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We see the four winners of the briefcases from Turning Point's Feast or Fired match arrive with the briefcases they've apparently had since Sunday, which will make later events in the show make no bloody sense. As they arrive, Tenay asks whether someone will be fired from TNA and says that "hopefully we'll know who it is before the night is over." Sadly I did not catch the word "hopefully" until I was watching for the second time, as it might have dulled my annoyance some (see below).

[Opening Credits]

(1) LAX defeats Rellik & Black Reign

LAX comes down to a good remix of their music, in which they seem to be doing the vocals. However, it turns out that there are limits to even their powers, as this match was not particularly exciting. LAX gets the win when Homicide rolls up Rellik after a missed Splash in the corner. Given TNA's inexplicable fascination with Black Reign, I think I'll have to go ahead and call that an upset. After the match, The Rock and Rave Infection attack, and the mystery member of the Latino Nation comes out to make the save. He or she taunts Hoyt—it would be a nice story if LAX ends up getting Christy in trouble for having her goons hit a woman. In this case, LAX clears the ring before any woman can get hit by anyone.

Borash is in Cornette's office along with Matt Morgan, and Cornette announces excitedly that Morgan is watching the cases so that no one can tamper with them. Ummm…what about the people who had them all week and had the most incentive to sneak a peek? Team 3D come in, and Cornette tells them to give Lethal back his title. He says that if Cornette or Lethal want the belt back, they should be men and take it. Lethal comes in and says he heard what they were saying from the hall, and that he's happy to take it back. He says that they should hang it up in the ring and have a six-man ladder match.

[Commercial Break]

Kurt Angle is in the ring, and he says that the reason he and Christian Cage both lost their matches on Sunday was that they didn't work together. He says he'll give Christian one hour to respond.

Borash is already back with Cage, and the lighting in his office sure is bright. Cage kids around about how Angle's begging for his help, but Roode interrupts and says that they should definitely join up. Christian asks him how many World Titles he's won, and then tells him to sit down and shut up. Roode points out that he's not AJ and so Christian should watch himself, and Christian agrees—AJ is a lot smarter.

(2) ODB defeats Gail Kim

Kim needs better music, as well as a name that's easier to chant. During this match, West claims that the match this past Sunday was the greatest women's match in history, and that TNA has the best women's division in wrestling. The first one is a blatant lie (see: Trish Stratus's retirement match), and the second is only true if by "wrestling" they mean "us and WWE", in which case it's really not all that much of an accomplishment. The crowd starts off hot for ODB, cools down when the action is a bit slow, and then gets back into it when Gail Kim starts hitting some cool offense and counters. ODB hits Gail Kim with her flask behind the ref's back for the three count. That'll complicate the title picture.
After the match, ODB goes to follow up with some more violence, but Awesome Kong's music hits and she decides that maybe she has somewhere else to be. Kong tries to hit Kim with an Awesome Bomb, but Kim slips out and we have ourselves the rare women's pull-apart brawl.

XXX is in the back with Crystal, Morgan, and the briefcases. Daniels says that his plan got them back together, and so he's the leader and Senshi should give him the briefcase. This would seem the start of an awesome feud if we didn't know that one half of it would be leaving soon. Morgan books them in a match, and gives Skipper permission to be the referee. Crystal asks whether it might not be a great idea to book matches without asking Cornette, but Morgan assures her that it's what he's supposed to do.

[Commercial Break]

Borash is in the back with Tomko, and he points out they've heard from everyone in the Coalition-Alliance rivalry but him. Tomko says that Christian's going to do what Christian wants to do, and from now on, so is he.

(3) "The Fallen Angel" Christopher Daniels defeats Senshi
Senshi hits some of his awesome kick-based offense to start. They cut to Eric Young arriving in the driver's seat of a limo, which turns out to also have Samoa Joe, Kevin Nash, Booker T, Kaz, and Sharmell in the back. I really hope they explain how they're all getting along now. [Addendum: They won't.]

