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I enjoyed this show. It was structured as a double-main event, which worked out pretty well. The solid work of the first match and the story of the second balanced each other nicely. Sting's "I don't know if I'll be back" would be frustrating, except that it struck me as genuine. If he comes back on Impact with an "I'll never retire", I'll be annoyed, but if he's taking a few months to think over his options, this was a legitimate way to play it. The biggest annoyance of the night was that the price for BFG was an extra $10. If they're just charging more cause they know we'll shell out for the biggest show of the year, that's frustrating but understandable. If they're raising their rates permanently, however, I think they vastly overestimate the loyalty of the TNA audience. Roughly once a month I go through the thought process of deciding whether I want a WWE PPV, and somewhere in there it enters my head that it would have to be 33% better than a TNA PPV to be worth the price. If they lose that edge, I guarantee you buy rates will drop.

As a less serious annoyance, who puts the match at the beginning of the countdown? I missed most of the Motor City Machine Guns vs. Lethal Consequences while out getting the pizza.

The Show:

1) AMAZING RED (c) def. DANIELS, SABIN, SHELLEY, HOMICIDE, and SUICIDE
Ultimate X X Division Championship Match

I'll say about this what I said about the X Division King of the Mountain Match at Slammiversary—if TNA is your go-to company, you probably loved this match. If it isn't, you probably didn't. The wrestlers hit high spot after high spot, rarely selling a move for more than a minute. This had a bit less flow than the Slammiversary outing, and suffered from a moderately anti-climactic finish, but it was still one hell of a ride. Red got the win after Suicide and Daniels took each other out, and he was able to knock down Sabin and stall Shelley. They made the right call leaving the belt on Amazing Red—we've barely begun to see what he can do. Though, come to think of it, there wasn't really a wrong call for them to make here.

2) TAYLOR WILDE & SARITA def. THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
Knockouts Tag Team Championship Match

Before the opening bell, Earl Hebner made out with Lacey von Erich and then sent her to the back. The match itself was fast and fun-ish. They probably could have gone even faster, given how little time they were given, but they did fairly well with what they had. I actually thought they might have ended early, since Taylor Wilde looked extremely shaky after the match, but since the show went till 10:57 I assume this was supposed to be short.

3) ERIC YOUNG def. HERNANDEZ and KEVIN NASH (c)
Legends' Championship Match

Hernandez looked pretty good holding off both Nash and EY. Eventually the numbers game caught up to him, and he was being set up for a Jackknife—EY suddenly shoved him into Nash's crotch and picked up the surprise win. We all knew Young and Nash would break down, but this is the one way I did not expect that to play out. I'd assumed either Hernandez would take advantage or Nash would just say "screw it" and Jackknife everyone in sight, either way leading to further Hernandez vs. Nash action. I'm not really sure where we go from here, though it does constitute a huge push for EY. While the title is still itself a joke, as long as he has it he'll be entangled with whatever remains of the Main Event Mafia. The match was alright for what it was.

4) TEAM 3D, THE BRITISH INVASION def. SCOTT STEINER & BOOKER T. and BEER MONEY INC.
TNA Tag Team Championship and IWGP Tag Team Championship Match

Before the match, Brutus Magnus briefly got everyone on the same page with respect to taking out Team 3D, on the grounds that they had so much TLC experience. He overlooked that they lost all of those matches, but that's okay. One belt from each pair was hung above the ring, such that whichever team got either got to keep that title. Team 3D was "taken out of the match" at the beginning, so you knew they were winning at least one of the belts. More interestingly, Booker T was taken out a few minutes later, and did not reemerge. I don't know what was up with that. Steiner, to his credit, stepped up his game to keep up with the young'uns all by himself. Team 3D got the IWGP belt, but then Rhino attacked and took them out. I wonder why he didn't come out 30 seconds sooner and keep them from winning at all? With them gone, Beer Money were in control, hitting their Beer Money Suplex from atop two ladders. They were however taken out by Rob Terry, who pretty much carried Magnus (or maybe Williams) to the top of the ladder for the win. In what was either a nice subtle touch or a small coincidence, Magnus had earlier obliquely referenced Team 3D's appearance in TLC II—I could be wrong, but I think Edge & Christian won that match the exact same way (with, oddly enough, Rhino playing the part of Rob Terry). This was a solid match, but could not really live up to last year's Monster's Ball.

5) ODB (c) def. TARA and AWESOME KONG
Knockouts Championship Match

There was an odd moment about halfway through the match where Tara mysteriously disappeared, seemingly with some woman. If this was planned and leads to anything less than the debut of Trish Stratus or Lita (or possibly the reunion of the surprisingly entertaining couple of Tara & Stevie Richards), then it was not worth all the momentum it stole from this match. If it was unplanned, it was even weirder. The real story here though was a less explicit version of what also went on in the main event: after being caught up with Cody Deaner, and only defending her title from Kong and Tara because they kept distracting each other, ODB needed some validation here. She got it, kicking out of an Implant Buster, lifting up Awesome Kong, and sort of kicking out of Kong's big top rope Splash (it looked like Tara was supposed to have made the save, but she didn't quite get there in time so ODB sort of kicked out on her own). The finish came when Raesha Saeed tried to pass Kong a chair. Kong didn't want it, but Saeed insisted; Kong proved the smarter of the two, since ODB was able to plant Kong's head into the chair for the three. Hopefully this is the start of writing off Saeed. Her character has long overstayed its welcome, she's a whole lot more impressive as Alissa Flash, and Kong is about due for a face turn anyway.

