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To start off with a feature from the post show audio, my recommendation for the pay per view would be a thumbs up and if you are on the fence about getting the replay you might want to consider it. I thought this was the best pay per view offering from Orlando this year.
Before the pay per view started, they did the usual pre-show for the Impact Zone with the warm up, introduction of the announce teams, and the final work up of the crowd by Jeremy Borash. Dixie Carter also walked around the ringside area with the Heavyweight Title belt.
While Jeremy Borash does a great job to get the crowd ready for the pay per view, I wish they would have a match for the crowd because there is often too much down time between the warm up and Jeremy’s arrival in the ring.
While I don’t normally comment on the opening video package, I thought it was really well done. I liked the back and forth with the footage that looked like it came from a 1940s newsreel followed by the heavier music with the violence that would be expected on the show.
I did not know which match would open the show based on the line up, but I thought the Women’s Tag Title match did a good job to get the crowd into the show. I also thought that it was a decent match and probably the best match that I have seen from Madison Rayne. I thought Sarita and Taylor worked well together and hit a number of double team moves, including the finisher with the springboard kick and German suplex.
It is often the minor things that can make or break a match and I liked that they showed Madison getting a bit too close to Slick Johnson before the match started, and that led to Earl Hebner to come out to replace Slick as the referee. That way there would probably not be a controversy with the finish.
While Mike commented on the need for Sarita and Taylor to have matching outfits to the ring, I thought it was a good touch that they were at least wearing the same color to the ring.
I guess Madison has been promoted to the position where she can gyrate on the rope since Angelina is no longer a part of the group.
There are a lot of moves that I think are overdone in wrestling and one is the wrestler who takes a sunset flip and rolls through to hit a move, whether it be a kick, drop kick, or something else. In the opening match, Sarita rolled through and tried for a drop kick but Velvet moved out of the way.
I thought it was a good touch to do the interview right after the match with the new champions and I wondered why they didn’t do it inside the Impact Zone, but I guess they saved it for ODB’s victory later in the night.
If Eric Young was not going to ‘wrestle’ why not put someone else in the group in the match against Hernandez.
I feel bad for anyone who had a cold and sneezed and missed the Hernandez/Young ‘match’. With what happened later in the night, this match lost a lot of the importance that it could have had for Hernandez.
I liked Matt Morgan’s segment with Jeremy Borash, but I wish he would have focused a bit more on Sting and A.J. Styles. There was too much focus on Kurt Angle. I did like Matt’s intensity during the segment.
I was talking to some people before the pay per view about the Daniels/Joe match and I said that if they gave us 60 percent of what we got from them in 2005, I would be happy. I was more than happy with this match. The match told a good story and did not try to exhaust the crowd with too many high spots. I liked the way that Joe worked on Daniels’ leg while Daniels was unable to hit some moves during the match because of the work that Joe had done. The finish was good with Daniels trying to get to the ropes to get the submission broken, but being unable to do so and succumbing to the hold.
This match made me want to see a rematch at Bound for Glory.
Another good thing about the Joe/Daniels match was that there was a feeling inside the Impact Zone that made it seem a little bit like the glory days of the X Division. The match quality might have been a little less than 2005, but it was still a strong match and the crowd definitely had something to do with that.
I thought the Mick Foley segment with Jeremy Borash did a good job to build to a possible Abyss/Mick Foley match. There were a few teases for the match with Foley talking about an imitation when Jeremy said he could have gotten another caricature for Foley.
I have not been the biggest fan of the D’Angelo Dinero character and when they had the interview backstage before his match, I figured that was how they were going to start the match. I thought there was some interesting action during the match, but like Mike said in his audio, it was strange to see all of this happen for a match on this part of the card. I thought there were a few spots where it took too long for the set up. I did like that Dinero was able to get off the table before Suicide tried for the leg drop because he took so long to get on the top of the entrance ramp.
I did not have high expectations for the Cody/ODB match but I thought they did a better job than I expected. I thought it was a good touch to have ODB take Cody’s hat at the start of the match since that has been the source of his redneck power. Cody trying for the low blow because he is probably used to doing it against male opponents, and it failing because ODB was missing an important part that makes a low blow work. I did not like that they used two ‘typical’ referee spots where their interference causes a pin fall in this match.
