Hey there guys and girls. I’m TheCannon, bringing you a review for the April 27, 2015 edition of Impact Wrestling. This show is supposed to be a Knockouts themed show called “TKO”, which initially made me not excited about it, but they kept announcing more stuff that had nothing to do with the Knockouts, so it shouldn’t be all bad. Anyway, let’s start the show and review.

Also, for anyone curious, Josh Matthews is doing the commentary by himself again this week.

Kurt Angle opens the show and says that he’s scheduled to defend the world title against Eric Young tonight, and says that what he’s about to do is necessary so he calls out EY, who then comes out. Angle says that he made a plea about the old Eric Young returning, putting aside this lunatic and becoming the old Eric Young that the fans love and won the world title (and grabbed the old world title belt out of a trash can). Angle says that he wants to make sure who he’s fighting tonight. EY says that people have called him crazy his whole life, but that crazy led to the world title. EY says some more stuff that really wasn’t interesting, and basically says that tonight Kurt will be facing the “real” Eric Young.

Austin Aries’s music hits, and he comes out with the Feast or Fired briefcase. He basically says that the “real” Eric Young is the guy who turned his back on his best friend and cost him the world title. He then says some more stuff that wasn’t interesting and really weak for Aries standards, and basically says that tonight it won’t be Young/Angle for the title tonight, as he’s cashing in for the main event and it’s gonna be Angle/Aries as they put on “the greatest world title match in the history of our industry” (maybe 5 years ago they could have, but now, just no) and he will walk out as the world champion.

Wasn’t a big fan of this opening. While I like seeing Angle & Young feud since it’s something new, I don’t like this “old Eric Young” stuff. And Aries cashing in is stupid. Why would he announce ahead of time when he’s cashing in? Hasn’t his character shown to be smarter than this? And why does him cashing in stop EY from getting the title shot? He’s still the #1 contender. Shouldn’t EY then immediately face the winner of Angle/Aries? While thing just doesn’t make sense to me.

Taryn Terrell is backstage and says some really cringeworthy stuff. She sounds like a young kid playing wrestling than an actual wrestler.

Match #1 - Gail Kim vs. Angelina Love vs. Brooke vs. Madison Rayne

Madison attacks Brooke as she’s walking up the entrance ramp, which I always like seeing. The match was... bleh. Not the worst match ever, but it’s what you’d expect and not memorable at all. Only one moment I even really remember which was all four women putting each other in submissions all at once. Brooke wins after hitting some move on Madison. Does anyone care?

Winner via something: Brooke

Video for the Rising. It was terrible as expected, but they had a yellow tint to the video for some reason which looks terrible.

Backstage someone asks Eric Young asks him how he feels about not fighting for the world title tonight. EY says he hates it and that everything has been taken from him or something like that. Yeah, everything’s been taken from him. Including his sleeves.

Match #2 - Rising Member vs. BDC Member

This is basically one Rising member (who we’re not aware of yet) against one BDC member (who we’re not aware of yet). The BDC’s flags are really out of place for the group, but the Rising’s music is terrible, so the BDC are still better. MVP ends up cutting a forgettable promo, and basically agrees to a one-on-one match against the Rising’s member, who’s revealed to be Mica. MVP says he just wants to take his sweats off, and starts to do it, before he & Low Ki attack Drew Galloway & Eli Drake and Kenny King goes after Mica. MVP says that he said a one-on-one match, but he never said against him. I thought that was pretty cool honestly.

So, it’s Mica vs. Kenny King. The match was... bleh. When Kenny King has problems getting a good match out of you, you know you have problems. Mica wins, but I honestly don’t even remember how. TNA needs to stop treating Kenny like a jobber.

Winner via something: Mica

Some other stuff happens and Homicide runs down and the Rising are beaten down or something like that.

Backstage Drake & Mica are carrying Galloway on his shoulders, and he says that he’s still standing up... even though he isn’t and is being carried. He then challenges Low Ki to a pipe on a poll match on next week’s show, which is yet another f*cking themed Impact, this one being Hardcore Justice. Galloway says that he already knows Ki accepts, and I guess the match is happening next week. So, a pipe on a pole match? Sounds very Russo-ish. I remember last year when they had James Storm/Gunner in a Briefcase on a Pole match I thought Russo was back, and I was proven to be right. So, if it’s announced within the next few months that Russo is back in TNA, I want you to remember that I told you.

