TNA Wrestling held their Destination X pay-per-view live last night from The Scope in Norfolk, Virginia. Widely considered a “throwaway” pay-per-view from most in the industry, it was yet another effort with the company running a show outside of Orlando, Florida, which is always important to TNA. The event did not feature anything newsworthy as there were no notable returns (unless you count Sharmell), there weren’t any title changes, and there were no heel or babyface transitions on the show.

Destination X 2008 was actually booked pretty good but there was nothing that made me jump out of my seat and proclaim it to be outstanding. There were a lot of gimmick matches and things setup for storyline advancement, which is fine for a pay-per-view that no one expects much from. The biggest thing that I think that TNA accomplished with the pay-per-view was that they were able to advance certain storylines (and end others) while building towards next month Lockdown pay-per-view which will feature TNA Champion Kurt Angle defending against Samoa Joe. Let’s take a look at the matches.

I liked how the show opened up with the #1 Contenders Match for the TNA Tag Team Titles. The work in this match was pretty good as I felt like all three teams — The Motor City Machineguns, LAX, and The Rock & Rave Infection — had some good spots. Hernandez stole the show with his tremendous display of strength and athleticism. I thought Don West was going to have a heart attack (as I do on many occasions) when Hernandez connected on the suicide dive out of the ring. The match was not spectacular but I thought it was a fine opener to get the crowd into the event. TNA did the right thing by putting LAX over.

“Black Machismo” Jay Lethal retaining the X Division Championship over Petey Williams was the match of the night. On paper the match looked to be superior to everything on the card and in the end, both Lethal and Williams delivered. I fully expected a dirty finish with Scott Steiner and Rhaka Khan getting involved but I wasn’t pleasantly surprised (again) by TNA creative when Lethal won clean. Steiner, Khan, So Cal Val, and Sonjay Dutt all got involved but there was still a pinfall for Lethal to retain which is always nice. It is matches like this that I wish that we would see more of in TNA. Why not mix AJ Styles back up with the X Division? TNA could really stand out with their X Division and they should push it more to create a competitive edge. WCW did it back in the 90s with their cruiserweight division and TNA should do it today.

Super EY! Oh my. Eric Young & Kaz vs. Black Reign & Rellik was next and I probably would have enjoyed it if I were 10 years old. However, I’m not and this was incredibly silly. I have mentioned it several times how I hate the Eric Young gimmick where he is “scared” of monsters and I often question why TNA creative thinks that this angle is over or will ever get over. I guess it was fine for an undercard match and I have to give it to Russo for not putting Dustin over but all of the silliness affected the enjoyment of the actual wrestling aspect of the match. If TNA is looking at changing their direction more towards focusing on athleticism than why are we seeing goofy angles such as this? The storyline advanced but I wish it would have ended. Dustin — you suck.

Awesome Kong’s title defense against ODB and Gail Kim was a good match although it was not flawless. Gail Kim and Kong work very well together and I hope to see more between them in TNA. If ODB were left out of this match it probably would have been the best match on the card, like previous Kim vs. Kong pay-per-view matches. Nonetheless the match accomplished what it was meant to be and that is another strong showing from Awesome Kong while advancing the storylines.

Curry Man & Shark Boy vs. Team 3D w/Johnny Devine. Where do I begin? The match was far too gimmicky for me to enjoy. Like I’ve said on numerous occasions, Team 3D are good workers but their entire anti-X Division storyline is just stale. Hopefully it is over after they “made weight” last night and we’ll be onto better things. Shark Boy and Curry Man are fine for some humor on Impact but I don’t like the fact that I’m paying to watch the goofy gimmicks on pay-per-view. They are as insignificant to me as Funaki would be on a WWE pay-per-view. This match was incredibly boring because I simply didn’t care.

The letdown of the night was Booker T vs. Robert Roode. They were hooked together with a strap and had a very short, basic match that ended in Roode going over in a dirty finish. Why the hell TNA would do something like this is beyond me. Booker is supposed to be one of your top guys and Roode is one of your up and coming guys. Why not use Booker to put Roode over clean at an event without any silly gimmick match or stipulation? Booker is just another one of the guys now and that’s a real shame. If you read my Premium PPV preview than you saw that I called the return of Sharmell, but who cares?

Elevation X matches suck – I’ve never seen a good one. Rhino vs. James Storm was no different as both basically sat on top of the structure until Storm was dropped off and through a table. West and Tenay tried to save it with the talk of how dangerous of a match it was and they tried to show as many goofy crowd shots as they could, but in the end it was your typical Elevation X match. Would it kill TNA just to have some good clean wrestling matches? Fish market street fight, stand by your man strap match, Elevation X, 6 man tag, why can’t we just see a regular wrestling match?

The six man tag main event with Kevin Nash, Samoa Joe, and Christian Cage taking on Kurt Angle, Tomko, and AJ Styles was actually a very solid match. It would have been better had it been an Impact main event rather than a pay-per-view main event but there were enough good spots to keep me from burying it. I liked the finish how they had Tomko tap out to Joe, building him towards next month’s showdown with Angle. I would have liked to see them put Joe over Angle but that was wishful thinking as Angle is unstoppable on TNA pay-per-view.

In conclusion TNA Destination X was a solid effort. It was not anything spectacular but it wasn’t bad either. It was a placeholder show and was worth the cash for a boring Sunday night. I would not order the replay because there are better events out there (Ring of Honor Rising Above) but I do not feel ripped off after watching. I have to give credit to TNA creative because they did the right thing tonight and wrote a solid show. I didn’t understand Roode vs. Booker but other than that the booking actually made sense. The crowd wasn’t near as alive as other TNA pay-per-views outside of Orlando and the size of the crowd looked to be a letdown. I’m not sure how much papering was done, although I think the company should stick to smaller venues until they can actually produce sellouts.

Richard can be contacted at richard [at] grayinternet.com

Richard Gray is a professional wrestling journalist and frequent contributor to Rajah.com. He has been covering the world of professional wrestling since 1999 and has had the opportunity to cover ground breaking stories such as the demise of ECW, the WCW buyout, the Benoit tragedy, Bobby Lashley leaving WWE, and more. For more on Richard check out his web site, Wrestling News World.