[Commercial Break]

Senshi and Daniels are still caught up in some fast action, which again makes one think what a good a feud this could have been. Daniels pulls Skipper to block a charge from Senshi, and as Skipper dodges Daniels hit an eye poke and then follows up with an Angel's Wings. Skipper is hesitant to make the three count, but eventually does so.

VKM are in the back with Morgan and the cases. BG James points out that if it is a shot at the tag titles he can pick whomever he wants as his partner. Kip is annoyed. Roxxi says that his case is cursed, which teases me with the hope that we might be approaching the end of VKM.

[Commercial Break]

Tenay is interviewing Mitchell in a backstage sit-down. Mitchell claims that Abyss's father was actually a good dad who prepared him well for life, but that the problem was Abyss's mother. If this plot leads to Mama Benjamin being introduced as Abyss's mother it'll make all the crummy Abyss storylines worthwhile.

Petey Williams is in the back with Crystal and the briefcases, and he says that "Training Point was a great day for the Maple Leaf Muscle." Bizarrely the part of that sentence that confuses her is the phrase "Maple Leaf Muscle", and Petey says that it's what he's been calling himself since he started taking steroids…I mean winning body building competitions? If this is building to TNA making Petey Williams an overt parody of Chris Masters, I'm behind it. Otherwise I'm less so. Petey says that he hopes his case has the World Title shot, as he's ready to step up.

[Commercial Break]
Angle's in the ring with Tomko and Styles, and he calls down Christian for his answer. Christian and Roode come down, and Roode takes the mic and accepts the proposal. Christian grabs the mic and says that the difference between him and "Bobby" is that Roode needs people, whereas he needs nobody. The crowd starts up an "Instant Classic" chant as Christian accuses Angle of just trying to co-opt the biggest threat to his title. He then turns to Tomko, and reminds him that he elevated him from being a random prison guard to being a success. The crowd starts up a "Tomko" chant. He tells AJ that he (AJ) had more potential in the ring than anyone he'd ever seen, but couldn't get it done backstage. AJ could barely put two words together, and was afraid to talk in front of crowds. Whoa—apparently this is truth-in-promos week for TNA. Christian says that he knows that they all need him more than he needs them. The only way he'll be joining this team is if he's the leader, and Angle admits that he's not the man Christian Cage is. Cage extends his hand, and Angle glares—and then clasps it it. This would have been a shock, except that Tenay and West were busily talking about how Angle would never accept such an absurd offer—silence from the commentators would have been a good idea here. Christian shakes hands with the rest of the Alliance, except for AJ, who gets a manly hug. Samoa Joe's music hits, and he comes out with all the people who were in the limo. Joe challenges what I'll call the Allied Coalition to a 10-man tag match at Final Resolution. Karen says that there's no need to wait till then when they can do it tonight, but that first she wants to beat down Sharmell for coming to TNA to get her husband. Sharmell correctly points out that if it's their past encounters to which Karen's referring, Kurt put his hands on her. I can't believe they're resurrecting that abomination of a storyline. Sharmell says she wouldn't let Kurt touch her, but she has no problem touching Karen. The two of them meet on the ramp and start clawing at each other before their husbands break it up.

Crystal is in the back with Team 3D. She starts to ask a question, but is cut off by Brother Ray, who says that she's annoying and that he should feed her to Devon. He then commends Lethal for finally stepping up and trying to take back the title that they stole, but that later tonight they're just going to climb a ladder and steal it back again. He says that Team 3D takes what they want, and then plants a kiss on Crystal. So we get Brother Ray harassing Crystal and references to Angle harassing Sharmell on Smackdown in the same segment. Apparently TNA was worried that their fans would mistake their taking the Knockouts' Title seriously with their taking women seriously in general. I'm glad we cleared that up.

