My Weekly TNA Catch-up, Impact 27th Aug 09 reviewed

Daniels joins Taz & Mike Tenay at the colour desk.

Non-title X Division Match, Suicide vs Samoa Joe - This match was s**t and got worse when D'Angelo Dinero strolled down the ramp distracting Suicide, clearly Russo had a brainf**t thinking it was a good idea. The distraction worked allowing Joe to hit Suicide with a big boot that sent him to the floor where Dinero jumped him, Joe came out to take advantage but Daniels left his seat and jumped on Joe. The bell was rung and I assume this was some kind of DQ finish but the announcer said Earl Hebners call was this would become a tag match later in the show with Joe & Dinero vs Suicide & Daniels.

The World Elite waffle on the mic, Hernandez comes down & refuses to join them.

1st Round Match TNA Knockout Tagteam Title Tournament, Awesome Kong & Raisha Saeed vs Traci & Sharmell - Traci bailed within seconds of the bell tagging Sharmell in & neither women wanted a piece of Kong after last week. After it was clear neither of them was going to work her Kong tagged in Saeed but Sharmell bailed in seconds after being on the wrong end of a pushing match. Kong eventually came in hitting a wicked looking splash on Traci that took Sharmells interference to stop the 3 count. Sharmell bailed again and Saeed tagged herself in as Kong stood guard by the ropes allowing Saeed to make the pin and their team progress in the tournament. Kong didn't look too happy about having yet another win stolen from under her nose though.

Teacher vs Student, Jesse Neal vs Rhino - Neal got no intro as he was already in the ring when this started, I expected absolutely NOTHING from this match and wasn't disappointed at all. Rhino was on top from the bell eventually hitting a Spine Buster taking the quick win off a nice bridge hooking the leg. After hitting the Gore post match the ref reversed his decision and Jesse Neal records his 1st win in TNA because Rhino is a dickhead with a short fuse, Rhino started stomping on Neal until Devon ran in to make the save.

$50,000 Bounty Handicap Match, The Motor City Machine Guns (with Dr Stevie) vs Abyss - The Guns had an ok match with 2 decent aerials but Abyss took the win off The Black Hole Slam on Chris Sabin. Stevie tried to beat down The Guns but they put him down and let Abyss go in with a chair until Kevin Nash came out to accept the bounty at a future date.

No DQ Knockout Contest, Daffney vs Hamada - Finally Hamada is making her debut, Daffney was on top very briefly before Hamada let fly and was looking good. TNA took a bad break so Daffney was back on top as they came back from commercials, Daffney made a nice elbow drop and we were told a table had been set up outside the ring during the break. The Impact Zone fans were seriously marking out for Hamada and she is well over already but Daffney bearly kicked out of a pin after a nice Jumping DDT, Hamada also had a close kick-out after Daffney hit a nice kneelift to the chest on Hamada. Daffney took it to the floor missing a chair shot but took one to the head herself after Hamada wrapped the chair around Daffneys head and posted her. Hamada called for the table setting Daffney up on it she nailed an AWESOME reverse Moonsault off the top turnbuckle putting Daffney through the table with the ref having to check on both women afterwards. Hamada brought it back into the ring as the Impact Zone Fans chanted "This is awesome", moments later Hamada hit the Hamada Driver to take the win in a seriously excellent match.

The other teams for the Knockout Tag Tournament are revealed:- Taylor Wilde & Sarita vs Daffney & Alissa Flash (so Wilde & Sarita will win that as Saeed can't fight against herself).
The Beautiful People vs Madison Rayne & a mystery partner.
Sojo Bolt & Hamada vs Tara & Christy Hemme.

Tagteam Grudge Match, D'Angelo Dinero & Samoa Joe vs Suicide & Daniels - This was the match made by Ref Earl Hebner after Dinero & Daniels interfered in the 1 on 1 match at the top of the show. This one was left to Dinero & Suicide after Daniels took out Joe with a wicked springboard split leg reverse moonsault to the floor, Dinero went for the double knee stab but Suicide had it scouted and took the win off a slingshot into a small package. This was an ok finish but it wasn't a very good quality match.

Backstage segment in one of the offices, TNA President Dixie Carter & Bobby Lashley have a sit down chat with Jeremy Borash. Dixie tells us TNA is scoring higher ratings than all 3 of WWE's shows in the UK. She confirms TNA have signed a 3 year deal with Spike TV, it sounds like they will be putting Lashley over and he won't be losing to anyone so he isn't made to look bad to the MMA companies. Lashley will meet Rhino at the next PPV.

