Results
- Dani Luna def. Harley Hudson
- Steve Maclin def. Stacks (TNA International Championship) (DQ)
- Cedric Alexander, Leon Slater, Jeff Hardy & Matt Hardy def. Brian Myers, Eddie Edwards, JDC & Moose
The Righteous agree to Genesis match against The Hardys
This week’s episode of TNA iMPACT!, the final show before the promotion begins its new era on AMC and the last week from the promotion’s December tapings at the El Paso County Coliseum in El Paso, Texas, opened with an appearance from The Hardys.
We knew The Hardys would appear later on the show as part of an eight-man tag, but why did they hit the ring before then? Disturbed by the mind games by The Righteous in recent weeks, they wanted to try calling them out again.
“You two sickso have officially crossed the line,” Matt Hardy said, talking about how their locker room was turned into a shrine during last week’s episode. Matt especially took issue with photos of their family being involved in the shrine.
“What you need to do is step up and face us like real men,” Jeff said.
The Righteous appeared on-stage to reply to the challenge. The TNA newcomers said that it wasn’t their intention to scare and anger The Hardys. Despite turning down a fight against The Hardys last week, they agreed this time around. Dutch said that he hopes the two teams can be friends afterward, although the tag champs don’t seem onboard wih that.
Matt called for a matchup between the two teams tonight, but The Righteous said they need time to prepare for going up against “greatness.” Instead, they requested a matchup at Genesis. The Hardys accepted.
This was essentially a repeat of the segment we saw last week between these teams, except this time, The Righteous agreed to a fight against The Hardys. What made them change their mind? No clue. These segments have felt a little lazy, and this rivalry isn’t doing it for me.
Backstage, Eric Young was seen telling Steve Maclin, “You know what has to be done tonight,” then warned him that “The cleanse is coming.”
Dani Luna takes down Harley Hudson, gets title matchup official for Genesis
The first match of the night saw Dani Luna go head-to-head with Harley Hudson. Luna has taken on a new, aggressive persona recently and was seen attacking the current Knockouts champ Lei Ying Lee on last week’s episode.
Luna started the match by catching Hudson with a big boot to the face, then tossed her across the ring with a Uranage. Hudson battled back into the match with a series of strikes, but was eventually put away with a knee strike then a Luna Landing powerbomb for the pinfall victory.
The win wasn’t enough for Luna, who went after Hudson ally Myla Grace during the post-match. A beatdown against the TNA rookie was eventually cut off by the aforementioned Lee, who jogged down to the ring and chased off Luna. Showing poor instincts, Lee turned her back to Luna while she tended to the two women in the ring. This allowed Luna to get back into the ring and put the champ out cold with a sleeper.
Xia Brookside hit the ring to try and save Lee but was hit with a Luna Landing as well. Luna lifted up the Knockouts World Championship as the segment came to an end.
Luna destroying four people in one segment like that was great way to build her up. She has shown tons of potential for a while and hopefully with her recent rebrand can now get her own run with the top women’s title.
It was confirmed later in the broadcast that Luna will challenge Lee for her Knockouts title at Genesis next weekend.
Ryan Nemeth was seen unsuccessfully trying to “rizz” up Mara Sadè backstage. This ended with Nemeth getting superkicked in the head by her. We were also shown that Elijah had beaten up Order Four’s Special Agent 0, causing him to go missing. Oh, one more thing, apparently The Elegance Brand want some backstage TNA staffer to be “Mr. Elegance” (the joke was that he doesn’t have supermodel looks). Nice that they’re finally circling back to something they first started talking about two months ago.
Elijah chases away Order Four ahead of Genesis match
Order Four (sans Special Agent 0) came to the ring for a special address in the next segment.
Mustafa Ali said Elijah is a disruptive force in TNA and proposed a new mandate for the show which would ban concerts from the events, along with other things like cowboy boots and cowboy hats.
The fans, who were encouraged to vote on passing this mandate, booed and chanted “No” to reject the idea. Anyway we were all obviously waiting for Elijah to eventually cut this off, which he did after a while.
Elijah entered the venue on a horse! That was a cool visual. He chased Order Four around the ring with his guitar, causing all of them to run near the exit. Elijah chased them backstage on the horse (although this spot took a while to set up, as Elijah had to get back on the horse. Order Four just confusingly stood around roughly 15 feet away from Elijah as this happened). Odd segment.
After the break we saw that this chase continued outside the venue. There was actually a pretty funny slow-mo shot of them trying to outrun Elijah here.
Stacks loses International title match via DQ
In the sole title match of the night, Steve Maclin attempted to reclaim the TNA International Championship, which is currently held by NXT’s Stacks. The champ was accompanied by Arianna Grace, along with the rest of the “NXT Outlaws.”
Maclin immediately took down Stacks for a ground and pound sequence. He scored a backbreaker, then tossed Stacks over the top and to the outside. A distraction from Brooks Jensen at ringside allowed Stacks to regain control of the match, catching Maclin with a knee as he came through the ropes and back into the ring.
Stacks knocked Maclin out of the ring with a baseball slide then distracted the referee at one point, allowing the NXT Outlaws to all kick Maclin at ringside. Maclin started to gain some steam as the show returned, stringing together a series of moves against the champ.
