TNA One Night Only - Joker's Wild Review

TNA One Night Only - Joker's Wild 2013 review

By Phil Allely

His career may have stalled when he lost the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, but recent matches have shown James Storm to be a man at the top of his game. His performance throughout the recent Joker's Wild 'One Night Only' event proved that too. He stole the show and won the match by beating his former team mate Bobby Roode in the over the top rope finale of the show.

The tournament itself (shown this week in the UK on Challenge) was the second of TNA's new themed event events. This time around TNA brought back its very popular Joker's Wild format. Here tag teams were drawn at random and pitted against another team. The winning teams would then go on to a (WCW Battlebowl style) battle royal, where the last man standing would win a $100,000 prize.

Kicking things off James Storm and Christian York made pretty easy work of the returning duo of Crimson and Gunner. Storm and York would make a wonderful tag team in your reviewers opinion.

Jessie Godderz took most of the punishment in the next bout. Teaming with Mr Anderson Godderz really looked vulnerable and beaten down by opponents Kid Kash and Doug Williams. Anderson did however finally get a hot tag and decimated all to pull off the win.

Former X Division stars Christopher Daniels and Samoa Joe united next to form a formidable combo. This was the perfect mix of speed and power. The talented Chavo Guererro and Rob Van Dam worked hard against them, but ultimately fell to the superior team.

The best part of the following scrap was Bobby Roode's reaction to his partner Joseph Park. He made it watchable and helped push the Park character throughout. After a beat down by Robbie E and Zema Ion Joseph tapped into Abyss territory and nailed a Black Hole Slam. Roode then capitalised, making a blind tag and pinning Ion to pull off the win.

With two members of Aces and Eights on the other side of the ring it seemed to be an uphill battle for Hernandez and newcomer Alex Silva. Supermex did try his best, but the might of Devon and DOC proved too much. DOC pinned Silva to see his team progress.

The final tag team match of the night was entertaining in more than one way. This saw big men Matt Mogan and Robbie T square up to Joey Ryan and Al Snow. This was particularly fun as Morgan/Ryan are of course connected and Al Snow has beef with them too. The finish came as Snow and T left Ryan and Morgan to trade blows. After a few exchanges a 'Carbon Footprint' sealed Ryan and Snows fate.

The shows finale was the 12 man battle royal for $100,000. James Storm and Bobby Roode kicked things off and every two minutes a new competitor entered the fray. Roode and Storm fought each throughout, but did team up to eliminate DOC (which fans liked a lot). The action here moved along at a fair rate and the eliminations came thick and fast. It was good to see Robbie T show his mettle by eliminating a few bodies here. The same goes for Matt Morgan.

This was all about James Storm though. He started the match and ended it with his former tag team partner Bobby Roode. This final sequence was timed perrfectly. Roode though he had eliminated Storm, but he skinned the cat and sent Roode to the apron, one 'Last Call' superkick later and Roode hit the ground. Storm stood victorious and netted himself a nice pay day too.

Joker's Wild was a very well received and presented offering by TNA. The idea of theming events and bypassing storylines seems to be working well. It was also good to see that the company have re-found their faith in James Storm too. Here's hoping he gets to rise to the top again and wear the gold once again.