6 Man Tag Match, Matt Morgan, Scott Steiner & Booker T vs Hernandez, AJ Styles & Sting - A match so dull I actually had the time to wonder why Sting kept his t-shirt on. Chaos broke down and it was Hernandez with Morgan until Steiner came in with a chair, Morgan was convinced Steiner was there to bean him and Hernandez took advantage bumping Morgan head first into the chair sending Steiner out of the ring, Styles made a nice springboard cross body block and took the win for his team. Post match Steiner & Booker were arguing with Morgan claiming it was a misunderstanding until Morgan took them both out and the show ended with Morgan giving signals to Kurt Angle who'd been at the colour desk that his turn is next and his neck is on the line.

My Weekly TNA Catch-up, Impact 20th Aug 09 reviewed

Show opens with Mike Tenay at the colour desk on his own & it is announced that Don West has moved from calling colour to merchandising - a rather massive step downwards & sideways in my opinion. This really was a bad way to write him out of the show, with his recent heel turn they should have really made the most of that and had him turn up pretending to be stinking drunk and ragging on Tenay and drooling over all the women until Cornette or Foley appeared and "fired" him on air. The new colour announcer is introduced and it is Taz. The MEM come out to speak but Matt Morgan comes out with a kendo stick to interupt them.

Non-title Street Fight, The British Invasion vs Beer Money - Before this even got started Ref Earl Hebner sent Big Rob, Kiyoshi & Sheik Abdul Bashir back to the locker room to prevent interference. Beer Money entered from the crowd carrying weapons but Williams & Magnus were expecting them from the tunnel and were caught off guard. The match itself was pretty weak in terms of action, the hardcore stuff was ok with Williams & Roode getting cut but Beer Money got the win with Roode taking the pin off Magnus from the DWI.

Backstage segments, The Beautiful People, Cody Deaner argues (quite rightly too) that he should be Knockout Champion as he made the pin and Abyss gets given a Blue Flannel shirt by Mick Foley.

Madison Rayne vs Angelina Love - Rayne was jumped at the bottom of the ramp by Love who appeared from out of nowhere. Love was looking for payback after Raynes f**k up that cost her the belt and Love took a fast and pretty easy win, Velvet Sky came out and they put the brown paper bag over Raynes head then Tara & Christy Hemme ran down to make the save. I hope they are considering putting Tara & Hemme together as a possible tag team as they would be outstanding.

X Division Championship, Homicide vs Samoa Joe - Not a bad match, action picked up in the second half but it wasn't brilliant. These 2 guys were very evenly matched here & both had a good chance but Joe took the eventual win off The Muscle Buster to retain his title.

Backstage segment where Lauren announces next week there will be a tournament to crown the TNA Knockout Tag Team champions so it looks like Hemme & Tara ARE going to be tag partners!

4 Way Knockout Match, Awesome Kong (with Raisha Saeed) vs Traci Brooks (with Sharmell) vs Sarita (with Taylor Wilde) vs Christy Hemme (with Tara) - Kong took out Brooks & Hemme with splashes in seconds leaving only Sarita who tried a Hurricanrana but Kong just powered her off. Kong took a bump over the top rope to the floor and Sarita hit an ok flying headscissors into a pretty sloppy hurricanrana on Brooks who didn't sell it or even try and help execute it either, Hemme & Sarita kept Kong out of the ring with a nice double dropkick.

Brooks took it out of the ring sending Hemme to the guardrail only to be posted by Kong who got a facefull of Sarita hitting a wicked flipdive over the top rope. Kong got a few doubleteams off everyone else but Hemme hit a lovely inverted DDT on Brooks then dropped the FFG only to take an Implant Buster off Kong. Kong went up high to do something but Brooks snuck in to take a quick pin off Hemme who Kong had already leveled.

Excellent quality match and it really bodes well for next week and the future of TNA (especially for its women) in general. Could this be the idea that kills WWE?

