NWA-TNA Destination X
March 13th, 2005
I quickly have to get out of the way that I just recently got my internet reconnected, so if you have sent me an email, send it again if you feel like it and I’ll send you a reply straight back.
Team Canada vs. AMW and 3 Live Kru
When there are 8 guys in the ring and the only one I like is Petey, you can tell I’m not going to enjoy this. The match just follows the usual TNA opening formula. Faces have a quick start, the heels work over one of the faces and then we hit the near falls. When you watch TNA PPV’s for a while you can tell most of the matches are very formulated and you practically expect what’s going to happen. Kind of like NOAH and their six man tag matches that fill up their undercard.
Harris’ selling is the usual short term selling you expect from him and Roode doesn’t get treated like the monster he should outside of the finish. The match could be pretty damn good for an 8 minute opener and all it needed was for Roode to be treated like a monster and for Harris’ selling to be a bit more long term than short. When the fans notice that Roode’s offence is just being treated the same by Harris as Petey’s, it kind of negates him being a monster.
Chris Sabin vs. Chase Stevens
This match is more to get Sabin on PPV than anything else. I like seeing Candido out there, but there’s nothing else to see here. Come to think of it, the match would’ve been miles better if Candido was in Stevens’ position. Sabin is terribly unmotivated as well, since you can tell he’s just throwing moves out with no rhyme or reason behind them. Stevens is his usual self, not having a clue what to do. When Chris Sabin is one of the main reasons you continue to watch this company and he’s stuck in matches like this, it kills your interest even more.
Bullrope Match: Raven vs. Dustin Rhodes
As if it couldn’t get any worse from last month’s match, they seem to do it here. Raven is so unmotivated it’s not funny and Dustin sucks so much that it’s not funny. What’s disturbing though is that when Raven gets a little rope burn to the lower nut suck region, when West says “Ow that hurts” he seems to be speaking from experience. We shall move on and not speak of this match or Don West’s commentary again.
Disciples of Destruction vs. Phi Delta Slam
Now who the f*ck thought giving these guys 10 minutes was a good idea? Who I ask you, who? I seriously have nothing to say about this and once again let’s just move on and pretend this match didn’t exist.
Monty Brown vs. Trytan
Jesus Christ and all holy men in between does Trytan suck. Not only does the match suck beyond what the previous match did (as if it’s possible) the booking is really retarded. The masked Mideon looks nothing like Trytan so how can the ref mistake them and count the pinfall? The booking for the match seems to prolong a feud and with what happens later, we get no more of this feud (I’m glad there are no more matches between these two but shouldn’t they have just booked Monty to go over cleanly?).
Falls Count Anywhere: Abyss vs. Jeff Hardy
This is the match that should’ve happened the previous month instead of the ladder match, which should’ve blown off the feud. Abyss won the title shot the previous month, so unless you’re going to make Abyss look strong I don’t mind this match happening at this event. Jeff going over just makes Abyss look weak going into his title shot (which he’s only just receiving). Jeff’s stuff is even sloppier than last month as well and the fact that this feud hasn’t even had a normal match shows Jeff’s inability to wrestle a real match, instead these matches that aren’t even remotely hardcore anymore. Abyss’ power stuff is impressive at times, but it is not really fair that he’s put in there with a guy like Hardy.
First Blood: Kevin Nash vs. The Outlaw
And we need this match why exactly? Both guys wrestle (if you want to call it that) a very slow pace to make sure we don’t miss anything. Yes those matches where guys are just going a little fast make it hard for us fans to see what’s happening. Now I may wrong but doesn’t a first blood match constitute that you beat the ever living f*ck out of each other? Not do the opposite? But I guess I’m just old fashioned like that. I also never thought that working someone’s knee would make them bleed. The finish just takes forever with some evil person fixing up Billy’s cut. I actually find Nash falling on his ass after the Jacknife more entertaining than this match.
X-Division Title, Ultimate X: AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels vs. Elix Skipper vs. Ron Killings
Now being the company TNA are, one gimmick match isn’t enough, even though we’ve had 3 already and they have to make things as confusing as possible for the viewer at home. So this is how things work. First fall is a tag match; loser of the fall is gone. Second fall is a 3-Way and once again the loser of the fall is gone. Final fall is an Ultimate X match.
