The show opens with a recap of last week's show-opening goofball brawl, the tag title match finish, X Title finish, KOs match finish, Kong-Havok staredown, and Roode-Lashley highlights, finish, and three heel turns in about one minute. Josh welcomes us to Nashville where they show the Go position, backstage, and the production area with Josh and Taz in a very echoey room chatting. Josh says we'll watch what happened last week, which we just saw. The go to a Roode promo shot last week with Roode swearing revenge tonight on EY. They plug The Hardys vs. The Wolves tonight with sleek graphics that rival SD's. The crew comes down and we get some of the worst picture-in-picture graphics ever with the announcers in a giant six-sided ring and the live action being scrunched.
MVP cuts a fine promo about being there with his family - the Beat Down Clan, or The Clan. Yeah, no one's calling this team of black guys (and one white guy) that. EY comes out to a new, shitty theme. The new set is pretty bad - very brown. EY has a faded haircut now, which looks even worse than his prior one. It's not even level! EY yells and yells about having a brother once, but Roode wouldn't even give him a shot. While he didn't like MVP and Lashley taking his title, he at least respected them being brothers. EY looks like a damned Bushwacker right now, and long promos aren't his thing. He just ranted and raved like a mid-card '80s heel for 10 minutes. MVP introduces Lashley, but you'll never guess - HE DIDN'T COME OUT. Because no faction in TNA can get along, apparently. Angle comes out instead in his gear and a gigantic brace on his left knee. Kurt the ass-kicker came out to talk, of course. Angle talked about making them all tap, so Joe came down to talk shit. Kurt slugs him, so we'll be getting that at some point again. Yup - next, in fact. This is what Joe-Angle is reduced to. It goes from being the most-bought PPV feud in company history to a nothing TV opener.
TNA is kind of aided by all of the Discovery-centric ads since you do kind of forget that they're on this shitty station. This, THE FIRST KURT-JOE MATCH IN AGES, is joined in progress and we come back to a legdrop to the knee from Joe. Kneebar from Joe and they're going on and on about the BDC FLIPPING THE SCRIPT! Taz talks about how we still have no idea why Joe joined up with the BDC, while Josh says that it was done due to their friendship on the indies that MVP brought up before. Good save by Josh there. Joe has some kind of leglock on, but you can't tell what it is due to the camera work. Crowd's wooing, but it's not a figure four. They go backstage and show Lashley not being in his dressing room, now with the live action in the six-sided ring and the other stuff being all scrunched up. Lashley is also missing ON SOCIAL MEDIA. Well, given how stupid MMA fighters and wrestlers are on it, that's a good move.
Josh talks about Kurt being the only man to hold the IWGP Title (well kinda), the World Heavyweight Title, WCW Title, the WWE Champion, and a TNA World Champion and hall of famer. Angle slam hits and that gets 2. ST-Joe hits in the corner. Kurt sunsets out of the muscle buster (thank Christ) and gets the ankle lock. Joe rolls Kurt into the ref and locks in the choke for the win. The BDC attacks and Roode makes a save. Okay then.
Bobby Roode is mid-ring staging a sit-in. Well, it wasn't hard to find an empty seat. The crowd chanted that he got screwed. THERE ARE PEOPLE THERE. You wouldn't know it based on the camera angles. Roode said that EY's promo was a bunch of bullshit, which they bleeped out far better here than last week. He said that he LIVES FOR PRO WRESTLING AND TONIGHT THEY'RE IN NYC AND IT'S NOT ABOUT WRESTLING, IT'S ABOUT PAYBACK and then he yells like Curt Hennig about making EY pay. We go to the studio with Josh and his arm sleeve talking about TNA Wrestling Unlocked with Tenay talking to Magnus about being a father now. He does it for his family - so is he a babyface? I think he's talking about Bram being beneath him on the pecking order, and he's fine with being released by TNA because it's a competitive open market out there. This was a bit of a clusterfuck, but good overall. Spud and JB, with a wacky hat are backstage - JB apparently got his whole head shaved.
