Today, on WWE Superstars, Alex Riley faces off with Jack Swagger in a battle of former FCW Champions. Then, on Impact Wrestling, it's old school vs. new school as RVD faces Gunner and Bully Ray faces Crimson in Bound For Glory Series matches. And in the main event, Kurt Angle takes on Mr. Anderson inside of a steel cage! Read on for my thoughts on the shows as they happen.
At least they didn't take several hours to upload Superstars like last week.
Wow, that music's bad. The promo wasn't much better.
I loved that "Heath Slater, I hate you" scream right before the break.
Not a bad match. Both men still have a ways to go, though. Heath's finisher is terrible.
It's the night of generic songs. Nexus deserved better.
Pretty cool Samoan Drop spot by Masters.
Masters was pretty good near the end of the match-up.
WWE better be selling those Cobra things on WWEShop.
Pretty sure his finisher's called the McGillicutter.
"Yo dog we heard you like wrestling, so we put Raw in your Superstars so you can watch WWE while you watch WWE".
This is an interesting "crossroads" match to see where both men are in their careers.
Nice amateur wrestling holds to start off.
Who says my computer's in my living room, Scott? That was a really cool spot, though.
Roley seems to be improving, though the A-Bomb thing's a little silly.
I don't remember what Riley used as his finisher on NXT Season 2, but I liked it better than his current one.
Not a bad match at all. I hope/think we'll see good things in both men's futures.
And on to Impact Wrestling.
Why would Angle join Immortal? Didn't he get Fortune to turn on them?
I think Hogan actually believes some of what he said here.
Hogan wrestling again? NEVER rule it out.
Newer wrestlers working with more experienced wrestlers. I like it (when it doesn't result in a squash of someone talented).
"Iraqi Freedom Tour" is an interesting way to phrase it.
That slam from the top turnbuckle was pretty cool.
I'm a bit surprised that RVD beat Gunner given how big of a deal they've made Gunner recently. It's not quite believable that he could go over RVD to me yet (his win over Sting was kind of a "fluke").
I like the updated look for the leaderboard. Much easier to keep track of.
Well, there's the explanation for more X-Divisioners.
Hogan, Steiner, Jarrett, Bischoff, and Sting all together in a segment. It's like some kind of high school reunion or time warp.
I loved Bully Rey volunteering Anderson.
Another fun (if weird) Sting segment. I don't necessarily think it's the right direction for the character, but I'm personally entertained.
I thought Brian Kendrick was John Morrison for a second there.
It feels like we're kind of supposed to "already know" who Austin Aries is.
The X-Division feels like the Island of Misfit Toys sometimes.
I think Abyss had the best promo of the 4 "X-Division" guys. Aries was fine, too.
Here's one thing TNA (and to an increasing extent WWE) really sucks at: giving away "big" matches like Ultimate X with relatively little build. Contrast this with Capcom, who announced an extended release (or whatever you want to call it) of a popular game with 12 new characters due in 4 months. When they made the announcement, they showed off bits and pieces of gameplay for 4 of those characters (2 of which were really highly requested to be added), and they'll show bits and pieces of the others in the months that follow. If they gave away those 4 characters that same night, people would be content, but they know that they can REALLY stretch that time out so people are salivating to see more, and play them (and the other 8) come November. A lot of people have probably already put in pre-orders. Anyway...
I was ready to dislike Morgan's more "soft-spoken" promo, but it eventually grew on me. I like "big monster Matt who runs through people" but I think this version can work.
Haha, poor Joe.
Crimson's been pushed as a pretty credible guy these past couple of months. You'd think Bully Ray'd be a good deal more concerned.
That was a surprisingly quick win for Crimson.
So, umm, who IS "the Network" exactly? The head of SpikeTV? Maybe he needs to be a little more specific.
Winter looks charmingly wicked.
That's not particularly safe, Miss Tessmacher.
Plenty of Knockouts in storylines lately.
The VIP weekend's one way to make money when you can't charge for tickets at the Impact Wrestling Zone.
I'm glad TNA signed Tara and Winter after their WWE runs came to an end. They could probably be pretty successful just using talents WWE didn't use as well as they could have.
Nice match.
Yeah, they probably shouldn't be playing Winter's music during the hype for Ultimate X. Talk about your soundtrack dissonance.
It's kind of weird seeing an Ultimate X match that isn't an excuse for everyone to do crazy spots.
I was pulling for Abyss to pull the truss out. He should use a really powerful magnet to get the title down.
That chokeslam spot was awesome! I saw it coming when they zoomed out like that, but it was still pretty cool.
That Eric Young segment was ok I guess. He looks pretty ridiculous with those titles, though that's partially the point.
Yes, the return match that people would have probably paid for. I would have thought of leading to that cage rematch at a future PPV, possibly for the title.
That could very well have been the best promo of Velvet Sky's career. It sounded particularly real compared to some of her earlier stuff.
Back in the day, the CAGE kept the bad guys out of the cage.
Kind of funny swerve by Sting. Bird included.
People attacking Fortune's not a huge surprise. Mexican America being involved makes sense, too.
Clever use of the camera-hole.
It's like everyone has some kind of issues with their tag team partners/spouses/stablemates in TNA.
I guess that works.
Anyway, that's all for Thursday's shows. I'll be back tomorrow for Smackdown, and a news post will be up shortly after midnight. Thanks for reading!
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