NO TAZ ON COMMENTARY! HOORAY!
BULLY RAY PROMO- a horrible, boring waste of time. He tells us that he will beat up Sabin and that Sabin definitely won’t win tonight and that Aces & Eights are going to beat up the Main Event Mafia. This only went on for about four minutes, but it felt like it took forever.
BULLY & THE HOGAN’S SEGMENT- Bully demands that Brooke come out. Brooke points out that she has moved on from the relationship. Bully tells her that she can only move on when he says it’s okay. Because if there is one thing that makes for good wrestling TV, it is turning your top heel into a creepy, pathetic, obsessed ex-husband. Hulk then comes out and yells at Bully, and Bully responds by saying that he will never give Brooke a divorce. Seeing as how this marriage took place a few months ago rather than in the 17th century, that doesn’t seem like it matters very much. The Main Event Mafia showed up on the PandaTron to tell Bully that he would lose the title tonight.
BOBBY ROODE PROMO- good
BOUND FOR GLORY SERIES MATCH: Austin Aries vs. Bobby Roode- 6.75/10
Great match. After the match Roode snaps and starts destroying things because he is upset at his poor performance in the BFG Series because, as JB explained, he feels that the BFG Series is his way back to the TNA World Heavyweight because the world title is important. Great!
CHAVO & HERNANDEZ BACKSTAGE- I choose not to review this segment because I do not even want to think about the possibility of Chavo winning the X-Division Title.
ACES & EIGHTS BACKSTAGE- As we have been told countless time, Aces & Eights is a brotherhood of best friends, etc. etc… but apparently Doc decided to quit just because he lost the VP vote.
X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH QUALIFYING MATCH: Sonjay Dutt vs. Petey Williams vs. Homicide- 6.5/10
Christy called this an “X-Division Qualifying Match,” which doesn’t make any sense because these guys are already in the X-Division. She has the easiest f*cking job in the world and she screws up at least once every two weeks.
Then it happened. Mike Tenay pissed me the f*ck off. After the match was over he said “let us check out the graphic,” and the following graphic appeared on the screen.
Simple, elegant, and obvious, right? A great graphic. Kudos to the TNA graphic department. They have done their job perfectly. Well… apparently Mike Tenay didn’t think so, he decided that this graphic needed exposition. He said:
This is going to talk about next Thursday, and it illustrates how Sonjay Dutt has advanced to next week’s Ultimate X. We’ll find out later tonight who joins Sonjay in the title match.”
People talk about bad storylines insulting the fan’s intelligence, but that is just bad storytelling. Do you want to know what I really find insulting? When an announcer assumes that he has to explain THE MOST F*CKING OBVIOUS GRAPHIC IN THE WORLD TO ME! I wish Mike Tenay would get laryngitis permanently.
When we come back from commercial, Kenny King and Chavo Guerrero Jr. were already in the ring, with Manik coming out. “Well,” I thought to myself, “I might have missed Kenny’s entrance, but at least I don’t have to hear Christy f*ck up again.” But apparently TNA hates me as much as I hate it right now and Christy decided to introduce the match AFTER the first two guys had already come down to the ring… AND SHE MADE THE SAME F*CKING MISTAKE AGAIN!
X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH QUALIFYING MATCH: Kenny King vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr. vs. Manik- 6.25/10
JB tells us that the recent name switch is “a new era” in TJP’s career. While he is technically correct, the name change doesn’t really seem very relevant when he is still running around in the same ugly costume.
CHRIS SABIN VIDEO PACKAGE- the same one from the beginning of the show.
HOGAN & SABIN BACKSTAGE- a pointless and lame pep talk by Hogan, who apparently feels the need to be about two inches away from Sabin when he says this.
MAIN EVENT MAFIA & ACES EIGHTS SEGMENT- the Main Event Mafia they want Aces & Eights to come out and fight them right now, but Aces & Eights say that they will fight on their own time… which was exactly what the segment on last week’s show established, so this was a giant waste of time. Then Anderson invites the MEM back to the clubhouse to fight them, so the MEM says “okay” and they head backstage to fight them….
