SACRIFICE

August 14, 2005

The Victory Road and Turning Point shows of 2004 turned me off to reviewing TNA. But a few people have asked me to review more. If they just wanted me to rip into the product some more, then they’re in for disappointment, because this is actually a very fun show.

Abyss . . . reminds me why he’s among my favorite big men by putting on a smart match with Lance f’n Hoyt!

Jerry Lynn . . . thinks it’s still 1991 and that he can tear down the house with Sean Waltman, and he’s half right!

Samoa Joe . . . wins the World X Cup by beating AJ Styles like he owns him!

CHRIS SABIN/SONJAY DUTT/SHARK BOY vs. SIMON DIAMOND/ELIX SKIPPER/DAVID YOUNG

The only thing that this match was good for was getting the fans warmed up, so I guess it did its job as an opener, but it was lacking in pretty much every other aspect. It’s just seven minutes of guys doing spots with no real rhyme, reason, or selling. Sometimes they’re exciting or innovative like Skipper walking the ropes for a hurricanrana. But there’s no other reason to possibly care about what happens. With Pat Kenney reverting back to Simon Diamond and being able to turn around Young from his big losing streak, and lighting a fire in Skipper that had died when his team with Daniels ended, the chance was right there to showcase that with the Diamonds in the Rough controlling the action and looking good against a former X-Division champion. There’s a quick hint of that in the finish, with Skipper escaping the Cradle Shock and Sabin having to pin him with a quick roll up, but that’s the only sight of it, and it’s gone as soon as it’s there. Again, the nonstop spots got the crowd going, so it’s hard to fault them too much for it, but it’s sad that they had a chance to do something interesting and they ignored it.

ALEX SHELLEY vs. SHOCKER

I wonder if it’s something in the air in Orlando that makes fun workers do stupid things. I’ve seen more than enough Shelley to know how good a worker he is, but you wouldn’t know it from watching this. Shocker works over his legs with various holds and submissions, only for Shelley to reverse an Irish whip into the corner and hit Shocker with a double knee strikes and then grab Shocker and run up the corner for a Tornado DDT like his legs hadn’t just been worked over. Shocker isn’t any better, having also had his legs worked over and the doing a tope over the top and landing on his feet without any thought given to selling. The brilliant ideas continue when Shelly hits a front dropkick to Shocker’s face while he’s seated, only for Shocker to completely blow it off to do the same thing to Shelley.

This is similar to the last match in that it’s a bit of a spotfest, but it makes a bit of sense here due to the storyline. Shocker beat Shelley at a previous PPV, and Shelley beat Shocker in a rematch with his own move, so Shocker wants revenge by outdoing Shelley here. What Shocker failed to realize is that the best revenge would be to convincingly beat Shelley here, something he should know how to do, but he’s too worried about stealing his thunder by doing flashy stuff. That’s what leads to his undoing, when Shelley counters La Magistral and hooks the ropes with his ankles for the pin, which should be even more embarrassing to Shocker since it was his own short sightedness that cost him the match, not anything Shelley did. Like the last match, the match is mostly all go-go-go with spots, but there was at least a reason for it this time around.

ABYSS vs. LANCE HOYT

Why are these guys outworking Alex Shelley? At first glance Hoyt looks like a poor man’s Test, but unlike Test, Hoyt actually does appear to have some talent. They don’t tell the most complex story here, and they don’t need to. Hoyt is the world’s tallest Ricky Morton, that’s all you need to know. Abyss doesn’t have a ton of offense, and he’s never needed it for the prop laden brawls and two minute squashes. But Hoyt does an exceptionally fine job selling and bumping for the stuff Abyss does, like the splash, big boot, and several shoulder first trips to the post. They even get a bit creative with Hoyt missing his charging boot and having his foot caught on the top rope, to keep in mind that Hoyt is a big guy himself.