Consequences Creed (with Jay Lethal) vs The Pope D'Angelo Dinero - Tenay said there had been "weeks of hype" promoting Dinero but thats utter b***s**t, the only promo TNA ever ran was the Impact before Hard Justice to say he was coming. Creed got an ok start but he was only ever on top for about 2 minutes before Dinero took over and Creed had to job to aid Dineros push, Dinero hit a nice elbow drop before rolling down his knee pads and hitting a double flying kneelift to Creeds back to take his 1st win on Impact.

AJ Styles comes out to the ring looking VERY emotional and upset to make an announcement which is that he quits because he wants to spend more time with his family, Sting then comes out to shares some wisdoms of experience saying he wanted to pass the torch to Styles. After a brief attitude adjustment it appears AJ might not be quitting then. Bobby Lashley comes to join the colour desk & Dixie Carter will be making an announcement about his role in TNA next week.

Tables Match, Team 3D vs Matt Morgan & Kurt Angle - Angle came down & piefaced Lashley only to get a wicked punch that put him on his back, security had to keep them apart taking Lashley backstage. No-one was sure how Morgan felt about this match after their PPV match as Taz managed to f**k up on his commentary calling Brother Ray Bubba but correcting himself and explaining the flub.

Clearly its going to take Taz a while getting used to not calling Ray Bubba as he did it several times during this match. He also managed to get the number of wins Team 3D have had wrong as well. He's not doing well for his 1st outing is he? Ref Slick Johnson had to very quickly think on his feet when Devon stepped aside leaving Morgan to put The Carbon Footprint into an upright table making the call that it didn't count as "going through a table" despite the fact thats exactly what Morgans foot did and Taz had to follow the call to back it up.

Morgan had obviously hurt himself breaking the table with his foot (unless it was a seriously good sell) and Team 3D should have had this after the double suplex on Morgan partially broke a 2nd table so it was clear where the win on this was always going after Team 3D were screwed on a 2nd call by Slick. Angle went to look for another table and there weren't any more under the ring, Ray badly flubbed a big boot on Angle (it looked f**king atrocious) and had to be given a table from backstage due to Slick Johnsons 2 bad calls.

Devon got worked over by Angle and Morgan as they argued over who was going to go high risk to put Devon through the table with Angle winning & the injured Morgan was sent to the top turnbuckle, Angle got pushed away by Ray and Team 3D took the win after hitting a double throw putting Morgan through the table and quite frankly I was stunned Team 3D did win this as it appeared Ref Slick Johnson had been told otherwise.

I'm pleased about the Knockout tag division and to be honest I had been asking about that months ago, I wasn't surprised Dinero was put over on his 1st outing on Impact and they even set him up for a feud with Suicide but I am quite annoyed we didn't see the promised debut of Ayako Hamada so I am wondering when that will happen. It'll be interesting to see how they use Dixie Carter next week as she has never appeared on tv before (I think she has appeared once or twice at some PPV's) and I think they are setting up Abyss to be the new Mick Foley. I guess we'll see what happens next week.

WWE Monday Night Raw 17th Aug 09 reviewed

This is the 1st time I have watched RAW since 2nd Feb 09 and am not surprised in the slightest that the show is unchanged in style, format or talent in the 6 months I haven't seen it. The last WWE show I watched was an episode of Superstars on 11th Jun 09 so I haven't seen ANYTHING WWE related in over 2 months so if I don't recognise people or fail to know gimmicks have changed or people have turned face or heel thats why.

With guest host Freddie Prinze Junior.

United States Championship, Kofi Kingston vs Carlito (with Rosa Mendes) - I guess Carlito has gone heel since breaking up as a tagteam with his brother? I can't recall seeing Rosa work a match ever (having checked my blog I'd seen her in 2 matches and clearly neither made an impression) but generally going from wrestler to valet is a big step down and tends to show a lack of trust by WWE. This had a very slow start & the break during the match didn't help things either. Michael Cole must have been watching a different match from me with comments like "non stop action" and "amazing action", all I saw was 2 guys having at best a mildly average match where Kingston took the win off Trouble In Paradise.

The Miz vs Evan Bourne - Essentially this was Bourne selling and putting Miz over in an obvious new push for him. Its very sad that WWE are pushing Miz over someone as talented as Evan Bourne, after coming back into the ring Bourne owned Miz for all of about 2 minutes until The Miz hit what looked like The Stroke (Jeff Jarretts finisher in TNA) but he calls it The Skull Crushing Finale to take a win that he certainly didn't deserve in a push he also doesn't deserve either.

