Credit: Mike Johnson and PWinsider.com
Dark Match:
*Jesse Neal pinned the guy who played Lupus with a spear.
The Whole Fn’ Show:
*AJ Styles vs. Kurt Angle opens show. Really good opener with Angle winning via submission clean with the anklelock. Styles’ World Television championship was not on the line. Another really good bout from these two.
*Angelina Love won the TNA Knockouts championship, pinning Madison Rayne. Late in the match, the mystery motorcycle woman came out to distract Love. Velvet Sky attacked her with a chair and tried to unmask her. She got the helmet off but there was another mask underneath. In the chaos, Love scored the pin for the belt.
*In a Three-Way Match, Matt Morgan defeated Pope Dinero and Ken Anderson. Anderson and Dinero tried to work over Morgan themselves before teaming up. Late in the match, Pope accidentally nailed Anderson and they went at it. Morgan was able to surprise Pope with the Carbon Footprint and scored the pin. Really good stuff here.
*Jeff Hardy vs. Mystery opponent. Shannon Moore came out and said tonight would be his night to show the world he can stand on the same pedestal as the best. He said no matter what they would always be brothers. They had a really good back and forth competitive bout. Hardy finally scored the pin with the swanton.
*Best of Three Falls: TNA Tag Team champions The Motor City Machineguns vs. Beer Money. The first fall may have been the best tag wrestling I’ve seen live all year. The Guns are over huge. There is some awesome wrestling here. Beer Money captures the first fall after a Storm lungblower on Shelley. The Guns come back to even it up with Made in Detroit. They hit an insane dive sequence with even Roode nailing a dive sequence. The Guns finally score the pin with several Made in Detroits. The work was awesome and the crowd reactions made this out of this world. This match was ABSOLUTELY OFF THE CHARTS. I only hope it translates as well on TV.
*Stairway to Janice: TNA champion Rob Van Dam defeated Abyss. Abyss climbed the ladder before RVD entered but Van Dam sprinted down and nailed a Ryder Kick off the top. Lots of ladder spots. Van Dam hit a sliding kick into the ladder. RVD forward flip dive to the floor. Abyss bridged a ladder between the ring and guard rail. He went for a chokeslam but RVD fought him off. Abyss took control and poured tacks and broken glass on the mat. He tried to superplex RVD onto them but Rob turned it into a top rope sunset flip onto them. Abyss pulled out a barbed wire board and placed it in the corner. RVD avoided it and Abyss hit it and was caught up in the barbed wire. RVD kicked the board into Abyss’ face then hit rolling thunder on the board. RVD went to grab Janice from the top of the ladder but Abyss shoved it over and RVD took a nasty bump and hit his face on the ladder. Abyss got Janice. He went to hit Van Dam but missed. Janice got stuck in the buckle. RVD grabbed a chair and hit Abyss, nailed the Vam Daminator and then hit a Van Terminator onto the barbed wire board. RVD then scored the pin with the five star frog splash.
Hulk Hogan came to the ring. He put over RVD as champion. He said that when he saw RVD take on Sabu at Hardcore Justice, he said it showed why RVD has all the bases covered and why TNA is the best wrestling company today. Hogan said the PPV raised the bar for TNA and said he learned what hardcore was all about thanks to the EV2.0. Fans chanted for Sabu. Hogan said out of respect, he wanted to invite everyone from EV2.0 to come to the ring.
Out came Sabu, The FBI, Bill Alfonso, Tommy Dreamer, Stevie Richards, Team 3D, Mick Foley came out. Hogan put over the EV2.0 crew and said he was giving them his ring out of respect. Hogan left. Dreamer thanked everyone and said that on Sunday he told TNA the bar has been raised. He said that tonight we saw TNA do that. He then thanked all of his brothers for fighting and bleeding alongside him one last time.
The lights went out and when they came back, Mick Foley was laid out and Fortune, along with Doug Williams and Matt Morgan were behind them brandishing weapons. They beat the living hell out of the EV2.0 group forever, bloodying everyone. Raven and Sandman hit the scene but were taken out by Beer Money. There was an extremely long bloody and violent beardown. Ric Flair came out and went after Dixie Carter in the front row, screaming this was all her fault. Fortune was screaming that this was their company and they needed to get out. The beating went on forever. Security tried to get them off of them but it just went on and on and was completely brutal. Fortune finally left the EV2.0 crew laying but came back. It was an awesome brutal angle and for the love of God, I hope they don’t edit this down. Brother Ray was stretchered out on a back board after as it appeared he took a hard shot from an axehandle. Devon was bleeding a gusher and appeared to have had his eye split open. A fan went nuts at ringside and was forced out of the building by Earl Hebner and security. The angle was absolutely off the charts.
Without any doubt in my mind, this was the best episode of Impact in company history. I felt like I was at the original ECW, as crazy as that sounds.
Notes: No rampway to the ring….Pepa of Salt N’ Pepa fame was at the show sitting in the front row…They were selling photo opportunities to get in the ring with the Motor City Machineguns after the taping.