-Jay Lethal wins the X-Scape match when Sonjay Dutt opens the door for Lethal, who topes his way out to narrowly beat Johnny Devine. -Roxxi Laveaux wins Queen of the Cage. -BG James beats Kip James with a roll-up. Kip beats down BG, so this feud MUST continue! -Eric Young & Kaz win the six team cage match when Super Eric single-handedly wins the match for his team. -Gail Kim & ODB beat Raisha Saeed and Awesome Kong. Saeed gets beaten down and does the job. -Booker T and Sharmell beat Robert Roode and Peyton Banks. Sharmell pins Banks. Roode ditches Banks after the match. -Team Cage beats Team Tomko. No swerve, thankfully. Lots of good high spots. -Samoa Joe beats Kurt Angle clean to win the title. Hot crowd and huge pop for Joe's big win. The buildup was also off the charts. Match of the Year so far, hands-down.
Absolutely phenomenal PPV. For the first time in years, I have zero complaints about a TNA PPV. Order the replay!
Seriously, I've never seen such an abuse of the roll-up during a show. They really need to kill this all-cage show format for next year. Q: What's worse than a reverse battle royal?
A: A reverse cage match!
Main event has lots of technical-based offense from both sides, many submissions and all. Finished by a Muscle Buster and a pin. Yeah...
If they were so bent on pushing Robert Roode, you'd think they'd at least protect his finisher. Couldn't help but notice Lady Sabu (the voodoo one) giving Generic Blonde a fisherman's suplex and have her kick out as if she just took a snapmare. I could rag on the show all night, but I'll just say "At least Joe won clean". I'm not the most ardent TNA fan, but that wasn't the show to sell new people on.
I guess I'm in-between you two guys. There was some solid stuff, but I wasn't blown away.
Originally posted by JSTQ: What's worse than a reverse battle royal? A: A reverse cage match!
I disagree, just because the Reverse Battle Royale has twice as many silly rules, and because the ring is pretty easy to get into and everyone looks dumb standing around on the outside unable to slide in. The cage is harder to get into, and the gimmick is pretty inoffensive, I think.
My big complaint coming out of the show is the whole Super Eric thing -- I just don't understand it.
It took me a minute to figure out that they had the two worst teams (the Monsters and the Rn'R Infection) left at the end so that Super Eric wouldn't be taking out two good teams single-handedly, so, I guess, thank heaven for small favors, but still, what is the point? How high up the card can Super Eric realistically go? Is he going to start tossing Tomko and Styles around, too? If not, what's the purpose of him winning this match? They're treating him as a "real" superhero, but at some point that's got to fall apart.
The women's tag was good -- Raisha looked like a threat, especially against Kim, so that was interesting. I had an idea as to why they brought Raisha in under a mask -- if they want to turn Kong face, they can have her rebel against her "manipulative" manager -- that's pretty traditional -- and then, if they decide that the Raisha character has outlived her usefulness, they can just bring in Cheerleader Melissa as a completely different person. Pretty canny.
Lethal Lockdown was pretty good -- I don't know the last time I've been as scared as I was when those three guys were on the ladder on top of the cage. Man.
Joe/Angle ended sooner than I was prepared for, but it was pretty good and they made the right choice -- I was increasingly worried that they'd go the other way -- so I am happy with it.
In fact, say what you want about Russo, but this PPV had no ref bumps, no run-ins, no interference, no shocking swerves, and Russo has yet to make himself an on-screen character. It did have stips and gimmicks galore, but that's Lockdown for you.
--K
Last 5 movies seen: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead *** - The Thing From Another World **1/2 - First Man Into Space ** - Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story *** - Alvin and the Chipmunks **1/2
Joe/Angle was weird for the reason that JST mentioned -- all this faux-MMA stuff and then the end was a wrestling finisher/pin. But it was also just really weird for the faux-MMA stuff itself; to me it just didn't make for a compelling wrestling match. You have two great professional wrestlers fighting each other for a world title. Why not just have them wrestle? It seemed as if they were saying that wrestling is not serious, but MMA is; so for this big serious match they're going to do MMA (not just the style of the match, but also Kurt coming out wearing shorts/taped feet instead of a wrestling singlet). That insults the fans' intelligence and also makes for a boring match, since scripted MMA is not really compelling. Okay wait I won't say BORING, but it wasn't as good as their other matches.
