TNA Impact – 6/3/10

TNA Impact is back on the air, and we’ve got new rivalries, new alliances, but still more questions.  Would we get our answers from The Icon?  Would we see someone’s true colors?  Would we see the destruction of a golden alliance?  Find out right here, right now:

Video Package: The bizarre relationship between Jeff Hardy & Mr. Anderson.  Also, the madness that has overcome Sting in his return to TNA.

Video Package: Jay Lethal gets under Ric Flair‘s skin while Kazarian & AJ Styles vie for Flair’s attention like two little boys who want to impress their dad.

Sting comes out to the ring, “Not everything is as it seems… If you’ve followed my career, I’ve been in this place before… There is meaning behind my actions, and they will be known to the people involved… Rob Van Dam, you’re in the way.  At Slammiversary, the vail will be pulled off of everyone’s eyes around here…”

• Interrupted by a video package of Sting attacking people… Eric Bischoff walks to the top of the entrance ramp with his chesty assistant, Ms. Tessmacher.  “Sting, you talk about smoke and mirrors, and true colors… You’re not the man I thought I knew… You’re just a mand hiding behind a mask, in the rafters avoiding the truth.  Truth is you’re not being honest… Whatever’s going on inside you, that’s your problem… We put these fans first…”  Bischoff then immediately puts Sting in a match with Samoa Joe, who’s standing right behind him.

Sting vs. Samoa Joe
WINNER: No Contest as Matt Morgan came down and attacked Joe ten seconds into the match.

• Post match, RVD comes to help Joe, attacks Morgan.  Sting bails out.
• Eric Bischoff wants to make a match later for them.  Tag team style, Sting & Morgan vs. Joe & RVD.
• RVD offers that they should make it a 4-way match.  Bischoff hesitates about it.
• Hulk Hogan comes to the ramp and says, “Since you won the TNA Title, you’ve raised the bar… when you’re the champ, you’ve got some stroke… you’ve got your 4-way!”

Backstage: Christy Hemme is in locker room with AJ Styles who’s upset because he just found out about his match with Jay Lethal and Kazarian.

• Ric Flair enters.  AJ asks why he didn’t let him know about the match.
• Enter Kazarian who thanks Flair for taking an interest in him and says that he’s going to make Ric proud.  Kaz also thanks him for the fancy watch Ric gave him and they leave the room.
• AJ looks like he’s really upset about this budding friendship.

Rosey Lotta Love vs. Roxxi
WINNER: Roxxi via small package pin fall

• Mid match, Madison Rayne hit Roxxi with the Knockout’s Title when ref wasn’t looking.  She told Rosey to pin Roxxi, but hesitated to do so.  It allowed Roxxi to get the win.
• Post match, Madison reads Rosey the riot act, and Rosey decides to fight back and hit Madison with a spine buster.
• Post match interview with Jeremy Borash, Rosey says, “The Beautiful People think they can take us out one ugly person at a time, well Rosey Lotta Love is big, bad, and certainly beautiful.”  She then plants a kiss on JB.

AJ Styles with Ric Flair vs. Jay Lethal vs. Kazarian
WINNER: Lethal via pin fall roll up while Kaz & Styles were arguing

• Post match, Flair reams AJ for losing to Lethal, and tells him to go home and regroup because he’s not in Flair’s good graces right now.
• AJ walks up the ramp and Kurt Angle‘s music hits.  He rises up from the entrance ramp and cuts AJ off.  AJ jaws at him for a moment then walks by.  Angle walks to the ring.

After commercial, Kurt is in the ring with Flair and Kazarian.  Angle wants to show proper respect to Kaz before destroying him.  Kaz is #10 on the Top Ten Contenders list, and Angle wants to work his way up from the bottom.  He tells Kaz, “At Slammiversary, your ass is mine!”

• Flair doesn’t like the fact that Angle walked by him.  Flair reminisces about how he felt about Angle in the past, even asking Kurt to mentor his son in amateur wrestling, but now Kurt’s not an amateur.  This is pro wrestling, where Ric Flair is god, and believes that respect should always be coming his way…  Flair asks Angle to hold the rope for him… Kurt is reluctant to do so, but then holds the rope.  He then pushes Flair from behind off the entrance ramp.
• Kaz jumps Angle from behind and brings the action back to the ring.  Angle turns things around and Kaz bails out.

Backstage: Matt Morgan catching up with Sting trying to plot a way for them to work together in the 4-way.  Sting ignores him.

Backstage: AJ Styles is outside of the Impact Zone and he’s pissed off.  He figures now that he’s got to essentially kill Jay Lethal to win Flair over, and goes to challenge him at Slammiversary.

