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Destination X 2005
Date: March 13, 2005
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 775
Commentators: Don West, Mike Tenay
We’re very young in the modern TNA world here as this is I believe their fifth PPV. It’s still the NWA here so don’t expect much. The main event is Jeff Jarrett vs. DDP in a gimmicked named lumberjack match. Do I need to explain why I don’t think this is going to be much?
Also, say the name of the show like a big dramatic announcement: Destination….X! It sounds like a terribly cheesy movie and I love it. Since this is TNA, the name has nothing to do with the X Division, so don’t think it does. Let’s get to this.
The opening video is something about being a warrior. Of course it makes no sense at all. To be fair though I don’t care enough to think about it. Ok, two minutes is MORE than enough. The arena is TINY.
3 Live Kru/America’s Most Wanted vs. Team Canada
For those of you not familiar, 3 Live Kru was a trio of Ron Killings (R-Truth), BG James and Konnan. Here it’s minus Truth. AMW is James Storm and Chris Harris. Team Canada is Eric Young, A-1, Bobby (Robert) Roode and Petey Williams. Roode is the enforcer and the power guy here which is very odd indeed as his character is completely different today. There’s an Ultimate X match later on so that is set up over the ring, making the ring and the look of the show most odd indeed.
Roode and James start us out. Young looks like his name. AMW are the tag team champions here. Tenay says the Impact Zone has been rocking since the opening bell, which was about a minute and a half ago. Good to know Mike. They’re moving around way too fast here to keep up with the tags. It’s not interesting or anything, but they’re moving in and out quickly.
TNA was really annoying about just throwing matches on for no rhyme or reason, making it hard to care. Apparently Abyss was arrested earlier but has now been released and everything is fine. He’s got a damn good lawyer apparently. A-1 is beating up Harris. His name is Alastair Ralphs.
He’d go by A-1 later and I’m not going to type that name every time so there you are. Why does Konnan have a job? I’ve never gotten that. He couldn’t even do his own half crab. Come on man. We get the obligatory clusterfuck and Roode hits the Northern Lariat (running clothesline to the back of the head) on Konnan to get the pin.
Rating: D. This wasn’t very good at all. It ended out of nowhere which is rarely a good idea. It’s about 9 minutes long and I don’t think everyone got in. Either way, the match just went on way too long with the focus on the beginning of it if that makes sense. The problem was there was no middle and the heel domination part was like two minutes long. Just not a well thought out match at all and you could tell it was thrown together.
We go to Dusty Rhodes’ office (it’s a truck. Did you expect something else?) where Traci and Trinity are arguing over who gets to be his official assistant. This was a dumb angle that had been going on for months and it ends here. Oh look it’s Johnny Fairplay. Apparently if he can sign a team tonight he can be assistant #2. That makes me wonder: What does Dusty actually do?
Chris Sabin vs. Chase Stevens
This is pre MCMG. Stevens is with his partner Andy Douglas (they were The Naturals) and Chris Candido who was kind of their manager but kind of not. Candido would be dead in less than two month which amazes me. I always loved the HAIL SABIN thing. This is your standard insane cruiserweight match where it’s nothing but a spotfest, meaning it’s likely going to be fun as hell.
Sabin has to fight all three guys. Shame he has no one to help him fight at all. I think Candido was trying to start a stable of young guys or something like that but obviously we didn’t get to see the end of it. His gimmick of NO GIMMICKS NEEDED always amused me. Sabin finally cranks things up hitting a SWEET springboard tornado DDT. That was NICE. After some interfering he reverses a rollup to get the win. Ok then.
The heels beat him up and Shocker, not called that yet, casually runs in and beats the hell out of them for the save. Oh apparently his name is indeed Shocker and he’s been in a McDonald’s commercial. Good to know. The announcers rant about how awesome he is for WAY too long.
Rating: C-. This was ok but nothing special at all. It’s another of those matches where the pairing makes little to no sense but they get PPV time anyway. I guess it’s just supposed to be an X-Division match and have Shocker debut, but it just wasn’t interesting. Sabin of course was awesome though.
Raven vs. Dustin Rhodes
It’s a Dustin Rhodes PPV match. Take a guess what the gimmick is. Go on just take a guess. Yep, it’s the BULLROPE MATCH!!! Yep Dustin is dressed like a cowboy again. Guess who was booking at this time too. Oy it’s the cowbell too. Apparently Raven beat up Dustin at the last PPV or something like that.
Seriously, WHO IS ENTERTAINED BY THESE FUCKING THINGS??? What is the point of a bullrope? It’s a damn strap match that’s been set up after a beatdown from a month ago, but that’s certainly enough justification to put Dustin in a cowboy costume and have him invoke the spirit of TEXAS. No one other than his father has ever given two fucks about Rhodes.
People care about Goldust, not Rhodes. That’s where the problem is. Dustin Rhodes the character has ZERO charisma. He’s a country boy that has a famous daddy, nothing else. There’s your chair. We have a REALLY badly botched spot where Raven is supposed to elbow the chair from the middle rope and he doesn’t even come close.
