Hey there guys, I’m TheCannon, brining you a review for the March 13, 2015 edition of TNA Impact Wrestling. The UK tour is coming to close, but it’s not over yet as we enter the first of two shows in London. How would TNA do in London? Let’s start the review and find out.

Match #1 - Last Man Standing: Eric Young vs. Bobby Roode

Wait, they’re having a Last Man Standing match with no hype or build up at all? I know they’ve been feuding the past few months, but this would have been better for next week after a little build up & hype this week. I looked at what TNA advertised for tonight on their site, and there was no mention of this at all. You’d think this match would get more hype than Robbie E vs. Brooke, but you’d be wrong apparently.

Despite that piece of stupidity, the match itself was actually pretty solid. Probably the best Roode/EY match I’ve seen. Biggest complaint I have is the Piledriver. I like the move, but no one ever hits it in a way that looks real (at least in TNA this year). It was hit twice in the match, and neither time did it look like their head hit the mat. Just looks phony. But other than that, the match was pretty solid. It had some good spots and was a tad brutal, but never felt like overkill and I found it entertaining. Finish comes when Roode & EY are fighting on the apron, and Roode hits the Roode Bomb on EY through a table set up outside the ring. Like I said, pretty good match to me. Hopefully the feud is over at this point though, as I’ve gotten a bit sick of it by now and would like to see something new. Can I suggest a Roode/EC3 feud, and maybe Young/Angle?

Winner: Bobby Roode

Backstage Jeremy Borash comes backstage to talk to Rockstar Spud. Borash says he doesn’t have to do this (face EC3 in the hair vs hair match), but Spud says he does. He says that standing up to EC3 like that was more important than any victory, and something about how EC3 thinks that the bad guys win, but in Spud’s world, the good guys win. That means that he (Spud), Borash, & everyone. And they’re gonna shave his head. So, in Spud’s world, everyone is the good guy and everyone wins? That doesn’t make much sense at all.

Replay from the past few weeks of Drew Galloway’s debut and attacking the BDC is shown. Galloway then comes out, and his music is awful. But it goes along with his awful gimmick pretty well. Galloway says that he feels the passion from the fans & crowd (is he stealing Bobby Roode’s thing now?). He says something about wanting to feel the passion and how he’d go to shows when he was young, and climbs into the crowd because he feels more comfortable. Galloway says that once upon a time in wrestling, it used to matter what the fans wanted and they’d decide who was on their TV dictated by what they could do in the ring. Galloway says that then they started forcing things down everyone’s throats that no one wanted to see (thank you Hulk Hogan), and asks the fans for some survey (stealing Scott Hall’s thing now). Galloway then says some crap about MVP forcing the BDC at us, screwing Bobby Roode, and how this is what he’s talking about. He mentions that MVP challenged him to a match, and as he’s talking MVP & the BDC come out (thank god).

MVP then says stuff about him pandering to the crowd and how he’s not playing god, he is god as far as Galloway is concerned. MVP says something about how Galloway was once the Chosen One (stealing Jeff Jarrett’s thing now), and had the looks & in-ring skill to be a champ (he does?), but lacked a brain. MVP says he once liked Galloway once upon a time, they were drinking buddies, and because of that, he was gonna ask the BDC to step to the back so he could beat Galloway’s @ss all by himself.

Yeah, I wasn’t a fan of this whole thing. Galloway has a bad gimmick that seems to only exist to take shots at WWE (while they didn’t specifically say it tonight, it was the impression I got) and rips off other (far superior) wrestlers’ bits. MVP was better, but still not great. But maybe Galloway will look better in-ring this week?

Match #2 - MVP vs. Drew Galloway

Yeah, I don’t know what I expected. Galloway isn’t bad, but there’s just not much of anything good here either that makes him stand out. So, he’s bad on the mic and average at best in-ring, so why is he getting pushed so much? As I said last week, he is attractive, but that should be one of the last concerns for a wrestler. He doesn’t even have the intensity that someone like Goldberg had or the great build someone like Buff Bagwell had, it’s just looking good as a person, not a wrestler. I know a lot of the internet likes this guy, but I just can’t figure out why.

Match wasn’t that great. Not bad, just nothing that good either. Finish comes when the BDC comes out and attach Galloway, causing a DQ.

