TNA opened with its normal “You are watching TNA!” package. Now, I like that they have one, but it’s kind of stupid to say that. What do they expect? People to go “Crap, anything but TNA” and turn away from them? Just kind of dumb to me, though I do like the package. They then showed a recap of Jeff Jarrett’s storyline of being fired and attacking Raven with Rhino from No Surrender and then we see the actual Impact! Promo package. Also good for TNA. TNA doesn’t really have good production values in terms of entrances, but their packages are always pretty good just like WWE.
David Young Vs. Lance Hoyt
Simon Diamond’s diamond in the rough is kind of ridiculous to me, but I will give him a few more weeks before I rule him out. Lance Hoyt comes out and is ridiculously over. The two oddball stories of this year would have to be him and Heidenreich getting over as faces. No one saw it coming and it’s just kind of odd seeing it happen. The match starts with Young going on the offensive and taking Hoyt on the outside which was kind of nice to see. You don’t see many green heels doing that so it was a good change of pace. Hoyt started his offense with generic big man takedowns (i.e. clotheslines) followed up with a flapjack onto the ring. Hoyt may be over, but I still don’t buy him as a big guy, especially when TNA has so many better big guys in the form of Abyss. Hoyt then plays to the crowd, which is even odder. Sorry, this guy just screams heel to me. It’s unbelievable. Suddenly, Abyss pops out and takes out Hoyt and Young.
Winner: No Contest
Star Wrestler: Umm…Yeah…
James Mitchell shows up and he gets on the mike and says that this is a foreshadowing of things to come. He calls Abyss a weapon of mass destruction and says he has a detonator. Now, as cheesy as it is, I really enjoyed that. I’m a huge fan of Abyss and anything to get him over is greatly appreciated by me. I just love James Mitchell as Abyss’ manager. Pyscho nut job manager for a psycho nut job wrestler.
TNA then shows a recap of No Surrender. Now I have just a minor observation. Why is it that WWE is criticized for being sports entertainment and even advertising in their name that it is just entertainment, when on the other side, TNA doesn’t even advertise wrestling in its name and even calls themselves athletic entertainment in press releases. Just another insanely hypocritical move I guess. I’m not going to sit here and say WWE is right and TNA is wrong, or vice versa, because quite frankly, neither is, but it’s just pure hypocrisy.
The Super X Cup Tournament card is then shown. Hopefully it will be as good as last year.
Super X Cup Tournament – First Round Match
Samoa Joe Vs. Sonjay Dutt
Chris Daniels is on the commentary and proves why he is a great heel. He gives Samoa Joe his due for his past couple of weeks but challenges to see if he can do the same that Daniels himself has done. He basically just put himself and Joe over in a few words. That is how heels should be. The heel’s job is to get people over, mostly babyfaces, but still, Daniels does it excellent. Samoa Joe is pretty good in TNA, but still. Samoa Joe in the X Division? I don’t buy it. Every time someone like AJ Styles made the transition from one division to another, they made a huge deal about it. However, when people like Joe and Ron Killings make the switch, no one cares because TNA won’t make a big deal about it. Even more, I understand that the X Division is supposed to be no limits so anyone is welcome, but come on. You obviously don’t want to see grounded brawling in an X Division match. Otherwise, you could just watch any heavyweight division in the world. You watch the X Division for its TNA; it’s actual total non-stop action. Someone like Joe is not going to give you that. It doesn’t mean he is bad or the X Division is, it’s just proving a point.
Wow. The beginning was really good. Here you have a fast paced wrestler against a slow paced one, so obviously, Dutt starts to fire at Joe and bounces around him using his speed and size to his advantage. Joe leans back a few times and tries to use his power, but fails because of his speed and size. It’s a kind of obvious “duh!” to do in this type of match, but in the past, Sonjay Dutt doesn’t really follow the obvious things to do. Dutt then starts to work the legs of Joe which is pretty good considering Joe is a big guy and he can’t even stand without both, as a smaller wrestler could make due with only one (i.e. Zach Gowen could never pull it off in the ring if he was Samoa Joe’s size).
