Greetings, line crossers!
Apologies for the lateness of this report. I started it on time, I swear! The hellish nightmare that is the end of a school year plus an obscenely lengthy commute equals not enough time for writing prior to the weekend. Much like the film career of Kurt Angle, though, it will all be over soon. Tonight’s episode is titled “Nightmare at the Asylum.” The jokes write themselves, don’t they? Onward!
To the ring! Mick Foley comes to the ring, his TNA World title in one hand and a dvd in the other. By May 24th (which just so happens to be the day of the “Sacrifice” ppv), Foley assures us that he will be completely focused on the World title, as he knows he should be. For the first time ever, Jeff Jarrett will not be present and involved with TNA in any capacity. Foley is at least partially responsible for this, and will show the dvd of what happened later tonight. The doings will be ugly and dark, and not suitable for some viewers, but he’s going to show it anyway because the fans have earned the right to see it!
Drowgoddess Thoughts (DGT): Que? What exactly have the fans earned the right to see? And why? Does buying a ticket (or just walking in for free, as is the case in the Impact Zone) entitle me to something beyond watching the show? Still, Foley is certainly more unpredictable than ever now, and the segment piques interest.
To the Main Event Mafia locker room! Jeremy Borash interviews the MEM, noting that Kurt Angle is out in Hollywood filming a movie (He really is). Mr. BT Huffman must be really pissed. Scott Steiner is in charge in his absence, suit and all. Kevin Nash cheerfully describes banging Jenna Morasca, and tells us that she will support the MEM financially as long as Sharmell is kicked out of the MEM.
DGT: So the MEM needs a sugar mama to function now? Skanky McUseless will bankroll the MEM if the only other female in the group is kicked to the curb? They’re really grasping at straws to justify her paycheck. Scott Steiner’s “I graduated hakuna matada!” line was priceless!
To Mick Foley’s office! JB comes in on Foley taking down a framed picture of Jarrett, citing a “crack in the glass.” There is no glass. Eric Young enters the office to protest his lack of recent opportunity in TNA, pointing out that throwing him in a tag team match with a guy he had never met before hardly counted. Foley took issue with Young’s slight of the great Jethro Holiday, and puts Young in a one-on-one match against Samoa Joe, or, as those in the industry call it, certain death.
DGT: While it has barely begun, I’m already getting into the “disgruntled employee with a major chip on his shoulder” attitude of Eric Young. There’s an aggression about it that keeps it from being whiny, which is nice. Full-on heel Eric Young is coming, mark my words.
Match #1: Daniels defeated Chris Sabin (w/ Alex Shelley): For four and a half minutes, we got a great match. Don West’s constant commentary about Daniels pulling double duty as Suicide was fun, though every week, Mike Tenay becomes more and more useless and annoying by comparison. Lots of top rope action and reversals here. Sabin crotches Daniels on the top rope, clotheslines him down into the Tree of Woe, and hits a hesitation dropkick, but only gets a two-count. Shelley rakes Daniels’s eyes from the outside when the ref isn’t looking. Lethal Consequences comes out and stands on the ramp, watching. Daniels gets the upper hand after a backbreaker. Don West’s line about Daniels trying to find a way to collect two paychecks was gold! Tenay comes off as a bitter, spiteful prick, and not in a good way. Daniels flattens Sabin with a sort of reverse Curb Stomp from the top rope to the mat, followed by an STO, but Sabin kicks out at two. Daniels attempts the Angel’s Wings, but Shelley grabs his leg and stops it. Sabin goes for a tornado DDT, but Daniels reverses it into an Atomic Drop. Shelley tries to interfere, but Daniels knocks him to the floor. Daniels follows up on Sabin with an enziguri, a chokeslam, and the Best Moonsault Ever. The future Mr. Drowgoddess is pinned by Daniels for the three-count.
DGT: I don’t usually list all the moves in a match, and this brief summary hardly covers everything, but this match showed everyone what solid X-Division action can be. Again, it was much too short (particularly considering how later time would be spent), but one takes what one can get. Everything hints at a major X-Division feud [Attention everyone who reads this – the word is spelled “feud,” NOT “fued.”] between some of the best guys on the roster. Daniels, Sabin, Shelley, Amazing Red, Kaz, and even Lethal and Creed could put action behind the words of reviving the X-Division. Give it a few months, and let’s see where it goes.
