TNA Impact Wrestling Review: Magnus vs. Samoa Joe for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship

TNA Impact Wrestling opens with some hype for an interaction between Bully Ray and Dixie Carter at TNA Headquarters.

IMPACTWRESTLING.com

Eric Young and Abyss brawl

We join an EY-Abyss brawl already in progress. ODB is cheering on EY, and gets involved at one point to help EY get an advantage. The brawl makes its way through the backstage area, out into the arena. EY hits some moves from inside the ring, out to ringside. Abyss gains the advantage and chokes out EY with the help of a chain and the ring ropes. Intense brawl that was used to put some added drama into the title match main event. With the stipulation being that EY would be chained to Abyss, in an attempt to neutralize Abyss’ ability to interfere on Magnus’ behalf. Does that put Samoa Joe behind the eight ball for his title shot?

EC3 vs. Bobby Lashley

The match between EC3 and Lashley ends in a no contest when Willow comes out and beats down EC3, as Lashley watches from the ring. Willow continues to get more violent, and it’s very unclear where this character is going, other than that he is “disturbed”. They continue to remind people that Willow is Jeff Hardy, which is a huge mistake.

Bully Ray waiting for Dixie Carter at TNA Headquarters

Bully is talking to a cameraman at TNA Headquarters. He is standing outside Dixie’s office and is very upset that she is making him wait after she demanded he come to meet with her.

Samoa Joe and MVP backstage

Joe storms into MVP’s office after what happened earlier with EY. They reveal that EY is heading to the hospital. Joe wants to know what MVP’s plan is to make his title match fair, and MVP tells him that he will fix it. Joe has very little faith in MVP. The biggest face in the company losing faith in the face authority figure this early doesn’t make much sense, but there’s not much precedent for a face authority figure in recent wrestling history.

Angelina Love backstage

Angelina talks to a cameraman, saying that she is ready to get her answer from Velvet Sky.

Magnus and EC3 backstage

EC3 storms into Magnus’ dressing room, demanding to know why Magnus didn’t come help him when Willow attacked him. Magnus has no interest in EC3’s problems. EC3 declares their friendship over and Magnus says that it ended a long time ago, then says that it ended when EC3 and “Aunt D” stopped being valuable to him. This is a storyline that has a lot of legs after what they went through to get Magnus the world title.

Gunner, Gunner’s dad and James Storm promo/brawl

Gunner comes out and talks about how proud he is of his accomplishments, from his time in the military to his Lockdown win vs. James Storm. He then addresses his father, who is sitting at ringside. He thanks his father, his mother, and his grandmother for all his success, then he goes and hugs his father, as James Storm’s music hits. Storm talks out and talks about Gunner’s grandfather looking down on his son and grandson. Then he says he must be so disappointed in them. Gunner and Storm brawl, until Storm has Gunner handcuffed to the ropes. Gunner’s father then attacks Storm from behind, but Storm takes him out, then leaves. As Gunner and his father recover, Storm reemerges and breaks a beer bottle over Gunner’s father’s head. Gunner’s father was great. First, showing emotion while hugging his son, then taking bumps.

Gail Kim backstage

Gail says that Lei’d Tapa betrayed her, but she is the leader of all the Knockouts. She says that if Tapa loses, she will be out of TNA.

The Bro-Mans and DJ Z backstage with Tigre Uno and Sanada

The Bro-Mans and DJ Z find Tigre Uno and Sanada backstage and tell them that they need to lose fast because The Bro-Mans have to get to a club so they can party. The Bro-Mans then mock Tigre and Sanada because they don’t speak English.

Lei’d Tapa vs. Gail Kim

Gail picks up a victory with Eat Defeat. This seemed like it was setup to be a future pay-per-view match, but now that won’t happen with Tapa out of TNA.

MVP and Willow backstage

We find Willow on stairs again. MVP asks him to take EY’s place in Samoa Joe’s corner, but Willow declines in his own, creepy way. The voice that Hardy uses to play Willow is a perfect little addition to the character. This isn’t just a character that Hardy threw together, he thought everything out.

