Home ▸ Impact ▸ TNA Impact 5/12/13

I think I’ve actually worked out how to do a review now. It only took five years.

The show starts with Kurt Angle coming out to the ring after a pretty sweet looking video package about the semi finals. He says he’s thankful for his health and the fans who are supporting him on his quest to the TNA hall of fame and the tournament is a way for him to prove himself. He calls out Magnus and asks him what happened last week. The short answer is that he hurt his knee. Angle says that champions fight hurt and his knee is injured too. He asks Magnus if he really has the heart of a champion. Magnus says that he’s hungry and he does have heart. He’s going to prove it too. Angle says that if Magnus wants to be champ, he has to go through him and Bobby Roode comes out. In his sparkly robe too, so maybe he should come out.

Roode says he knows what it’s like to be a champion and brings up his loss when Hogan said “Nah, he’s not ready.” To be a champ you need a killer instinct and now he, Roode, has that. He brings up James Storm to sell his tables match against Hardy. He tells Magnus that he’ll never be a world champion and Jeff Hardy comes out. It’s been a while. Hardy grabs a table from the stage and drags it down the ramp. Hardy says some shit about creatures. I think he’s high again.

Coming up on an all new Total Divas; John Cena is pregnant but which Bella twin is the father?

Jeff Hardy vs Bobby Roode in a tables match
TNA were actually running a live Q and A on a second screen experience while this match was on. Guess which one I wish I had seen? I do actually wish I had seen it live so I could get in on that. The match was pretty good though. I harp on Hardy because of his personal problems but I am, unfortunately, a fan of his in ring style. Give him someone like Roode too and you’ll have yourself a good match. It ended pretty abruptly though. Hardy and Roode were fighting on the apron next to a table outside and both of them fell through the table at the same time. They went to break selling that there would be a photo finish or something.

When they get back from break they show a replay of what happened during the break. Two referees argued with eachother and Hebner, the head ref, came out to make a final decision. He ruled that because both men went through at the same time, the match will continue. So this goes on. I have to say I liked that little bit. Not quite a fan of Roode crotching Hardy with a front suplex instead of putting him through the table that was right in front of him. Especially after it lead to Hardy kicking Roode off the apron, and through a table. The match ends for real this time. Hardy goes through to the finals.

Jeff Hardy must have some zombies. He used to walk to the ring like one.

There’s an Impact 365 video with EC3 who has an amazing segue. The make up girl gets stuff on his lips and he says “The face, not the lips. They’re chapped. You know what really chaps my hide? The so called legends in the TNA locker room.” He says he’s going to challenge one of the greatest of all time this week on Impact.

There’s another video with Dixie Carter. She’s recieved an email from the Anonymous RAW GM. Turns out it was AJ Styles’s agent. Apparently Dixie is going to get her belt back. The rest of that was painful.

EC3 vs The Greatest Of All Time
It’s not Shark Boy or Curry Man so it can’t be the greatest talent TNA has. He talks up his opponent, saying that he’s been in the ring with the likes of Andre, Hogan, and Bret Hart. Tonight his hand picked opponent is………EARL HEBNER! Technically everything he said about him was right. Hebnar says that he’s not a wrassler, he’s a ref, and the match won’t happen. EC3 cuts a promo about how he’s an entitled asshole and because Earl is an employee he’s got no choice. There’s a “We want Shark Boy” chant. To make things even heelier they bring out Earl’s son to ref the match. He’s dragged out by Rockstar Spud too. I love that guy. EC3 says that Earl is going to lay down for him while Bryan, his son, counts the one two three. Earl refuses and EC3 basically says he’ll kill him and then Earl lays down like a good little bitch. EC3 pins Earl with one finger and makes Bryan roll Earl out the ring. That was absolutely amazing. People need to watch this to learn how to be a heel. EC3 didn’t hit one cheap pop and had the entire audience hating him.

“I got three fingers into her once”

There’s a video package on Joseph Abyss. That was pretty awesome too. I wonder if they have some new techies.

Bad Influence are backstage as part of the Impact365 stuff. They went on a roadtrip that had surprising results and had some photos. Joseph Park has had an affair with Clair Lynch and now she’s pregnant with the anti-Christ.

Then we got a video where Christie Hemme gets date raped by that Shaw guy from last week. What he actually did was threaten to kill the watier who looked at Hemme.

One more video package on AJ running out of the company with the title.

