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RADICAN: TALES FROM THE PULPIT 7/14:The ghost of TNA’s past haunts sensible finish to Victory Road PPV Jul 14, 2008 - 1:27:45 PM
The majority of people that saw the finish of the Samoa Joe-Booker T were angry last night with the finish of the match, but let me give you, the Torch reader, some perspective here.
I really didn’t like the finish at first, but I went back and re-watched the final minutes of the match. Admittedly, Booker clotheslining the ref accidentally looked horrible, but West did a good job of taking us inside the mind of Samoa Joe and telling us that he’s going to keep attacking Booker because everyone has told him he can’t get the job done in this match. Joe continues to attack Booker on the outside and Sharmell slaps him in the face, infuriating Joe even more. He takes out the men surrounding Sharmell and goes back on the attack and Booker comes up busted open.
Another ref comes down. We’ve seen this dozens of times in TNA. Joe is legally attacking Booker in the ring. We haven’t been informed there’s a DQ, nor should there be as the first ref bump was accidental, so why does the second ref try to stop Joe from attacking Booker?
The second ref calls for help. Another ref runs down and when he arrives, Joe attacks both refs. Joe goes back on the attack on Booker as West claims that Joe is beating up Booker. Security runs out and Joe takes care of them in short order. The crowd doesn’t no how to react. We hear some mixed boos and cheers as Joe continues to attack Booker. Sharmell gets in the ring and begs for help.
Sting’s music plays and he walks down to ringside and gets on the apron. Joe locks eyes with him and goes back to attacking Booker. Sting yells at Joe, who momentarily convinces him he’s gone to far. Joe follows Sting down the aisle, but turns around and runs back to the ring and attacks Booker. Sting follows Joe into the ring and tells him he’s made his point. Joe flips him off and says, “F--- you” before going back to attacking Booker. That was a great moment.
String turns Joe around and nails him twice with his bat. West wonders why String would do such a thing, as Tenay claims somebody had to step up and put a stop to Joe’s attack on Booker. Booker, who is still groggy, rolls over and covers Joe as Sharmell counts to three. Sharmell goes over to the broadcast table and grabs the belt as Tenay and West voice their displeasure. West says, “Booker T is not the TNA Champion.” Booker is shown walking up the aisle with the belt over his shoulder as we go off the air.
This was actually the right finish to the match, but TNA’s reliance on non and interference-laden finishes on so many PPVs during the past year made the ending to the Joe-Booker match feel like a re-run of something I’ve seen so many times in this company in the past.
We’ve seen it many times before in a TNA match. The ref gets bumped and the match continues, but last night, the ref got bumped in the match ended. We’ve seen multiple refs run down to ringside, but it never signaled the end of a match in TNA before.
TNA only had one choice to get out of that match and that was the finish they executed last night. It wasn’t the right time for Joe to lose the belt. Also, creative couldn’t have Booker lose clean in his hometown, as they would have had a pissed off crowd.
The fact that Booker stole the belt gives fans that ordered the PPV or read about it to tune into Impact this Thursday. The problem with TNA doing this is that they’ve done something similar in the past so many times and that is why the finish is getting such a strong negative reaction.
The finish to the Booker-Joe match has gotten people talking about TNA, which is what the company wanted. Sting also showed an edge that he hadn’t shown in awhile with his attack on Joe, which might actually turn into people caring about Sting enough to pay to see him wrestle Joe on PPV in the future.
Where TNA goes from last night, I don’t know. Joe needs to stick with this character, as he had an edge that he’s been missing all-along. All too often, the WCW vets walked all over Joe, but last night he finally said, “F--- you” to one of TNA’s iconic figures.
TNA seems to be heading in the right direction with their main event picture, but unfortunately their fan base is going to see this as just another meaningless screw job finish until creative proves otherwise as the storyline unfolds in the coming months.
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