Impact Wrestling from 6/2/2011: Gun Money, an Envelope and the Not so Great Muta

Each week, I write an article for RAW and Smackdown, and now that I don't have much else happening on Thursday nights, I'm going to occasionally do a TNA Wrestling / Impact Wrestling review / recap.

Because the name of the show changed, I missed the first 10 minutes, and apparently I have tons of reason to be disappointed, because the awesomely HOT Velvet Sky got stripped down to her lingerie while brawling with ODB.

Damn DVR.

Backstage, Eric Bischoff isn't pleased because he got some legal papers from the SPIKE Network, and he's not happy. Let's see what he says when he's in the ring.

Oh good, he's going to get right down to business, and he's calling out Beer Money.

The fans are giving Beer Money a VERY decent reaction, and I wonder if this is another case of a Bischoff-run company "piping in" a louder reaction through the speakers than what the fans are actually giving.

Apparently Bischoff wants Beer Money to defend the World Tag Team Titles against British Invasion, and because Robert Roode of Beer Money is hurt, Eric wants them to just hand over the belts.

The 30-day contract clause is running up... but Roode doesn't want to hand over the belts, and he promises to be at Slammiversary.

Alex Shelley, one of the more entertaining guys in the business, shows up, complete with his skunk streak in his hair, and he breaks some bad news: Chris Sabin tore some ligaments in his knees, so Sabin's out for the rest of the year (which the Squared-Circle Jerk mentioned in his article earlier this week).

The offer from Shelley: Alex offers to team up with James Storm (in place of Robert Roode) to defend the tag titles. Frankly, I like the idea of Alex Shelley being a part of Beer Money, 'cause he definitely fits in.

Shelley calls the team variation Gun Money... though that doesn't make much sense, because Robert Roode is the MONEY part of the team... so it should be Beer Gun or Motor City Beer or something that actually makes sense AND sounds good, since those two names suck almost as bad as Gun Money.

Match - Crimson vs. Matt Hardy

So this guy, Crimson, who I vaguely remember from the last time I watched TNA a month or two ago, is apparently still undefeated, and the attitude he's showing and his in-ring taunt he does before the match starts reminds me of Goldberg... and I won't be surprised if Russo/Bischoff are hoping to reclaim lightning in a bottle.

Yeah, this fan reaction is definitely being partially piped in, because these fans I'm seeing at ringside aren't giving much of a vocal reaction at all, and when they do give a reaction, it's considerably different than what you're hearing from the live crowd.

Outcome - Crimson gets the win as he hits the Sky High powerbomb on Matt Hardy out of nowhere

For reasons likely known to people who watch Impact more frequently than I do, Samoa Joe shows up and attacks Crimson, or tries to, as Crimson gets the better of Joe and sends him out of the ring to retreat.

They've got a match coming up at Slammiversary... though the reasons for that are unknown to me. Seems they had a three-way match at a past pay per view, though I'm not sure if that's the reason they're at odds or not.

Backstage, Ken Anderson, dressed up like the old school Sting, is talking to Eric Young, and it seems like he's trying to convince him to dress up like Great Muta tonight to help relive Sting's glory days.

Could be interesting, though I think Kiyoshi did a good job at impersonating Muta, and they abandoned that concept way too soon.

Elsewhere, apparently they're still keeping up with the Angelina Love / Winter angle where Angelina is brain-washed by Winter, or in a trance, or obsessed... I guess they're going to be attacking their opposition tonight, which probably means Velvet Sky, which means I'm happy because she's one of the three hottest women in the business, and she'll be on the screen, so I'm happy.

Eric Bischoff apologizes to his Immortal group members, saying that it's tough to deal with a television network... and he leaves things uncertain, and the Immortal locker room is left to wonder "what about me?" as he walks off.

Match - Miss Tessmacher vs Angelina Love

Definitely like the Superman reference to Miss Tessmacher, but that's about the fourth best thing about her. Those glasses? Yum... And her obvious assets? Woo!

Not sure how she was out of the business for so long (formerly a dancer in WWE-ECW), but she's definitely one of the hottest ladies in the business today, and if I were Playboy and WWE isn't returning my calls... I'd call Impact Wrestling and ask about Velvet Sky and her, no doubt.

Not only is she hot, but Tessmacher actually has a little bit of wrestling ability now, too. Sure, she's not the best in the business, but that match didn't make me want to pull my eyes out.

Outcome - Angelina Love wins by pinfall... and of course that's the outcome, because Angelina's the one with a big angle going on, not Tessmacher.

Match - Ken "Old School Sting" Anderson vs Eric "Not So Great Muta" Young

Eric Young as Great Muta is definitely a laugh! It's quite a shame this is lost on so many people, who won't know enough about Muta to appreciate what Eric Young is doing here.

That makes me wonder how many of these fans actually remember Old School Sting, either.

To start off the match, Ken Anderson does some crazy Stinger Splashes in the corners, while Eric Young just stands back and watches.

If only Jay Lethal were still employed by Impact Wrestling, I could really enjoy a Fake Sting vs Not So Great Muta vs Black Machismo three-way elimination match... for multiple reasons, not the least of which being the impersonations all around.