To Mick Foley’s office! Foley meets with three referees, and chooses Earl Hebner to referee the Eric Young/Samoa Joe match because Hebner is a bit shady and the other two are simply too good. Foley tells Hebner that under no circumstances is he to disqualify Samoa Joe during the match.
DGT: I’d like to think that this was less about Hebner references and more about Foley being a manipulative jerk to get back at Eric Young. The heelishness continues.
To the back! Scott Steiner tells Jenna Morasca to end her problems with Sharmell. The worst actress this side of Christy Hemme (who at least overdoes things in a bad porn star kind of way) tells Steiner that they need to keep Sharmell on a shorter leash. Steiner insists that Sharmell wants to apologize and claims the whole thing is her fault. Steiner offers to set up a meeting between the two of them, and act as a modifer. JB corrects him with “moderator,” and Steiner yells at him. Still more gold. Your heels should not be this entertaining on a regular basis. Morasca agrees to the meeting.
DGT: Get this woman off my tv. She has zero business on a wrestling show. What is it with Dixie Carter and reality show people?
To the back! Lauren asks Angelina Love who she was talking to on the phone. We finally have indisputable evidence that there is no God, as Cute Kip shows up. He announces that he’ll be facing Awesome Kong in another stretcher match. Please try to forget that he said he would be “Kipping it real.”
DGT: Kip James is here. Petey Williams, Sonjay Dutt, and Jimmy Rave are not. Can words describe the level of wrongness?
To the video clips! Jeff Jarrett and his daughters do fun family things together.
DGT: TNA usually does a good job with these personal “behind the scenes” video clips, but this went on for far too long. We’ve already established that Jarrett is a devoted family man, so what does this video really do for anyone?
Match #2: Samoa Joe defeats Eric Young: This went about two minutes, which means that Eric Young holds his own against Samoa Joe better than most of the MEM. Joe attacks Young and kicks him over the top rope to the floor. Nice. Both guys try to go for chair shots on the floor, but Joe catches Young in the Kokina Clutch, and chokes him out for the win. Interestingly, Young passed out rather than tapped out. Good idea for both him and for Joe, in terms of future possibilities. Post-match, Joe scoops up Young, carries him to the parking area, puts him in the trunk of a car, and drives away.
DGT: The “tell Hebner not to disqualify Joe” bit was wasted because Joe didn’t really do anything to get disqualified FOR. Sure, both he and Eric Young went for chair shots, but why wouldn’t Young have gotten disqualified for that? A completely pointless stipulation.
To the Mike Tenay sit-down interview! Sting talks up his career, and how the main event match at “Sacrifice” will either be “the dawning of a new day or the last day of his career.”
DGT: Two problems exist with this situation. Firstly, No one who watches wrestling believes in retirement stipulations anymore. Nobody thinks for a minute that if Sting gets pinned, he’ll retire for good. Just look at Ric Flair, who had a retirement ceremy befitting a legend, promised that he was through for good, and now he’s trying to wrestle again. All this does is make sure that no one believes that Sting will get pinned. Secondly, if Sting doesn’t get pinned or win the title, then we’re back to the same old same old. He won’t have won or lost anything, and not helped or hindered himself in any way.
To the restaurant! Taylor Wilde anxiously awaits her blind date in the company of her BFF, Lauren. Less of a date, more of an assault, when the secret admirer turns out to be Daffney! Daffney is angry that she agreed to get in on the stupid Governor prank at Taylor’s request, and then Taylor was nowhere to be found to help her when The Beautiful People cut her hair off and essentially turned her psycho. Daffney will see Taylor at the Knockouts Monster’s Ball match at “Sacrifice,” and for once Taylor will be the victim. Physical violence ensues.
DGT: I’m generally annoyed by people who feel compelled to announce that “I called that!” I shall, however, break with tradition and say that I posted last week about the possibility of Daffney being Taylor Wilde’s secret admirer. Huzzah! Psycho Daffney is awesome, and it’s good to see some continuity in the form of acknowledging the previous storyline between these two. I’m personally looking forward to the Knockouts Monster’s Ball match. I’d be looking forward to it a lot more if the idiots-that-be hadn’t fired Roxxi. This match would have been perfect for her.
