TNA Impact review
September 13, 2007
Taped on September 10 in Orlando, Fla.
Aired on Spike TV
Report by Daniel Wilkenfeld, PWTorch.com contributor

Jeremy Borash catches up with Christian's Coalition in the back, and Christian's mad at...Matt Morgan? I did not foresee that. There is a moderately amusing bit where he and AJ Styles can't remember Morgan's name. Christian announces that next week he'll be beating up whatever random Samoan Cornette can find. (My wife: "It would be awesome if it were the Rock.")

[Opening Credits]

Karen Angle comes down to the ring, and you can actually hear her resisting the urge to shriek. She introduces her "sugar daddy" Kurt Angle, only to have Sting come out to her husband's entrance. Sting states his respect for Kurt defending his wife, but now wants Karen to admit that she was never hit. Karen, apparently hoping to become attorney general one day, says she can't remember anything from that night. Sting notices something Kurt-Angle-shaped and draped in an American flag at the top of the ramp; when he goes to investigate, Kurt Angle brains him with a chair he was hiding.
Foreign Object Head Shot Counter: 1
They should really be more careful with that flag, which just fell to the floot. Kurt rolls Sting into the ring and handcuffs him. He announces that the main event at Bound For Glory will be Angle vs. Sting in Atlanta, where both men have a lot of history. Karen slaps Sting silly as the icon fumes.

[Commercial Break]

Jeremy Borash is in the back with Abyss, who has to avoid tapping out in tonight's main event against Kurt Angle, or else he's fired. I have no idea what motivated that stipulation, either within the plot (there's no shame in losing to Kurt Angle) or from an external perspective (it telegraphed that Abyss couldn't lose the main event).

Black Reign defeated Shark Boy

It's like they're daring me to fast forward. If I weren't writing this, I would. Shark Boy gets squashed in a hurry with Reign's admittedly cool new finisher (a vertical suplex into a twisting neck breaker). After the match, Reign hits him with that funny weapon he carries and puts a rat in Shark Boy's mask. Eric Young makes the save, which makes me think that a Black Reign-Eric Young feud could actually have some pretty funny moments.

Crystal (?) is in the back with Killings and Jones, the latter of whom can only apparently say "yes sir" after whatever the former says. Or at least that's all he can say well—he tries to talk in the second half of the promo, and it doesn't go well. If there's anyone from TNA reading, just please let The Truth do the talking from now on. And the wrestling. Pacman can still...um...saunter? That way we could still hear his theme music and see him on SportsCenter.

[Commercial Break]

Christopher Daniels (w/XXX) defeated Jay Lethal (w/Sonjay Dutt)

The crowd started about 60-40 behind Daniels and ended it about 60-40 behind Lethal—a good state of affairs for a face champion. The match is a lot of fun, as one would probably expect from these two. Lethal slows a slightly more varied offense than usual. The story of the match is Lethal kicking out of move after move as Daniels gets progressively more desperate. The Lethal Combo is blocked in the space between the back-breaker and the Flatliner, and Daniels hits a twisting-neckbreaker for the basically clean win. It's probably a good thing that Lethal dropped a match, as it keeps his win over Kurt Angle from making him appear to be unbeatable.

Borash is in the back with Cornette, who makes the following matches for Bound For Glory:
A 15 man Number #1 Contenders reverse battle royal
An ultimate X match between LAX and XXX
A 10 woman gauntlet with 5 women we know and 5 we've "never seen"

He then tells Matt Morgan that he doesn't want Christian hurt, and says that he has to run off to "a big meeting". That was a lot of content for one segment.

[Commercial Break]

Christian's Coalition is in the ring, and Cage calls out Matt Morgan for failing to save him from Joe's beat-down in under 5 minutes. They get ready to brawl, but Joe comes after Christian. Morgan gets a mic, and announces that he'll be the special enforcer for Joe vs. Christian at Bound For Glory. In a nice bit of logic, Christian questions Morgan's right to book matches, only to have Cornette predictably appear and sign off on the claim. Furthermore, Cornette has found a Samoan to answer Christian's challenge from earlier in the broadcast—Rikishi, now called "Junior Fatu". I really wish I hadn't stumbled across the fact that he was signed, as this would have been a really cool surprise otherwise. We'll have to wait till next week though to see if the Bad Man can still move in the ring.

