The main event would see the first use of the time limit gimmick as a newly re-formed Triple X (Primetime & "The Fallen Angel" Christopher Daniels) would come out victorious over new NWA World Tag Team Champions The Naturals (Andy Douglas & Chase Stevens) via judge's decision after Larry Zybszko awarded them the match. This was one of the strongest tag bouts that has featured on iMPACT over the last six weeks, with the two teams gelling well and producing a pacy contest that played to the strengths of the two teams. A sequence following the hot tag, where Daniels would hit both the Best Moonsault Ever and the Angel's Wings for near falls was extremely well put together. The one thing that majorly bugged me about the match was that the teams ended up swapping the sides of the ring they were in, which made the production feel a tad amateur. The time limit gimmick was used nicely, building up Primetime & Daniels, whilst not having to have the World Tag Team Champions get pinned. America's Most Wanted ran off Douglas & Stevens after the match, but the main beat at the very end was the tease of a potential rematch between the teams after they had two well-received bouts in 2003. In the show closer, Team Canada's Petey Williams would come out victorious over X Division Champion AJ Styles and Chris Sabin in a triple threat, after nailing Sabin with a Canadian Destroyer. Now, when you look at the three names in this bout, you know you're going to get a good match and that's exactly what we got here. With a superb pace, the match was full of spots involving the three men, like Williams reversing a middle rope Styles Clash attempt into a rana sending Styles crashing on a grounded Sabin, a DDT combination by Styles and Sabin's funky enziguiri and DDT combination. There's also a great near fall thrown in, when Sabin hit Williams with a Gory bomb, only for Styles to break up the cover with springboard 450 splash. The timing of the spot makes the moment. The finish was put together nicely with Styles being more focused on hitting a tope conhilo onto rivals Michael Shane and Kazarian at ring-side, before Scott D'Amore's distraction prevented Sabin from hitting the Cradle Shock and Williams to take advantage for the pinfall. A fun and clever match featuring three of the brightest talents for the first month and a half of the show. If two previous matches made this sound like a pretty good show, we also had The Elite Guard (Collyer, Hernandez & Onyx) going over 3 Live Kru (BJ James, Konnan & Ron "The Truth" Killings in a seriously shite match. Considering all three of The Elite Guard have a number of years of experience under their belts, they all look incredibly green, awkwardly taking 3LK's offence and barely being allowed any of their own. To be fair to them, when Konnan hits the ring for a hot tag, the 39 year old just stands still in the centre of the ring, whilst the Elite Guard bump around him, including a nasty hip toss to the outside. The finish is a load of bollocks also, as Jeff Jarrett turns up while Konnan has a Tequila Sunrise on Collyer, whack old Konnan 2012 on the head with a guitar, before Hernandez gets the pin. IF HERNANDEZ WAS THE LEGAL MAN, WHY HAD KONNAN GOT COLLYER IN THE TEQUILA SUNRISE? You fucking shitter, Konnan. The best thing about this entire debacle was when Elite Guard marched to ring in their berets! Then to make things just that little bit worse, Dusty Rhodes (58) & Larry Zybszko (52) meandered to the ring to scare off Jarrett & Elite Guard after the match. The rest of the show, featured a couple of squash matches as Kazarian & Michael Shane went over D-Ray 3000 & Shark Boy, whilst Abyss and the newly christened "Baby Bear" Alex Shelley (because he's managed by Goldylocks, geddit? Hawhaw) dispatched of Jerrelle Clark & Mikey Batts. We also got a rambling promo from Dusty Rhodes & Larry Zybszko following their run-in, to promote a ten man tag team GUITAR ON A POLE match for the PPV in five days time (wowza).
