Wednesday 22 July 2009

TNA Victory Road 2009 - Results & Review

TNA's last outing, Slammiversary, was the best show that they put on in ages. So the hope here was that they would use that momentum and build upon it. They didn't...

Angelina Love defeated Tara to win the Knockouts Title
It was a bit of a strange way to open the show with a women's match, and the match didn't deliver all that much. Both girls are solid workers, but if they were given more time further down the card it would have been much better. The ending was awful whereby Tara missed a moonsault and got pinned, but she got her foot on the bottom rope which would normally break the count, however the referee didn't see it. Considering too that Tara only picked up the title 2 weeks ago, it was a farcical way to open the show.

Backstage in the locker room of the Main Event Mafia, Kurt Angle told us "Do not expect a quality main event match". Ouch. Imagine the folks that paid for this show actually hearing that. Then he tells his gang that "if you lose, you are fired from the Mafia", which practically gave away the results of the other matches. What a laughably bad opening to the show.

Matt Morgan defeated Christopher Daniels
Daniels had a legit knee injury going into this match and they played off it well, and he performed a bit better than was to be expected with an injury. There was a good story behind the match with Morgan working it over to the point where Daniels couldn't hit his trademark top rope finisher. Morgan gets the win he needed over an established wrestler to look like a proper upper card guy. Not sure what they are doing with Daniels, he has been in limbo ever since he returned which is disappointing.

Abyss defeated Dr. Stevie in a No-DQ match
Basically an extended squash brawl with carnage about the arena whereby Abyss dominated. He used a 'taser' at the end on Stevie which gave off smoke, but was terribly silly. This appears to be the blow-off to this feud, which in fairness has been pretty good.

Team 3D (Brothers Ray & Devon) defeated The British Invasion (Doug Williams & Brutus Magnus) to retain the IWGP Tag Team Titles
Those tag belts actually belong to the New Japan promotion and not TNA, so a title switch was always unlikely. It was a decent enough match, if not a little formulaic (bad guys work over a good guy, goodie makes the hot tag to his partner, then they clean house). Williams has always been solid and working with veterans can only help Magnus' development. There is room to go back to the well once more with these guys I feel.

Jenna Morasca defeated Sharmell
Well...erm, Morasca had a rather interesting ring entrance. Now let's never speak of this mess again in what will certain to be one of the contenders for 'Worst Match Of The Year'.

Kevin Nash defeated A.J. Styles to win the Legends Title
Ugh, Nash shouldn't even be wrestling. Really slow match and went on way longer than needed. Styles done his best, but not even he could elevate the quality. I'd like to think that they made Styles drop the belt in order to give him a serious World Title push, but I fear I would be giving TNA way too much credit.

Booker T & Scott Steiner defeated Beer Money (Robert Roode & James Storm) to win the World Tag Team Titles
Ugh, Steiner shouldn't even be wrestling. Another boring match too. Dumb spot whereby Storm spat beer in his opponent's eyes and then the referee couldn't make the pinfall count as he was feigning temporary blindness even though he was nowhere near the incident. I honestly couldn't tell you what the plans are for Beer Money at this moment in time.

Samoa Joe defeated Sting
The finish was botched as Sting forgot what was supposed to happen. It was very noticeable too which made matters worse. The other point of note is that Taz made his TNA début as Joe's advisor. He came out and...done nothing. You think that they would have let him cut a promo.

Kurt Angle defeated Mick Foley to retain the World Heavyweight Title
Really boring match that never seemed to get out of first gear. Afterwards the Mafia all came out to celebrate with their titles.

Overall
This was a terrible show with TNA back to their bad old tricks of silly finishes and nonsensical booking. It was really bad to see the likes of Styles & Beer Money drop their titles to pensioners. Only the Daniels/Morgan & Team 3D/British Invasion matches came anywhere close to being decent. After the surprisingly good show last month, this one was a horrible mess. A huge disappointment.

No comments: