Impact LIVE Coverage & Discussion Thread - 19th April 2010

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Impact Live Coverage - 19th April 2010

Tonight's program opens with a video package recapping the events of last night's Lockdown PPV, then we go to the ring for some words from the TNA World Champion, AJ Styles. He says that due to the celebration party after Lockdown, Flair will be here a little later, but last night he proved to the entire world that AJ Styles in the best wrestler in the world. He stepped into the steel cage with the Pope and he took care of business, and did it all by himself. He says his athletic ability was too much for Pope, and Pope was good, but not good enough. He tells Pope not to get down on himself, because he joined Jeff Jarrett, Sting, and Kurt Angle as people who have lost to AJ, and it doesn't matter where it is, AJ is the best, the best looking, the best athlete, and the work horse of TNA. All the wannabes that want to jump on the AJ Styles bandwagon can think again, because AJ isn't slowing down anytime soon. Rob Van Dam's music hits, and he comes out to the ring to confront AJ. Crowd starts an RVD chant. RVD says that what AJ just heard might confuse him, but that's called a crowd reaction. RVD says that he was backstage listening to AJ talk and he seems to think he's the best wrestling in TNA (crowd starts an AJ sucks chant), and maybe AJ was the best wrestler in TNA at some previous point in time, but it seem obvious that times have changed, and AJ is upset because he's invested all his time in TNA and is used to getting all the attention, and he is a very good wrestler, but RVD's never been quite as impressed with him as everyone else is, and definitely not as much as AJ is in himself. RVD says AJ's having a hard time because TNA is where all the wrestlers want to be and that's not good for him (crowd starts a TNA chant). RVD asks how he can say that he deserves the top spot above the other wrestlers, such as...Rob Van Dam. Now Jeff Hardy's music hits and he comes skipping down to the ring, and guess what? He has a microphone too. Crowd starts a big Hardy chant. Jeff tells AJ that he's got a little head to be so bigheaded. Jeff says he has a huge head but at least he's modest, and AJ's done a lot in TNA but Jeff's looking to do a lot too and the movement has begun. He's here to complete his collection of World Titles by becoming TNA World Champion. Now Hulk Hogan's music hits, and he comes out to join us as well. Hogan high fives RVD and Hardy, and then he grabs a mic to tell us that this is exactly what he's talking about and exactly the reason everyone's talking about TNA. Hogan says that's why he's brought RVD and Hardy here, but no matter how you cut it, it's all about the TNA World Title, so Hogan's going to tell everyone in the back that it's time to up your game because we're raising the bar, and AJ's the World Champion, and when you're the World Champion, that means you're the best at what you do, but when you're the World Champion, doors open up and things happen that you never expected because it's also about the business of being World Champion: lear jets, good looking girls, and big fat paychecks, and that's why everyone wants the World Title. When Hogan was the World Champion, it changed his life because every night, you have to prove you're the best, and every night there's a target on your back, and every time you leave someone laying in the ring, that just ups every aspect of your life. Hogan says he's going to cut the crap right now, because one of the most important questions he's ever heard, which goes out to RVD and Hardy, AJ wants to know how bad they really want it. Do they want it bad enough to put their friendship aside and get in the ring to find out which of them is the best? Do they want to do it tonight? Well that's great, because tonight he wants them to come out and do what they do best: tear the building down and get the crowd chanting TNA, TNA. The crowd plays along. Hogan says that after tonight, the man that gets the win is going to get a shot at AJ Styles and the TNA World Title. AJ says to hold on a moment, nobody consulted with the champion and to tell the truth, he won't be ready by Sacrifice. Hogan says that he made the match, and nobody said anything about Sacrifice. He's not talking about Sacrifice, he says that the man who wins the match tonight is going to get a title shot tonight on Impact!


Backstage
We cut backstage to Ric Flair arriving at the Impact Zone, where he is informed by somebody off camera that Hogan just made a title match for AJ tonight and, predictibly, Flair is none too please. We're at commercial!

We're back, and we just found out that not only will AJ Styles defend the TNA World Title tonight, but Ric Flair is barred from ringside!

