OPENING SEGMENT- Hogan starts the show by rambling, saying words that don't really make sense in the order he put in them, but you kind of got the general gist of things. Anyway, after finding out last week that Bully Ray might be sleeping with his daughter, obviously Hulk Hogan does what any parent would do and waits a whole week to talk to them about so that he can do it on national TV. Then Austin Aries shows up, having magically taken over the PandaTron, and points this out.

GAIL KIM vs. MICKIE JAMES- 3.25/10
Too damn short.

JAMES STORM & AJ STYLES BACKSTAGE- decent

HOGAN PICKS A CONTENDER, SEGMENT #1- not very good. Why is Kid Kash even here? He just lost an X-Division Title match to RVD a few weeks ago. Hogan eliminates Kenny King from getting a title shot because Kenny hasn't made his mark in the business yet. Yeah. And he never will if you use the fact that he hasn't as a reason to not give him title shots!

BOBBY ROODE & CHRISTIAN YORK SEGMENT- GREAT!

CHRISTIAN YORK vs. BOBBY ROODE- 3.5/10
The stuff with Jeff at the end was decent.

ACES & EIGHTS BACKSTAGE- good set up for next week

GUT CHECK JUDGES BACKSTAGE- more pointless crap from these guys.

VARIOUS PEOPLE BACKSTAGE WITH PRICHARD- Al Snow is missing? Interesting.

KAZ PROMO- very good

AJ STYLES & JAMES STORM vs. CHRISTOPHER DANIELS & KAZARIAN- 5.75/10

HOGAN PICKS A CONTENDER, SEGMENT #2- once again, this was lame. According to Hogan, apparently RVD has some deep, burning hatred for Austin Aries which has never been mentioned before

SAMOA JOE PROMO- great

DOUG WILLIAMS vs. MATT MORGAN (w/Joey Ryan)- squash
Morgan is wearing the robe that he shoplifted from Hulk Hogan's store on national TV. If it was so important, you would think that Hulk would call the police to try to get it back.

D'LO SUGGESTS THAT HE SHOULD JUDGE GUT CHECK- sure, why not?

DOES WES BRISCO GET A CONTRACT?- the judges reasoning for voting no (or almost voting no) breaks kayfabe. Garrett didn't botch anything and he won the match. What, in kayfabe terms, could the judges have to be unhappy about (especially considering the other mediocre nobodies they have voted for). D'Lo decides to vote for Wes because "if your in-ring work is good enough for Bruce Prichard, it's good enough for me." Umm... Prichard specifically said that Wes' in-ring work WASN'T good enough at the moment.

HOGAN & BULLY RAY BACKSTAGE- Hogan was laughably bad. He sounded like a five year old. "NO! YOU'RE confusing business with pleasure!"

ODB PROMO- no anger at the Impact locker room for not lifting a finger to help? That seems odd.

HULK HOGAN & AUSTIN ARIES BACKSTAGE- eh.

TNA X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH: Rob Van Dam(c) vs. Austin Aries- 6/10
Nowhere near acceptable for a main event, and RVD showed none of this burning hatred that Hogan claimed he had. The end of the show was also bad. Are we really supposed to think that Austin Aries is afraid of 59 year old Hulk Hogan?

Yet another bad episode of Impact

Big Red Machine wrote:
D'LO SUGGESTS THAT HE SHOULD JUDGE GUT CHECK- sure, why not?

I'm not sure what to think about this. We know that D'Lo and Brisco are bodies in Aces & 8s, I wonder if they took Snow out and brought D'lo in to vote and give Brisco the contract.

cero2k wrote:

Big Red Machine wrote:
D'LO SUGGESTS THAT HE SHOULD JUDGE GUT CHECK- sure, why not?

I'm not sure what to think about this. We know that D'Lo and Brisco are bodies in Aces & 8s, I wonder if they took Snow out and brought D'lo in to vote and give Brisco the contract.

That is my thinking, too, but there have been no kayfabe hints about this, so I can't use it as a basis to evaluate the segment. If they do reveal them both as Aces & Eights members and Wes having a contract becomes important, I can look back on the segment and say "good job, TNA" but I can't do it yet because it hasn't happened.