Source: TNAWrestling.com
The “Final Resolution” Pay-Per-View preshow opened with the scene of Johnny Devine of The Serotonin taking multiple kendo stick shots to the back as a form of punishment for losing against his opponent before we went on the air.
Later, we had a surprise appearance backstage with Leticia Cline by wrestling legend Bob Backlund. It can only be guessed at this point that he will have some sort of involvement later on tonight during the finals of Kevin Nash’s Paparazzi Championship Series when Austin Starr meets Alex Shelley.
In our opening contest during the preshow, we saw Lance Hoyt defeat Chase Stevens as AJ Pierzynski and Dale Torborg who were ringside, got involved towards the end of the match. After the bout, Shane Douglas made his way to the ground and questioned why Chase was still wearing his colors, especially since he decided to end this experiment a few weeks ago. Chase Stevens stood up to “The Franchise,” something not too smart to do when dealing with Douglas; however, it didn’t result into any physicality today.
“The Phenomenal” AJ Styles, who was supporting new ring gear, took on “The War Machine” Rhino in a Last Man Standing Match to kick off the official broadcast of “Final Resolution” tonight. After last month’s controversial ending to their match between the two, Rhino was looking for redemption.
The intensity during this match was at a high throughout the entire bout, but in the end with the insurance of Earl Hebner calling this match straight down the middle, “The War Machine” Rhino came through with the win. The win for Rhino came in yet another controversial fashion when AJ Styles who was seconds away from getting to his feet before the 10-count after two Gores, decided to stay down and lose the match. Most likely a smart move, seeing as how Rhino had a table setup to send AJ through.
After the bout, Rhino continued his relentless attack by hitting off a Rhino Driver to “The Phenomenal” AJ Styles at the top of the ramp way. This was followed by an attempted Gore, which AJ countered with a drop toehold, sending Rhino through a table into the tunnel entrance.
The first of three championship matches tonight featuring the X-Division Championship Match between champion, Christopher Daniels, Chris Sabin, and X pioneer Jerry Lynn was the second bout of the evening. This was Jerry Lynn’s first match in a TNA ring in over a year when he last defeated Sean Waltman at August 2005’s “Sacrifice” Pay-Per-View, and before that he had not competed in a ring since May 2004.
Chris Sabin early on was targeting Jerry Lynn with every chance he had, even to go as far as knocking Daniels out of the ring so he could stay one-on-one with Lynn. Showing no signs of ring rust, Jerry Lynn was able to turn the tables on Sabin, but his offense was soon halted when Daniels came in to lock the clutch in on Lynn.
Jerry Lynn would return to the forefront of the offensive position when he delivered two hurricanrana’s to both Daniels and Sabin, one after the other. Lynn would continue to show his dominance when he delivered a sudden impact drop to “The Fallen Angel,” only to be broken up by Sabin.
Chris Sabin would continue to steal thunder when Jerry Lynn was seconds away from winning his third X-Division Title by hitting the Cradle Piledriver on Daniels. But within seconds, Sabin from behind rolled Lynn up for the quick pin and win, to gain his fourth X-Division Title.
Up next were the finals of the Paparazzi Championship Series, founded by “Big Sexy” Kevin Nash. The judges for this championship bout were hand picked by Nash himself and they included, Samolian Joe from Madagascar Championship Wrestling, the Big Fat Oily Guy, and wrestling legend himself – Bob Backlund. The competitors for this 10-minute time limit bout featured two members of The Paparazzi – Austin Starr vs. Alex Shelley.
The in-ring competition saw both Shelley and Starr staying pretty even on the offensive position, with the fans dueling over whom they were cheering for. The match would stay even on all cylinders, as the 10-minutes would go on to expire while Starr had Shelley locked in on the Camel Clutch. The result of the match would have to be rendered by the judge’s decision as Samolian Joe gave the match to Austin Starr, while the Big Fat Oily Guy gave the match to Alex Shelley. That meant that the deciding vote would come from Bob Backlund who began listing a long list of credentials each competitor did well in. After the long list, Backlund had decided that the contest would be ruled as a draw.
