Josh tells us that both the “title” and “theme” of tonight’s show is “Hardy’s Revenge.” Now I want Storm to squash Jeff in Goldbergian fashion, just to see Josh look stupid.

OPENING SEGMENT- F*CKING ATROCIOUS IN EVERY POOSIBLE WAY.
The Revolution comes out to the ring (which is already set up with a steel cage for some reason) and claims that Jeff Hardy isn’t here. After that this promo got totally awesome, though (yes, I hated this segment enough to label it “f*cking atrocious” even though it contained an awesome James Storm promo. Let that sink in for a moment). Then Jeff Hardy came out to confront the man who almost ended his career… possibly even his LIFE… and he calmly cut a promo at him. Whole thing KILLED this match for me.
Hardy calmly asked to do the match right now, but Storm distracted him, allowing Manik to jump him from behind. Hardy fought him off, then went to charge towards the cage again, but James Storm pleaded with him to wait a second… and Jeff did, which allowed Abyss to run out and jump Jeff from behind. WHAT A F*CKING DUMBASS!
So Abyss beats Jeff up for a while, but then Jeff makes his own comeback and takes Abyss out. Here is a quick recap of what we have learned so far:
James Storm- can cut an awesome promo.
Khoya- knows how to stand still.
Manik- He got beaten up even though he jumped the guy from behind, so he’s a chump.
Abyss- also jumped a guy from behind and still managed to lose the fight, except he lost to a guy who had already been in a fight, so he’s an even bigger chump.
Jeff Hardy- So dumb that he fell for the SAME EXACT PLOY TWICE IN A ROW!

So now the idiot who we are supposed to see as a hero asks for the roof to be lowered onto the cage. My response to this was: “roof? What the f*ck is he talking about?” Then they panned out and apparently this match was going to have a Lethal Lockdown-style descending roof with weapons hanging from it. Why? Isn’t it just a regular steel cage match? And if it wasn’t, they should have hyped it up as something extra special.

So the roof begins to lower and the rip-off WWE Hell in a Cell-lowering music begins to play, EVEN THOUGH KHOYA IS STILL IN THE RING!
James Storm said something that got bleeped, and Jeff Hardy responded by telling us that tonight was about “Hardy’s revenge” and tried to get the fans to chant it… except the words didn’t fit the meter, so it sounded horrible. Even worse, Jeff both looked and sounded like an idiot cheering it.
At this point Manik has been down for at least five minutes off of just one Twist of Fate… and it wasn’t even the cool one; it was that stupid stunner variation that Jeff occasionally uses to set up for the real one.
Then Jeff’s music played and he walked to the back. That’s right. He just walked to the back. Josh informs us that this match will be tonight’s main event. Well if this was supposed to be the main event, then why was the cage set up and why did they lower the roof?
To top this all off, Josh Matthews had the temerity to tell us that the cage would ensure that this match would be one-on-one. Anyone remember the last time these two met in a cage? It was back at Lockdown, and was, in fact, the very match after which they did the segment where Jeff took the bump that he is just now returning from. In that cage match, the Revolution interfered constantly, including by pulling Matt out through the camera hole. If that hole is big enough that Matt Hardy can fit through it, then I’m sure that Manik and Khoya can fit through it with no trouble at all.
This segment was F*CKING TERRIBLE, and it completely and totally killed my interest in seeing the match... and THERE WAS NO F*CKING POINT IN DOING THE SEGMENT IN THE FIRST PLACE! It did NOTHING for this match. It didn’t hype it up any more than just showing graphics for it would have done, it made Hardy look like an idiot, made the Revolution look like chumps, was a disappointing bait-and-switch of this match being the opener, and just opened things up to questions that TNA has no logical answer for. I f*cking hate this company right now.

BDC BACKSTAGE- So how do they address absence of Samoa Joe? By having MVP say “sadly, we lost Joe” like he had had a heart attack or something. Yeah I know there really wasn’t a particularly good way to address it (the best they could have done was have them claim that Joe was being selfish or something and thus they kicked his ass and beat him up so badly he’ll never come back to TNA), but the way MVP worded it combined with the way he kind of glossed over it made this unintentionally hilarious.

