All right, time to…

You know, TNA doesn’t use that theme anymore, and in fact, Smackdown’s theme says to Cross the Line now. I guess I should embrace the new TNA theme song. Something about being the wave of the future… I dunno. I’ll have a better “transition from get-past-the-ad-box to the actual start of the recap” bump next week.

Last week, stuff happened.

In a limo, Bischoff and Hogan are in a limo and saying that they are about to pick up “him” at the airport. They chat about some of the things that have gone on the past few weeks, and we are off to

Opening, Pyro (not Falkon), and we are LIVE (taped) from Orlando, Florida. Your hosts are Taz and Tenay. They tell us all the news that we already know about moving back to Thursday, and let us know that Reaction will be added to the lineup as well. Later tonight, Hogan and Sting will have a showdown. As Taz and Tenay gush over the implications, Ric Flair…

Oh wait, no, it’s Jay Lethal coming out in a suit, to Ric’s music, and wearing the Ring. Jay goes into a Ric Flair impression, and does a pretty good job of it. He’s got the voice down, the mannerisms, as well as his recent penchant for going into moon man mode. After a few minutes of entertainingly saying absolutely nothing, here comes the Real Ric Flair, and he is not pleased. He gets in the ring and gets into Jay’s face, who backpedals faster than a BP executive talking about their oil rigs. He gives Ric the ring back and proceeds to smooch Ric’s ass up one side and down the other. He apologizes for making fun of Ric, and says that his mother is smiling proudly to see him standing in the ring with Ric. Ric says thank you for giving him back the ring, but that doesn’t make his mockery of Ric any better. He berates Jay, who continues to try to beg off, and then slaps him once. A second slap changes Jays attitude, and a third slap causes Jay to snap. He fires off a slap of his own, and then lays into Ric. Ric whipped into the corner, Jay hits a few chops, drags him to the middle of the ring and slaps on a figure four. Beer Money, Desmond Wolfe, and AJ run to the ring to make the save at this point. Jay is overpowered and they are laying into him with a belt when Abyss lumbers his way to the ring. It’s still 5 on 2, so Abyss gets taken down quick, which brings Team 3-D down to the ring. They fall to the numbers game as well, and here come Rob Van Dam with his trusty chair to make the save. His presence scatters the heels and they bail out.

In the Limo, Eric is musing that the superstar they are going to go pick up is too good to be true. Hogan gets a text, and facepalms. Eric asks what, and Hogan reveals that he gave Jay the ring to show off to friends, not the world, and now they have to go back and fix his dumbass mistake.

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Back, and RVD and crew are still standing in the ring. After a “moments ago”, RVD has a mic and says that instead of them beating up on Macho Dude, How about they come down and mix it up in a fair fight. Ric says “you’re on!” and it’s 5 on 5 brawlerizing. After a few minutes of this, Here comes Hogan! He has a punch each for Beer Money, and AJ Styles gets more of the same, and Ric squares off against him, only to get a few punches of his own and tossed out of the ring. As Hogan poses, we go to

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Back, and it’s even more brawling! Everyone is kicking the crap out of each other. Heck, I think I see the stunt granny!

As AJ and Ric extricate themselves from the pile, Hogan grabs the mic and taunts Flair, and then makes a match: Desmond Wolfe vs. RVD for the title. He then makes AJ vs. Abyss in a Monsters Ball match. And since he’s feeling randy tonight, he goes ahead and adds Team 3-D to the match that Beer Money has against the Motor City Machine Guns later. Everyone goes nuts, and we go to

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Backstage, and The Beautiful People are primping. Lacey says her back hurts from when she sleeps in her belt. Velvet tells her that she meant that nobody was going to take the belts from them. They lament that they have to defend all the titles in a match later tonight, and shrug it off.

Doug Williams and Brian Kendrick vs. Ink Inc. (Shannon Moore and Jessie Neil)

Doug has a mic and the X-Division title, and is pissed that because he was stuck in England because of the Big E’s eruption, TNA stripped him of the title for not defending it at Lockdown. You know, I agree with him, actually.

