TNA iMPACT 12/21/2006

It is time as I have returned to recap iMPACT once again.

Special note at the end of this report I will have an essay titled: "Why Dixie Carter should send Vince McMahon a Christmas fruit basket every year for the next 10,000 years".

TNA We Are Wrestling...at least compared to ECW.



We start out with a recap of the events of last week. Angle and Joe, Sting/Abyss/Christian...it was a decent show last week which is better than TNA has been lately and light years better than ECW.

We go immediately to the ring for our first match.

Match 1: Frankie Kazarian Vs. Sting
Sting gets a pretty big pop. Lets see former world champion, 1 of the 3 biggest stars in the company Vs. a jobber...I love these matches where you don't know who will win.

Serotonin is the most useless group in the history of wrestling. This covers a lot of ground. Tenay asks if we've seen anything as strange as what happened at Turning Point to Serotonin. He's referring to when Kazarian was caned for losing the match. My answer, yes I saw the same damn thing with Johnny Devine at Genesis. Seeing it more than once means its no longer strange.

Sting wins, duh.

Winner: Sting
Kazarian is going to be caned again.

Sting cuts a promo basically committing the crime of blackmail. He'll trade Abyss his belt for a shot at the title. Extortion was one of the tactics that the Jews used to flee Egypt in the Old Testament. Ok, that's not true although actually they did agree to lift the plagues if they were allowed to leave so perhaps it was.

Now we have the usual iMPACT opening and Mike Tenay and Don West are talking.

I like Don West for the simple fact that nobody else could possibly be Don West but I was glad to have Cornette in the booth last week.

Jeremy Borash is with Rhino and Angle talking about the main event tonight.

Angle: Samoa Joe I tried to be civil but it didn't work so I ankle locked some ass. He used more words than this but I don't care to rewrite them.

Raven canes Kazarian again it sucks to be him. It sucks to be this storyline.

Commercial Break!
A commercial airs for Inside the UFC. I'm down with this.

Borash is backstage with Eric Young. He seems to think Ms. Brooks wants a Bikini rematch, let me assure him that nobody wants this. Now Team 3D is back and they tell us they were in Japan the last month...Hustlemania! They remember what the Naturals did to them the last time they were in the ImpactZone...and they're the only ones. D-Von wants his brother to testify, but not against him in a court of law.

Match 2: The Naturals Vs. Team 3D
Mike Tenay describes the relationship with the Naturals and Shane Douglas the same way I describe it with an x-girlfriend or 2. On again, off again, roller coaster ride.

Team 3D hit the 3D on Chase Stevens like 30 seconds into the match. It sucks to be the Naturals but it sucks more having to watch them. According to the last Wrestling Observer Newsletter I read this is it for the Naturals and if this is true I am now the world's biggest TNA fan.

Team 3D wins this table match in like a minute and a half.

Winners: Team 3D
Yep, the Naturals are done, they got no offense and Shane Douglas kicked them to the curb.

Jeremy Borash outside the locker-room of Samoa Joe. Unfortunately, its Tomko we hear from and not Samoa Joe...that's a considerable downgrade.

Ron Killings is in the ring, and he's rapping. Rap is Crap, always remember kids. Killings does nothing to dispel that rumor either.

Commercial Break!
That last segment featured the burial of the Naturals which is a billion thumbs up. The segment also featured Ron Killings rapping badly for 10 million thumbs down. Factor in the fact that Tomko spoke and you are left with an overall rating of 1 thumb up.

Kevin Nash is back with the Paparazzi Championship Series. Its a lame set of skits every week but it is still 1 trillion times better than the Bowl Championship Series.

Speaking of things better than the BCS, its LAX!

Konnan on the stick. He is the minister of Propaganda and the spiritual leader, he should've worked for Saddam Hussein.

Konnan is pissed at Santa Clause. Konnan never got his Miami Dolphins jersey, Homicide never got his roller skates and Hernandez likes to beat up white boys on the holidays. If he agrees to come to the ring wearing them, I will send Homicide a pair of roller skates myself. That entrance would be so awesome.

Santa Midget is now talking and turning millions of children in to non-believers at the same time. Santa accused Konnan of having a dirty mouth and did so while swearing. Hernandez gives the Border toss to Santa Clause so this show can't earn less than a thumbs up. The jobberweights make the save.

Remember how I said the border toss earned this show an automatic thumbs up? It was followed by VKM B.G. James and Billy Gunn Hard Gay so we're back to square one. VKM does play a part in my essay to come about why fruit baskets need to go from TNA to WWE every year for the next ten thousand.

Borash is with AJ Styles and I love Styles as a heel. AJ says things, then Joe says things all while I type things to other people. Its basically a word explosion if you will.

Commercial Break!!!

We get a video recapping the breakup of America's Most Wanted. It brought a tear to my eye, of course I was looking at my cable bill at the time so that might have been it.

Tenay is talking with James Storm. Apparently, Chris Harris always thinks for himself. Well I'd be scared if he started thinking for other people. Apparently, this isn't over. Yeah in more ways than 1 this isn't over.

