James: Everyone, we have reached our final stop. The end is here. For the most part, the shows we’ve been talking about this whole time have been shows that were lost to time, completely out of mind for wrestling fans. It was almost like we were treading new ground, because I doubt many people were revisiting Mr Anderson’s TNA Title run or EV2.0 against Immortal. When the Broken Hardy stuff exists, why would people watch Cold Blood Matt Hardy? But this show, this show doesn’t have the same anonymity. It doesn’t have that luxury. Now on the final episode of this arc of the Power Hour. We cover TNA’s most infamous Pay Per View ever.
Seán: It’s a show smothered with controversy, fuck finishes and the most infamous main event possibly in wrestling history. It’s the end of the road for the era of The Antichrist and unlike one half of the name of this PPV, old Jeffrey Nero ain’t going out in victory. It’s Victory Road 2011, the finale of Season 2 of The Power Hour!
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Happy Days are here again!!
JT: Hellooooo everyone and welcome back to the Power Hour. And Seán, we made it to the end! We’re finally at the end of this TNA Arc of ours. We’ve made it all the way from Bound For Glory to Victory Road!! What a journey it’s been, but man did we save the best for last or what? Because right off the bat I’m just gonna say, fuck me this show.
S: We couldn’t go three messages without mentioning the quality of this show, could we? It was too big of an elephant in the room not to address it early on. Yeah this show was a fucking drag, like it’s a difficult watch. We’ll explain why as the show goes on but how’re you feeling anyways, James?
JT: I mean you say this show is a drag, but honestly I’m super excited because of that. Like, I disagree that it’s a drag because this show is so cursed that there is something to talk about with every little moment. There is nonsense and ridiculousness at every turn, and because of that I’m very excited to get into this one. What about you though, how are you feeling?
S: Same as you really, I’m also really excited to talk about this one. It’s just nice when we get to the end of a storyline like we did with season one, it’s a great feeling because we’re leaving something we enjoyed in the past and moving on to pastures green. I’m in a good mood to nip this one in the bud and reveal what we do have planned for season 3.
JT: Yeah it’s always a great feeling to finish off something you’ve been working on, especially with a project like this. Nothing like looking back and having perspective on everything that’s happened, for better or for worse. I can’t wait to get to looking at the best, and the worst from this arc as a whole.
S: I think it’s safe to say that we’ve already had the best TNA has had to offer in this arc and soon enough, we’re about to knee deep into the dross, it’s going to be bollocks and maybe emotional.
JT: I agree, I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I take a page from old Vinny Jones’s playbook: IT’S GONNA BE EMOTIONAL!! But that’ll be much later. Now emotions now, just cold hard statistical facts. Seán, hit me with them fact and figures, how many poor souls paid for this show?
S: TNA Victory Road 2011! The final chapter in this story! Coming to us from our stomping grounds, the Impact Zone in Orlando, Florida. Taking place on March 13th 2011, ten (10 10?) days after the pivotal episode of Impact which saw Sting dethrone The Antichrist. This show pulled out 10,000 PPV buys. 1,100 in attendance as per usual, Mike Tenay and Tazz on commentary and our theme song is ‘All I Want’ by A Day to Remember! One of my favourite bands!
JT: You and I talked about this a bit beforehand, while A Day to Remember would have more successful projects, they were coming off their most successful album to date, with November 2010’s “What Separates Me from You” peaking at #11 on the US Charts, selling 500,000 copies. They also had their highest charting single in 2010, which is actually tonight’s theme song! Surprised they didn’t give nod to them, but then again TNA haven’t been advertising their theme song all that much this whole arc, so it figures.
S: Yeah this album and song is such a great one, as are all their albums in my opinion. Definitely one of the better bands from the late 2000’s and throughout the last decade, it’s a big snag for TNA, surprised TNA wouldn’t give them further exposure with the plug.
JT: So as far as sales, it’s at least more than the dismal 8000 of Against All Odds, but still only half of Genesis (and next month’s Lockdown). But looking at it as a whole, it’s just kind of middle of the road for TNA PPVs in the arc. Are you surprised by this at all?
S: Not particularly man, there really isn’t much you’d buy this show for so I can see why the buys are at this number and when you look at the TNA PPV statistics from 2011, man are they so damn low, like this buy rate is in the top half of PPV buys. Six shows did lower than this, one show did the same amount and four shows did more so this PPV is joint fifth for the year.
JT: Not particularly man, there really isn’t much you’d buy this show for so I can see why the buys are at this number and when you look at the TNA PPV statistics from 2011, man are they so damn low, like this buy rate is in the top half of PPV buys. Six shows did lower than this, one show did the same amount and four shows did more so this PPV is joint fifth for the year.
S: Barely any mention of Angle at all, the TNA Television Title and Abyss haven’t been mentioned since Genesis, although I do think Abyss has gone down with an injury. No Madison, Mickie or Tara. Very strange card.
JT: Also, as I will lament once again, no Motor City Machine Guns, bringing the counter up to 3 shows in a row. So sad to think that the final counter on this arc ended up being 4 shows with them, 3 shows without them. Hell, if you count or bonus episodes, that’s half the arc with no Shelley & Sabin. I mean, why live honestly?
S: What is the point man? They were the glue holding this vase together and then they stopped appearing. I miss Jay Lethal too, honestly, like the lack of character he had at this stage is clearly apparent but he added so much to the in-ring side of things. Feel like pure shit, just want MCMG and Lethal back.
JT: Even a Doug Williams? Please?
S: He’s too busy being murdered by Hernandez and waiting for The British Invasion to reform, mate.
JT: Well you know what? At this point, we know what we’ve signed on for. No time for sour grapes, we dug our own grave by doing 2010-2011 TNA and expecting a base level of competency.
S: Exactly, it’s time to lay in this bed for burial so how about we start off this stinker?
JT: It’s time to rip off the bandaid. We’re doing it, Victory Road 2011, 10 years to the day. Here goes nothing.
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Dreamers of Days Gone By
JT: It’s time for our first match of this infamous show, and hey, for all our complaints about the roster, it’s Against All Odds MVP-nominee Bully Ray!! And he’s got some hardcore plunder with him!!
S: Not only that but Bully has got some words which he feels the need to get off his chest, doesn’t he, James?
JT: That he does! After getting the microphone from SoCal Val, harassment included, he takes some time to thank God for Hulk Hogan & Eric Bischoff, men who take a company to the top. They believe in him, and he’s gotten real close to them as of late. Gotta love Bully acting like he’s a singles star, someone who can do it on his own, unlike Devon, immediately sucking up to Immortal for cheap hands out and backup. Real tough, siding with the powers that be. As Mick Foley would’ve said in like 1996, there’s nothing more Hardcore than Eric Bischoff. Meanwhile, the crowd chants that he sucks, and they want Devon.
S: He’s gotta channel that hardcore energy somehow and Easy E is definitely the energy Bully Ray needs. Bully doesn’t want Devon though despite the crowd chanting for him and instead, Bully calls out and gets, making his first appearance since Turning Point, it’s Tommy Dreamer!
JT: Tommy is back! And man, I wasn’t expecting this at all. I mean I didn’t check the card right before I watched this, so when I saw Bully out there with the trash can, I was like “Oh sweet, Dudleys Street Fight! That sounds good”. And then out came Tommy. Not that Tommy is bad necessarily, it was just an “….Oh it’s Tommy vs Bully isn’t it?”.
S: Yeah, like this certainly feels weird, especially considering they were gonna climax the feud with Devon getting the big win but here we are, a match straight off of Raw for the Hardcore Title in 2002.
JT: I mean I can understand kicking the Bully/Devon payoff down the road, they’ve done that before for other feuds in this arc, but like is there any reason this isn’t Devon/Bully tonight? Like what’s the kayfabe for Tommy stepping in and Devon not being in this match instead? Is Devon taking care of his kids or something?
S: We would look deeper into this but honestly, this is like the last day of school for us so we’re just dossing about but do expect insight people.
JT: Look, if it’s not on a Wikipedia page and it’s not said on commentary, I’m not gonna know it. What I do know, that only makes things more confusing, is that Tommy got in a Street Fight with Bully on Impact not too long before this show, which Devon interfered in. He got a measure of revenge, but I guess it’s not enough and that’s why…Tommy is fighting him….I just don’t understand. So as Tommy comes out Bully keeps trash talking him, saying he’s surprised Tommy found his balls, and also mentioning that he broke Tommy’s wife’s neck once. You gotta give all the ECW guys credit, most of them kept kayfabe continuity alive, they never missed a chance to bring up some moment from the past.
S: Oh they’ll always try to squeeze out all the ECW lore they can. They never miss the chance to do it, ya gotta respect it.
JT: Now up in Tommy’s face, Bully tells him that this match, it is no Falls Count Anywhere, because he, Eric & Hulk, they’re like this 🤞🏻. But before he can cheap shot Dreamer, Tommy counters and we’re off to the races! Anything to add before we get into our opening contest?
S: Not really man, Bully cut a good promo as he normally does and Dreamer’s theme is very crap. Let’s kick it off!
JT: Glad we had a chance to hear Woman Outside of the Box one more time. So the fight is on! Tommy with a Crossbody and mounted punches on Bully. He goes for Bulldog out of the corner but Bully blocks, hits him with a clothesline, but takes a second to taunt and misses a big elbow drop. They go to the floor, that’s right it’s a Bubba special: walk and brawl!! Fighting alongside the outside, using the guardrail and all that. Tommy has a fan hold up a chair, then throws Bully into the chair, which was fun for that one fan. Tommy spits water at him, he hits with a bottle. Then by god, it’s fucking 2011. Tommy plucks a big stuffed minion, from the crowd, which gets a pop. Before the damn things became a curse on daily life, it’s worth noting people actually liked the first film and the wacky side characters (despite being inferior to actually good 2010 animated villain film Megamind, fight me). The first Despicable Me only came out the July before this, and the little yellow shits hadn’t made their way to Facebook just yet. How little they knew of those things’s destructive powers…well actually Tommy was apparently since he bonked Bully with it. Also Taz is completely in the dark about what that is. Odd considering his kid would’ve been in the sweet spot to be obsessed with Despicable Me. I mean his only son Tyler is only a few months older than I am, and I remember Despicable Me and the Minions being everywhere when I was 11, but maybe I just had bad taste. I mean most 11 year olds do.
S: Yeah Despicable Me was a good success for Universal at this stage and the Minions weren’t completely overexposed at that point. They were just the wacky sidekicks and not the main selling points they’d become by 2013 when the sequel came out.
JT: So in walk & brawl tradition, they make their way over the barricade and up the stairs into the crowd, then right back down the stairs and out of the crowd. Bully finally gets a moment of momentum as he crotches Tommy on guardrail. We also get this funny moment where Bully trash talks to the crowd, and for the life of me I can’t understand what he’s saying. But in more serious matters, he uses a kendo stick to scare SoCal Val out of her seat so he can take her chair. He lines up Tommy on the stairs but misses with the chair. They brawl back into the ring, Dreamer off the top with a kendo stick to the face. And now, along with other plunder from under the ring, out comes a blowup aka or “JB’s friend” as Taz says. Tommy cracks Bully upside the head with a metal thing, Bully flops out right into 69 on the doll. Nice, even though this is “Not a 3 way match” according to Tenay. Dreamer goes up from there, but Bully hits him with the metal thing and follows up with a Superplex. Oh and an elbow drop on the doll for good measure. Prop comedy!
S: A spot I’m sure Dreamer would book on countless occasions at various House of Hardcore shows.
JT: So with Tommy on the ropes, Bully goes for the Bully Bomb, but Tommy escapes the full nelson and hits a DDT. Just as the crowd chants for Tables, Tommy gets them what they want. He brings it in the ring, half opens it, maybe looking Piledriver through it but he gets back body drop, then a trash can to the face. The crowd chants for Devon as Tommy fights out of a Uranage but gets a boot. Bully sets the table up, grabs a mic and a kendo stick, and starts wailing on Dreamer while trash talking him and the fans. Just as he’s ready to end it, he says “This is for you Devon” and right on cue Devon’s music hits. Bully starts preparing for Devon to come out, but it’s a takeout as it’s Terrance & Tarrel, one in a neckbrace still after AAO. Bully seems to have no problem taking them both on, but little does he notice Devon coming through the crowd, getting right behind him. Bully turns, and BAM!! How about a little of your own medicine!! 3D, Devon & Dreamer put him right through the table!! Tommy covers, 1—2—3!! A little more revenge for Tommy & Devon!! The crowd are happy, Dreamer & Devon are happy, are you happy Seán?
S: Moderately happy, I guess? I mean it’s the bog standard No DQ match that you’d expect from these two lads at this stage in their careers. I don’t get how in a No DQ, Falls Count Anywhere Match, a Bully Ray pinfall can be broken by Dreamer getting his foot on the rope. That ain’t in my rulebook. I do think the ending was fitting, Bully Ray being pissed about Sabin kicking out of 3D and then he gets beat with his own move. That was probably my favourite part of the match. What about yourself?
JT: Like you said, kinda happy I guess? Like I do think it’s kind of a step down for Bully. Last month he was a child killer, making Devon cry and beg for mercy, only to show him none. He was a vile, unredeemable POS at AAO. This time around, he was doing silly blow up doll spots and getting bonked by a minion. But I can’t be too mad, the Dudleys have always had an element of silliness that’s never truly gone away. And the finish is pretty good. I think it’s easily the best finish to a match tonight, although that’s definitely more about the quality of this show than it is about the quality of this match.
S: Yeah the fact that we peak here at the start of a show and we’ve got another two and a half hours says a lot in regard to what we’re working with here.
JT: On a stronger show, I might’ve been harsher to this, because I really did tune out for a good portion of the walk & brawl stuff on the outside, which makes up a good chunk of this match. That sort of wrestling just is nothing, unless I’m there in the arena for it. But since this show is what it is, I’ll just be nice and say it was kinda silly but overall fun.
S: Yeah there’s nothing wrong with it but it’s nothing that stands out with it. It’s just a fun silly match to warm up the crowd, later we’ll see this crowd turn stone cold.
S: And not in a “HOLY FUCKING SHIT STONE COLD IS HERE” or even as ravenous as people were for Stone Cold’s turn, in 2001. It’s gonna get ugly folks. Strap in.
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Damn all these Beautiful People
JT: Up next, we’ve got ourselves an interview with The Beautiful People and Winter, before Angelina & Winter defend their Knockouts Tag Titles. We covered this briefly on Against All Odds, but as you can tell from the interview, we’ve got some cracks in the foundations of the Beautiful People! And I’m not talking about their makeup folks.
S: Dissension in the ranks you say? And potential lesbian pollen?! A double whammy of mind games!
JT: So the story goes like this. After seeing it set up last time, the Beautiful People teamed up and beat Sarita, Cookie and Jersey Shore lady on Impact, thanks to Winter. Winter says that there’s no problem between her and Velvet, “I’ve always wanted us to be friends, i don’t have a problem with Velvet, Velvet has a problem with me”. It’s Velvet who isn’t trusting Winter according to Winter herself, and apparently Angelina sees it that way too, much to Velvet’s shock. Although Love doesn’t say that, she doesn’t say anything actually, Winter just speaks for her. “What is she talking about dude, what the f—what’s going on?” asks Sky to Christie, as the Champs walk off for their title match. Storm’s brewing here, a TNA institution is potentially on its last legs.
S: The pigeons may never be let loose ever again, storm is certainly a brewing, not of the Lance, James, Tim or Toni variety. The Knockouts Tag Titles have finally checked in on the Power Hour! What a time to be alive, eh?
JT: You know I would be excited, if it didn’t mean no Mickie James. This show could’ve used a Mickie James match. But hey, look at TNA doing things that WWE would take another 7 years to do! I mean sure TNA treated those belts about as well as WWE have treated their Women’s Tag Titles, but TNA invented big American companies having Women’s Tag Belts with no little effort put into them!
S: Yeah like the first Women’s Tag Titles I knew of were these ones, this would’ve been before I found out that WWF had theirs in the 1980’s. They did plant the idea for modern wrestling to capitalise on their women’s rosters by implementing a tag scene so for that I credit them.
JT: I mean TNA’s Knockout’s Division was one of the biggest draws on a weekly basis, so why not give them more to do with tag titles? I mean clearly they’ve kept the Knockout’s Title in a storyline with like 3 people for 6 out of 7 episodes of this arc, everyone else has to do something, right?
S: Yeah exactly which is why initially these belts worked a treat for them but as their roster was starting to thin and the focus going off the belts, they quickly faded away.
JT: Yeah I mean this is the first time we’ve seen them all arc, and we only brought them up before this because I wasn’t even sure we’d have a chance to talk about them. They were just not relevant.
S: And they were vacated for a few months too so there’s also that.
JT: So as the only Knockouts Tag Title match of this arc, our Champs and our challengers have a lot to prove don’t they?
S: Oh they sure do, they’ve got to make our wait worth while.
JT: So why are Sarita & Rosita challenging for the titles tonight? Well as we discussed on our impact episode, Sarita had been a thorn in Velvet Sky’s side for months now. Naturally, that dragged Angelina into things too. And then Sarita brought in her cousin Rosita to even things out, and the two picked up a victory over Velvet & Angelina to get this title match. But how did Winter & Angelina become Champs? Well we’ve discussed the supernatural shenanigans that led Winter to debut and get to know Angelina, but the circumstances of her title win is also steeped with intrigue. With the Knockout Tag Titles vacated due to the release of Hamada, a tournament was put together for the titles. The Beautiful People fought all the way to the finals, where they were set to face Tara & Madison Rayne. But the night Angelina & Velvet were set to fight for the titles, Velvet got injured! She’s unable to compete, I wonder how that happened! Either way, Angelina needed a replacement and Winter stepped in. They won the gold and they’ve been getting awfully chummy ever since.
S: A bit too chummy from my liking, if I knew any better, I’d assume that this Winter is nothing more than a witch out to DESTROY The Beautiful People if you ask me. I don’t trust this lady.
JT: Who are you, Velvet Sky? They’re just Tag Champs, who want to defend their tag titles because they’re friends who care about each other! No funny business! Certainly not a “weird kinky love triangle thing” as Sarita calls it in her promo in the ring before the match. Also speaking of which, fucking hell TNA. Don’t have a team challenging for a Title on PPV cut a pre-match promo in the ring on PPV. It’s not a huge deal, but it really makes this feel like a match on Impact, not a PPV match that people paid to watch.
S: That promo too, bloody hell, it was only until she started speaking in Spanish was when it finally gathered some heat.
JT: And I was about to go off about like “who would buy this Canadian woman for a Mexican” until she spoke some pretty good Spanish. As someone who’s studied his fair share of Spanish, she’s really pretty good. Especially for a none-native speaker. Fair fucks to her, even if her promo about “Mexico taking back what’s ours” was pretty predictable and generic.
S: Yeah like this is pretty much laying out the groundwork for what would be Mexican America with these two ladies and two more who will get to later on.
JT: So aside from Taz just not getting the deal with Winter’s blindfold thing, and the Pigeons being let loose, there’s nothing else really to talk about. Ready to break down our only Knockouts Tag Title match of this arc?
S: We might as well man, let’s do this.
JT: Angelina & Rosita start this off, Shoulder tackle, clotheslines, knockdown by Angelina. Sarita tags in, gets taken down, and then eats a Suplex after being scared by Winter in their corner. Like she just lunges at her and Sarita back off, Winter is a scary lady. Rosita comes back in to try her luck, only to run right into a drop toe hold as Winter tags in. She hits a Back elbow then a Backbreaker, and it’s just funny how small Rosita is. Like we all know how Rosita, aka Zelina Vega, ain’t the tallest lady around, but when paired off with a taller lady like Winter she just looks puny.
S: Yeah she looks like a wee babby here alright, if I’m not mistaken she’s super young here too, right? Like she’s still a teenager, I’m pretty sure.