Dixie is on the phone and her assistant tells her there’s a delivery for her. It’s flowers from a fan. I bet she bought herself flowers.

Bobby Roode is backstage and he’s pissed off because he’s out of a wrestling tournament because he fell through a table. That’s not real wrasslin!

Sting is shown walking into the arena. Screw wrestling matches, we have backstage segments to show!

Speaking of backstage segments, Dixie is backstage with some of the talent. It’s the holiday season and she has something better than the wheel of Dixie. It’s called Feast Or Fired. She has four money in the bank briefcases, all of them are numbered too. One has a world title match in it (nullifying this whole tournament thing), one has a tag team championship match in it, one of them has an X-Division match in it, and one of them will end with them being fired.

‘Nuff said.

Bad Influence make their way out to the ring. Well, even if we’re not getting matches at least we’re getting Bad Influence. Neither Kaz or Daniels have enough hair to have been Curry Man last week. It was probably TJ Perkins. Or a mask that had hair attached. The fans may have been pissed off at them for what they did to Park, but it’s alright. They have the truth about Park and they’re going to reveal it now. Right after Joseph Abyss comes out. Which he does. He tells Bad Influence they just need to stop already. He tells them they’ve won and maybe he never should have been in Impact wrestling. Maybe he is just an attorney. That’s when Kaz speaks up. Their evidence is about Park being an attorney. Park tears up the evidence before they can reveal Claire Lynch’s pregnancy test. Kaz says it doesn’t matter he tore up the envelope as he gave all the evidence to the boys in the back and it’s going to be shown on screen. The truth is here, and it’s an Impact 365 video.

Bad Influence are in Chicago, and in the actual law offices of Park, Park and Park. He’s been missing since they dumped blood on him and they want to find him. They find a receptionist who points them to suite something or other. It’s Joseph Park’s office apparently. Except it’s empty. There’s pretty much nothing there. They go back to the receptionist who tells them that the office IS abandoned and Park, Park and Park hasn’t existed for thirteen years. Ooooh, creepy.

2Spooky4Me

Now the question is, what has Park been doing for thirteen years. I’m not sure, but my guess is he’s been Abyss for 13 years. Park asks them to leave him alone and tries to walk out, but Bad Influence won’t let him. Kaz actually spits in his face before calling him a liar. They have a tiny beatdown before Eric Young comes out to save Park. EY tells them if they keep knocking on the devil’s door, the devil’s gonna answer. He sets up a tag match against Bad Influence for next week.

Backstage again with Magnus and Sting. Sting says he’s proud of Magnus and Magnus repeats what he said to Angle. The Mafia is on the shelf, but he’s still got respect. Sting asks Magnus if people felt that he was the entitled person that Sting said he was going to go after. I actually don’t remember people saying that. I thought we all agreed it was EC3. Magnus says that rumours and wrestling are like peanut butter and jelly. He’s dead to me now. Dead to me. We don’t have peanut butter and jelly. He never took the rumours seriously and asks Sting if he should have. Sting dodges the question, basically asking Magnus if he felt entitled, then walks out the locker room after wishing Magnus luck.

A delivery man is here again. Rockstar Spud tells a guy to go wait for him and then calls him a muppet. I love this guy.

Eleven video packages and in ring segments later we finally get a match! The bad news Barret is that it’s The Bromanz.

The more you know

Bromanz vs James Storm and Gunner
Apparently James Storm once ripped a man’s eye out in a bar fight. Here’s hoping for a repeat. If I can even bring myself to watch this match. Zema Ion hit his damn air horn during the match. I hope he’s still injured. That’s the only excuse for this stuff. The match itself isn’t bad though. Bromanz ARE a good tag team, they’re just treated like jobbers. Storm and Gunner are a pretty solid tag team too. I got too fed up of the air horn and Taz doing it on commentary too. Storm hit the Last Call superkick but Robbie E spat beer in Gunner’s face. Gunner attacked Robbie and the ref was too busy trying to seperate them to count the pinfall. Gunner fought the ref off too for the DQ. Storm and Gunner argue post match to tease more dissension.