Knockouts Tag Team Title Match
The Beautiful People vs Daffney & ODB

As the Beautiful People make their way to the ring, Tazz informs us that while Sean Waltman wasn't at Lockdown last night, Dixie Carter was aware of it and they've been in communication since. Daffney goes right to work on Velvet Sky, ramming kneestrikes into her chest, but Daffney made the mistake of getting distracted by Lacey and Sky was able to nail her. Lacey does a backflip elbowdrop and then tags right back out to Sky, who stomps on Daffney then covers her for 2. Sky goes to the second rope, shakes her moneymaker, then comes off with a double axhandle, but Daffney gets a shot to the midsection. Sky cuts off the hot tag, but Daffney kicks her off and makes the tag and ODB comes in and cleans house. ODB with the Thesz Press on Sky, whips her into the corner and follows in with a splash. ODB with a fallaway slam on Sky and a kip up then goes for an O'Connor Roll, but Madison Rayne distracts the referee and Lacey sprays something in ODB's eyes and Sky is able to rull ODB up and get the win.

Winners: The Beautiful People


Backstage
We go backstage to JB, who is going to try and get a word with an irate Ric Flair and AJ Styles. Styles is complaining to Flair about their predicament tonight, and Flair says that this isn't the plan they had, and Flair's not going to let it go on much longer. He knows AJ will beat the winner of RVD-Hardy, but the most important thing is that he wants a rematch of Team Hogan vs Team Flair tonight, and he's demanding it. He says Hogan has five minutes to respond and he doesn't care who they bring with them, he wants them out there in five minutes or he's claiming victory by forfeit. JB gets kicked out of their dressing room and we're at commercial!

We're back, and Abyss and Jeff Jarrett are in the ring, and Abyss has a mic. He wants Flair to know that he and Jeff had heard about his challenge for tonight, but apparently Flair hadn't heard that the war between Team Hogan and Team Flair ended last night at Lockdown when they beat their asses. If RVD and Hardy weren't already in a match tonight, then Team Hogan would have no problem continuing to beat down on Team Flair. Flair's music hits, and here comes The Man himself with all of Team Flair in tow. Flair tells Abyss to kiss his ass, he doesn't take crap from people like him: screw him, screw Hogan, and screw everyone in the building. Team Flair is here and they're going to kick their asses. Team Flair rushes the ring and a brawl ensues, but doesn't last long after Sting uses the bat to lay Jarrett and Abyss out. Suddenly, Rob Terry's music hits and he comes out and cleans house on Team Flair, botches a press slam on Wolfe, but gets it right the second time and tosses him onto Sting, trips a second time on a spinkick, and Team Flair bails out. Flair tells Jarrett that he's a dead man, but now Eric Bischoff comes sauntering out and tells Flair he thought he learned his lesson last night, and if Flair wants a rematch, he'll get it against Abyss, Jarrett, and Terry, but it won't be 4-on-3 because he's got somebody in the back who can't wait to see action, and he can't wait to see Team Flair get their ass kicked tonight.

Still to come, Rob Van Dam takes on Jeff Hardy for a shot at the TNA World Title, and it's up...right after this!

We're back from commercial and Matt Morgan comes up to Shannon Moore and says that TNA management is making "them" get a partner to defend the title, so that's why "they" came to him, and asks Shannon if he wants some gold around his waist or not. Shannon asks him if he's counting his ego as a second person now, but says he has to get mentally prepared for his X-Division Title shot next week, and both of "them" can kiss his tattooed ass and he walks off. Morgan is perturbed by this, and mutters under his breath that Moore just made a big mistake.

From there, we go to Hogan and Bischoff backstage, and Hogan is impressed by the way Bischoff suckered Flair in last night and he's never going to doubt Bischoff again. Bischoff says that tonight's RVD-Hardy-AJ series is genius, and Hogan compliments him back about setting up the Team Hogan vs Team Flair rematch tonight, and asks if "he" is going to be here for sure, and Bischoff says he is. Hogan then asks him if he's set up that ranking system for the World Title yet and Bischoff says not yet, but he wants to show him what he's done so far. He gets his super hot assistant to go fetch the files, and she asks if he was looking for the brown thingy or the green thingy, to which Bischoff says the green thingy. She leaves and Hogan asks what about his thingy, and Bischoff says "Hey, she takes great dictation." Gotta love these double entendre segments.

RVD is backstage and says that he's wrestling one of his best friends tonight, but he's here for one reason: to prove he's the Whole F'n Show. We're at commercial, and THIS TIME the RVD-Hardy match will be up after this


We're back, and it's time to go to the ring for the first of our two main events...

