It’s time for another TNA Pay-Per-View as Against All Odds
comes from the Impact Wrestling Zone in Orlando, Florida. Let’s take a look at
the event.
Before I continue, I noticed that Taz was not commentating alongside
Mike Tenay, it’s Jeremy Borash instead. It turned out that Taz is dealing with a
bereavement in the family. My best wishes and condolences to Taz and his family.
The first match was to determine the No. 1 contender for the
X-Division Championship as Zema Ion
takes on Jesse Sorenson. At the
beginning, Sorenson hands his American football to a child on the front row.
Ion tries to give the same kid some hairspray and Sorenson starts punching Ion
to start the match. As always with X-Division matches, there’s a lot of
high-flying offence, which is a great thing to see. Ion steals the football
from the child and Sorenson hits a baseball slide dropkick. Sorenson rolls out of
the ring and Ion hits a move that legitimately injures Sorenson. I would assume
so because that move was edited out by TNA (I'm watching this on tape delay).
After watching it on You Tube, Ion does a moonsault and instead of Sorenson
effectively catching him and falling to the floor, Ion lands on Sorenson’s head.
Ion goes back into the ring and wins by countout. It turned out that Sorenson
suffered a crack in his C1 vetrebra and will luckily make a full recovery. Fair
play to TNA for their quick response, especially with could have been a very
serious injury. It shows how dangerous professional wrestling can be and
accidents can happen. While it probably wasn’t planned for Ion to win, well
done on him becoming the No. 1 contender.
Winner: Zema Ion Predictions:
0 for 1
After an interview with Bobby Roode, the next match was an
open challenge by Television Champion Robbie
E. Shannon Moore accepted the
challenge for the Championship. Shannon dominates to begin with and Robbie E
decides to leave with his bodyguard Robbie T. Shannon stops Robbie E and throws
him back in and that gives Robbie E the opportunity to dominate things for a
while. The ending had Shannon doing a sunset filp, Robbie E kicks out pushing
Shannon to the ropes. Robbie T punches Shannon on the top of the head and
Robbie E hits a DDT to get the victory.
Winner: Robbie E Predictions: N/A
The next match was Tara
taking on Gail Kim for the Knockouts
Championship. I was very surprised that Tara is the No.1 contender and this should
be a decent match. For the first part, Gail was arguing with her lackey Madison
“Screamer” Rayne. Eventually, Rayne storms off and leaves Gail to it. Gail hits
Tara with an Octopus Submission but Tara gets to the ropes. Tara hits a
Tilt-a-Whirl into a side slam for a near fall. Tara hits a moonsault but it
looks like Tara injured her right knee in the process. Gail focuses her offence
on the knee before hitting her finisher, Eat Defeat, for the victory. It was a
decent match and it was to see a title match without any shenanigans happening,
which seems common place in TNA.
Winner: Gail Kim Predictions:
1 for 2
The Tag Team Championships were on
the line as Crimson and Matt Morgan defend their title
against Samoa Joe and Magnus. The
match went back and forth for the first part before Samoa Joe and Magnus start
to wear down Crimson. There was a nice combination of moves by Joe and Magnus
to get a near fall on Crimson. Eventually Crimson manages to get the hot tag to
Matt Morgan who proceeds to clean house. Joe breaks up a pin attempt which
leads to Crimson getting back into the match. Joe and Magnus try to go for
their snapmare/elbow finisher but it is stopped by Crimson. Crimson then accidentally spears Morgan, giving Joe and Magnus the opportunity to hit their
finisher to become the new Tag Team Champions. This was a pretty good match
and, whilst I did predict their victory, probably 85% of me didn’t think that Samoa
Joe and Magnus would actually win. Congratulations to them on winning the
titles.
Winners:
Samoa Joe and Magnus Predictions: 2 for 3
After an interview with Bully Ray
(who is a hero for wearing a Liverpool football shirt at Impact), we get Austin Aries (the best thing in TNA
right now) defending his X-Division Championship against Alex Shelley. Aries acts cocky to begin with before Shelley starts
to get some momentum. Aries decides to go under the ring to the other side,
deceiving Shelley, to get back the momentum. Aries tries to hit his pendulum
elbow drop but misses. Aires continues his assault before Shelley fights back.
Aries repeats his under the ring trick but the crowd gives the game away and
Shelley is able to counter it and continue his assault. Aries drops Shelley
back and neck first onto the ring apron followed by a splash to get the near
fall. Shelley hits the Sliced Bread but Aries manages to grab the bottom rope. Aries
hits a dropkick to Shelley in the corner followed by a Brainbuster, which
Shelley manages to kick out, shocking Aries. After a few very close near falls
by both guys, Aries hits the Last Chancery, which is a Brainbuster followed by
an Indian Deathlock, to get the victory. This was a really good match, which
was the Match of the Night. It was really entertaining and it showcased why
Austin Aries is the best thing in TNA right now.
