This week's episode of Impact took us back to the week before, with a furious Dixie Carter storming from the arena following Christopher Daniels and Kazarian's secret-phone-recording revelations. Someone in the backstage control room is probably losing their job because of this if her reaction was anything to go buy.

But back to the present, where Dixie stood in the ring and said she'd thought long and hard about what to do – and that she needed to tell the truth.

Before she could, however, Christopher Daniels and Kazarian appeared once more to lend her a hand. Daniels took the mic, and gave the audience his version of the truth :Dixie Carter made a mistake and now she's been found out. As his declarations got more and more personal, Dixie swung at Daniels, who pushed her down into the corner and told her to keep her hands off him.

This was too much for two men backstage – AJ Styles and Dixie's husband Serg, who both ran into the ring to protect her. AJ chased off Daniels and Kazarian while Serg helped Dixie to her feet – and took AJ off his with one punch. Serg left the ring, alone, and Dixie and AJ followed.

In the first match of the night, the still-undefeated Crimson went up against Austin Aries. The crowd were with Austin, who tried using his speed and worked on Crimson's legs to overcome the obvious height and strength difference. Austin seemed to have the upper hand and went for a top-rope manoeuvre, only to have Samoa Joe – who Austin had clashed with just before the match – interfere and hand Crimson the victory.

Crimson took the mic to declare his undefeated streak was now 468 days long - “way longer than that Goldberg guy.” He issued an open challenge to anyone who could hear him for Slamiversary.

Backstage, Hogan walked with the camera, saying people needed to be careful what they accepted and signed up to – and possibly unrelated, that he wished his daughter Brooke good luck in her role with TNA.

Speaking of the young Ms Hogan, Brooke entered the Knockouts' locker room to introduce herself. Her first act as the executive in charge of the Knockouts division was to set up a four-way match for the #1 contender spot, between Mickie James, Velvet Sky, Tara and Brooke (henceforth “Miss”) Tessmacher. She'd also committed to getting the Knockouts more media opportunities, and was very pleased to announce that she'd arranged for Velvet to star in a music video for Montgomery Gentry – a country duo. Mickie James, let us say, did not look pleased.

Hulk Hogan came out to announce that there would be a World Heavyweight Championship match on the next episode of Impact – no matter who wins at Slamiversary. Bobby Roode clearly took offence to this, entering the ring to make a suggestion: that Hulk shut up and give Bobby the respect he deserves. Roode also suggested that Hulk is just jealous of his success and talent.

Sting made an entrance of his own, and was jumped by Roode as he climbed under the ropes. Thinking Sting was down, Roode turned again to Hulk – and left himself open for an aggressive counterattack from the Icon. Bobby fled.

The second match of the night was the Knockouts four-way match to determine the #1 contender, who will face Gail Kim at Slamiversary. Initially Tara and Miss Tessmacher (this company clearly not being big enough for two Brookes) seemed to be working together against Velvet and Mickie, but things quickly broke down and it was every Knockout for herself.

The Knockouts Champion, Gail Kim, joined the commentary team, professing she wasn't bothered who won the match – she's beaten all of them and she can do it again.

The moment of the match involved Tara applying a Boston Crab to Velvet … and Mickie applying a chokehold to Tara … and Tessmacher applying a side-headlock to Mickie – in a fantastic one-up on a similar move pulled in the Gail/Velvet/Tessmacher triple threat a few weeks earlier.

The finale was messy but spectacular: Tessmacher lay in the ring. Tara went for a standing moonsault, was grabbed by Velvet and DDT'd, Mickie came off the turnbuckle for a Lou Thesz press on Velvet followed by a Chick Kick – and Brooke took Mickie down with the Tess-Shocker.

Backstage, Bully Ray prepared for his contract signing with Joseph Park.

Following the ad break, we saw Hulk Hogan on the phone with AJ Styles, telling him he had a match, it was live TV, and AJ needed to get his butt back to the arena.

The ring was now set up for the contract signing for Bully Ray and attorney Joseph Park's match at Slamiversary. Things went awry from the get-go with Bully tearing up the standard match contract – as far as he was concerned, they weren't going to have a standard match at Slamiversary. He produced a new contract which would completely indemnify Bully from anything he might do to Joseph during the match.

