My Weekly TNA Catch-up, Impact 25th Sep 08

Show opens as Jeff Jarrett announces the "greatest aquisition in the history of TNA", Mick Foley who will be in the Impact Zone next week. He's interupted by Kurt Angle who furthers his own heel push.

The Rock & Rave Infection vs Matt Morgan & Abyss. Rave & Abyss kicked this one off but Rave bailed quickly after realising he couldn't do anything against Abyss. Morgan won off the Hellavator on Rave in a supremely weak match.

Awesome Kong (with Raisha Saeed) vs Mercedes Steele (aka former World Women's Wrestling Champion Lexxus, who had been recommend to TNA by Roxxi). Obviously some of the Impact crowd already knew her and were chanting "Lexy". Steele took some good bumps, selling everything for Kong big time. This was always going to be a job by Steele and Kong won off the Awesome Bomb. I'd guessed that it was Roxxi dressed as Raisha Saeed who beaned Kong across the back with the chair because I recognised her distinctive walk. Apparantly Steele has signed with TNA so we can add another name to the Knockout roster.

Karen's Angle with Christian Cage. Better known as the "bathroom break" segement.

Bookers shit "African" angle. "Where I am from in Africa", that'd be South Park in Houston wouldn't it Mr Huffman? F**kwit.

Non-title 6 Person Tag Contest - LAX & Hector Guerrero vs Beer Money & Jaqueline and the losers manager must leave their team forever. LAX were the better team but Beer Money took win after Robert Roode hit Hernandez with the football helmet and it looks like Hector will be going back to the Spanish Announce desk.

Sting comes to the ring to answer back to Jeff Jarrett. I was loving the "over-rated" chant as Sting talked about Hogan.

Non-title match Sheik Abdul Bashir vs Samoa Joe. Joe was working this match with a great black eye. I'd class this as Bashir's first proper match at last. Bashir did at least show he is capable of a decent offence and both guys sold well for each other but I think the ref gave Bashir a HUGE amount of leeway after being manhandled not once but twice by him which could have easily earned him a DQ. Samoa Joe took the eventual win off The Muscle Buster.

Booker T vs AJ Styles. It is quite surprising that when you watch Booker T and you finally realise how few moves the guy can actually do for someone whose been a champion so many times. This was a really s**t quality match, normally Styles can carry any opponant no matter how bad they are but this stunk to high heaven. You could tell they'd run out of ideas when Styles made his ref bump (TNA, how many times do you need telling? ALL ref bumps are s**t!). Booker T got the pin after clocking Styles with the briefcase. This shows how s**t Booker T really is, if you can't have a good match against AJ Styles then its time to retire. No doubt the whole "miscommunication" thing with Christian cage is to further this "respect" theme they've been running with over the last few weeks which I'm hoping they'll get over and done with soon as it's utterly s**t.

My Weekly TNA Catch-up, Impact 18th Sep 08

Show opens with Samoa Joe coming out to give props to Kurt Angle & Christian Cage and shoots on Sting.

The Motor City Machine Guns vs Christian Cage & AJ Styles. Is TNA's tag division in such a poor state that they have to invent a brand new team for The Guns to get a match? Sabin & Styles kicked this off and had an excellent dust up that looked really fluid and showed how well they know each other as workers. Cage was selling like hell for both The Guns and boy were they ever getting over. AJ took the win off the Styles Clash for an awesome match for both teams. The whole "respect" idea after the match smacks of a Russo idea, they've been doing this for several months now and it's not getting over and quite frankly I'm bored of it. Either include it in a PPV or just stop doing it?

6 Man Tag Contest, Petey Williams, Johnny Devine & Jimmy Rave vs The Prince Justice Brotherhood. Williams & Curry Man probably had the best of this match with Petey back on old form with lots of fast high risk moves almost like he's never recently recovered from injury. Curry Man was selling everything he was given but some "miscommunication" led to Williams taking a double clothesline from Rave & Devine for Super Eric to win off the cross body block on Williams. Not a great match but Curry Man & Williams did impress. More of "referee" Shane Sewell's push towards becoming a wrestler (sooner rather than later please TNA?).

