Happy Slammiversary (I Want A Divorce!)

I had unbelievably high hopes going into this show. I didn't even try to keep it a secret. I wrote again and again about how incredible this show was going to be. A card full of smark-friendly matches, it looked like the southern dandy known as TNA was going to absolutely tear the house down in Nashville.

Yeah, well, everybody's entitled to be wrong once in a while. I would imagine this show is like Frank Fronte's sex life - he hypes it up as much as he can, but then tries to do too much too fast, and everything is over before any enjoyment can be had.

Wow. Poor Frank. And poor TNA fans.

To be fair, I'm not going to entirely shit on this show. There were some good moments at Slammiversary.

First off, the number of changes made to this card within a three day span was ridiculous. A match was added, another match was changed, another match had a participant change, and none of those are counting the tag team match.

Rhino and Senshi may be the most random tag team ever. The fact that this feud is going to continue beyond Slammiversary baffles me. And based on the sneak attack of Hector Guerrero, it will. TNA won't hear me say anything positive about this angle until Hector comes to the ring in a low-rider.

Jay Lethal finally winning the X Division Championship was something that I popped for big time. Kevin Nash cannot be given enough credit for being the mastermind behind this entire gimmick. The man is a genius, plain and simple. Hopefully Lethal gets a long title run as Black Mashismo deserves it. OHHHHHHHHHH YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

VKM VS. Basham & Damaja lasted, I shit you not, less than three minutes bell-to-bell. The fans were dead for this one, and the Lance Hoyt heel turn did nothing to get them going either. I never understood why Hoyt was involved with VKM, but maybe now that he's a heel, he'll team up with Ron Killings again.

Speaking of Killings, his match was what I expected of it. PR for the hometown football team. I didn't expect Wychek to be able to do that good of a dropkick, or the cradle piledriver, for that matter. At least now I know why they put Lynn in the match.

Robert Roode defeated Eric Young. But then Jim Cornette came out and restarted the match. Then Eric Young defeated Robert Roode. This is the perfect way to blow off this finish. This way, Young won, so the angle is over, but because of the schmoz finish, Roode loses no steam. This can even be played into a good storyline if TNA plays their cards right.

Bob Backlund defeated Alex Shelley. This whole thing was such a clusterfuck I'm not even gonna get into it.

Scott Steiner, as predicted, was replaced by Road Warrior Animal to tag with Rick Steiner. As D.J.B said, this match basically highlighted three of the best tag teams ever. Replace Devon with Jim Neidhart and you would be all set. I couldn't help but laugh at the fact that fans were going bananas for Animal, but were chanting "3D sucks!" I guess us smarks are fickle after all. Too short of a match, but it made for excellent nostalgia. And once Scott got scrapped from the match, that was all this match could be used for anyway.

Sting VS. Christopher Daniels lasted six and a half minutes. Are you kidding me? Two great workers who can put on great matches, and it goes six and a half minutes? I could go in the ring longer than six and a half minutes! A solid match, but far too quick. Sting did go over, unlike what I had hoped for, but as long as this feud continues with Daniels ultimately receiving a main event push because of it, I won't complain.

Abyss VS. Tomko got more time than any other match besides King Of The Mountain. This match was more than I expected, even though I think there were more weapon spots than there were wrestling moves. Abyss gets the win. Hopefully he's on his way to being billed as a legitimate monster again.

Jeff Jarrett's promo got more time than eight of the ten matches on this card. But I'm not going to complain. It was hard for me to not cry while watching that. Because of the magic of taping shows, this was the first chance that Jarrett had to discuss his wife, albeit quite some time following her passing. Eerily reminiscent of his "Raw Is Owen" speech.

Following the promo, the Jeff Jarrett put-over tour continued, as Jarrett gave the fifth spot in King Of The Mountain to Chris Harris. God, he's putting over everybody! I think I'm going to e-mail TNA and see if they'll put me in a number one contender's match against Jarrett at Victory Road.

King Of The Mountain was dope. It had high spots, it had brawling, it had technical wrestling, it had anything you could want in a main event. My only problem with this match was that Chris Harris gave away the finish. With Christian Cage and Angle both on the ladder fighting to hang the title, Harris was on a ladder adjacent to theirs. Instead of pushing over the ladder with Cage and Angle on it, he decides to spear Cage off of the ladder, leaving Angle uncontested to hang the title and become the new TNA Champion.

I was really hopeful that Samoa Joe was going to finally go over in this match, but it was not to be. After the match, Angle hit the Olympic Slam on Joe. I would love to see Angle VS. Joe 4 if it meant that Joe wins the title.

All told, this show featured ten matches in under three hours. I realize that this is supposed to be one of the biggest shows of the year, and it's where everybody gets a piece, but if you're going to have that many matches, make the show longer. Make it four hours instead of three. That way, you can still have the same card without having to compromise anything.

Had this show been four hours, it would have been great. Instead, because so many great matches had to be rushed, this pay-per-view was nothing spectacular. I wouldn't say they did a half-assed job, but no more than three-quarters of an ass went into most of this show.

Here are the quick results:
Rhino & Senshi def. LAX
VKM def. Basham & Damaja
Jay Lethal def. Chris Sabin to win X Division Championship
Eric Young def. Robert Roode
Frank Wychek & Jerry Lynn def. James Storm & Ron Killings
Bob Backlund def. Alex Shelley
Team 3D def. Rick Steiner & Road Warrior Animal
Sting def. Christopher Daniels
Abyss def. Tomko
Kurt Angle def. AJ Styles, Christian Cage, Samoa Joe & Chris Harris in King Of The Mountain to win TNA Heavyweight Championship

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