My Impact Wrestling, April 12th 2012 Recap

Eric Bischoff announced his team representing him in the Lethal Lockdown match this Sunday. It includes Bully Ray, Kazarian, Gunner and Christopher Daniels, so a decent enough line up. Bully claimed how proud he was to be a part of Bischoff's unit, but claimed he'd made one mistake, that being his "bastard son" Garrett. Bischoff then also announced that they'd be having a best of three series to determine who will have the one man advantage at Lockdown.

Sure enough Garrett Bischoff made his way out and announced the first member of his team Mr. Anderson.

Gunner won via disqualification versus Mr. Anderson in a mediocre and forgettable match up. The referee DQ'd Anderson after he refused to commence choking Gunner in the corner.

The Motorcity Machine Guns questioned the current TNA Tag Team Champions Samoa Joe and Magnus' credentials as title holders, warning them that they were a step above their usual competition so far in the company, which is true. Samoa Joe and Magnus decided to join the number one contenders to their titles, where Magnus credited the Machine Gun's success and Sabin's recovery from injury, but also warned them that he and Joe were now the top team in the industry.

Mexican America decided to interrupt the two teams but were soon taken out by all four wrestlers.   

Austin Aries defeated Christopher Daniels in a brilliant back and fourth contest with crisp action from both men. It's no shock when you get a match of this quality from two professionals who clearly take pride in their craft, it's just a shame we don't see more of it in a company that promotes the mediocre likes of Anderson and Garrett Bischoff. Aries scored the winning pin after applying a brainbuster.   

Jeff Hardy gave a very brief warning to Kurt Angle that there will be no escape for him at Lockdown, and that they were going to make history. It was almost as if Hardy couldn't be asked to be there, although I may be being a bit unfair and he might have only been allocated a short amount of promo time.

During the quite strange, albeit rather amusing wedding ceremony of Eric Young and ODB, Sarita and Rosita interrupted the proceedings and offered Young the chance to be with them instead. But EY would not be tempted as he (and ODB) stripped down and married each other to chants from the crowd of Daniel Bryan's patented "Yes!" Now, I wasn't expecting much from this segment, but it was actually quite fair considering, and strangely a feel good moment. Don't judge me.   

Bully Ray defeated AJ Styles in a decent bout, although there were inevitable distractions from members of both teams at ringside the action in the ring stayed solid. Ray grabbed the one-two-three after striking AJ in the head with a chain wrapped around his fist.  

Hulk Hogan came out and announced that the Lethal Lockdown match will now be "five on five, brother." A rushed Eric decided to pick the out of shape Ric Flair, who hasn't been involved in a decent match in God knows how long. Meanwhile Garrett, who'd been given prior warning from Hogan, chose the returning Rob Van Dam as his final teammate.    

Velvet Sky and Mickie James defeated Gail Kim and Madison Rayne in an entertaining tag team bout. The quality of matches the likes of Kim and James put on really do put the majority of interchangeable WWE Divas to shame.  

James Storm spoke to Bobby Roode in the ring about how their relationship had evolved from their memorable Beer Money days. Roode admitted that he was very proud of those days, but also reminisced about them going into singles wrestling and his journey to becoming the TNA World Champion. But the reminiscing soon turned into aggression and intensity as the one to one slowly (and effectively) grew more and more heated. 

Towards the end Roode claimed that he and Storm never liked each other during their time as a tag team, that it was their individual passion for the business that brought them success. He also brought up Storm's deceased brothers and father as the show went off the air. It was a superbly intense segment between the two and probably the finest promo I've seen either men ever give. Sunday in Nashville should bring a very entertaining Cage Match between the two.