Booker T vs. Samoa Joe

[4.0] "When rating matches, I try not to put too much emphasis on production or even booking. A good match, even if the "wrong guys wins" can still be very good. We all have our favorites who we like to see win, but you can't rate a match on just winners and losers (or else most every match that Kane ever won would probably get a 0 from me). But this match is so poorly produced and poorly booked that it really can't even be enjoyed. Now, to be fair to Samoa Joe and Booker T, their actual performances are excellent. Plus, the crowd is hot. Joe's character work is so good that he can shift into heel mode without having to change much of anything about himself aside from the way he plays to the crowd. I love the bravado and bad ass demeanor he shows here. I also think Booker, not necessarily a super over babyface in 08', gets to play that role here. If this match was happening anywhere other than Houston, I doubt he would've had such an overwhelmingly positive response from the crowd. Joe and Booker bring the physicality. Booker gets alot of flak for "phoning it in" during his TNA run, but I think that's an unfair criticism. The fact is, Booker's in-ring style hadn't been particularly dynamic during his final years in the WWE either - he just had a great heel gimmick (King Book-ah! ) that covered up the fact that he had mostly become just a brawler with a few high spots built around his scissor kick and the crowd-pleasing Spinnerooni. So, if the in-ring action is decent and the crowd is hot, why does this match deserve such a lowly rating? Well, let's start with the fact that we don't really get to *watch* the match play out because every 8 seconds the camera cuts to Sharmell on the floor. I loved the Queen Sharmell character and I'm not opposed to showing her in the audience every now and then, but the cutaways became gratuitous and never stopped. The emphasis on Sharmell during what was presented as a major title match completed soiled any building of suspense or storytelling that might've been going on in the ring. And, as a fan watching from home, that's the match I'm watching - not the one that maybe the Houston fans got to see. Then we get a ref bump and instead of even delivering a screwy finish, we get no finish at all. Joe beats down Booker on the outside, bloodying him. A ref comes down and basically stops the match as Joe won't stop beating down on Booker (though, I've got be honest, I'm not sure what Joe even did that would be grounds for a DQ). Sting shows up, but as Mike Tenay notes on commentary, this isn't really like a big surprise return - he had appeared on Impact and announced he'd be at Victory Road - so there's no real swerve or shock to him showing up. At first Joe listens to Sting, but then he comes back into the ring to continue the beating, which leads to Sting striking him with the bat in classic Sting fashion (meaning, by clubbing the crown of the bat into Joe's gut and then softly whacking him with it in the back, once again showing that pro-wrestlers have seemingly never seen how an actual baseball bat is swung before). Also, Sting coming out to save/protect Booker felt a little like a big brother coming out to help a younger brother - which, by this point, Booker T shouldn't have been "under" anyone. Just kinda felt like Booker was clearly being pushed aside in his own title match to make way for Joe/Sting. Speaking of Joe, as a way to turn Joe heel, it is a total confusing mess. Yes, the Houston crowd was booing Joe and he was flipping them (and Sting) off and that seems very heelish...but in the weeks building up to this, its not like Joe was getting booed in the Impact Zone and that Booker was some noble babyface. In fact, the multiple vignettes that aired on this very show explicitly made it clear that Booker was kind of a cocky, arrogant prick. And then we get the cherry on top - Booker inexplicably covering Joe, Sharmell making the count, and Booker leaving with the belt half-concussed. Unearned title steals are almost always a heel thing to do and, while the Houston crowd may have cheered it (by this point, though, even they seemed to be hating on everything they were witnessing), the viewer at home who isn't a Booker T homer would actually feel like it was Joe who got screwed here. Just a complete booking mess where everyone involved comes out with a less defined role. Joe did nothing wrong, really, but is somehow a heel because one city in America was rooting against him. Booker T is a babyface, but he stole the title? Sting is the "conscience" of TNA, I get it, but he came across more like a Debbie Downer, playing protector for a guy that shouldn't need protecting. Plus, wasn't that Abyss thing now too based on his run-in earlier? Who cares. This sucked."

[5.0] "This match was just ok, honestly kind of disappointing. After Booker T left WWE, many people thought that he stopped giving it 100% in his matches. Nowhere is that more evident than in this match. How do you have a disappointing main event with a young Samoa Joe, it just doesn't seem possible, yet it happened. It also didn't help that we saw Sharmell's reaction to almost every single move, to the point where it got annoying and we actually missed Joe doing his running senton and Booker T getting out of the way. I will say the finish brought it back up for me, with Joe giving it to Booker outside the ring, and Sharmell slapped him even though he hadn't broke any rules. That caused Joe to go nuts in the best way possible, which is destroy everything in front of him. Referee's and security tried coming out and failed, then Sting came out to calm down Joe. Joe was having none of it, and Sting knocked him out with the baseball bat. Then Booker covered Joe and Sharmell counted the pinfall even though it didn't obviously count, but it did lead to Booker holding the physical TNA Championship belt until the next PPV. Sting turning on Joe planted the seeds to what would eventually become the Main Event Mafia. I know that this was basically a set up match to their cage match at Hard Justice, but that's no excuse for the match to be mediocre. Look at Brock Lesnar and the Undertaker. They had a very good match at Unforgiven, then at No Mercy they had one of the best Hell in a Cell matches ever. I'm not saying that Joe and Booker could have that level of great matches, but this wasn't even remotely comparable. **3/4"

[4.0] "Subpar PPV main event with little energy despite being in Bookers hometown as well a not much of a good effort from him. Joes one TNA title reign was not a good one and this was another example of that."

[7.0] "I appreciate what they were going for here on the finish but it wasn't anywhere near brutal enough for it to be called off like it did. Booker needed to bleed buckets to justify it. On the plus side this is about as good as a Booker T match gets in TNA and Joe looks like a killer. The shots of Sharmel every 17 seconds soon grates and her counting to three after Sting takes out Joe makes no sense at all and just killed the crowd to close the show."

[7.0] "Made Samoe Joe look fantastic until the finish, Sting didnt even hit his finisher just 1 hit with the bat was enough to beat him?"

[5.0] "Started out well enough, but got more and more absurd as it went along, culminating in a cheap no contest finish that wouldn't satisfy anyone. The constant melodramatic shots of Sharmell were annoying too. The story here is that Samoa Joe is brutalizing Booker T so badly, that referees, security, Booker's wife Sharmell, and Sting all have to run in to try to get Joe to stop. The problem with this story is that the match was actually pretty 50/50 up until that point, and Joe never did anything particularly brutal to warrant such a ridiculous response. As a result, the crowd looked totally confused by the nonsensical ending. I guess this finish was done to save Booker from jobbing in his hometown, but it actually made Booker look even worse because he needed an entire litany of people to save him from taking a beating."

[5.0] "It never really felt as brutal as they were trying to convey and the melodrama was a bit too overdone. An OK brawl but nothing amazing."

[6.0] "Nice brawl, with Joe not being able to take Booker T down despite busting out his best shots and getting really mad. Book looks unbreakable and the strongest he has ever been, giving Joe some serious problems to deal with."