Sky's Good Matches Thread (formerly You Decide What Sky Watches)

[Storm Trooper]

This one can't be blamed on me. Hopefully it's better than we all remember.

 

[Sky]

Match #50
Bully Ray vs. Tommy Dreamer
Falls Count Anywhere
TNA Victory Road - March 13, 2011​

Welcome to the great big 50th match celebration, where the 50th match is just the first match of a show that I'll be watching for this thread. Victory Road 2011 is a bit infamous. Wonder why? Let's watch the opener.

The Impact Zone was loud and packed around this time... it was a better time. Bully Ray grabs SoCal Val's mic and tells her to fuck off. (Val abuse is just a fact of life in TNA). He delivers a bit of a promo sucking off Bischoff and Hogan. To be fair, it is a pretty nice promo. You can see why they picked him to be one of the top guys of Immortal after this show. Dreamer is cheered nowhere near as much as Bully is booed. Bully tells Dreamer in no uncertain terms that he is Going To Win The Upcoming Match, and praises Immortal again. Dreamer's only inspired to fight when Bully calls him fat.

Dreamer has the early edge, brawling it out and even hitting a crossbody. Bully downs Dreamer for a bit, but wastes too much time taunting the crowd before missing an elbow drop. Dreamer tosses Bully right out of the ring. He then takes a chair from a fan, gives it to another fan, then tosses Bully face-first into the chair the fan was holding. After that, he takes a fan's water and spits it in Bully's eyes, who sells it like it's red mist. This is that "TNA Fan Interaction" they always used to talk about. And then, in what is probably the enduring moment of the match, he grabs a MINION TOY and nails Bully with it! Tenay just goes silent as Taz tries to grasp at straws due to never having seen Despicable Me (2010).

Dreamer bundles Bully over the barricade, so looks like this match is going into the crowd! He nails Bully in the face with another fan's drink, then poses with the crowd to pop them. He then hits Bully with a fan's cane! This is just "how much stuff can Dreamer take from the crowd: the match" and I'm down with it. He runs down the stairs a little and hits the axe handle. It's no Samoa Joe concrete stairs back break spot, but it'll do. TNA chants!!

When they get back on the "right" side of the barricade, Bully regains control and smashes Dreamer's entire tailbone on the barricade with an atomic drop. Bully grabs a kendo stick, but instead of hitting Dreamer with it, he attacks SoCal Val with it to get to her chair. Really. He screams "MOVE IT YOU BITCH!!", swings at her, she ducks at the very last minute, the kendo stick SHATTERS against the guardrail, and then Bully gets the weapon he really wants. Bully tries to smash the chair into Dreamer's hand but he avoids it. Dreamer then tosses a garbage can of plunder into the ring, except the kendo sticks, which go flying out in the other direction. He tosses in a road sign and construction barrier, the sort of weapons you'd only see in the very literal sense of a "street fight" (TNA actually did this the previous year).

Dreamer bends a kendo stick over Bully's head after going from the second rope, then goes under the ring to find a SEX DOLL!!



GREATEST MATCH OF ALL TIME. A SEX DOLL IN A HARDCORE MATCH. FUCK YOUR SAVAGE/STEAMBOATS, YOUR OKADA/OMEGAS, DO THEY HAVE A SEX DOLL? NO. Anyway, Dreamer nails Bully with a metal garbage can lid so he falls in the exact position to look like he's 69ing the doll. That's the gag. Sometimes Russo booking is good. "Not a three-way match", says Tenay. Dreamer goes to the top rope but Bully hits him with the lid, followed by a ring-shaking superplex. Bully then elbow drops and attacks the DOLL, before tossing it out of the ring in exasperation at it not having burst yet following the punishment it's taken.

Okay, back to actual match. Full nelson appears to be setting up for the Bully Bomb but Dreamer counters into a DDT for two. The crowd wants tables, so they get them. Dreamer goes for a piledriver on a half-propped-up table but Bully back body drops him away. A garbage can shot and a big boot result in a Bully pin attempt, but Dreamer... gets a rope break? What? It's falls count anywhere, how can there be rope breaks? Bully murders Dreamer a bit more with a kendo stick before taking up a mic. He did this for Devon, apparently. There's going to be a table powerbomb, until Terrence and Terrell come out! This is, of course, a distraction for Devon himself to show up, help Dreamer to hit a 3D on Bully, and give Dreamer the win.

That was a lot of fun. Smooth brain booking, yes, and the dumb moments were mostly concentrated close to the finish, but this sort of chaotic hardcore is my shit.