Traci Brooks as Knockout Law sets up a 6 person tag match for next weeks Impact between LAX with Hector vs Beer Money & Jaqueline where the loser loses their manager for good.

Sting comes down to talk about respect and name checks some WCW classics.

Someone forgets to edit the Knockouts video package because they say "we don't do bikini's" only a week after the Beauty Contest that featured a bikini segment.

Booker T vs Jay Lethal. An extremely poor match where Lethal carried Booker for the large majority of it, Booker won after Sharmell hooked Lethal's ankle allowing Booker to hit the axe kick. Booker seems to be turning into a Nigerian for some reason?

Mixed Tag Match, Velvet Sky & Cute Kip vs Taylor Wilde & Rhino. Well Rhino seemed to be ok about selling for Velvet Sky after being "sprayed in the face", Wilde got the eventual win off a beautiful looking rolling leg-hold on Sky. Wilde's cross body block onto Awesome Kong on the floor was pretty amazing as well but TNA made a REAL stupid mistake by cutting to a promo segment whilst the action was still going on. By the time they came back both Rhino & Wilde had been subdued in the ring by Kong & The Beautiful People.

Jeff Jarrett comes back to majorly huge pops from the Impact Zone crowd. Jarrett tells Sting & Angle what he thinks of them to their faces (great shoot!). Angle thinks he carried the company also getting himself some seriously cheap heat by calling the fans "a**holes" and calls Jarrett a has-been, inviting him to fight. Jarrett points to the monitor and we get our first look at Mick Foley and it looks like he might be coming with the Cactus Jack mindset and may actually wrestle!

My TNA Catch-up, No Surrender PPV 08

Coming from Oshawa, Ontario in Canada.

The show opens with Sting getting a cheap pop off the Canadian fans. Loved the chants of "Your a legend", nice way to show they appreciate him. Sting confirms he'll be facing the winner of tonights Heavyweight title match at the Bound For Glory PPV.

West & Tenay announce Booker T as a no-show due to Hurricane Ike. Actually its due to him being a d**khead who doesn't know what a weather warning is. It's not like Ike hadn't been ALL over the news for the last several weeks. He could have come to Canada earlier, instead he chose to be an ignorant a**hole and try to get there at the last minute. Hopefully TNA will penalise him for his stupidity and say not only does he not get his title shot, he'll have to re-earn his chance at being #1 contender. Austin Airport is only 3 hours drive away from the centre of Houston. Booker, your an idiot!

6 Person Tag Team Match, The Rock & Rave Infection with Christy Hemme vs Super Eric, Shark Boy & Curry Man under their collective name The Prince Justice Brotherhood. I assume it was a slight slip of the tongue by West & Tenay saying Curry Man considered himself "a ladyman" where I assume they meant to say a ladys man. The section with Curry Man in with Hemme was more a gimmick than anything, I guess Hemme & Daniels must have both agreed to it but it only really succeeded in making Hemme look like an idiot and a sex object and certainly lessened her wrestling ability. This got a lot better once everyone was was in the ring, Hemme sold The Chummer off Shark Boy really well and I was really impressed by Super Eric's double Death Valley Driver on both Lance Rock AND Jimmy Rave at the same time. Curry Man took the eventual win by pinning Christy Hemme.

Falls Count Anywhere Special Knockout Contest, Awesome Kong (with Raisha Saeed) vs ODB. Not only do falls count anywhere, the other stipulation was "there must be a winner" which I didn't really see the point of them saying. Had ODB been raiding Abyss's clothes with that blue overall? Saeed jumped ODB before she reached the ring and before the bell rang. ODB brought a table into the ring and took it into the crowd. ODB took a real hard looking slam into the ramp, and they took it back into the ring where ODB suckered Kong into running herself into a chair that ODB had set up in the ropes. That got ODB a 2 count and enough time to actually set up the table properly before Kong got back up. ODB fought out of an attempt on the Awesome Bomb then Kong went to talk to Saeed and ODB managed a powerbomb off the top turnbuckle into the table which didn't break (botched spot there for both women I reckon as it looked like ODB hit herself in the ribs). I'm guessing Saeed's interference was to allow Kong time to recover from the bad table shot. ODB got another close 2 count off a real fast roll-up but Kong came back with a splash and the spinning backfist both of which ODB sold very heavily. Saeed gave Kong a table which meant ODB had time to take a drink from the flask and spat the contents into Kong's face. ODB rushed Kong who grabbed her and did a spinebuster into the upright table smashing it in half to take the win. No post match beatdown as it looked like the botched table spot had also hurt Kong's back.

