TNA Impact Wrestling TV taping
London, England
Dot Net reader Olie from Milton Keynes, England

The second taping opened with another talking segment. The crowd popped when MVP said Jeff Hardy would join them at Lockdown. The crowd went nuts and turned to see the entrance ramp. Fools. Obviously, Hardy didn’t walk out, much to the disappointment of some crowd members.

1. Bobby Roode, Austin Aries, and Robbie E fought MVP and The Wolves to a no-contest in an elimination match. The "match" started after a brawl broke out in the ring. The bell didn’t ring, so nobody knew the match had started. When Robbie E got pinned, everyone assumed the match was over, but it was announced he had been eliminated. This was the second year in a row where an elimination match took place, but was unannounced (the exact same thing happened last year when Velvet won the Knockouts belt from Tara). The whole match setup was a shambles. Nobody knew it was a match. Nobody knew it had started. Nobody knew it was an elimination match. The bell wasn’t rung at the start, and it never rung at the end when the ref through it out. I can’t wait to see this on TV to see if they edit it to make sense, because nobody had a clue what was going on. It was a shame considering the talent in the ring. It did give the Wolves a chance to warm to the crowd though. They managed to get a TNA chant going, in response to their in-ring work.

More good mic work between Angle and EC3, although it went on a bit too long.

2. Samuel Shaw beat Eric Young. Mr Anderson handled the ring intro’s, which the crowd loved. Once again, a ‘Creepy bastard’ chant started up for Shaw. EY came out to a massive pop. Despite his awful storyline involvement with Abyss, the UK loves EY. Rightfully so, he is one of my faves despite his terrible booking over the past few years. The match was thrown out when Shaw choked out Anderson. Another brilliant move, as it makes Shaw look dangerous as he choked out a former World Champ twice in two consecutive "weeks". Anderson singlehandedly made the crowd care about Shaw, and I can’t wait for their Lockdown match.

3. Velvet, Madison Rayne, and ODB beat Gail Kim, Lei'D Tapa, and Alpha Female. Pretty much the same match as we saw earlier in the night. Wembley still loves pigeons.

I used the Storm vs Gunner talking segment to go get a drink. I heard something about a Last Man Standing match, and made it back to see Storm give Gunner a superkick. Storm seemed to be acting more of a heel (finally!) but unfortunately it might be too little too late for this feud.

4. Bobby Roode beat Davey Richards in the continuation from the six-man elimination tag from earlier. JB announced that Earl Hebner was re-starting the match and giving Davey a 10 count to return to the ring and continue the earlier "match." Thank God for JB, why didn’t he inform the crowd about more in between matches?! This was a really good match, and Davey certainly won over the crowd as the match went on.

The Magnus and Joe discussion closed but by this point the crowd was fed up of talking segments. Bully Ray got a really good pop as he came out right at the end, and the table spot sent the crowd home happy. I can’t help but wonder why Ray only came out for the last five minutes and didn’t play any other part in the show, when we saw Bobby Roode, Magnus etc coming out three or four times. Ray is a big name and he was massively underused tonight.

Biggest Pops
Eric Young
Velvet Sky
Davey Richards

Most Heat
Samuel Shaw
Bobby Roode
Magnus

Notes: It was another strong night for TNA, but the lack of big name stars was obvious. I think TNA are in an extremely important period of transition at the moment. They have a roster which is jacked with talent, but many of the younger stars need time to develop their characters. This will happen in time, and the more they are on TV the more this will help. Anderson & Angle will surely make stars of Shaw and EC3 respectively, and MVP backing the Wolves will give them a decent rub.

They announced the next TNA Impact Tour, and they will be bringing Ultimate X with them. Tonight they showed the potential on the roster, if they can make the audience care about the new stars, then next year could be monumental.

RECOMMEND THIS ARTICLE: