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Last night was the TNA Lockdown PPV, a show where all of the matches are held within a steel cage. I gave WrestleMania a thumbs up based solely on the strength of the Triple H vs Undertaker match, so I have to give Lockdown a thumbs up based on the Angle vs Jarrett and Lethal Lockdown matches. TNA bounced back nicely after last month's debacle of a PPV with Jeff Hardy being unable to compete in the main event. Here's quick recap of last night's show:
- Max Buck won an X-Division Escape The Cage match involving Robbie E, Jay Lethal, Jeremy Buck, Amazing Red, Chris Sabin, Brian Kendrick, and Suicide (Christopher Daniels). Spotfest opener that was sloppy with eliminations feeling very rushed.
- Ink Inc d Scott Steiner/Crimson, Orlando Jordan/Eric Young, and Douglas Williams/Magnus. Crowd loved Steiner, and he cut a hilarious backstage promo before the match. Match wasn't much of anything.
- Mickie James d Madison Rayne to win the Knockouts Title. James' shoulder is still messed up, and this match only lasted 35 seconds. Rayne seemingly broke up with Tara before the match.
- Samoa Joe d The Pope. Pretty good match. Joe won clean with the Muscle Buster and choke.
- Matt Morgan d Hernandez with the Carbon Footprint as Hernandez came off the top. Mexican America (yes, that is how they refer to themselves) tried to interfere but were unsuccessful. Sarita and Rosita cut a promo after the match only to be taken out by Velvet Sky.
- Jeff Jarrett d Kurt Angle in an ULTRA MALE RULES match. Angle won the first fall by ankle lock submission. Jarrett won the second fall with a schoolboy holding the trunks. Third fall, they had to escape the cage. Kurt had two chances to walk out, but wanted to punish Jarrett more. He had Jarrett in the ankle lock when Karen slammed the cage door in Angle's face allowing Jarrett to basically fall out to the floor. The match was insane. Kurt tried to take a standing top rope powerbomb but over rotated landing on the top of his head and somehow didn't break his neck. Kurt later hit a moonsault off the top of the cage (actually he pretty much missed Jarrett) but it was a crazy spot. It's amazing that Angle didn't kill himself in this match. Jarrett suffered broken ribs. I believe Angle dislocated his shoulder. Angle did use the RKO which was funny.
- Sting d Mr Anderson and Rob Van Dam to retain the TNA Title. Short match which was good because it wasn't very good as it was going on. Hogan came out to give RVD a steel pipe, but RVD refused. Anderson ended up using the pipe to hit RVD, but he also told Hogan he wasn't with him. It appears they are setting up Sting vs Hogan which God knows no one wants to see.
- Fortune (Kazarian, Beer Money, Christopher Daniels) d Immortal (Abyss, Matt Hardy, Ric Flair, Bully Ray) in Lethal Lockdown. The rules were two men start, then because of matches from Impact, the heels (Immortal) got the man advantage every 2 minutes (2-1, 3-2, 4-3) until it was finally 4-4. There were no pins or submissions until it was 4 on 4, and once it was, a roof was lowered onto the cage that was filled with weapons. Entertaining match. Flair bled like crazy and lost his pants. Hardy and Daniels fought on top of the cage after the roof came down and Hardy almost dropped Daniels off. Daniels ended up hitting a plancha off the roof of the cage to the floor on Hardy and Abyss which was a crazy spot. Bully was destroying Daniels with a Singapore Cane until AJ Styles ran in (in a roofed cage...) to make the save. Flair ended up tapping out to lose the match.
Raw tonight comes from London, England. It will be on a few hour taped delay (they are taping as I write this). Please do not post spoilers in this thread without the spoiler tag.