I want to break that damn bell! And Rhodes hits the bulldog to win it. Team Canada runs in to beat him up. Why do they do that? No reason given but whatever. AMW comes in for the save.
Rating: D. I hate these damn things and I don’t care that this is biased as all hell. Dustin was terrible at these things and they were hardly ever if ever entertaining. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but he should do what Savio Vega did in these.
Savio was built up as the king of these things, allegedly having won like 50 of them in Puerto Rico. That instantly gave the match the idea of power and momentum vs. experience, which adds a new dimension to the match, which is ALWAYS a good thing. Dustin’s never did that, and it made these far worse.
We recap Phi Delta Slam vs. Disciples of Destruction. In other words, two fat guys vs. the Harris Brothers. The idea was Traci and Trinity brought in one each and there’s a match tonight. The winner gets to be Dusty’s assistant. Please make it quick.
Phi Delta Slam vs. Disciples of Destruction
The DOD are more commonly known as the Blu Brothers, Disciples of Apocalypse, Creative Control, Harris Brothers, Bruise Brothers, Harris Twins or Harris Boys. You get my point here? You might know the other two as the big guys in the Main Event Mafia that got beaten up a lot as security guards of the most elite wrestling force in TNA, which makes even less sense but whatever.
Oh and Trinity is sleeping with Dusty apparently. Give me a break. At least the girls look good. The best thing here is the entrance of Trinity who wears a robe and rips it off. Traci has MASSIVE boobs to say the least. Something tells me this is going to freaking SUCK. Well a minute in I’m right.
I think the mics are messing up a bit as you can hear the fans a lot more clearly than you usually would. The Harris Brothers are dominating here in case you care for some twisted and unclear reason. On the floor Don nails one of the fat guys with a chair. That looked pretty bad. They botch the hell out of something as it was supposed to be a double team move but it just didn’t happen at all.
There was one flaw with this match: no one wanted to watch it. That’s kind of a problem but whatever. Trinity actually looks pretty good. After a big clusterfuck (shocking isn’t it?) Trinity goes up and moonsaults to the floor. She hits Don with it and he literally doesn’t move. The visual was great as she hits her biggest move and gets NOTHING. He throws her into the crowd for fun I guess. This is just freaking not interesting at all.
That’s never a good sign at all. The fatter of the fat guys hits a top rope splash called the Hully Gully Splash. Just take me now. That leads to a switch so there we are. It allows for a big boot to end this crap.
Rating: F+. And that’s because the girls looked good. Traci did NOTHING here. Trinity was at least trying to be interesting but no one cared about the match or these teams or anything like that at all which is never a good thing. This was terrible to say the least as the styles clashed completely and it was just bad.
Dustin and AMW are talking about Team Canada and Fairplay comes up. They say he can manage them if he passes an immunity challenge. It leads to a saddle being put on him and him getting ridden like a horse.
We recap Monty Brown vs. Trytan, who I think was an alien or something like that. He had a ship. What does that tell you?
Monty Brown vs. Trytan
Oh apparently he’s the Terminator or something. He looks awesome if nothing else. Ah there’s your bumbling big man thing. Brown was a guy that was kind of cool but at the same time he was so ridiculously limited in the ring that there wasn’t much to get out of him. His name is cool if nothing else.
This show has been going on for an hour. It feels like about three times that long. Trytan hits a nice chokeslam if nothing else. Hearing West try to sound like he’s got experience is amusing. Also Brown has zero percent body fat. I didn’t think that was possible.
Brown sets for the pounce and there go the lights. A masked guy (Mideon but I don’t think that was ever said) is in there instead. He gets pinned as I guess the fact that Trytan lost 7 inches in height means nothing?
Rating: D+. This was pretty weak. They fought for about five minutes and this was supposed to be the show where we find out about Trytan. He was more or less gone after this so it meant nothing anyway. Boring match and the ending of course made no sense and of course we never got an explanation for it.
We go to Shane Douglas with DDP. There’s no Shane for no apparent reason and DDP is doing yoga in the dark. He does some cool looking stuff if nothing else.
There’s a referee running to the ring.
Abyss vs. Jeff Hardy
This is Final Assault which means hardcore. More or less they just like beating on each other. There’s no story or anything. Hardy’s theme is cool if nothing else. We see Jeff singing actually. Stick to wrestling man. Abyss is a LOT smaller now. He still has the chains here too. They had a Full Metal Mayhem match last month. Anything made of metal is legal and there are two envelopes: one has a title shot the other has nothing.
Hardy gets BOOED coming out. Abyss tries to jump him with a chair and we get a HARDY SUCKS chant. You can tell this isn’t WWE if nothing else. We’re on the floor already. At least they’re not taking much time here. We’re already into the crowd so at least they’re not taking long. If nothing else the brawling should be good. The cameraman falls down I think. Yeah this is going to be a big old gimmicky hardcore thing so that’s not terrible I suppose.