 

[Rosie]

"Not a Three-Way Match" one of Tenay's best calls.

 

[Alexa]

Sex Doll in a hardcore match...you mean most matches in DDT Pro for a while, lol

 

[Sky]

Match #51
Angelina Love/Winter (c) vs. Sarita/Rosita
for the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship
TNA Victory Road - March 13, 2011​

It's so weird to watch a young Zelina Vega. I mean, I first knew her as Rosita, but she was so raw here. So green. So... not very good. Also this was in the middle of the storyline where Winter was using dark seduction techniques to steal Angelina Love from Velvet Sky. Fun fact: recently in the TNA-verse, the team of Velvet/Angelina/Winter defeated the illustrious team of Sarita, Cookie, and Angelina Pivarnick from Jersey Shore. Yep, Jersey Shore, the show that ran AGAINST TNA. Great way to build a crossover audience.

Sarita's milking the dancing but Rosita, the actual not-fake Latina, is all business. Sarita grabs a mic, and in hindsight, all this stalling is looking oddly prescient since Hardy/Sting is going to go much shorter than TNA would have hoped. She calls the current Angelina/Velvet/Winter feud a "kinky love triangle", which if you watch some of the angles, it kind of was. And she's pretending they're both Mexican... despite being Puerto Rican and Canadian. I guess this was the pretext for Mexican America, a stable where exactly zero members had been born or grown up in Mexico. She's at least effective in drawing USA chants. Winter has a lacy sex mask.

Angelina, with the edge in size, experience, and championship pedigree, starts off dominating the young rookie Rosita. Sarita comes in and tries a back suplex but just gets mared. Then she runs to the corner, and runs immediately away on realising Winter's there with a very obvious "Oh, what the fu--?". Next up it's Winter and Rosita, and Winter joins her tag partner in overpowering her "Mexican" opponent. Northern Light suplex by Winter, and it occurs to me that the closest thing the heels have gotten to offense so far is an attempted and failed Irish whip. One that looked kind of sloppy, at that.

Sarita, at last, manages to down Angelina with a hair pull, but as the heels struggle to do an assisted splash spot, Angelina escapes and Rosita faceplants. "USA" chants raise again, presumably in favour of Love and Winter, who are respectively Canadian and German-born British. Rosita is actually the only one here from American soil. Winter misses a big boot and Rosita sweeps the leg. Double-team attempt, but (as often happens) Winter dodges out and Sarita dropkicks her own cousin. Love and Winter use a wristlock and even an arm whip(?) to work Sarita's arm until Rosita attacks from the outside. Still doesn't result in any heel offense as she misses the legdrop.

Love and Winter hit what I presume is their tag finisher, a bicycle kick/Samoan drop combo, but Sarita breaks it up. Angelina comes to stop her, and the referee (sigh) gets distracted by the face while the heel grabs the title belt. Angelina manages to stop Sarita from using it, but they spill to the outside and Rosita prepares to blast Winter with the belt. For about ten seconds, because Velvet missed her cue to do a run-in. Winter rolls Rosita up, but then Sarita reverses the roll. And we're supposed to believe that teeny tiny Rosita can hold down the much stronger Winter for a count of EIGHT before referee Earl Hebner can come in and count the three. New champs.

That was rudimentary at best wrestling, married to silly booking and some planning botches that just made it look stupid. Welcome to Vince Russo Land!

 

[Sky]

Match #52
Matt Morgan vs. Hernandez
First Blood Match
TNA Victory Road - March 13, 2011​

After a brief diversion to watch Jeff and Karen Jarrett's rubbish honeymoon at Universal Studios, we get this, a First Blood match! Never liked watching either of these guys, but maybe they'll surprise me! This is somehow the fourth Hernandez/Morgan match on PPV in the past year.

Morgan's wasting no time in starting the match. For the record, they're still mentioning last year's breakup angle where Morgan crushed Hernandez's head as the reason for this match. I'm amazed Vince Russo was able to remember something happened that long. The strategy here by the Blueprint seems to be to attack the face, possibly to open up those weird gashes to the head that most wrestlers seem to have for some unknown reason. Both take turns in bashing each other's head against the steel steps. Morgan strips one of the turnbuckle pads, revealing not the metal you'd expect, but a smaller pad. Hernandez spears him, then grabs a kendo stick and snaps it. He's intending to use it as a sharp object, and threatens to stab Morgan in the eye. I think at this time, Dreamer vs. AJ Styles in an I Quit match would still be fresh in the memory... too much eye trauma for one company.

