Sting, accompanied by Kurt Angle, started things off by claiming that he didn't want to wait until Slammiversary to get his hands on Bully Ray so he'd asked for the six-man main event that night pitting him and Angle against three Aces & 8s members. Angle then took to the mic and demanded an answer from AJ Styles on whether he was on their side or not.
Sure enough AJ joined them but he refused to say a word after 'The Stinger' tried to convince him to join them in the main event. A hasty Angle had enough though and screamed at Styles, demanding to know who's side he's on. So AJ had enough and left, but Kurt gave chase and as the two began exchanging punches on the ramp Bully Ray, Devon and Anderson took out Sting. Everything was coming up Aces.
Mickie James and Velvet Sky bested Tara and Gail Kim in a largely decent tag bout. I feel like a broken record typing this but James and Kim were (as usual) the top performers here, each giving stellar displays. Sky looked quite average as she finished off Tara with the In Yo' Face for the one-two-three.
Afterwards a frustrated Kim then clotheslined Tara and applied a Figure Four from the outside around the ringpost just like she did to Terrell last week. I wouldn't mind seeing Tara and Jesse turn face actually, could be quite entertaining.
Aces & 8s made their way to the ring, where Bully reprimanded D'Lo for loosing to Angle in an I Quit match last week, and demanded he hand over his Aces jacket. D'Lo refused and asked for another chance, so a few other members snatched the jacket off of him, with Bully ordering him to sit near the announce desk and watch the following match. Ray's mic work was solid, as standard for him.
Magnus pinned Doc in a match of two halves. The start was pretty drab and pedestrian, but fortunately the contest picked up and both men gave worthy enough displays as they upped the pace and interest. The finish did look daft however as D'Lo was somehow blinded by an earlier Irish Whip by Magnus into steel steps (how does that work?) and then accidentally pulled Doc's legs near the ropes which allowed Magnus to grab a quick roll up pin for the victory.
Afterwards as punishment Bully then demoted D'Lo to the gang's lackey and barked at him to leave.
Austin Aries and Bobby Roode versus Bad Influence (Christopher Daniels and Kazarian) in a Tag Team number one contenders match ended in a No Contest after special referee James Storm had enough of Aries and Daniels and Last Call Superkicked them both. It was an exciting match for the majority, with crisp wrestling as excepted with this level of talent. The ending was a little strange but a three way between these two teams and the champs does make sense for Slammiversary.
Backstage we witnessed a few Aces members beat down Magnus. The Brit managed to make a brief comeback but it wasn't enough as the gang managed to get him down and ram a trolley of some kind into his head (which happened where we couldn't see it).
X Division Champion Kenny King came out and after bigging himself up, called out Chris Sabin to tell his story of his recovery from his injury. Sabin explained to King that at this point he had nothing left to lose and would do everything to win back the X Division strap. After the champ feigned some more admiration for his future opponent, he then claimed that even if he hadn't had the two operations on his ACL then Sabin still wouldn't be as talented as him, so Chris retorted with a swift punch to send King packing. It was a nice segment, with King especially oozing confidence on the mic.
Backstage we saw a beaten down Storm on the ground, with Aries, Roode, Daniels and Kazarian all nearby and screaming at each other and officials.
Abyss, Sting and Kurt Angle beat Bully Ray, Devon and Mr. Anderson in a fair main event. Once the bout got going it was enjoyable enough, with nice work from Devon, Bully and Angle. During the match we were shown footage from backstage where various Aces members had been taken out by a mystery assailant which turned out to be Abyss, who Hulk Hogan had called earlier on in the show to help out.
Abyss made his way down at the end where he clumsily and slowly beat down Bully and also chokeslammed Anderson through a table before Black Hole Slamming and pinning Devon for the win. Compared to Lesnar's awesome attack on 3MB a few weeks back on Raw this looked sloppy. I can't say that he's a welcome return for me, I personally prefer his Joseph Parks alter ego.
Overall it was a decent enough Impact, with not one bad or unwatchable match on the card. My highlights were the tag team bout and Bully and Kenny King's very nice mic work. Unfortunately I still can't say I'm hyped for the Bully and Sting title match at all right now, but at least we should still be grateful for Ray making Aces & 8s interesting at all.
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