TNA Victory Road 2012

TNA Victory Road 2012

Orlando, FL - March 2012

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into the show, the TNA World Champion was Bobby Roode, the X-Division Champion was Austin Aries, Magnus and Samoa Joe held the TNA World Tag Team Championships, the Knockouts Champion was Gail Kim, the Knockouts Tag Team Champions were Eric Young and ODB, and Robbie E was the TNA Television Champion.

After a video package hyping tonight's main event, Bully Ray kicks off the show with a promo about how he wants his match tonight against James Storm to be a Number One Contender's match. Storm shows up, confirms that the match will determine the number one contender for Bobby Roode's TNA World Championship and then proceeds to beat Bully Ray with a sneaky superkick at the 70-second Mark. This was more of an "angle" than a match and, honestly, considering my general distaste for both guys, keeping this under 2 minutes suited me just fine as a viewer (though, I will admit, Bubba's Bully Ray won was easily the best thing he'd done since the end of the Attitude Era), but there's not enough here to even rate.

Next up - Austin Aries defending the X-Division Championship against Zema Ion. A solid 10-minute match with some good-looking offense out of Aries, who was plenty over with this crowd. Ion had a good showing too, leaning into his evil heel character after injuring Jesse Sorensen at the previous month's Against All Odds PPV. Not must-see, but not bad. (2.5/5)

Samoa Joe and Magnus defended the TNA World Tag Team Champions against Crimson and Matt Morgan in the next match. The story here was that, once he got into the match, Crimson wanted to fight it on his own to prove his toughness, which made the whole match centered around him and Morgan's tension/turmoil instead of being about the champions. Samoa Joe seems slightly more motivated and engaged than he'd been in several months but he's clearly just following the script more than trying to get himself over. When he does make a fool out of one of the challengers by walking away from one of their attempts at a high-flying move, he gets the biggest pop of the match. Most of the crowd is supportive of Morgan, but I'm not sure if that's because he's the babyface half of his team or because Crimson was just so unpopular/disliked that the fans were trying to make it clear that they'd even take Morgan over him. Not good. (1/5)

Robbie E and his security detail Big Rob come down the aisle and announce that, rather than issuing an open challenge to the boys in the back, they are going to accept a challenge from any fan at the ringside who wants a shot at the TV Championship. Robbie E's promo work was really good here, though definitely not revolutionary or anything. D-Von Dudley answers the challenge from the crowd and wins the title in under 4 minutes, much to the delight of the crowd. This was more of an angle than a match, but the crowd was super into it and I think it worked out better than if they had actually turned this into a "real" match (which I'm sure is coming down the pike and which I'd be surprised if I enjoyed). (2.5/5)

Gail Kim defended her TNA Knockouts Championship against Madison Rayne in the next bout. Rayne and Kim were co-owners of the Knockouts Tag Team Championships, but Rayne had weaseled her way into a battle royal for a shot at the title and won it on an episode of Impact to make this match happen. The best thing to say about this match is that it doesn't overstay its welcome or try to be anything that it can't be. Having now seen a fair amount of "classic TNA," I'm very confused as to why the Knockouts division was considered good. (1/5)

AJ Styles and Ken Anderson teamed up to take on Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian in the next bout. This was decent but barely left "first gear" as they say. It was fun to see Anderson working with the X-Division guys, I guess? Just sorta there with more emphasis on the story between Styles and Daniels/Kazarian and Anderson being thrown in to lend it some star power. (2.5/5)

Jeff Hardy vs. Kurt Angle was the next match. Angle's reasoning for going after Hardy - that Hardy was his son's favorite wrestler - was a bit goofy, but Angle made it work because he can be pretty good at the goofy stuff. I wasn't expecting much out of this match but Hardy was clearly motivated to deliver a good match after what had happened at the last Victory Road show and Angle was the right dance partner to do that. Hardy took a wicked bump into the guadrail at one point and Angle delivered a ton of impressive suplexes. For a guy who is often talked-about on commentary as having an unorthodox style, Hardy always seems to have these sort of "I'm gonna prove I can wrestle" matches against guys like Angle, Triple H, or CM Punk that kinda take away from that story. Anyway, they go close to 20 minutes but keep the fans with them the whole time through. Eventually, Angle puts an end to things by grabbing the ropes on a pin. This was missing something to make it truly great, but its easily the best match on the show up till this point. (3/5)

Main event time - Sting vs. Bobby Roode in a non-title No DQ match. This is the best Sting match I've seen from his TNA days in awhile as he controls most of the match, just beating the hell out of Roode for the first half, even delivering on a cool Stinger Splash on the guardrail. Unfortunately, things slow down quite a bit when Roode goes on offense. For a No DQ match, this is pretty tame and ends when Roode brings a chair into the ring, sets it up for what I assume would've maybe been a powerbomb onto the chair but ends up getting sent to the outside and then set up for a Scorpion Death Drop. Sting hits the move, but takes a nasty back drop into the chair, hitting his head on the thing on the way down. This allows Roode to make the cover and get the W. The match itself is solid, but things don't end there... (3/5)

After the match, Roode gets into it with Dixie Carter and we get an insanely drawn-out segment where Roode looks like he is going to attack Carter, Sting makes the save, Roode regains controls, and beats down on Sting, duct-taping him in the corner. The crowd chants for Hogan, but Hogan doesn't come out. Neither does AJ Styles or Ken Anderson or Jeff Hardy or James Storm or any babyface despite the fact that many of them have history with Roode. It is bizarre to watch Roode do so many heelish things and for nobody to come to Sting's aide and makes Sting look like an unlikable loser. The crowd chants "Fire Bobby" because, well, why wouldn't Dixie Carter fire him after what he's done to Sting and to her? Just an awful way to end the show that makes no sense. (-1)

All in all, Victory Road 2012 is a mostly poor show with its lone bright spots being the Hardy/Angle match and the main event (though the post-match angle is painfully long and stupid). With a Kwang Score of just 2.07-out-of-5, this show is impossible to recommend except to the biggest Hardy fans...

FINAL RATING - DUDleyville