Segment 6: Knockouts Title Match
Positives: Mickie’s phony heel character is one of the best things happening in mainstream American wrestling today. She plays a “real” heel– a terrible person that every single person knows. Her promos and calculating in-ring style mesh flawlessly.
Negatives: Velvet Sky is not a good enough worker to be carried through a passable match on anything but her best night, even working with a great wrestler like Mickie James.
Segment Score: +1
Segment 7: Magnus vs. Bobby Roode
Positives: Combined years spent in the WWE by these two men: zero. Roode has become very, very good at playing the bumping heel, a character which brought us Nick Bockwinkel and Ric Flair. Magnus is legitimately on the rise in the sense that his character is receiving a good push and he’s becoming more popular with the crowd each week.
Negatives: TNA has two major summer-spanning storylines: the Bound for Glory Series and the formation of the new Main Event Mafia. This segment suffered from trying to serve both masters, with Roode auditioning for Sting and Angle while also trying to earn points toward a title shot. Roode deserves to be a man on a mission, not a man caught between two missions.
Segment Score: +1
Segment 8: Storm & Gunner Face Off With Jesse & Robbie E.
Positives: It’s nice to watch wrestling and get the sense that they’re thinking at least one week ahead. While none of what anybody said was particularly good, it did set up an effective TV feud between these two teams.
Negatives: Homophobia is not cool or funny. Have wrestling promoters ever considered that a gay man or woman might have a wallet or purse with money in it? Storm is a good babyface – he doesn’t need to tease his opponents about potentially being gay to get over. If Spike TV were a reputable network, they would step in and put the kibosh on garbage like that.
Segment Score: +0
