We start out with a recap of the King of the Mountain qualifiers, and Tonight’s KOTM Qualifying Match: Chris Harris vs. James Storm? Boo. I didn’t see their last PPV outing, but neither of these guys, to me at least, have ever seemed like anything terrific, so I suppose it will be an okay, if unspectacular match.
And, out comes Robert Roode with Hooters McBoobsalot, to start out with, hopefully, a bang.
Robert Roode vs. Jerry Lynn
That’s a shame. One guy has a PPV match, one guy doesn’t; who you do you think is going to win? Hint: he’s the one I couldn’t give two shits about. Lynn gets attacked almost immediately, but comes back with satellite headscissors, and snaps Roode over in an armdrag. Knees to the arm, but Roode rolls out, then gets up and forces Lynn into the corner. Clothesline misses, and Lynn is sent into the ropes and comes back with a kick to Roode, but then tries again and gets kitchen sinked. Some minor brawling ends with Roode tossing Lynn to the outside, and Lynn is thrown into the guardrail. An attempt to clothesline Lynn earns Roode a kick to the face, but a second charge ends with shoulderblocking him into the guardrail. Back in the ring, and Roode gets two. Roode pounds on him some more, then hits a gutbuster for two. Roode bearhugs him on the ground, but Lynn gets up, smacks him up a bit, then runs the ropes and hits a hurricanrana. Some more back and forth ends with a Lynn roll up for two, and some more ends with a wicked Lynn DDT for two. Lynn sets him up for the cradle piledriver, but Ms. Brooks distracts the ref, and Roode hits a lowblow and Perfectplex for the pin.
Once the match is over, they start trying to take…liberties with Lynn (beat him up, not have sex with him or anything…yet), so Eric Young comes out with a chair, and Roode hightails it. Ms. Brooks is left alone, and Young and Lynn make it seem like they’re going to brain her with the chair, but Jim Cornette comes out and reminds Young how he wasn’t going to have any violence betwixt men and women; however, that doesn’t mean that Ms. Brooks can’t take a beating tonight, so he makes a match with her against Gail Kim tonight.
Backstage, Tomko is here (followed by Letitia), and he’s pissed, as Christian has been dodging him like the plague, even going so far as to change his phone number. But tonight, “he’ll have nowhere to hide.”
(Commercial)
Video recap of Sting/Christopher Daniels
Mike Tenay is in a previously recorded segment with Christopher Daniels and Sting, and Daniels talks about how he turned to Sting for enlightenment, and how he’s put it all to use. However, Sting (sans makeup), says that Daniels is misinterpreting everything that he said, but Daniels says that he has to erase the grey area, and see things in black and white. He starts talking about judgment, and darkness, and penance, and I’m lost. Daniels says that maybe they should talk about this elsewhere, in less of a public forum. Sting, like me, still doesn’t quite get it.
Backstage, Letitia tries to talk to Gail Kim, but Ms. Brooks attacks her, and they’re pulled apart.
Paparazzi Production video, where we learn that Jay Lethal is going to wrestle Chris Sabin at the pay-per-view, although he seems to think that he’s going to wrestle Jake “The Snake” Roberts. And, we get the new Sonjay Dutt, who is…dressed a bit more Indian, and is now “The Guru” Sonjay Dutt. In that case, wouldn’t wrestling sort of be against the whole “non-violence” aspect of what he’s going for here? Obviously, this is going to be a heel character, but “gurus” tend to make better managers than wrestlers. Jay Lethal says, “Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts ruined my wedding!” Is he starting to get delusional now? Just to get the point across, Sonjay gives us an “Ohm…” at the end, to which Nash and Jay Lethal join in. Wow.
(Commercial)
We get coverage OF the coverage of James Storm spitting on Frank Wychek, who ends up hitting Storm with a guitar. What’s inadverantly funny here is that they show these newscasters saying, “Wychek’s gonna get nasty in the ring!” and I’m not sure that TNA realizes that these newscasters are making fun of the whole stupid thing, degraded that they’re even covering this nonsense. TNA Management just sees this and says, “Yee-haw, we’re in the mainstream press! Yippadeedoo!”
