Friday night in San Antonio, TNA Wrestling had one of their most successful shows of the year in San Antonio, TX. TNA Victory Road is available on TNA+ for free with a monthly subscription fee and includes the show in full.
In addition to a sold out crowd of 2,125, they also had the benefit of an audience that was very into everything and remained hot the whole night. It was a loaded up show with six title matches with nearly everything on the show living up to expectations in terms of in-ring quality.
In such a crowded landscape with AEW and WWE running big shows pretty much monthly and New Japan just having come off the G1 and other big shows scattered throughout the year, TNA often gets lost in the shuffle except amongst the hardest of hardcore fans. On Friday night, they had a match that may not show up on people's match of the year lists but isn't that far off of that level.
Zachary Wentz defended his X division title against former champion Speedball Mike Bailey in a match that I personally rated 4.75 stars. In my opinion, it would've been the second or third best match on the previous weekend's All Out-pay-per-view show from AEW and if you saw that show, you'll know what a compliment that is.
Wentz won the title in a six-way Ultimate X match at Emergence just two weeks earlier. He has been embroiled in a feud with former partner Wes Lee that spans across two different companies as the two faced each other at NXT's No Mercy premium live event. Bailey lost his title at that show and requested his automatic rematch this past Friday.
Bailey is one of the best North American wrestlers to have never wrestled for either AEW or WWE. He's a multi-time X-division and tag team champion in TNA and can be seen wrestling every weekend in several promotions across North America and around the world. The Montreal native had some interest from WWE a few years back but chose to re-sign with Impact Wrestling and has continued to have great matches since.
The two had a back-and-forth battle over nearly 18 minutes before Bailey outlasted Wentz to regain his title. It was a clean win in a match between two babyfaces and both embraced afterward as the crowd exploded in appreciation. The match is currently rated at 8.67/10 on Cagematch.
The match is currently only available on TNA+ but if you do not subscribe to that service and want to sample the product, the preshow is available for free on YouTube. The two matches that aired, Leon Slater vs Kushida and Eric Young/Steve Maclin vs. Jake Something/Hammerstone, were both very good and would give a good idea of how hot the crowd was.
The card is available on demand by signing up for TNA+ and that also includes the weekly airings of TNA Impact Thursday nights at 8 P.M. Eastern.
