Mike Reviews TNA Victory Road 2004

Happy Saturday Everyone!

We’ve got another TNA review today, as Victory Road 2004 is another show that IMPACT Wrestling has helpfully uploaded onto their YouTube page.

Victory Road 2004 was TNA’s first 3 hour pay per view since they dropped the weekly 2 hour pay per views they were running and instead focused on using their Impact TV show in order to build up to a monthly pay per view event.

The Main Event here is Jeff Vs Jeff in Jefforal Kombat, as Jarrett defends the NWA Title against Hardy. We’ve also got Petey Williams taking on AJ Styles and a wacky 20 wrestler X-Division Gauntlet.

You can view the full card for Victory Road 2004 by clicking below;

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=1511&page=3

The event is emanating from The World Famous IMPACT ZONE, on the 7th of November 2004

Calling the action are Mike Tenay and Don West

Not-Quite-Darth-Vader does the usual dramatic voiceover for the opening video package, complete with important sounding stock music. It’s so overly serious that it’s hard to keep a straight face whilst watching it, even though you can see what they are going for.

The announce team hype up the card, but I’d much prefer if we could just get straight into a match here. The longer you go on without getting a match in the ring the quicker the momentum built at the start of the show ebbs away.

NWA World Champion Jeff Jarrett arrives in a limo, and is confident that he’ll win tonight as Kevin Nash supposedly won’t be at the event.

Opening Match
20 Wrestler X-Division Gauntlet
Frankie Kazarian, Sonjay Dutt, Puma, L.A. Park, Jerrelle Clark, Kazushi Miyamoto, Michael Shane, Hector Garza, Nosawa Rongai, Mikey Batts, Alex Shelley, Matt Sydal, Sonny Siaki, Jason Cross, Shark Boy, Psicosis, D-Ray 3000, The Amazing Red, Spanky and Chris Sabin

The X-Division is about no limits as opposed to weight limits, so we’ve got a collection of varying body types and wrestling styles doing battle. It’s like a Royal Rumble, but it also has pins and submissions in order to keep everyone on their toes. These rules give me flashbacks to playing the Battle Royal mode on WCW Revenge for the N64 actually.

Entrant #1
Frankie Kazarian

Entrant #2
Sonjay Dutt

Kazarian and Dutt were perhaps both known the most for their respective TNA/IMPACT runs, although both would eventually end up in AEW at differing points. They do some quick paced back and forth wrestling until doing the usual leaning on the rope stuff.

Entrant #3
Puma

Puma would perhaps be better known as TJP these days. Puma jabs Dutt in the eyes at one stage, I guess to show that he’ll be a Heel in this one, although that is undercut somewhat by him hitting a big flashy move and then playing to the crowd.

Entrant #4
L.A. Park

Park wrestled as La Parka in WCW and he gets a great reaction for his entrance. Park of course has his trademark steel chair with him. Park chairs anyone unfortunate enough to get too close and then poses on his chair to a rapturous response. Park is so wonderfully entertaining, to the point that it overcomes the language and cultural barrier.

Entrant #5
Jerrelle Clark

Clark is a flippy dude known for doing the 630 Splash. He immediately does a wacky handspring elbow drop type move to Dutt upon entering the ring. This is standard battle royal stuff with some high flying thrown in at certain points, and it works well enough.

Entrant #6
Kazushi Miyamoto

Miyamoto is an All Japan guy, and he’s dressed like Great Muta here. I’m not sure as to why other than him maybe being a pupil of Keiji Muto. Clark manages to bust out the 630 onto Puma, and it’s as cool as advertised, although Kazarian immediately kicks Clark in the face in order to nullify his pop somewhat.

Entrant #7
Michael Shane w/ Traci Brooks

Shane is the cousin of Shawn Michaels, and the regular tag partner for Kazarian, so they team up and dump out Puma, Clark and Miyamoto in quick succession. I’m sure that quick cameo for Miyamoto was worth the long plane ride over to America…

Puma, Jerelle Clark and Kazushi Miyamoto all eliminated by Kazarian (3) and Michael Shane (3)

Shane actually had to change his name to Matt Bentley at one stage because Mike Shane of the Shane Twins/Gymini/Johnson’s actually owned the copyright to the name and WWE signed him, meaning it was now going to be enforced.

Entrant #8
Hector Garza

Garza was someone TNA had big plans for, but he kept getting in trouble with the law and it ended up costing him a big push. Garza immediately looks like one of the best wrestlers in the match, as he teams up with Park to put the beat down on all of the gringos sharing the ring with them.

Entrant #9
Nosawa Rongai

Nosawa had the pencil in NOAH until quite recently and was in a terrifying situation with Io Shirai at one stage where another wrestler planted drugs on them and got them arrested at the airport when they were coming back from a trip to Mexico. He doesn’t do much, with Park quickly bulling him into a corner.

Entrant #10
Mikey Batts

I don’t know much about Batts, but he was apparently 20 years old and looks a bit like a shrunken Sean O’Haire. Batts actually shows some good fire, but he gets quickly taken out by Kazarian via a snap powerslam.

