Impact Wrestling
November 14, 2013
Cincinnati, Ohio
TONIGHT. Kurt Angle takes on the Greatest Man Who Ever Lived in a submission match as Round 1 continues in the TNA Title Tournament!
Aces and Eights come out, and Mike Tenay makes his best McKayla Maroney impression as Bully Ray puts the bad mouth on him. Bully Ray accepts Ken Anderson’s challenge for a NO DQ match next week at Turning Point, threatening to piledrive him through the stage. Anderson notes that his wife is pregnant with twins. This announcement excites some lady in the front row so much that she starts to tear up. Anderson puts his career on the line; if Bully loses, Aces and Eights are finished. Bully Ray offers to piledrive Anderson’s pregnant wife through the stage. Anderson attacks and some miscommunication allows Anderson to rid the ring of Bully Ray and his gang. Knux responds to Anderson’s challenge, and we have a match after the break. Anderson needs to reel in his goofiness, and that’s coming from me.
Match #1: Ken Anderson vs. Knux
Anderson wrestling in his street clothes tonight. The parent of the year with the one-year old is still in the front row. After a brief onslaught from Anderson, Knux takes over with his swank crossbody. Slow, plodding offense by the big man. Knux delivers a delayed suplex on Anderson from the apron back into the ring. Avalanche and a sideslam follow a missed Anderson power move. Knux seemed much swifter and maniacal during his WWE run; he’d do well to channel that more often. Out of nowhere, Anderson hits the Mic Check on Knux for the victory. That was literally Anderson’s only offense after a few punches to open the match.
Winner: Ken Anderson
Impact 365 takes us to Chicago (aka backstage in Cincinnati) where Joseph Park challenges Christopher Daniels to a one-on-one match for throwing an Appletini in his eyes last week. Why would Park dress in his tracksuit while in his lawyer’s office?
Bad Influence responds and suggests that they find Abyss so they can grab that TV title he still holds…nice continuity!
Aries and Angle break down their submission prowess in a promotional video for tonight’s main event.
Match #2: Christopher Daniels vs. Joseph Park
Daniels begs off from Park but is outsmarted. Listen, I get the gimmick with Park, but it’s lost its humor after a year. I don’t want to watch a match where one wrestler is only capable of doing the most basic of movesets; it brings the other guy down with him. Here, we’re supposed to believe that Daniels, one of the all-time greats in TNA history, can get thoroughly dominated for an entire match by a rube. As in the previous match, one guy (Park) gets all the offense in. All Daniels is able to muster is a kick in the balls for a victory. Terrible.
Winner: Christopher Daniels
Bully and Bischoff console a dejected Knux and head out for the strip club.
Match #3: Ethan Carter III vs. Norv Fernum and Dewey Barnes
Tenay tells us that EC3 is up to 7-0 after some house show victories. Double team moves off the first, second and top rope by Fernum and Barnes. Sensational. Carter with a clothesline and suplex on Barnes as the crowd chants for Dewey. Barnes does some type of springboard leg scissors, allowing him time to make the hot tag to Fernum. Flying offense from Fernum, including a tornado DDT that Tazz appropriately rags on. Headlock DDT for both guys, and EC3 pins them both. Tenay and Taz argue over whether that makes Carter 8-0 or 9-0. These segments have been tremendous. They can’t have EC3 beating up these same two forever though, the question is how they advance him from here.
Winner: EC3
The “Friends of AJ” PAC continues its unlimited contributions to further pump up AJ’s trip to AAA in Mexico. Dixie is apocalyptic back stage. They should figure out a way to get the rights to these Mexico and Japan matches as a way to drum up their new Impact 365 initiative.
Speaking of which, Impact 365 catches up with Jeff Hardy after his victory last week. He cracked his crown during Sabin’s dropkick into a chair. Hardy likes to touch children, evidently.
