Smark Out Moment

It's no secret that I'm not a big fan of TNA, and although I give them a shot to prove me wrong every month on pay-per-view, I usually end the night with a headache and frustration outside of all but the Motor City Machine Guns. That being said, I looked at the card for this event and I don't have any positive expectations for it. Most of the matches include people I'm not a huge fan of (Matt Hardy, RVD, Bully Ray, etc) and none of the storylines are intriguing to me right now - ESPECIALLY not the Jarrett/Angle deal. However...as always, they've got the opportunity to prove me wrong and put on a good show, and my predisposed "this is going to suck" thoughts can change if they indeed don't suck. Just don't get mad at me if I dislike matches with performers that I dislike working on feuds that I'm not interested in.

PREDICTIONS: Bully Ray should beat Tommy Dreamer but I wouldn't be surprised at all if Devon costs Ray the match. I like Robbie E so I would like to see him win the X-Division title, but I'm going to assume Kazarian retains, and he probably should for all intents and purposes. Beer Money definitely shouldn't drop the titles to Ink Inc. If they want the Hernandez/Morgan feud to continue, Hernandez needs to win. The Knockout tag titles, I never understood why they created them in the first place and I wish they'd get rid of them. Honestly, I don't care which team wins that match, but I'm going to assume they give it to Rosita and Sarita just to have a title swap happen. Anderson and RVD I guess will end with controversy, but if there is a clear-cut winner, then I'll go with Anderson. I want Styles to beat Hardy but Hardy will probably win. Sting should never have won the title from Jeff Hardy in my opinion and for the sake of not having Sting/Anderson or Sting/RVD, they should have Hardy win the title back. IF Hardy wins the title back, then I'm changing my pick to RVD winning the #1 contender match.

Let's see if they give me a headache or if they give me something good enough to enjoy.

Bully Ray vs. Tommy Dreamer
Honestly, I missed the first few minutes of this match, so that's going to distort my perspective. I'm not exactly sure why there's a Despicable Me plush toy being used in the match, but I'm assuming it came from the crowd and hell, why not? But this shows it being a no disqualification match. I thought it was just a standard singles match, but if it's got Ray and Dreamer in it, naturally they're going to not do a straight-up one, so that's not surprising. Now there's an inflatable doll in the match as well. I thought it was weird that WWE would keep Singapore canes under the ring with stop signs...but a doll...yeah. "We want tables!" You knew that would come out soon enough. "We want Devon"...now that's different. Ray gets on the mic to talk trash to Dreamer while he's down. He then calls out Devon, and his sons come out instead to provide a distraction while Devon enters the ring and sets Ray up for a 3-D (with Dreamer's help) onto the table.

WINNER: Tommy Dreamer via pinfall.
Like I said, I missed the beginning of the match, so I can't comment on that. What I did see was a standard Dreamer/Ray match.

Backstage with the Beautiful People & Winter
Once Velvet is on screen I'm not listening to anyone talking. It looks like Winter and Angelina are anti-Velvet though.

Knockouts Tag Team Championship: Angelina Love & Winter (c) vs. Sarita & Rosita
What is up with all this Mexico vs America stuff lately? Hernandez and then these two? Like I said the last time, I don't think you should make entire countries the heel (and that goes for when WWE tries to do it too, not just TNA). Standard match, back and forth, etc etc etc. Sarita tries to take one of the belts into the ring to allow Rosita to hit Winter. Rosita HORRIBLY holds it so it's ridiculously obvious that Velvet will come out in the confusion and grab it from her. There you go, she does. And Sarita reverses the roll-up and voila, we've got new tag champs, and for some reason they're blaming Velvet. This whole feud shouldn't last more than a few minutes because they can just watch the tape...but I'm sure they'll ignore that.

WINNERS (and new tag champs): Sarita & Rosita via pinfall.
Didn't expect much. Didn't see much.

Amusement Park Time
Jeff, Karen, and the kids are at an amusement park where he acts all excited and she acts pissed. Yeah. I don't know why I'm watching this.

Backstage with Matt Morgan
Morgan cuts a promo about Hernandez costing him the title and the standard "I'm going to destroy you" stuff.

First Blood Match: Matt Morgan vs. Hernandez
They seem like they really want these two to have a feud that gets over, as they've done it before between them. Hernandez breaks a wooden stick of some sort and tries to use the sharp end to cut open Morgan. That's a good idea. Why are the fans chanting "we want blood" so fast? That would end the match. Idiots. The action stops when what looks like a fan runs into the ring, but it's too convenient and the ref is talking too loud, so it's clearly a work. There you go, Hernandez has a chain and the ref is distracted. Hernandez blades - OBVIOUSLY - after being hit with the chain, and throws some blood onto Morgan. The ref then is ok, comes into the ring, and for some reason decides that both of them with blood on them means Morgan lost, despite no cuts on him or how it should be a draw.

