Impact Wrestling on Pop TV
Tuesday, March 22
Impact Zone
Soundstage 20, Universal Studios
Orlando, FL

Drew Galloway opened the show celebrating his World title victory last week. Drew said that in spite of being crowned the Chosen One, he’s earned everything he’s gotten. Drew promised to put TNA on the map again. Matt Hardy and company interrupted him and lambasted him for cashing in his Feast or Fired case. Jeff Hardy was next out staking his claim to a World title shot. Eric Young and Bram attacked Jeff Hardy, who has recovered remarkably well after being piledriven on concrete last week. Matt Hardy’s crew attacked Galloway. EC3 eventually made the save, he took his time though. After all the fighting we got back to talking. EC3 wanted a title shot, Mike Bennett also wanted the title shot. Dixie Carter came out and a gauntlet match was made to determine the next number one contender. This was your usual “Everybody wants a title shot” segment but there was no reason it had to run through two segments.

Beer Money Championship Invitational
TNA World Tag Team Championships
Beer Money© def. The BroMans

Before this match Beer Money name dropped LAX, Triple X, The Naturals, Rock ‘n’ Rave Infection, 3 Live Kru, Pacman Jones and Truth, and AMW. I wonder how many of those names go straight over the head of the average 2016 TNA viewer. The BroMans answered the challenge, reuniting in the process. I wasn’t a great fan of breaking up The BroMans in the first place because they still had ground to cover as a team and were likely to get lost in the shuffle as singles and that’s exactly what happened so I’m okay with this. Josh Mathews said this was Robbie’s debut on Pop but he participated in Feast or Fired in January. The BroMans hit the Bro Down but the pin was broken up. Everybody hit their move before Storm caught Jessie with a very snug looking Last Call and Beer Money hit the DWI on Robbie to score the win. A perfectly enjoyable formula tag match but way too short to be anything else. These two teams could do something considerably more substantial with more time. **1/2

No Disqualifications
Eddie Edwards def. Crazy Steve

Steve tripped Edwards on the ring steps, which looked like it sucked, and Steve followed with a cannonball. Steve threw a bunch of chairs into the ring and drop toe-holded Edwards into one. Steve wedged a chair in each corner only to be thrown into each of them. I see Steve has learned plenty from Abyss in regards how to fall victim to your own weapons. Edwards rolled up Steve to score the win. A flat, been there done that hardcore match. There is no style of wrestling that needs to go away for a prolonged period of time than the aimless plunder brawl. *1/4

Gail Kim was supposed to wrestle Maria but Maria bequeathed her title shot to whichever member of The Dollhouse won a three way match, essentially breaking up The Dollhouse in the process. Gail Kim just left.

Jade def. Marti Bell and Rebel

Jade and Marti argued while beating up Rebel. Much of the match was a backdrop to Maria on commentary. Jade dropped Marti on top of Rebel and pinned them both. There were portions of this that were fine but there were also portions that were a total mess. The right person won. *

Gauntlet Match
Jeff Hardy def. Matt Hardy, Tyrus, Rockstar Spud, Bram, Eric Young, Ethan Carter III and Bobby Lashley

Bobby Lashley was out first and taunted Pope on commentary. They teased Lashley vs. Galloway before the match. EC3 was number two. EC3 has a very big walk. EC3 and Lashley had a fun little exchange before Spud was the third man out. Lashley and Spud beat up EC3 until Mike Bennett came out. All three beat up EC3 some more until Eric Young came out. For an “ass kicking machine” EC3 didn’t do much ass kicking for large swathes of this match. Tyrus was next but EC3 threw out Spud as Tyrus made his entrance. Seeing Spud demoted back to being somebody’s lackey makes me sad. Bram entered during a commercial break. Lashley Speared and eliminated Tyrus. Bram accidentally eliminated Eric Young only to turn into a Spear and be eliminated. Pope then jumped into the ring and eliminated Lashley (EC3 double eliminated him a moment later to make extra sure). Lashley and Pope brawled to the back.

This left Bennett and EC3 in the ring as Matt Hardy entered. Both double teamed EC3 until the final entrant Jeff Hardy entered. Bennett charged EC3 but EC3 ducked and Bennett tumbled to the floor. Bennett then distracted EC3 allowing Matt Hardy to throw him out. It came down to Hardy vs. Hardy. The crowd chanted “Matt’s a weenie.” What a wonderful putdown. They had a fairly solid closing exchange before Jeff dumped out Matt to become number one contender. The Hardy vs. Galloway match will happen next week. As usual there are legs in the build up to a Jeff Hardy/Galloway match that they’re leaving entirely on the table. I like gauntlet matches because in theory they should be a pretty easy formula. Every couple of minutes a new person comes out to change the dynamic of the match, keeping things fresh and ticking over. Where they can fail is when the match descends into indiscriminate brawling with nothing really happening. This was a little of both and what resulted was a solid, forgettable match. **1/2

Final Thoughts: This felt like a filler show, which is fine every now and again because every show doesn’t need to be a big home run show. Sometimes you just need to keep things ticking over. But I’d rather see them just pack a filler show with a few really strong matches rather than the sort of tame inoffensive content we got this week. To say something was “just a show” feels a cliché at this stage but this show was exactly that.