TNA Telegraph – 30th June 2011 – Keep it on the Low Ki…By Andrew Pearson| July 2, 2011 TNA Telegraph Normal service is resumed this week with a nice in depth look at this weeks Impact wrestling. With the BFG series and the shift in focus to the X division for Destination X we’ve had some rare treats from the bookers recently. whether that continues past this next PPV we’ll have to see but i’m going to be optimistic and keep an open mind that we’ll see the trend continue this week. The show starts with a recap of Sting going nuts at Bischoff and Abyss from last week and that’s it before we’re into the title sequence. The show proper begins with Hogan and Steiner backstage and Hogan is welcoming Big Poppa Pump to Immortal and saying that Steiner is going to take care of business for Immortal tonight. Sting’s disembodied voice plays from off camera and Hogan wanders over to a big flatscreen TV. There’s a big green “video 2” on screen which I’m not sure is someone failing to set up the screen properly or is some kind of graphic to make it seem more real. It’s a bit distracting though. Sting is on his crazy rant stuff but is facing away from the camera and turns round to reveal he’s rocking a sort of Joker-esque paint job. now I’ve read reports that Sting actually quotes from the Dark Knight during the show but since I’ve never seen the film I can’t tell you when that is. Let’s just say that even knowing that TNA is ripping off a film that was massive a few years ago is just a bit sad and so unnecessary when Sting was doing a decent enough job before hand without them. We hear Hogan’s music play and he stalks out to the ring being followed by the camera, it’s a shame the impact zone is so tiny because it’s an innovative way of linking the segments but looks a bit cheap when you see how small backstage really is. Hogan calls out Mr Anderson who duly obliges and Hogan tells him it’s time to make a decision; either join Immortal and get their back up or go alone and lose it all. Anderson basically retorts that he doesn’t need Immortal and that he won the belt on his own from Sting which even though I understand why he said it sounds stupid because he blatantly did win with their help. Hogan insists that Anderson owes him one which sets Anderson off on one but they are interrupted by video of Sting beating up Bully Ray, Abyss, Steiner and Gunner with the baseball bat. Sting says he wants to talk Hogan and says “The only thing for sure about Sting is…oh forget it” which made me chuckle, like I said when he does his own thing it’s pretty damn good. Sting comes out to the ring and hits Hogan with the bat, Anderson sort of slopes off slowly which is a bit of a d*ck move given that Sting is wielding a baseball bat and should be selling that fact. anyway Sting says he calling the July 14th show Midsummer Nightmare and then hits Hogan in the ribs with the bat. Sting talks about being a Hogan mark for his entire career (isn’t Sting like about 5 years younger than Hogan? Exactly how long was he a Hogan mark?). He goes on about the “train hard, say your prayer and take your vitamins” Hogan used to say and the Pythons are down to 21 inches. He grabs a bottle of vitamins in the corner and takes some with Hulk, pouring them down his throat. that’s a little contrived for a madman on the edge isn’t it? Hogan’s bandanna comes off at this point and it suddenly goes from Sting beating up Hogan to Sting beating up an old man. Seriously dude, Sterling Golden did it for me.. Immortal come out and Bully tells Sting to let go of Hogan and says that Sting is a bully and he hates bullies. right. anyway Bully says tonight it’s going to be Sting versus….. Scott Steiner, teasing that he was going to say himself. Steiner initially looks unhappy but covers it up quickly. We get the weekly recap of the BFG matches that went down between the shows at the live events. AJ beats Gunner which gets a lot of coverage about the rubber match as they a re 1-1. I forget the others but the net result is that the standing are: Crimson 17 Gunner 14 Matt Morgan 14 AJ Styles 14 James Storm 14 Rob Van Dam 7 Scott Steiner 7 Bully Ray 7 D’Angelo Dinero 0 Robert Roode 0 Devon 0 Samoa Joe 0 And the next match in the series is Joe V Devon… seriously Devon is in this? No offence to the guy but… Devon? Bound For Glory Series: D-Von vs. Samoa Joe – Tenay announces that it’s Kazarian V Joe at Destination X because obviously TNA didn’t bother to read anything on the internet about how psyched people were for Joe V AJ V Daniels. Devon starts of by hammering away but Joe gets a kick to the chest to take over. A Knee drop hits it’s mark and D-Von is in trouble. From out of nowhere there’s a spear by Devon which takes Joe down. Spinning back elbow sets up a sort of funny looking urinage and a flying headbutt for a two count Devon takes Joe to the corner but Joe gets some boots up in the corner to break the momentum and hits a sweet looking leg lariat off the middle rope. Samoa Joes goes for the pin but lifts up a 2 and goes for a