Entrant #11
Alex Shelley

Shelley had been a client of Goldilocks as “The Baby Bear”, but she’s left TNA now and he’s working as a generic singles guy. Shelley does quickly get to eliminate Dutt, whilst Kazarian manages to back body drop Park out of the ring (boooooooo) although the camera almost misses the latter elimination, feeling instead that it’s important to focus on Batts getting choked in the corner, because TNA.

Sonjay Dutt eliminated by Alex Shelley (1)

L.A. Park eliminated by Kazarian (4)

Entrant #12
Matt Sydal

Sydal is notably skinnier here, although he impresses the crowd with some of his high flying moves, including an Shooting Star Press to Shelley, which leads to Shelley selling on the floor. I’m sure that’ll come into play later.

Entrant #13
Sonny Siaki

Siaki was a guy that looked a bit like The Rock, so he got pushed in TNA and eventually signed by WWE. However, Siaki’s career ended up coming to a premature end when he donated a kidney to an ill family member. Though I’m sure it was disappointing to end his wrestling career, Siaki could console himself with knowing that he made a worthy sacrifice to improve another person’s life. Siaki was a noted favourite of Dusty Rhodes and was usually treated well in TNA, and he gets to run wild upon entering the ring, hitting a series of power moves to pop the crowd and looking good whilst doing so. Siaki flings out Nosawa in order to complete the rally.

Nosawa Rongai eliminated by Sonny Siaki (1)

Garza sends Batts out as well

Mikey Batts eliminated by Hector Garza (1)

Entrant #14
Jason Cross

Cross wrestled for the X Division belt a few times during the NWA:TNA Era at the TNA Asylum, and he gets a nice flurry upon entering the ring.

Entrant #15
Shark Boy

Shark Boy is dressed like a shark, and that’s about it for his character, aside from a period where he thought he was Stone Cold Steve Austin after suffering too many concussions, because TNA. Sharky was almost like a mascot character for TNA and he was usually a fun and popular undercard act. Shelley finally recovers from killing time at ringside and causes Sydal’s elimination.

Matt Sydal eliminated by Alex Shelley (1)

Entrant #16
Psicosis

This is the original Psi (the one from WCW) and he’s wearing his mask again here, despite that supposedly being a no-no after you lose it in a match (although I guess no one told Rey Jr. about that). Psi and Garza do a nice bit together, whilst everyone else lays around on the ropes.

Entrant #17
D-Ray 3000

D-Ray was a comedy character and partner for Shark Boy, with his gimmick usually being that he didn’t know where the ring was. Ray and Sharky do a quick bit of team work together to make the crowd chuckle until Sonny Siaki dumps them out.

D-Ray 3000 and Shark Boy eliminated by Sonny Siaki (3)

Entrant #18
The Amazing Red

Red was one of the biggest stars in the early days of the X Division, known for his insane high flying moves. He’d be one of the biggest stars in somewhere like AEW if he walked onto the scene today. Sadly he suffered a lot of injuries and it limited the levels of success that he could achieve. Shelley is thrown out by Cross whilst Red enters.

Alex Shelley eliminated by Jason Cross (1)

Cross’ reward for throwing out Shelley is to almost be beheaded by a Psicosis spin kick.

Entrant #19
Spanky

Spanky is also known as Brian Kendrick, and he had multiple stints in WWE, and even won the Tag Team and Cruiserweight Titles whilst there. Spanky looks good upon entering the ring, and I think WWE would sign him back to a deal not too soon after this.

Entrant #20
Chris Sabin

Sabin was a two-time X Division Champion at this stage and had become a babyface after being one of the main Heels in the division previously. Siaki almost throws out Spanky and Sabin, but they manage to duck his clothesline attempt and then throw him out.

Sonny Siaki eliminated by Spanky (1) and Chris Sabin (1)

Spanky also eliminates long time rival Michael Shane following that as well.

Michael Shane eliminated by Spanky (2)

We get the Towe of DOOM spot following that, which sees a bunch of dudes get suplexed whilst the ones suplexing them get powerbombed. I’ll post a pic below;

Psi eliminates Jason Cross following that to end his night, only for Red to then dump him out, with Kazarian keeping the quickfire eliminations doing by knocking Red off the apron to eliminate him.

Jason Cross eliminated by Psicosis (1)

Psicosis eliminated by The Amazing Red (1)

The Amazing Red eliminated by Kazarian (5)

Spanky tries going for Sliced Bread #2 on Sabin following that, but Sabin powers him out and sends him back to his hollowed out moon base.

Spanky eliminated by Chris Sabin (2)

We get a pretty impressive spot following that, where Sabin German Suplexes Kazarian from the top rope onto Garza, which the crowd appropriately goes wild for. Kazarian keeps managing to hold on without getting eliminated, and eventually Garza ends up kicking Sabin to the floor to turn this into a 1 Vs 1 singles match.

