TNA held their Victory Road pay-per-view from Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida last night. While the lineup for the show looked less than impressive I was willing to enter last night with an open mind, hoping for an enjoyable show. Unfortunately, I was chomping at the bit covering it, hoping for it to end about an hour into the event. Everything I dislike about TNA was displayed last night in a tremendously lackluster effort. Before I get started I want to warn my readers that are TNA marks – this isn’t going to be pretty.

The show opened with the TNA Knockout Women’s Championship being defended by Tara against Angelina Love. The in-ring work for the match was pretty good but it was the finish that upset me. Less than two weeks after putting the TNA Knockout Women’s Championship on Tara, they put Angelina Love over dirty with Tara’s foot being on the ropes and Slick Johnson [the referee] being out of position. We would find out the reason this was overlooked later in the pay-per-view. As I mentioned in my coverage last night, why take the strap off Love only to have her win it back in such a short period of time? Wasn’t it Mick Foley that said in a backstage promo a couple of weeks ago on Impact it’s a world championship, not a menstrual cycle?

Next in a backstage promo, Kurt Angle tells the fellow members of the Main Event Mafia if they lose tonight; they’re out. Surely TNA wouldn’t book the pay-per-view in a way that Angle could have spoiled the outcome of every match in a promo after the first match. Could they?

Matt Morgan faced Daniels next in a typical big man vs. little man match. I commend Daniels for working banged up as he and Morgan put on a decent match. Daniels was booked to look like he had a chance but in the end Morgan hit his finisher and got the win. This could have probably been done on Impact but I didn’t mind it as a pay-per-view filler.

Abyss took on Dr. Stevie in a no disqualification match. If you’ve seen one Abyss gimmick match you’ve seen them all. Last night was no different except it was Stevie that added color and Abyss who beat him to death. They did an angle where Abyss tazered Stevie after interference from both Daffney and Lauren. The worst part of this match was Don West’s commentary. There’s nothing wrong with talking up the heels in an effort to not only get over as an announcer heel but to help the workers get over. However, West was more than annoying, and completely over did it.

The first tag team title match of the night with Team 3D defending the IWGP/New Japan Tag Team Championship against The British Invasion was a solid tag match. There’s really nothing noteworthy to comment on other than Team 3D worked as good as you would probably expect with Magnus and Williams not looking bad. Williams had a couple of botches and Magnus is still very green but they’re progressing better than they would as singles workers. Tables came in to play but were not used until Kiyoshi and Sheik Abdul Bashir hit the ring and ended up taking the bump after the match.

Slick Johnson offered an apology to Tara for missing the call in her match in a backstage interview with Lauren. The apology didn’t make much sense considering Tara put the tarantula on him after the bout, but I was willing to overlook it for the time being. The next match is a sure candidate for worst match of the year. Jenna Morasca with Awesome Kong in her corner took on Sharmell with Sojo Bolt in her corner. This was a far cry from the stellar show-stealing matches between Gail Kim and Awesome Kong during the inception of the Knockouts division. I’m not blaming Jenna or Sharmell as they aren’t professional wrestlers. To put them in a match together in the middle of a pay-per-view is ludicrous. Whoever suggested this bout needs to be held accountable for the disaster of match. If the match wasn’t bad enough in itself, they did a bizarre angle after the match where, for no reason, Jenna agitated Awesome Kong and got laid out immediately. Don West suggested maybe she was feeling cocky after her win. Cocky after a win against Sharmell?!? Did Sharmell really work the match in an evening gown?!?

Kevin Nash beat AJ Styles to win the TNA Legend’s Championship. I don’t care about the title, I’m not even sure what the Legend’s Championship means but for Nash to go over Styles on pay-per-view in 2009 is a complete injustice. I’ll be the first to admit I was a Kevin Nash fan, but that was when I was 11-years-old! Thirteen-years later Nash should be at his home doing whatever a retired professional wrestler does, maybe even in an office at WWE headquarters. He should not be competing for what is considered to be the number two wrestling company in the world and he certainly should not be going over one of the most talented young workers in the business. The match was completely lackluster and I’m putting all the blame on Nash. He’s old, slow and lazy. There is nothing Styles could have done to save this match but to have him do a job is sickening. It’s unfair to Styles and every other young TNA worker that is doing all they can to come up in this business.

