Hardcore Justice has come and gone (Thank God) and now it’s time to go back to TNA business. Instead of a regular PPV, TNA presents a special Impact this week, and the Pulse team is here with the predictions.
RVD (c) vs. Abyss
Ricardo Rochetti: I’m fearful TNA will pull the trigger on a title switch here. That would be a bad idea. RVD has done a good enough job as champion and still has plenty of sexy match-ups to run through before the inevitable title loss to Kurt Angle. Abyss, on the other hand, does not need the title to continue his storyline with “theyâ€. I am not going to be surprised if TNA disappoints me here, but I’m going to have faith and predict that TNA makes the reasonable booking decision.
Winner: Rob Van Dam
Chantal: Oh the good ol’ stairway to heaven Janice match – what is the selling point of this match again? – I never pay attention to TNA when they start to talk. Either way of course RVD will win; he didn’t throw away his WWE Hall of Fame chance for nothing. However, I think there will be a lot of near pinfalls within the match after Abyss does something absolutely horrid to RVD. But in the end I believe Rob Van Dam will keep on going (ignoring the endless the amount of blood that will most likely pour out of his head) and retain the TNA world heavyweight championship belt.
Winner: RVD
Matthew Michaels: I think this would be a great opportunity for a title change. RVD was just taken to the limits by his old friend Sabu, and Abyss is on a rampage. Plus, maybe we can finally find out who “they” is. Abyss, as member of the new Wolfpac?
Winner: Abyss
Raffi Shamir: Abyss started as a Kane knockoff and with this current heel turn and “they” storyline he truly resembles Kane’s legendary wrestlecrap levels. I shudder at the thought of another swerve, where Ref Bischoff turns on RVD and forms another nWo with Nash, Abyss and Sting, because that would be even worse than last night’s Hardcore Justice. And while this scenario wouldn’t surprise me, I’ll go with the person who should remain champion until Angle goes through the entire contenders list.
Winner: RVD
Motor City Machine Guns (c) vs. Beer Money
Ricardo Rochetti: Honestly, this series has been so awesome that I’ve reached a point where I almost don’t care which team wins. Almost. The Guns have patiently waited their turn with the belts, so I’m putting my faith in TNA to do the right thing (I know, how naïve) and have the Guns pull it off.
Winners: Motor City Machine Guns
Chantal: Motor city machine guns HAVE to win and continue to be tag champs until well for eternity! We all know the two tag teams will put on another excellent mind-blowing match. One team will win the first fall, the other the second fall and the third will be a heart-stopping inducing match with countless near falls. But in the end MCMG will retain the titles and go on to battle against Ink Inc or in a perfect world – The Young Bucks Generation Me.
Winner: Motor City Machine Guns.
Matthew Michaels: MCMG wins here and they’re established as the top of the heap in the TNA tag ranks. Unless they’re going to do a Fortune Has All the Gold angle, that’s how I’d book this one. Sabin & Shelley need the gold longer.
Winner: MCMG
Raffi Shamir: I can’t find enough superlatives to describe how much I love this series. It provided us with the best wrestling this past month and I’m sure that they will not disappoint this week.
Winners: MCMG
Ricardo Rochetti: Kurt Angle’s current storyline makes this one the easiest call on this card, by far. I think this storyline would be far more compelling if Angle dropped one of these matches and had to start from the bottom again (or whatever the consequences would be), but I doubt he is going to. And if he is, I doubt this will be it. Styles has beaten Angle plenty of times in the past, so I don’t mind him doing the favor for Kurt here. I just hope that, from here, Styles moves on to a long, prosperous TV Title reign full of kick-ass matches.
Winner: Kurt Angle
Chantal: Kurt Angle will defiantly win this and keep on battling his way through the top 10 but AJ will put up one hell of a good show in this match and I hope it will be as excellent as it has been before.
Winner: Kurt Angle
Matthew Michaels: I think Kurt should keep winning until he gets through the top ten, and then someone interesting should beat him and make him re-think his career, etc. Is the TV Title on the line here? If it IS, then I moreso like Kurt winning it and defending it every week but that’s not the way they seemed to be going when they introduced the concept.
