Since 2005, Slammiversary has celebrated the company’s June debut and it has usually been one of its biggest events of the year. This year, we have a title-heavy show with the King of the Mountain, World Tag Team, and World Titles on the line.
Here’s the lineup:
TNA World Champion Drew Galloway vs Bobby Lashley in a submission or knockout only match
Lashley has cut the best promos of his career since turning heel and he is perfect in his role as an ass-kicking MMA world-beater who feels like he’s the best and just needs Drew’s gold to prove it to the world. Drew has been a fine white meat babyface champion, although his TNA matches haven’t given him as much of a chance to shine as they theoretically should. With this being his first PPV main event as a champion, we should get an outstanding match aided by the knockout or tapout stipulation.
Strangely, they haven’t really focused on that aspect in theh TV build. One would think that having Lashley, the badass MMA fighter, knock people out in squashes to hype him up would be done. Instead, they’ve tried to get over Drew’s crossface as his top finisher for submissions and the Sick Kick as his knockout shot. I guess since Lashley has the MMA credibility, they want to build Drew up as the badass since he’s facing a legit shooter – but it’s a bit odd.
Jeff Hardy vs Matt Hardy in a Full Metal Mayhem Match
The explosion of the former Hardy Boyz may not be the main event, but its build has certainly been the most interesting for every possible reason. They’ve had issues since Matt turned heel, and when Jeff broke Matt’s brain by swanton bombing him off of a balcony, we got the debut of Broken Matt Hardy – complete with a wacky accent and white streak in his hair. He plays piano, writes poetry, and despises Brother Nero. If you’ve missed their rivalry, you can get caught up on all the best (and worst) of it here.
Decay (Abyss/Crazzy Steve) vs The Bromans (Robbie E/Jesse Godderz) for the TNA Tag team titles
The Bromans and their new trainer Raquel just debuted and earned the number one contendership, so it would make sense to keep that momentum rolling by having them win. Decay hasn’t done a thing with the titles yet anyway, and this kind of match just shines a light on how minimal the tag division is in TNA right now.
The rest of the card:
Maria and Gail Kim have been feuding for months now, with their rivalry coming to a head in Maria’s first PPV match in the company. Her husband Michael Bennett’s issues with EC3 dominated television over the last few weeks and with Bennett being the first person to pin EC3, one would expect an EC3 win here.
Eli Drake cashed in his Feast or Fired briefcase to win the King of the Mountain Title and celebrated with some free champagne. With the title win just happening, it seems too early to take the title off of Eli Drake – but it’s the KOTM Title, so it doesn’t really matter who holds it. Former champion Bram will attempt to wrest the belt away from Drake.
Knockouts Champion Jade doesn’t have a match set for the card. The same goes for X Division Champion Trevor Lee – although they could do another Ultimate X match to further the issues between Lee and Andrew Everett. Any or all of these can probably be expected to be added to the PPV on the go-home show that airs this coming Tuesday.
The build-up for the show has been largely enjoyable even if it wasn’t always for good reasons. As hilarious as the Matt vs. Jeff build has been, Raquel’s acting is even worse. The Matt and Jeff stuff has gotten more eyeballs on the product via Youtube, so that’s a plus. It’s doubtful that it will translate to an increase in buys, but it should be a fun way to spend an evening. It should certainly be far better than their last live PPV, which was done with three days notice and full of last-second matches.