Abyss keeps setting up tables before Hardy gets up so the big man can knock him down again. There are fans there for no apparent reason. Hardy climbs up on part of the wall and hits a Swanton onto Abyss through two tables. This isn’t that good as it feels like a WWE guy trying to look like a big deal when he wasn’t a big deal. Abyss fucks up and then waits while Jeff runs at him with a BIG FREAKING CHAIR!
Abyss looks weird here for some reason. Hardy kicks out and the fans boo LOUDLY. The fans want tables. The Dudleys were coming soon. It’s ladder time. This isn’t that interesting in case you were wondering. Hardy does his jumping legdrop over the ladder onto Abyss. Hardy gets a rollup and shoves Abyss off before the pin. Please just end this freaking thing already. Ok it’s not terrible, but it’s just not interesting at all.
Jeff taking his shirt off gets one of the biggest pops of the night. And he gets powerbombed from the top through a table. Naturally there’s no cover on that or anything like that. Why waste time covering or something stupid like that? In one of the WORST endings ever, Jeff hits a “Twist of Fate” onto Abyss onto a ladder.
It doesn’t even get within two feet of the damn ladder but of course it gets the pin. Post match Abyss beats the hell out of him and gets the tacks. Yep he gets the Black Hole Slam onto the tacks to a POP.
Rating: D+. This was ok but I just wanted it to end. That’s never a good thing. The falls count anywhere thing meant very little indeed and it was just a way to get a hardcore match again. There was no point here and nothing but lots of time between spots. This was pretty freaking weak.
Team Canada is celebrating…something. Oh fuck it it’s Johnny Fairplay again. NO ONE CARES!
We see clips from last month where Billy Gunn and X-Pac debuted. Oh and Gunn is the Outlaw now. BG James is involved in this somehow. You know, because we can’t have anything but Kliq members hanging out and fighting right?
Outlaw vs. Kevin Nash
This is first blood. No particular reason for it but whatever. Oh he’s Kip James apparently. Seriously is Kip James the best name you could give him? Honestly? Let’s remind us that Nash has won a bunch of titles in WCW and WWE, but never the NWA Title. Oh dear. Wait, according to Vince that’s the same thing so whatever. Nash still has the really short hair here and looks like an idiot because of it.
James is working on the knee which at least makes sense here. Wait a minute, no it doesn’t. It’s FIRST BLOOD. Why wouldn’t you go after the head? Oh that’s right: It’s Billy Gunn in TNA. Hey, let’s try to drive a screwdriver into the head of a man. That’s not bad at all. Gunn goes with a chair instead. Well at least he’s trying to kill him with a less violent method. Gunn stops the offense to use wire cutters to cut a turnbuckle pad off.
The referee goes down but I have no idea how that happened. Oh never mind. I just don’t care. Nash hits Snake Eyes onto the buckle and there’s no referee so cue up the screwjob music. Jarrett runs out and nails Nash with the belt and the physician or someone runs in to clean things up. An attorney made him I think. Oh good night this is dumb. West isn’t helping at all either. Yep there’s the bell and Nash loses.
Rating: D+. It’s not bad but I just didn’t care at all. No one cares about Gunn anymore and no wrestling company accepts that. First Blood matches tend to suck anyway but they’re easy ways to get cheap heel heat I guess. Not that anyone can tell the difference in TNA though between faces and heels.
We look back at Daniels vs. AJ from last month for the X Title in a very good Iron Man match, and hear that it’s time for the Ultimate X Challenge. Note: Ultimate X Challenge, not Match.
X-Division Title: Ron Killings vs. Elix Skipper vs. AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels
And TNA’s booking continues to make my head freaking throb. Here’s how it works. We start with Daniels/Killings vs. Skipper/Styles in a regular tag match. Whoever gets pinned is eliminated and we start a triple threat match. THEN after someone loses there, we start the Ultimate X match. You know, because Daniels and Styles can’t have their own Ultimate X match.
They’re just not capable of putting on a match on their own or anything like that right? Perish the thought! AJ is still in the shorts here which never worked that well for him. We start with Truth (Killings is R-Truth in case you didn’t know) vs. Skipper. Something tells me this isn’t going to be that good. Somehow AJ and Truth botch a leapfrog. That’s kind of hard to do I think.
Now we get the whole point of this match: Daniels vs. Styles, which brings the fans to life for once. The only flaw is no one believes either are going to be pinned because it’s clear how it’s going to come down to those two. We go back to the darker skinned men with Killings hitting an axe kick off the top rope which is something different if nothing else.
Daniels, like an idiot, saves Skipper. And then Skipper hits a Kryptonite Krunch (over the shoulder piledriver that Nova invented) to get rid of Killings and take us to a triple threat.
Daniels, in a COOL spot, goes up to the cables and sits on the X (in case you don’t know what Ultimate X is, there’s a big X made of cable hanging over the ring made of two cables. Where they intersect the belt is hanging and whoever can climb up and use the ropes to get the belt wins) before moonsaulting backwards to hit the other two. Cool spot.
