The SmarK Rant for TNA Destination X

The SmarK Rant for TNA Impact – 07.18.13 (Destination X)

Live from Louisville, KY

Your hosts are Mike Tenay & Jeremy Borash.

Bully Ray joins us, and all week long he’s only been hearing about Chris Sabin. Perhaps because he’s one of the few who haven’t been fired yet. So he brings out Brooke, and she’s all “You should move on, Mark” because it’s a SHOOT. Or something. Hulk Hogan joins them and he’s had enough of Bully.

Bound For Glory Series: Bobby Roode v. Austin Aries

Sadly, it appears that Aries’ mustache was unable to come to terms on a new contract and was let go. Their cheat-fu is evenly match to start, but Roode gets backbreaker to put Aries on the apron. He tries a suplex back in, but Aries escapes with knees and follows with a dive to the floor. Back in, Roode catches him coming off the top and follows with a clothesline off the apron to take over. We take a break and return with Roode in control as they slug it out on the top rope. Aries wins and follows with a 450, but it only gets two. They brawl onto the ramp as Aries dives onto him, and comes back in with a missile dropkick. They trade suplex attempts and Aries gets a rollup, reversed into the crossface by Roode. They trade near-falls and Roode gets a backslide for two. Aries blocks a spear and goes for the brainbuster, but Roode reverses out and clotheslines him for two. Aries throws the forearm and gets the brainbuster to finish at 11:48. Hell of a match right there. ***1/2 Roode is pretty upset at this and destroys a monitor and some chairs. Jesus, Dixie Carter only had two payments left on that monitor! Now the rent-a-center is never gonna take it back.

Meanwhile, HOMICIDE is back.

Meanwhile, new VP Mr. Anderson rallies the troops in the post-Doc era.

X Division qualifier: Homicide v. Petey Williams v. Sonjay Dutt

So the theme here is “X Division stars of the past”. Winner of this moves onto the Ultimate X final next week. Homicide dumps both guys and follows with a dive, but Dutt comes back with ranas. Petey slingshots in with a shoulderblock for two and wraps up Dutt with a leglock, but Homicide breaks it up with a diving headbutt. He puts both guys down with neckbreakers and sets up Petey for the Gringo Killer, but Petey reverses out. Another try hits and gets two. Sonjay hits Homicide with the double stomp moonsault to finish at 4:06. Crowd was dead for this and they weren’t clicking at all. **

X Division qualifier: Manik v. Chavo Guerrero v. Kenny King

I guess this is stars of the present? King pounds Manik down and appears to squat and take a shit on him. That’s quite the taunt. Manik gets a bridging leglock on King, and then hits Chavo with a suplex while holding it. Chavo dumps Manik and hits King with a missile dropkick, and they set up a contrived spot where Chavo tosses Manik into King for a dropkick. Weak. Chavo hits Manik with the suplexes and then switches to King, but Manik finishes King with the double knees to advance. This was another one where it was kind of a big messy style clash. *1/2

The Main Event Mafia joins us, and they want to beat up Aces & Eights and drink their beer. So they head backstage where Anderson is waiting, and Angle gets kidnapped in the back of a pickup truck. Is Russo writing this again? How incompetent do the Mafia need to be for this plan to work?

X Division qualifier: Rubix v. Rockstar Spud v. Greg Marasciulo

Those last two might be two of the worst names in wrestling right now. And that includes a lot of NXT geeks. You’d have to think that Rubix wins this one by virtue of at least being a real wrestler and not having a name like an 80s TV jobber. Everyone hits the floor and Marasciulo takes over on Spud back in the ring, but Spud pounds away in the corner. Rubix comes back in with a low dropkick on Spud while Tenay calls this “PPV quality”. Really? This is PPV quality? Three developmental guys sent out there to die? Marasciulo comes back into the match with an impressive flip dive onto Spud, they do some more stuff, and Marasciulo pins Spud at 6:30 to advance. Don’t they have any idea how annoying it is to type that name? They should have just called him “Greg Mara” or something. These guys all looked green as fuck out there. * And this three-way experiment is a total flop and they just need to end it.

So next week, in the battle of the per-appearance payments, it’s Sonjay v. Manik v. Marasciulo. And you thought Kenny King’s reign was dull.

Meanwhile, Angle escapes his predicament when the slow moving truck stops at a red light or something.

Mickie James is out to promote her music career, but Gail Kim interrupts and they argue over star ratings before getting into a brawl.

TNA World title: Bully Ray v. Chris Sabin

Sabin gets all up in Bully’s face and they throw down, which results in Sabin pounding away in the corner after some high kicks. Bully takes him down and goes to work on the bad knee, but the Mafia and Aces come down for some discourse as we take a break. An exceptionally long 5:30 break, in fact. TNA’s gotta pay some bills, except they do it six weeks late. So we’re back with Bully still working on the knee and pulling off Sabin’s boot to expose the bare knee. Sabin fights up and Bully puts him down with a clothesline, then continues destroying the knee like a big bully. Sabin fights back again, so Bully puts him down and mocks Hogan. After another lengthy beating, he misses a charge and Sabin comes back and goes to the top, but Bully brings him down with a superplex. That gets two. Sabin reverses the Bullybomb into an enzuigiri and comes back with a missile dropkick, but the ref is bumped. A second ref was supposed to run in, but he got in a contract dispute on the way to the ring and left the company. The Mafia brawls with the Aces, leaving Bully and his hammer alone, but Sabin steals it and uses it to escape the BullyBomb…and wins the World title at 20:00?!? Well that was certainly unexpected. Hope he enjoys it for a couple of weeks before Bully wins it back. Match was just Bully working the leg for extended periods. **1/4 I think in a lot of ways they would have created a bigger star by having Sabin put up the good fight and lose after a heated match, rather than basically fluking his way into the World title when he was clearly not in the same league as the champion.

The Pulse

I kind of hated this show, to be honest. None of the X division matches worked and I just didn’t buy Sabin as a threat, even after he won the damn belt. And what the FUCK was with that Aces v. Angle show-long storyline that led to nothing? They should fire the guy who wrot…oh, yeah, never mind.