TNA Impact Wrestling TV Results
July 15, 2015
Taped in Orlando, Fla.
Report by Mike McMahon (@MikeMcMahonDOG), PWTorch contributor

The Card: 20-man battle royal to determine the TNA World Title No. 1 contender. … Tigre Uno vs. Rockstar Spud vs. Grado vs. D.J. Z for the X Division Title. … Taryn Terrell vs. Brookel for the TNA Knockouts Title. … Ethan Carter III vs. Drew Galloway for the TNA World Hvt. Title.

Impact on Destination America

Impact kicks off this week with a recap of last week’s show, in particular the TNA World Hvt. Title match between champion Ethan Carter III and Kurt Angle, as well as Dixie Carter’s announcement that there would be a new authority in charge of Impact Wrestling.

In-arena: Dixie Carter is in the ring with the entire talent roster at ringside and Josh Mathews says that she has a major announcement.

Dixie said the last time she was in that ring, she had just gone through a table in New York City. She said she would never forget looking up and seeing all of the crowd cheering for that. Dixie said, at that moment, it hit her and she asked how it got to that point? She said she realized it was all her, and her ego. She said she let the fans and the wrestlers down, and she’s here to tell the people, sincerely, that she’s sorry.

“I regret a lot of stuff, but the one thing I don’t regret is going through that table and breaking my back,” she said. “I gained such perspective.”

Dixie spoke to the talent and said she has so much respect for them. She seems them bruised and bloody every day and knows they give their absolute all. She said she’s also there to make this a new chapter in TNA. Dixie said she wants to talk about the future, which she knows is bright, but she knows when she talks about the future, it’s easy to doubt. She said when she makes promises, it’s easy to be fearful she will break them.

“I need you guys to trust me,” Dixie said. “I need us to come together.” Dixie said she has the best roster “on this planet.”

She said she would do everything to never let them down and she means it sincerely. She said one of the first decisions she’s made is to bring in someone who understands the wrestlers, but who will also be the law.

That brought out TNA World Champion Ethan Carter III. He appeared on stage with Tyrus. He said this was all a farce and demanded to know who was in charge. Dixie said she loves Ethan, but she needed to make this decision.

That’s when Bully Ray’s music hits, and he enters the Impact Zone from behind ECIII. Bully Ray stares at ECIII for a moment before walking to the ring. As he gets to ringside, he begins to shake hands with the wrestlers assembled around the ring. Mathews and Pope react with disbelief, as Pope talks about himself in the third person.

Dixie hands Bully Ray a microphone and said a few days ago, Dixie Carter called him. Bully said he answered, and the first thing he heard from Dixie was, “I’m sorry.” He admitted he was stunned, but Dixie said, “Bully, I’m really sorry.” Bully said that Dixie told him she was sorry she let everyone down. She was sorry she let down her entire locker room and she was sorry for what she did to the fans.

Bully said he started to believe her. Talking to Dixie, he said he believed that she finally realized what she’s done to her company and her roster. Bully said he has so many emotions, including that he was happy to be back “in front of wrestling fans” and that he was happy to be hanging out with “the best wrestling locker room in the world.” But, he said he was also angry and he was angry at Dixie.

Dixie just stared at Bully Ray, as he said the only reason he was coming back was for the fans and the roster. He told the wrestlers he didn’t like that they were on the floor because that looked like they were beneath him and Dixie, and demanded they get up on the apron. He said the point he was getting across was that every person on the apron and part of production, or the ring crew, “They give a damn about this company.”

Turning his attention to Dixie, he said “you need to realize how much they care, despite what you’ve put them through.” He said it was good enough for him, but he was leaving the decision up to the fans. He then asked the crowd if they wanted Bully Ray to come in and help bring TNA back to the promised land. He said he wasn’t going to hug Dixie, but he would shake her hand and accept the position.

Dixie and Bully shook hands as the live crowd chanted, “TNA!” Bully said, “Now, let’s do what TNA does best. Let’s have a great wrestling show. And oh, by the way, Ethan I didn’t forget about you. The World Heavyweight Champion will defend his championship tonight, and you are going to do it against the winner of a 20-man battle royal that starts right now.”

[REAX: Just like last week, Dixie hit on some real issues and Bully Ray really hit on some real issues. The angle with Dixie and Bully hinting at her actions against the wrestlers and the rest of the company are clearly part of a storyline, but the booking seems very Vince Russo’ish, blurring the lines between what’s real and what’s not. That said, it’s come across not as typical Russo non-sense, but as some emotionally-charged television. Bully Ray also took some veiled shots at WWE, saying it was great to be back “in front of wrestling fans,” and calling TNA’s “the best wrestling roster in the world.” But this segment was most about Dixie Carter, and her mismanagement of TNA. If she’s willing to accept that behind the scenes the way her character has accepted it on camera, it should hopefully mean some positive changes for TNA moving forward.]

