TNA World Heavyweight Championship Match
Bully Ray (c) vs. Chris Sabin
Rating: **
Feeling out process as this match starts, as they trade massive overhead chops and kicks to the upper body. Sabin flips out and goes on the offensive until the Aces & Eights come out. The Main Event Mafia evens the odds – including Kurt Angle – to go into the final commercial break. Literally the rest of the match was Bully working over Sabin's historically terrible knee. Sabin gains some momentum after ten minutes of getting his ass kicked, until the inevitable ref bump happens. The Aces & Eights and Main Event Mafia brawl all around the ring until the fight to the back leaving both guys alone. Sabin hits Bully in the head with the hammer and pins him. Winner and new World Heavyweight Champion….Chris Sabin.
KILLAM: This match had more in common with Brock Lesnar murdering Zack Gowen than it did any classic wrestling match I've ever seen. Your new world champion got about one minute of offense, then required ten men to brawl around the arena, a ref bump and a hammer to win the match. There was nothing surprising at all about the finish. There's ten guys around the ring and they all want to kill each other; what did you think was going to happen? A full ten minutes of this match was spent with Bully beating up on Sabin's knee. For a match with a commercial break, that's damn near the entire thing. Sabin proved absolutely nothing with this win, other than he can cheat the same way the Aces & Eights do to be successful. Is that how we're booking top babyfaces these days?
FINAL THOUGHTS: A great night of action…until the main event. Three really solid X-Division matches, proving that if TNA sticks to actual PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING they aren't terrible. Unfortunately, everything kind of fell apart with the end. What the hell was the point of having Angle abducted, just to show up literally ten minutes later? Why not have a run in during the actual main event, when the Mafia was getting beaten down and outnumbered? This is the kind of stuff TNA ruins by hosting angles on free television, instead of having the time to play them out with more drama (and no commercials) on pay-per-view.
On that note, did Bully Ray really just lose the world title on free television? I can't believe that's how TNA chose to play off one of their biggest angles in years. Instead of having the title change come at Bound for Glory, ala Chris Benoit at Wrestlemania XX, that whole event is going to be focused on the Mafia beating the Aces & Eights. Bully was the money holding that story together. He's the ONLY THING fans even remotely care about. The biker gang is future endeavored without him.
Chris Sabin is a great wrestler. He's the ultimate underdog. Much like Austin Aries he could have made a good world champion, given the right story set-up and follow through. None of that happened tonight. Instead, TNA dethroned one of the best villains in its company's history with a lackluster brawl we've seen 100,000 times, and put the title on the waist of 205-pound guy who just got his ass kicked for twenty minutes on live, free television. At least Austin Aries put up a fight…
Don't be surprised when the title gets traded around on every other episode of Nitro Impact Wrestling, and Jeff Jarrett Kevin Nash Bully Ray lays down for Hulk Hogan. TNA's not the only company to have ever given away PPV for free.
