By Garrett Kidney
May 16th, 2013
- Decent opening segment with TNA finally getting back to the Joe Park/Abyss angle that was put on hold for the last year. Nice to see them announce matches for Slammiversary (though it would've made more sense for Angle to make the formal announcement of his match with Styles later in the show). Park/Abyss vs. Bully and Aces and 8s would be a good way to fill the gap with Bully while the BFG Series is in progress.- Neither the Hernandez/Daniels or the Roode/Chavo matches were remotely memorable. They'd have been better off cutting one of them and giving more time to the other and everybody would've been better off. There's a world where Hernandez would've been a big star for TNA but they've repeatedly failed to do anything meaningful with him. I'd love to see Harris be Storm's partner purely out of nostalgia.
- Next week we have Styles finally making a decision! Again! Isn't that novel? Fine segment but they've dragged Styles' decision out at least a month longer than they needed to. Apparently TNA's approach to long term stories is to take shorter stories and just stretch them out for another few months (and it may only get worse because of the PPV set up). At least AJ/Angle is a great match for Slammiversary.
- Bradley has a good presence. He'd be my pick to be in the BFG Series though I'd be okay with Sam Shaw (he's impressed me with his athleticism). The match was decent but messy due to York's slow motion offense.
- Velvet Sky is really, really bad. Her extremely sudden collapse to sell her knee out of nowhere was just laughable. She's popular but there are ways to get her on the show while not having her carrying the division (and having to do actual wrestling). I really hope Mickie wins the title next week.
- Good X-Division title match with Sabin and Petey impressing while King is standing out as a character. I have less of a problem with the Suicide spoiler than I do with the thoroughly nonchalant manner that they announced an Ultimate X match. No formal announcement, no challenge, no video and no hype: Kennelly just mentions that all of a sudden there's an Ultimate X match set for the PPV. There's a reason why the match means nothing anymore.
- The D'Lo/Park match was fine and D'Lo looked decent but this really shouldn't be a TV main event. Park continues to play his character wonderfully but he does need to develop (and I assume he will with Abyss back).
- Sting was so great in the closing segment. His promos for the last few years have been tremendous. The next two weeks should just be Sting cutting promos (and if he doesn't get to do a go home promo they're stupid). This is why I have no problem with Sting headlining Slammiversary. Great closing segment for the PPV main event.
Closing Thoughts
Decent show but it felt very much like a holding show on the road to Slammiversary. Sting was awesome though.