[Commercial Break at 9:14]

1 -- NO. 1 CONTENDER 20-MAN BATTLE ROYAL -- Winner earns a TNA World Hvt. Title match later tonight

[Q2] Back from the break, it’s chaos in the ring as the opening bell for the battle royal rings. Early in the match, Mathews and Pope didn’t pay much attention to what was happening in the match, rather plugging what’s coming later in the show.

The ring started to clear up about five minutes into the match. Mathews continued to plug other Discovery and Destination America shows, such as “BBQ Pitmasters.” Drew Galloway eliminated James Storm with an impressive back body drop over the ropes.

[Commercial break at 9:23]

Back from the break, Mathews runs down the slew of eliminations that occurred during the break. MVP, Galloway and Eric Young are the only three remaining once we go back live to the ring. Young and MVP are teaming up against Galloway, including taking turns dropping a knee on him while he was lying on the mat. Galloway crawls to the rope and begins to fight back, but he’s cut off and takes boots in the corner.

[Q3] MVP picks Galloway up and drags him to the ropes. As MVP tried to roll Galloway over the top rope, Young tosses MVP over to eliminate him. So it’s down to Galloway and Young. Galloway hurdles a charge from EY in the corner and hit a boot to the chest, which somehow catapulted Eric Young over the top rope and to the floor.

WINNER: Drew Galloway wins in about 17:00

[Reax: Nearly all of the eliminations happened during the break, which cheapened the match. You expect things to happen when a wrestling company crashes to a break in the middle of a match, but TNA went to break with about 10-12 wrestlers still alive in the match, and returned with just three. The finish also seemed a bit clunky, with a boot to the chest, in the corner, somehow launching EY over the top.]

TNA throws to a video package on the TNA Hall of Fame, highlighting Sting, and revealing that next week will include the announcement of the 2015 inductee into the TNA Hall of Fame.

Announce booth: Mathews and Pope discuss the TNA Hall of Fame as well as Galloway vs. ECIII later tonight. Mathews then turns the discussion to Bram vs. Mr. Anderson from last week, throwing to a Mike Tenay interview with Mr. Anderson.

In an empty Impact Zone, Tenay says that since the attack last week, there have been questions and rumors about Anderson’s future in the wrestling business.

[Reax: There have?]

Anderson said that he’s 39 years old, and he feels better than he’s felt in 10 years. But, he’s done a lot of things and he’s had a good career. He said if it ended tomorrow, he’d be happy with what he did in his career. “Do I need to face another injury? And God knows how bad that injury might be, especially to the hands of Bram. He doesn’t care about his own well being, let alone my well being. Bram is a dark individual. I can go there. If I do go there, it’s going to be ugly. It’s going to be nasty, and fact of the matter is … I don’t know.”

[Reax: Silly premise, considering no one has questioned anything with Anderson, but good delivery from him in this pre-tape promo. Anderson kept hitting on the fact that Bram is a psycho who doesn’t care about anything, which helps get him over as a menacing heel. It just seemed odd that all of a sudden Anderson was questioning his career, and Tenay made it sound like there were these burning questions all week, when fact is this is the first anyone in the audience heard about Anderson contemplating retirement over Bram.]

Backstage: Rockstar Spud is walking around and he finds Bully Ray playing a game on his phone. Bully asks for a seven-letter word for “morbidly obese,” and then says, “Oh, Dreamer,” of course taking a jab at Tommy Dreamer.

Spud begins to sound down on his loss to Kurt Angle. Bully stops him and says he should be proud of what he did against Angle, that he did great, and that everyone’s lost to Kurt Angle. Bully told Spud that he knew he had “it.” Bully runs down Spud’s accomplishments, including a two-time X Division Champion. He told Spud that he’s giving him the chance to be a three-time champion, and to go out and win it for himself. Spud gave Bully Ray a big hug before running off to get ready for his impending match.

[Commercial Break at 9:36]

Back from the break, TNA airs another TNA Hall of Fame hype video, this time about Kurt Angle. Mathews then recaps the 20-man battle royal from earlier in the night, which is setting up Drew Galloway vs. Ethan Carter III for the TNA World Hvt. Title later tonight.

Backstage: Galloway says he could have run three marathons today and it wouldn’t matter, because his destiny is tonight. From out of nowhere comes Eli Drake, who tells Galloway to go out there tonight and make history.

[Reax: We’ll see later on, but this seemed to guarantee an Eli Drake heel turn in tonight’s main event.]

Video: Tigre Uno, next week, is going to talk about Donald Trump and his comments on Mexico.

[Reax: Can’t wait for that …]

In-ring: Grado and DJ Z make their ring entrances for the TNA X Division Title match.