Maclin came to ringside to attack some Outlaws as part of this comeback, taking out Tyson Dupont, Lexis King and Jensen. He draped Stacks upside down in a corner of the ring but had the move stopped by Grace, who got into the ring. She gouged the eyes of Maclin, bringing a sudden disqualification end to this title match.
The entire NXT crew hit the ring for a post-match beatdown, laying out Maclin to end the segment.
We were shown an updated look at the Genesis lineup:
- Joe Hendry to appear
- JDC vs. Eddie Edwards
- Mustafa Ali vs. Elijah
- AJ Francis vs. Rich Swann
- Matt Hardy & Jeff Hardy vs. Dutch & Vicent (TNA World Tag Team Championships)
- Leon Slater vs. Cedric Alexander vs. Moose (TNA X-Division Championship)
- Lei Ying Lee vs. Dani Luna (TNA Knockouts World Championship)
And here’s how the AMC premiere next Thursday looks:
- Elijah, Matt Hardy & Jeff Hardy vs. Mustafa Ali, Jason Hotch & John Skyler
- Leon Slater vs. Myron Reed (TNA X-Division Championship)
- Frankie Kazarian vs. Mike Santana (TNA World Championship)
- Cassie Lee & Jessie McKay vs. Heather & M By Elegance (TNA Knockouts World Tag Team Championships)
The System wrestle final match together, Cedric Alexander scores pin ahead of X-Division title bout
The main event of the night saw The System compete in eight-man tag action for the last time before JDC retires next week, going up against the stacked team of Cedric Alexander, Leon Slater, and The Hardys.
There was a series of diving spots early in the match. This sequence ended with JDC distracting the referee, pretending that he was going to climb to the top for a high spot, while Alisha Edwards did a dive off the top rope and to the outside, taking everyone down.
Slater was isolated by The System for a few minutes, but eventually was able to give Jeff Hardy a hot tag. Brian Myers stopped Hardy’s momentum, reversing a Twist of Fate into a DDT.
Jeff was picked on for a few minutes, but eventually came off the middle rope with a clothesline to both Eddie Edwards and JDC and tagged Alexander into the match. Alexander had a solid run of moves, including a Flatliner onto Moose for a near fall.
Alexander climbed up a corner of the ring but was slammed down with a Go To Hell powerbomb by Moose. The System all got into the ring for a four-on-one beatdown against Alexander, where he survived numerous finishers from the team.
Moose teased a powerbomb, but Alexander reversed it into a back bodydrop. Jeff got back into the bout and scored a Twist of Fate to Moose. Slater got tagged in and, while it looked like he was going to do a Swanton 450 to Moose, he instead dove across the ring to take out JDC, who was seemingly coming into the ring to disrupt things.
Slater came running off the ropes for a move but was instead hit with a spear from Moose. Alexander tagged in and was hit with a pop-up powerbomb. Moose started to line Alexander up for a spear, but Alexander instead rolled him up for the pinfall victory. This was a fun little all-star game, and giving Alexander the pin earns him some momentum before he faces Slater and Moose in an X-Division title match.
Santana and Kazarian go face-to-face, Nic Nemeth threatens to crash next week’s match
Before the last AXS TV edition of TNA Impact wrapped up, we had a contract signing between TNA World Champion Frankie Kazarian and Mike Santana ahead of their title bout next Thursday.
TNA Director of Authorities Santino Marella was still in a sombre mood due to the recent TNA vs. NXT steel cage match, but showed up to moderate this meeting nonetheless. He said early in the meeting that if Santana wins on the AMC premiere, he’ll be making a quick turnaround and defending the title at Genesis later that week. A new contender will have to be found if Santana loses, and Marella mentioned specifically that WWE’s Trick Williams is still owed a rematch after losing the world title last year (One issue: He’s not an NXT wrestler anymore, although that was the case when they taped this back in December).
Kazarian was first to speak, and tried to relate to Santana by saying he had also battled addiction before. “I’m addicted to being the TNA World Champion.” He then said he will walk out of Dallas next week as the champ still.
Santana had a much more heartfelt promo: “At one in time, we were both at the same place miserable as all hell. We were at a place that tried to drain the passion out of what we loved most. And what did we do? We held eachother up, we left that place, we bet on ourselves, and today we’re sitting across eachother about to go toe-to-toe for the grandest prize in pro wrestling on the biggest show in TNA history. Let me tell you this, everything you just told me now? It ain’t brand new. It’s all been said to me before.”
Santana said that he entered TNA while carrying his family, city and culture on his back. But next week, “I’m walking into that building, but this time I’m doing it for me … I promise you, I guarantee to you and all of them, I will walk out a two-time TNA World Champion. And if I can’t do that, then maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not the man I said I am.”
Awesome promo from Santana, he continues to be arguably the best talker in TNA.
Santana signed the contract, then was suddenly interrupted by… Nic Nemeth. He still has the Call Your Shot gauntlet and threatened that he’s going to cash in at the end of the night next week and win the title.
Kazaarian signed the contract, making the main event for next week official. We’ll find out next week who will be the face of TNA to start the AMC era.
