High Road/Low Road 11.03.06: Women’s Title Tournament

Good work on the last couple of columns and welcome to the team Trunx. Anyhow, on to business. I went High Road on Jarrett/Sting but only by the oh-so slimmest of margins. We’re talking 51~55/49~45 margins. You both make really good points such as it was the perfect way to finalize this nearly year long feud and it really was one of the best matches these two have had with each other in almost forever. But also to counter that are the points of it once again being an overbooked mess as always when Jarrett is involved, and that I also got tired of it being so drawn out in coming. The reason I went High Road is for a point you missed though, and that is what it means now that it is *FINALLY* over. Sting is the NWA Champion, Jarrett is going off TV for a little while and now we’re going to get on to the other matches that Sting came to TNA to have, as well as the match we forgot we’ve also been building to. It seems very clear with the current Russo-rific booking that Sting will be facing Abyss at Genesis for the title, which is great cuz Sting said long ago that’s a guy he’s wanted to work with and it is a fresh, never-before-seen match. Of course Abyss will fail to get the title once again as there is the match that I have been waiting for since March still to book…Sting vs. Christian Cage for the NWA Title. Cage has to get his shot one-on-one for the belt he never lost and by my math, Cage has to get the win (dirty or not) and the belt over Sting. “Why” you may ask? Cuz the other matches that Sting needs to have before he leaves don’t necessarily require him holding the belt. As much as we would have loved to see Sting vs. Samoa Joe for the big strap with Sting putting Joe over, there is a much more satisfying match you can do that with (even though they are blowing it already), and that’s Joe/Angle, NWA Title on the line. Follow my logic here, Sting retains against Abyss at Genesis, then goes on to face Cage at Turning Point where Cage gets his evil revenge and the belt back, this time as a heel. Now we move on to Final Resolution, where Cage can defend against either Rhino or Raven (who both have a beef with Cage, a claim on the belt, or both) while Sting can partake in a #1 contender’s match against AJ Styles or Christopher Daniels. You gotta pull that trigger as soon as you can for reasons I’ll get into later. Sting puts AJ/Daniels over which will give you Cage vs. Daniels or Styles for the NWA title at Against All Odds, and in another Contender’s Match Sting vs…Kurt Angle. Get that dream match in there too so you can get Angle some of that face paint rub. At Destination X, you get Cage vs. Angle for the NWA title, and Sting cutting another promo like he did this past year about hanging it up…only to be stopped by Samoa Joe! “You’re not leaving until I’ve gotten to kick. Your. ASS!” Joe vs. Sting at Destination X. They can even bill it as Sting’s legit farewell match. You rematch Cage and Angle at Lockdown, let’s say cuz Cage cheated to retain, and get Joe vs. Abyss, all hardcore-like, in the six-sides-of-steel, #1 Contender’s match. It pains me to say so but…Angle defeats Cage for the title in the steel…which gives you at Slammiversary, NWA Heavyweight Champion Kurt Angle vs. The Samoan Submission Machine Samoa Joe. Joe walks out of Slammy as the NWA Champion. Hot, right?

Now here’s where this sorta falls into Low Roadism along with why you gotta pull the trigger quick like I said earlier. This feud between Jarrett and Sting went on waaay too long. Sting wasn’t even on TNA TV for 4 of these past 11 months he’s been here. That also means that his current contract only have about 2 months left…not enough time to do this all. So either TNA has to rush all these matches into episodes of iMpact! on free TV (booo!) or resign Sting to an extension (more booo!) till at least May of 2007. That’s a huge Low Roadism cuz of what it costs TNA long term. Throwing more money at Sting means that you maybe can’t bring in guys like Jericho as easily as they may have previously. It also means that you miss out on having these never-before-seen-dream-matches and reaping the full reward out of them, PPV buys! It also means that my guy Christian (and Kurt too) ends up with the short-Edge of the stick, and becomes short
transitional champs just keeping the belt warm for Joe. As much as this fact screamed Low Road at me, because there is still the time left to get these matches in and have them mean something to everyone involved and that Dixie Carter actually listened to me tell her all of this at the Fanfest (thank you Dixie!) I hold out hope that ultimately, this feud and its ending will be a positive for TNA and thus, a High Road to Slammiversary and beyond.