TNA RELEASES A “BEST OF STING” DVD SET- well-timed. A good way to capitalize on Mania.

JAMES STORM YELLS AT KHOYA BACKSTAGE- Storm orders Khoya to go find Jeff Hardy and take him out, because if he doesn’t, Storm will take Khoya out.
Good plan there, James. I’m sure that if Manik and Abyss couldn’t get the job done, the guy who is greener then Kermit the Frog will definitely have a chance at getting the job done.

TNA X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH: Rockstar Spud(c) vs. Low Ki- 3.5/10
It was what it was. The finish saw the BDC come out, then saw Drew Galloway show up in the front row to distract the interlopers, then Spud rolled Ki up with an inside cradle. This was basically how this match had to go, and they did things the best way they possibly could have. Spud jumping into Drew’s arms and Drew holding him up like a parent would a child was stupid.

DESTINATION AMERICA TNA COMMERCIAL- they are advertising THIS VERY SHOW, the “Hardy’s Revenge” episode of Impact starting at 9 pm here at almost 9:30 pm. Wow. Just… wow.

BDC & DREW GALLOWAY SEGMENT- bad (aside from Kenny King’s promo)
MVP’s promo was okay. Drew was f*cking annoying, as usual. He asks the fans if they love pro wrestling. What a stupid f*cking question. He also asked them if they wanted competitive matches. Not only was this also a dumb question, but if Drew is here to fix TNA, it means that TNA’s matches recently have not been competitive, which is obviously not true. And to stand there with a t-shirt that says #StandUp on the back and say that he has a “movement…” Just SOOOO obnoxious. When Kenny King grabbed the mic and said “A movement? Are you mental” I popped huge because this whole thing is so f*cking stupid. Kenny’s promo was F*CKING AWESOME!
Then Ki challenged Drew to a match, so Drew headed towards the ring, and what appeared to be two fans jumped the guardrail wearing Drew’s new pretentious t-shirt and got in the ring to fight the BDC (including one guy who came at them from behind, like a heel). No security came out to stop these unauthorized individuals from attacking TNA employees.
They quickly sent the BDC packing. Whoever they are, they’re clearly not anybody important or else you’d think Josh Matthews, the play-by-play guy for a major wrestling company and someone who has shown past knowledge of indy wrestling on this show would have recognized them instantly. Drew declared them to be “the Rising.” So yes: at the end of this segment, we still don’t know who these two guys are.
Whoever they are, though, they clearly weren’t in TNA before, and that is a big problem. If Drew is here to fix wrestling, shouldn’t the other babyfaces like Kurt Angle and Bobby Roode and the Wolves want to help him? If they’re not helping, it seems to me that they don’t really think that this is the uber-dire issue that Drew thinks it is, which makes Drew come across like whiner.

AWESOME KONG VIDEO PACKAGE- terrible.
It was just her walking around in some sort of gigantic jungle gym and pounding her fists, while a seemingly male voice said things in the background, including “all the pretty ones must suffer” which seems like a rip-off of her (short-lived) WWE character more than anything else, and also makes her a heel jealous of the other girls’ looks rather than the monster tweener she has been.

BDC BACKSTAGE- they reveal that they will be bringing in a new guy. Sure. Why not.

BROOKE vs. AWESOME KONG- DUD!
Josh tells us that Kong needs to keep her temper in check, or else it could cost her like it did a few weeks ago when she got DQed for shoving the ref in a Knockouts Title match. This line would have been a lot better if Kong hadn’t been granted another title shot for no reason between then and now.
Brooke got new gear, which is good because her old gear looked utterly ridiculous. It didn’t stop Kong from squashing her like a bug, though. I wish it had stopped the squash, because this went on for WAY too long. And after Brooke had hit eighty percent of the offensive moves in the match, but had still done less damage to Kong than Kong had to her, Kong went for the Awesome Bomb… and they had Brooke counter it, and then hit a diving elbow drop and get a nearfall. Why don’t we save the cool spots for matches that aren’t squashes, okay?
At least the chokeslam looked great.
WHAT?! IT’S STILL GOING ON?! COME THE F*CK ON! Kong hits Brooke with a second Implant Buster, then sets up to put Brooke through a table. While this is going on, Josh Matthews points out the atrocious lack of security trying to stop this post-match beating. Eventually Taryn comes out to make the save. Kong slammed her into the barricade, then rolled her into the ring, but Taryn just immediately went on offense. She knocked Kong down with a dropkick from the top rope and then low-bridged Kong, but the brawl continued on the outside and Taryn wound up getting powerbombed through a table.
The Kong-Taryn stuff was good on paper, but the Brooke vs. Kong match dragged on for so long that I just didn’t want to see it anymore, and when Taryn came out and did mostly the same stuff, I just didn’t give a sh*t by that point.