Team 3D vs Abyss & Matt Morgan. This was a good and even match until some d**khead (almost certainly Russo) sent Johnny Devine out to interfere. Abyss got the eventual win off the Black Hole Slam on Devon. It was certainly a better 1st half of this match, I wouldn't have bothered with involving Devine at all, it would have made for a much better match. During the post match celebration Brother Ray hit Morgan from behind with the chair he'd grabbed off Abyss then dropped it back on Abyss and dived out of the ring leaving Morgan to think Abyss was the one who'd hit him, what a s**t way to break up what seemed to be such a good idea for a tagteam on paper just to carry on a heel role for Team 3D which just isn't getting over any more.

3 Way X Division Title, Sheik Abdul Bashir vs Consequences Creed vs Petey Williams with Rhaka Khan. Bashir was a 5th wheel here for all he brought to the match which was basically nothing except selling for Creed & Williams. Both Creed & Williams were doing good aerials and it looks like Williams has finally regained his full courage and is doing the high risk stuff again. You had to mark for Williams hitting the sharpshooter (the Canadians did!) and seriously mark for Bashir trying to pin Creed whilst in the damn sharpshooter too! Williams hit the Canadian Destroyer on Creed and was about to take the win when Bashir yanked him under the bottom rope and sent him into the guard rail, leaping in to cover and pin Creed. Sheik Abdul Bashir is new X Division Champion in a match that he never deserved to be part of.

TNA Knockout Championship, Angelina Love (With Velvet Sky & Cute Kip) vs Taylor Wilde. Taylor Wilde calls out her new best friend Rhino to stand in her corner. This one started out as a brawl and we got to see that Knockout Law Traci Brooks had come down to the bottom of the ramp to keep an eye on things for Jim Cornette. Love got back on top by suckering Wilde out of the ring where Sky hit her in the head with the makeup box. Once Wilde & Love actually started wrestling it was a much better match, both women had their time on top. Rhino had to jump in to gore Kip, Sky grabbed Wilde but Love managed to avoid running into her. Wilde dropkicked Love into Sky then rolled Love into the bridge to take the win.

Ladder Of Love Match aka Engagement Ring On A Pole match (Stinks of Russo, doesn't it?) Sonjay Dutt vs Jay Lethal. Hopefully this match will get a proper resolution and both these c***py character angles will be FINALLY over and done with as they've now both gone on for FAR TOO LONG! Both these guys are incredibly talented and their gimmicks hinder them horrendously in my opinion. Dutt's backdrop onto the ladder looked hard and painful and you can see the crowd all grimacing like hell behind him, but Dutt's forward Moonsault onto Lethal on the 2nd ladder didn't quite make as much contact as they'd like to you to believe it did. Val hitting Lethal with the lowblow wasn't totally unexpected allowing Dutt to take the win and I guess this means that their going to establish Val as a heel when she finally does wrestle then?

Tag Team Championship, LAX v Beer Money. LAX come to the ring with Hector but no Salinas? Poor match, Roode won from The Pay-Off after Jaqueline threw powder in Homicides eyes. Frankly I don't think the rest of the match is worth mentioning.

Special Mixed Martial Arts Match, Frank Trigg v AJ Styles. This is three 5 minute rounds that can only be won by pinfall or KO. Trigg shoots on Canada for super cheap and super s**t heat. Trigg started out sticking to the mat based technical but Styles took it out of the ring. I did question why Rudy Charles was officiating here, is he an accredited MMA ref? The first 5 minutes was pretty much all Trigg apart from AJ's flying armbar in the dying seconds. Was that new "referee" Shane Sewell acting as AJ's corner man there? The second 5 minutes started with the crowd chanting "This is bulls**t" (were they referring to Trigg trying to sell an arm injury in the break?) but I'm not 100% sure why. The "knee into the groin" clearly hit Trigg in the upper thigh but Rudy Charles stopped it, calling it a No Contest due to the unintentional "low blow" leaving the crowd chanting "bulls**t" and understandably so. Styles did at least get to beat down Trigg with the kendo stick so we can expect to see a return match in the very near future.

