TNA Impact! – 3/4/10

It was a sad, but happy day for TNA.  As of yesterday, TNA is no longer on Thursday nights, but the good news is that we’re going to get a Monday Night War again!  A lot of what went down last night was build up for Monday’s big LIVE show.  Here’s what went down:

Video Package: Ric Flair & AJ Styles respond to Hulk Hogan giving Abyss the Hall of Fame ring and decide to attack them, leaving The Hulkster bloody in the process.

Styles and Flair come to the ring with four beautiful women.  Flair takes the mic, “We’ve had a week to think about things, and Hulkster we want to apologize and give back to TNA…”

• Hulk Hogan and Abyss come out to the ring.
• Flair offers to “set Hogan up” and points at his ladies saying that he could have one of them or all four of them if he wanted.
• Hogan responds, “I don’t need to bum a cigarette off you.  I don’t need you to buy me a drink.  I don’t need you to give me a hit of Viagra brother.  I promised I wouldn’t lace up my boots up, but after what you did to me last week, everything has changed.  In four days, Hulk Hogan and Abyss take you to school… The only thing left to say is, what are you gonna do…”
• Abyss finishes the sentence, “When Hulk Hogan and Abyss-a-mania runs wild on you!”
• Flair jumps on mic again, “Two years ago, I retired left on the highest possible point, but I’ll be glad to do something I’ve never done, beat you on national television.”
• AJ chimes in, “When you (Hulk) wrestled, you were king.  Now I’m king.  I’m the champ… all I’m saying is pump the brakes!”
• Styles and Flair go to leave and are interrupted by Eric Bischoff who tells AJ to not go anywhere because he’s got business to take care of… AJ will defend his title in a Four Corners Match against Abyss, D’Angelo Dinero & Desmond Wolfe.”

Backstage: Jeremy Borash is with Desmond Wolfe & Chelsea.  Wolfe responds to the announcement, “Someone closes a door on me, I’ll kick it down… tonight, I don’t need to beat the man to be the man!”

• Chelsea then asks Desmond for the “pretty ring” that Abyss has.  Wolfe says to her, “consider it done!”

Backstage: Eric Bischoff is on the phone with someone and he criticizes their idea for wanting to start a football league to compete against the NFL!

• Jeff Jarrett enters.  Bischoff beats around the bush about TNA business with Jarrett, but decides that Jarrett is the right man for the job to “get this company flowing again…”  Bischoff hands him a plunger and tells him to go clean the men’s room.
• Jarrett says, “Bring it on Bischoff!”

Four Way Non-Title Match
Motor City Machine Guns (Chris Sabin & Alex Shelly) vs. Generation Me (Max & Jeremy Buck) vs. Beer Money Inc. (Robert Roode & James Storm) vs. Matt Morgan & Hernandez
WINNERS: Beer Money Inc. via pin fall after Storm hit the last call on Morgan and Roode got the pin

Backstage: Sean Morley and Slick Johnson in Bischoff’s office.  Eric says to them, “I’ve been pushing Jeff Jarrett and I forgot to tell him he’s got a match tonight.  Falls count anywhere, no DQ.  Jeff Jarrett vs. Sean Morley.  You can find him in the men’s room… finish this for me!”

Backstage: Kurt Angle enters the office and needs to talk to Hulk Hogan.  He asks Hogan to let him take care of Flair and Styles.  “You’re too important to go out there.  You stay here and do your job, and I’ll go out there and do mine!”

• Hogan responds, “I appreciate it, but this is my last shot… I need to earn this respect for myself!”

Video Package: Mick Foley‘s Etiquette School – Part 1

Backstage: Sean Morley and Slick Johnson reach the men’s room.  Slick makes a bell sound and Morley busts into the  restroom to attack Jeff Jarrett.

Falls Count Anywhere Match
Sean Morley vs. Jeff Jarrett
WINNER: Sean Morley via pin fall

• Slammed Jarrett’s shoulder with the door multiple times.

Backstage: Christy Hemme is with “The Pope” D’Angelo Dinero.  He says, “They tried to take the Pope out, but Pope has returned…  Pope is going to leave the Impact Zone with the TNA World Title!”

Video Package: The drama going on within the ranks of The British Invasion.

Non-Title Match
Doug Williams (X-Division Champion) vs. Big Rob Terry (Global Champion)
WINNER: Big Rob via pin fall after hitting a spine buster

• After the match, Brutus Magnus came out and had a two on one with Williams to beat down Big Rob.

Backstage:  Doctor working on Jarrett’s shoulder when Bischoff sneaks in to the room.  Jarrett’s pissed at him, “What are you doing?  Let’s get back to business.  No more game!  I’m sick of your crap!”

• Bischoff responds, “You want a match in a ring?  I hope you’re a quick healer because I’m going to give it to you tonight.  Get ready!”

Video Package: Mick Foley’s Etiquette School – Part 2

Video Package: Mr. Anderson vs. Kurt Angle from Against All Odds when Anderson bloodied Angle with his own Warrior Medal, and the war that has erupted since then.

Kurt Angle’s music hits, but out of the tunnel comes Anderson dressed like Angle in a bald cap, red/white/blue singlet, and a necklace with a sheet pan attached to look like the medal that said “loser.”  He takes the mic and mocks Angle some more calling him, “The most injury prone wrestler in the world… I think I broke my neck for the seventeenth time!”  He then makes a comment about all the things he said about supporting the troops was to make the crowd feel bad for him.