DX return. Who was the singing Blond that HHH put the bin over? I assume that was Santino who got Super Kicked (1st time I have EVER seen him sell a move and sell it well)? And Legacy beat the s**t out of them, its about time someone did.

Divas Championship, Mickie James vs Gail Kim - This is the match I wanted to see as someone said a lot of botches and bad moves were done. Kim started out with a few armbars and James' attempt at a cartwheel to break them wasn't very well executed. The roll throughs looked good but James looked unwilling to take that Cross Body Block. And by the way that was a reverse thrust kick, not a back elbow after the cross body block - James didn't hit the elbow until she was in the corner.

James hit an incredibly sloppy Hurricanrana (p**s poor execution) however Kims didn't look brilliant either but I don't think James helped her there with positioning or delivery, James was also stood too close for Kim to delivery a decent Missile Dropkick (so James gets the blame for bad ring positioning there). James managed to dodge an attempted cross body block from Kim by baseball sliding under Kim, the DDT was severly botched by James (Kim doesn't block it, James totally f**ks up her leg positioning and Kim was lucky to not get hurt by the move) but the colour desk tried to cover the flub by claiming Kim countered the move.

James missed the spinkick but the cameraman and tv director are also to blame for that flub choosing the wrong camera and totally no-selling the move by showing how badly James missed making any kind of contact. James hit a forearm after the missed (but really well sold) spinkick to take the win and retains her title. If Mickie James is the best WWE women have to offer then I do agree that they should cease their womens division.

James did look seriously annoyed after the match as she had her arm raised for the win but she had a really s**tty match here with a lot of rookie mistakes not just by her, I assume the cameraman and director who caused the no-sell of her spinkick will be fired for those equally bad rookie mistakes. I think Kim sold well and if she genuinely did need help standing up after the match it was due to that very bad DDT fall.

MVP vs Jack Swagger - Due to an overly long backstage segment involving John Cena, Chris Jericho & The Big Show there were no introductions for this match, they literally ended the backstage segment and this match started right away. There was no action with the ref calling for the bell within minutes of the start & MVP took the win off a DQ as Swagger failed to break after the ref counted way beyond 5. The postmatch scrap was pretty c**ppy too.

Falls Count Anywhere Match, Chavo Guerrerro vs Hornswoggle - Hornswoggle bolted straight under the ring and we were left watching an empty ring for over 20 seconds until it was revealed both men were on opposite sides of the ring when they both emerged. Hornswoggle fled backstage and we followed Chavo just standing in corridors until he opened a door and was floored by a tin of paint (a la Home Alone) then Hornswoggle got the easy pin in a p**s poor gimmick match where they then showed Macauley Culkin just in case anyone hadn't got the joke. See WWE fans! The company thinks your THAT stupid they had to explain the joke that thoroughly.

Overly long promo for Summerslam.

Tag Match, The Big Show & Chris Jericho vs Randy Orton & John Cena - Considering at the top of the show he refused stone dead to work tonight Orton didn't seem unhappy to be coming to the ring. Before the match got started Freddie Prinze Junior came out to inform Orton this was now also a Lumberjack Match and that he'd handpicked the Lumberjacks who were Mark Henry, MVP, Jamie Noble (then the d**khead cameraman decided to follow Henry). I managed to work out the other Lumberjacks were Kofi Kingston, Evan Bourne and I think the other guy next to Noble on his side of the ring might have been Primo Colon (this was confirmed later by the colour desk) but we never really got a got close look at him. Very poor match where Cena took the win off The Attitude Adjustment only to get an RKO from Orton as he celebrated the win.

If this show was an attempt to get people to buy Summerslam then WWE shouldn't be surprised if no-one does as it had no heat and totally failed to pique my interest. Even in its worst days ECW put on better shows than tonights RAW.

My TNA Catch-up, Hard Justice PPV 09

Steel Asylum Match, Alex Shelley vs Chris Sabin vs Amazing Red vs Daniels vs Jay Lethal vs Consequences Creed vs Suicide vs D'Angelo Dinero (aka The Pope otherwise known as former WWE star Elijah Burke who is doing really well to get into a potential title shot match & get a PPV spot for his very 1st match in TNA) - The winner of this becomes #1 contender for the X Division title and the rules are simple, you win by escaping through the hole in the top of the cage. Way too much action to call but highlights were Suicides Tower Of Doom Powerbomb, Lethals Faceplant on Shelley, Sabins Tornado DDT on Lethal, Reds Inverted DDT but Daniels took the eventual win by escaping the cage.

