The next two editions of TNA Impact were taped last Saturday on the final day of their UK tour in London, England. Thanks to the enthusiastic, near record breaking crowd of 8,000 fans, TNA looked more major league than perhaps any other televised shows in its history, so they may be worth going out of your way to see.

As reported here earlier, the big news from the overseas tapings was that Sting suffered an unspecified heel injury, initially thought to be very serious. However, according to an interview for Between The Ropes today, Sting has confirmed that he only tore his fascia, a relatively minor muscle tear, and he'll only be sidelined for four to six weeks. A deep sigh of relief then for Dixie Carter, as Sting is one of the highest paid stars on her roster and re-signing him for another year would have been a waste if he had suffered a career ending Achilles tendon tear.

Now that injury update is out of the way, we can get down to business of the spoilers (courtesy of f4wonline.com and pwtorch.com) for tonight's and next Thursday's Impact Wrestling episodes, which can be read after the jump.

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Unfortunately due to our in depth coverage of WWE's second biggest pay-per-view of the year, their Royal Rumble, we've been slow to update you with the goings on of their main competitor TNA. The biggest news from their highly successful and well received London television tapings was that the legendary Sting, who made the trip to the UK for the first time in over a decade, was injured in the main event for the February 9th edition of Impact. Towards the end of the tag team match of Sting and James Storm vs. Bobby Roode and Bully Ray, the Stinger suffered what was believed to be a blown heel after taking a spinebuster at the hands of Roode. Sting managed to complete the match, but told fans afterwards that he felt something pop in his heel, so he hoped that wouldn't stop him from returning to wrestle for the British fans again in the future. As scheduled, he brawled to the back in a very cautious fashion with Ray to leave the stage set for Hulk Hogan to save Storm from a three on one beatdown from Roode, Kurt Angle and the returning Bully in an angle that doesn't sound like it will be on TV. Footage of this post match segment can be seen in the last video of this earlier post about Hogan's recent appearance on American Dad.

Sting's injury was initially feared to be a torn Achilles tendon, which at almost 53 years of age would have been pretty much a career ender. Thankfully, that prognosis seems to have been a bit premature. Though he has yet to see a doctor regarding the injury, Sting shortly afterwards was downplaying its severity on Twitter:

Sorry for not tweeting til now...Although i couldn't finish the way you all deserved last night I believe my injury is not serious..

@teamcullens24 yeah- just limping along- agai, I don't believe it is serious. It really did limit me last night

@tnafanforever update soon- I don't think it is serious

Thanks to f4wonline.com for their speedy updates to this story. Once we get word of the true diagnosis we'll pass it along to you Cagesiders and we'll also have full spoilers from the London tapings up soon.

Who's more patriotic than Stan Smith? Perhaps no-one in the world apart from the Real American Hulk Hogan, so it should come as no surprise that the Hulkster has made a recent cameo on this season's American Dad. Here we see Stan has lost his way and is acting more like a Million Dollar Man than a down to earth U.S. citizen, so his geeky son Steve brings his pro wrestling friend to snap him into his senses as only he can. Cue a classic parody of a mid 1980s Hulkamania promo and his in ring schtick.

In my opinion, this is a much better use of his current abilities than trying to relive his prime in real life by wrestling at UK house shows, as in cartoon form he can look as great as he did when I was growing up as a young boy, though your mileage may vary. After the jump, you can compare and contrast his animated form with a couple of his appearances from TNA's British tour. What do you think Cageside brothers, which do you prefer?

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In a move of jaw dropping insanity, as reported by the Pro Wrestling Torch, Hulk Hogan wrestled unannounced on TNA's first house show of their UK tour in Nottingham, England, earlier tonight. Further details are also available in two subscriber only posts on f4wonline.com.

It all started innocuously enough with TNA World Heavyweight champion Bobby Roode and James Storm starting their main event as scheduled. Roode was disqualified after just five minutes for a low blow. At least TNA weren't stupid enough to end the show on that sour note.

