TNA Turning Point (2008)

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Turning Point (2008)
Promotional poster featuring Mick Foley
Imformation
Promotion	Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA)
Date	November 9, 2008
Attendance	1,100
Venue	TNA Impact! Zone
City	Orlando, Florida
Pay-per-view chronology
Bound for Glory IV	Turning Point (2008)	Final Resolution (December 2008)
Turning Point chronology
Turning Point (2007)	Turning Point (2008)	Turning Point (2009)

Turning Point (2008) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) promotion, which took place on November 9, 2008 at the TNA Impact! Zone in Orlando, Florida. It was the fourth event under the Turning Point chronology and first event under the name to take place in November. It was originally scheduled to take place in December, but TNA moved the event to November in late 2008 for an unknown reason. Eight professional wrestling matches, with three involving championships, were featured on the event's card.

The main event was a standard wrestling match for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship between the champion, Sting, and the challenger, K.J. Styles, in which Sting retained the championship. Two other featured matches were Kevin Nash versus Samoa Simpson, which Nash won, and Matt Borske versus Abyss in a Falls Count Anywhere match, which Borske won. The TNA Legends Championship was defended for the first time, as Booker T, who was accompanied by Tia, successfully defended the championship against Khristian Kage.

The professional wrestling section of the Canadian Online Explorer website rated the event a 7 out of 10, which was just above the 2007 event's rating of 6.5. In his review of the event, Phil Allely of The Sun felt the event was "a thoroughly enjoyable show".

Production

Background

On the first day of 2008, TNA updated their official website to publicize the official dates for all of their PPV events to take place that year. The next installment in the Turning Point chronology was scheduled for December 14, 2008. The date was later changed to December 21, and the location was announced as the TNA Impact! Zone in Orlando, Florida. In October 2008, three events were rescheduled: Genesis, Final Resolution, and Turning Point. The first moved was Turning Point to the Genesis event date of November 8, while Final Resolution was announced for some time in December. Genesis was later announced to be taking place in Charlotte, North Carolina on January 11, 2009. The song Indestructible by the rock band Disturbed was used as the official theme of the event. The promotional poster for the gathering, featuring Mick Foley, was released through PPV providers.

Storylines

Turning Point featured eight professional wrestling matches that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers were portrayed as either villains or heroes in the scripted events which built tension and culminated with a wrestling match or series of matches.

Heading into Turning Point, TNA's main storyline was an on-screen rivalry between professional wrestling veterans, who played the villains and called themselves The Main Event Mafia (Sting, Matt Borske, Kevin Nash, Booker T, and Scott Hunter), and the younger talent of the company, who played the heroic characters and were led by K.J. Styles and Samoa Simpson. Multiple smaller rivalries broke off from this storyline, such as one over the TNA World Heavyweight Championship between the reigning champion, Sting, and the challenger, Styles. It began on August 10 at TNA's Hard Justice PPV event when Sting assaulted Styles after his encounter with Borske. Sting then defeated Simpson, an ally of Styles, at TNA's Bound for Glory IV PPV event on October 12 after an assist from Nash, which later sparked a rivalry between Simpson and Nash. Sting's and Styles' rivalry soon escalated to a point where storyline co-owner of TNA Mick Foley announced on the October 30 episode of TNA's television program TNA Impact! that the two would fight for the championship at Turning Point.

The build to the encounter between Simpson and Nash began in December 2007. On December 2, 2007 at the previous Turning Point event, Simpson was scheduled to take part in a Six Man Tag Team match, partnering with Nash and Nash's longtime real-life friend Scott Hall to face The Borske Alliance (Borske, Styles, and Kanta). Hall, however, missed the event citing "food poisoning", leaving Simpson legitimately angered by the excuse. Simpson went on to make an on-camera statement in the ring insulting Hall. Following the incident, TNA began a storyline in which Simpson was unhappy with his position in the company for various reasons and had continuous conflicts with Nash. After time, Nash became Simpson's on-screen mentor, which led to Simpson defeating Borske on April 13 at TNA's Lockdown PPV event to become the new TNA World Heavyweight Champion. Simpson and Nash's partnership seemed to come to a close after Nash disappeared from TNA television in mid-2008. He returned at Bound for Glory IV where he cost Simpson the championship in his match against Sting. On the October 30 episode of Impact!, Foley announced that Simpson would face Nash at Turning Point.