Borash is backstage with AJ Styles, who he congratulates for his KOTM qualifying match win, but Kurt Angle comes in and tells him that he’s going to cripple him, and there’s not a goddamn thing that he can do about it. AJ: “Why would he say that?” AJ starts looking for Christian, from whom he hasn’t heard in a week. He borrows Borash’s phone to call him, but Christian Cage appears, dressed in sunglasses and a black hoodie, from behind a door, and pulls AJ, along with Borash’s phone, into a back room with him.
Ms. Brooks vs. Gail Kim
I’ll be honest, I was writing up a different part of this recap for most of the match, so I missed a lot of it, but I’ll give you the lowdown on it, because I love you. There’s some sloppy back and forth action between the two, mostly due to Brooks not being a terribly accomplished wrestler of any kind. However, she’s trying, and so I do have to give them some kind of credit. Ms. Brooks spends a lot of time yelling at the audience, and oversells everything like crazy, screaming in pain at every move. Brooks, through creative cheating, ends up dominating, but Kim does get to hit a top rope hurricanrana, and eventually rolls out of a fireman’s carry into a sunset flip for the pin.
Post-match, Robert Roode comes out to perform evil, but Gail Kim goes right on the offensive. Good for her; no means no! However, this gives Ms. Brooks the chance to get the upper hand, and she attacks, then clotheslines her down, then beats her up a bit. At the end, Roode flicks his sweat on her, and asks Ms. Brooks to lift his arm. Class act.
Backstage, Tomko is all angry and, alongside Letitia, looking for Christian. He runs into Borash, and demands to know the whereabouts of Christian. Borash mumbles something, and Tomko storms off, while Borash looks on with a mix of mischief and curiousity. I guess he told him where he last saw him, but who knows.
(Commercial)
They’re still advertising the Steiners vs. Team 3D, and they show promos between the two. Man, as insane as Scott Steiner seems to be, he’s got nothing on Rick, who screams about how they beat people because they didn’t give a damn. Wha?
Tomko still has Letitia in tow, and they’re looking for Christian Cage…and there he is, hiding in a cubicle reading a magazine. Tomko picks him up and slams him against the wall, demanding answers as to why Christian screwed him last week. Now, here’s the miraculous part: Christian, through sheer oratory brilliance, manages not only NOT to get his ass handed to him, but to get Tomko back to being his willing man-slave. Christian starts going off about how he picked Tomko up out of obscurity, from security guard to wrestler, from unemployed wrestler to TNA star and how, despite everything that Christian has ever done for him, Tomko can only talk about how he screwed him. He tells him how, one day, it will be his time, but it’s not today, and until that day, he should back off and be there for Christian, as Christian was there for him. Tomko takes a second to take it all in, then, looking down, as he has been almost this whole time, mutters, “Okay,” and walks off. Bow before the altar of Christian Cage, maggots.
KOTM Qualifying Match: “Wildcat” Chris Harris vs. “Cowboy” James Storm
The former America’s Most Wanted brawls on the outside and through the crowd, and the ref seems to just be letting it go. Storm drags Harris through the crowd, and tries to irish whip him into the guard rail, but it gets reversed, and Storm eats divider. Then, just for the sake of fairness, Harris gets tossed into the wall. They brawl some more, and Harris seems to be heading to the ring; however, in an awesome moment, Harris climbs to the top, then jumps to the outside, over the guardrail, and onto James Storm and a bunch of security guards. Sweet. They recover from that for awhile, and Storm ends up using a chair on Harris. He sets Harris’ head up, laying it on an open chair, then smacks him across the head with another chair. Oucharoo, and STILL no DQ.
Hey, that rhymes!
