I watched the show in full, but I'm taking the weekend to celebrate my birthday, so we're going to keep things Q'n'D this week. Hope to be back next week.
-Show kicks off with AJ Styles and Dixie Carter talking about what happened last week. -Rob Van Dam d. Mr. Anderson with a crucifix pin to gain 10 points in the BFG Series. Pretty decent match. -Austin Aries cuts a promo for Destination X. We get a confrontation with him and Bobby Roode before Roode makes his exit. -Sonjay Dutt d. Rubix with a sick, sick, SICK-looking moonsault double stomp to advance in the X Division title tournament! Rubix is CHIKARA's Jigsaw and he looked pretty good here, especially in selling Dutt's offense. Dutt makes his TNA return and looks awfully good himself. Good to see him back. Post-match, Dutt vows to win the tournament, because he has SWAGGER! (the noun, not Jack) -Samoa Joe d. Bully Ray with the rear-naked choke to gain 10 points in the BFG Series. Joseph Park provides the distraction to cost Bully the match. I'd normally offer a token complaint, but if this means they're starting to get behind Joe as a singles force again, I'm all for it. Post-match, Park challenges Bully Ray to another match in two weeks. -Kazarian approaches Hulk Hogan and tries to back out of tonight's tag match, citing that this entire thing was all Daniels' idea. Hogan says no dice. -Rashad Cameron d. Mason Andrews with a jumping DDT to advance in the X Division title tournament. Cameron is CZW's Sabian and he's sporting a wild afro! Andrews had a cup of coffee with ROH as Scorpio Sky. Both guys had some pretty good moves, though Andrews came close to blowing a corkscrew tope. -Taeler Hendrix receives a 2-1 vote from the Gut Check panel and receives a TNA contract. -Christopher Daniels & Kazarian d. "The Phenomenal" AJ Styles & Kurt Angle with a Greco-Roman chair shot to win the TNA Tag Team Championships. The heels sell dissension throughout the match and Kazarian even starts to walk out on Daniels...until he waffles Styles with a chair! -Show ends with a Daniels promo. "Today, we are the World Tag Team Champions of the World!......and I meant to say that!" Daniels points to Dixie's pregnant friend, Claire, and accuses AJ Styles of being the father! Dixie's so shocked by these wild accusations that she "acts" upset! And as if I needed to say it, this feud MUST continue! End credits and we're out!
Good show this week! Discuss!
(edited by It's False on 29.6.12 0128)
"This is DIET Double Dew, Kyle! It only has half the caffeine and sugar of Double Dew!"
I thoroughly enjoyed the vast majority of the show. The Styles stuff is stupid and him trusting Kazarian cements him as the most gullible bayface ever either tying him with Sting or even surpassing him. Daniels revealing Styles as Claire's baby daddy drawing a Jerry chant was pretty funny. RVd Vs Anderson was better than expected due to the guy changing it up and doing some mat wrestling instead of wrestling their usual match. The Roode-Aries segment was tons of fun as these two have great chemistry. I like the idea of a X division tourney and I liked both X division matches. Dutt's finisher was absolutely brutal and it's great to see him back. I hope Lethal and Petey return too. I was hoping Scorpio Sky was gonna win the second X division match. I enjoy his NWA Hollywood work. Gut check was better this week and I'm glad the whole Joey Ryan thing is a work. He could be a major star. Joe Vs Ray was a really fun, hard hitting big man match. All in all, this was a terrific show that I enjoyed a ton. The only complaint is I wish they wouldn't have brought back Claire to continue this storyline. That said, Daniels is doing a awesome job playing the biggest douchebag ever.
Like every other Anderson/RVD match. I disliked the opener. It was sloppy and felt like it was going at half speed. I wish they quit booking those two in matches with each other.
The Aries/Roode promo was really good. I look forward to that match.