knee bar instead which Taz points out would net him 10 points instead of 7 but Devon makes it to the ropes. When that doesn’t work he throws on a modified key lock but Devon makes the ropes again. Devon gets some right hands in but gets caught in a powerslam and straight into a cross armbreaker. The crowd are really chanting for Devon here which contrast from them booing Sting earlier on. Joe goes for the Clutch but Devon spins out of it and catches Joe with a spinebuster (well he kind of drops him really) and that’s the upset win for Devon. Not a bad match by most standards which isn’t really surpising given Joe’s talent and Devon being a ring veteran. I am truly amazed by the support Devon got by the crowd though. Pope is backstage with Devon’s sons celebrating the win with his new friends. Steiner is pissed at Ray for making the match and not telling him before hand. Ray asks if Steiner forgot who he was, Steiner takes Bully’s chain and says for Ray to tape it up for him to knock Sting out with. Kaz is backstage and yells at Joe saying he’s better than this, whatever this is, maybe doing the job for Devon who knows really. Joe isn’t happy but about 2 million security guys get in between them. There seems like they are setting up a brawl outside later on. We recap the X-Division Showcase stuff from the last two weeks. tonight Low Ki is back, as is Matt Bentley and Jimmy Yang. Jimmy Yang is rocking the Flying Elvis gear he wore in the first ever TNA match. Matt Bentley is a two time X division champ and Shawn Michael’s cousin. Matt Bentley vs. Jimmy Yang vs. Low Ki – There’s a bit of a brawl to start leading to Low-Ki taking out Bentley and Yang hitting a flying kick followed with a huge cross body. Bentley comes back in and stomps away on both, he throws Yang out who begins to skin the cat and Bentley throws Low-Ki head first into Yang’s midsection. Bentley works on Low-Ki for a two count, Ki fights back but gets checked by Bentley to the outside. Yang does a simply colossal flying dive over the top rope all the way to the bottom of the ramp to take out Low-Ki/ Yang take Low-Ki to the ring, Low-Ki with a quick crucifix pin and Yang responds with a high spinning kick. Low-Ki with the kicks to Yang and a sunset flip which gets turned into the double stomp which gets the crowd going. Low-Ki hits a spring board kick to Bentley for two but Yang reverses a whip top the corner and hit a very twisty kick to Low-Ki for two. Bentley is back and sets up Yang for a suplex, Low-Ki comes back and Bentley hits yang with a DDT and Low-Ki with a cutter in one move. He hits a superkick on Low-Ki for two and now all three guys are down. Yang goes to body drop Bentley over the rope but Bentley lands on the apron, he goes for a cross body but yang hits a gutbuster instead and goes up top and call for Yang Time but he misses. Low-Ki goes up top and hits The Warriors Way for thew win. We get a longish video going over the Ultimate X match at destination X with lots of clips from the craziest moments from Ultimate X matches past with a few clips from interviews with guys about the x division. And that’s when I realised that there is no God… Thankfully this isn’t the next thing to happen as we cut to what has to be the worlds most amazing camera phone (no, it’s a proper camera occasionally going unfocused) in a bar and Kaz and Joe go at it for all of 30 seconds with Joe coming out on top. I have no idea why we did this, why not just brawl backstage? Why is the bar full of suspiciously large, muscley men? Do I really want an answer to that question? Hogan is walking backstage taping up his hand and threatening Sting. He tapes his hand so much it looks like he’s wearing an oven glove. Nice promo though, Hogan seems better when he’s had a chance to really run through his promos first rather than riffing in the ring. Winter/Angelina Love/Madison Rayne vs. Mickie James/Miss Tessmacher/Tara – Well, this should be teeth pullingly bad bar James and Tara. Winter and Love out first and Maddison out wearing the tiara and sash. Tessmacher has new music which believe me is the best thing about her in ring. Tara in next on her bike, words can’t describe how much I love Tara and her music. Mickie out last and there’s something I really dislike about the way she holds the title belt through the loop but held on the top. Anyway, Winter V Mickien to start and Mickie grabs Winter’s belt, in the chaos Love comes into the ring and Tessmacher tags in. Love works on Tessmacher and tags in Winter, Maddison apparently is on the other side of the ring. tessmacher makes a fightback and… seriously she used the stinkface? I can’t even describe how awful it looked because she basically grinds her ass like a pole dancer in Winter’s face. she doesn’t even really shove it hard more just teases Winter;’s nose. thankfully Winter comes back with a bridging suplex for the 3 count and Tessmacher is gone in less than a minute. Tara comes in and beats the snot out of Winter and hits the standing moonsault for 2. Tara goes