TNA Slammiversary 2013

Kenny King vs Chris Sabin vs Suicide

This is an Ultimate X match for King’s X Division title. This is essentially a spotfest to warm up the crowd, but it’s a pretty good one. A couple of spots look a bit too contrived and require a bit too much co-operation, but everything was crisply executed. I liked a few of the details in the match too, such as how early on Suicide sent both opponents to the floor as if to set up for a dive, but instead ran for the corner to try and climb the structure. Similarly, I enjoyed Sabin realising both men were down, thinking about going for the belt, then suplexing Suicide onto King to make sure both men were incapacitated. This was the first time I’d seen TJ Perkins as Suicide, and he was great, with his series of feints and fakes before hitting a top rope dropkick to the floor being exceptionally good. No-one manages to make it to the cables in the first 5 minutes of the match, which allowed the tension of the match to build up. This had a rather abrupt ending, with King going for Suicide’s mask to stop him getting the title, before Sabin appeared from nowhere to down him and grab the title himself, but this was a fine opener,

Magnus, Samoa Joe & Jeff Hardy vs Mr Anderson, Garrett Bischoff & Wes Brisco

With all due respect, there isn’t a great array of talent on the heel side here, so it’s impressive that this is a perfectly decent 6-man tag. For example, there is no greater mismatch in this bout than Joe against Bischoff, but that segment was plenty of fun, due to both Joe’s onslaught and Bischoff’s surprisingly good selling. Magnus and Joe show their chemistry with some double-teaming on Anderson, but Magnus soon becomes face-in-peril after Anderson yanks his arm over the top rope. The heels wisely stick to an easy formula by using quick tags and focusing on the injured arm of Magnus, so this is all fun. The hot tag to Hardy comes a bit prematurely, but we at least get a hot finishing sequence, as Joe chokes out Anderson on the ramp, a distraction that leads to Brisco low-blowing Magnus and rolling him up, only for Hardy to strike with a Swanton during the pinfall. This gets three for the faces. Of note: Jeff Hardy looks surprisingly good with a beard.

 
Jay Bradley vs Sam Shaw

This really didn’t belong on PPV and did neither guy any favours as the crowd was dead for them, though they did rally a bit behind Shaw at the end. Shaw seemed to work like a poor man’s RVD, with some generic flippy offence, but I did quite like Bradley, whose offence at least looked like it hurt, as he slowed down proceedings with some measured blows. The Boom Stick lariat won the match for Bradley.

Devon vs Abyss

This was supposed to be Devon vs Joseph Park, but Devon and Knux destroyed him in the back, leading to Abyss coming out in his stead. Oddly, the majority of the match is spent with Devon dominating Abyss, until he misses a diving headbutt. Abyss wins with a chokeslam and a Black Hole Slam, but this feels like it should have been a 30 second squash. Having Abyss selling almost all match takes away any monster aura he may have.

Bad Influence vs Chavo Guerrero & Hernandez vs Bobby Roode  & Austin Aries vs James Storm & Gunner

I’ve long felt that Gunner is underrated (check the No Surrender 2011 review if you need proof), so I’m glad to see him getting a bit of a push at last. There was some nice continuity early on, with Roode wanting no piece of Storm and goading him about his choice of partner, yelling “He’s no Bobby Roode”, but cowering away when Gunner gets in. This broke down quickly, with team taking it in turn to clear the ring of each other. I did love Guerrero and Hernandez sprinting down the ramp to nail Bad Influence with flying shoulderblocks. Curiously, the only wrestler to really play face-in-peril is Hernandez, the largest guy in the match, as Roode, Aries, Kazarian and Daniels take over on him. Bad Influence are the first team eliminated, as Roode turns the ref round so he catches Daniels hitting Chavo with a belt for the DQ. Brilliantly, Aries swiftly pins Chavo seconds afterwards. This leaves Aries/Roode vs Storm/Gunner. The Storm/Roode segments are as good as you’d expect. Gunner gets isolated by the heels, who blitz him with a corner dropkick, spinebuster and 450 in quick succession, but he kicks out. This is played up huge, rather than just a finisher no-sell, which makes Gunner look great. Storm superkicks Aries into the Gun Rack, and Austin taps to give Storm & Gunner the titles. Decent little match, I suspect there’s a great match between the final two teams in the coming months.

Taryn Terrell vs Gail Kim

During the opening minutes of this match, where Terrell was throwing some terrible looking forearms, I feared for the worst. Well, that soon went out of the window as these two just went Hell for leather. It started with Terrell hitting a crossbody from the top onto Gail, who was holding a steel chair. It continued when Kim went hurtling across the ring into a chair propped up in the corner, sending her flying from the ring. Terrell added to the insane bumps with a missed dive sending her onto the entrance ramp. Finally, they decided to share the honours for brazen madness by both leaping from the ramp to oblivion (as it looked from the camera angle) as Taryn hit an Ace Crusher on Kim for the win. Just an absolute spectacle, and both wrestler deserve a load of credit for what they were willing to do. For Terrell to enter the match to a minimal reaction and to leave to “This is awesome” chants shows they were doing something right.

AJ Styles vs Kurt Angle

I’d not seen much of the “new” AJ before this match, and I was quite impressed. He seemed to be laying in his blows a lot more stiffly than before, and his kicks in particular looked good. I also liked the initial story work, with AJ targeting the injured leg of Angle, with his springboard dropkick to the leg looking great. At first, Angle sells the leg well, taking his time getting up again after levelling Styles with a clothesline. Soon, however, Kurt stops selling the leg all together, and just goes through a usual Angle match, which I’d have quite enjoyed if they’d just gone for that instead of focussing AJ working the leg early on. By the time Kurt nails AJ with 3 German suplexes, you’d forget he even had a leg injury. Even more bizarrely, they kill off AJ’s new Calf Killer submission by having Angle escape it, despite his “injured leg”. The end comes when AJ misses a springboard 450 and Angle downs him with a double-leg for the pin. The action was fine, but the decision to work an opening around a body part then totally ignoring it seems ridiculous.

Bully Ray vs Sting

Before the match, Bully threatened to hit Sting with a piledriver, which they hyped up as the deadliest move in wrestling. I loved Sting taking the fight to Bully right off, nailing the Stinger Splash at the bell. I also loved Sting whipping Bully with the title belt, which looked nasty. Tazz does a great job of putting over the danger of the piledriver, talking about how it affected his own career. Sting is busy wasting Ray with a chair, when an odd Brooke Hogan appearance distracted him and gave Bully the advantage. Bully hits the piledriver as threatened, which gets 2. A powerbomb through a table also gets 2. Bully then removes the canvas to leave only bare boards in the ring for a second piledriver, but Sting just kicks out. Bully is great at selling the shock here, and this really showed Sting’s desire to win. Sting suddenly hits the Scorpion Death Drop on the boards, but Aces & 8’s attack to stop him winning. Sting tries to fight them off (with Garrett Bischoff taking a huge bump to the entrance ramp), but Bully nails him in the head with a hammer as he dives from the top rope to win. Really fun match, even with the ending, as it really highlighted how dangerous Aces & 8’s are as a faction. I would have had an issue with no TNA wrestlers coming to help, but they seem to be making that part of an angle, so at least they acknowledge how odd it seems. Pretty darn fine PPV on the whole.