JT: She would’ve been only 20 here. Keep this, and her small stature, in mind for later. Also keep in mind Taz’s comment that “Winter is weird but very sensual”. Just burn that into your brain. So Winter is running wild with a Flapjack then a Northern Lights Suplex on Sarita, but Rosita breaks up the pin. The cousins, dare I say the Primos, are getting absolutely nothing in until Angelina tags herself in and gets pulled down by her hair by Sarita. And then once that happens, Rosita tags in, gets on Sarita’s shoulders and is dropped off from the Electric Chair with a body splash, missing by a fucking mile. Like Angelina was already rolling away before Rosita even started to fall. First they’re getting demolished, like Gunner & Murphy had been in their last two matches on the Power Hour, then their spot gets blown by bad timing. Rough going for Sarita & Rosita.
S: Yeah at this point, the match was kinda suffering and this is only a six minute match. Not to forget that people were laughing at that mistimed spot, they were actually laughing at the match.
JT: They were also chanting “USA” in a match where there was only 1 American in the ring. I guess they really like Angelina?
S: Angelina is Canadian, is she not?
JT: Fucking hell you’re right!! I just assumed she was American!! So there we have it. The Impact Zone chanting “USA” for a Canadian and a German/Brit against a Canadian playing a Mexican and a American of Puerto Rican descent playing a Mexican. Wrestling.
S: USA! USA! USA!
JT: So Winter tags herself in and goes for a big boot but Rosita ducks and gets a weird kick to the thigh? Like what was that?
S: I think you can say what was that for half of the offence on display in this one to be honest, this is one of those for definite.
JT: Good god, this was an absolute stinker of a match, laughably bad in all honesty. Like this could be summed up with a ‘wow’ in the most astonished tone, not the good kind either. The multiple botched spots, standing there with the belt for fifteen seconds, the massively delayed pinfall which looked as easy to kick out of as the Canadian Destroyer in 2021, amirite lads? But yeah, this was smelly arse bad, absolute dross.
S: Good god, this was an absolute stinker of a match, laughably bad in all honesty. Like this could be summed up with a ‘wow’ in the most astonished tone, not the good kind either. The multiple botched spots, standing there with the belt for fifteen seconds, the massively delayed pinfall which looked as easy to kick out of as the Canadian Destroyer in 2021, amirite lads? But yeah, this was smelly arse bad, absolute dross.
JT: I’m going to include a gif of the Title spot in all its glory for those of you reading on WordPress (Amino can handle gifs more than 7 second) because it has to be seen to be believed. Like even with a simple mistimed cue, Rosita holding the belt would’ve been bad. Like just 3 seconds of “Oh shit she’s late” is bad. This was, as Seán said, legitimately 15 seconds of “WHERE THE FUCK IS VELVET”, which means it felt like an absolute nightmare. If we felt bad watching it, imagine being 20 year old Rosita, only a year officially into your professional career, in her first match on PPV, left out to fucking dry. The fact that this finish might somehow still be the worst finish of the night, considering what happens later on this show, is fucking horrific. Remember how during our Impact review, we talked about making some matches shorter so they’d be better. This was less than 5 minutes and still too long. As much as we want to hold up the Knockouts Division for being ahead of the curve, this is not the match to hold up.
S: Yeah totally, this match can be summed up with, ‘WHERE THE FUCK IS VELVET?! GOD DAMMIT!’ This was simply not good, as great as it is that TNA has Knockouts Tag Titles and we haven’t seen them, this was not a great impression for us. These two teams certainly aren’t at the caliber of Taylor Wilde and Sarita, Awesome Kong and Hamada or even Gail Kim and Madison Rayne.
JT: I hate to harp on negativity but seriously, I’d feel confident in saying that to this point, this is the worst match of this arc. Knowing the infamousness of this show, I knew we weren’t in for a good time, but my expectations weren’t this low.
S: Yeah it’s a rough watch, people. It’s the antithesis of a fun time, it’s six minutes of scutter.
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Bleeding to Death
JT: From one success story to another, Matt Morgan is backstage! And to rub salt in the wounds, the interview starts off with this direct quote: “Matt Morgan, in the past few months you have not just proven to everyone that you are on top of your game”. I did a fucking double take. This feels like a time travel induced jab at us. Like we’ve spent MONTHS NOW pointing out the Blueprint’s continual struggle to get over the hump and get in the win column. And that’s the first thing said when he shows up?!? Are you kidding me?!? They’re making our job too easy.
S: I was just gonna bring this up. How is this man on top of his game? Every single time we’ve covered this man he’s been a fucking loser or left laying on his bloody back. He’s not won a single PPV match out of four attempts and the other two times we’ve seen him, Hernandez beat him up! This is the point of the show where they just marked a big target on themselves and asked us to take a shot at them. They’re like a damn punching bag.
JT: Seán, just to give everyone a refresher, want to just run down the results of Matt Morgan’s matches on this arc?
S: Oh boy I would be honoured to do so!
At Bound For Glory, he teamed with Styles, Kaz and Beer Money as a Fortune member against EV2.0 in Lethal Lockdown, where Fortune would lose.
At Turning Point, he challenged Jeff Hardy for the TNA Heavyweight Championship and lost.
At Final Resolution, he’d challenge Hardy again, where he lost, again..
At Genesis, in a number one contenders match, he faced Mr. Anderson where, get this, he lost again! What a shocker.
Against All Odds, he wasn’t booked but he would have a confrontation with Hernandez where he got kneed in the goolies and layed out.
Impact! He did win a match! By disqualification by way of Hernandez kicking too much ass…. And got beat up right after and bloodied.
JT: What a run of dominance he’s been on. Regardless he still got a pop when he was shown on camera. He says that “Shawn” (Hernandez) took the moment of him being TNA Champion away from his family, his fans and him. Mexico put him on a pedestal, tonight he’s gonna knock him right back down, because his sights are still on the TNA Title. Tonight is a bump in the road, he’s going after the title no matter who he’s facing, be that Sting, Hardy, Anderson. I thought he was doing a good job with his promo until he tried to redirect to the TNA Title, when he started to fumble over his words.
S: Yeah this promo wasn’t half bad, poor auld M4, he needs to take his focus off that TNA Title and focus his future towards teaming with Crimson.
JT: Well how can he stop focusing on it when he’s got a picture of that bad boy on his bedside table? But for real, if he wants to focus on the TNA Title, he has to get through Hernandez first. In our video package, we see how Hernandez has been recruited by Eric Bischoff to do Immortal’s bidding, which apparently involves killing poor Doug Williams.
S: God, right?! That border toss was fucking brutal, my word he folded Douglas up like a damn accordion, pardon the cliché.
JT: That just goes to show first, I miss Doug after only having him for the first half of this arc, and two: Hernandez is dangerous. But Morgan & Hernandez have a long history together, so there’s no reason to question Morgan’s motivation here. He should be chomping at the bit to win this one, bust open Hernandez to get revenge and potentially a title shot. I mean, Mr Mayor legs it to the ring here tonight, here wants blood!!
S: And how fitting it is you say he wants blood because this match is a First Blood Match and Morgan has already kicked it off!
JT: Let’s get into the action! Upon rushing into the ring, Morgan knocks Hernandez down and rains down on him with stomps then choking him against the ropes. He clotheslines him to the floor, M4 (Mr Mayor, Matt Morgan) goes to use the stairs to bust open Hernandez like Hernandez did to him on Impact but SuperMex blocks and slams him off it. Matt quickly fires back and throws him off them, then goes back in the ring and pulls the TNA sleeve off the turnbuckle? Did you catch Seán?
S: I did yeah, for further context, they took the TNA branded sleeve off the turnbuckle pad but didn’t take the actual cushiony turnbuckle pad. It’s not just a Victory Road 2011 thing but a very TNA thing to happen. Imagine taking the cushion cover off but leaving the cushion there.
JT: Yeah and I wouldn’t bring it up, but they would end up removing the turnbuckle covering later. Just another odd thing that happens on this show, just anything that could do wrong does go wrong, major or otherwise.
S: This is like where everything just goes wrong for Ned Flanders but it’s happening to Vince Russo, I’m just expecting Russo’s glasses to break whilst cleaning them and for him to go off on absolutely everyone.
JT: So Hernandez starts his comeback by pulling Morgan throat first down on the top rope, then following up with a big shoulder tackle. With one of the more practical ideas in TNA history, in order to try and draw blood, Hernandez takes a wooden stick, snaps it over his knee, then tries to stab Morgan with the pointed end!! A first blood match outside of kayfabe is ridiculous, but in “what if wrestling was real” terms, why wouldn’t you just try and cut the other guy?
S: How very Inglourious Basterds of you, James. Just go and fucking cut him, yeah? Makes total sense, or just try and give him a shoot fist to the eyebrow, eyebrows are the easiest place to make someone bleed upon a punch.
JT: Plus it plays into the gangster Mexican stereotype. Unfortunately for Hernandez though, he can’t manage to stab him as M4 fights him off. Morgan briefly turns the match’s momentum as catches him with a Side Slam, but a quick Pounce by Hernandez knocks him down again. Hernandez takes off the corner pad for real this time, and sends Morgan across and hits a shoulder tackle to the chest. Despite how we rag on him, the crowd is behind Morgan here as he hits a Discus Clothesline to start the comeback. Right hands, clotheslines, corner splash, Fallaway slam. He gets the stick from earlier Hernandez backs off in the corner like a coward, only to get a cheap shot and gets boot, pulls himself up to the top rope impressively. But it’s all for nothing as Morgan throws him off the top. He starts lining up the Carbon Footprint, when suddenly a Fan rushes the ring!! Security jumps on him, the referee goes after him, and above all, The DNA of TNA is distracted. This allows Hernandez to grab a chain, wrap it around his fist, and go for Morgan. But Matt blocks!! He gets the chain himself, and socks Hernandez in the face!! Security ate still sorting things out, and to top it off the Ref got knocked down in the scuffle with the fan! Nobody is there to check and see if Morgan won! I mean Hernandez is down, in the corner covering his face! Regardless, Morgan decided he might as well assure his victory, lining up the Footprint again. Hernandez gets up, he charges, and Hernandez sprays him with a Gatorade bottle full of, wait is that fake blood? What is that?!? Whatever it is, it’s on Morgan’s chest, and new referee Jackson James runs down to the ring, stops Morgan from going for Footprint again, stopping him and calling the match because he’s got “blood” on him!! Hernandez has “drawn” “first” “blood”, I guess?
S: WHAT A BOLLOCKS ENDING! What the actual fuck was that finish? STATE of your finish, lads. Like if he blinded him with that fake blood or whatever the fuck it was or got it on his face, then that would’ve been a plausible fuck finish but here we are again. Two non clean finishes in a row.
JT: I have many, many gripes with this finish. First off, Hernandez’s character is very much that he’s a big muscly monster man. Why does he, of all people, have a master plan? Secondly, the whole point of having this match is to get two big beating the hell out of each other. It’s supposed to be a blowoff of a storyline that is now like 2 years in the making. I don’t care about “getting heat” in this situation, you can get heat in this match without having to resort to an anticlimactic finish. Thirdly, like you said, he could’ve at least sprayed him in the face! Morgan just stands there like a goof with fake blood on his chest for like half a minute. What are you doing dumbass, wipe it off!! Fourth, the whole Ref bump situation. You didn’t even have the Ref go down on camera, really? On top of that, the rules are already null and void!! Can’t you have whichever “fan” interferes do something to give Hernandez the advantage? If you wanted to keep Morgan strong, would it have been so bad to have the fan jump the barricade, handcuff Morgan to the ropes and then let Hernandez beat him while he’s handcuffed? Lastly, and most importantly, it just looked terrible. They didn’t even get like Tajiri’s red mist or The Brood’s bloodbath. The lighting and Morgan’s tan makes it hard to tell what got squirt on him. They needed to use something like bright red, and use a lot of it. Instead we got the most minimal amount of looking splatter on his chest where it’s barely visible. How did this idea, or at least this format of this finish, make it out of the writer’s room?
S: Who fucking knows? These boyos in the creative meetings haven’t got a fucking clue what they’re doing at the moment if there’s the most shoddily executed screwy finishes being booked. The fucking state of this finish, late it looks like he’s been squirted with maple syrup because of his tan, throw a fucking pancake at him while you’re at it. I don’t understand why they couldn’t have someone from Immortal help him out and they bust him open with a chair shot or a chain shot. Also, the fan running in was definitely meant to make it feel like a shoot, cheers Vince. Speaking of said fan! Have I got some news for you on who this fan is.
JT: I was gonna say! No way that that “fan” was anyone but a future member of the roster. But the question is, who?
S: The fan in question is none other than, future TNA Tag Team Champion and member of Immortal, ANARQUIA! Probably the most obscure TNA Tag Team Champion of all time.
JT: Since this is our last episode of the arc, we might as well tell y’all that that Tag Title he wins is with Hernandez in August, as part of the takeover by Mexican America! Not to be confused with WWE’s MexAmerica, Hernandez, Anarquia, Rosita & Sarita would be a thorn in the Midcard for the rest of 2011. Oh, and they would win those men’s tag titles with help from a one off member too, that being Mexican Champion, Jeff Jarrett.
S: Where was Jeff Jarrett as the fifth member throwing burritos into the audience and wearing his sombrero?
JT: Sadly Mexican America would be gone by then, but Jeff was reminding everyone of their legacy. To top off this whole mess of a segment, Hernandez was busted open by Morgan, but it was like the tiniest little cut. It made it easier for him to hide from the Ref, but even then it’s too wimpy to feel like “But Matt actually busted him open! This isn’t right!”.
S: Earl Screwed Bret and 14 years later, Jackson Screwed The Mayor, not the scandal in politics that you’re thinking of, rahoo. So yeah, for the entirety of this season, Matt Morgan is once again a smelly loser and a massive geek. Turns out M4 would never get his big win. I don’t know about you James but I’m devastated about this.
JT: I’m heart broken, looks like we’ll never see him get that big W. Pour one out for our dear Mr Mayor, unable to beat a Mexican like he has always dreamed of.
S: He couldn’t live up to his libertarian ways, some modern Republican mayor he is. #Fraud
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Xtremely Mediocre
JT: Up next, we’ve got ourselves a little birthday festivities! After all, it’s only the birthday of Mr. Max Buck!! And he’s got a real big plan to make his birthday a memorable once, since he’s facing his brother Jeremy Buck, Robbie E and X Division Champion Kaz in an Ultimate X Match, with the title on the line!
S: And Maxi Buck has got a plan up his sleeve because this birthday boy has got his younger brother Jeremy to help him win the X Title, a real Malcolm and Reese dynamic here between GenMe.
JT: That’s right! Despite the fact that it’s a 4 way, Generation Me are going to work as a well oiled team. Before Jeremy can answer the question “how do you feel about facing your brother Max” Max steals the mic away saying that Jeremy had the idea that no matter what happens, the birthday boy wins the belt tonight. Obviously doesn’t seem to have actually come up with that plan, and doesn’t seem happy to hear about how tonight the focus shifts from Generation Me to Generation Max. Still he reluctantly says “yeah”, he’s okay with this. In reality, how happy is he to be facing his brother? Well they have never broken up in the decade since this, have expressed their fear that signing to WWE would break them up, and they’d be out of Impact by July. So really, your guess is as good as mine.
S: Yeah I mean this is one of the many reasons why they hated their TNA run, there are so many that I actually think I’d break the character limit actually talking about it. I mean no wonder they really didn’t have much faith in going to major promotions for a while after this if this was how they were gonna be treated in TNA of all places. At this stage of their careers, it really makes no sense to break this young, talented tag team up and also, at this point they’re not the personalities they’d get to become so breaking them up would’ve been death for The Bucks in 2011. I can’t really blame them for ever being hesitant about going to WWE either to be honest.
JT: I mean from some reading, I believe Matt was thinking about stopping wrestling full stop because of how disappointed and unhappy they are. But hey, we gotta add spice to this Ultimate X match, right?
S: I mean I don’t mind a bit of sibling rivalry, like this just would’ve worked out better if they did it in a competitive sense, like they do a game of one-upmanship in Ultimate X and they square off. I’m all for GenMe at this stage having a bit of a square off but do it in a way which isn’t full on dissension between the most inseparable brothers
JT: But we’ll get to that when we get to the match. We still have 2 more promos to get through first! We’re hearing from everyone in Ultimate X! Next we cut to a different part of backstage where Jeremy Borash is with X Division Champion Kazarian!! Rather than be interviewed, Kaz cuts off JB and says tonight they’ll do role reversal. “8 years ago, who was in the first Ultimate X?”, JB says Kaz was. “Who has done things in that match that literally defies gravity” Kaz was. “Who is willing to do things that no other athlete is willing to do”, you can guess who the answer is. “That’s why tonight, like Charlie Sheen, winning”. He says The Ultimate X can shorten, end and make careers, Kaz is gonna make his career by becoming the greatest X Division Champ ever. Dude, I don’t think you can be the best anything ever with a promo like that. I don’t know about you but I thought this was dreadful.
S: Yeah man honestly, state of this promo and I’ve always liked Kazarian as a wrestler but his promos? Jesus man, a lot of them aren’t good at all. The Charlie Sheen reference was what made this a very shit 2011 promo. This man just needs Chris Daniels to arrive so he can flesh out his heel work.
JT: I was also not a big fan of saying that he’s done things that have “literally defied gravity”. You don’t mean literally dude, you didn’t win the title but just floating up to grab the belt. That is literally not what you mean. Kaz should know that talking like that makes you sound like a moron.
S: Like he should just say that he’s defied expectations in that instance because he’s done some fucking insane spots in Ultimate X. That diamond cutter spot from Victory Road in 2007, one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen in wrestling.
JT: That’s what makes his bad promo so upsetting!! He has such a big connection to Ultimate X, the match has been a pivotal part of his career. Many of his greatest moments have come in the match, and the best he can do for a promo about it is a Charlie Sheen reference? I mean I know Kaz hasn’t been a talking-centric performer, but it’s just a let down considering all the history he has to work with. It should be a simple story to tell, and it was still fumbled to a degree.
S: Everything we think that should be simple about Victory Road goes out of it’s way to disappoint us really. Like it’s so 2011 to reference the insane Charlie Sheen interviews he did after being booted off Two and a Half men.
JT: She doesn’t want Robbie to risk himself on the Ultimate X, because it’s so high. Even though she wants the title, that’s too much, the match is too dangerous. Rob cuts her off, asking how long she’s known him for. She says too long, and he says “And don’t I always have a plan?” to which she relies “not really.” He tells her to trust him, because tonight it’s GTX: Gym, Tan, X Division Title. She just goes to get something with hard liquor from the food truck. It’s funny how this was the shortest segment, but I think I liked it best.
S: Yeah I liked how Robbie was very laid back about it all and enjoyed his nice alcoholic beverage, a man after my own heart is Robbie E. He’s really done a 180 for me during this arc, honestly.
JT: For real, he has been a real revelation this arc. There’s always gonna be an element of datedness to his character, since it’s so intrinsically tied to an expired show, but he’s so good at it. And even though Jersey Shore isn’t part of pop culture anymore, the type of cocky, obnoxious wannabe tough guy is still a thing. He has just been a fun character just because he’s willing to make himself look like a dumbass. He’s willing to be silly and to be the butt of the joke, and that’s a quality I always enjoy.
S: I think that’s what will always get a lot of people work to be honest, the fact that still to this day, Robert Stone as he is in NXT now is always willing to he a comedy goof and make himself look like a big eejit. That’s the kind of good attitude you’d want in wrestling.
JT: And just like that, we’ve got all 4 members of our Ultimate X Match. The stipulation gets a big hype package, Kaz gets all the focus, since he has the most history in it after all. Here are tonight’s X Factors:
-“former champion in first ultimate x test” Robbie is in his first ultimate X
-“Can Generation Me exploit numbers advantage” will they work together
-“Kazarian’s huge experience edge” he’s been in more matches than anyone here.
Tonight Robbie is pumped but Cookie is not in the same state of mind, “Cookie is raging like a pack of hemorrhoids”. Thanks Taz. GenMe are similarly split in terms of reaction, though they’re both less hemorrhoid-esque. Max mugs at the camera, while Jeremy seems occupied stretching and testing the structure. Kaz enters into his 5th Ultimate X match tonight, which is the 24th ever. He has won 2 of his 4 matches under these stipulations, will he win again? Any comments before we get into this X Division Title extravaganza?
