Ugh... Should have waited for WebX, Jonathan, or Hoss to upload No Surrender. Had to get it from a... um... secondary source, and THOSE ASSHOLES CUT OUT MOST OF THE HARDY/JOE MATCH! GRRR IDIOTS! HOW. DARE. YOU.
From what I saw, the match was pretty good, and loved the psychology of Joe knowing a few spots from the Impact match and knowing how to counter (realistically Hardy's WWE-style offense should be pathetically easy to counter, but w/e), like with Joe rolling through that random submission. Hardy wins, as expected, Joe still got a huge rub from that series.
Bully and Storm made my day... Bully Ray is the biggest chunk of gold seen outside Fort Knox... and this crowd. "DEVON'S BETTER!" *RAWR "rips sign" "trips on wire"* Dear god this had me marking... Match was meh, but ROOOOOOOOOOOODE'S BACK, BAY-BAY! Refs got a little overbooked, I'd say it's more realistic since that's what a real company would do, but ref bumps in general are so unrealistic that there's no point even thinking about that. Storm dominated the series, he's fine. The Roode and Storm arrests were a nice touch to sell the primal fury Storm felt towards Roode. This feud is hot again.
The KO's match had nice psychology with how pissed they progressively got throughout the match, but it was slow paced and boring. Next.
The "match" between Aries and Armbreaker... loved seeing how intense Aries was. His no-nonsense movements and his angry expression helped sell this Aces and Eights angle, which is only remotely interesting due to the performances of the TNA stars around them. Nothing else noteworthy, just more of the same.
Enjoyed them playing up the small bit of history between Dutt and Ion, really missed Zema Ion on the mic. Break necks, cash checks, and win titles. Can someone remind me what his new catchphrase is? Anyway, you knew Dutt would have his show stealing spots, but outside of those this was barely Impact quality. Horrible performance from an X-Division that needs restocking just as much as the Knockouts.
Okay, rant time. Magnus and Bob had a boring match, but... Why did Bob go over?
1. Magnus is an up-and-coming young talent with a load of potential. RVD's way past his prime and has never been more irrelevant.
2. Magnus has a great match already set up with Samoa Joe, which could be an awesome match at Bound For Glory. What can you do with RVD? You'll have to shoe-horn him into something, and the only people that will draw is ECW fanboys who can't let go of their childhood. ECW's dead and it won't, nor should it, come back. And the Magnus/Joe match looks much worse since Joe can't beat this clown, so why should he beat a monster like Joe?
#wwelogichitstna
Magnus for IC champ. Next.
Speaking of WWE, the first 60% of this tag match can kiss my ass. WWE does this "heels double-team the face" thing so often that I never, ever want to see it again. There were good spots in there too, and some entertaining showboating from the WTTCOTW, but it was awful overall. The last 40% when it got chaotic was awesome. Angle's much better in tag matches nowadays so we don't have to see another finisher-fest, and Kaz was a big part of this so we didn't have that much Styles/Daniels. Finish was fine too.
Random space for promos and stuff: Hogan and the cops were insufferable tonight, it was so pointless and unnecessary, although I guess it's better than WWE's ads for itself. HOGAN NEEDS TO GTFO. HE'S NOT DRAWING OR DOING ANYTHING PRODUCTIVE, HE'S A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY. GET HIM OFF MY TV. Every single promo from someone relevant tonight was as awesome as you'd expect, especially with Daniels and "The Physical Fascination, Frankie Kazarian". How long will it be before Testifab changes his name to "Traveshamockery"?
Then the main-event... I knew you guys would hate this, and yeah I'm breaking smart-mark code here, but I actually liked a good part of this. Yeah, there were too many finishers, and yeah, the "lawn-dart into the post" looked weak as hell, but there was this aura of sympathy in the air, and this came across much better than SuperCena crap. Hardy felt like an underdog, in large part due to the acting of... and I can't believe I'm saying this... Taz and Tenay. It got Hardy over just fine, and honestly... It reminded me of the true underdog story of all of this, his battle back from drug addiction which he's at least on his way to overcoming.
Bully wasn't buried. If there's one thing we've learned about TNA in 2012, it's that one does not bury Bully Ray. It's simply impossible. He'll be back on Thursday talking trash and getting heat as if he never left.
As for Aries vs Hardy, that's fine. It's the biggest draw, the last star TNA made vs the last star WWE made (and didn't subsequently bury), and these guys have barely even looked at each other. Don't care about Hardy anymore, he's been completely exposed in TNA, but Aries should make this match awesome on his own.
