Those who purchased TNA’s Destination X this year expected a fast-paced night of wrestling action.
What they got instead was a complete mess at times and at others, a complete masterpiece. Sure, the matches were solid, but most of them dragged at times. Two of them, the Generation Me tag match and the Doug Williams singles encounter, shouldn’t have even made the card.
Overall, nothing here was incredibly memorable except for the four-way match for a TNA contract.
That’s not to say AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels didn’t deliver, but it wasn’t their best match and it didn’t matter the way the others over the years have.
In the end, TNA wasted a great opportunity to drive home the fact that they have the best in-ring competitors in the world.
Instead, it proves that they still need help creatively.
Right off the bat, there was a problem with this pay per view. With Taz unable to do color commentating, due to a family emergency, the duo of Jeremy Borash and Mike Tenay were way too flat. With no color commentator, the play by play was extremely vanilla and made the matches drag.
Unfortunately, the commentating was only one of the problems. Hardcore fans that played the TNA Fantasy Game online and followed it during the course of the PPV were victims of a huge crime as well. Distributing the points to wrestlers too early, TNA essentially gave the results away before the matches were over. If you’re paying money to watch professional wrestling, the last thing you want to know beforehand is who wins the match.
For this reason alone, TNA has serious explaining to do.
Regardless of that however, the bad commentating and technical gaffs wasn’t bad enough to completely ruin the show. The wrestling itself was some of the best on a TNA pay per view in quite some time, but it was missing something to bring it all together.
Matches:
Samoa Joe vs. Kazarian: A good opening match that was fast-paced and stiff at times. While Joe did most of the damage, delivering nearly every move in his arsenal including a plethora of chops and clotheslines, Kaz was able to roll up Joe out of nowhere and earn himself the win. While it wasn’t an epic, it got the crowd going.
Douglas Williams vs. Mark Haskins: Leave it to TNA to bring in a complete unknown to wrestle Williams. While the kid wasn’t bad, he botched the finish and a springboard clothesline in a match that wasn’t nearly as exciting as it could have been. After Haskins missed the shooting star press, Williams used the schoolboy for the win.
Generation Me vs. Eric Young and Shark Boy: This should have been the opening match. TNA dropped the ball again here, by bringing in Shark Boy and Eric Young and not someone of higher caliber. However, in the end, it worked out decently. Young busted his hump in this match and delivered most of the memorable offense, including the Youngblood neckbreaker, which earned his team the win. Nevertheless, it would be hard to justify this match’s place on the card. It was filler.
Ultimate X for X-Division Title Shot: Amazing Red vs. Alex Shelly vs. Shannon Moore vs. Robbie E: Another match that failed to captivate. There were some nice hot spots, most of them by Amazing Redbut overall, it felt staged throughout. There was zero flow and these four competitors had very little chemistry. The finish was also weak and saw Robbie E on the apron and simply watch Shelley grab the X. Overall, it was a complete and utter joke. The only good part was the fact that Shelley finally gets a title shot.
Rob Van Dam vs. Jerry Lynn: A good match, that perhaps went on about five minutes too long. These guys did a solid job, but at times, the match simply dragged. At the same time, Lynn didn’t deliver nearly as much offense as he should have. This was far from an epic as RVD was in charge most of the match. After he delivered the five star frog splash, he put the exclamation point on a match that could have been the match of the night, but ended up as merely solid.
Winner Gets Contract Match: Low-Ki vs. Zema Ion vs. Jack Evans vs. Austin Aries: The match of the night. All four of these guys stepped up and delivered huge moves and took a beating. The crowd was totally into it and it was impossible to know who was going to win [unless you went on the TNA Fantasy website a few minutes before the end of the match]. However, in spite of every wrestler’s amazing performances, Aries shined the brightest with some huge elbows and kicks before delivering a devastating brainbuster for the win.
Brian Kendrick vs. Abyss for the X-Division Title: A decent match that saw Immortal get beat down by a plethora of X-Division mid-carders. While the action was okay, it was sad to see another match, the third of the night, end with a cradle, schoolboy or some variation of the rollup. Overall, it was a huge moment in Kendrick’s career, but one that could be even better had it been clean. All this does is prove that Kendrick can’t beat Abyss without some kind of help or distraction.
Christopher Daniels vs. AJ Styles: A near 40-minute match, full of offense, but lacking something to put it all together. The fact that both Daniels and Styles used a few moves repeatedly and botched a few others proves this didn’t have to go as long. Was it a quality main event? Most definitely, especially when Styles hit the spiral tap for the win.
But again, it proves that wrestling by itself with no real story to tie it all together is meaningless.
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