Setting the Stage
Last week, TNA presented their first best of 2014 show and found a way to mess up something so simple. Instead of airing everything in full and really showcasing the best of what the company had to offer in 2014, they aired clips of the matches after building them up as the real deal. They also had some new content with the Revolution, with some being good and other things being really corny - like the ShopTNA ad. This week, TNA showed off their new logo, which I wonder if we'll see tonight. They also announced that only week one on Destination America will air on Wednesday, with the rest of the series airing on Fridays. They'll also be replaying the show on Saturday, but with new content - so why watch the Friday airing them? You can wait a day and get more content.
The show opens with a recap of Dixie going through the table and Storm's Revolution forming along with Roode winning the title and the tag team title series. JB and Christy start off talking about having the biggest superstars, and we'll get with Aries-Lashley from Destination X , then the Full Metal Mayhem, and more with Dixie and Bully. Hardys-Wolves starts things up with the Hardys intro, so perhaps we'll get full matches this week. Wolves get a nice snapmare>basement dropkick to Matt, leading to the Hardys double teaming in the corner, a double team elbow to the arm, and a double suplex. Davey counters poetry in motion with a lariat and tags in Eddie, who runs wild with a double rama. They get a double dive, but the Hardys come back. Side effect hits, and Jeff gets a swanton for 2. Matt comes in for a moonsault and gets 2.5 before Davey makes a save. Matt gets the Ice Pick and then Jeff locks it on Davey, who drops Jeff onto Matt and breaks up both moves.
Matt and Eddie fight on their hands and knees before the flapjack>Alarm Clock hits to set up a pair of double stomps and a 2.9 count. Jeff hooks Davey, leading to a dive, and he comes in and eats a Twist for 2.5. Twist is countered into a backslide for 2.5. Matt gets a short lariat and some ground punches. Matt goes for a superplex, but he eats a corner pop-up kick and then a powerbomb>lungblower from the Wolves for the win. This match was fantastic, and even knowing who won, I thought I might've been mistaken with some of the nearfalls. The decision to go with a full match instead of clips really made for a better experience. We even get to see the full post-match hug. JB hypes up Aries-Lashley and we'll at least be getting the X Title match from Bound For Glory, and maybe more from that card as well.
The Revolution's bad voiceover video airs and is now just called the Bad Voice Over ad in a graphic. Clips of the finish from Gail Kim-Angelinia Love in July set up her match with Taryn later. Aries-Sanada clips air to set up Aries cashing in the title for a shot at Lashley at Destination X. This match gets no intros, but the opening airs in full with Lashley catching Aries off a double axehandle off the top before a belly to belly on the floor. Then they clip it to the discus forearm from Aries. Aries gets some corner punches, low bridges Lashley, and hits the axehandle off the top now. Missile dropkick mid-ring leads to the corner dropkick, which is caught and leads to the running powerslam. Aries gets the Last Chancery out of the spear. Lashley gets up, so Aries goes for knees. Lashley counters with a giant gordbuster, but he misses a corner charge, leading to a sliding dropkick on the apron and a discus forearm in the corner and the running dropkick hits. Aries gets the brainbuster along with a sick landing and a 2 count. Aries goes for a 450, but Lashley rolls out and Aries goes for the suicide dive, but Lashley moves out of the way and Aries smashes himself into the barricade. Lashley nails the spear, Aries flips for it, and Lashley wins. This was hurt a bit by the clipping, but the main story of the main still got through. Sanada and Storm face Muta and Tajiri from Bound For Glory next.
JB talks about the transformation of Sanada to The Great Sanada. The transformation is shown, so we're thankfully getting some context to this. The Revolution is shown taking guys out and forming member-by-member, sans the most recent member Abyss. Sanada circles around Muta to start and then blows mist, leading to a clip to Tajiri being hit with an object, then another clip to the handspring elbow from Tajiri. Muta comes in and dropkicks Sanada's knees before a dragon screw. We clip to Storm taking Muta out with a moonsault for 2. Tajiri backdrops Storm onto the ramp and kicks Sanada. Sanada jumps into double mist setting up the buzzsaw kick, the shining wizard from Muta and the win. The clipping hurt the match in theory, but it was a bad match, so limiting it to highlights was probably a wise move. Next, EC3 and the ECW guys face Dreamer and Bully in a tag.
We return to clips of the Roode-Lashley I finish setting up some Bully-Dixie stuff. We're joined in progress with Team Bully Ray facing Team EC3 with weapons thrown around the ring. Everyone does stuff with weapons before Al Snow comes out and Taz jokes about how everyone coincidentally has styrofoam heads with them. Rhino eats a DDT and Spud gets taken out and hit with a flying Head-headbutt from Al. Crowd cheers for tables, but Snisky and Rycklon prevent it. Snow hits an Asai moonsault onto the pile. Rhino eats 3D for the win. Dixie and Bully argue and Dixie says Mo will take Bully out. Next, Bully puts her through the table.