Kevin Nash was not happy about the decision, so he ruled that this match would go into a 5-minute overtime. Alex Shelley quickly picked up the win over Austin Starr to win to become the PCS Champion. After the match, a frustrated Austin Starr decided to pick a fight with Senshi, as the two would brawl upon Starr picking another fight, this time with Bob Backlund. After being pie faced, Backlund would lock Starr into the Crossface Chickenwing as security had to get involved to stop the mayhem.
Our next featured contest saw James Storm, formally of America’s Most Wanted taking on “The Canadian Destroyer” Petey Williams, who stood up to LAX and defended the American flag in efforts to help America’s Most Wanted fend off the militant thugs. However, after the disbanding of AMW by James Storm, Petey looks to gain revenge for his friend Chris Harris after the beer bottle shot performed by Storm injured Harris’ eye. However, James Storm would use the ropes to gain himself the win over Petey Williams.
Gail Kim, who accompanied Storm to the ring, was not happy with Storm’s choice of actions in gaining the win. Storm was going to smash a beer bottle over Petey’s head but Gail Kim was there for the low blow and began viciously attacking Storm who now tried to hit her with the bottle. She was fighting for her life as Petey Williams was handcuffed to the corner, and just when Gail thought she had things under control we saw the return of Jacqueline as she and Storm hit off the Death Sentence to a now lifeless Gail Kim.
Next we had The Voodoo Kin Mafia came out to declare victory over Vincent K. McMahon and the WWE. In a bizarre situation though, Christy Hemme made her way to the ring and asked why women in wrestling were so disposable. BG James said that was far from the truth, there’s room for women in this man sport. However, Kip James didn’t seem sympathetic at all when he told Christy that women for only good for two things, two things that the fans can certainly fill in for themselves.
It was now time for our NWA World Tag Team Championship Match featuring The Latin American Exchange defending the titles against Brother Ray and Brother Devon of Team 3D. It had been exactly one year ago when Team 3D last received a shot at the NWA World Tag Team Titles, and tonight Brother Ray promised a different result, in that they will defeat LAX to win the set of titles that have eluted them their entire careers.
High-risk moves were in effect by Homicide and Hernandez, of whom were not going to back down a fight against Team 3D. The fight would get to be really vicious once Brother Ray and Homicide were seen brawling on the outside. Ray had been bashing Homicide repeatedly back first into the guardrail.
After much domination by Team 3D though, the team of Brother Ray and Brother Devon were screwed once again out of a win one-year later when a drunken Brother Runt came in to attack Homicide, leading to a disqualification. This left Brother Ray irate, who began attacking Runt.
It was now time for the 30-Minute Ironman Match between “The Samoan Submission Machine” Samoa Joe and the Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle. It was learned earlier in the night that the winner of this match would receive a shot at the NWA World Heavyweight Title at next month’s “Against All Odds” Pay-Per-View.
The opening minutes of this bout saw both Angle and Joe measuring each other’s strengths. The two went back and forth with chops and submission holds in trying to weaken the opposition to gain the first decision. Both combatants were very focused during the match, not only to gain the shot at the NWA World Title, but also to have the bragging rights of winning such a physically grueling match that tests your endurance.
Around the 13-minute mark, Kurt Angle tapped out to the Rear Naked Choke to allocate Samoa Joe the first and only decision so far during the match. Kurt Angle would fire back though and tie things at the 16-minute mark when Samoa Joe now took his turn in tapping out to the Ankle Lock.
Samoa Joe would surprisingly tap out again at the 19-minute mark to yet another Ankle Lock, just after Joe fended off an attempted Olympic Slam by Kurt Angle. Already 20-minutes into the match, it became apparent that Joe’s ankle was the weak point of his body that was ultimately costing him the match thus far. So Joe would have to dig deep and try hitting of a Muscle Buster, but his ankle gave out and that enabled Kurt to hit off the Olympic Slam for a near fall.
Kurt Angle would now take the intensity level to the next level by taking down the straps and synching in the Ankle Lock yet again. Samoa Joe though would roll out and later hit the Muscle Buster to gain the pin and tie the contest up at two apiece, with 7-minutes left in the bout.