Abyss and Angle come down to the ring for the main event, a Six Sides of Steel non-title submission match.

[Commercial Break]

Angle and Abyss fight to a no contest

See, now this is the match I thought I'd see Sunday—lots of blood and shenanigans. Speaking of which, we start the match by having Abyss javelin Kurt into the cage.
Foreign Object Head Shot Counter: 2
And then he throws him into it face first.
Foreign Object Head Shot Counter: 3
Then he throws his whole body at it, but there's little enough contact that I won't count it. After some bludgeoning, Abyss locks in a Boston Crab, and they tease that Angle might give up. The announcers making it almost plausible that he might tap, as they point out that Angle has essentially nothing to gain in this match. Angle hits a cool move where he runs the up the turnbuckle and nails a moonsault. He stumbled a bit, but it was still plenty incredible. He then tries to just escape the cage (apparently figuring "why not?"), but is caught with a superplex.

[Commercial Break]

Angle's dominating, but when he goes for a chair Abyss punches it back into his face.
Foreign Object Head Shot Counter: 4
In a cool moment, Angle reverses a shock treatment into an Angle lock, but Abyss kicks him off and locks in an Angle lock himself. Judas Maseis cuts through from under the ring. His eyes are all white and he spits out a substance that looks remarkably similar to water with a touch of red food coloring. He strangles Abyss with some barbed wire as Angle gets out of Dodge. As Abyss gets up, he gets nailed with two stiff looking chair shots to the head, and then Maseis hits what I'll call a jumping-double-armed-Flatliner back down to the chair.
Foreign Object Head Shot Counter: 6
He unleashes the broken glass and slices both of Abyss's arms, and we're out.

Where We've Been:

The abundance of shots to the head just seems gratuitous this week. (For those who just read recaps and not wrestling news, it was discovered that Benoit was suffering from brain damage likely caused or at least exacerbated by his innumerable concussions). Only two of the shots were especially stiff looking, but as long as there's metal to head contact there's a serious risk of something going wrong. Now I'm not going to call for reforms here, because it's probably not my job as a recapper/analyst. It is however within my purview to note that having so bloody many gratuitous chair shots this week was actively distracting from the in-ring product. Moreover, if they're going to be taking absurd risks it would probably be good if they were done semi-seriously, and not as part of a segment where a vampire-like-creature spit up fake looking blood for no apparent reason. In all fairness though, I'm probably of the belief that nothing should be part of a segment where a vampire-like-creature spits up fake looking blood for no apparent reason, so I might be biased.

Where We're Going:

So is Angle heel or just an idiot for believing his wife? Also, can't he see the same footage we can of the "slap"? It seems like our main event at Bound For Glory is going to be predicated on Angle being a moron, which strikes me as a questionable basis for an intense feud. If it turns out that Angle somehow knows that his wife is lying, I'm at a loss as to what his motivation is (he's just trying to avoid Joe?). One possible cool twist—if it turns out that due to some fancy camera work we missed the fact that Sting actually did hit Karen Angle, and they pull a double turn. While that doesn't seem likely, the double turn idea might have some potential—I just don't see how they'll be able to keep Kurt heel, not a moron, and consistent all at the same time. The problem with turning Kurt face though is it means either turning Karen, which would be tricky, or turning husband against wife, which would be of questionable taste this year.
On the bright side, they seem to be trying to make up for a questionable card at BFG by just throwing lots of good stuff on the card. Specifically, the extremely random XXX vs. LAX match I feel like is an early favorite to be match of the night, if not year.

Tonight's Show: We had Black Reign, a sort of vampire-like-creature, and head shots galore. If it weren't for Daniels, Lethal, and Christian Cage, this would have almost impossible to watch. On the other hand, I was never really actively bored. C+

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