To my total SHOCK, yes SHOCK I say, we move to a spotfest. AJ tries to do a shooting star from the cables but it doesn’t go well at all. It looked great in the setup but he didn’t get it right but it was hard as hell looking so there we are. Daniels gets a rollup on Skipper to set up Ultimate X.
So we have AJ vs. Daniels for the title. You know, LIKE IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ALL ALONG! Daniels goes for the belt almost immediately with AJ down. AJ gets the Pele which is always sweet. It also always gives West an orgasm which is an image I don’t work. West says that AJ is simply phenomenal, which might be the debut of the name. And now it’s time to play some chicken, which never gets old.
In a SWEET looking spot, AJ is climbing across the rope and Daniels jumps at him and hits a huge STO. That looked AWESOME. See, here’s the proof of why TNA makes no sense half the time: this right here is solid stuff. That makes me wonder why we needed the tag and triple threat. That was seventeen minutes long. Are you telling me that we couldn’t have had this go on for those seventeen minutes?
AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels are incapable of going 25 minutes? And amazingly, AJ gets the belt down after a ref bump. Daniels steals the belt and the referee wakes up to see him with it and Daniels is champion. You know why it’s amazing? WE SAW IT IN THE LAST MATCH!
Rating: D. That’s for all three stages. This is the living definition of overbooking. You have AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels and yet you can’t have them go out there and steal the show? TNA continues to attempt to outdo themselves and they shoot themselves in the foot. The first two parts were ok at best but the third part was good. That’s the dumb part of this and it made my head hurt.
Johnny Fairplay talks more. I hate this guy more and more. Not in the way I’m supposed to either. I don’t watch wrestling to see “reality stars”. Get off my screen.
We recap DDP vs. Jarrett. There are people who are outside who have been hurt by Jarrett. Note: THEY ARE NOT LUMBERJACKS. Oh dear. In short, this is really about Dusty Rhodes vs. Jarrett and DDP got brought into it. And people wonder why the NWA is deader than hell.
NWA World Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Diamond Dallas Page
Ok so the odds are totally against DDP. Take a guess as to what’s going to happen here. Jarrett had been champion about 9 months at this point. DDP’s catchphrase has been IT’S TIME. Can anything be new in this damn company? The lumberjacks here are Monty Brown, 3 Live Kru, Larry Zbyszko, Chris Candido, the Naturals and Mr. Daggett, the attorney. Yeah apparently Jarrett has guys there too.
Oh just remember though: this is NOT a lumberjack match. DDP does his old thing again as he goes through the fans. That actually is a good idea. I love Jarrett’s My World song if nothing else. Ok seriously, that’s the third time Tenay has said the people can’t touch either guy and aren’t lumberjacks. My question: if they can’t touch anyone, why are they freaking there then???
There’s some decent heat on Jarrett if nothing else. Yep, we’re in the Memphis stalling session already. Jarrett argues with Monty Brown on the floor. I’d put money on Brown turning heel and costing Page the title. They were in the ring all of a minute and now we’re in the stands and so on. We’re at about 5 minutes of brawling on the floor at this point. Hey Jarrett is in the ring! Page…not so much.
There’s a wheeled chair in the ring now. Oh and Jarrett is spinning! This is for the same title that Dory Funk Jr. and Jack Brisco held. Can we please get the stupid chair out of there? Jarrett gets the figure four and the crowd is bordering on dead. That’s saying a lot. Oh look it’s a sleeper hold. I’m bored as hell here in case you can’t tell. DDP escapes and we’re in another sleeper. Oh great.
It’s a telling sign when a world champion challenger is using jobber offense. That’s saying a lot when you think about it. I’ve always loved that spinning powerbomb that he used if nothing else. Yep there’s your big brawl. BG James stops the guitar shot and accidentally nails Konnan with it. Oh look it’s Outlaw again. My goodness. Oy X-Pac is here. Is there a reason for all of these people being here? Nope.
The sixth person is in now as Candido gets a Diamond Cutter. There were a few I just didn’t mention. Page gets the Cutter off the middle rope and there’s your Brown heel turn. Jarrett keeps the title again. Brown joins Planet Jarrett and has sold his soul to the devil. DAMN YOU BROWN! Tenay’s words not mine. This commentary is truly laughable.
Rating: D-. There were 11 people in the ring that weren’t involved in this match. It’s Jarrett vs. Page also. That was main eventing WCW five years ago, so let’s do it now with Gunn and Pac in there. That can’t be bad can it? Yeah, apparently it can be. This was awful.
Overall Rating: F. This was one of the worst shows I can remember in forever. Actually correction on that. It wasn’t awful, but rather just completely and utterly uninteresting. I didn’t care about anything at all on here and the whole thing was just a mess. The other thing here was the overbooking. In the last two matches, the booking was WAY overdone.
This could have been passable with just the Brown turn, but having all the other guys in there was just too much. That and all the old guys taking the spotlight for far too much of the night was just too much. TNA would get better though, big time. Stay away from this one completely.