Winner:
Austin Aries Predictions: 3 for 4
After an interview with Jeff Hardy,
we get Kazarian taking on AJ Styles. I’ve been intrigued by this
storyline with Christopher Daniels effectively pulling Kazarian’s strings for
an unknown reason and hopefully we will get to see what Daniels has to
effectively blackmail Kazarian. The match starts with Styles ripping off
Kazarian’s shirt and start to get some offence in. Styles throws Kazarian out
of the ring and focuses his attention on Christopher Daniels before continuing
his assault on Kazarian. Kazarian hits a monkey flip and he starts to dominate
the match for a while. The match goes back and forth when Styles hits a
moonsault on Daniels. Styles goes back in to attack Kazarian. However, Kazarian
hits the Fade to Black to get the pinfall. I enjoyed the match and I enjoyed
the ring psychology involved with Kazarian being reluctant to do Daniel’s
bidding.
Winner:
Kazarian Predictions: 4 for 5
We get an interview with Eric
Bischoff then we get Gunner (with Bischoff)
taking on “The Future of the Business” (no fucking joke) Garrett Bischoff (with Hulk Hogan) in what could be an early contender
for LDW Worst Match of the Year. Can someone explain why the fuck this match is
on second to last? You know what, I really don’t care. I want to just get
through it. The match starts with Garrett doing simple wrestling moves and
Gunner getting slightly frustrated before Eric Bischoff grabs his son’s leg.
This gives the opportunity for Gunner to get the advantage. Garrett gets a
front facelock followed by an Inverted Atomic Drop (haven’t seen that move in
years). Gunner starts to take control of the match and hits an impressive
slingshot suplex for a near fall. Eric gets in a cheap shot before Hogan
decides to attack him (honestly, who really didn’t see that coming?) Gunner
starts hitting Garrett with multiple neckbreakers , worrying Hogan to the point
that he was going to get Garrett to give up. Garrett waved him off but
unfortunately, he walks into a DDT by Gunner and Gunner gets the 3 count. I’m really
torn by this match. It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be,
although it was weird seeing moves like an Inverted Atomic Drop in 2012. I also
quite liked Hogan’s role for most of the match, giving encouragement and advice
to Garrett. However, I felt that the match was not only way too long but it
seemed like the focus was more on Hogan and Bischoff than on the two wrestlers
taking part. Anyway, time to move on and focus on the main event.
Winner:
Gunner Predictions:
4 for 6
We now come to the main event with Bobby Roode defending his TNA World
Heavyweight Championship against Jeff
Hardy, Bully Ray and James Storm.
Sting has installed himself as the Special Ringside Enforcer to prevent any
shenanigans. If that’s the case, then why is my Shenanigans Sense still
tingling like mad? Oh yeah, I forgot, it’s a TNA Main Event where my
Shenanigans Sense is always tingling. Bully Ray decides to act like a dick and
interrupts Christy Hemme’s introduction and do his own introduction. I quite
liked that as it shows how much of a dick Bully Ray, although I did feel sorry
for Christy. Roode pleads with Bully to work together on the other two in order
to make it a one-on-one match. Bully decides that he doesn’t and goes out of
the ring leaving Roode to get his ass kicked all over the place by Hardy and
Storm. They both work together on Roode before they hit each other with sunset
flips. They attack Roode together again which gives Bully the opportunity to
enter the match and take out Storm and Hardy. Roode once pleads with Bully to
work together but Bully attacks him and gets a pin attempt broken up by Storm.
As the match continues, Bully
inadvertly splashed the referee Brian Hebner, leading to Sting getting involved
for the first time by trying to revive the referee. The referee gets up and
Storm hits The Last Call on Roode. However, the count by Hebner is stopped by
Bully. Sting goes over to sort Bully out with Bully putting Hebner.
Unfortunately for Hebner, Storm does a Springboard and lands on Hebner,
knocking him out again. Roode, after getting hit with a Twist of Fate, grabs
the title and attempts to use it on Hardy. Sting grabs the title off him and
they get into an argument which ends with Roode spitting in Sting’s face.
Incensed, Sting attempts to hit Roode with the title but Roode ducks and Hardy
gets hit instead. Roode covers Hardy and demands that Sting counts. Sting reluctantly
does so, while screaming at Hardy to get up. Alas, it was not to be and Roode
gets the 3 count. Roode, overjoyed, decides to rub it in Sting’s face and gets
Sting to raise his hand. I don’t really mind this finish even though we’ve had
dubious finishes over the last several PPVs.
Winner:
Bobby Roode Predictions:
5 for 7
I thought that this PPV was quite a
good event. The wrestling was quite solid and I really enjoyed the match
between Alex Shelley and Austin Aries (the best thing in TNA right now). In
terms of the booking, at Genesis, we had the referee involved in almost every
match and so much shenanigans taking place. There was less of that here except for
the last match (but that’s to be expected now) and I don’t know if that is because of
Vince Russo leaving the company. I hope that Russo leaving and Dave Lagana
taking over as head writer will lead to TNA being the type of company that I
know it can be.
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