Winner: Angle
Raffi Shamir: Since the announcement of Fortune almost two months ago, this stable has been virtually non-existent. If they continue to be as ineffective and not win anything they’d be this year’s version of Legacy. Sadly, I don’t see Styles picking a win here against Angle, who must win.
Winner: Kurt Angle
Ricardo Rochetti: This is a tough one to call. TNA seems to be pretty high on all of these guys, and any one of them could be a suitable challenger to RVD in a pinch. Of the three, Anderson is the only one that hasn’t had his shot, however, so I think he wins here as TNA tries to elevate him to World Title challenger status in its efforts to keep RVD busy as Angle completes his quest.
Winner: Mr. Anderson
Chantal : This should be an excellent match with TNA’s biggest, up-and-coming stars and I really hope they all come together to deliver an excellent match. Even though I want Matt Morgan to win as he is one of my favourites In TNA I know that definitely he won’t win as they seem to have something against him. The Pope will most likely emerge victorious through a nice clean finish – well, hopefully.
Winner: “The Pope†D’Angelo Dinero
Matthew Michaels: Keep the Elijah Burke push going!
Winner: Dinero
Raffi Shamir: I love Pope, I like Morgan, I can’t stand Anderson. In my dreams Pope pins Anderson.
Winner: Pope
Ricardo Rochetti: [INSERT STATEMENT ABOUT HOW UNCOMPELLING HARDY’S TNA RUN HAS BEEN]. I haven’t read any rumors about this match, so I don’t know if TNA is planning on using this to debut someone new or not. If not, there are a couple of compelling options here. One, have it be Desmond Wolfe, so we are guaranteed to get a good match. Two, Joe’s suspension is a work, he answers the open challenge, and we get a rematch from the time-limit draw. If this is a way to debut someone new, I have a feeling we’ll be seeing an old friend of Jeff’s . . .
Who answers the open challenge? Shane Helms.
Winner: Jeff Hardy
Chantal: Who I would like it to be – Matt Hardy, which would be one hell of a surprise.
Who it will most likely to be – Gregory Helms.
Matthew Michaels: Well, an open challenge can go one of two ways. You either have some surprise come in and beat the star, or you have a match take place that everyone’s clamoring for but don’t think will happen. Since I have no idea who that surprise might be, I’m going with Samoa Joe here. And Joe wins.
Winner: Joe
Raffi Shamir: I seem to write this every time there’s a mystery opponent match, and this will be no different. I hate mystery opponents. I can see them slotting Kazarian here, as he’ll probably work well with Hardy and might pick up the only victory for Fortune on this show, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see someone debut here.
Who it will be: Shane Helms
Winner: Jeff Hardy
Madison Rayne (c) vs. Angelina Love
Ricardo Rochetti: Hey, remember when the Knockouts division used to be one of the highlights of the show? Yeah, it’s been so long that I don’t either. I actually had to look at the TNA website to see which one of the two is the champion. Anyway, on to the match. Madison has done a pretty decent job as Knockouts Champion, and as much as I like Angelina Love, her babyface run has been very lackluster. I think TNA knows that, so I expect the champion to retain via some sort of Beautiful People shenanigans.
Winner: Madison Rayne
Chantal: This match will end in some kind of crazy-ass TNA way thus leaving somebody completely random to win the belt like the hot biker chick or Rob Terry.
Winner: No winner
Matthew Michaels: Just let Angelina win here and move on. I don’t know where they’re going with the knockouts division. While it used to be must-see for me, I’d rather watch an all-female edition of NXT (actually think that would be a great way for WWE to bring in Kong, but I digress).
Winner: Angelina
Raffi Shamir: How long has this been going on? Pleas end this already. The Knockouts division is sadly getting close to Divas territory, and it’s just sad.
Winner: Angelina
Stay tuned to Pulse Wrestling for all the updates from the Impact Zone.
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