Results
Tag Team Match: Triple X - "The Fallen Angel" Christopher Daniels & Primetime def. The Naturals - Andy Douglas & Chase Stevens in ten minutes Tag Team Match: Kazarian & Michael Shane (with Traci) def. D-Ray 3000 & Shark Boy in 3 minutes, 15 seconds Tag Team Match: "The Monster" Abyss & "The Baby Bear" Alex Shelley (with Goldylocks) def. Jerrelle Clark & Mikey Batts in 2 minutes, 58 seconds Six Man Tag Team Match: The Elite Guard - Collyer, Hernandez & Onyx def. 3 Live Kru - BJ James, Konnan & Ron "The Truth" Killings in 3 minutes, 48 seconds Three Way Match: Petey Williams (with Scott D'Amore) def. AJ Styles and Chris Sabin in 5 minutes, 47 seconds
Finally...
ATPW Scale Rating - 4/10
The two top matches on this show are strong television bouts, both with different things to enjoy about that and both being very easy to watch. It's unsurprising that these matches feature those who have become the highlight of iMPACT in it's first 6 weeks, like AJ Styles and Chris Sabin, with Christopher Daniels being added to the mix this week and heavily impressing. Like previously, the storyline surrounding the NWA World Heavyweight title continue to hold the show back, as the weekly PPV's mean that TNA is having to try to promote ten man tag team bouts with a guitar on a pole. Over-looking the major talent on their roster, guys like Dusty Rhodes and Larry Zybszko, who are years past their prime are being presented as world beaters, for reasons that continue to escape me. That's before getting into the ridiculous Elite Guard or how much 3 Live Kru suck. Still, it was definitely better than last week's edition!
TNA Impact Wrestling focused largely on the Bound For Glory Series, with the first part of the tournament coming to close with a Twelve Man Gauntlet match (or Royal Rumble). Whilst TNA chose to have Sting and Bully Ray's No Disqualification bout go in the usual main event slot, to me the Bound For Glory Series, which will be the focus once again in the next two week's No Surrender themed special episodes, was where my interest lied, for almost all of the show.
Bound For Glory Series Twelve Man Gauntlet Match
To build up to this one, TNA started the show with a short vignette featuring clips of interviews with each of the twelve Bound For Glory Series competitors. In case you've missed TNA over the last couple of months, that's AJ Styles, Magnus, Mr. Anderson, Samoa Joe, Kazarian, Bobby Roode, Austin Aries, Jeff Hardy, Joseph Park, Christopher Daniels, Hernandez and Jay Bradley. I though this was a really good idea, with each man explaining their motives for winning the Gauntlet and why they will win, really setting up the importance of the Gauntlet match. Obviously, a lot of the participants wanted to win, so they could reach the final four and go onto No Surrender next week, but people like Jay Bradley and Hernandez who had no chance of winning at least mixed it up a bit. To continue on that theme, both Bradley and Hernandez were interviewed by Jeremy Borash, both actually gave decent interviews, but there was one problem here...I simply didn't care. Bradley spoke about how a certain organisation had possibly enlisted him to eliminate a certain individual and you could see it coming a mile off. It was clear who Bradley was talking about in both cases, and it was clear Bradley wouldn't be eliminating them, he's been booked as a loser throughout the whole Bound For Glory Series, why would things be changing now? The thing with Gauntlets/Royal Rumbles is they have to be full of spots and storyline to make them any good, you can't just sort of have twelve men come out and have them all swap between who is punching who in the corner of the ring, because it becomes pretty boring pretty quickly and this one bordered on the latter most of the time. There was the stuff with Jay Bradley, but it simply didn't work. It was revealed he was meant to be eliminating AJ Styles, but Styles had already been in the match for quite some time, and Bradley had a perfect opportunity when Styles entered the ring and clotheslined Joseph Park over the top rope, but it just wasn't picked upon. Despite earlier saying the order of entry was decided by who was higher up the standing, Mike Tenay and Taz still questioned who was in next which didn't help the proceedings. Bad Influence both did a good job in developing a story, helping keep each other in the match and work over other wrestlers, although a double hip toss wasn't exactly an exciting way to eliminate Hernandez. For me, the match really picked up with the entry of Austin Aries, charging down the ramp and hitting a leaping double clothesline on Bad Influence. This is where The Extraordinary Gentleman's Organisation remembered they were all a group and took the fight to Aries, finally a bit of storyline development. There was a nice series that saw Samoa Joe attempt to save Magnus from Bad Influence only to get eliminated himself, before Bobby Roode saved Kazarian by eliminating Jeff Hardy, as EGO's dominance continued it looked more likely they would produce the winner, with only Styles, Aries and Magnus opposing them. A nifty looking monkey flip from Styles would eliminate Kaz, although it was harmed