ACES & EIGHTS BACKSTAGE- Anderson beats up D’Lo for pretty much no reason. Sure. Whatever. I really don’t give a damn about this angle.

BULLY RAY PROMO- he wastes time telling us what we already know (that Sting has beaten a bunch of big-name stars during this career), then calls out Sting and Joseph Park.

TEAM 3-D vs. JOSPEH PARK & STING- 5.5/10
Abyss’ music plays, leading to the babyfaces taking advantage of the heels being distracted to get a win.

DIXIE CARTER & ACES & EIGHTS SEGMENT- Dixie comes out and wastes time, then she gets interrupted by the Aces & Eights chump squad of Wes, Garrett, and Doc. Despite Aces & Eights past history of attacking people, no babyfaces come out to help Dixie until she is cornered. Just two men (Joe & Magnus) send all three Aces & Eights guys running, but them some words from Joe talk them into a match, and we get…

SAMOA JOE (w/Magnus) vs. GARRETT BISCHOFF (w/Wes Brisco & Doc)- DUD!
The bells rings, but I have no idea what the result was because it was never announced. As near as I can tell, the ref decided to throw out the match because guys on the outside were fighting. Anyway, Joe and Magnus get the best of all three guys, then Joe says that they have a contingency plan for Aces & Eights being cowards, and that contingency plan is that, at Slammiversary, Doc, Wes, and Garrett will face Joe, Magnus, & Jeff Hardy.
A few things here:
1) how is this a “contingency” plan for cowardice? How does it stop Aces & Eights from just running away?
2) If Joe and Magnus just beat up these three by themselves, what chance do these three have against Joe, Magnus, AND Jeff Hardy! The intelligent way to set up this match would have been to have Aces & Eights use the numbers game to take advantage and beat Joe and Magnus down, then have a chair-swinging Jeff Hardy come out and make the save. Instead, we got a segment that makes it look like the heels don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.

JAMES STORM & GUNNER PROMOS- apparently they are now a “brotherhood.” Also, James Storm says that if Gunner is willing to kill people in a war to defend his country, then surely he will be willing to kill people in something as trivial as a wrestling match. In Latin, this is called a fortiori argument. In Talmudic reasoning we call it a kal v’chomer. More importantly, though, in both cases, WE ASSUME IT ONLY APPLIES WHEN THE CIRCUMSTANCES ARE REASONABLE! (yes, I know that James Storm doesn’t mean that Gunner will ACTUALLY kill anyone, but that is the logical conclusion that his statement leads to).

HOGAN SOAP OPERA CRAP- so bad that I can’t help but laugh. Hogan says that any time Bully says “I love you” to Brooke it is “a written permission slip to rape, pillage, and plunder. To destroy your life, my life, this company, and any future we have.”
WHAT?! Explanation please? How does anything of this make any sense? This is the type of thing that makes people look at wrestling fans and say “how can you watch this stuff.”

Brooke then says that she can’t concentrate on her job with Bully running around the halls. Well, Brooke, maybe you shouldn’t come to TV then! You have a cell phone that you can call the Knockouts with if you need to make any decisions.
As if this wasn’t enough, the segment closes with the following bit of HORRIFIC dialogue.
Hogan: Sting is the guy who’s got the blood of champions in his veins. I believe in Sting.
Brooke: You think he can do it with how nasty Bully is?
Hogan: I’m betting the farm on it.

You know what? I’d be totally fine if both Hogans just disappeared from TV and were never mentioned again with no explanation at all.

BAD INFLUENCE, AUSTIN ARIES, & BOBBY ROODE vs. JAMES STORM, GUNNER, CHAVOER GUERRERO JR. & HERNANDEZ- 6/10
The right guy got the win here. This was TNA, so I was afraid that they might be dumb enough to not put Gunner over. It would have been better if he and Storm had used more teamwork, though.