• Angle comes out pissed and a melee ensues.  At the end of it all, Anderson hit Angle with his own trademark Angle Slam and steals the Warrior Medal.

Backstage:  Abyss runs into Hulk Hogan in the hall wanting to talk to him.  “I didn’t have a good childhood.  My mother never let me watch TV, but I snuck up those stairs to see you Hulk.  I begged her to take me, and she surprised me once.  She bought me a ticket and took me… Last week, you’re bloody and running down your face and onto my scars.  You gave me this ring.  I have your power.  I can do this on my own.”

• Hulk tells him, “You and I are one.  We’re family.  What happened out there wasn’t your fault… Now you have the power.  You’re going to protect me… All those people who believe in me, believe in you!”

Video Package: The history of The Beautiful People and the drama that has ensued over the past few months since Angelina Love‘s return.

• Video of earlier in the day when The Beautiful People attacked her during a photo shoot with a belt.

Angelina Love hits the ring and calls out Velvet Sky who comes to greet her.  Melee ensues between the two ladies.  Angelina gets the best of the encounter until Madison Rayne & Lacey Von Erich come out and the numbers game gets the best of her.

Backstage:  In the office, Bubba The Love Sponge confronts Hulk about his match next week.  “People won’t tell you what you need to hear… you have the best mind in the industry, don’t end up in a wheelchair.”

• Hogan tells him, “After what I’ve been through, I’ve got one shot… The one thing that ever loved me was this business.”
• Bubba responds, “What else do you have to prove?  Don’t be a mark for yourself.  You don’t need to wrestle!”

Video Package: Mick Foley’s Etiquette School – Part 3

Video Package: The conflict between former “band-mates,” Kevin Nash, Scott Hall & Sean Waltman.

Tomko vs. Jeff Jarrett
Winner: Jeff Jarrett via sunset flip pin fall

• Bischoff shown backstage pissed off!

Backstage:  Bischoff talking with Hogan about the match next week, expressing his concern.  Hogan responds to him, “You told me if push came to shove you’d stand by me… If I don’t make this right there’s no tomorrow.  They punked me out when they punked Abyss out!”

TNA World Title Match
Desmond Wolfe with Chelsea vs. Abyss vs. “Pope” D’Angelo Dinero vs. AJ Styles with Ric Flair (Champion)
WINNER: AJ Styles due to referee stoppage when Pope refused to tap to the Figure Four with a torn Achilles tendon

• After the match, a three on one beat down (Styles, Flair & Wolfe) ensues on Pope and Abyss jumps back in the ring to save him.
• Flair goes under the ring and grabs the barb wire baseball bat and hits Abyss from behind.  Three on one against Abyss now.
• Hulk Hogan comes to ring.  Flair tries to hit him with the bat, but Hogan counters and takes the bat.  He hits Flair with it and busts him wide open!  Referees and security are forced to break things up.
• Hogan takes the mic, “That’s an example of what happens in four days!”

QUICK THOUGHTS:

The tag team match at the beginning of the show was such a waste.  Now hear me out.  The reason I say that is because TNA doesn’t give them enough time to really do anything.  The Guns got their one spot.  Gen Me got their one spot.  Hernandez and Morgan got theirs and then Beer Money got the win.  Match over in like eight minutes.  Seriously… In a four team tag match you only go eight minutes.  I’ve seen Gen Me go 20 minutes plus in a ROH main event!  Let the boys go out there and perform!  Don’t handcuff them with a BS time limit.  If you give quality matches on the weekly programming, you’ll get more people buying PPVs to see the HIGHEST quality matches!

Again, Anderson/Angle keeps me interested.  I was hoping that Angle would exact some revenge, but it ended up being Anderson who got the upper hand.

I’m sick of the Jeff Jarret/Eric Bischoff angle they’re doing.  We’ve seen the boss feud with his employee before, and Jeff Jarret is NOT Stone Cold Steve Austin.  This is very boring and I wish that it would go away!

The Mick Foley Etiquette School was a waste of time.  It was just a way for Foley to crack jokes at some lady who was teaching him about manners.  It wasted a good five minutes or so of programming.

Well that was a very odd sight… seeing Hulk Hogan swinging a barb wire baseball bat.  Never thought I’d ever see that one!  I hope that next week’s main event tag team match between Flair/Styles and Hogan/Abyss isn’t a cluster f**k of a match!  I know that they’re doing it for the ratings, but I’ve been a Hulkamaniac since I was little and I really don’t want to see this match up.  I pray that it’s just bearable!

I want to leave you with this thought.  TNA has a PPV coming up this month called Destination X.  It’s an all X-Division PPV.  Did you even know that?  If you didn’t, I understand.  TNA is dropping the ball when it comes to this PPV.  Its only two weeks away and they really haven’t hyped it up at all!  Shame on you TNA!  This could be the biggest PPV of the year because there are fans that like watching the X-Division guys fly around the ring in their spot fest matches!  I’m one of them!  I really hope that the next couple of episodes we actually get to see a promo or a card listing for it.  As of right now, I think there may be only one match set and that’s Doug Williams defending the X-Division Title against Kazarian.  It’s reasons like this why my passion for TNA is slowly dying, and it’s a damn shame!