The TNA iMPACT Verdict: October 15 2005

Monty Brown vs Mikey Batts and Jerelle Clark
David Young /w Simon Diamond vs Matt Bently w/ Traci
Sabu vs Rhyno
Christopher Daniels vs three wrestlers of AJ Styles choosing in a 15 minute guantlet match.

Highlights of the Jarret/AMW/Kim beatdown on Team 3D from last week.

Monty Brown vs Mikey Batts and Jerelle Clark

Mikey launches himself over the top rope at Monty to start the match, and Monty catches him, rams him into the ringpost, and then spins around, nailing Jerelle with Mikey’s legs. In the ring, Monty handily disposes of one guy with the Pounce, the other with the Alpha Bomb, and pins them both in under a minute. Very effective at showing Monty’s core power moves off.

Monty Brown via double pinfall

Post match, Brown says nothing will stop him on his quest for the NWA title, and Lance Hoyt comes out to interrupt him, and cuts a promo as Brown leaves the ring, hyping their match at Bound for Glory.

Backstage, Larry Z is surrounded by security, and says the Naturals — previously unmentioned on SpikeTV TNA broadcasts! — will defend the tag titles next week against AMV.

Raven comes in, being held back by security, and says that it’s bullBLEEP! that Nash is being given Raven’s title shot. Larry throws Raven out of the building.

That was all before the first commercial break, folks. Blink and you missed it!

Nice little promo for Samoa Joe vs Jushin Liger airs as we come back from commercial.

David Young /w Simon Diamond vs Matt Bently w/ Traci

Matt wins a short mostly squash match, and Petey Williams hits the ring after the match and drops Bently with the Canadian Destroyer! He then lays a big ole kiss on Traci, and she slaps him. He then sets her up for the Destroyer — although he doesn’t normally pull his opponnent’s skirt up to reveal leather panties — and then Chris Sabin runs in to save her and attack Williams.

Matt Bently via pinfall

Next is a mock funeral for Team 3D, filmed by the Jarrett camp … and they briefly flash over the guest book, and the first name on it is “Kevin Dunn.” Hilarious!

I didn’t catch the rest of the names on the guest book, but according to a post on the PWTorch messages boards they were:

“Paul H.
Vince and Linda
Paul and Stephanie
Pat and Sylvan”

I didn’t really like this the first time I saw it, but the second time I watched it I liked it more — it managed to give a bunch of guys who didn’t get a lot of face time some chance to get across their personality. And Team Canada all had hockey sticks, which was kind of amusing.

James Mitchell was the master of ceremonies, and said that they were scheduled to bury Kevin Nash “next week.”Sabu vs Rhyno

Short spotty match. Sabu looks like hell. They blow a couple spots. They duel with chairs. Rhyno wins after Abyss runs to ringside and distracts Sabu enough for Rhyno to hit a gore. Abyss cleans up, then goes to spread the thumbtacks out, and Jeff Hardy hits the ring. Abyss is knocked into the ropes, and half-flops over them before realizing that Jeff is still six feet away from him. Jeff then hits him with a clothesline to empty the ring. Rhyno back in, hits Hardy, Sabu hits Rhyno, and everyone retreats to their corner and then collides in the center as security hits the ring and pulls them apart.

Rhino via Pinfall

The fans in the Impact Zone chanting “ohhh-ohhh Ayybsss! ohhh-ohh Ayybssss!” are the stupidest thing ever. He’s a fucking heel, for one, and for two, they just sound like idiots. The fan energy in the Impact Zone is great, but some of their chants and stuff just come across as complete lame bush league stuff.

Recap of the Nash/Jarrett/Ortiz stuff airs.

Christopher Daniels vs three wrestlers of AJ Styles choosing in a 15 minute guantlet match.

First up is Shark Boy, and he runs and dodges Daniels to waste time. After a cheap shot he hits a missile dropkick and the match is actually on. Shark Boy holds control until 90 seconds in, when Daniels hits a quick Angel’s Wings for the pin.

Sonjay Dutt is next. They trade forearms to start, and things go relatively back and forth until about the 4 minute mark, when we get a mid-match commercial break …

… back from break, we’re down to only 7.5 minutes remaining, and Sonjay has control, until Daniels catches him off the ropes and hits him with a STO. Dutt keeps things up until there are about four minutes remaining. This is NOT making Daniels look strong, but is a really nice showing from Dutt and should help build him into more of an X Division contender. Sonjay has some really sweet stuff, and he’s very fluid in the ring. Dutt hits a really nice springboard DDT, and then misses a sky twister press from the top. He lands on his feet, but Daniels throws him into the ringpost, then nails him with an enziguri and Angel’s Wings with three minutes left.

Number Three is … AJ Styles himself!

Daniels tries to beg off, hiding behind the ref, and then running to ringside. at ringside he fucking NAILS Styles with a thrown chair, and takes it to him outside the ring, whipping him into the guardrails before putting him back in the ring. Big selling by AJ, but Daniels only gets a 1 count at the 1 minute mark. Styles blocks an Angel’s Wings, and they exchange fists at 30 seconds.

What the fuck.

At about the 5 second mark, AJ hops up onto the top rope to springboard at Daniels, but he just falls off the rope, missing by at least five feet. He sells the knee right away to cover up the flub, but it was too close to the end of the match to be effectively sold, either by AJ or the announcers. Daniels leaves the ring and AJ says that he’ll enjoy beating on Daniels for 30 minutes at the PPV, and we go off the air.

AJ was wearing streeth clothes and tennis shoes for the match, and the springboard flub looked to simply be a result of his shoe slipping. Not sure why they didn’t just re-film it, since the show is taped.

I think Daniels lost that match, as he wasn’t supposed to survive for 15 minutes, but beat 3 guys in 15 minutes, but they didn’t sell that very hard at the end, and at some point during the match they made it sound like Daniels was supposed to make 3 pinfalls or survive to win.

Christopher Daniels loses the 15 minute challenge matchThe Verdict: This felt like a bit of a step down from the first two weeks, as the victory conditions of Daniels match were badly defined, and all the other matches had interference at the end or a run-in right after.

I think TNA would do well to establish some sort of interview area in the Impact Zone — maybe up on top of the entrance ramp area or something like that, above the crowd but where the crowd could still see — to add a bit more variety to the live promos.

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