TNA Impact Wrestling Coverage: A Wedding, More Guns and RVD’s Return

“I vow to love you, even when you fart,” Eric Young

“I promise to not take your last name, but I will take your ring music,” ODB

A near-naked wedding in a steel cage? TNA is wacky, but Eric Young and ODB are wacky personified. But unlike most of their co-workers, they’re actually entertaining. TNA’s first couple, the duo were charming on Impact, fueling the show creatively once again.

Now that they’re a couple, it’s time to give both ODB and Young real shots in singles competition. Enough of this Knockouts Tag Team nonsense.

Speaking of nonsense, Abyss’ Penn and Teller angle is stale. Even more Jeff Hardy shouldn’t be allowed to cut promos if he’s going to be boring. Screaming “creatures” isn’t enough. Have something smart or intriguing to say. “Smart” isn’t exactly a common word used in combination with Hardy, but intriguing always is. Time to step it up hardy.

The Motor City Machine Guns have given a flaccid Tag Team Division a much-needed lift. But as solid as both the Guns and Samoa Joe and Magnus are, there needs to be more. Joe and Magnus work well together, but their finisher is a bore. The Guns aren’t ready to go full throttle just yet either. The match between these two at Lockdown will be good, but ah, if TNA just let the Guns get their bearings first before the title shot, damn, it could have been great.

This wedding and a damn good Austin Aries/Christopher Daniels match saved an otherwise decent show. The battle between the Bischoff’s at Lockdown is a snore creatively. The way these teams were put together is completely representative of how this promotion does business. It makes no sense. Eric Bischoff’s team consists of Bully Ray, Kazarian, Christopher Daniels and Gunner. I understand how Bully Ray and Gunner got there- former Immortal members, but Kaz and Daniels? Former Fortune members? It just doesn’t work. When you put them all together, what do they equal? How about boring? Even better- three has-beens and an up and comer?

Garret Bischoff’s team isn’t much better, but at least they’re entertaining- Mr. Anderson, Austin Aries, AJ Styles and RVD. Sadly, Anderson and RVD have been misused and Styles has been essentially forgotten. Aries is one of the best workers in the company and truth be told, all four of these guys are immense talents. It may not work creatively, but either way you look at it though, this should be fun to watch in the ring.

The same thing can be said for the Robert Roode/James Storm World Title match, but in all fairness, there wasn’t enough captivating promo between the two on Impact. That’s the main event this weekend; there needs to be more showmanship there. TNA needs to sell those two. They failed miserably in that regard.

Matches:

Best of Three Series for Man Advantage at Lethal Lockdown: Gunner vs. Mr. Anderson: Gunner was on the offensive early on, but Anderson got the upper-hand on the outside. Once it got back in the ring, the contest evened up. At this point, Gunner is proving he can hang with someone like Anderson, but is still a ways away. Botching a roll-up, he still needs more ring time. It didn’t matter though. Anderson got DQed after he refused to stop pounding on Gunner. Lame.

Best of Three Series for Man Advantage at Lethal Lockdown: Christopher Daniels vs. X-Division Champion Austin Aries: Best match of the night. Aries is a golden god. Daniels had one of his better matches on Impact in easily a year. Daniels worked the back well with unique submission holds and maneuvers. Aries was quick to counter and looked smooth. Both got caught puling tights towards the end of the match, but Daniels missed the BME and Aries countered with a monster Missile Dropkick, followed by a standing dropkick in the corner and his signature Brainbuster for the win.

Best of Three Series for Man Advantage at Lethal Lockdown: Bully Ray vs. AJ Styles: What’s with the gloves AJ? Just looked weird. Despite that, this was a solid match. Both guys “brought” it. Ray hit a Samoan Drop and it appeared he had the upper hand about eight minutes in, but Styles hit a sloppy frankensteiner to gain the advantage. After that, members of both teams fought on the outside. Styles then hit the Pele for the near win, but with the ref distracted, Bischoff gave Ray his wallet chain- naturally, he hit Styles for the win. Well, not exactly. Hulk Hogan hit the ring soon after and made the match for Lockdown a five on five, eliminating the whole reason for the best of three series in the first place.

Knockouts Tag Team Match: Velvet Sky and Mickie James vs. TNA Knockouts Champion Gail Kim and Madison Rayne: Growl- no pigeons again, but a good knockouts match nonetheless. Rayne and James work well together and they did the majority of the heavy lifting. Sky and Kim looked good together too, even when Sky delivered a weird-looking DDT. After some routine maneuvers and some counters, Sky hit her sit-out pedigree for the win.