Date: March 13, 2005
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 775
Commentators: Don West, Mike Tenay
We’re very young in the modern TNA world here as this is I believe their fifth PPV. It’s still the NWA here so don’t expect much. The main event is Jeff Jarrett vs. DDP in a gimmicked named lumberjack match. Do I need to explain why I don’t think this is going to be much?
Also, say the name of the show like a big dramatic announcement: Destination….X! It sounds like a terribly cheesy movie and I love it. Since this is TNA, the name has nothing to do with the X Division, so don’t think it does. Let’s get to this.
The opening video is something about being a warrior. Of course it makes no sense at all. To be fair though I don’t care enough to think about it. Ok, two minutes is MORE than enough. The arena is TINY.
3 Live Kru/America’s Most Wanted vs. Team Canada
For those of you not familiar, 3 Live Kru was a trio of Ron Killings (R-Truth), BG James and Konnan. Here it’s minus Truth. AMW is James Storm and Chris Harris. Team Canada is Eric Young, A-1, Bobby (Robert) Roode and Petey Williams. Roode is the enforcer and the power guy here which is very odd indeed as his character is completely different today. There’s an Ultimate X match later on so that is set up over the ring, making the ring and the look of the show most odd indeed.
Roode and James start us out. Young looks like his name. AMW are the tag team champions here. Tenay says the Impact Zone has been rocking since the opening bell, which was about a minute and a half ago. Good to know Mike. They’re moving around way too fast here to keep up with the tags. It’s not interesting or anything, but they’re moving in and out quickly.
TNA was really annoying about just throwing matches on for no rhyme or reason, making it hard to care. Apparently Abyss was arrested earlier but has now been released and everything is fine. He’s got a damn good lawyer apparently. A-1 is beating up Harris. His name is Alastair Ralphs.
He’d go by A-1 later and I’m not going to type that name every time so there you are. Why does Konnan have a job? I’ve never gotten that. He couldn’t even do his own half crab. Come on man. We get the obligatory clusterfuck and Roode hits the Northern Lariat (running clothesline to the back of the head) on Konnan to get the pin.
Rating: D. This wasn’t very good at all. It ended out of nowhere which is rarely a good idea. It’s about 9 minutes long and I don’t think everyone got in. Either way, the match just went on way too long with the focus on the beginning of it if that makes sense. The problem was there was no middle and the heel domination part was like two minutes long. Just not a well thought out match at all and you could tell it was thrown together.
We go to Dusty Rhodes’ office (it’s a truck. Did you expect something else?) where Traci and Trinity are arguing over who gets to be his official assistant. This was a dumb angle that had been going on for months and it ends here. Oh look it’s Johnny Fairplay. Apparently if he can sign a team tonight he can be assistant #2. That makes me wonder: What does Dusty actually do?
Chris Sabin vs. Chase Stevens
This is pre MCMG. Stevens is with his partner Andy Douglas (they were The Naturals) and Chris Candido who was kind of their manager but kind of not. Candido would be dead in less than two month which amazes me. I always loved the HAIL SABIN thing. This is your standard insane cruiserweight match where it’s nothing but a spotfest, meaning it’s likely going to be fun as hell.
Sabin has to fight all three guys. Shame he has no one to help him fight at all. I think Candido was trying to start a stable of young guys or something like that but obviously we didn’t get to see the end of it. His gimmick of NO GIMMICKS NEEDED always amused me. Sabin finally cranks things up hitting a SWEET springboard tornado DDT. That was NICE. After some interfering he reverses a rollup to get the win. Ok then.
The heels beat him up and Shocker, not called that yet, casually runs in and beats the hell out of them for the save. Oh apparently his name is indeed Shocker and he’s been in a McDonald’s commercial. Good to know. The announcers rant about how awesome he is for WAY too long.
Rating: C-. This was ok but nothing special at all. It’s another of those matches where the pairing makes little to no sense but they get PPV time anyway. I guess it’s just supposed to be an X-Division match and have Shocker debut, but it just wasn’t interesting. Sabin of course was awesome though.
Raven vs. Dustin Rhodes
It’s a Dustin Rhodes PPV match. Take a guess what the gimmick is. Go on just take a guess. Yep, it’s the BULLROPE MATCH!!! Yep Dustin is dressed like a cowboy again. Guess who was booking at this time too. Oy it’s the cowbell too. Apparently Raven beat up Dustin at the last PPV or something like that.
Seriously, WHO IS ENTERTAINED BY THESE FUCKING THINGS??? What is the point of a bullrope? It’s a damn strap match that’s been set up after a beatdown from a month ago, but that’s certainly enough justification to put Dustin in a cowboy costume and have him invoke the spirit of TEXAS. No one other than his father has ever given two fucks about Rhodes.
People care about Goldust, not Rhodes. That’s where the problem is. Dustin Rhodes the character has ZERO charisma. He’s a country boy that has a famous daddy, nothing else. There’s your chair. We have a REALLY badly botched spot where Raven is supposed to elbow the chair from the middle rope and he doesn’t even come close.