When the MEM get there, they walk into THE MOST F*CKING OBVIOUS TRAP IN THE WORLD and the Aces & Eights lock all of them in a room… aside from Kurt. With Kurt, Bully throws him on the back of a pickup truck, which someone then drives away. I swear to G-d that is exactly what happened. This was f*cking idiotic.
SHE SAID IT AGAIN! #ReplaceChristy.
X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH QUALIFYING MATCH: Rubix vs. Rockstar Spud vs. Greg Marasciulo- 6/10
So we have Rockstar Spud vs. Jigsaw vs. Trent?
BULLY RAY TALKING ON THE PHONE BACKSTAGE- dumb. He tells a mystery person to drive Kurt to a prearranged spot.
KURT ANGLE DROVE THE TRUCK TO THE ARENA- Apparently Kurt managed to get from the back of a pickup truck into the driver’s seat and overpower the driver all while the truck was moving. Is he Batman?
MICKIE JAMES & GAIL KIM SEGMENT- good. Props to Gail for coming off as so arrogant when she came out, because without that, she would have felt like a babyface here.
AUSTIN ARIES & CHRIS SABIN SEGMENT- this was nice… but that is exactly the problem. It is way too out of character for Aries.
TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Bully Ray(c) vs. Chris Sabin- 6/10
Aces & Eights come out, but then the MEM come out, too. You mean trying to lock them in a room when there is an arena full of people on their side didn’t work? Really?
So the five MEM guys are covering about three and a half sides of the ring while all five Aces & Eights guys are huddled into one corner liked scared little puppies.
Chris Sabin seems to have been on the outside of the ring for the entirety of that commercial break and was not counted out. Anyway, we get the expected schmoz and HOLY F*CKING SH*T! Didn’t see that one coming. Apparently that whole "we have no idea where Taz is" angle didn't lead to anything at all. I was certain he would interfere here after everyone had brawled away.
Anyway, I like Sabin as much as the next guy, but I really have to question the logic of this. First of all, the win isn’t clean because Sabin used the hammer. He is a freakin’ babyface. Just give him a roll-up win!
On a more important level, though, Sabin was not the guy to take the belt off of Bully. In the grand scheme of things, he came out of nowhere. He wasn’t feuding with Bully or Aces & Eights at all. Also, they have spent the last four months building up how important it is to get the belt off of Bully… and then they give it away on free TV? WHAT THE F*CK?!
This was also a completely anti-climactic finish for the Main Event Mafia. They say that their mission is to get the title off of Bully. They show up and Aces & Eights run away like pussies. They announce some more members, then Aces & Eights run away like pussies again. Then, the week after they introduce their final member, they come out and they beat up Aces & Eights, allowing the babyface to win the world title from Bully. Yay. Mission accomplished.
The problem is that it didn’t even seem difficult for them. I came out of this segment thinking that the only reason this didn’t happen at Slammiversary (or even back at the end of April when Jeff was challenging Bully) was because the babyfaces were f*cking idiots (and don’t try to sell me that Rampage Jackson was the difference maker. This pro wrestling. I will take the combination of Jeff Hardy, James Storm, and Eric Young over a lone Rampage Jackson in a wild brawl… and if you are trying to claim that Doc not being there was the difference, just remember that the combination of Hogan and Sting on their own beat up the entire faction a few months ago).
Anyway, despite the major failings of the title change, this was a good show from TNA. This was the best Impact in a very long time, especially from an in-ring perspective. One small gripe that I do have was that they gave us the qualifying matches for next week’s match to crown a new X-Division Champion this week, rather than giving us the title match this week. Come on, guys! It’s Destination X! This was the perfect show to crown a new X-Division Champion at!
STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Tenay claims that by beating TJP up and stealing his costume, Aries was guilty of “gimmick infringement.”
You would think that “the professor” would know what gimmick infringement means, but apparently not.
