Pro Wrestling Chronicle

A night of strong in ring product, reformation of an all time great tag team, and a NWA (or is that TNA now) Title change? All this and a whole lot more as TNA presented this year’s edition of Sacrifice.

There was no live pre-show this time around, as they instead aired the Road to Sacrifice special from Spike TV. Hopefully this isn’t a regular thing, as I think having a live show and match can sometimes lure people in to buying a PPV, but a taped preview doesn’t have the same effect. Plus your most loyal viewers tune in to the preview shows when they air on Spike, so why make them watch it again?

TNA X-Division Championship: Chris Sabin (c) vs Jay Lethal vs Sonjay Dutt
The tension was being teased between Dutt & Lethal throughout the match, with Sabin trying to play them against each other early on. Sabin shoved Dutt into Lethal and rolled him up for the pin. After the match Lethal and Dutt got into it, but were broken up by Kevin Nash. Dutt hit Nash with a kick to the back of the leg and quickly exited the ring. A fun opener!

Jeff Jarrett vs Robert Roode
I don’t really care for Jeff Jarrett, but as a babyface he’s definitely got potential that he hasn’t had in a while. The story here was that Roode kept using all of Jarrett’s old heel strategies against him, which was an interesting touch. TNA made the right move here, as Robert Roode managed to get a victory after blocking the Stroke and countering the figure four, launching Jarrett into the exposed turnbuckle, damaging Jarrett enough to allow him to hit The Payoff (fisherman’s suplex) for the pin. After the match Roode attempted to hit Jarrett with the guitar, but Jarrett countered and locked Roode in the figure four. Tracy Brooks attempted to make the save, but was stopped by Eric Young, who locked her in a figure four of his own. Good match.

Rhino vs Christopher Daniels
Daniels gets the win after a baseball bat show. Match was ok, but nothing special. Rhino followed Daniels to the back, where he busted him open before bringing him back out to ringside. He set up 2 chairs in the ring and attempted to go for the Rhino Driver off the second rope, but security stopped him.

Damaja & Basham vs Kip James
BG James was attacked at a fan gathering this afternoon and sent to the hospital and Lance Hoyt’s flight was delayed, so rather than forfeit, Kip James decided to go at it alone. The best part of this match? Christy Hemme’s skirt was so short that she was pulling it back down after almost every move she made. I’m so thankful that I had that to take away from paying attention to the match! Match was ok for what it was, but this angle does nothing for me still. Damaja & Basham get the win after Damaja hit the Brain Damage and Basham hit a top rope headbutt. Basham & Damaja went after James after the match, but lucky for Kip (and us) Hoyt’s flight arrived late enough that he couldn’t get involved in the 5 minute segment other than to make the save at the end.

Texas Death Match: Chris Harris vs James Storm
These guys needed to have a strong match after having the horrible blindfold match last month and boy did they deliver! This was a well booked heated brawl, just as their first match should have been. A lot of times in Texas Death Matches you have guys who usually can’t beat each other within 10 minutes in normal matches score an outrageous number of falls to the point where it takes away from the match, but this was done just right. Chris Harris got the win after smashing a beer bottle over James Storm’s head, as Storm was unable to get to his feet before the 10 count. This match was good enough that it made me care about the feud again and after last month that’s saying a lot!

Senshi vs Jerry Lynn vs Alex Shelley vs Tiger Mask IV
This match was a little on the short side, but a lot of the matches tonight have been given a good amount of time and this was a last minute filler, so it’s understandable. Good match that saw Alex Shelley give Jerry Lynn a frankensteiner off the top, only to have Jerry Lynn roll through and get the pin. Shelley attacked Lynn after the match, but Lynn held his own until he was blindsided by Chris Sabin. This led to Bob Backlund coming in and making the save. This is one of the huge problems TNA has. Sabin has been tossed into this horrible angle with Backlund once Austin Starr was suspended. He & Shelley could be one of the best tag teams to come along in years and they’re stuck feuding with a guy who won the WWWF World Title years before they were born. I’m not knocking Backlund. He’s still in damn good shape and could easily stretch a large portion of the TNA locker room. But, they should be in there with people that are more their style. As much as I don’t want to see it, I guess I’m now stuck hoping that the payoff to this feud is a Chris Sabin/Alex Shelley vs Jerry Lynn/Bob Backlund tag match. Backlund & Shelley in the ring together could actually be interesting, if we’re not just getting the insane Backlund. If they’re going to use Backlund, I’d love to see him pushed as more of an old school wrestler than a wackjob. Backlund vs Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe, etc. has some appeal to me, but maybe that’s just me!

