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Final Resolution 2009 kicks off with a relatively hot tag opener - The Motor City Machine Guns challenging The British Invasion for the TNA Tag Team Championships. The MCMG have the crowd behind them and the much more dazzling offense, but the Invasion end up eking out a victory. The Guns are rightfully considered one of the best tag teams of the past 20 years and while this match may not even be in their Top 10 or 20, they do deliver some really good double-team maneuvers and Sabin's suicide dive through Shelley's legs looks tremendous. I wish the referee would've been in better position for the finish as it should've been a quick, sneaky 3-count instead of what looks more like a 5 count because the referee had to scramble to slap the mat. No worse than average. (2.5/5)
Next up - ODB defending her Women's Championship against Tara. Tara hit an awesome front-flip leg drop early and that was the highlight of the match. Some ugliness at one point when Tara goes for a one-legged flapjack and ODB takes the move directly on her face. Nasty spot there that seems to have dazed ODB and led to a very lackluster finish. Tara's post-match promo is not very good and is a touch "off-key" because ODB was also a babyface and, one could argue, the underdog despite being the defending champion. (2/5)
The Feast or Fired match was next - Jay Lethal vs. Consequences Creed vs. Samoa Joe vs. Kevin Nash vs. Eric Young vs. Kiyoshi vs. Bobby Roode vs. Rob Terry vs. Homicide vs. James Storm vs. Cody Deaner vs. Abdul Bashir. The story coming into this match was actually kinda clever as Eric Young had entered all of his World Elite brothers into the contest in order to "stack the deck" and ensure that Beer Money would not be able to challenge The British Invasion for the Tag Team Championships. While this makes for a fun story that is used to "pair up" various guys in the early going on the match, it also leads to some tension once Rob Terry and Abdul Bashir grab hold of the first two briefcases. Samoa Joe spends most of the match outside the ring looking cool, but does show up for the second half for a good sequence against Lethal and Consequences and then, eventually, to grab the final briefcase. Kevin Nash ends up with a briefcase too. Aside from one sequence involving Beer Money, Lethal Consequences, Joe, and Kiyoshi, there is very little actual "wrestling" on display. After an interview segment with Angle and Styles, the "winners" are revealed: Nash gets a tag title shot, Joe gets a World title shot, Rob Terry gets an X-Division title match, and poor Abdul Bashir got the "pink slip." This could've been so much better if it had been built more around Joe kicking ass. (2/5)
Team 3D, Rhyno, and Jesse Neal took on Hernandez, Suicide, Matt Morgan, and "The Pope" D'Angelo Dinero in the next match. This was a sloppy mess with just about the worst refereeing I've ever seen. The match began with the heels having a 4-on-1 advantage with Hernandez having to survive the first 5 minutes alone. Not only did he survive, he pinned Rhyno. Woo boy. If you're going to bury somebody, let it be Jesse Neal, who was the least experienced of the eight men in the ring. Speaking of Neal, he teased hitting Hernandez with a chair before the rest of the babyfaces joined the match but...didn't...because...it was never clear. It couldn't have been because he didn't want to get disqualified because he ends up using the chair later...and somehow not getting disqualified. Hernandez absolutely BRAINS him with an unprotected chair shot, which seemed like the kind of spot that Bubba and D'von probably thought would "get him over" but definitely did not. Anyway, Hernandez gets DQ'd and we eventually learn that Neal is too, though it happens after Hernandez is. It makes no sense. Team 3D get to look strong, eliminating both Dinero and Suicide with the 3-D. I understand keeping the tag team specialist looking strong, but Dinero had some momentum coming into the company and getting jobbed out here 100% clean was certainly not what the fans wanted. Matt Morgan, who was pretty over with the crowd here, ends up getting the victory. When this wasn't stupid, it was boring. (1.5/5)
Bobby Lashley and Scott Steiner had a surprisingly good Falls Count Anywhere match at the last show, but I kinda expected this to not live up to what was possibly a "lightning in the bottle"/"lucky night" for these two. I'm a Lashley fan, but he was still "putting it all together" in 2009 and not yet as good as he would become. Steiner's TNA run has been much better than I remember it being due entirely to his effort. Still, even with Steiner working hard, busting out suplexes and cutting entertaining promos and performing friggin' Frankensteiners, his timing and selling are not great and the layout of this match is not good at all. Last Man Standing matches almost demand some sort of "big spot" to explain why someone would be laid out for 10 seconds and this offered none, wrestled way too much like a regular match to feel like the culmination of a serious feud over one man's wife. Steiner's selling of leg damage early leads nowhere. Lashley knocking out Steiner with a single pipe shot is silly compared to the level of violence from their previous bout. This was a disappointment even if you went into it not expecting much. (1.5/5)