Chris Sabin eliminated by Hector Garza (2)

Kazarian is just one elimination away from going coast to coast here, and he’s still pretty spry on his feet despite having to be a base in a high flying match for close to 20 minutes. We get some near falls, with Kazarian kicking out of a beautiful Moonsault from Garza at one stage. That was graceful as all heck. Both wrestlers have chances to win it, with the crowd getting into the near falls. Eventually Garza misses a Torneo from the top rope, but he manages to counter a Kazarian pinning hold into a pinning hold of his own and that’s enough for the three count.

Kazarian eliminated by Hector Garza (3)

WINNER: HECTOR GARZA
MOST ELIMINATIONS: FRANKIE KAZARIAN (5)
RATING: ***

Thoughts: This was a good way to open up the show, although I think Big Davey Meltz was being a tad too generous in giving this one a 4 star rating. It was a fun match for the most part, with some exciting action mixed in with some enjoyable character work from the likes of Park and Sharky. Opening their first 3 hour pay per view with the X Division was a smart move on TNA’s part as it was a good example of something they did better than WWE at the time, due to WWE treating its Cruiserweight Division with little more than thinly veiled disdain. TNA’s big appeal was in trying to provide an alternative to WWE, and the X Division was a great way of drawing that line in the sand

Garza has some promo time with Moody Jack at ringside, leading to Garza cutting a promo in Spanish. He seems happy to have won, and he probably would have got a monster push had he managed to stay out of trouble outside of the ring.

We get a video hyping up Dusty Rhodes as the next Director of Authority of TNA, as there is an election going on to decide whether Dusty or Vince Russo will take on the role, and it’s sponsored by the Backyard Wrestling 2 video game. I’m surprised a proper wrestling company like TNA would want to endorse a game based around guys setting mattresses on fire in the back garden and then suplexing people onto them, but then again I struggle to understand most TNA business decisions. I’m not sure if a real vote was actually taking place here or not, or if this was all just a spoof of the real US Election that took place in 2004. Was Russo even still part of TNA at this stage? Scott Hudson brings in Kid Kash, Dallas, Andy Douglas and Chase Stevens in for promo time. Kash says he’ll be the leader of their four man team tonight as he has the most experience. Well he certainly has the most experience of being fired for being a jerk at least.

Match Two
Kid Kash, Dallas and The Naturals (Andy Douglas and Chase Stevens) Vs Erik Watts, Empire Saint Pat Kenney, Johnny B. Badd and Ron The Truth Killings

Kash had been a star in ECW and had been working in TNA on and off since 2002. Dallas would I think be better known as Lance Archer these days. The Naturals would eventually go on to become NWA World Tag Champs and feud with America’s Most Wanted. Watts is he of the famous knee high dropkick, who actually did quite well as a babyface authority figure in TNA for a while, as it involved him standing around wearing shades and looking cool without ever really needing to wrestle. Kenney used to be Simon Diamond, but now he’s a babyface Irishman. Badd used to work in WCW and the WWF but had been out of the mainstream for nearly 5 years by this stage. Truth is part of 3 Live Kru and is probably the biggest star in this match, being a former NWA World Champ an all.

Badd is kind of showing his age here, but he’s moving reasonably well. Dallas and Watts go at it at one stage, with them quickly flinging one another around with little build, which means it doesn’t really feel special. The Heels eventually start working over Kenney, but Dallas misses a big Moonsault and that gives us the hot tag to Truth, who runs wild and looks good doing so. Things breakdown following that, with all eight wrestlers in the ring going at it, leading to Badd getting a quite impressive looking top rope rana on Stevens. Truth follows up with a DDT-like move onto Stevens after that and that’s enough for three.

WINNERS: BADD, TRUTH, KENNEY & WATTS
RATING: *

Thoughts: Just eight fellers having a match, and not much of one either

Match Three
Piratita Morgan Vs Mascarita Sagrada

This is the Mexican Mini Wrestlers going at it, as over there they sometimes have little people dress up as existing famous wrestlers. The WWF tried that in 1997 actually, having mini versions of Vader, Mankind and Goldust. Piratita Morgan translates to Pirate Morgan, whilst Mascarita Sagrada translates to Holy Mask. Sagrada wrestled in the WWF as Max Mini I believe, and he was widely regarded as the better Mini Wrestler of all-time, just beating out Kevin Sullivan I believe. Morgan is a decent base for Sagrada, although I’m not an especially big fan of Lucha if I’m honest. Morgan eventually squishes Sagrada and even knocks the ref down at one stage, but Morgan takes too long to go for the pin, and that leads to Sagrada rolling his bigger opponent up for three.

WINNER: MASACRITA SAGRADA
RATING: *

Thoughts: I hate when they don’t give the little people much time to wrestle, because then I have to say it was a short match and that makes it sound like I’m making a lame attempt at being humorous. I mean, usually I AM trying to do that, but not in situations like this one. They barely got any real time to do anything in this one, but what we did get was okay for the most part. I’m sure if you’re more into the more traditional Lucha style then you might get more out of this one than I did, but it’s just not my personal cup of tea

Scott Hudson tells us that Dusty Rhodes is still winning the Director of Authority vote. 3 Live Kru (BG James, Truth and Konnan) join us for some promo time to hype up their shot at the NWA Tag Titles.