Heh I’m becoming more common than Paris Hilton’s visits to the Free Clinic. Heh well my first question has to be this: who in your opinions are the most Underrated Legends and the most underrated current wrestler of today? From the WWE, Who would you love to see in TNA and vice versa. Personally I’d love to see Elix Skipper in WWE since he and Shelton Benjamin could make an awesome as hell Tag team. As for WWE? I’d love to see Carlito in TNA since he is one of a select few who can wrestle against any weight class and if that weren’t enough: one of the even rarer wrestlers who is a credible tweener. another wrestler I’d love to see in TNA would no doubt be SmackDown’s own Lashley because at least that way we can get out of having to see that Cancer to Wrestling Companies, aka Goldberg in a TNA. Also: if and when TNA as a TV title for it’s Mid-carders who should be the first one to hold it?

I’m going Low road on the Sting/Jarrett match. The match was just basically a drawn out way to get Jarrett out of the main event picture, and now we’re being treated an attempt to turn Jarrett face. No offense to TNA but that’s kinda stupid I mean because other than Jarrett there has not been any credible Main Event Heel in TNA. Oh yeah please tune in this Sunday to watch the Panthers slaughter the Cowboys ^_^ Go Panthers!!!!!!!

I’m going Low Road for this. I don’t think that there was anything wrong with the match exactly. Yes, it was overbooked but the final conclusion of Sting beating Jarrett was what needed to happen.

The biggest problem that I see in it is this: Sting vs. Jarrett was being hyped as the biggest rivalry currently happening in the company. It could maybe even have been argued that it was hyped as the biggest rivalry in TNA history. This was their biggest PPV of the year and Sting vs. Jarrett was the headlining attraction to the show. All on the heels of TNA getting a prime time slot and signing Kurt Angle. Week in and week out they should have been driving home the importance of this match. Promos, matches, maybe one last face to face meeting before Bound For Glory. It seemed instead that the focus wasn’t on the actual match, it was on a man who wasn’t even involved in it. Samoa Joe stealing the NWA title was interesting, but I think that it came at the wrong time. Yes it puts him squarely in the Heavyweight title picture, but Joe had absolutely nothing to do with the match. What’s even worse about this is that now, the man who spent a month walking around with a belt that isn’t his is STILL not going to get a shot at it as he’s going to face Angle at Genesis. And Angle? Angle’s presence in that match was a bit of a detriment as he’s taking attention away from the main drama of Sting having to win the match or lose his job. The fact is, TNA spent so much time on the Sting/Jarrett feud that it took an entire year to do and at the expense of Christian’s title reign a Joe’s rise to the Heavyweight division. Then as the date of their final confrontation draws near, they do nothing? Let’s face it, this was not the most interesting feud on the card. LAX vs. Style & Daniels was easily the hottest feud of the night and Christian Cage vs. Rhino had some decent build to it, as did the Monster’s Ball match.

As for the match itself it wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad. Which really says something. Normally when you have an important PPV like this, you want the main event to be as memorable as possible. I don’t think that this delivered really. You can argue that Sting no-selling the guitar shot made the match. And maybe it did, it was cool to see. However, I doubt that it’s going to be one of those memorable moments in wrestling history. The Jarrett guitar shot has been no-sold before and by better wrestlers than Sting. I believe Booker T kicked out of it when he won the WCW title the first time. Point is, it doesn’t have the same dramatic effect I think. Good match, but not a memorable match.

I thought as a whole the PPV was great, but the main event kinda just seemed down from the rest of the card. It’s interesting to see where they’ll go with Sting as champion. Especially since I’m betting Christian will be his first challenger and I can’t imagine as any point TNA letting Joe destroy Sting in a title match, since there’s no way a TNA crowd will boo Joe. The only way that’d happen would be if say Russo decided that he was going to become Joe’s manager or something. Oh god, I hope that he doesn’t actually book that…