Reviewing the 6/2/11 episode of IMPACT Wrestling…
1. I understand babyfaces are going to stick together and make for strange bedfellows, forgetting the past, but man, the Beautiful People, specifically Velvet Sky was pretty ruthless on Ms. Tessmacher when she begged them to help her train to be a wrestler months ago. To see Ms. Tessmacher come to her aid now without any sense of mended fences makes for a strange sight. Just an odd observation from this IMPACT WRESTLING viewer.
2. Last week with no prior knowledge of TNA’s long term plans I speculated that Chris Harris could make for a potential replacement for Bobby Roode until he heals to help defend Beer Money’s tag team titles at Slammiversary. Thus potentially causing a rift if they became very efficient in their title defenses. While Harris might not be up to par with what TNA is looking for, they have found an interesting replacement in Alex Shelley basically assuming that role. This week he came out with the Network’s blessing to offer his services out of respect to Beer Money, supposedly for one time only, to defend the tag team titles against The British Invasion at Slammiversary. In doing so he also made Eric Bischoff’s shit<bleeped> list. Look forward to what kind of dynamic Gun Money(as Shelley referred to the team as) will have at Slammiversary. I won’t hold my breath, but I’d love to see Desmond Wolfe come out to manage British Invasion, possibly rechristening them the new “London Brawling”. The British Invasion name and theme music brings back awful memories. A change would be good.
3. Crimson and Samoa Joe had a brief confrontation following Crimson’s win over the falling fast “Cold Blooded” Matt Hardy. Joe ran down to seemingly attack Crimson and got a spear for his efforts. The jaw jacking and intense nature of this rivalry makes for one of the better feuds on Impact Wrestling right now. I still feel Samoa Joe should end his streak and will, but there is mystery in who will win their first encounter at Slammiversary and that’s a good element to have going in to a big one on one match with pride on the line.
4. I might be in the minority, I don’t know, but I don’t think Angelina Love should talk right now. Maybe it’s to further the brainwashing, but she just seems creepier completely mute and under the influence of Winter. I’m not a fan of this pairing lasting as long as it has, but if they are to push Velvet Sky as a singles competitor pursuing the Knockouts title on her own, it’s probably necessary to keep her unfettered to Angelina, who has embraced her entranced role. Her brewing feud with Mickie could have been enhanced more if Angelina kept the chokehold on Ms. Tessmacher until Mickie could come out for the save(a save that would make sense), but TNA dropped the ball on that one as the match did nothing for the feud other than to show a completely battle focused Angelina destroying a fellow Knockout.
5. Mr. Anderson(dressed as old school Sting) and Eric Young’s Halloween match in June didn’t seem to go over too well with the live Impact Wrestling crowd. In fact EY looked more like the Hellfire Club member Azazel from X-Men 1st Class(which coincidentally opened this weekend) than he did The Great Muta or “Not So Great” Muta as they called him. Gunner came down to ringside, which I thought was goofy for a comedy match, but I guess when EY was really taking it to Anderson ended up being appropriate, when after EY’s upset using the infamous green mist, Gunner and Anderson pummeled EY until the real Sting made the save which ignited the crowd.
6. Like him or not, Bully Ray with his reinvention of his persona has been able to position himself into a meaningful feud with AJ Styles. Certainly a clash of styles, no pun intended, in a lot of areas and the Last Man Standing edge and early picks might go to Bully Ray, but he has been pretty solid on the mic as an annoying and loathsome heel. Certainly will be a test when Bully can go toe to toe against AJ in a straight up match, not a hardcore fight to see if he could carry his end of an entertaining contest without weapons. But of course that is not going to be happening at Slammiversary IX.
7. With a goofy show long storyline of Eric Bischoff being served a letter from the Network, Impact Wrestling teased the dissolution of Immortal in such a weird and awkward way that when Bischoff and Hulk Hogan finished the show reading this letter Bischoff refused to open until the end of the show, it really came out of left field with no storyline hint that Mick Foley was going to be fired. Which begs multiple questions. Why would Bischoff think he and Hogan were getting fired from the envelope? Was he informed someone was getting the pink slip? I watch the program online so I might be out of the loop if the promos on Spike were somebody is getting fired this Thursday on Impact Wrestling. And if they were then my rant here probably loses merit, but still that would lead to my follow up question, What did Mick Foley do to get fired? Did he compare his empty arena match to a TNA house show? Will Impact Wrestling address it as Foley making disparaging comments about the company and it’s direction, so The Network decided to let him go? TNA will really have to explain this one to me next week as Foley seemingly was doing good on behalf of Impact Wrestling and benefitting the company and network one would think.
8. Lines of the Night:
a. To Velvet Sky after she said “Get off of me” to ODB during their brawl at the beginning of the show
ODB-“I’m sure you never said that to management, ‘Get off me’. Always on your back. Givin’ them chubbies.”
b. On Ms. Tessmacher’s entrance
Taz-“Some things don’t need commentary.”
c. On Karen Jarrett and Kurt Angle not being able to get rid of her
Taz-“She’s like a cockroach. She won’t die. She’s always coming around.”
9. Match of the Night:
#1 Contender’s Match for the X-Division Title
Kazarian vs. Brian Kendrick
Very solid and entertaining match filled with a slew of arm drags in the early goings, but such beautiful ones at that. Lots of near falls, counters and some high flying and high impact maneuvers. I can watch a series of matches between these two and they’d never get old. Great closing moment sequences at the end of the 10 minute time limit match before overtime was granted in the form of 5 more minutes. Unfortunately the Monster Abyss came out to ruin it attacking both men. The action we got was the best on the program, even though the finish provided no clear cut winner or number one contender.
10. Final Show Thoughts:
ODB attacked Velvet Sky during a photo shoot, spanking her all the way through it, I shit you not, as well as delivering nut shots and tea bags to Lee South, Impact Wrestling photographer and multiple security guards all while screaming whore and other obscenities at Velvet accusing her of being the reason why she was gone from Impact Wrestling. Ignoring the complete ridiculousness of ODB seemingly not an actual TNA employee(storyline) being allowed to thrash one of their paid contracted employees with no police officers stopping her, the brawl and cat calls were entertaining enough. Weird, mind you, especially in a lot of areas, but entertaining. Abyss declared the X-Division as dead so he isn’t going to be representing or wearing/carrying the title with pride. It’s more of a conquest or prisoner of war. Which isn’t a bad thing mind you as it should build it up as a huge victory when an X-Division wrestler liberates it hopefully at Destination X. In probably a segment that should have happened a long time ago, Karen Jarrett was seemingly written off television when after she attacked Kurt on the entrance ramp, Kurt was stalking her to the gorilla position steps when Jeff Jarrett hit Kurt from behind causing Karen to fall down the steps. She was taken away in an ambulance after a believable heated exchange between Angle and Jarrett on why she was brought into this in the first place. If this is to set up Kurt vs. Jeff straight up with no Karen involved since they don’t want to make it seem like Kurt could beat the both of them, so be it. I look forward to a great contest between the two of them and an actual final end to this feud. I just want to see Kurt Angle compete for the World Title again and have stellar matches with other Impact Wrestling superstars.
IMPACT PLAYERS of the WEEK:
ODB/Velvet Sky & Kazarian/Kendrick
The knockouts had a memorable, albeit strange and entertaining brawl and the two X-Division competitors had a memorable #1 Contenders match which while lead to a no contest, was nothing short of solid and entertaining in and of itself.
That is all.
M.C. Brown
You can find me on Twitter as
ShocXwavE
