TNA Impact: Looking At “The West Coast Boogeyman” Edition
Impact Wrestling was back in Indiana, Pennsylvania for the second time and saw the building blocks being laid to the road to Slammiversary. Did it give me a reason to party over TNA's birthday plans or will this party just be a bust? Well, let me tell you what I think. Let's begin with the opening segment, which saw Hulk Hogan apologize after months of doubting Sting. Sting says that's water under the bridge and he wants to take the full offensive on Aces and Eights beginning next week in a six man tag. Hogan tells sting to pick whoever he wants for that squad, he has to decide who get the number one contender spot for Bully Ray in Boston. Matt Morgan comes out and says the shot should be his, Hogan says he's not going to make mistakes anymore and just give someone the shot. They have to earn it and books the match between Sting and Morgan for the number one contendership later on in the night. Not a bad segment, it felt a little belabored in its point. Sting just sweeping things under the rug so quickly is a little annoying. This is your main Event and I don't think anybody cares. The show moves on to the X Division and the return of Chris Sabin in an awesome three-way match against Zema Ion and Sonjay Dutt. A lot of triple moves. Probably the best match of the show and I have to say the referee cam is starting to grow on me a bit. It's interesting to note that the announcers didn't know what to call Sabin's finishing move traditionally known as Cradle Shock. Hasn't Mike Tenay called every match in company history?. Wouldn't you know? Maybe he's going to change the name of the move? In other X Division related news fans have voted and Suicide is returning to TNA to contend for the belt with 66%? I guess British Boot Camp did wonders for Rockstar Spud, huh? I think fans just want to see more Daniels and Kazarian. However, now that they come up with such great personalities and promos do we really want to see them under the hood again? Or someone else going to take over? Backstage, Kurt Angle talks to the camera about his open challenge to Aces and Eights later on in the night. Sting comes in to discuss the six man tag for next week on Impact. Then we see the Crystal Lake trio being formed as Jesse gives a good promo to Robbie E about adding Joey Ryan in their battle with Rob Terry. I love the fact they treated Rob Terry like they were in a horror movie. Of course, TNA's version of 3MB got obliterated by the freak and his Beast Bomb. I don't know how much longer you can keep doing this though. Sooner or later. There has to be something else. This next part confused me a little bit as Bully Ray is rather irate that sting and Hogan were using his name making him a laughingstock. This then showed the first signs of dissension in the group for some reason. After the last two weeks of being so confident and unstoppable the reappearance of Sting causes the group to start to fall apart? Anyway, this leads to the Vice President D'Lo Brown putting up his colors of the club and in making a guarantee for victory against Kurt Angle and his challenge. Bobby Roode and Austin Aries come out to the ring to address the situation with Bad Influence last week trying to reform Fortune. Daniels and Kaz show up and proclaim their awesomeness and how they are both ready for the normal contenders match next week when Chavo and Hernandes once again ruin the party. (I enjoyed the fact that Aries brought up that this happens every time Bad Influence and Aries and Bobby Roode get together.) Hernandes and Chavo announced that they talked to Hulk Hogan and there will be a special guest referee for next week's match, "The Cowboy" James Storm. This leads me to question is the AJ story over? And if that is true what are they doing with James Storm lately, he seems this floating in the wind. Next we see Gill Kim and Tara bitching backstage over Taryn Terrel. Chris Sabin also gives his postmatch comments. Angle and the Aces and Eights Vice President D' Lo Brown battle in a I Quit match. In the end, the man unmasked by Kurt the Olympic hero give up due to the Ankle Lock in the most awkward match ever. It wasn't a bad match. It just didn't seem to click. The big storyline of the contest is the fact that Aces and Eights left Brown high and dry to lose. Seems as though, that Anderson has risen up the ranks a little bit and become the second in command. Afterwards, bully says that if anybody else quits their out of the group as well.I guess now in the Aces and Eights you do walk alone. Now After the match, Angle calls out AJ and says he wants him for the six man tag. And if he doesn't decide by next week they're going to have a problem. The knockouts match this week was a tag team contest as Taryn Terrel and Mickie James battled Tara and Gail Kim. Not a bad match In the end Terrel wins with a roll up. Taryn and Mickie get attacked by the heels leading to Gail Kim to put on a Figure 4 on the ring post until knockouts referee ODB breaks it up. It's interesting to note that Mickie looked awfully frustrated with Taryn picking up the victory in the match. And now to the main event which was an okay contest between Morgan and sting as both men tried hard. However, the finish was rather week as they tried to play up the unwillingness to give up of Matt Morgan it just came off really lame. I think these kind of angles only work on characters people care about and sad to say Morgan is not one of them. You have to feel for the heart of that character and that just didn't happen with The Blueprint.