Crowd chants "we want blood", wanting this match to be over already. Hernandez grinds Morgan's face on the ring ropes and then rakes his back. Has he sharpened his nails recently? That's the only way I see that being effective. Eye rakes now... yikes. Stop going for the eyes, I'm uncomfortable. Morgan hits a side slam out of nowhere, but Hernandez kills the momentum with a shoulderblock. He takes Morgan to the buckle and the inner pad drops off on its own. Morgan again gets some unexpected offense with a discus clothesline, but this does result in a comeback, which is just punches, clotheslines, a corner splash, and a fallaway slam. Master of dynamic movement, right there.

Morgan goes out and grabs the spiked kendo stick, but Hernandez kicks him in the stomach to stop it. Hernandez goes to the top but Morgan slams him off. He's setting up for the Carbon Footprint, but then a random fan (I'm pretty sure he's the guy who goes on to be Anarquia) runs in and gets his ass kicked by Morgan and security. This lets Hernandez grab a chain, but Morgan takes it off him and uses it to bust his head open. This doesn't end the match, because it turns out in the past couple of seconds, the fan bumped the referee.

THE FAN. BUMPED. THE REFEREE.

Hernandez then sprays what is either fake blood or ketchup (I'm not ruling out either) at Morgan, and then wipes himself clean of his own blood. The replacement referee (Jackson James, a name that's already a byword for convenient mistakes in favour of Immortal) sees Morgan first and calls the match.

More so-so wrestling, more stupid booking, just with fewer botches this time. We're 1-2 in terms of good vs. bad matches on this show so far.

 

[Sky]

Match #53
Kazarian (c) vs. Max Buck vs. Jeremy Buck vs. Robbie E
Ultimate X Match for the TNA X Division Championship
TNA Victory Road - March 13, 2011​

Matt Jackson gets a singles title shot on his birthday! This is somehow the first Young Bucks (well, "Generation Me" in TNA) match that I've watched for this. Sadly it also contains Robbie E and so can't be anything better than decent. Let's see how this one goes.

Long hair Kaz is weird to watch in 2022. The match starts with Cookie clinging to Kaz's leg while the Bucks beat up her supposed partner Robbie E without a bit of reprisal. The initial minute is basically the Bucks acting like a tag team and having the advantage. Kaz gets a close shot at the title when he springboards to the wires, and then dodges a double team causing the Bucks to hit each other. Yeah, that does tend to happen (see the women's tags). Kaz takes out Matt Jackson (I'm not using their TNA names here) before Robbie E comes in and clatters into him. Robbie then manages to beat both Nick and Matt in individual scraps. Because credibility means nothing. Kaz joins him on the wires and kicks him off before, instead of going for the belt, leg dropping Robbie.

Nick does a springboard X-Factor which is awesome. He then helps Max go for the title (because it's his birthday) until Robbie stops him with a neckbreaker. Reminder: Robbie still has a fist on the rear of his tights. Hey, whatever floats your boat, Rob. He manages to get an extended heat segment on Kazarian for a while. Kaz is about to go for the Fade to Black, but Robbie rolls out, so Kaz just tosses him out of the ring. Robbie somehow manages to land badly on both his ankles. Kaz adds insult to injury with a slingshot plancha. "I saw Max come in the back door there" -Taz. Matt assists Nick in hitting a pretty nice springboard moonsault.

Kaz and Matt exchange blows until Nick is on hand to beat Kaz down. Kaz manages to break off and pull Matt off (so much innuendo here). Matt and Nick both get on the cables, but Kaz dropkicks Nick down. Nick, the one who isn't the threat. Kaz then swings Matt off and hits a cutter as he falls! Nice! Robbie looks under the ring for nothing, then drags Kaz's neck into the ropes. Robbie manages to get quite far on the wire until Matt yanks him down. Matt then hits a top rope cutter on Robbie, and Robbie spasms like he's broken something. Kaz pushes Matt's face right into the scaffolding. A suplex spot, by tradition, turns into a Tower of Doom, with Robbie at the bottom.

NOW Kaz gets Fade to Black on Robbie. Nick's kick takes out Kaz and he wants to seize his chance, but when he does Kaz comes up and hits the FLUX CAPACITOR!! We've got a quadruple down, and Robbie and Kaz are first to take their opportunity until the Bucks get up, take Robbie to the superkick party, and then swing Kaz off. The selfishness of the Bucks finally comes into play as they stop each other from climbing the wire, then climb independently, meet in the middle... until Robbie shows up with a ladder... and KAZ IS STANDING ON THE WIRES, hanging on to the scaffold! Robbie wipes the Bucks with the ladder and climbs it... but Kaz gets there first and gets the belt for the win!

