This week kicks off with shots as the crowd as Mike Tenay reminds us of the Triple Ladder Match for the X Division Championship between Low Ki, AJ Styles and Jerry Lynn. We cut to video footage from earlier in the day and Goldilocks is confronting Brian Lawler. He repeats “you wanna know what Jeff Jarrett did?” and surprisingly before he can tell us he gets jumped by Jeff. The two brawl before it’s broken up by referees and security.

We’re back to the ring and Kid Kash is making his way out to ring for action against Amazing Red.

Kid Kash vs. Amazing Red
Tenay mentions that this match is important in therms of the rankings for the X Division competitors. There was a match seven weeks ago to establish the rankings for the X Division but looks like that’s been thrown out. Starts off with some straight back and forth with Kash playing heel using an eye poke. Action is fast paced with two sets of stand offs.

Kash berates Red suggesting his small and Red retorts with a mime of a old man. Kash is 33 here and Red is 20 (feel old). Red offers a test of strength and Kash returns with a finger. The two exchange a handshake and Red boots him in the gut and sends him to the outside before following up with a tope to the outside. “He is some kind of young talent” says Don West as Kid Kash picks up a chair and throws it right in the face of Amazing Red; no disqualification for this. Kid brings Red back into the ring with a top rope clothesline for a two count.

Kash takes over as West starts hyping the Triple Ladder Match. Weird spot where Kash whips Red into the corner, Red follows up with a boot and climbs to the top rope jumps down and twists in mid air but Kash is out of position. So Red just leaps in the air with a hurricanrana for a two. Red rolls into another diving clothesline from Kash.

Both men end up on the top rope and Kash does a ridiculously impressive military press slam off the top rope to the canvas. Kash crawls into the cover but only gets a two count. Kash hits a double rope walk cross bod and again only finds two.

Red climbs to the top rope and Kash pushes referee Scott Armstrong into the top rope to crotch Red. That’s what was supposed to happen, except first Kash pushed Armstrong so lightly he had to force himself to take the bump into the rope. Secondly Red was no where near the top rope so he gets to the top and crotches himself. This leads to the finish where Kash hooks a muscle buster neckbreaker move he aptly calls “Bankruptcy” to get the three count.

This was a good match if not for the continuous screaming from one person in the crowd. Honestly sounded like someone was being murdered throughout this match.

Post match Red extends his hand to Kash and Kash takes the opportunity to clothesline Red. This immediately sends out the S.A.T. who hit the Spanish Fly on Kid Kash. The camera cuts to a guy holding a sign that reads “S.A.T. = Higher Buyrate”.

We go to the dancing girls as we get more hype for the Triple Ladder Match and then go to back where Sonny Siaki is scheduled to be interviewed by Goldylocks. Siaki is scheduled to face Monty Brown tonight, and a win could put him in the NWA World Heavyweight Championship picture.

Siaki is not facing the camera, he’s doing his third person gimmick here and says that the best thing Elvis did was slapping Priscilla. Siaki puts himself over and then leaves the interview.

Sonny Siaki vs. Monte Brown
Siaki is still part of the Elvises and coming out with the music and attire but is apparently going it alone. Monte Brown is out next to Abyss’s music. Monte gets the microphone and calls out Jeff Jarrett about hitting him with a chair last week. A short but succinct promo about threatening to beat Jeff up.

Siaki then gets into the ring with Monte. The match is put over by Tenay as Siaki has been “lumped in” with the X Division and has therefore faced smaller opponents and now he has to face someone who is more powerful. This aspects is lost completely when less than a minute in Siaki powers Brown into a corner and then Brown uses his agility to dodge offence.

Siaki gets sent to the outside and takes over by drop toe holding Brown into the rail. The two brawl around the outside throwing each other into the guard rail. Eventually Monte manages to bring Siaki back into the ring and goes on a run of pinning Siaki for two counts. Monte starts complaining to the referee about the count (like a heel) and then locks on a headlock to slow the match down, )(like a heel). The referee then does the arm drop spot on but Siaki is still in the match and begins a comeback.