Heavyweight Championship 4 Ways To Glory Match. Christian Cage vs Kurt Angle vs Samoa Joe. Sting came out for some reason and Joe went back up the ramp and punched him in the face a few times, it took Security & AJ Styles to separate them so Joe could finally return to the ring to actually get the match underway. No mention of the lack of Booker in the intro's by JB, sadly by the time the bell rang this was never going to run any longer than 20 minutes. This one kicked off with Joe & Cage double teaming Angle. This put Angle out of the ring to give Joe & Cage a bit of time to square off. Angle got himself back into it with a few Olympic slams and it looked like Cage might have hurt his knee going out of the ring. Angle grabbed the ref by the shirt keeping Joe from getting the win off Cage. Joe reacted by throwing Cage over the ropes into Angle then diving over the top rope himself landing on both of them. Joe threw Angle back in looking to finish him off only for Angle to hit the Olympic Slam and Cage to hit an awesome frogsplash while Joe was still on the canvas. Cage threw Angle out and hit Joe with The Unprettier only for Angle to yank the ref out before he could give a 3 count then throwing ref Earl Hebner into the guard rail to "knock him out". Angle eventually hit Cage with a chair then Olympic Slammed him out of the ring to the floor. Angle hit Joe with the chair from behind then hooked the Ankle Lock (rather pointlessly as there was no ref to ask Joe to tap out) only for Jeff Jarrett to slowly walk down the ring and nail Angle from behind with the guitar. Joe hit the Muscle Buster as Jarrett rolled the ref in to make one of the slowest 3 counts ever for Joe to retain his title and Jeff Jarrett is now back. Angle was busted open (we were supposed to assume from the guitar shot?) and Joe had a nose bleed by the end of this.

My Weekly TNA Catch-up, Impact 11th Sep 08

Show opens with Samoa Joe coming out to let us know whats on his mind. I didn't listen because I don't care about storylines.

Open Challenge Match - Abyss vs Christian Cage. This was an incredibly weak match that not only never got started, it never finished either. Cage had hit the Unprettier and was about to take a 3 count when Kurt Angle ran in to stop it (I'm assuming the match was stopped on a DQ for outside interference, you can give the win to Cage then) and was then joined by Booker T hoping to take Cage out of the upcoming PPV. Angle gave Abyss the chair who hit Angle. Angle & Booker beat Abyss & Matt Morgan made the save.

Beautiful People Beauty Challenge. Acting as Judges were Shark Boy, Curry Man & Super Eric. Angelina Love vs Taylor Wilde.

Evening Gown Competition which Wilde wins by 2 votes to 1 with only Curry Man voting for Love.

Karen's Angle with guest Sting. Didn't listen, don't care.

AJ Styles calls out Frank Trigg. At long last that baldy f**ker is going to fight!

Beautiful People Beauty Challenge, Bikini Contest section. Angelina Love wins by 2 votes to 1 with only Super Eric voting for Taylor Wilde.

Knockout Bimbo Brawl, Awesome Kong (with Raisha Saeed) vs Roxxi. After a short battle in the crowd this got back in the ring where Roxxi was on top for a while. Kong totally refused to take the drop toehold into the chair not only no-selling but refusing to even make contact with the chair though she totally sold the bulldog into the chair. Roxxi sold a nice scoop slam into the chair and Kong was quickly back in charge but Roxxi played possum and when Kong went for the splash on the chair no-one was home. Roxxi did an excellent (and very quick) blade job after taking the chair to the head and Kong took the win off the Awesome Bomb. Excellent match for both women, this also shows (and Russo, please pay attention to this fact!) that Awesome Kong CAN have a good match without Saeed interfering.

Kevin Nash's Triple Challenge, Johnny Devine vs Samoa Joe. I didn't expect Devine to last long & Joe took a fast pin off a modified Muscle Buster.

