By John Moore, ProWrestling.net Staffer (@liljohnm)
TNA Thursday Night Impact (Episode 1,142)
Taped May 14-15 in Sacramento, California, at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium
Simulcast June 4, 2026, on AMC, AMC+, and TNA+
Highlights from last week’s Impact aired…
Tom Hannifan and Matthew Rehwoldt were on commentary. McKenzie Mitchell was the ring announcer. Gia Miller was the backstage interviewer…
Entrances for the opening match took place…
1. Eddie Edwards (w/Alisha Edwards, Brian Myers, Bear Bronson, Cedric Alexander) vs. BDE. BDE dumped Eddie to ringside with a crossbody and armdrag. BDE hit Eddie with a Suicide Dive. Eddie crotched BDE on the top rope. Eddie hit BDE with a Super Back Suplex for a two count. BDE rallied back with right hands and a Stinger Splah.
Eddie and BDE traded counters. BDE hit Eddie with a Codebreaker. Alisha went for the distraction, but Eddie accidentally hit her after BDE dodged. BDE caught Eddie with a Cody Cutter for a two count. The System members distracted the referee. This caught BDE’s attention and caused him to go for a Splash late on Eddie. Eddie brought up the knees to block the Splash. Eddie hit BDE with a Boston Knee Party for the win.
Eddie Edwards defeated BDE via pinfall in 4:52.
The System circled BDE after the match. Fabien Aichner ran out for the save, but was taken down due to the numbers game. Leon Slater ran out and took out Bear and Cedric at ringside. The three babyfaces dumped Eddie to ringside with stereo Superkicks. Slater hit the System members at ringside with a Corkscrew Plancha over the ringpost. The babyfaces stood tall to end the segment…
A vignette aired where the Righteous members hyped up their upcoming “Wicked Garden” match against The Hardys…
Tom Hannifan hyped upcoming segments…[c]
John’s Thoughts: No reason to think BDE would pick up his first win here, but I do like that the hook is still hanging out there for him to finally pick up that elusive win. Hopefully they don’t just throw away that stat and hopefully they make it a huge hook and moment on the show. Aichner and Slater running out sets up a Six Person tag against the System sooner or later.
AJ Francis made his entrance for a promo. He talked about 2026 being a huge moment for him. He said he lost a lot of weight. He said it wasn’t just personal weight, but also dead weight in KC Navarro. He bragged about producing moment after moment. He compared himself to musical artists like The Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, and Carlos Santana, not that fraud Mike Santana.
AJ said he was going to perform his new song “Walk”. A graphic on the big screen showed a cover art of AJ Francis in Elijah cosplay. AJ Started singing his new song, but was cut off quickly by Elijah making his entrance. Elijah said he walked out to make sure AJ doesn’t embarrass himself. He asked the crowd who wants to walk with Elijah. Elijah said it was odd to see someone else use his guitar strum.
AJ said it was actually his strum and his song due to him buying up the Intellectual Property. Elijah said all AJ is doing is embarrassing himself in front of the entire world. AJ handed Elijah some papers and told him he’s been served. AJ said he bought the rights to use the IP of Elijah, Elias, and even Ezekiel. He said he also acquired Elijah’s music catalog which means he owns Elijah.
Elijah said he’ll play a new song called “No Skill, Uncle Phil”. AJ clocked Elijah before he could do anything. After AJ left, the camera zoomed into Elijah to show him bleeding from the ear while holding his Cease and Desist…
John’s Thoughts: AJ is usually good with these heat generating segments, but this was kinda just okay. They haven’t really been creative with this whole “AJ buying Elijah’s IP” gimmick over the last few weeks, to the point where it just feels like a forced reason to have Elijah and AJ feud. Even the extremely over Elijah felt fairly tame in this build segment.
Santino Marella and Indi Hartwell were warming up for their upcoming tag match backstage. “The SUIT” Daria Rae showed up to wish them luck and also remind Indi that she had nothing to do with re-signing Indi to TNA…[c]
Elayna Black cut a promo backstage claiming to be better than every woman in the Knockouts Division. Black blamed Hartwell for sucking up to the boss by helping Santino with his family drama. Black said she’s going to prove that Indi has no talent and that it was time to enter the “Era of Elayna”…
Stacks and Ariana Grace made their entrance first. Indi Hartwell and Santino made their entrance next. Frankie Kazarian joined the commentary table…
2. Channing “Stacks” Lorenzo and Ariana Grace vs. Santino Marella and Indi Hartwell in an Intergender Tag Team Match. Stacks quickly tagged out to allow Grace to get in the face of her dad. Grace slapped Santino. Hartwell beat down Grace. Stacks blindsided a distracted Santino and took him down. Stacks went to kiss his fiancé.
