Alright, I somehow survived last week with my sanity and sobriety more or less intact. Let’s see if it was a fluke or if I really do have a will of steel.
No recap to open the show this week, instead we’re jumping straight into an “introductions in progress” battle royal I think. Ah no, this is the Feast or Fired, which as near as I can tell is TNA’s version of the Royal Rumble and Money In The Bank had an incestuous freak baby.
Less than a minute after the bell the first briefcase is claimed by Robbie E, who is clearly a super topical wrestling character in that he’s ripping off that hip and current show The Jersey Shore that all the kids are talking about 5 years ago.
Based on the information offered by Josh “I Hate JR” Matthews and Taz “I Used To Be Tazz” Taz, the match stips are as follows, for anyone else who, like me, had no clue what the deal was; 4 briefcases around the ring on poles. 3 have MITB style “Guaranteed Title Shot” contracts, 1 each for World, X-Division, and Tag titles. The 4th briefcase contains a pink slip.
So basically it’s MITB as contested in a battle royal on a pole match for people who think Career Suicide is a valid method of advancement.
JR’s Bitter Stepchild informs us that no one has ever successfully cashed in one of the title shot cases.
You know, I actually don’t mind that they’re doing this on free tv as a curtain jerker because the whole idea is so mindnumbingly stupid that I’d feel like an idiot paying for it on PPV.
Rockstar Spud, who has taken time out of his busy schedule of weeping for Jeremy Borash’s lustrous hair, goes for a briefcase but is stopped by Generic TNA Heel #3. Feel free to fill me in on his identity because the announcers can’t be assed to say.
Oh nevermind, the heel helpfully lets Spud try again and is named as “Jesse Goddard”, who then attacks Spud again when Spud turns out to be too short to reach a briefcase. Spud goes apeshit on him, so at least Spud is good for a “little dog fights like a pitbull” spot.
Goddard gets tossed out, then some Shannon Moore clone I don’t recognize, then The Wolves dive over onto them, then Magnus who is one of the Brits they interviewed last week whom I didn’t know pushes Spud around before Spud can Daniel Bryan everyone, then James “No really I swear I’ve never heard of Bray Wyatt” Storm pushes Magnus out into the ringside tea party, then Spud dropkicks HIM out, and I am mildly impressed with the rapid fire “Keep up with this!” nature of the sequence.
Spud, who the crowd seems to kinda dig, is all alone in the ring now and gets the obligatory “underdog hope spot” going for another briefcase until a hulking sleeve-tatted monstrosity who looks like a stalker of some sort the announcers are referring to as “Samuel Shaw” clubs Spud off the turnbuckle to squash all hope spots and climbs the corner himself. Then Gunnar, the other Brit from last week I wasn’t familiar with, clubs Shaw, apparently knocking him out on the turnbuckle.
Gunnar eats a dropkick from Austin Aeries, and Aries eats one from the determined as fuck Spud who’s already back in, and AGAIN Spud is alone in the ring except for the Stunned-On-The-Turnbuckle Shaw, who Spud uses as a booster step to reach a briefcase. Second briefcase of the night claimed and the crowd cheers for what was actually a decent sequence leading to Spud claiming a briefcase.
Spud leaves and we immediately get another sequence; Spiky Haired Jobbah climbs a turnbuckle, gets tossed by Aeries, who then gets tossed mid climb by Goddard, who stupidly pauses at the ropes to get a good luck kiss from Angelina Love, giving the Wolves time to set him up for a vicious looking doubleteam move where one Wolf tosses him up and the other savate kicks him on his way down and damn but that looked stiff.
The cool sequences continue as the Wolves rile up the crowd, howl, and run to plancha the crowd of wrestlers on their tea break outside, but stop while Angelina Love shakes her ass at them to distract them while Spiky Haired Jobbah, (whom I know realize is DJ Z, AKA Zema Ion, AKA “How the fuck does he still have a job after crippling a kid?”), runs at them from behind, gets tossed, then the Wolves get tossed by Austin Aeries, who points to the tea party as if asking the crowd if he should DB them, and goes to do so but fakes everyone out and instead bounces up the ropes to snag Briefcase #3. THEN he DB’s everyone and walks backward up the ramp like a boss.
Now we get a “Big men clubbing each other like Khali” sequence with Gunnar and some lug called Bram, which is interrupted by Magnus, who turns a corner powerbomb into a fallaway slam on both of them, and then claims a briefcase. Match over.