That was way better than the last two matches, though it did sometimes feel like the flow wasn't there. See you tomorrow for the rest of the show.

 

[Sky]

Match #54
Beer Money, Inc. (c) vs. Ink Inc.
for the TNA World Tag Team Championship
TNA Victory Road - March 13, 2011​

After another look at the Jarretts' honeymoon, it's time for title match number three of the night! I like these two teams, Jesse Neal is a man done INCREDIBLY dirty by TNA, and it's nice to see Roode when he was considered one of the biggest rising stars in TNA, if not in wrestling as a whole. Let's go!

Jesse Neal appears to be wearing a mohawk hat rather than his actual hair. Opening sequence is pretty neat, with Storm and Neal pretty much having counters for whatever the other does, including what appears to be repeated failed hip tosses. Both eventually armdrag each other and show respect. And then start slapping each other. Each gets a two-count, Storm with a jumping neckbreaker and Neal with a crossbody. They're doing a great job establishing these two men as fairly evenly matched. And yet later in the year, one would become World Champion and the other would be on food stamps. Funny how that works.

Now it's Shannon Moore and Robert Roode. When I was younger, I didn't really appreciate the actual wrestling exchanges in this sort of match, like the way Roode takes Moore down, tries to establish a facelock but Moore floats into a hammerlock, and Roode then manipulates it into a hammerlock of his own. Moore's the high flyer of this four, but as soon as commentary discusses that, he gets hit with a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker (with high elevation on said tilt-a-whirl). Double team fail counter rises, as Moore whips Neal into the corner but Roode is already out of it and Neal hits nothing but turnbuckle. Moore comes in to break it up when Storm is pulling Neal's hair (hat?). Neal looks betrayed, somewhat, but tags in his partner anyway. Moore then proves he isn't above pulling hair, by snapping down Storm by the hair from a chinlock.

Neal's swinging neckbreaker gets two. Then he puts on another chinlock... that just feels uncreative. Storm's very much settling into the role of the face in peril as Ink Inc. corner and bully him. Moore appears to be going for a dropkick in the corner but Storm avoids it and he goes bouncing crotch-first off the turnbuckle. Ouch. Roode can now tag in, and he and Neal have a good old fashioned forearm brawl. Roode hits his spinebuster for two. Storm and Moore both blind tag in, and the ref rapidly loses control. Beer Money do hit their wheelbarrow lungblower on Neal which is nice. Moore hits some decent headscissors takedowns, followed by missing a moonsault aimed for Storm (which I think was a botch) and falling right into Roode's arms (which I think wasn't). A wheelbarrow bulldog by Moore gets two.

Ink Inc. prepare to hit the Untitled Samoan Drop/Mooregasm Combo Finisher on Roode to get the win, but Roode wriggles out, shoves Neal into Moore, then gives Neal a lariat to the back of the head. Roode's about to pull Moore off the top rope, but he clears both Roode and Storm away before hitting an unidentifiable corkscrew flippy move on Storm. He then demonstrates his high flying abilities in another way by going about eight feet in the air on a uranage. Roode is now cornered, but whips Neal to the opposite corner where Storm's boot is waiting. Double suplex, then DWI attempt, but Neal with a spear! Ink Inc.'s neckbreaker/cutter combo gets two. Moore wants to use the book of DILLIGAF to cheat, but Neal is not happy with that. As a result, Neal gets superkicked and Moore eats the DWI for the finish!

Pretty damn nice match, probably gonna end up being one of the highlights of this show.

 

[Chris]

I think that and the AJ/Hardy match (if I'm remembering right and it's on this show) were easy MOTN. Ink Inc was underrated tbh

 

[Sky]

Match #55
AJ Styles vs. Matt Hardy
TNA Victory Road - March 13, 2011​

Chris, you are right, this is up next. Also, did anyone else see this match and think it was. on paper, a recipe for disaster? Matt Hardy was in a horrible state in this run. Depressed, out of shape, having to deal with his brother's shit now he was away from WWE Wellness Policy eyes... AJ's a great wrestler, but not a miracle worker.

