TNA Impact Wrestling Review - December 20, 2012

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Solid match with Devon successfully retaining his Television Championship against Kurt Angle. I didn't expect much from these two, but the effort they put into it was pleasantly surprising. It was well-paced and Angle's knee injury was a smart excuse for his loss. Aces and 8s need wins, so this was a step in the right direction.  Decent tag team match with Matt Morgan and Joey Ryan defeating X-Division Champion Rob Van Dam and Kenny King. 

This bout was more focused on the on-going story between King and RVD rather than the action itself, so that was understandable. I still feel as TNA rushed King's supposable "heel" turn, but having him walk out on RVD was still an effective way to further the feud and finally create a story in the X-Division.

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Fine promo featuring Hulk Hogan and Devon. They recapped the year of 2012 nicely and Bully Ray's run-in to fend off Aces and 8s was justified. Hogan being hesitant to shake Ray's hand makes some sense given the tension between the two, but I'm still not sold on Ray's story-line with Brooke Hogan.

Entertaining segment involving Bad Influence and James Storm. With Christmas being mere days away, you had to expect we'd be getting some sort of Christmas filler on this show, and this was the perfect use of it. Kazarian and Daniels are a hilarious tandem in general, and their verbal change with "Santa Claus" as well as their facial expressions here were priceless. Storm also played his role well and delivered a nice looking superkick to Santa.

Good match with Tara defeating Mickie James to successfully retain her Knockouts Championship. I never got the feeling that James would be winning the belt here, so that somewhat killed my interested, but the action was still solid regardless. We've seen better from these two, but they still put forth a good effort and received substantial time.

Great match with Jeff Hardy defeating Austin Aries to successfully retain his TNA World Heavyweight Championship. They have amazing chemistry together and that was undoubtedly evident here. It involved intense action and some very cool spots as expected. I wouldn't take Bobby Roode's interference as a face turn (which would be a mistake), but more as his way of interjecting himself into the TNA title match at Genesis to make it a Triple Threat. This was an excellent way of ending their final live show of 2012 (with the exception of the Bully Ray and Brooke Hogan make out scene, of course).

Overall, a pretty good show that was paced very well and all four matches definitely delivered. Not everything was perfect, but nothing on this week's show was beyond bad either. I enjoyed most of the content provided and it made for a quick two hours. Their next few shows will be taped, which is not something I'm looking forward to, but at this