Scott Hall (looking quite swollen and entering to an instrumental of his “Marvellous Me” entrance theme) joins us for some promo time. He reiterates that Kevin Nash won’t be here tonight. Hall also adds that he’s interested in the Main Event because he “invented” the ladder match, closing with wishing that the best “Jeff” wins.

We get a video package for the next match.

Match Four
NWA World Tag Team Titles
Champs: Team Canada (Bobby Roode and Eric Young) w/ Scott D’Amore Vs 3 Live Kru (BG James and Konnan)

Team Canada were getting a pretty sizable push at the time, owing to D’Amore having a say in the booking. Roode and Young were both good wrestlers at least. James and Konnan were an entertaining trio alongside Truth, and they got themselves a Title shot by winning a match on Impact. 3LK’s entrance music was actually kind of awful at the time, but I still remember it all these years later, so I guess it was doing something right at least and they’d eventually get a better one. James was skirting copyright law by trying to do his old New Age Outlaws pre-match intro with JUST enough changes that he wouldn’t get a legal letter from WWE.

James shines on both Roode and Young to start, with them taking some nice bumps for him, but eventually the numbers game becomes too much and James gets cut off and worked over. James sells well whilst on the defensive and the crowd gets behind the challengers, with Team Canada’s offence being nicely executed, so it’s a decent heat segment that does it’s job. Team Canada tries to use their hockey stick to take out James whilst the ref is distracted, but James foils that and it’s hot tag Konnan. Konnan looks like he’s struggling to get around a bit, so he smartly mostly stays in the middle and lets the Heels come to him so that he can bump them around.

Konnan is in great cosmetic shape here, but he looks like he can barely move and can hardly do even the most basic things. I know he eventually needed time out for surgery at some stage and it became a bone of contention between he and TNA over who would pick up the bill for it, and from watching this you can understand why he eventually had to go under the knife. Things break down following the hot tag, with D’Amore trying to help his charges in the confusion. Truth manages to thwart D’Amore’s plans though, leading to Konnan getting a Facebuster onto Roode for the three count.

WINNERS AND NEW CHAMPIONS: 3 LIVE KRU
RATING: **

Thoughts: This was a decent tag match, although things got a bit messy in the closing stages. It didn’t help that Konnan was struggling so much physically either. I’m guessing they had Konnan on the winning side here as a thank you of some kind for gutting it out, but it might have made more sense to have the team be James and Truth with Konnan running interference to stop D’Amore

They try to treat the Title change as a big deal by having pyro go off for the win, although it’s undercut somewhat when they send it TO THE BACK for a promo from Raven. Raven’s promo is really good at least, as he appears to have gone even crazier than usual by being trapped in a darkened room.

We get a Vince Russo hype video about why he should be the authority figure.

Rowdy Roddy Piper joins us for a promo, as I ponder why there is so much filler on this show when they’ve notably had to rush some of the matches? Anyway, Piper brings Jimmy Snuka down to the ring so that they can quash their beef, with Piper being happy to allow Snuka to brain him with a coconut in order to avenge a similar act that Piper did to Snuka in the 80’s. Snuka doesn’t want to do it, so Piper ups the racism in an effort to get Snuka to do it, but Snuka refuses to play Piper’s game. Kid Kash ends up joining us, as this is increasingly becoming a Heel segment. Kash talks some smack to Snuka and tries to attack him, but Snuka fends him off. Michael Shane and Frankie Kazarian join us to beat down Snuka, which leads to Sonjay Dutt running down to make the save, only for Kash to then clobber Dutt with the coconut, leading to Piper firing up and chasing Kash away. They tease that Dutt is really injured, which gives the segment a flat ending, but at least the focus is on Kash Vs Dutt as opposed to the old guys, and Dutt managed to make a comeback and look heroic briefly until Kash took him out. I’m not sure this needed to be on pay per view, but it was fine as an angle.

MontyBrown says that nothing is more dangerous than a caged Alpha Male, which means that Raven and Abyss need to be worried tonight as he’s been locked in a room as well. This wasn’t the best Brown promo ever, but he still showed a lot of charisma at least.

We get a hype package for the December pay per view, called Turning Point.

We then get another video package, this one for Trinity who will be wrestling next. It’s actually put to the track that Justin Credible used as entrance music in TNA for a while, with it even sounding a bit like his Prong song from his days in ECW. Anyway, Trinity was causing bother on Impact so Vince Russo booked her in a match tonight.

