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CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into this show, the TNA World Champion was Kurt Angle, the X-Division Champion was Homicide, Beer Money Inc. were the World Tag Team Champions, AJ Styles was the Legends Champion, and Tara was the Knockout Champion.
The show kicks off with Tara (formerly Victoria in the WWE) defending her TNA Knockouts Championship against Angelina Love of The Beautiful People. This is - somewhat surprisingly considering Angelina Love's skill level at this point - a very well-layed out match with good transitions and a brisk pace. Tara was over with the Impact Zone crowd, even if the tarantula thing was kinda hokey. Unfortunately, the finish is dog shit and completely discredits referee Slick Johnson as being woefully out of position. I'm not always a stickler for referees looking incompetent, but this was made especially worse with Johnson getting attacked by Tara after the bell. With The Beautiful People at ringside, there were a million ways to end this match without burying the ref. (2/5)
Christopher Daniels took on Matt Morgan in the next bout. Morgan was in the midst of a sizable push at this time as he had obvious size, a solid look, and wasn't too bad in the ring. In fact, I thought his character work here was quite good. Daniels is someone I generally liked more before I actively started watching TNA shows. He is a great technical wrestler - great timing, great execution, great selling - but there's something about the presentation and "character" (whatever it was at this point) that does not click with me. Here, he is basically just playing your average babyface, nothing special beyond being a well-respected veteran. Daniels is a worker whose "highs" are high, but who has a lot of forgettable matches on his resume too. As he is so technically proficient, he makes Morgan look good but this match doesn't need to necessarily go 10 minutes to get to its finish. (2.5/5)
Abyss beats the heck out of Dr. Stevie in the next match, which Stevie decided to make "No DQ" for some reason. I'm not sure I understood the logic there. Richards ends up getting a bunch of color during the second half of the match and I liked that they booked this to make it clear that Abyss was able to utterly dominate and get revenge on the evil therapist who was trying to control him. Still, not a super interesting or captivating bout and the most hardcore spot might have been Daffney getting shoved into the steps in an incredibly dangerous and awkward way. (2/5)
The IWGP World Tag Team Championships are on the line in the next match as Doug Williams and Brutus Magnus of the British Invasion (with Rob Terry in tow) take on Team 3-D. Over on Cagematch, this match has an abysmal score but it seems more like people were rating the performers and not the performance. Team 3D were quite stale at this point and this feud being all about "respect" made it feel even more like a repeat of previous feuds with LAX and Beer Money. The British Invasion's Doug Williams is a terrific worker, but not necessarily a super entertaining or established one at this point in TNA. Magnus is Magnus - passable, competent, but far from electric. Still, they deliver a basic match well and I think the critics are unjustly negative on a match that was designed to keep Team 3-D looking like a top tier team (after dropping the belts to Beer Money) while still giving more exposure to the British Invasion, who needed it. The crowd seems into things for about 75% of the match before they start chanting for tables and that's pretty good for 2009. At just about 10 minutes, the match doesn't overstay its welcome, though I do think the post-match was a bit unnecessary and shoehorned-in. If they needed a table spot, why not have Rob Terry put someone through one to establish him as a badass? Team 3D not only won this match, but also got to take out the Brits' "partners" (Bashir and the Japanese guy whose name I can't remember), which really makes their own outfit look like jabrones. (2.5/5)
Jenna Morasca of Survivor infamy took on Sharmell in the next "match." This was bad. It was also tasteless. Morasca's X-rated entrance and eventual pinfall are so sleazy it should've been embarrassing for TNA. Sharmell, also not a wrestler, is somehow given the role of "leading" the match and has seemingly never paid attention to a single one of her husband's (or anyone's elses) matches as she looks lost, uncomfortable, and awkward from the minute she walks out from behind the curtain. Awesome Kong and Sojourner Bolt are at ringside but are of little help. In fact, at one point, Bolt takes the only real bump in the match but because of a timing issue, Kong is unable to fully catch her and she takes a fall to the concrete that looks brutal. It is the only spot in the entire match that got any reaction aside from Morasca practically humping Sharmell's face to get the W. I'd give this a zero if it weren't for the bump that Bolt took. (0.5/5)