S: The only thing I can really shed light on is that it’s nice to have a showcase for the X-Division lads like with Ultimate X, although I think one or two more lads in this would be ideal in my opinion.
JT: Yeah it’s not like they’re light on talent, maybe 2 more guys like a Jay Lethal and a Doug Williams or Brian Kendrick or Shark Boy would’ve made this better. But we can get to that. Ready?
S: Wait a minute, where the hell is Kendrick? But let’s do this.
JT: So right as the match begins, Cookie immediately grabs Kaz as Gen Me goes after Robbie and throws him out of the ring. Max elevates Jeremy for the Dropkick to Kaz, Gen Me try to attack him in the corner, but Kaz with a boot and slips free. They prepare for a Springboard, Kaz jumps on the cables. He can’t come close to the title, but he disrupts their timing, as after he gets pulled down, Max goes to clothesline him but hits Jeremy. Big dropkick to Max by Kaz and then Robbie attacks from behind and throws Kaz out of the ring. Jeremy goes at him as Max tries to climb, but Robbie sends Jeremy out and pulls down Max for a STO. Robbie goes to climb, Kaz catches him in No Man’s Land as he kicks him down, all the way to the mat. Rather than climb across, he decides to drop a leg from the hanging position!! Sadly though, it feels to me like TNA has overdone the Ultimate X gimmick because the crowd doesn’t react at all when Robbie falls from like, what? 10-12 feet?
S: Yeah it’s quite a high fall but this current Impact Zone crowd just couldn’t give two shits about this one and spoilers folks, this bored ass crowd drags it down considerably. You said it earlier but this is the 24th Ultimate X match and they debuted this match in August of 2003. We’re not even 8 full years removed from the debut match! How do you bust out a signature match type 24 fucking times in eight years? That’s averaging at three per year!
JT: Yeah I would say that it’s kind of like the modern WWE Ladder match in a way. And again I emphasize, in a way. Like nowadays, WWE tends to do quite a few Ladder Matches per year. In 2020, they had 6 Ladder Matches, 2 Money in the Bank Ladder Matches, and 1 TLC match. As a result, it feels less exciting to hear one announced this year than say, 25 years ago. But, and I’m about to get spicy, I think the lack of crowd excitement for this Ultimate X exposes the weaknesses of the gimmick. At least in comparison to the ladder match. Mind if we just go into this now, because I have quite a few things to say.
S: Oh please go ahead because this match just felt totally flat for me not gonna lie.
JT: Okay first, the Ultimate X’s falls, while still a great stunt, are just straight down. The best Ultimate X match turns it into something really cool, like that Kaz Cutter spot. But in the end, they can only go straight down. In a ladder match, you can fall horizontally as well, if that makes sense. Like you can have you straight down drops, like Edge spearing Jeff Hardy at WrestleMania X-7. But you can have them go horizontally, like Matt Hardy & Devon Dudley going through the huge stack of tables in the same match. Am I making sense here?
S: Oh yeah you’re totally making sense here, like I love some of the early Ultimate X matches but here, it really shows the limitations which the match carries and man, at this stage were they running out of ideas in terms of spots. Like with this match, there really is so much you can do, I totally get what you’re saying there.
JT: Another thing is that the rope structure limits who you can go after. In the same way they can only really go down, you can’t have the sort of spots where someone dives off a ladder onto someone on the floor in this match. Not unless you jump off the structure itself, which is like 20 feet high, so I don’t blame the talent for not doing that often.
S: Nor should they do it often because that would be terrifying if we saw it every time this match took place.
JT: My last real major point is less about the match structure and more so about how it’s booked. I think the Ultimate X being a multi-man match limits its overall potential. A lot of the best ladder and TLC matches are just one on one matches. You get a story simply told out between two wrestlers. Shawn Michaels vs Razor Ramon, Shawn Michaels vs Chris Jericho, Undertaker vs Jeff Hardy, Dolph Ziggler vs Luke Harper. Don’t get me wrong, there have been lots of very good multi-man ladder matches, but there’s something to be said about using a Ladder Match to build character. You just can’t have that same level of personal storytelling in a multi-man match.
S: Yeah very true and when you say that, Ultimate X has always been booked as a multi man match and rarely as a one on one affair and I just wonder if it’s a match stipulation which wouldn’t suit a one on one encounter.
JT: Yeah it’s an interesting notion. Again, nothing wrong with having a big multi-man big spot match. Especially with the history of TNA’s X Division, doing lots of crazy spots sounds great. But the problem is in this match, it just doesn’t feel like an Ultimate X was necessary. I’ll have more to say about this in our final recap, I’m getting back to the match breakdown soon, but it just doesn’t feel like the coward was itching to see these particular guys in this particular match.
S: Yeah honestly, they could’ve done a standard four way match and I probably would prefer to see these four let loose with no stipulation to rely on.
JT: So moving on, Jeremy gets dumped to the apron, but he hits the high kick then a Springboard Facebuster on Kaz. So now that it’s just the brothers Buck left, it’s time for the plan to come into play. Max is the only one of the two to climb, and as he makes his way across Jeremy holds his legs and pulls him so he easily gets across to the title. However, Jeremy gets a Neckbreaker from Robbie, and Max can’t seem to get the rest of the way across on his own. He falls to his feet, and gets turned inside out by a clothesline from Kaz. It’s now just Kaz & Robbie, Robbie almost caught for Fade to Black, he rolls through and gets up, only to be dumped out of the ring, hitting the stairs. Kaz with a Crossbody Plancha to the floor, Max with a Dropkick to Kaz through the ropes, then some tandem offense as Max aids Jeremy to hit a Moonsault onto the other two on the floor. However again, Max needs Jeremy’s help, so he’s left waiting for him. Jeremy comes back in, he blocks Kaz as Max climbs, only for Kaz to break free and Max him down. However they quickly come back with the Hip Toss/Dropkick Bucks classic to Kaz, then a Baseball Slide to Robbie. The crowd, as you mentioned before, are real quiet for this section, as the Bucks still hold the ring, as Max tries to win the gold himself. I will say, one of the cooler spots comes when Max is climbing from one corner and Kaz has made his way up on the other side. In order to slow him down, Jeremy meets him on the top rope, but jumps from the corner backwards, grabbing the rope and climbing backwards to just be a body in Kaz’s way. Nice athletic move there.
S: Yeah that was pretty slick looking and it’s just an example of what we’d come to expect from Nick Jackson in the last decade, such a fantastic wrestler.
JT: There’s plenty of talk to be had about his wrestling, but not even the biggest hater can deny that he just is incredibly graceful. Whether you want your wrestling to be silky smooth or not is another thing, but never does he do some sort of jump or flip or kick where his rotation is off or his footing is off. He always lands where he means to, when he means to.
S: Like I feel he’s one of the wrestlers where he makes you want to see more of him and it’s a genius strategy because he is strictly a tag team wrestler. I know he’s done BOSJ twice before but Nick Jackson is probably the number one wrestler I wanna see go on a singles run, like what Jey Uso is doing today, same can be said for Matt to be honest, either of them, I’d love to see them let loose on their own for a spell.
JT: I’m very glad that you brought up Jey Uso. I feel like maybe before 2020, I would’ve actually been more opposed to the idea. Obviously, nothing is totally off the table, but I’ve never found the Bucks particularly captivating as characters, so I thought “well if they just want to tag together forever, more power to them”. But since Jey Uso, someone who has literally spent his whole life as part of a matched set, had a really great run in 2020, I’m all for a Nick or Matt Jackson singles run, given the right storyline. Though again, I think a shitty mentality in wrestling is this idea that every tag wrestler needs a singles run. There’s no shame in wanting to exclusively be a great tag team. The Bucks haven’t been hurt by that, that’s for sure. And on the other hand, you have the shenanigans of this match to show why not every tag wrestler needs their Bully Ray run, as it were.
S: Yeah agreed, I feel like that Main Event Jey Uso kind of run could only happen if one of them, touch wood, ever got injured for a few months, god forbid it ever happened but at this stage in their careers where they’ve been teaming for only a few years here. It’s totally unnecessary to have them be singles guys here.
JT: Right! Do I blame TNA for seeing the two of them and thinking that they could have two, individual stars on their hands? No absolutely not. But they need to slow their role. The Bucks only debuted as a team in TNA the year before. They hadn’t even won the tag titles yet! I can see that perhaps the X Division needed new blood in it, and that the old midcard singles acts like Hernandez, Roode, Storm, Daniels, Kazarian were ready to move up a level. But if they just slowed down, even by a year, they could’ve gotten years out of two of the decades most important wrestlers instead of just a little more than a year and a half.
S: Exactly, it’s too soon to do this in their careers here and in their TNA run too. Just completely wrong timing and totally rushed. Should we rush to the end of this match then?
JT: That was a classic X Division level transition there. Let’s do it. So with Jeremy in his way, Kaz just kicks him down, and goes across to get Max in his dash for the title. Rather than climbing across to get him, he drops to the mat so he can grab his leg, swinging him out and hit a cutter which finally gets the crowd out. Kaz now tries to get the title himself, but Max ends up getting the front flip cutter out of the corner on him. He tries to go back after the title, but as he jumps up to the corner, Kaz shoves him face first into the steel structure. Jeremy follows Kaz up top, and we get a Tower O Doom with Kaz as Jeremy gives the Superplex and Robbie hits him with a powerbomb. Throw back to the last match between Robbie & Kaz as he catches him out of the corner and hits Fade to Black. Jeremy then hits a Back Elbow and a Spin Kick to Kaz, and just like that he’s all alone in the ring. He deliberates then goes to the top rope but gets cut off by Kaz with a kick. From there Kaz grabs him and they go Back to the Future off the top, and even that looked a little off tonight. Kaz and Robbie are the only two standing, and they’re in opposite corners, so they go for the belt but Gen Me are back quickly to stop them. They pull Robbie down to the mat, giving him a Double Superkick, then they pull down Kaz, swinging him so he lands on his back on the mat. Naturally Jeremy goes to climb, but Max pulls him down and yells that he’s the X Division Champ. Max goes to one corner, but then Jeremy runs to the other side and then they both go for the belts. They meet in the middle, both hanging on, slugging it out, when all of a sudden Robbie uses a ladder to knock them both down. He sets it up in the middle, he climbs, all while Kaz tightropes across the ropes. Robbie reaches up, Kaz reaches down, a tug of war ensues, but Kaz pulls it up and Robbie falls off the ladder as he retains his X Division Title!
S: Doing the old Team 3D technique of winning Ultimate X but being foiled by the K A Z, I thought the ending was good but boy, I didn’t find this match particularly interesting aside from when GenMe were doing their thing because that’s what was keeping me interested. I think what this match showed was really how thin the X-Division seemed and how much they were being neglected at this stage. We’re one month out from Brian Kendrick protesting before Lockdown and storming to Russo’s office.
JT: Yeah for an Ultimate X, the flash just wasn’t there. The crowd didn’t really seem interested in it in general. The Gen Me stuff just didn’t do anything for me. I don’t think the Bucks are particularly interesting as characters, even a decade later. They just were super bland here, which is a shame because the match was based around them for the most part. Although, it’s nice to see Kaz cement his legacy with a win.
S: Yeah I mean it’s nice to see an actual definitive face victory on this show, the finish was certainly unique. I think I slightly differ with you on The Bucks today because I definitely do think they’ve got a lot more confidence on the mic, Matt more so than Nick. Like Matt is always forever the mouthpiece and Nick is the calm, reserved one who’s the flashier of the two. I think this TNA run especially near the end for the lads really just lit a fire with them and was almost the catalyst for them to just go all out in PWG and get that spark back and eventually elevate them to mega popularity.
JT: Oh for sure, this was a failure that the Bucks ultimately needed to push them to the top. Many great wrestlers have that big disappointment that pushes them over the top. Foley & Austin had getting fired from WCW, The Rock had Rocky Maivia, Eddie Guerrero had his 2001 release from WWE, Drew McIntyre had his WWE release in 2014. This pushed them to be even better and to rely on themselves.
S: Oh for sure, I wanna touch back on this issue but you previously mentioned the crowd being dead quiet for this one and I really to propose the question of how many times has a big match come and this crowd has just been dead quiet? I honestly don’t get it, you show up to a PPV every month and for half of the show your enthusiasm is in the absolute gutters. Why even bother going if you don’t give a shit for half of the people?
JT: This is the exact type of behavior that makes Bischoff start touring, because compared to our 3.3.11 Impact, the differences between the crowd is night and day.
S: Oh absolutely, this is one of the best calls Bischoff ever made when he joined TNA and that 3.3.11 Impact crowd were absolutely brilliant and I just wish for the PPV’s we got to review, that we went outside of the Impact Zone aside from Bound for Glory.
JT: As we’ve also seen with NXT’s Full Sail University, there’s only so long you can run one venue and have the experience stay special.
S: Exactly and over time, that audience became very low energy as the years went on and now whenever it’s PROPERLY safe to have shows, I’m looking at you, GCW Collective 2021, NXT really needs to get on the road.
JT: So as our one outing into TNA’s signature gimmick match, safe to say that it didn’t live up to the high expectations of its history?
S: No not at all, Full Metal Mayhem blew this Ultimate X straight out of the water and this was just underwhelming, crowd didn’t help it at all but the action was lacking too.
JT: Yeah I can’t help but feel like it didn’t commit to being a big crazy spot match and the story they told wasn’t enough of a story to really capture the attention of the crowd.
S: Doesn’t help that the story came out right before the match too. With that said, shall we move ourselves on from this one?
JT: Yeah let’s leave this one in the past. Moving on.
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Vices Versus
JT: Backstage, it’s our Tag Champs!! Storm!! Roode!! Beer!! Money!!
S: And Christy! Hemme! Sorry force of habit when I see Christy.
JT: The gang’s all here, as Beer Money are set to defend their titles tonight, in a match we saw set up on our episode of Impact. They’re the face of TNA’s Tag Division, and they’re facing a team looking to create a lasting memory in TNA. It’s Beer Money vs Ink Inc, Bobby Roode & James Storm vs Jesse Neal & Shannon Moore!!
S: A rematch from Final Resolution back in December and probably the best built match on this card.
JT: That’s not really saying much though, is it?
S: Well, ehm, I thi- ah forget it, I’ve got nothing at this stage in the game.
JT: Yeah you know what? At this point, 7 episodes into this arc, y’all get it. You know what we’re saying, we don’t have to explain ourselves every time. Basically this match is happening because Ink Inc have been on a good roll for a few months, and they challenged Beer Money on Impact for tonight. First though, we have a promo. Beer Money makes Christie go to do the Beer Money taunt, she feels she’s being disrespected, they said they’re doing it to make a point about disrespect. They’re the tag champs, they’re the best in the world, they’ve had to show respect to everyone they’ve gotten in the ring with and they feel they’re not getting respect from Shannon Moore. Congrats to Shannon for growing a set of balls, but he’s gonna learn a thing or two about respect, and it won’t save him from an ass whooping. Pretty bog standard promo if you ask me, though I did find Beer Money talking about how they respected everyone they stepped in the ring with to be funny. Like, no the fuck you didn’t.
S: Yeah I was about to point that out, like this is the first time these two lads have been faces as a team. Robert Roode up until recently has NEVER (not the title belt) been a face in TNA at all, through and through heel. Storm had maybe a few brief spells as a face in AMW but that’s literally it. Respect has never really been a trait of theirs throughout their TNA careers.
JT: Yeah I’m sure everyone’s really appreciated all the beer they’ve spit in faces over the years.
S: And all the beer bottles broken over people’s heads, hockey stick attacks, cheating in matches, all the appreciative things, you know what I mean.
JT: Alright we’ve got our Taglines for the night, and they are:
– Ink Inc challenges the Champs
– Storm & Roode welcome competition
– Beer Money on top of the tag team world
Pretty standard stuff honestly. Ink Inc got a nice reaction, but Beer Money are even more over, despite the lack of Boozer Cruiser. And aside from saying Jesse Neal’s big red mohawk and dyed blonde hair looks silly, I’ve got nothing to say. I’m just ready to get to the match.
S: Let’s do it man, I’ve got nothing to touch on either.
JT: Neal & Storm start, Storm with the knock down, but they fight to a draw after Neal blocks a hip toss, leapfrogging Storm and hitting an arm drag after Storm gets him with one. Cowboy with a Slap, Neal with a SlapFacebuster on a knee by Storm, jumping Neckbreaker for 2, Storm sends him into the corner, Diving Crossbody out by Neal for 2. They slap high fives, respect between the two as they tag out. Moore & Roode come in, Bobby takes him down but Moore slips out. “Let’s go Shannon/Let’s go Roode” split decidedly between women/children and men. Shoulder block by Roode, Dropkick by Moore, but a Tilt-a-Whirl Backbreaker on Shannon. Shannon manages to tag Neal, Roode avoids an aided splash in the corner, clothesline on Moore, Powerslam on Neal. Storm tags in, Moore from behind with a cheap shot which gives Neal an opening, allowing him to hammer on Storm in the corner with punches and stomps. Seán, what’s with your boy tonight?
S: I mean my boy has always had a bit of an edge to him, going back to his reject days in WWECW in 2006, he’d just hang out on trains and in punk clubs and just stare into the camera expressionless. Perhaps this is just repressed rage he’s been holding in for the last five years. Either that or that book of D.I.L.L.I.G.A.F. of his has been turning him to the more angsty side.
JT: Regardless, keep your eyes on him. So Neal is in control with a Running Neckbreaker. Crowd tries to fire Storm up, but he’s isolated in the corner by Moore & Neal. Shannon tags in and runs yambag first into the buckles, allowing Storm to tag out to Roode, who comes in and starts trading shots, building up momentum with running forearms, clotheslines and a big back drop. Neal runs into the RR Spinebuster and things are looking bad for him, so Shannon blind tag on Neal, who gets a Wheelbarrow Codebreaker move from Beer Money. Shannon goes after both of them, gets a Headscissor, Dropkick, Hurricanrana. He hits a Moonsault on Storm, but he stumbles back into Roode’s grasp. Shannon with back elbows, then he runs and gets the Casadora Bulldog, 1-2-Kickout! Ink Inc signals for the end, some booing from the crowd, Neal picks Roode up, he slips free and shoves Neal into Shannon in the corner, then hits him with a clothesline. Roode gets sent off the top by Shannon, who also fights off Storm, then hits a Corkscrew press on him. It’s not enough to finish him, but neither is a Roode with a Uranage. Beer Money are heating up as they hit a Double Suplex on Moore…BEER!! MONEY!! They call for the end, Neal spears Storm!! Moore escapes Roode, Neal Neckbreaker across the knee, running Cutter by Moore, 1—2—Kickout!! It’s been a pretty clean match thus far, until Moore goes and gets the book of Dilligaf with the chain around his hand. Jesse seems against it, telling him we don’t win that way. In their argument, Storm with the Last Call to Neal, Shannon swings and misses on Roode, getting a Backstabber, then the DWI!! They hook the leg, 1—2—3!! Beer Money closes out a strong arc with another strong win.
S: I think this may be my first actually good match of the night, I thought this was a perfectly good tag match, not near the standards of what we saw in the first half of this arc by any means but brilliant considering the standard of this show. I thought the two teams meshed well, I would’ve liked to have seen it get a bit more time and for it to flesh out more but for what we were given. All good with me.
JT: It’s hard for me to feel particularly strong about this match honestly. It’s, fine, I suppose? Beer Money are always good workers, Shannon is good, Neal doesn’t get in the way too much. The thought of this being the first real “good” match though bums me out.
S: Yeah like it just goes to show the real low standard that we’re working with here, this would’ve been a decent match on a solid card like Final Resolution, this show just makes me sadder by the minute.