by the jarring visual of seeing Kaz land on the elevated entrance ramp rather than the floor. Another nice piece of teamwork from EGO, saw Daniels save Roode from a bodyslam from Magnus and go on to eliminate the Brit, to bring the field down to four. Speedy eliminations of Aries and Roode by Styles, both of whom had already qualified for the final four, left Styles and Daniels to battle it out. Unfortunately, they didn't stick with tradition and then have a one on one match, like how they would usually do in TNA, with Styles eliminating Daniels following a Clothesline. I thought this was a real shame, as I quite excited to see the two go at it one more time, and thought the closing stages of the bout up were really good up until this point. With the Final Four settled as AJ Styles, Magnus, Bobby Roode and Austin Aries (I got two out of four, by the way!), the only thing left to do was choose who would face who. So later in the AJ Styles came down to the ring and after some deliberation, picked Austin Aries as his opponent. Styles' reasoning was solid, with Aries having a victory over him in the Series and Styles wanting to prove himself once again, with Aries declaring that their would be a clear winner next week, I could help but be excited to see these two lock up for the second time on television. So that meant that the other semi final would see Bobby Roode vs. Magnus, with Magnus holding the victory over Roode in the Series proper already. With two decent promos from both guys outlining why they should win, it all set up very nicely for next week. It's obvious TNA had expected to have more time here, with a lot of the booking that seemed clear early on (Joseph Park being revealed as Abyss for a late push, Chavo Guerrero turning on Hernandez) having to be dropped, which is strange really because they should really know their own schedule, but they have actually done a pretty good job of coming up with a final four that I'm interested in. AJ Styles would be my pick to win, although you could make strong cases for both Austin Aries or Magnus to go head to head with Bully Ray at Bound For Glory as well.
No Disqualification Match:
Sting
vs.
World Heavyweight Champion
Bully Ray
with Aces & Eights
(Anderson/Tessmacher)
There was no amount of build up TNA could do that would get me excited for this match. I saw it at Slammiversary and I'm pretty sure no one was crying out to see a Sting-Bully Ray II. Even with Bully Ray continuing his trend of top notch promos at the start of the show, addressing his Aces and Eights stablemates, Mr. Anderson, Tito Ortiz, Knux, Wes Brisco & Garrett Bischoff, with “main squeeze” Brooke Tessmacher by his side. Ray did a good job trying to keep his group in check, it's clear that Ray has relished his role here, it's a shame he hasn't really had a decent face to go opposite against. Ray also set up a number of matches for his group, including Knux taking on Chris Sabin and Brisco & Bischoff taking on World Tag Team Champions James Storm and Gunner. This is certainly the best use we've seen of the Aces & Eights group, with my previous main gripe with the group being that they were never in matches, however I think it might be too little too late. The build continued throughout the show, with both Aces & Eights and Main Event Mafia having backstage segments. Firstly, we saw Bully Ray's reaction to Mr. Anderson failing to win the Bound For Glory Series Gauntlet match earlier in the night. I thought this was really well shot and performed little scene, with Bully Ray once again putting in a stellar performance. With Anderson showing a burst of aggression, before Bully Ray put him back in line, it looked like that would be the last we'd hear of Anderson's uprising, at least for now. For the Main Event Mafia, we saw Sting chatting with Rampage Jackson. Now I expected to hate this segment, but it was actually quite sweet. It came across to me as the veteran Sting departing some knowledge to the green Jackson, with Jackson happy to sit and listen whilst Sting cut a pretty decent promo, however I still wasn't anymore exciting to see the main event. Before the match, General Manager Hulk Hogan, banned Tito Ortiz from ringside and made the match No Disqualification. These two ideas seemed juxtaposed, what would happen if Ortiz interfered? Why were Mr. Anderson and Brooke Tessmacher allowed to stay at ringside? I've heard of WWE logic, but TNA logic is getting pretty ropey. The match was essentially a slim line version of the one they had at Slammiversary. Firsty, Sting took it to Ray with a steel chair, before Ray took the upperhand and they repeated the spot from Slammiversary where Ray removed the padding on the ring to expose the boards. I wasn't fan of it the first time and I don't like it anymore now. Sting reversed Ray's Piledriver and managed to lock in a Scorpion Death Lock, with Aces & Eight's Knux, Brisco & Bischoff making the save for their President. Main Event's Mafia Samoa Joe, Magnus & Rampage Jackson came down and fought Aces and Eights to the back. It was a nice twist on what we had seen at Slammiversary, showing that Sting now had some guys watching his back, so I can't really complain about that.