Video Package: Mr. Anderson’s tranformation since his lost to Jeff Hardy at Sacrifice.  Hardy finally comes around to trust/respect Anderson.

Christy Hemmy in ring introduces Mr. Anderson who’s got a big announcement for Slammiversary.  Anderson comes to the ring.  He starts to make the announcement, but gets distracted by Christy’s assets.  He apologizes and calls himself an asshole, and convinces the crowd they’re all assholes too because they were hoping Christy had a wardrobe malfunction too…  Anderson finally gets around to the big announcement and it’s that he and Hardy will be teaming up to take on Beer Money Inc.

• Hardy to the ring who says, “Anderson is one of the funniest assholes he’s ever met, plus he’s one of the toughest SOBs other than me.”
• Interrupted by Beer Money.  Robert Roode takes the mic, “How cute, it’s TNA’s newest BFFs… What do either of you know about tag team wrestling..?  (Jeff your brother carried you and you guys sucked anyways)  Tag team wrestling is about being like brothers, putting egos aside, and the team first… What makes you think you can step in the same ring as Beer Money at Slammiversary?
• Anderson responds, “Why is your hair always wet, and why do you (James Storm) always wear sunglasses inside?
• Storm takes exception and a brawl breaks out until security intervenes.

James Storm vs. Jeff Hardy
WINNER: Hardy via pin fall after hitting the Swanton

• Mid match, Storm missed a chair shot and it ricocheted off the rope and back into his face.

Robert Roode vs. Mr. Anderson
WINNER: Roode via pin fall with the ropes hooked

• Post match, Anderson calls for the ceiling mic, “It just seems to me that the only way to meat me is through some tomfoolery.  Maybe that’s because I’m no mere mortal, I’m Mr. Anderson (ANDERSON!).

Backstage: Doug Williams talks about the X-Division and what real wrestling is.  He says that he’s going to re-educate the X-Division.

Video Package: Clips on the rivalries between Abyss & Desmond Wolfe, as well as Rob Terry & Orlando Jordan.

Desmond Wolfe & Orlando Jordan vs. Rob Terry & Abyss with Chelsea
WINNERS: Terry/Abyss via pin fall after Terry hit the Freak Buster on OJ

Video Package: The downfall of the relationship between Jesse Neal and Brother Ray.  Brother Devon responds to the situation saying he’s got to get between the two.

Backstage: Jesse Neal is left lying out cold with no one around.

Non-Title Match
Matt Morgan vs. Sting vs. Samoa Joe vs. Rob Van Dam
WINNER: RVD via pin fall after hitting the Five Star Frog Splash on Morgan

• Mid match, Morgan stops and notices Hernandez, his former partner that he injured, in the crowd.  Joe attacks him from behind and then hits the Muscle Buster on him.  RVD takes out Joe and then finishes off Morgan.
• Post match, RVD & Joe go nose to nose as the broadcast goes off the air.

QUICK THOUGHTS:

For me, this show was just average.  The first hour and a half dragged on, and the last bit of the show was match overload.  I don’t get why any company would do that.  The match durations are shorter, and the quality suffers because of things being rushed for TV time remaining.  I can deal with a little less story line and a little more wrestling.

Holy crap!  If you didn’t see the new Knockout, I’m shocked because you can’t miss her.  She’s one big woman.  Rosey Lotta Love almost reminds me of the women wrestlers from the 1980s when they didn’t need to be tiny, but the prerequisite was being an over the top character.  I don’t know exactly how this is going to play out on screen, but a rivalry with the Beautiful People looks to be in the works.

The way the relationship with AJ/Flair/Kaz is going, my thought process now is maybe TNA is going to have AJ turn on Flair and become a baby face again.  Styles is just hell bent on impressing Flair, and now that his attention has been diverted, AJ’s jealous as hell.  Call me crazy, but maybe Styles will come to the realization that with Flair always watching him and criticizing his every mistake that he’s more paranoid about losing and not himself anymore.  I can only hope for the baby face Styles to come back.

The more I watch the blooming friendship of Hardy and Anderson, the more I suspect a double cross coming soon.  It’s like Anderson’s luring Hardy into a false sense of security and the when he doesn’t expect it is when the asshole will attack him from behind with a chair or something to that extent.  If that’s the case, I think it might just push Anderson to the main event scene for the TNA World Title.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed over the course of the last few weeks, but Hulk Hogan and Bischoff aren’t getting as much TV time now.  Yes, they are still acting as owner/GM/booker, but they’re not integral parts of stories anymore.  I think that is a step in the right direction for TNA.  If they take the focus off the guys running the show behind the scenes, and put the focus on the guys working the show in the ring, TNA’s going to have more success in my opinion.