Lance Rock vs Samoa Joe - Joe took another pretty fast win off the rear naked chokehold.

Tomko vs Samoa Joe - For a guy people claim has left TNA Tomko is still a pretty active participant, isn't he? This was a good fast paced match, both guys were working each other hard. Both guys sold well, both of them were getting over in a big way. Joe took the win off the Muscle Buster which Tomko sold seriously well. Excellent match despite being fairly short.

Beautiful People Beauty Challenge, Talent Competition. Angelina Love does a "poem" (actually it was a limerick) and sings (very badly) row, row your boat. Taylor Wilde plays the drums. Damn well too! Taylor Wilde wins by 2 votes to 1 (Curry Man the only one to vote for Love) and wins that round and the whole contest. I think it was pretty sad that TNA have had to stoop to the very low level set by WWE to put their female talent through this "lack of Talent" contest. Yes, it fits the characters of The Beautiful People but its NOT the way to showcase the female TNA talent especially when you know how well they actually wrestle.

Booker T & Kurt Angle vs Matt Morgan & Abyss. Well, I'd been predicting this tagteam for the last few weeks and now it has come to fruition. Sadly it was a pretty crap match, after interference by Team 3d (hitting Abyss with a chair) Angle cheated the win.

Sting comes to the ring to call out Jeff Jarrett. Jarrett finally does make an appearance.

My Weekly TNA Catch-up, Impact 4th Sep 08

Kurt Angle & Booker T come out to bore us on the mic.

#1 Contenders Bout - Sheik Abdul Bashir vs Consequences Creed. I can see how they might think Creed is a contender but Bashir has been in TNA all of 5 minutes and wrestled no-one at all so how is he considered a contender? During the match we have yet another flash frame for WhoIsSuicide.Com as their talking about the new TNA game. Creed was on top for all of the match until Bashir got the win off a roll-up using the ropes as leverage. The match was restarted after protests from the fans and Creed, Bashir was trying to cheat his way out a roll-up by grabbing the ref then the rope, Creed took the eventual win. I assume "referee" Shane Sewell was a former wrestler (having just checked Wiki, yes he was). I expect to see more of him wrestling fairly shortly after reading his rather impressive Wiki CV.

A new TNA Knockout promo (which no longer features Gail Kim).

Non-Title Tag Match, Beer Money (with Jaqueline) vs Curry Man (who doesn't come to the ring) & Super Eric, Shark Boy replaces Curry Man who is shown backstage with Christy Hemme. Roode takes the win in this dull match. Curry Man gets beaten up by The Rock N Rave Infection after Hemme had distracted him. Hopefully this means his gimmick will be over and done with pretty soon?

Open Challenge Match, After last weeks "Karen's Angle" Abyss has put out an open challenge to anyone. Abyss vs Johnny Devine who is "volunteered" by Team 3D into a hardcore match. Possibly THE worst hardmatch to have ever taken place anywhere at any time. I assume the match was thrown out as a DQ on Devine after Team 3D entered the ring? Matt Morgan made the save, it looks even more likely these 2 are going to become a new tagteam.

Raisha Saeed vs ODB. ODB yanked Saeed out of the ring and started this one on the ramp which Saeed was happy to respond to. Whilst talking about the upcoming TNA game we had yet ANOTHER flash frame advert for WhoIsSuicide.Com. ODB eventually got the upper hand and won off a pretty sloppy looking running powerslam. A fairly decent match for both women though. The whole "unmasking" thing was a bad idea as any intelligent fan already knows who Saeed is under the mask anyway. Kong jumped ODB and nailed her with the Implant Buster in the ring. Roxxi saved ODB from an Awesome Bomb into chairs but ended up taking one herself. If Traci Brooks is supposed to be Knockout Law, where the hell was she whilst all this was happening?

Four Ways To Glory Qualifying Match, Christian Cage vs AJ Styles. Generally this way a very even & pretty uneventful match until the shitty ref bump (all ref bumps are s**t, please learn this simple fact TNA) and Frank Trigg's interference. Cage and the ref never saw it and Cage hit the Unprettier to take the win.

Sting, Samoa Joe & Kevin Nash come out to bore us on the mic.