As Seen on TV: TNA's Terrible Booking, Swagger & Kingston Get Each Other Overs

Originally posted September 26, 2010 for Wrestlespective

In this week's As Seen on TV, I take a look at an Impact filled with nonsense and a Smackdown where two young stars stole the show.

TNA iMPACT!
NO GREAT MATCHES

This entire show sucked. I didn’t want this to turn into a rant on TNA’s product, there are enough anti-TNA blogs on the internet without me adding one more. But honestly, this show had four wrestling matches, five if you count the Knockouts (which I don’t, sorry). All of these matches had either underwhelming or disappointing finishes with very little action to speak of. Jarrett/Joe vs Nash/Sting was about two minutes long before it ended in the typical Russo nonsensical BS. Morgan/Kendrick was an on-the-fly booking that saw Morgan doing his typical, boring big-man routine and Kendrick just trying not to get caught.

The only two matches that had any promise at all were the X-Division Championship match between Jay Lethal and Douglas Williams and the main event between Kurt Angle and Jeff Hardy. Both of which fell short of my expectations for various reasons.

For an X-Division bout, this match had exactly zero compelling action. This title match fell flat, only running seven or eight minutes, if I remember correctly. Not sure I remember them even giving it a commercial break. This wasn’t a terrible match by any means, but it fell incredibly short of my expectations of the X-Division, the men involved and the fact that it was a FREAKIN’ TITLE MATCH.

As for the main event ... this might have been a good match, I wouldn’t know for sure, because it broke my number one rule for an enjoyable wrestling match: you DON’T kick out of a million finishing moves. At my last count, Jeff Hardy survived two back-to-back Angle Slams, two Ankle Locks, and five CONSECUTIVE German suplexes. Where the hell are we supposed to go from there? How the hell is this match supposed to end? How are we supposed to believe that this man can be finished if he’s literally taken every big move Angle’s got? It doesn’t, at least in my eyes, put Hardy over as a superhuman badass, it puts the product over as unbelievable. What’s worse, it tells me, as a fan, that these guys don’t know how to have a good match without these kinds of ridiculous kickouts.

One last gripe about the main event; this has nothing to do with the match, but the booking. Okay, so at the onset of the show, Bischoff comes out and tells us that because there was no winner at No Surrender, we would have a three-way-dance at Bound for Glory to crown a new TNA World Champion. Then Dixie Carter comes out and says that she was overruling Bischoff on this one, and that tonight we would see Angle vs Hardy ONE MORE TIME~! This time, there MUST be a winner! This is all well and good. I’ve got no problem with this.

So the match happens, and we get an absolutely garbage finish where both men have each other in a leg lock and each have their shoulders on the mat and get a three count. We have a double pin, a dusty finish, and we STILL don’t have a winner. So what’s the decision? A THREE-WAY-DANCE AT BOUND FOR GLORY! So, we’ve now watched this show with the PROMISE that at the end of it, we would have a new singles match at the PPV. And then, at the end of everything ... we are left with the original decision. If they were looking to make Dixie Carter look ridiculous, they succeeded.

What a terrible EFFING show.

Kofi Kingston v. Jack Swagger
Singles Match
Friday Night Smackdown!

Smackdown this week was the exact opposite of both RAW and iMPACT in that the matches were in the vast majority over the segments. This is why it’s probably the best WRESTLING show on TV each week, though ROH does get close most weeks.

Kofi Kingston and Jack Swagger (SWAGGAH~!) really brought it this week. Whether that is because, as I’ve heard many speculate, that it was Swagger leading Kofi through the match by his nose, or they just had very good chemistry together, I’m not certain. All I know is that this was a really, really good match and definitely an early favourite for the Match of the Week.

I think my favourite part of this match was the fact that Swagger literally dominated 90% of the offense. Not only did they make Swagger look very strong (for first time in like ... forever?), but showed that Kofi Kingston has a TON of heart. He ate submission after submission, suplexes, slams and strikes of all sorts. Swagger is an incredible technical wrestler, probably easily one of the best in the WWE at the moment and he used a TON of that ability in keeping the high-flying Kingston on the ground under him for most of the match. But again, no matter how hard he tried, the bigger, stronger Jack Swagger could NOT put away the number one contender for the Intercontinental Championship. And Kofi did a really awesome job of selling the beating with a ton of sympathy, which helped get this match over immensely.

Another great thing about this match is that, in the complete opposite of the TNA main event, they COUNTERED finisher attempts, instead of kicking out of them. Three times, Jack ALMOST had the Ankle Lock synched in, but immediately, Kofi read it and rolled out, kicking Swagger away from him or grabbing the ropes before any real damage could be done. At one point, Kofi almost hits the Trouble in Paradise but Swagger unleashes his inner Neo (the Matrix, people!) and falls to the mat, ducking under the move. To me, this is the way to get a match over: clever counters instead of millions of kick outs. Also, Kofi showed WAY more heart than Hardy did.

Kofi picks up the win here, after Swagger countered a hurricanrana into a THIRD Ankle Lock attempt. Again, Kingston is able to roll out, kicking Swagger off and getting to his feet, only to be kicked right in the mouth and sent to the canvas. Swaggers gets a bit cocky and goes for another one of his weird turnbuckle splash things. Kofi gets his feet up into Swaggers face, knocking him down then gets to his feet and hits him with the Trouble in Paradise for the three count!

Great, compelling match that really got Kofi over heading into Night of Champions, but also did a great job of putting Swagger over as well. Hopefully they’ll carry his momentum into the coming weeks and maybe get the guy into a meaningful program or something.