BULLY RAY TALKS TO ACES & EIGHTS BACKSTAGE- waste of time. He tells them all that they had better win tonight and at Slammiversary. He then says that tonight Aces & Eights is “officially declaring war on Impact Wrestling.” So what the f*ck have they been doing for the past year, then? He then says that if he doesn’t have “victims” by the end of the night, one of the Aces & Eights guys will end up the club b*tch like D’Lo. So much for that brotherhood crap. It seems now like Bubba is a crazy evil dictator will to beat up his underliungs for small failings.

BOUND FOR GLORY WILL BE IN SAN DIEGO- the arena they have chosen sits about 12,000. This is a VERY ballsy move for a company who couldbarely even sell out half of a 5,000 seat arena at Bound For Glory last year.

KNOCKOUTS’ TITLE SEGMENT- wait… I thought Mickie was supposed to have turned heel last week, but the fans and the announcers aren’t reacting like she is a heel at all. Mickie was great, here… Velvet and Gail were not. Their dialogue was just so horrible. They came off like two teenage girls arguing about which one of them could ask out a cute boy first. Apparently they went to Brooke about having a title match at Slammiversary but Brooke told them that she couldn’t book them because there was already a Knockouts match on the card. So what? Since when can they not have two women’s matches on the same card?
Also, Gail attacked Velvet and Mickie did nothing to stop it.

GAIL KIM & KENNY KING vs. CHRIS SABIN & TARYN TERRELL- 5/10
Apparently Gail vs. Taryn is now a Last Woman Standing match.
Sabin pins Kenny King then starts to cut a good promo but gets jumped by Kenny. Suicide comes out and makes the save and he and Sabin shake hands. Decent build to the title match this Sunday.

STING VIDEO PACKAGE- more crap about how he needs to take the title from Bully to take “power” away from him.

So rather than reschedule last week’s BFG Entry Tournament match between Sam Shaw and Alex Silva for this week… they just decided to give Shaw the win for no reason.

AJ STYLES vs. MR. ANDERSON- 6.75/10
Was going great until Kurt attacks AJ, causing a DQ. AJ goes after Kurt’s injured knee, then Aces & Eights show up and beat up both guys. Then all of the babyfaces who have matches with Aces & Eights at Slammiversary show up (FINALLY!) and we have a brawl which ends with Sting eating a 3-D and Aces & Eights standing tall.

Overall, a bad show from TNA, but at least they hit the major points for the go-home show.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Todd Keneley says that AJ and Kurt’s match at Slammiversary this week will be “more personal than any of their previous encounters.”
Seeing as how they had a match because AJ was in love with Kurt’s wife and Kurt thought they were having an affair… I’m going to call BS on Keneley’s statement.

BRM You're overlooking the smaller things again which I help make you aware of sometime today.

A + E and D'Lo is just so , idk, wrongfully done. If they had to do it, it could have been so much betterly portrayed. Just have Anderson "Rise through the ranks", and D'Lo lose VP status or something.

Not Everyone knows how many huge names Sting has beaten.

I think Sting knows the score with Abyss and J Park. There's somethin REALLY funny goin on there. WHAT I'm not exactly sure.

Yep, I'm tired of the numbers advantage guys gettin they ass kicked. Makes numbers irrelevant and no good. Imagine if WE we're booking this shit...In ways, The minute Aces and Eights music hit they should have been out there to help!


Yea, It's kinda assbackward. One could say if he kicks the shit out of em in the ring, what will he do when fightin for the country? Neither here nor there though.

Hogan's right, settle down Dr Dramatic. Raymond putting those words out there like that, brings back memories, and upsets both Hogans and puts them in a vulnerable and less than clearheaded rational mindstate.

Yep, I like the rack from Gunnar too.

I just think they're rushin dissension and problems too soon...While the time IS coming, it's not here and now, and that stuff takes time and requires it as well, to develop right and draw you in.

Sometimes you gotta make the big risky moves to see if it pays off, if so, right on, keep it up. If not, back to the board. Business requires chancey risks at times.

I thought Tara had a match on this card too anyways? I'd swore it was Gail V Tara for the whole attack thing after that one match. Either way, Maybe not, with Gail and Taryn, but I'da swore there was two KO's matches...