$50,000 Bounty Challenge, Jethro Holliday (with Dr Stevie) vs Abyss - Weapons are legal, very poor match. Holliday went to use some brass knucks but Abyss hit the Black Hole Slam to take the easy and very boring win.

Feast Or Fired Briefcase Match, Big Rob (with Brutus Magnus & Doug Williams) vs Hernandez - I guess the only point of this match is to further Hernandez as a solo wrestler and to move him towards a title shot. Hernandez had a waffle on the mic, challenging Rob, Magnus & Williams. Hernandez took the extremely quick win off a Shoulder Block.

IWGP Heavyweight Tag Championship, Beer Money vs The British Invasion - I guessed titles were going to change hands here as New Japan had clearly said Team 3D losing these belts was an unsanctioned match. This match was VERY boring with no action at all, Beer Money were on top and close to a pin when Eric Young threw in one of the belts and distracted the ref long enough for Magnus to take out Roodes legs and for Williams to make a Small Package to take the surprise win.

Womens Knockout Championship, ODB & Cody Deaner vs Angelina Love & Velvet Sky (with Madison Rayne) - Rules weren't explained at all, no-one mentioned if its possible for Deaner to take the womens title if he were to pin Love or Sky. Deaner only ever entered the match twice, his 1st time was just for comedy and pure fetish value spanking Love on the turnbuckle and the seconds time consisted of kissing all the Beautiful People earning him a mule kick off Sky who set him up for the "hairspray" in the face off Rayne who missed and hit Sky with a Schoolboy Roll-up to take the win and ODB is the new TNA Womens Knockout Champion and about time too quite frankly! No doubt Love will say she wasn't pinned or a women didn't win the match so the title can't change hands for one or both of those reasons.

X Division Championship, Samoa Joe (with Taz) vs Homicide - Very poor match with almost no action where Joe took the win off the Rear Naked Choke Hold.

Tag Team Championship, Team 3D vs Scott Steiner & Booker T - Not a match I expected anything from and it didn't disappoint me. TNA STILL haven't learnt their lesson on that stupid TINY split screen action thing (read these reviews, you can't see whats happening and its REALLY annoying to be missing BOTH sets of action). If anyone explained exactly why there were 2 referees calling this match and why it seemed to not be a proper tag match with all 4 guys going at each other though they seemed to make up the "falls count anywhere" stipulation once the match was well underway which then went towards explaining both of the referees.

With 2 referees it was pretty obvious there was going to be some kind of swerve involving a double count and a difference of opinions over the winner. Both refs went off to review the video footage and The MEM retained their title, what really should have happen was the match should have continued until there was a clear winner. Poor match, super weak finish.

TNA Legends Championship, Kevin Nash vs Mick Foley - Another match I didn't expect much from, Foley bladed fairly late into the game with the ref selling the injury way more than Foley was. Foley was seriously blooded and fought that way for a good 10 minutes before finally blading Nash who looked in a fairly bad state too. The ref took a bump and Foley grabbed the barbed wire baseball bat from under the ring which caused Russo to send Traci to do a run in which allowed Nash enough time to get back up and thumb Foley in his "good" eye before landing a big boot, the effect of which bumped Traci off the apron into a "cameraman" (I assume he was some jobber?) but the idiots in the control room focused too much on her bump and totally missed how Nash decked Foley to take the win and Kevin Nash is the new Legends Champion. Nash did try and beat on Foley with the barbed wire bat but Abyss came down with a barbed wire bat of his own and made the save so it looks like we might be getting a hardcore tag team in the near future?

World Heavyweight Championship, Matt Morgan vs Sting vs Kurt Angle - It wasn't really worth me watching this match because I already knew the outcome after reading it in a newsgroup. With the extremely drawn out introductions by Borash and the video package of each guy before his entrance I assume they wanted to get this over and done to get Angle away to his lawyers after the incident this weekend before the PPV.