After Ink Inc. comes down, they start the match and it’s pretty basic. Doug uses mat based offense, Shannon and Jessie get the better of him, he tags in Brian Kendrik who plays Ricky Morton for the rest of the match. The real entertainment of this match lies in Matt Morgan who came out and provided commentary. He explains that “we” have been put in a match against Ink Inc. and “we” are not happy about it. Hogan will choose a partner for “us” at Sacrifice, and if tht partner isn’t to “our” liking, then god help everyone in the TNA locker room. Oh yeah, in the match, Kendrick ate a spear from Jessie and did the job.

After the match, Doug is disgusted with Brian and walks out of the ring. Samoa Joe makes his appearance at this point, lays Doug out, and when Brian thinks he and Joe are cool, he eats a superkick from Joe. Joe drags him into the ring, hits him with a muscle buster, grabs a mic, teases, and then drops the mic and makes his exit.

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Backstage, Ric is berating all of Team Flair, tells them all to make it happen tonight, or he’ll start finding replacements.

In a pre-recorded segment, Hogan goes all wistful about why Sting has gone bad.

Backstage, after Taz and Tenay do a bunch of analysis, we are sent to Mr. Anderson in a alter boy outfit beating the snot out of Pope. After slamming him in between a couple of shipping crates, he steals Popes sunglasses, puts them on himself, and exits.

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Back, and here comes Mr. Anderson, still in the alter boy outfit and Popes sunglasses. He gets in the ring, calls for his mic, and gets to the verbalizing. He refers to the impact zone as his congregation, and says that he’s had an awakening, an epiphany, a realization, that… pause for “We want Pope” chant, inform them that he’s not going to be here this evening, and goes on to let us know that he has realized that when he dies, he is not going to heaven, but will in fact burn in hell.

This brings out Jeff Hardy. He grabs a mic and says that the congregation and the creatures of the night are one in the same. And since the Pope is out because of Anderson, how about they have themselves a match at Sacrifice. Anderson says, “Nahh, I got something going on that night.” He jaw jacks with the fans for a second, and goes to take his leave. Jeff attacks him, lays him out with a twist of fate, and strips him of his robes, revealing a speedo that reads “Speak into” on one side and “The Mic” on another. You can guess which side says which. Jeff grabs a mic, and puppetfaces Anderson: “Will you wrestle me at Sacrifice?” “I’d love to wrestle you at Sacrifice Mr. Charasmatic Enigma!!! It’d be an honor!!!” Jeff drops Andersons face and makes his exit. Anderson comes to and is embarrassed at his sartorial choice.

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Tara, Taylor Wilde, and Sarita vs. The Beautiful People (©’s) (All the titles on the line, whoever pins who win’s that respective title.)

Tara starts with Lacey. Lacey does a little dance, then gets taken down by Tara. Tara locks in a dragon sleeper and spits at Taylor. (?) Lacey is able to get out, and Tara tags in Taylor who hits a release belly to back suplex. Tara screams to be tagged back in, and long story short, Tara gets pissed at Taylor and Sarita, leading to the team self destructing and Sarita eating a DDT from Madison for the loss. Champs retain, and Tara is pissed and unstable.

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Backstage, and Christy Hemme has Tara cornered and Tara has something to say. Tara is pissed that she’s not getting the respect she deserves, and if she’s not going to get it, she’s going to win it. She challenges Madison Rayne to a title match at Sacrifice. When Christy points out that Tara isn’t even within sniffing distance of #1 contendership, she renews her challenge, and adds to it by putting her career on the line.

Beer Money Vs. Motor City Machine Guns Vs. Team 3-D

Match starts with BM and MCMG’s taking it to each other for some pretty fast passed stuff. Devon gets a tag on Alex Shelley and 3-D slows it down. Devon becomes our face in peril for a bit until a double clothesline gives him th eopening to tag in Brother Ray. Ray cleans house, hits flip flop and fly, they hit Whassup, and here comes The Band to screw up my evening. Beer Money and MCMG’s stay out of the way as Nash and Hall and 3-D brawl. Eric Young comes in for the save… and lays out 3-D with a Kendo Stick. For no reason, Alex Shelley decides that he doesn’t like Eric, takes him out, and then the MCMG’s proceed to take down the band with a missile dropkick assisted reverse Russian leg sweep for Hall. Nash sets up Alex for a powerbomb, but Sabin runs over his partner for a shining wizard. One double superkick later, and Nash is down. MCMG’s celebrate, but Beer Money spoils the party and takes them down. Beer Money pose, and we go to commercials.

