Impact Wrestling opens with Sting and Bobby Roode showing up in the building, and Mike Tenay says they’ll be appearing later at a contract signing.

From that, we see James Storm make his way to the ring. He tells us he’s been waiting a long time for revenge on Bobby Roode. Talks about how Roode really is as selfish as he says, and he’ll be just as selfish when he whoops ass and takes the World Title. Bully Ray interrupts and tells Storm they have a match at Victory Road, and Storm won’t be making it to Lockdown. Storm says they should fight now, but Bully says no, and that Storm will face Gunner later. Gunner appears and he and Storm brawl. It’s broke up, before Bully gets a cheap shot and runs.

Backstage, Madison Rayne and Gail Kim argue about who’s fault it was when they lost the Knockout Tag Titles to Sting. He tells them to shush, and books 2 matches, Gail vs Mickie James and Velvet Sky vs Madison. He walks off as they argue again.

A video of Bobby Roode is shown talking about Sting, and how he doesn’t think Sting should book himself into matches like at Victory Road.

First match is Velvet Sky vs Madison Rayne. Velvet seemed fired up for this, bit more aggresive than usual. She took it to Madison until the Killer Queen hit a neckbreaker with Velvet on the 2nd rope. Both tried for the win, Madison rolled through to pin Velvet while holding her skirt for leverage. Good match between the two former team mates.

Crimson and Matt Morgan back in the dressing room, with Crimson talking up how he got the win last week, and this isn’t about him being undefeated but getting their titles back. Tells Morgan while he’s here to win titles and money, he’s doing it by winning.

Crimson took on Samoa Joe, and first off, I love Joe’s swagger with the title on his shoulder. Crimson came off more heelish than usual, and Matt Morgan too, getting involved in the match. As Joe looks to finish off Crimson, Morgan gets on the apron, Magnus pulls him down, only to have Morgan whip him into the stairs. As the ref checks on Magnus, Morgan guillotines Joe, before a spear from Crimson for the win. Better match than these two have had before, and interesting how Joe/Magnus and Crimson/Morgan have changed babyface and heel in the past month.

Next up is a segment with Austin Aries in the ring. He says how it’s a great day to be great, but a better day to break records and discusses being the longest reigning X-Division Champion. He shows us a video montage of his best clips, before thanking himself, and all the X-Division guys he’s beat. Zema Ion comes out and grabs a mic. Says he embarassed Aries, and if Aries was smart, he’d hand over the belt, before Ion injures him like he did to Jesse Sorensen. Aries makes fun of him for finally “putting on his big boy pants”. Allows Ion to do a toast to him for his record, to which Ion does, saying “here’s to your reign…which ends this Sunday”, and throws Champagne in Aries eyes. Aries responds by pouring the rest of the bottle over Ion, then clotheslining him out the ring.

Joseph Park meets Gunner backstage, and asks him about Abyss. Gunner says he doesn’t have time to stop, and rushes off, leaving Joseph with a look of suspicion about that…

Eric Young and ODB are shown backstage discussing where they’ll get married. EY says he wants the wedding to be perfect like the ring, and he’s got a diamond ring on which made me chuckle. They finally decided to get married in the ring (as expected I guess!).

Kurt Angle discusses how Garrett “Bitchoff” doesn’t belong in the business, and can’t last 5 mins with him. Also tells Jeff Hardy this Sunday will be his last match, as he hates Jeff.

Short video of Sting, saying how every phase and personality of him will come out as he kicks Roode’s ass at Victory Road.

Finally back to another match, as Gail Kim took on Mickie James. Gail seemed pissed during this match, and tried to use the title but Mickie stopped her, knocking the belt out of Gail’s hands. Unique move from Gail, she had Mickie in the electric chair position, but dropped down, and hurt Mickie’s right knee, which Gail worked over for the majority of the match. The end came when Mickie started a fight back, but knocked Gail outside. This allowed Gail to pick the title up, and as Mickie tried to get outside, the ref stopped her, and Gail knocked her out with the title, and pinned her. Bit of a lame finish to what was a good match between this two.

Mr Anderson is shown in a canteen area, saying how it’s a weird association between him and AJ Styles. Kaz and Daniels turn up, and tell him this situation has nothing to do with him. They till him it will end poorly for him at Victory Road, to which Anderson replies it may end poorly for Daniels in their singles match.

Links in nicely as Mr Anderson and Daniels face off. Weird moment, as Daniels got thrown outside, and when he got back in, he was cut under the eye. Not quite sure how he got a cut like that. Impressive showing from Daniels, while Anderson looked good for his first TV match in 4 months. Daniels had control until he missed the Best Moonsault Ever. As momentum swung Anderson’s way, Kaz appeared and so did AJ Styles to stop him. Daniels turned back to Anderson and got hit with the Mic Check for Anderson to win. Probably my favourite match of the night, look forward to the tag match with AJ/Anderson vs Kaz/Daniels at the PPV.

Jeff Hardy is backstage and says it’s now personal between him and Kurt Angle. Says that Kurt cost him the title in his rematch with Bobby Roode, and hopes Angle is ready to face the Charismatic Enigma.

Time for Kurt Angle’s 5 minute open challenge to Garrett Bischoff. As usual with these kind of things, Angle teased and toyed with Garrett for the majority of the 5 minutes. It backfired as when he went to end the match, Garrett dropped out the Angle Slam and threw Kurt outside. As Kurt tried again, Garrett avoided him, till Angle hit the Angle Slam with 1 second left. This cause the Olympic Hero to flip out, and slap on the Ankle Lock till Jeff Hardy made the save.

Robbie E and Robbie T shown in a shop with TNA merchandise around them, saying how there’s a lack of proper merchandise for them (probably cause it wouldn’t sell that well). Robbie E is asked about his open challenge and he replies saying he’s doing this as he’s beaten everybody…to quote a WWE superstar…”Really? Really?”.

Gunner faces off against James Storm, and it’s a back and forth opening, until Gunner takes advantage by grabbing hold and using Storm’s hair to attack. He tries to wear down Storm, before Storm breaks out of a headlock and fights back. The fight back is ended when Storm hits the Last Call Superkick to win, and tries to challenge Bully Ray to get in and fight, only for Bully to walk way again.

One more video from Bobby Roode, talking about how he feels Sting has been unfair to him, before a short video of the problems between Roode and Sting the past few weeks.

Contract signing time, and Jeremy Borash is in the ring in charge of this. That’s in charge of the contract signing, not the company 😉 Both Sting and Roode sign the contract, before Roode takes the microphone. He tells Sting that he’s jealous of the Champ, and thinks he should stop stealing the spotlight. He also says how he’ll expose Sting as being a washed up hasbeen. Sting sits in silence during all this, until Roode goes to leave. The Insane Icon flips the table and chair over, before putting facepaint on himself AND Roode. Sting beats down the Champion, before clearing him out the ring, as the show ends.

A good and enjoyable show for me, the positives certainly outweighed the negatives this week, unlike the episode last week. More talking than wrestling, but I think the segments were done well, and helps setting up matches for this weekend. Especially the Ion/Aries and Roode/Sting segments. As for the matches, only the Angle/Bischoff one was poor, just don’t like these “5 minute open challenges”. Always seem a bit useless to me.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and look forward to your thoughts and comments.

James Partridge
@GoofyVillain of @TheTopRope crew.