TNA iMPACT!
October 28th 2005

-Yeah, it’s Thursday and I am just getting to this now. Sue me.

Our hosts for the evening are Mike Tenay and Don West.

Abyss (with James Mitchell) vs Lance Hoyt

Abyss charges at Hoyt, but misses and Hoyt hits some punches. Abyss catches Hoyt with a big clothesline but misses a leg drop. Hoyt knocks Abyss through the ropes to the outside. Abyss tries to suplex Hoyt over the ropes onto the floor, but Hoyt counters and sends Abyss crashing back into the apron. Hoyt flings himself over the ropes and lands right on Abyss on the floor. And people call Hoyt a “Test clone.” Abyss drives Hoyt into the guard rail and rolls him back into the ring. Abyss charges at Hoyt in the corner and connects with a splash. Abyss follows up with some monster chops. Hoyt fights back with some punches, but Abyss remains in control. They trade some punches, and Abyss lowers himself to shoving. Abyss hits a choke slam, and Jim Mitchell slides a chair to Abyss… which is strange, since Abyss is winning and all. This backfires as Hoyt drives the chair into Abyss and gets a near fall. Hoyt plays stupid babyface and chases after Mitchell. Mitchell lures Hoyt back to Abyss, who catches Hoyt with a black hole slam for the victory. I forgot to time the match, but it was about four minutes long. This was lively considering the participants, but Hoyt looked like a moron. ½*
Winner: Abyss

After the match, Sabu appears in the ring with barbed wire wrapped around his arm. This scares the hell out of Abyss, who backs out of the ring. Abyss and Sabu will meet in a no disqualifications match at Genesis.

-Don West and Mike Tenay shill the Thursday night special, which is actually airing tonight. Tenay makes a “wrestling first” and apologizes for the equipment malfunction during the Ultimate X match at Bound For Glory (when the X kept falling off the cables). To make up for the malfunction, the rematch will happen on the Thursday edition of iMPACT!

-Jeff Jarrett comes down to the commentator’s booth and announces that he will be facing Rhino for the NWA Championship at the special. This leads right to an ad for the primetime special. I must say, they are doing a good job hyping up that show.

Jerrelle Clark vs Christopher Daniels

Anyone care to guess who will win this one? They tie up and Daniels immediately grounds Clark. Daniels dominates with some clubs to the back of Clark’s neck. Clark reverses a tirt-a-whirl attempt and takes control of Daniels. Clark hits a nice monkey flip on Daniels, but is soon stopped by an STO from Daniels. The Fallen Angel regains his momentum, cornering Clark with some punches and a high knee to his face. Daniels plays to the crowd, as I approve. Daniels misses a running clothesline and gets caught in a head scissors take down by Clark. Clark follows up with some clotheslines, and a neckbreaker. Clark misses a moonsault, and Daniels soon follows up with the Angels Wings for the victory at 2:31. This was perfectly acceptable wrestling *.
Winner: Christopher Daniels

-Backstage, Shane Douglas is attempting to interview Raven, but Raven isn’t in the mood.

Alex Shelley and Roderick Strong vs AJ Styles and Sonjay Dutt

Great, this is one of those “how the hell am I going to keep up with them” matches. AJ Styles is the reigning X division champion, having successfully retained the title against Christopher Daniels at Bound For Glory. I really badly want to refer to Shelley and Strong as “Generation Next” but I will behave. Styles starts off against Shelley, and they push each other into the corner. Shelley and Styles break and go for a test of strength, which Shelley backs out of. AJ Styles counters with a drop kick and tags in Sonjay Dutt. Dutt hits a drop toe hold on Shelley and follows up with the sprinkler and the elbow drop. Shelley fights back with a spin kick, and tags in Roderick Strong. Strong goes for a cover, but it is unsuccessful. Dutt hits a monkey flip and the two men bounce off each other. We head to a commercial.

After the break, Shelley is in control of Sonjay Dutt. Meanwhile, Scott D’Amore is at the commentator’s booth, bitching about something. Back in the ring, Strong is tagged in and stomps away at Dutt. Strong chokes Dutt on the ropes. Meanwhile, D’Amore is still complaining. Have I mentioned how much fun it is to hate D’Amore? Strong hits a drop kick to the chest of Dutt. Strong goes for another unsuccessful cover. Dutt fights his way back to control of Strong and goes for a moonsault off the ropes. Strong catches Dutt and turns it into one of his many back breaker variations. Strong corners Dutt and hits a beautiful knife-edge chop. Strong sends Dutt into the ropes, but gets caught with a hurrancanrana by Dutt. AJ Styles is tagged back into the match, and he cleans house on the evil duo. Styles hits a back breaker of his own on Roderick Strong. Shelley interferes, tossing Styles to Strong who hits another vicious back breaker. Dutt gets involved, and manages to do a top rope sprinkler off the ropes onto Strong. AJ Styles hits a big clothesline on Strong and then the Styles Clash for the victory. This was some good tag team action. I was glad to see Strong and Shelley get some big shots in too. ***
Winners: AJ Styles and Sonjay Dutt

-Backstage, 3 Live Kru are in Larry Z’s office. They are worried about facing Team Canada at Genesis due to Scott D’Amore constantly interfering. Kip James bursts in and offers to be the special referee for that match. Konnan is against it because somehow whenever James is involved, Konnan gets screwed.