Both men go down after a fisherman’s suplex and the ref begins a standing ten count. The crowd are not into this at all. Monte almost loses Siaki on a powerslam set up. Monte then signals for the Alpha Bomb which sends out Jeff Jarrett to ring side. Monte is distracted and this allows Siaki to get a low blow in and a roll up for the three.

The crowd were into the early brawling here, but as soon as it got in the ring the action fell apart. Monte was clearly playing heel here but Siaki had no babyface fire in his come back and then got the dirty win. Not sure what they were trying to achieve here?!

None of this matters as we immediately cut to The Bullet on the ramp with a chair being held back by Bob Armstrong. Jarrett is now stuck between them and Monte Brown who has recovered from the low blow apparently. Brown attacks Jarrett to complete silence and then from the crowd comes Brian Lawler with some sort of chain to choke Jarrett. Security then come down separate the two. Too much happening at once for no reason. We still don’t know why Brian has a problem with Jeff.

We got to the announce table, Tenay and Don West start putting over the Triple Ladder Match. We’re promised that Goldylocks is going to interview Brian Lawler so we can finally find out what the feud is all about and there’s some “scheduling issues” to discuss.

Goldylocks is in the back talking to Slash with a new friend. Slash claims there are “no friends in the womb of hell, only those like you”. He introduces his “brother” as Kobain who “lives for the thrill of suicide”. Kobain has straight black hair, a bright white shirt, black elbow pads and blue jeans. Placed next to Slash who’s got the milky eye lens, eye patch, and all black leather attire these too look nothing alike. If you’re going to be tasteless and do a “Kurt Cobain” gimmick why not have the guy dye his hair and wear a shirt as well?!

Slash does a good job of trying to cut a James Mitchell-esque promo but the emotion is lacking and his cryptic ending “which comes first: life or death?” is a bit flat. Kobain starts talking and it’s hard to tell whether Goldy is confused, disgusted or straight up can’t hear.

Four Team Elimination Match
Backseat Boys (Johnny Kashmere & Trent Acid) vs. The Disciples of The New Church (Slash & Kobain) vs. The Hotshots (Chase Stevens & Cassidey O’Reily) vs. “Cowboy” James Storm and “Wildcat” Chris Harris

OK so this match has been set up to help crown new tag team champions. Not to crown them, but to help. The person who gets the final pinfall in this match gets the last spot in the Gauntlet match for the tag titles on the next show.

Tenay harkens back to the first show where they had the battle royal for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship (neglecting that almost everyone buried the concept). The idea is will be a single entry battle royale and then when it comes down to two people their partners will rejoin and then it becomes a normal tag match.

O’Reily and Kashmere start and Kashmere hits a viscous looking spear. So viscous that O’Reily tags Trent Acid. You read that right. O’Reily tags in Kashmere’s own partner into the match and Trent looks perplexed. The two partners shake hands, hype up the crowd and then start fighting.

Keep in mind the only thing on the line in this match is the opportunity to be the last man in the gauntlet next week. So these two are completely stupid for doing this. If this spot was done with Storm and Harris I could maybe excuse the fact that Harris and Storm aren’t getting along and aren’t really an established team, but this was done with two guys who came out to the ring together as an established team.

Eventually they double dropkick Slash, Kobain is lured into the corner of Storm and Harris who takes out the latter. And then everything just breaks down as the Backseat Boys hit the Dream Sequence double team and then moonsault onto the other teams on the outside brawling. Everyone is on the outside and Chase Stevens get to the top and tries a shooting star press but can’t get a full rotation and nearly dies.

Stevens and Acid get back in the ring (despite Kashmere clearly being the legal man as no tags were ever made). Slash gets a tag in and hits a neckbreaker on Acid eliminating the Backseat Boys. Kobain is in and fucks up an Irish Whip almost immediately to the point where I lost all faith in this match and went and made a cup of tea. Thankfully Chris Harris tags in and the Hotshots start working over Harris.

