TNA Destination X Hitlist: Six-man main event, Fish Market match, LAX, Kong vs. ODB vs. Gail Kim

TNA Destination X Hits

Awesome Kong vs. ODB vs. Gail Kim: The best match on the show and it wasn’t even close. Granted, this was not a strong night for great matches, but these three tore it up. I even caught myself hoping that ODB would somehow escape the Awesome Bomb because I wanted the match to continue. Great work all around.

LAX: It’s about time the company finally did something to get this act back on track. The live crowd was really into Homicide and Hernandez, and their win sets up a strong pay-per-view match with them challenging A.J. Styles and Tomko for the TNA Tag Titles. As much as I enjoy the Styles and Tomko team, I’d really like to see a long feud between LAX and the Guns over the TNA Tag Titles.

Black Machismo vs. Petey Williams: I could have done without all the interference. Yet as much as I dislike what the X Division has become, these two put together a nice match. I think everyone in the building thought they were going to see a title change until SoCal Val pulled the referee out of the ring. Nice spot.

TNA Destination X Misses

Team 3D vs. Curry Man and Shark Boy: As I noted in my review of the show, I’m sure there are some people who enjoyed this match. I’m not a humorless killjoy who wants straight forward wrestling at all times. I don’t mind seeing some sports entertainment mixed in and I chuckle over the Shark Boy character occasionally. I just don’t enjoy ridiculously over the top humor such as seeing fish used as weapons or watching a wrestler eat a cupcake attached to the end of a fishing line.

I can roll my eyes through Eric Young’s silly antics (and his character has entertained me many times in the past), but the Fish Market match was such a turnoff that I would not order another TNA pay-per-view for a long time if this were not my job. I wouldn’t write TNA or send an email to a pro wrestling website about my dissatisfaction. I’d simply stop ordering and move on with my life.

I have a feeling that for every person who enjoyed this match, there is at least one other person who feels like I do, and I know there plenty of other fans who gave up on TNA a long time ago. People who enjoyed this match got a good laugh out of it, but I doubt it will be the driving force behind their decision to order future pay-per-views. Conversely, I guarantee there will be people who don’t order future TNA shows because they were so turned off by the same match.

Samoa Joe and Kevin Nash and Christian Cage vs. The Angle Alliance: This may be surprise some people since the match was entertaining and had a clean finish. However, I was under the impression that the purpose of this main event was to set up Joe vs. Kurt Angle next month. Joe and Angle had one big showdown, and Joe picked up the win for his team, but there was nothing about this match that made me feel like I can’t miss next month’s Angle vs. Joe main event. Again, I’d give this match a “Hit” based on action and entertainment value, but it didn’t accomplish what it should have.

Booker T vs. Robert Roode: The strap really put a damper on things and the live crowd didn’t react to much until the women started fighting at ringside. That said, the post-match whipping of Traci Brooks and Sharmell’s antics were at least memorable. Too bad neither one of things will elevate Roode, which is said to be the point of this feud.