DARK MATCH
(1) Poison beat Traci in the first women’s match ever held in Orlando. Pretty good women’s match that saw Poison get the win with a powerslam.
IMPACT TAPING
They showed a video recapping everything that happened last week and everything going on in the World Title picture.
(1) Jeff Jarrett beat Bryan Gumble. Usual Jarrett squash with Jarrett working over Gumble on the outside and then rolling him in, hitting the Stroke, and covering him for the win.
After the match Jarrett got on the mic and said that he isn’t leaving until Vince Russo comes out and tells him who he is going to face at Victory Road. They then cut to a break and Jarrett took a seat on the announce desk and berated the crowd during the break. After we come back from break Russo comes out and said that Jarrett will have his answer tonight. Russo says that he looked at the outside sources that Jarrett talked about and he decided that the real talent is right here in TNA. Russo announces that there will be a tournament to decide the number one contender during the weeks leading up to Victory Road. Jarrett says that since Russo won’t bring in outsiders, then he will have to bring them to Victory Road himself.
A.J. Styles (photo by Wade Keller, PWTorch)
A.J. Styles then came out and said that he wants to know when he will get a shot at the X-Division championship. Russo said that he won’t recieve anymore special treatment, and that tonight he’ll have to earn his shot at the title in a six-way X-Divison match. This brought Team Canada out who then demanded that they recieve a shot at the tag team titles. Russo said that they don’t decide who deserves a shot which then led D’Amore to challenge Styles and Russo to a match. Styles then speared D’Amore. Team Canada got the upper hand until the 3 Live Kru made the save.
They showed a promo package showing some of Raven’s biggest moments in TNA.
(2) Raven defeated Scott Stevens. Squash that saw Raven get the win with The Raven Effect.
They then showed a Jeff Hardy video package putting over Hardy. It’s scary how fast Hardy is losing favor with the crowd.
(3) Abyss defeated Luther Jackson with the Black Hole Slam. Another squash. Not much more I can say other than the crowd is kind of indifferent to Abyss. Sad, because he has so much potenital and is a good worker.
(4) The Naturals defeated the Tag Team Champions James Storm & Christopher Daniels. Solid match that saw the Naturals get the win with a rollup.
“The Professor” Mike Tenay got into the ring to make a big announcement concerning Victory Road. The big announcement is that Victory Road will be live from Orlando and that it will be an all weekend event. Another big announcement is that “Rowdy” Roddy Piper will be on Impact next week with another major announcement. I must say that I’m liking how they are promoting Victory Road as a major event. The way they are promoting it makes it seem like a major occurence.
(5) A.J. Styles beat Kazarian, Alex Shelly, The Amazing Red, Kid Kash, and Chris Sabin. Excellent match that saw Styles get the win with the Styles Clash.
I couldn’t stick around for the Xplosion tapings. My friend who came with me had to be at work early tomorrow and wanted to get home, so if anyone attended the complete tapings, send me to “matchresults” (@pwtorch.com).
Biggest Pops:
1. 3 Live Kru
2. A.J. Styles
3. Any mention of Monty Brown. 4. Jeff Hardy
Most Heat:
1. Jeff Jarrett ( mostly of the go away variety )
2. Team Canada
3. Michal Shane
Notes: The building was completely full tonight. There were a lot of people that were there to see a local radio DJ from the Monsters of the Mid-day show wrestle in a match that was scheduled for Xplosion. There was also an entire section filled up with 12 year old girls. I never heard why they were there but they were the loudest section there. Tonight’s show showed some great signs of improvement. They made an effort to show off some of the major superstars via some very nicely put together video packages. Okay, so they still had quite a few squash matches but for some reason they didn’t bother me that much tonight because the show was entertaining. I like the way they are hyping Victory Road. I think that if everything goes right this will become TNA’s version of Wrestlemania. They are making it seem like a huge event. I’m interested to see what Piper’s big announcement is next week. Well, that’s it for tonight.
credit: pwtorch.com & Danney Robertson