West and Tenay point out that with six competitors it’s going to be hard for the ref to keep an eye on the action. O’Reily then blatantly low blows Harris in front of the ref with no DQ. Armstrong doesn’t even pretend to not see it and says keep it above the waist. Harris blocks a lionsault attempt with his knees and tags in Kobain. Not long after Storm blind tags Kobain but gets crotched by O’Reily. Storm still manages to hook a Swinging Noose (reverse tornado DDT) to pin and eliminate the Hot Shots.

Slash comes running in to get the heat on Storm. Kobain throws Storm to the outside and attempts a somersault dive off the top completely misjudges it. Meanwhile Brian Lee and Ron Harris come down to ring side to join commentary to complain why they aren’t in the match. They try to put over themselves but Ron and Mike do a great job of flat out disproving Brian Lee’s assertions.

The match in the ring breaks down with all four men in the ring. Storm takes care of Kobain allowing the other two to double team Slash. Eventually Harris pins Slash and before anyone can celebrate Ron and Brian hit the ring. Then all the other teams come back and get involved. They put over Brian and Ron by having them throw everyone out of the ring including a military press on both Backseat Boys.

This match opened with bullshit. There’s a lot of different things you could have done at this point but everything has to be done at the same time. There was such a bad taste in my mouth that having a post match beat down segment was actually a really good way of building up Ron and Lee as the guys to beat in the gauntlet on the next show.

To the back! Jeff confronts Bob Armstrong telling him to get the ship in order. Jeff demands his title shot, his tag team title back and then awkwardly tells Bob “you’re real cute... with your little surprise”. Jeff says he’s gonna unmask The Bullet and then take care of Bob.

Back to the ring and Miss TNA Bruce heads to the ring. Bruce starts cutting a promo over chants of “you suck dick”. He throws out Tenay’s wife again before explaining April Hunter is here to challenge for his Miss TNA Title.

Miss TNA Title
Bruce (c) vs. April Hunter

April Hunter comes out and Tenay is quick to rundown the credentials of what makes April Hunter a perfect candidate for Miss TNA: she’s appeared in Playboy magazine. That’s it.

April squares up to Bruce as the latter takes the time to remove his tiara. Hunter gets some good offence in before Bruce hangs her up on the top rope. There’s some back and forth here, some awkward innuendo on commentary and Bruce pins April with a powerbomb.

By today’s standard for intergender matches this was below average. It wasn’t bad as they actually worked a match rather than doing erotic spots that we’ve seen in recent weeks. But this is nothing to go out of your way to watch.

Post match Bruce starts trying to unzip the top of April Hunter before he’s jumped by Silk Wagner Brown. The crowd boos Brown for stopping this as Bruce bails to the back.

Cut to the dancing girls and for the first time tonight it’s mentioned the Heavyweight Championship will be on the line Brian Lawler challenging The Truth. I just checked and there was no mention of this last week either.

Goldy is the back with Yang and Estrada of the Elvises. Yang is half assing the Elvis gimmick but getting the names of the songs wrong in his promo as Estrada is posing and correcting him. They say if Siaki has gone solo then that’s OK with them. Siaki then interrupts, not wearing his Elvis gear. Siaki says he’s now the number one contender for the NWA World Title now. He does have a good line here: “if you take your vitamins and say your prayers, you’re probably going to end up losing your hair”. Siaki leaves and everyone is confused...

Spanish Announce Team vs. The Flying Elvises

Tenay hypes the interview with Brian Lawler where we will find out what has happened to cause the animosity Jeff Jarrett. Crowd is solidly behind the SAT as this stop gap match gets underway, but commentary can talk about nothing other than the Triple Ladder Match and the upcoming interview.