JT: And it’s only going to get sadder, as after the match Beer Money helps Neal up, shake his hand, but the same can’t be said for Shannon. I don’t know if they were going to offer the same courtesy to him or not, but regardless of what they are doing, he rolls to the outside, takes a sip of beer, then rolls back in and spits it right in Beer Money’s face!! Roode & Storm are pissed and Neal is surprised as Moore yells about hard knocks, that Jesse’s not a student anymore and that he cost them the titles. Jesse tries to smooth things over with Beer Money and chases after Shannon. I can see what they were going for, I just don’t think they told that story very well. Like I pointed out Shannon heeling it up a bit, but it was like super overt heel business for the most part, maybe a move here or there.
S: And from what I remember, I’m quite sure that this heel turn only goes on for a few more weeks and fucking nothing is mentioned of it again.
JT: Yeah this angle would lead you to believe that a Jesse Neal singles run was coming up soon, or at least that Ink Inc was going bankrupt. But they’re still teaming for the rest of the year, so I don’t know what this was all about.
S: Maybe he was feeling “conflicted” like his best mate, Jeff Hardy was when we did our first story arc. It’s not a phase mom!
JT: Maybe he was feeling the ice in his cold blood, like his other best bud and sensei Matt Hardy.
S: He was a follower of Mattitude, maybe the sensei has been leading him towards those cold blooded ways. I sure hope not.
JT: Well for now, Beer Money are our Champions, as they’d stay until August, where they’d lose the belts to Anarquia & Hernandez. But hey, 212 days as Champs? You can do much worse.
S: And this would be their last tag title reign until 2016 or so, right?
JT: You’re absolutely correct! Because after being the heart of TNA’s midcard for the better part of 6-8 years for the two of them, they’re both going to finally ascend to the top of the mountain later this year. James Storm will be TNA Champion by October, and Bobby Roode will actually usurp him to break up Beer Money and become one of the company’s top main event talents for the next half a decade.
S: There ya have it, it’ll all work out for them in the end. Both even go to NXT where James Storm would have his two match career in WWE.
JT: Yeah although Cowboy’s WWE run and TNA Main Event run wouldn’t go as well as we all would’ve ultimately hoped, both him and Roode had a good decade.
S: Absolutely, no denying that at all. I say, is that some coffee I smell brewing?
JT: Might be! How about we see what’s brewing in the Recharge Cafe!
S: Keep on brewing, compadré, you know what time it is.
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The Recharge
JT: Hello everyone and welcome back to The Recharge!! I’m sure you know by now, but this is a little segment to just break up the repetitiveness of breaking down match after match after match, as well as give us a chance to talk about other stuff wrestling or otherwise, and do some fun trivia!! We’re all about having a good time here (Maggle) and this is always a nice little break to charge up our batteries before we get into the heavy hitting main event matches and angles.
S: It’s all a bit of fun and games here in the virtual Recharge Café in Parts Unknown. It’s just a break because believe me before we crack down the last forty minutes of the show, we’re gonna need a break to focus off of this car crash.
JT: Really, this is just us buckling ourselves in, getting ourself nice and padded for the inevitable wreck waiting for us at the end of this show.
S: So what better way for us to let our minds go than for a bit of coffee and the always impending wrestling trivia.
JT: But before we get to our trivia, Seán how are you doing today my friend? How you feeling?
S: I’m feeling alright, things have been okay. Back at college for my second semester of first year, after this week, I believe I only have about eight weeks left then I’m out for the year. Only have one exam too which is good. I’ve just been sorting things out in my general life, investing in a microphone for school purposes, a new bass amp because the old one is absolutely bollocksed and making my way through Frasier, currently on season five as we speak. How have you been, James?
JT: I’m feeling pretty chipper today. The weather has been nice for me the past few days, though I’m sure this is only a brief taste of spring for now. Baseball Spring Training is starting up, we’re only about a month away (less by the time this episode drops) from real games starting again. Warming weather also gets me all nice and happy.
S: Ah of course! Baseball season is soon to be starting up again. For those who don’t know, James is a Mets fan and I now know that they’re under brand new ownership? What’re your thoughts on this new regime and are you hopeful for this season?
JT: I am quite hopeful and excited! So the long and short of things was that the previous owners were a bunch of cheap scumbags, and the guy who bought them out is a super rich, lifelong Mets fan. They spent all offseason spending money to improve on positions they were weak on, including trading for one of the best Shortstops in the game. He is a game changer, I’m very excited to see him in Orange and Blue. Of course, my excitement should be met with a grain of salt, as we Mets fans are known for being optimistic every year just to get sent down in the dirt.
S: Well I’m hoping that for your sake that the Mets have a good or even great season this year. Definitely sounds like you’re in a better position right now than you were last year. I learned that because of James’ twitter threads on the Mets, you see.
JT: I do be posting about them. I gotta get out my thoughts somehow! So in the wrestling world, we’re heading down the road to WrestleMania!! Whatcha think about the direction right heading towards the biggest show of the year?
S: It’s very uncertain really, isn’t it? Like it seems that SmackDown has their shit together at the moment but Raw? Man there’s probably like one match that the Raw side is certain about doing. It’s Mania, I’ll always be excited for it no matter what so whatever they put in front of me, I’ll watch because it’s something to do.
JT: For real! I think we can safely say Edge vs Roman Reigns, Bianca Belair vs Sasha Banks, and Damian Priest & Bad Bunny vs Miz & Morrison are happening. Everything else? It’s up in the air.
S: I’m just more intrigued than anything to see how they’re gonna fill out the full two nights. I hope it’s just two six or seven match cards if anything really.
JT: Yeah there’s many possibilities as for what they’ll do with the WWE Title, Raw Women’s Title, Intercontinental Title, US Title, and Women’s Tag Titles. And then you have wrestlers who didn’t fit in with any of those, like Daniel Bryan, Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins, Braun Strowman, Cesaro, Sheamus, AJ Styles, maybe Brock Lesnar?
S: It’s certainly gonna be a hard card to fill out, that’s for sure. I think Rollins probably faces Bryan if you ask me. It looks like Braun is going to face Shane McMahon for some strange reason. Styles, I mean you could have him in the US Title match I guess but I’d rather see him do something high profile. It’s intriguing for sure.
JT: Styles/Riddle doesn’t seem too bad for in ring action, though the less said about him the better. I also think Rollins/Bryan sounds solid. I’m interested to see if we get a pay off to the Big E & Apollo storyline that’s been happening for the last few weeks, and where Kevin Owens goes. Because Kevin, I think is too big for the IC Title, especially some multi-person match if that happens, yet a singles match against Jey Uso seems almost too obvious and low stakes? Like, Jey has been great, but he’s more or less a henchman. Is that really all KO can get, a match vs a Henchman?
S: I mean I’d really like to see the KO vs Jey feud keep boiling over because Jey has constantly been a thorn in Owens’ side since like November or December so honestly, I’d totally be down for a street fight between those two guys because I think this is a feud worthy of Mania. There’s definitely a story there.
JT: I hadn’t considered a Street Fight, that could be fun. Speaking of fun, we also missed the obvious Fiend/Orton match at WrestleMania. Now, I have a theory that I just thought of a few seconds ago. This may not be fully thought out though, keep that in mind. So, any chance this is Randy Orton’s last match? I mean John Cena used the Firefly Funhouse to be written off, and he hasn’t been back since. I know Randy doesn’t have the outside options Cena has, but consider this. Randy has been working his ass off all year, including winning the WWE Title. Compared to years past, it seems like he was really motivated in 2020. Any chance this was WWE’s way of thanking him for his time in the company?
S: I mean I don’t know if Randy is gonna be full on gone, I think he’s still got a good bit left to give. The injury problems he had in the previous decade really seem to be well behind him now, he’s been keeping healthy and from a character perspective, he’s been great. I’m not sure if he’s gonna be finishing up but it wouldn’t surprise me if Randy is gonna be taking a bit of a sabbatical to spend time with his wife and kids. Definitely could be written off.
JT: Surely written off. Surely. All I’m saying is Randy strikes me as the type to want to quit while he’s ahead, before he can’t hack it anymore. I’m not guaranteeing it’s happening, I’m just saying I wouldn’t be totally shocked if he does hang up his boots.
S: That’s quite interesting, I never thought of it like that and if he does maybe hang it up, we can get him back on Twitch playing COD and vaping so five stars.
JT: And folks I really want to talk about AEW as well, because they’ve got a lot of interesting things going on, but I know Revolution will be happening between the time we’re writing this and when we release this. We’re too early to talk about the results, but too late for it not to be a huge factor. But trust me, there’s a lot to be intrigued about down in Jacksonville. Especially once international travel returns some to pre-pandemic normalcy.
S: Oh yeah for sure, I was a tad worried about how AEW would handle their shows when the pandemic started but man, they’ve been doing a pretty good job in the last few months. A working relationship has come up with Impact, there’s now a slight hint of a working relationship with NJPW because of the recent appearances of KENTA and they’re only gonna be doing a fucking exploding barbed wire deathmatch in a few weeks!
JT: We live in exciting times my friend. Now, are you ready for some trivia?
S: Oh you bet I am, who’s first up with the trivia question today, my friend?
JT: It’s up to you really, because I have a plan to deviate a bit from our usual trivia conventions today. If you want to lead in with our usual style of trivia, I’m down, if you want to just hear what I have planned, I’ll lay that on ya.
S: I mean your prospect sounds pretty interesting so I think that I may go first because James! It’s time for the Robbie E Fist Pump Counter!
JT: Alright!! This is becoming a real classic if you ask me. I’m ready to go! But first, remind people of our pretty standard rules.
S: Rules are as follows!
– Three guesses
– One hint
[CS]If you win, free subway for a week. If you lose, banished to Mars.
Last Time on the Power Hour, we left off during our signature guessing game, how many times did Robbie E fist pump? Oh yeah, and we reviewed some wrestling. We’re still in the Recharge, how will JT do at trivia? Let’s find out….
JT: Last time, I didn’t manage to do this one, but I’m determined to get it right! Robbie is my boy! I must do right by him! So, I’m going to start off my first guess with last time’s winner. Show me, 41!!
S: It is not 41, in fact it’s not even near 41 and considering I’m a generous man today, that’s not gonna be your hint. I’ve already got one in mind. Would you like a second guess or would you like your hint?
JT: I appreciate your generosity, I figured it was worth a shot, considering I wasn’t even close last time. And yes, I’d like that hint right now.
S: This number is the same amount of times Triple H has been World Champion.
JT: Oh no, you fool!! You may have been too generous!! Because, as I’ve told you readers a few times, I started watching WWE in 2009, right in the midst of Triple H’s 13th title reign! That number, it just stuck with me as one of those random things kids hang onto for no reason. And I know that he’s only had 1 run since then, as we talked about on our WrestleMania 32 bonus episode!! So my guess is 14!!
S: GAHHHHHHHH, WHAT HAVE I DONE?! HOW COULD I FORGET TRIPPERS WAS IN THE MAIN EVENT OF THE MANIA OF OUR SECONDARY HOME?
JT: Honestly, what’s kinda funny about Triple H’s title reigns, is that despite being only behind Ric Flair & John Cena, only 3 reigns were over 100 Days! His first 2000 Title reign (118 Days), his 2nd WHC reign in 02-03 (280 Days) and his 2008 run that ended with Edge winning it at Survivor Series 08 (210 Days). Crazy stuff.
S: I never knew that, that is absolutely mind blowing. When I do think about it now, he really did have a lot of short reigns. Never forget the great No Mercy 2007 show where Orton got awarded the belt, he beat Orton for it straight away, defended against Umaga and then lost it to Orton in a rematch in the main event.
JT: Gotta love very necessary reigns like that. Great stuff. Now, are you ready for what I have in store for you?
S: Oh I am ready, lay it on me.
JT: Okay, so earlier tonight we saw young Rosita win the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championships. In doing so, at 20 years and 76 days, she became the youngest champion in TNA History, across any title. Very Rene Dupree of her honestly. But, I wanna to test how well you can remember and judge age! TNA currently has 5 active titles, including the Knockouts Tag Belts. I’m going to give you the 4 youngest Champions for the Men’s Tag, X Division, Knockouts and Heavyweight Titles. Your job will be to rank them in order of oldest to youngest. Rather than give you hints, I’ll let you know when you have someone in the correct slot, but you’ll only have 3 chances to order them. How does that sound to you? Sound fair?
S: It’s quite the gargantuan task ahead of me but my god will I give it a go.
JT: Alright here they are, in alphabetical order. Representing the X Division Title, it’s Amazing Red, with his win over Kid Kash Weekly PPV #42 in 2003. Next is the youngest Knockouts Champion in history, Taylor Wilde! She won the title off of Awesome Kong on Impact in 2008. Next up is a recent and an unfortunate one, since the youngest Impact Champion of all time is Tessa Blanchard. She won the Title off Sami Callihan at 2020’s Hard to Kill. Finally, the youngest Tag Champion in TNA history is none other than the man now known as Cameron Grimes, Trevor Lee!! As part of the GFW Invasion, Trevor Lee teamed with Brian Myers aka Curt Hawkins to defeat the American Wolves for the TNA Tag Titles on Impact back in 2015. So, your options are Amazing Red in 2003, Taylor Wilde in 2008, 2020 Tessa Blanchard and 2015 Trevor Lee. Need me to clarify anything, or are you ready to take your first shot?
S: Alright so I’m gonna say that the oldest of them lot is Tessa Blanchard, after that I’m gonna go with Amazing Red, in second place I’m saying Taylor Wilde and I think Trevor Lee is at the top honestly because I’m pretty sure he was still crazy young in 2015.
JT: So you were absolutely correct about Tessa. She was an ancient 24 years, 170 days old when she won the Impact World Title. She is the oldest of the bunch. The rest though are incorrect. As it stands you’ve got 4th, Red isn’t 3rd, Wilde isn’t 2nd and Lee isn’t first.
S: Alright so in third, I’m gonna say Trevor Lee in third, Wilde in second and Red in first.
JT: Well, you’ve pretty much got it. Not exactly, but you’ve essentially got the process of down. First, you got our youngest Champion correct. Amazing Red was a wee boy of 21 years and 4 days old when he won the X Division Title. You did not get Lee or Wilde right, but as you can tell, Lee is not 4th, 3rd or 1st, and Wilde is not 4th, 2nd or 1st. I’m starting to realize I didn’t lay this out perfectly. But go ahead and use the process of elimination to give the correct order.
S: Just after realising I put Wilde in second twice like a big eejit so Wilde is in third and Trevor Lee is of course second. The process of elimination! Wheyyyyyyyyyy!
JT: That’s right!! The final rankings come out like so:
4th- Youngest Impact Champion, Tessa Blanchard (24 Years, 170 Days
3rd- Youngest Knockouts Champion, Taylor Wilde (22 Years, 150 Days)
2nd- Youngest Tag Champion, Trevor Lee (21 Years, 301 Days)
1st- Youngest X Division Champion, Amazing Red (21 Years, 4 Days)
S: The both of us are the big winners on the Recharge Trivia segment. Free Subway for both of us! A joyous day this is.
JT: It’s been a real nice day in the Recharge Cafe, but I think it’s time we move on. Is it time to get back the show?
S: I’m afraid it’s time we go back to this one, sadly.
JT: It’s time for us to be dragged, kicking and screaming, back to Victory Road 2011.
S: AHHHHHH! NOT ORLANDO! I’M HAPPY AT MY COFFEE SHOP! MR. BISCHOFF, MR. BISCHOFF NOOOOOOOOO!
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Student vs Sensei
JT: We’re back in 2011, and we’ve got the dynamic duo of Matt Hardy & Ric Flair backstage for an interview. Ric says that he likes Cold Blood as a nickname because it matches Matt’s cold heart. He says Matt’s got a vision, he wants to be the man, be the man, beat the man, you know the deal by now. He says Matt is the man his opponent AJ Styles needs to beat tonight. Matt says he’s been chewed up and spit out by the industry, and it’ll happen to AJ too. Nothing lies at the end of the rainbow for AJ but cold blooded, harsh, dark reality. Nice doesn’t make you rich, successful or famous. And all I can say is just, this is an odd promo.
S: Yeah this is just weird on both ends because at this stage, Matt is anything but the man. Styles has literally already been World Champ while Hardy has been the nearly man and the other content is just weird.
JT: Yeah they talk about Styles like some naive, inexperienced rookie. Not only is he a multi-time World Champion by this point, but he is a seasoned 13 year veteran at age 33, who took the low road with Ric just last year! It’s one thing to try and have a story where Ric feels AJ’s lost his way, but like, they’re acting like he’s been a goodie two shoes his whole career and that’s just patently false.
S: Yeah like AJ’s had maybe three heel runs in TNA up to this point? He was heel in Sports Entertainment Xtreme, heel with the Christian Coalition and heel for all of 2010.
JT: Just another weird decision. Speaking of which, Matt’s dreads are back!!
S: What a time to be alive.
JT: So pretty much the story here is all just AJ & Flair. Matt happened to be the guy AJ faced on Impact after Against All Odds when Flair turned on Fortune and aligned with Immortal. The rematch here is to prove that either AJ can do it on his own and that he doesn’t need Ric, or that he can’t hack it. Again, as we’ve pointed out, Taz pretty much picks apart this story, explaining that AJ had been World Champion before and has surely made a nice chunk of change in the process. But on the plus side, at least Matt has some company for the weirdest guy to be managed by Ric, with the whole Lacey Evans storyline in 2021. Matt is still weirder, because at least creepy old fucker Ric being with young blonde Lacey makes some sense in kayfabe (and outside of it). But at least Matt had company?
S: This has got to be the most bizarre pairing for a wrestler/manager combo like ever. Either that or Michael Hayes and Tyson Kidd.
JT: Fuck me I didn’t realize that was a thing…but don’t fill me in! I gotta make sure I go in blind when we do our Tyson Kidd & Michael Hayes arc. The people will love that one.
S: Unless you wanna review one random episode of Superstars as a funny bonus episode or the episodes of Superstars where Tyson Kidd would come out with a different manager every week as a side comedy arc. Count me in!
JT: So to cap off their final appearance of the night, we have AJ in stunning white entrance gear, matching Kaz & Beer Money earlier in the night. They both won their matches, will he make it a 3 for 3 sweep for Fortune tonight?
S: I think he’s certainly in the running to do so but this cold blood character looks like he’ll do anything to take the big dub.
JT: We’ll just have to wait and see. Lock up, Matt goes for a shot but AJ ducks and hits Matt with punches. Chops in the corner, ducks a wild Hardy shot, headlock, AJ is in easy control early. Matt hits a back elbow, but AJ with his signature special leapfrog, drop down, Dropkick sequence. AJ slingshots to the apron as Matt rolls back in, escapes an attempted suplex, tosses Matt out of the ring, goes for dive but Ric grabs his foot leading to a clothesline by Matt. Matt is briefly in control until AJ ducks down against the ropes and Matt flies to the floor, allowing AJ follow up with a Moonsault off the apron!! They brawl around on the floor a little, but veteran Matt pulls AJ face first into the hard steel of the apron. Matt then pulls off a very rare maneuver, as he picks AJ up over his shoulder, and rams him, shoulder first, into the ring post. I’m sure this is something very few people care about, but I gotta know if you’re with me on this one. I NEVER see anyone do that spot “successfully”, I was genuinely surprised.
S: I know right?! Like this is the most countered manoeuvre in wrestling history and Matt pulled it off, fair fucks to him.
JT: 999 times out of 1000, the guy over the shoulders slips behind and shoves the guy into the post. I guess that’s just Matt’s Cold Blood giving him the edge. However, for every rare success, we have a rare failure. This show is cursed after all. As they’re fighting on the floor AJ is sent at the barricade, but AJ slides under…partially. He needs to crawl and extra few steps to get under it. Regardless it’s still good as he flies back with the Phenomenal Forearm. They go back inside, AJ goes for a German, Matt with an elbow and a go behind. AJ tries to fight out, Matt throws him back into the turnbuckle. He just hucks him back into it, and he hits off like the bottom and middle turnbuckle.
S: My word, could we legitimately be on for an actual good or even great match on this show? Because at this stage, I was kinda digging this show.