The finish saw Sting manage to lock Ray in the Scorpion Death Lock again, with Anderson on the outside wielding a hammer. With Anderson refusing to make the save for his President, Ray tapped out and Sting picked up the submission victory. In isolation, this was a pretty good finish and did set up nicely for next week's No Surrender, but TNA just had their World Heavyweight Champion lose clean to someone who can't even challenge for the title. I'd love to know the logic that we into that one. So Anderson got in the ring and said he'd be facing Bully Ray next week at No Surrender for the World Heavyweight Championship, and I have to say I quite liked the return of face Anderson, complete with announcing his own name. I thought it was a really strong end to Impact Wrestling, but they did about two-three months worth of build for this match, in about a two weeks. This moment could have felt even stronger, if they'd have just let it breath for a bit and really build to Anderson's turn. The other issue I had with this was that Anderson has just lost the Bound For Glory Series, and is getting a title shot next week...whilst the final four will battle it out to get a shot on the same show. It's the timing more than anything that annoyed me about this, if it was shuffled around and maybe two months down the line, this would have been a red hot ending to the show.
Best of the Rest (In The World)
Elsewhere on Impact Wrestling, we saw the return of former World Heavyweight Champion Chris Sabin, in his first television bout since losing the World Heavyweight title, taking on Aces & Eight's Knux. I was interested to see Knux back in the ring, because he's hardly been in the ring since turning up in TNA. He's been in a handful of multi man tag team bouts, but this was actually only his second singles match on television, and his last match was back in January! Knux has been handled pretty poorly since joining TNA, as have most of Aces and Eights as individuals, which has in turn harmed the Aces & Eights group in general. Get the guys in the ring, show us what they can do! I thought Knux had a lot more to give the company, after enjoying the majority of his run in WWE as Mike Knox. The match was decent, it didn't exactly set the world a light, but it was okay. Sabin worked Knux's knee for some reason, during the opening of the match, I guess the logic was that Sabin was trying to get Knux on the ground, but it didn't quite work. Knux looked pretty good when he took control of Sabin, with power moves and nice diving leg drop, that I wasn't expecting from such a big man. The finish saw Bully Ray hand Knux a hammer, with Sabin hitting a basement dropkick to Knux's knee. With the hammer now loose, Sabin jumped on it and whacked Knux in the head, giving Knux a disqualification victory. I'm waiting to see where they go with Sabin before burying this finish, obviously they have something planned for him and it didn't exactly harm Knux either. After the match, we saw Sabin and real-life girlfriend Velvet Sky, with Sabin saying something has got to change, so it would seem they are working on something for Sabin and it has to be better than his World Heavyweight title reign!
Knockout's Champion Mickie James was also on the show, in a truly awful segment with ODB. Both women actually gave a good performance, but the material they were given was tripe. It focussed on Miley Cyrus and that whole twerking thing as an attempt to get heat on James. Eventually, James tried to hit ODB with the belt, only for ODB to fight back and then the two had a stare down. I have no idea why they didn't put on or the other on top during this segment, as it just didn't look right having James leap up. I'm actually quite excited to see the James vs. ODB match, but if segments like this continue then I might start losing interest.
Finally...
