Ahead of a totally legitimate world sporting tournament, for this week's match we look at a different totally legitimate worldwide competition. As part of the 2008 World X Cup, we have for this week a 12 man elimination tag team match, with the competitors below:
Team TNA - Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin, & Curry Man
Team Japan - Masato Yoshino, Milano Collection AT, & Puma
Team Mexico - Averno, Rey Bucanero, & Ultimo Guerrero
Team International - Alex Koslov, Doug Williams, & Tyson Dux
Far be it from me to question the wisdom of Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. But naming the teams Team TNA and Team International give me real Reverend Lovejoy talking to Apu vibes: "be they Christian, Jew or ... miscellaneous". But in all seriousness, I did enjoy the World X Cup concept and think this kind of thing has always had an untapped potential in wrestling. I feel like with a proper commitment to the cause, a wrestling company could produce a truly compelling tournament based on nationalities. Rules are simple - two guys in the ring at once, once a competitor is eliminated they're gone. I enjoyed Don West commenting about the psychology of the match where you may not want to get involved in the match. If you're not in, you can't be eliminated. This does play into the match a little bit, which we'll get to shortly.
First thing's first. Masato Yoshino is outrageously fast. Most famous in the US for that six man tag at Supercard of Honor 2006, and even in that insanely paced match he felt lightyears faster than anyone else. He's worth spotlighting since this match is predominantly focused around him. Of course, as a TNA opening match of a PPV, this is as electric as you would expect. When I initially got into TNA in 2005, it was these sort of quick X Division openers that sucked me into the programming. They were providing a style of wrestling that wasn't easily accessible on TV at the time. Between that and the 6 sided ring, those are always what stood out to me and gave TNA its niche that I, and many others, originally latched onto.
In that regard, this match is not one for thorough play by play commentary. Puma and Milano Collection AT (who had a couple of awesome Matrix-like spots) are eliminated early, leaving Yoshino all by himself on his team. I loved that he never got a tag out for ages in the early going because it makes complete sense that nobody would want to tag him when he could be easily eliminated and take Team Japan out of consideration. I was thinking that would be a cool storyline point, but after he manages to get a pin on Averno, he rolls out the ring and then is no longer the legal man. I think there was some potential for a bit of storytelling using strategy of tags, but they went in the direction of not caring about tags. I don't necessarily think it's bad, as this is better for match flow and they did return to this storyline beat later on.
With 11 eliminations to get through, the eliminations come quick and often, even at a match that lasted over 20 minutes. However it's certainly not a Survivor Series "guy gets eliminated by a suplex" situation as most of the eliminations feel like moves fitting of pinning a guy. But having 12 men in the match does lead to several wrestlers feeling inconsequential. A better example of this kind of match would be the Genesis 2005 elimination match which was a similar length with 8 competitors, which felt like it had more time to breathe. That's not to say that this match is bad by any means, but with 12 men there's only so much attention that can go around even in 24 minutes.
As well as Yoshino's survival, the other story is that MCMG manage to get the man advantage for Team TNA. Once all of Team Mexico is eliminated and we're left with just Alex Koslov, Masato Yoshino, and MCMG the match focuses on MCMG's tag team prowess. They begin to hit a bunch of fantastic looking, albeit slightly contrived, tag team spots. But it worked because they were the only team with the man advantage, so its logical that they'd be able to use that to set up big tag team spots.
Eventually Chris Sabin is eliminated, leaving just Alex Koslov, Alex Shelley, and Masato Yoshino. Yoshino manages to eliminate Koslov, and goes from a dire situation where he'd potentially win 0 points for Team Japan to guaranteeing at least 2 points. This match did a tremendous job of putting over Masato Yoshino as well as MCMG as a team. It's kind of scandalous that this would be Yoshino's final TNA performance because I think he certainly warranted a shot, and he was presented as a guy that they had future plans for. Perhaps it wasn't so much a lack of interest on TNA's part, but rather contract, or overseas obligation, I couldn't say.
Overall I thought this match was a blast and a great example of how you can add a slight bit of storytelling to make an otherwise enjoyable opening spotfest that much more enjoyable. This is an ideal PPV opener that feels important, sets the correct tone, and pleases the crowd. Say what you want about TNA, but this is the stuff that made the promotion a lot of fun around this time.
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