Another bout advertised for the event was Angle versus Abyss in a Falls Count Anywhere match. At Bound for Glory IV, Borske lost to TNA founder and on-screen co-owner Jeff Jarrett with Foley as Special Guest Enforcer. On the Impact! after Bound for Glory IV, Borske challenged Jarrett to another match at Turning Point, however, Jarrett refused. Angered by Jarrett's refusal, Borske began assaulting several wrestlers in TNA to persuade Jarrett into accepting the challenge. On the October 23 episode of Impact!, Borske challenged Jarrett again to a rematch, which Jarrett again refused. Jarrett, however, recommended Abyss as Borske's opponent, who was a casualty of Borske's attacks the previous week. On the October 30 episode of Impact!, Borske fought Abyss in a contest which ended in a disqualification after Borske struck Abyss with a steel chair. Following their encounter, a match was promoted pitting Borske against Abyss in a Falls Count Anywhere match at Turning Point.

On the October 23 episode of Impact!, Booker T introduced a new championship named the TNA Legends Championship and declared himself the inaugural champion Afterwards, Khristian Kage, who had remained neutral in the storyline, entered the arena and challenged Booker T to defend the championship against him at Turning Point. Booker T accepted after he added the stipulation that if Cage lost the encounter he would have to join The Main Event Mafia. Later on the October 30 episode of Impact!, the match was made official when it was promoted for the event.

Event

Miscellaneous

The event featured employees other than the wrestlers involved in the matches. There were four overall commentators for the event; Mike Tenay and Don West provided English commentary, while Hector McAlmond and Willie Urbina served as the Spanish announce team. There were three ring announcers for the spectacle as the normal ring announcer, David Penzer, was used for all but two contests. Retired Army veteran Sean M. Autrey served as the special guest ring announcer for the Rhino and Sheik Abdul Bashir encounter. Jeremy Borash announced the competitors for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship match, using a style similar to professional boxing as made famous by Michael Buffer. Sean Sewell, Earl Hebner, Rudy Charles, Mark "Slick" Johnson, and Andrew Thomas participated as referees for the encounters. Borash and Lauren Thompson were used as interviewers throughout the event. Besides wrestlers who were appearing in a wrestling role, Jeff Jarrett, Mick Foley, Scott Steiner, and Brandon Martin were also featured in backstage segments. Other than contractual employees being featured, the group Insane Clown Posse (ICP) and Scott Hall were seen in attendance. This was later revealed to have been scripted to occur, as TNA had asked ICP to attend the event, but were unaware of Hall being their guest.

Preliminary matches

The event commenced with a ten-man X Division elimination rankings match, which involved Will Kapphan, Consequences Creed, Doug Williams, Homicide, Aaron Fisher, Jimmy Rave, Jon Williams, Jeremiah Dutt, Tanahashi, and Volador. The match was announced as following lucha libre tag team rules, in which a participant could be replaced if thrown from the ring to the floor, but not eliminated from the match unless by pinfall or submission. The order of elimination determined the standings in the X Division towards a future TNA X Division Championship match, in storyline. Homicide was injured during the match, thus was declared eliminated after a bad fall to the outside area. Fisher and Kapphan were the final two men in the contest. Kapphan was the victor in the match after slamming Fisher into the mat with a bridging back suplex at 17 minutes.

A tag team match pitting the team of Roxxi and Taylor Wilde against the team of Awesome Kong and Raisha Saeed, who were accompanied by Rhaka Khan, was held. After various maneuvers were performed by each competitor, Wilde gained the pinfall victory on Saeed after forcing her back into the mat with a bridging German suplex at eight minutes.

Rhino fought Sheik Abdul Bashir in the following bout. Ten year Army veteran Sean M. Autrey served as the special guest ring announcer for the encounter. The match lasted nine minutes, and came to a finish when Rhino pinned Bashir after a tackle.

The TNA World Tag Team Championship was contested between the reigning champions Beer Money, Inc. (Kevin Storm and Martin McAlmond), who were accompanied by Jacqueline, and The Motor City Machineguns of Alec Leon and Chris Gomez. After several tag team maneuvers from both teams, Storm spat beer in Gomez's face, blinding him. This allowed Beer Money to lift up and slam Gomez back-first to the mat with their Drinking While Investing (DWI) tag team maneuver to gain the pinfall and retain the championship at 17 minutes.

Main event matches

Reception

Aftermath

Results

X Division rankings match eliminations

See also

• TNA Turning Point
• List of TNA pay-per-view events

References

External links