2 -- TNA X-Division champion TIGRE UNO vs. ROCKSTAR SPUD vs. D.J. Z vs. GRADO -- Four-Way TNA X-Division Title match

[Q4] DJ Z and Rockstar Spud immediately charge each other when the bell sounds. After some fast action for the opening minute, the smaller guys take turns trying to bodyslam Grado. The smaller guys - D.J. Z, Spud, and Uno - then go into a sequence where they begin to hit fast-paced Lucha-style moves on each other. Grado turns a top-rope dive by D.J. Z into an inverted atomic drop.

Spud and Grado are arguing in the ring after teaming up to take out D.J. Z. As they’re arguing, Uno launches himself off the top onto both Spud and Grado. Uno takes out D.J. Z and Spud on the outside with a dive. Back in the ring, he climbs the turnbuckle and hits a 450 splash on Grado for the win.

WINNER: Tigre Uno retains the TNA X-Division Title

[Reax: Uno looked good here with his Lucha Libre style. His moves were crisp and tight and he looked more like a star here than in the rest of his TNA run. Spud didn’t look good, costing himself a good chance in the match after getting caught arguing with Grado. No offense to Grado, but he’s a comedy act, and only a so-so one at that. Spud should be on another level. They should have just gone with a Spud-Uno singles match, but the four-way seemed to be booked in a way to protect Spud and not have him take a pin. But they did some damage here, despite him not actually taking the pinfall.]

TNA cut to a Dollhouse video with Taryn Terrell talking about her wins over the likes of Awesome Kong and others. But as she was talking, graphics of Gail Kim would interrupt the video intermittently for a few seconds before ending with the saying “play time’s over” on the screen.

[Commercial Break at 9:53]

Back from break, we’re ready for the Knockouts Title match.

3 -- TNA Knockouts champion TARYN TERRELl (w/Jade and Marti Belle) vs. BROOKE -- TNA Knockouts Title match

[Q5] Marti and Jade get involved early, going after Brooke at ringside. After Terrell hit a crossbody for a near fall, Jade and Marti again get involved before the lights go out. When they come back on, Gail Kim is on the ramp in all black and she goes after Marti and Jade.

The lights went out again and Kim disappeared. Brooke then hit a facebuster for the pinfall. Post-match: Mathews goes over that Terrell had been champion for 238 days as Brooke celebrates.

WINNER: Brooke wins via pinfall to become the new TNA Knockouts Champion.

[Reax: Good overall match. Kim’s involvement was well placed, though giving her superpowers, with the lights going out, seemed like an odd touch. Brooke winning the Knockouts Title didn’t feel like a very big deal, especially considering Terrell had held the title for almost a full year. The match just had no hype and felt like a run-of-the-mill mid-card match with no hype. TNA had a chip it could have cashed in with Terrell’s long title run, and the end of her reign seemed very anti-climactic this way.]

Backstage: Bully Ray and Kurt Angle are having a talk. Angle gets stopped by the backstage interviewer and says he’s on his way to the ring to make an announcement.

[Commercial Break at 10:08]

Back from the break, Angle makes his way to the ring.

In-ring: Angle said a lot of changes have hit TNA the last few weeks. He said he’s not ashamed of losing the title to ECIII, but he is upset with his rematch, where ECIII got DQ’ed to retain the title. Angle said he went to Bully Ray and they don’t see eye-to-eye well. Angle said that Bully told him the rematch never happened, it never took place, so in other words, Angle gets another rematch with ECIII for the TNA World Hvt. Title. This time, Angle said he gets it when he wants it.

[Q6] Angle continues by saying he went to the doctor and he has a tumor in his neck, and he needs surgery. Angle said he would be out for “a little while,” but he has something to look forward to, and that’s his re-match with ECIII. He thanked Bully Ray, and he thanked the TNA fans for their continued support.

As Angle went to leave, Eric Young makes his way to the ring. EY told Angle that he needed to start telling the truth, which is that he beat Angle, not ECIII. Young asked how many times he hit a piledriver on Angle? Young asked how many piledrivers Angle’s “old neck” has left?

Young said he wanted to take credit for the tumor in Angle’s neck, but he wasn’t going to. He said that was nature’s way of telling Angle it’s time to go. Young said he wants Angle gone for good, and he hit him with a stiff right hand but Angle fights back as the two brawl at ringside. Young went to hit a piledriver on the outside but Chris Melendez runs to ringside, which chases off Young. After appearing to go back up the ramp, Young comes back to ringside and attacks Melendez, who was checking on Angle. Young hit Melendez with a piledriver on the floor.

Still to come: ECIII vs. Drew Galloway for the TNA World Title.

[Commercial Break at 10:21]

Back from the break, another TNA Hall of Fame video airs, this time hyping Team 3D, along with the graphic that next week the next inductee will be revealed.

Announce booth: Mathews and Pope hype the World Title match later before throwing to a replay, in full, of James Storm vs. Magnus from Slammiversary.