AUSTIN ARIES PROMO- good, and even better because he made fun of the cameraman for asking a stupid question.

We just got that same commercial again. It is now almost ten o’clock.

JEFF HARDY PROMO- he says that “the time is now.” Is it really, Jeff? Or is the time an hour from now, when the match actually is?
Jeff then got jumped from behind by Khoya, but Jeff beat Khoya up. Khoya wouldn’t stay down, so Jeff kept hitting him with things. In fact, he hit him with MULTIPLE beer bottles, and Khoya wouldn’t stay down (way to kill James Storm’s finish). This might have been good if it wasn’t for Khoya’s horribly lame “screams of pain.”

KURT ANGLE CELEBRATION- terrible.
Kurt telling us that he’s been a world champion thirteen other times just killed all of the specialness of it. His whole speech sounded a lot more like someone reading a prepared statement rather than someone speaking from the heart. It wasn’t good.
EC III came out and interrupted him. EC III said that he has beaten every TNA Hall of Famer so far: “Sting, Bully Ray… and Kurt Angle.” THEY FORGOT DEVON! There’s ONLY FOUR GUYS IN THEIR F*CKING STUPID BULLSH*T HALL OF FAME, AND THEY COULDN’T EVEN REMEMBER ALL OF THEM! (and I’m saying “they” because I assume Ethan was told to leave Devon out because he hasn’t beaten Devon… in which case the writers never should have had him claim to have beaten the entire TNA Hall of Fame).
Ethan says he’ll be the guy to beat Kurt for the title. Kurt is incredulous. Then Bobby Roode comes out and says that he deserves a rematch because he had the title stolen from him and never got a fair rematch?
Then Eric Young came out and cut a sh*tty promo in which he vowed to prevent Bobby Roode from winning the title, which means that THIS F*CKING FEUD IS STILL GOING ON! We’ve already had TWO matches that were presented as the blow-off. This feud literally has not progressed since the week after the f*cking turn!
Then Austin Aries came out and cut a promo. He then pulled a big bottle of champagne out of his Feast or Fired Briefcase, and it made me realize how awesome it would have been if instead of this convoluted bullsh*t, they just had Aries come out like he was going to celebrate with Kurt and set up his Feat or Fired title shot like babyface, then crack Kurt in back of the head with the bottle of champagne, cash in, win the title, and become the new top heel. But instead we had to have this.
Okay, enough of this fantasy land I wish I could live in where TNA didn’t suck. Let’s go back to the issue at hand in the real world: How will we determine who gets the first shot at Kurt’s newly-won title?
I have an idea: Why don’t we consult the TNA Top Five Rankings and give the title shot to the guy ranked number one. Who is that? We don’t know because they never told us. Yeah. Remember how hard they pushed those rankings? A month ago? Well they haven’t been mentioned in weeks. Just like that time we were promised that the TV Title would be defended every week. Or that X-Division matches would only be three ways. Or that there would be a weight limit to the X-Division. Or the last time TNA tried to institute a ranking system. Or almost every other time TNA has pushed some new idea as a big thing.
Instead, Kurt just declares that he’ll take on anyone, anywhere. Then Bobby Lashley comes out. Josh tells us that Lashley can invoke his rematch clause whenever he wants. Lashley says he wants a title shot. Kurt says “let’s do it right now!”…
AND A BUNCH OF REFEREES AND SECURITY CAME OUT TO STOP THEM!
Let’s review:
Two mysterious, unauthorized men jump the guardrail and attack TNA employees- no security shows up to stop them.
After defying a referee’s orders, Awesome Kong lays down a vicious post-match beating on Brooke- No security shows up to her.
Taryn Terrell and Awesome Kong have a brawl- no security shows up to stop them.
The former champion who is owed a rematch that he can invoke at any time comes out and challenges the new world champion, who has just declared that he will defend the title against anyone who wants a title shot, at any time. The champ suggests they have the match right now, and the former champion agrees- security pours out from the back to stop them from having a match.
So post-match beatdowns, post-match brawls, and unauthorized personnel jumping the guardrail and attacking the wrestlers is all okay, but a world title match is not. I just do not understand how anyone could be SO F*CKING STUPID as to be able to come up with this!