With the way that the women in the company banded together against Cody on Impact, I thought some of them would have come out to celebrate with ODB after victory. But with what would happen at the end of the night, I understand why they didn’t do anything. I also liked that Lauren did the interview inside the Impact Zone with ODB.
I thought Kurt Angle’s segment with Jeremy Borash was good, but suffered from too much focus on Matt Morgan and not on Sting or A.J. I liked that Angle brought up the point that if size and muscle mass were the only criteria, Matt would already be champion.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect in terms of the story of the Abyss/Nash match, but I figured that Nash would be walking out with the money. I don’t know why Stevie Richards didn’t come out until the middle of the match because he did have a significant financial investment in the match. Daffney is a trooper for taking the Black Hole Slam from Abyss. When Stevie came to the ring to take the taser, I was waiting for Yakety Sax to start playing. I was expecting to see Mick Foley use the barbed wire bat on Abyss instead of Nash using the taser on Abyss’s nether regions. Couldn’t the referee have heard the sound of the taser to know that it was being used (and the residual smoke coming from Abyss’ crotch?)
Without the luxury of closed captioning, I have no idea what Booker and Steiner said, other than the fact that they hate foreigners.
I thought the Lethal Lockdown match started off slowly but built into a decent match. I was not surprised that Storm and Roode came out before either member of Team 3D, and Williams and Magnus came out before Steiner or Booker. I thought the chair shot from Ray to Rob Terry was pretty stiff, especially compared to the ones that Ray gave to his in ring opponents inside the cage. I was glad that they did not do a spot where the top of the cage collapsed on a spot.
While we didn’t get a Spinaroonie in the middle of this match, I did not like that Storm and Roode took the time to remind us of their team name.
I hope they return to the once a year feature of the Lethal Lockdown match because they have really diluted this match by having three matches over the last six months.
I hope they will build to Team 3D versus Storm and Roode to see who gets the tag title match at Bound for Glory.
If Steiner hates foreigners so much, despite the fact that he praised the Puerto Ricans after his injury a few years ago; and that he was tagging with two British wrestlers.
I had the same reaction that Mike did when I heard Lauren asking Rhino about his match with ‘Mr. MMA’
I wasn’t looking forward to the Rhino/Lashley match and I did not like the match. I don’t know why they had to do a ref bump in the match. I did not like the finish. It reminded me too much of the last six months of Big Show finishes with the punch.
I liked the Sting and A.J. Styles segment with Jeremy before their match. A.J. has had a number of good promos over the last few weeks.
I had read the spoiler on the site so I knew what was going to happen in the main event at the end. I did not expect to see what I did during the introductions when Hernandez came out to cash in his Feast or Fired case. I guess he had to do it since we are almost up to this year’s edition; but just like Mike said, I was telling people after the pay per view that Hernandez has become the ‘Sting Stratus’ of TNA after his actions.
I thought it was funny to see the reaction of Matt Morgan, Sting, and A.J. Styles while they watched Hernandez destroy Kurt Angle at the start of the match, especially during the delayed vertical suplex.
Any momentum that Hernandez might have had after his destruction of Eric Young earlier tonight was lost (and more) after Eric Young attacked Hernandez and hit a piledriver that forced Hernandez out of the match. Since Hernandez could not finish the match, will they give him back his briefcase (one more time?)
I liked that Sting and A.J. actually squared off during the match because I don’t think we saw that from Matt and Kurt. There was a lot of good action in this match and I thought that they did a good thing by having A.J. hit the Styles Clash only to be stopped; then to see Morgan’s Hellevator get kicked out of; and then the same thing with the Scorpion Death Drop.
I really liked the finish of the match with Sting standing over Angle and then deciding to let A.J. get the victory while he made sure that Matt Morgan would not break things up. There was a great reaction from the crowd when they realized what was about to happen, especially when A.J. hit the springboard 450 splash to get the three count.
I thought the Styles celebration was better than the one for Christian for a few reasons. First, A.J. is a TNA original so there is a link between the fans of the Impact Zone and A.J. Second, I was not on the rail where the fans were running past me to get into the ring.
Based on what happened during the pay per view, I thought a lot was set up for Bound for Glory. They could do something similar to my idea from the Tip Sheet with Sting facing A.J. with Sting putting his career on the line for the TNA Heavyweight Title. They can do a rematch between Joe and Daniels for the X Division Title. They can have one of the teams that won Lethal Lockdown face Steiner and Booker for the Tag Titles. Abyss and Mick Foley can meet.
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