Pro Wrestling Chronicle

TNA last night presented their annual gimmick overkill pay-per-view “Lockdown.” After what was considered to be a let-down last month could TNA get itself back on track? More importantly could they get a crowd outside their comfort zone to be into the matches?

The good:

- The Macho Man thing seems to be getting Jay Lethal over. The crowd in St. Louis was really into him and the whole act. It still could get old, but I do like how they just have him incorporating Savage’s mannerisms and moves into his own moveset. In a few months they could gradually move the Savage mannerisms out and let Lethal’s offense shine through more.

- The X Escape match was really good. Once Shark Boy was out it essentially became a tag match with Sonjay Dutt and Jay Lethal working together against Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin. They gave them enough time to have a match and the guys delivered. A lot of that credit goes to Chris Sabin who has really found himself with this whole heel persona. Debates can range about how much the writing crew has helped get over the X Division guys but Sabin is clearly over with the crowd.

- The women’s match showed that you can have decent looking women (well Gail Kim anyway) who can wrestle. The two ideas don’t have to be exclusive. Gail and Jackie had a really good, spirited match that the crowd was into. The end was stiff looking with the elbows to the mouth and then Gail Kim almost squashing Jackie’s head with a cross body off the top of the cage.

- Senshi and Austin Starr again had a good match that would’ve been better without the goofiness of Bob Backlund’s involvment. I’d love to see these two just get to have a one on one match with no distractions. Starr’s facials after the match were priceless with his bug-eyed look and saying he was going to take out Backlund.

- The tag title match was perfectly acceptable. D-Von and Brother Ray seemed motivated (wonder why) and LAX got in some nice moves throughout the match. The stuff in the middle with Hector Guerrero popped the crowd nicely. There was some bad but we’ll get to that in a minute.

- The main event was really good. It was a little slow at times but once all the guys were in the ring and they hit second gear it got really good. Scott Steiner pulled out a top rope Frankensteiner which popped the crowd huge. Rhyno goreing someone through the door is still a cool looking spot. Styles took a good, relatively safe bump off the top of the cage. The end was really well-booked as well with Jarrett passing up a pin to Sting on Abyss. That gives Sting the title shot next month. Angle looked pissed afterward and Joe and Rhyno uneasily trusted Jarrett. It now looks like Angle brought Jarrett in for self-serving reasons and will be upset Jarrett didn’t give him the title shot. For as goofy as the booking gets sometimes- this was really good stuff to end the PPV on.

The bad:

- The blindfold match was about as embarassingly bad as you can get. The blindfolds weren’t tied so they came off quite a bit during the match which took away the suspense of the ending. The crowd just didn’t care at that point and they crapped all over the match- rightfully so. These two guys in a straight up singles match could’ve had a pretty good show but they got drug down by the stupidity of the gimmick.

- The electrified cage gimmick was a good idea but poorly executed. The cage didn’t look any different which right there kills the illusion. They could’ve had lights or something running through the “bars” to up the illusion factor that something was happening. Having a guy get thrown into the cage and messing with a strobe light does not give fans the illusion anymore that someone is being shocked. At least WSX had fireworks go off and stuff to make it look more impressive. As I said- the tag title match was fine, but the gimmick ruined it some.

Overall I’d say thumbs slightly up, and it was a marked improvment over last month. Hopefully they can keep this momentum up next month before they head back to Nashville in June.