Then Ethan and Tyrus jumped Roode and Aries from behind, and EY came in to help the beatdown. It’s a good thing the security guards are trying to stop Kurt and Lashley from having a wrestling match, or else they might be tempted to stop this dastardly assault that is taking place outside the confines of a wrestling match. The fans want Spud, but they get Ken Anderson instead. When we get back from commercial, this has turned into…
AUSTIN ARIES, KEN ANDERSON, & BOBBY ROODE vs. ERIC YOUNG, ETHAN CARTER III, & TYRUS- 6.75/10
So apparently these guys can get a match when they want one, but the world champion can’t give the former champ his contractually-obligated return match whenever he wants. The match was eh for a while, but got great towards the end. The announcers tried to sell us that Eric Young wearing a knee-brace made his Figure Four Leg Lock super effective. Right. It definitely had nothing to do with the way Aries hit his leg on the ground when he missed that 450. It must be the f*cking knee brace that we’ve seen millions of wrestlers do a Figure 4 while wearing in the past.
Some moron in crowd was chanting “RING OF HONOR!” with Bobby Roode and Eric Young in the ring.

BRAM & MAGNUS SEGMENT- bad.
Remember how Bram took those SICK powerbombs on the ramp last week? Well don’t worry. He’s all fine now. He cuts an okay promo, in which he mentions Magnus and Mickie’s baby son. This brings Magnus and Mickie out, and Magnus vows that if Bram ever mentions their child again he will… calls the police. Yes. Really. What a f*cking terrible babyface! The proper babyface response in this situation is to say “if you ever mention my kid again, I’ll kick your f*cking ass!” or something along those lines. And it’s not like Bram even threatened the kid.
They both talked about how much they wanted to kick each other’s asses, but didn’t actually move to do anything about it. Mickie had one line, but it was totally awesome. Bram offers to bone Mickie should she want it, which finally caused these two to actually start fighting. Bram quickly takes Magnus down, then grabs Mickie by the hair. Apparently this week she is back to being Mickie James the helpless, defenseless woman. Bram tries to make her kiss his boot, like he forced Magnus to do two weeks ago, but then decides he’d rather kiss her.
Magnus managed to get up and make the save before he could, though, then hit Bram with the metal turnbuckle piece. Then Mickie went to go get some shots in on the already downed Bram (just like a heel), but Magnus pulled her off. Magnus got up after this and just laughed it off.
I didn’t like this segment. It just feels like this feud isn’t going anywhere.

KURT ANGLE PROMO- okay.
Lashley will be getting his rematch next week.

COMMERCIAL FOR NEXT WEEK’S SHOW- They told us that “Magnus seeks retribution from the sadistic Bram (in a Falls Count Anywhere match).” Seeks retribution for what? Magnus has now kicked his ass two weeks in a row. Shouldn’t it be Bram seeking retribution?
Also, they claimed we will see the “final” battle between Roode and EY. Well I’ve thought that we’d seen that twice already.

“LETHAL LOCKDOWN-ESQUE” SIX SIDES OF STEEL MATCH: Jeff Hardy vs. James Storm- 7.5/10
A great match with a lot of cool stuff, but the whole time, I couldn’t help but think how awesome it would have been if they hadn’t done that terrible opening segment instead gave the time to this match so that it could have gone 25-30 minutes instead of just fifteen and been truly epic.
Jeff wins, and Josh Matthews declares that “tonight will forever been known as ‘Hardy’s Revenge!’” in the corniest way possible.

An awful show from TNA. Yes, even with the main event being as great as it was, this show was still absolutely awful. Fifteen great minutes at the end don’t make up for the previous 105 minutes of utter torture.