To the video clips! More of Jeff Jarrett being a great dad to his daughters. He took some verbal potshots at Mick Foley in this one.
DGT: “Moderation” is not a word that exists in the upper eschelons of TNA. This is already overkill. Jarrett is not a complete unknown whose every move needs to be documented in order to get him over. We’re supposed to be thinking what a great father and likeable guy Jarrett is, but we’ve crossed the line (See what I did there?) into Annoying Land.
Match #3: Awesome Kong defeated Cute Kip: This went between two and three minutes. The Glittery Syrian, Raisha Saeed, interfered several times, beginning with a low blow on Kip when he tried to choke Kong. A few chair shots and no disqualifications later, Kong splashes Kip from the ropes after putting his head between an opened chair.
DGT: Watching Kip James get destroyed made this worthwhile. That was about all. Aside from the fact that this version of the stretcher match is a rather poor one (roll your opponent onto a stretcher for a ten count, and he gets carted away), they’ve now had three in a row. No big deal made, just thrown out there. At the very least, Raisha Saeed could have announced that Kong will make every match she has a stretcher match until she gets her title shot, and management is forced to agree. Foley might even be all for it. It would be in the vein of the “open challenge,” but different. If you don’t have a justification for a gimmick match, and you don’t heavily promote said match in advance, it should not happen. Period.
To the back! Scott Steiner tells Sharmell that Jenna Morasca is willing to apologize, and says that the whole thing is her fault. Sharmell agrees to the meeting. JB asks what happens when neither woman apologizes. Steiner looks confused.
To the back! Lauren interviews Team 3D. They say that they left the WWE because they were tired of wrestling the same people over and over again. The British Invasion jumped them, and used the briefcases stolen from LAX to beat them down. While they were down, Sheik Abdul Bashir and one of the Japanese contingent (I didn’t see which one, sorry) walked by.
DGT: This could become a lengthy rant very quickly. Team 3D’s self-congratulatory behavior is wearing extremely thin. That WWE did not and does not care about tag team wrestling is undeniable. However, TNA wasn’t exactly stagnant in the tag team division prior to this tournament. The problem is that teams not named Team 3D aren’t WINNING anything. No, Team 3D is not to blame for this, as they no booking power of which I am aware. However, leaving out that this entire tournament should not exist and that Beer Money should be the reigning champs right now, if Team 3D truly are supposed to be benevolent faces who care about the state of tag team wrestling, they are awfully paternal and condescending in showing it.
To the video clips! This one features Jeff Jarrett and his night life. JB comes running out of an establishment labeled “Nude Karaoke Bar,” asking Jarrett for money to pay his tab. Jarrett tells him to pay his own bills and walks away.
DGT: Too much. How much time during one show is going to be spent on video clips of the Founder and his life, when we have yet to get a match lasting five minutes?
Match #4: The British Invasion defeat Amazing Red & Suicide: This was a semifinal match in a title shot tournament. Did we get five minutes out of it? No. No, we did not. Suicide appeared on the announce table, which was nice. It’s fun that he’s been appearing in random places for his entrance, and that the zipline entrance isn’t the only one. Brutus Magnus and Doug Williams shook hands after hitting double-teams, which is great. Amazing Red was both, hitting a number of impressive moves. Doug Williams scored the win for his team with the Bombs Away knee drop on Suicide after the Motor City Machine Guns ran in and hit Suicide with double super kicks.
DGT: Cool it on the Brutus Magnus hate. Yes, the guy is here because Dixie Carter loved him on a reality show. Yes, he had possibly the worst introductory gimmick possible. Yes, his ring work has been awful. However, he just started teaming with Doug Williams. Give it a little time. Magnus is likely very much aware that he shouldn’t be wrestling on tv yet, but like with “the other company,” what’s a green guy to do when told by the boss that he’s going on tv? Refuse? Fat chance. If he’s as bad in the ring six months from now as he was when he had his first match in TNA, let the hating commence. Until then, be glad it isn’t Black Reign.