(Commercial)
We come back, and Harris is REALLY busted open, and now Storm is, too, after one of them swings the other one (I’m honestly not sure) into the guardrail face first. Storm sets up a table, as does Harris, and they both go for trash can lids, but throw them into the ring, along with some other plunder. In the ring, we have dueling trash can lids, as they take turns pounding each other in the head with lids, eventually going down to their knees, but Harris, who I guess is now the smarter one, grabs the trash can and nails Storm in the head with it for two. The crowd starts chanting, “This is awesome,” and I have to admit, I’m having a pretty good time.
A chair is set up in the corner, and they tease who’ll go into it, but they eventually move to the opposite corner after a series of reversals. Harris jumps off the second rope into a sunset flip, but Storm rolls through, then slingshots Harris into the chair, which gets Storm a two-count. That’s what’s good about big Southern dudes; you can hit them with a ot of stuff, and it’s believable when they kick out, because they’re so…y’know, burly.
(Commercial)
We’re back, and Storm goes to skin the cat, but Harris just throws a trash can in his face. Harris goes to take advantage, but Storm smashes him in the face with a trashcan lid. Harris is set up on a table on the outside, and Storm gives him a goddamn SOMERSAULT SENTON OFF THE TOP ON HARRIS THROUGH THE TABLE ON THE OUTSIDE. Wow, these guys are really letting loose tonight. When these guys do a hardcore match, they don’t mess around. When Harris starts to get up, Storm smacks him in the face with a trashcan lid. Jackie Moore tries to hand Storm a beer bottle, but he misses with it, so she hands him another one. However, before he has the chance to use it, Harris spears him THROUGH the wall of the stage. You can see the blood covering part of the fake metal, and the ref has the ring announcer say that if neither of them can answer the ten count, then they’ll both be disqualified, which naturally draws boos from the crowd. In case you couldn’t see it coming after that announcement, they’re both down for the count, so NO ONE wins, and the fourth slot is up in the air. Honestly, I’d already heard about this, so I wasn’t surprised, but after this crazy hardcore battle, I have to admit that I was kind of sort of okay with one of those guys in the KOTM. Oh well.
Kurt Angle comes out to do…something, but Samoa Joe is out a few seconds later, and all up in his grill. And, of course, when the grill is all gotten up in, brawling ensues, and they do so around the ring. Eventually, security comes down to separate them, and Angle is sort of herded up the ramp, and AJ Styles runs out and tries to hit him with a bat, but Angle dodges, and gets AJ in an anklelock. AND, AJ Styles is again my hero, as he doesn’t tap out, because IT MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE WHEN SOMEONE TAPS OUT TO A MOVE WHEN THERE’S NO MATCH GOING ON. If you ever see that on wrestling television, it is your duty as a citizen to start a letter-writing campaign to that wrestling company for acting like retards.
Meanwhile, Borash is backstage in Cornette’s office, and Christian Cage storms in with Tomko (who’s gone back to lackeydom) demanding to know his opponent. Cornette assures him that he has an easy match with a man who he’s called a punk, and beneath him…so…yeah, I don’t know. Norman Smiley? Shark Boy?! Oh PLEASE let it be Shark Boy!
We see a bit more chaos at ringside, and then we’re out.
The Inside Pulse
I admit it: I was wrong. I thought that I would never enjoy watching AMW when they were against each other, but those two good ol’ boys put on a great show, as they just pounded into each other in a super hardcore main event. Of course, now there’s the dilemma of who else is going into that match. Christian will almost certainly be in (although his mystery opponent will most likely kick the crap out of him for awhile), but Jarrett almost certainly not be. Angle’s in, Joe’s in, Sting’s out, Rhino’s out, AJ’s in…a returning Abyss, perhaps?
I’m happy to see the Roode/Eric feud showing some signs of finally ending, but I fear “The Guru” Sonjay Dutt, and not in the way that TNA probably hopes I will at some point.
Still, overall, it was cool. A good main event will earn a lot of forgiveness.