New content from "earlier this week" shows Manik telling Sheera that he's close to salvation. We get a recap of the Bully-Dixie feud and all of the failed table attempts. We get Dixie's full promo from the 8-7-14 show with her firing Rycklon and Snisky and then just yelling constantly. Bully cuts a promo on Dixie, Dreamer talks about his "extreme pipebomb" - okay, Punk was right, that term really does mean nothing. Bully and Mo brawl, and then all the faces gang up and put her through the table after taking Spud out on the ramp. JB talks about this leading to another tag title run for 3D, and then cut to 3D mid-ring for a promo with Bully putting over the history they made with the Hardys in WWE. Bully talks some more about what the Hardys said earlier, which means nothing here since we didn't see it - this kind of thing is why long promo exchange don't hold up well later, they're too context-sensitive. Roode-Lashley II is up after Joe vs. Kaz Hayashi vs. Low Ki from Bound For Glory.
Joe vs. Low Ki vs. Sanada from New York is joined in progress to set up Joe's title win via the choke, and then the BFG 3-way. Taz puts over the "Joe is Gonna Kill You" chant being done in Japan. Joe and Ki exchange nasty chops before Kaz hits a corner leg lariat. We go to a clip with Kaz eating a chop from Joe on the apron. Ki gets slingshotted into the ropes, but springs back for the warrior's way for 2! Dive fakeout from Hayashi leads to a Joe dive. Joe gets the choke on Ki after the Ki Crusher out of the corner fails and he's out. Joe vacates the title and cuts a great promo about regaining it before they throw to a clip of the multi-man match where Ki won it.
Clips of Taryn-Kim's first two matches are shown to set up their third bout. Gail misses the corner charge, but hits a neckbreaker on the steps resulting in a nasty landing for each. Taryn avoids Eat Defeat and gets the cutter for 2. Gail rolls through a crossbody for the win. Gail and Taryn hug before Havok comes out for her Imapct debut to run through them both. Clip of Havok's title win over Gail sets up Taryn beating Gail in a 3-way to get the Knockouts title for the first time. Full Metal Mayhem is next.
We get a Bad Voice Over video for Bram shilling ShopTNA. We get the opening with some corner stomps, and then jump to Matt eating a German suplex onto two chairs, complete with a nasty landing. Davey gets powerbombed on the guardrail by Bully. Whisper in the Wind to Bully sets up a clip of Jeff missing a table legdrop on the floor. Now they're all mid-ring brawling on ladders. Matt and Bully chop Eddie on the ladder and hit a double hiptoss off the ladders. Matt shoves Bully down and goes down himself. We go to Matt hitting a diving legdrop to Davey off the ladder on the floor. Devon gets for whassup, but gets shoved off the top through the tables on the floor. Bully shoves Eddie off a ladder to the floor with no one to catch him. Davey stops Matt from moonsaulting and then shoves Jeff into a splash off the top of the ladder to Bully on the floor through two tables. Eddie powerbombs Matt off the ladder and Davey grabs the titles for the win. Roode-Lashley II will close the show.
JB talks about how Roode was suspended by MVP, and that he won a match to get this shot. This was an angle-heavy match, so it will probably be clipped a ton. Strangely, they've run ads plugging "the new era of TNA", but haven't mentioned Destination America by name, which they did last week. A shoving match starts before a clip takes us to Lashley standing over Roode. Roode elbows his way out of a backbreaker and then going for the Roode bomb over the ropes, which worked in the first match, but wasn't shown. Lashley goes for a susnet flip out of the Roode bomb, but Roode counters ala Bret-Bulldog at Summerslam '92 and that's it. They aired maybe a minute of "the biggest World title match of 2014." Roode full celebration is shown and we get a hype video for Roode-Lashley III showing the breakup of Lashley from MVP's crew, Roode beating MVP, and Lashley spearing Roode after the match. Lashley also destroys EY, Aries, tosses things backstage, and just comes off like the biggest badass ever.
The Big Picture
Other than the Full Metal Mayhem and World title match, They did a far better job this week of using clips to show the buildup to matches, and at least aired one full match. The clips for the BFG main event really helped it, and made the X Title match seem like something you should buy the DVD for. Next week has them running through the top 20 moments in TNA, with clips shown of Gail's title wins, Hogan-Sting from BFG, and Bully's reveal as the leader of the Aces and 8s. Well, that should be fun viewing even it's not really essential viewing - at least that's something you expect to see in clip form.
Were are the pix
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