Then the wheels were set in motion in convoluted fashion for the real closing match. Authority figure Sting marched out to demand a rematch, but was interrupted by Kurt Angle, who suggested doing a tag match instead between the four of them. Cue Bully Ray, who had lost to AJ Styles earlier in the night to make it officially a three on two handicap bout (when on earth did he start having match making powers?). So the stage was all set for the ageing Hulk Hogan to miraculously hog the spotlight and save the day, coming out to his mid eighties theme of Eye Of The Tiger to maximise the cheap pop and make it an even trios affair. Roode sold his ass off before Hogan did an embarrassingly bad big boot and Storm dropped the leg, so the decrepit Hogan didn't have to. At least Hogan was gracious enough to allow Storm to pick up the pinfall I suppose.

The fact that this whole scenario was unadvertised is mindbogglingly crazy. Hogan's first match in the UK in over seventeen years could have sold tons of extra tickets for the struggling TNA promotion that needs all the help it can get at the moment, if this was a long thought out plan. But no, Hogan only decided to latch onto the tour at the last minute when he caught wind of how well tickets were selling, mainly thanks to Sting's decision to take a final opportunity to wrestle in front of the always enthusiastic British audience in what may very well be his last ever year as a regular pro wrestling performer.

This is sadly far too reminiscent of the declining days of WCW, where Hogan on a whim dropped the WCW World Heavyweight title to rising phenomenon Bill Goldberg on the July 6th Monday Nitro at the Georgia Dome, costing the promotion millions of dollars in pay-per-view revenue by airing their first ever match on free television. You see, there was a huge demand for tickets before the main event, originally supposed to be a dark match, was ever announced due to how hot Goldberg had become in his local market. Atlanta was also the home base of Turner Broadcasting, guaranteeing that tons of corporate executives would be on hand to see his magic in person and the record breaking house that he wasn't really responsible for drawing, but those ignorant fools wouldn't know any better. So Hogan is up to his same old tricks again to fool Dixie Carter and Spike TV into continuing to push him as the centrepiece of their Impact programming and keeping his mammoth pay cheques coming.

Even if Hogan's match had been promoted properly, it would still have been ill advised. As Hogan admitted to ITV's London Tonight, he really should be retired right now, due to the eight back surgeries he's had in the last few years. Sure he took no bumps in Nottingham and probably won't on the rest of his UK wrestling jaunt, but the long transatlantic flights on their own must be hell for his mangled back, yet alone trying to do what little there is left that he can still do inside a wrestling ring for three consecutive nights. Are the cheers really worth the pain he will needlessly endure?

This is surprising.

TNA Genesis, the Jan. 8 pay-per-view event that took place in Orlando, Florida, reportedly drew a higher buyrate than what the promotion usually does, according to the Wrestling Observer:

Early trending numbers indicate TNA Genesis did slightly better than the recent PPV shows have done, like maybe 10-12,000 buys, which may be attributable to Jeff Hardy challenging for the title in the main event.

Indeed, one of the few storylines TNA has bothered to carefully craft and pay attention to is the Jeff Hardy retribution tour, which culminated, so to speak, in a match against Bobby Roode at Genesis for the world heavyweight championship.

The extra fans that did bother to tune in were treated to a smoz finish that saw Roode retain his title by simply kicking the referee in the nuts for the disqualification. As if that weren't silly enough, TNA proceeded to release footage of the match on YouTube just days later in an attempt to drive interest for that week's episode of Impact. Then on Impact, fans were treated to a non-finish finish in the main event rematch, with Roode once again retaining his title.

It's interesting to see that buys were up despite the way TNA so obviously books its shows to center around Impact on Spike TV instead of pay-per-view events. That really speaks to the draw Jeff Hardy can be, even with all his various drug issues and arrests.

For complete TNA Genesis results and a full report on the show click here.

Hulk Hogan, who appears to be a little tipsy in the above video, thought he would get cute last night shortly after Sting released a video to his Twitter followers letting everyone know it was really him and linking out to all his official channels on Facebook and YouTube and all that.

So what does Hogan do? He puts out this video saying he's the "Fake Hulk Hogan" and Sting better get ready because he's coming to the U.K. for the upcoming TNA tour. Word on the street is that Hogan decided to go on the tour and make his return to TNA programming once the shows actually started selling well.

And, as you can see, Hulk is still hanging out with the same crowd, all these years later. Even Brutus Beefcake, who Hogan was alleged to have homosexual relations with, is still trying to ride his coattails.

Anyone looking forward to more Hogan vs. Sting?