This allowed Santino to come back with a hip toss for a two count. Santino put Stacks in a Sleeper. Stacks fought his way out and hit Santino with an elbow drop.[c]
Back from break, Grace and Stacks cut the ring in half on Hartwell. Hartwell took out Grace with a clothesline. Santino and Stacks tagged in with Santino hitting his signature string of moves. Grace took away Santino’s sock puppet. Stacks held Santino in place, but Grace accidentally hit Stacks with The Cobra after Santino ducked.
Santino handed Indi Hartwell one of his spare Cobra socks. Santino and Indi loaded up and hit Stacks and Grace with The Cobra. Santino picked up the pinfall on Stacks.
Santino Marella and Indi Hartwell defeated Channing Lorenzo and Ariana Grace via pinfall in 11:58.
John’s Thoughts: A fun tag match that the crowd really liked (I was at the taping and this was taped right before the Wicked Garden match. The crowd was really pleased with this victory and hype for Santino all night). Is this it with the Grace and Stacks vs. Santino and Indi feud? Probably not because Indi vowed to defeat Grace before going after the title, so I would at least expect them to be in a singles match? What’s also weird, is I looked at my notes from that night and it looks like there was a Daria Rae segment after the match that was cut as well as Steve Maclin beating down Santino after the match.
The Concierge, M, and Heather were checking up on Mr. Elegance. They were all worried that he had bad juju around him while he was grinning and saying everything was fine. They were also concerned about Mr. Elegance having a bunny costume on his head recently, which Elegance denied. The lights quickly flashed and Allie, Rosemary, and Mara Sade teleported in the room, which scared off The Elegance Brand…
Eric Young was in the ring with a mic. Young said TNA is sick and needs to be cleansed. He said this place is filled with lies and fake heroes. He said Joe Hendry was a fraud and he exposed Joe. He said Ricky Sosa was a flash in the pan, a pretender, and dealt with. He said he also got rid of the former king who came back for his crown in EC3. Young said fate laid out everything as it’s supposed to be.
He said he sees through Mike Santana and Santana is sick like everyone else. He said he is sick with ego, selfishness, and addiction. He said Santana is addicted to applause and approval. He said he’s above them both. TNA Champion Mike Santana made his usual entrance through the crowd. Santana hyped up the local crowd.
Santana talked about Young running his mouth and trying to be relevant. Santana said EY hasn’t been relevant for 18 years. Santana said Young is trying to cleanse TNA. He said Young took out EC3 and Sosa, but he must be crazy in thinking he’ll get rid of Santana. Young said he’s seen TNA rot from the inside due to people like Santana poisoning this place.
Santana said Young is the one poisoning this place by thinking he has some sort of seniority and ownership. Santana said all Young continues to do is try and fail in TNA. Young asked Santana if he thinks the crowd cares about him. Young said Santana is just a shiny new toy and they’ll turn on Santana. He said he’s seen all this and he needs to fix all of it. Young said he’ll pile drive Santana and then take his power back.
Santana said he’s a man of his word, and with God as his witness, he’ll break his foot all up in Young’s ass. Santana said he’s tired of all the yapping and it was time to give the paying customers their money’s worth with a fight now. While Santana was addressing the crowd, Young kicked Santana and gave Santana a pile driver to leave him lying…
John’s Thoughts: Well delivered mic work as usual from Santana, and also good mic work by Young. The only problem is that Eric Young is ice cold as a character and this whole “cleanse” thing was dead on arrival and just floundering at this point. The floundering of the Cleanse thing is causing this story to simply be very uninteresting. What’s kinda crazy is Slammiversary is coming up and they don’t have a number one contender for the Championship. I wonder if them cutting the Steve Maclin attacking Santino earlier means they want to make Maclin number one contender? What I don’t hope is I hope they aren’t making Maclin Young’s friend again so that he can help Young become the World Champ.
