Mt. Killamanjaro — TNA Destination X Review — @MikeKillam
Last Chance Fourway
Mason Andrews def. Lars Only, Rubix & Dakota Darsow
I’ve grown fond of WWE’s semi-recent trend of starting pay-per-views with blockbuster matches, and I was originally worried about kicking Destination X off with four guys nobody’s ever heard of. No offense meant to indy workers – they’re some of the hardest working people I’ve ever met in my life – but the large majority of TNA fans have never heard the name “Dakota Darsow”. They may know Rubix, or Jigsaw from CHIKARA, but even that’s a stretch for most fans.
Luckily, the X-Division – and more generally, cruiserweight wrestling – has the ability to keep fans interested, no matter who’s in the ring. As long as they can fly around and do things fans have never seen before, you’ll get a decent reaction. Four solid workers entered that match, they kept things short and simple, and I honestly believe the best man won. It was a bit of a momentum killer to have Mason Andrews take the victory, as the crowd was firmly behind Rubix from the start, but I’m guessing the final decision came down to who TNA wants to continue pushing post-Destination X.
Rating: 4/5
Ultimate X Qualifying Matches
I apologize if you feel slighted that I’m not going to review each of the four Ultimate X qualifying match-ups. To put a very, very long story short, TNA decided it would be a great idea to book five matches with relatively unknown talent (including the Fourway above) back-to-back-to-back-to-etc etc. The result was over an hour of toe-tapping and waiting for something I was actually invested in.
It’s not that any of the matches were bad! Mason Andrews was hugely impressive winning not one, but two matches in a row. Kenny King got a great reaction and was incredibly solid against Douglas Williams. In fact, none of the matches I would have rated under a 3/5. The only reason I’m not going to take the time to break them all down is to save us both from the inevitable boredom that would come from it. They were all decent matches, but they were all largely the same. The crowd lost more and more interest as they went on, and you can’t really blame them.
Looking to the future for next year, TNA needs to either host some of these qualifying matches on Impact, or spread them out better throughout the night. I understand wanting to get the tournament out of the way, and as a result the later half really benefited, but the first hour was simply not exciting.
Collective rating: 3/5