Match Five
Trinity w/ Glen Gilberti and Johnny Swinger Vs Jacqueline Moore

Trinity was TNA’s main woman star at the time, and would sometimes mix it up with the men as well. Moore has been brought in as a special opponent for her here, being that Moore had only recently left WWE. I don’t think Moore was a regular on the show following this, but she would eventually start managing James Storm in, I think, 2007. Trinity and her crew cut a generic promo before the match, bragging that no one has answered the challenge, but then Moore shows up and the match starts. Moore beats up all three of the Heels at one stage, leading to Gilberti and Swinger stooging and taking some nice bumps.

Moore clobbering all of the Heels is pretty fun, although it doesn’t make TNA itself look that good that she’s battering THREE wrestlers with such ease, especially as Trinity is one of the top women in the whole promotion and Swinger is a former Tag Champ. Trinity eventually manages to cut Moore off when Gilberti and Swinger prevent Moore from getting into the ring, leading to Trinity working a bit of heat. These two wrestlers are just flinging one another around here and it’s SUPER sloppy, but still reasonably entertaining. Eventually Moore makes a comeback, but Swinger drops her throat first on the ropes when the ref isn’t looking and that allows Trinity to head up with a Moonsault for three.

WINNER: TRINITY
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: For the scant 2 minutes this was given, it was fine, but they’ve been butchering the run times on most of these under card matches tonight thus far, with the last four matches taking up less than a combined minutes, which is frankly ridiculous for a 3 hour pay per view from the supposed wrestling focused alternative promotion

Scott Hudson continues to blab on about the Director of Authority election, with Dusty Rhodes still clearly winning. Christopher Daniels and Elix Skipper join Hudson for promo time, with Daniels telling Skipper that he agrees that they need to stop being nice and go back to how they used to be. This was a decent promo segment.

We get a video package for the Monster’s Ball match. James Mitchell does the voice over for Abyss’ section of it, teasing his eventual alignment with The Monster.

Match Six
Monster’s Ball
The Monster Abyss Vs The Alpha Male Monty Brown Vs Raven

The idea with Monster’s Ball is that you lock everyone up in a cage for 24 hours before the match with no light, food or water, and then you set them loose in a wild No DQ brawl. Sounds like an average day in Birkenhead in all honesty. For some reason they cut out the entrances here and cut straight to all three wrestlers fighting at ringside. I’m guessing that had something to do with music rights possibly? Anyway, all three wrestlers are clobbering one another with plunder and brawling all over the place, with Abyss getting the better of things as we see a mysterious person watching in the rafters, who I think ended up being James Mitchell.

Raven and Brown end up trying to work together due to Abyss being so big and scary, but even then they struggle to do anything to him. Abyss was kind of doing a Mankind crossed with Kane gimmick at the time, and it was super effective. This is all action all of the time, with someone usually always hitting a move or swinging a weapon, and it’s good fun for the most part. Brown is pretty sloppy, but he covers for it somewhat with his incredible charisma and the fact the crowd is so into him. They ref ends up getting bumped, meaning that no one is there to count when both Brown and Abyss get visual pins on each other at different points.

Abyss of course finds his bag of thumbtacks at one stage, because it wouldn’t be an Abyss match from the 00’s without them, but Raven ends up giving Abyss a Powerbomb into them when Abyss is too preoccupied with Superplexing Brown onto them. That get’s Raven a two count, but there was a delay in the count at least because another referee had to run down in order to replace the knocked out one. We eventually get tables in the ring, which causes the Impact Zone crowd to think this is awesome. A table is set up outside the ring as well, which leads to Raven knocking Abyss off the apron through it, but Brown then quickly delivers DA POUNCE (Period) to send Raven through the table in the ring and that’s enough for three.

WINNER: MONTY BROWN
RATING: ***

Thoughts: This was good wild fun, although I’m not sure why some of it was cut from the YouTube version. It was an effective way of elevating Brown without making either Raven or Abyss look weak, so the match fulfilled it’s brief I think

Sadly Brown doesn’t get much chance to really celebrate his win as it’s TO THE BACK so we can see Shane Douglas arguing with the security guy guarding the limo from earlier. One of the Harris Brothers shows up and yelling takes place, because TNA.

We get more footage from the fan fest, with fans saying that TNA is the product for the wrestling focused wrestling fan. Not tonight it hasn’t been!

Scott Hudson is backstage with Scott D’Amore and X Champ Petey Williams. Williams is apparently the underdog here tonight, but Williams says he’s the Champ and that AJ Styles will feel the Canadian Destroyer tonight. D’Amore says that he’ll leave TNA if Williams loses the belt tonight, which kind of gives away the finish.

We get a video package for the next match, focusing on the Canadian Destroyer Vs Styles Clash aspect of it. It’s a good video actually that makes both wrestlers look like stars.

Match Seven
TNA X-Division Title
Champ: The Canadian Destroyer Petey Williams w/ Scott D’Amore Vs The Phenomenal AJ Styles

Williams is perhaps best known as the inventor of the Canadian Destroyer, which now everyone from young high flyers to your 80 year old grandmother can perform, but at the time it was his thing and helped get him over. Styles was making one of his sporadic returns to the X-Division, which usually happened when TNA wanted to give the sometime beleaguered division a shot in the arm. We could really do with a great match here, so hopefully these two deliver it. I must say the way TNA would act like Styles was almost doing the X-Division a favour by returning to it in-between stints in the Main Event World Title picture didn’t so much elevate the division as it did make Styles seem like he was dropping down to a lower league and people could go back to not caring about the division again once Styles was back in the Main Events.

