TNA Open Fight Night Coverage: A Party We’d Like to Soon Forget

In the words of Peter Boyle from “Everybody Loves Raymond,” “Holy crap.”

Hulk Hogan’s promo to start this episode was a goddamn joke. Samoa Joe and Magnus the greatest tag team of all time? That alone was enough to change the channel permanently.

This was supposed to be a night with less yammerin’ and more action. Instead, it was pretty much a bore. Aside from Jeremy Borash’s shoot on Eric Bischoff, Impact’s first Open Fight Night was a predictable mess. Even the “Gut Check” segment was too melodramatic and horribly executed. The match too was a joke. TNA continues to drop the ball every chance they get.

Lets not even get started with Eric Bischoff’s going away party. Ric Flair’s public opinion of Bischoff is one thing and to see him kiss his ass was a true shame. That’s 15 minutes TNA will never get back. Even though the show is a work of fiction, it had to hurt the legend to have to waste his words like that.

Aside from seeing Bischoff covered in feces, this was ultimately an episode of Impact worth skipping.

Matches:

TNA TV Champion Devon vs. Bully Ray: Boring match. No action. Just punches and kicks- like they were training with Johnny Rodz. Towards the end, things picked up a bit, with Bully hitting the Cutter, but after the kick out, Devon hit his front Spinebuster for the win.

Anarquia and Hernandez vs. Kurt Angle: Wow. German suplex, Angle slam, Angle lock. Game over. We know Anarquia is a joke, but what happened to Hernandez? This guy was supposed to be a star.

Gut Check: Alex Silva vs. Robbie E w/ Rob Terry: A waste of time, Silva performed a powerslam and some punches. What can you say about him from that? Why not have the guy on Gut Check actually show what they can do instead of jobbing out?

Brooke Tessmacher vs. Knockouts Champion Gail Kim [Non-Title]: Tessmacher beat the champ again with a nice belly to back front suplex. The match itself wasn’t pretty, but it was better than any Divas match on RAW. Tessmacher still needs work, but her finisher is solid.

TNA Tag Team Champions Samoa Joe and Magnus vs. Mr. Anderson and Jeff Hardy: Best match of the night. The champs are smooth, but still need some higher impact offense, no pun intended. Hardy took over the match after a Twist of Fate on Joe and a clothesline on the outside on Magnus. But with Hardy then busy with Magnus on the outside, Joe locked up Anderson in the Rear Naked Choke for the submission win.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14262 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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