Dixie Carter comes out for about the fourth time in this TV taping. I cannot begin to tell you how terrible her ad libbing is. There’s absolutely no reason to have her out here for this segment which, after some long blathering about AJ Styles, is to introduce the stipulations for the first round matches next week. Roode vs. Storm will fight in a bullrope match. James Storm says it’s time for a redneck to take over this show. Hasn’t he been listening to the last five minutes? In a battle of former Main Event Mafia members, Samoa Joe will take on Magnus in a Falls Count Anywhere match. Joe calls out Dixie for her bad business decisions, and challenges AJ Styles for his first title defense. After watching the first couple weeks of this, my money is on Magnus taking the new title, emerging as the corporate champion that does Dixie’s bidding.
Backstage, Anderson takes out Bischoff and handcuffs him to a dolly. Granted, we just saw Aces and Eights leave together to go to the strip club, Bischoff included. They kept track of the long-term continuity with the TV title, but their short-term memory must be lacking.
Match #4: Gail Kim vs. Hannah Blossom
Last week, Gail Kim placed an open challenge to anyone outside of TNA, and Blossom, a contestant on the TNA British Boot Camp program, has answered the call. Judging by their silent reaction, Cincinnati doesn’t get the British Challenge network. Think about this: in late 2013, we have a wrestling show with two consecutive jobber squashes. Gail dominating with strikes, including a kick that looked like it will leave a nice bruise on Blossom’s hamstring. Figure four on the ringpost! Blossom gets a few moves in before Kim hits “Eat Defeat” for the victory.
Winner: Gail Kim
Dear God, Joseph Park out again. Three segments for him in this show. He challenges Abyss for next week. I’m not saying anything else. Do you think Ryan Everett will give me Main Event back?
Before we begin the main event, we see Anderson taking Bischoff somewhere.
Match #5: Austin Aries vs. Kurt Angle in a submission match – First Round TNA Title Tournament Match
Sometimes you have to sit through a mediocre dinner to get to the dessert. Some mat work to start. Taz wakes up and declares that the better grappler has the advantage in a submissions match. Aries hits the dropkick out of the headscissors position, but Angle catches it and attempts an ankle lock (#1). Aries flips out of a German and tries to get the Last Chancery. Angle is so much thicker than Aries, who is built lean and muscular. Don’t know why I pointed that out, but it’s a huge discrepancy in shape. Aries attempts a roll-through to the crab, eventually rolling into a single-leg crab and a modified STF. Crowd is standing, but silent. Aries hits a bulldog and slaps on a front facelock on Angle. Tilt-a-whirl backbreaker by Angle? Not used to seeing that. Bobby Roode comes out with a chair – I was afraid of this. Aries off the top to the floor to hit a distracted Angle, but the Olympic champion catches him with a suplex. Roode is merely watching from the top of the ramp.
Back from break, Aries snaps Angle’s injured neck on the second rope with a hanging neckbreaker. They could have eliminated so much of the talking earlier in the show and let these guys go 30+ minutes. Back and forth action now, until Angle pops off a belly to belly and a trio of Germans. Olympic slam countered into an arm drag and a double spinning discus forearm. Top rope axehandle to the floor by Aries. Ankle lock attempt (#2) countered. Dropkick into the corner reversed into ankle lock (#3) by Angle. That’s reversed to the floor, and Aries hits the heat-seeking missile. Top rope dropkick, full-speed dropkick in the corner, BRAINBUSTER! Here comes the Last Chancery! Tap, you caricature, tap! Angle escapes, exchanges strikes with Aries, and starts the Germans…again. Hoists Aries up to the top rope for a superplex, forgetting that’s what keeps knocking him off. Aries pushes him off twice, but can’t hit the 450 due to his injured ankle. Aries reverses out of the Olympic slam twice more. This crowd sucks, by the way. Angle puts on Roode’s signature crossface instead of going for the more obvious ankle lock, and Aries taps, in about 20 minutes. Pretty solid match.
Winner: Kurt Angle
During the aftermath, as Angle and Roode stare each other down, Ken Anderson’s music plays. He comes out with Garrett Bischoff and piledrives him on the stage.
Stay tuned for Turning Point next week!
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