Winner via DQ: Drew Galloway

After the match, they begin beating up Galloway. They end up giving Low Ki a pipe to take him out, and Low Ki hits him in the head with it and cuts him open, as MVP yells “Welcome to TNA” with him. At least Galloway isn’t the only one stealing old stuff; Rhino was yelling that to Bobby Lashley while beating him up back in 2009.

Backstage, Mickie James is talking to Bram and making sure he’s okay for tonight. Magnus says he’s fine and after everything that’s happened, it doesn’t matter. Mickie says she’ll be out there tonight, but Magnus tells her no and that he’ll be with him backstage. Mickie is gonna get involved in the Bram/Magnus match, ain’t she?

A video package is shown to hype up the Ethan Carter III/Spud match for later tonight, and afterwards someone asks EC3 what he thinks of the match and what he’ll think if Spud ends the streak. EC3 says something about how he’s beaten huge names with wrestling like Sting & Kurt Angle, while Spud’s name only has to do with things like “failure,” “loser”, and “99 percent” and reminds Spud that he wanted this, and to remember that.

Video package showing the Magnus/Bram feud so far, and of course they leave out how much of a d*ck Magnus looked like when screwing Bram out of the Feast or Fired case. I understand Bram’s the heel here and he turned on Magnus, but am I the only one who sees how much of a d*ck Magnus looks like in this? This wouldn’t even be a bad thing, but they’re trying to make Magnus look like a big face and thus ignoring what started the feud to begin with.

Match #3 - Bram vs. Magnus

Magnus demands that Bram meets him on the entrance ramp, and they begin brawling there. They brawl around ringside and end up getting in the ring when the match finally begins. This match wasn’t some technical masterpiece or anything, but I wasn’t expecting it to be, and still found it pretty entertaining and that it told a good story and a good showing by both guys. Mickie James comes down to the ring like I expected, and while I like Mickie, I just don’t want her involved in this. Finish comes when Bram low-blows him, causing a DQ. I didn’t expect a clean finish, but I still thought this was a bit of a disappointing way to end it.

Winner via DQ: Magnus

After the match Bram continues to beat on Magnus and eventually grabs some stuff from outside the ring to tie Magnus to the ring ropes with. Mickie James gets in the ring and ends up slapping Bram, but for some reason she stands there for a few seconds instead of trying to get away. Bram grabs her and then yells to Magnus to look what he has, and how he could take away everything from him (and I reading too much into this, or is he threatening to kill Mickie?). Bram tells Magnus to kiss his boot and he’ll let her go, and Magnus ends up doing it. I feel like I should dislike this scene, but I really don’t for some reason. It’s not how I would have booked it, but I really can’t complain about it too much. Regardless, this clearly shows the feud will be continued, which I look forward to.

Backstage, the BDC says some random crap that I could barely follow. Low Ki then gets in the camera and says random sh*t about how Galloway wasn’t going to get away with whatever... I just didn’t pay attention. Every time Low Ki says a word, my like of him goes down.

Match #4 - Robbie E vs. Brooke

DJ Z/Zema Ion is out, and does a really cool Michael Buffer parody. Hopefully he and/or TNA don’t get sued over that. Robbie comes out in a hoodie sweatshirt, brings a towel, and a stool out to set in the corner. I think he’s trying to treat it like a boxing match. The match wasn’t that good. I didn’t expect it to be, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be bad. Not as bad as that mixed tag from a few weeks ago for what it’s worth. Now, Robbie has gone over guys like Jay Lethal & Eric Young clean and has been evenly matched with Sting before, but he has problems with Brooke? It just doesn’t make much sense. Finish comes when Jessie Godderz interferes and goes for a dropkick on Brooke, but ends up hitting Robbie accidentally instead, allowing Brooke to get the win. Yeah, I don’t care. Some might have found this enjoyable, but I didn’t. Robbie can be really entertaining, but this hasn’t showed his potential best. Brooke is hot, which was shown here, and has put on some decent performances before, but facing Robbie E in a bad comedy feud isn’t the best way to make her look good. Hopefully it’s over now.

