Home ▸ Impact ▸ TNA Impact 31/10/13

Tired, eating lunch, same shit, different week. Speaking of the same shit on a different week, it’s time for the TNA review!

We open Impact Wrestling with Dixie Carter. Shocking. She runs down AJ Styles and tells him that no one walks out on Dixie Carter. He doesn’t exist to her and he’s not the champion. She doesn’t want the title or her car back and suggests AJ is trick or treating as the TNA world champ. Dixie needs a real world champion and she sets up an 8 man tournament that’s going to last a few weeks. She introduces seven of the eight men who are going to be in that tournament and they get video packages. James Storm, Samoa Joe, Kurt Angle, Jeff Hardy, Austin Aries, Bobby Roode, and Chris Sabin. Bully Ray’s music hits as Dixie explains that there’s going to a gauntlet match to decide the eighth man.

Hogan’s really let himself go since getting released.

There’s a backstage segment of Bully beating the crap out of Anderson with a chain as he’s lead away by security. Bully puts Anderson down and says that he brought Anderson in and he’s going to take him out and warns Anderson to stay away.

Kenny Anderson there doing his best impression of Stevie Richards. If you can’t see it properly, Anderson is blurred and I checked several times to make sure he was the only thing blurred.

Garret is backstage and he’s asked for his opinion on Bully and Anderson. Bischoff says club business is club business but still goes to talk about what happened. Knux interrupts him and they go off to discuss match strategy.

Bromans vs Storm and Gunner
Storm and Gunner assault the Bromans before the match starts and the ass kicking continues in the ring as the match officially starts. Taz questions why Gunner, the Modern Day Viking, didn’t dress up as a viking for Halloween. It was a pretty good question if you ask me. Gunner and Storm dominate but the Bromans cheat to win with Robbie E grabbing Storm’s legs when he went for a suplex. Storm fell back, the other Broman fell on him, and Robbie hed Storm’s legs down so he couldn’t kick out.

Sting walks into Dixie’s office backstage and they chat about the world title match. Dixie says that she’s going to lift Sting’s ban on title shots for one night and he’s going to be the first man in the gauntlet. Sting says he’s never had a sense of entitlement and walks out of the room. Dixie asks him if that means yes. I wondered that too. I’d already had it spoiled for me that he was in there though. Guess it was a yes.

There’s a video package on the return of Abyss followed by the best segment every week; Kaz and Daniels! This week they’re dressed as Sherlock Holmes and looking for something. They cut an awesome promo, in awesome accents, about how they’re going to solve the mystery of Abyss as well as the mystery of “Just where is the TV title?” before Abyss can attack them from behind again.

You have permission to worship them.

One of the many great facials EC3 performed that night. COCK TALK!

Backstage with ODB. She says some stuff about her Knocked Up title and Bad Influence enter the scene increasing the sex appeal by about 451%. They joke about her tits and Daniels says ODB stands for “Overly Developed Bosoms”. Daniels asks her about Abyss and EY runs in and threatens them with Abyss. Or some shit.

Gauntlet Match
Sting comes out first of course. Kazarian comes out second. This is basically a mini royal rumble with a new man out every two minutes. Sting gets “You still got it!” chants as he attacks Kaz and we have a giant countdown on the titan tron. Or whatever Impact calls it. Anyway, Knux is the third man out and we come back from break with the fourth man coming out and it’s Eric Young. Young goes right after Kaz and then trades blows with Knux. He stops punching Knux in the corner to give Kaz a cross body, that was pretty cool. Kaz and Knux fail to eliminate Eric Young and the fith man comes out. It’s the other half of Bad Influence, Daniels. EY throws Kaz out as Daniels comes in and Daniels catches him in one of the most homoerotic things I’ve ever seen in wrasslin, and I watch wrasslin. Sting delivers a double suplex on Bad Influence for more “You still got it” chants.

AND I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUU

Pretty decent match, but I really wish they would make up their damn minds with Magnus. Heel? Face? Pushed? Buried? Decide already! Magnus acts like a babyface in the ring, posing and paying homage to Sting. Guess he’s trying to play it up like he still respects Sting and it was a case of “every man for himself.”

