TNA Genesis 11/19/2006

Handicap Match: The Voodoo Kin Mafia (BG James & Kip James) beat Kazarian, Maverick Matt & Johnny Devine when Kip pinned Devine with the cobra-clutch slam.
Yeah, let’s squash the cool looking cruiserweight team and mention the competition at the same time to get yourselves over, or is that to get noticed by the competition?
Match Rating: DUD

Ugh. As much as I like seeing Raven in the obvious mentor role to the 3 cruiserweights, this is obviously a rip off of All Japan Pro Wrestling’s Voodoo Murders faction! Oh well, at least Raven isn’t wearing a skirt anymore. Hopefully…

The Newly Franchised Naturals with Shane Douglas beat Sonjay Dutt & Jay Lethal
Boring. At least it wasn’t a squash match.
Match Rating: *

X-Division Championship: Christopher Daniels [C] pinned Chris Sabin with a modified cradle.
Great match, but what’s with all the X-Division title matches ending with cradle-pins?
Match Rating: ***1/2

Ron Killings & Lance Hoyt beat Austin Starr & Alex Shelley when Hoyt pinned Shelley with a cradle.
Ron Killings is a former WWE worker and a 2-time NWA champion, and the first black NWA champion at that. You don’t see him pulling a squash match on the new blood here now do ya? And Hoyt just looks goofy trying to act hip hop and dance along to Killings. Is it so wrong for TNA to have a big powerhouse wrestler that’s a face instead of a heel?
This match was just too long for it’s own good.
Match Rating: *

Christian Cage pinned AJ Styles
Styles carried Christian to the best non-gimmicked match of Christian’s TNA career. Too bad it had to be a screwy finish with Daniels trying to help Styles but ends up unintentionally costing him the match. The Styles heel turn should be good for a change.
Match Rating: ***1/2

NWA World Tag Team Titles: The Latin American Exchange [C] with Konnan beat America’s Most Wanted with Gail Kim when Hernandez pinned Storm after Homicide clobbered Storm with a blow-torch.
Great match, almost on par with the LAX/Styles-Daniels tag matches.
Match: ***1/2

Post match, Jim Cornette strips LAX of the tag titles, citing that they aren’t fit to represent TNA as the tag champs due to their actions of threatening to burn the American flag. The crowd is NOT happy with Cornette’s decision.

NWA World Heavyweight Title: Abyss beat Sting [C] by disqualification to win the title when Sting clothelined the referee.
This was a really good match thanks mostly to Abyss’ toy box of thumbtacks and barb-wire boards. Who the heck ever expected Sting to take a chokeslam onto thumbtacks?!? The match took a turn for the absurd when Sting strung up Abyss and used him for a piñata, Sting losing the title by disqualification when he clotheslined the referee for trying to stop him from tossing Abyss off the ramp through a pair of barb-wire boards, which he did anyway. So does this mean Sting is leaving TNA unscathed?
Match Rating: ***1/2

Kurt Angle beat Samoa Joe by submission with the grapevine ankle-lock.
As high as the expectations for this match were, and it was a good match, I didn’t think it was all that great. They just seemed to rush the high impact stuff too much too soon, and I don’t really feel like they built anything in the match. Angle bleeds, Joe brutalizes him, both men kick out of their finishers, both men trade submissions, and Angle-locks on the ground ankle-lock for the win. And Angle didn’t sell any effect from Joe’s Kokina Clutch too. At least Scott Steiner could actually sell for Joe, and I thought that match was better than this one. I know these two can do better, and hopefully they do when the eventual rematch comes around.
Match Rating: ***1/2

Overall: The show got good once they got past all the pointless filler matches.