Winner via pinfall: Brooke

Video package hyping up Kurt Angle vs Lashley for the world title next week is shown. I’m not looking forward to this match. I’ve said before that I just don’t like Lashley and think he’s really limited in ring. The only times I recall him looking good were the matches against Roode. When Samoa Joe & Austin Aries can’t get good matches out of there, there is a problem. I would say Angle could carry him to a good match, but I doubt it at his age. I like & respect Angle a lot, but I don’t want him in the title scene at this point. He can’t go like he used to, and I keep worrying about him getting injured any time he gets out there. Just my thoughts though; most probably think I’m insane.

Match #5 - Hair vs. Hair: Ethan Carter III vs. Rockstar Spud

Never thought I’d look forward to a hair vs hair match, but here we are. Just like other matches tonight, this wasn’t the best for technical skill, but told a great story and was entertaining. Had some good moments and both guys put on great performances. By far the best Spud match I’ve ever seen. A few things that impressed me this match was the British crowd chanting, “You cahn’t wrestle”, a point where Mr. Anderson came down to the ring to stop Tyrus, and EC3 takes him out by hitting him with the brace he’s wearing. The former world champ with wins over Kurt Angle, Sting, James Storm, Jeff Hardy, & others is taken out by something that simple. Really? And there was one point where EC3 yells “woooo!” in the corner before running and doing a splash on Spud in the corner, which I smiled at and loved. Then Matthews told us that he just hit a Stinger Splash.

Spud gets busted open massively in this match, which on the one hand did make sense with the story they were telling (How much Spud was fighting through), but at the same time it got really annoying since the show then went black & white. I’m not sure why they did this, but I saw them do it before on Destination America, but never on Spike. I guess DA wants them to censor a bit more, but I don’t see what black & white does. Just got annoying & distracting since it kept changing depending on the view. Really my only real complaint with the match itself.

Finish comes when Spud can barely stand any more, and EC3 hits the One Percenter and gets the win. As I said before, really entertaining match that told a good story.

Winner via Pinfall: Ethan Carter III

After the match EC3 grabs the mic and says that Spud has more heart than any wrestler he’s ever seen before. EC3 then talks about how he’s done some heinous things to Spud and they used to be best friends, but he ruined that. EC3 says that Spud proved in front of his hometown that he belongs in TNA and that despite his size, his heart weights more and that he could be a world champion one day. EC3 says that he won’t shave Spud’s head tonight and won’t embarrass him in front of his people as he proved himself tonight. He says he doesn’t expect Spud to accept it, but he’s going to offer Spud his hand. Spud accepts the handshake and raises Spud’s arm. Well that’s just a really great moment that shows EC3 has done the right thing. He’s realized after all these months that he’s done things wrong, and decides to put over Spud in his hometown and show how good a person he truly is. I think we should all follow EC3‘s example and look up to hi- wait, he’s gonna attack Spud, ain’t he? Yep, that’s exactly what happens. EC3 hits Spud repeatedly with his brace and screams “NOT! TIME TO PAY!” EC3 hangs Spud in the corner and shaves part of his head. Not sure why he didn’t do the whole thing. After that he grabs the mic and says that this ring, this company, the wrestling industry, and the entire world now belongs to him. I’m not entirely sure what the point of this scene was other than to try and swerve people, but EC3 did give a great performance and look like a great heel, so nothing wrong with it I guess. Hopefully though this is the end of the Spud feud and EC3 can move on to greater things. I would suggest EC3 going after a secondary title for TNA before moving up to the world title scene, but TNA decided to get rid of the TV title (after making it worthless for years) and EC3 doesn’t fix the X-Division. Maybe he & Tyrus could go after the tag titles? Still, he did a great job here, and I hope EC3 does well in whatever they give him next.

Overall Impressions:

Gotta say, I really liked this show. Easily my favorite show of the UK so far, and probably the best show on Destination America so far. Lot of good matches that forwarded/ended storylines, and they kept promos pretty short. I didn’t like the Robbie/Brooke stuff, though I can see where someone would. I don’t see what people see in Drew Galloway and didn’t like the stuff with him, but he was only on about 10 minutes of the show, so he didn’t ruin the whole thing for me. Overall, great show that I recommend checking out. Can’t say I’m looking forward to Angle/Lashley next week, but I do look forward to next week’s show just to see where some of the roster goes after tonight. Hopefully it’s able to live up to tonight.

That’s it for the review and I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to give me your thoughts about the show or the review in the comments. I’m TheCannon, and I will see you guys later.