Sting is backstage. Because Lord knows we haven’t had enough backstage segments. Rockstar Spud stops him from going into Kurt Angle’s locker room. He asks Sting what his relationship with Kurt is, and then asks Sting who he is. Sting actually said “I’m Sting, I’m sure you’ve heard my albums.” Oh Sting. I love The Police. Spud says that he’s the chief of staff and Sting jokes that he’s the assistant in charge of the assistants. Spud finally realises who Sting actually is and says he didn’t recognise him without the face paint. That actually happened to me a few times. Spud brings up how Sting came up short in the tournament, and Sting laughs at how short Spud is. Spud informs Sting that Dixie wants him to leave, and Sting mocks Dixie’s accent, saying she can ask him to leave herself. Spud leaves when he’s told the package is finally here. Sting sums it up best when he shouts “What’s going on around here?!” and then just walks away. He must really have not wanted to talk to Angle much.

I think Sting is in love.

Another 365 video because, fuck it, we have time to kill. Gail Kim is with her actual boyfriend, or her dad, I’m not sure. He kinda looks like an old Batista. JB asks Gail for her opinion on the open challenge. She runs down her competition, as does her boyfriend/dad. Then they quickly cut to another 365 video where Sabin is with Velvet Sky and halfway through a sentence. Loser. I tune out because if they don’t care, then neither do I.

Gail Kim vs Laura Dennis
It’s Gail Kim vs the Canadian AJ Lee. Gail Kim beats the malnourishment out of her. She even pulled her up after a two count to beat her some more. Canadian AJ gets some offense in but ultimately loses. Post match they attack Canadian AJ some more and ODB runs out for the save. ODB takes out both Tapa and Gail. Tapa grabs her by the throat but Gail seperates them and walks out with Tapa.

AJ is so crazy she thinks she’s a Canadian wrestler.

Yep, you guessed it, a backstage segment. Dixie asks Spud where her package is and is pretty happy with his answer. She tells Spud to bring it to her right now.

Magnus vs Kurt Angle in a Last Man Standing match
I feel bad for these two because I’m burnt out by this point. I want to give these guys all I have but I can’t because, damn, I’m tired. I’ll say it was good booking though given the story they’ve been selling with Angle recently that he goes down and doesn’t get back up. Or it would be if it wasn’t for him fighting off four guys last week. They have some good psychology too. There’s a lot of rest holds and grappling but it makes sense in a match like this. You have to wear your opponent down and hey, submissions do that. I’d like to see these guys in a submission match too. Magnus has really gotten that Clover Leaf over.

Yes, we actually got a backstage segment DURING A MATCH. They cut to break in the match and then Dixie is in her office with Spud and a large box. Presumably Dixie’s package.

Back properly the match is still going on. Taz gets a message on commentary from Rockstar Spud saying that after the match, Dixie is going to present her world title to, well, the world. I am just checking out at this point. I want to care, I really do, but you don’t put a segment in the middle of a match. It just takes you out of everything. Angle hit a badass looking Spear though and the commentators sell that he tweaked his neck on impact. Of course he did, that’s the name of the show. Magnus hits the running elbow from the apron he hit last week and the commentators bring up that he didn’t injure himself this time. I think they were trying to say that he faked an injury last week but if you ask me it just means he learned how to do the move properly. Angle

tosses Magnus off (cock talk!) for a nine count. Angle misses a Moonsault but gets up after four. Thought they might try and sell that Angle took himself out. Again. The ref gets taken out and Angle hits an Angle Slam. Roode comes out and knocks Angle down and out with whatever he calls his version of the AA. Magnus is still down and it’s brought up he was down for about a 17 count by that point. Angle tries to get up but can’t and Magnus is the winner by Roode. Post match Roode runs into the ring and beats on Angle some more. Hardy comes out for the save and knocks Roode out the ring. I’ll say they surprised me. I thought it was inevitably building up to Angle vs Roode and Angle getting the belt. Magnus shakes Hardy’s hand to officially end my pain.

Still wanna take a ride on the Dixie Train?

Except the pain isn’t over, because Dixie is still backstage. Can someone kick her out the arena already? They finally open the box and of course it’s not the title. It’s a crappy little replica. I hope that’s not the one they sell in their shop. Dixie goes nuts and says that the game is on. There’s a Friends of AJ package where he says that she has something to put on her paper champion now. He tells Dixie that if she wants her belt, she can go down to Georgia to get it. I guess we know the real reason the Devil went down to Georgia now. Anyway, that’s the show.

My overall thoughts are that it was actually a good show. The in ring stuff was great and so were a lot of the videos and such. They were just too damn many of them and not all of them were needed. All in all though, as I said, a good show. Much better than RAW. Much shorter too.

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