The Revolution's in the balcony, with Koya - the former Sheera. Hardys come out followed by the Wolves for their #1 contender's match. It looks like we'll be getting the whole Wolves-Hardys match after the break, which is good. The pacing is largely better this week than last week, although they don't have things quite ironed out. There's an ad for BIG GIANT SWORDS on Discovery - "The food my family eats is sword money." - this is an amazing concept. They plug the merch and then do a picture and picture cut to show the new logo merch and the Hardy drip, but they don't actually show the Hardys shirt since they're not fully on-screen. Now, the in-ring stuff was scrunched and the announcers were in the six-sided graphic. They need to be consistent so you know which side to look at for live action at all times. Matt slams Davey down and the Hardys attack with a high-low for 2. Matt gets crotched into a tree of woe with yet another needless split screen. Basement dropkicks to Matt from each guy gets a 2. Davey bonks Matt into Eddie's head before tagging him. Just use the boot. Eddie chops the hell out of Matt and Josh talks about the NEW AND DIFFERENT Impact with Josh talking about the "new lighting effect" and then calling the action from a studio. The lighting makes no difference and the announcing honestly doesn't matter, but all the cuts are hurting the action.
Matt eats a ton of kicks, but comes back with a side effect. Tags in so Eddie and Jeff are in. Hardy hits a flying forearm, inverted atomic drop, and a legdrop for 2. Jeff hits the whisper in the wind on both guys. They go to the floor and eat a handspring DDT out of a backdrop from Matt - nice spot there. Jeff does a ropewalk dive to the pile. Double gordbuster from the Hardys and they show a spotlight on the Revolution - so they do actually have another light in the building. Swanton meets Eddie's knees. Falcon Arrow with a superkick gets 2. Backstabber powerbomb is avoided as Jeff tags out and Matt gets a side effect. Eddie hits a Twist and Davey gets a double stomp, but Jeff hits a swanton to break up the cover. Close-up on Abyss being ugly. Shocked they didn't do a PIP there. Twisto to Eddie leads to an elevated double Twist of Fate for the win - so the Hardys are the number 1 contenders now and Josh puts over them possibly becoming TNA Tag Champions for the first time ever. Josh hypes up Feast or Fired and we get BRAM'S THOUGHTS. Bram is in a little room with one light that is still easier to see than the actual show - and I'm not kidding about that. King and MVP talk about Lashley. EY chimes in with "GOLDEN!? I TOOK HIS BELT MADE OF GOLD!"
Big John talks to a guy about changing cameras and then EC3 talks about wanting a camera on him. EC3 takes over with Tyrus and talks to Keith about putting the camera on Borash. EC3 is talking to Borash while Borash just nods his head randomly. EC3 challenges him to a match and he has 30 minutes to decide. We get a shot of a door leading to Lashley going down some steps. Riveting. EY came down and he's not part of the BDC.
Roode comes down and Taz explains that if you're new, these men are two tough Canadians and the guy in green screwed over the guy in black. They brawl for a break. We come back and they brawl around the building before a picture in picture, now with the live action in the six sided graphic and Lashley being asked a question and saying nothing in scrunched up one. EY chops Roode while Josh calls EY DEMENTED. They kick, punch, and go back in the ring. EY sets a chair up in the corner and Josh talks about how Impact doesn't just end tonight, it continues in the mornings with Impact Wrestling Unlocked - wrestling returns on Saturday mornings. That's great, but the show really needs a replay if they expect to get anything out of that concept. Hype up the greatest matches shows too with highlights so you know who's going to be on them - they actually had best of programming last week, but you'd never know it watching Impact since they never plugged it.
Roode gets a spinebuster, but EY counters the Roode bomb on the chair using the eyes and then bonks Roode's head into the corner chair. Piledriver on a chair for EY gets the win. Shocked that EY, who has a crew behind him kinda, didn't really cheat to win - he just worked within the confines of it. Taz puts over a piledriver ending his career, and it wasn't even one on a chair - that was good stuff. MVP comes out to talk smack and hype up a celebration. EY looks on angrily and spits on Roode. Aries cuts a promo saying that he'll defend his title and we get Brooke and Taryn backstage for their match with the BPs - great graphics here that are just a bit different from the usual ones although the three-way graphics for the KOs match were distracting.