Taking the lead now was Kurt Angle with a sunset flip pin on Samoa Joe. With that, Joe now had under 5-minutes to potentially tie the match up or face a loss tonight against Kurt Angle. With 2:30 left on the clock, Samoa Joe went through a trance of inflicting as much pain as possible on the Olympic hero, but the Muscle Buster would be broken up with a rope break. Now with 50 seconds left, Angle was fighting off the Rear Naked Choke, he was going into the turtle position in trying to prevent the move so what did Joe do? He used a trick from Angle’s playbook but the time had expired by one second when Kurt Angle tapped out to his own Ankle Lock. As a result of the time expiration, Kurt Angle was your victor, as he will receive a shot for the first time in his career against the NWA World Heavyweight Champion next month at the “Against All Odds” Pay-Per-View.
And it was now time for the main event of the evening featuring the NWA World Heavyweight Championship Match. It was the champion, Abyss vs. Christian Cage vs. Sting, in a Triple Threat Elimination Match, but a very special stipulation enforced by TNA management director Jim Cornette was that Tomko, Cage’s partner, had to be locked inside a cage setup at ringside to prevent him from influencing the decision of this match.
Early on in the match, Sting had sent Abyss out of the ring and began working on Christian Cage in the corner with a series of punches. However, Abyss would bring Sting to the outside as well and send him head first into the cage containing Tomko. Christian Cage took advantage by beating on the laying body of Sting upon scoop slamming him to the concrete floor.
Back in the ring, Cage would attempt to weaken “The Monster” Abyss, but the monstrous power of this man was just too much for Cage to take on alone. The emotional despair that Abyss has gone through as of late has no doubt fueled this monster to new lengths of destruction, as he almost eliminated Christian Cage with the Shock Treatment.
Despite being locked in the cage, Tomko was still a factor when he was seen reaching out of the cage to choke Sting. In the ring though, Abyss and Cage were still battling it out but out of nowhere we saw Sting emerge from behind Abyss upon hitting off the Scorpion Death Drop to eliminate the NWA World Heavyweight Champion, Abyss via pinfall. As a result, the fans in attendance in Orlando, Florida were guaranteed to see a new champion tonight!
Christian Cage would now take on his cocky persona in delivering shot after shot on Sting, but the red blood cells were pumping really hard within Sting in realizing he could once again hold the most prestigious prize in professional wrestling – the NWA World Heavyweight Championship.
We would then see James Mitchell, manager of Abyss, come back to survey the situation. This would be somewhat of a distraction for Sting, but he was able to counter Christian Cage’s plan of action and lock in the Scorpion Death Lock. Then Mitchell decided to release Tomko from the confined cage at ringside and distract the referee as Sting would suffer a huge Death Valley Driver from the big man. Sting would remarkably kick out from Cage’s attempted pin as chaos would break loose all over the place.
Unfortunately for Sting, his dedication and heart to win were shattered. Ultimately in the end with the assist from Abyss and his alley Tomko, Christian Cage went on to defeat Sting with the Frogsplash to become the new NWA World Heavyweight Champion, for the second time in his illustrious career!
Quick Match Results:
• Preshow: Lance Hoyt defeated Chase Stevens.
• Last Man Standing Match: Rhino defeated AJ Styles.
• Three-Way Match: Chris Sabin defeated TNA X-Division Champion, Christopher Daniels and Jerry Lynn, to win the title.
• Paparazzi Championship Series (Finals): Alex Shelley defeated Austin Starr, to become the PSC Champion.
• James Storm defeated Petey Williams.
• NWA World Tag Team Champions, The Latin American Exchange (Homicide & Hernandez) defeated Team 3D (Brother Ray & Brother Devon), via disqualification.
• 30-Minute Ironman Match: Kurt Angle defeated Samoa Joe, 3-2.
• Triple Threat Elimination Match: Christian Cage defeated NWA World Heavyweight Champion, Abyss and Sting, to win the title.
