Smark Out Moment

Final Resolution: an indicator that they have finally figured out who they want to be the world champ and who that world champ will feud with, perhaps? Probably not, but at least they've got the continuation from the last pay-per-view with AJ Styles challenging for the title. 

PREDICTIONS: I'm going with Roode, Gail Kim, Crimson & Matt Morgan, Austin Aries, and Robbie E all retaining their titles, and Jeff Hardy retaining his career naturally. Also, Angle to beat Storm and RVD to beat Daniels. I expect Roode vs Styles to be match of the night and to be something I can enjoy.

The ppv starts off with the bad promo about how selfish Roode has been. Oh boy, I hope this isn't a sign of things to come.

RVD vs. Christopher Daniels
Wrestling matters to TNA. We know. Booking doesn't, apparently. Rather slow pace at first, with nothing to talk about. Rolling thunder, blah blah blah, couple of kicks. You know how this stuff goes. As I've stated before, if you've seen one RVD match, you've seen them all - except this one doesn't even have the benefit of being no disqualification, so you need to cut half of those matches out. RVD wins with his frog splash.

WINNER: RVD via pinfall.
TV match quality. I certainly hope that wasn't how "the whole f'in show" is going to be. You see what I did there.

Tenay updates us on the Jeff vs Jeff match, saying if Jeff (Hardy) wins, then either Jeff (Jarrett) or Karen will leave TNA as well as Hardy winning the title shot at Genesis. Would you all hate me if I wrote my results and review of the Hardy/Jarrett match as just "Jeff" for both of them? I promise I won't do that to you all.

Borash interviews Mickie James (who looks hot tonight, albeit a bit trashy). She says there's no hiding behind politics and Jezebels (reference that's over my head from not watching Impact?).

TV Championship: Robbie E (c) vs. Eric Young
Young comes out sans title. Haha, the use of the security rope at the entrance that Robbie T unhooks to let Robbie E through is a good little gimmick idea. I like that. Thumbs up for whoever thought of that idea. Young takes his pants off to start the match. Taz mixes up the words "glazed" with "gazed" and then when he's called out on it, he blames it on Thanksgiving. WTF? We need Taz and Booker to call a match together sometime and let the universe explode in confusion. Young hits a real nice elbow from the top rope which was particularly clean looking. I found that interesting enough to report to you guys. Both of the Robbies argue with the ref until Young can take down Robbie E. Ref then gets distracted by Robbie E (who is basically doing nothing), allowing Robbie T to come into the ring and...well, basically do nothing to Young. He picks him up but never slams him down. What's the point of this stuff? Robbie E capitalizes on the distraction, planting his knees into Young's face and retaining his title.

WINNER: Robbie E via pinfall.
Better match than the previous one. The ending was odd.

Borash talks to Devon and Pope, asking about the trust issues between them. Devon says the time to talk about Pope's influence over his family isn't tonight. Tonight's about the tag titles. Pope agrees.

Tag Team Championship: Crimson & Matt Morgan (c) vs. Devon & D'angelo Dinero
Taz tries to make the argument that most tag teams don't get along. Kayfabe, no way. Shoot, maybe. It seems odd to me to see Crimson and Morgan taking shots and being taken down by people like Devon and Pope considering how both of them are supposed to be big, dominant guys. Crimson and Morgan double chokeslam Devon to retain the titles.

WINNERS: Crimson & Matt Morgan via pinfall.
I didn't really enjoy it, but it wasn't terrible.

Backstage, JB talks to AJ Styles who is getting his knee wrapped up. "I'm gonna beat the piss outta you [Roode] for 30 minutes".

X-Division Championship: Austin Aries (c) vs. Kid Kash
Aries starts running and flipping around the ring on his own to showboat and taunt Kid Kash, easily becoming a highlight of the show so far for how ridiculous it was. Series of pinning reversals was pretty nice. Kash misses a chop and hits the ring post instead of Aries. Kash tries to roll up Aries and use the ropes for leverage, but is caught by the ref. Aries then rolls Kash up and is caught by the ref using the ropes for leverage as well. Kash picks Aries up and instead of giving him a suplex, just slams him on his face, which looked vicious. I liked that a lot. WOW, Kash goes to power bomb Aries off the top rope but Aries reverses it to a hurricanrana midway through! That's crazy. Aries tries to use some brass knuckles or something, but the ref catches him ahead of time. Meanwhile, Kash tries to do the same, but the ref catches him as well. Aries then grabs the championship belt and tosses it to Kash, making the ref take it away from him. He uses that as a distraction to hit his brainbuster on Kash and retain the title.