In covering the results of the TNA Genesis pay-per-view (PPV) event that took place this past Sun., Jan. 8, 2012, in Orlando, the same tired theme showed itself once again. The number two wrestling promotion in the U.S. insulted its fans by asking them to pay for an event that featured a smoz finish for nearly every match on the card.

Then, to make matters worse, the company released YouTube footage of the main event of that PPV, Jeff Hardy vs. Bobby Roode, showing exactly how it all played out and further insulting its fanbase that actually bothered to pay for the show, not that there are many who do so anymore.

To cap it all off, TNA aired its taped episode of Impact Wrestling last night and essentially threw salt in the wounds they created just a few nights prior.

The show was centered around a pair of rematches from the PPV, Kurt Angle vs. James Storm and Jeff Hardy vs. Bobby Roode. At Genesis, Angle defeated Storm and Roode retained his title over Hardy with a cheap disqualification loss after he straight up nut checked the referee.

So instead of building to proper rematches, TNA shot the return angles for the very next show. Storm went 16 or so minutes with Angle and defeated him clean to become the next contender to the heavyweight championship. Again, it boggles the mind that this happened on free TV instead of the show that fans are supposed to pay for. Roode retained his title in a weird non-finish finish in the main event, with Bully Ray coming out to bump the ref and Hardy's music just randomly playing to signify the end of the match. It was set up earlier in the night that the match would be no disqualification so Roode couldn't just get himself disqualified to retain his belt. Any pro wrestling fan who has watched TNA for more than two weeks knew this was just a way to open the door for yet another run-in and lack of a finish.

The funny thing about the entire ordeal is that Roode and Hardy actually had a very good match on Impact but fell mostly flat on the PPV. It's as though everyone in the company is being told to hold back on pay shows and really bring it on free TV.

You pay for the goods on PPV and you're given a content barely worthy of free TV. They then give you no reason to tune into the weekly Impact show then when you do tune in, you're given the best they have which, ultimately, really isn't that great.

TNA, ladies and gentlemen.

In a recent interview with the Daily Star, TNA President Dixie Carter talks about Sting heading over to the U.K. for the first time in a decade and thinking it signifies the beginning of the end of his pro wrestling career:

"In his mind, I think this is his last year as far as the wrestling is concerned. When we booked this, that's the way he was talking about it - ‘I haven't played there in a decade, and before I retire I need to come back there and wrestle.' Based on where he's at and what he's saying, barring something extraordinary this is the last time. And for me it's great to be able to bring him back there. He's spent such a big part of his career helping to build our company, I'm very proud we can bring him over. It feels very final. It's going to be an emotional night."

Of course, there have been multiple instances in the past number of years in which Sting has either attempted to retire or openly spoke of doing so. And really, at 52-years-old (soon to be 53), he's living on borrowed time in his career. TNA has at least taken care of him as far as booking him goes, putting him in an on-screen authority figure role instead of having him actively wrestling each week. The travel schedule is also as light as possible, so he's endured much longer than he likely would have if he was in WWE.

It's natural, though, to wonder if 2012 is really going to be his final year in professional wrestling.

To this day, Sting is undoubtedly the biggest star in the history of the business to never work for Vince McMahon and the WWE. In some ways, that's admirable and something he should be applauded for. He never sold out because he was always worried about how he would be treated, both character and person. After all, being made in WCW or TNA doesn't mean you're made in WWE. Quite a few wrestlers, like Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page, learned that the hard way.

If Sting does leave TNA after this year, it will be impossible to escape the inevitable rumors that WWE would attempt to lure him to the company for a big money match, possibly at WrestleMania. Just look at the buzz created by the viral videos last year leading up to Undertaker's return that many thought to be Sting. It was huge. And it gave birth to one of the greatest photoshop jobs in the history of pro wrestling (image after the jump).

Not unlike the Stinger himself, I don't necessarily trust how WWE would use him. It would be entirely too easy to bury him and make him look like a fool, which a petty and vindictive man like Vince McMahon -- and Triple H, for that matter -- would have no problem doing. But I can't help but salivate at the thought of Sting in a WWE ring for a match at WrestleMania. Even if he jobbed, it would be a thrill and a true mark out moment.

Any Cagesiders out there hoping for a miracle like me?

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