#1 Contender's Match
Jeff Hardy vs Rob Van Dam

RVD and Hardy shake to start, then it's time to get down to business. RVD gets a waistlock, Hardy escapes and ducks a spinkick. The feeling out process continues and they go to a Greco-Roman knucklelock, and they exchange hammerlocks, and Hardy breaks away and goes for a Twist Of Fate, but RVD gets away and we go back to commercial

We're back from commercial, and RVD is beating Hardy up on the floor and dropping him sternum-first on the guardrail, then coming off the apron with a spinning legdrop onto Hardy on the guardrail. RVD drapes Hardy on the apron, then slingshots over the top rope from the inside with a guillotine legdrop on the apron. RVD goes up top and comes off with a flying bodypress for 2. Looks like RVD's head is bleeding again. Hardy starts firing back on RVD and RVD shuts him down pretty quickly, but Hardy dropkicks the knee of RVD and RVD comes crashing down facefirst on the middle turnbuckle. Hardy with the double legdrop to the crotch, a second dropkick, and a clothesline for 2. RVD tries a dive in the corner on Hardy, but Hardy comes out with a clothesline for 2 and a bridging rollup for 2. RVD with another clothesline for 2 as the crowd chants This Is Awesome. I don't know about that. Hardy goes up top but RVD catches him and drags him out into the middle of the top rope and kicks him in the head, then goes up top, hesitates a really long time, and comes off with a thrust kick to Hardy that sends him tumbling to the floor. RVD pulls Hardy back in the ring and gets another spinning legdrop and Rolling Thunder for 2. Hardy fights back and pounds on RVD in the corner, but misses his springboard corner dropkick and RVD hits the split-legged moonsault for 2. RVD with another series of kicks to the head then goes for a vertical suplex, but Hardy slips out the back and hits a gourdbuster, then pulls the shirt off and goes up top, but RVD pops up to his feet and spinkicks Hardy in the face. RVD follows Hardy up top and goes for a superplex, but Hardy blocks, pushes RVD off and goes for the Swanton, but misses, and then RVD hits the Five Star Notebook Splash for the win.

Winner: Rob Van Dam

Now Rob Van Dam will challenge AJ Styles for the TNA World Title later on tonight, and we're at commercial!


Backstage
We're back, and Christy Hemme is backstage with RVD and Jeff Hardy, and RVD tells Jeff that he's his bro and wants to make sure nothing's changed, and Jeff assures him that everything's cool. Then we go to the monitor to see some highlights from the match and they seem really impressed with themselves. They congratulate themselves again after viewing the highlights, and then say that whoever wins the match is going to have the other one's support, and now RVD's focus is on AJ. He says Jeff took a lot out of him, but RVD's ready for his shot at the TNA World Title.

From there we go to Abyss, Jeff Jarrett, and Rob Terry, and he thanks Rob for getting involved because Hogan wanted everyone toraise the bar, and that's what Rob Terry did. Rob says that tonight, everyone's going to know that he's the Freak, Rob Terry. Abyss says they don't know who their fourth partner is yet, but he trusts Hogan and Bischoff so it's no big. They head to the ring, and that's what we're going to do right now as well...

Sting, Desmond Wolfe & Beer Money vs Abyss, Jeff Jarrett, Rob Terry, and A Mystery Partner

This basically follows the same rules as last night's match, but without the cage. We go to a commercial break

We're back, and Sting and Jarrett are brawling out in the crowd. Sting rams Jarrett into the wall, then into a chair, then he takes a chair and kills Jarrett with it, then continues beating him through the crowd and up the stairs, but Jarrett starts fighting back and rams Sting into the wall, and now it's Jarrett's turn to nail Sting with the chair. After nailing Sting with the chair, he says he's going to find out why one way or another. This is of course referring to the mystery of why Sting turned to the dark side and joined Team Flair. Sting comes back and tosses Jarrett over the rail, picks him up for a slam, and casually drops Jarrett chest-first on the guardrail, then rolls him back in the ring. Sting stomps away on Jarrett, then goes for a Stinger Splash, but Jarrett moves and then starts firing rights at Sting. Jarrett with a flying clothesline, Sting reverses a whip, Jarrett ducks a clothesline, then both men hit a double clothesline and both men are down as the clock winds down, and the next man to enter the ring is...Desmond Wolfe. Wolfe tags in for some reason, and goes to work on Jarrett with European Uppercuts and then rams Jarret into the corner hard. Wolfe with the running European Uppercut in the corner then goes for a vertical suplex, but Jarrett blocks and reverses an Irish Whip and hiptosses Wolfe, then hits the Bossman Splash on the ropes. Jarrett firing rights at Wolfe, but Wolfe goes to the eyes. Jesse Ventura would be proud. Wolfe puts Jarrett up top and goes for the Tower Of London, but Jarrett slides off the ropes and hits a back suplex as the clock counts down, and here comes Rob Terry, and Jarrett makes the hot tag. Terry comes in and kills Wolfe with clotheslines and a big backdrop on Wolfe, then more clotheslines for Sting and a front powerslam on Wolfe as Orlando Jordan makes his way out from the back. Terry with a vertical suplex into a powerslam on Wolfe, and it's time for our next commercial break.

