Jay Lethal comes out and does a better impression of Ric Flair than AJ Styles has been trying to muster for weeks. He has the HOF Ring on his finger and channelling all of Naitch's greatest hits.
Of course, here comes Ric to spoil the party, and Lethal marks out to him, even giving back the ring in the process of being bitched out. Ric slaps him enough to start some shit and within a minute he's slapped into the Figure Four Leg Lock.
Thus begins the patented TNA run in bonanza, with Beer Money, AJ, and Desmond Wolfe saving the day and beating down Jay. Of course, this brings down, Abyss, then Team 3D and finally RVD to the ring to chase the heels away.
Hogan and Bischoff are in a limo and get the news…"Driver, turn this car around". As a viewer I ask myself where they were going, if not to the show. Taking it a step further as a critic, the message I get is that when the bosses are away, the show is a clusterfuck where the ring is nothing but a magnet for run ins. OK, I'll take off the curmudgeon hat for a moment and enjoy…
Well, now it's BACK to a fight. All 10 men are brawling again…Hogan makes his entrance, and throws a few punches taking us to commercial.
And we're back with Hogan making matches. Desmond Wolfe is getting a title shot with RVD; AJ's got a Monster's Ball match with Abyss; Team 3D, Beer Money & The MCMGs will have a three way. Hogan is trumpeting Total Nonstop Action to the fans, which means that the "alternative" TV product equals spur of the moment PPV matches on free TV every week.
Well now that this week's manifesto is set, we have a short visit with The Beautiful People to remind us that tittes are more important than titles. Apparently they have another "all belts on the line" tag match tonight.
Douglas Williams and Brian Kendrick are in the ring. Williams cuts a good (and fairly short and shoot) promo about being stripped of the title due to the volcano, heeling on Kendrick a little just because he's there. Their opponents are Jesse Neal and Shannon Moore, who have capitalized on their similar looks and going nowhere singles careers to form Ink Inc. They pick up the win too, so it appears that TNA now has 5 times more tag teams than the Fed.
Samoa Joe comes out and picks the bones of the losers, teases with the mic and then takes off. Is it me, or are they resetting on Joe and trying to recapture his early X-Division days to a tee? In a company that seems to have given up on the concept of The Build entirely, I'm morbidly curious where this could go.
Flair is firing up the troops in the back; they seem to have a weekly established shot through Flair's dressing room door ending with a door slam. Then again, they also seem to have a weekly established shot of Flair's bloody face, so I'll take that with a grain of salt.
Hogan talking in the back about Sting, setting up for his big "breaking his silence" segment tonight. Really, they've made Sting so insignificant that I don't care what he does or says. If anything, this goes back to the Samoa Joe point, where they put Stinger into a familiar place and see what happens.
Anderson (dressed like an altar boy) is raping The Pope backstage and steals his glasses…after the commercial, he comes out and regales us with a shit-tarded promo and we're saved by Jeff Hardy. After reasserting his douchehood, Anderson is stripped of his old fat lady Coronation Street dress and we have a match at Sacrifice.
We back for the six lady tag match where the gold is all on the line. Taylor Wilde, Serita and Tara are "already in the ring" waiting for The BPs to enter the ring as only they know how. After some dissension among Tara and the Turquoise Two, the BPs deliver probably the ugliest double team DDT ever and get the easy win. Afterward, Tara challenges Madison Rayne for a title match at Sacrifice putting up her career.
Beer Money/MCMGs/Team 3D starts right away when we come back. Doesn't go too long as we get Hall & Nash interrupting everything, and then Eric Young comes out and uses the kendo stick heel style (so I guess that means he's the new l'il guy in the Wolfpack). Cool for EY to keep taking a spot back on the show when another one slips away; let's hope that this one sticks for a while.
Orlando Jordan is now wired for sound with a new talk show segment, called The O Zone…umm, yeah, he talks to a cardboard cut out of Rob Terry. When the real Rob comes out, he rips his own 2 dimensional head off, intimidates Orlando and then turns his back. Orlando does a beat down on Big Rob, so it looks like they're backing the alternative lifestyle character…for now.
Monster's Ball match starts right away. AJ wins with the help of Flair, Chelsea and some thumbtacks.
This championship ranking system seems to be paying dividends to the fans where match ups are concerned, but unfortunately it makes for a short match in this case. If you're going to come up with a system like this where you're paying attention to the fans and their wants (whether shoot or work) then book a good match out of it. If the fans want Wolfe to get a title shot, make it seem like a real shot and not a shot in the dark. They did so much correctly when Wolfe started in TNA, and aside from that hot couple of months, he's been job meat even when it's higher on the card.
After the match, AJ comes out to attack RVD and invoke his rematch clause for Sacrifice, and that'll be good as long as they leave it alone.
The weekly "film style" clip before commercial shows Jeff Jarrett laying in the back, apparently a recipient of another Sting attack.
Closing the night, the Hulkster is calling out Sting and asks what makes him tick. Stinger throws out a WWF reference and talks about his passion for the business and how Hogan was always protected. They stare down and in walks Jeff Jarrett who attacks Sting…Hogan holds him back from further retribution and we're out on a bit of a cliffhanger.
This week was a bit of pacing problem as it seemed that they packed too much show in the last half hour, leaving the end feeling like the middle.
For the record, Thursday night is a better idea for them to keep a larger audience and doing it now will prevent them from losing their shirts. But they have to fucking commit and stay in one place, and apply that philosophy to some of their story lines too.
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