Home ▸ Impact ▸ When AJ Styles Attacks – iMPACT, 6/19/08

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve only seen half of last night’s iMPACT.  Not the first half.  Not the second half.  The middle half.  I woke up late again, this time around 9:30, got straight out of bed and tuned into Spike TV.  Then left around 10:30.  So I literally only watched half of iMPACT, and I suppose I should really only opine on what I managed to catch.  However, taking liberties with his wording from the message boards on WorldWrestlingInsanity.com, I’ll be using Fritz Stephey’s real-time iMPACT coverage to form my assessment of the show.  Fritz actually said I could use his column, but then this article wouldn’t be a BWF exclusive like everything else on here, now would it?

Anyways, I’m going to skip the opening rant about stupid things on the show, mostly because I didn’t really watch enough of it to form a decent opinion.  So a quick review, and thoughts on the show, after the jump!

The show really kind of centered on Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt in a way, since they had at least three segments that I know of, including the opening segment, with Lethal waiting at the… ugh… Pink Taco, where Lethal had his bachelor party for Dutt.  While he’s waiting, Mike Tenay and Don West have a wrestling match to call, as BG James took on Booker T in our opening contest.  Booker got the win.  Afterwards, Jeremy Borash is standing by with Samoa Joe and Kevin Nash.  Last week, Nash told Joe he knew he couldn’t beat Booker.  Joe challenged Booker T to a match anyway (and for some bizarre reason, gave him the key to his locker room, because he “won’t be needing it.”  This week, Joe calls Nash “Oz” (hooray for an ancient WCW reference!) and tells him that if he can’t beat Booker T, everything he says is complete BS.

I’m really upset that I overslept, and I absolutely have to catch the replay on Saturday night, because in a World X Cup preview, Davairi teamed with “Textbook” Tyson Dux to take on the Motor City Machine Guns.  If you heard the podcast yesterday, you may recall that I used to watch Dux wrestle in NeoSpirit Pro Wrestling in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada and that I was proud of him for making it to TNA.  Then I go and miss his debut.  Anyways, this match was half broadcast in split screen, as AJ Styles was apparently beating up Tomko backstage somewhere.  Team TNA picked up the win here.

Back from break, and I’ve now tuned in to the show.  AJ Styles was beating up Kurt Angle on a soundstage somewhere.

A video package promoting Gail Kim aired, which is odd considering that she’s one of the top female wrestlers in TNA already.  The WWE was mentioned at least three times, including Gail winning the Women’s title on her first night with the company.  This is followed by an interview with Karen Angle via satellite.  She says she never did anything with AJ Styles.

After a break, we see clips of James Storm, Robert Roode, and Jacqueline whiping the hide off of the backs of Homicide, Hernandez, and Hector Guerrero.  Jim Cornette says that the footage led to an interesting idea from LAX, who come to the ring.  They want a fans revenge strap match – which means the fans get straps and get to whip Roode and Storm if they try to get out of the ring.  Hector Guerrero signs the contract for LAX, and Cornette invites Roode and Storm to come out to do the same.  They get Jacqueline instead.  She tells Cornette “one’s busy with his business and the other’s a drunk, I’m not their babysitter.”  Salinas tries to go after her, but is held back by LAX and Jim Cornette.  A match between the two of them is made for later in the night.  Before they could even leave the ring, JB comes out with Awesome Kong and tells us that it’s time for Kong to take on a fan.

Back from break, the selection for Kong’s lunch opponent is narrowed down to two.  Kong picks Taylor, who was apparently in the WWE Developmental program for a while though I’m not sure who she is.  She put up a pretty decent fight, but in the end, Kong picked up the win.

Team 3D, who were scheduled to take on Christian Cage and Rhino, need a new opponent.  Because they just hit the 3-D on Rhino through a table backstage.

Sonjay Dutt is in the iMPACT Zone.  JB asks him why, because he’s supposed to be at the… :groan:… Pink Taco with Jay Lethal.  Dutt says that Val is in love with him, and that he’s going over to have a chat with Black Machismo.

Kaz took on the Russian guy from last week, Alex Koslov.  Koslov is absolutely impressive, I really enjoyed watching this match.  In the end, Metalli-Kaz picked up the win with the Wave of the Future.

Back at the… You know what, I’m not going to say it.  It’s too stupid.  Back at the bar, Lethal and Dutt go at it, hitting each other with drums, among other things.  The Guru escapes.

This is where I got up and stopped watching the show – after the introductions of Salinas and Jacqueline for their match.  It benefited me slightly, however, to miss this match, because Fritz missed it too.  He asked for someboedy to tell him what happened because he was on an important call, and I told him that I missed it – and got quoted in his Real-Time review on World Wrestling Insanity.  Fellow WWI forum poster JohnnyCraze didn’t miss it though, and told us that Jacqueline made Salinas submit, and then took a belt out from under her shirt and started whipping Salinas with it.  I agree with Fritz on this one:  “That sounds absolutely ridiculous…it must be true. (Random Thought: Why would you hide a belt under your shirt? Wouldn’t you just…WEAR IT!? Silly TNA).”

Team 3D know who Christian’s new partner is.  So does everybody else.  It’s AJ Styles, and Team 3D threaten to break his neck for sleeping with Karen.

Back from break, it’s Christian and AJ taking on Team 3D.  Styles and Cage get the win here, and the way Fritz tells it, it sounds like a pretty good match.  MMA fighter Frank Trigg comes out to argue with Cage and Styles, when Angle attacks AJ, locking him in the Ankle Lock, and telling AJ that if he’s looking for him, he just found him.

What I saw of it was pretty good, it was entertaining, with no stupid crap like having an American Idol reject on the show or a NASCAR driver.  The rest of it sounded like it was pretty good as well, but that could just be that Fritz is a great storyteller.  I’ll actually make an attempt to watch the replay on Saturday night just to get a better idea of how good the show was, but for now, I think it was a great episode of a normally lackluster show.

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