This one spilled out of the ring and Morgan really showed how much of a 1 trick pony he is with his extremely minimal skillset. After hitting the Carbon Footprint on Angle outside the ring I have zero clue why Earl Hebner felt he needed to check on Angle or involved the crew member as Sting was in the ring and Morgan was on his way back there, Morgan had Sting pinned. Hebner had no business looking over Angle as the match was still in progress & I assume the injury was a gimmick to kill time, Sting hit the Scorpion Death Drop & easily had the 3 count because Hebner wasn't even in the ring for the 1st few seconds Morgan was pinned.

Morgan hit the Carbon Footprint (which the camera was totally out of position for and totally no-sold the move showing how much it missed Sting by) & Hebner was WAY out of position outside the ring again about to make a 3 count when Angle miraculously recovered enough to get up, drag Hebner off his count to the floor and grabbed a chair. Sting ducked the chairshot to hit Morgan, Hebner flubbed his climb into the ring but made it in on his 2nd try to count out Morgan and Kurt Angle retains his Heavyweight title but he'll have to lose it soon with his current legal problems.

My Weekly TNA Catch-up, Impact 13th Aug 09 reviewed

Christy Hemme vs Sojo Bolt - Hemme is making her return after damaging her neck training with AJ Styles many months ago, Bolt didn't even merit an introduction. In fact her name wasn't even mention by the colour desk until well into the match, has she done something wrong recently then? Am I the only person who noticed Bolt copping a big old feel of Hemme's boob before she went for the 1st hairpull?

Hemme was pretty over with the Impact Zone crowd who chanted "You suck" at Bolt although Hemme sold a backbreaker fairly badly but Bolt had a bad landing of her own (unless it was a f**king amazing sell) falling right onto the top off her head after Hemme flipped her over her back. Bolt flubbed something (its impossible to call what move she was going for) after she caught Hemme attempting a cross bodyblock. Hemme took the win off the FFG and its nice to see her back on the active list again.

Doug Williams (With Big Rob & Brutus Magnus) vs Hernandez - Poor match, Hernandez took the eventual win off a Sit-out Powerbomb that Williams sold well.

Tag Match, Rhino & Jesse Neal vs The World Elite in the shape of Eric Young & Sheik Abdul Bashir (with Kiyoshi). P**s poor match, Eric Young took the win off a roll-up on Neal with the help of a handful of shorts.

4 Way Knockout Contest, ODB (with Cody Deaner) vs Awesome Kong (with Raisha Saeed) vs Angelina Love (with Velvet Sky & Madison Rayne) vs Tara - Tara went right for Kong leaving ODB to have at it with Love, ODB made short work of her hitting the fall away slam and went to beat on Kong with them trying a double team that failed after Kong hit a double clothesline. Kong tried to rush them again but they side stepped leaving Kong to go flying over the top rope bumping the apron to the floor. ODB hit a top turnbuckle Cross Body block onto Kong, Saeed & Deaner and Tara did likewise into The Beautiful People but slightly overshot and hit her head (you see her reaching for her head right after the fall) in a bad landing.

Coming back from the break Tara was in-ring jobbing to Kong when Tenay pointed out Taras bad landing, as Tara dragged Kong out of the ring to the floor Love was owning ODB getting a near fall off the Botox Injection. Kong stopped a near fall after ODB hit a nice running powerslam (a la Davey Boy Smith) on Love, ODB took a hard looking chokeslam off Kong and Deaner had to get up on the apron to run interference on Kong (which included kissing her) and was brought into the ring the hard way then took an Awesome Bomb which was distraction enough to allow Tara to run back in and take the win off a Schoolboy roll-up. Not a bad match at all really.

No DQ Match, Scott Steiner (with Booker T & Sharmell) vs Brother Ray (with Devon) - I wondered how long this match would stay clean and sure enough it wasn't long with Booker being 1st to interfere but Devon evening the score. Steiner had been set up to get tabled when The British Invasion did a run-in (clearly Russo was working this show then) and that was long enough of a distraction for Steiner & Booker to get back on top with Booker dispatching Devon under the top rope then helping hit Ray with a double chokeslam through the table which allowed Steiner to take the win.

Mick Foley & Kevin Nash sign for the Legends title match then shoot the breeze. Advert for "The Pope D'Angelo Dinero" that'd be Elijah Burke appearing the PPV on Sunday then.

