We get a recap of the last two weeks of major events – including the Cody-Moose stuff, the return of Manik, the issues with the tag titles, the return of LAX, and Alberto’s title win and surrender. Davey and Angelina come out as the Natural Born Killers, with him being The Lone Wolf now. Davey is out to face Suicide, and Pope brings back “suicadee”. Pope compares the NBK to Brangelina, while Josh brings up them wearing vials of blood and no one ever finding that odd. Yeah it was. Suicide gets some solid offense in, but falls to the alarm clock and creeping death. JB talks about how SHE’LL BE BACK tonight before Josh goes on a WWE-ish rant on pronouns and having to use proper names.
We get a shockingly well-produced LAX video that definitely works like one of the Aces and Eights videos and Konnan cutting an intense promo on Impact preppies jacking his belts. Konnan says they’ll take the belts and defend them wherever they want. McKenzie meets with LVN, who reassures her that she’s fine while having a nervous breakdown. Sienna tells her that Allie and Braxton took everything away from her. Sienna begs for her to take a shower before singing “Tomorrow” from Annie. This ruled.
Idris Abraham comes out for “international six man tag team action” alongside Fallah and Mario. These are reasonably well-dressed men who come off as total no-names, and Josh helps this by burying them. Shera, Garza Jr, and Loredo Kid. Great, so we’ve got a match with six guys and five are unknowns. Idris and Garza Jr. have a nice exchange with armdrags and tackles. Mario flies around well for Loredo before Fallah comes in and eats some kicks. Fallah hits a nice falling fat man bodypress before tagging Mario in. Shera comes in and spinebusters Fallah before a sky high to Mario ends it.
A LIMO SHOWS UP ON IMPACT for the first time in ages. Decay comes down to face Reno Scum. The fat scum guy battles with Abyss. God, these guys come off as z-level Ascension knockoffs, and that’s frightening. Josh talks about the limo and how he and Flair were in them back in the day. JB asks how it was to drive Ric around, which was a fantastic line. Steve cannonballs into the bald one, but the mohawked one hits a flying shoulderblock off the top. They toss Rosemary onto Abyss on the floor before hitting a double team jumping curb stomp to win – well, this was an upset, but a strong win for the new team.
Moose vs. Eli is announced and we see a preview for Lashley being interviewed by Bruce Prichard. We get a creepy hype video showing eerie sights and saying that fury will be unleashed on April 6. Eli comes down, but Cody in a Bullet Club hoodie jumps Moose. Josh praises Cody and we have a guy in the crowd with a Josh Mathews Fan Club shirt. We get a neat helicopter-style rattle before LAX comes back from their own entrance way. Their presentation as a whole is the best thing in the company by far. Ortiz and Santana are announced as the new male members, while Diamante is the lone female and Konnan and Homicide are managers. Konnan says that now his past with Impact won’t be decided in a court room – he’ll do it street style and take what he wants.
The DCC comes out, revealing that LAX’s new gear is glow in the dark…well, that’s slightly less badass. LAX now uses the Beat Down Clan logo. Santana is slim and doesn’t wear a shirt, while Santana is chunkier and wears a shirt. Storm hits the jumping kick to Ortiz and forces a double team DDT from one to the other. Kingston distracts Storm, who eats a double team inverted suplex and loses. This new LAX doesn’t quite click as well as a team, bit the presentation is damn near perfect. Storm argues with the DCC and he tells that he didn’t forget who he really is. Well good – this group has zero chemistry anyway, and never gelled.
Bruce asks Lashley who he really is and he says he’s an ordinary person who does extraordinary things. He talks about wrestling for 30 years, training with the Olympic team and how he narrowly avoided being shot – but destroyed his knee and that nixed his Olympic dreams. Lashley says that the injury took him out of the amateurs and moved him into the pros and he’s always out to prove things to himself. Bruce asks him if he enjoys hurting people and he says sure, kinda and he’ll make folks suffer.
DJZ says that Impact is always ahead of the curve and the X division will feature more great action. McKenzie talks about Moose vs. Cody being made next week for the Grand Title. Braxton and Allie come in and says that they aren’t scared of Sienna’s threats. Josh buries Braxton for garage shopping from the attitude era. Well, he did have a 2000 HHH vibe going on with the leather jacket under denim vest. Rebel comes out to wrestle ODB for God knows what reason. Rebel is aggressive and acts heelish to Earl Hebner. Josh shills some fantasy baseball app. Rebel goes up top while they shoot the camera right on her ass and she falls down and kinda hits/kinda misses ODB with a cross body. ODB hits a bronco buster, but misses a corner charge. Rebel uses this to say she’ll kick Earl’s ass, goes to do it with a cowboy hat on, but Earl blocks the slap and steals the hat and steals a kiss. Earl struts like Ric Flair and gets an “Earl!” chant. Earl drinks from the flask, she freashens her breath, Earl faints, and ODB hits a TKO to win. This was the most batshit insane thing on a wrestling TV show in ages – and this is after watching the Hardys wrestling animals.
Josh asks several valid questions – including what was that and what did we just see. Lashley chats with Bruce about having things taken from him, so he’ll make sure no one can take things from him. He says that he’ll defend that title against anyone anywhere and there’s a lot of responsibility to being champion. Lashley talks about wanting a cross-promotional match with Brock at some point and Bruce compares Lashley to some of the greatest athletes of all-time. This was excellent stuff – Lashley come off like a confident, legit badass. Lashley squashes a jobber named Holmes quickly. They hype up who is “she” via a graphic and JB is mid-ring.
He says it took a lot of people to get TNA to this point and he welcomes back Karen Jarrett, with a remix of “My World”. She’s known as the Queen of the Mountain and has blonde hair now. Josh buries her for doing autographs, which does seem a bit odd since she’s usually been a heel. Karen thanks everyone who poured everything they had into TNA. She says that the last few years have been tough for the family being out of Impact, leading to a “thank you Jarrett”. Karen says that they’ve been humbled and she said the old Karen would’ve given the answers to the questions – but she’ll take the high road and look forward to the future of Impact.
The fans chant “fire Josh” and she says she’ll put that down on her list of changes. A giant yes chant breaks out before Josh says Bryan doesn’t even work there. EC3 comes down and says that while Karen’s doing things for her family to make this company great, he’ll do it for his “last name”. Well, that’s a nice way to reference Dixie and then Josh yells at everyone to stop. Josh buries JB for being a stooge and says that everyone who’s here for free because they can’t afford a ticket should shut up. Josh says that his problem is with Karen and says DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO MY WIFE IS, referencing Madison without naming names. Josh says that it’s only a matter of time before the Jarretts are out of Impact forever, so she slaps him. Well, this was quite the cluster and didn’t really make me think TNA is above being WWE-lite still since the focus in on non-wrestlers despite everything they’ve said since the reboot.