I'm glad they're bringing in more X guys, though the way they're doing it kind of undermines Gut Check. I'm indifferent on Sonjay returning. He's a solid hand and he's good to have as a part of the division, but to me, he's not one of the 2-3 guys to build a great X Division around. Then again, neither are the 2-3 (healthy) guys left in the division to a bigger degree. As for Cameron, while it's best to not judge someone on a 3-4 minute match, I found him unimpressive. His opponent looked better which isn't a good sign. I hope the other guys they bring in are better and at least one of them is someone who can carry the division because currently they have no one for that role. I also hope TNA doesn't lose interest in the latest attempt at restarting the X Division after a few weeks like they have with every other attempt the last 5 or so years.
Joe/Bully was a good TV match. I'm glad they saved it for a week where it'd get more than 4 minutes.
The main event was fun though the overplayed swerve finish and latest bad twist in the AJ/Dixie/Claire storyline took it down a few notches. This Claire stuff continues to be bad. AJ's storyline of possibly having knocked her up is groan worthy.
Last week looks much more of an aberration now, as this show was closer to the good stuff TNA has been churning out recently. Although the storyline surrounding AJ/Daniels/Kaz/Dixie is...unimaginative (at best), the in-ring stuff compels me to give it a pass more often than not. This week was odd, because we got more horrendous acting, but we got a nice tag main event as well.
The Wrestling Counter was a whopping 38 minutes today! The worst match of the night was probably the X-Tourney qualifier between Cameron and Andrews - it really felt like a dark match - but I would still rate that around **. The finish to the Dutt/Rubix match was insane! How do you do THAT without killing the other guy? I like the infusion of new blood into the X-Division, but unfortunately there is no one there of AJ/Joe/Aries/Daniels' caliber who can lift that division to its past glory. Sonjay Dutt is a worthy addition, but he is not The Man.
I'm not sure if doing the Gut Check and the X-Division tournament concurrently is the greatest idea. Here you have guys coming in freely for a chance at the second-most prestigious title in the company, while other guys (and gals) have to have tryouts just to get a contract with the company. TNA hasn't done a particularly great job of distinguishing between the levels of the wrestlers involved in the two competitions. I get that TNA fans would buy guys like Dutt as contenders, but are people like Cameron and Andrews and Rubix supposed to be *that much* better than someone like Joey Ryan? How are the fans supposed to know?
Updated BFG Series Standings: 1. Storm 36 2. Joe 27 3. Angle 10 4. Anderson 9 5. Hardy 7 5. Magnus 7 5. Pope 7 5. RVD 7 9. Daniels 5 10. Styles 0 10. Bully Ray 0 10. Robbie E 0.
Bringing Jay Lethal back would make me happy. Sabin being out is and Aries moving on is a giant blow to that division. A title change is interesting even though I would have preferred if this was the end of this stupid storyline. Glad Taylor got a contract, I thought she did pretty good for sorta green rookie and I have penchant for red heads, so its a win. Any time Joe gets a win, its the right decision.
The Wee Baby Sheamus.Twitter: @realjoecarfley its a bit more toned down there. A bit.
Back to a good show this week. What nobody is mentioning that I'm SUPER excited about is that in the past three shows, we've had a grand total of 2 minutes of Bischoffs! And even last night's segment was to say "Garrett ain't Madison's crush". Could I dare hope that Bischoff is on the way out??
The last few minutes were the best part. "Phenomenal Baby!" Haha, Daniels is great. Its a good thing that there were no high-ranking TNA officials at ringside during the match, or the new champs could have been disqualified.
That top rope footdrop onto Jigsaw looked impressively painful. Dutt must have magic feet or something.
When the commentators were discussing the Joe/Calfzilla match, I cringed at Taz saying that he didn't think that either man would do anything that would get them disqualified. Getting disqualified all the time was Joe's main plotline in last year's BFG series.
Jackson JamesGarrett is not the Crush. Yes yes yes! I'm guessing its someone that Garrett has been associated with on screen. Presumably either Eric Bischoff (Garrett's father), or Earl Hebner (who Garrett worked with when he was a referee).
The TV title match was rather forgettable. It must have been, since I don't remember it happening.
I wonder how many other people *KNEW* trouble (in the form of "stupid writing") was coming as soon as Kane said he's never felt as happy as he does now.