Abyss is headed toward the ring. It sucks to be Abyss, Sting tries to be his friend by stealing his stuff, Christian wants to tell his secrets, and James Mitchell wants to slap him around. Now I know why he is the way that he is.

He who violates 1 of the 10 commandments is out. Sting says Abyss has potential to be a great champion...not if you don't give him his belt back Sting!
I could be wrong but I think Sting is playing the role of the Ghost of Christmas yet to come. Abyss is Scrooge and this is 1 fucked up version of a Christmas Carol.
The Ghost of Christmas past as played by Christian Cage is now speaking and threatening to reveal the secret. Why didn't Christian try to get this secret about Abyss after he tried to kill him earlier this year?
I don't recall the Ghost of Christmas past arguing with the Ghost of Christmas yet to come in Dickens' classic. Then again I also don't remember the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come stealing Scrooge's belt in order to get him to quit acting like an asshole to everyone he knows but its been awhile since I read the book. Abyss attacks Sting and the fight is on. It would seem that for the moment Abyss has decided that in this version of the Christmas Carol Scrooge will be telling the Ghost to fuck off and pissing on Tiny Tim's grave.
Now the Ghosts of Christmas Past and his friend (Christian and Tomko for those of you having trouble following my analogy) and James Mitchell (the ghost of Christmas present) are out. A Knight stick gets involved. You know what'd be a unique idea? If they took that Nightstick and put it on top of something...like I don't know something you could climb that isn't a ladder. Then they could have a match surrounding this, nah, to weird could never happen. Nightsticks, polls, it just is too far fetched.

Commercial Break!

We come back with a recap of what happened before the break. I guess cause it was so important.

Match 3: AJ Styles and Samoa Joe Vs. Kurt Angle and Rhino
Gotta love how AJ and Joe are all of a sudden teaming with no mention that I've paid attention to referring to their long-running feud. It is 8:51 and Angle is headed to the ring, I'm not thinking long match.

Angle pairs off with Joe and Styles pairs off with Rhino, odd how that works?

You know if I were the type of fan to nitpick I might wonder how it is that Jim Cornette can book Samoa Joe in singles matches, tag matches Ultimate X-bra and Panties matches, but can't book him in rematches. Its a good thing I don't nitpick. As you ponder how an Ultimate X-Bra and Panties matches is supposed to work we go to a...

Commercial Break!!! Back-to-back episodes of Unleashed are up next, I can't help but give Thumbs up to that.

Angle had Styles in an ankle lock but Joe broke it up. This match has broken down. Rhino got the choke from Joe, Joe got the Olympic slam from Angle and Styles got the pin on Rhino.

Ok, I'm confused. Last week Angle was playing a heel to get a rematch with Joe but Joe was also playing a heel by denying it to him. This week Angle played the face and Joe was still a heel. In the next set of spoilers Angle plays heel again and Joe is a face. That Vince Russo he's such a booking genius.

Winners: AJ Styles and Samoa Joe
Angle attacks Joe after the match thus going back to being a heel for the moment, I don't know and you don't care.

My Thoughts: This was not the worst episode of iMPACT I have ever seen that was a few weeks ago. They've got their top few feuds and are only giving real time to focusing on them. The storytelling is still lame but then that's always been true of TNA anyway. The pace of the show slowed down both this week and last week as compared to the way it was between Genesis and Turning Point. Plus, it did feature the end of the Naturals and Santa Clause getting the Border toss and I can't hate those 2 developments.

Now for the essay on why Dixie Carter should send a Christmas Fruit Basket to Vince McMahon for the next 10,000 years.
It is really quite simple. Vince McMahon has fucked up ECW so bad that now at ECW events which are also technically Smackdown shows, he has gotten pissed off fans to chant TNA at the more shitty moments on ECW. So basically, Vince McMahon has gotten his own audience to chant for TNA at a WWE show. TNA itself has never gotten any audience to chant TNA at a WWE show not ever. So Vince McMahon has done more for TNA with his audience than TNA ever has just by fucking ECW up to the point that fans never want to chant those 3 letters again and TNA is an easier chant than RoH. So Dixie Carter should give McMahon the million dollars from the challenge and a fruit basket from now until the end of time or until the end of 10,000 years as a thank you.
Of course a lump of coal needs to go to whomever named TNA because when it is chanted at WWE shows many people might just think that these fans want the shitty ECW show or match to stop and some hot chick to come out and strip. Dixie if you don't want to spend the money on coal then a good hardy 10 to 20 thousand kicks to the balls should serve as a fair substitution.
So Dixie in the name of good cheer and the fact that ECW is the best thing to happen to TNA all year though I'm not entirely sure what if any benefit they gain from fans chanting TNA when they see shitty ECW matches, it is Christmas and that is something so send Vince the fruit basket. Send him the million dollars, stop the VKM storyline and as a Christmas gift to me shoot Billy Gunn HG in the head.