Best Of 3 Series, AJ Styles (with Sting) vs Matt Morgan (with Kurt Angle) - Basically whoever wins this will get a shot at Sting & Angle on Sunday at the PPV. Styles started this early with a somersault flipdive over the top rope onto Morgan who hadn't even got in the ring yet, after a bit of fighting by the guardrails Styles rolled Morgan into the ring and this thing got started legally. Styles worked Morgans leg and hit the figure 4 leg lock early which Morgan broke after reaching the ropes. Morgan was on top for a while with Styles selling hurt like crazy, Styles jobbed big time but made a comeback before Morgan took the win off The Carbon Footprint which means Matt Morgan will meet Sting & Kurt Angle for the Heavyweight title match at the PPV. Morgan tells Angle he won't help him retain his title.

My Weekly TNA Catch-up, Impact 6th Aug 09 reviewed

Show opens with MEM coming out to bleat about the loss of the Legends title. Eric Young and The World Elite come out join them.

Daniels vs Eric Young - Young had Kiyoshi & Sheik Abdul Bashir with him and Daniels "had" The Motor City Machine Guns with him, to be honest this was pretty boring. Young is now is his new heel character with short hair and new ring clothes. Daniels missed the BME when Young rolled out and Daniels then went for the Angels Wings but Bashir distracted the ref allowing Kiyoshi to spit the red mist into Daniels' eyes and Young hit a Piledriver to take the win. Seriously poor match from guys this talented.

8 Man Tag War, The British Invasion, Scott Steiner & Booker T vs Beer Money & Team 3D - Rob Terry worked this match (being introduced as Big Rob) instead of Brutus Magnus who did come to the ring with the IWGP title that we discovered was an unsanctioned match by New Japan so those titles will have to change hands again soon. This match broke down into chaos pretty quickly and The World Elite made a run in which was stopped by Daniels & The Motor City Machine Guns looking for some payback from earlier in the show. Kevin Nash was sent out as well (although exactly how believable any blows he made with a bandaged hand were always going to be questionable) but Mick Foley came out to stop him and Kurt Angle was down at ringside with Sting coming out to stop Angle then Samoa Joe trying to stop Sting and Bobby Lashley coming out to stop Joe.

Bobby Roode had been up on the top turnbuckle but Traci Brooks pushed him off into the ring, Big Rob hit a chokeslam on Roode and took the win for his team. This carried on post match and it's a shame that all the ringside & backstage action was better than the actual match. It seems now Cute Kip is off tv he is working as part of Security as I noticed him trying to keep Joe & Lashley apart in the locker room.

Eventually "The Police Department" (unmarked cars with flashing blue & red lights so probably Universal Studios Park Security at most) arrived to break it up (with hand batons? F**K OFF!) and everyone stopped. Its only a crying shame that what happened was the most exciting thing TNA have done as far as fighting or wrestling goes in the last 2 or so months.

Knockout Tag Match, Alissa Flash & Traci vs Taylor Wilde & Sarita - I get the feeling that I know whats going to happen in the near future after having seen Flash today. We are going to see Raisha Saeed in a match and she will get her burkha ripped off to reveal Flash underneath, I'm predicting it now because Flash was wearing the Saeed eye make-up as a future teaser I believe. You heard it right here first!

Wilde & Brooks kicked this one off, it was a really good match and everyone worked well. I am liking Flash and her character and style, she is just all power and strength. Traci is a lot better than I remember, I actually expected her to be really rusty having been away so long but I assume she was working somewhere else. We didn't see much of Sarita but what little we did see was fast, fluid and quite frankly brilliant. Sarita took the eventual win off a Flying Armbar into a Small Package.

Best Of 3 Series, Matt Morgan vs AJ Styles - I assume to make this appear interesting (as no-one cares about Morgan or wants to watch him) Morgan will win this week so they HAVE to have the 3rd and final match. Styles gave a really good account of himself but Morgan took the extremely predictable win off The Hellavator making this 1 match each.

Brutus Magnus (with Doug Williams & Big Rob) vs Sting - Sting got a gigantic pop for his intro and the crowd were going mental for him. I'm not exactly sure what the point of this match was with no title interest or any particular storyline to further. Slick Johnson sent Terry & Williams back to the locker room then this one got started. Magnus did a lot of running before trying to take out one of Stings legs but Sting took a really fast win after Magnus tapped out of the Scorpion Leg Lock.