Reminder that Matt Hardy was pretty much packaged as the "social media guy" around this time, before even Zack Ryder got over with the internet fans. Sadly Matt Hardy's 2011 internet career was not illustrious (remember that fake suicide note on YouTube? Bad, bad times). AJ takes early control with strikes, but Matt fights back to be on vaguely equal footing for a while with a hammerlock. This is mostly end-to-end initially, finishing with an AJ dropkick that rolls Matt out. AJ has to backpedal on a slingshot plancha as Matt slides in. He soon tosses Matt back out though, and he's about to fly when Ric Flair grabs his leg. Matt gives a clothesline (which AJ sells like he's been hit in the face with a cannonball) for two.

I notice Matt's being a lot more slow-paced and methodical, which I imagine reviewers trashed at the time because they wanted him to be a Hardy Boy still. It works for this, though. AJ tosses Matt to the outside and moonsaults off the apron. Matt shoves AJ into the apron, then sends him "like a lawn dart", as Taz said, into the ring post. Matt soon after tries to toss AJ into the guardrail, but he slides right under like the BEAST he is. Phenomenal Forearm off the rail!

Back in the ring, and AJ's trying to elbow Matt out of a waistlock but Matt tosses him into the buckle. I feel uncomfortable seeing that when we've had multiple relatively recent buckle bomb incidents causing injury. Matt throws AJ to the outside, where Flair starts chopping the hell out of him. Then Flair and Earl Hebner start throwing hands! Matt hits a catapult (not a commonly used moves, but one that seems like it would be quite nasty. He then applies his Ice Pick submission (I had to look up what he called it, it's a double underhook with bodyscissors, like Roman's use of the guillotine but without the actual choke). AJ counters it by turning it into a pin and then getting his foot to the rope.

It only now occurs to me just how many zips Matt has on his jeans. Matt goes for Ice Pick again but AJ rams him into the corner. In response, Matt flapjacks AJ on to the turnbuckle and hits a neckbreaker for two. Matt uses a rope choke as an opportunity to distract the referee, so Flair can go for a unique form of offense... the Testicular Claw! I'm not sure whether to or at that one. Matt continues to work the neck, making the cravate he's using actually make sense! We've seen so many chinlocks and facelocks this show, but none of them actually made sense like this. This is refreshing! AJ really has to battle to his feet, at which point he delivers forearms and chops so forceful they make the ref duck.

Both men clash with clotheslines and stagger pretty much symmetrically. Enzuigiri from AJ leads to a double down. Both men immediately start punching after getting up! AJ hits a fireman's carry... kneeling... neckbreaker for two. And then he lifts Matt completely over himself for another neckbreaker. AJ gets a flying nothing, misses a discus clothesline, and eats a Side Effect. Top rope elbow drop to the back of AJ's neck, then Twist of Fate attempt, but AJ counters into a backslide for two! AJ goes for the Styles Clash but Matt counters with an Alabama Slam! AJ goes for an Asai Moonsault DDT, botches it a bit, but it wasn't going to get a pin anyway as Flair's distracting the referee.

Flair pokes AJ in the eyes, and he tries to hit the Pele on Matt, but hits it on Flair instead!! Matt feints a Twist but switches it into a DDT, then gets a moonsault for a VERY close two! Matt climbs to the middle rope, but AJ hits another Pele! Then a SPIRAL TAP to finish it! Post-match Flair accosts AJ, who smashes him in the nuts! Payback!

That was fun. Matt Hardy outperformed expectations, this was a match with a good, solid cohesive story. This PPV hasn't been that bad (except the women's tags and Matt Morgan) so far...

 

[Chris]

The phenomenal forearm off the railing spot is one of the best spots I've ever seen

Best part of the entire show IMO, also that match crazy overdelivered bc it was absolute worst era Matt Hardy

 

[Alexa]

Yeah, that match has always been weird for me because on paper I wa slike "This isn't going to be good", and then I watche dthe match and I was like "Well...fuck me man. That was really damn good." for while it was my second favorite TNA match

 

[Chris]

Yeah, that match has always been weird for me because on paper I wa slike "This isn't going to be good", and then I watche dthe match and I was like "Well...fuck me man. That was really damn good." for while it was my second favorite TNA match

Yeah stands out more in a way bc the show was such shit too but I think it's genuinely good on its own too

 

[Alexa]

Yeah stands out more in a way bc the show was such shit too but I think it's genuinely good on its own too

Yeah, i agree with that.

 

[Chris]

Been trying to find a gif of that forearm spot for a half hour now and I give up lmao