Impact had one of their Steal-A-Views on Sunday, and I’m told it sucked… hard, actually. Nothing notable happened outside of Heath Farley lost his title to Kurt Angle in part to Hulk Hogan tossing a steel chair into the ring while the referee was getting a pretzel from the concessions.

I watch, write, suffer, and succumb to this show, yet have to remind myself of what happened only minutes after each episode. That is how G’s iMPACT reviews work.

-Coming down to the ring to start is Immortal in the form Abyss, Gunner, Mr. Anderson (showing reluctance), Bully Ray, and Scott Steiner (who tosses down a camera man to the ground for no reason).

<Charles Barkley @G: “I’m just gonna do a little dance and get out of here ASAP.”

G @Charles Barkley: “Later, hater!”

– Bully Ray tells Abyss he’s on thin ice for his loss at the PPV, costing Immortal guys the match. Ray says it blows his mind that the crowd takes to Anderson… but not to play any dirty tricks. Bully says he underestimated how tough Anderson really is, and that Ken brought it harder than anyone he’s ever fought before, and that he belongs in Immortal. And while Bully won at the Hardcore Justice, he has no more issues with Anderson, and goes to shake his hand. Ken laughs at this, Bully can’t believe he won’t take him seriously, so he beats him down with the rest of Immortal. Security tries to stop it, as do backstage bookers led by D-Lo Brown… out comes the stabilizer board and paramedics to wheel away Anderson.

– Anderson’s weekly shifting from face to heel, and back again continues? Sheesh.

It was only about a month and a half ago I was apologizing about the city of Vancouver’s rioting after their NHL team lost in the Stanley Cup finals. This whole thing is far worse. I feel bad for the millions of folks in the U.K. that are scratching their heads amongst the rest of the world as to why this is happening.

– Bischoff meets with Immortal via stalker-cam, and Eric concedes that Bully was right about Anderson, and that Abyss and him need to talk…

– We get a view of Christy Hemme, who once again is looking very classy in simple and conservative ring attire. I like this, and noticed this trend at least a month ago. It’s a nice contrast to the usual cliche TNA style of presenting women on television.

– * #1 Contender’s Match: Mickie James vs. Madison Rayne. Impact highlights remind us of Mickie defeating Madison back on April 17th, 2011 and taking her title. Madison has cut her hair fairly short, which does allow her to stand out a little better in the brunette dominated knockout roster. This is a decent bout, which I’ll admit I did not mind at all. It’s well paced, and features some psychology with the finish. Mickie dons Madison’s tiara and does a little curtsy just as Madison misses a running clothesline from behind. This causes her to run off the ropes, directly at Mickie who slaps on a swinging DDT for the finish.

Well done horse! HA HAHAHA!

– *Brian Kendrick vs Robbie E. Cookie is ringside, and Austin Aries joins commentary. The match is a throw away (sad, I know). It’s over in about 2 minutes at best, with Cookie going to squirt hairspray into Kendrick’s face, but sprays Robbie instead. This sets up a Sliced Bread #2, and Kendrick wins. Dissension between the heels… backstage to Devon and Your Pope, My Pope, THE Pope who have to work together tonight for Bound For Glory points, only which one person can get (not the team).

This might be a long one for an animated gif, but lord knows it ranks in my all time favorites. And, there will be no Charlie Sheen jokes.

– Robbie E screams at Cookie on Wayne Arnold’s stalker cam. “We’re finished, bro!” yells Robbie at Cookie, who retorts, “Peace out, douche bag!” Interview with Crimson, “I don’t know what’s going on, but a win’s a win.” Yeah, you clearly don’t know what’s going on. We get the point spread for the tournament that has the greenest ginger in the world on the top…

– * Bound for Glory Series Match: RVD and AJ Styles vs. Beer Money vs. The Pope and Devon. Sadly, the action is underway as we return from commercials. I hate the idea of a three way tag match here, with only two in the ring at a time. Since everyone is gunning for points in the match, why on earth would the two that start ever consider tagging the third team? That’s what blind tags are for, I guess. Redneck Jesus does exactly that, getting Beer Money! into the action… but the Pope and Devon are working very well together here. Later, RVD breaks up a pin, but eats a DDT (classic headstand sell by RVD!!), this causes some chaos and leads to Devon missing Bobby Roode and hitting D’Angelo with a flying clothesling. Bobby Roode launches into second place with 35 points win a pinfall (two past his tag partner and 8 behind The Friendly Green Ginger).

I have no clue what in the hell this is. But am just going to go with it.

– Kurt Angle is coming out to address his actions at Bound For Glory. The crowd appears to be booing loudly, which is odd because you can clearly see the audience and most of them are sitting motionless with their mouths closed. Sure, there are a few people booing, such obvious piped in crowd noise. Angle claims he is not joining the dark side (see: Immortal), rather it was about getting his integrity back and Sting was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He says he got a call from Dixie Carter. Now we go back to the Jarrett/Karen thing, because Kurt claims Dixie knew about their affair while denying it to Kurt 3 years ago. Kurt’s plan now is to hurt all of the young talent Dixie brought in to build around Kurt in order to prevent her from ever getting her company back. Young talent? What in the hell is he talking about? All the young talent is being released or asking for it!?!

