Kurt Angle & Mick Foley vs. Matt Morgan & Abyss
They taped this match on Monday and from what I was told it was garbage so I guess they were intending to re-tape it tonight. Ended in 4:14 after Morgan hit a footprint on Foley.

- (Taped for Xplosion/web match) Alex Shelley & Chris Sabin defeated Sheik Abdul Bashir & Kiyoshi in 4 minutes.
Kiyoshi & Bashir beat down the machine guns afterwards.

- (Taped for Xplosion/web match) Taylor Wilde w/Sarita defeated Traci in 2:41 via German Suplex.

- Impact starts with an MEM promo. All of the MEM is out. There were so many boos that you could not make out what Kurt was saying. I heard that they were celebrating the MEM being around for a year and was essentially a pep talk showing how everyone needs to win their matches at BFG.

AJ/Beer Money/Matt Morgan/Hernandez/Team 3D come out on the ramp. Ray says that everyone is tired of the MEM. He hands the mic to the champ and calls BFG a make or break show in terms of the Mafia's tenure in TNA. Says they are 3 days away from the MEM ceasing to exist. Matt Morgan says he is not waiting 3 days. He runs down to the ring along with the rest on the ramp and a brawl starts. Security broke it up.

- The Beautiful People (Velvet Sky/Lacey Von Erich/Madison Rayne) vs. ODB/Amazing Kong with Raisha Saeed/Tara
This match did not last long. Kong and Tara got in a disagreement and Kong left. Then ODB and Victoria got in a disagreement and she left ODB by herself to get pinned by Velvet. Lacey was hardly in the match to my recollection. Lasted about 3 minutes.

- X-Division Title Match: Amazing Red (C) with DON WEST vs. Suicide
Needless to say I marked for this decision because back in the weekly PPV days, Don ALWAYS marked for Red including standing on the announce table and chanted "GO RED GO" in a couple matches. The match itself was good at about 3:40 in time. The Pope interfered and the match was ruled a no contest. Pope went to attack Suicide as Red looked on but Red hit Pope with a dropkick to send Pope to the back.

- Hernandez in a gauntlet match against The British Invasion.
Eric Young is on commentary for this. Hernandez enters (in his old LAX gear AKA white wifebeater/khaki shorts). He gets in Eric Young's face and says something on the mic but I could not hear it. Doug Williams comes out and is eliminated in about a minute. Brutus Magnus is eliminated in about 2. Rob Terry is last and is taken out with a brutal Liger Bomb by Hernandez in about a 4 minute gauntlet. EY jumps Hernandez and he and the British Invasion beat him down.

- Christopher Daniels beat The Pope in about a 5 minute match via The Angel's Wings. Pretty good for what it was. Suicide runs out after the match and looks like he is going to go after the Pope but goes after Daniels instead and hits a Gringo Killer on Daniels and unmasks as Homicide. I am assuming Homicide somehow acquired Suicide's gear but I was a little confused by that.

- There is a lounge chair in the ring. Mick Foley comes out with a bowl of popcorn and sits in it. He essentially called Abyss "good for a Foley knockoff." He then airs some clips of Abyss. He shows Abyss with Mitchell calling having an evil manager "original." He shows Abyss pouring tacks in Monster's Ball III at BFG 06 mentioning how he did that in 1995. He then shows Abyss going through the flaming table at BFG IV saying how he did that with Edge in what was considered the Match of the Year. Abyss comes out with a Barbed Wire Bat. He pushes Foley out of the chair and holds the bat against him. A video is shown on the screen of (whom I assume to be Lauren) with her back to the camera and Stevie holding her. Foley tells Abyss to go find her. He runs to the back. They did not show the end to this segment. I would assume that it was Daffney disguised as Lauren and she and Stevie jumped Abyss.

- Alissa Flash vs. Ayako Hamada in a Falls Count Anywhere match.
Pretty fun little brawl. Some spots included a curb stomp off the floor, Ayako doing a flipping senton onto Melissa from the ramp to the side of the stage. Ayako won via moonsault through a table on the outside in about 5 minutes. It was good and will probably come off better on TV.

- Bobby Lashley vs. Rhino in a Stretcher match.
Rules for this were you had to put your opponent on a stretcher and take him to the back. Not much better than their PPV match in September. Rhino went for a Gore through the stage setup (ala Abyss/Angle at Turning Point last year) but Lashley got out of the way. Lashley won the match in 5:24. He had some problems putting Rhino in the ambulance so he essentially had Rhino on the stretcher and just kind of dumped him into the ambulance for the win.

- AJ Styles vs. Kurt Angle (Non title)
Not to overhype this, but to me, this was one of the best matches in Impact history. Up there with the likes of Joe/Daniels in 06, AJ & Dutt & Aries/Joe & Daniels & Shelley in 05, and Storm/Harris in 07. It ended in a very competitive 20 minute draw. As far as star ratings go, I would put it in the ***3/4 to ****1/4 margin. They literally busted out everything and then some (no spiral tap spotting though). Unlike how the Orlando crowd can be, they were really into the match and did not bust out a "This is awesome" chant until about 15 to 16 minutes into the match. The last 30 seconds had Angle hold AJ in the Ankle Lock but AJ did not tap as the time limit expired. Sting comes down after the match and AJ ignored him. He got on the mic and said that the fans will never see AJ Styles go to a draw again. As long as he wins, that does not bother me.

- As a crowd pleaser (meaning won't make air) Kip James beat a jobber in a surprisingly OK match considering it is Kip James. The match was announced before AJ/Angle as a "Special attraction" because a lot of the fans in the Impact Zone love Kip.

Hopefully they do not clip AJ/Angle too badly because that was really fantastic


PWI