Kurt Angle is backstage and says that he’s medically cleared to compete.

Dixie is backstage and is asked for her opinion on Magnus. She congratulates him and says she’s looking forward to announcing the brackets for the tournament and teases something called the Wheel of Dixie.

ODB vs Gail Kim
This was only half way through the show. Damn it really dragged. Or I was just that tired. Taz implies he’s hammered and I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the crew were. ODB just dominates Gail Kim and Taz makes some highly inappropriate comments about ODB’s crotch. I think he really IS drunk. ODB hits a Fallaway Slam on the outside of the ring and Gail plants her with a dropkick after getting tossed back in the ring. Gail locks in the Figure Four on the corner like she always does but fails to get the three count. More wrasslin happens, including a Thesz Press by ODB, until Tapa distracts the ref and Gail Kim hits a Schoolboy for the win.

Bad Influence are backstage, saying they’ve solved the myster of Abyss and now they’re going to go to the ring and reveal all.

Bad Influence are indeed in the ring when we come back from commercial. Kaz insults a woman in the audience and they’re speaking in their amazing British accents again. They declare that Abyss is living under the ring and Daniels pulls up the apron and pulls out a pumpkin. They compare it to Abyss before saying that it isn’t Abyss, it’s a talentless vegetable. Kaz hits a Cheap Heat by saying that the pumpkin has more intelligence than the guys backstage and the crowd. EY comes out dressed as Joseph Park and does his whole thing. EY says there’s no scientific proof that Halloween is a real holiday but it’s “The Big Guy’s” favourite holiday and he’s been asked to deliver a message. EY attacks Bad Influence but the numbers catch up to him and he gets shredraped. Abyss comes out for the save and lays waste to Bad Influence.

Dixie is backstage with Sabin and Hardy. Dixie introduces the Wheel of Dixie. It’s basically the RAW Roulette wheel. Hardy and Sabin is now going to be a Full Metal Mayhem match.

I prefer Fullmetal Alchemist to Full Metal Mayhem but I’ll take what I can get.

Bobby Roode vs Kurt Angle
There’s some very vocal “USA!” chants at the start of the match and I’m pretty surprised by how hot the crowd still is. I guess even the crowd is wasted. The guys chain wrestle and try and hit their submissions on eachother and fail. Things go outside the ring and we go to commercial. Things are back in the ring when we come back and Roode is using submissions to wear Angle down. Angle breaks out of it with a triple suplex and even went for a fourth one but Roode fought out of it. Angle hits another triple German Suplex. I was surprised that Taz didn’t say something racist but he still got a cheap joke in saying that the last time he saw that many Germans was when he was in Berlin. Roode fights out of an Ankle Lock and gets a Crossface on. Angle manages to reverse it into an Ankle Lock. That was pretty awesome. Even more awesome was when Roode spun it into another Crossface. That was a thing of beauty. Someone needs to teach Roode the Canadian Destroyer so he can do a Destroyer into a Crossface. Angle slides around and turns it into an Angle Slam for a two count. The straps come down and Angle locks in one more Ankle Lock. Roode counters it into a pin for a two count and hits something described by Taz as a “Death Valley Driver into a Cutter.”

Yes you are Bobby Roode and Kurt Angle. Yes you are.

Angle puts another Ankle lock on and turns it into a Grapevine. Roode grabs the rope for the break and we get a very very vocal “TNA!” chant. There’s still life in TNA folks. Both guys end up laid out in the middle of the ring and the commentators play up how Angle is twitching while the ref counts for a double count out. After Roode gets up at a count of seven the ref finally throws the match and calls for the bell. Roode wins by ref stoppage as Kurt continues to twitch. I hope this was a work. If it was it was a heck of a job. The crowd went silent and Roode looked concerned too. The show goes off the air to Angle chants as he gets medical attention.

TNA LIVES!

It was a pretty decent show overall. The crowd were amazing which is pretty unheard of for a taped show. I’m interested in this tournament to crown a new champion and even Sting being in the gauntlet match made sense. It was also nice to see a wrasslin show end with an actual wrasslin main event. Easily a 7/10.

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