Post-match, the MCMG continue the beatdown of Suicide, and take out Amazing Red for good measure. Lethal Consequences comes running down to the ring, and we go to a commercial break. Yes, you read that right, we go to a commercial break. When we return, Jay Lethal calls the MCMG “the Rockers,” and all four men go after Suicide. He gets caught as he tries to escape through the ropes. Shelley and Sabin forced Suicide to his knees, and held their feet against the sides of his head while pulling out his arms. Lethal and Creed tried to unmask him, but couldn’t get it to come off before Daniels made the save. Daniels beats up all four guys and chases them away, and Suicide shakes his hand. Daniels tells Suicide that the masked man owes him one.
DGT: Don West is beyond gold on commentary during all this. Tenay is a complete waste. The one problem with this segment was that the failure to remove the mask looked too staged, like they were stalling for time before Daniels came out. Just fumbling around with the mask doesn’t cut it. It’s little moments of “business,” as we call it in theatre, that can make or break a segment like this. TNA needs an acting coach.
To the back! Scott Steiner sits down with Jenna Morasca and Sharmell. Everything explodes into the MEM chick fight. Speaking of acting coaches, no one needs one more desperately than the Survivor Skank. Sharmell is a fantastic personality, and anyone stepping up to her has to be able to match that.
Match #5: Kevin Nash defeated No Limit: This was a two-on-one handicap match. Nash took a little bit of dropkick-based offense, but didn’t break much of a sweat (or anything else) in defeating both members of No Limit by slamming Naito with a Jacknife Powerbomb and getting the pin. He then tells Samoa Joe that at their match at “Sacrifice,” the Nation of Violence won’t be called Samoa Joe. It will be called Kevin Nash.
DGT: Horrible! Horrible in every way! No Limit has been completely buried beyond comprehension. Their home promotion must regret the day they ever agreed to any sort of agreement with TNA. Have No Limit won any matches at all? Certainly not recently. Feeding both of them to a fifty-year-old cripple who has nothing to offer the business aside from his track record of how to better himself at the expense of it is nothing short of criminal. This is causing hatred with an unholy fiery passion of burning.
To Foley’s office! He watches the dvd that he plans to show everyone. The person he’s talking to turns out to be Mr. Socko.
To the back! Lauren interviews AJ Styles. AJ talks about his upcoming “I Quit” match with Booker T at “Sacrifice.” Did anyone else know about this? AJ says that Booker T’s ego isn’t as big as his own heart, and that the words “I quit” will never cross his lips.
DGT: Seriously, did anyone else know about this match? I didn’t, and I review the show every week.
Match #6: Booker T defeats Jethro Holiday: This match was an “I Quit” match. It was also over in a little more than five minutes. Sharmell slid a chair in to Booker T, who hit Holiday in the head with it, delivered an Axe Kick, and got the new guy to say he quit.
DGT: Abomination! Abomination unto all forms of god and man! Why? Why would you have an “I Quit” match on tv when the selling point of your big ppv match is that it is an “I Quit” match? Why would you have such a match, which, by definition, is about endurance, go a mere five minutes? Why would a huge deal not be made in advance about a guy on the roster all of two weeks taking on a member of the MEM in such a match? The only thing about this match that did not sap my will to live was Jethro Holiday on the mic. I said last week that I never liked the guy. I didn’t, and I stand by that. However, when asked if he quit the first time, he responded something about “Your mama!” When asked the second time, he said, “Sharmell looks good naked!” I may change my mind about Jethro Holiday.
To the production truck! Mick Foley hands over the dvd, and tells the guys in the truck to play it on his cue.
To the ring! Foley comes out, and the dvd plays. It’s Jeff Jarrett in the Nashville Asylum, TNA’s birthplace. Jarrett takes everyone for a stroll down memory lane, both for TNA as a company and for him personally. Foley jumps him, beating him down and choking him with cables before beating him into a cage door. Foley says that you can’t go home again.
DGT: This was not one of the better episodes of “Impact.” They have one more week to convince us to part with our hard-earned money (or just sit in a chair at a computer for three hours) for “Sacrifice.” If the show were tomorrow, I wouldn’t get it. Finalize the card on next week’s show, and I’ll decide then.
Peace out,
Drowgoddess
