TNA Impact Wrestling Review - January 17, 2013

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Great opening match with TNA World Heavyweight Champion Jeff Hardy and James Storm defeating Christopher Daniels and Kazarian. The pre-match promo was well done and it set up the subsequent tag match nicely. This bout felt more exciting than their clash from last week and it did a sufficient job of building towards Daniels vs. Hardy for next week. I would've liked to see Daniels go over here, but he was still made to look strong following the contest by assaulting Hardy.

Nice Gut Check segment with Jay Bradley earning a TNA contract. Although it felt a bit rushed, the whole segment ran smoothly. Bradley's promo was strange at points, but his mic skills are solid overall. I'm glad to see he now has a TNA contract and I look forward to what he can bring to Impact Wrestling.

---

Brief match with Kenny King and Christian York. These two could've used much more time, but I can see why it was cut short. This match wasn't nearly as good as their clash from Genesis last Sunday, so I'm not sure why they did work well together this time around. It was smart booking to allow King get his win back, but an appearance from Rob Van Dam would've helped further their feud.

Typical promo from Sting and Hulk Hogan. There wasn't necessarily anything bad about it, but it went done exactly as you would expect it to. Neither one of these guys are exciting to listen to on the mic, so this segment mostly felt meaningless. Sure, it confirmed Hulk Hogan's appearance at the wedding for later in the night, but this easily could've been a condensed backstage segment rather than a time killer in the ring.

Fine match with Velvet Sky defeating Gail Kim. It was logical following the debacle during the Gauntlet match at Genesis, so at least they took time to address that mishap. As for match, it was fine for what it was since Sky isn't the world's greatest in-ring worker. Kim brought Sky to a decent match, but as I said earlier on, it would've been nice to see or hear from the Knockouts Champion Tara.

Effective segment featuring Austin Aries, Bobby Roode and World Tag Team Champions Hernandez and Chavo Guerrero. As stated last week, I strongly believe that Aries and Roode could make for a very entertaining tag team. Neither guy is doing anything at the moment and they have great chemistry on the mic and in the ring. Having them take the straps off the boring Hernandez and Chavo would be the best bet at this point to help revitalize the tag team division.

Shocking conclusion to the wedding of Bully Ray and Brooke Hogan. The wedding itself was nothing special and like any other ordinary wedding in wrestling. Taz joining Aces and 8s is certainly something I did not see coming and I welcome the swerve. Sure, it may not make much sense right now, but fingers crossed TNA makes sense of it in coming weeks rather than having him join the group for no apparent reason.

Overall, a good show that was short on wrestling, but what we got was exceptional. This was definitely a promo-heavy show, but I'm fine with that given TNA's new pay-per-view schedule. The opening tag match, Aries and Roode promo, and ending brawl are what stood out to me on this week's Impact Wrestling, but everything else was practically forgettable.