My final thoughts on this week's Impact Wrestling. 1. TNA had to rush their plans for the Bound For Glory Series, but the final four actually looks pretty interesting. 2. Bully Ray vs. Anderson needed another two or three months worth of build and it could've been red hot. 3. This week's booking of Aces & Eights, showcasing the member of the group in actual matches, should have been happening about nine months ago.
Slammiversary was strong pay-per-view outing for TNA, with a
number of solid, entertaining contests, including a surprisingly brutal contest
between Gail Kim and Taryn Terrell, which was unfortunately let down by the
shambolic ending to the main event contest.
I wasn’t expecting this match to be a
technical master class and neither was I expecting it to go for particularly
long, however what was presented was such a mess of a match it was difficult to
find many positives, apart from the result. From the opening of the contest
Sting looked obviously tired and seemed to struggle his way to the end of the
match, at one point even having difficulty to get into the ring. However, the No
Disqualification match type could have been used to lead these two to a decent
match, if it weren’t for a number of booking errors throughout the contest.
With the opening seeing a
combination of offence from both men, with Bully Ray doing most of the running
for The Icon. Sting’s use of the World Championship belt and the announce table
gave the bout the early edge that it needed and with Bully Ray’s thunderous
clothesline as Sting prepared for a Stinger Splash on the guard rail, it seemed
like this bout was heading in the right direction. However, once the pair
headed towards the entrance ramp the match went progressively downhill. For
some reason Bully Ray had to head backstage to collect a steel chair, which
Sting quickly gained control of, before Brooke Hogan had to come out to protect
Bully Ray. This made Bully look incredibly weak, which became a theme for the
remainder of the match.
With Brooke Hogan sent packing by
Sting, the Aces and Eights president hit a low blow which unleashed an
avalanche of offence from Bully Ray. We now saw Sting, who for the majority of
the contest looked like a tired, frail old man, transform into Superman. As
after a number of chairs shots, including a massive big boot through the chair,
Ray hit a pile driver (which had been built up in an earlier interview with JB)
only for Sting to kick out. This trend continued with Sting being power bombed
threw a table, only to kick out once more then. Then we entered the ridiculous,
with Bully Ray dismantled the ring with a small knife, removing the mat to
reveal the wood board beneath and deliver a second pile driver, only for Sting
to kick out. This move was incredibly dangerous and should have been the end of
the match, by this point any air of believability had been completely removed
and it was difficult to get behind Sting.
Just as I thought it couldn’t get
much worse, Aces and Eight invaded the ring, only for Sting to dispatch Garett
Bischoff, Wes Brisco, DOC & Knox with his trusty baseball bat. It’s
frustrating how weak Aces and Eight are made to look at every turn, as it
removes their threat in any situation if we believe the face can easily get rid
of them, as Sting did here. There was further interference from Devon, who
pulled out the referee to stop the count for Sting, who went out to combat Aces
and Eights again. With The Icon distracted Mr. Anderson slid Bully Ray, the
hammer we’ve seen all too often, and with Sting diving from the top rope, the
Bully smashed him on the head to finally get his victory. For me, this ending has
removed a lot of momentum TNA had going forward with the World Heavyweight
Championship, as it took the entire of
Aces and Eights to defeat a 54 year old man. Maybe if some of TNA’s competitors
had made an appearance to combat the threat from Aces and Eight’s with Anderson
eventually slipping in the hammer this might have been a more satisfying
ending.
AJ Styles vs. Kurt Angle
Before this match, Kurt Angle was
announced by Dixie Carter as the second inductee into the TNA Hall of Fame.
Personally, I think this is a good decision by TNA, as Kurt has done a lot for
the company since jumping ship in 2006, and has put in a numerous great
performance for the company both in the ring and out. Many were disappointed about
the exclusion of Jeff Jarrett, however with Jarrett still in hot water with
Dixie Carter and TNA around his affair with Angle’s ex-wife, it would appear
Jarrett will have to wait at least until next year.
Angle and Styles have had
numerous contests over the last six or seven years, with a lot of history
between the two, and I can’t remember every being disappointed by one of their
contests. Of course, nothing changed with this outing, as the two put on
another great match, with a mixture of high flying, technical and submission
wrestling.