Other than that, my opinions: loved Lethal Lockdown; don't care about Roode/T so I got a snack; James/James was pointless because why build that match up like this just to drag this pointless feud out; Queen of the Cage was good for what it was; women's match was really solid, Gail had some good stunts; X-Scape was fun and had some cool spots as expected; I don't mind Super Eric yet so I was okay with that match too.
Originally posted by The ThrillI thought Karen Angle promised a "surprise guest" for Lockdown. So who was it?
I'm not sure where the "suprise guest" thing originated from, but yesterday on his site Dave Meltzer said: "A correction from yesterday's report. Karen Angle is not bringing a special guest to Lockdown tonight although she is in Lowell and was there yesterday for the Fan Fest."
--K
Last 5 movies seen: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead *** - The Thing From Another World **1/2 - First Man Into Space ** - Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story *** - Alvin and the Chipmunks **1/2
Originally posted by The ThrillI thought Karen Angle promised a "surprise guest" for Lockdown. So who was it?
I'm not sure where the "suprise guest" thing originated from, but yesterday on his site Dave Meltzer said: "A correction from yesterday's report. Karen Angle is not bringing a special guest to Lockdown tonight although she is in Lowell and was there yesterday for the Fan Fest."
--K
The "surprise guest" apparantly originated from TNA, according to www.rajah.com:
TNA Wrestling sent out a text message this afternoon to their TNA Mobile subscribers saying that Karen Angle will will have mystery guest at Sunday's LockDown! pay-per-view. The text message said, "No word on who she will be attending the event with."
Originally posted by sentonBOMBJoe/Angle was weird for the reason that JST mentioned -- all this faux-MMA stuff and then the end was a wrestling finisher/pin. But it was also just really weird for the faux-MMA stuff itself; to me it just didn't make for a compelling wrestling match. You have two great professional wrestlers fighting each other for a world title. Why not just have them wrestle? It seemed as if they were saying that wrestling is not serious, but MMA is; so for this big serious match they're going to do MMA (not just the style of the match, but also Kurt coming out wearing shorts/taped feet instead of a wrestling singlet). That insults the fans' intelligence and also makes for a boring match, since scripted MMA is not really compelling. Okay wait I won't say BORING, but it wasn't as good as their other matches. (edited by sentonBOMB on 14.4.08 0757)
Having faux-MMA isn't going to help TNA. And apparently Angle got really banged up from the match last night. TNA just needs to stop booking stupid crap all the time and better utilizing the younger, talented workers on their roster. Still, I'm happy Joe won the title clean and that he's champ now. I just hope for TNA's sake it didn't happen too late.
The dumbass reverse cage match and cuffed in a cage only served the purpose of making sure the entire roster would be booked on the show since TNA stupidly still pays most of their roster "per appearance". That's not working anymore and they need to come up with a better payscale.
How ridiculous is that the #1 contender for the world title was cuffed about 30 seconds into cuffed in a cage?
The entrances to Queen of the Cage were longer than the whole thing itself. Totally ridiculous and pointless to book all those people in there just so the two ladies could get into the cage in like a minute and a half. Reverse gimmick matches are stupid. Stop it TNA.
(edited by The Vile1 on 14.4.08 2324)
Don't make the Professor angry. You wouldn't like him, when he's angry.
Thread ahead: Styles out as ECW PBP man, replaced by Adamle Next thread: SD! to stay on Friday Previous thread: iMPACT! 4-10-08 "It All Ends In The Cage!"
It looks like four matches for SD this week, and yet I'm going to "tape the Hell out of this show." I will be entertained by Angle, Cena and (ugh) JBL, and that's enough for me.