A trailer aired for the Keith Jardine movie that they’ve been advertising for the last few weeks…
It was time for the sponsored TNA Injury Report. Elijah is “in evaluation” due to his busted ear from earlier. Hannifan said there will be paramedics on hand for what they expect to be a violent Wicked Garden match…
Rehwoldt hyped upcoming segments…[c]
Mustafa Ali and Order 4 were backstage. Ali said that KC Navarro pinned him in the champion’s challenge, but that win was a fluke. Ali said KC is not better than him and he’s a pink haired freak. He said he’ll beat KC next week as long as “somebody” can stick to the plan (Ali said as he was admonishing Tasha Steelz). Hotch told Steelz to not worry about it as they all left…
Hannifan and Rehwoldt checked in on commentary. They recapped Young laying out Mike Santana in the last segment…
The Personal Concierge walked out. The Concierge walked out and said that he’s going to address the champion from “China”, which he said in Donald Trump’s cadence (It sounded like a mild reaction on air, but the crowd really booed and got into it for that). The Concierge said he has someone to beat respect into Lei Ying Lee, Mr. Elegance. Mr. Elegance made his entrance doing his perpetual Jojo Bizarre Adventure poses. Lei Ying Lee made her entrance. Xia Brookside joined the commentary team for the match…
John’s Thoughts: Seriously, Mr. Elegance reminds me of Jack Perry as a character from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Jojo’s is a comic book and anime from a writer who combined his love of Fist of the North Star, popular music acts, fashion, muscles, and the artist known as Prince into an action superhero series.
3. TNA Knockouts Champion Lei Ying Lee vs. Mr. Elegance (w/Heather, M, Personal Concierge) in a non-title intergender match. Elegance had the power advantage while also doing his poses. Lee did a sweep kick and mocked Elegance’s poses. Lee hit Elegance with Ten Punches in the Corner. The Elegance Brand tried to interfere, but the referee ejected them. Rehwoldt said this was disrespect all across the board.
Elegance took advantage of the distraction and slammed Lee to the ground. Elegance then did a dance on Lee, which grinded his crotch over the back of Lee’s head (ew, disrespectful, but also good heel heat I guess). Elegance then hit Lee with Stephanie Vaquer’s Devil’s Kiss, which the crowd popped for (Thank you Booker T?). Lee rallied with punches. Elegance blocked a Sunset Flip with his wave pose.
Elegance clocked Lee with a right hand to lay her out. Lee sent Elegance into the buckle. Lee hit Elegance with a stiff CQC combo. Lee put Elegance in an Ankle Lock. Elegance got the rope break with his wave poses. Lee hit Elegance with a dragging Power Bomb for a nearfall. Hannifan noted that Keith Jardine attacked Mr. Elegance last week (It’s funny that they don’t point out that Keith Jardine is sitting right there in the front row on camera).
Elegance hit Lee with a pop up hook. Elegance went to the top rope to do his wave pose. Lee crotched Elegance. Lee put Elegance in a Helicopter Spin. Lee knocked Xia Brookside off the apron. The distraction allowed Elegance to rake the eyes of Lee and hit her with a modified Shell Shocked for the win.
Mr. Elegance defeated Lei Ying Lee via pinfall in 7:06.
After the match, Brookside took the mic to announce Lei Ying Lee vs. Xia Brookside for Slammiversary…
Rehwoldt hyped upcoming segments…[c]
John’s Thoughts: I’ve seen my fair share of intergender matches and they aren’t fully my cup of tea, but this was one of the good ones as they were able to get a good 7 minutes out of it and both wrestlers worked well with the comedy vs serious nature of it. The crowd loved Lei Ying Lee as the underdog here; but I think they might have been piping in boos (or messing with the audio levels) because the crowd was also excited for Mr. Elegance. It didn’t help his heat when he did the horny fan favorite Stephanie Vaquer move. Mr. Elegance was actually over throughout the tapings, mostly because he doesn’t turn the gimmick off at all and is doing all his goofy poses seeming 24/7.