– Sting rises out of the floor with a bat and beats the chair Angle is holding in front of him… as Hogan sneaks (limps) from behind and hits Sting in the back with another chair. Hogan then continues to attack Sting beginning the official run towards the absolute worst TNA PPV match up of ALL TIME! Angle is in cahoots with Hogan based on the idea of keeping the company from Dixie.

SENSE WILL NOT BE HAD HERE! NEVER!

– * Non-Title Match: Tara and Miss Tessmacher {C} vs. ODB and Jackie Moore. Wow, ODB and Jackie have sure gotten a lot of TV time without a contract, huh? I guess they wrangled this match via Eric Bischoff who hates sexually ambiguity, because I can’t think of another reason why this would happen. I think Jackie’s here to attempt to make Tessmacher appear like she can wrestle… ughh… Just when it looks like Tara is about the wrestle, back in comes Tessmacher now against ODB. Yawn, this is terrible. For some reason when Tara becomes the face-in-distress, ODB and Jackie trade spots of preventing each other from interfering as if Earl Hebner gives a shit. He gave up caring about the rules years ago. Christ help me, Miss Tessmacher gets the hot tag, clears the heels, who come back to beat down Tessmacher RIGHT IN FRONT OF HEBNER. See? He doesn’t care… then for some reason, Jackie looks upset they are doing this and pushes ODB away. The faces retain as a result. Then the heels give them their props reluctantly. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THIS?

Man, I miss Kong/Kharma.

– Bischoff has called a meeting backstage with “everyone.” Eric is to discuss the X-Division. It will have a weight division of 225 lbs or under. Man, I hardly recognize any of the new cruiser weight division… the gem of the segment occurs when Austin Aries approaches the desk of Bischoff and says he and Eric have a lot in common, and he promises he will make the division live up to expectations. Eric seems to be in on this, and the rest are dismissed. Notables on the way out include recently resigned Kid Kash, Robbie E, and “The Wizard of Odd” Brian Kendrick.

– Out comes Jeffry Jeff Jarrett and Karen Angle-Jarrett. They proclaim themselves the King and Queen of Mexico. Both are dressed in politically correct traditional Mexican attire! Hrmph… Jarrett saves the segment by pointing to his endorsers The Lopez Brothers, Jose-A and Jose-B. These indie guys are dressed like grounds-keepers at Universal Studios. More classy humour involves allegations of being lazy and drunk. Neither guy can say anything than “que?” until they notice Hector Guerrero on Spanish announcing and begin a short “Hector!!” chant. My Spanish isn’t so great, but then Jose-A notes the Guerrero’s are the best of the lucha libre wrestling. So Jarrett beats them down, and Hector WILL HAVE NONE OF IT! He goes after Jeff with a steel chair as the heels flee. Wait… what? You have a faction dedicated to Mexican pride in Mexican America, and THEY DON’T RUN OUT? WTF?

Bringing back old meaning to the phrase, “give your head a shake.”

– THANK GOD FOR ERIC YOUNG, as his mission to Hollywood continues. I don’t know why the stupidest sounding storyline on this show comes across as the best thing on the show right now. He’s going after Scott Baio this week. “It’s like Romeo and Juliet,” Young notes, “He’s going to come out, and I’m going to poison him.” As clips from next week show us, Baio is swinging a golf club at Young.

– Meanwhile, we see spaced out, bloody Anderson walk into Bully Ray’s locker trailer only to be attacked from behind by Gunner. Then the camera man is ushered off as we hear beatings commence. Looks like the injured Matt Morgan joins commentary for the next Bound for Glory match. Shouldn’t Morgan have been on commentary for the match earlier as well? I mean, if you’re going to use him as the inside perspective for the tournament… fuck… brain hurts.

– * Bound for Glory Series Match: Crimson vs. Gunner vs. Bully Ray vs. Scott Steiner. Crimson comes out first to a loud cheering reception from the crowd, the one that we can’t see. Clearly this like the boos for Angle earlier, are edited in.

This episode can’t end sooner…

– We return, and the odds are stacked against the “undefeated” Crimson facing three members of Immortal. But since Borash tells us this little factoid about ol’ Crimmy (crummy?), the outcome seems to be a foregone conclusion. It’s rather boring as each heel takes a turn delivering a fairly one-sided beat down of the Green Giant. Brian Hebner allows blatant double-teaming and heel tactics, just like dear-old-Dad. Crimson lands the worst schoolboy of all time on Gunner for the win… but on the way out, Kurt Angle attacks him and beats him with his shoe. HE BEATS HIM WITH HIS SHOE! Immortal watches at ring side while Angle takes off Crimson’s knee brace and HE BEATS HIM WITH THAT! Angle, places him in a submission lock within the ropes as….

The Impact Wrestling logo comes up, and I’m out.

Hi Colt Cabana!

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Shameless Plugs!

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