Falls Count Anywhere

07-16-07

It's alarming how charming I feel.

TNA Victory Road
Friday was rough for me, so I missed SmackDown!. I hear it was a build to the PPV show. I did make it a point to watch TNA’s latest PPV, Victory Road. I’m very much out of touch with TNA. I regularly watch RAW, often watch SmackDown!, catch UFC and IFL when I can, and hardly ever do I watch TNA. I might even watch more Lucha on Galavision than TNA. The show itself was OK, not great, but there was enough really good stuff to make up for some odd booking.

We started off with the Gauntlet Ultimate X match. This was a weird set-up booking wise, 10 guys coming in one every minute and they can be eliminated Battle Royal style until everyone’s in and then it’s Ultimate X rules. Like I said, pretty weird. There was a lot of great and crazy action in this match, but once again my man Petey Williams was used poorly. Puma, who I’ve seen a few times before and have always been impressed with, working the match and was really good. So was Sonjay Dutt, Christopher Daniels, and Elix Skipper. Petey gave Puma the Canadian Destroyer, but then Dutt tossed him. All they ever seem to do is let Petey hit the Destroyer and then throw him out. It’s one of the reasons I don’t watch more TNA. Homicide and Dutt worked pretty well together, especially when you consider how good they both are separately. Shark Boy, a fave of local legend Film School Chris, was in the house and delivered the Shark Bite to Daniels. Senshi was the last guy to enter the match and Ultimate X began.

Frankie Kazarian started things off by doing the Dragon Clutch using the Truss. It was awesome! Kaz also did an amazing Cutter off the Truss with Daniels. It was unbelievable and the crowd loved it. There was a pile-up German Suplex that looked contrived, but it was cool. Flux Capacitor!!! It’s my favourite move name in history. Well, maybe the Cattle Mutilation is better from Bryan Danielson. Hard call. Daniels gets the Red X to win the thing in about 20 action-packed minutes. A really fun match, if nothing else.

The Basham Brothers, now called Basham and Damaja, like they were in OVW, came out with Lance Hoyt and Christie Hemme to take on VKM and Roxxi Laveaux. I’ve seen her before when she was Nikki Roxx, I think. This was a boring match and the crowd let the guys know it. The Bashams were good, but Road Dogg and Mr. Ass aren’t the workers they were a decade ago. Or even two years ago. Oddly, VKM got the win here when they should obviously be building Damaja and Basham up to be real contenders. After the match, Nikki gave a flapjack to Christie Hemme. She’s got a look, that’s for sure!

James Storm and Rhino met in an interesting match. Rhino is so good and he’s stuck permanently where he is, right in the middle of the card because TNA doesn’t understand how to book him like a star and still keep the guys making the big money happy. He’d have been no better off with WWE either, so I guess being stuck in the middle of the card is better than being at the bottom. Lots of good brawling in this one. The guys work in the crowd for a while. Rhino can take some big bumps, including one that sent him over the top rope to the floor! Sweet! Rhino went for the Gore, but Storm gives him the old beer bottle to the face for the win. A few rest holds here and there, but overall a good match.

Bob Backlund and Jerry Lynn teamed up to take on Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin. Backlund even started the match! Bob’s stuff seems kinda dated, but on the other hand, it was nice to see him trying to work a real match. Jerry Lynn, despite all his injuries, can still freakin’ go! When Jerry was in, the pace picked up. The match was going well, but it came to a finish far too quickly when Backlund gave Shelley a Butterfly Suplex onto Lynn’s knees. Nash then gave Lynn the Big Boot and then Shelley and Sabin just kicked the crap out of him to pin Jerry in less than ten minutes. A solid match that I enjoyed, though it wrapped up far too quickly.

I don't know. It just seemed overdue.

Eric Young and Gail Kim took on Robert Roode and Miss Brooks. Eric Young is a great worker and he was good in the match, but Kim lit things up with her Plancha onto Brooks on the outside! Kim worked with Roode a little bit and it was OK. Nothing special. Only Chynna ever seemed to make it seem like something important when she would face off with a guy. Eric Young did a gorgeous Spike DDT to Roode. I mean it was just nuts. A Kim-Young double Dropkick on Roode allowed Kim to pin Miss Brooks. It was a decent match, one of the better mixed tags of recent times.

I was very disappointed in Christian Cage vs. Chris Harris. I like Cage. I think Harris is a talent who has not nearly enough charisma on his own to get really over. The match was back and forth, which would be good if I didn’t see the ending coming from the beginning. Interference introducing a new feud for everyone to half-heartedly endorse for Harris. Where as Rhine can kinda overcoming the weak booking by going above himself in the matches, Christian doesn’t seem to want to do that and it results in matches like this. Harris did a lot of countering, including blocking an inverted DDT. Harris worked the Unprettier on Cage, which was a nice twist. Cage had to take a spear, the most over-used move in TNA. It’s like the old DDT in ECW or the Powerbomb in WWF in the late 1990s. Dustin Rhodes came out and hit Chris Harris with a pair of handcuffs to give the match to Christian. Weak way to end it.

I’m not sold on AJ Styles and Tyson Tomko teaming. Yeah, I know the story, but I don’t think it works well. Sting and Abyss are also kinda suspect, but at least the storyline makes a little wrestling-style sense. This was a decent match, with everybody doing their thing, but it was also a little rougher than it needed to be. I mean, AJ can flat out go, and here he gave us the Asai DDT among his other flying, but it felt kinda out of place. He obviously pulled it in a little. Abyss worked this match much cleaner than usual, which is a good thing because he understands the dynamic of a match better than anyone gives him credit for. Abyss gave AJ the Shock Treatment, but it doesn’t end things. Sting manages to toss AJ to the floor so that Abyss could hit the Black Hole Slam on Tomko for the win. It was long enough but it didn’t feel like there was much to this match, really. It was just kinda there.

Team 3D took on Samoa Joe and Kurt Angle. I had to study-up to get where this match was going. It was a good, stiff, brawlish match to start. Angle is great at those kinds of matches and Joe might be a little bit better. Ray is usually the storyline part of his team, and Devon the meat of the match. Here, they all worked about even. I’ve forgotten how crisp Angle can be when he wants to. He’s slowed a little, but here he was really good. They did a nice thing where Ray and Devon teased dissention and then turned around and attacked their foes! That used to be a multi-month feuding arc, but now it’s just a transition spot! Joe becomes a move machine before too long and hits a Powerslam and Island Driver. Angle get his Moonsault! That’d never happen in the WWE! Angle and Joe do work a Double Anklelock spot, which was kinda cool. They manage to get the 3D on Angle, but Rick Steiner to break it up. Scott comes out and hits Ray with the pipe. Angle is about to give Ray the Angle Slam, but it’s stopped by Joe and he covers to win the World Tag Team Titles.

The booking, especially in the Main Event, was very questionable, but the show was decent over all, especially if you discounted the filler space. Not the best TNA I’ve seen, but good enough.

That’s all for today. I’ll be back on Thursday!

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Chris Garcia