America’s Most Wanted (with Gail Kim) vs 3 Live Kru

AMW are coming off of a big match at Bound For Glory, where they successfully defended their newly won NWA tag titles against the Naturals. BG James and Ron “The Truth” Killings are representing 3 Live Kru, with Konnan in their corner. Konnan and BG James do their typical pre-match routine on the microphones, which somehow still does not piss me off. Killings puts on James Storm’s cowboy hat and dances around for some spite. He starts the match off against Storm, and he hits a nice hurrancanrana in the early going. Tag is made to Chris Harris, and AMW attempts a double team on the Truth. Killings fights them both off, sending them to the mat. Killings flies over the top rope, landing on both Harris and Storm. Back in the ring, Killings hits some punches on a dazed Chris Harris. Harris fights back with a clothesline, and decides to make a cover. Harris tags in Storm, who continues to punch and whip Killings all over the place. Storm tags Harris back in, who goes for a suplex, but is reversed into a front face suplex by Ron Killings. Both men need a tag, and they make it. BG James cleans house on James Storm, but is jumped from behind by Harris. BG James reverses an Irish whip and hits a big boot on Storm. Chris Harris goes after James, nearly hits the Catatonic, but BG is on top of his game tonight. Meanwhile, Scott D’Amore makes his way to ringside with the hockey stick, but Kip James runs in to stop him. Kip tosses the hockey stick to BG, but he is forced to relinquish it. This allows BG James to fall victim to a super kick, and America’s Most Wanted steal the match! AMW continue to shine in their heel characters. **1/4
Winners: America’s Most Wanted

-Team 3-D makes their way to the ring. The crowd chants “We want tables” even though it’s just Devon and Bubba in the ring, and no opponents. These fans are kind of on the slow side tonight. Brother Ray gets on the microphone and states that TNA officials wanted them to make an impact, and he feels that they did. Brother Ray sarcastically asks the crowd to give a warm ovation to Team 3-D’s new favorite tag team, America’s Most Wanted. He says that AMW did to Team 3-D what no other team has been able to do in ten years: they took team 3-D out. Brother Ray says AMW made a big mistake by not finishing the job. AMW should have killed Team 3-D. Brother Ray responds to the hilarious funeral skit from a few weeks ago. Brother Ray goes on to bash Jarrett, reminding him that he is no longer the NWA champion. Brother Ray puts AMW and Jeff Jarrett on their death list and shill the Genesis main event, pitting Rhino and Team 3-D against Jeff Jarrett and America’s Most Wanted. Devon is given the microphone and he announces that Team 3-D will face Team Canada at the Primetime iMPACT special. “Testify!”

This news brings out Scott D’Amore with Team Canada. D’Amore tells Team 3-D they made a mistake by coming to their house. Bobby Roode takes the microphone and instigates a fight right on the spot. A-1 and Petey Williams blind side Team 3-D, and the rest of the troops rush the ring to beat down Team 3-D. 3 Live Kru comes back out to make the save, and Team Canada goes down. Team 3-D hits the 3-D on A-1 and target Scott D’Amore. They go for the 3-D on D’Amore, but AMW and Jarrett run in and beat down Team 3-D. This finally lures out the NWA Champion, Rhino. Rhino and Jarrett begin to brawl as the show closes for this week. Note to WWE: if you are going to do a segment where half the locker room runs in, make sure the wrestlers involved are actually, you know, feuding. Just a thought…

Final thoughts: This was another good episode of iMPACT! The X division tag match was great fun, and I even got into AMW/3LK. It is beginning to get a bit tiresome to see Jerrelle Clark get squashed at every turn, but Daniels was his usual awesome self. The main event segment was very effective for building up future shows, as it hyped up Rhino/Jarrett and Team 3-D/Team Canada for the Thursday show and the six man main event for Genesis. Once again, TNA continues to do a better job utilizing the time they have for promoting their big events than WWE has been.

Thumbs up once again.

Hoyt is a Test clone. He does nothing Test can't do, if Test were allowed to do anything.

Hoyt:
Long blonde hair
has a goofy face
glistening pants
smacks his leg before doing a running big boot

If that's not Test's whole arsenal of look and moves, I don't know what is... and Test has done a plancha before.

Let's see... only one match is worth anything, and yet it's still a great show. Wow, I wish I was as blind as you are. "Oh look, a shitty opener! But it was great! GREAT I TELLS YA! Oh, and that squash with Daniels was MOTY! That tag match main event was lame and boring, but still better than anything WWE does! ****~!"

Now that's a bit unfair. For instance, I have yet to give any iMPACT match **** (though that may or may not change when I get around to doing the thursday show, I'm still up in the air on that X division six man...).

Clark/Daniels and Hoyt/Brown were not exactly great matches, but they served their purpose and I felt had a good flow to the show. If I am not mistaken, I did criticize Daniels/Clark a bit, and I would not exactly be writing home about a * rating.

And to be honest, I did not find anything on iMPACT to be boring last week. That may be due to it being a one hour show (I was getting a tad impatient during the two-hour show in all honesty) but I'm not going to force myself to hate the show just because the IWC seems wired to automatically hate and criticize the life out of everything.

Have you actually seen Hoyt wrestle? The guy can fly around the ring like a cruiserweight when he wants to. Half the stuff he does in the ring Test could only dream of even attempting.

Test is an under-apreciated talent, but he has zero charisma... and looks like Mr. Ed. But that don't mean nothing!

Hoyt is gifted for a guy of his size. I actually did enjoy the opener and would have given it a higher rating if it weren't for my annoyance of Hoyt being booked to look like such a moron.