WINNER: Austin Aries via pinfall.
Match of the night so far. I enjoyed that quite a lot.

Technical difficulties as they cut to the Knockouts tale of the tape with no audio, then they cut back to the ring. They then go to a promo instead. After the promo, they re-run the promo with no audio. I guess it would have helped if Hogan and Bischoff were backstage tonight, right? Nobody cuts it, though. They just run the whole thing again. Jesus...

Knockouts Championship: Gail Kim (c) vs. Mickie James
Now that Mickie's out, she doesn't look as good as she did earlier. Gail Kim on the other hand looks great. Gail's pulling out some different leg submissions and within the few minutes of the match I've seen so far, she's done more than she did the entire time she was in WWE on her second run. It's an understatement to say that TNA is such a better fit for Gail than WWE. Gail dominates a lot of the match, but when Mickie gets the upper hand, Gail attempts to leave with her title. Mickie puts a stop to that and throws her into the ring post instead. Madison comes out to cause a distraction. Gail capitalizes, hits her finisher, and retains.

WINNER: Gail Kim via pinfall.
Not bad.

Backstage Borash calls James Storm a beer drinker and Storm asks him to repeat that about 4 times, trying to get that to catch on instead of the Beer Money chant. The promo ends with him saying "beer", hoping to hear "drinker"...but everyone says "money" instead. #fail.

James Storm vs. Kurt Angle
The guy with drinking problems against, wait a second, who was that first one talking about? Okay, okay, cheap shot at Angle there, but I can't resist a mean spirited joke. Plus, we all know his car was hacked. Alright, I'll stop. I'm not really thrilled about this match so far as nothing's been really interesting to me. Sure, Angle's got an ankle lock on Storm, but it doesn't feel like it matters at all or is the end of the match. Three German suplexes, but again, they don't seem like they're that big of a deal to me. This match is not a train wreck, but it might be a bit of a car crash. Damn it, I said I'd stop with the Angle jokes, didn't I? Storm hits the Last Call and wins.

WINNER: James Storm via pinfall.
Step down from the previous two matches in my opinion. I was happy when it ended as I was tired of it even early on.

"Steel cage is being erected" - there's a Karen Jarrett joke here somewhere.

Karen and Jeff talk to Borash. Jeff says he's been working for the company the past few days and gets a text about the new stipulation. Sting comes over with the handcuffs, as he's going to handcuff himself to Karen.

Steel Cage Match: Jeff Jarrett vs. Jeff Hardy
Jarrett goes for some pinfalls, Hardy goes to escape the cage. Shame that the match isn't as quick as their first two from the previous pay-per-view, as I'm tired. Hardy hits two Twists of Fate but then misses an attempt at a Swanton off the top of the cage. Sting gets hit with the cage door and Karen is able to get out of the handcuffs and slam the door in Hardy's face. Jarrett goes for a pinfall, but Hardy kicks out. Sting pulls Karen away, distracting Jarrett, and Hardy hits him with another Twist of Fate and wins the match.

WINNER: Jeff Hardy via pinfall.
Alright. Not great, but adequate.

After the match, Sting says on Impact, one of them will be fired, as per the stipulation.

TNA Championship [Iron Man Match]: Robert Roode (c) vs. AJ Styles
The first pinfall goes to Robert Roode after he knocks AJ off the ropes at the 19:55 mark. The first ten minutes of the match were pretty generic outside of a series of quick pinning attempts that all had failed between the two of them. Roode gets his second point when he makes AJ submit after a single leg Boston Crab followed by a Figure Four leglock. Styles is able to gain a point by making Roode submit to a crossface at about the 12:30 mark. At 9:50, AJ rolls Roode up and gets another point, tying it up 2-2. AJ hits a springboard 450 at the 7 minute mark to get another point, making it 3-2 with him in the lead. Too many numbers in that last sentence. Roode makes it even again after pinning AJ while holding onto the ropes at the 5 minute mark. Roode stalls for the final minutes, making this a 3-3 draw.

WINNER: Draw, so Robert Roode retains the title.
Not bad, but I kind of thought it would be better than it was, honestly.