We're back from commercial, and during the commercial break both Robert Roode and Abyss made their way into the match, and those two men are going at it in the ring. Abyss hits the big splash in the corner and chokeslams Roode and follows up with a big backdrop on Roode. The clock runs down and James Storm makes his way out to the ring and hits a boot to Abyss' face from the outside, allowing Roode to hit a Blockbuster and then tag out to Storm. Storm with a series of punches on Abyss, but Abyss catches him coming off the ropes and hits a side suplex. Storm tags in Wolfe but Abyss makes the hot tag to Jarrett, and he comes in and cleans house on the heels, but is outnumbered and the heels triple team Jarrett as all his partners just stand there watching. Jarrett somehow is able to lay all three of them out as the clock counts down, and the mystery fourth man is...Samoa Joe! Joe looks determined as he walks to the ring and, with a stunned look on everyone else's face, tags himself in and then destroys the entire heel team with gusto! Roode charges him in the corner and Joe hits the STJoe, followed by the Muscle Buster on Roode for the win.

Winners: Abyss, Jeff Jarrett, Rob Terry, and Samoa Joe


Backstage
Joe walks off to the back by himself as the rest of Team Hogan celebrates in the ring, but then Ric Flair comes out with a mic and he has something to tell Team Hogan...but we don't have time for that, because it's time for another commercial break!

We're back, and we take a look at what happened during the commercial break, as Ric Flair told Abyss that he is going to put his Hall Of Fame ring on the line and challenge Abyss for Hogan's ring next week.

It's main event time!

TNA World Title Match
AJ Styles vs Rob Van Dam


AJ jumps RVD before the bell, throwing his robe over RVD's head and pounding on him. AJ tosses RVD to the floor and hits a somersault dive as we go to commercial.

We're back, and they're back in the ring as AJ puts the boots to RVD. RVD tries to fight back, but AJ pounds him down. RVD does finally come back with a series of kicks and then they do a fast paced sequence, RVD slips up, and AJ nails a sweet dropkick for 2. AJ with some chops in the corner, then trips RVD and starts dropping elbows on RVD's knee. AJ with a leg whip then chokes RVD with the boot. AJ tries to ram RVD into the corner, RVD blocked and fired the kick at AJ's face, misses by a mile but AJ sells it anyway, and RVD follows up with a spinkick and both men are down. They get to their feet and start going toe to toe, and RVD comes out on top and starts laying in a series of clotheslines to AJ. RVD finally remembers to sell the leg, but hits a monkey flip and Rolling Thunder anyway for 2. AJ with a double leg takedown and locks RVD in the figure four, but RVD makes the ropes. AJ pulls RVD out to the middle of the ring and tries to go for it again, but RVD with a small package for a very close 2. AJ ducks a punch and hits the Pelle then goes for the Styles Clash, but RVD blocks and backdrops AJ to the apron. AJ tries to come back in with a springboard Frankensteiner, but RVD catches him and powerslams him, then hits the Five Star Notebook Splash and gets the three, and we have a NEW TNA World Heavyweight Champion!

Winner and NEW TNA World Heavyweight Champion: Rob Van Dam

After the match
Wow, talk about totally unexpected. Jeff Hardy comes out from the back to congratulate RVD as the confetti falls from the ceiling. Hulk Hogan pulls Dixie Carter out of the crowd as the two of them, Team Hogan, Team 3D, and Eric Bischoff make their way out to the ring to celebrate with the new champion.

While it has not been announced by TNA yet, Jeff Hardy vs. Rob Van Dam is on the books for tonight's iMPACT


IW

looks like a good show although it does make the people who bought LockDown look stupid lol

RVD is the new TNA Champion?!?! WOW!

Thanx for the coverage!

The John Report: TNA iMPACT 19/4/10.

TNA decided that for this episode they were going to focus more on matches than promos. On an episode which saw 3 good long matches and the return of Samoa Joe, Raw looked inferior. TNA gave their best shot to date last night, and with WWE's show being a major clusterfuck, it will be interesting to see the two ratings. TNA also invited people to return to watch next weeks broadcast by promoting three matches: Morgan & ? vs. Team 3D, Moore vs. Kazarian, Flair vs. Abyss. Some people may complain about TNAs choice of making a World championship change ocure on a free show, however, I think it was a great decision especially since Raw's show was so weak.

