With Slammiversary just a few days ago, Impact Wrestling
rolled into Atlanta. It’s interesting now TNA doesn’t have another Pay-Per-View
until October’s Bound For Glory to see how they book their weekly show over the
next couple of months. They haven’t quite got it right yet, but hopefully they’ll
settle into this new booking pattern which feels fresh compared to the
bombardment of PPV’s we’re used to.
Ladder Match:
World Heavyweight Champion Bully Ray vs. Jeff Hardy
The main event for the evening was booked by General Manager
Hulk Hogan at the top of the show. With Bully Ray talking up how he vanquished
Sting at Slammiversary and talking about how Sting would probably retire, Hogan
interrupted Bully to announce this match. Hogan seemed to have calmed down from
his crazy ramblings at Slammiversary and both men delivered interesting promos.
I much prefer Hogan in this simple general manager role, instead of having to
get involved in every feud on the card. Now that was until Hogan announced the
concept for the main event. A ladder match, I thought fine, I mean we already
saw these two in a fantastic Full Metal Mayhem contest about a month ago, but
it’ll still be an entertaining contest. Then Hogan added that there would be
not a Championship on the line, or possibly Hardy’s place in the Bound For
Glory Series, but of course a hammer! I had to quickly check if Vince Russo
hadn’t been re-signed by TNA.
In preparation for the contest, we got two backstage
segments, the first with Bully Ray and Mr. Anderson. They discussed who would
replace D’Lo Brown as the Vice President of Aces and Eights, with it being
teased that Anderson would step into the role. Unfortunately, with Aces and
Eights been made to look increasingly weak, the role really holds no real
relevance, although hopefully it means TNA is starting to build up Anderson for
bigger role on the show again, I’d expect him to enter the Bound For Glory
Series and do well. We also saw Brooke Hogan talking to Taryn Terrell in which
it was played up that Brooke still had feelings for Bully Ray. I’m not quite
sure what Brooke adds to the product and how many viewers she’s bringing in,
but I’m sure TNA could probably do without her probably expensive contract.
The match was a pretty decent bout, although it was severely
hurt by the nonsensical concept. Bully Ray’s heel character is extremely strong
and he makes it very easy to hate him as he slowed Hardy’s fast high flying
offence down and kept him grounded, including a superb back body drop, as well
as working up the crowd with his Hogan impression. Although not quite as spot
laden as their Full Metal Mayhem contest, there was still some interesting
moments, including Hardy driving the Ladder into Bully Ray’s groin with a
baseball slide, as well as Hardy taking a gruesome looking bump when pushed
straight off the ladder, landing hard. Hardy is one of the only wrestlers in
the main stream that I’ve seen take these kinds of bumps of the top of the
ladder and one has to worry for his wellbeing if he continues with this kind of
thing. After the bump, Ray went for the hammer, taking his time, the logic here
seemed flawed as Bully Ray had Hardy down more than long enough to make a cover
and win the match and if he wanted to hit Hardy with a hammer surely he could
have had Mr. Anderson bring one out for him!
Hardy quickly gained control of the weapon after a Twist of
Fate and began swinging for Ray who managed to escape up the ring ramp. This
was an unsatisfactory ending to the contest which really needed some definitive
ending due to the concept and stipulation, this ending would have worked a lot
better in simply a singles or maybe even a No Disqualification Match. However
this wasn’t the end of Impact, as we saw Hulk Hogan creep up behind Bully with
another hammer, only for Brooke Hogan to come to the Bully’s rescue. This was
truly an awful end to Impact, as I question what Hogan was going to do with the
hammer, was he planning to kill Bully Ray? Which is definitely not an avenue a
wrestling show should be looking at in its storylines. It really is time to tie
up the Brooke and Bully story as well, it’s been stale for a long time.
Quinton “Rampage” Jackson’s Impact Debut
Having been revealed earlier this week as Dixie Carter’s big
free agent signing former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, Quinton “Rampage”
Jackson made his debut for TNA, in a heavily built up in ring segment. Now, I
can’t say I’m a massive follower of MMA so couldn’t really comment on how much
of a draw Jackson will be for TNA and what he will bring to company. There is
obviously a lot of cross over between wrestling and MMA and a lot of fans
follow both sports, so hopefully Rampage could bring TNA to some MMA fans who
might usually only watch Raw or Smackdown.
Rampage was seen prior to his entrance into the arena,
backstage with new World Tag Team Champion James Storm and Gunner, which kind
of depleted the impact of his entrance and made him feel a little less of a
star. However, once he entered the ring and took the mic of Jeremy Borash, he
sounded very comfortable with a microphone, although he was clearly still adjusting
to his new surroundings.
It was as he talked up his desire to be the best that Kurt
Angle headed down to the ring. Fresh off a victory over AJ Styles and being announced
as TNA’s second Hall of Famer, Angle said if Rampage wanted to be the best he’d
have to go through him at some point. There was a real intensity in the ring
between these two, reminiscent of Angle’s TNA debut and face off with Samoa
Joe. It would seem TNA will go for a slow build for a contest between these two
at Bound For Glory.
It will be interesting see how much Jackson puts in to his
TNA career, he clearly has some untapped potential, seeming charismatic and
with his MMA background should be able to master the wrestling aspect well, but
it really will depend on how much training he does and how willing he is to
learn this new sport. Kurt Angle will be a great person to have his first match
with as Angle is able to cover up most of his opponents weaknesses during a
match and should be able to help Jackson with a number of elements of the industry.
In the end though, Rampage Jackson will get as much out of wrestling as he puts
in.
