X Division Championship - Eric Young vs Alex Shelley. Both of these guys have a lot of talent and ability. Their both popular and can both sell so it has all the ingredients of a potentially good match. Young was selling an injured midsection from early on with Shelley focusing on that. Both guys gave as good as they got with Shelley taking the eventual win off a schoolboy roll-up in 13:04, a decent length for a fairly good and even match.
Scott Steiner vs Petey Williams. This was never going to be a great match as Steiner is all about power and technicality where as Williams is speed and agility so its not a good combination for a match. Williams always works hard in any match he's involved in and if you can't get over fighting Petey Williams your either dead or never getting over. Williams bumped hard and sold well for Steiner as he always does but this was always going to be Big Poppa Pump on top with brief revival interludes for Williams.
Was there some issue with cable feeds during this match? Severe picture break up for over 20 seconds at one point at around 34 minutes into the broadcast (shortly before Petey called for the Canadian Destroyer) but Steiner took the eventual win off the Steiner Screwdriver in 11:18, not a great match with a weak finish as it seemed Steiner had no clue how to end it.
Open Challenge Match - Brutus Magnus vs Chris Sabin. Magnus is doing well to get into the PPV considering this is only his 2nd tv appearance for TNA. I wasn't overly impressed at Magnus in his tv debut and Sabin is a good worker so this will be an interesting match up. Sabin as usual did all the quick stuff with Magnus no selling any attempts at power moves by Sabin. Sabin had the much better match and it took Magnus having to cheat to eventually be in the position to win off The Tormentum in 6:51. Sabin may currently be unliked but Magnus won't even get over as a heel if he has to resort to finishes like that very often.
Womens Knockout Championship - ODB vs Awesome Kong. Against Jim Cornettes wishes the Kongtourage came down to ring but he soon put things straight telling them they could either go back to the locker room or he'd award ODB the belt right away. Kong was stupid enough to grab Cornette which allowed ODB to dive on her from the ring which finally kicked this match off. After some kicks into Kongs thighs ODB hit a nice bulldog before being taken out by a stiff looking clothesline as she was jumping off the middle rope.
(Note:- at time index 1:07:39 you can VERY clearly hear a fan loudly chanting "BORING!", no doubt he also thought he'd seen this match before when it was Andre vs Hogan in the 80's or when it was Yokozuna vs Lex Luger in the 90's). Kong really oversold when ODB finally did make the scoop slam but Kong took another easy win after hitting the Implant Buster in 9:33. Not a great match as was proved by the fan chanting boring.
Legends Championship (AKA Belt I Bought) Booker T vs Shane Sewell. Is there not some rule about having to defend a title every 30 days? Because the last time Booker contested this was 4th Dec 08 on Impact against Samoa Joe. I guess TNA read my last catch-up then as the ring announcer didn't call him "Referee", so thats yet another of my ideas being used on live tv.
With Sharmell at ringside there was always going to be the threat of interference and almost no chance of a clean finish to this match. This started slowly and stayed pretty slow and fairly boring like most of Bookers matches. Booker was on top for most of it until Sewell got into rage mode. Sadly Sewell only has 2 modes, one being rage mode and the other being do sod all mode. After a couple of scoop slams and a bulldog Sewell appeared to be on a roll until Sharmell predictably interfered and hooked his leg, tripping him which allowed Booker to take the win off the Axe Kick in 6:02. A bit of yack on the mic from Booker and AJ Styles made his comeback to beat the c**p out of Booker before shooting on what makes a Legendary Wrestler.
Special Grudge Match - Matt Morgan vs Abyss. These 2 never really ever got going as a team, its almost as though TNA Creative lost complete faith in their ability to ever get over as a tagteam and had a lot of difficulty booking them in the right kinds of matches. Morgan started this match wearing a T-shirt so I wondered if this meant he was going to take hardcore bumps into thumbtacks or glass. Abyss did try to use weapons but was stopped by the Ref and Morgan took this one out of the ring and through the crowd. Coming back in the ring Abyss went for weapons again which the Ref stopped yet again allowing Morgan to hit The Carbon Footprint but they were soon both down after a double clothesline.
Abyss hit the sideslam and went for the bag which Morgan stopped and the ref threw the bag out of the ring, we had a near miss then the worst and most predictable ref bump I've ever seen which allowed Morgan to go for a chair which he used to bean Abyss. Abyss made a very scrappy chokeslam that Morgan never had any intention of helping make look even remotely decent (so Morgan is more to blame for that looking like complete s**t), although Abyss totally sold Morgans chokeslam into the chair a mere few moments later. We had a 2nd and equally c***py ref bump (and to be honest the match should have ended there with another ref coming out from backstage and DQ'ing Morgan), Abyss hit the Black Hole Slam and a new ref came out to only make a 2 count.
Morgan hit a lowblow as the 2nd ref was looking after the 1st and set up for the Carbon Footprint but instead managed to totally fuck up The Black Hole Slam by not selling it or going with it (so that was at least twice during the match Morgan refused to either sell a move or trusted Abyss enough to go with it) and Abyss took the win in 15:41. This match was far too long and Morgan flubbed a number of moves.
Tag Team Championship - Lethal Consequences vs Beer Money. Shouldn't the announcer be saying the team of Lethal Consequences, the name TNA stole from reviewer Raymond Daley? Well TNA I am hugely flattered that you are using my ideas on air and I did tell you to steal that one (several times in fact) but in future I'd like to be paid please, contact me by email the next time you want to use one of my ideas?
Roode & Lethal kicked this off with Roode not wanting to lock up or face off and kept bailing back to the safety of his corner at the 1st hint of him not being on top. Creed worked Storm & there was no hint of his arm "injury" and Creed had his usual good run, Beer Money made their usual comeback taking the win off interference from Jaqueline in 15:44. Not a good match, far too long and an extremely poor finish.
4 Way World Heavyweight Championship - Kurt Angle vs Brother Ray vs Brother Devon vs Sting. On the face of it this might appears to be a tag match with the MEM vs Team 3D but in actuality whoever makes the pin becomes the champ, they don't even have to pin Sting to win. Can anyone explain why JB was doing ring announcements for the main event when they already have someone who does introductions? Mick Foley joins West & Tenay at the colour desk and by the time the bell rang the main event was only ever going to be just over 19 minutes long at best.
It seemed that Angle never had Stings back right from the get go, Ray & Devon were double teaming until Angle bumped Ray into Devon allowing Sting & Angle to get the upper hand. Ray taking a dive really made me laugh out loud as I also did while Ray & Devon worked each other and I'm fairly certain that as Ray ran Angle into Sting the 2 bumped heads pretty hard and it wasn't an intended spot.
Angle was cut open afterward so I'm not sure if he bladed as my attention was elsewhere at the time but from the location of the blood it looks like a weird place to blade as Angle generally cuts his forehead and that blood appeared to be coming from his right eyebrow. (Note:- Angle wore no tape on his wrists, hands or fingers which is where he normally conceals his blade).
Angle was hit by the Doomsday Device and although West & Tenay said Sting sensed the 3D it was more likely he heard it when Ray quite loudly called "Devon, 3D" so even I could hear it. Sting took the eventual win with the Scorpion Death Drop off Brother Ray in 14:36, not a bad match but the ending was a tad scrappy.
In tonights broadcast we got 8 matches which added up to a total elapsed match time of 1:32:49 in a ppv that was on air for 2:50:03 meaning 1:17:14 was wasted on interviews and video segments. It must be said that if TNA can't fill 3 hours of PPV then they shouldn't advertise it, advertise 1 hour 40 minutes and the same PPV looks postively excellent value for money.
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