By Ryan Kester

TNA "Impact Wrestling" on Spike TV
Taped in Orlando, FL in the Impact Wrestling Zone

[Q1] A video package aired replaying Sting's crazed ramblings last week and Jeff Jarrett's exile to Mexico.

The actual show started with Jeff and Eric talking backstage about how Jeff was getting sent to Mexico by orders of the Network. Eric focused on how they needed to expand to gain power, so they had to take over Mexico.

Eric Bischoff then headed to the ring and called out Sting for his actions from last week. Sting immediately obliged. Eric called Sting a coward and asked him if he thought he wouldn't find out about his actions.

Sting is now full-tilt channeling the Joker as he did his tone of voice and speech mannerisms perfectly. He threatened to snap Bischoff's neck and called him a con artist, a thief, and a liar. He then did the Joker's laugh and called him a cancer.

Bischoff said him and Hogan would always be butt buddies and there's nothing Sting could do to change that. Sting retorted with saying Bischoff has a price to pay and he removed his entrance garb before beating the living crap out of Bischoff. He hit the Scorpion Death Drop, painted Bischoff's face red, and locked in the Scorpion Deathlock. Bischoff tapped into the break… [C]

Ryan's Rant: Yeah, I am not a fan of this new character. It's an absolute ripoff of the Joker, but that's not even my big problem. My problem is that Sting went from voice of reason to bloody bonkers in one week's time. Plus, everything he has done since latching onto this persona has come across as extremely heelish to this viewer. Basically, this could be a great gimmick for someone else, but on Sting it just makes him look like an idiot doing something he isn't comfortable with and shouldn't be doing.

[Q2] The announcers quickly recapped Sting's jumping of the shark. They then ran through some live events and the impact they had on the BFG series.

1. Bully Ray beat Scott Steiner in 5:53. The two jawed to start the match before locking up. They were evenly matched, but Bully Ray eventually got the upper hand. Bully attempted to go for the Bully Bomb but Steiner fought out and hit a belly-to-back suplex.

The two stood up and exchanged blows that Steiner won. Steiner hit a handful of clotheslines and hit a t-bone suplex. Bully Ray then bumped the ref and Steiner locked in the Steiner Recliner and Bully Ray tapped but the ref was down. Bully Ray went to the corner, grabbed a chain, and punched Steiner in the throat with it to pick up the win.

Backstage, Bischoff told Abyss he wanted pieces of Sting's ass all over the arena. Anderson then showed up, again not holding his title, and Bischoff went off on him. Anderson said he was heating a hamburger and minding his own business. Bischoff told him he wouldn't have the title Anderson doesn’t even bother keeping with him if it wasn't for him and Hogan… [C]

Ryan's Rant: Can you tell I think it's stupid that Anderson never has the title with him even though he bitched for months about wanting a title Shot? Tosser. The match was alright, but I hope they keep this overbooking to a minimum in the BFG series.

[Q3] Backstage, Steiner was tearing the place apart looking for Bully ray.

The X-Division qualifier tonight consists of three guys never featured on Impact before, and a video package for Zema Ion played.

Velvet and Miss Tessmacher came out with a stick and Velvet talked about how they got a no-holds barred match tonight on against Jackie and ODB. They called out the heels ho quickly came out while tossing the same trash that that have been for the past few weeks.

2. Miss Jackie and ODB defeated Velvet Sky and Miss Tessmacher in 3:52. The two teams brawled at ringside before the match could start… [C]

The match returned already in progress with Jackie and ODB working over Tessmacher. ODB, in her normally lovely self, spent more of the time making herself look like trash with her mouth than she did actually working the match.

[Q4] The two heels worked quick tags to work Tessmacher over and prevented several near tags to Velvet. Eventually, Tessmacher speared ODB because ODB was too busy patting her own tits. I kid you not. Tessmacher got the hot tag to Velvet who took out both heels.

Jackie then tagged in and punted Velvet's crotch to get the victory. The announcers immediately cut away even though Velvet was writing in pain… [C]

Ryan's Rant: Well, that was a train wreck. Tessmacher can hit one hell of a spear. ODB needs to get the bloody hell off my TV as she didn't even have redeemable ring work this week. Her entire offense literally consisted of her yelling trashy names at her opponents and patting her own crotch or chest. It was so stupid that she got a tag off of Jackie and walked the entire way across the ring while smacking her breasts just to turn around and eat a spear. Ugh.

Back from the break, we got to meet Federico Palacios, another competition in the qualifier match tonight.

Tara cut a quick promo about Madison Rayne, who promptly showed up to give Tara an opportunity to beg her way out of their match or it would be her last. Tara passed, madison struck her, and Tara beat her senseless.

Beer Money was arguing backstage about whether or not Roode should compete because he's still hurt… [C]

Ryan's Rant: This is always the part of the show that drains my energy a bit because they try to shove too many things into a short time so they can have an overly long promo to start the second hour. Maybe they will surprise me tonight and I'll get a long, good match, but I am not holding my breath.

[Q5] Backstage, Steiner was going nuts trying to get his hands on Bully Ray, who tried to talk him down. Bully managed to do that by offering to let Steiner into Immortal.

3. Crimson and Matt Morgan defeated Beer Money in 6:13. Crimson and Roode started the match. The two worked each over a bit before tagging in their respective partners.

Morgan hit a great discus clothesline on Storm and tagged in Crimson, who quickly worked a rest hold that he transitioned into a neckbreaker. Morgan tagged in and hit a tilt-o-whirl slam on Storm. Crimson tagged back in and Storm got a backstabber on crimson to create some distance.