Initially, Park refused to sign – but on being spat in the face by Bully, he declared that he wasn't going to stand by while Bully desecrated everything his brother (Chris, you know – Abyss!) had worked for in TNA.

But as Joseph signed, Abyss himself appeared on the screen. He was clearly very angry with his brother, and let him – and Bully – know that even though he had been left for dead, they were going to see just how alive he was at Slamiversary.

Joseph tried to get more answers from Abyss, and Bully took full advantage to deal him a cheap shot from behind.

We then saw a clip from earlier that day, showing Garret Bischoff offering to stand in Devon's corner for his upcoming Television Championship match against Robbie E. Devon gracefully accepted.

Another clip showed Joey Ryan's reaction after being told a resounding “no” by Taz at Gut Check the previous week. Joey just wouldn't let up on hassling Taz, so Al Snow had to throw him out.

The Television Championship match was next. As Robbie E entered the ring the commentary team explained he'd never gotten over losing the belt to Devon. Your correspondent may have noted that they could have just left it at “never gotten over”.

But Robbie was surprisingly quick on the attack and dominated early in the match. As he laid into Devon, we saw Madison Rayne looking on and applying a week's worth of lipgloss – raising the horrid thought that the man she's been dreaming of for the past month could be the E-man himself. Or Robbie T. Or Garret Bischoff. Heaven forfend.

Things turned around as Robbie E threw Devon into the ropes – and got a spear to the gut in return. It was all Devon's way – until Robbie T inevitably interfered.

Confusion broke out, particularly for the ref: as he tried to deal with Garret, who was interfering to stop Robbie T's interference, Devon rolled Robbie E up – but Robbie T rolled up the roll up to give Robbie E the advantage – and as the ref tried to clear Robbie T from the ring, Garret rolled the roll up right back – so in the end, justice prevailed, Devon took the pin, and the Television Championship was safe.

Post-match, it all went down just like the week before: the Robbies tried to pull a fast one and were thrown out of the ring by the combined forces of Devon and Garret.

The producers thankfully took us straight to the ads so we could catch our breath.

Hulk was back in the ring to try to complete the announcements he'd planned for the beginning of the show. Of course, this just incited another interruption, this time from Mr Anderson, who merely wanted to check that the announcement involved the World Heavyweight Championship – and his own name.

Hogan settled Anderson down and then asked Rob van Dam and Jeff Hardy into the ring as well. He repeated that there would be a World Heavyweight Championship match next week at Impact – and that the contender for that match would be determined in a triple-threat between the three guys in the ring at Slamiversary.

Following another ad break, it was time for the main event: a six-man tag team match between Bobby Roode and the tag team champions versus Sting, AJ Styles and Kurt Angle.

The start was a little rocky as AJ completely failed to show. The tag champs – Christopher Daniels and Kazarian – went straight for Sting and Angle before the match had properly started, but were quickly rolled into submission holds and had to escape the ring while Bobby Roode hung back.

Sting was soon the legal good guy in the ring, up against Daniels, then Kazarian, and then Roode. Sting seemed overwhelmed and unable to fight back, until Roode threw him into a turnbuckle and activated his dormant mojo. Unfortunately before he could tag in his eager partner, Daniels knocked Angle off the side, and things broke down once more with all three of the bad guys stomping on the Icon.

As Roode applied a crossface submission hold on Sting, AJ made his long-awaited appearance, taking out Roode and Daniels with just, seriously, the most wonderfully pretty kicks in professional wrestling.

Once the smoke cleared, Sting had Roode in a Scorpion Deathlock, and the champ had no choice but to tap.

See you all at Slamiversary!

Results

• Crimson def. Austin Aries
• Miss Tessmacher def. Mickie James & Tara & Velvet Sky - #1 Contender's Match for Knockouts Championship
• Devon def. Robbie E – Television Championship match
• Sting & Kurt Angle & AJ Styles def. Bobby Roode & Christopher Daniels & Kazarian