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Tonight was another solid episode of Impact as I wonder if I’m just becoming used to their bad product or if it is actually picking up a bit. One thing’s for sure, there was a lot more in-ring action tonight than there has been in a long time.

Jim Cornette opens the show by announcing a 20 man Gauntlet inside the Six Sides of Steel. The winners will be the captains of the traditional Lethal Lockdown at April’s LockDown PPV. The Main Event Mafia comes out to talk some trash who was then interrupted by TNA Founder Jeff Jarrett, who announces he will be in the Gauntlet himself.

Suicide beat Kiyoshi in a X-Division Championship match.

They aired a great Rough Cut segment on Brother Ray.

That segued into a sit down interview between the IWGP Tag Team Champions Team 3-D and TNA World Tag Team Champions “Beer Money” – Robert Roode & James Storm. It was a great segment that effectively built up the Tag Title match without the clichéd pull apart brawls.

“The Beautiful People” – Angelina Love & Velvet Sky beat TNA Women’s Champion Awesome Kong & Raisha Saeed when Love pinned Saeed.

Mick Foley and TNA World Champion Sting had a face-to-face meeting to hype up their main event match at LockDown.

Samoa Joe won the 20 man Gauntlet inside the Six Sides of Steel. Here’s the rundown:
Abyss and AJ Styles were numbers 1 and 2. Then Alex Shelley, Jay Lethal and Chris Sabin entered as numbers 3, 4 and 5. Matt Morgan was number 6 but gets pinned quickly by his arch-rival Abyss. Number 7 was Homicide, followed by Scott Steiner. During the commercial break Sabin pinned Homicide and Consequences Creed entered the match. Rhino came out as number 10. Then Jeff Jarrett was supposed to be number 11 but got jumped by Kurt Angle before he could enter the ring. The trainers take care of Jarrett as Naito from Team No Limit enters. He is followed by Angle himself. Angle cleans house and eliminates Creed, Sabin and Lethal in rapid succession. During the commercial Naito was eliminated by Steiner and Shane Sewell entered the match. Sewell didn’t last long as he was eliminated by Angle quickly. The matched continued with Sheik Abdul Bashir and Booker T as 15 and 16 respectively. Booker eliminated AJ quickly but then gets beat himself by Rhino. Yujiro from Team No Limit came out and Bashir got pinned by Angle. Number 18 was Eric Young and entered just as Angle and Steiner eliminated Abyss. Angle then pinned Young in short order. Rhino then pinned Yujiro but was immediately pinned himself by Angle. Angle and Steiner stood alone to await number 19 Hernandez. Angle pinned him quickly and awaited number 20, but instead TNA Management Jim Cornette sent Jeff Jarrett back out, who was officially never eliminated before. Jarrett pinned Steiner, who didn’t leave the ring like he should have. He helped Angle pin Jarrett only for Samoa Joe to enter, the rightful twentieth entrant. Joe brawled with Steiner and Angle before pinning Angle to win the match. As a result Joe and Angle, the two finalists will captain teams against each other at LockDown.
It was a good match but the booking at the ending started to make not sense in typical TNA fashion. And I asked why are these guys fighting so far individually in order to get into a tag team match. So some of the psychology in the match was off but it was pretty good, especially for TNA’s recent poor standards.

After the match, Cornette explains why he let Jarrett re-enter the match and then they get words from both Angle and Joe.

Check out 411 for other thoughts on the show.

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