The Lone Wolf’s new submission
hold “The Calf Killer” bringing a new element to match, as AJ focused on Kurt
Angle’s injured knee for the majority of the match up. With AJ finding a number
of interesting ways to get the hold in, Angle sold like his life depended on it
and truly made the hold look like a devastating manoeuvre. The two also traded
a number of holds throughout with a number of great suplexes from Angle, with
Style’s struggle to reach the ropes really selling the trifecta of German
Suplexes that Angle unleashed afterwards. The highlight of the match however,
saw the well-known top rope exploder German suplex from Angle, countered by
Styles into a beautiful flip only for Angle to hit a Release Belly to Belly
suplex, which was a true “This is awesome” moment.
With a match built around
submissions, it was surprising to see this one end with a Pinfall victory for
Angle. With Style’s reversing the Angle Slam into a Sunset flip, Angle quickly
reversed into a nice double leg takedown for the victory. Whilst, this match
felt like it could have gone a lot longer and with another fifteen minutes
truly could have become a great contest, it was nice to left asking for more
and hopefully we’ll see these two lock up at least one more time in the future.
It’s clear that the AJ Styles storyline of the past year or so is far from over
and it will be interesting to see where TNA decide to go with it from here as I
really can’t work out what is coming next.
This was a fairly well worked
contest, albeit with a few floors in logic which dented it’s enjoyability. A nice
start with the two big men in the match, Gunner and Hernandez squaring off,
only to get kicked in the back when bouncing of the ropes by members of Bad
Influence and The Dirty Heels. It was here the classic multi man break down occurred
as the match plunge into a long period of chaos, with each team getting at
least one offensive move on another.
The match calmed down for a
while, allowing Chavo Guerrero to remind us why TNA signed him, because he is
supreme in-ring talent, yes WWE enjoyed putting him in matches with
Hornswoggle, but he is an asset to the company and probably one of the best
ex-WWE signing they have made. After this we got another break down, did we
really need two? Yes they can be exciting, but two is a bit of an overkill.
With Hernandez fighting of
Kazarian’s attack and following up with an impressive Border Toss, Chavo jumped
to the top rope for a Frog Splash. This is wear things got confusing. With
Chavo seemingly having pinned Kaz, Bobby Roode (from another team) stopped the ref’s
count, only to point out Christopher Daniels hitting Chavo with the Tag Title
belt. Roode would go on to pin Chavo with Hernandez somehow missing it all. This
section of the match didn’t quite come off as clever as I’m sure it was
supposed as both the Boston crowd and the audience at home tried to figure out
why Bobby Roode didn’t just let Chavo pin Kazarian and hit a surprise attack
straight after.
With just The Dirty Heels and the
newly formed Storm and Gunner left, the match settled down into a much more
comfortable pace. Gunner more than held his own amongst much more experienced
competitors. Having to take a lot of offence from Roode & Aries, including
a 450 splash from Aries which seemed to end the contest, only for a last minute
kick out. After this we headed to a satisfying ending with an Aries taking a
Last Call Super kick from Storm and falling into Gunner’s torture rack, newly
christened the Gun Wreck for the submission victory. The new team work well
throughout and really looked the part, with hopefully Gunner being able to
benefit from the association with Storm not only through crowd reaction but
also in terms of in ring psychology and technique which the big man could still
do with building upon.
Best of the Rest
There was also a fantastic Last
Knockout Standing Match, between Gail Kim and Taryn Terrell. Yes, I did say I
wasn’t looking forward to this match for a number of reasons, and even
criticised Terrell’s in ring ability on a number of occasions and I’d like to
take this opportunity to apologise to both competitor’s especially Terrell.
It was a vicious looking contest,
with both taking a number of bumps on what looks like an unforgiving entrance
ramp, including a head first dive from Terrell which looked extremely painful.