JT: Knowing this show we should just give it time, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
S: Ah bollocks, I’ve just jinxed it now like.
JT: Back to the match, Hardy throws Styles to the floor, distracting Earl as Ric goes after AJ with chops and punches. Keeping up the aggression, Matt slingshots AJ into the ropes throat first, then gets the Ice Pick. AJ tries a pin, Matt kicks out, AJ gets the ropes, but Matt drops AJ across the top turnbuckle, then gets a sleeper slam for 2 count. For added salt in the wound, Matt chokes him on the ropes, and when his failure to break gets Earl in his face, Ric gets a crotch claw on him. Just grabs the yambags. Ouch. But AJ, he starts to get a comeback going, as though both men hit with a clothesline, quickly responds with a jumping Enziguri. They both get back up, trading punches, but AJ with a clothesline, a back elbow, then the Ushigaroshi, 1-2-Kickout! He picks Matt up and gets a Suplex into a Neckbreaker, but it’s another 2. AJ is rolling but as he jumps over Matt and swings for the Discus Clothesline out of the corner, Matt catches him and hits the Side Effect!! Matt off the second with the Diving Elbow, sets up “Twisto” as Matt yells, but AJ gets a Backslide reversal, 1–2–Kickout!! They both rush up to their feet and AJ gets a discus clothesline!! AJ signals for the Clash, but Matt counters with an Alabama Slam!! 1–2–Kickout!!! Things are going well, but as AJ goes for the Stylin DDT, Flair gets on the apron, and Matt falls down so AJ just does a cover instead of the DDT. Man!! They were doing so well!!
S: Just when this match was about to reach the proper high heights we so desperately earned, this slightly blown spot happens. It just had to, didn’t it?
JT: Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal, but as you’ve been reading, this sort of thing has been happening all show long.
S: We just can’t get one flawless match, can we? This show really was Maffew’s free target practice.
JT: I’ll say. So Ric gets on the apron, AJ confronts him and gets poked in the eye, and Matt grabs him but AJ punches him then hits a Pele Kick on Ric, who goes down like a ton of bricks. However since he focused on Ric, he lost track of Matt, who catches him with a DDT, then goes up top and scores a Moonsault! 1—2—-Kickout!! Matt looks to end it with a ToH, but AJ pushes him to the corner. Matt gets him coming in after him with a kick then goes up to the second, but AJ with a Pele again!! Hardy falls to the canvas, AJ goes up top, and he leaps off, connecting with the Spiral Tap!! He covers but as he does, Ric tries to interfere, but Earl Hebner just kinda blocks him and counts anyway!! 1–2–3!! AJ wins, he’s The Man now!! And for extra points, he gives Ric a Low Blow as he leaves. Do you want to start with the good or the bad?
S: I think I’ll start with the good, I think this match is easily the best we’ve had on this show, there’s no questioning that at all. I thought it was great to see AJ mixing it up with Matt, I was surprised by this one. We really haven’t gotten to see much of AJ in singles action at all. This is only his second singles match of seven shows of TNA that we’ve covered. Madness really. The bad, the botches were quite noticeable, the botched Stylin DDT and Ric looking like a goon just not pulling the ref out of the ring (Earl blocking it is such an Earl thing to do, fucking hell), would probably drag it down a little bit for me. What says you, my man?
JT: In the heat of the moment I was real annoyed at the finish, and that dragged down the match in my mind. It’s just such an Earl Hebner thing, like why of all people can he just stop interference or count the fall anyways, when no other referee ever has done that. You mean to tell me all time wrestling legend Ric Flair can’t even yank him out of the ring? It’s just such a dumb finish. I would’ve rather AJ just won after Ric got hit with the Pele Kick, or even if they had a ref bump spot for the purpose and letting AJ low blow Ric and then win. But in going over my notes, it’s clearly the best match as far as actual moves and spots go all night. There’s very little down time, Matt hitting the Moonsault was a pleasant surprise. As was the Spiral Tap, honestly I didn’t think I’d see that all arc. I’ve always connected that move with like, pre 2009 TNA. Like X Division AJ, not proper main event AJ.
S: Yeah the less he started using the Spiral Tap, the more he started morphing into the clinical all rounder, the Super Mario of wrestling. Yes I’ve been playing 3D World, people. Yeah the fact it was Earl of all referees to just stop Flair is the most Earl Hebner thing we’ve seen in this arc and that’s saying something.
JT: But hey, I suppose we can give this one a tentative thumbs up! Maybe?
S: Yeah, like a 5/8 thumbs up. This ain’t bad but the nitpicks are so major where they get dragged down.
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All Talk
JT: So we all know what happens with the TNA Title at the end of tonight, but I bet most you don’t know about who challenges the Champion coming out of tonight! With Sting just swooping in and winning the title, the natural hierarchy got all thrown off. So now it’s time to organize it all out, and crown a #1 Contender to the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. Essentially our two leading faces since BFG are facing each other, it’s Rob Van Dam vs Mr. Anderson!!
S: And we’ve got a promo package to hype this one up, what’d you make of this one, James?
JT: Well in my notes I have “Fuck this video package”, so I’m not exactly thrilled with what we got. It was essentially the two of the cutting mediocre if not just straight up bad promos on each other with some interconnected clips to highlight their background, presumably because they decided this was going to be on PPV like a week before the show.
S: Yeah they really try to make this match a big deal with the way the video package is filmed but like these promos do not help hyping this match up at all. The most boring ass lazy promos you’ll come across for a main event level match.
JT: Let me take the readers through some of the things they said. Rob says still never lost his title, even though it’s going on like 6 months without a rematch. He got screwed when he finally got his match against Jeff, but it’s about a matter of time before he gets back, he’s feeling positive, he’ll be main eventing “the next PPV”. He doesn’t even know the schedule!! Anderson meanwhile says he will go through RVD to take what’s his back. RVD says he’s seen Ken’s whole deal before, and he’s finally out of the maze he was in the last few months, but Ken says he doesn’t do flippity flops, he wins like you win in football, basics. You’d think they’d have something more cutting than that.
S: They’re about as interested as I was during a boring science class in secondary school. Also how the hell does RVD not know the schedule! This show is being billed as part of the Road to Lockdown for fuck’s sake.
JT: Well it’s okay, because we also have a Mr Anderson promo from before this match. That should give us something to work with, right? So he’s with Christy Hemme backstage, where she says to Ken that though he’s facing RVD tonight for the #1 Contender for the TNA Title, it hasn’t exactly been fair for Rob lately. But he just scoffs, oh it hasn’t been fair for Rob? Look around here, everyone is getting screwed, Dixie Carter got screwed…I mean put the bone to her…I mean put the wood to her….you get the point! Ken wants Rob to stop taking things so personally, this is business, he wants the TNA Title. He hasn’t been able to get this match for 6 weeks and he’s not bad of a guy, but he’s not that good of a guy either. He’s an asshole, but not a douchebag. Nice guys, bad guys, douchebags all finish last, assholes finish first. Well never mind that, that didn’t help matters.
S: Another ‘trying to be cool’ promo from him here. I cannot express how happy I am to be leaving these shitty promos in the past, good lord. They’ve been stinky.
JT: Man I was out on him at the start of this arc, I was kinda drawn in during Genesis, but ever since the Justin Bieber line, I’m just done with him. This arc has been very good for validating my opinions on Ken Skellington. I just don’t hold him in high regard.
S: And it also shows that he really doesn’t really have what it takes to make it to the top level. Like we saw him at Mania 23 and he looked ready for the main event ready at that stage and ever since then, it’s been a four year downward trajectory from grace.
JT: Well I’m sure it’s nothing but up from here for Kenny boy. After all, if he wins tonight he gets a title match at “the next PPV” and hey! He gets the bigger reaction out of him and RVD, wouldn’t you say so?
S: Yeah he definitely gets the bigger reaction, ever since Bound for Glory, the reactions for RVD have gradually lessened with each passing show.
JT: It seems as though they’ve put RVD on the back burner for a little too long. Again, we’ve discussed that we understood what they were doing by throwing tons of roadblocks in his way before he got to Jeff. But with Ken also getting screwed, in a more direct and recent way, I feel like it’s hard for fans to still care about RVD getting his match. Especially since by this, he has faced Jeff one on one…with Anderson as guest Ref. But as we’ve said again and again, this long winding road for RVD just isn’t worth the payoff at this rate.
S: Yeah it’s gone on too long and at this stage, they’re milking dust from the RVD sympathy herd of cattle.
JT: Well hey, again it’s win tonight and get the title match. We’re right there, we’re right at the gates of Valhalla. One more win and one of these guys has a shot to get back the title they were screwed out of. Ready to get into the match?
S: Let’s a go!
JT: The bell rings and we get dueling “We are assholes/RVD” chants. Right in each other’s faces, they go to trade shots, but Ken’s kick is blocked but then he blocks a kick from RVD, getting a headlock. He gets sent across but responds m with a shoulder tackle. He tries to drop an elbow but misses, RVD’s gets up and tries a front flip leg drop but misses. They both get up, swinging Neckbreaker is slipped out of, Rob misses a clothesline, Ken goes for an O’Connor Roll, RVD hangs onto the rope and Ken rolls back. Ken charges, Rob with a leg scissor cover: 1-2-Kickout, Ken cradles Rob, 1-2-Kickout. Hey, pretty good stuff!! Nice, well timed counter sequence, that’s how you start off a face vs face match with big stakes, am I right?
S: Oh of course, a good fish out of water counter sequence to stand off is always a solid way to start off a face vs face encounter so I’ll give them credit on that one.
JT: Yeah you know what, maybe we can relax and just things with the hope that they go right. So they lock up, they have some pretty even chain wrestling, oh and Rob mistimes a basic headlock takedown by Anderson…..you know what? Everyone makes mistakes, it’s fine. They’re still telling a decent story early on showing that the two of them are pretty evenly matched. This could do somewhere! Knockdown by Anderson, Anderson sends Van Dam across, RVD leapfrog and he clips Anderson’s head with his taint, leading to a clothesline and you fucked up chants as Ken goes into defensive sarcasm at the crowd. Fucking dammit. This show is cursed.
S: “I MEANT TO DO THAT” – Sure you did Mr. Skellington, sure you did. This show is the equivalent to the “It’s still good” moment with Homer and the barbecued pig which Lisa pushed away.
JT: The fact that a guy so seasoned as RVD is fucking up very basic spots with a guy who, at the very least was trusted to be world champion a month ago, is just proof this show is cursed. Like, it’s one thing for bad wrestlers to wrestle poorly, and for good wrestlers to have bad nights. But just everyone is having a bad night tonight. It’s ridiculous.
S: Maybe there was some botch sauce in catering which was very popular with the roster that day.
JT: Maybe somebody doped the water cooler with botch pills or something. But seriously, this is just the strangest show. Like I’ve tried to point it out whenever possible, but there really is no way to capture the feeling of how off the show is, except by watching it. And I don’t recommend that.
S: Even from MINUTE ONE where Bully Ray comes out and cuts a promo, it doesn’t feel like a PPV at all.
JT: Call this show Extreme Rules 2020, because it is an Extreme Horror Show!! And we’re not even done yet! Back to the match!! So Anderson sends Rob across for a Clothesline in the corner, then tries again but RVD reverses and gets a Rolling Kick, a shoulder in the corner, Springboard Kick to the face, then nails Rolling Thunder!! Anderson rolls to the floor for a breather, but only ends up getting a baseball slide and crossbody Plancha. Van Dam hangs him up on the barricade, setting up the Corkscrew Legdrop that we’ve seen time and time again on this show of ours, but Ken manages to avoid it at the last second, with RVD hitting leg first off the metal. Sensing he’s got a vulnerability, Anderson gets right to work on the leg, slamming it around the post, stomping it and locking in a Single Leg Boston Crab. Ken hangs up RVD’s leg on the ropes and hits a Dropkick to it, then connects with a chop block. Still for all that, Rob starts to fire up and come back, and Ken tries to cut him off with the Mic Check but Rob holds the ropes and Ken slams himself down to the mat. Rob goes for Rolling Thunder again, but Anderson stands up, gets him on his shoulders after a bit of a struggle, then Rob slips behind and grabs a headlock only to get slammed with a Backdrop Suplex Anderson is rolling again with clotheslines, Spinning Neckbreaker gets a 2 count. Anderson picks him up and gets the Rolling Fireman’s Carry, but spikes himself on his own head, 1—2–RVD kicks out. Again, cursed show! How many times has Anderson done that move before on this arc, let alone across hundreds of matches in his career!! And this the only time I’ve seen just spike himself on the mat like that, he basically gave him a Piledriver.
S: This is when you know that a show is properly cursed. Wrestlers fucking up basic wrestling spots up and down the cards and signature moves of respective wrestlers being botched. That Finlay Roll by Skellington was well scary to look at.
JT: Off the nearfall, they l both run at each other, double clothesline and they both go down. They start to get up, exchanging punches, RVD sends him into the corner, Rob goes for the Shoulder in the corner but Ken moves and he hits the post, but then they hit heads and go down for another double down. RVD slams on the mat, clearly pissed off, they’re just having a bad day. So RVD with a Crossbody to send them both to the floor, as they then start to fight up the ramp. RVD swings at him, Anderson blocks and catches him, hitting him with the Mic Check on the ramp!! However, the count is already going!! RVD is totally out, but Anderson struggles to get back up, and as he runs to get back in, he can’t get back in in time!! It’s a Double Countout!! GOD DAMMIT!!!
S: If there was any finish fitting to this dreadful fucking muck that is this match, it would be a double countout. The absolute cut of this match, like this match is so poor that I’d rather watch Lisa Goes Gaga rather than sit through this again. This match was just cursed, the Knockouts Tag Title match was bad but at least that was five minutes. This match went nearly THIRTEEN MINUTES. You’ve heard me say liquid wrestling on here before, this was diarrhoea wrestling. Shite moves, shite booking, shite.
JT: How bad is this match exactly? Well as they’re explaining it’s a double countout, and RVD & Mr Anderson were staring on in disbelief, we get a chant of “Restart the Match” followed by a significant amount of people responding with “NO!”. Meaning it goes “Restart the Match! NO!! Restart the Match! NO!!”. They were vocally yelling out that they did not want the match to be restarted, they’d rather just move on and see two of the top faces in the company without their chance at the TNA Title. Rather than seeing them get a chance at the title, they’d rather have neither of them get it just to avoid watching them wrestle each other again.
S: The more you actually break down the meaning of those dueling chants, the funnier it becomes and rightly so! Keep these two far from the main event after this display, gimme Jarrett, Angle, Styles, Roode, Storm and at this stage, they’re crying out for Aries to come in, yes he’s a prick but man he freshened up TNA in a major way.
JT: Yeah, given both of their track records this arc just doesn’t not paint a good picture of them as main event talents. They’re not great promos, they haven’t really had any great matches, and though they’re popular, can you say that there aren’t other guys on the roster who would be just as over if they got pushed as much as Ken & Rob are? Main Event Roode can’t come soon enough.
S: There are several other guys who deserve to be in this position rather than these two and this shows exactly why these two are very fortunate to be pushed at this level.
JT: Well I guess that just means that the World Championship match will have to be an even bigger deal, since we don’t have a #1 Contender!!
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Ain’t He a Great Dad
S: We’ve got one match to save this card but first! We’ve got ourselves the honeymoon of the year!
JT: That’s right! You alluded to this on our last episode, I didn’t even realize we were getting this! So after the disaster of a Vow Renewal on Impact, The Jarrett’s figure they deserve a little R&R. Jeff and Karen, they’re gonna have a honeymoon, albeit a honeymoon not approved of by The Nature Boy. As we saw on Impact, Jeff’s plans for a Honeymoon don’t line up with Ric’s ideal Honeymoon. Jeff is taking his new wife and all his kids to Universal Studios!! Ain’t he great!! Well, not in the eyes of Karen, because as is interspersed throughout this show, she’s having a real bad time on her “Honeymoon”, which is less of a Honeymoon and more of a Family Vacation.
S: And what great things do the wholesome Jarrett family get up to on this ever so wholesome vacati- I mean honeymoon?
JT: Well I’ll run through the whacky family hijinks right now! We get 3 of these vignettes over the course of the show. The first one sees Jeff having the time of his life at Universal with his happy kids, and an unhappy wife. Jeff is just marking over roller coasters and how great they are, the kids all want to ride it again, but Karen wants the kids to go home. Jeff being the lovely father and understanding husband knows he needs to compromise here, so he’s going to get something that everyone wants…..ITS PIZZA TIME!! The kids are happy, Karen is still mad. Vignette number 2, they’re eating their pizza and Karen wants to cut the chit chat, put down the stuffed animals, everyone needs to eat their food so they can go. She has been baking in the Florida heat all day. Luckily for her, Jeff has come back to the table with something hot, something bubbly, something decadent. Nope it’s not a little bit of the bubbly like Karen wants, and he’s not talking about a one way trip to the hotel hot tub, he’s got a second pizza!! Round two!! The kids are living it up!! “Cmon have fun mom”, says the kids as she looks even madder. Jeff even has those dumbass balance bracelets for the whole family!! Finally, we have one more segment. By now, Karen is fed up, this is a family vacation not a honeymoon. Jeff says the problem is that she’s not getting wet, (wink wink nudge nudge), and I’m sure that’s previously the issue. And though that’s going way over his head, he says he Jeff knows what’s missing. And it’s….Kurt Angle?!? Karen is beyond annoyed at her bringing up her ex husband on their honeymoon, but Jeff says they’ve all been through a lot, and now that he’s had this family time he’s cooled off at Kurt. He’s calling for a truce on Impact, it’s time to end the hostilities. For doing the mature thing of putting the past behind him, he wants a kiss from his wife but Karen doesn’t want to kiss him back, she just wants to get the kids and go home. The kids come up, the big group backs her up, right into the Splash Zone for a big dump of water from a theme park gadget. They all get soaked, she screams, and so concludes the Jarrett Family Vacation. First, what did you think of these segments as pieces of entertainment on a wrestling show?
S: I’m just gonna say this now, these segments are by far the best thing on this cursed show. I just loved Jarrett being the fun dad, marking out over roller coasters, getting pizzas for the kids, being the calm dad to the nagging wife and getting in the splash zone! I thoroughly enjoyed these and Jarrett was just brilliant, he had me laughing and smiling. Great stuff.
JT: In a normal situation I might complain about this, because it does feel like something you’d see on Impact, but not on this show. This was just pure, sit-com levels of goofy fun, and it was desperately needed. I gotta say, one of my biggest takeaways from this segment is that Jeff is a great dad. He just seems so high energy and good spirited, just like genuinely looking out for what his kids want.
S: I mean all I can say is that Jeff Jarrett seems like a good dad, but don’t get on his bad side or he may come after ya with the guitar.
JT: Okay, but now all I can think of now is a 10 years later version of this segment, where some wrestler is dating one of Jeff’s kids and he has to play protective Dad. You know, pulling them aside and going like “If my baby girl ever comes home crying, you’re getting one of these *gestures to guitar he’s holding*”
S: Say some gangsta is dissing your baby girl, you just give em one of these. *proceeds to Jackie Fargo strut and smash a guitar to his WCW theme*
JT: So on top of Jeff being the best Dad, Karen Jarrett is really ahead of the curve of “The Karen” stereotype. She is insufferable, and it is good comedy.
S: She’s unlucky that her name is Karen when we look back in 2021.
JT: But really, how fitting? I mean you have to understand her position. She’s been married before, she knows what’s to be expected with a honeymoon. This ain’t it. But still seeing her bitchy mom routine is still very funny. Next she’ll be yelling at the employees working at universal because the one white wine they have available at the food court sucks.
S: They should’ve given us that as a bonus segment, either that or berating cosplayers in Harry Potter world. Maybe that’s in the extended cut?
JT: It feels like these vignettes could’ve started on Impact and bled into this show, but I’m pretty sure this was only on this show. Can you confirm or find anything that says otherwise?
S: From reading up on what happened on the previous Impact, these vignettes were not on the March 10th episode, no. So these vignettes were all featured on Victory Road.
