The Impact Crater 08.17.06

Posted by Ryan Byers on 08.18.2006

TNA Drinking Game Rule #2: Take a shot for every gratuitous plancha.

We open with a MASSIVE brawl between Christopher Daniels, AJ Styles, and LAX, with Team Latino getting the early advantage and drawing blood from the Fallen Angel. Styes tries to turn things around with a plancha, but Hernandez catches him and gets a MASSIVE gorilla press slam on to the ramp as we cut to Homicide TEARING Daniels' forehead open on the inside. Everybody's in the ring now, and Daniels really has a gusher going. The good guys make a comebck at this point, with Daniels using a chair on Hernandez, only to be cut off by Homicide seconds later. Ultimately, a champagne bottle (on hand for a Jeff Jarrett "celebration" that was to open up the show), gets smashed over Styles' head so that he can get cut open too. Rhino runs down for the save for no apparent reason . . . and here's Monty Brown! He goes for Rhino, and then Spike Dudley and his goofy mohawk attack Brown despite the fact that they're not feuding. Abyss is then out after Spike, Samoa Joe is out after Rhino, and Double J is out to . . . well . . . do absolutely nothing. Then the lights go out, and the Stinger takes out the bad guys with his trusty baseball bat.

Sting proves that he's a selfish bastard, getting on the microphone and talking to the fans instead of helping Christopher Daniels and AJ Styles, who are still down and seriously bloody in the ring. Mr. Borden says Christian is the man who beat him at the pay per view, not Jarrett. He asks for a rematch, says he'll do anything to get it, and demands his answer tonight. Jesus, this segment was stupid. LAX and Daniels/Styles were doing something great that really could have heated up that fed., but the fact that you had the entire roster run out after them really overshadowed that angle, particularly when the last image of Daniels/Styles shown was an unscathed Sting standing over them.

We're back from commercial, and the TNA FIRE~! gets its own video package. Um, okay. It basically just said "There was a fire, then there was a pay per view." What does that accomplish? People might buy a replay for the novelty value, but they're not going to be happy when thirty minutes of it is stalling or when that thirty minutes is edited out and the show is shorther than it should be but for the same higher price.

Now in the back, Eric Young is with Jeremy Borash. Young has just come out of Jarrett's locker room, where they were talking. We basically establish that Jarrett will answer Sting's challenge later tonight and that Eric is afraid that Jeff Jarrett might have the ability to fire him. Cute inside reference there.

Match Numero Uno: Johnny Devine, Petey Williams, & Alex Shelley vs. Jay Lethal, Chris Sabin, & Sonjay Dutt

Well, it didn't take that long for a couple of Team Canada members to wind up together again. Lethal starts with Devine, and they run the ropes before Lethal does his cartweheel/dropkick combo. Dutt and Sabin run with Shelley and Williams at this point, and they do a really contrived spot in which the bad guys get kicked out of the ring and the good guys dive on them. Then, out of nowhere, Earl Hebner jumps Slick Johnson as we go to commercial. It's still a schmozz when we come back, with Shelley getting a CRAZY flatliner in to the guardrail on Lethal. Jay fails to sell and hits a backbreaker on Williams in the ring, and now we've got tags to Dutt and Shelley. Sonjay gets a rana, springboard clothesline, and a spinebuster for two. All six men are brawling AGAIN, and Sabin and Lethal get the old rowboat spot on Devine and Shelley. Been a while since I've seen that one. In the middle of the rowboat, Dutt hits a rana on Shelley, and now it's more brawling. Dutt and Lethal hit stereo leg lariats on the Paparazzi, and Sabin hits a guillotine legdrop on Devine for the pin.

Match Thoughts: I really like Shelley, Lethal, and Sabin. Devine and Sabin are decent. Dutt can take a long walk off a short pier. Yet, despite the fact that I like five of the six competitors in the match, I'm going to have to say that it's terrible. Part of this was the fault of the commercial break, but these men did absolutely nothing to give the match any coherent flow. It was just a bunch of men running around and hitting a bunch of moves on each other with complete disregard for the rules of tag team wrestling and a blissful ignorance of the fact that wrestling moves are supposed to hurt when you hit them on another man. Combine that with the absolutely insane mid-match angle to further a feud between two different referees, and this did not come close to living up to the potential that it had on paper. DUD

Now we go to "exclusive" post-show footage from Hard Justice. I like the completely unnecessary use of the word "exclusive," as though WWE or UFC would somehow also have the rights to air this. (Or would want to.) Anyway, the footage shows us Rhino having a spat with Christian after Cage's turn on Sting. That leads in to a sit-down interview with Christian, who is wearing an "Obey Propaganda" t-shirt, which is a great choice for a heel. He claims that he turned on Sting because he, not the WCW alum, is the real most recognizable man in TNA and the man who brought it in to the limelight. (I must've missed that one happening.) He promises to be in the Impact Zone "next week."

Commercials. Accepted looks like a movie I'd rather gnaw my own arm off than watch.

