Impact has a pair of big time singles matches announced for tonight with Jeff Hardy vs. Eric Young in a cage and Matt Hardy’s rematch for the title against Drew Galloway. Plus the Pope!!
1. The show jumps right into a big main event match with Jeff Hardy vs. Eric Young in Six Sides of Steel. A nice brawl with heavy interference by Bram. The finish was a pretty sick Swanton Bomb from the top of the cage onto EY through a table.
2. Dixie Carter has a meeting backstage with Gail Kim and Maria about who gave them the authority to have #1 contenders’ matches. They decide to go with a 3 way match for the KO title.
3. In a TNA segment called “Final Word”, Borash called both Matt Hardy and Drew Galloway out to the ring for a promo showdown. This ended with Tyrus bringing up some kind of title shot he earned in October then doing a mic drop and walking out. Matt and Reby seem confused.
4. My segmnet has arrived! First of all, the Pope is introduced by his full name The Pope D’Angelo Dinero and I popped. Lashley attacked from behind like the no-good charisma-less beast he is. He dominates the match in a near-squash. Pope gets some offense in with a kendo stick, but Lashley hits a spear for the pin.
5. After that match, EC3 comes down to make the save, and Mike Bennett attacks EC3, morphing the segment into a brawl between those two. It was well done how the segments blended from one into another.
6. There were a series of backstage segments with Tyrus talking about his mic drop with others. He had a great line telling EC3 “I hate you” upon walking away.
7. Knockouts Title match saw Jade win in an upset over Gail Kim and Madison Rayne, although it was largely due to Maria’s interference. Fine for storyline advancement in both Maria vs. Gail and putting the title onto Jade and into a new direction, but not a blowaway in-ring match by any means.
8. Billy Corgan had a backstage meeting with Al Snow, and because Snow was part of the management team, and broke Grado’s arm in a vicious attack, he was suspended for 1 week without pay. Shouldn’t he be fired? Snow mumbled about old school and walked off.
9. When Tyrus went to enter the ring, it ended up being a hoax and he just exited, and allowed Matt to get an early jump on Drew. Seemed like a lot of work and prep for one pre-emptive attack in the match.
10. The actual Drew Galloway vs. Matt Hardy main event singles match ended up being a very solid match. Tyrus and Jeff Hardy got involved. In the end Drew made Matt tap out with the Iron Maiden crossface.
A pretty solid edition of Impact where both Hardy singles matches were good, and the Pope segment was satisfying enough. They set up two big matches for next week – EC3 vs. Mike Bennett and Beer Money in a Tag Team Title open challenge with unlimited teams.
