TNA Destination X 2005

Well, we did Against All Odds 2005, which is a show that I have on commercial DVD... and coincidentally enough, I also have Destination X, which was the following month's PPV offering from Total NonStop Action TNA Impact Zone Wrestling. So, it seems only fair that we give that one a shot and then maybe next week, we'll go watch some random WWE show from the same year because sure, why not?

Much like the previous show, this is a 2-disc set where they basically split the PPV into two discs and there's very little in terms of worthwhile special features.

America's Most Wanted (Chris Harris and James Storm) and 3 Live Krew (BG James, Ron Killings, and Konnan) defeated Team Canada (Bobby Roode, Erik Young, Petey Williams & Alistair Rouse) in a pretty fun opening match that does NOT set the tone for the rest of this here PPV.

Chris Sabin defeated Chase Stevens in a short match. Meh.

Dustin Rhodes defeated Raven in a boring Bullrope match that is followed by AMW and Team Canada brawling afterwards. Dustin Rhodes in TNA is not something I'd want to remember and this is long before he'd dive into that Black Reign bullshit.

The Harris Twins defeated some other team whose name I don't recall by doing the thing where the twins switch places to fool everyone and kill the other guy and stuff. Meh.

Monty Brown has a match with a big guy, then the lights go out, and he ends up pinning another big guy. I wish I could care enough to remember these names, but I don't. I do miss me some Monty Brown; I always thought that guy could've been a big deal.

Jeff Hardy defeated Abyss in a pretty fun and mindless Falls Count Anywhere brawl. Hey, sometimes, I enjoy senseless violence for the sake of senseless violence and after what has been a largely mediocre card thus far, I could use a little fun, so fuck off, okay?

Billy Gunn (?) defeated Kevin Nash in a First Blood match If you want to see Billy Gunn at his best outside of WWE... go watch AEW... hell, even the short-lived New Age Outlaws reunion from ten years ago is better than this.

Okay, so I should make a note here because it's something that raised an eyebrow, so to speak. In the original PPV airing, Billy Gunn had undergone different names - The New Age Outlaw, the Outlaw, and maybe a couple others before settling on Kip James, which is the name he got when he joined up with his old partner BG "Roadie" James to form the James Gang. Well, when TNA released this show onto DVD, they actually went out of their way to go back and redub the match so that they refer to him as Kip James, even though he didn't get that name until much later. So I don't know if this is TNA covering their ass in terms of the legalities or maybe it's to prevent confusion as to why we're calling ol' Kip a billion other names other than the one most people are familiar with, but it's something that I thought was worth bringing up because the quality of the commentary is notably different compared to the rest of the show, as if this was done in a studio or something. I don't know if this is the case with Impact Plus or if they're using the original airing; I never checked and don't really care, either way.

With all of that said, the only negative that I have in terms of this post-production editing is that they didn't delete the entire match from existence to spare any more people from having to watch it. It's a taped fists, first blood match or whatever they call it, they have a fight that seems like it's playing in slow motion, there's some weapons used, Nash gets kicked in the balls or something, Billy gets busted open but the ref is out, so Jeff Jarrett comes out and el kabongs Nash while some dude wipes the blood off Billy's face. Ref wakes up, sees Nash bleeding, and awards the win to Billy... thank fuck this is over.

X-Division Champ Christopher Daniels defeated A.J. Styles, Elix Skipper, and Ron Killings in a weird four-way elimination match culminating a makeshift Ultimate X match - the thing where you climb cables to grab the title in the center of the X - to retain the title.

NWA World Champion Jeff Jarrett defeated Diamond Dallas Page via twenty quadrillion run-ins to win the match. If they don't care to give me a good clean main event, I don't care to keep track of who ran in to do fuck all... all I know is Monty Brown turned on DDP, allowing Jarrett to win. And people wonder why TNA didn't become as big of a deal as WWE... and this is LONG before everything went to shit!

Who booked this crap anyway?

And that was the inaugural edition of Destination X and oh boy... whereas I was conflicted about the last show because there was some good stuff to keep it from being a total dumpster fire, I can safely say that I have no such concerns here. This show had maybe one or two brights spots - probably being generous - but it was largely a waste of time and I was getting serious - SERIOUS - WCW 2000 vibes out of this show... and Russo wasn't even part of creative during this time.

And so my short-lived interest in TNA came to an end after this show.