Not only was the bout brutal, there was also some nice psychology paying off
here, based around the figure four leg lock, which both competitors used
wrapped around the ring post, especially satisfying for Terrell who was injured
by the move only a few weeks ago. The finish saw a spot that the majority of
most male wrestlers probably wouldn’t try, with Terrell hitting a variety of a
cutter on Kim off of the ramp and onto the floor below. With Terrell just
making the ten count for the victory. Although, I still feel ODB deserves
better than Knockout’s Referee, this match saw Terrell earn my respect and she
know fully deserves her place on the Knockout’s roster and the expected singles
feud with Mickie James.
The Television Title match saw an
obvious yet satisfying twist. With Aces and Eights attacking Joseph Park
backstage, it was only a matter of time before his brother Abyss made an
appearance. With Devon getting the referee the Countout out Park it seemed as
if Devon had retained the title for another night. Oddly, this was when Abyss’
music hit and he headed down to the ring, once the fight started, for some
reason the bell rang and it became an official match.
It was a short match and
hopefully Abyss will get a better setting to display his talents in the near
future. Although not a terrible match, it didn’t have much going for it with
little excitement brought to it up until the end, with Devon flipping the
double bird on Abyss only for The Monster to hit a huge Black Hole Slam for the
three count. Somehow this also meant Abyss had won the Television Championship,
despite Park already losing his contest via Countout. It wouldn’t have taken
much to make this a title contest, but TNA continues to miss the little details
on numerous occasions.
Another title change occurred in
the X-Division, with Chris Sabin picking up the victory over champion Kenny
King and Suicide in an Ultimate X Match. As far as Ultimate X goes this wasn’t
a particularly great contest in what is usually a spot heavy gimmick match.
There was a non-sensicle double submission at one point, despite the match
being unable to be won in that fashion. As well as an awkward “Tower of Doom”
spot which took a number of attempt and in the end wasn’t that impressive. A
lot of the time the competitors didn’t quite look like they knew what was
happening, this contest would have benefitted from being a regular three way.
With the ending not quite living up to past outings, with King and Suicide
falling from the structure leaving Sabin to pull down the belt. Although by now
means a bad match and at times featuring some great athletic competition, it
just couldn’t live up to previous Ultimate X matches.
For some reason Hulk Hogan
decided to come out after Sabin’s victory, and say something about Destination
X, despite the pay-per-view being pulled from the schedule. Hulk did nothing
for Sabin in this segment and simply managed to get the crowd chanting his own
name. If Hogan’s going to stick around he needs to leave the younger guys alone
to create their own moments and have their own spotlight. Hogan went on to
announce the opponents for Aces and Eights… despite them already being
confirmed on last weeks Impact. There’s been a lot of talk about TNA’s long
term booking as of late, but it appears like no one’s letting Hogan in on what’s
happening on his Television show.
The six man tag match itself
pitting Mr. Anderson, Garrett Bischoff & Wes Brisco against Jeff Hardy,
Samoa Joe & Magnus captured this pay-per-view in one individual contest, it
was at time messy with the rookies in ring positioning coming into questions on
a number of occasions, at time exhilarating with Samoa Joe’s burst of energy
being on par with what we’ve seen from Daniel Bryan in WWE as of late and the
ending really brought the match to life with the pace building towards a
fascinated conclusion, with Hardy hitting a Swanton Bomb on Brisco as he
attempted to pin Magnus, with Anderson locked in the Rear Naked Choke on the
ramp. Was it up there with The Shield’s six man tag matches on Raw? No.
The other match on the card saw
Gutcheck Rookies Sam Shaw and Jay Bradley face of for a place in the Bound for
Glory Series. It was a basic and uninspiring contest, with neither man getting
much offense in for very long. The ending looked awkward as Bradley seemed to
forget what was meant to come up next, which was simply his Boomstick finishing
move. Both men need to work hard to develop a story within their matches as
this was non-existent here. I can’t see Jay Bradley being much more than a
whipping boy within the Bound for Glory Series.
Finally…
What have we learnt from this
year Slammiversary?
1. If
Aces and Eight are never made to look particularly strong then there eventually
downfall will not feel as exciting as their over a year reign should allow.
2. Kurt
Angle can still go with the best of them, Sting can’t.