Eventually the Elvises get the interest of the crowd and commentary by sending the SAT to the outside and performing a stereo springboard moonsault to the outside. The match quietens down again of course when they get back in the ring and start wrestling.

Tenay tells a story about how the SATs took a seventeen hour bus journey from New York to Nashville to compete in TNA and now they are apparently flying first class (more on that to come).

The match is a very formulaic tag match, the most confusing part is both teams are playing face so the crowd can’t really get behind anyone. Both teams are capable of having a fun high flying contest but resort to a lot of punch/kick and ground based offence. Eventually the Elvises decide to cut the ring off with Jose Maximo. There a weird top rope superplex spot with Jorge and Jose leading to a double down for the hot tags.

The crowd barely pop for the hot tag, Joel comes in as the fresh man and the Maximos start to double team the Elvises. This comeback barely lasts a minute before Jimmy Yang hits a double dropkick to neutralise the other team. All four men are in the ring and the non-legal men are on offence making covers.

The finish sees the referee have to be distracted so that Sonny Siaki in blue shorts can break up the Spanish Fly allowing Jimmy Yang to hit the Yang Time but Jose no sells it and climbs to the top. Yang drops a DDT from the top rope and gets the three. Siaki smiles on the ramp and no one has any idea what’s going on.

OK I’m going to be honest TNA has hyped this interview for the past hour and fifteen minutes that we’re going to finally find out what the problem is. I’m completely prepared to be disappointed.

Goldy makes her way out to the ring for this interview segment. She asks for Brian Lawler to come out, his music hits and he makes his way to the ring. Goldy opens the interview by saying “Mr Lawler, for weeks now you have been running rampant it looks like you definitely have some issues, and it seems as though those issues are definitely personal. Here’s your chance. Get it out in the open, what is going on with Jarrett?”

Brian has the decency to have his back to the hard camera. He asks Goldy what her name is and then starts running her down physically including her tight jeans and cleavage. He asks if she thinks this is sort of place where you can walk around “like a two dollar whore”. Brian calls her a piece of trash, takes the mic and ejects her from the ring.

Lawler asks for silence from the crowd as he looks straight into the camera and tells Jarrett to come out. He gives him five seconds and Jarrett doesn’t show up. Just as Lawler is about to tell us what Jarrett did, Truth appears on the ramp without his belt.

Truth says how “everyone thought he’d be at home this week with a concussion”, even Tenay who earlier mentioned that there would be a title match between these two men feigns confusion over this. Lawler claims that he accidentally hit the Truth. Truth refuses to accept the pleas from Lawler and promises that he’ll find out what the Truth feels like.

Lawler continues to beg, and we finally get some indication of what this about as he points out his girlfriend on the front row. There’s a photographer next to her and Brian is convinced he’s taking pictures of his girlfriend, so Lawler pushes him off his chair and then takes his girlfriend to the back.

OK so we got something. We then go to footage from last week where Jeff Jarrett was beating up The Bullet but it wasn’t Bob Armstrong.

The Bullet vs. Jeff Jarrett

This is the return match from last week, Jeff’s out first and the Bullet (who is billed from ‘Parts Unknown’) rolls into the ring to get stomped by Jarrett and thrown to the outside to kick start the match.

The match spills into the crowd and Jarrett delivers several chair shots to the Bullet with no disqualification. Jeff confirms that he wants his NWA World Title shot. Action gets back into the ring as a very small minority of the crowd start chanting for “Road Dogg” as The Bullet has to stop himself from delivering his trademark punches and pumphandle slam.

Jarrett reaches into his knee pad, pulls out a set of hand cuffs and locks him on the rope. Jarrett grabs a microphone and a steel chair promising to unmask the Bullet but Bob Armstrong gets in the ring and delivers a few punches to rock Jarrett.

