Ah Vince Russo. It seems so easy to blame you when wrestling goes wrong, yet we never praise you when things go right. Unfortunately, when you book shows like this month's FInal Resolution pay-per-voew can you blame us?
This was a prime example of everything that is wrong with the Vince Russo creative regime. Whether that's worked shoot promos, goofy finishes or over-lapping angles that cram in so much character development that you have no idea what the hell started all this in the first place. Unfortunately, subtelty is also a word which Vinnie Roo seems unfamalliar with and so instead of just one of these Russo trademarks (which could have been bearable) we got all of them and suffered as a result. All of which meant Final Resolution was a confusing, jumbled mess that felt like it was being watched on fast forward because so much happened at once. Unofrtunately, because so m uch happened, none of it became memorable and at the end of the show you just felt worn down and defeated by a company that is trying to present itself as a wrestling alternative, however it managed to completely undo all the good work that the wrestlers had achieved in the ring by giving us such bad endings to matches. Good wrestling can save a bad pay-per-view, but nothing kills good wrestling dead like bad booking and this was bad booking 101.
The show started with a Las Man Standing match between AJ Styles and Rhino which sums up this show to me. You have two grreat workers, who stole the show at Against All Odds with a fantastically worked and booked match, opening the show in a stipulation match that no-one cares about. To cap it all of though, after 15 minutes of solid work from both guys, the match ends with AJ Styles refusing to get up and he accepts a 10 count and gets the win. At what point did AJ STyles become a complete wuss who didn't want to compete and win matches?! Ok, I could understand if this had been a particularly bloodyt match and he wanted to escape fomr a beating in dramatic fashion but no. Instead we get stroppy AJ who cannot be bothered to win. Isn;t this the most decorated athlete in TNA's history? If so, why the hell would you have him act like this. At times Rhino and AJ were gelling in the ring as well as AJ and Joe did last year, but thanksfully those matches were under a different booking regime and so we were saved from hokey, nonsensical finishes like this one. But, as if one finish wasn;t good enough for this match, we still had to endure the post match 'beat down' which saw Rhino gore himself through a table on the entracen ramp. It begs the question, why wasn;t this god enough for the finish of the match? At least it would have made sense that way? But that is not the Vince Russo way, so we had to have this tacked on to the end of the match. Alas, things did not get much better from here on in.
If the Rhino/Styles finish had been the only 'cutesy' finish on the show, then I think I could have forgiven it, but this was just teh start of far too many pieces of Russo logic defying booking. Chris Daniels, Chris Sabin and Jerry Lynn followed the opener with a fun X-Division 3-way to follow this match, but again, it ended with a cutesy finish which ruined all the goodwork these great athletes had achieved in the ring. At times this match was like watching Daniels with Styles and Joe, however the finish with Sabin pinning Lynn out of nowhere to win the belt, although quite clever, was just another title change for the X-title after it had has been hot-potatoed around from wrestler to wrestler so many time over the last few months that I loose count. Becasue of this, the shock win of Sabin loses all meaning as we have seen this a hundred and one time before.
Byt this point, I thought I was beginning to get numb to the silliness, but no, we still had the Parazzi Championship Series final to come. After a ridculous promo from Kevin Nash and Bob Backlund (that made far too many jokes about the WWF) and we have a perfectly decent match between Alex Shelley and Austin Starr ruined by Kevin Nash's bad jokes and a ludicrous angle at the end that saw Austin Starr begin a feud with Senshi and Bob Backlund in a matter of minutes. And don't even get me started on what a stupid idea it was to have judges at ringside, one of whom was a piss-take of a WWE chjaracter and one who was a piss-take of one of their own stars!!
After all this, I was almost looking forward to the Petey Wiliams vs. James Storm match as it seemed that this would just be a squash match and Storm would continue to prepare for his eventual match with Chris Harris next month. however that was not to be the case and instead we got the debut of Miss Jackie and a load more shenanigans at the end involving Gail Kim, some handcuffs and a beer bottle, really, who cares?
And at this point we are not even half way through the show!
