Was Suicide the last good X-Division Champion?

“The Dark Saviour” Suicide debuted at the 2009 TNA Pay-Per-View ‘Final Resolution’. The red and blue masked superstar primarily portrayed by Frankie Kazarian came gliding down from the darkness to take out both members of the Motor City Machineguns (Alex Shelley & Chris Sabin). For the next month Suicide made saves for baby-face wrestlers suffering beat-downs, and in turn became one of the most intriguing characters in wrestling. At the time speculation of Suicide’s identity was rife throughout the internet and fans watching at home, and this blog will tackle the question of why in my view Suicide was the last good TNA X-Division, a title that TNA once hugely valued.

For a title win to be classed as good, you must have the story behind the title win, and that’s exactly what Suicide had. Previous to his debut as Suicide, Frankie Kazarian left TNA in a storyline where his career had become too much, ‘Suicidal’ if you will, and with Frankie feeling despondent towards his position in TNA the character being portrayed by Kaz makes sense and you can understand the storyline behind it. The character itself was supposed to be the fastest, toughest most feared wrestler in the X-Division, and TNA done just that. On his Impact debut Suicide tried his finishing move the D.O.A on Chris Sabin, but completely botched the entire thing, injuring Kaz in the process. Suicide then went missing in action for the next two months and missed the two first PPV’s of 2009 (Genesis & Against All Odds), but like TNA, the PPV’s weren’t anything special. Upon his return to TNA Suicide had changed, literally.

Knowing TNA had to move the Suicide story along, they got Christopher Daniels (Recently released as Curry Man) to fill in for Kazarian as the mysterious superstar, many people questioned the decision to replace the injured Kazarian with Daniels, notably because you could tell the costume was too big for Daniels, making his features almost apparent to the crowd and audience alike. Daniels however done a fantastic job as Suicide, in fact he made the character even more popular, with the crowd in Orlando, Florida chanting “Fallen Angel” every time Suicide was in the house. Suicide eventually made his debut at the biggest built X-Division PPV in March, Destination X. It was the biggest draw for the PPV, but it goes without question, most TNA fans knew Suicide was going to win his debut match, which was in the Ultimate X, for the X-Division Championship held by Alex Shelley. In the build up to Destination X, TNA booked Suicide as the John Cena equivalent of the WWE; undefeatable. The two weeks prior to the PPV, Suicide annihilated everything in his way, and made it clear to the entire world where his priorities lay. For the first time in a long time, TNA had a long backlog story behind a superstar winning a championship belt.

The event, Destination X was nothing special up until the Ultimate X, and the question people had on their minds before the event was whether it would be Kaz or Daniels under the mask, and that added another dimension to the gimmick. You never quite knew who would be under the mask until they got into the ring. As the lookalike of Mario and Spiderman came diving into the ring from the skies, many knew it was Daniels under the ring, but it didn’t stop Daniels having one hell of a match as Suicide, being made to look strong the entire match by having all other four competitors go for Suicide from the off. Eventually one of the moments of the year took place, with Suicide angled up high up on the steel structure, before jumping across the ring in identical fashion to a leap Daniels had done in a previous Ultimate X match, but none the less it sent the fans into a frenzy as Suicide ended the hopes of Chris Sabin, Jay Lethal and Consequences Creed and unhooked the X-Division Championship from the X. It was one of them “OMG” moments, even though you could have predicted it. It was great to watch, needless to say, it’s just a shame that the Kurt Angle v. Sting main event which featured didn’t continue the buzz of Suicide winning the title.

The night made a lot of fans realise that TNA did care about the X-Division Championship. TNA had a healthy amount of X-Division wrestlers, and they had a character which personified what the X-Division is all about as their champion. Suicide continued to be the prime focus of TNA television, and squashed the likes of Sheik Abdul Bashir and Kiyoshi (A man who later took up the roll as Suicide). TNA managed to keep up the momentum of Suicide as X Champ by Lockdown where he once again defended his X-Division Championship against Jay Lethal, Consequences Creed, Bashir & Kiyoshi in an Xscape match, where Suicide made another big PPV as he dived off the top of the cage onto a security team and Kiyoshi, another “OMG” moment made. Being made to look strong each and every week, Suicide was on a roll, and watching at home Kaz must have been kicking himself. The whole purpose of Suicide coming to TNA was to have Kaz retain the X-Division Championship and once again be whole again, so to have Daniels win and defend the belt sort of defied purpose, but only for a while.

The following week on iMPACT Sabin, Shelley, Lethal and Creed came out and accused Daniels of being the Suicide character. Daniels (who recently returned as himself and done double duty at Lockdown as himself and Suicide) came out and stated he had no times for masks or repelling and that got people talking, was Kaz about to return? On May 14^th 2009 the four who accused Daniels of being Suicide came out and looked to remove the mask of the X-Division Champion, to finally unmask Suicide, but as they got Suicide cornered and even showed some skin to Suicide, Daniels ran down and made the save for Suicide. Daniels and Suicide shook hands, and Daniels said “you owe me one”, that meaning a shot at the X-Division title. That match took place at the next PPV Sacrifice; a match Suicide and Daniels drew due to a time limit draw, meaning Suicide retained.

