The main problem with the show was the return to the Jeff Jarrett vs. Sting angle which they have building on ever since Sting debuted at the end of last year. One of the strong plusses for TNA is that they have never been afraid of a a long build for a feud and that is something that seperates them from WWE and their hotshotted angles. However, one thing WWE is often good at is reading fan reactions and changing the product accordingly - Edge winning the belt at New Years Resolution when the fans turned on John Cena for example. With Sting and Jarrett, the problem is not that this feud won't deliver a strong angle and match, it's that this is not the feud that the majority of fans want to see at the top of the card in TNA. The over whelming support at Victory Road was for Samoa Joe. So with Joe being lined up in the main event and with a potential number one contedership in his sights, this was the moment TNA could have given him that one last push into the main event of TNA and helped create a major star. Instead, Joe was an after thought who, when you looked at it logically did not really belong in the main event as he had not been involved in the controversy at the end of the previous month's show. It also devalued Joe's unbeaten streak by putting him in another position where he didn't get pinned but didn't win either. When looked at alongside Joe's previous 'non-wins' in 3 ways against AJ/Daniels and Senshi/Dutt then Joe is all of a sudden not the unbeatable monster he is booked as. If they wanted to end the run then Senshi or Chris Sabin should have taken the X title off him. But now that he is supposedly in the NWA title picture, Joe should not be being put in a position where he is not viewed as a top guy, because he is their star of the future and they only have one shot at getting this right.
They are having similar problems with Christian Cage and this show did no favours for Captain Charisma at all. Considering this was the man who was screwed out of the title at the end of the last show thanks to Jeff Jarrett's sheanigans, you would have thought that Cage would have been a man on a mission. Instead he came off like a wuss who, when Sting broke up his potential winning pinfall, didn't even retaliate. For all the promos where he says how much the title means to him, if he doesn't act that way in the ring then his words ring hollow. He had a similar problem with the Abyss feud where he should have been looking to pummel Jim Mitchell and Abyss for interfering in his personal life but instead was happier sitting down and giving an interview. The arrival of Sting has affected Christian more than any other TNA wrestler and if they're not careful could waste a valubale oppurtunity to take advantage of a big-name former WWE superstar.
This underwhelming main event put a damper on what was an otherwise solid show. The problem with the whole show was the lack of any real blow away moment. Team 3D had a decent brawl with the James Gang and Abyss, the Naturals storyline with Shane Douglas developed and Senshi and Frankie Kazarian had an entertaining enough X Division title match - although the surprise return of Kazarian was a real anti-climax after his unceremonious deaparture at the end of last year. The highlight of last month's show was the tag title match between AJ Styles and Chris Daniels against America's Most Wanted and they attempted to repeat the success this month with a 6 person tag featuring Gail Kim and last month's problem solver Serelda. The only problem, was that what made the match so good last month was the angle involving the women as well as the 'last chance' nature of the storyline. Unfortunately this was missing this time around, and despite adding in the tease of an AMW split, this match failed to find the top gear that last month's encounter build to so well.
Ironically, for a company that has prided itself on wrestling over entertainment, TNA has managed to hit on 2 angles which have provided for some unexpected comedy moments and they ended up as the real highlights of the show. The Kevin Nash angle with the X Division initially seemed like a car crash waiting to happen as the 'big-man' attempted to destroy the little guys as we have seen so many times on WWE TV. However thanks to the inclusion of Alex Shelley as Nash's sidekick it has made the whole angle much more entertaining. So much so that the whole idea of Nash killing the X Division is pushed to the back of your mind as he is almost parodying his WCW persona and comes across as the deluded veteran trying to make his name at the expense of the younger stars. By including Shelley and his lackey Johnny Devine, it has allowed the opposition of Chris Sabin and Jay Lethal to get heat away from the veteran Nash and on to Shelley who plays the chicken heel that he has perfected in ROH as party of the Embassy. This allows the younger guys to work around Nash's limitations (that he cannot move in the ring because of his knackered knees) and instead allows him to cut the kind of entertaining promos that were the real reason the nWo was such a big draw in WCW.
Another faction that has often come under a, perhaps, unfair amaount of criticism has been Team Canada. This most recent angle has seen the dissolution of the group who were originally set up during the Nashville-era as a way of filling out the first World X Cup. A mainstay of the TNA tag scene, they have often suffered from a lack of personality and as such have been involved in predictable feuds that would invariably end up with Coach D'Amore and his hockey stick getting involved. However as they have broken up it has allowed for the development of Eric Young as one of the best characters in TNA. The goofy younger memeber of the Team who always went against whatever heelish antics they were up to, Young has become a fan favourite and his mis-treatment by his former team mates during the angle which played out at Victory Road helped get the fans behind him more than ever before. Eric Young is the character Eugene could have been in WWE if they hadn't rushed through the who story in a matter of weeks and over-pushed it to the point the fans hated it. How they handle him will now make or break the character, but after this show, they have a character that the fans engage with both in and out of the ring and that is a valuable commodity for a fledgling company like TNA.
Overall verdict: C-
"Lacking that one stand-out match or angle, Victory Road had that empty feeling of potential unfullfilled once it had come to an end. It was entertaining and nothing was worthy of being fast-forwarded, however there is nothing to go back and watch again. At a time when TNA need to be drawing fans in and keeping them interested in their product, this show could have put off more people than it brought in as the crown jewels that TNA has at it's disposal were not give the chance to sparkle in this instance."
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