On Friday afternoon, I started writing my TNA "Five to Shine" article. Having a weekend commitment though, I didn't get to finish it before I left. One of the five men I spoke about in that article (which I'll post later) is someone that I had predicted would hold the World Title in 2011. I did not, however, think it would happen so quickly. It did.
Genesis was supposed to be all about Immortal. With General Bischoff's decree that they must win ALL the gold in TNA (save for the Women's titles since Immortal has yet to recruit a woman), the entire Pay Per View was predicated on this idea. Granted, outside of A.J. Styles, no one was specifically given motivation outside of that decree. AJ was told to win or be out of Immortal, making his match possibly the most highly anticipated of the bunch.
Then of course there was the main event. Matt Morgan trying for yet another title shot and Mr. Anderson coming back from a concussion to try and gain revenge on the man who gave him one. For the fact that there was no title match scheduled, this at least had some intrigue for the future. My hope was that this show built towards the future of 2011 and that something screwy happened to Immortal because I dislike the group so much.
We had some very interesting booking decisions on this night, so let's get to talking.
X Division Championship: Jay Lethal(c) vs. Kazarian - This was a fun opening contest, so it was good for that, but I did not like the booking decision for this one. It's not so much that I dislike Kazarian as the X-Division champion, but did they have to do it this way? It was painfully obvious that when the decree came down and Lethal was hotshotted to the title on Impact with no build that he was given the title solely to put Kazarian over. Why though? It's an awful way to treat Lethal, who I believe is one of the best workers on the entire TNA roster, and why couldn't they just make a triple threat match? I know people don't like Robbie E., but would another 3 weeks of him been so bad? You build the triple threat up, or even through Amazing Red in there for extra spots. Then, you get a more exciting match, and it makes Kazarian look better for beating more people. It also helps Lethal save face and not be a useless pawn for the Immortal storyline which has absolutely no steam. Good match, but definitely not the way I would have done it.
TNA Knockouts Championship: Madison Rayne(c) vs. Mickie James - I'm up in the air on this one. On one hand, I'd prefer to see Madison Rayne gagged and not allowed to open her mouth on TNA programming (seriously, that shriek is 100 times worse than Melina's!), but she is a heel champion so I guess that's the point. However, this whole "classy girl" thing makes no sense. She's been riding to the ring on a motorcycle! Back to the match, Mickie always puts on a good show and was primed to take the belt after a long feud with Tara to get to Madison.........so of course, Tara costs her the title! Is there something wrong with putting a babyface over for a nice moment? Seriously, this is going on 3 months! I couldn't believe that Madison walked away with the belt. Even worse, if we get more Mickie/Tara, I am going to flip a lid! If you want to do Mickie Tara FOR the title, I still wouldn't be for it, but at least it's better than what we got here. I'd prefer Mickie to have won, Madison to get a rematch and lose which will lead to the inevitable Tara/Madison tension, and the ascension of Sarita into the title picture. That could at least be fresh and provide some good matches. Sadly, we have to sit through more of Madison as champion, which I am not looking forward to at all.
Tag Team Championship: Motor City Machine Guns(c) vs. Beer Money - Surprising no one, this was the best match on the card. These teams have worked together a hundred times, and they still managed to do a few fresh things. I actually didn't mind the finish as this is the one match where I felt the heel team COULD win without help. The one thing I hated, and it's such a pet peeve of mine, is why Beer Money still does their crowd taunt? It is a face thing to get the crowd to chant your name, but they are BAD GUYS!! Do they even realize that they are the bad guys? I'm not so sure sometimes. Still, the bring the tag titles into Immortal, leaving only the TV title up for grabs. So far, so predictable. I don't mind heel stables eventually capturing all the belts, but when you basically tell the audience that it's going to happen, and you book it so it will all happen in one night, it kind of falls flat. Luckily, it was not to be. More on that later.
Grudge Match: Bully Ray vs. Devon - Before we even start, how stupid a name is Bully Ray? This isn't 1991. Can we please stay away from names that actually describe the gimmick directly? Anyway, as much as I hate the name, I had the feud just as much. I've never liked Team 3D and I never will, so why should I like them in singles competition? This was a brawl, which is better than an actual match, but there needed to be a winner. Either put over Devon so he can feud with up and coming heels and be credible, or put Ray over and let him be a Bully to eventually put over faces, leaving Devon to work backstage where he belongs. Instead of that, we got a DQ finish where Devon hit Ray with a chain. That means we get more of this feud! Honestly, does TNA think anyone cares about this feud? It took 2 months to get to THIS match and by that time, I can almost guarantee that nobody cares. Moving forward, less than nobody will care and I hope this feud never sees Pay Per View again. Settle it on Impact and don't try and convince me that this is important. The least they could have done was give us a definitive winner to just end this. Man, I really hate these booking decisions sometimes.
Television Championship: Douglas Williams(c) vs. Abyss - Yes, you read that right. Apparently, AJ Styles has some sort of injury and couldn't wrestle. Thus, another member of Immortal is needed, so we cue the least interesting and sweatiest member. It's an obvious clash of styles between Williams and Abyss, so clearly, this won't be an eighth of the match that Williams and Styles could have had. We won't even talk about the idiocy of having the TELEVISION title on Pay Per View, but just know that it's there. I'm not sure how this match would have been booked had AJ been in it since there was that major factor of Bischoff's pressure. He could have lost and started his face turn. He could have won and still gotten treated poorly. There were a lot of possibilities. With Abyss, there really wasn't. He had to win because nobody wants to see him out of Immortal and running around as a face. Thus, we now have Abyss as a champion. It makes me sick to think about that, especially when Douglas Williams was just beginning to pick up steam as a champion. I can't stand Abyss and I hate that it came to this. Obviously, my main gripe is with the fact that AJ/Williams didn't happen, but I really hope that Abyss' reign is very, very short.