The wrestling is very good to start, with Styles shining on the Champ and doing the leap frog into a dropkick spot that always looks so nice before following up with a TOPE CON HILO. Williams bumps around for Styles nicely and makes sure to do things like poking the challenger in the eye and standing on his crotch in the corner so that he’s clearly the Heel despite being an exciting high flying wrestler. That being said, there is a vocal contingent of the crowd who are cheering for Williams here, perhaps because they felt like he was doing a good job as the Champion and it wasn’t especially fair that Styles was getting parachuted in after not being interested in the division for a while.

Styles eventually starts firing up on Williams with some forearm smashes and fires off a wacky suplex thing before following up with The Phenomenal Forearm for two. They haven’t seemed to be entirely on the same page at points here, possibly because they might be trying a bit too hard to have a classic match due to this being the first 3 hour TNA monthly pay per view, but the action itself has still been decent, just not as smooth as you might expect with these two in there. Styles seemingly has it won at one stage, but the ref stops his count at two in order to argue with D’Amore, which doesn’t really make sense as he could have just finished the count.

Williams tries to use the hockey stick, but the ref takes it away, so Williams hits Styles with the belt instead for two in a good near fall whilst the ref is distracted removing the hockey stick. Despite that near fall working well, this is starting to get a bit overbooked. Case in point, Styles gets distracted by D’Amore, and that allows Williams to get the Panama Sunrise version of the Canadian Destroyer for the three count. It’s a shame that they went a bit OTT with all the shenanigans there, as it took the match down a bit in my eyes.

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: PETEY WILLIAMS
RATING: ***

Thoughts: This was good, but it was a bit too overbooked for my liking and I never really felt like the two had good chemistry as opponents either. They’d add Chris Sabin into the mix over the course of the next two pay per views and that worked out better, with the three having a classic Ultimate X match together at one stage. Part of me likes that Williams was actually a Heel that cheated, which is unusual for something like the X-Division, but at the same time the World Title scene was so rife with all of that run-in/cheating/overbooking tripe, and it would have been nice if the X-Division was more focused on great wrestlers having great matches without all the additional bollocks so that it could act as a sort of palette cleanser for the Main Event scene

D’Amore tries attacking Styles after the match, and eats a enziguri as a result.

Jeff Jarrett is warming up backstage, with Scott Hall looking on.

Jeff Hardy is yelling at a mirror backstage. Well, it’s something to do.

We get a video package for the next match, covering the confusing Tag Title picture in recent months.

Match Eight
Last Team Standing
xXx (The Fallen Angel Christopher Daniels and Primetime Elix Skipper) Vs America’s Most Wanted (Wildcat Chris Harris and The Tennessee Cowboy James Storm)

There had been some kind of convoluted storyline where Chris Harris and Elix Skipper had been Tag Champs, but then they’d lost them to James Storm and Christoper Daniels, which just muddied the waters further. Even at the time I remember thinking it was an odd direction to go in with the belts, and it all eventually led to Team Canada winning them and the feud starting up between xXx and AMW again. Storm apparently attended his grandmother’s funeral earlier in the day and then came here to wrestle, which sounds like an absolute ordeal to go through but I guess the show has to go on. This is actually a tag team Texas Death match, where you have to score a fall first and then the referee counts.

This starts out as a four way brawl, but then a standard tag match breaks out, and I guess that when someone gets pinned or submitted then their partner isn’t allowed to get back into the ring to help them up? This stipulation might not work that well in a tag situation in all fairness, but the wrestling itself is good here, with xXx cutting off Harris and working him over. xXx actually do some really fun tandem offence, including the old school power-plex move and a spot where Daniels body slams Skipper onto Harris at one stage. I’m kind of a sucker for tag team moves where one member of the team uses their partner as a weapon as part of the move itself.

Storm eventually gets the hot tag, although he’s got his right knee taped due to Daniels clocking him with a chair there during the build-up. Daniels puts Storm’s flurry to an end by attacking the knee and that leads to xXx getting a Powerbomb/Neckbreaker combo move onto Storm for three. Storm manages to beat the count, but Daniels then clocks Storm in the knee with a chair and gets another three count, with Storm being unable to beat the count this time. That should be the end of things, but apparently this is elimination rules, so Harris has to go 1 on 2 against xXx. Harris manages to knock Skipper to the floor and then comes off the top with a leg drop onto Daniels for three, which leads to Daniels being unable to beat the count and being eliminated, leaving us with Skipper Vs Harris.