KOs recap and Brooke talks about Robbie being a Jersey douchebag. Brooke came out in bright pink, orange, and black gear. Taryn's black and gold gear is great. Velvet adding some twerking to her intro is fantastic. DJZ got the selfie stick out and they showed it on-screen. They plugged Taz's podcast being number 1 in sports and number 17 overall. Taryn got a double sledge off an arm wringer by leaping high in the air and dropping her arms on Velvet. Taz talks about getting a Taryn banner to "try out" and the faces get a double dropkick while Josh ponders what that means exactly and Taryn dives on the pile. Diving Hart attack hits-ish. Robbie distracts Brooke, gets slapped, but Velvet wins with a distraction schoolgirl because it's 2015 so of course that was a finish. Lights go out AND IT'S KONG! BPs are terrified, as are the Bro Mans. Implant Buster to Angelina. DJZ talks smack and eats a chokeslam before Havok comes down. Damn does Kong even in this state have "it". Security gets between them while Kong just leers at her victim. EC3 meets with JB. Oh yeah that thing. JB says he'll fight EC3 next week. Taz and Josh are shown in their closet-sized studio to talk about JB-EC3. They hype up feast or fired with clips of next week's show.
Manik meets with a guy who brings a camera to Storm and Koya. Koya is from India, and in Hindi, Koya means lost. But he isn't lost now. Next week, his power is unleashed. Josh and Taz talk about Koya and hype up THE BEAST and the FEAST. Feast or Fired highlights explain the stips. Ki came out to the BDC theme. Aries came out and his Twitter handle was correct. Collar and elbow tie-up starts while they do more PIP talking about tonight's events. I like this idea because they make every single match seem important in some way. Ki chops the daylights out of Aries on the ropes. Ki gets backdropped to the floor, but he hooks his leg on the rope on the way down. Ouch - that could've gone much worse. Mid-ring exchange leads to more kicks and chops from Ki. Punt counter from Ki leads to a diving lariat from Aries. Pendulum elbow gets 2 setting up the Last Chancery. Ki gets the ropes, so Aries does a pop-up elbow. Hiptoss ON THE APRON to Ki sends him near the BDC, so no dive. Ki counters the brainbuster with a rope gordbuster from Ki. Taz says that Joe and Ki are in black and gold - the colors of the Wu Tang Clan and they're the BDC, so you know the deal. Ki chops him in the corner and is really laying those in nicely. Aries ducks one and nails some shots of his own, only going for a series of overhand chops. Discus forearm hits perfectly and sets up the corner kick. It hits, but Ki knees him out of the brainbuster. Corkscrew suplex for Aries sets up the chancery, but the clan gets on the apron, but Aries doesn't see it and knows Ki tapped, so he released it. Aries dives to the BDC on the floor. Ref tries to get Joe off the apron, but MVP trips Aries and Ki gets a Ki Crusher for the win. This was easily the best match on the show and well worth watching. Lashley is walking backstage.
It's 10:50, and with the show mostly over, I'll say that the emphasis on in-ring action made it much better than last week's show. They need to fix up the PIP stuff and figure out something with this cameras everywhere thing beyond just exposition because they had cameras everywhere before and it was so much better before than it is now. MVP is mid-ring for of course, the main event talking segment. WWE has opening long promos, so TNA does them. WWE does distraction schoolboys in nothing matches, so TNA does it, and of course, TNA has to have show-closing main event promos too. DO. SOMETHING. DIFFERENT. Christ. This company has NOTHING left. The AWA in its dying days had a worse roster, but had better production values for its time than TNA does right now. Lashley was called out, so he came out now - so I guess he's cool with the crew again or he wouldn't have come down. MVP talks about making Lashley look good, made the man win the title, and YOU SHOULD RESPECT HIM! The world title belongs to everyone in the BDC!
Lashley takes offense to that. The title doesn't belong to "Samoa Go" and MVP says that they're champions because they're family. Lashley is such a horrible promo. MVP buries the New Day saying that unless Lashley wants to shuck and jive singing church songs, he should listen. Lashley calls him by his real name and MVP says "YOU CALLIN ME BY MY GOVERNMENT!" RULED. MVP said he's sad they're going their separate ways, but he loves him - he hugs him, gives him the kiss of death, and the BDC attacks. MVP "gives him his title" right to the face. Then they attacked and attacked and attacked. Drive by boot from MVP. Great visual at the end with MVP holding the World title over Lashley while Ki held the X Title up and Lashley was shown bleeding for a second. MVP talked more smack and steals the title - I'm looking forward to MVP-Lashley at some point. We get clips of next week's Lashley-MVP brawl throughout the streets of NYC and the show ends with Feast or Fired hype.
Screen gallery -
http://www.imagebam.com/gallery/vsvkunx3kf9wpfc0ffzjz8mtqo5j5bu0
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