TNA Impact Wrestling Review - February 7, 2013

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Decent promo from Aces & 8s to kick off the show. Everyone played their respective roles well and cut effective promos. The explanations from Garrett Bischoff and Wes Brisco as to why they joined the group were well done and it didn't drag on longer than it needed to. If Taz is supposed to be the mouthpiece of this group, then why wasn't he standing alongside his stablemates during this segment?

Fun Triple Threat match with Rob Van Dam successfully retaining his X-Division Championship against Kenny King and Zema Ion.  The action was exciting as you'd expect from these three X-Division talents and kept a consistent fast pace. King is ready to become champ, so I don't understand as to why they continue to have him come up short of winning the title. RVD's title reign has run its course, so here's hoping he drops the strap sooner rather than later and can go back to the heavyweight division.

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Brief match with James Storm defeating Jessie. The pre-match promo set up the bout nicely and made sense following their confrontation from last week. Aside from that, however, this match didn't serve much of a purpose. Sure, it's always great to see Storm on television, but he should be used in a more meaningful role going into Lockdown next month.

Great match with Austin Aries and Booby Roode defeating Chavo Guerrero and Hernandez to win the TNA World Tag Team Championships. The two tandems developed excellent chemistry, which made for some awesome action. Roode walking off only to return moments later made for a nice swerve and cool finish with Aries hitting the 450 Splash for the victory. I'm extremely glad the straps are finally on Rodoe and Aries, who can hopefully reignite the stagnant tag team division.

Good match with Miss Tessmacher defeating Knockouts Champion Tara. We've seen this match before, so it was nothing out the ordinary for the most part. I do question the move to have Tessmacher go over here, as their feud over the title culminated a few short months ago and I see no real reason to put the title back on Tessmacher this quickly. Tara should be winning most non-title matches she competes in to avoid looking like a weak champion.

Nice segment featuring Rockstar Spud, Robbie E and Robbie T. This was a cool way of debuting Rockstar Spud in Impact Wrestling on his home turf of England. He had an entertaining exchange with Robbie E and looks like he has quite a bit of potential. Robbie T's antics were dumb fun, yet harmless.

Solid Tables match with Sting and Bully Ray defeating D.O.C. and Devon. It was well wrestled, but it would've been nice to see some more tables spots. Aces & 8s losing yet again shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but it's still a major disappoint. How does TNA expect to get heat on their supposable top faction if they have them consistently job out for no apparent reason?

Overall, a good show that featured some quality action, but no real story-line progression. However, I guess that's to be expected since Lockdown isn't for another month and they have plenty of time to build. Once again, the England crowd made for an enjoyable environment throughout the night.