Smark Out Moment

For someone in my position who hasn't watched Impact, this card looks like a random clusterfuck of people thrown together. It may very well be that, but again, without having watched Impact, I can't rip them apart for it. There may have been a proper build for these matches. Still, on paper, it doesn't look that impressive to me. The potential is still there, but with my track record with TNA, potential doesn't seem to mean much. I'm crossing my fingers that I'm pleasantly surprised.

PREDICTIONS: I'll go with Devon, Crimson, Mickie James, Sarita & Rosita, Mr. Anderson, Abyss/Gunner/Steiner, Kendrick, Hernandez/Anarquia, and Sting. As always, I'm not too confident in those predictions, but it would make sense to me if all of Mexican America had tag titles, Kendrick and Mickie keep their belts because you don't want to have too many titles change hands on a ppv, and then the rest are just random guesses really.

First off, did they just say "it's a night of champions" this close to the Night of Champions ppv from WWE? Come on.

X-Division Championship: Brian Kendrick (c) vs. Alex Shelley vs. Austin Aries
Kendrick has new music. It's just as bad as his old one. This guy went from "Man with the Plan" to these two songs. Ouch. His ring attire isn't too bad though, even if he looks like he stole it from the Sultan in 1997. It isn't long into the match but I'm starting to regret that I guessed Kendrick would win. I'm now thinking Aries will steal a victory since he keeps hanging around the outside picking spots. Really tight suicide dive from Aries on to both Shelley and Kendrick, that might have been one of the only times I've seen someone pull that off where it looks like it hurts the other guys more than the person executing it. Very nice. Nice superkick from Shelley to Aries on the apron. Shelley puts his spinning Figure Four on Kendrick but Aries interrupts by stomping on his face. There's a botch where Shelly has Aries up for an electric chair and it seems as though Kendrick is going to give him Sliced Bread out of that position, but Kendrick just stumbles off the turnbuckle. Aries and Shelley stall some time and then Kendrick hits Sliced Bread on Aries who lands on Shelley, then pins Shelley for the win.

WINNER: Brian Kendrick via pinfall.
I guess I shouldn't have second-guessed my Kendrick pick. As for the match quality, meh. That botch at the end unfortunately cost us what could have been a cool finish. Before that, it wasn't really thrilling me, but it wasn't particularly bad either.

Backstage with Tara & Tessmacher
They say that they've proven themselves as true champions as opposed to Sarita & Rosita who just jumped them in a parking lot.

Knockouts Tag Team Championship: Tara & Miss Tessmacher (c) vs. Sarita & Rosita
How tall is Rosita? I'm genuinely curious but I haven't looked into it. If anyone knows, please leave a comment. I'd say Brooke is one of the hottest women in wrestling right now. I still think there's no real point in having tag titles for the Knockouts. Brooke's not doing too bad. I'm surprised. Tara goes for the Widow's Peak, Rosita reverses into a pin that Sarita tries to help with, but Tessmacher prevents that and breaks the pin attempt up. Tara then hits it and covers Rosita for the win.

WINNERS: Tara & Tessmacher via pinfall.
Well, there goes my prediction streak already. This match wasn't too bad.

Backstage with The Pope
I don't know if it's the ppv or just from my end, but I'm only hearing every other word from this promo. The audio is cutting out. It sounds like Dinero is saying that he's looking out for Devon's kids or something. Why are Devon's kids being involved in TNA so much?

Bound for Glory Series: The Pope vs. Devon
Matt Morgan's about as interesting on commentary as Todd Grisham, but at least he's not mispronouncing things like Taz. Pope gets a mic and says that his relationship to Devon and his family means more than the BFG Series. He lays down. Devon gets the mic and says he's getting the 7 points, but he's going to do it by whooping Dinero's ass. Matt Morgan will not stop enunciating the words "world heavyweight championship" and saying that in every single sentence he says, which is getting quite annoying. For some reason they're split-screening it so you can see the commentators. For the life of me I don't understand what's supposed to hurt when Pope slides off his opponent's back through the ropes. That should really hurt you just as much as if someone rubs up against you. It's flashy but it makes zero sense. Pope goes for the DDE but stops himself halfway and waits until Devon spears him. Dinero then rolls him up and gets the win.

WINNER: The Pope D'Angelo Dinero via pinfall.
Very generic match and thus, nothing to talk about.

Pope goes for a handshake and Devon brushes him off. Devon's kids tell him to get back into the ring and shake his hand, so he does.

Backstage with RVD
RVD says he's going to prove that Crimson is able to be defeated. Jerry Lynn shows up for some reason to say he's in his corner.

Knockouts Championship: Mickie James (c) vs. Winter
Have I said enough times that I absolutely hate that "hardcore country" nickname? Well, it needs to be said again. That nickname is fucking retarded. Kat was more interesting when she wanted to fuck her fake-brother as opposed to this Winter gimmick. I'm growing very bored with this match. Angelina interferes, doesn't work, blah blah. Mickie rolls Winter up and Hebner still acts like he doesn't know what he's doing. Love interferes again but it doesn't work this time either. This match is a pain in the ass and I wish it was over with minutes ago. Winter spits something into Mickie's eyes and pins her for the win.