Next up came one of the low-points and one of the highlights of the show as VKM hit the ring to declare themselves the winner of their feud with WWE. Now, call me crazy, but wouldn't it have been a more convincing victyory if someone from the other side had at least acknowledged their opponents. However I guess that doesn't matter in VKM world and so we were treated to this garbage. As they waxed lyrical about the merits of DX (including saying a get well to their former rival with the busted wheel!!) Christy Hemme reminded us of just why TNA have not been asking her to appear on camera much of late as we were given some of the worst sub-afternoon soap opera actng that I have ever seen. Wittering on about women in wrestling and Chyne, the fans began to chant 'We Want 'Wretling' and by god were they on the money with this. On one hadn,m TNA pride themsleves on not being like WWE, but then do crap like this! There was room for another match during this garbage and the irony of a duo who are 'at war' with WWE for insluting the fans of wrestling being involved in a 'skit' which is too bad to even appear on Monday Night War really makes you wonder who in the TNA brain trust thought =this would be a good idea to put on a pay=per-view. the fact Kip James got a better face reaction for his heel promo running Christy down should tell you what the fans were thinking, because whether what he was saying was meant to get him heel heat or not, it stopped this segment quick and that is probably the most pop-worthy thing the former Mr Ass has done in his ntire run in TNA - back to the options ads please Kipper!
Fortunately, after that car-wreck, the show actually started to improve - well, it couldn't have gotten much worse.
I've written at tlength my feelings on the Joe vs. Angle feud so I won't go into it again here. However suffice to say, I thought this they best match they've had. It was just a shame it came in less than 3 months from Angle's debut, however I have a feeling that this won't be the last we will see of this feud. After the diatribes I have writtne above it seems a little weak to only write so few words on this match, however it's lack of criticism really sums up what an attritional ordeal watching this show was. Whether it was the low expectations I had for two of my favourite wrestlers in this [supposed] final match or simply that I had had enough of this crap by now, I found myself enjoying the match quite a bit and so finally light was beginning to appear at the end of the particularly gloomy tunnel that was Final Resolution.
Which left us with just the main event to go. Ignoring the fact it was yet another 3-way I found this match something of a guilty pleasure. Sure, the build up has been corny and the revelations about Abyss' secret past are cheesy as hell, but it's wrestling, it's meant to be a bit lame. It's just a shame that the rest of the card could not be left alone to give this some room to breath. Without the god-awful undercard this should have been a really strong main event with an interesting, if slightly cliched booking. Instead it was like eating jelly cubes and cake at the end of 8 courses from an all you can eat buffet. Instead of being a pleasant guilty pleasure, it was just a sickly overdose on top of all that other unhealthy garbage. And just as you forget what the previous 8-courses consisted of as you sit down for this match which you know surely annot be good, you find yourself enjoying it, because it's the last thing you will remember. It wasn't the best, but at the end of the day you are just glad it's over. And that is what Christian's win felt like. At least what ahs gone before is over. It doesn't matter that this is the third title switch in 6 months, it doesn;t matter that Abyss has been made to look like a chump (so has Sting) but it's over and we can go back to our diet for 4 weeks now before the next TNA over-eating/over-booking bonanza begins.
Overall verdict D+
"One of the worst pay-per-views in recent memory made all the much worse by being over-booked and crammed full of too much crap. Good wrestling will always be killed by bad booking and this is 3 hours worth of proof as to why."
Legend and icon are words that get used far too often these days to refer to someone who is of merely above average importance. However when referring to Samoa Joe and his importance to Ring of Honor, then these terms seem to hardly do justice to a man who has been the heart of soul of the company for the past 3 years. It's fair to say that without Joe there might not have been a Ring of Honor in 2007. His near 2 year title reign in 2003/4 gave the company stability at a time when it was going through the kind of internal upheavals that have seen other company's fold. His 60 minute matches with CM Punk gave the company an identity and helped elevate it from being 'just another indie', while his 5 star match against Kenta Kobashi in 2004 helped establish ROH on the world stage and secured his position as one of the best wrestlers in the world today.
