At first glance the “Destination X” main event looked great. There was drama, athleticism, and plenty of entertainment. In most cases if a match can pull off all three of those ingredients you have a winner. In this case it was a recipe for disaster. The Abyss V.S. Styles main event left a hole in my heart almost literally.
Most wrestling fans remember the disaster at Halloween Havoc 98′ between Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior. Well, this main event was pretty close to that. At Havoc in 1998 wrestling fans were treated to a number of miscues and prop malfunctions. Hogan couldn’t light flash paper properly which turned into a hilarious screw up and the match just couldn’t be recovered. In this match we were treated to a hole in the ring which almost consumed all around it.
Now don’t get me wrong the most of this match was phenomenal (no pun intended). For those of you who saw it you know what I mean. If you disagree go back and watch it. AJ Styles carried the match as far as it could go before the gimmicks came into play. To bring my point home let’s evaluate the last ten minutes of the match:
We can start with Flair’s interference on the outside of the ring. When Flair attempts to spray the referee in the face with (mace of all things) the container malfunctions and the ref starts to scream and cover his eyes before anything comes out.
Our second debacle to point out is the choke slam on AJ through the ring. Ok we have seen this a thousand times since Mick Foley fell through the cage in his famous “Hell in the Cell” match. Hell Taz fell through the ramp in his match with Bam Bam Bigelow in ECW. The gimmick itself was not the problem it was the actual hole in the ring. After AJ was choke slammed the hole didn’t come apart like it was supposed to and when it did, it spread too far! Earl Hebner almost fell in, Flair could barely avoid it to get to his “spot” on the mat, and Desmond Wolfe had to tip toe around it to sell the barrage of punches from Abyss and Hogan. Once Flair, Wolfe, and Styles were all finally consumed into the hole I was exhausted. Not to mention the mace container malfunctioned two more times before this mess was all over.
Oh and by the way. Do we even know who is TNA Champ? I guess ask Earl Hebner he ran off with the belt!
Welcome to TNAStars.com, Adam. I noticed that the hole in the ring grew larger and larger, too! Frankly, I enjoyed seeing the Eric Young body outline on the mat during the show – I would have preferred to see that over a gigantic hole in the ring!
We look forward to seeing more of your writing at the site.
I hope TNA can recover from the poor rateings. I think they went to Monday night way too fast!!! They should market their product more & push the younger talent more if they fail to do these things, thne I think they will be out of the count in less than a year.
Thanks guys for the comments. I really think the Impact Zone has lost it’s muster. I really think that if TNA is going to be successful on Monday nights they have to travel.
Great article Adam. I totally agree with you. TNA really needs to step up to compete with RAW on Monday night. Great writing.
Adam – I couldn’t agree more. If TNA doesn’t start busting out of the iMPACT! Zone, they’re going to have a lot of problems coming off as a “big time” show that should draw a “big time” audience.