TNA Impact live results: Best-of-three series begins

A best-of-three series for the TNA Tag Team titles kicks off on Impact tonight.

The belts are being contested in a series between champions ABC (Ace Austin & Chris Bey) and challengers The Grizzled Young Veterans (Zack Gibson & James Drake). Gibson & Drake were one of ABC’s challengers in a fatal four-way match at Hard to Kill last month. Upset that they didn’t get a straight-up title shot, GYV launched an attack on ABC last week.

Nic Nemeth is set to compete in his second-ever TNA match tonight. He made his debut by defeating Zachary Wentz last week. Tonight, Nemeth goes one-on-one with Trey Miguel.

Brian Myers vs. Kevin Knight and Masha Slamovich vs. Jody Threat are also set to air tonight. Plus, new Knockouts Tag Team Champions Decay (Havok & Rosemary) will be in action.

We’ll hear from Frankie Kazarian following his recent heel turn. And a new talk show will debut as Josh Alexander appears on the Sound Check with Alan Angels.

TNA will also look back at Knockouts Champion Jordynne Grace’s appearance in the WWE Royal Rumble.

Nic Nemeth defeated Trey Miguel (w/ Zachery Wentz)

Good match to open the show tonight. Trey Miguel was a great opponent to work with him. Time will tell if Nemeth has long term success in TNA, but he is off to a good start.

Wentz immediately distracted Nemeth and Miguel attacked, hitting a tope con giro. After that, the first few minutes of the match featured Miguel getting heat on Nemeth, often with the help of Wentz. Nemeth went for a fireman’s carry, but Miguel raked the eyes and threw Nemeth into the ring post. Miguel went for a springboard into the ring and Nemeth jumped up and hit a dropkick on Miguel as he was stretched out for a crossbody. That was cool.

Nemeth hit a Stinger Splash in the corner and a neck breaker before hitting 10 elbow drops in a row, but Miguel kicked out. Nemeth called for a superkick, but Wentz grabbed his foot and stopped it again. This time it was in front of the referee though, and the referee ejected Wentz, who threw a great classic heel temper tantrum. This allowed Miguel to hit a meteora for a 2-count. Miguel called for a superkick but as he went in, Nemeth hit one of his own and managed to get the pin.

–Steve Maclin came out and took out Nemeth from behind, offering some payback for the results of their brawl last week. The Rascalz teamed up with him, superkicking Nemeth at Maclin’s direction. Maclin nailed Nemeth with the KIA as the fans booed. I’m liking this feud so far. It shows how much Maclin has grown and how he very much so is a TNA guy, while Nemeth is trying to earn his way.

–Deaner was backstage with Kon and Kon interrupted his promo, saying that The Design was dead, and it was time to remind the world who the baddest man in TNA is. They “TO THE BREAK~!’ed” this segment fast, with Hannifan pitching it to break after saying “A relationship severed” with no emotion. I laughed.

The Decay (Rosemary & Havok) defeated Mila Moore & Savannah Thorne

Rosemary and Moore started the match, with Rosemary biting, choking, and overall being very violent to start. Thorne tagged in and hit a hard forearm to Rosemary, who no sold it and then tagged out to Havok. Thorne tried to run away, but Moore dropped off the apron to avoid being tagged in. Havok hit a Death Valley Driver on Thorne and then hit a combo chokebomb for the win.

–MK Ultra were shown to be watching the match closely, and Kelly and Slamovich claimed they wanted their rematch at No Surrender. Jody Threat and Dani Luna walked up and said they wanted to be in the picture again. Slamovich and Threat got into a shoving match, and it was announced that they would be facing each other tonight.

–Alan Angels was with Josh Alexander on the first episode of The Sound Check. Angels talked about how Alexander had to squash some bugs to get to the top of the business. Alexander said that it wasn’t about nefarious means, but working hard to get your shots. Angels said that Alexander didn’t give credit to people he should have, and he knew ho he was talking about. Alexander said he didn’t know what he was talking about, and Angels said that Alexander was not being a good example to his family, and at this Alexander walked out.

Brian Myers defeated Kevin Knight

This was a mostly nothing match when they went to picture in picture after Myers threw Knight into the apron and hit a back suplex on the floor. Like many of Knight’s matches in TNA/Impact, he got to show a lot of what makes him very good, but he loses in the end with Myers hitting a roster cut for the win. That said, Knight did look good, but I’d like to see them do more with him.

–Alisha and Eddie Edwards came down to the ring after the match and looked to be ready to lay a beatdown on Knight, but KUSHIDA came down and made the save as Myers and Edwards bailed.

–Chris Sabin was with Gia Miller, talking about Mustafa Ali indicating he was coming for the TNA X-Division championship. As Sabin was talking about how he knew who Ali was, Mustafa Ali’s political ad started playing on the TV with clips of Chris Sabin getting beaten down in the ring as Ali delivered a monologue about how he was going to bring something new to TNA to take out Sabin.

Jason Hotch and John Skyler came up laughing, and Sabin said that if they were so confident he could face Skyler next week, and Skyler did not look pleased about having to wrestle Sabin, but Hotch assured him that he would do fine and that Ali would be watching.