Harris seems to be struggling for real here, leading to them botching Skipper’s Play of the Day move at one stage, leading to the fans booing and catcalling, which you didn’t see that much from the normally loyal Impact Zone crowd from this era. Usually they knew the script and behaved as required, but not here. Skipper brings the chair into the ring, but Harris slams Skipper onto it for seemingly three, although it looked like Skipper kicked out. The referee declares it a three anyway, to more boos, and then Skipper doesn’t answer the count at ten and we have a finish that is flatter than pancake that has been run over by a steamroller.

WINNERS: AMW
RATING: **

Thoughts: The stipulations didn’t really work for me, although I couldn’t fault the actual wrestling until it got down to Skipper and Harris and they started missing stuff. It wouldn’t shock me if one or both of them were injured legit and that’s why it was so ropy in the closing stages. I think just doing a regular match that ended up in some kind of a wild brawl would have been a better than doing this, as the stip just felt unnecessarily complicated and didn’t really do much to set up the cage match blow-off for the next pay per view, where as a brawl into a Double DQ/Count Out would have done that, even if the non-finish would have been frustrating. They only got 11 minutes to work with also, which meant the match felt rushed and wrestlers were staying down for ten seconds in situations where it didn’t feel like they’d taken enough punishment for that to happen yet, such as Daniels getting counted out from a leg drop after wrestling for 6-8 minutes

Daniels runs down following the match for a Heel beat-down, but Storm runs down to make the save, only for him to get chaired. AMW get handcuffed to one another and then beaten up by xXx. I think you have to pay 50 Euros for that in certain parts of Hamburg.

Scott Hudson is backstage with Jeff Jarrett, who is only thinking about retaining his belt tonight and Jeff Hardy has no chance due to Kevin Nash not being here tonight.

Mike Tenay is in the ring, where he announces that Dusty Rhodes has won the Director of Authority election. Vince Russo appears to actually be at the building and he looks sad to have lost before handing over his notebook to Larry Zbysko and storming off. Was Russo leaving TNA for real at the time and this was them writing him out? I honestly can’t keep track of things from this time period sometimes as so much was happening in such a short period of time. Dusty heads down to the ring and says that it’s xXx Vs AMW at the next pay per view in a cage match.

We get a video package for the next match.

Main Event
Ladder Match for the NWA World Title
Champ: The King of the Mountain Jeff Jarrett Vs The Charismatic Enigma Jeff Hardy

So the idea with this one was that Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were coming into the promotion, with one of them supposedly on Jarrett’s side and the other one backing Hardy. They were very careful, and actually rather clever, in the way they hyped it up by never having either one directly say which Jeff they were backing. Even tonight, despite hanging out with Jarrett, there is still a suggestion that Hall might not be fully trustworthy, which keeps everyone on their toes. Hardy has covered himself in green gunk prior to the match, and Jarrett is soon covered in it as well. I bet everyone dreaded laundry day if they were working with Hardy during this period.

We get all of the usual ladder spots, although Hardy also throws in a few you wouldn’t normally see, such as stacking the ladder upside down and then laying Jarrett inside of it before standing on him. It’s not a truly great ladder match, and to be honest I haven’t seen a 1 Vs 1 ladder match involving Hardy that would rank in that category, as he’s normally better in multi-person ladder matches where he can pop in and out with wild spots here and there rather than having to be involved for the entirety of the bout. Interestingly, we get duelling chants again, with some of the crowd chanting for Jarrett, although he’d soon be the most universally hated wrestler in the promotion as 2005 wore on where he kept retaining the NWA Title in the same match every month.

We of course get Hardy coming off the top with a Swanton at one stage, with the only question being whether Jarrett will remain on the ladder or move out of the way (it’s the former). That leads to Hardy heading up the ladder, but Scott Hall joins us and brings Hardy down with a Razor’s Edge before sitting down in a chair at ringside. Bizarrely, Hardy is actually up first from that and goes to set up another ladder spot, which seems like a waste of Hall busting out his finisher if Hardy was going to essentially no sell it. We get the Joey Mercury face destroying teeter-totter spot, with Hardy leaping off the top to send the ladder swinging up into Jarrett’s face, but thankfully Jarrett protects himself and doesn’t get hurt from it.

Both Jarrett and Hardy are up pretty quickly from that, so that they can both climb up the ladder and tumble off, as this has gone from being an okayish ladder match to becoming a bit of a mess, with little to no selling so that they can get to the next designated spot in the match. Some of the bumps have been impressive, but they’ve been mostly forgettable due to the two wrestlers shaking them off so quickly. Hall has to catch Hardy on a couple of dive spots, and either doesn’t want to or physically can’t, with Hardy mostly just bouncing off him and hitting the floor. Hey, chico, how many cerveza’s did you have before coming to the building amigo? Anyway, the two Jeff’s end up tumbling off the ladder onto the entrance ramp, in a horrifying looking spot, and Hall ends up having the ladder land on him in the process, as this match just gets messier and messier.

