411’s Instant Access 06.08.08 – TNA Slammiversary 2008

Greetings, humanity! Welcome to 411’s Instant Access for TNA Slammiversary! I am Chris Lansdell, pulling volunteer duty and taking one for the team to bring you the skinny on TNA’s 6th birthday party! You know the format, you know the drill, so here! we! go!

X-Division Title Match: Petey Williams vs. Kaz

Holy. Shit. This was awesome, the best TNA match I’ve seen in a long, long time. Near falls, overcoming interference, but a finish that keeps Kaz strong while putting Petey over. Plus, we got to see Kaz bust out a great Wave of the Future, a sick Jig n Tonic counter to the Canadian Destroyer, and a ton of juice. It got a lot of time, it was fast and it was exciting. Normally, blood in the opener is a bad idea, we’ll see how it goes, but I am not penalizing this match for that. The right person won, because Kaz looks to be on his way to bigger things, and Petey should not drop yet. The match is made even more impressive by the fact that Petey was hurt! I do wonder if this sets an impossible standard for the rest of the night, but who cares? This rocked.

Winner: Petey Williams via pin to retain.
Rating: ***3/4

Gail Kim, ODB and Roxxi vs. The Beautiful People and Mickie Knuckles MOOSE

Meh. It was there, it was fine. I’m not crazy about the result, especially with Moose (who did she piss off to get that name?) eating the pin on début, but I guess it sets up ODB-Moose, which has potential, while not really solving anything between Roxxi and The Beautiful People. I can’t find anything wrong with this match, and some of Moose’s legwork was good, but there was just nothing in it to make me sit up.

Winners: ODB, Gail Kim and Roxxi via pin (ODB on Moose)
Rating: **

TNA World Tag Team Championships – Team 3D vs. LAX (C)

This was one of those matches where I agreed with the result, but not the way they got there. 3D got outsmarted, and that was fine, but the last 4 or 5 minutes of the match felt totally disjointed and clustered. We had Devine coming down, only to get hit by Hector, in order to allow Salinas to hit the head butt on Brother Ray, and stand in the ring for a minute wiping her mouth, and then it doesn’t figure in the fall at all. Huh? They could have left that spot out completely, or had it after the bell, and it would have improved greatly on the flow of the match. Having 3D win would have been so very wrong, so at least we didn’t see that. The match before the ending was fine, nothing looked bad and the necessary slow pace by 3D didn’t ruin the match as I feared it would.

Winners: LAX via pin (Homicide on Ray) to retain
Rating: **¼

Kong’s Kill-A-Bitch Challenge

We get Serena Deeb, who is a SHIMMER standout. Ryan Byers is marking somewhere. Of course, this is no different from any other challenge match, as Kong kills a bitch. No back fist and no Kong Bomb makes me a sad panda.
Then we got the other chick, Josie Robinson, who actually got in some offence before the back fist and the Kong Bomb cheer up this panda. Kong’s facial expressions are golden.
I guess the challenge continues, but I don’t think it will go past the next PPV.

Winner: Awesome Kong, twice, via pins
Rating: 3/4*, but only because Kong killed bitches dead.

The Wedding of SoCal Val and Jaybert Q Lethal

I can’t believe they got the real legends to show up. Jake looked good and sober. Kamala in a tux! NUMEROUS PURCHASES~! Koko came down with a new Frankie and yellow hair. The maid of honor is hot. Sonjay is wearing a freaking FEATHER in his turban. Bet he didn’t get through the airport with that on. Lethal’s outfit was classic Macho Man, and Val looked less hideous than usual. How do we get 4 groomsmen and no bridesmaids? Anyway, this was all just an extremely extravagant way to turn Sonjay heel, and the only shock was that the actual legends were there and not rip-offs. What a waste of good PPV time. There were a couple of nostalgia moments, but it wasn’t as good for that as the Raw 15th anniversary skit with Triple H and Vince. They could have done this on Impact.

Entertainment index: 4/10

AJ Styles vs. Kurt Angle

To get match of the night, this had some serious work to do. Unfortunately, it didn’t manage it. Sure, it was good, but it didn’t match the opener, and I think it would have been much better if Kurt was 100%. It was great to see AJ shrug off the goof persona so easily, and he appears to have lost the spot monkey tag he always had. The result was probably right, even the manner of it with Karen helping, and the subsequent beat down ensures another match between the two. Hopefully, they hold off on it until Kurt can give it everything it deserves, because if it improves enough on this, we could have an MOTYC.

Winner: AJ Styles via pin
Rating: ***

King of the Mountain match for the TNA World Heavyweight title: Samoa Joe (C) vs. Booker T vs. Rhyno vs. Robert Roode vs. Christian Cage

A lot better than I was expecting. All the men worked hard, none more than Christian Cage, who as the only flier in the match was responsible for the “Oooooh!” spots. Having Joe be the last man eligible was fine, but I think it would have worked better had everyone else got eligible much earlier, and Joe kept dominating guys but being prevented from getting a fall. Absolutely nothing happened between Joe and Nash, which is fine, but Nash did get involved a couple of times, so no complaints about having him there. Joe will probably now go to face Booker, which I’m not looking forward to, and this could well see the heel turn for Nash. The GORE! GORE! GORE! to Cage could set up a feud between those two, leaving Roode squarely in the midcard. Again. Poor Robert.

Winner: Samoa Joe via hanging the belt (eligibility via pin on Roode)
Rating: ***½

Final Rating: 7¼/10

Match of the Night Kaz vs. Petey Williams, by some considerable margin.

Trash of the Night: Can I say the wedding? Wait, who’s going to stop me? This is my Instant Access, muahahahahahaha! THE WEDDING WAS TRASH!

Final Thoughts: A solid effort from TNA, with 3 really strong matches and no match that out and out sucked. The wedding was a waste of PPV time, as I said, but I’ve seen worse from both TNA and WWE. Pizza eating contest anyone? The rebuilding of Samoa Joe began in earnest with his title defense in a match where the champ has never retained, Kong killed two bitches dead, Petey and Kaz tore the place down, AJ and Angle sowed the seeds for a great match down the road…yes, there was plenty to enjoy here. It was dragged down by some very pedestrian tag matches, but otherwise I’m not exactly sitting here demanding 3 hours of my life back.