Kevin Nash vs. AJ Styles was next with Styles' Legends Championship on the line. Putting aside the fact that TNA created a championship for "legends" and it was held by a guy who was 32 and not even yet in his prime, this was an intriguing match. Could Styles carry Nash,a good 10+ years since his last really good match, to something memorable? If there was anyone capable of it, Styles would probably have been that guy as he was/is an incredible bumper, great high-flyer, a very solid technician and mat wrestler, knows how to brawl, and, most importantly, was/is a master of inserting creative, "big" spots into his matches. This match probably could've used a few more of those - though Styles' bump to the floor is tremendous - but, really, Nash looked every bit his age and AJ's selling was a bit inconsistent (which is more noticeable in a match like this than it may be in a match where his opponent is also working a fast pace). Should they have leaned closer to a David vs. Goliath story? Maybe? I think they steered away from that to "protect" AJ and make it clear that he had Big Sexy's number until Nash managed to get something of a flukey win. There was enough to enjoy here to at least make me consider this slightly above average, especially compared to the matches that came before it. (3/5)
This match was followed by Beer Money defending the TNA Tag Team Championships against Scott Steiner and Booker T. This match wasn't particularly bad in terms of the action (though, the action was mostly boring), but the booking really, really hurt things. Earlier in the show, Kurt Angle had threatened the rest of the Main Event Mafia that if they lost, they'd be kicked out of the club. With Nash winning (when there was really no reason for him to win), they really telegraphed that the heels would win this match too and it feels like the audience sees it coming from the first minute and doesn't get invested in anything anyone does. The finish is also one of the worst I've seen in months, just a total shitshow of bad timing, the babyfaces looking lame and Hebner moving so slowly and poorly that its kinda sad to watch. The few positives in this match are all from Beer Money, whose offensive looks great and who were very over with the crowd. (1.5/5)
Samoa Joe vs. Sting followed in another match built around the Main Event Mafia storyline. Joe had turned heel at the previous show and joined the MEM, who then promptly kicked Sting out. Joe had also revealed that he was being coached by a "secret advisor" and that the advisor would be revealed on this show. This sort of angle sometimes hurts a match because the audience is simply waiting for the big reveal during the whole match and not necessarily caring about the actual wrestling. I'm not sure that's the case here as Joe and Sting have a decent, hard-hitting brawl mostly led by Joe dominating. Sting wasn't the most dynamic performer at this point in his career so if you were going to have him work a 10+ minute match, having him spending most of the match doing cut-offs and brief comebacks isn't a bad way to do it. Sting eventually locks in a Scorpion Death Lock and then out comes Joe's secret advisor....Tazz. Yeesh. Not necessarily a great reveal considering Tazz has no history with Sting or really Samoa Joe either. Joe is unable to hit the Muscle Buster so he wins with the Coquina Clutch. Winning by submission makes sense because the clutch was also known as the Tazzmission, but the Muscle Buster would've been a more impactful move and them not being able to pull off the spot is impossible not to see. This was inoffensive but the Tazz reveal didn't feel "big" enough and the botched finish certainly didn't leave a great last impression. (2/5)
Main event time - Mick Foley challenging Kurt Angle for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. Like every other one of his TNA matches, this is another unfortunate underwhelming match from Foley. It was noble for Foley to attempt to put on a match that was wrestling-forward and devoid of the kind of stunts and bloodshed that most would assume Foley would lean into to get the crowd to response. Sadly, Foley in 2009 was not the Foley of 1996 when his bumping and selling and willingness to throw himself into every move was equally as impactful as his use of thumbtacks, chairs, and barbwire. Kurt Angle doesn't do enough to push this match to the next gear either, doing nothing here to warrant him being included on anyone's list of the top 10-20 wrestlers ever. Foley eventually taps out, but I really wish they had done more to make it clear that Foley had reached his limit by having Angle really attack Foley's ankle from the beginning to the end. Instead, this is very ho-hum and generic and, because everyone knew Foley wouldn't be winning, lacks any real suspense. (1.5/5)
It's hard not to consider Victory Road 2009 one of the worst pay-per-views - TNA or otherwise - in history. Its Kwang Rating of 1.94-out-of-5 is a steep drop from Bound for Glory and Slammiversary, which weren't epic shows or anything but didn't have nearly as many sub-average matches.
FINAL RATING - DUDleyville
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