In this wacky world of TNA Wrestling, I thought it would be fun to take a look at each result of last night’s Genesis PPV and gauge whether or not we had a clean finish or an unclean finish.
MATCH #1: Four Way Elimination Match for the TNA X Division Championship Match – Austin Aries vs. Jesse Sorensen vs. Kid Kash vs. Zema Ion
RESULT: Unclean finish. Zema Ion gets eliminated, hangs around to screw over Jesse Sorensen so Austin Aries can retain. This sets the tone for the rest of the night where finishes are concerned.
MATCH #2: Devon vs. D’Angelo Dinero
RESULT: Clean finish, sort of. Devon wins after his sons decide not to turn on him anymore, Pope gets distracted, and Devon gets fired up.
MATCH #3: Gunner w/ Ric Flair vs. Rob Van Dam
RESULT: Unclean finish. Flair distracts the ref, Gunner hits a DDT on the floor, and RVD gets carted off. The RED X OF DOOM is used again by the refs to sell a fake injury (I wonder what they use for a real one these days).
MATCH #4: TNA Knockouts Title Match – Gail Kim w/ Madison Rayne vs. Mickie James
RESULT: Unclean finish. So let me get this straight. With a stipulation that was DESIGNED TO PREVENT INTERFERENCE by locking Madison Rayne inside a cage at ringside, Madison still finds a way to interrupt these proceedings by throwing Gail some brass knuckles that Mickie intercepts, uses, and gets caught using. This could have been a good clean match, too, but instead Gail wins by DQ.
MATCH #5: Monster’s Ball – Abyss vs. Bully Ray
RESULT: Clean finish. At the very least, this match was a one on one fight, though of course weapons were legally allowed. Still, at least there was no interference on top of the weapons, right?
MATCH #6: TNA World Tag Team Title Match – Matt Morgan & Crimson vs. Samoa Joe & Magnus
RESULT: Clean finish. No run-ins for this one, just typical tag team shenanigans as both teams tried to get the upper hands. No problem with that.
MATCH #7: James Storm vs. Kurt Angle
RESULT: Unclean finish, but at least no run-ins. Angle uses Earl Hebner as a distraction, low blows Storm and gets the win. HOWEVER…
MATCH #8: TNA World Championship Match – Jeff Hardy vs. Bobby Roode
RESULT: Unclean finish. Bobby Roode takes a page out of Kurt Angle’s playbook from the preceding match, but low blows the ref instead of the opponent. In this case, IN THE MAIN EVENT OF A PPV, Roode gets himself intentionally disqualified so that he retains the title at all costs, including to those who actually figured they would see some sort of actual resolution. Throw in the fact that he uses the same kind of tactics as Angle from the match RIGHT BEFORE this one, and it just wreaks of laziness on the part of whoever is booking these match sequences these days.
Granted, WWE used the low blow disqualification last year in a PPV title match for the World Heavyweight Championship when Christian blatantly “low blowed” Randy Orton to get disqualified, but I didn’t like that either.
TNA Genesis: Finishes Scorecard:
Clean Finishes: 3
Unclean Finishes: 5
CB’s Slant: You just can’t have five out of eight matches on the card end like this because it completely devalues the PPVs in the minds of prospective buyers. The fact that both the Knockouts main event and actual main event ended in disqualifications is simply horrendous, and it just further accentuates the point that PPVs are merely a place for storylines to get extended for the next month of TV shows without anything too revealing getting resolved.
The biggest resolution of the night was Devon reuniting with his kids after dispatching The Pope, and I don’t believe many folks believe that reunion was worth a fraction of the cost of this PPV.
That’s all from me — CB.