Overall, this was an excellent PPV from a psychology/storytelling standpoint, but there weren't any really good matches. 5/10
From what I saw, the match was pretty good, and loved the psychology of Joe knowing a few spots from the Impact match and knowing how to counter (realistically Hardy's WWE-style offense should be pathetically easy to counter, but w/e), like with Joe rolling through that random submission. Hardy wins, as expected, Joe still got a huge rub from that series.
Bully and Storm made my day... Bully Ray is the biggest chunk of gold seen outside Fort Knox... and this crowd. "DEVON'S BETTER!" *RAWR "rips sign" "trips on wire"* Dear god this had me marking... Match was meh, but ROOOOOOOOOOOODE'S BACK, BAY-BAY! Refs got a little overbooked, I'd say it's more realistic since that's what a real company would do, but ref bumps in general are so unrealistic that there's no point even thinking about that. Storm dominated the series, he's fine. The Roode and Storm arrests were a nice touch to sell the primal fury Storm felt towards Roode. This feud is hot again.
The KO's match had nice psychology with how pissed they progressively got throughout the match, but it was slow paced and boring. Next.
The "match" between Aries and Armbreaker... loved seeing how intense Aries was. His no-nonsense movements and his angry expression helped sell this Aces and Eights angle, which is only remotely interesting due to the performances of the TNA stars around them. Nothing else noteworthy, just more of the same.
Enjoyed them playing up the small bit of history between Dutt and Ion, really missed Zema Ion on the mic. Break necks, cash checks, and win titles. Can someone remind me what his new catchphrase is? Anyway, you knew Dutt would have his show stealing spots, but outside of those this was barely Impact quality. Horrible performance from an X-Division that needs restocking just as much as the Knockouts.
Okay, rant time. Magnus and Bob had a boring match, but... Why did Bob go over?
1. Magnus is an up-and-coming young talent with a load of potential. RVD's way past his prime and has never been more irrelevant.
2. Magnus has a great match already set up with Samoa Joe, which could be an awesome match at Bound For Glory. What can you do with RVD? You'll have to shoe-horn him into something, and the only people that will draw is ECW fanboys who can't let go of their childhood. ECW's dead and it won't, nor should it, come back. And the Magnus/Joe match looks much worse since Joe can't beat this clown, so why should he beat a monster like Joe?
#wwelogichitstna
Magnus for IC champ. Next.
Speaking of WWE, the first 60% of this tag match can kiss my ass. WWE does this "heels double-team the face" thing so often that I never, ever want to see it again. There were good spots in there too, and some entertaining showboating from the WTTCOTW, but it was awful overall. The last 40% when it got chaotic was awesome. Angle's much better in tag matches nowadays so we don't have to see another finisher-fest, and Kaz was a big part of this so we didn't have that much Styles/Daniels. Finish was fine too.
Random space for promos and stuff: Hogan and the cops were insufferable tonight, it was so pointless and unnecessary, although I guess it's better than WWE's ads for itself. HOGAN NEEDS TO GTFO. HE'S NOT DRAWING OR DOING ANYTHING PRODUCTIVE, HE'S A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY. GET HIM OFF MY TV. Every single promo from someone relevant tonight was as awesome as you'd expect, especially with Daniels and "The Physical Fascination, Frankie Kazarian". How long will it be before Testifab changes his name to "Traveshamockery"?
Then the main-event... I knew you guys would hate this, and yeah I'm breaking smart-mark code here, but I actually liked a good part of this. Yeah, there were too many finishers, and yeah, the "lawn-dart into the post" looked weak as hell, but there was this aura of sympathy in the air, and this came across much better than SuperCena crap. Hardy felt like an underdog, in large part due to the acting of... and I can't believe I'm saying this... Taz and Tenay. It got Hardy over just fine, and honestly... It reminded me of the true underdog story of all of this, his battle back from drug addiction which he's at least on his way to overcoming.
Bully wasn't buried. If there's one thing we've learned about TNA in 2012, it's that one does not bury Bully Ray. It's simply impossible. He'll be back on Thursday talking trash and getting heat as if he never left.
As for Aries vs Hardy, that's fine. It's the biggest draw, the last star TNA made vs the last star WWE made (and didn't subsequently bury), and these guys have barely even looked at each other. Don't care about Hardy anymore, he's been completely exposed in TNA, but Aries should make this match awesome on his own.
Overall, this was an excellent PPV from a psychology/storytelling standpoint, but there weren't any really good matches. 5/10