JT: Well regardless, I’m glad they were here. On the serious side of things, what do you think of Jeff’s idea of a truce for Kurt? How do you think that’ll go, do you think he has any ulterior motives in saying that? Because on one hand, you can’t trust a dirty heel like J-E-Double F-J-A-Double R-E-Double T. On the other hand, he was just saying that to his wife! His angry wife! What reason would he have to lie here if they were going to trick and humiliate Kurt again?
S: To perhaps lead Kurt into a false sense of security and then clock him when he least expects it so they get back at him for ruining their renewal ceremony? Also I think what would’ve taken these segments to the next level is if EY and OJ tagged along.
JT: Jeff as the goofy dad, Karen as the angry mom, EY & OJ as the terrible babysitters! It’s perfect! But let’s save the rest of the Double J, Kurt A feud for the final aftermath. After all, we’re so close to finishing this arc.
S: One day we have to go back to this because there’s a part of me which feels guilty to leave behind what was arguably our best feud of the arc.
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What we’ve all been waiting for
JT: Seán. It’s time. After months of work, we’ve finally gotten here. It’s finally time.
S: What this arc was more or less centred around, 55 matches later the moment has come to review what is arguably the most controversial match in TNA history and possibly of the 2010’s.
JT: Though we started this arc as a way of discussing an overlooked and generalized period of the career of a legend like Jeff Hardy, this point in his career is so maligned because of this match. And ultimately, having a chance to talk about this in proper, 10 years after the fact, we just had to do it. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the main event of Victory Road 2011. It’s Sting defending his TNA Heavyweight Title against Jeff Hardy.
S: You guys all know what’s about to happen here so we might as well just get into it while we can.
JT: Yeah I think the best course of action here is to just rush through the sort of usual introductory bits. We know what you’re all here for. I’m gonna go quickly through that just so we can get straight into what happens, breaking it down bit by bit. Because let’s be real, it’s not like there’s a lot of buildup to this, and it’s not like it’s what matters here. It’s just a rematch since Jeff lost his Title after being caught totally unprepared to face Sting on 3/3/11. We also get a brief (pre-taped) promo by Jeff where he says tonight he’s looking Sting eye to eye tonight, he’s not unprepared, he’s going to take his title back. The Tale of the Tape is also its usual general stuff, Sting won the title by surprise, Hogan is in power now (what will that mean for this match?). But most importantly, it says “No excuses tonight for Jeff Hardy”, which is just eerie giving what happens. The only other little thing to say is just, why does Sting have that ugly ass belt?!? Doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, probably just that they planned to take this feud further, though they’d never get there.
S: I think the shoot reason is that they probably don’t have the brand new TNA Heavyweight Championship ready yet but even then, just ask Eric Young if you can borrow his.
JT: Well, I’ve got no other preamble stuff. I guess we just have to rip off the bandaid and get into this, don’t we?
S: Might as well get to the sad stuff. Let’s take it over the finish line.
JT: So, Jeff’s music hits, and the fans boo. They have the camera on the entrance way, but there’s no Jeff. Normally, that wouldn’t be anything to worry about, sometimes heels really milk their entrance, sometimes they do a takeout and attack through the crowd. But Sting isn’t out there yet, Jeff’s the challenger, coming out first. And it makes the camera work to haywire. They can’t cut to Sting, who would normally be in a position to react to Jeff’s stalling or to get attacked. It’s not some cooperated thing, it’s just Jeff. Since he’s not coming out, the camera has nothing to do. As a result, they’re cutting to zoomed out shots of the Impact Zone, then zooming back in, then zoom back out. They’re pretty much just hoping he will come out like: “Okay he’s coming out now!!……Okay now!!…..Okay now!!” but Jeff’s just not coming out.
S: At this point you think something may be up but when Jeff walks out, that’s when you really know there’s something wrong. Like here it’s pretty suspicious but afterwards it’s quite apparent.
JT: Yeah I was gonna say, when Jeff just walks out, you wouldn’t know anything was up. Not without the context we already have anyways. He just walks out, kinda stumbling, kinda playing with his shirt, mouthing his song lyrics. But hey, he’s normally kinda like that. He always sings along with his song, him playing with his shirt is a little suspicious but not something you’d hit the panic button over. I mean he looks like he stumbles a bit going up the stairs, but honestly I’m not even sure if I’m remembering that correctly. Did he look like he tripped to you? I almost feel like I’m just reading into things with the benefit of hindsight, I just remember the camera recording him from the front and you can’t really see his feet. Am I reading into things or misremembering things here?
S: I think the direction which he loses his balance at, which is to his right makes me believe that it was him stumbling up the stairs and not tripping. That’s probably one of the hardest things of these infamous few minutes to watch because it’s obvious that he shouldn’t be out there wrestling at all.
JT: Yeah I’ll just say it now, the only reason I feel comfortable analyzing his every move in this is because we know he’s in a much better place now. But even with my stumbling the point is with hindsight it seems obvious that something is up but honestly if you were watching it live or were in the Impact Zone, you’d have reason to be suspicious but it’s not totally clear that he’s out of it until later.
S: Yeah and if you’re in the crowd, you must be seriously concerned with what’s going on too.
JT: Especially after Sting enters, pretty much in the same sort of gear he wore on Impact. Big sparkly red & yellow jacket, white with rblack & red face paint. You can tell that somethings up and there isn’t some angle going on, because there’s unwritten rules being broken. Like, as JB goes to start his big Main Event introduction, Jeff isn’t even in the ring. He’s on the outside, like he was for all of Sting’s entrance. Then, when the camera is on him for his introduction, then the alarm bells start tuning. Jeff flips off the crowd, which has to be censored. Then comes the infamous shot. Jeff’s in his black pants, with a black shirt with red sleeves. And his face paint is red with black and white stripes, which you get a good lock at as the camera does a closeup on his face, where he gives this face that I can only describe as dopey. Not trying to make a pun there, he just has this expression where it makes it clear as hell that he is not all there.
S: It’s the kind of face your mate makes on a night out when you ask him is he alright, it’s infamous.
JT: Yeah gotta believe the people working on the production crew saw that face and flipped the fuck out. Like, seriously, that’s a big red button moment. You slam on the motherfucker right then and there. You’ve gotta get him outta there, this is not safe, for him or anyone else.
S: This is the moment where Bischoff should come out and say “PPV cancelled and this is getting removed from all of history”
JT: And somehow it can still get worse from here. As soon as Sting’s introduction is done, Eric Bischoff’s music hits and he makes his way down to the ring. He says on March 3rd they were taken advantage of, and as he goes to Jeff shakes his hands, he takes the mic away from his face and starts talking to Jeff. This is clearly one of two. It is either Bischoff going “Listen up, here’s the new plan because it’s clearly not safe for you to wrestle” or it’s him asking Jeff one last time “Hey, can you wrestle tonight? Can you do this, at all, in any capacity”. I can’t tell what it is, but surely that’s it.
S: Yeah it’s one of the two really, I’m thinking it’s the whole change of plans thing where he’s telling him that it’s clearly not safe for him to wrestle and that this match is being cut short.
JT: Regardless of what it is, it’s clearly he’s communicating to them. Like I don’t consider myself a real expert of knowing when wrestlers are telling spots to each other, but like he doesn’t even have a choice here. He’s just gotta tell them both before something life threatening, some more egregious happens. He continues his promo saying that he just wants to come out and tell everyone that things are fair, as he then goes and communicates to Sting the situation. He had shook Jeff’s hand, presumably as a “Give me your word and that you have understood what I’ve said and that you agree to what I’ve just said to you”, and now they keep kayfabe as Sting refuses to shake Eric’s hand. Again maybe I’m reading into things, but doing the whole “fairness” thing as a way to communicate to Jeff the plan and make sure they have his word is smart.
S: I mean that’s totally plausible but what makes it weirder is that it’s no a No DQ match???
JT: Yeah Bischoff, for the sake of fairness, makes this a No DQ match, which of course Sting is totally unprepared for but Jeff has been training for all day! Now, this is why I question whether Bischoff directly said “Okay Jeff, here’s the new plan”, and instead wonder if he asked Jeff if he could go. Maybe this was just part of the gimmick and they felt like they had to do it, but part of me believes they threw him in here so if Jeff felt like he could compete, they could do things a little slower with walk and brawl.
S: If this was their mindset of changing it, if they even fathomed the thought of Jeff having a walk and brawl, then that’s fucking disgraceful. This poor guy could barely walk up steps, let alone fight. This isn’t an IWA-MS drunken death match with Mox and Neil Diamond Cutter like.
JT: Yeah I can’t say I agree with the rationale if that was the rationale, but I think there’s at least a small chance that was the case. But regardless, there was no way they were ever going to do the regular match. This is evident by the way that Easy E announces the No DQ and fairness thing like me trying to get as many pages as possible out of a paper. He’s just repeating himself, talking in circles, very clearly stalling for time so that they can try and claim that they didn’t cheat the fans out of a PPV by going off the air especially early.
S: Yeah this is like when you’re pissing about with an English essay trying to drag fucking anything out of the most boring points.
JT: It’s just obvious stalling. Just as clear as day, there’s no way anyone thinks it’s not. But again while the stalling is obvious, nobody in the building knows how bad the match they’re about to see is. And they will see a match, they can only stall for so long as Sting clocks Bischoff in the face.
S: And with that said, we better get into this “match”, right?
JT: I hesitate to call it that, but the bell does in fact ring for this one. Especially since for like a good minute I want to say, you get Jeff taking off his little t-shirt, faking like he’s going to throw it in the crowd, but not doing it. Again, he’s clearly out of his mind, because it’s one thing for him to do a t-shirt fakeout. But legitimately, it’s the only thing he does for a good amount of time, way longer than wrestlers ever spend with their shirt, unless you’re Tetsuya Naito deliberately taking a long time to undress or if you’re John Cena getting your shirt thrown back in the ring. He just keeps doing pump fakes, and there’s a clear feeling of “Dude just throw or don’t throw it, what are you doing?!?”. Especially from Sting. He tries to actually lock up with Jeff, but it’s not even like he avoids it, like by going into the ropes. Sting just brings his arms up and Jeff just looks at him, and only back up and gets into the ropes (while still holding his shirt by the way) as Sting like advances towards him with the feeling of “Are we gonna fucking wrestle or not? Quit fucking around!!”.
S: You can tell that Sting is fucking seething here too, like this is his first PPV back in five months and he’s recently come back, the conquering hero, looking amazing in his return match and now he’s come back to this bullshit.
JT: Oh it’s crystal clear. He did not turn down McMahon money to come play babysitter for a dude who is too old to be behaving like this. Taz eloquently describes what’s happening here as he says “What the hell is Jeff Hardy doing here”. Your guess is as good as mine bud. So Sting really tries to signal a lock up, it finally registers and they lock up, and realizing it’s not gonna work out wel, Sting with a kick, a chop, another kick, pull him out of the corner, fuck it Scorpion Death Drop. Deep cover by Sting, Jeff tries his damndest to kick out but it’s just 1–2–3. Sting “wins”. Okay, let’s be real, nobody wins here.
S: Oh not at all, everyone in this scenario is a big loser. Sting, Jeff, the fans, the people who paid for this tripe on PPV, it makes the company look bad for so many reasons. It’s not even a match. So many people are at fault here, like they should not have been sending Jeff Hardy out there in that condition at all. They should’ve put the foot down on booking that match and shoot an angle or something, find a replacement ASAP instead of allowing this to go ahead.
JT: There’s something so overwhelmingly sad about Jeff trying to kick out of the pin there. Like who does he think he’s fooling? What is going through his mind? If he does kick out, what happens next?
S: Sting probably puts a shoot submission on him and tries to get him to tap out but believe me, I’ve played a game of drunk submissions and it’s a weird feeling.
JT: Honestly the only way this match could’ve been worse was if it kept going. Despite Jeff’s disappointing/surprised face, I’m glad this one ended.
S: Yeah that’s the smallest micro positive that you can take out of this. It shouldn’t have happened but the fact they got it done as quick as they could is a minor positive.
JT: That’s about the only good thing we can say about that. Because man, Sting is beyond unhappy. He has a big old scowl on his face, and as he walks out of the ring and the show goes off here, with chants of bullshit starting, all Sting can say is an iconic “I agree, I agree”.
S: Yeah Sting is royally pissed off with how this has gone down and you can’t blame him, he turned down a match with The Undertaker and a nice WWE contract, this was the dream matches of all dream matches at this time period, now he’s only back a few weeks in TNA and he’s already having to deal with this.
JT: Yeah unfortunately for Sting, he’s seeing the lowest point of Jeff’s career right here. It’s just truly a sad, unprofessional moment from someone who is beloved by millions. And honestly? It was only a matter of time before something bad happened with Jeff and for as embarrassing as this was for him, in the long run it was critical to turning his life around.
S: Yeah it was, he has had some hiccups in the previous year prior to 2021 but within the last two years, he’s kept himself out of trouble and is being responsible. While I don’t condone the times he got arrested, at the very least they’re instances which aren’t as destructive as this one or previous incidents prior to Victory Road. He needed this rock bottom moment in all honesty to wake himself up.
JT: I mean, we’re lucky things didn’t get worse than this honestly. We’re lucky nobody got hurt. Considering how Jeff was seemingly fine all day but was only deemed not clear to compete shortly before his match begins leads me to believe that he may have done a lot very shortly, or that they were being neglectful. Like, this wasn’t the first time this sort of thing had happened. Earlier in the year, Jeff actually represented TNA at Wrestle Kingdom 5 against Tetsuya Naito. In that match, he displayed a lesser degree of intoxication but he had clearly not been sober. The fact that happened, in a foreign country facing a guy who speaks much less English, could’ve been disastrous. Again, we’re lucky he didn’t hurt himself or others with his behavior, and that all that happened was TNA had to issue a statement about how their PPV for “falling short of their standard” and that he got taken off TV and was sent to rehab.
S: You mention the Naito match and honestly, until you brought it up to me a few weeks ago, I completely forgot about that match’s existence entirely. New Japan really did a good job of sweeping that under the rug, one job they actually do well, unlike welcoming a sexual abuser back with open arms so his work visa doesn’t expire, but that’s neither here nor there, eh?
But anyways, Jeff after this show is completely written off and is pretty much gone for a solid seven or eight months, his first PPV back wouldn’t be until Turning Point 2011.
JT: And again, though he hasn’t been spotless since, he has turned his life around. Beating addiction is one of the toughest things a person can do, and clearly he was struggling big time if it affected his work in such a major way. Like, I can’t remember many other incidents like this, let alone in the main event of a PPV. And sadly wrestling has been full of addicts. But again, we really need to take a second and acknowledge how happy we are that Jeff has come so far. We wouldn’t have felt comfortable kicking him if he was still down. The fact we can look at this 10 years later and not be struck with a sense of tragedy is such a good thing for Jeff. I mean we all know what it’s like to watch a Benoit match. Hell, just watching like a Royal Rumble from the 80s or early 90s can feel even more morbid as we just see guys who died too early come out one after the other. I’m glad we can talk about the ridiculousness of this situation and do so with Jeff not only still alive but being an active competitor in wrestling. I’m so happy for him for making it through these tough times, for the sake of his family and friends and for himself. Good times are ahead for him. And ain’t it just the craziest thing that this Daredevil performer, known positively for death defying dives, and negatively for his long history with addiction, has still hung around after all these years? Imagine telling someone in 2011 that in 10 years that Jeff Hardy would still be wrestling and it’s not some sort of Randy the Ram situation.
S: At this stage, not many people would’ve believed you at all. I don’t think my mindset now in 2021 would’ve thought he’d be still wrestling to a great level and still get loads more title reigns in his second WWE run. Although they didn’t do much with it, seeing him with the US belt for the first time and having another IC Title run on top of having another go of teaming with Matt, who has turned his life around at a complete 180, found happiness and has three kids and still finding ways to reinvent himself and is being unique. It just makes it a lot easier to digest this time period knowing what we know now.
JT: Crazy to think that he still had more experimental moments in his tank, such as the Broken Hardys work or his Hell in a Cell Match with Randy Orton back in 2018. And again, I cannot emphasize enough, it’s so good that he actually came out on the other side of this ordeal a clean, happy, healthy person. Good on ya Jeff. This whole arc may have had a lot of nitpicking and joking at your expense, but ultimately it’s come from a place of love. Jeff was my first favorite wrestler, and really my interest in doing this whole storyline was to explore his career more in depth than I possibly could have as a 11 year old kid.
S: I totally agree with you man, when I started watching wrestling in 2007, there were like five or six wrestlers who I really gravitated towards. The main four were Shawn Michaels, CM Punk, Carlito and Jeff Hardy. From 2007-2009, I absolutely adored Jeff Hardy like you did, he was by far the most universally popular wrestler at that time period and I was for sure one of his fans. This arc was your idea man and honestly, I’ve had a blast doing it, it’s been a lot of fun covering a time period in TNA where they experimented with something different like a heel Jeff Hardy.
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Show Wrap Up
JT: With that infamous excuse for a “match”, we are officially done with our Jeff Hardy TNA Arc!! The Age of the Antichrist is over!! 7 Episodes, hours of TNA content, dozens of matches, in the books. Now, before we wrap up this arc as a whole, including some special end of season awards, we still have to wrap up this show. All you regular readers will know that we usually take some to break the whole show down, but we’re not doing that today. Because in honest truth, there’s not much to say. When you think of Victory Road 2011, you don’t think of good things, and that doesn’t get any better after you’ve actually watched the show. This is the most confident I’ve ever felt speaking for the both of us, but it’s fair to say that this show is an all time dud. It sucks, it’s not good. There’s really not much to really break down here, it’s just apparent that this show positively reeks. And not in a fun Edge & Christian way.
S: This doesn’t reek of awesomeness, this isn’t Mania 19. This reeked like when Mick Foley interjected on Edge and Christian’s version of Benoit’s song. It’s a stanky show, people. I’ve got nothing else to say on this one in all honesty.
JT: Yeah, don’t watch this show unless you have a reviewer’s oath to do so. There is nothing you can get out of watching this that you can’t get out of watching like Bryan & Vinny tearing this apart, or any other reviews of this. It’s not worth it to suffer through it, you should be able to see the stink lines from afar.
S: Absolutely, watch Bryan and Vinny have a go at it or Victory Road 2009 or Destination X where Bryan angrily emails Comcast about how shite the show was (the simpler times) or our boy, Brian Zane’s review of it. Don’t go out of your way to watch it unless you really have to.
JT: It’s just poor execution across the board. Good performers have off nights, poor performers do their worst, storylines are all over the place, and above all else, the finishes are just fucked up. Routinely they end their matches on the worst note.
S: And to add to that, the show ends on the worst possible smelly fart imaginable.
JT: With that all said, do you have any picks at all for a show MVP and match of the night? Any positives to be had tonight?
S: Match of the Night by default has to be AJ and Matt Hardy, it’s very slim pickings on this show to pick an out and out best match because we’ve been giving out about this show for the whole review so that’s my pick. As far as MVP goes, it’s Jarrett. Why? For one he wasn’t dragged down by this show and he was brilliant in his role, he was a caring, fun and funny dad who looked like he was genuinely having a whale of a time and the fact he didn’t wrestle too was the reason, don’t get it twisted I really like Jeff Jarrett as a wrestler and a character but we know if he or Angle wrestled on this show, they would’ve been struck by the Victory Road curse and we all know it. Congratulations Jeff, you’ve done it again, buddy!
JT: Again, I hate to just be a copycat but we’ve got slim pickings. Matt/AJ didn’t even impress me on a first watch, but breaking down everything, I realized there was nothing up to its, slightly above average standard? And Jeff, he was like an oasis in the desert. Every time he came on screen, I got a smile. It was silly and rather inconsequential stuff, but at least I was pleasantly entertained. Nobody, and I mean nobody over delivered today. Nobody went above and beyond. The only other MVP option on the table was Sting, just for having to put up with this shit.
S: I think Sting honestly deserves an employee of the month award and an immediate pay rise after having to deal with this shit.
