The TNA Lockdown 2007 Breakdown

TNA Lockdown 2007
by J.D. Dunn

Pre-show rant: This show (and some comments by TNA President Dixie Carter) caused a bit of a flare up between Dixie, TNA fans, and Wade Keller. Dixie was upset because the fans were chanting, “Fire Russo!” last month when he didn’t have anything to do with the match in question. Keller was upset because fans apparently aren’t as hip to the inner workings of TNA as he is.

The bottom line is, they all look like douchebags. If Russo wasn’t involved with the Sting/Abyss abortion last month, then it was someone doing a dead-on Vince Russo impersonation, and that was the important thing. The thing Dixie Carter should have taken from that chant was, “Well, they don’t like that, so we won’t do that again.” You don’t see that Rosie O’Donnell impersonator on Raw anymore do you? Yet this is the fourth or fifth PPV featuring Christy Hemme feuding with the James Gang. The whole reason to have an alternative is to avoid things like this.

Keller’s analysis doesn’t make much sense because he credits Jeff Jarrett for TNA’s booking (which, in the end, is true), but where does he think Jarrett is getting those ideas? Russo has been attached to Jarrett’s hip since 1999. Wade suggests a “Fire Jarrett!” chant, which is even sillier because Jarrett is part owner of the company. You might as well chant “Fire Vince McMahon!” for all the good it would do.

You want to know how to affect what you see on TV? Watch it if you like it, don’t watch it if you don’t like it. It’s that simple. Watch WWE or ROH or FIP or PWG or Lucha Libre. And if you don’t like any of those either, maybe you have to reassess if wrestling is really for you.

Besides, if they’re getting more fans than they’re estimated, they probably shouldn’t worry about armchair critics.

The other big news was the suspension of Austin Starr (née Aries), apparently for voicing frustrations. You know, if I had to pick a guy that I would say would get suspended for insubordination – well, I’d say Scott Steiner. But if I had a second choice, it would be Austin Aries. The guy just seems like a smartass who doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut for his own good.

April 15, 2007

Live from St. Louis, Mo.

Your hosts are Mike Tenay and Don West.

“Black Machismo” Jay Lethal gives Leticia a word. It’s scary how spot on he is with his imitation.

X-Division Title, X-Scape Cage Match: Chris Sabin vs. Jay Lethal (w/Kevin Nash) vs. Alex Shelley vs. Sharkboy vs. Sonjay Dutt.
Of course, Tenay and West totally ignore Lethal again, but they introduce everyone else. This is the usual X-Division clusterfuck with Sharkboy fighting off Shelley and Sabin for a while. Shelley blocks the reverse DDT, and Shelley and Sabin finish with the legdrop/splash combo off the top. Sharkboy is eliminated at 5:45.

Jay Lethal comes in and destroys Shelley. OHHH YEAAAAH! Dutt blocks the elbowdrop, allowing Shelley to hit a jawbreaker. Sabin works in the Garvin Stomp. Shelley and Sabin team up to doubleteam Lethal and then Sonjay. That forces Sonjay and Lethal to team up for survival. Sonjay hits a sloppy springboard shoulderblock on Shelley. I think there’s just not enough room between the cage and ropes for that. Shelley applies the Border City Stretch while Sabin ties up Lethal to cut off the save. The babyfaces reverse, but Sabin and Shelley get out of trouble and hit Lethal with a series of kicks. That lets Sabin finish Sonjay with the Cradleshock at 13:34.

Lethal hits a double clothesline and a pair of “Lethal Combinations” (backbreaker into a Flatliner). That sets up the elbowdrop on Shelley at 14:35.

West and Tenay say that you now have to “exscape” the cage. I know that the name of the match is a play on words, but you don’t have to “exscape” the cage, you have to “escape” the cage. They sound pretty stupid if you axe me. Sadly, the go for the quick ending with both guys scurrying up the cage. Sabin kicks Lethal in the leg, tying it up in the cage, and Sabin simply drops down for the win at 15:53. This was a decent spotfest for a while but, about 10 minutes in, they just started rushing through the match. **1/2

There seem to be problems with Team Cage, but, Christian says, not nearly as many as with Team Angle.

Cage Match: Robert Roode (w/Miss Brooks & Eric Young) vs. Petey Williams.
Sloppy start as Petey stomps Roode down and then wanders around before botching a springboard lungblower. Roode takes over, and things get considerably more boring. This was the guy people were touting as a main-event talent just six months ago? Miss Brooks tries to hand Roode a hockey stick, but Young grows a pair and stops her. Petey hits a rana but whiffs on a dropkick. Roode comes back with a spinebuster and demands the hockey stick. Instead, Young slips it in to Petey, who cross-checks Roode with it. Earl Hebner takes it away from him, and Roode counters the Canadian Destroyer to the Payoff (Fisherman’s Suplex) at 10:14. Neither of these guys have much charisma, and Petey’s execution was off through the whole match. *

Rhino is upset with Kurt Angle because he kept them all in the dark, and now it’s cost them the team advantage in the main event.

