The Final Impact
July 12, 2013
By: Josh Boutwell of Wrestleview.com
I’m sorry but I can’t even begin to talk about anything from last night’s show without starting with the Ladder Match. Their Slammiversary Match was incredible and it was going to be hard to follow up, but the thing about their first match is it wasn’t some technical masterpiece (though it was a Last Knockout Standing Match so that shouldn’t be expected). It was absolutely the most physical match that any of us had seen on TV or PPV in years. You have these two beautiful women with neither weighing much over 100 pounds just beating the hell out of each other and taking sick bumps. You expect physicality like that out of girls that look like Awesome Kong or even Sara Del Rey not these two. Not only did they equal (or at least come very close to it) from their Slammiversary match but they got extremely creative in the way the ladder was used from the hanging Dragon Sleeper at the top to the Figure Four around the ladder. Not only that but it was an extremely creative finish with the heel outsmarting the babyface who just seemed to not want to stay down no matter what the evil heel did to her.
Taryn Terrell & Gail Kim started their feud as a secondary, just kind of there rivalry and turned it into must see TV and one of the best Knockouts feuds in a long, long time. And to just emphasize the physicality take a look at the picture Terrell posted on her Twitter showing the damage from that match:
100% respect to both women! That match was insane and you have to respect what they were willing to again.
The match was terrific and I know the BFG Series is important but it should have been the Main Event just the way the X-Division was last week.
The open for the show was just kind of there, nothing horrible but nothing good from anyone involved.
None of the Jokers Wild Matches were blow you away good but most of them were relatively short too (likely to give the Knockouts & Battle Royal matches good time). The best of the tag matches was easily the Aries/Daniels-Roode/Kaz match. The dynamics of the friends/partners going against each other was interesting and I liked how Kaz took advantage of Daniels trying to stop him from getting his brains scrambled in the Brainbuster. Again nothing bad but nothing too great either.
The Battle Royal was really fun for the most part and when it came down to Magnus/Roode the action was really, really good.
I loved the interaction between Bully & Sabin at the end. The fire Sabin showed was a nice change of pace from his usual laid back demeanor and the points he made about beating Ray and retiring 3D before as well as being the only person to kick out of the 3D was great.
As far as the Rampage addition to MEM goes I have to say I don’t really know how I feel about it yet. It’s definitely interesting and could give TNA more great buzz from him. I just don’t know where it can go. Rampage has pretty much zero wrestling training at this point so he can’t get in the ring can he? Is he just going to be the muscle that has MEM’s back? I don’t but it should be interesting to see where they go with this.
I honestly can’t wait for Destination X next week and I really hope we get some really fun X-Division action and maybe even some new guys come in and impress. I just wish TNA could get “limited commercial interruption” for this one.
–Promo/Segment of the Night: Sabin/Ray
-Match of the Night: Ladder Match (****1/2)
-Overall Grade: A
Until next week… PEACE!
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