So the four briefcase winners are Robbie E, Rockstar Spud, Austin Aeries, and Magnus. Josh and Tazz inform us we’ll know who got what by the end of the night, as an interviewer backstage asks Bobby Lashley about MVP “taking his title”. So I guess Lashley is a face now?
Backstage Magnus is being interviewed about getting a case when Bram comes to scream at him for screwing him out of the case. Magnus correctly points out the “Every Man For Himself” nature of the match and basically tells him to chillax, and shit gets real man! BRAM IS GONNA SMASH YOUR ‘EAD IN!!!
Lashley is coming to the ring, while Josh informs us that our producer Kieth Mitchell would like us to watch some video from last week. Apparently MVP is woefully misinformed about how championships work, and thinks that Lashley’s title belongs to the Beatdown Clan because they helped him win it, and MVP stole the belt after beating Lashley down. Back to this week, and Lashley is demanding his belt back, and the BDC comes out to huge heel heat while MVP again explains his drastic misunderstanding of how Championships work. Lashley and MVP decide to fight over the belt as if MVP is defending it, and the BDC surround the ring for it, and the foreshadowing here is so obvious even Vince would say “No I think we’re trying to hard here to get the point across”.
And then MVP pulls “Cowardly Hell Stable Leader Tactic #12” and puts Kenny King in the match in his place, which the crowd clearly appreciates.
They have a brief but capable match for maybe 3 minutes before the BDC do their run-in so telegraphed that it single-handedly brought back the telegraph machine just to telegraph itself, and MVP tries to sound gangsta as he continues to pretend he’s the world champion, daring Lashley to take the belt back in the streets, while Samoa Joe cockblocks the referee’s attempts to reclaim the stolen belt.
Quick replay of Feast or Fired, and up next is Havok vs Gail Kim, which I expect to be actually entertained by, and Josh finally realizes that Awesome Kong’s return is kind of a big deal and sets up a video package to give a Kong Refresher Course. It’s a decent enough video, that gets across Kong’s dominance.
Less than a minute into this match and it’s already better than anything from this week’s Raw, and the bell hasn’t even rung yet. See folks? Amazing things happen when you just let talented wrestlers of ANY gender just go out there and tear shit up. Seriously these two are beating each other like TNA owes them money. I mean they’re so stiff with each other Finlay and Bob Holly are taking notes.
Sadly it ends too early as Havok gets disqualified for shoving the ref, and continues to beat on Gail regardless. This causes lights out, and we now have Kong and Havok face to face and the crowd is in conniptions with glee, and I have chills.
After a staredown Havok lays a hella stiff clubbing forearm across Kong’s face, which she no-sells before screaming in psyche-out rage. Havok tried o bodypress her to another no-sell, and Kong clothelines her right out of the ring. Havok backs down and we go to commercial. Too short but awesome for what they gave us. Great way to get us wanting more.
Some Luchadore named Tigre Uno is introduced, and then the bargain basement Wyatts come out, and a HUGE wrestler from India introduced as Koya destroys him in seconds while Josh and Tazz babble about James Storm renaming him.
Storm then cuts a rambling promo about Mat Hardy getting clean like Jeff did but he’s the demon Matt can’t overcome, and the only way they could make it any more obvious what a Wyatts rip-off gimmick he’s stuck in is if he carried a kerosene lamp wearing a Hawaiian shirt.
Kurt Angle and Booby Roode talk about their tag match tonight against Eric Young and Low-Ki, then we switch to the studio where Josh harps on the new production design again. Then he rambles awkwardly about the Feast or Fired consequences, and then sends us back to the arena.
Spud is interviewed about getting a case and he cuts a pretty good promo about the opportunity and says he he gets the pink slip he’ll go punch Dixie Carter’s worthless kid in the mouth.
EY & Low-Ki come out, then Angle, then Roode, and Josh & Taz ramble about whether or not EY is part of the BDC and how Angle and Rude having separate entrances proves they’re not on the same page as a team somehow.
Crowd is really into this match, and it’s pretty decent I must admit. EY seems to get the better of Roode, but Roode was playing possum and ends up superplexing EY. Sadly the match ends after about 6 minutes on a screwjob, as the ref fails to see Low-Ki tapping to Roode’s submission hold because the ref is trying to get Angle to put down the chair he’s threatening Joe and MVP with on the outside, allowing EY to ram a chair into Roode and save Low-Ki, who pins Roode.
Suddenly MVP is outside in front of the Manhatten center daring Lashley to come fight him for the belt, acting like every asshole I went to school with who had a crew of big tough idiots that did all his fighting for him but never got his own hands dirty.