[Commercial Break]

Crystal is in the back with Steiner, and he asks "Caroline" if she's impressed with him now. Steiner says that when he's world champion ratings will skyrocket, and leaves with his briefcase. After he leaves, Crystal questions why, when Cornette told Morgan to guard the cases, he let them all go. He says that he gave them back to the people who already won them, (not mentioning that they're also the people who were apparently already guarding them all week anyway) and that she's just too slow to understand.

(4) Team 3D & Johnny Devine "defeat" "Black Machismo" Jay Lethal & The Motor City Machine Guns.

The Guns pull a Kendrick & London and sprint to the ring, catching their opponents off guard and knocking them out with stereo Ensuguris. They then hit stereo Suicide Dives to the outside, which elicits a slightly overly-enthusiastic but still basically reasonable "Holy Shit" chant. There's a sequence of people in the ring climbing the ladder and getting caught, which includes Sabin hitting an awesome Inverted Hurricanrana and then getting caught in an Electric Chair Drop himself.

[Commercial Break]

Brother Ray is climbing the ladder, but Lethal climbs up the other side and Ray takes them both out with a vertical suplex from the top of the ladder. Devine tries to climb, but Shelley gets him with a Jaw-breaker from the ladder to the canvas. Devon goes for it, but gets caught by a Flying Clothesline from Sabin off the top turnbuckle. Devine and Lethal both go up and unhook the belt. Lethal comes down with it, but Devon distracts the referee while Brother Ray nails Lethal with a kendo stick and tosses Devine the belt. The ref turns just in time to see Devine with it, and for the second time in a week Team 3D & Devine win off a referee being tricked.

We are back with Tenay and Mitchell. Mitchell says that Abyss's mother was actually the one guilty of shooting his father, and he doesn't understand why Abyss would have let that happen. At least it explains why Abyss didn't want anyone to dig into his past, though several months after the three people who cared in the first place stopped doing so. Mitchell says he'll be calling Abyss into the ring next week to share his secret.

[Commercial Break]

Crystal is in the middle of reporting to Cornette on what Morgan has done. In a nice touch of logic, Cornette explains why he wasn't watching the show himself (he was in a meeting). Morgan says what a great idea it was to have the people who won the briefcases watching them, and Cornette explains that they're the exact people he didn't want near them. He's afraid that they'll break into the cases and figure out what's in them before it can be revealed on television. Ummm…okay, from now on I'll just assume that showing them arriving with the cases they'd clearly had for days was just a production error.

The Allied Coalition comes down to the ring for the 10-man tag match. You mean someone said "let's just do it tonight" and they're actually going to just do it tonight? Wow. I don't think I've seen that happen in seven years (the last time was when they went ahead and had the triple threat match "scheduled" to be the main event of WrestleMania 2000 a few weeks early on Raw).

[Commercial Break]

(5) Kevin Nash, Samoa Joe, Eric Young, Kaz, & Booker T defeat Kurt Angle, Christian Cage, Robert Roode, Tomko, & AJ Styles

We start off with AJ and Kaz, and wow those two are awesome. Some chain wrestling later Angle tags himself in. Booker comes in, and seems more energized than usual against Angle. Roode tags in to face Booker, and I'm bored of this match-up already. Then Booker tags in Young, and I remember what it's like to be really sick of a match-up. Young hits an Austin-style Lou Thesz Press, which I don't remember seeing him do before. The crowd is behind Young, and shockingly stays entirely in his corner even when Christian Cage comes in. Tomko comes to help Cage, and Nash responds by coming in and clearing out the heels. Kaz hits a Somersault Plancha on Cage and Tomko on the outside. Nash runs towards the rope as if he's about to jump, and just when the crowd is at the edge of their seats he laughs and waves it off.