So apparently Gunner is the former Television Champion, and he shows up to get after Eric Young... but in the process the referee is distracted AND ERIC "NOT SO GREAT MUTA" YOUNG SPRAYS THE GREEN MIST!

Outcome - Eric Young gets the win by small package

After the match, Gunner starts beating up on Eric Young, and then Ken Anderson (complete with the front of his hair green from the mist) works over E.Y. as well...until the real Sting shows up to help out Eric Young.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm actually somewhat enjoying Impact Wrestling this week!

Match - Brian Kendrick vs Kazarian

Wow, so having seen both of these guys wrestle various opponents, I'm really looking forward to this match, and if its quality is up to their normal standard, I could see Impact being as entertaining as RAW this week! (Though RAW did have a technical difficulty, and didn't feature Zack Ryder, so the bar wasn't very high)

The match is definitely as good as I was expecting, and though I didn't catch it before the match (if they even announced it), this match was apparently a #1 Contenders Match to the X-Division title.

Outcome - Time Limit Draw

After the match, Earl Hebner apparently gets contacted by Eric Bischoff, and they're granting the match 5 more minutes, and I can dig that! Kind of ironic, though, because a lot of times a match in TNA won't get 5 minutes TOTAL

With both men knocked down in the ring, Abyss shows up and tries to attack Kazarian, but Brian Kendrick attacks Abyss, then the three of them battle, and I think at this point it's obvious what we're getting at Slammiversary, and that resulting three-way match is going to be great!

AJ Styles comes to the ring, and he's got a problem with Bully Ray, and it's not long before Bully Ray shows up. Bully Ray says that last week's tag match street fight involving both of them didn't really count, since Bully Ray had to deal with having Tommy Dreamer as a tag team partner, who apparently is worse of a partner than Devon.

The retort from AJ: Ray feels bad about his penis size. No joke, no uncertain terms. That's what AJ said.  He also went on to say that he wants to deal with Bully Ray the way you're supposed to deal with bullies: he's going to take him on head-first, Last Man Standing match. Ray says AJ doesn't know what he's doing, and AJ says it's Ray who isn't going to be prepared.

Bully Ray is actually doing a good job as a singles wrestler. WWE was unable to really capitalize on how talented Ray was when they split up the Dudleys.

Main Event Match - Jeff Jarrett & Scott Steiner vs Kurt Angle & Matt Morgan

Though I doubt there's much interaction along those lines, it makes me laugh to think about the way Scott Steiner usually talks about women, and then I see him coming to the ring accompanied by Karen Jarrett.

If Steiner weren't aligned with Jeff Jarrett for this match, I'd imagine there could be a fairly good quote-session from Scott Steiner (when Big Poppa Pump speaks, it's more than just a promo)!

Mid-match announcement, next week will feature a match with Eric Young teaming up with Sting against Ken Anderson and Gunner, which begs the question: if we continue to see the Muta dress-up from Eric Young, and Anderson keeps dressing up like Old School Sting, who could Gunner dress up like? Maybe Lex Luger? I'd laugh.

Scott Steiner probably shouldn't ever be a World Champion again, but I really like him being around the main event scene. He's definitely got the aura around him, and even at this stage in his career, he's still a fairly good wrestler.

Kurt Angle tries to put an ankle lock on Jeff Jarrett on the stage, Karen Jarrett jumps on Kurt's back, he pulls her off, and then things head backstage... and apparently Karen falls down a flight of steps... which Kurt blames on Jeff... and Jeff is claiming something was an accident, which means he had something to do with her falling down the steps.

That's an interesting twist... but I'm still not thrilled about the entire storyline. Hopefully it'll be over at Slammiversary.

Outcome - Scott Steiner somehow pins Matt Morgan, and although I'm somewhat frustrated that Matt Morgan didn't "go over", I guess I shouldn't care because Impact Wrestling seemed to focus on the backstage stuff during that part of the match anyway

My DVR says there's still a few minutes left, and me-thinks it's got something to do with Hulk Hogan and this "network" stuff.

I fast forwarded through the recap of the Karen Jarrett thing, and Hogan has two minutes to say his piece... Eric Bischoff gets on the mic, runs down Mick Foley... and then to the dismay of anyone who DVRs TNA's product despite the show typically being disappointing and despite the fact that they change their show's name and force people to change their DVR, they don't have the courtesy to finish on time... despite the fact that the show's pre-taped and could easily be edited down to fit into the allotted time. Now I have to search the Internet to find out what the final result of the show was.

Apparently the story is that the network filed Mick Foley, Hulk Hogan is in control, and Eric Bischoff got all spun-up about the envelope he received earlier in the evening even though he never opened it.

That makes me a bit frustrated that they brought up the storyline and then squashed it in short order, and I'm guessing that a name change might happen again too, which would be a bad thing for multiple reasons.

All in all I was entertained, and as per usual, they gave me some reasons to be optimistic, and some reasons to shake my head.

The GuysNation version of this article has polls, and if that doesn't interest you, we've got two other Impact Wrestling related articles over there that you might like. The Squared-Circle Jerk is one, and the other is our Good, Bad, WTF Report.