‘Ink Master’ season 7, episode 11 review: Did Matti Hixson, Christian Buckingham go home over cover-ups?

On this week’s new episode of “Ink Master” on Spike, cover-ups were the name of the game. Specifically, these were some of the most shocking cover-ups that we have ever seen on the show to date. These cover-ups were of tattoos that were, quite frankly, offensive. For someone like Anthony Michaels in particular, it had to be difficult to do work on someone who may have harbored some sort of hate in their hate towards him and others at one point in their lives. They at least did enough to get that sort of tattoo, or did not quite understand the impact that it would have.

For Anthony, this week was all about turning this negative into a positive, and he did that by delivering one of the most awesome cover-ups we’ve ever seen. It gave him Tattoo of the Day, and it was clear that he and James Vaughn, who won the almost-as-crazy head tattoo challenge earlier in the day, would be the two artists free of any potential danger.

Now, let’s talk people in jeopardy, since let’s face it: This was not an easy challenge. Christian Buckingham had probably the toughest cover-up in terms of shading, and he did a good job on the surface; yet, you could still see parts of the old tattoo. Cleen Rock One had some odd style choices, and Matti Hixson simply did not finish his despite having a really cool idea and a desire to go big on what was really an easy cover-up.

The bottom three were Cleen, Matti, and Christian. No surprise there. The real issue here seems to be what mattered most to the judges for this week (since that does often change): Doing cover-ups, finishing tattoos, or being technically sound? There were problems with all three tattoos, but in the end, Matti went home. This shocked us, since started to think per the edit that he was going to win this whole season. He did a great job strategically this season in making alliances, but ultimately, it’s a tattoo competition. He didn’t match the judges’ criteria this time, even if we did think that his tattoo was rather cool. Episode Grade: B+.

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