6) SAMOA JOE vs. BOBBY LASHLEY

When I marked the small smattering of boos for Lashley on Impact, I commented that the revolution had begun. I proved more right than I knew, as they were all over him in California. The announcers chalked this up to it being Joe's sort-of home state, but, since he's never been listed as from California, the more likely explanation would be that fans just really wanted to boo Lashley. Unlike fellow imported talent Booker T, Sting, Nash, and Scott Steiner, he does not appeal to disaffected WCW fans. Unlike fellow pure WWE cast-off Kurt Angle, he's not frick'n Kurt Angle. Why the hell would anyone cheer him over Samoa Joe? It probably didn't help that this was billed as MMA vs. TNA, with Joe playing the part of TNA. I honestly don't know what they were thinking. It didn't really matter, since the match itself was kind of fun, with all sorts of submissions and counters. It did make the finish even more anti-climactic though—the ref just suddenly called for a bell when Joe was in some hold. Tenay said that maybe Joe had passed out, but Taz rightly noted that the ref has an official means of checking that as well. Since the crowd didn't want Lashley to win, they didn't cheer, and since it wasn't clear whether it was supposed to be a screw job or a KO, they didn't riot. They just sat there. This took the match down a serious notch. Whatever the original plan might have been, if I were TNA I'd pivot off this, having more and more things go mysteriously Lashley's way until fans are ready to riot. Eventually reveal that TNA management is rigging his matches because they think a crossover star will be good for business. Anyhow, reverting from some fantasy booking to the match at hand—good match, bad ending on several levels.

7) ABYSS vs. MICK FOLEY
Monster's Ball Match w/Special Referee Dr. Stevie

From the two recaps that are already up, this match seems to be taken as an abomination. They seemed to be watching a different match from the live crowd, which had what to all appearances was a not-sarcastic "this is awesome" chant going. I'm honestly not sure I see the point of either my fellow columnists or the live fans. This match had some stupid parts, like the crummy taser special effect (note: it's almost impossible to have cool looking fake electrical stunts in pro wrestling. To the best of my recollection, it's been done well approximately twice, and done horribly about 97 times). It also had some nice spots, like Daffney falling into what I really hope was fake barbed wire and Mick diving off the ramp onto a prone Abyss below the entranceway. Abyss came out looking very strong, and like the real hardcore wrestler, which I assume was the point of this whole thing. Now they just have to get him and Dr. Stevie very far away from each other.

8) MATT MORGAN vs. KURT ANGLE

This was almost certainly match of the night, as it was basically 20 minutes of "can Matt Morgan prove that he belongs in the same ring as Kurt Angle?" The answer was a pretty clear yes, as Morgan kept pace with him the whole match. Kurt won with a rollup after a long back-and-forth match, and then shook Morgan's hand. The whole thing was just very well done. There were lots of fairly believable near-falls. Also, Morgan deserves credit for one subtle point—Angle had him in a long Figure-Four Leg Lock at the beginning of the match, and Morgan sold the injury both on offense and defense for the remained of the fight.

9) AJ STYLES (c) def. STING
TNA World Heavyweight Championship Match

First, a note on production: someone in TNA finally realized that those ridiculous summaries of who the combatants are that proceeded every main event for the last year were nothing more than annoyingly placed bathroom breaks. Let me officially thank whoever that person is. Anyway, the match did right exactly what you thought it would, and had a problem just where you thought it would do. The problem is that Sting just doesn't seem to be able to sustain first gear for longer than 30 seconds at a time anymore. The bright side was that for the first time ever, we had a TNA BFG main event with no stunt booking or wacky bullshit. AJ Styles became the first person to beat Sting and the first person to retain his title in the main event. The finish seemed a bit off, as AJ won with a Springboard Splash instead of any of his finishers—I could be wrong, but he seemed genuinely shaky, and probably meant to hit the Springboard 450. I would have ended this match with the Styles Clash myself. Anyway, the match itself was well above average, but largely beside the point. After the match, AJ called Sting back to the ring. Sting said he didn't like to lose, but, if he had to, he did it to the right man in the right place. He also said that he didn't know if he was going to retire. This brings me back to what I said up top—if they're just dragging this out till Impact, I'm ticked. He seemed sincere though, so I'll assume we won't see him again for at least a few months.

Star of the Night: You could make a case for any of the four men in the last two matches, but, with all Sting's to-ing and fro-ing, he was definitely right about one thing—this was the night of AJ Styles.

Overall: I liked this show. It was a definite step up from the wacky sort-of turn we got last year, if not quite up to the energy level of the couple years before that. Since I didn't mind Abyss-Foley, I was left without any black holes in the card, two solid main events, and a bunch of very good under-card matches (most notably the Ultimate X and Submission matches). The ending, if sincere, was a nice tribute to Sting. If not, it was bullshit. Till I see evidence of the latter though, I'll give TNA the benefit of the doubt. That brings this show to a good but not earth-shattering B (if it were any other show of the year, it'd probably be a B+ or so, but they hold themselves to a higher standard in October).

Daniel Wilkenfeld is a graduate instructor at The Ohio State University. If TNA keeps charging $40 for PPVs, he's might to try to see if he can get comped somehow. Emails supporting this petition can be sent to dawilk316@gmail.com


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