Your boy is back to hold your hand through the minefield and lead you to the light at the end of the tunnel that is TNA. Much thanks to Stephanie for picking up my slack last week and what do I do? I overbooked myself to where this edition of Impact Testing comes out a few days late. Shall we?
LAX vs Joe Coleman & Jake Holmes
The first thing you notice when Impact cuts to the ring, no Josh Matthews. Hot damn! Then the music of LAX hit your ears and you become blessed. LAX make pretty easy pickings of the nobody tag team and hit the Street Sweeper for the win.
Konnan grabs a mic and runs down his group and states “you can stop a revolutionary but you can’t stop a revolution.” The music of Decay hits and a brawl breaks out which will obviously lead to a match for the titles, one Decay will surely lose since Crazzy Steve is no longer with the company.
“The Void of Charisma” Karen Jarrett comes out to tells us how good of a job her and her husband are doing now that GFW and Impact have merged. Some of the shitty fans actually cheer this, they cheer a wrestling company that was a phantom at best. Karen then announces that tonight will be a “Night of Champions,” I wonder where they got that name from… Thankfully, Sonjay Dutt comes to the ring, a guy that should have never left TNA in the first place and puts himself in the X-Division main event tonight. Lee and Everett come out to protest so Brother Love gives Lee a big old F–k You and makes it a six-way.
The Veteran of War = Crimson aka F–k me!
Knockouts Championship
Rosemary vs ODB
The two brawl inside and outside of the ring having a good match overall, although it was very short, Rosemary hits the Red Wedding and gets the win.
Channeling his inner Drifter, Swoggle is shown walking around the crowd, happy as a pig in shit.
We have our first “whoopsy” of the night when they show a backstage segment that was an obvious pre-tape, why? While Brother Love is telling us that Suicide has been added to the X-Division match, he’s asked about the fifth and sixth participants; His reply? He says we have a Knockouts Championship to get to first… That match legit just happened Bruce!
Kongo Kong vs Chris Silvio
Following a great video recapping the story involving everyone from Allie to LVN and Braxton Sutter to KM and Kongo Kong. Speaking of Kong, he destroys Silvio with a cannonball, goes up top and hits an earth-shaking big splash picking up the victory.
Magnus is backstage with his GFW Heavyweight Championship staking claim to the number one contender spot for the TNA Heavyweight Championship.
TNA Heavyweight Championship
Bobby Lashley with Josh Matthews vs James Storm
Look at what we have here, this is something I could get behind. I said it weeks ago, Matthews needs to be a mouthpiece and here we stand, MAtthews is with Lashley. The match itself was good, but they immediately went to the go to TNA spot, a move on the steel steps outside. Literally, every show, every big match utilizes the stairs in the exact same way. Don’t get me started on the high-pitched buzzing noise that my TV was projecting during this match causing my ears along with my eyes to start bleeding. EC3 made his way to ringside, he blasts Storm in the head with a bottle, shrugs and walks away. Lashley hits the spear and picks up the victory.
Backstage, Moose has a problem with Chris Adonis for attacking him at a Border City Wrestling event. The main problem I have with this is the fact that it seems as if they have completely dropped the Cody and Brandi Rhodes angle involving Moose. Adonis claims he has a broken arm while Davey Richards attacks Moose from behind.
Wait, why is Josh Matthews still announcing? Is he just allowed to come back after last week? What in the holy hell is going on?!
X-Division Championship
Trevor Lee vs Andrew Everett vs Sonjay Dutt vs Suicide vs Dezmond Xavier vs Low Ki
In his Hitman best, Low Ki comes to the ring to continue the video game references and to entertain us all. He legit wrestled in a suit. Beyond that in my opinion, six guys are way too much to put in play to have the quality of match we all remember this division for having. They do manage to find a way to make it as good as they can and they do find ways to make this match worth remembering. Sonjay Dutt’s eye completely swells shut, he continues on and the new guy, Dezmond Xavier had a great showing. I definitely want to see more of him; Low Ki vs Dezmond Xavier in a singles contest could be tremendous. On a side note, Matthews mentions that they are in a standing room only while the camera points towards two guys sitting in seats, good job guys.
Low Ki pins Trevor Lee for the win following the warriors way, making the X-Division original a five-time champion.
Post-match, all hell breaks loose at the announce table with Pope walking out and Borash cold clocking Matthews as we go off the air.
Overall, Impact was in good shape tonight. A build towards the future of the company has started to get a decent build in the X-Division, the Tag Team’s as well as a trove of new mid carders. The Heavyweights are still stale to me as well as the ill-fated Grand Championship picture; I’m hoping it gets replaced with the Next Gen title sometime.
3/5