Tonight, Sting makes the first defense of his 11th World Title reign as he faces off with former champion Jeff Hardy. Also, a new #1 Contender will be named as Rob Van Dam takes on Mr. Anderson. Read on for my thoughts on TNA Victory Road, as it happens.
Nice fire in the opening promo by Ray.
That match had a "fans bring the weapons" vibe to part of it. They'd have gotten more mileage out of it if they announced a stipulation in advance, but it was good nonetheless.
Kind of a convoluted ending to the Knockouts tag match. Not that I'm one to talk given some of my booking suggestions. The difference is that TNA does this fairly regularly and my suggestions are one step towards making things work better.
II liked Matt Morgan's promo because it tied things back to the TNA World Title. With the exception of Knockouts, Tag Team wrestlers, and X-Division guys, the World Title should be a big goal for pretty much everyone else in TNA. And not just because they hate the current design.
The "fake blood" ending was clever in one way and head-scratching in others. When you get as much flak for BS endings as TNA does, you have to be careful with things like that.
Gen Me's interview was simultaneously stupid and effective. "GTX" cracked me up, too. I have an odd sense of humor, obviously. I don't think comedy should be too big a part of wrestling, but some people do it so well that it's better than if they were serious (Santino, Colt Cabana). Christian and Kurt Angle had stints early in their careers where they had good comedy characters, and have since branched off.
On to my X-Division rant that got erased when Firefox crashed:
I used to love the X-Division. I really did. Around 2005-2006 I thought it was the best thing in wrestling, because I had never seen anything like it (WWE's Cruiserweight Division paled in comparison). But eventually, I stopped. Every match started to look the same. Every spot had been done multiple times over. The matches became (or perhaps always were) just excuses to show off flashy moves instead of simulated competition. And eventually, my favorite part of wrestling became one of, if not my single least favorite thing in wrestling. It's basically telling the audience "forget about ring psychology and storytelling for a second, here's a bunch of flashy moves".
I appreciate that they're able to do things like that with their bodies. It truly is amazing. But when you see it so much, it all blends together. There are wrestlers who use such moves to enhance their matches (Rey Mysterio, Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, etc.) and there are wrestlers who use them in place of having actual wrestling psychology. The difference is that the first group of guys get further in their careers, and the second group of guys get replaced by younger guys who do different moves.
Anyway, moving on. Another tag team teases a split. It seems like this happens all the time in wrestling. Obviously it makes sense sometimes, but I don't really see a reason to split up Ink, Inc. with the tag division in such a relatively sorry state (and a number of other teams split up or teasing it).
I'm not really sure what the difference between assholes and douchebags is in Mr. Anderson's use of the words. What does one do that the other doesn't? Maybe it's a case of "even assholes have standards".
Another mess of an ending with Anderson and RVD. They pull these off too often I think.
TNA's lucky that I haven't taken to using image macros for their shows. Sting-Hardy was really bad and out there. TNA throws in too many stipulations and characters into their stories.
So, those are my thoughts on another "mixed bag" PPV outing. I'll have more thoughts on Raw tomorrow and a new post is upcoming.
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