3.Tazz
continues to point out the plot holes within TNA, to hilarious consequence on
commentary.
Well, we're less than an hour away from TNA's Slammiversary, so I better get going with these predictions!
It's been a decent build up towards this one, with Sting being a logical person to go into battle for Hulk Hogan against the Immortal One's Son-in-Law. However, I don't hold out much hope for this as a physical contest, whilst Bully has been having some of the best singles matches of his career lately, Sting looked barely capable of a Tag Team contest on Impact recently, so this could be a slow short match up, not befitting the story line or a Pay-Per-View Main event. I'd expect run-ins from numerous Aces and Eight members, both Hulk and Brooke Hogan, and probably a number of TNA Roster members, possibly even the big name signing Dixie Carter has touted on Twitter recently.
Winner: Bully Ray
Now, we've seen this match a number of times throughout the years, in various different combination, but no point has it ever become a chore to watch Kurt Angle and AJ Styles create magic within the squared circle. Once again, I'd expect AJ and Kurt to pull out an absolute classic, with a brand new psychology to play with and AJ settling into a new edgier character, this will be a more than entertaining contest. Hopefully this match is given a good half an hour and there is no interference from Aces and Eights or anyone else involved in this story.
Winner: AJ Styles
Featuring seven proven talented in ring competitors and one fairly unknown entity, this should be an explosive contest. The psychology has been built well over the last few months of Impact with each team having a number of different ties to another, TNA has to make sure this psychology pays off in this contest to make it feel like a satisfying contest, a mere collection of moves will not be enough. There's a number of ways for TNA to head with this but with a number of these guys surely heading for the Bound For Glory Series after Slammiversary there seems only one logical choice.
Winners: Chavo Guerrero & Hernandez
It's been a long time since we've seen Devon defend the Television Championship, despite Hogan's decree less than a year ago that the TV title should be defended every week. So it won't feel like a massive moment if Park wins the title, which it might have if the title had been handled properly as of late. The Parks character has been handled well and is always entertaining, but it really is time for Abyss to return as it feels like the Joseph Park character can go no further in the world of wrestling. I'd expect an appearance from Abyss in this match, probably appearing from under the ring, after Parks has gone underneath.
Winner: Joseph Park
Although I believe a Kenny King vs. Chris Sabin singles contest would have been a more satisfying one in terms of storyline, this will no doubt be an entertaining spot laden match. Hopefully Sabin doesn't put himself in too much danger, as another injury would surely end his promising career. I'd prefer to see Kenny King's reign go a bit longer as he's an entertaining character and a long running rivalry with Sabin leading into Bound For Glory could light up Impact throughout the summer.
Winner: Kenny King
Would much rather have seen a rematch of Mickie James and Velvet Sky take this spot on the card, as Taryn Terrel has shown little to show she deserves tp have been promoted from Knockouts Referee, especially with ODB taking her place. It will be interesting to see how extreme this match goes, as I'm expecting little more than a cat fight. Although I'm not a huge fan of Terrel, I expect TNA to build her into a singles feud with the newly heel Mickie James in the near future.
Winner: Taryn Terrel
Wouldn't say I know too much about either of these guys, but that's mainly due to TNA not using them that much since their Gut Check challenges. Bradley would seem the more charismatic of the two, with Shaw being more of a body guy, but that's about all we know about these two rookies.
Winner: Sam Shaw
There's four extremely talent competitors in this match and then there's Wes Brisco and Garett Bischoff. Now I'm not completely down on these two Aces and Eights member, we just haven't seen enough of them in the ring to prove they have much talent. Yes, Brisco has had some decent matches with Kurt Angle, but Angle rarely has had bad match, no matter who he is facing! I was also pretty TNA announced this match to feature DOC instead of Anderson, obviously plans changed by the end of the show. With all three members of on team heading for the Bound For Glory Series, it seems their can be only one choice.
Winners: Magnus, Samoa Joe & Jeff Hardy
It's looks like it's going to be a mixed bag tonight for Slammiversary, some extremely entertaining contests on the line up, but some that might be difficult to stay awake through! Enjoy the show people!