I was wondering how they were going to fill the final 4 minutes of tv time but Magnus tried to jump Sting who started to defend himself until The British Invasion & The World Elite did a run-in to beatdown Sting. Lashley & Foley came out to help Sting and they were cleaning house bigtime until Angle, Joe & Steiner came out to put a stop to it. Hernandez totally cleared the ring by coming down swinging a steel chain and its sad that 2 post match beatdowns actually were better quality than some of the recent actual wrestling matches TNA have booked & staged.

My Weekly TNA Catch-up, Impact 30th Jul 09 reviewed

Its the 200th Impact! Big fricking deal! The MEM come out and yack on the mic, Bobby Lashley comes out to spoil their party. Mick Foley joins the yackfest.

Hernandez vs Samoa Joe - Hernandez has new music and a new ring outfit, a pretty average match. Hernandez took the win off a Frogsplash.

Best Of 3 Series, Matt Morgan vs AJ Styles - Whoever wins this gets a Heavyweight title shot against Sting & another as yet unknown opponant at the Hard Justice PPV. I'm not exactly sure who backstage in TNA Creative thought 1 match let alone 3 between these 2 guys would draw ratings. Morgan currently has less heat than Pluto and you could tell no-one in the crowd wanted to see this match despite the talent of Styles. Styles sold and jobbed for all he was worth here (I bet Morgan never said thank you either) but Styles got a 2nd wind, hit a nice Pele and took the win off a 450 Spinning Splash so its 1 nil to Styles.

Sit down interview with Tara.

6 Woman Knockout Tag Match, ODB (with Cody Deaner), Awesome Kong (with Raisha Saeed so that gimmick isn't dead yet?) & Tara vs The Beautiful People - This was a decent match until Tara tagged Kong in who went apeshit (no pun intended) & started whaling on Tara despite them being tag team mates. Kong beat Tara out of the ring, into a ring post and started beating her out of the Impact Zone leaving ODB to deal with The Beautiful People all on her own. Don West fucked up by misidentifying Velvet Sky calling her "Angelina" (don't think I was going to let that MASSIVE flub past West!), Love was briefly on top until getting into a shouting match with Cody Deaner who kissed her on the apron which allowed ODB to take the win off a Schoolboy roll-up.

Eric Young, The British Invasion, Kiyoshi & Sheik Abdul Bashir (now collectively calling themselves "The World Elite") talk about his heel turn. Team 3D come out and respond.

IWGP Heavyweight Tag Title Tables Match, Team 3D vs The British Invasion - Sadly I already knew the result of this about a week ago due to some idiot from RSPW pretending to be me who posted the result. Devon took the actual win by powerbombing Brutus Magnus through the table but Earl Hebner had been taken out earlier in the match after a bump from Brother Ray. Eric Young hit Devon with the title belts, moved Magnus and "revived" Hebner who awarded the win and IWGP Heavyweight Tag Titles to The British Invasion.

Video package of TNA at this years Comic Con. The MEM take out Mick Foley & Bobby Lashley in Foleys office. Beer Money jump Scott Steiner & Booker T outside the MEM locker room.

Tag Match, Kurt Angle & Kevin Nash vs Bobby Lashley & Mick Foley - The stipulation is simple, if Angle is pinned he loses the Heavyweight title and if Nash is pinned he loses the Legends title. Once again due to various billboarding twats in RSPW I already knew the result of this match more than a week before it aired on tv. Angle certainly wasn't expecting anyone to come out of the entrance tunnel as Lashley & Foley were announced and neither showed until Angle got the ref to raise their hands and Foley came out alone having to meet Angle & Nash beating them down on the entrance ramp.

Foley took Angles head on a turnbuckle tour of the ring with Nash having to interfere to give Angle breathing space to recover. Nash was tagged in and took his time beating on Foley, Angle was tagged back in but Foley was too strong for the Angle slam so Foley hit the double arm DDT. Foley hit the Socko Claw (and the colour desk are still miscalling that move unless WWE trademarked Socko?) which Nash stopped with a big boot, Angle went for the Ankle Lock.

Foley was on the verge of tapping when the lights went out & Stings music hit, when the lights came back up Foley was out of the ring and Sting was high up in the bleachers with the crowd helpfully distracting Angle & Nash. The lights went out and came back on again and Bobby Lashley was in the ring with his head taped up, Angle was clotheslined out of the ring & Lashley hit a spear on Nash which allowed Foley to take the pin and Mick Foley is the new Legends Champion.