Tha "iMPACT!" Dispatch

Victory Road is this Sunday, and I'm excited about it. We have matches that make sense and for the most part, don't seem like absolute throwaways. What's more, TNA is actually booking segments on "iMPACT!" that build anticipation for the upcoming show. These are good times to be a wrestling fan, O-sters.

Robert Roode took on Dante Ross' favorite answer to a trivia question, Homicide, in a street fight. As much as the smark community may not like Homicide after he said we all deserved to get shanked, it was a very entertaining opening match.

Of course, there was eventually the obligatory "bad guy whips good guy" spot to set up Fan's Revenge this Sunday. This kind of match doesn't make sense. As I said last week, it doesn't make sense for the heels to be so willing to accept a challenge which essentially handicaps them. Speaking of not making sense, it's a street fight, there are no rules. Why was this match ruled a no contest?!

Petey Williams, Kip James and Tomko took on BG James, Matt Morgan, and Eric Young next in a Falls Count Anywhere Match. Kip James, Tomko, and BG James-I'm bored already. I wasn't too nuts about two straight gimmick matches, but they were more on the mild side as stips go, so I'll let it pass for now. After winning the match, Tomko and Williams began to beat down Eric Young until Abyss made the save.

Well, sort of. He had a lead pipe in his hand and was about to demolish Tomko with the lead pipe before having second thoughts. I'm guessing this ties into the whole "less Mankind-like violence" gimmick they're trying to run with Abyss, but if that's the case, why not finish Tomko with a nice Northern Lights Suplex instead?

Another "Rough Cuts" segment with Matt Morgan aired last night. I like that TNA does these. Sure, it was once great to believe that these guys really were monsters and that they lived their gimmick and everything, but I think it's good for the wrestling fans to see that these guys are real people who worked hard to get where they are. In a roundabout way, I'd hope that these segments cause more wrestling fans to want to get seriously trained, causing a boom in the indy scene.

For the past few weeks, Taylor had been shown being beaten up bad by Awesome Kong. Last night, however, she pulled a major upset by pinning Kong to win the title. I like this booking a lot. The match told a story, and the loss literally came from out of nowhere which keeps Kong from looking weak. The rematch is set for this Sunday; now that Taylor has been brought on as a worker in TNA, I'd like to see Kong get the belt back.

World X Cup action continued last night, as Donnie's new favorite wrestler, Masato Yoshino of Team Japan, was in action against Doug Williams of Team International. Williams ultimately picked up the win, giving his team two points. Later in the night, Kaz defeated Ultimo Guerrero to pick up two points for Team TNA. While I didn't like Kaz' promo (as it speaks to my point last week about the other teams being positioned unnecessarily as heels), the World X Cup is still of interest to me, especially since all four teams are separated by one point.

I don't know if you have been keeping track of the points, but if not, you should, as it adds excitement to the tournament. There will be a 12-man Elimination Tag Match this Sunday, as well as Ultimate X. I'm personally hoping Dux is in Ultimate X, even though they'll probably go with Daivari simply because he's the captain of the team.

Booker T and Samoa Joe faced off last night. No, Joe didn't do his fat guy dance, but both he and Booker cut a solid promo. Booker said he was sorry, Joe said Booker was going to be sorry...good stuff. So what do they do? They have Sting come out to announce that he will be at Victory Road this Sunday. Uh, so? Sting's a great wrestler, and he's got a place in TNA, but not in the main event in a feud that he was never involved in.

The main event featured Kurt Angle and The Beautiful People against AJ Styles, Gail Kim and ODB. This was a very short match spliced in between commercial breaks, so I won't say too much about the match simply because there's not much for me to talk about. I will, however, advise TNA to cut ties with Frank Trigg.

Let's be honest, here. TNA brought Frank Trigg in as a means of making themselves seem more MMA-ish. They saw the money, popularity, and money that UFC was making and decided they wanted to cash in on it themselves. Well, that failed, and you have gone back to what made you popular in the first place, wrestling. So why is Trigg still around? He offers nothing to make the product more interesting (unless you have an obsession with Kurt Angle that borders on the fetishistic). Get rid of him, TNA.

I certainly had some complaints about last night's show, but I think I hit all of them in passing in this article. I doubt most O-sters will check out Victory Road, but if you're on the fence about it, I certainly would encourage you to do so, because I do think it'll be a good show.

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