And, in theme with the rest of this match, both wrestlers are up something like 10 seconds later so that they can climb up two ladders in the middle of the ring for the big dramatic punch-off. Hardy wins that, and tries to follow-up with a Sunset Flip Powerbomb, but it goes awry in an awful looking botch when Hardy seemingly doesn’t get a good enough grip and Jarrett holds on to the ladder for too long before going (possibly because he would have tumbled to the mat in a broken heap if he hadn’t grabbed on to something quickly). Hardy tries to improvise with a Sunset Bomb off the apron down to the floor, but they even botch THAT as well, as this match just unravels before our eyes.

Hall comes into the ring again, with Hardy managing to fight him off, but that allows Jarrett to chair Hardy down and head up the ladder, leading to Kevin Nash joining us to his horrible first TNA theme. Nash has two guitars with him, seemingly one for him and one for Hardy. However, even though Vince Russo has seemingly left the promotion, there’s still time for one last SWERVE Bro, as Nash is of course in league with Hall and Jarrett and the three of them all guitar Hardy so that Jarrett can grab the belt to win. Honestly, if Hardy didn’t see that coming then he’s even more of an idiot then he already comes across, which most of the time is very idiotic indeed.

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: JEFF
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: This was not only sloppy and botch-ridden, but it was also rushed to all buggery, with the wrestlers taking huge moves and then popping up again 10-15 seconds later because it was time for another one. Both wrestlers were clearly working hard and doing their best to motor through things so that they could get everything in before the pay per view window closed, but this was not a good match and reminded me a bit of the Sabu Vs Sandman match from ECW November to Remember 1997 at points (although this match thankfully wasn’t as bad as that one)

Nash brags on the mic and challenges the locker room to come down and fight the new Heel trio, leading to AJ Styles coming down for a fight. Styles does okay briefly, taking down Jarrett and Hall, and even Nash with a dropkick at one stage, but eventually the numbers game is too much and he gets taken out. Still, at least he got to bump all three of them first so he didn’t look like a total goof. 3 Live Kru try next, but they all get taken out as well. However, the door from the limo earlier finally opens, and Randy Savage joins us to seemingly help out the babyfaces, but before he can WE’RE DRASTICALLY OUT OF TIME FANS!!!!!

In Conclusion

I remember quite a few people were disappointed with this show at the time due to the rushed nature of so many of the matches and the overabundance of filler segments. TNA kind of occupied the role of wrestling alternative to WWE’s more entertainment based product at the time, so presenting less actual wrestling in favour of having Roddy Piper ramble on and all of the nonsense with the faux election for Director of Authority seemed kind of counter productive to the presentation that TNA was seemingly going for, especially when you had fans at the convention talking about how much they loved TNA because it was different and a promotion that actually cared about wrestling.

And that really sums up the TNA years of IMPACT for the most part. For years wrestling fans wanted a genuine alternative to what WWE was pumping out, but when it came down to it, TNA was really just a sub-par version of WWE with better respected Cruiserweight and Women’s divisions (and even WWE ended up lapping them in that second department once the Four Horsewomen of NXT came to prominence). Victory Road 2004 was kind of a great example of that, as the X-Division matches were good, but the show itself was full of filler segments, stipulation matches that detracted from the action in the ring as opposed to enhancing it, and WWE styled comedy which meant that vast swathes of the under-card had it’s time drastically cut.

TNA even filled out the show out with veteran guys who hadn’t been money drawing names for years such as Johnny B. Badd, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Randy Savage, instead of focusing on the talented younger wrestlers on the books who could work a different style from what WWE was presenting in it’s Main Events.

And what was the point in even booking the women’s and Mexican mini bouts if they were only going to be given a total of 5 minutes between them for their matches? I’m happy for Trinity that she got to be on the show, as she was probably the first genuine woman’s star the company ever produced, but if she was only going to get 2 minutes for her match then it might have made more sense to let her and Moore work a longer match on television and then given that time to one of the other matches on this show. Honestly, that entire stretch from matches two to five was utterly superfluous (aside from the NWA Tag Title match), including the Roddy Piper segment, and they could have cut most of that out and given more time to the X-Division and xXx/AMW matches, which would have likely made those matches better and made the show overall more entertaining.

Again, nothing against the people involved in those matches or segments (Well, except for Snuka, obviously) but that time could have been better utilised, especially when Victory Road 2004 was the first 3 hour pay per view in TNA history and a great chance for TNA to possibly entice first time viewers to buy the next show in December, and putting the great wrestling they could present front and centre was always going to be the best way of doing that rather than a bunch of rushed matches featuring guys who hadn’t been relevant since 1998, Mexican mini’s and women acts who weren’t going to be given enough time to really showcase what they were capable of doing, thus giving off the impression that they were being shoved into a quick match more for a box ticking exercise than anything else instead of the genuine reality that Trinity was an actual star whose performances had merited a pay per view appearance.

After all that, there was still just enough good wrestling here that I’d go thumbs in the middle, but I wouldn’t really recommend you going out of your way to watch this one. The next pay per view has a tremendous xXx Vs AMW cage match as well as a fun Petey Williams Vs Chris Sabin match, so that one is the better one of the two to watch if you fancy some 2004 TNA on pay per view.