Coming off of the �Victory Road� Pay-Per-View this past Sunday, we returned to Universal Orlando Resort with TNA �iMPACT!� on Spike TV!
Last week after pinning A1 in an �All Or Nothing� match, Jay Lethal was gifted a title opportunity of his choice. Everyone, even Jeremy Borash, fully expected Lethal to challenge Senshi for the X-Division Title. In fact we opened tonight�s broadcast with Jeremy Borash eagerly waiting outside of Sting�s locker room to get a word with him, as he�s the new number one contender to Jeff Jarrett�s NWA World Heavyweight Title. However, it was Jay Lethal coming out of Sting�s locker room. Lethal said he won a �title shot�, so after talking with Sting he was given the advice of going for it all. So Jay Lethal went on to challenge Jeff Jarrett for the NWA World Heavyweight Title.
As the night progressed, we had Eric Young appear backstage coincide to JB with his �Don�t Fire Eric� t-shirt on. Apparently he was just there to concrete his friendship with JB in hopes of Jeremy not trying to avoid him because this morning Eric was looking all over for him. We were then rushed to ringside where Jarrett dubbed Sting a con artist because he made Lethal choose a World Title shot over an X-Division Title shot. Jarrett had an answer to that though � wherever he goes; Scott Steiner won�t be too far behind him.
So in our main event it came down to Jeff Jarrett vs. Jay Lethal for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Lethal definitely held his own during the bout by keeping Jarrett on his feet at all times, but when the referee was occupied with Jarrett, Steiner was there to soften Lethal up.
Steiner wouldn�t leave this night without take a bump though, because at one point Lethal was on such an offensive roll with taking Jarrett out, he even equalized his chance of winning the title by spring boarding out of the ring to take down �Big Poppa Pump�. All in all, a great match despite the cheating factors that led to Jeff Jarrett�s win with The Stroke from the top rope.
Afterwards, the lights went out and Sting appeared. He cleared Jarrett and Steiner out of the ring after their beatdown on Jay Lethal. So to equal things out, Christian Cage went in to Jim Cornette’s office demanding to be in Sting’s corner at Hard Justice. Will Cornette grant Christian’s wish?
Earlier in the night, the newly franchised Naturals were in action. Andy Douglas and Chase Stevens were set to take on the reunited team of �The Maverick� Matt Bentley and Frankie Kazarian. The Naturals quickly went to work by keeping Maverick Matt grounded in their corner � all in hopes of making their manager Shane Douglas proud. It was last Sunday when The Naturals won their match against The Diamonds In The Rough; however, the perfectionist that Shane Douglas is wasn�t satisfied, he still has an inner void not yet fulfilled by The Naturals.
Frankie Kazarian then tested himself against The Naturals as Matt Bentley tagged him in after escaping a close loss early on. Kazarian came full force at Andy Douglas with an impressive running double-boot into the corner with the momentum of the ropes.
Bentley and Kazarian had a great return with their quick agile style, but in the end it was The Naturals getting the all-important win with their hoisted up drop kick on �The Maverick� after having knocked Kazarian out of the ring. Shane Douglas was visibly happy about the win, but he suddenly dropped his smile and replaced it with anger. He wants perfection and he didn�t see it in this match � the opposition were in control for a longer extent of the match and that�s unacceptable for �The Franchise�.
Later on in the broadcast we had a presentation from The Paparazzi Productions. Alex Shelley and Johnny Devine were showing footage they captured from out of Madagascar exclusively for Kevin Nash. Nash replied, �I�ve never seen a 2-sided ring before.� Alex said that was exactly it, and that�s why they�re so innovative. He then went on to say he�s going to personally get these wrestlers from Madagascar a first class plane ride to Orlando to help train Kevin Nash along his road to stardom in the X-Division when he defeats Chris Sabin at Hard Justice.
After the show went off the air, Kevin Nash reportedly met with Jim Cornette and was actually granted a special stipulation that the winner of this match will gain a shot at the X-Division Title. So the training from the Madagascar wrestlers could transcend Nash to go greater lengths at possibly winning a title originally out of his league.
The night also saw Rhino in action with Robert Adams. Adams was defeated under 30 seconds with The Gore!
�That wasn�t the competition I was looking for,� said Rhino.
Rhino resent out his extreme challenge and out came Samoa Joe to answer the call. The both didn�t want to wait for Hard Justice, so they both agreed upon fighting on next week�s �iMPACT!� on Spike TV! The two tried to brawl before next week, but security thought otherwise.
Backstage with Brother Runt was Team 3D�s Brother Ray and Brother Devon as they announced that they�re going to be taking a sabbatical from TNA for the time being. After coming into TNA and setting their hearts on the NWA World Tag Team Titles, and then not achieving that dream with all the circumstances regarding America�s Most Wanted, and then going really off track with The James Gang, they had no other choice. They thought it was best to take a break to regroup and then come back stronger than ever in achieving their goal. In leaving, they told Runt to stay out of trouble and maybe go after the X-Division Title � something on the safe side, or in other words something that is not Abyss. After all, Runt took the loss last Sunday when Abyss delivered the Black Hole Slam through a table.
After the announcement was laid out by Team 3D, the NWA World Tag Team Champions, AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels came out with contracts for all oncoming tag teams for a shot at their titles. Ultimately it was LAX�s Konnan interrupting the announcement by AJ and Daniels when they were announcing the tag teams they had open contracts for, but they never reached LAX�s contract yet so Konnan was mad. AJ was really offended by the interruption so they pulled out the contract for LAX to which he and Daniels presumed to give to Konnan to sign for a title shot at Hard Justice. It was all fun and games for Konnan though, his thugs Homicide and Hernandez jumped the champs with Homicide executing his new finisher in the process on AJ Styles � a back-to-back double underhook piledriver. In the end it was Konnan signing the contract in Daniels� own blood.