[Reax: This seems like an odd fit, airing a replay match, but it’s really not. Storm and Magnus are both no longer under contract to TNA, but they do have the mixed tag team match upcoming, after Mickie challenged Storm to “go find a woman” two weeks ago. With that match still to air on Impact, and likely not many people seeing the Storm-Magus match from Slammiversary, it made at least some sense to air this match for its television audience, which is exponentially larger than the handful who ordered the pay-per-view.]

[Q7] After the match, TNA threw to a replay of James Storm's promo on Magnus two weeks ago.

Backstage: Storm said his revolution is a living, breathing entity. He said it always has room for one more. Storm said, as far as his partner, it’s someone very, very close to Mickie James. Mathews said the match would take place in two weeks on Impact.

Backstage: Bully Ray walks up on ECIII, who says he came to say he wants to work with Bully Ray. He said he’s champion, and that’s a great responsibility. He said he defended the title three times last week, and that was exhausting. He asked to postpone his match with Galloway one week in order to promote it. Bully Ray thanked him for his opinion, but the answer was no. Bully told ECIII he’s World Hvt. Champion and he needs to act like it. He told him to stop complaining and find a way to get the job done. ECIII then slowly walked away.

[Commercial Break at 10:37]

Back from the break, Galloway is making his ring entrance for tonight’s main event. ECIII is out next, with Tyrus. As ECIII hands the belt over to Brian Hebner, Galloway and Tyrus go almost nose-to-nose in the ring before Tyrus steps to the outside.

4 -- TNA World Hvt. Champion ETHAN CARTER III (w/Tyrus) vs. DREW GALLOWAY -- TNA World Hvt. Title match

Galloway and ECIII stare each other down as the bell rings. They circle and lock up to start the match. After throwing ECIII off the ropes, Galloway hits a shoulder tackle early in the match and the crowd applauds. ECIII in control after another lock up, hitting chops in the corner. Galloway tackles him though and sends him into the corner, where Galloway lands some chops of his own.

[Q8] ECIII goes to the outside but Galloway chases him down. After Galloway tosses ECIII back in the ring, Tyrus splashes Galloway into the ringpost as the referee checked on ECIII. Suddenly, Eli Drake ran to ringside to even the sides, holding Tyrus back by threatening to use his crutch as a weapon.

[Commercial Break at 10:47]

Back from the break, ECIII has control of the match and he’s unloading on Galloway’s back while he’s tied up in the ropes. ECIII hits a vertical suplex and a series of elbows while Galloway is down. Mathews points out that ECIII’s chest is bright red from the chops Galloway landed earlier in the match.

ECIII locks in a version of a camel clutch but Galloway gets to feet. ECIII control back with a back-heel trip, as Mathews called it. He covered but only for a two-count. ECIII grabs Galloway by the hair and slams him multiple times into the mat face first.

With Galloway on one knee, ECIII starts to slap Galloway in the face but that seemed to wake him up and he takes control after some punches and clotheslines, including a flying clothesline off the top. Galloway lifts up ECIII and drops him on the turnbuckles. TNA keeps cutting to Eli Drake at ringside. Galloway hits a powerslam for a two-count.

Tyrus grabs Galloway’s boot from the outside to distract him and ECIII hits a splash in the corner to retake control of the offense. He chops Galloway a few times before Galloway reverses him into the corner and lands a series of quick chops, but he inadvertently hit ref Hebner with an elbow.

ECIII hits Galloway with a low blow kick and Tyrus comes into the ring. He goes to grab Galloway but Eli Drake rushes into the ring with his crutch to hold Tyrus back. As Galloway stands up, Drake smashes Galloway across the shoulders with his crutch and walks off, showing that his knee was fine.

Galloway falls in a heap. ECIII comes out of the corner and hits the One-Percenter for the pinfall.

WINNER: Ethan Carter III retains the TNA World Hvt. Title via pinfall.

Post-match: ECIII gets his hand raised and he celebrates with Tyrus while Mathews throws to the replay. Drake is shown on the ramp yelling at Galloway in the ring before ripping off his Galloway shirt. Galloway remains out cold in the ring as the show goes off the air.

FINAL THOUGHTS: ECIII has had two real title defenses since winning the TNA World Hvt. Championship. He was disqualified last week against Kurt Angle and then this week beat Galloway only after outside interference. That doesn’t exactly make him appear very strong as champion. After beating Angle clean on Impact two weeks ago, TNA could have booked ECIII as a strong heel with some clean wins in his defenses, but they’ve rather gone the route of making ECIII appear like a flukey champion who can’t win a clean match on his own. It’s been two weeks and that clean win over Angle is almost an afterthought.

Elsewhere, Drake isn’t a big enough name to have to have his heel turn make much of an impact, and the crowd seemed somewhat indifferent to it.

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