Impact Wrestling 4-25-13: Sting Returns

The show began with James Storm coming out giving credit to AJ Styles, who was standing amongst the crowd in attendance, for defeating him last week on Impact Wrestling. Storm then addressed The Aces & Eights attacking him after the match and then dared them to come out and fight. Instead, he gets interrupted by Bad Influence (Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian). Bad Influence then addresses the fact that they were attacked by Aces & Eights as well the previous week and that they think that they should reform the faction known as Fortune, in which Styles, Storm, Daniels, and Kazarian were once members of, and take down The Aces & Eights. While AJ left everybody with more questions than answers, like he has been for the past number of weeks, Storm made it clear that he had no interest in reforming Fortune when he decided to fight them instead of Aces & Eights, since they wouldn’t come out. Unfortunately, the numbers’ game caught up with Storm and Bad Influence left him lying in the ring in the end. Then, Aces & Eights come out to pick up the scraps, but then, Joseph Park comes to Storm’s aid. Park is able to fight off members of Aces & Eight at first, but eventually, the numbers’ game catches up with Park and he is then put through a table when TNA World Heavyweight Champion and President of The Aces & Eights Bully Ray & TNA Television Champion and fellow Aces & Eights member Devon use their old tag team signature maneuver, the 3D, on him. Also, Bad Influence approached Bobby Roode about reforming Fortune, which Roode was once a member of as well, to take down Aces & Eights. They told Roode to give some serious consideration to it before they took off. What Bad Influence and Roode didn’t realize, was the fact that Roode’s current tag team partner, Austin Aries, overheard the whole thing. Also, right before Roode & Aries were set to challenge the new TNA World Tag Team Champions Chavo Guerrero, Jr. & Shawn Hernandez for the championship, Aries told Roode that he overheard Roode’s conversation with Bad Influence earlier and began to question Roode’s loyalty. Bad Influence were at ringside during the match. There were communication issues between the challengers throughout the match and at one point, Bad Influence tried to assist Roode & Aries, specifically Roode, but it ended up backfiring and it allowed Chavo & Hernandez to get the victory and retain their championships. Personally, I think this whole idea of reforming fortune is out the window now because Storm made it clear he wanted no part of it, AJ has appeared to be only loyal to himself as of late, and after costing Roode and his partner Aries the Tag Team Championship, I would imagine that Roode, knowing him, would be super pissed at them and the same goes for Aries who was never on board with Roode reforming fortune with Bad Influence in the first place. Also, Matt Morgan called out General Manager Hulk Hogan and discussed all of the wrong decisions that he felt Hogan was making. Hogan said he would offer his services to Hogan against The Aces & Eights, under the condition that Hogan grant him an opportunity at the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. Hogan responded by telling Morgan that some of the things that he just said made sense to him, but that he was offering his services to Hogan for his own personal desire, rather than for TNA. Therefore, Hogan told Morgan that he will go out and face The Aces & Eights by himself if he has to and that Morgan will not get the championship opportunity he demanded. Finally, Bully Ray came out and called out his estranged father-in-law, Hulk Hogan, and told Hogan that there are no heroes left because Aces & Eights have taken them all out and that Hogan was all alone now. Bully then spat in Hogan’s face, which Hogan then responded to by going at it with his estranged son-in-law. Not surprisingly, other members of The Aces & Eights came out and they all surrounded Hogan. Then, the lights in the arena went out; when they came back on, it was none other than the return of TNA Hall of Famer Sting. With a baseball bat in hand, Sting first pointed it towards Hogan and then pointed it towards Bully. Sting then went on to clean house by using the bat to clear The Aces & Eights from the ring. Then, Sting once again pointed the bat towards Hogan and then took off, leaving Hogan, as well as others, puzzled to end the program. What does this mean as far as the relationship between Sting and Hogan? Has Hogan finally regained his confidence in Sting? Stay Tuned! Next week on Impact Wrestling, Chris Sabin makes his return after being out with an injury.