Best of the Rest
Elsewhere we got the continuation of the Devon and Abyss rivalry,
featuring Joseph Parks. Firstly, Devon came to ring to call out Abyss, with a
competent promo about wanting the Television Title back because the loss was in
an unsanctioned match, it was like TNA was trying to cover up its mistakes with
this! He was of course met by not Abyss, but his “brother” Joseph Park who took
down Devon straight away, only for Devon to get the upper hand and send Park to
the outside. With Devon looking to take out Park, Abyss’ music hit and his
video played. It was clear Abyss wasn’t going to come out as the man who plays
him was lying on the outside of the ring! Devon announced if Abyss wouldn’t
come to him, he’d go to Abyss, before taking one last shot at Park. With Park
beginning to bleed it was made painfully obvious where Abyss was.
There was then a handful of backstage segments, featuring
Devon and fellow Aces and Eights member Know trying to hunt down Abyss
backstage. Although Devon and Know were a little over the top at times, these
segment weren’t too bad, but could have been cut down slightly, once the
premise was opened it didn’t need repeating. With some nice camera Abyss
appeared via shadow, to attack Knox, before going toe to toe with Devon and
gaining the upper hand. He then said he was going to take the title “to the
abyss”. I’m not sure what that was supposed to mean but it definitely didn’t
come across as well as it did in whoever wrote it’s head. Hopefully, we see
more of Abyss in the coming weeks and less of Joseph Park whose character has
really run its course in TNA.
There was also the continuation of Mickie James’ heel turn,
which is progressing nicely. With Mickie’s false apology to Velvet Sky for not
helping her last week, as well as putting down Taryn Terrell for making the
save before she could, Mickie is looking more and more comfortable with this
new character she’s working with. If she continues to work on this character
and flesh it out a little, we could have a very good feud between James and
Taryn Terrell, once James is finished with Velvet.
Mickie was also in action against a returning Taeler Hendrix
who hasn’t been seen since November. It really is one of the big problems with
the Gutcheck challenge that the winners are left off TV way too long after
their victories that it’s difficult to remember them or build any form of connection
with their character and therefore future Gutchecks are diminished in
importance as none of the other winners regularly appear on TV. The match told
an interesting story with James attempting to run rings around Hendrix and
patronise the newcomer at every turn, but with Hendrix more than holding her
own. With Taeler looking to cause an upset by heading to the top rope, James
feigned a knee injury by holding onto referee ODB, but once Taeler came to
check on the injury, she got hit with an awkward looking Chick Kick for the
victory. James really excelled in this role during this match and it’ll be nice
to see where she takes it over the coming months, whilst Hendrix can more than
hold her own in terms of in ring competition, hopefully she’ll be appearing
more often on Impact in the near future.
The Bound For Glory Series kicked off with two qualifying
matches taking place. Firstly, we saw Former Tag Team Champions Hernandez and
Chavo Guerrero square off in a decent contest. With a number of quick reversals
this match was wrestled at a fast pace, as Hernandez showed once again he
possesses a lot more talent that just his power. With Super Mex getting his
knees up to block the Frog Splash from Chavo, a series of quick roll up attempt
followed with Hernandez eventually stacking up Chavo for the victory. Although
I think Hernandez is a talented in ring competitor, I can’t see him finishing
very high up in the Bound For Glory series simply because every singles push he
gets from TNA always ends up with him returning back to a tag team.
The other Qualifying match pitched the underrated Robbie E
against the beast that is Samoa Joe. With Robbie cutting an entertaining promo
on his performance in last year’s Bound For Glory Series, however once Samoa
Joe’s music hit there was only ever going to be one winner. Joe destroyed
Robbie E, in little over a minute picking up the victory with a quick tap out
to the Rear Naked Choke. I’d expect Joe to have another good showing in the BFG
Series picking up wins over the guys lower down like Jay Bradley, and maybe
some big victories, but slipping up in the bigger point matches. I’d love Joe
to win it and get a major push, he truly deserves it after his work lower down
the card over the last couple of years, and I just don’t see TNA giving him the
chance in the Main Event scene anytime soon.
There was also a six man tag team match pitting new X
Division Champion Chris Sabin and new Tag Team Champions James Storm and Gunner
against Bobby Roode, Austin Aries and Kenny King. This was a quality tag team
contest with X Division competitors Chris Sabin and Kenny King proving they can
hang with some of TNA’s bigger names, Sabin having an impressive sequence with
Bobby Roode and Kenny King working well with Roode and Aries with some nice
heel team work keeping James Storm in their corner. The ending came after a
classic break down section of the match, with numerous wrestlers hitting
signature moves on after another, eventually leaving Kenny King and Chris Sabin
in the ring. With King missing a jumping side kick, Sabin planted him with a
beautiful springboard spike DDT and finished it up with his Hail Sabin
finishing move. It was a good six man contest that was worked well by all six men,
unfortunately there was little in terms of storyline development between anyone
in the match and felt a little like TNA trying to stretch out their feuds for
as long as they can.
Finally…
What have we learned from this week’s Impact Wrestling?
1. TNA hasn't quite got it's new pacing sorted, with just four pay-per-views a year to build towards.
2. Hulk Hogan wants to murder Bully Ray!
3. TNA isn't going to miss Todd Kennely on commentary, I barely noticed he'd gone!
Announced for Next Thursday's Impact Wrestling.
Sting reveals his future.
Bound For Glory Series Qualifying Match: AJ Styles vs. Kurt Angle
Bound For Glory Series Qualifying Tag Team Match: Bad Influence vs. World Tag Team Champions James Storm & Gunner
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