The Final Impact
July 26, 2013
By: Josh Boutwell of Wrestleview.com
Coming off of Destination X things revolved primarily around the World Title situation and Bully Ray’s grievance. The whole premise of a wrestler threatening to sue over losing his belt because of getting hit with a hammer after winning several title matches himself using a hammer is pretty ridiculous, but therein lies the whole point of being a heel I guess. I actually thought maybe they might hold the belt up because of that but thankfully they didn’t go that route. Bully was good in the hypocritical heel role while Sabin was not asked to do or say a lot though what he did say was effective.
I think its EXTREMLY goofy to run a “One Night Only” PPV called “Hardcore Justice” in July and then turn right around and run a “Hardcore Justice” special on Impact in August. Get a little more creative will you?
Beside that I love the idea of these PPV quality shows on free TV, excellent idea I just wish they could get limited commercial interruption for some of them.
The Ultimate X was really, really fun and was all about being a spectacle with tons of insane spots. The finish with the guys on top of the scaffold has a little more impact on me than maybe some other people because I’m terrified of heights and it almost made me sick seeing those guys hanging above the ring with the scaffolding swaying in the air.
I’m glad to have been proven wrong about Trent Barreta, the guy can flat out go and Sonjay is always great. Manik/TJ Perkins has an amazing story that he can tell which obviously makes it difficult with the mask and Manik/Suicide character. I don’t really like them having him cut promos without the mask and then come out to the ring wearing it. It makes it mean nothing though maybe I’m coming at this from a Lucha fan standpoint where masks DO mean everything. With that said the idea of Manik using the mask to turn him into a different person is interesting, if they weren’t already doing a split personality thing with Park/Abyss. Regardless Manik is incredible in the ring and we still have only seen a flash of what he can do. Hopefully they go forward with the Sabin-Manik match in the next couple of weeks.
Hernandez-Anderson wasn’t much to see at all though the finish did look pretty good.
Gail and Mickie had a fun heel vs. heel match with them trying to out cheat each other though it feels really odd to blow this off so quickly after such a great feud between Gail & Taryn and seemingly go right into Gail-ODB and Mickie-Velvet. I really have no desire to see Velvet and Mickie continue feuding, it’s time to bring Taryn into the title picture or bring Tessmacher back up for awhile. Gail I would like to see start to drift back toward babyface so we can have a prolonged feud between she and Mickie.
Joe and Daniels had a really fun match but it seems that the finish was botched a bit as Daniels was a little off on the BME where he almost landed on Joe’s head but missed everything else so they did a 2nd BME to save it. It looks like the rest of the way in the BFG Series is Anderson working to try and keep at least one of the MEM members out of the Final Four while he tries to get there. If I had to guess I would say the Final Four is going to end up being Joe or Magnus, AJ, Hardy, & Anderson.
AJ & Hardy had an excellent match that could have been even better and possibly a Match of the Year type of match had it been given PPV time. When was the last time Hardy tapped out too? That was extremely surprising and they are trying to kick in the push of AJ in full drive right now.
2 straight weeks with 2 matches that I thought tied for match of the night for very different reasons. Ultimate X was all about the spectacle and crazy spots while AJ and Hardy just had a great back and forth hard hitting match.
– Promo/Segment of the Night: Bully/Sabin and Manik’s story
– Match of the Night: TIE – Ultimate X and AJ/Hardy (***1/2)
– Overall Grade: B+
Until next week… PEACE!
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