Match #3 - Jade w/Marti Belle vs. Laura Dennis

Jade & Marti are the Dollhouse that we’ve seen weird videos for the past few weeks. Laura Dennis is known as Cherry Bomb on the indies and is pretty well-liked from what I’ve seen, and I believe Jade is known as Mia Yim (not 100% sure on that one though). The Dollhouse get angry at Hemme when she announced them as “Jade with Marti” and force her to say “the Dollhouse.” Not very original.

The match was... worse than the first one. I was not impressed at all. Neither of them looked that good to me. Jade is attractive, but so’s a lot of wrestlers; that doesn’t make them good. Laura didn’t impress me much either. I'd rather be watching the TV show Dollhouse, which is hard to believe coming from me.

Winner via DQ: Laura Dennis

After the match the Dollhouse get angry at Hemme for some reason and attack and beat her up. I’d feel more sorry for her if I didn’t know she was a trained wrestler that knew how to take bumps. But then again, even as an active wrestler Hemme never had any business being there.

Backstage Kurt Angle comes and talks to Eric Young, and says some boring stuff basically saying that he’s sorry Young isn’t getting the title shot tonight, while Young says he’s not even sure he wants to be there and walks off. Okay I guess.

Magnus comes out, because when I think of the knockouts I certainly think of Magnus. He says some stuff that reminds us how much better he is as a heel (and I liked him as a face in 2013, but this current run isn’t that great). He calls out someone not as his fiance or the mother of his wife, but one of the greatest female performers of all time.... then calls out Mickie James. Not sure what those things have to do with each other. Mickie says some generic sh*t about her career and basically gives a retirement speech, only for James Storm to interrupt for some reason. He then says some out of character stuff about how great Mickie is, and it eventually boils down to him getting her to agree to one more match. It was really dragged out for far too long. I am kinda curious to see where this goes, but it’s still so random that I can’t react much to it. Why are they brining Mickie into Magnus’s feuds? He’d be much better without her.

After commercials, we see a scene from backstage during them where Magnus walked up and saw Davey Richards, who warned him that Storm is the devil and not to trust him. Gee, the guy betrayed his parter, brutally attacks people with beer bottles, brainwashes people to join his cult, and injures people and brags about it isn’t a good person? What would we do without you Davey? Surely you’re even better than Sherlock Holmes when it comes to this stuff.

Match #4 - Davey Richards vs. Manik

Not much to say about this match, but it was pretty damn good. Manik is probably the most underrated talent in TNA right now (along with Kenny King & DJ Z). Manik also got a nice chant going. Maybe if TNA started to try doing something with him he could get really over and they could try to push him. But still a good match, though I wish it had more time. Davey gets the win here as expected.

Winner: Davey Richards

After the match The Revolution run down to attack Davey, but the Hardys come out to run them off. It’s about as interesting as it sounds.

Backstage we see Ethan Carter III & Tyrus, who’s wearing a nice hat and holding some balloons. EC3 is saying that tonight he’s making his announcement. Looking forward to it.

EC3 & Tyrus then comes out and gets a great reaction from the crowd. On Twitter he’s been hyping up an announcement for this show with the hashtag #EC32015, which I have now begun using on here. He comes out and there’s a podium in the ring for him to stand behind. This segment was just so good that I don’t know how to talk about it. It’s a segment I absolutely loved and recommend finding and watching, but I don’t want to go into huge details to ruin it for you. So it’s going to seem short and underwhelming with what I say, but trust me when I say it’s better than how I describe it.