WINNER (and new Knockouts champion): Winter via pinfall.
Lame match, lame finish, snooze.

Backstage with Brian Kendrick
Kendrick says he hopes Shelley is ok and is interrupted by Aries. Aries says they ganged up on him and Kendrick still just pinned Shelley, not him. Aries then gives him a towel and says he looks like he's homeless. Until he beats him, he can't call himself the X-Division champion.

Bound for Glory Series: Crimson vs. RVD
This crowd is dead. You can hear one guy in the audience chant for RVD. Absolutely nothing to talk about. Jerry Lynn interrupts the pin when Crimson is going to win.

WINNER: Crimson via disqualification.
Boring. I would have had more fun going through the HTML of this website than watching that.

Backstage with Mr. Anderson
This guy a heel or a face this week? ENOUGH WITH THE FUCKING ASSHOLE GIMMICK ALREADY. Damn, they've beaten this dead horse about as much as WWE does. Anderson makes some fart noises and shit. This is pathetic. Awful promo. Awful.

Fortune (AJ Styles, Kazarian, & Christopher Daniels) vs. Immortal (Abyss, Scott Steiner, & Gunner)
They should probably just give up on this Immortal thing. Nothing interesting to report on. They decided to pull out a table and set it up outside. So Gunner and Daniels just jump onto the table and the fans are chanting "holy shit". Come on, guys, not everything is a 10/10. Styles hits Abyss with something, a kick or whatever, I didn't really see, and pins him.

WINNERS: Fortune via pinfall.
Too boring to pay full attention to.

Backstage with Bully Ray
Yadda yadda yadda, nothing important.

Bully Ray vs. Mr. Anderson
They're doing the "guy comes out first and then runs behind the stage and ambushes his opponent" thing AGAIN? Wasn't this on like 3 pay-per-views already this year for TNA? Goddamn.And here we go with the standard "battle outside the ring before the match officially starts" thing, which they've done at every ppv I think. So let's see, if they're following the same cliches this year, does that mean that this will be the match where someone blades for no reason? You know that's going to happen, it's TNA, it always happens. The only question is whether it'll happen here or if Kurt Angle will be the one to do it in his match. It's one or the other. I've never liked TNA and they continually prove to me why I shouldn't like them. Ok, there was nothing of interest to point out in this until Bully Ray hit a nice cutter off Anderson when he jumped from the top turnbuckle, and right as I was about to type that that was nice, they follow it up with a shitty botch where Anderson picks Ray up in a fireman's carry and just stumbles around and falls and then goes for a pin which of course doesn't work. Anderson picks up the chain, ref takes it away from him, Ray low-blows Anderson and wins.

WINNER: Bully Ray via pinfall.
Match of the year. Hahaha, no seriously, come on, of course I didn't like this.

Backstage with Immortal
They're all pissed at Abyss for losing. Abyss is a sad panda.

Tag Team Championship: Beer Money (c) vs. Mexican America
Ref sends Sarita and Rosita away from ringside. Now this match I actually think could be good so I'm hoping to high hell that they perform well enough to save me from falling asleep out of boredom. There's an American flag over the security barricade that Storm throws Anarquia into, which is a good idea. Why does Mike Tenay always say a "double-r" spinebuster instead of double-a? Hernandez botches trying to fall out of the ring. Anarquia jumps off the top but Storm catches him and then pins him.

WINNERS: Beer Money via pinfall.
Better than the matches before it, but not good enough to get me out of the funk that the other matches put me in.

Backstage with Kurt Angle
Angle cuts a generic promo with no real emotion in it about how he isn't going to lose and respects Sting.

TNA Championship: Sting (c) vs. Kurt Angle
This whole Joker-Sting thing, again, is fucking ridiculous. They had Jeff Hardy painting his face and quoting The Dark Knight and then they're stupid enough to put the company on his shoulders, it bites them in the ass, and now they just have Sting go out and copy the Joker 100%. Awful. And yet, there are some TNA fans that say they don't steal stuff all the time. This time they're not even stealing from WWE, WCW, or ECW, they're just stealing from comic book movies. Watch out next week when Kurt Angle comes out dressed as Aquaman and Chris Sabin starts a new gimmick where he's the Green Lantern. The first thing of interest to happen is that Sting hits the Angle Slam on Kurt and follows it up with the Scorpion Deathlock, then follows that up with a Stinger Splash (and another which he misses, allowing Angle to hit an Angle Slam on him and get a two-count). Sting then puts the ankle lock on Angle but that doesn't work either. Angle puts Sting in the Scorpion Deathlock as turnabout is fair play. Sting gets to the ropes. Angle puts Sting in the ankle lock. Sting reverses into a pin and gets a two-count. Aaaaand here we go, the other TNA ppv-cliche that I forgot about, the ref has gotten knocked out. Every fucking time. Now Hulk Hogan is coming down to the ring with a chair. He's getting cheered. Hogan aims for Sting but Angle takes the chair from him and hits Sting himself, then follows it up with an Angle Slam and pins Sting to become the champ.

WINNER (and new champ): Kurt Angle via pinfall.
One of the better matches on the card (for the last half at least) but still not anything I'll remember a week from now.