NWA Tag Team Championships: Team 3D (c) vs LAX vs Tomko & Scott Steiner
This match just didn’t do anything for me. I’m sick of Team 3D vs LAX. Steiner & Tomko teaming never made sense anyway, so for the biggest story in the match to be how they were going to get along and got along didn’t mean anything to me. It was just kinda like “hey, these guys hate each other, so they’re teaming for no reason, as they don’t want to win the titles together, but how will they co-exist?” Team 3D wins… I think (meaning I don’t care enough to check another site to verify it) they pinned Tomko with the 3D. Steiner & Tomko went at it after the match until Rick Steiner made the save for his brother. Are we going to get the way past their prime Steiners as a regular team in TNA? Only time will tell.

Samoa Joe vs AJ Styles
Not the show stealing match I was hoping for, but their usual solid stuff. Joe took a spill to the floor and injured his knee, but was just barely able to make it back to the ring and avoid being counted out. He tried to charge at AJ, but crumpled to the ground as his leg was unable to hold the weight. AJ went to the top and tried for the Spiral Tap, but Joe rolled out of the way and hopped right back up to his feet, showing AJ that he’d beat him at his own game and was playing possum the entire time. A nice touch to show us that Joe isn’t the complete idiot they’ve been booking him as recently! AJ went for an enzugiri, but Joe ducked and locked in the Kokina Clutch. AJ tried to get to the ropes, so Joe adjusted his position and hit a Kokina Clutch suplex, dropping AJ on his head for the win.

NWA World Heavyweight Championship: Christian Cage (c) vs Kurt Angle vs Sting
A solid match, but the finish really took away from this for me. The ref was yanked out of the ring by Christian to break up the pinfall attempt by Sting after hitting Kurt Angle with the Scorpion Death Drop. Sting brought the groggy ref back into the ring and ended up with a roll up on Christian. This allowed Angle to hook the ankle lock on Sting. A second ref came to ringside at this time and was checking on Sting, while the original ref was counting Christian’s shoulders down. Right when the original ref counted 3, Sting began tapping out. Kurt Angle was announced as champion and the PPV quickly went off the air. The finish just didn’t seem fluid and didn’t make sense to me. Christian was forced to stay on his back in a simple roll up for over 10 seconds before the count was finished, due to the timing of Angle coming in for the ankle lock, the first ref coming to, and the second ref entering the ring. And we’d seen no sign of a second ref until right when Angle was locking in the ankle lock, but by that point the first ref was ready to start his count. So why did this second ref suddenly show up and take over the match, without even checking to see if the other official was ok first? I understand that sometimes finishes like this are necessary, but nobody wants to spend $30 only to have the show end with a screwy finish and have to tune into Impact on Thursday to get answers. If we’re big enough fans that we’re in the small percentage of Impact viewers that actually pay for the PPVs, you should give us conclusive finishes on the show we’re paying to see, as it’s safe to assume we’re already watching Impact anyway. The TV show is supposed to build interest in getting people to watch the PPVs, not the other way around.

There was definitely some bad, but overall I really enjoyed this show. I hope they play off of the NWA rules that Christian was disqualified when he pulled the ref out of the ring and the NWA title was declared vacant by the NWA Board of Directors. That way they can introduce the new TNA Title and hopefully also do away with that horrible rule where the title can change hands on a DQ. No matter what it looks like we’re looking at a King of the Mountain or some other new concept (I thought I remembered hearing something about that for Slammiversary) for the new TNA Title next month. It’ll be interesting to see how they introduce the new titles and where everything goes from here, as a couple of the feuds are getting stale and a few key characters don’t really seem to have any direction right now. The in ring product looked really strong tonight, and it had to considering the sports entertainment company up north has been putting on some really good stuff lately. Now, if their booking gets a little stronger or at least a little more consistent, TNA could easily return to the level they were at last year, as this was the second PPV I’ve enjoyed in a row, following a series of at least 4 that I thought were all mediocre at best.