The real fun in this match comes when it’s Hoyt on offense. It’d be easy to label this a spotfest with the way that Hoyt just starts pulling moves out of his ass, but it’s reasonable to assume that Hoyt is doing so in order to keep the big man down, after Abyss had been controlling the action for a while. Hoyt pulls out a moonsault, a Coast to Coast dropkick, and typical stuff for a man of his size with the lariat, big boot, and chokeslam. Abyss is even better with the bumping and selling than Hoyt was, to the point that it looks like Hoyt can put down the monster. Abyss catches a charging Hoyt with the Black Hole Slam for a two count and the crowd erupts and Abyss’ reaction is priceless. Abyss grabs the chair and Hoyt gets a great near fall from the big boot into the chair. It’s disheartening to see them go right back to Hoyt charging into the Black Hole Slam for the finish, when it didn’t work two minutes before, Abyss could have at least done something more to Hoyt to potentially weaken him for it, the Shock Treatment was right there for instance. Nonetheless, this is a surprisingly fun and smartly worked match, from two guys you’d never expect to have a fun and smartly worked match. ***

RON KILLINGS/KONNAN vs. MONTY BROWN/KIP JAMES

This is more of an angle than a match. BG James is the guest referee and the question is who he will side with, his current teammates or his ‘brother’ and former longtime tag team partner? The match itself isn’t much to write home about, Killings and Konnan both have some pretty spots to roll out, but the babyface team doesn’t get much time to show off anything. The other team is really only good for Kip’s drunken selling when he takes a punch, and neither of them has much offense, so we’re basically left with a lot of punch and kick stuff, and nothing in the way of hope spots, false tags, nor anything that might get the fans interested.

Of course it’s not the match that the fans are supposed to care about, it’s the referee, but rarely is there anything done to play off the angle. There’s his deliberately slow count when Brown covers Killings, but that’s no surprise since Brown and BG are rivals. There’s the tease when Konnan hot tags in and starts throwing his shoe and winds up hitting James with it. But it’s just a quick tease and soon afterwards, BG won’t let Kip use a chair, Kip shoves him, BG unloads with the fists and Konnan levels him with the chair and BG counts the pin and celebrates with his partners, while the fans rejoice that 3LK is back together. BG confirms that he’s still a babyface by being a guest referee and allowing his buddies to cheat, something that clearly a heel referee would do, only in TNA.

CHRISTOPHER DANIELS vs. AUSTIN ARIES

As far as debut matches go, this was pretty good, Aries was certainly able to make an impression, even in defeat. The match is all Aries at first, it makes enough sense, he gets to show what he brings to the table and get the crowd firmly behind him while he makes the X-Division Champion look like his bitch. Aries gets the crowd popping hugely with his tope to the floor, showing off his famous head scissors escape, power drive elbow, and controlling Daniels even on the mat. The smart work continues after Daniels take control and singles out Aries’ back, and Daniels is smart enough to contentiously work back to the back area. A great example of this comes after Daniels had worked over the back with several vicious bodyslams and a big whip into the corner. Daniels slows down with a chin lock and Aries escapes the hold and gets a near fall from a sunset flip, and before he can do anything else, Daniels cuts him off with a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker. Aries also remembers to sell the back area when he’s the one in control just to keep that in mind.

In addition to being smart about keeping Aries’ back in focus, they do several spots and sequences to keep the fans behind Aries. Aries manages to kick out of the Last Rites, avoid the BME, and counters the Angels Wings, to keep the idea in place that Aries could beat the champion in his first match with the company. Daniels also get a near fall after an STO, hardly his biggest move, but puts his feet on the ropes just for a little more heat. There’s also a fun moment where Daniels slaps Aries to try to show him who’s in charge, and it only winds up getting Aries fired up. In the end though, it comes down to brains, which is fitting being that this was a smartly worked match already, and after Aries gets a near fall from his big kick to the head and the 450, he goes for his brainbuster, which will surely put away Daniels, but Daniels counters into Angels Wings and gets the win. It’d have been nice to see Aries unable to do the move due to his back, and use that to allow Daniels to hit the move, that’s hardly an issue. It’d have been nice to see what they could do with five or ten more minutes and stretch out Daniels’ control segment a bit, but this is still a really fun match all on its own. ***1/4

JERRY LYNN vs. SYXX-PAC

Now I can see why FIP brought in Waltman for those two shows a couple of months after this. This almost works for what it is, if they just weren’t so here and there with Jerry’s arm, both in Waltman’s attacking it and in Jerry’s selling of it. The match itself looks like it was designed to be a throwback to their days in Global which pioneered the style of junior heavyweight wrestling in the U.S. which in turned led to the X-Division. The work isn’t as fast-paced as it would have been in ‘91, but that’s understandable. Aside from Jerry’s vertical suplex off the apron, and, arguably, the tombstone, the spots they work are relatively safe.