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Back, and it’s time for the O-Zone with Orlando Jordan. He makes a few double entendres, and then introduces his guest: a Rob Terry cutout. He interviews the cut out and suggests that Rob is all about fantasizing about Orlando. This brings the real Rob Terry out, and he manhandles Orlando, throws him on the couch, and tells him to never have him back. As Rob turns his back to Orlando and poses with the Global title, Orlando attacks him from behind with a chain. After choking him out with it, he picks up one of the plastic urn set pieces, sells it’s “immense weight” as he heaves it up, and then bounces it off of Rob’s prone form.

No commercials, we go immediately into

AJ Styles vs. Abyss (Monsters Ball Match.)

Pretty much garbage here. One really cool spot at the beginning of the match where Abyss is stuck between the ropes, AJ runs at him and Abyss Belly-to-belly’s him halfway across the ring. Match is about AJ using his natural skill, while Abyss uses the implements of destruction. After a few minutes of brawling, Abyss grabs the thumbtacks and spreads them around. Ric drags Chelsea down to the ring, demanding that she strip. Abyss grabs her away from Ric and protects her while AJ blasts Abyss with a steel chair. Abyss back body drops AJ to the outside, and AJ comes back in with a springboard cross body into the tacks. AJ took a few himself in his hand, but has enough to roll Abyss into the tacks and make the pin. Afterwards, Ric and Chelsea get in the ring and taunt Abyss.

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Desmond Wolfe (W/ Chelsea) vs. Rob Van Dam (©) (World Heavyweight Title match.)

AS RVD poses on the top turnbuckle, Desmond attacks him, sending him crashing to the floor. Desmond controls for the first bit of the match. Desmond dodges an attempted monkey flip and hits a vicious kick to RVD’s back. Desmond takes the time to mock RVD, but RVD runs to a corner, leaps up, and hits a thrust kick. RVD goes for the frog splash, but Desmond crotches him on the top. Desmond goes for the Tower of London to the outside. RVD shoves Desmond off, hits a second rope thrust kick, tosses him back in the ring, one 5-star Frog Splash later, and the champ retains.

As RVD poses with the belt, tho, AJ runs in behind him and RVD eats a flying forearm from the top. AJ gets in RVD’s face, and Taz and Tenay let us know that AJ is exercising his rematch clause at Sacrifice.

Backstage, and Jeff Jarrett has been laid out by Sting. Hogan sees to him, calls for help, and we go to

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Back, and now it’s time for Hogan’s momentous confrontation with Sting. He says that like Kurt Angle says, it’s time to get real, damn real, and tells Sting to get out here. He makes his entrance, and Hogan says that he’s not fooling Hogan at all, and then demands that Sting tell Hogan what’s making him tick. Sting grabs the mic, and says that it’s TNA that makes him tick. He says his agenda is the same today as it was 5 years ago: to give back to the sport of wrestling all that’s been given to him. He says that he’s watched Hogan all these years, and has been watching how Hogan has this veil of protection around him everywhere he goes. Well, Sting has news for him, in TNA, Hogan has no protection. Hogan can’t believe that Sting is making this about Sting and him, and says that Sting has blood on his hands; From RVD who Sting tried to take out on his first night, to Dixie Carter, who Sting choked out, to Jeff Jarrett, who is still laid out in the back. Sting laughs all this off, and then threatens Hogan with the baseball bat. Hogan tells him to take his best shot, and it’s about this point that Jeff Jarrett makes his way down to the ring. Jeff grabs the bat from Sting, gives him a shot to the gut, and then when he goes to inflict more damage, Hogan stops him. As Sting recovers and Hogan holds Jarrett back, we fade out, Spike logo, and we are out of here.

Man, a lot of stuff happened on this show tonight, but it was presented rather messily, kind of like my recapping style this week. Hopefully, they (and I) have a tighter show next Thursday.

See you next week.