for the tarantula but Maddison hits her off. We get a Botox Injection/Samoan Drop combo from Love/Winter which eliminates Tara. Seriously Tara gets 30 seconds in the ring? F*ck this company. Maddison takes the pin which annoys Winter/Love and they feed her to Mickie who hits a pretty sloppy superkick for the 3 count. Winter and Love work forever as a double team without making one person the legal woman. They got for the combo move but it misses, Mickie goes for the DDT but is caught instead with a backbreaker by Winter. Love hits that awful sideways Lung Blower. There’s a stupid moment where Winter and Love actually argue of who goes for the pin. Winter talks down Love allowing Mickie time to come back with the Rana to Winter and then a neckbreaker to Winter (Tenay decides it’s a hangmans neckbreaker but it isn’t because they land flat. Shut up Tenay). That’s enough for the three count and then 10 seconds later hits the jumping DDT for the win. so basically what happened is Tara and Tessmacher went out in a minute and then Mickie pinned the rest of the girls in a bout a minute and a half. So that will be exactly no more heels left who Mickie hasn’t beaten easily. What a waste really, the best thing you can say is that it was over swiftly. Very much like genital warts though we’re never going to be totally rid of them though… Gunner backstage talks about how he’s going to show Styles tonight he’s the better man and be number one. you know, I’m starting to like gunner a little bit, he’s pretty generic in the ring but there’s something about his look that I kinda like and he’s not awful on the mic. I think given something that would make me care about him he’d be a decent enough top of the mid card guy. There’s a little taped segment detailing that it’s Abyss V Kendrick at Destination X. Abyss came over really well again and I think he’s so much more interesting as something more than just a big monster guy. It’s a shame the whole Art of War thing is involved because that doesn’t work. I think it’s a shame Kendrick hasn’t been given more time for the audience to get behind him for this angle. Woah ok, Borash is out and says it’s the contract signing for the main event of Destination X. Seriously? Daniels V Styles is the main event of the PPV? The match with no real build about it? The waste of time with Borash introducing everyone is annoying me Aj asks if Daniels really wants to do this. Daniels says yes and he’ll shake his best friends hand after the match. The main event of Destination X: AJ Styles V Geoff from Accounting They both sign and Jerry Lynn comes out. He apologises for interrupting but says he’s sick of hearing about who built the X division as it was a team effort and about the wrestling. RVD comes out making a joke about them. He says he’s the pioneer and X Division. Lynn gets a bit pissed but Daniels steps in and says that we should all say we did it together and that Lynn V RVD and AJ V Daniels would make the best PPV ever. He also says for Aj V Daniels V Lynn V RVD next week. Can you possibly imagine that the crowd chanted louder for Devon than for this match? F*ck the Impact Zone crowd. Gunner rushes out and attacks AJ who is greeting fans, they brawl for a bit and then the match starts but AJ is quickly onto Gunner and wails away on him with some kicks, gunner looks to come back with a power bomb but AJ reverses into the Pele kick and dropkick through the ropes and then followed by flying senton over the top rope. gunner seems to have reopened that big eye wound he got from the segment with Anderson a few weeks ago. Gunner strikes AJ in the throat and takes him down with a clothesline to level things and Gunner goes for the F5 but Styles again counters with a spinning kick to the back of his head. AJ slams Gunner on the mat in front of the turnbuckle but then goes to the outside for a springboard of some sort. gunner pulls the ref in front of him so AJ hesitates and that allows Gunner to kick the middle rope into Styles knackers and then hits the F5. Hebner does a very slow 3 count which is kind of odd for the senior ref who shouldn’t be taking sides. Anyway the point is Gunner now leads the BFG series with 12 points. We get an Destination X video set to what I assume will be the Destination X theme as the specifically mention it at the start of the video package (it’s Reap by the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus who clearly were named by some kind of random word generator… which would have been a better name really). Sting is backstage saying it’s the wrong place and time for Steiner but the right time for Sting. Definitely a little too much “Joker” here.. actually he sounded more like The Riddler as played by Jim Carrey. We are treated to a recap of the ODB/Velvet feud and then an interview clip from Velvet (oh joy). Velvet tells us that somehow being a super hot girl means she’s been bullied and pushed around all her life. Yes, I believe you of course. She goes on about everyone knowing her backstory… well, I don’t