I want to break that damn bell! And Rhodes hits the bulldog to win it. Team Canada runs in to beat him up. Why do they do that? No reason given but whatever. AMW comes in for the save.
Rating: D. I hate these damn things and I don’t care that this is biased as all hell. Dustin was terrible at these things and they were hardly ever if ever entertaining. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but he should do what Savio Vega did in these.
Savio was built up as the king of these things, allegedly having won like 50 of them in Puerto Rico. That instantly gave the match the idea of power and momentum vs. experience, which adds a new dimension to the match, which is ALWAYS a good thing. Dustin’s never did that, and it made these far worse.
We recap Phi Delta Slam vs. Disciples of Destruction. In other words, two fat guys vs. the Harris Brothers. The idea was Traci and Trinity brought in one each and there’s a match tonight. The winner gets to be Dusty’s assistant. Please make it quick.
Phi Delta Slam vs. Disciples of Destruction
The DOD are more commonly known as the Blu Brothers, Disciples of Apocalypse, Creative Control, Harris Brothers, Bruise Brothers, Harris Twins or Harris Boys. You get my point here? You might know the other two as the big guys in the Main Event Mafia that got beaten up a lot as security guards of the most elite wrestling force in TNA, which makes even less sense but whatever.
Oh and Trinity is sleeping with Dusty apparently. Give me a break. At least the girls look good. The best thing here is the entrance of Trinity who wears a robe and rips it off. Traci has MASSIVE boobs to say the least. Something tells me this is going to freaking SUCK. Well a minute in I’m right.
I think the mics are messing up a bit as you can hear the fans a lot more clearly than you usually would. The Harris Brothers are dominating here in case you care for some twisted and unclear reason. On the floor Don nails one of the fat guys with a chair. That looked pretty bad. They botch the hell out of something as it was supposed to be a double team move but it just didn’t happen at all.
There was one flaw with this match: no one wanted to watch it. That’s kind of a problem but whatever. Trinity actually looks pretty good. After a big clusterfuck (shocking isn’t it?) Trinity goes up and moonsaults to the floor. She hits Don with it and he literally doesn’t move. The visual was great as she hits her biggest move and gets NOTHING. He throws her into the crowd for fun I guess. This is just freaking not interesting at all.
That’s never a good sign at all. The fatter of the fat guys hits a top rope splash called the Hully Gully Splash. Just take me now. That leads to a switch so there we are. It allows for a big boot to end this crap.
Rating: F+. And that’s because the girls looked good. Traci did NOTHING here. Trinity was at least trying to be interesting but no one cared about the match or these teams or anything like that at all which is never a good thing. This was terrible to say the least as the styles clashed completely and it was just bad.
Dustin and AMW are talking about Team Canada and Fairplay comes up. They say he can manage them if he passes an immunity challenge. It leads to a saddle being put on him and him getting ridden like a horse.
We recap Monty Brown vs. Trytan, who I think was an alien or something like that. He had a ship. What does that tell you?
Monty Brown vs. Trytan
Oh apparently he’s the Terminator or something. He looks awesome if nothing else. Ah there’s your bumbling big man thing. Brown was a guy that was kind of cool but at the same time he was so ridiculously limited in the ring that there wasn’t much to get out of him. His name is cool if nothing else.
This show has been going on for an hour. It feels like about three times that long. Trytan hits a nice chokeslam if nothing else. Hearing West try to sound like he’s got experience is amusing. Also Brown has zero percent body fat. I didn’t think that was possible.
Brown sets for the pounce and there go the lights. A masked guy (Mideon but I don’t think that was ever said) is in there instead. He gets pinned as I guess the fact that Trytan lost 7 inches in height means nothing?
Rating: D+. This was pretty weak. They fought for about five minutes and this was supposed to be the show where we find out about Trytan. He was more or less gone after this so it meant nothing anyway. Boring match and the ending of course made no sense and of course we never got an explanation for it.
We go to Shane Douglas with DDP. There’s no Shane for no apparent reason and DDP is doing yoga in the dark. He does some cool looking stuff if nothing else.
There’s a referee running to the ring.
Abyss vs. Jeff Hardy
This is Final Assault which means hardcore. More or less they just like beating on each other. There’s no story or anything. Hardy’s theme is cool if nothing else. We see Jeff singing actually. Stick to wrestling man. Abyss is a LOT smaller now. He still has the chains here too. They had a Full Metal Mayhem match last month. Anything made of metal is legal and there are two envelopes: one has a title shot the other has nothing.
Hardy gets BOOED coming out. Abyss tries to jump him with a chair and we get a HARDY SUCKS chant. You can tell this isn’t WWE if nothing else. We’re on the floor already. At least they’re not taking much time here. We’re already into the crowd so at least they’re not taking long. If nothing else the brawling should be good. The cameraman falls down I think. Yeah this is going to be a big old gimmicky hardcore thing so that’s not terrible I suppose.
