My Weekly TNA Catch-up, Impact 19th Feb 09 reviewed

Show opens with Kurt Angle coming out to yack on the mic.

No Holds Barred Street Fight - The Motor City Machine Guns vs Lethal Consequences. Neither team are particularly hardcore in their wrestling style and none of the 4 guys are particularly known for being a hardcore wrestling or preferring the hardcore style of match so it makes this one a little bit difficult to swallow as legit.

The middle and left side cameramen managed to f**k up and no-sell Sabins missile dropkick into the chair into Lethals head (why didn't they stick with the right hand camera for an amazing sell), Sabins suicide dive that hit the chair was well sold and at least the director was on the right camera for that.

Creeds top rope legdrop into the chair on Shelley looked awful (and Shelley looked like an utter twat trying to sell it after the fact) but Sabin sold a great looking Lethal Combination into the chair. Lethals backdrop onto the ladder was shades of The Briscoes in ROH (so TNA are stealing their ideas as well too?) but Shelley took the eventual win off Creed after Sabin beaned him with Shelleys title belt. It was a p**s poor finish (I assume they had no clue how to finish) and the match lasted 6 minutes.

Webography featuring Chris Sabin, Beer Money come out to make a challenge, was James Storm shooting on Kaz & Chris Daniels with his comment about masks? Webography featuring Robert Roode. Another "therapy" session with Abyss and "Dr Stevie".

6 man Tag Match - Brutus Magnus, Sheik Abdul Bashir & Matt Morgan vs Shane Sewell & LAX. I guess this means Brutus Magnus is officially a heel as he's working on an all heel team here. It was nice to see Sewell here, selling The Carbon Footprint well off Morgan & taking some decent bumps too. Sewell took the eventual win off a big elbow on Bashir in 4:04.

Harcore History 101 with Mick Foley. They still haven't fixed that backwards bit of tape in Stings section of the MEM video package, its STILL raining upside down.

Angelina Love (With Cute Kip & Velvet Sky) vs Taylor Wilde (with Roxxi & "The Govenor", WCW Queen Of Scream Daffney who is way overdue to drop this gimmick & reveal her true identity). Love tried to jump Wilde before the bell but Wilde is quicker and stronger and was soon on top here, Wilde put together a nice series of moves before her rather scrappy dropkick spoilt them.

After a spot of expected interference Ref Rudy Charles sent Cute Kip back to the locker room leaving Love to fight her way back into the ring & take control. Wilde sold a decent enough clothesline although Loves kneelift left a lot to be desired. Love sold a decent looking tilt-a-whirl backbreaker off Wilde but Wilde took the win off a Schoolboy roll-up, a VERY weak finish to a generally decent but much too short match that lasted 4:16.

Rough Cut segment on The Ultimate X match.

Tag Team Championship & "Off The Wagon" challenge. Petey Williams & Eric Young vs Beer Money. Clearly someone in TNA doesn't know their history very well, Jim Cornette put Team Canada in a match a long time ago and if they lost they were forbidden to ever reform in ANY incarnation. The rules here are simple, whoever gets pinned has to leave TNA forever. As Petey Williams was already known to have signed a contract elsewhere we already knew the outcome of this before the bell.

Williams & Storm kicked this one off, I assume Storms thinking was Eric & Petey knew all of Roodes moves from his Team Canada days so he was the one unknown factor in the equation here. Young & Williams were on top losing their hold just before one of TNA's now infamous badly timed commercial breaks, Young was on the wrong end of a triple team from Beer Money and in for a long time with nothing happening before hitting an awful looking kneelift on Roode.

Williams was tagged in after Young endured more doubleteaming and I was loving Williams bulldogging Roode into Storm, his assisted DDT looked good as did his hurricanrana on Storm from the apron. It was very sad we didn't get to see a final Canadian Destroyer but Roode took the win after Storm hit the superkick, Petey Williams didn't have a great TNA swansong but it was a fairly decent match that lasted 8:17. I will be sad to see Petey Williams go as he has given a lot to TNA.

Webography featuring James Storm.

Empty Arena Match - Sting vs Kurt Angle. I'm not really sure if theres much point calling this match as there was no referee so there was never going to be a winner or loser, technically its not a match at all as with no ref and no starting bell it really doesn't qualify. The main fight itself lasted for 4:11 before Angle started begging for his life then Nash & Steiner broke it up briefly (and it was quite clearly scripted though not rehearsed as you could see Steiner mouthing Nash's lines) but Angle spitting into Stings face wasn't going to help and it took the MEM security guys to keep them apart. Hopefully after 1 final match between Sting & Angle this Main Event Mafia/Respect storyline will finally be over and done.

Summary

We had 4 actual matches and a non-match which if you also include its running time meant we had total time spent actually wrestling this week of 26:48 in a show that was on air for 1:29:56 so 31:04 was spent in commercials, longer than the amount of time spent actually wrestling. If TNA aren't careful and don't start to devote more time to actual in ring wrestling they are going to lose all their fans. Their going to be defecting to ROH in their hordes I predict.