A TNA PPV Musings? From 2010, you say? The Hogan era?
Yeah, didn’t I hate that era?
Sure, because I mostly stuck with the television show… whenever I could be bothered to watch the television show, that is. And yes, the week-to-week television was largely atrocious. However, sometimes you buy one of their PPVs and you luck out on a good show… clearly back in the day, that didn’t happen. And when it comes to Against All Odds 2010 – the second PPV in the Hogan era – I’m not sure if I’d go that far, BUT this wasn’t too bad.
A large part of the show is built around a single-night eight man tournament to crown a new No. 1 contender for the World Title at the upcoming Lockdown PPV (not the next one, the next one is shit) as well as AJ Styles defending his TNA World title against Samoa Joe… with Eric Bischoff as the special referee… for some reason. Let’s see if he can call this down the middle and not suddenly complain about Dave Meltzer for half an hour like he does on his podcast… but I digress.
Tournament Matches
Pope defeated Desmond Wolfe in the opening first round match. It was a fairly quick match, but still a fun little opener. No complaints.
Matt Morgan pinned Hernandez in a somewhat dull and boring first round match.
Mr. Anderson……… Anderson defeated Kurt Angle to advance. Not too bad of a match, but they’d have a better match at Lockdown. And don’t you worry; we’ll get to Lockdown (not) soon enough.
Abyss defeated Mick Foley in a no-DQ first round match, of which this is the only match that’s no-DQ… for some reason. Abyss is conflicted about beating up Foley because they’re buddies… and… that’s it? Really? Dude, it’s Mick Foley. The guy is perfectly at home getting skewered with barbed wire and exploding tables. He’ll be… well, give him a couple Z-Paks afterwards and he’ll be fine.
Too soon?
Pope defeated Matt Morgan in the semi-finals to advance… yeah, no bones about it. This was slow, boring, and very not good. No buys.
Mr. Anderson………… Anderson defeated Abyss in a nothing match that the crowd didn’t care for. At one point, Anderson messes with Abyss’ mask and while Abyss is distracted with mask re-adjustment, Anderson hits him with the Mic Check finish for the pin. Finish was creative and unique if nothing else. I liked that.
And in the tournament finals, Pope defeated Mr. Anderson……………….. Anderson to earn the No. 1 contenders shot for the World title. Good match to close the show on and nice to see Pope get a shot, even if I know how it’ll end up. Speaking of which, we need to backtrack and check out the other two non-tourney matches.
Non-Tournament Matches
The Nasty Boys… yes, THE NASTY BOYS defeated Team 3D in what was essentially a garbage match. And I will let you make of that what you will because it could mean practically anything. However, I will say this much; it sure as shit wasn’t boring. It had that much going for it. But that’s about it.
TNA World Champion AJ Styles defeated Samoa Joe in a no-DQ match to retain the title in a good match marred with a bunch of bullshit. It’s worth noting that, for those who missed out on 2010 TNA, this was during a period where AJ Styles was being refashioned into what could best be described as a second rate Ric Flair cosplay. He’s got the robe, he’s got the mannerisms, and he’s got a couple blonde streaks in his hair… which is funny because AJ is a good ol’ Christian boy, but that’s besides the point. So, I never got why they went in this direction with AJ, who was one of the top names in TNA and didn’t really need all this re-invention. I mean, I get pairing him up with Flair – which also felt unneeded – but this whole second-rate Nature Boy get-up is actually beneath AJ. He didn’t need this, he was fine on his own, and when it came to re-inventing the AJ Styles wheel, AJ did that just fine on his own, which garnered him a noteworthy career that continued to New Japan and WWE.
Oh, and Eric Bischoff is special ref for… reasons, I guess. Oh wait, it’s so that he and Flair can have a scuffle or two while Joe hit AJ with the Muscle Buster and he would’ve won the match had Bischoff not been distracted with Flair or bitching about Dave Meltzer again. Joe tried to get Bischoff to focus, but AJ nails Joe for the win and this hurt my brain. I mean, the actual match content was alright – not one of their best outings, but alright – but everything around the match – booking, etc. – can go fly a kite. And TNA had plenty of things that could’ve flown a kite.
Thankfully, they ended the show with Pope vs. Anderson. So you’ve got two slices of Pope sandwiching… well, you know what? Amazingly, I thought Against All Odds 2010 was an okay PPV. There’s nothing here that I feel you’d have to go out of your way to watch, but not as bad as I feared a TNA PPV from 2010 would be. Gives me some hope for Lockdown, which I’ll be musings on soon enough. But that’s an April show… the following month’s show is Destination X and I already touched on that years ago… thus, I don’t need (nor want) to touch that show again.
dtm666 