The card kicked off with the X Division championship
Ultimate X match. Kenny King defended the belt against Suicide (played by TJ
Perkins) and Chris Sabin. They had as good a match as possible with what is
quite a restrictive gimmick. The standard offering of flips and dives were on
display. It was entertaining. It earned itself a "This is awesome!"
chant fairly early on.
Towards the start of the match we were told it was the
thirtieth ever Ultimate X. As soon as Tenay furnished us with that fact I
remembered just how overused the gimmick was at one point. WWE hasn't reached
that number of Hell in a Cell matches yet, and that's a gimmick that predates
Ultimate X by well over half a decade.
King removed Suicide from the match in the closing
moments by trying to remove his mask. Seconds later Sabin leapt up to join him
in the centre of the crossed wires and booted him until he fell down to the
mat. The former Moror City Machine Gun then unhooked the belt for the victory
and the opening match pop.
Before Sabin could get backstage he was accosted at the
top of the ramp by Hulk Hogan. 'The Hulkster' did his typical apathetic routine
of trying to get a young guy over: saying his name and the name of the city
they were in repeatedly, presumably in the hope that it would continue to
generate enough of a reaction to make Sabin look like a star. It didn't. People
can see through Hogan like a window in 2013.
The new X Division champ: endorsed by Hulk Hogan
Once the token attempt at turning Slammiversary into
something special for Sabin had failed Hulk hobbled down to the ring and
continued wittering about Boston, name dropping André the Giant for good
measure, before Mr Anderson, Garrett Bischoff and Wes Brisco interrupted him.
Anderson uttered some thoroughly clichéd material which
prompted 'The Immortal One' to call Aces and Eights terrorists and pussies. The
crowd lapped it up but it still felt a very strange thing for him to say. Hogan
also referred to Sting as the greatest wrestler in the business. That's not
going to help make new stars, is it? Once again I feel compelled to advocate
stricter rules when it comes to old hands cutting promos in TNA.
That segment led into the evening's second match, a six
man tag pitting the Aces and Eights members against Magnus, Samoa Joe and
Jeffrey Nero Hardy (who'd grown a beard during his time off). The match was a
solid effort that gave everyone something to do.
The faces won, which I feel was the wrong result. Had
Garrett or Wes pinned any of their opponents it could have been a big moment
for them. Instead Brisco caught Magnus with a low blow and a rollup, only to be
hit with a Swanton by 'The Charismatic Enigma'.
Backstage JB interviewed Joseph Park about the TV title
match he'd have later in the night. The segment existed solely to have Park
assaulted by Devon and Knux.
Match three was the Gut Check tournament final between
Sam Shaw and Jay Bradley. Shaw played face but had received a bye earlier in
the tournament while heel Bradley had won all his matches. That's another
curious booking decision to add to the list.
Neither man got much of a reaction when they entered. The
crowd had been hot earlier in the show and would liven up considerably later,
so the logical conclusion to draw is that they were interested in the Gut Check
participants. Perhaps it's time to retire the concept and go back to
introducing new faces in a more traditional manner. A generic but inoffensive
and competent match was won by Bradley after a poke to the eye, a shove to the
turnbuckle and a clothesline. After winning Bradley told Christy Hemme it feels
"good" to be in the BFG series. He said he'll win it and go on to
become champ. I'll be honest, I don't like his chances.
A backstage promo from Aries and Roode was followed by
Devon retaining his television championship by count out. Joseph had been so
thoroughly duffed up earlier that he was unable to make it to the ring, you
see. Devon then got back onto the mic to run his mouth about Abyss.
That prompted the monster to return. The referee rang the
bell to signal a title match. As Taz rightfully pointed out no bout had
officially been made. This would be fine in ECW but TNA so often goes out of
its way to emphasise tedious rules and regulations that it just seems off when
they're disregarded like this. Abyss won the match and the title. No mention of
how he and his brother have remarkably similar builds was made.
Dixie Carter came to the ring, completely oblivious to
the fact that she is not well suited to an on-screen role. The woman seems
determined to be the TNA equivalent of Vince or Stephanie McMahon. She's no
Stephanie and she's certainly no Vince.
Anyway... Dixie recited a well rehearsed pro-TNA speech
and invited the roster out onto the stage. Everyone bar Aces and Eights members
was shown filing out. Kurt Angle was then announced as the second member of the
TNA Hall of Fame. He's a good choice, particularly when you consider that he's
been saying nice things about WWE again lately (because this could placate him
and sway him to stay a bit longer, plus TNA are inducting him while he's under
contract). A well produced video package of Angle's Olympic win and TNA career
was shown after which he said a few words about the announcement and thanked
the fans. Although I don't see the need for a TNA Hall of Fame I think it was a
very well put together slice of television and Angle's a deserving inductee.
Backstage Bad Influence made fun of Jeremy Borash and
claimed credit for making the tag team titles valuable again. I think they have
a point. TNA's doubles belts meant very little until the Bad Influence v Angle
and Styles feud last year. Daniels and Kazarian did help to restore meaning to
the gold.
The tag team title match that followed was very good.
Even Hernandez and Gunner, two men I'm not especially keen on, looked good.
With so many guys involved I'd expected the match to be a mess but it was one of
the better tag matches TNA's put on this year. I suppose having so many
veterans in one bout helped keep the quality high.
