Monday, March 2, 2009

TNA Impact - 2/19/09

1) Jay Lethal & Consequences Creed vs. Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley – Street Fight – 4
2) Brutus Magnus, Matt Morgan, & Sheik Abdul Bashir vs. LAX & Shane Sewell – 3
3) Taylor Wilde vs. Angelina Love – 2
4) Petey Williams & Eric Young vs. Robert Roode & James Storm – 4
5) Kurt Angle vs. Sting – Empty Arena Match – 5

The first bout up on this episode of Impact was the street fight. Both teams engaged in some interesting uses of some steel chairs, including a pretty nice double-team Van Daminator from the Guns. Creed busted out a swank flip over the top rope a few moments into the match. Lethal took a serious bump onto a ladder that was bridged between the railing and the ring. The finish was Sabin nailing Creed with the X-Division title belt allowing Shelley to get the pin. Two things I didn’t like about the match … one, the minimal selling by all parties involved, save for Jay Lethal and … two, despite the intriguing uses of the chair, the final shot to get a pin was with a title belt? The six-man tag was pretty messy. Legal man issues were abound within the first 90 seconds with all three members of the heel team coming in and out as they please. Sewell ate a sick boot from Morgan. I’ve never really like Morgan all that much to begin with. His look is that of a generic big dude with no discernable emotion during his bouts, wooden promos, and an entrance tune that sounds like a local band wrote it. If by calling Morgan the “blueprint”, they mean he’s the blueprint for basic big man heel wrestlers, then they actually got something right. Hernandez issued a sick border toss to Bashir which was followed up by a sloppy elbow from Sewell.

While the knockouts can usually be depended upon to deliver decent bouts, this was a thorough disappointment. Both girls seemed to be on cruise control and the extra-curricular activity took away any points the match had of being decent. The stuff with Roxxi and the Governor at ringside defiinitely detracted from the match. The tag match was the first in the series of “off the wagon challenges” where the loser of the fall has to leave TNA. Petey and Eric still had good chemistry from their days in Team Canada. Young was getting some serious height on those top-rope cross bodys and you could geniunely tell that they were having a good time. The finish came when Petey tried to give Jacqueline the Canadian Destoyer piledriver but was caught by Beer Money and pinned, forcing him to leave TNA. Finally, the main event was a racuous good time where Sting and Angle traded some hard shots throughout the arena. They brawled up in the bleachers where Sting threw Angle 15 feet from the side of the stands. Angle then tossed a trash can into Sting’s face really hard. This would’ve gotten into the “6” range if they didn’t have the bullshit non-finish where Nash and Steiner broke it up. Sting’s promo after the match was gold where he was really intense and made me believe that he hated Kurt. Overall, a fun episode of Impact. It dragged a bit in the middle but if you watch anything from this show, check out the empty arena match.

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