In the back, Daniels and Styles are recovering from their beating. They challenge LAX to a rematch, which Konnan immediately accepts from the announce table, so long as there are no DQs. One of my pet peeves is a wrestler or team going over another and then the feud continuing just for the hell of it with nobody having any new motivation introduced in to the storyline. They managed to avoid that here, as there's actually REASON for the second match between these guys.

Now it's another Bobby Roode package. He shoots down all of the established TNA managers and says he may have to go "outside of the box" on this one. I'm frightened that his choice will just wind up being Scott D'Amore under a mask.

Match Numero Dos: Chris Harris vs. Chase Stevens vs. Frankie Kazarian vs. BG James

This match is taking place because the four corner tag match set for Hard Justice didn't happen due to the fire. The winning man gets a Tag Title shot for his team. Kip James LITERALLY has pigtails this week, and I've got to wonder if nobody told him that the Billy & Chucky gimmick was dropped years ago. Kazarian and Stevens are in to start, and they do some X Division-y stuff with Frankie running a lot and eating a back body drop. He gets a slick slingshot DDT in response, and now BG James is in. He hits a big boot on Kazarian and the pumphandle slam on Stevens, but Frankie saves. He's hit with a Harris spinebuster for his trouble, and there's BG to land his jabs on the Wildcat. James Storm and his beer bottle run in to the ring now, and his interference fails. That distracts the referee and allows Chase Stevens to grab AMW's handcuffs and steal a pin on Harris. After the bell, Shane Douglas finally gives the Naturals some credit, and a tear comes to my eye. AMW then argues, and the tears start flowing like a waterfall. Why do the good teams always break up so young?

Match Thoughts: I can't say that I liked this one. It only lasted a couple of minutes, which is far too short for a match involving four men and far too short for a number one contender match for a major championship. Given that the LAX/Daniels/Styles feud is currently ongoing, the winner here wasn't going to get their Tag Team Title match for at least a month . . . so wouldn't have been more effective to have the Naturals win a series of short one on one matches en route to being declared the number one contenders? Why do this four man match in which two of the men were completely ignored by the announce team? And why was this a singles match when it was going to be a tag match on the pay per view? This one left me with more questions than answers, and that's never a good thing. 1/4*

Now we get a video package hyping tonight's main event, Ron Killings vs. Samoa Joe. It seems uncharacteristic to push the match this hard given that the two men aren't feuding, but it IS a nice touch. I just wish that they had done it a couple of weeks before the match taking place instead of thirty seconds before the match taking place.

Match Numero Tres: Samoa Joe vs. Ron Killings

They're really pushing the fact that Killings is a two-time NWA Champion, which gives away the finish. (As though it was ever in doubt.) The Truth gets an early double leg and tries to throw some punches, but Joe covers up well. He gets caught with a Joe enzuguiri on the break, but Killings responds with a facebuster and a mafia kick. Joe bails and gets hit with a somersault plancha . . . and I'm beginning to think that move is really overexposed. When we come back, Killings gets ten punches in the corner but runs in to the STJoe, and it looks like the Samoan's lip is busted open. He tastes his own blood and is apparently not happy with it, as he hits some big kicks and drops a knee on his opponent. There's the facewash, and now Joe . . . goes in to a chinlock? That seems out of place after his run of high impact offense. Killings comes back in the traditional babyface fashion and hits a flying forearm and a couple of clotheslines. He runs in to a powerslam, though, and Joe gets two. He rolls over in to a cross arm breaker, but it's not even locked in when Killings makes the ropes. Ron responds with a kick and a big gordbuster, which is his cue to head up top. Joe kicks his legs out from underneath him, and there's the Muscle Buster and the three count.

Match Thoughts: I like the idea of feeding Ron Killings to Joe, because the Truth is a guy who still has a lot of credibility with the fans, even though there don't appear to be any plans for him in the future and even though he doesn't have a heck of a lot to bring to the table. Joe needed to beat somebody who had that degree of credibility, particularly after the angles leading in to his recent triple threat match made him a bit weaker than he did beforehand. The only problem with the match is that Killings got way too much offense against Joe for a man who is not a major player. This should've been have as long and twice as much of a squash. It was okay for what they did give us, though. *

Instead of letting Joe close the show, we're back to Jeff Jarrett in the locker room. He says that he wants Sting to put his career on the line if he's going to do a title rematch. Nothing says "adrenaline rush" like a redneck rambling in to a camera.

Overall

There were a lot of good ideas on this show – the tag team brawl, Joe vs. Killings, the Naturals continued push, et cetera. However, all of these ideas were botched in some way or another. I know that I'm an internet writer so I shouldn't say something like this, but the show would have flowed a lot better if they just cut the X Division match out completely. Yeah, it got Sabin a win as he's headed to his title shot, but he's perpetually over with the crowd anyway and probably didn't need the extra push. However, it was a bad match and didn't further any storylines directly. They could've used that time to either give the four-way match more time or to give a separate segment to one of the brawls that wound up overshadowing LAX's deal. Fortunately, from reading the spoilers, it sounds like things are going to pick up, so I should be much happier next week. See you then.