Abyss keeps setting up tables before Hardy gets up so the big man can knock him down again. There are fans there for no apparent reason. Hardy climbs up on part of the wall and hits a Swanton onto Abyss through two tables. This isn’t that good as it feels like a WWE guy trying to look like a big deal when he wasn’t a big deal. Abyss fucks up and then waits while Jeff runs at him with a BIG FREAKING CHAIR!
Abyss looks weird here for some reason. Hardy kicks out and the fans boo LOUDLY. The fans want tables. The Dudleys were coming soon. It’s ladder time. This isn’t that interesting in case you were wondering. Hardy does his jumping legdrop over the ladder onto Abyss. Hardy gets a rollup and shoves Abyss off before the pin. Please just end this freaking thing already. Ok it’s not terrible, but it’s just not interesting at all.
Jeff taking his shirt off gets one of the biggest pops of the night. And he gets powerbombed from the top through a table. Naturally there’s no cover on that or anything like that. Why waste time covering or something stupid like that? In one of the WORST endings ever, Jeff hits a “Twist of Fate” onto Abyss onto a ladder.
It doesn’t even get within two feet of the damn ladder but of course it gets the pin. Post match Abyss beats the hell out of him and gets the tacks. Yep he gets the Black Hole Slam onto the tacks to a POP.
Rating: D+. This was ok but I just wanted it to end. That’s never a good thing. The falls count anywhere thing meant very little indeed and it was just a way to get a hardcore match again. There was no point here and nothing but lots of time between spots. This was pretty freaking weak.
Team Canada is celebrating…something. Oh fuck it it’s Johnny Fairplay again. NO ONE CARES!
We see clips from last month where Billy Gunn and X-Pac debuted. Oh and Gunn is the Outlaw now. BG James is involved in this somehow. You know, because we can’t have anything but Kliq members hanging out and fighting right?
Outlaw vs. Kevin Nash
This is first blood. No particular reason for it but whatever. Oh he’s Kip James apparently. Seriously is Kip James the best name you could give him? Honestly? Let’s remind us that Nash has won a bunch of titles in WCW and WWE, but never the NWA Title. Oh dear. Wait, according to Vince that’s the same thing so whatever. Nash still has the really short hair here and looks like an idiot because of it.
James is working on the knee which at least makes sense here. Wait a minute, no it doesn’t. It’s FIRST BLOOD. Why wouldn’t you go after the head? Oh that’s right: It’s Billy Gunn in TNA. Hey, let’s try to drive a screwdriver into the head of a man. That’s not bad at all. Gunn goes with a chair instead. Well at least he’s trying to kill him with a less violent method. Gunn stops the offense to use wire cutters to cut a turnbuckle pad off.
The referee goes down but I have no idea how that happened. Oh never mind. I just don’t care. Nash hits Snake Eyes onto the buckle and there’s no referee so cue up the screwjob music. Jarrett runs out and nails Nash with the belt and the physician or someone runs in to clean things up. An attorney made him I think. Oh good night this is dumb. West isn’t helping at all either. Yep there’s the bell and Nash loses.
Rating: D+. It’s not bad but I just didn’t care at all. No one cares about Gunn anymore and no wrestling company accepts that. First Blood matches tend to suck anyway but they’re easy ways to get cheap heel heat I guess. Not that anyone can tell the difference in TNA though between faces and heels.
We look back at Daniels vs. AJ from last month for the X Title in a very good Iron Man match, and hear that it’s time for the Ultimate X Challenge. Note: Ultimate X Challenge, not Match.
X-Division Title: Ron Killings vs. Elix Skipper vs. AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels
And TNA’s booking continues to make my head freaking throb. Here’s how it works. We start with Daniels/Killings vs. Skipper/Styles in a regular tag match. Whoever gets pinned is eliminated and we start a triple threat match. THEN after someone loses there, we start the Ultimate X match. You know, because Daniels and Styles can’t have their own Ultimate X match.
They’re just not capable of putting on a match on their own or anything like that right? Perish the thought! AJ is still in the shorts here which never worked that well for him. We start with Truth (Killings is R-Truth in case you didn’t know) vs. Skipper. Something tells me this isn’t going to be that good. Somehow AJ and Truth botch a leapfrog. That’s kind of hard to do I think.
Now we get the whole point of this match: Daniels vs. Styles, which brings the fans to life for once. The only flaw is no one believes either are going to be pinned because it’s clear how it’s going to come down to those two. We go back to the darker skinned men with Killings hitting an axe kick off the top rope which is something different if nothing else.
Daniels, like an idiot, saves Skipper. And then Skipper hits a Kryptonite Krunch (over the shoulder piledriver that Nova invented) to get rid of Killings and take us to a triple threat.
Daniels, in a COOL spot, goes up to the cables and sits on the X (in case you don’t know what Ultimate X is, there’s a big X made of cable hanging over the ring made of two cables. Where they intersect the belt is hanging and whoever can climb up and use the ropes to get the belt wins) before moonsaulting backwards to hit the other two. Cool spot.
