Don't know if I was in a good mood, or just had low expectations, or what, but wasn't nearly as upset this week.
This was one of those rare occasions when reading the spoilers helped, because after they announced the Aces of Eights would have 4 matches on this card, I probably would have ragequit the show... maybe. Bully opened the show up with "SHUT IT OFF" and then "Without you guys, there would be no me", both of which made me laugh hysterically for completely different reasons. They tried to fix the Bully/Anderson bromance and set up a theme for the night. Plus Hogan didn't appear so it was a good segment based on that alone.
Then we get into..... uggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh why. Why... Why do you do this to me TNA? Why is Chris Sabin using a hammer right in front of the ref? Why? Are you kidding me? What was the meaning of this? Yeah they were telling the story of the scrubs getting the job done when Anderson couldn't, but... You couldn't think of anything better than this? Knux did a lot better than I expected - not anything great but not horrible either - but Sabin just isn't fit to go against heavyweights anymore. The old Sabin was great at it, but the new, more technical, doesn't want to fuck his knees up Sabin just doesn't give good performances against bigger guys. I am intrigued by this pairing of him and Velvet, mainly because it's something new and could possibly keep him in the title picture for mixed tags. Still... Why.
Hey, look, here's Mickie coming out to be hilariously silly when talking really fast about a bunch of irrelevant stuff! Funny segment made only better by ODB ripping her top off. Thanks for that one!
I rip WWE's booking a lot, but one thing they certainly do well is battle royals. TNA, not so much, but they're great at making stuff meaningful. Reference Jay Bradley. Really cool to see him get a story like that, and wonder if that's going to be a storyline. This was fun, action packed, some great spots. Shame we got a vintage Tenay undersell on the Bradley thing, sick bump from Aries. It lacked any real drama (mainly because you knew who was winning this, hence all the Jay Bradley talk), but other than that the only real complaint was the way they sold the final 2 + how short that sequence lasted. AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels. Tenay was putting over their history, but the better angle would have been to put over how Daniels has made AJ's life a living hell for the past few years... that's nitpicking. Not a bad royal here.
Anyway, we have one heck of a final four. Mr TNA, the longest reigning champion in the history of TNA, arguably the biggest star in the company, and Magnus. Maybe this would turn out to be a nice rub for Magnus after all. It looked like he wouldn't fit, but as soon as he got the mic he fit right in with this group of guys. You look at what can happen here... we could get Styles and Roode in the finals in a classic match, or they can make a star out of Magnus and let him put up one hell of a fight against Styles in the finals. Hoping for the second, but they really sucked me in on next week's show here... oh, and by the way, Styles-Aries II.
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The Aces and Eights Junior Varsity Team vs Not Chavo and Hernandez... :facepalm1: Next.
One thing I loved was the way they covered for Hogan's idiotic botch. There was the Sting sitdown where he completely no-sold the stipulation and said being in the Main Event Mafia > being champion (what?), then Bully got in Sting's face about how it's non-title. Great job... then Hulk Hogan came out... and one thing I've been wondering in WWE is who would be the next John Morrison. By that I meant the next big high-flyer who could be a star with the right push, but apparently Hulk Hogan fills the rest of that role perfectly! I'm starting to look forward to Hogan getting the mic just for the stupid shit he says, he's always botching lines or making bonehead decisions. This was unintentional comedy gold. "Tito Ortiz is banned from ringside, oh and it's now a No-DQ match" WHAT? BROOKE AND ANDERSON ARE STILL OUT THERE BUT OOOOOOH WE GOTTA GET RID OF TITO! Hahahahahahaha. Match didn't matter... and yes, IWC noobs, you can also thrown "Bully Ray jobbed to Sting!!!!!" in the pile of things that don't matter since all the focus was on Anderson, who was awesome here. Marked like crazy, go see this. Of course, they could just do the Finger Poke of Doom next week.
Somehow in the middle of all this Aces and Eights nonsense is everything I love about TNA. The personalities, the character development, the build for the next week, making everything (except Hernandez) meaningful, the new stars, the great talent...