Another disappointing match follows as Mick Foley teams up with Abyss to take on Raven and Dr. Stevie (Stevie Richards). There's one great Foley spot that he saves for the end of the match, flying off the ramp onto Stevie and putting him through a table, but nothing else is really too impressive. At one point, Abyss could be relied on to put on very violent, very bloody hardcore matches, but as nearly every longtime wrestling fan eventually learns, when a wrestler bases so much of their work around "garbage wrestling," it almost always leads to diminishing returns. By this point, unless there was shards of glass, thumbtacks, and stiff chair shots involved, it felt like Abyss was "half-assing it" despite how unfair a criticism that is. This is physical match and nobody is pulling punches, but when you expect blood and gore, a match like this comes off as incredibly tame. It also doesn't help that, despite the arrival of Raven, the Dr. Stevie/Abyss feud feels like its been going on way too long. (2/5)
Kurt Angle vs. Desmond Wolfe in a 3 Degrees of Pain match is next. God, I really wish they would've just made this a 2-out-of-3 falls match in a cage rather than the ham-fisted and mostly unnecessary stipulation that the first fall could only be won by pinfall, the second only by submission, and the third by escape. It should've been much simpler: an escape-the-cage match that can only be won after you had successfully pinned or submitted your opponent. That may seem like a minor change, but it would've helped the psychology of the match, which is a bit "all over the place" despite the strong work of both guys. For example, early on, Tenay has to clarify that neither wrestler is allowed to use the cage "as a weapon" or else risk losing by DQ...which doesn't make sense because they've already said the first fall can only end by pinfall (and, therefor, because its in a cage, is essentially a No DQ/No CO situation anyway). Then, later on, there's a rope break when, again, the match couldn't possibly end with a DQ because the second fall could only end with a submission. Furthermore, the first stretch of the match, which should be loaded with pinfall attempts and counters, is wrestled mostly on the mat...as is the second, submissions-only fall. There's not enough differentiation between the first 15 minutes and the second and the crowd's enthusiasm seems to ebb-and-flow over the course of the two first falls, most likely because so much of it is mat-based when the first fall should've been much more about big suplexes and slams. The third fall is the best fall of the match - not really a surprise there - because this is where the action really picks up and we see Nigel's desperation, especially after he gets opened up. Still, there are some weird moments. Its a trope that the babyface will always escape the cage by climbing out rather than using the door, but I would've loved for them to find a way to make it make more sense here, especially considering that Angle had never really "turned face" after the Main Event Mafia storyline and was something of a "tweener" at this point, a guy who could feud and fight anyone on the roster. One could argue that where Wolfe was lying was close to the cage door (which would've made it easier for him to stop Angle), but that wasn't noted on commentary. I also thought that some of Angle's counters looked wonky, especially compared to how smooth Nigel is. This wasn't a bad match, but it wasn't as good as their bout at the previous show and really suffered from a weak set of rules. (3/5)
Main event time - AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels for AJ's TNA World Heavyweight Championship. A solid match - certainly above average - but missing a true emotional story because, ultimately, as good as Daniels is from a technical perspective, I don't find myself super-invested in his matches. I loved the spot where Daniels came flying over the top to try a hurricanrana but got powerbombed on the floor instead. I loved the finishing stretch and how much Daniels fought to avoid a second Styles Clash. I didn't love that, at no point, did I find myself wondering if Daniels might actually win the title. Because this was wrestled as a battle of two ex-best friends who knew each other so well and didn't really have a true good-vs.-evil dynamic (despite Styles clearly being more over and Daniels infusing a little bit of heelishness here and there), the finish was never in doubt. Had Daniels actually been working to try to screw Styles out of the title, that could've added some drama that just wasn't there. Maybe back in 2009 this would've been really special, but because this level of action and workrate is so common today, it doesn't really stand out now. (3/5)
With a Kwang Score if 2.19-out-of-5, Final Resolution 2009 is not a show worth checking out in its entirety, but the Wolfe/Angle match and the main are both good. Unfortunately, nothing else on the card rises above average.
FINAL RATING - High Risk Maneuver
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