I can't explain to you how much I enjoy ladder matches. I dont think I've watched one that I didnt enjoy on some level. Its my favourite stip by a mile; ever since I sat with my jaw on the floor as a youngster watching the magic HBK and Razor created at WM10. Needless to say I was frothing at the prospect of the evening kicking off with Gail Kim vs Taryn Terrell in such a match, for a multitude of reasons. Mainly anticipation at their rematch from quite possibly the best womens wrestling match I've seen in 10 years at Slammiversary, but also a wee element of frothing amount of at the hawtness on show. Just a touch, I can assure you, wrasslin comes first ;)
So when I was told it was "up next" as the show began, I assumed that meant the match would open the show, only instead to be treated to a hella confusing 10 minutes of barely intelligible noise from a combination of Bully Ray, and The Main Event Mafia. I'm going to sum it up the way it came across to me, prepare to be baffled.
Bully is hell bent on fixing his marriage with Brooke, but he does not accept the challenge issued by the MEM last week, nor does he wish to harm Chris Sabin. Kurt Angle appears and informs Bully that he his is U.G.L.Y, and when it comes to his next title defense, he will have no alibis. Also, Sting said some words, and the 5th member is a heavy hitter.
Just a really scatty promo, which attempted to tie about about 50 loose ends in one segment, often 3 or 4 in the same sentence. TNA really has to kill some of these half baked and barely told stories before I lose the will to keep putting myself through this every week. Help me.
Jeff Hardy and Jospeh Park vs AJ Styles and Samoa Joe
Because all good wrestling matches take place after four names are drawn out of a hat. I dont even know what this was for man. I'm sure it was pertinent to some storyline, but I just dont know. The match was short and pointless. Styles and Joe won and that was that. Oh and it is revealed that the tag match is part of a bound for glory thing, where the 6 winners of the 3 matches will wrestle each other in a gauntlet match for 25 BFG points and I can feel brain cells escaping from my ears. Wrestling just shouldn't be this pointlessly complexed.
Magnus and Ken Anderson vs Jay Bradley and Hernandez
People like Bradley and Hernandez being afforded TV time are just one of the many little diseases TNA need to cure to move forward. I'm a happy guy, but these two just sap all my will to love anything from every fibre of my being. Horrible, sloppy nothing wrestlers. The sum of Bradleys work is a few stomach punches, and costing his team the match somehow. Hernandez got pinned by Magnus, and Magnus and Anderson won. Here's the element you maybe weren't aware of and listen...I really dont blame you, but Magnus and Anderson are MEM and Aces and Eights respectively, and Anderson is actually pretty funny throughout, avoiding being tagged in and applauding sarcastically when Magnus got his team the win. Sarcasm is fun. People say its the lowest form of wit, but I say they're the lowest form of whit, and when they tell me that doesn't make sense I just wink and walk away. Sarcastically.
Austin Aries and Christopher Danies vs Bobby Roode and Kazarian
Wrestling prevails. Wrestling will always prevail. That's why I think the key to any wrestling show at least being watchable is just giving your best wrestlers a platform to give something resembling their best in the ring. This is exactly what we got here; for a start, we had the interesting element of two teams being "randomly" drawn against each other,but mainly, we just had some great wrestling which made sense. These are four guys who haven't given up on returning TNA to its former glory, or at least making it watchable again. An excellent match, which ended in Kazarian rolling up his usual tag partner Daniels to give him and Roode a spot in the gauntlet later in the night. This kind of thng is why I'm convinced TNA have two sets of writers, and while one set were off with their fountain pens and quiffs writing the most confusing gutcheck segments possible, the good guys were afforded a spare half hour to come up with this idea.
Gail Kim vs Taryn Terrel (Ladder Match for the No.1 Contenders spot for the Knockouts title)
Hearing about this match was really the only reason I fought tiredness to stay up and watch this. Their match at Slammiversary told a surprisingly intriguing story, and was as technically good as I've seen from women's wrestling in many years. This told a good enough story, and had some decent spots, my personal favorite being Taryn pushing the ladders into Gails face as she ran the ropes, but it wasn't as technically sound as their previous meeting, which I suppose is a testament to Taryns vast improvement, but also a sign that there is still a long way to go before she can consider herself the finished article. I actually loved the finish, as Gail and Taryn battled near the ropes, Gail decides to tie Taryns hair up in them and rushes up the ladder to grab the contract. Smart finish, and the match was certainly the highlight of the night, but it was always going to struggle to live up to its predecessor.
Kaz vs Magnus vs Joe vs The Shockmaster vs AJ vs Roode vs Adam Bomb vs Ken Anderson
Not a huge fan of this type of match, but this wasn't terrible. I just feel like unless its a Royal Rumble, this kind of staggered build up is daft. Just get them all in there at once. That ends up the case anyway, and the action is a bit boring until it gets down to just Roode and Magnus and we were treated to yet further proof of the improvement in Magnus. An extremely impressive exchange between those two, much like their singles match a couple of weeks earlier, and once again Magnus was put over clean, to take the 25 BFG points. Giving him a huge total of 49, with Roode sitting bottom of the table with 0.
This match finished with 10 minutes of showtime left, and so far we had just one brief Hogan sighting, it was both of them, but short enough to prevent me launching the bottle of Sprite I was drinking from chair to TV. Imagine my horror when I realised that the final segment would be Chris Sabin handing the X Division belt to Hogan, and this would mean Hogan would have to hobble down to the ring and probably say words. He does indeed, busted knees acting as a poignant metaphor his his busted relevance in wrestling. Sabin is there too, and eventually Bully Ray. Bully is a bad bad man, he says it every week, it would be easier for us all if we signed a contract stating that we're aware that he's not very nice, and he doesn't have to say it every week. Something about Brooke, Hulk should stay out of her life, and out of the lives of anyone with a beating heart really. Sabin decides he will hand over the X Division belt regardless of how bad Bully is, and Bully informs him that his friends are also not very nice and they will also attempt to hurt him but wait! We slip into another dimension, and in this one...everyone is upside down! No seriously though, the MEM appear and reveal QUINTON RAMPAGE JACKSON THE MMA/MOVIE GUY to be the 5th member and everyone just cries and cries with happiness. The end.
Overall, slight improvement on last weeks mess. The Kaz/Roode vs Aries/Daniels match was great, and so was the ladder match but everything else was its usual mixture of messy and confusing. A final score of 4.9 spike DDTs out of 10.
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