***

Robert Roode and Traci are in the ring and aren’t happy with Eric Young.  They want to know who Eric’s “friend” is.  Eric comes out and starts crying about how Roode’s got everything and Young only has his career, his reputation, and his word.  Apparently, Young hasn’t seen Roode’s career downward spiral as of late.

Anyway, Young says that he’ll never tell who his secret friend is and doesn’t care if he gets fired or not.  Roode won’t let him go and demands to know who the friend is.  Roode slaps Young’s face multiple times and begs Young to hit him.  After telling everybody in the audience that they’re gutless and pathetic, Young finally decks Roode and begins to attack him when “Ms. Brooks” attacks him from behind.  Young then powerbombs Brooks across the freakin’ ring!!

Roode then gets attacked some more before Brooks hits a low blow, giving Roode the advantage.  Roode grabs a chair and hits a wicked unprotected head-shot, which cuts him open.  Roode then gets a pair of handcuffs out and I pretended to not see Young place his hands behind his back voluntarily...y’know, just the whole “suspension of disbelief” and stuff.

Roode gives Young to the count of ‘3’ to tell him who his friend is or else he’ll scramble his brains with another chair shot. 

1...

2...

3...

Jeff freakin’ Jarrett??

Jarrett beats the snot out of Roode and Brooks tries to low-blow him, but she’s stopped.  And much to the delight of this f’d-up crowd, Jarrett proceeds to hit Traci Brooks with a guitar shot to the freakin’ head!!

Thoughts:

As much as I don’t like Young or his cult-like following with the Impact Zone, this segment wasn’t really about him.  This segment wasn’t really about Roode, either.  Once the music hit, it became blatantly apparent that this was a 10-minute segment meant to help further boost Jarrett as a top TNA babyface.   

Rating: 8/10

Like him or not, that was a solid money-making segment and I liked seeing Jarrett come out to save Young.  FINALLY we were given a taste of what Roode can do on the mic and as an upper mid-card heel when given a legit opportunity.  From top to bottom, a solid segment that didn’t feel rushed at all.

***

Backstage, Steiner mumbles and stumbles his way through a promo with Tomko.  At the end of it,  Tomko pointed out to JB that Steiner wanted to “cross his I’s and dot his T’s” before pointing out that he’s an idiot and walking away.  So now I wonder...Steiner’s incompetence...legit or not?   

***

(3) NWA tag team champions Team 3-D defeated Scott Steiner & Tomko.

LAX was sitting at the announcer’s desk, making sure they kept an eye on the match and so that Konnan could join the commentary and actually make things interesting.

The match was a decent back’n’forth match...nothing spectacular or different.  After a few minutes, LAX interfered but instead of going after Team 3-D, they went after Tomko and eventually cost them the match.  At the end of the match (with a weak finish, by the way), LAX and Tomko/Steiner had a little mini-brawl that resulted in Konnan saying that Tomko/Steiner were LAX’s problem now.

Thoughts:

Again...this wasn’t horrible but it really felt rushed.  Is this a subtle way to turn LAX babyface?  Are we going to have a tag-team war or something?  I think the storyline advancement was very good, but the timing seemed off. 

Rating: 5/10

Meh.

***

Alex Shelley caught-up to Mr. Backlund and said that he bet that he could beat Backlund in nine seconds, just like Kevin Nash did.  Backlund said something incoherent.  Shelley, playing off of the whole YouTube thing with Backlund walking and picking up pennies, pointed out pennies on the ground and Backlund went to pick them up.  Backlund then found the X-Division title in the grass. 

Then things got weird.

Chris Sabin jumped out of a tree and missed Backlund completely.  Backlund then chased after Sabin as he rolled around on the grass like a pig in mud.  Backlund swiped Sabin’s legs a couple of times and Shelley yelled like it was an amateur match or something. 

Then the segment was over.

***

(4) NWA champion Christian Cage defeated Sting.

Nice...Sting is hot and fresh off a Cage money promo (again), this match (with only nine minutes left) is actually something that seems special and important. 

After two minutes, Sting pushed Cage off the top rope to the floor and we immediately went to commercial with only seven minutes left in the show.  Not cool.

But on a positive note...I REALLY need to get myself some RGX body spray.

Back from commercial and Cage is in control thanks to a thumb to the eye.  He then goes for a top-rope headbutt and missed completely.  Sting and Cage then start trading haymakers before Sting began to “Hulk up” and then flex his kinda un-toned arms.  Still, showing how strong he is, he press-slammed Cage to the mat (!!) and then tried for a Stinger splash...Cage moved!

Sting hit the Scorpion Death Drop but Cage grabbed the bottom rope just in the nick of time.  Sting then hit a top-rope superplex (is this actually a STING match I’m watching??) when Kurt Angle came down to the ring and began attacking Cage and hitting the Olympic Slam...much to Sting’s contempt.

Once the bell rang, Sting grabbed his baseball bat and tagged Angle in the gut out of frustration as we then went to the replay and the end credit.

Thoughts:

Just when you thought things couldn’t get rushed any more, in comes the main event.  Now, if you’re gonna cut a match short or edit it so that it’s rushed and chopped up, do you really want it to be your main event? 

Rating: 6/10

Hey...this was a solid match until the end.  And while I totally get Angle interfering (and you could TOTALLY see it from a mile away), the timing once again was messed up. 

***

Overall Rating: 6/10

You could totally remove that silly and useless Backlund/Shelley/Sabin skit and have only one Cage promo instead of two and then you’d have another minute or two for the main event.  I’ve said it multiple times before and I’ll say it again...it’s got nothing to do with only having one hour (ECW proved that earlier this week)...it’s got EVERYTHING to do with making the most with what you’ve got.

Still...overall...not a bad show at all.

***

Alright, thanks for clicking the link that brought you here.  Take care and remember Saad will be here next week.