The big news last week was Edge's retirement. We talked about it a ton last week, so I won't mention much here, other than that WWE has now lost another main eventer and still has done little to nothing to create new stars to fill all of these voids. It has just been announced that the annual draft will take place on next week's Raw. It's silly to even care about the draft at this point with how often guys jump between shows with no explanation, but I guess they need to do something to fill out the Smackdown side of the roster with Edge gone. I'm praying Orton gets shipped to Friday nights. I'll talk a lot more about the draft next week, but changing up two or three big names does nothing because at this point, there really isn't a big match that we haven't already seen multiple times. Again, until WWE creates new stars (and that doesn't mean putting the title on a guy for a month or two and then sending them back to midcard status afterwards), the product will remain incredibly stale.
The Extreme Rules PPV takes in 13 days. The three main matches were set last week with The Miz defending the WWE Championship against John Cena and R-Truth in a Triple Threat Match (not sure of the "extreme" stipulation here, but I guess Triple Threats are traditionally no holds barred), Alberto Del Rio taking on Christian in a Ladder Match for the Edge's vacated World Heavyweight Championship, and Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross taking on Michael Cole and Jack Swagger.
R-Truth and John Cena fought to a typical WWE bull**** double disqualification finish last week in a FIRST TIME EVER MATCH which was a five man gauntlet match. Amazing how WWE comes up with these incredible ideas no one has thought of before. Dolph Ziggler d Randy Orton when The Nexus (minus CM Punk) returned. R-Truth beat Ziggler, and then beat Morrison. The final entrant was Cena, and Cena could not put Truth away, so The Miz and Riley attacked both of them. Randomly inserting R-Truth into the main event is not how you create new stars. This has nothing to do with my personal feelings about R-Truth. First, he's 40 years old, so he's not the one to push as a new star. Two, the man was either not on TV or jobbed for weeks and weeks leading into this. And three, he's not winning the title and everyone knows this. He's in the match to take the fall for either Miz or Cena. My guess is Cena beats Truth to become the champ, and then Miz can complain that he was never beaten. I do wonder if the somewhat shady friendship storyline between Cena and Truth will be brought up again, but more than likely that is long forgotten.
The New Nexus (minus Husky Harris) did return last night. So they all recovered from the punt far quicker than established WWE main eventers. Anyway, it looks like we'll have another Punk vs Orton match at Extreme Rules, and that's fine. I still don't give a damn about Ryan, Otunga, or McGuillicutty. Harris was by far the most interesting out of the group, but because he's too fat, he's not allowed on TV.
JR came out. Cole started his usual insults, and JR had enough and went after him inside the Cole Mine. Lawler tried to get involved, but Swagger jumped him from behind which lead to a match. Jerry Lawler defeated Jack Swagger with JR and Cole at ringside. After the match, Cole berated Swagger for losing and slapped him before running away from an enraged Swagger. Since Lawler won, he was able to choose the stipulation for his rematch with Cole at Extreme Rules. He made the match himself and JR vs Cole and Swagger. I guess the reasoning is that Swagger now also hates Cole, so it's really 3 on 1, but I hope they make this much clearer tonight.
Sin Cara beat Primo in an interesting match. Sin Cara took far to much punishment, especially because he really doesn't know how to sell yet. He was pretty clean throughout the match with the exception of again just barely clearing the top rope on his trampoline entrance (which has subsequently been dropped), and the finish which had Sin Cara attempting a one man Spanish Fly, but Primo lost his balance causing Sin Cara to fall to the outside. Sin Cara brushed it off, went back in, went back to the top rope, and hit the move to get the win. I thought Sin Cara looked pretty good here, but they should really just let him use La Mistica as his finisher. Reports are that some are already souring on Sin Cara backstage (no surprise as that is normal WWE politics). Should be interesting to see what they have for him this week. At least they are taped so they can make a few edits if needed.
Brie Bella won the Divas Title last week, likely setting up a brutal squash from the soon to debut Awesome Kong.
And breaking news from HombreLobo that NTWT Saturday Night's Main Event will be going down this Saturday night. Stay tuned for more details.
