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TNA Victory Road Recap
The News - Wrestling  |   Written by Adam Wilcox   |   Monday, 14 July 2008
TNA presented Victory Road last night, live from Houston, Texas. The event featured three title matches, the culmination of the World X Cup Tournament, and more.

The show was headlined by Houston native Booker T challenging Samoa Joe for the TNA Title. Joe bloodied Booker following a ref bump and proceeded to go crazy by choking and pummeling the former World Champion. A number of officials and security personnel attempted to prevent Joe from inflicting further harm on Booker, but were either assaulted or run off by The Samoan Submission Machine. Booker’s wife Sharmell emerged from the front row and tried to calm Joe down as well. Finally, the lights went out in the arena and Sting made his way to the ring. The WCW legend made an effort to reason with Joe, but received a middle finger from the Titleholder. Sting responded by striking Joe with his baseball bat and Sharmell counted a pinfall for her husband on the fallen Champion. Booker left the arena with the TNA belt following his “victory”. There was surprisingly no interference from Kevin Nash here, as Big Sexy complied with Joe’s earlier request to remain backstage during the match.

The World X Cup Tournament concluded with an excellent twelve-man elimination opener in Round Three and a fourth round Ultimate X contest closing the competition. Alex Shelley defeated Masato Yoshino to win the elimination match and earn three points for Team TNA, while Volodor Jr. emerged victorious in Ultimate X, giving Team Mexico the X Cup for seemingly no reason whatsoever (unless they were hoping to please the Hispanic crowd in Houston - which was unsuccessful if that was indeed the plan). This match was highlighted by a spectacular legdrop off of the scaffolding above the turnbuckles by Kaz onto Daivari as the former WWE manager straddled the Ultimate X ropes suspended over the ring.

In other news, Abyss rescued Taylor Wilde from a post-match attack by Awesome Kong and Sonjay Dutt defeated Jay Lethal following inadvertent (?) interference from SoCal Val.

This was a solid in-ring show and although I wasn’t fond of the non-finish during the main event, it did provide a number of cliffhangers (Has Joe turned heel? Is Booker now a babyface? Where does Nash fit into all of this? What is the situation regarding the World Title?). I must admit I’m looking forward to Impact this week to discover the answers to these questions.

Match Results: Team TNA over Team International, Team Mexico, and Team Japan in an Ultimate X Cup twelve-man elimination match via Alex Shelley’s pinfall on Masato Yoshino … Gail Kim over Angelina Love via pinfall … Sonjay Dutt over Jay Lethal via pinfall … TNA Tag Team Champions Lax over Beer Money Inc. in a Fan’s Revenge Match via Homicide’s pinfall on Robert Roode … TNA Knockout Champion Taylor Wilde over Awesome Kong via pinfall … Volodor Jr. over Kaz, Daivari, and Naruki Doi in a World X Cup Tournament Ultimate X Match … Kurt Angle and Team 3D over AJ Styles, Christian Cage, and Rhino in a Full Metal Mayhem Match via Angle’s pinfall on Styles following interference from Frank Trigg … TNA World Champion Samoa Joe wrestled Booker T to a no-contest following interference from Sting and Sharmell.

World X Cup Tournament Final Standings:

Team TNA: 6 Points

Team Japan: 4 Points

Team International: 3 Points

Team Mexico: 7 Points
Views: 495

Comments (6)
Posted by: Newaves at 07-14-2008 23:07
solid opeing match and and good TLC match rest was bla

Posted by: jake at 07-15-2008 00:14
The main event was the worst I think I've seen in TNA. 
 
There was way too much going on and the match did not even have a real finish. I think it finished no-contest or something like that. 
 
I was looking forward to that main event as I have been loving Booker work lately and Joe is great in the ring. 
 
What a let down, This one had Russo written all over it. It reminded me of 2000 WCW booking.

Posted by: Kenny at 07-15-2008 14:18
If the officials were trying to pull Samoan Joe off of Booker T then the match was over, right? They pull one fighter off another when they decide that his opponent is no longer intelligently defending himself. It is counted as a TKO win for Samoa Joe. Whatever happened afterwards doesn't matter; the match was over. 
 
Why do they turn off the lights whenever Sting appears? They might as well admit right then that TNA management is planning to have Sting make a "surprise" interference. Otherwise he wouldn't be able to get all the lights turned off would he? 
 
TNA's booking is too simple minded. They have no believability. In his autobiography, Jack Brisco stated that "Believability is the coin of the realm in professional wrestling." Apparently TNA is bankrupt.

Posted by: Kristian at 07-15-2008 15:32
First of all im actually a fan of TNA, if i look at the huge wwe roster and the tna roster i like way more wrestlers down in TNA. However it frustrates me that TNA's tv shows have actually gone down hill rather than got better. Things happen without explaination and for no good reason, which leads me to TNA Victory Road. 
 
Does anyone else hate the fact that they booked Awesome Kong to be fantastic with all this hugh build up and then get Tayler (practically unknown to TNA fans) to beat kong TWICE. She may be a good wrestler but to a TNA fan's eyes shes a girl from the crowd who happens to beat amazing kong when Gail Kim, ODB, Roxy, ect couldnt touch her. I hated that personally, if they really wanted her to win perhaps they could have had taylow win the money on impact by a fluke then. Kong get pissed putting the knockouts title on the line at the ppv where kong could retain. That way they could make a more interesting program out of it. Taylor coming in and winning everything in one match made no sense to me. 
 
The main event in my opinion was aweful. Booker T is awesome and im a big fan of Joe since ROH but my god the booking of the match was so bad i was like "WTF" for the last 10 minutes of it. Coupled with the wierd Booker video's during the night that just confused what direction they were going in even further. 
 
After the ppv, Is Joe a heel?, is Booker a babyface?, is Sharmell now a referee?, what does Sting have to do with all this, i just ending up being very very confused and i know im not the only one.  
 
I didnt watch much wCw but if this is Russo's doing PLEASE FIRE RUSSO, TNA was way better a couple of years ago.

Posted by: ben from down under at 07-15-2008 18:17
the main event is exactly whats wrong with TNA. Way too over booked, really ruined a decent title match.

Posted by: fernando villarreal at 07-15-2008 19:14
i was at the show. the building was half full at best. my first tna event. i liked everything but the main event. it was better than the raw draft that i also attended. the main event could have been way better.

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