Daniels and Kazarian were the first team eliminated when
'The Fallen Angel' was caught lamping Chavo with a title belt. Seconds later
that act resulted in Chavo getting pinned by Austin Aries. Having the first two
eliminations occur at the same point in the match helped the pacing. It's not a
trick that could be used all the time because it would become boring and cheap
but it worked well here.
The closing portion showed Gunner to be the equal of the
three more high profile performers he'd been left with. It culminated with him
kicking out of the 450 splash and getting the win for his team by making 'A
Double' submit to the Gun Rack. TNA passed up quite a few star building
opportunities at Slammiversary but they took care of Gunner. That's better than
nothing I suppose.
Presumably Gunner and Storm will feud with Aries and
Roode. That will be great for Gunner but a comedown for the other three men,
all of whom were headlining cards last year. Hopefully some new teams are
created so that they can return to singles roles.
We went back to JB for the final time to find him with
Brooke Hogan. She was there to discuss the Knockouts division that she's still
in charge of yet knows nothing about. Her stupidest claim was that the division
has been "grown like never before". Maybe she should watch some KO
footage from 2008, when the division boasted Awesome Kong and the Beautiful
People along with Gail Kim and was often the most enjoyable thing about iMPACT.
That was the division's golden age and should be something TNA emulate now.
When quizzed about whether she still loves Bully Ray
Brooke said she'd have to end the interview. Thank heaven for small mercies.
That was followed, fittingly, by the Last Knockout
Standing match between veteran Gail Kim and referee turned grappler Taryn
Terrell. The match the two women had was astonishingly good. It was the best
Knockouts offering I've seen for quite some time and far better than anything
the WWE Divas will be allowed to produce anytime soon. It bettered the Ryback v
Cena LSM from Extreme Rules too.
Memorable spots included: Taryn narrowly avoiding a Kim
spear, which sent Kim tumbling into a chair out of the ring; a cross body onto
a steel chair from Taryn to Gail; and the match winning running cutter from the
entrance ramp to the floor for Terrell. It was an intense, believable and
crisply executed match. If Taryn Terrell can wrestle like that all the time she
deserves a spot in the division.
AJ Styles had new music when he headed to the ring to
face Kurt Angle. People have been going crazy for it. It did nothing for me.
Styles and Angle produced a match that was predictably
superb. They did everything from high spots to mat wrestling. In a break from
the norm of pay-per-view wrestling Angle won after an exchange of pin attempts
stemming from an attempted Angle Slam. The result surprised me. I thought
they'd want to keep 'The Phenomenal One' strong for whatever push is planned
for him later in the year. Apparently not. It doesn't matter really. AJ's so
well established that a loss to Angle won't harm him.
Look at the intensity!
A poll that JB had introduced in one of his many
backstage segments was revisited after that. Viewers had been asked to vote
(via TNA's high-tech Facebook page) on who they thought would win the title
match between Bully Ray and Sting. Sixty four per cent of voters believed Sting
would become the new TNA world champion. I thought that was high at first, but
perhaps viewers were swayed by the stip that Sting would never challenge for
the belt again if he lost.
Bully cut a pre-match promo telling Sting he was going to
beat him with the most feared move in wrestling: the piledriver. He wanted to
break 'The Stinger's' neck. To begin with I thought Bully was talking about the
3D. A no DQ match would have made interference from Devon perfectly legal. But
then I remembered the Motor City Machine Guns kicked out of that and lost
interest in the idea.
I do like the idea of TNA building up the piledriver.
It's gained a reputation as a legitimately dangerous move due to WWE's ban of
the move in the late nineties, which influenced many other wrestling groups to
follow suit. It's a move that could meab a great deal if limited to special
occasions.
The match started out as a pretty decent brawl. Bully
predictably connected with the piledriver eventually. Just as predictably Sting
kicked out. He also kicked out of a power bomb through a table. Moments later
Bully easily avoided a Stinger Splash and piledrove Sting on the exposed boards
of the ring. Sting kicked out of that too, at which point I begun to think that
the piledriver's credibility was being sorely tested.
You may have noticed that Bully Ray's new move of choice is the piledriver
Bully got dropped with a Scorpion Death Drop on the
boards and appeared to have been beaten. Aces and Eights naturally made the
save. Sting made a comeback against group jobbers Bischoff, Brisco, DOC and
Knux. Devon tossed a chain to Bully but Sting grabbed it, nailed the champ and
went for the pin. Devon did the old yank the ref from the ring routine and so
Sting, stupidly, left the ring to chase the Aces member around ringside. That
allowed Mr Anderson to hand a hammer to Bully, who landed 'The Icon' with it as
he sailed back into the ring from the top rope.
Yep, Bully Ray won a PPV main event via hammer shot.
Again.
I've nothing against screwy finishes to main events
usually. As long as they don't happen all the time I tend to be fine with them.
But because TNA's only producing four pay-per-views a year now they should be
trying to avoid this sort of thing. If it has to be done they should at least
vary things a little.
I liked the main event. It was a match built around
brawling and false finishes and was very effective for what it was. It provided
a fitting end to an enjoyable, productive and well-paced card. If TNA can
thread some decent stories together between now and Bound For Glory and then
replicate the in-ring action of this card on the night they'll be doing
something right.
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