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The show begins with a solid-for-what-it-was 6-woman tag between The Beautiful People (Angelina Love, Madison Rayne, and Velvet Skye) and the team of Roxxi, Taylor Wilde, and The Governor (a Sarah Palin gimmick played by Daffney [RIP]). They only get 5 minutes, but the 5 minutes are really solid here and I wish they would've been given more. High energy offense, good double-teams, a great crossbody to the floor by Daffney - these women might not have had a 20-minute epic in them, but they deserved at least a few more minutes to shine. (2/5)
Next up - Brutus Magnus vs. Eric Young. Before the match, Jesse Neal comes out to deliver Young's introduction. They announce that EY is from Nashville, but wasn't he on Team Canada? Anyway, as I wrote in my review of the Against All Odds 2009 show (which I had to leave unpublished because TNA pulled it from YouTube before I could finish it), the issue with Magnus is that, as much as they tried to push him as someone special and unique, his moves and mannerisms don't stand out. He strikes me as a guy who would've really benefitted from more "seasoning," especially coaching from guys like Regal and Finlay who would've likely helped him lean into more of a European style that nobody in TNA was really doing. Sure, Magnus has a great look and is a natural heel, but there's nothing that makes you actually want to see him wrestle. Young, meanwhile, is always serviceable in the ring but really works best as a comic foil to a more serious character and, when sent out as just "Eric Young The Wrestler," the audience doesn't seem to care too much about him. Another sub-5 minute match on a PPV card. Not good. (1.5/5)
We get an absolutely atrocious and outright offensive segment from Sheik Abdul Bashir (Daivari) in which he likens his experience as an Arab American to being a Jew in Nazi Germany. Yes, it is that offensive. Jim Cornette ends his diatribe and Jesse Neal comes back to the ring to "sing out" Bashir with a fan-assisted version of "God Bless America" as Bashir exits the Impact Zone. Dreadful.
Finally, a big PPV-worthy match as Abyss takes on Matt Morgan in a 10,000 Thumbtacks Match. This was not as good as I really wished it would be. I'd be curious to know if Matt Morgan was genuinely uninterested in doing a big, bloody hardcore spotfest with Abyss or if they were just "saving" that match for the future? I guess I'll find out as I continue my journey through TNA PPVS...Anyway, the crowd starts chanting "We Want Tacks!" around minute 5-6, which should tell you that these two were not exactly wowing anyone with any of the preliminary action or build-up. I actually liked the psychology of how Abyss and Morgan made their way up to the stage (where Abyss had set up the two beds of tacks). Abyss had added shards of glass to an unused pile of tacks in the ring, which led Morgan to try to "walk out" on the match, which, of course, led to the finish. Abyss took a great bump through the tacks and the table, but I think most fans - myself included - expected a much wilder brawl with all sorts of weaponry. Instead, this was a one-spot match and ended up being a disappointment. (1.5/5)
The next segment is silly and not at all my thing. Comes across as very amateurish and unfunny and I'm not sure who it was for. ODB is offering one night with her and there are three finalists - a very square, nerdy accountant, Shark Boy, and Cody Deaner, a redneck character. I'm trying not to judge Deaner too harshly without having actually seen much of his work, but I hate this character based on just this segment alone.
Another underwhelming match follows as Awesome Kong defends the Knockouts Championship against Sojourner Bolt. They only get 4 minutes so there's not much too this, though the action is decent enough. People love to talk about how great the Knockouts division was, but watching the monthly PPVs, I see a really thin roster of talent with no credible challengers for Kong. (1/5)
Its hard not to hate on the next "match" as Samoa Joe takes on Scott Steiner. This is more of an angle than an actual contest, though, as Joe comes in and beats down Steiner, bloodying him, and then taking out the referees (who give Steiner the DQ victory). I like that Joe was more focused on destroying Steiner than he was on getting actual wins, but it does feel like a bit of a "bait and switch" as a Joe/Steiner match was advertised and this was really just a 5-minute segment. Its hard to "rate" something like this, so I just won't.
AJ Styles challenged Booker T for his Legends Championship next. Is this the best Booker T match he had in TNA up to this point? Maybe. It only goes 9 minutes, but the back-and-forth is good and I like how Booker and AJ keep the pace moving (not something that Booker was particularly known for at this time). The crowd is into this because AJ was super popular and Booker's act, as stale as it might've seemed to me, was surprisingly still working with the Impact crowd too. Not a super remarkable match, but no worse than average. (2.5/5)
The TNA Tag Team Champions Beer Money defend their titles in a Championships vs. Career match against Team 3D. Beer Money had "retired" Petey Williams and Lance Rock (Lance Archer) over the previous few weeks to lend some credibility to the Loser Leaves Town stipulation here. I've not been a big fan of Team 3D's TNA run and while this wasn't bad, it still wasn't my cup of tea, especially when they leaned into lame "gay joke" shtick that popped the Impact Zone crowd but didn't do much for me. There was one great nearfall towards the end of the match before this one went into overbooking-out-of-a-corner mode by having Beer Money first get DQ'd and then, when Cornette restarts the match, getting themselves counted out in order to retain the titles. The crowd rightfully shat on this. (2/5)
Alex Shelley put his X-Division Championship up for grabs - literally - in an Ultimate X Match also involving his tag partner Chris Sabin, Lethal Consequences (Consequences Creed and Jay Lethal), and the debuting Suicide. The crowd chants "Fallen Angel" early in the match because its Christopher Daniels under the mask (and not Kazarian, who was injured at the time). This felt a little underwhelming, aside from the nifty finish. A spotfest like this match really benefits from having guys that are innovative high-fliers and I wouldn't consider anyone in this match to fall into the category, at least not in 2009. Sure, Daniels can hit a perfect moonsault and Sabin a great dropkick and Creed, Lethal, and Shelley all have some good-looking signature stuff from the top rope, but none were really doing the kind of cutting-edge high-flying that we now see regularly in AEW, for example, where people are practically defying gravity with the amount of flips and spins they can execute. Anyway, that's not to say this was bad, it just wasn't super entertaining or interesting despite all the hard work. (2.5/5)
Main event time - Kurt Angle challenging Sting for not only the TNA World Championship but also the leadership role in the Main Event Mafia. This was a good storyline but Sting had lost multiple steps by this point and just doesn't have the energy to keep up with Angle, who was still working a very fast-paced, hard-hitting style. Unlike Jarrett, who was able to slow Angle down by working a match that was heavy on big spots a few months earlier, Sting and Angle wrestle a much more standard "classic" wrestling match with a mix of brawling, Angle's signature suplexes, and what had become some rather tired offense out of Sting. 10-15 years earlier, Sting was really good at taking a beating and then coming back with fired-up offense, but this is too 50/50 to capitalize on the goodwill that fans had towards the Sting (it doesn't help that he came into this match as something of a "tweener" as he had yet to fully denounce the MEM). Meanwhile, for all the pre-match hullaboo about Foley's role as the guest enforcer and Jarrett as the referee, we don't get any involvement from the MEM as they had basically excused themselves from the match over the course of the evening anyway. There are some really sloppy moments and while I liked some of the false finishes towards the end, this wasn't a very impressive match for either guy and I'm not sure the right man won as Sting looked old here. (2/5)
Earning an overall Kwang Score of only 1.88-out-of-5, Destination X 2009 is one of the weakest TNA shows I've reviewed. Not a single match could be considered above-average and most fell considerably short of even passable.
FINAL RATING - DUDleyville
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