To my total SHOCK, yes SHOCK I say, we move to a spotfest. AJ tries to do a shooting star from the cables but it doesn’t go well at all. It looked great in the setup but he didn’t get it right but it was hard as hell looking so there we are. Daniels gets a rollup on Skipper to set up Ultimate X.
So we have AJ vs. Daniels for the title. You know, LIKE IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ALL ALONG! Daniels goes for the belt almost immediately with AJ down. AJ gets the Pele which is always sweet. It also always gives West an orgasm which is an image I don’t work. West says that AJ is simply phenomenal, which might be the debut of the name. And now it’s time to play some chicken, which never gets old.
In a SWEET looking spot, AJ is climbing across the rope and Daniels jumps at him and hits a huge STO. That looked AWESOME. See, here’s the proof of why TNA makes no sense half the time: this right here is solid stuff. That makes me wonder why we needed the tag and triple threat. That was seventeen minutes long. Are you telling me that we couldn’t have had this go on for those seventeen minutes?
AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels are incapable of going 25 minutes? And amazingly, AJ gets the belt down after a ref bump. Daniels steals the belt and the referee wakes up to see him with it and Daniels is champion. You know why it’s amazing? WE SAW IT IN THE LAST MATCH!
Rating: D. That’s for all three stages. This is the living definition of overbooking. You have AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels and yet you can’t have them go out there and steal the show? TNA continues to attempt to outdo themselves and they shoot themselves in the foot. The first two parts were ok at best but the third part was good. That’s the dumb part of this and it made my head hurt.
Johnny Fairplay talks more. I hate this guy more and more. Not in the way I’m supposed to either. I don’t watch wrestling to see “reality stars”. Get off my screen.
We recap DDP vs. Jarrett. There are people who are outside who have been hurt by Jarrett. Note: THEY ARE NOT LUMBERJACKS. Oh dear. In short, this is really about Dusty Rhodes vs. Jarrett and DDP got brought into it. And people wonder why the NWA is deader than hell.
NWA World Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Diamond Dallas Page
Ok so the odds are totally against DDP. Take a guess as to what’s going to happen here. Jarrett had been champion about 9 months at this point. DDP’s catchphrase has been IT’S TIME. Can anything be new in this damn company? The lumberjacks here are Monty Brown, 3 Live Kru, Larry Zbyszko, Chris Candido, the Naturals and Mr. Daggett, the attorney. Yeah apparently Jarrett has guys there too.
Oh just remember though: this is NOT a lumberjack match. DDP does his old thing again as he goes through the fans. That actually is a good idea. I love Jarrett’s My World song if nothing else. Ok seriously, that’s the third time Tenay has said the people can’t touch either guy and aren’t lumberjacks. My question: if they can’t touch anyone, why are they freaking there then???
There’s some decent heat on Jarrett if nothing else. Yep, we’re in the Memphis stalling session already. Jarrett argues with Monty Brown on the floor. I’d put money on Brown turning heel and costing Page the title. They were in the ring all of a minute and now we’re in the stands and so on. We’re at about 5 minutes of brawling on the floor at this point. Hey Jarrett is in the ring! Page…not so much.
There’s a wheeled chair in the ring now. Oh and Jarrett is spinning! This is for the same title that Dory Funk Jr. and Jack Brisco held. Can we please get the stupid chair out of there? Jarrett gets the figure four and the crowd is bordering on dead. That’s saying a lot. Oh look it’s a sleeper hold. I’m bored as hell here in case you can’t tell. DDP escapes and we’re in another sleeper. Oh great.
It’s a telling sign when a world champion challenger is using jobber offense. That’s saying a lot when you think about it. I’ve always loved that spinning powerbomb that he used if nothing else. Yep there’s your big brawl. BG James stops the guitar shot and accidentally nails Konnan with it. Oh look it’s Outlaw again. My goodness. Oy X-Pac is here. Is there a reason for all of these people being here? Nope.
The sixth person is in now as Candido gets a Diamond Cutter. There were a few I just didn’t mention. Page gets the Cutter off the middle rope and there’s your Brown heel turn. Jarrett keeps the title again. Brown joins Planet Jarrett and has sold his soul to the devil. DAMN YOU BROWN! Tenay’s words not mine. This commentary is truly laughable.
Rating: D-. There were 11 people in the ring that weren’t involved in this match. It’s Jarrett vs. Page also. That was main eventing WCW five years ago, so let’s do it now with Gunn and Pac in there. That can’t be bad can it? Yeah, apparently it can be. This was awful.
Overall Rating: F. This was one of the worst shows I can remember in forever. Actually correction on that. It wasn’t awful, but rather just completely and utterly uninteresting. I didn’t care about anything at all on here and the whole thing was just a mess. The other thing here was the overbooking. In the last two matches, the booking was WAY overdone.
This could have been passable with just the Brown turn, but having all the other guys in there was just too much. That and all the old guys taking the spotlight for far too much of the night was just too much. TNA would get better though, big time. Stay away from this one completely.
