Impact Wrestling May 26, 2011 - Who's Stinging Who?
I don't know why I choose the moments when I'm in a low mood and down on wrestling as a whole to do another TNA episode, maybe it's just the way I find my zen. Anyway! This show is a tribute to Randy Savage who died the previous Friday. His last match was in TNA, remember that? No reason you should, he showed up halfway through, threw two punches, and that was it. Recap: Sting is champion, Anderson is acting like an impatient child who's got his title shot in the future but wants it now. That about covers it.
Match 1: AJ Styles/Christopher Daniels vs. Bully Ray/Tommy Dreamer - Street Fight
Tenay mentions something called a Scorpion Sitdown with Sting. Reminds me of the pandemic when 5 different people had interview segments in WWE. AJ's in a neck brace so how the hell was he cleared? He's favouring his neck even when he's brawling. Doesn't stop him from punching Dreamer into the crowd and doing a big dive off a balcony. Daniels is the one to bring the plunder in and Bully does his flop for a bin lid. Eventually Dreamer manages to remove AJ's brace and they take it in turns doing neck moves on him. They go for an assisted piledriver but eventually Daniels makes the save, cleans up, and they do an assisted piledriver of their own to finish it. So these two can't beat a guy with no neck. Good, Tommy Dreamer shouldn't be winning in 2011.
Hulk Hogan is here. His ride is blue this week.
Scorpion Sitdown time! Supposedly this is Sting's show... but nope, it's Anderson-as-Sting's show! He's pricking about, and his guest at this time is
fucking Disco Inferno. Why can't I escape him? Anderson clearly wants Disco to talk shit about Sting but he won't so Anderson just shouts catchphrases over him. He straight up says that Disco was brought over to bury Sting. Anderson isn't an asshole, so saith Disco, but a dick. He even
calls down Anderson's mic to call him a dick which is the best thing Disco's ever done. This really offends Anderson so he brains Disco with the mic and hits the Mic Check. Sting chases him off, and Anderson, after this half year of babyface chase, is just full heel now. Interesting way of doing it. I know I said Anderson was unlikeable, but he's flipped in such a weird way considering the effect the bookers desired. Where's the "next Steve Austin" now?
Eric Young follows Gunner into the bathroom for some reason. He thinks he accidentally swapped his old world title with Gunner's TV Title, so he wants to make things right by recreating the Fingerpoke of Doom tonight. Gunner's going to put EY down regardless. The alignments in this feel wrong for some reason, as Gunner's totally badass babyfacing now.
Velvet Sky! Clearly she wants answers from ODB. ODB says Velvet got her fired last year, which she kind of did because she was commenting on the Leather and Lace match when she got fired. Velvet says she worked her ass off and ODB retorts that she basically shagged her way through her career. The slut-shaming continues in the resulting beatdown, where ODB has Velvet in a very... compromising position.
Angle's poison has been picked and he'll be against RVD, so we get a little video package about how much Wrestling Matters to both those guys. This is after four minutes of wrestling and two straight promo segments so far this show.
Recap of the Roode arm-breaking incident leads directly to Beer Money in Bisch's office and Roode's arm is all slinged up. If he can't get cleared for Slammi the titles will be stripped. The smiling fucking mug suggests that he'll appoint a replacement. Then he says Storm should turn into Country Jesus and heal Roode with manure (wait, wasn't that Pope's gimmick a few months ago??). This riles up Storm enough to threaten his boss. Everyone's so fragile today.
Xplosion is relevant this week! Recently Pope hit on Devon's wife and that's not okay so that's a problem now. I happen to know these two go from enemies to teammates to enemies again into 2012, so that's a lovely bit of Russo booking.
Angle tells Jeff jarrett's poison, Matt Morgan, to be big and dominant and not be distracted by Karen.
Match 2: Jeff jarrett vs. Matt Morgan
Christy's calling all the matches "competitions" this week. Or at least both the matches so far. You can't exactly call back-to-back promos competitions. Earl Hebner sends Karen to the ramp and Jeff shoves him over. They do the basic Matt Morgan match spots, and Karen is already out of her chair on the ramp. Crutch passed to Jeff, he hits Morgan in the throat with it, Stroke for... two! Morgan recovers, hits Carbon Footprint, but Karen uses the crutch to trip the ref. Scott tapdancing Steiner shows up, hits a Flatliner on Morgan, and hands Jeff the big win. Storylines intersect but it feels weirdly unsatisfying. This match went three minutes and was all shenanigans. Wrestling Matters!
Recap of what Hogan and Bischoff are doing: Hogan's feuding with Mick Foley and Bisch hates the X Division.
