The January 2008 Final Resolution was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) promotion, which took place on January 6, 2008, at the TNA Impact! Zone in Orlando, Florida. It was the fourth event under the Final Resolution chronology; the first of two Final Resolution events held in 2008 and the last event held in January. It was the first event in the 2008 TNA PPV schedule. Eight professional wrestling matches were featured on the event's card, three of which involved championships.
The main event was for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship between then-champion Kurt Angle and the challenger Christian Cage. Angle ended up winning the bout, thus retaining the championship. A.J. Styles and Tomko defended the TNA World Tag Team Championship against the team of Kevin Nash and Samoa Joe on the card. Styles and Tomko retained the tag team championship in the encounter. The team of Johnny Devine and Team 3D (Brother Devon and Brother Ray) fought the team of Jay Lethal and The Motor City Machine Guns (Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin) in a Six Man Tag Team Ultimate X match. Devine and Team 3D were the victors in the contest. The TNA Women's Knockout Championship defense by Gail Kim against Awesome Kong in a No Disqualification match was another highly promoted match for the event. Kim won the bout, successfully retaining the title.
Mark Xamin of the professional wrestling section of the Canadian Online Explorer rated the event a six out of ten, the same rating given to the second Final Resolution event held in December, but lower than the seven and a half out of ten given to the 2007 event's ranking by Chris Sokol.
Production
Background
Final Resolution was announced in mid-October 2007 to be taking place on January 6, 2008. The location for the gathering was not specified. In late-November 2007 the TNA Impact! Zone in Orlando, Florida was revealed as the location for the spectacle. TNA created a section regarding their event on their website to help promote the event. TNA released a poster featuring Kurt Angle, Christian Cage, A.J. Styles, and Tomko sometime prior to help promote the event. TNA moved Final Resolution to December later in the year and held a second event for unknown reasons.
Storylines
Final Resolution featured eight professional wrestling matches that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portrayed villains, heroes, or less distinguishable characters in the scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.
The main storyline heading into Final Resolution revolved around the group The Angle Alliance. On November 11, 2007, at TNA's Genesis PPV event partners in Christian's Coalition, A.J. Styles and Tomko, aided Kurt Angle in retaining the TNA World Heavyweight Championship in the main event without Coalition leader Christian Cage's consent. Afterwards on the November 15, 2007, episode of TNA's television program TNA Impact!, Styles and Tomko joined Angle in creating The Angle Alliance, while remaining tied to Cage. Styles followed by trying to join the two fractions together leading up to the December 6, 2007, episode of Impact!, where Cage became leader of a joint alliance, until Angle and Robert Roode attacked Cage later in the episode. On the December 20, 2007, episode of Impact!, Angle versus Cage for the title was promoted for Final Resolution.
Due to this storyline, the TNA World Tag Team Championship defense by A.J. Styles and Tomko against Samoa Joe and Kevin Nash was added to the event. The match was originally promoted to have been Scott Hall and Nash challenging for the titles, however this was changed due to unknown reasons on the January 3, 2008, episode of Impact! by Management Director Jim Cornette. A narrative tied to this match involved Joe becoming angry with his position in the company and requesting more money and title opportunities due to Hall's no-showing of TNA's Turning Point event on December 2, 2007, and events that transpired as a result.