After the Legend’s Championship match Lauren is shown backstage trying to find Tara for an interview to get her comments on getting screwed out of the TNA Knockout Women’s Championship. Instead, we see Madison Rayne coming out of the shower with referee Slick Johnson following behind. The angle was meant to imply Johnson is sleeping with Rayne which is why he missed the call in the Knockout Women’s Championship match. I guess the idea is realistic but Rayne appeared perfectly dressed with her hair perfectly fixed. At least Slick didn’t have his shirt on…

Robert Roode and James Storm have gone from being a very good tag team to one of the best in the business. They’re chemistry is so good they are able to produce realistic story-telling matches every time out. They handled themselves well in their match against Booker T and Scott Steiner but not deviating from the book, the Main Event Mafia members won the titles. I was so frustrated with the outcome of the match last night I wrote that I wanted to punch Vince Russo in the face. First they kill Tara’s momentum, then have Abyss win with a smoking tazer, they book a disastrous Knockout match on the middle of the card, they job out Styles and then cap it off by jobbing out their best up and coming tag team. Am I the only one seeing this? I guess workers such as Styles, Roode, etc. do as they’re told with no alternative but this pay-per-view was a page out of WCW’s playbook – no one but proven veterans go over. No one else gets a shot. The go-home sequence with Storm spitting beer in Steiner’s face only to get beer in the face of referee Earl Hebner was out of sync and awkward. Beer Money hit the DWI but because of Hebner’s eyes he couldn’t make the count until he argued with Storm, leaving Roode available to take an axe kick from Booker and the pin.

Sting and Samoa Joe barely got going when Sting locked in the Scorpion and got ready to make Joe submit. Taz’s music hit and Joe turned into Superman, powering out of what is supposed to be a devastating finisher. Joe applies the rear naked joke and gets Sting to tap, keeping the Main Event Mafia unbeaten. I like Joe going over Sting but think the angle to bring in Taz could not have been more uneventful. Everyone knew Taz was going to be revealed as Joe’s advisor so couldn’t they come up with something I don’t know, different to debut him? Taz didn’t even lift a finger but his presence alone made Joe gain super human strength.

Bobby Lashley’s signing was announced before the show’s main event. With booking like this, it’s going to take a lot more than Bobby Lashley to make TNA competitive.

The main event between Kurt Angle and Mick Foley was the slow-paced bout you would expect from a 44-year-old man that is overweight and out of shape wrestling a man that hurt his groin over the weekend. I still think Angle is one of the best if not the best in the world but there was no way he was going to be able to make Foley look good at 100%, much less working injured. The match wasn’t terrible but it drew almost no crowd reactions as Angle made Foley tap to retain the TNA Championship. After the match in true nWo style, the Main Event Mafia came out and celebrated with all their titles.

TNA Victory Road 2009 was painful to watch. I spent the money on this pay-per-view to cover it as part of my occupation. If you ordered this show to be entertained, you got ripped off. There is no nice way I can recommend this show to you. There was not a single match that was worth going back and trying to watch and the night was filled with questionable creative calls. To the young TNA wrestlers that read my column – I apologize to you. AJ Styles, Robert Roode, James Storm and all the workers that have busted their rear ends for this company only to play second fiddle to people like Kevin Nash and Scott Steiner -you all deserve better. I would recommend protesting to management but unfortunately they are not going to listen. It is up to the viewers to stop watching Impact, stop ordering the pay-per-views and stop buying the merchandise until serious changes are made.

Richard can be contacted at richard [at] grayinternet.com

Richard Gray is a professional wrestling journalist and frequent contributor to Rajah.com. He has been covering the world of professional wrestling since 1999 and has had the opportunity to cover ground breaking stories such as the demise of ECW, the WCW buyout, the Benoit tragedy, Bobby Lashley leaving WWE, and more. For more on Richard check out his web site, Wrestling News World.

– “Richard Reacts” Archive By WrestlingNewsWorld.com’s Richard Gray