McKenzie Mitchell introduced the “Wicked Garden” match. A Wicked Garden Match is a no-DQ Tornado Tag match with various things you would see at a garden around the ring, like roses and wood trellises. Entrances for the next match took place heading into break…[c]
4. “The Broken Hardys” Broken Matt Hardy and Brother Jeffrey Nero Hardy vs. “The Righteous” Vincent and Dutch. Two barbed trellis boards were set up in the corner. Jeff hip tossed Dutch into a wood trellis early on (a chunk off wood actually flew in my direction and hit my shirt, and I wasn’t even directly in front of it). Matt raked a hand rake on Dutch’s face. Vincent got control and raked barbed wire on Matt’s head.
Jeff gave Vincent his signature Atomic Drop combo. Dutch broke up Jeff’s pin. Matt and Jeff hit Dutch with their signature double leg drop and elbow drop combo. Both teams brawled at ringside. Jeff Hardy splashed some of the show’s sponsored electrolyte drink at Vincent heading into break.[c]
Both teams were still evenly brawling during the commercial break. The Righteous double teamed Jeff and slammed him on the barbed Trellis board from earlier. The Righteous dominated for a stretch of the match. Matt recovered, wrapped barbed wire around his fist, and low blowed Dutch. The Hardys gave Vincent a Plot Twist into the barbed wire. Both Hardys dragged barbed wire over Vincent’s head.
When Dutch tried to break it up, the Hardy’s slammed Dutch to the mat and used the barbed wire as a fish hook on his mouth. The Hardys hit both opponents with Poetry in Motion. Matt hit Dutch with a Side Effect for a nearfall. Matt went for a Twist of Fate, but Dutch speared Matt through the Trellis Board, which also crotched Jeff on the top rope.
The Righteous pulled out a poisonous flower (that looked like the Lily of the Valley, as Breaking Bad fans would know). The Righteous shoved the flower down Jeff’s throat. Matt recovered and hit both opponents with a double DDT. Jeff fumbled and bumbled due to the “poison”. Jeff was stumbling and bumbling at ringside. This allowed the Righteous to double team Matt.
Jeff was foaming at the mouth due to the “poison”. Vincent yelled at Jeff and revealed that it was in-fact the Lily of the Valley plant that we all know from AMC’s Breaking Bad. EMTs stretched Jeff to the back. Jeff got off the stretcher and then ran back to the ring to help his brother. Jeff still fumbled to the ground due to the poison. Dutch hit Matt with a Black Hole Slam. Vincent hit Matt with Orange Sunshine (assisted Bulldog) for the win.
The Righteous defeated The Broken Hardys via pinfall in a Wicked Garden Match in 21:00.
For some reason, TNA President Carlos Silva had a crown of roses with him, which he handed to Dutch. Dutch put the crown of roses on Vincent’s head. The lights went out and the Hardys “teleported” away. Hannifan said “what has broken, has faded away”. Impact closed…
John’s Thoughts: This was a fun match to witness in person and I think it came off pretty well on TV. In person, it was a bit odd to see them constantly setting up and fighting around that one trellis that was set in the corner, but it didn’t hurt the TV match since the camera kept it out of frame. I cringed when they did the poison spot when I watched the show in-person, as I thought it was hokey and took away from the brutality of the hardcore match.
I actually turned around on the poison spot on-air as you can see that it was these little white flowers, and it served as an awesome Easter Egg for longtime AMC viewers as the Lily of the Valley plant was used as a core plot point in Breaking Bad, one of the greatest television series of all time. While they didn’t present it as a network integration spot, this was my favorite attempt at network integration that TNA has done on AMC as it rewards legacy AMC and Vince Gilligan viewers with a seamless easter egg.
Mixed thoughts on the show. It was wonderful to attend live, but I feel like they aren’t doing a great job at character development. There are some good things though. I like the Lei Ying Lee feud and how it’s developing Xia Brookside as a heel (almost like they’re using Brookside to replace what they were doing with Dani Luna). The Hardys vs. Righteous has been going since early December, but I like that there is a concerted effort to tell a progressing story. Those praises aside, I feel like this Slammiversary build has been the coldest Slammiversary build in probably over a decade (as Slammiversary has been one of their most consistent and well-built shows). This week’s Impact, I’d say check out the Wicked Garden match as a hardcore spectacle. As a guilty pleasure, I’d say check out Mr. Elegance vs. Lei Ying Lee.
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