To kick off the show, AJ Styles produced a good promo. It was a typical "heel brags about still being the champion" promo; it just showed how much Styles had improved since turning heel. His promos were boring 6 months ago. Rob Van Dam enters, and if you didn't know before, you know now that he is ridiculously over with the crowd. Van Dam cut his promo on AJ having a "hard time" and allowed a lot of time for the crowd to respond and become part of his mic work. Jeff Hardy then enters, to another huge reaction, and notes he wants to "complete his collection" of World Titles. Hogan enter and sets up Rob Van Dam vs. Jeff Hardy with the winner getting AJ Styles later in the show. I really like this idea, but it would have been better if TNA had promoted these matches before the show.

Knockouts Tag Team Championship Match: Velvet Sky & Lacey (Ugh.) vs. ODB & Daffney

The entire knockouts portion of this show sucked imo. The team of Daffney and ODB just seems so unrealistic. Why would Daffney chose ODB? As for the finish of this match, ODB got blinded and Velvet rolled her up for the pin.

Jeremy Borash eavesdrops on Flair. Flair wants a team Hogan/ team Flair rematch. He says he will give them 5 minutes to get to the ring. I liked Abyss' promo alongside Jeff Jarrett, pointing out how they "won the war" at the PPV, but were more than happy to take on Team Flair again, even though they were two members down. Of course, this lead to Flair bringing out his team, and with the four-on-two brawl, you knew a babyface or two was going to "step up" here. Rob Terry ran out, which is fine with me except for the fact that he had issues with his press slam on Desmond Wolfe, and the camera missed his kick of Sting. Flair did a great job of burying him completely as he shouts "Who the hell are you?" Bischoff comes out. Bischoff says he is going to be bringing in a fourth member for Team Hogan, and we've got a match for later.

There was a short segment featuring Moore and Morgan. Morgan keeps talking about "We". Morgan tries to persuade Moore to be his tag team partner. This is getting boring tbh but it is a promotion for next weeks match. It always helps if people want to tune in next week for a certain match.

One of the promos we saw featured Eric and Hogan discussing several things; in the space of several minutes we had been introduced to the ranking system, seen more of Brooke, had more promotion for the main event and a promise that iMPACT will be better in the future. Hogan and Bischoff were only on the screen for a few minutes, but they managed to get across quite afew topics.

Jeff Hardy vs. RVD

This was a really good match and I like that we had a totally clean finish. It is nice to see how TNA are making matches longer so that they can be known as a true "Wrestling" company. The whole match consisted of bumps and big spots. Jeff Hardy missed the swanton, followed by RVD hitting a five-star frogsplash for the pin over Hardy. Winner is RVD who will go onto face AJ Styles in our main event.

Team Flair vs. Team Hogan

My first reaction to the announcement of this match was that they are repeating this match. I really liked how Samoa Joe returned. According to TNA, we all should be so surprised that Joe returned that we completely forget that he was abducted. I really didn't like how Abyss was triple teaming Storm, Roode and Wolfe while we had Jarett around and Terry on the apron. Weird. Joe was on fire. Joe gave the muscle buster to Robert Roode to get the pin. Then after the match, he just leaves. Jarett and Rob look satisfied while Abyss looks scared and worried.

Ric Flair came out following the match and told us he wanted to talk to Abyss... And we get cut to a commercial. Perfect timing by TNA, but whatever. When the show returns, we are shown what happened during the commercials. Flair vs. Abyss next week, winner gets the ring. Is this how they are going to pull this off? I thought Flair had retired and promised after his tag match that he would never wrestle again, meh.

World championship match: RVD vs. AJ Styles

I really love how the announcers tried to tell us all this was RVDs fourth match in 2 days. Hey, tomorrow he'll wrestle again. This match was a good one. I didn't expect the end result because quite frankly, I can't fathom why TNA made a major championship change the day after a PPV? Anyway, as for the end of the match: AJ goes for a springboard, Van Dam catches it and powerbombs Styles. Five Star Frog Splash, and Van Dam gets the pin. Clean. No run-in. No ref bump. No weapons shot. No turning off the lights. AJ did a fantastic job of selling his realization of losing his belt.

This iMPACT showed us 2 matches that we had all dreamed of and overall 3 good matches. I honestly think this could be the start of something good for TNA, as long as they continue to produce shows like this.