Segment 4: A Ton of Backstage Promos in a Row
Positives: Robert Roode and Christopher Daniels played near-perfect wrestling heels in their quick exchange. They were simultaneously overconfident, mean, and scared to death.
Austin Aries successfully established himself as a babyface after what feels like an eternity of being a poorly-defined tweener character.
Daniels running in on Aries’ interview felt really different and unique, considering that TNA usually uses backstage for factions planning rather than foes confronting each other. There was crazy intensity in their exchange – it actually made you want to see them fight.
Negatives: Velvet Sky and Chris Sabin are together? What? If a guy had a popular, good-looking girlfriend and was champion, wouldn’t you accentuate that when he was champion and not after his dreams had been crushed?
Aries did a better job of explaining his position than Styles ever has, but he still feels like the second horse to the trough.
Miley Cyrus jokes are too easy.
Segment Score: +1
Segment 5: Main Event Mafia/A.J. Styles Promo 
Positives: Rampage’s promo seemed really natural, and if anything, almost “too real” for wrestling at times. He snuck in the date for their Bellator fight very stealthily, though, and he finished strong.
Wittingly or not, Rampage articulated the Bellator-TNA relationship better than anybody else has been able to thus far: Impact is a place where Bellator fighters can work storylines to eventually build towards a supposedly-super-personal “real” fight.
Samoa Joe was really over and seemed to thrive with the increased mic time. He has a much younger and hipper voice with which to speak to the fans than Sting or Angle, so he gives the Mafia their best chance to get over.
In spite of all the things that made A.J. Styles’ promo difficult to sit through, at least he brought it around to the World Heavyweight Title at the end and stated that his goal is to win the title to become “The Go-To Guy” again.
Negatives: I know there were some late-breaking issues with Magnus, but presenting the Mafia without him (especially now when they’re supposed to have “scored a victory in the numbers game”) looked a little weak.
A.J. saying his real name was awkward. It felt like a bit of a slap in the face to everybody who has bought into him being A.J. Styles over the last decade. Overall, his promo seemed like a work in all the wrong places and a shoot in all the wrong places.
A.J.’s promo would have been hard to listen to in half the time, but the really offensive part of it was the length.
Segment Score: +0 (Saved from a -1 by Joe and a surprisingly good Rampage)