[Commercial Break]

Christian Cage and Eric Young are in the ring while everybody else battles outside of it. The fight on the outside breaks up, and Young is isolated from his team. Tenay announces that Matt Morgan has retrieved all the briefcases in the back, and that they'll be opened next week. No. F'ing. Way. Wow I'm ticked. Meanwhile, Eric Young has turned things around and gets a tag in to Joe. In an awesome sequence Joe hits a Powerslam on Tomko, gets caught with a Moonsault from AJ, who in turn gets caught with a Tornado DDT from Kaz. Joe tags in Nash, and it's a pier six brawl. There's a weird cut to the crowd in the middle of the match, which I assume means someone screwed up. Joe gets whipped into the ropes, but just flips himself over them and takes out the heels on the outside. Cage ends up in the ring with Roode, Nash, and a chair. He signals that he wants to deliver the chair shot, and while he and Roode argue Eric Young hits a missile dropkick that knocks Christian with the chair into Roode. One Jackknife to Roode later it's over.
After the match, Roode is arguing with Christian, but Angle comes to break it up. Cage tells him to get out of the way, and Angle starts to leave before grabbing his belt and clocking Christian from behind. He and Roode attack, while AJ tries to fend them both off himself. Tomko looks at both sides and just stalks off.

Where We've Been:
So this was going to be a nice little paragraph about how unpredictable the match results were tonight (though admittedly the last one was only unexpected because I was waiting for something that should have happened in Nash turning on Joe), but then they dropped the bombshell about not opening the cases tonight. I cannot think of a way to express my feelings towards this move that does not involve the use of expletives, and since I'm not sure what Torch's demographics are I'll refrain. But let's review: On Sunday there's an announced PPV match, where they tell us just as it starts that we won't find out the results till Thursday. Everyone is fairly miffed, but are comforted by the fact that they didn't actually care about that match anyway. On the same card, the announced main event does not take place for what I assume were factors beyond TNA's control. Then they make a big deal that tonight's main event will be the revelation of who won which briefcase, and…nothing. I didn't even care about the briefcase reveal, but the fact that it was specifically hyped on the TNA website and then not done is just infuriating. Why, after welching on a PPV main event, would TNA intentionally pull another bait-and-switch, particularly when the bait wasn't all that likely to reel in any new fish anyway? I could see where Senshi's asking for his release might have thrown a monkey wrench in whatever the original plans were, but come on, he's Senshi—there's a limit to how big that wrench could possibly be. Something tells me that he was not in their main-event picture for the coming months anyway. There's just no reason for it. At the least, there's no excuse for it.

Where We're Going:
It's funny, but I'm so cynical regarding wrestling promos that it never even occurred to me that Joe's promo on Sunday was a shoot. I have fairly mixed feelings regarding that. On the one hand it's always sort of neat to see something unexpected, but on the downside the lack of institutional backing means that we're now stuck pretending it never happened. Tenay and West went out of their way to talk about the unity of Joe's team in the main event tonight, without ever mentioning what transpired at Turning Point. The result is that Turning Point was retroactively a screw, as what was the main event (Joe's promo) has been rendered meaningless. One might blame Joe for that, since he's the one who made his promo the main event instead of the following match, but that match was hardly going to get the job done no matter how much time it had. No, what he said needs to be addressed onscreen, and it needs to happen sooner rather than later. Joe should not be merrily teaming with Nash, and if he's going to be teaming with Booker he should at least explain what makes Booker different. My wife actually pointed out that it might be cooler to do this storyline as a slow burn, with Joe gradually getting angrier and gaining allies. There could be something to that idea, but it's clearly not where TNA's going—a slow burn is different from a no burn, which is what he had tonight. This is all the more frustrating because, as near as I can tell, everything Joe said was right and should have been scripted anyway.

Tonight's Show: This is really hard. On the one hand, we had some good development on the Christian Coalition-Angle Alliance front. We also had two very good matches, and three decent matches with surprising endings. That would make for a hell of a show, if they hadn't gone out of their way to tick off the fans with the briefcase nonsense and the complete absence of any allusion to Joe's promo. So I would like to say, in defense of those who worked hard on this show, that if I ignored my frustration level this show would get a solid A-. However, since someone in TNA decided it would be a good idea to ignore their best potential storyline and pull the third bait-and-switch in a week, it actually gets a D+.


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