag Team Championship
You know, if Joseph Park wanted to know if he was Abyss, he should have just taken his shirt off as Abyss has those huge tattoos. EY and Guido 1 start things off. Guido 2 is quickly tagged in and Abyss technically attacks them illegaly by just walking in and hitting people. EY gets heeled on for a bit before Abyss tags himself in and dominates Bromanz and chokes Zema Ion. Abyss picks up the ref and hits The Shock Treatment on him. He Chokeslams EY and just walks off. EY grabs a mic and laments his lost love. There’s one more experiment left and challenges Abyss to a Monster’s Ball match next week. Abyss accepts and keeps walking off.

The Wolves are backstage with the van. They harrass the cameraman and tell him to stay away from the van.

Bully Ray is also backstage, and he has a casket. He pushes it through the backstage area as we cut away to another segment. Christie Hemme and Dexter are just hanging out with wine and chatting. Hemme notices that Shaw had his hand over the candle and asks him if he’s alright, given how his hand was burned. They go up to his room and Shaw takes her hair tye and sniffs it. They continue the tour and the camera shows a room dedicated either to Christie Hemme, or torture. It wouldn’t be TNA if there wasn’t some shit somewhere. Shaw tells Hemme to go back upstairs and goes into the room and turns the light on, revealing it’s a shrine to Christie Hemme. No nudes though, which is odd because they must exist. Shaw puts the hair tye on a mannequin of Hemme and gives it a kiss. I’ll laugh about how stupid that segment was, but it was also pretty damn creepy and well done.

Shaw’s Shrine

Bully Ray still has his casket, and now he’s pushing it down towards the ring. Guess we’re getting ourselves a casket match between Bully and Ken. Bully introduces himself and says, once again, that Ken took away everything he had. No matter what Bully does, Ken keeps showing up, and Bully challenges Anderson to a casket match. Called it! Anderson comes out and carresses the casket and does one of his annoying promos. He asks Bully what he’s going to do after he puts Anderson in the coffin. Bully says he’ll pile drive Anderson’s wife and kids and clarifies that he would love to pile drive Anderson’s wife. Something tells me he doesn’t mean the wrestling move. Anderson says his wife and kids say hi and hits Bully with the casket lid and the pair brawl. Anderson comes out on top and Bully escapes up the ramp.

There’s a video package about how Angle is literally a cyborg. I’m sure the two guys getting video packages hyping them up are totally on their way out. These video packages were awesome though. ‘Bout damn time they focused on Joe.

The Cyborgs are coming!

Ethan and Magnus are backstage. Magnus calls Ethan a hothead and says that’s the difference between them. Ethan reacts, while Magnus thinks and strategises. He knows Ethan doesn’t like him much, and Magnus doesn’t like the idea of teaming with a rookie either. Ethan says he’s making excuses in case he loses and Magnus says the only excuse is Ethan, who’s an excuse of a wrestler. He’s just a spoiled rich kid with the right last name. These two were great. Then Dixie showed up. The boys pretend to get along for Dixie, who wants to escort them. She wishes Ethan luck and walks out with Magnus, teasing more dissension between Ethan and Magnus, and even Ethan and Dixie at this point.

EC3 and Magnus vs Samoa Joe and Kurt Angle
Ethan and Angle start things off together. Angle controls Ethan and tags Joe in, who keeps it up. They take turns with Ethan as TNA promote that they’ve already booked next years UK tour. That’s pretty good as the announcement of this tour was left pretty late. Ethan gets some respite by avoiding a shoulder charge and tags Magnus in. Magnus goes after Angle as they tease the investor finally leaving the van and walking into the arena, and they cut to break.

Back from break Ethan and Angle are going at it. Ethan controls Angle and tags Magnus in and the tag team of Angle begins. Angle hits a German and a true hot tag happens as Joe and Magnus get into the match. Joe hits his five moves o’ Doom and locks in the ARMBAR! Ethan saves Magnus and gets attacked by Angle outside the ring. Joe locks in the Clutch and makes Magnus tap like the bitch he is. Joe is your number one contender! As I’ve said before, the companies take turns at being good. WWE might not be running with their fan favourite in Bryan, but TNA are running with theirs.

Post match Dixie comes out with Spud. She’s upset and knew this would happen. Joe grabs a mic and threatens to kill Magnus. He also told Magnus to not blame EC3 because Magnus was the one who tapped out. He finishes off by telling Magnus to shine his, Joe’s, belt. Angle grabs the mic and says that nights like these are the ones that make him proud to be a wrassler. He says that after winning the cage match, and now winning this fight, he’s proud to say Kurt Angle is back. Angle tells Dixie to grab her checkbook because it’s time for Angle to go into the hall of fame. He tells Dixie to bring the investor too. Dixie grabs the mic and calls out said investor. Your new investor is…Montel Vontavius Porter…M.V.P! The rumours were true. They even call him M.V.P so I guess he has the rights.

Damn this was a good show. This was a damn good show. I’ve not slept much this week but I was totally alert for this show and I enjoyed it. I only feel bad that it comes in a week where everyone is pissed off with the E and this great show will just get passed by. Easily an 8/10 show as there was a bit of stuff here and there I wasn’t a fan of. Outside of that it was a good show and I don’t care what anyone says.

I was going to joke this was TNA’s writers but this show was good. This is now the WWE writers.

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