Mr. Smiling Fucking Mug '98 is out, saying Hogan's doing well at working the Network and being the "Leader of Impact Wrestling". I'm fucking zoning out when Hogan talks, basically rambling through what Bisch just said. He then verbally fellates Bisch for killing the X Division. Out comes Foley, who's here to clear up some misconceptions. The Network don't like Hogan at all, he's expanding the X Division with worldwide wrestlers, and he's putting them in an Ultimate X match in July. Exciting stuff! Bisch thinks Foley doesn't control PPV, but the Network promotes the PPV, so he's in control anyway... huh? Hogan tries to set up Mick Foley vs. Abyss for the X Division Title for some reason. Out comes Brian Kendrick though, who would at least make sense. He mouths off against Hogan, talking nonsense throughout. So yeah, that's happening tonight.
The most lesbian storyline on this show becomes 10 times more lesbian as Winter gives Angelina a candlelit massage. Winter's talking all mysteriously loved-up and Angelina is too zombified to react.
Match 3: Mickie James vs. Winter
Winter is in full kink gear, even as her kink mask slips over the course of the match. She starts off dominant with her power moveset and hits a Northern Lights suplex (she's no Alicia Fox!), but Mickie takes over and does all her spots. Winter tries the spinning slam but Mickie counters and hits her jumping DDT for the win. Well, there goes your biggest heel contender! Winter's got a little bit of blood coming out of her mouth so zombie Angelina goes on the post-match attack and puts Mickie back first into the steps. Maybe the TNA Zombie is the top heel contender, come to think of it.
Abyss is in the back, polishing Janice and reading the Art of War while relating how he is Going To Win The Upcoming Match. Then Kaz attacks him and steals Janice, which should at least spice things up a bit.
Match 4: Abyss (c) vs. Brian Kendrick - for the X Division Championship
Abyss isn't at 100% so Kendrick gets a bit of edge. Abyss tries a chokeslam but Kendrick bites. They're trying to sell Abyss as the "intelligent monster" but he's really not, he's just doing the same power and hardcore spots he usually does. This is mostly heat segment. Kendrick gets back in it with flying kicks and goes up top but Abyss knocks the ropes. Black Hole Slam, done, the saviour of the X Division is just a job guy. Whose fucking idea was this, I swear. Brilliant, in a way that doesn't mean "brilliant" but "dreadful".
Angle and RVD talking again about how much Wrestling Matters. No match has breached 5 minutes so far and everyone's just talking. Sounds to me like Talking Matters.
As if to illustrate my point, there's another RVD focus package about how much he loves wrestling and showing off and making Wrestling Matter. Dear fucking Lord this show is dire. I actually zoned out midway through and it's still going. RVD's still just talking. This was absolutely only on the UK show but it annoys the hell out of me still.
Angle's talking about how big a match it'll be against RVD. Surely the rest of the show will be dedicated to that, right? We've got 15 minutes of runtime.
Match 5: Gunner (c) vs. Eric Young - for the Television Championship
Nope! We've got this to clear up. At least it's short, they do the Fingerpoke of Doom thing... but EY catches Gunner in a small package and pins him for the three!
New Television Champion - Eric Young! So they are capable of pivoting in a positive direction! I mean, EY is a joke, but he's at least got something. Gunner has nothing.
Okay, now the main event. The jarretts come out to do commentary, and my soul demands that I mute, but I just can't.
Match 6: Kurt Angle vs. Rob Van Dam
First time epic dream match, and to give it even more Big Fight Feel we've got Borash to do long-form in-ring intros. RVD's got a bit of blood in his mouth but boots Angle to the floor. It takes a while to pick up again, but after that it's mostly RVD. He goes Rolling Thunder for no reason while Angle is standing up, and gets caught in a belly-to-belly. Angle takes control, and applies a waistlock. We get that rarest of things, a PiP where neither screen shows anything happening, one showing a long hold and the other showing the jarretts talking. Max four minutes in and we have a big double down. There's flashes of brilliance as RVD does his top rope thrust kick for two. RVD counters the Angle Slam into a DDT for
another double down.
Eventually Angle tosses RVD off the top and puts on the ankle lock. "Don't you dare tap, come on Rob" -Jeff jarrett, who probably thinks the wrestlers can hear him like it's some indie show where they put the commentary over the PA. RVD manages to get a Five Star with a bad ankle but he misses, and Angle hits an Angle Slam for the finish. Epic seven minute match. They built it like a twenty-minute classic but it really wasn't, it was so truncated and so unevenly paced. Angle stares down Jeff on the ramp as this show's over. How not to do a rebrand: put on two absolute stinkers of shows in a row! See you next Impact, I guess.