The referee tries to get Armstrong out of the ring, as if at the point where one competitor is cuffed to the ropes and the other is swinging a chair that this “contest” needs saving. Bob breaks free of the ref and takes a chair shot right to the head; this causes the ref to call for the DQ. We get a shot of Bob who has done a small blade job and is desperately trying to bleed over his white shirt. Jeff whacks him in the head with the chair again and the crowd chants “ONE MORE TIME” as The Bullet is still helplessly handcuffed to the ropes. Before Jarrett can unmask the Bullet security comes out and stops Jarrett.

Not sure if there was a hard cut here, but the camera just cuts to Don and Mike at the announce table to “regroup” not what’s going on tonight, but what’s coming up in the next few weeks. West hypes the X Division Special next week being careful to not mention it’s a compilation show and no live matches.

We then get a video package recapping Styles vs. Lynn best of three series from last week ending in the draw, post match beat down by Low Ki leading into tonight’s ladder match.

Triple Ladder Match for the X Division Championship
Low Ki (c) vs. Jerry Lynn vs. AJ Styles

All three men come out to mixed reactions, with what looks like three ladders around the ringside and the belt above the ring.

Lynn and Low Ki square off to start and AJ ducks out of the ring to get a ladder. AJ dodges the double drop kick manages to clip Lynn with the ladder and get then gets the ladder kicked into his face by Low Ki.

The match breaks down initially into a standard two/one triple threat formula where two guys work and one guy is on the mat or interfering. The ladders don’t come into play much and weirdly Jerry Lynn appears to be focussed on locking in submission holds. Ki takes out both men after delivering a Krush Rush to Lynn in the corner with Styles on his shoulder.

Ki attempts to a retrieve a ladder but gets basement dropkicked by Styles who then sets the ladder up as a bridge between the ring and the barrier as the action spills outside. They pair up a tease moves onto the ladder, then all three men end up on top of the ladder and then each drives the others face into the ladder.

Lynn dropkicks a ladder into AJ’s sternum and West suggests that this match should be outlawed because of the harm it can do. Tenay retorts “don’t say that or we won’t get to see it!”. Low Ki gets double hip tossed into a propped up ladder by Lynn and Styles. Styles then vaults off a ladder tries a tornado DDT and then gets suplexed into it by Lynn.

Styles throws a second ladder into the ring narrowly missing Lynn’s head. Ki then brings another in so all three are set up the middle of the ring. Low Ki almost up to the top of the ladders as AJ climbs to meet him but Ki spreads him out across two ladders and hooks in a dragon sleeper atop the ladders. All three men get onto ladders; AJ takes a spill to the outside, Lynn hooks Low Ki with a cradle piledriver from the fifth rung of the ladder. Lynn climbs the ladder and pulls down the title and literally we go straight off the air.

If you cut out the stupidity of the four corner elimination match, then you have a good opener followed by a lot of stuff happening all at once. I get that’s the idea and the name of the show but when nothing is really happening or being resolved it’s hard to care about everything.

I genuinely thought we were going to get nowhere with the Brian Lawler/Jarrett story and we got a little bit of information but again Jarrett’s seemingly now in a program with the Armstrongs and Lawler’s in a program with Truth. The constant delaying tactic has led this story to rollover and over and over to the point where the two guys aren’t going to fight.

The saving grace of this show is the X Division – Red and Kash had a good match, the ladder match for it’s time was great and had some really creative stuff in it. But the rest of the show doesn’t know what it’s doing.

Tenay announced the World Title match and then it never happened, but acted like he thought it wasn’t going to happen. They mention that Truth was out with a concussion from a chair shot then have Jarrett deliver chair shots to the head of a sixty year old. There’s this concern about wrestler’s safety in the middle of a ladder match where there’s a referee standing in the ring not checking on the guys at all. 

The show is taking a two week sabbatical, the next show is an X Division highlight reel and then the week after they are not doing a show out of respect for the anniversary of September 11^th. If you want to see the ladder match main event then go get the X Division special show from the Global Force Network it's got that match as well as plenty of others from the last ten weeks.