The major problem with the match and all its gimmicks is that it is too hard to follow the flow of the match. To start we get a 7 minute tag match that is pretty much meaningless in the long run other to get over Daniels as a prick heel and to get over how lethal Skipper’s finisher is. It would’ve been cool to see someone like Skipper injure his arm so the fall wouldn’t be rendered useless, since Daniels doesn’t need any extra falls to get over as a prick heel and the fans already know Skipper’s finisher is lethal, it put away a former X-Division champ in Petey Williams at the previous show.
Second fall just turns into a stunt show. They hit a spot, they do some resting or slug it out a little, and then they hit another spot. Rinse, lather, repeat. Daniels once again does a real good job of being a heel though, which would have to be the highlight of the match. Even though he has both men gunning after him after he attacked Skipper from behind when convincing him to double team Styles, but he’s the smartest of the match. He picks his spots and even though the Arabian Press off the cables may have been really dangerous, it was also somewhat safe since Styles and Skipper were too busy fighting to notice Daniels coming down.
Despite Daniels being his awesome self, Skipper and Styles are really sloppy at times here. Styles screws up the Quebrada DDT worse than usual, Skipper’s Poison Rana doesn’t come off looking so good and when Styles comes off the cables with a Shooting Star Press, it didn’t look so good. When he was spinning over the cables he should’ve came down with a 450 instead of the SSP because a) it would’ve been a lot cleaner and b) it would’ve came off looking way better and much more lethal than the SSP because he would’ve had so much momentum, the SSP he had hardly any. The finish to the 3rd fall gets Daniels over as pretty smart though, with him cradling Skipper after he hit Styles with Sudden Death. That’s pretty much all the fall accomplishes though.
The final fall just turns into a climbing contest with spots. There’s no building between spots, but the puppets that TNA call their crowds still chant “this is awesome”. Daniels taking Styles off the wires with an STO is about the only good spot of the final fall, which really says wonders when their goal for the final fall was to have an insane spotfest. The finish just adds to the cheap finishes in gimmick matches which are supposed to have a clean finish. The ref bump is ridiculous as well since he was never touched by Daniels or Styles. It’s nice to see Daniels get the belt, but even though he was built up all match as the smart wrestler, he wasn’t even able to outsmart AJ and beat him cleanly. He had to rely on chance to beat him, he couldn’t outsmart him like he had done to his opponents all match.
NWA World Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. DDP
What exactly did DDP do to warrant this title shot? Much like Nash, he was eliminated from the 3-Way, and still got a title shot. Way to negate your stipulations. At least DDP has a bit more history with Jarrett since they feuded over the WCW Title, but it still doesn’t warrant him getting a title shot. He didn’t beat anyone, all he did was come out and cut a promo rambling on about that “it’s time”. He could’ve at least beaten Brown to have a better foundation for what would happen latter on.
This once again follows the JJ formula main event. Face controls in the early going, JJ takes over to work over his opponents knee which ends up going absolutely nowhere and then the face makes a grand comeback, only to get screwed out of the title in some way. Although the formula doesn’t make for a good match, one use of it might be passable but it is done month after month. Nice to see an office chair has become such a dangerous weapon as well. Well, the cushions that is since god knows the cushions are more dangerous than the arms, which might hurt a little if hit with enough force. I love how the announcers try and get the chair over as a lethal weapon though.
I thought the police at ringside was to stop interference, but it does the exact opposite. It turns into a match with heaps of run ins and rules being negated. I say it time after time but they’re allowed to do anything they want in the early going and the ref doesn’t DQ them, what’s the point of the ref being bumped? Brown turning on DDP makes no sense as well. As I said above, it would’ve been better if DDP had beaten Brown on Impact and gotten the number one contendership. Instead we get this confusing finish with Brown turning on DDP. So let me get this straight, I sat through a match that went 20 minutes when the guys have no place going that long, with a stipulation that was supposed to prevent run ins and things of the sort to get a clean finish but I get that finish. To quote Franky the Mobster, you can all go f*ck yourselves.