What the hell? TNA then switches to a commercial for Raven’s best of DVD. This is complete and utter insanity. The best thing about a web cast is that you don’t HAVE to interrupt matches. That is perhaps the biggest mistake TNA has made in recent memory. The biggest criticism for TV is that they always interrupt matches when people want to see them in its entirety. Well, TNA isn’t on TV and they are still doing it. Either they don’t have faith in Dutt-Joe or they are just idiots. They then show a package for Sacrifice. Both of these commercials could have easily come after the match, but no. TNA has to go the hard way.
We come back to the match and Samoa Joe hits a suicide dive to Dutt on the outside. Jesus Christ, that’s good. That is the ingenuity of Joe right there. He can’t do all the things X Division wrestlers can, but he does and tries to do what he can. Joe takes control with repeated knees to the head of Dutt. The commentators bring up the point that Joe has been here a month and they haven’t heard from him. Good, I say. By TNA standards (and even indy standards), Joe isn’t the best on the mike and they are playing to his strength and adding some mystique to his character. However, I wish they would bring up his ROH Title run when talking about his career. They seem fit to mention WWE every five seconds, so why not ROH? Plus, it would get him over with the fans who have never seen ROH as they would think “Wow, he held a title that long?” Oh well.
Samoa Joe keeps his control in the match with an abdominal stretch. Dutt powers out, but Joe then fires back and keeps his control. Joe then hits a nice delayed vertical suplex. You don’t see much of that in TNA or WWE nowadays so a nice change of pace there. Meanwhile, Tenay proves his idiocy on the mike as he can’t remember that Daniels has had 5 opponents in his run and then goes “Oh yea, you were in a triple threat.” No shit, Mike. What are you a professor of again? Joe then chops Dutt in the corner and Daniels owns both Tenay and West on the commentary shtick by getting over the psychology of the match via fast versus slow pace. Joe’s dominance continues with more high powered moves and kicks. Finally, Dutt mounts his offense, which took too long for him to do. Naturally, he uses his speed to his advantage and it works again just like in the beginning. He hits two good springboard moves in the form of a dropkick and hurricarana followed by a baseball slide and a plancha to the outside. Ok, the plancha was a little much. He could have just done the dropkick and then the baseball slide, but no, he wants to get over with his flips so he does more. People need to realize that less is, in fact, more.
Dutt then hits a crossbody (nice plain move for him) and gets a two count. Dutt tries to whip Joe but can’t due to no power and then he walks right into a powerslam which I thought was going to be it, but to my surprise, Dutt kicked out. He then goes for the cross arm breaker and Dutt gets t the ropes. As much as I like Joe, it was kind of dumb to go after the arm after working the head the whole match. Joe puts Dutt on the top of the turnbuckle, but Dutt counters out via biting. He then flips over to try and get a head scissors, but Joe catches him and powerbombs him which should have been it. Now here is what I don’t get. I can’t tell if Dutt kicked out and then Joe went straight for the STF or if Joe just went straight for the STF. It was really hard to tell, but I would like to go with the latter. Dutt kicking out of the powerbomb would have completely killed all of the power psychology in the whole match. Dutt eventually taps out and Joe has another choke out win.
Winner: Samoa Joe
Star Wrestler: Samoa Joe
Hell yes, Samoa Joe. Did you expect me to give it someone who got to do his flips every chance given? No. I do tip my hat to Dutt for selling the speed in the beginning and middle and definitely putting over Joe’s strength, but without Joe’s mind in the ring, this match would have failed. Get a lesser big man and they wouldn’t have employed half the power moves, in the right way no less, that Joe did.
Afterwards, Shane Douglas tries to interview Samoa Joe, but Joe shuns him and walks right out. Damn, that was tight. He just made himself look even more powerful and mysterious in one little motion. This is why he was the star wrestler.