–Kazarian said that fans were not going to like his explanation about why he turned on Eric Young, but that he is the reason TNA exists today. He said he was the one in the video going into the water to dig up TNA in their original announcement video, and that he was done giving, and he was going to start taking. He said he had been overlooked, and that it stopped now, and he had zero desire to be the hero to the people, so he was going to become the monster he needed to be to succeed.

–The System was celebrating backstage, and Alex Shelley broke up the party to challenge Moose for a rematch for his TNA World Championship. Shelley said that he would be fighting Moose at No Surrender, but could go tonight if Moose wanted to, and Moose rejected it.

–A hype video aired for Ash by Elegance.

–Deaner came down to the ring looking distressed. He said that he had to admit that The Design was done now, and some fans gave a dramatic (and sarcastic) “Noooooooooo!” and I laughed. Deaner said he was wrong when he thought he could resurrect Violent by Design, and that if something was dead, it could never come back to life. Of course, this resulted in PCO’s scientists electrifying him and he rose up.

PCO defeated Deaner

PCO hit a code breaker in the corner and an inverted DDT before setting up Deaner for the PCOsault and nailing him for the win.

–Kon ran down after the match to take out PCO, but he also laid out Deaner. Kon wrenched the neck of Deaner, implying that he broke his neck like you do in the movies, and Kon then hit a chokeslam on PCO before doing The Iron Claw on PCO, attempting to squeeze the life out of him.

–AJ Francis walked up to Rich Swann, and Francis offered to manage Swann again, addressing Swann losing to Hendry on Xplosion. Swann said that whatever Francis was selling he wasn’t buying. Rhino walked by and Francis asked him if he needed help with Crazzy Steve and Rhino said, “**** off” before walking away. Francis then said, “See, that is why rhinos are going extinct. Can’t trust them.” That was hilarious. I like Francis here in TNA, especially if he is not wrestling.

–Jordynne Grace talked about her experience at the WWE Royal Rumble, and she said that she was so surprised when WWE wanted her to be in the match. They actually showed Grace watching footage of it on her phone, which is the first time I think I can ever recall actual WWE footage being on the air in TNA.

They showed the stadium, and Grace walking around backstage, and had actual footage of the Rumble itself with Michael Cole and Corey Graves talking about how she beat Naomi for the TNA Knockouts Championship. This was very cool, and the first example of WWE giving footage to another company to show like this, that I can recall.

Masha Slamovich (w/ Killer Kelly) defeated Jody Threat (w/ Dani Luna)

This was a hard hitting, quick match, with Slamovich getting the win to continue to build to MK Ultra’s rematch for the TNA Knockouts World Tag Team Championship.

This was not a long match, though more competitive than some of the squashes on this show. Slamovich managed to hit the Snow Plough after Killer Kelly distracted Threat, despite Luna taking out Kelly to make the save.

–The System were shown backstage beating on KUSHIDA. I guess they didn’t like him saving Knight earlier in the show.

Grizzled Young Vets (James Drake & Zack Gibson) defeated ABC (Chris Bey & Ace Austin) in a Best 2/3 Series Match

Excellent match to start this best of 3 series, and GYV going up 1-0 is the perfect start to it.

The first in this 3 match series (should it require 3 matches) started here, with GYV immediately isolating Austin, and attempting to hit a double suplex on him. However, as they had Austin up in the air, Austin kneed both of them in the heads, causing them to stumble backwards into a blind tag from Bey while Austin was upside down in the suplex position. That was cool.

Beya and Austin exercised quick tags to isolate Gibson. Drake blind tagged in as Gibson hit the roes, and Bey did not notice, and turned right into a dropkick to the knee from Drake. Another cool spot there. Drake and Gibson started getting the heat on Bey. GYV are doing a great job getting over here in TNA, which is not a surprise since they are great, but it is so interesting to see how badly WWE fumbled them with the Dyad where here they are just the violent tag team looking for titles, and it works far better.

GYV continued their heat on Bey, hitting a series of double team moves before taunting Ace Austin. Bey managed to crawl through the legs of Drake and make the tag to Austin, who ran wild, hitting a double dropkick to Drake and Gibson. Austin hit a double stomp to Drake for a two count, but Gibson broke it up. Austin called for the 1-2-Sweet, but Drake cut it off. Bey, however, came in with a frog splash for a 2-count.

Gibson and Drake managed to shove Austin back to the corner, and as he was trapped with a shoulder tackle, Drake hit a flying kick to the face of the trapped Austin for a two count. Drake screamed that Austin was going to learn what it meant for the champions to be the underdogs before setting up a doomsday device. Austin hit a superkick to Gibson to break it up.

All 4 men faced off in the middle and started brawling, with both teams hitting double team moves and helping their own partners dodge and counter attacks. Drake smashed Bey into the steps after Bey hit a suicide dive to the floor. Austin hit a Fosbury Flop to the floor, but GYV were able to hit Grit Your Teeth back in the ring after clotheslining Austin with a scarf.

Final Thoughts

There were a lot of squash matches on this episode of TNA Impact. That isn’t to say there isn’t room for that, but if you cut one squash and gave a little more time to Threat and Slamovich, ti would have made the show a little better. However, this was a very watchable show, and another good episode of the new TNA Impact.