What really stands out here is the work over Lynn’s arm. Jerry had missed a year of action due to a shoulder injury, so it was obviously going to be focused on, but they just randomly decide whether it’s going to mean anything or not. It first creeps up when very early on when Waltman wants to seemingly test the strength of the arm, and Jerry hardly flinches and then arm drags Waltman to show that the arm is fine. That by itself was fine, but then Waltman gets more aggressive with the arm, pulling out good spots like a shoulder breaker and sending him shoulder first into the post and Jerry randomly decides if he’s able to do something or not. He has trouble doing the cradle piledriver, but he can do a suplex off the apron? Once Waltman stops directly attacking it and they start working toward the finish it gets quite a bit better, Sean gets a nice near fall with the X-Factor, and Lynn gets his own when he rolls through the cross body press, and Lynn pulls off the win with a victory roll counter. Something he could easily pull off without putting too much stress onto his arm, Lynn’s arm is simultaneously the best and worst aspect of the match, it gave the fans a good reason to get behind Jerry and it was really the only storytelling aspect, and they did use it to play into the finish so to speak, but the random selling of the arm itself takes away from that. ***

CHRIS HARRIS/JAMES STORM/CHASE STEVENS/ANDY DOUGLAS vs. A-1/BOBBY ROODE/ERIC YOUNG/PETEY WILLIAMS

This is similar to the 3LK tag match. It’s more about furthering an angle than doing anything meaningful in the ring. The early parts of the match are just filler until the spots and choreography come into play, and then the finish. There are a few cool things in the early stages though, such as Team Canada working over Storm’s knee for a bit, and Young fighting dirty with both an eye rake and a low kick. Young also takes an enzuigiri and Flair flops off the turnbuckles and down to the floor. That kick starts the match falling apart with everyone running in and taking out someone else with a finisher.

They had the perfect finish staring them in the face with their tower of doom spot, with Harris powerbombing Roode, gave a German suplex to Stevens. They could have easily had one of the Canadians jump in and pin him, it’s a logical way to pin Stevens and a good reason for the Naturals to get mad at AMW for it. Instead they go with the ‘mis communication’ bit, with Stevens getting whipped into Harris and then getting rolled up by Roode for the cheap win. First off, the enforcer of the team doesn’t need to get wins like that, especially when he’s got a move he can do from behind, the Northern Lariat. Secondly, how is Stevens getting thrown into Harris considered mis communication? It wasn’t like Harris jumped in front of him or thought that Stevens hit him on purpose and hit him. It’s just a copout to give them a reason to go back to feuding, and a poorly done copout at that.

SAMOA JOE vs. AJ STYLES (World X Cup Tournament Finals)

There are so many things to like about this. The big one for me was how much that the match made Joe looks like a total juggernaut. If you’ve seen more than a few Joe matches, then you know what to expect from him, but it wasn’t Joe running through his moves, Joe was adding even more force to them and really making TNA’s golden boy into his personal whipping boy. Joe gives an indication of what to expect in the opening moments, when AJ charges into a right hand that knocks him back into the ropes, and Joe smears him with a charging knee that sends him to the floor. The really cool thing is that Joe doesn’t do anything especially out of the ordinary for him, but he puts a bit extra into what he does to make it that much more effective. One of Joe’s trademark spots is the powerbomb into the Boston crab, it’s long since been your typical mid-match spot without having any real consequences or meaning, but when Joe does it here, he slams AJ down with all his might, and the crab itself looks so tight that it makes AJ looks like Superman for surviving.