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Seasonal Wrap Up
JT: Alright! We’re doneski with the regular sort of awards for the show, are you ready to get to the overall seasonal wrap up and awards?
S: Let’s do this man! I’ve been itching to talk about this since we started talking about this show but now it’s time to finally wrap this present up!
JT: Let’s put this fucker in the ground. So first let’s start things off on a positive note. We’ll be general for these first few categories before getting more specific as it goes on. So firstly, what are just some general positive takeaways you have about watching this storyline? Any sort of general aspects of the show that stood out as good on a regular basis? What sort of things caught your eye and made you think “Hey, they’re doing a good job with that”?
S: For as much as we ragged on the bad stuff in this arc, when I look back on this season, there was a lot of good stuff we can admire which TNA did at around this time. The first and probably biggest takeaway was the booking of the tag team division on PPV and of the main tag teams. We got Gen Me, MCMG and Team 3D leading the line for the first half and for the second half we had Beer Money, MCMG and Ink Inc. all of these teams I feel did a great job, special mention to EY and OJ too, who I feel should’ve gotten more time.
Another positive would be the stuff we got to see between Mickie James, Tara and Madison Rayne. They played their roles well and it’s a shame we’re leaving before Gail Kim comes back for her amazing second run. Robbie E was a pleasant surprise who I did a complete 180 on. Kurt Angle and Jeff Jarrett were magnificent for the second half, Jarrett was one of my complete standouts for this whole arc honestly. Bully Ray, my word even with the infancy of the character, he has it down to a tee from the first PPV, great stuff and TNA had themselves their heel for the next three years.
JT: Yeah that last part about Team 3D, Kurt, Jeff, even Tara and Sting brings up a point I wanted to bring up. I know TNA gets it’s deserved flack for using washed up older guys, but I think that BFG really marked an end for that period (or at least it’s lowest point). I really enjoyed how they used their older talent this month. Though (and I’ll get to this later) I’m not a fan of who Jeff was beating, they did a good job presenting him as a big deal, building him up, while simultaneously not having him be overexposed on PPV. Same with Kurt, who in his rare appearances felt like a big deal. Hell, Scott Steiner felt like a big deal when he came back. I thought Team 3D was used pretty well both before and after their split. For two guys who were never taken seriously as singles acts, they really did a great job making their angle heated and interesting. I’ll throw Tara into the mix here too even though she’s not “old” like Sting, but she was an established veteran presence who was booked strong enough to be a threat but still put Mickie James over when the time came. Matt Hardy was in this camp to a degree too.
Another plus I’ll give them is booking the main Fortune 4. Now the faction as a whole? It definitely had its problems this arc (again, I’ll get to this) but I think AJ, Kaz, Roode & Storm were all made to be credible stars. They were routinely treated like the company’s best, because they really were. They knew what they had on their hands with them.
Finally, this might seem like an odd comment but I kinda felt surprised that these shows didn’t feel more dated than they were. I mean don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of dated aspects to the shows we watched. But generally from an in ring and production standpoint, this really wasn’t too bad. Aside from odd lines here and there, this didn’t feel too bad. Maybe I was expecting Attitude Era levels of datedness but I still feel like it was better than I expected in that regard. What do you think?
S: I think the pop culture references for 2010/11 are well dated because that’s how pop culture works but as far as the presentation goes, they were definitely a more clean cut product than they were in 2007. They came across as more teenager friendly but not the immature teen, like they’re appealing to them with the sort of edgy presentation of some characters. The hardcore stuff was a bit dated, even in 2010 but it’s not aged poorly, it’s aged somewhat well, I think. It’s not the best product by any means but it’s not insulting different demographics or being immature for the sake of it, if you get me.
JT: Well it’s not insulting demographics in an above and beyond way. Like they weren’t exactly great to Orlando Jordan, but at least they were comfortable enough having an open Bisexual on TV. WWE wouldn’t get around to that until Darren Young. And while the disparaging comments weren’t great, we should also remember that gay marriage wasn’t even legalized in the US until 2015. So, they weren’t off base from the regular levels of political correctness/sensitivity at the time, which is a plus for wrestling, which usually falls way below those standards.
S: Yeah I didn’t like some of the comments made about Orlando Jordan, that rubbed the wrong way with my 2020/21 eyes but the same was over here in Ireland for a long time, sure we didn’t even legalise gay marriage until 2014 and abortion wasn’t even legal until 2018 so yeah, this country was under the iron fist of the Catholic Church for way too long.
JT: Well the fact that we’re slipping into “Well they’re not as homophobic as they could’ve been” is about as good as sign as any to move onto the general negative thoughts about this arc. Unless you have any final parting positive to shower TNA with?
S: Nah I’ve got no more positivity to shed, you don’t mind if I focus on the cons of this story arc, do you?
JT: Go right ahead. You pretty much nailed everything I wanted to say with your first point, I dug down deep to get my few points, I had to make sure there weren’t any crumbs of the scraps we had to work with.
S: Perfect, thanks for giving me the floor. The negatives, for as much as I enjoyed watching and reviewing all of this, boy were there a shed load of negatives to dwell on here. To start off, by the end of the first half of this season, there were quite a few guys who were completely dead in the water by Final Resolution time. Those being Samoa Joe and The Pope, I didn’t like how Joe was used as someone to job to Jarrett twice but at the same time, what guys could you have in Joe’s position and not be damaged? The Pope lost his feud to Abyss and then had a boring old feud with Joe which only scraped it’s way on to one PPV.
There were a lot of guys who just straight up floundered throughout this period. RVD, completely damaged and by the end, looked like he needed a lot of rebuilding after dragging out the “lost the belt but was never defeated” card for five months. Matt Morgan, came in to Turning Point as an unlikely but believable challenger, by the end he jobbed so much that he looked destined for the mid card and teaming with Crimson. He was by far the biggest loser of this arc.
The X-Division, there was a total lack of rotation with the X-Division throughout the arc. With the six X Title matches we got on PPV, we had a total of six guys in the hunt for the title. SIX GUYS ACROSS SIX PPV’S. Where’s Red, Kendrick, Suicide and even Shark Boy? Why not give Okada a go on PPV? As well as a lack of rotation, there’s a massive lack of depth to the division at this time too.
Mr. Anderson, I came into this knowing that he was very naff in TNA and I was proven right. I’ve spoken extensively on why I didn’t like him in TNA and how his look was shit but sweet curry sauce, some of his promos were the fucking pits. Against All Odds was the last straw after he did get me on his side at Genesis, that promo will forever frustrate me and Victory Road, wow, talk about going out on a whimper.
JT: Yeah one thing that really got to me throughout this arc was what felt like a lack of movement throughout the card. I mean, we watched nearly 6 months worth of TNA PPVs, and it feels like nobody really got elevated up the card, mostly just guys sticking around in a spot or worse, dropping down the card entirely. Joe, Morgan, Pope, all slid down the card. This just adds to the feeling of staleness when you have repetitive cards and booking patterns.
It’s one thing to have consistency with your PPV cards. Nice to watch a show and know who will be there. But the issue here was it felt like every story got dragged out for a long as possible. Fight a guy one PPV? Well better make sure that show has an inconclusive ending so we can make sure it’s on next month’s show! This really got to me during the Mickie James vs Madison Rayne feud. It started in October, they had a match by January but we still didn’t get a payoff by March. And I’m not saying everything needs an immediate conclusion, but that feud had two straight months of screw job finishes, then no representation on our final 2 shows. We said then that there are ways to do that sort of thing, but they did it in a way that just felt like they were kicking the can down the road for another month. Honestly, how many actual storyline payoffs can you say we got during this whole 6 months arc?
S: Matt Morgan’s chase for the gold, although that wouldn’t happen until he fulfilled his boyhood dream of being a champion, TAG TEAM CHAMPION. With CRIMSON! No, we’re not reviewing the era of Little Red and M4.
JT: See, stuff like that makes it hard not get annoyed watching these shows. You’re telling me at least you can’t get him to like feud with Abyss and win the TV Title? The lack of payoffs ends up feeding into my other point about a lack of movement, which feeds into another issue I had, which was the seemingly random disappearance of talent.
First, there are some that aren’t necessarily TNA’s fault, just something that hurts the arc. The Motor City Machine Guns getting hurt, AJ Styles getting hurt, those were big blows. However, they weren’t the only ones to go away for very little reason. Samoa Joe was gone until they needed him to feud with The Pope. Jay Lethal was a main staple for the first part of the arc, then was absent for the rest of the shows. Doug Williams was getting a big singles push, then was shot and thrown in a shallow grave. Abyss disappeared too, as TV Champ no less. And you notice something about most these guys? They’re younger guys. When you have repetitive booking, things feel stale, and when actual up-incoming guys disappear, you’re left wondering where the future is. And this is an issue that would really hurt TNA in a few years.
S: It would hurt TNA for ages really, by 2012 they looked like they had a nice blend of experienced more well known guys with their own guys who they managed to elevate. By next year we have Roode, Storm, Aries, Angle, Sting, Hardy and Bully Ray in and around the main events scene. The year after, Magnus was pushed with those guys, Styles was back in the mix and to be fair to them, as much as I don’t like him these days knowing his political beliefs, they definitely tried doing elevating Gunner.
You mention there about the disappearance of guys, after Genesis we didn’t see Abyss, MCMG, Lethal or Williams again. EY and OJ were over and not used on PPV until Lockdown. The TV Title was a random belt collecting dust along with the Knockouts Tag Belts. Styles only wrestled in a singles environment twice during this whole arc. At Bound for Glory and Turning Point, he was locked with EV2.0 alongside Fortune and for the first two shows of 2011, not on the card at all.
JT: Finally I think the biggest issue that plagued this whole arc was the main event matches. The guys in there were not bad, but it felt like we were consistently ending our shows on a bad note. I remember one of our first contentions this arc was over the quality of the BFG Main Event. I specifically remember not thinking it was anything special, and while it’s not special now, I’m honestly more favorable about it now considering the low bar of entry. Victory Road’s main event of course being the low point, but it really felt like again and again, we got to the final match and left the show unhappy.
S: Yeah that’s a real issue we’ve talked about extensively throughout our seven reviews of this arc, at least we had our Armageddon 2008 main event matches. Another problem I have to mention is the Impact Zone crowd we had around this time, such a mixed bag this crowd were throughout our time here and even then, it was mostly apathetic when we’d hear this new class of Impact Zone regulars. The Scrubs Season 9 to my Scrubs Season 1-8.
JT: Yeah it very much seems like the only consistent thing about these shows were that the show would be inconsistent. You knew roughly who would be on the card and what kinda stories would be told (seriously, how many times did we hear “Will Immortal get all the power”), but we didn’t know how good the matches would be or if the crowd would even react.
S: Or there’s so many, especially from the first three shows, we did come to accept that the crowd were what they were but definitely inconsistent.
JT: Okay so we got a bit into this in our criticisms, but I’d like to hear what you think we could’ve used more of on this arc. Like what’s something you saw a bit of that would’ve made the arc better if we had more of it?
S: A few things really, I would’ve killed to see more rotation in the main event. Out of the six main events, we had five different guys, which is just madness. Like you’re really telling me they couldn’t do face AJ Styles vs Jeff Hardy for the main event of Genesis or Against All Odds? I would say more of Angle wrestling but what we could was definitely worth it. I would’ve wanted more guys in the X-Division matches really. More Eric Young and Orlando Jordan, I know they’re a comedy team that shouldn’t be taken seriously but a bit of comedy on these shows would’ve helped a lot. EY wrestling is good too because he’s really fucking talented. Finally, just make the TV Title more featured, it’s your mid-card title for all the guys not in the X-Division so just feature it more and elevate the damn belt.
JT: Yeah I definitely would’ve liked more X Division action. I like our boy Robbie E, but his point of existence was as an anti-X Division guy. It felt like the X Division went from having like a bazillion people in 2006 to having like 7 guys max this year. I could’ve gone for more Generation Me, more Jay Lethal, more Amazing Red, more EY, more Brian Kendrick even. I mean, hey, considering how deep the indies were at this time, they could’ve allocated their resources better. I mean guys to leave WWE in 2010 including Carlito, Shelton Benjamin, Charlie Haas, Jimmy Wang Yang (who was only 29!), Funaki, and the indies had plenty of guys like Paul London, Kenny King, Jigsaw, Ruckus, all sorts of guys they could’ve leveraged TV time to drag away to Orlando. Like the whole wrestling industry was full of smaller, faster, technical wrestlers inspired by WCW Cruiserweights and even the X Division itself. I don’t see how you can’t take a flyer on a bunch of guys.
S: Exactly! Like on the indies there were so many guys that they could’ve added to help out the division. I do remember them bringing in Jigsaw in either 2012 or 2013, but they called him Rubix. Why? Who fucking knows, they brought in Scorpio Sky and called him Mason Andrews, Sabian was called Rashad Cameron. They brought in Jack Evans later in the year who got super over in ONE MATCH but he never signed on. Kenny King would’ve come in 2012. There was no stopping TNA bringing in more X-Division guys, like get Ruckus, Sabian, maybe take a chance on a young Ricochet at this time, Paul London, Scorpio Sky would’ve been worth a shot too, there’s a lot of guys they could’ve gotten.
JT: So on the other side of things I want to know: what is something or are things that we got a lot of this arc that you didn’t expect? Personally, I wasn’t expecting to see so much Robbie E on PPV. I figured when he debuted, he might be on another episode or two, but I assumed he would be more of someone on Impact than PPV, like EY & OJ. Don’t get me wrong, Robbie is my boy now, but I wasn’t expecting so much Robbie this arc, he was on more episodes than he missed!! I also wasn’t expecting so much EV2.0/ex-ECW guys. Like I was expecting Team 3D and RVD from the offset, but I wasn’t expecting multiple Tommy Dreamer appearances. I wasn’t expecting to see Rhino or Stevie or Raven as much as we did. When I saw them on the BFG card, I assumed that would be the final appearance for the Extremists and that would be that.
S: The EV2.0 guys definitely surprised me with how much they were on. Like they featured on both BFG and Turning Point, Rhino even got another pay day at Final Resolution. Dreamer was here a good bit as well. I didn’t expect to see so much Robbie E either, he was on every PPV but Genesis, I believe. Even made a sneaky appearance on Impact so they clearly had faith in him and he was a nice pleasant surprise. Tell you what I didn’t expect though, Matt Morgan losing on every fucking PPV.
JT: Oh my god yes. Again, as much as we beat this into the dirt, it was seriously surprising to see him do as poorly as he did. Losing to Hardy the first and second time? Well they’re keeping Jeff strong and their hands were kinda tied. Losing to Anderson? Not great but there were bigger stories at work than just Matt. But from there it felt like they were doing a gag on us how much it kept happening. Especially with Hernandez kneeing him in the balls. I knew he didn’t exactly succeed in the main event picture but sheesh.
S: I mean this guy was clearly booked into the ground, like he just looked like the biggest nearly man there was really.
JT: Poor guy would never reach that level again, he is now midcard 4 life brother.
S: Without a doubt he would be in the midcard for the rest of his TNA run. What’s next on the awards docket, sir?
JT: Well we’ve had lots of bad stuff this arc, and now it’s time to talk about the worst storylines of them all. What do you think is the worst of the worst?
S: This is a tough one because unlike with season one, there are no real storylines to me which particularly stand out as god awful or truly bad. There have been a lot of bollocks storylines like Matt Morgan’s chase for the gold, RVD and his quest for a rematch. Those are two storylines which just lost their value the longer they continued. There were also a few storylines I just didn’t care for, like Fortune vs EV2.0 but as far as the worst storyline goes? I guess I’ll place my hat on the Samoa Joe vs Pope feud, just an uninteresting feud with a nothing match and Okada as Joe’s sidekick but he’s Kato from The Green Hornet? Yeah it’s gotta be that for me.
JT: Those are all good shouts. I’d also like to shout out the storyline with “The Band” on BFG, that led to Sting “leaving” as well as making Pope a target of Immortal. Also, less so an actual story, but fuck the general “power struggle” narrative that was said at the start of like every show. Oh and the Hernandez/Morgan racial tension storyline was not great either. Or Shannon Moore being mean for no reason. Oh Shark Boy showing up and then going away after laying out the X Division Champ. But I think though that my least favorite storyline of this arc has to be the “traitor” in EV2.0. It was just an excuse to do more random Hardcore Matches on PPV (which we got on like every show), and it just stalled out RVD’s momentum. I didn’t need to see him fight Tommy Dreamer (especially after he broke his wrist) and I didn’t need to see RVD vs Rhino First Blood. Just not interesting, in the least.
S: Completely forgot to bring up the traitor storyline but here we are, thanks for reminding me of it. Yeah it was quite the bollocks storyline and it gave them an excuse to give us matches which were last relevant in ECW or 2002 WWF/E.
JT: But hey, not everything was bad. We did have a few good storylines, right? Which do you think was the best of them all?
S: We definitely had a few good storylines for sure. Team 3D vs MCMG was a brief but great story, they wanted to go out on top but Sabin and Shelley wanted to show that they’re the best in the world. MCMG and GenMe was almost the present versus the future, GenMe were disrespectful like how The Guns used to be. It was almost as if they were facing past versions of themselves but in a modern setting. Bully Ray vs Devon, my word, a masterful story which deserved the massive blow off on PPV, the storytelling at Against All Odds was amazing but my definitive best storyline of this arc has got to be Jeff Jarrett vs Kurt Angle. This story just had so many layers to it and we didn’t even get to see the second half of it, we had it go from disrespectful with Jarrett doing Double J Double M A only for it to heat up in the space of a few minutes with Jarrett turning dirty and being the cowardly heel by retiring undefeated from MMA, great stuff. It gave us a really good match at Against All Odds where it became a bit devastating because Kurt got outwrestled in the end and now he had to lead his ex-wife down the aisle for a wedding vow renewal, those segments on Impact gave us both brilliant comedy and intensity with Angle tearing shit up and the whole cake smearing to Karen. I wish we could review the final pieces of the puzzle but that’s a story to be finished for another day.
JT: I gotta agree with you, the best story has got to be Jeff vs Kurt. You’ve got the spicy real life aspect of it, you’ve got the wacky MMA Gimmick, we had the emotional match between the two of them that showed both guys flexing their muscles as characters, and we’ve got the fun Vows and Vacation segments. I’d also like to shoutout Mickie James’s title chase storyline. Though it did get dragged out towards the end of our arc, all the story beats made sense and got us to root for Mickie to climb the mountain and get the Knockouts Title.
S: Another reason why I’m a bit miffed to be leaving this arc at this stage because at Lockdown, Mickie would finally get that big win. I completely forgot to mention that as one of my favourite storylines, especially the stuff with Tara, great stuff that was.
JT: Yeah I think it’s not a ringing endorsement that essentially 3 of our favorite storylines didn’t get paid off. I mean I know we ended right before Lockdown, but dammit!! If there’s no Jeff Hardy, you can count me out!!
S: Jeff Hardy was our draw brother and unless we do the Jeff Hardy redemption storyline, we ain’t coming back, Jack!
S: Victory Road 2011 is the obvious choice, you all know this, it’s a horror show. As far as the dishonourable mentions go, two come to mind. The first one being Turning Point 2010, that show was a real slog to get through, from what I remember not many matches stood out bar Tara vs Mickie and Team 3D vs MCMG were the good matches. The rest, there were a lot of nothing matches, Pope vs Abyss, EV2.0 vs Fortune, Hardy vs Morgan, Dreamer vs RVD. I also remember having to get through watching that show in about two or three sittings as well. Against All Odds was another particularly underwhelming show as well, the only match which I remember being good was Jarrett vs Angle, Matt Hardy vs RVD was a little bit better than their first encounter but nothing special, Anderson’s cursed promo and another underwhelming main event. What says you, James?
JT: You pretty much nailed it. Against All Odds felt like we were limping to the finish line of their arc, and after a decent enough BFG, Turning Point was a taste of what was in store for this arc properly. I don’t want to throw any other shows under the bus for the sake of variety because we only have 7 shows to pick. Those are pretty much the stinkers. And obviously Victory Road 2011 is the worst show of the arc. A bigger question is, is Victory Road 2011 an all time bad PPV? And if so, how bad?