What made Suicide the last great X Champ was TNA’s persistence to not have him lose matches. As Champion he just never lost, he was made to look stronger and stronger, and is happened once again at TNA Slammiversary 2009, where Suicide once again retained his title against Lethal, Creed, Shelley and Sabin, the only difference with this match was it was a King of the Mountain match, and Suicide truly had his back against the wall to defend the title, with all four of the men ONLY targeting Suicide. In the end, Suicide once again retained, and after four months as X-Division Champion the ‘Dark Saviour’ was still one of the biggest draws, well that was until they had him drop the belt on July 16^th to Homicide, but only after he had a match, took a post-match beating, and then had am X-Division title shot briefcase used against him. Overall they had the run with Suicide as one of the standout runs as X-Division Champion, and for me I think TNA ended his run prematurely, but TNA creative must have had other ideas.

Instead Homicide was made to look weak, and dropped the title to Samoa Joe after only a month as champion at the Hard Justice PPV. The following month at No Surrender, TNA tried to bring back life of the ‘old’ X-Division by having two X-Division heavyweights in Joe and Daniels try to recreate history, and despite the match being a standout, it was nothing compared to the bouts of Joe/Daniels/AJ. After Joe retained, he was made to look weak as he lost the title to Amazing Red in a shocking match on iMPACT. What made Samoa Joe a bad champion was the fact he had little care for the belt, and was rather focused on his rivalry with Daniels and others, and plus Joe was going through his stage as the ‘Nation of Violence’, something he valued more than the X-Division title. In addition, Joe winning the belt was only down to his involvement in the Main Event Mafia, who held all the TNA belts. When Amazing Red became champion, unlike Suicide was made to look weak. The following week after winning the belt they squashed Red against Scott Steiner of all people, making the entire X-Division, the belt and Red weak, and when I mean squashed, I mean SQUASHED!!

Red and the X-Division put on a great match for the X-Title at Bound for Glory; Red defeated Suicide, Shelley, Sabin, Homicide and Daniels to retain the belt. A little class was put back into the X belt, but you couldn’t help but feel the match was only a filler match, having no build up on TV what so ever. Red continued his run as X-Division champion by defeating Homicide at Turning Point 2009, but despite Red going over, it just wasn’t the same. It seemed they rushed Red into being champion, and then from having a long lasting storyline with Suicide, they had nothing for Red or anyone following with the X title. Red then lost the belt to Doug Williams on an episode of iMPACT, as Williams cashed in Rob Terry’s X-Division title ‘feast or fired’ briefcase, and then went on a crusade to diminish everything the X-Division was all about. Williams demised the entire division as champion, and beat pretty much all of the X wrestlers as champion with boring, monotone matches, and at one stage even made Generation Me (Max & Jeremy Buck) look like absolute fools. Williams made his stamp on the X-Division, but it was the wrong stamp. Suddenly from having an exciting, vibrant X champion, we now had boring matches, with a wrestler who in many eyes did not belong. However, Doug’s run as champion was entertaining, and at least they actually gave the X-Division some air time on television, and in particular to a returning Kazarian, who ditched the Suicide mask in order to return as Kazarian.

Doug’s tiresome, boring reign as champion ended at Lockdown 2010, when the champ was unable to attend the PPV due to the volcanic ash cloud in Iceland. With the Englishman out of the picture, Kaz defeated Homicide and Shannon Moore to win the belt, but the only thing was he never had the belt, he never once held it, as Doug refused to give Kaz the belt back until they had a rematch. In the rematch at Sacrifice, Kazarian lost the match and the title to Doug once more, without holding the belt. It was gripping, but it was hard even calling Kaz champ at the time, well simply because we all knew he was a filler until Doug could win the belt back. Then out of the blue Jay Lethal won the belt on iMPACT in one of the lowest key matches of the year. Lethal won  the belt without anything built up, on the back end of nothing, and what makes it worse was the majority of Lethal’s feud with Doug was aired on Xplosion, TNA’s international show which not many people watch). There was suddenly no substance to the champion, and then to confuse everybody further, at a house show in New York (Red’s home town) Amazing Red once again won the belt, but then the following night in New Jersey (Lethal’s home town) Lethal won the belt back again. It was ridiculous, and the only recognition TNA announce Mike Tenay gave was “Well the X-Division truly is unpredictable” shows how unpredictable and low TNA think of the belt, thus lowering the view of the champ.

Lethal then lost the belt to Robbie E. I’m not even going to talk about Robbie, not only is he not an X-Division wrestler, the whole thing he has going on is a joke. Anyway, skipping Robbie, he dropped the belt to Lethal on another episode of iMPACT, making the X-Division title little more than a hand me around to any given wrestler. At least Shark Boy returned, and hopefully makes a worthwhile return to TNA. At Genesis 2011 Kazarian retained the X-Division title against Lethal, in part of the ‘Immortal’ storyline, where the group want all the title belts. It’s another case of Joe with the belt, but my only hopes are TNA realises sooner rather than later that typically the best part about viewing TNA television is mainly due to the Women and X-Division wrestlers, they are the innovation that TNA needs to keep a hold and help flourish, and here’s hoping that a revival of the title can take place sooner rather than later before the likes of Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff get the chance to throw another title in the garbage can, live on national television and kill off the X-Division forever. Maybe there was a reason Kazarian returned as himself, maybe he is the true ‘Dark Saviour’ of the X-Division, and now as champion we all might be at the beginning of another great run with Frankie ‘Suicide’ as X-Division Champion, maybe for the only way to return to X-Division to its once high graces was to ditch the mask and start things fresh, here’s hoping for a better 2011 for the entire division, before it’s too late, before the X-Division is little more than ‘Suicide’.

Robert Austin

“In Ring Issues”