Two hot tags later, Roode and Morgan met in the middle of the ring, and Roode went to work on Morgan's legs. Roode tried locking in the fujiwa armbar that took out Ric Flair, but Crimson made the save.

Beer Money did their little dance just to eat a double clothesline from Morgan. A Carbon Footprint later, Morgan picked up the pin and got the BFG points.

Abyss was walking backstage rambling about the Art of War.

Ryan's Rant: Well, color me surprised, TNA went made me eat crow. Great match, and Morgan and Crimson look great as a team. I'm not a fan of seeing another angle where a TNA guy is competing when he isn't medically cleared. That's not a mindset you really want to be instilling in guys.

[Q6] The idiot supreme, Eric Young, appeared on TV walking along a tourist spot looking for someone to face for his title.

AJ Styles made his way to the ring to announce his return to the X-Division. He announced the return of the six-sided ring for the PPV. He talked about the history of the X-Division and put over everyone involved.

Samoa Joe showed up and made a beeline for the ring. Samoa Joe got his fellating of Styles out of the way with early before putting himself, and his X-Division history over. He said if Styles is the heart of the division, then Joe is its balls. Samoa Joe was about to make a challenge when Christopher Daniels came out in dress attire. WTF?

Daniels asked for a match between himself and AJ Styles, one-on-one. AJ accepted the challenge and Joe was left holding his bellend… [C]

Ryan's Rant: Why was the "Fallen Angel" coming out in corporate office attire? That head-scratching idiocy aside, I found my overly long promo segment I talked about earlier. It did what it needed to do, but I am so utterly sick and tired of TNA guys tossing each other for five to ten minutes before getting to the point of a segment. I get it, you're one big happy family, but dear lord, where is the entertainment in seeing guys verbally cuddle each and every week?

[Q7] Backstage, Kazarian got into it with Daniels over the challenge he made to Styles. Joe showed up and made fun of Kazarian, who made some corny Charlie Brown joke, and then promptly had his ass handed to him by Joe.

We got the video package for Dakota Darsow, who didn't know where the camera was and spent the entire time talking with his head turned very far to the right.

4. Zema Ion defeated Frederico Palacio and Dakota Darsow in 4:45. The three worked on rotation with one hitting a spot on another while the third guy sold in the corner or at ringside.

Dakota Darsow worked more power moves than you'd expect from an X-Division guy, Ion worked high spots galore, and Palacio basically played punching bag in between roll-up attempts. The finish came when Ion reversed a suplerplex attempt into a 450 splash.

Backstage, RVD was talking about how he was X-Division before there was an X-Division. Jerry Lynn then showed up and said, "Don't you mean we were X-Division before there was X-Division?" RVD made a goofy face and identified Jerry Lynn in the most lackluster return ever.

Ryan's Rant: With how much they were talking up Darsow's father being in demolition, I could have sworn that they were going to give him the win. I apologize for the scant coverage there, but it was nothing more than a spot fest with three guys I have never seen before. TNA is really good at utterly failing to make returning wrestlers feel important and special. Lynn showing up like that should have been huge and felt like abso-freaking-lutely nothing.

[Q8] 5. Winter defeated Mickie James in a Street Fight in 3:38 The two brawled from the back to the ring. Winter choked James with a leather strap. Towards the ring, James hit Winter with a head scissor on the floor. In the ring, Mickie nailed Winter with a missile dropkick. Hebner got distracted and Angelina Love hit the ring and laid out Mickie so that Winter could pick up the win… [C]

Ryan's Rant: Why did we need a distracted ref for a street fight? Logic is such a fickle friend, isn't it TNA?

6. Abyss defeated Sting via DQ in 5:24 Jeremy Borash handled in-ring introductions, but Sting cut them off by attacking Abyss. Sting went to work on the big man until he charged the ring post and hurt his shoulder.

Abyss started working some power moves on Sting and showed off his lack of teeth to the crowd. He hit a chokeslam and got a near fall. Abyss then grabbed the Art of War and started reading while Sting recovered. Abyss then grabbed a comical barbed-wire glove.

Sting attacked Abyss, stole the glove, and used it on him to lose the match. Abyss immediately bled like a stuck pig.

Anderson came out and, *gasp*, actually was holding the TNA title.

Ryan's Rant: I just noticed that Sting's face paint actually includes the Joker's lines from the side of his mouth. Wow. This match was crap, and I fully expected it to be. It amazes me how much Abyss can look like an elephant that saw a mouse when he is supposed to be imposing. Speaking of which, if you are going to call him a monster, he needs to be destroying people, not getting his ass kicked an entire bloody match and having his opponents kick out of his signature maneuvers.

This week had some good moments, but overall it was a letdown after last week's good show. Too many of these matches were overbooked. In fact, ever match except the X-Division qualifier included a distracted ref or a weapon. This is not the way to make wrestling matter.

Join me tomorrow for my Rundown of tonight's show, and be sure to check out the Member's Exclusive Impact Wrestling Audio review featuring Will Pruett and for the first time ever, myself sometime tomorrow. If you are not already a Dot Net member, you can sign up by visiting the Dot Net Members' Signup Page. I hope to see you in the forums, and I will see you all here this time next week. Take care.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send me an email at ryan.kester@gmail.com or hit me up on Twitter at @Ryan_Kester. Have a good week.

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