My Destination X Rant

[Guest DylanWaco]

I've posted it at the other two boards I frequent, why not here.

 

Though no one will care now, because it's already "late" in the IWC scheme of things, there are my thoughts on tonight's ppv.

 

The opener was just awful. I realize people love Shelley has alot of fans and I like Lethal more than I probably should, but what the fuck was going on here? The entire opening mat sequence, which went on forever was really slowed down and delibrate, but not in that good "I want to inflict pain on you, so I'm going to take time and concentrate deeply on the application of this vicious knucklelock"..no..it was slowed down and delibrate in that "hi I'm Ashley from the Raw diva search watch me robotically roll through this clearly pre-planned sequence of contrived reversals and pointless resthold exchanges". Just terrible. No real hot moves here either, as we basically get shit "spot-fu" offense in a "spot-fu" match which basically makes unwatchable. To top it off Lethal plays to the crowd after hitting some half assed offensive move seemingly because Shelley hasn't had time to call the next slow motion shit spot. I haven't read anyone elses thoughts in this thread, and I fully expect at least some people to slam me for this, but this match was fucking terrible. Lethal is better as a more athletically gifted Mikey Whipwreck than as this quasi-competitive X division guy who is exposed by his total lack of expierence and "OMFUCK" X division offense...either that or Shelley sucks ass. Can't tell here.

 

Hoyt and Bentley was pretty bad, but I didn't expect much. Bentley got in some nice bumps at the beginning and my god is he a Michaels clone with his mannerisms. It's kind of pathetic, even if he would likely be a much better wrestler if he leaned on those tendencies more. Highlight of the match was Hoyt eating a shitty top rope neckbreaker and inexplicably selling his back. How the hell is he even on tv? Seriously this is the kind of match that would have been perfectably acceptable and maybe even surprisingly cool at your local trash indy, that runs in a high school gym in front of sixty people, most of whom are just there to see the gym teacher ref the main event. But that shit don't fly on ppv.

 

I confess that The Naturals and Canadians is a matchup that I liked, even though there was way too many "what the hell is going on here?" moments for me to really rate it highly on the constellation chart. Still these guys were working at full speed and busting there ass and they looked like that had been compotently trained by real professionals, which is more than I can say for the prior two matchups. Honest to god something is wrong when you are three matches into a show and the best two workers so far are Bobby Rood and Eric Young. Then again maybe not, as Young bumps around like a fucking nutcase here, nearly dying on a top rope drop face first to the floor, and Rood hits some similarly great bumps, plus some cool snappy and directed offense when he gets his chances. Someone needs to tell these guys that repeated spots from the match right before is pretty stupid, and someone really ought to tell West that pointing it out is even stupidier (yeah, I said it). I'm still trying to figure out who in the hell Chase Stevens was trying to hit on that pescada and I'll be god damned if the match didn't fall apart at the end which I'll just blame on the six sided ring for convenience sake, but the guys tried and there was so moments in this match where I thought "this was worth spending money on..maybe", which puts it several notches up from the rest of the nights offerings up to this point.

 

James Gang and Bullet v. LAX was pretty much what I expected so I can't sit here and bitch and cry because I'd be being totally dishonest. More evidence that BG sells well. Kip as this really over "badass" in the Impact Zone is terribly discrediting for the company given his WWE history, but what can you do. Bullet Bob's hilariously awful punches on Konan at the announce desk top the Hoyt neckbreaker sell on the "so embarrasing it's good" scale for the night.

 

Fuck the four way X Division match was good as shit for some reason. Usually I'm left annoyed and unfulfilled with these type of things, because I'm not a huge fan of spotfest and I really hate multi-men singles matches, but this is probably the single best multi-man match I've seen done in this style. Sabin was the best I have ever seen him actually, as I usually hate the guy and he was going batshit hitting his spots, counters and transitions perfectly. I liked that he fed off the crowd to which kept this from being a total track meet. Actually the pacing in general was much better thant he average match like this as they seemed to segment it out and give each guy a time to shine but with more controlled segments instead of the fucking nonsense mad dash for chaos shit that happens 90 percent of the time. When they finally got to that point the guys were doing fresh stuff which made it even better. Puma's rope stall was a nice bit for the "missed spot into a connecting dive" spot that TNA loves. Actually the whole diving segment was the best I've ever seen done in TNA. The finishing sequence was very well done also. This match was easily the best match on the show.