We get another reminder that we’ll soon get the briefcase answers for Feast or Fired, and next match up is….. oh my fucking gawd… ECIII vs Jeremy Borash. My brain cells are begging me for booze now. First time so far in this entire show I’ve wanted to drink though, so I’ll take it as a sign that they’ve mostly gotten their shit together. Then they run a video package that shows us the backstory for how Rockstar Spud became an Underdog Face and it’s actually pretty helpful in explaining the character so I get his motivations.
So here comes ECIII with Post-Funk Brodus, now called Tyrus, who does a shitty attempt at Borash’s job. Borash comes out with Spud, says hi to a young man and a hot girl at ringside whom we are told are the winner of “TNA British Bootcamp Season 2” and Jeremy Borash’s new fiance respectively. Borash gets a decent burn on Carter, and gets in his token offense right off the bat, but Carter gets back control and beats him down. Spud has had enough, and takes off his chippendale bowtie just so you know how serious this bizniss really is, and storms the ring to take out ECIII. Tyrus comes in to attack spud, but the bootcamp kid runs-in and dropkicks him. Tyrus tries to charge them both but they dodge and dropkick him outside, then take turns doing pretty good rope spots, a plancha from Spud and a shooting Star press from bootcamp kid, who I think they called Mandrews? They pull Borash back into the ring and celebrate as ECIII and Tyrus turn tail and run. All in all not as horrible as I expected.
We go back to Josh and Taz in the studio recapping the night so far and Josh making fat jokes at Taz’ expense while Taz orders pizza. Ugh.
Diet Wyatt comes back out followed by Mattitude Vista, and they have a passable one on one match that so far barely has my attention, proving again why they are both the Jannetty’s in the respective tag teams that made them famous.
The crowd pops when Matt teases doing a jumping Twist of Fate from the apron but just does a weak axhandle. Crows cheers for him anyway as I wish he’d kept his shirt on.
Action goes back and forth for a few minutes until Hardy wins with a small package/inside cradle. This clean win is met with a sportsmanlike handshake! No just kidding. It’s met with Abyss destroying Hardy and bringing out Janice, (a black two-by-four covered with four inch nails), which brings Jeff Hardy down to knock Janice away with a steel chair. Abyss bails, and Jeffy gets the crowd to chant Monsters Ball, which we are apparently getting next week. Yay for that, I kinda dig those when they’re done right. I except blood.
Christy Hemme, (lesbian sigh), is in the back with the Feast or Fired winners and I’m wondering why we’re not doing this in the ring. Oh well, let’s find out who’ll be begging for a job at NXT on Monday.
MVP tells Joe to leave him be outside, and back to the briefcases, where Robbie E is SO confidant that he won’t get the pink slip that you know he just HAS to now, while claiming he wrote Wind Beneath my Wings, and I say screw the briefcases, just fire him now before Bette Midler sues the whole company.
Spud goes first, and after some “Dramatic Stalling”, (™ & ©), Spud walks out with a shot at the X-Division Title.
Next up is Magnus, who no-sells the suspense like he’s bored and just opens his case. Tag Title shot for him.
Robbie E is next, and he apparently doesn’t grasp the concept that he could lose his job, and we go to commercial with a warning that Lashley is finally outside looking for MVP. And I have a sinking suspicion they’re going to do some kind of trap set-up police sting angle and Lashley will be “arrested” for attacking MVP in public.
Back from break and now Robbie E is absolutely sure he’s got the pink slip and I’m scared it’ll go to Aeries. Robbie E suddenly remembers that it was technically Velvet Sky who grabbed that particular briefcase, and maybe she’s getting released so she can follow her boyfriend Bubba back to WWE Dudleyville.
Yep. Robbie’s idiotic gloating as she cries is just bad tv, period.
Which means Austin Aeries gets the world title shot. And he just side-eyes the camera lokk CM Punk.
Well, that’s that. Odd way to end the… oh wait, there’s still MVP.
And I hear sirens as Lashley beats MVP like a government mule. Thankfully no police interrupt as they start fighting into the building. Then the BDC interfere after all and drag him back outside.
Angle and Roode chase the BDC off with metal bars, and Roode picks up the belt to stare longingly at, ending the show with a staredown and it’s kinda creepy how Lashley head is visibly steaming.
So, all in all a B+ show this week. Maybe there’s hope for them yet.
Next week, the Monsters Ball.