Rob Van Dam vs. Mystery Opponent - Eric Bischoff basically gave this one away, but most people were able to figure this one out anyway. It was Matt Hardy to face Vam Dam, and he was looking rather Tyler Reks-ish. By the way, Tyler Reks was trending on Twitter earlier.......really? Anyway, Hardy now has braided hair but still a bit of a gut. That said, he did decently well for his first match in TNA. It was a bit slow but I expected worse. The brother of the anti-christ got the win here, and I'm not sure I'm happy about it. I get that this is the night of heels, but does EVERY heel have to win? RVD has been pushing to face Jeff for his title, so you have him lose to his lesser brother? Not a way to build up credibility. I get that it would suck for a debuting superstar to lose, but it sucks to have Matt Hardy win. I used to be a fan of his, but he really has regressed and TNA can't convince me that he's a big star. Then again, neither is RVD, so I guess it's ok. It was a decent debut and I'm fine with that except that Bischoff gave it away. I just have no idea where this leaves Rob Van Dam.
MMA Exhibition: Jeff Jarrett vs. Kurt Angle - Remember that Jarrett is an important member of Immortal. Yea, that part is basically ignored most of the time for this moronic, overplayed story. They did this MMA thing to create an excuse to get Angle on the PPV and it worked. Unfortunately, the ending to this thing sucked. It actually wasn't awful for the first few minutes as Angle got to show off his shoot wrestling skills. But of course, Jarrett couldn't just lose, so he busted Angle with punches, which were illegal in this match. This led to Angle blading right on camera and us viewers being treated to a big pool of blood. Apparently, there's going to be a retirement ceremony for Jarrett from MMA and he basically hinted that Karen Angle will be there. Do they really have to do this? I HATE HATE HATE real life being brought into wrestling, especially when it's completely unnecessary. It's a shame that this feud is being brought to that, as Angle needs to be done with it, reinstated, and in the title picture. He's too good to waste his time with Jarrett.
#1 Contenders Match: Matt Morgan vs. Mr. Anderson - The bookers tried to keep us guessing with this match in any which way, having errant chair shots hit each guy and having Anderson be as ambiguous as possible for a guy coming off a concussion. Why he wasn't booked more sympathetic, I'll never know. As it stands, this was the main event, or so we thought. Decent match from these guys, and I do think Morgan is really progressing. I loved the ending here as each man kicked out of a finisher and Anderson won with a roll up. I really like matches like that, as I think it adds some realism into it. Not every match needs to end with finishers and I like that this one took creativity. Great way to end a Pay Per View and onto a personal feud with Jeff Hardy which will surely bring out real emotion stemming from the concussion and lead to an epic confrontation at the next Pay Per View. Or not.......
TNA Title Match: Jeff Hardy(c) vs. Mr. Anderson - Instead of building up to this match, even for a week or 2 so it would be on Impact and have a story behind it, we get Eric Bischoff coming out and saying Anderson's title shot will be now. He was down for the count and out came the champ in "street clothes". I use that term loosely because he's dressed like the joker's gay brother and he's now smoking cigarettes in his entrance? What the heck was I watching? The beginnings of this looked like a MITB type squash, but Anderson kicked out of two Twist of Fates (I will NOT call the move the Twist of Hate because that's just plain stupid). Just a quick aside, but Morgan kicked out of the ToF 3 times and Anderson twice after having a 15 minutes match previously. Let that sink in. Jeff Hardy's finisher is essentially useless at this point. The match goes on and everyone under the sun tries to interfere, but Anderson overcomes it all and actually wins the title! After all my ranting about Jeff Hardy not being booked on the show, he ends up on the show to lose his title! Way to sell the PPV on this premise TNA! Don't tell people one of your top draws will wrestling or anything! I understand what they were trying to do with Anderson in that they made him overcome the odds like a true face, but he was booked as a tweener going in, so it was a bit weird to see him like that. I hope it works, though I don't think he's ready, but he's gotta be better than Hardy. This was clearly thrown together due to Jeff Hardy's impending guilty plea in his drug charges, but I still would have liked to have seen at least a promo or 2 cut between the two men before they duked it out for the title. It could have been great, and you still could have had Anderson overcome the odds. Now PLEASE get rid of that nasty looking title that Jeff was holding!
Clearly, I was very hard on this show, but I think from a booking standpoint that it absolutely deserved it. At one ponit in the show, Immortal DID hold every title and it wasn't even difficult for them to do so. They didn't really cheat to win and they certainly didnt' help each other out. They were simply better than the other guys and that's a tough pill to swallow in some sense. I'm still not a fan of the title change the way it went down, but I'm willing to let it play out. I hated Jeff as champ so hopefully this is a fresh change. Does Jeff get kicked out of Immortal now? What about Matt? I think it would be hypocritical to keep Jeff when AJ was set to be booted for losing, but that could actually help AJ's face turn. We'll see where TNA wants to go with it, but I hold mild confidence. Keep in mind this is the company that thinks people want to see Bully Ray vs. Devon. Overall, an average show based on some decent wrestling and a decent surprise, but this is rate the booking, and the booking for this show was subpar at absolute best.
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