EC3 basically says that 2015 is the year that he will become TNA World Heavyweight Champion, and basically treats the whole thing like he’s running for president (I guess). He goes over his credentials of going 19 months undefeated, beating every TNA Hall of Famer, etc. He continues on like this and is just generally awesome until Mr. Anderson comes out and ruins it by interrupting. He says something about EC3 doesn’t deserve the world title as he hasn’t done anything himself, and that titles are earned through blood, sweat, hard work, etc. Even though Anderson’s two title wins in TNA came by interference. Guess we’re just gonna ignore that fact. Anderson also mentions that he wrestled for 11 years before becoming champion, ignoring that EC3 has been wrestling for 11 years. They end up getting into a brawl, and EC3 ends up running off. I don’t like EC3 running away from Anderson, and Anderson is annoying anymore, but other than that this was a great scene. Easily the best scene of the night for me.

Backstage scene where Magnus walks up to someone (I guess a production guy) and asks him to keep an eye on Mickie for her, which he says he’ll do. So, Magnus is having someone stalk his fiance now? To quote Spike, “Sending your lackeys to do your stalking for you? That is really pathetic.”

Match #5 - TNA Knockouts Championship: Taryn Terrell (c) vs. Awesome Kong

Before the bell rings, Taryn wants to make it a no disqualification match, and it’s officially made a no DQ match. I guess Taryn somehow got the ability to book matches now? The ref did turn to Kong though and she didn’t object, so I guess that’s why?

Anyway, the match was short and pretty much nothing notable happened until the end. A table was set up in the ring and Taryn tried to put Kong through it with a cutter... can wrestlers please stop using a cutter as a finisher unless they’re Diamond Dallas Page? They can still use it, just stop making a big deal out of it like they do with Taryn. Anyway, Kong reverses it and gets Taryn on the table and goes to the top rope, but the Dollhouse comes out and starts beating Kong with Kendo Sticks. Taryn gets off the table and ends up powerbombing her through it, then pins and beats her. She then cuts a heel promo that was awful and is now part of the Dollhouse. They then celebrate. Well, this seems very Russo-ish. Did Taryn form the Dollhouse, or did she just join them? Why did Taryn turn heel when she was already doing successfully as a face? I understand that Taryn had problems beating Kong and needed some help, but there’s still some questions from this whole thing that we likely won’t get answers to. Also, does this make Kong a face?

Regardless, Taryn still isn’t that good in the ring and is terrible on the mic, and looks like she’ll be even more terrible as a heel. Taryn Terrell? More like Taryn Terrible, am I right? Okay, that was lame even for me.

Winner via swerve and STILL TNA Knockouts Champion: Taryn Terrible (I’ll stop now)

Match #6 - TNA World Heavyweight Championship: Kurt Angle (c) vs. Austin Aries

My clock says 10:55 PM, meaning we’ve only got 5 minutes left in the show, so some sort of shenanigans are gonna happen obviously. And I’m proven correct as after Aries gets into the ring, Young immediately comes out and attacks him. He then keeps brutally beating on him and gets him outside the ring, and hits the Piledriver on him on the steel steps. Luckily Aries’s cape got in the way, so we couldn’t see when Aries’s head didn’t actually hit the steps. Bobby Roode tries to run down, but Young takes him down with one hit. Angle then comes out and tries to stop Young, but Young beats down on him too, takes his leg brace off, beats his leg with a chair, and locks in the figure four. Decent way to end the show; makes Young look good. Though the match never actually started, so I don’t think Aries officially cashed in. Young should have waited till the match started to run down, then Aries would have cashed in and wouldn’t have the case afterwards, yet Young still would have beaten him up.

Overall Impressions:

I feel like I should really be hating this show, as I think that’s the impression I gave. I only liked one match, and most segments I didn’t seem to care for (I clearly liked the EC3 segment and the Angle/Young stuff was okay), but I really didn’t hate this show. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t bad at all and I enjoyed watching it, even if the quality wasn’t that high. I honestly don’t know what to say about this show overall since it’s confusing me. I’d recommend trying to find the EC3 segment, Davey/Manik, and possibly the final segment, but other than that you didn’t miss too much from this show if you didn’t watch it. Just remember what I said about Russo.

Anyway, that’s it for the review and I hope you enjoyed it. Tell me what you thought of the show and/or the review in the comments below. I’m TheCannon, and I will see you guys and girls later.

#EC32015