The opening video package for Victory Road seemed really symbolic for the overall show. It started off with rocket launches and went into shuttle explosions, which is exactly how the show went over the course of three hours.
The event started with the third round of the World X Cup Tournament which took place in a 12-man elimination match. It was a long match to start out with, but it was full of tons of fast paced action and was a lot of fun to watch. Never a dull moment in the match and was a great start to the show.
Not to be outdone, the fourth and final round of the World X Cup also took place in a four-way Ultimate X Match. Again, this match was exciting and fun to watch and really was a good way to showcase some talent that TNA fans don’t get to see too often.
The only bad part of the World X Cup Tournament was how it ended up being treated. There wasn’t much of a focus put on it and the majority of outside talent from other promotions didn’t get much attention outside of their time in the ring. I hope that in future years they give the outside talent some sort of face that people can attach themselves to and give them a reason to root for or against. Doing this would give more meaning to the tournament and make it more memorable.
After seemingly dragging the eventual feud between Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt on for months, we got to see these two highly talented X Division stars face each other in the ring. The match between these two was fun to watch and would welcome more matches from them in the future. This laid out the groundwork for their next match as Dutt was able to score the victory by cheating, which was assisted by an inadvertent distraction by SoCal Val.
Even with these fun and exciting matches on the card, there were other matches and/or incidents that made the overall event drop. For starters, I was expecting a lot more from the Gail Kim/Angelina Love match. These are two of the best wrestlers in the Knockout division and we got to see a good series of vignettes leading up to this match. The match itself was lacking, however, and fell way below my expectations.
The other Knockout match between Taylor Wilde and Awesome Kong wasn’t much better. Another fluke victory isn’t helping Wilde’s credibility as a champion any and I would have rather watched Kong totally destroy and dismantle Wilde than what the end result ended up being. The jury is still out on Wilde so she might still earn her credibility in the future, but right now she isn’t ranked too highly in my thoughts.
If I never hear the words “Fans Revenge Match” again, I’d be happy. There is nothing worse than seeing a one-sided strap match. That’s all I have to say about that one.
With all of the disappointments with the Knockout matches and the horrendous Fan’s Revenge match, nothing could have prepared me for the ending of the main event. I didn’t particularly enjoy the no contest finish of the biggest match on the card or Sharmell making the three count and Booker walking away with the title.
Making fans drop $30 on an event that doesn’t seem complete only to make them tune in to their next weekly television show is bogus. If Samoa Joe needed to finally “snap” as he did during this match, let him do it after the match has ended. At the very least, call the match a disqualification and award Booker T as the winner. A main event finish that ends up in the air like that should never be done on a pay-per-view.
Overall, Victory Road had some disappointments but that finish alone really took away from what could have been a decent pay-per-view.