I still don't know how the Suicide gimmick saw the light of day...Video games don't come to life. This is not "Indian In the Cupboard" , or anything close to it.

Power comes with the World title, you KNOW this! He has so much leeway with certain areas he should not have in better world for TNA. He may not have won full power within TNA, and have every belt in the camp, but he's got more riding with having that belt than you give him credit for.

Yea, there should have at least been a fair match since the other guy was unfairly cost last week.

Yea, The Main Event ended right on all angles.

Fairly, Kennely does not, though he should know history though, know about things that happened before his time. Not every announcer is an encyclopedia about every single thing that happened before he got there.

DevilWithin wrote:A + E and D'Lo is just so , idk, wrongfully done. If they had to do it, it could have been so much betterly portrayed. Just have Anderson "Rise through the ranks", and D'Lo lose VP status or something.

I agree with you on this. The problem is that it has been so horribly rushed 9at leas the D'Lo stuff, Anderson's rise through the ranks has felt natural). D'Lo was in deep sh*t after just one screw up and got demoted after just two screw ups. It doesn't feel real that two screw ups could undo what seems to have been years of work for D'Lo to rise up through the ranks.

DevilWithin wrote: Not Everyone knows how many huge names Sting has beaten.

But who Sting has beaten is not relevant. What is relevant is that Sting is a legend, and everyone does know that Sting is a legend.

DevilWithin wrote: I think Sting knows the score with Abyss and J Park. There's somethin REALLY funny goin on there. WHAT I'm not exactly sure.

I thought this at first after last week's segment, but then the fact that we got Joseph rather than Abyss here made me question that.

DevilWithin wrote: Sometimes you gotta make the big risky moves to see if it pays off, if so, right on, keep it up. If not, back to the board. Business requires chancey risks at times.

What is this in reference to?

DevilWithin wrote:
Power comes with the World title, you KNOW this! He has so much leeway with certain areas he should not have in better world for TNA. He may not have won full power within TNA, and have every belt in the camp, but he's got more riding with having that belt than you give him credit for.

I understand WHY the belt gives you power. My problem is that they keep saying that it is relevant in this storyline but all of the evidence seems to point to the contrary. Hogan seems to have all of the power. Not once has Bully tried to use the title as leverage to get his way. Compare this to early ROH, where The Prophecy would threaten to no-show, preventing ROH from promoting title matches, unless they got their way. All TNA does is just say "the World Heavyweight Title gives you power" but they never show anyone trying to use that power.

DevilWithin wrote:
Fairly, Kennely does not, though he should know history though, know about things that happened before his time. Not every announcer is an encyclopedia about every single thing that happened before he got there.

Of course not every announcer is an encyclopedia, but it is important to know all of the major angles in your company's history if you are going to be a commentator. If WWE did an angle where there was a controversial finish in an IC Title match and the next week the heel showed up with his own IC belt and started to defend it as if it were the legit IC Title, do you think Michael Cole would say "wow! We've never had two IC Champions at the same time before!" Of course not. He would say "this is reminiscent of HBK and Razor Ramon.

I was referencing how gutsy you said it was of them going to San Diego...Sometimes you just gotta take a risk.

And it feels so weird seeing my profile as practically someone else...even looking up at my earlier posts, something just seemed so off...

DevilWithin wrote:And it feels so weird seeing my profile as practically someone else...even looking up at my earlier posts, something just seemed so off...

Who is/are/were you?

Big Red Machine wrote:

DevilWithin wrote:And it feels so weird seeing my profile as practically someone else...even looking up at my earlier posts, something just seemed so off...

Who is/are/were you?

How do none of you people not recognize my chosen interest from my name, and how do you not notice my former accounts absence? HOW did I NOT give myself away? I'm not gonna bulldoze...but....

DevilWithin wrote:

Big Red Machine wrote:

DevilWithin wrote:And it feels so weird seeing my profile as practically someone else...even looking up at my earlier posts, something just seemed so off...

Who is/are/were you?

bulldoze...

Oh... I get it now.

Yea, I'm beginning to think you're all collectively trying to troll me. :-w

Back to a suitable av though, ah, feels better!