and if we were supposed to somehow know from the last few weeks then they didn’t do a good job. Apparently next week it’s Velvet V ODB/Jackie and if (or when of course) Velvet wins then the other two are out of TNA. Oh come on now, why bother saying it? Why is it a handicap match if the face isn’t going to win? Graaaahhhh!! Velvet keeps on talking but isn’t actually saying anything, you can literally see that her mind is as blank as.. actually there’s nothing as blank than Velvet Sky’s mind. The images never unwind because there are no corners to the vast interstellar void that is Velvet Sky’s mind. Uh oh, it’s time for Mexican America. Out to some new music I think. I found out today that for a group who are supposed to be a group of foreigners only Sarita is actually born outside the U.S and she’s Canadian. Anyway Anarquia is complaining that Mexican America aren’t in the BFG series but Beer Money are. He says that M.A are going to cause havoc in the Impact Zone. British Invasion out again with new music and trons I think. Magnus gets on the mic and he does a bit of cheap popping about being proud to earn a living in the U.S and how you have to earn stuff. He says that M.A haven’t faced the Brits yet and they want a match at Destination X but without the girls or “los Prositutos” and then Mexican America proceed to beat down the Brits until rob Terry comes back for the save. We get a little video postcard from the Jarrett’s from Mexico. Jeff says that they are going to be away another week and then come back with presents for all of Immortal. Backstage with Bully, Gunner and Abyss. Bully congratulating Gunner on his win saying they might as well hand him the world title because he’s on a roll. Bully asks if Abyss is reading porn again and Abyss says Bully won’t ever understand what it is. Abyss has a towel over his head and as Bully says for them to go Abyss finds that his mask is gone. Scott Steiner V Sting – We start with the Borash intro but Steiner attacks Sting before they really start. the Bell rings but he still chokes Sting with his chain mail head doodad. Belly to Belly from Steiner and then Steiner clothesline for the one count and push ups. Steiner ships Sting to the corner but Sting gets a boot up and tees off on Scotty. Sting hits the running bulldog for two. Sting goes for the splash but Steiner counters with a complete shot for a two count. Steiner says it’s all over and goes for the Steiner Recliner but Sting counters into the Scorpion Death Lock but Scott reaches the ropes. Steiner comes back with a T-bone suplex and both men are down. Sting hits the Death Drop for the win out of nowhere. Wow, that was pretty short maybe about 3 minutes tops. Sting goes to face paint Steiner but Bully comes out. As Sting is dealing with him Anderson comes out and low blows Sting and hit a botched Mic Check. Bully and Steiner work over Sting. Bully calls out Hogan who’s got the tape/oven glove on his right hand and proceeds to hit some big right hands on the Stinger. Kurt Angle however runs out and makes the save to end the show. It’s quite frustrating to see the last two weeks lose so much momentum here. the wrestling matches suffered this week from probably being on the shorter end of the scale and the X division showcase match felt rushed in parts which it really shouldn’t. The 6 woman tag match defied all logic in that the only two faces other than Velvet Sky were squashed to buggery within the first minutes of the match and then the rest of the heel were fed to Mickie James within the next minute and half. I’d have to care about the heels for this to really bother me but Tara and Maddison had less than a minute in the ring and theirs is the only feud that’s worth a damn. The sudden face turn of the British Invasion feels like someone has just worked out that if Beer Money split up they are short a decent face tag team but it’s better than having no more tag division at all with the MCM out for a year. Sting’s crusade is OK but it took up a little too much of the show for my tastes. The BFG series is something however I am enjoying and the fact it does give a little lease of life to a lot of guys at once is a little bit of genius and gives some legitimacy to the younger guys facing the top guys without it seeming too forced. This is exactly the way to get Gunner over as a threat without having to go repeatedly over the same guy to do it. The only issue really is that we’re continuing other feuds on top of that and sometimes it’s a little messy. We’re mixing Gunner/AJ with AJ/Daniels and Joe’s lack of points with Joe/Kaz. As an overall show it wasn’t a great show, there’s a lot of talking which they had stayed away from recently and wasting time on the Knockouts they choose to push is just a waste of time. The Impact Zone crowd also need a slap because when they cheer Devon twice as loud as hearing they’re getting Styles V Daniels V RVD V Lynn just boggles the mind. Mind you the fact that match isn’t actually happening on the PPV is a bit mind boggling too.