What makes this so good isn’t just the beating that Joe puts on Styles, but also the way Joe puts over what AJ does to him. Joe isn’t as animated as Abyss was at selling and bumping, but he’s still really good. When AJ gets him with a surprise enzuigiri for instance, Joe doesn’t stumble around like a drunk man, but he pauses with a glazed look in his eyes and then collapses. It also helps that it’s clear that AJ is trying to not hold anything back with his own strikes, so it’s not like Joe is overdoing it with his selling. AJ’s selling is a bit here and there, he’s just as good as Joe was with taking a big strike and being out on his feet, but then he’s also able to pull off quite a few big spots without any problem at all, and that just shouldn’t be the case with the beating that Joe puts on him, even if it’s not heavy in body part psychology. If nothing else, AJ should at least need to act like he’s having trouble picking up Joe for a torture rack or stalling for a minute before doing his springboard senton. One of AJ’s best selling moments came when Joe escapes the Styles Clash and gave AJ the rolling cradle (with a great Terry Funk namedrop from Tenay) and AJ, clearly dizzy, got to his feet and jumped for another kick, only Joe was on the other side of the ring. Despite his selling, AJ is good at creating openings for himself by catching Joe by surprise, aside from the aforementioned enzuigiri, there was a great spot where Joe charged into AJ’s headstand hurricanrana, a longtime AJ spot, but it still seemed like it came from out of nowhere.

Aside from AJ’s selling, the only other thing close to leaving a black mark on this is the booking. Specifically the ref bump and run in from Daniels. I can understand the wall that TNA was backed against, they needed to keep Joe’s unbeaten streak going for a while longer, and it was way too early to put the X-Division Title on him (the winner of the tournament got a title shot at the next PPV). To their credit, at least they don’t make Daniels’ run in overshadow Joe’s win at all. Daniels hits Styles with an STO, tries to hit Joe but Joe sees him coming, AJ gets up and dispatches Daniels, and Joe takes advantage of AJ having his back turned to hit the Muscle Buster and choke to make TNA’s golden boy tap out. Joe simply took an opening and got the win, it wasn’t anything that Daniels directly did that led to the result. So the booking does leave a bad taste, it’s a far cry from ruining the effort put into the first fourteen and a half minutes of the match. ****

RAVEN/SABU vs. JEFF JARRETT/RHINO

If you’re the type who likes to just sit back and enjoy the match without having to think, then this is right up your alley. It’s not that this is horribly offensive or anything, it’s a decently fun brawl, but there’s some serious logic flaws to it, the main one being the point of having a referee. There are chairs, tables, garbage cans, and other props used here, but the ref doesn’t bat an eyelash. And if the ref is going to allow all that, why should he enforce tagging? He doesn’t actually enforce it, but when Sabu is being worked over, why doesn’t Raven just go in the ring and help him? The same thing for Jarrett when Rhino is in trouble. Considering what’s on the line here (Jarrett gets an NWA Title shot if he pins Raven, Jarrett doesn’t get one for a year if Raven pins him) you’d think they’d both do everything possible to make sure they get their preferred result.

But again, if you can ignore the lack of logic, this is a rather fun brawl, and a good way to send the fans home, watching Raven open up Jarrett with a pizza cutter, run ins from Abyss and Jeff Hardy, with Sabu getting press slammed through a table. Raven is the only one who does anything worthwhile that’s not a prop related spot, when he gets a hot tag and cleans house for a bit, hitting a nice bulldog to Jarrett and hitting Rhino with a lariat at the same time. There’s another good Raven moment when Jarrett tries to ape his drop toehold to the chair spot, but Raven manages to avoid the chair. The other nice touch is the way that finishers are protected. Raven hits the Raven Effect one each of his opponents and the other makes the save. Jarrett hits Raven with The Stroke, but he spends too much time celebrating and Raven barely kicks out. But it’s the Gore that really looks deadly. When he hits Raven the first time Sabu has to save. The second one takes out the ref and cues the run ins, and the last one through the table allows Rhino to pin Raven. One of two obvious finishes seeing as Sabu or Rhino getting pinned would answer no questions, and Raven and Jarrett getting the pin on each other has big repercussions. Hardly any TNA PPV main event is free of overbooking and this is no different, although it is different because they get it right here and don’t do anything out of left field that nobody would see coming because it doesn’t make any sense.

Conclusion: The big reason to get this is Styles/Joe, but even without it, this is still a rather fun show with several good matches and a fun ECW-like main event. Thumbs easily are up for this TNA PPV offering.