Angelina Love, Velvet Sky, and Madison Rayne promo

Angelina calls out Velvet to find out her decision on reforming the Beautiful People. After some deliberation, Velvet agrees to rejoin forces with Angelina. The two hug and celebrate before bringing out Madison to try and get the whole band back together. Madison says that she was treated the worst when they were a group and she has no interest in getting back into that situation. This is a good way to set up a feud between Angelina and Madison. We have seen Velvet be friends with both of them in recent weeks, this could be a fun triangle storyline.

Magnus and Samoa Joe backstage

Magnus is being interviewed backstage about his title match later in the night. He talks with a lot of confidence after Abyss took out EY. Joe comes up walking up to Magnus and gets in his face. Joe has to be pulled away from the situation. Magnus is even more confident as he knows he got in Joe’s head.

The Bro-Mans promo/The Bro-Mans vs. Tigre Uno and Sanada vs. The Wolves

The Bro-Mans continue to mock Tigre and Sanada for not speaking English. This time, Tigre and Sanada attack them, and The Wolves make their entrance, leaving The Bro-Mans trapped.

The bell rings and the two face tag teams take out The Bro-Mans. It’s not long before they turn on each other though. Some really good action from The Wolves and Tigre and Sanada, The Wolves were made to wrestle similar styles to both men. At the end, The Wolves were going for top-rope moves but were stopped by The Bro-Mans, who followed up by hitting Tigre with the Bro Down for the win. Good three-way tag team match.

Angelina Love and Velvet Sky backstage/Angelina Love and Madison Rayne backstage

Before the commercial, Angelina and Velvet are talking backstage and Angelina is very upset that Madison was so adamant about not rejoining the Beautiful People. Velvet convinces Angelina to go and talk to Madison about how she changed and won’t treat Madison as poorly as before.

After the commercial, Angelina convinces Madison to at least think about it and they hug. As Madison goes to leave, Angelina grabs her by the hair and throws her into a set of lockers. She then tackles Madison onto a couch and holds her down long enough to tell her that nobody embarrasses her and the Beautiful People don’t want her, because the “real” Beautiful People are just her and Velvet anyway. This seems destined for a Angelina-Madison feud with Velvet in the middle. Could be time for Velvet to turn heel.

Bully Ray at TNA Headquarters

Bully’s patience runs out and he barges into Dixie’s office. He lays into Dixie, telling her the whole list of people who don’t like her, and all the reasons they don’t like her. He says all this to the back of her chair until he gets fed up and turns it around, only to find that it’s empty. Bobby Roode then comes and attacks Bully from behind and leaves him out on the floor in Dixie’s office.

Magnus and Abyss backstage

Magnus and Abyss are going over their gameplan backstage. Magnus asks Abyss if he’s ready and Abyss reveals that his hand is full of tacks that are destined for Samoa Joe and MVP. This Abyss is so much better than the Joseph Park storyline I thought would never end.

Magnus vs. Samoa Joe for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship (MVP and Abyss chained together on the outside)

Mangus retained his title with a top-rope elbow drop. Magnus and Samoa Joe wrestled for a while, with not much going on between MVP and Abyss. Finally, Abyss wanted to get involved so he knocked down MVP and tried to drag him around. MVP recovered and took down Abyss. While Abyss was down, MVP unlocked the handcuffs to set something up. Abyss recovered and took out MVP. Joe then went for a dive to the outside on Abyss, but Abyss stopped him with a chair. Joe fell back in the ring, allowing Magnus to hit the elbow drop. Good match, probably the cleanest win Magnus has had since Bound for Glory.

Overall Impression

Pretty decent show. TNA has talked about moving forward with a renewed attitude, and they are definitely taking steps in the right direction. Magnus still doesn’t have a decisive title retention, but tonight was certainly a lot closer than he has ever gotten before. It’s a good night for TNA, now they must continue to build off it.

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