The Final Impact
June 21, 2013
By: Josh Boutwell of WrestleView.com
The hope for this week was that the BFG Series would start off with a bang but it was more like a couple of pops and then a fizzle. The opening segment with all the guys in the ring was good and I loved how everyone wanted to fight Hardy including the heels instead of everyone backing down.
Anderson-Park was what you would expect out of that match. It wasn’t awful but it wasn’t good either.
Bradley-Aries was decent for the short length and pretty hard hitting at times and Bradley didn’t look weak at all in the outcome.
Hernandez-Daniels was okay and Daniels starts off nicely with a win while I don’t think things are going to work out so well for my buddy Hernandez in this thing.
Magnus-Kaz was WAY too short but the action during the match was good while it lasted, they just needed way, way more time.
If I wrote down tonight’s card and handed it to you probably 99% of people would say AJ-Joe would be the best match of the night, and you would be right. It was BY FAR the best match on the card and the outcome made both guys look even and strong. The best thing I liked about this match was it was ENTIRELY different than any other match they’ve had. They did a lot more mat wrestling and counter wrestling and the stiff strikes were just insane. Joe works that stiff, aggressive style so combining it with AJ’s new stiff strikes it just turned into a fight. Some of the submission counters near the end were awesome too. The thing is it kind of felt like it really never got going into that 3rd gear and given another 10 or 15 minutes really could have been something special.
Hardy-Roode was good and it was probably a little shorter than likely would have been but it seems like Hardy is still hurting from that Ladder Match. Supposedly at the house shows he’s been showing some signs of him still struggling with an injury and that continued tonight. There may be an injury angle coming soon to get him out of the tournament and able to rest up in time for a BFG feud.
The Knockouts segment was 100% the worst promo/segment of the year so far, that was just bad. It was entirely too long and had no need to be in the ring. They could have knocked every bit of those points out in a 2 minute promo backstage. I’m glad they finally stripped the damn Tag Titles (about a year and a half too late for anyone to care) and the Ladder Match announcement is GREAT. I believe that’s the second Ladder Match in Knockouts history.
The Main Event Mafia reveal wasn’t anything special and kind of illogical as well. Kurt Angle is one of those guys that Sting was pissed at for not helping him out. I guess they can make the argument that Angle was banged up from his match with AJ and was getting checked out by doctors at that time, but that’s a stretch. At the same time it DOES make sense because of the Main Event Mafia yet Sting said this was the NEW Main Event Mafia. Is it going to make me kick a puppy out of anger? No but it’s still stupid.
Not a good start to the BFG Series tonight with nothing outside of Joe-AJ standing out, but to be fair you can’t really expect a long point based tournament to be red hot from jump street. Things should heat up as time goes on and points build up.
– Promo/Segment of the Night: Opening segment
– Match of the Night: AJ-Joe (***1/2)
– Overall Grade: D
Until next week… PEACE! 
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