 

If you are gonna run some would be ECW clusterfuck of a tag match you've gotta give people a better payoff than what we got here. Honestly the out of the ring brawling segment that started the match was really fucking good, with Rhino and Abyss giving us a nice tease on the gore spot from the deck and Jarrett and Killings trading blows on the table being great visuals. Then they got back to the ring and it became just another tag match. Man Rhino really seemed to be trying here as he hit a pescada early and really impressed me with the press slam on Jarrett, but why in the hell you would set him up as the FIP in a match with Ron Killings and D-Von readily available is beyond my understanding. Killings getting the hot tag as the monster babyface was even more confusing even if I do think he has been rejuvanated in recent weeks. I gotta say that the Dudley's still control the crowd as good as anyone in the business and the gratitious woman beating factor is as over as ever, but the end to this match was totally out of the blue and a real downer. I wouldn't have thought much ot it anyhow, but still.

 

Ultimate X was a disastor waiting to happen. The fact that this match was clearly booked for the sole purpose of getting the X division belt off of Joe without him having to suffer a clear one on one loss is even more annoying. Pretty much the same match we've seen a hundred times before, except not as good. Joe seemed frustrated at times, which may have been the story, but that doesn't explain Daniels visibly calling spots to him in the corner, moments before Joe lifts himself up for a Daniels Iconoclasm variation thingy. The double musclebuster was like an anti-markout moment for me and I really could go without seeing this type of match ever again. Daniels winning in that fashion was just blah and the match was smoked by the earlier X Divison match. Up to this point, that's the worst Joe match I've ever seen by a big margin.

 

Christian/Monty..well what can be said really. Monty is a charismatic worker who sucks and Christian is a charismatic talker, who's charisma doesn't translate very well in the ring so what the hell can be expected. Monty did bring some nice offense actually and his chops were vicious. I suppose the story was Christian's ribs, and they tried to make it the focus, but Christian is just really boring and unsympathetic most of the time so it didn't work out so well. Christian did take some nice bumps and hit a really cool top rope senton, but the unprettier came out of nowhere like the finish on half the nights matches, plus it's a really shitty finisher even by modern wrestling standards.

 

The post match beatdown with Sting taking forever to make the save and the Big Poppa Pump was kinda cool in a wierd way I guess. Steiner did hit some nice suplexes which was surprising. I also enjoyed the fact that he shit talked throughout the whole segment with impunity which was funny since I think that he's got less to lose than before and is even more likely than ever to kill a fan for fun.

 

Another day, another TNA ppv I guess.

 

Oh yeah AJ made a gay joke, BG called hispanics a mud race, and Bubba asked D-Von for Ebonics lessons.

 

What a night.

[Guest Cam Chaos]

Joe went blind in one eye halfway through the match and they had to cut it short apparently, which explains the substandard performance.

[Coffey]

The opener was just awful.

I disagree. Honestly, I voted it as MOTN. I liked it more than Ultimate-X and the 4-Way.

I really could go without seeing this type of match ever again.

Agreed. I hate the Ultimate-X gimmick.

Christian did take some nice bumps and hit a really cool top rope senton.

Which "the professor" Mike Tenay, with all of his wrestling knowledge, labeled a "back splash."

[Guest DylanWaco]

That Shelley/Lethal match getting so much praise in places is puzziling to me. I just watched it again, and I actually think it's gotten worse.

 

But to each there own I guess.

[Coffey]

I prefer ground-based submission wrestling to high-flying lucha wrestling. It's why I like AmDrag and loathe Styles.

[sek69]

It's funny to see the evolution of acceptable wrestling. A few years ago, submission wrestling was widely bashed as being boring and high flying was where it's at. Now it's cool to bash high flyers as "spot monkeys" and people seemingly want every match to look like a MMA contest.

[Loss]

Very simple fan psychology. Fans want what they're getting the least of the majority of the time.

[Guest DylanWaco]

I prefer ground-based submission wrestling to high-flying lucha wrestling. It's why I like AmDrag and loathe Styles.

 

 

I do also.

 

I just prefer the groundwork to be good and not highly contrived and slowed down with no emphasis on applying pain.