S: I think it’s definitely up there as being one of the worst PPVs ever. It’s most certainly an all timer, barely any matches stand out and the ones that do would be considered decent matches on good shows. It’s definitely the worst PPV of 2011, that and Mania 27 are probably the out and out worst of that year. How bad is it? It’s bad to the point where you need at least four sittings to get through it.
JT: I seriously think it might be TNA’s worst PPV ever, and that says a lot considering all the wacky shit they’ve done over the years. At least the infamous “Fire Russo” Last Rites match is at least something you can laugh at for how poor it is. Victory Road stops being funny and just starts to be awesome, in the sense that you’re left in awe at how things just continue to go wrong.
S: Yeah like this doesn’t have the charm which some of those insane 2007 PPV’s had, this is bad and has no charm to it at all, like the annoying kid in class who just tries to be funny all the time and makes you groan.
JT: On the other end of the spectrum, we have our Best Show Award, which for me might just be as obvious as worst though. Although, that’s not necessarily because I was blown away by the quality of that show, more so that we have slim pickings and this show was just better than mediocre. But first, lemme hear your nominations.
S: This is a weird one to choose from because unlike season 1 where it felt like we had a few good or even great shows to choose from, there’s not really a PPV which stands out as amazing or great. Bound for Glory had some good matches on there, GenMe vs MCMG, Ink Inc. vs OJ and EY just really made me laugh and I actually liked the main event. Genesis was typically a positive show all things considered but I think my best show has to go to Final Resolution 2010, mainly because that was the show which had the most matches I liked, it was also the easiest to watch too. Full Metal Mayhem was great, Ink Inc. vs Beer Money was a fun watch and Williams vs Styles was really good too. Special mention to Tara vs Mickie as well. So yeah, Final Resolution would be my Best Show for Season 2.
JT: I think you really just named off the only options. Shoutout to the Impact Episode we watched for being watchable. I really wanted to go with Genesis for having the running story of Immortal’s growing arrogance, but I think there were a few too many iffy matches to really give it the best show. Final Resolution had got to be the best show of the arc. Like you said, MCMG vs GenMe Fullmetal Mayhem was awesome, Tara vs Micke was great, Doug vs AJ was unique and even the worst matches were alright. Abyss beating The Pope? It wasn’t great but at least Abyss smashing through the Casket was memorable. Hardy/Morgan’s main event was probably the best Morgan match we had because of the added intrigue of Anderson as Guest Ref. Even Rhyno/RVD, one of the least necessary and least intriguing matches of the whole arc, at least was good enough to give us a Van Daminator.
S: It was a Van Terminator was it not? Or was it a Van Crushinator? Or was it a VAN ASSASSINATOR?!
JT: Whatever it is, it was Van Dam Good Enough to not end in a way that annoyed everyone, like our other First Blood match this arc. And that is as good of a transition as we’ll get for talking about our next category, Worst Match of the Arc!! And obviously, it’s going to be Jeff vs Sting. Obviously. But any runner ups come to mind? Bonus Points for anything not on Victory Road. Like, you can tell why this was easily the worst show of the night, you’ve got multiple contenders for worst matches of the whole arc on one show.
S: Yeah so Jeff vs Sting has to be the worst match. The honourable mentions would be Winter and Angelina vs Mexican America, Anderson vs RVD, the lumberjack match with Abyss vs The Pope. The problem with picking the out and out worst matches here is that there’s not a lot that’s truly bad or horrible but there’s so many nothing matches. Like Pope vs Abyss was just such a dead match and Anderson vs RVD was a miserable watch but aside from those few I mentioned, I would mention the matches that barely had any crowd interaction but for me, I think that would be a little too harsh.
JT: They I believe if we didn’t have Sting/Hardy, the Women’s Tag Title match would’ve made it for that god awful finishing spot. Speaking of which, just a reminder of the shitty finish to Anderson/Morgan from Genesis. And to Anderson/Hardy at Against All Odds. Boy, we’ve just had shitty luck with finishes all arc long!! I guess it figures we end this whole ordeal on the worst show with the worst match.
S: It’s very fitting to say the least. What’s next up on the agenda, good sir?
JT: Well on the other side of worst matches is clearly the best matches!! These are the best individual performances of the arc, the matches that stood out the most, the matches that made this arc worth watching!
S: Every single Motor City Machine Guns match, I’m not even joking. Every match they had was a bona-fide banger and a half. Doug Williams vs AJ Styles from Final Resolution, Tara vs Mickie James from Turning Point, Kurt Angle vs Jeff Jarrett from Against All Odds and Kaz vs Jay Lethal from Genesis. All good or even great matches which I’d recommend checking out whenever any of ye get the chance to. As far as what would be my out and out match of the season, I think it’s gonna be, MCMG vs Beer Money! I just loved how that match was built up, how it was paced and flowed, it was a fantastic watch and it had a brilliant finish which came down to which team made the first mistake, excellent stuff.
JT: First, shoutout to Jeff Jarrett vs Kurt Angle for being my favorite singles match this Arc. They had a lot of story going, but they absolutely did wonders with it. Also special shoutout to Bully Ray vs Devon from Against All Odds for being another super emotional moment, though more storyline than match. But still my match of the Arc is going to be a tag match. And though it was real special how the Guns last Tag Title match (for nearly a decade) ended in such spectacular fashion, I’m not going with that one for my MOTA. My best match of the arc has to be Team 3D vs MCMG, it was one of the greatest passing of the torch matches I’ve ever seen. Bonus points for kicking off another great storyline from it too. That’s the power of protecting your finishers.
S: Oh absolutely, the fact that they managed to use Sabin kicking out of 3D to propel the feud between Bully and Devon was just masterful storytelling and it made him somewhat justified but yet totally irrational in his heel turn. So good.
JT: Alright bucko, it’s time for a big one. I want to end on a high note, so I’ll start off our last pair of awards on the negative side. It’s time for the guy or gal who dragged down the arc the most, singlehanded. It’s time for our LVP, or Lontel Vontavious Porter. I mean our Least Valuable Player. And before you hit me with who it is, I want to see you nominees.
S: Alright so my nominees for the LVP are as follows:
1. “The Pope” D’Angelo Dinero, when we came into this arc, Pope was a rising star in TNA, he already had chances at the TNA Heavyweight Championship and looked like he could break out at any time, he gets into a feud with Immortal’s Abyss, he jobs twice and his stock as a babyface is hurt so what happens? They turn him heel and he has a shit feud with Samoa Joe where Okada is wheeled out for whatever reason. Definitely a contender for LVP.
2. Mr. Anderson, where do I even begin with this one? My hopes weren’t exactly too high on Kenny boy before we got into this arc, I’d heard and somewhat known that his promos at this time were not great. Did I assume right or what? He totally dragged down the arc for me, for one his look is horrendous, coming out like a budget Steve Austin with your trucker cap and sleeveless t-shirt which makes you look super skinny and naked, it’s actually crazy how much his physique changed after he got popped for steroids in 2007. Like his physique actually resembles the same physique which Mini Mr. Kennedy did in the Mini Royal Rumble. I’ve touched on some of his terrible promos so I’ll leave them alone. He also had some really nothing or just bad matches with Matt Morgan and RVD. Surefire contender for me.
3. RVD, his storyline dragged out for too long and his stock was completely hurt because of it. He went on too many strangers and freaks missions to the point where he forgot what his main missions were. Sorry Rob, love ya but it had to be done, lad.
4. Matt Morgan, as if there was any doubt. How could I leave old M4 off the nominations? I had to save the biggest thing for last, in more ways than one. So when we started out, Matt was just a member of Fortune, he lost at Bound for Glory to EV2.0 with his Fortune comrades and then would find his nice side by leaving Fortune to fight Jeff Hardy for the TNA Heavyweight Championship. From this point on he would job, job, job and job some more.
JT: I think those are all pretty fair picks for LVP. Certainly, they’re all deserving. Now, before I get to my nominations, I’d like to give out a pair of dishonorable mentions to a pair of Tag Teams that really didn’t help provide quality entertainment. First off, Gunner & Murphy. I can’t nominate them proper, because they’re only henchmen who showed up like 3 times. They were never good when they showed up, but they’re not big enough of a problem to get LVP honors. I’d also like to shame the Beautiful People. Velvet & Angelina only had about 3 proper matches on this arc, and none of them were great. The 4 Man at BFG stunk, Velvet’s career saving match stunk, and the Tag Title match especially stunk. Competition was just too fierce to put them in the running. Here are my nominees:
1. Jeff Hardy: We’re all aware of the issues he had in his personal life during this time, but he still failed to really live up to lofty expectations. Jeff was on every show we had, and was in the main event every time. Despite that, I really cannot remember a real good performance by Jeff after BFG. He did a good job at Genesis but that was also quite a short match, and both those performances are canceled out by what happened at Victory Road. He wasn’t bad on the mic but I can’t remember anything he said that was all that impressive of exciting. He was just fine generally, with a few main event stinkers. Maybe I’m too harsh on the guy because you can only work with what you’re given but he was given more match time than anyone else and he didn’t provide for any of the best moments of this arc.
2. Matt Morgan: Like I said Jeff worked with what he was given, which was this big lug. You pretty much covered his arc so I won’t go much further, but Mr Mayor was consistently involved in the most convoluted, confusing and crappy moments of our arc.
3. Rob Van Dam: Again, as a sensible man, you had him as your nominee already, so I want to go too in detail. Similarly to Jeff, RVD got plenty of representation on this arc. He was on all 6 PPVs, but I don’t remember him delivering anything more than passable the whole time. And he’s a big name, he’s gotta pull out the stops!!
4. Abyss: Well the Monster delivered some monstrously ugly performances all arc. Multiple thrown together gimmick type matches, a stinker with Pope and he was dragged to a passable match by Doug Williams before he just dropped off the map completely. Not quite “Hall of Fame Ring” Abyss levels of bad, but really 2010-2011 was far from a banner year for James Mitchell’s son.
S: I think I refrained from choosing Jeff simply because it’d be a bit too easy to choose him for an LVP nomination but Abyss was a great one to choose there, he really did dick all in this arc and those were some ugly ass matches. Great shout.
JT: Pope was definitely up there for me too, I just feel like he showed up too inconsistently to really damn him to LVP Hell. Like, I forgot he was on this arc at times. Also Anderson is a good pick too, but I think that he escapes because of Genesis being his big moment, and though he had some stinkers he was still pretty convincing on the mic. Okay, ready to give out your LVP?
S: Matt Morgan, sorry for the lack of suspense but come on, it’s been obvious since Genesis that he was gonna be LVP. He was the DNA of TNA but for now, Mr. Mayor himself is my LVP of the JTSMCPH (JT and Seány Mc Power Hour) Season 2.
JT: You know, part of me really wanted to go with RVD. Seriously, I got so fed up with him in this arc. And I actually started to root for Morgan, like I genuinely wanted to see him win. But when I just think about their comparative work load, it’s just not fair to give RVD the LVP over Morgan. RVD was just mediocre and stale every time. Morgan had the contender for worst match of the night every night he wrestled (except Impact and BFG). He became our punching bag for a reason. It’s unanimous. Matt Morgan, Least Valuable Player of the Antichrist Arc of the Power Hour.
S: We don’t hate Matt Morgan, guys. I’m sure he’s a decent fella but his booking made him the punching bag for a reason. Sure he’s a big lad, I’m sure he can take a few hits. Probably wouldn’t even phase him.
JT: Yeah he’s a big time politician, he’s used to people talking shit about him. Now, on the bright side! It’s time for the best of the best!! It’s time to determine who was the MVP of this arc, the guys and gals who made this arc worth watching!!
S: Alright so my nominees for MVP of this arc are as follows.
1. Bully Ray, great performances from two ends of the spectrum. For the first two shows as an old gunslinger looking for one last moment of glory and the other as the nasty, angry heel. Always great on promos and his feud with Devon was fantastic.
2. Mickie James, when we started this Mickie had just joined TNA, she was with us on every show up until Against All Odds and she was a brilliant title chaser, always the excellent wrestler and showed why WWE really were missing her around this time.
3. Jeff Jarrett, what a great run he’s had, as a founding father of Immortal, Double J Double M A, the excellent rival to Kurt Angle, the fun dad. He showed such a great character range, he made me laugh, he made me think he was a right old rotter and he had some grand performances to boot.
4. Kurt Angle. It’s Kurt Angle doing Kurt Angle things, although he wasn’t on every show like Jarrett was. He still showed his versatility, I actually liked the main event from BFG and Kurt was probably most of the reason why I liked it. The stuff with Jarrett, I’ve praised enough so that it earns Kurt a nomination.
5. BEER! MONEY! My MVP’s from Genesis, an excellent team who always cut good promos, can control the crowd and fill the void when MCMG stopped showing up. Gotta include Storm and Roode.
6. The Motor City Machine Guns. They just had to be here, didn’t they? As if there was any doubt, three time MVP for me throughout the arc and four time Match of the Night winners, the best tag team in the world at this time period and the most excellent performers TNA had. Worthy nominees.
JT: I’m pretty much in exact agreement, but I’m going to just trim the field down a little. As much as I love Kurt, I’m gonna be stingy and exclude him from my MVP hunt. I love Kurt, he’s an all time great, but he was not there for Turning Point or Genesis. I’m going to have to exclude Bully Ray for the same reason, no BFG, no Turning Point. Otherwise it’s:
1. Mickie James: Okay I know she was missing from 2 episodes too, but those efforts suffered because of that. When she was actually being pushed, the matches were solid, the storylines made sense. When she was sidelined though, we got the dregs. You can’t point to the same for Bully & Kurt. She was super popular all arc, and she did her best to make her story matter. She’s easily Women’s MVP, but is she overall MVP?
2. Motor City Machine Guns: Again, they missed episodes but boy did we bitch about not having them. They absolutely killed it like nobody’s business. I mean 4 shows, 4 MOTYs. Easy, obvious pick.
3. Jeff Jarrett: He got off to a rough start with BFG, but as you said he cemented the founding of Immortal, Double J Double M A was still entertaining, and the Kurt rivalry hit on serious and comedic levels. Jeff was making sure that his rivalry with Kurt was highlighted every show.
4. Beer Money: Holding down the Midcard since day 1, they took over the tag scene dutifully when MCMG stepped down. Even at their worst they were still watchable, and popular. And they were there every single show.
S: So more or less, we have the same nominees for MVP for Season 2. So what’s left for me to ask is who is your MVP?
JT: Well I’ll tell ya my MVP. First off, I’ll knock Mickie off the ballot. She’s great and did a great job for the circumstances, but she missed the last 2 shows of our arc, and her matches against Madison Rayne were okay. Not bad, but not great. So she’s out.
Next, I’m going to write off Jeff Jarrett. Double J was very entertaining for the vast majority of this arc. But was he good the whole arc? I’m not sure I can agree that he was. While the Double M A stuff was great, it wasn’t great to see him beat Samoa Joe not once, but twice. It was silly fun, but he shouldn’t have tapped out Joe. If those matches were booked a little differently and the matches were a bit better, he would’ve gotten my MVP. The fact he was even in the running considering the mediocre Joe matches speaks to how good his second half was.
So we’re down to the two best Tag Teams in TNA. Beer Money and the Motor City Machine Guns. It’s a tough pick man, because Beer Money were as consistent as anyone this whole arc, while we literally didn’t have any Guns on the last 3 shows. But I just don’t think consistency matches up to quality. Beer Money were always a good time, but Double J outperformed them in the back half of the arc. They were never bad, but I just don’t think they outshined The Guns. I mean for Pete’s Sake, I couldn’t shut up about them for the first 4 episodes. They delivered every single time. And while if I can’t hold it against Beer Money that they were stuck with Gunner & Murphy for 2 episodes, I can’t hold injuries and bad luck against Sabin & Shelley. MCMG for my MVP.
S: I’ve gotta agree with you there, James. From Genesis, I’ve been set on giving my overall season MVP to MCMG, while Jarrett did make me consider it more. It has to be the Motor City Machine Guns, I gushed about them endlessly for the first four episodes of the season and we lamented on how much we missed them. They put on four of the best matches of the season, they got countless show MVP awards between us and I’m pretty sure they got the Match of the Night award on every show. Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin, MCMG. You’re the real MVP’s.
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Gotta keep Rolling Down the Line……
JT: So uhhh, it’s over! We’re done with TNA!! Fuck you, goodbye! Just kidding! This was a very fun season to cover, we got everything we could’ve asked for. Great matches, bad matches, good storylines, bad storylines, weirdly aged content, bad taste storylines, career resurgences, the knighting of a new boy, reminiscing about the past and tons of real world controversy. Did you have a good time with our TNA Antichrist Arc? Was this worth all the time we’ve spent watching, reviewing and researching?
S: This story arc was most definitely worth the time and effort we put into it, it was bundles of fun, lots of laughs, thrills, spills and many chills along the way. We had our dizzying highs, terrifying lows and quite the creamy middles. We kept on schedule this time and we had a bloody grand old time having the craic with this show! Looking forward to the next chapter.
JT: Well with an eye towards the future of The Power Hour, why don’t I hand over the reins to you. How about you tell the people what’s in store next for the Power Hour. What’s our next arc?
S: I’ve been waiting to announce what’s in store for Season 3 for such a long time now. Well there once was a time called five years ago, that was the year of 2016. WrestleMania 32 happened and people didn’t like it, England got knocked out of Euro 2016 by Iceland and everyone who wasn’t English laughed their asses off, Robbie Brady scored one of the most iconic goals in Irish history to beat Italy 1-0 and some weird orange man was elected as president but no one gives a shit about that.
In that same year, WWE put together an unprecedented event which was universally acclaimed by the wrestling world and critics alike. This event was a tournament. A tournament which would showcase a style and division of wrestling which had been forgotten about since 2007. This tournament was called, The Cruiserweight Classic! That’s right, season 3 of the Power Hour, James and I will be running down one of modern wrestling’s most acclaimed tournaments in what we’re titling Season 3 as, The Cruiserweight Classic: Five Years Later.
JT: WWE is always controversial, but the CWC was one of few universally praised pieces of wrestling they’ve released, maybe ever. As we take a deep dive into this tournament, we’re going to reflect on how the wrestling landscape has changed since then, how WWE’s attitudes about talent have changed since then, and of course we’re going to look at everyone involved in the CWC. That doesn’t only include the 32 men involved in the tournament too, but the men who just missed out on it, and the people commentating over it too. We’ll look at where they were then, how they did in the tournament, and where they’re at low. There are so many different folks to look at, it’s going to be an interesting, for better and for worse. And since the CWC has got a lot of episodes, we’re going to handle them in bunches!
S: It’s going to be a story arc which is always dramatic and now perhaps problematic but how is this season lining up? Well let me show you.
Season 3: The Cruiserweight Classic: Five Years Later
Episode 1: The Weigh In, Bracketology and The Competitor Unveiling
Episode 2: Weeks 1 and 2 (Round of 32)
Episode 3: Weeks 3 and 4 (Round of 32)
Episode 4: Weeks 5, 6 and 7 (Last 16)
Episode 5: Weeks 8 and 9 (Quarter Finals)
Episode 6: Week 10: The Two Hour Finale (Semi Finals and Finals)
And a Secret Bonus Episode
JT: Well we are in for a whale of a time. We won’t be short on good matches, that’s for sure. But as you just said, before we get to the matches we gotta meet our competitors. So next time, that’s what we’re gonna do!!
S: So next time we review all the build up for the Cruiserweight Classic before we get into all the proper meat and veg of what is one of my favourite events in wrestling, will it hold up? Well you all will just have to wait and find out!
JT: We hope you enjoyed our romp through TNA, and I hope you’re excited as we are to be tackling this new adventure!! But for now, I bid you farewell!! So long from me James!
S: And a see ya later from me, Seán!
JT: And make sure you keep rolling down the line!!
S: CUE THE BIG TRAIN!
The JT & Seány Mc Power Hour 