WINNER: Hernandez.
Stupid finish to the match. Suspend your disbelief a little...sure. But don't make it obvious like that and then have no reasonable explanation behind why the ref would choose that decision instead of a draw - or just notice that Hernandez is cut on the top of his head. Also, don't make the fan thing as obvious as it is or cut to an angle where you can see Hernandez blade.

Backstage with Generation Me
Max says it's his birthday so he should win it.

Backstage with Kazarian
Kazarian runs down his Ultimate X credentials.

Remember...Robbie E is in this match too!
Since they showed the others, here's a reminder that Robbie E wants the belt too.

X-Division Championship [Ultimate X Match]: Kazarian (c) vs. Generation Me vs. Robbie E
What the fuck is Taz talking about...putting syrup on kneepads if you're hungry? Did I miss something or is this just another stuttering "wtf" moment for him? Some nice moves so far, particularly the moonsault Jeremy does onto Robbie and Kazarian on the outside. I'm surprised Robbie didn't fuck his knee up when he landed partially on the ring steps when he was thrown out before that. Max is thrown into the corner and his head gets stuck in the structure for a little bit. Not bad. Kazarian hits his finisher on Robbie (who is probably out for the rest of the match). Max and Jeremy start fighting when Max wants Jeremy to help him (alluded to earlier). Meanwhile as they're fighting over the title, Kazarian starts climbing. Bucks are down. Kazarian walks across the cable and fights off Robbie to grab the title and win the match.

WINNER: Kazarian.
Best match of the night so far.

More Amusement Park Bullshit
I'm more interested in what type of pizza they have than anything else in this whole segment.

Backstage with Beer Money
They say Shannon Moore doesn't know anything about respect.

Tag Team Championship: Beer Money (c) vs. Ink Inc
I really, really, really wish they'd knock off the Dilligaf nonsense. That's not catchy and never has been. As ridiculous as Moore and Neal look with those hair styles and those tattoos and whatnot, the most pathetic thing about that whole group is definitely the Dilligaf shit. The crowd's split rooting for Moore and Roode. Must be the _oo_e thing. Pretty even match. Not bad.

WINNERS: Beer Money via pinfall.
Not bad, like I said.

Post-match, Neal and Beer Money show respect to each other and Moore spits in their faces.

Backstage with Matt Hardy and Ric Flair
The Black Cloud...I mean, Cold Blood...I mean, Tyler Reks...I mean, Fat Hardy....I mean, MATT Hardy, does his usual bad job cutting a promo. Flair hasn't been helping him - or maybe he's just too far gone and unable to be helped.

AJ Styles vs. Matt Hardy
The first noteworthy thing to talk about is Styles sliding UNDERNEATH the guard rail. VERY impressive. Outside of that, I'm not really enjoying this match. It's becoming difficult to keep focus on it. Lots of Flair involvement that the ref just seems to be ok with or ignorant to. None of it works in the end, though. Styles wins with a corkscrew splash of sorts.

WINNER: AJ Styles via pinfall.
Like I said, it was hard to keep my attention on this. Nobody will remember this match in the long run, so it isn't like I was missing Hart vs Austin from WrestleMania 13 or anything.

More Amusement Park Bullshit
Enough of this.

Backstage with Mr. Anderson
Ken says everyone's gotten screwed. He points out that there's a difference between being an asshole and being a douchebag.

#1 Contender Match: Mr. Anderson vs. RVD
Fast pace to start it off with. Bit of a botch, with Anderson saying "I meant to do that". Even match, back and forth, with the crowd as well. Lots of reversals. Following the evenly matched thing, they rule it a double count out.

WINNER: Draw.
Remember what I said in my predictions about it ending in controversy?

Chant going out in the crowd right now of "restart the match" responded to with "no!"

Somehow, Taz has screwed up his headset. I guess he's gotten tired of just screwing up the commentary and now he's moved on to screwing up the equipment itself.

TNA Championship: Sting (c) vs. Jeff Hardy
Before the match begins, Bischoff comes to the ring. He says that it's now a no-disqualification match. Sting pushes Bischoff down and the match begins. After what...2 minutes, maybe, Sting gets the pin??? And people complain about WWE giving titles to people for no reason and not following up on storylines and such. Ouch.

WINNER: Sting via pinfall.
Man, I wish this would be the end of the ppv, but it can't be.


Surprisingly, it wasn't all bad. Overall, I wasn't a huge fan of the ppv, but not every aspect was a let down.