Cage Match: Gail Kim vs. Ms. Jackie Moore.
This is an offshoot of the Chris Harris/James Storm feud. They start with a brawl on the ramp, and Jackie tosses Gail into Tenay. Yeah, Iron Mike looks like he was really miserable there. Jackie uses resident flowerpot SoCal Val as a shield, and they finally get in the ring. Apparently, it’s pinfall, submission or escape. Oh, excuse me, “exscape.” Gail hits a sloppy headscissors. She goes up, but Jackie grabs her by the leg, and Gail is forced to settle for a sunset flip. They both seem to collide with the cage, and Gail hits a missile dropkick. Gail wins a slugfest near the cage door and slams the door in Jackie’s face. She doesn’t want to win the easy way, though, so she closes the door, climbs up to the top of the cage, and “hits” a crossbody at 7:15. I appreciate the thought, but Jackie staggering around waiting for Gail to get situated was reminiscent of Krusty the Clown lighting a cigarette while waiting for Sideshow Bob’s biplane to crash. And to top it all off, the move didn’t even hit. *1/4

Cage Match: Senshi vs. The Austin Starr.
Bob Backlund is your special guest referee, who is to TNA what Adam West is to “Family Guy.” Senshi dominates early, getting two off a powerdrive elbow. The count looked quick, leading West and Tenay to speculate on Backlund’s leanings. Starr takes over…WITH CHEATING! He gets two off the Pendulum Elbow and argues the count. He steals a page out of Samoa Joe’s book, powerbombing Senshi and then segueing to a half-crab. Senshi makes the ropes and suddenly fires back with kicks. A springboard kick puts Starr down, and Senshi hits a Kappou Kick for two. Starr hits a shinbreaker and smashes Senshi into the cage. ONE, TWO, THR-Backlund catches Starr using the ropes. Starr stops to get in Backlund’s face and gets tagged with the gun-packet dropkick. Backlund inadvertently blocks the Warrior’s Way and gets shoved into Senshi. Starr hits the 450-splash. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Starr, again, gets in Backlund’s face, leading to a shoving match. Senshi sneaks in and O’Connor Rolls Starr for the win at 9:58. Hate the ending, but the match was pretty good. **1/2

Samoa Joe is PISSED about Jarrett being the fifth man and threatens to kill him if he gets in his way. Well, that’s direct.

Blindfold Cage Match: Chris Harris vs. James Storm.
Well, this went well. First of all, the “blindfolds” barely stay on during the match. Second, the fans turn on the match almost off the bell. It starts okay, with both guys playing up the stipulations. After that, it’s all downhill with the fans turning on the match and chanting “We want wrestling!” and “Boring!” instead of helping Harris find Storm. It doesn’t help that Storm and Harris decide to wrestle a normal match, complete with high spots instead of the brawl that this is supposed to be. Harris accidentally grabs the ref but realizes that Storm wasn’t wearing pants. TROUSER PSYCHOLOGY~! That allows Storm to unhood, not that it was necessary, flip Harris off (which is funny because he can’t see him), and then finish with the superkick at 9:50. This was totally bush league. Even if you toss out the problems with the hoods, the match just wasn’t wrestled in a way that was appropriate for the feud. 1/2*

Sting and Kurt Angle agree that “they saw something” in Jeff Jarrett after Bound For Glory. The fact that everything else in the promotion (and wrestling as a whole) is tinged with snarky, self-reference makes something like redemption seem corny. I like it, though.

Cage Match: Jerry Lynn vs. Christopher Daniels.
I like the new attitude from Daniels, but this is another one of those “mysteries that don’t have to be” angles that Russo, or whoever his surrogate is, seems to specialize in. Step one) I’m doing something wacky. Step two) I say there’s a special reason that explains my behavior. Step three) I say that I’m not going to explain it to you, but I don’t give you a reason for not explaining my reason. Step four) I tease you for weeks about it. Step Five) I reveal it long after you’ve stopped caring. See also, Eric Young’s “friend.” See also, Abyss’ dad. Lynn pummels Daniels early and hits a Thesz Press. Nice nod to St. Louis there. Daniels snaps Lynn’s throat off the top rope and knees him into the cage. Lynn blocks the Iconoclasm and counters to a sunset flip powerbomb. Daniels backdrops Lynn into the cage and counters the Cradle Piledriver to the uranage. The BME misses. They battle on the top rope, and Daniels hits a Super Flatliner! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! The crowd gives a VERY generous “This is awesome!” chant. Lynn gets two off the Schwein. They battle on top again and tease doing top-rope versions of their finishers. Instead, Daniels just crotches Lynn on the top rope and finishes with the Last Rites at 13:21. Good, solid midcard match. Nothing special, but at least it was competent, which is more than I can say for most of the previous matches. **1/4

Brother Ray says he’s sick and tired of hearing the sound of his own voice. Hey, he said it.

Electrified Cage Match, NWA Tag Team Titles: LAX vs. Team 3D.
It’s all Team 3D early. Hernandez catches D-Von going up and slams him off instead of pushing him into the cage. D-Von gets busted open badly at some point. Not sure what happened there, but Hernandez had a chain, so I’m guessing that’s it. LAX goes up – with Hernandez steadying himself on the “electrified” cage – but Team 3D catches them with stereo superplexes. Konnan gets wheeled down to ringside to observe, and his homey steals the outside referee’s protective gloves. Hector Guerrero jumps both of them and slides in a table to Brother Ray. Hernandez lays the bad mouth on Guerrero, so Hector slams the door in his face. Everyone unloads big moves, but no one can get the pin. Hernandez Border Tosses D-Von into the electrified cage, and the only way that the resulting special effect could have been less convincing was if Dutch Mantell was standing backstage screaming, “Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz” on the house mic. Hernandez puts on a pair of gloves and climbs the cage. He actually straddles the top of the cage, which is a risk I’m not sure I’d be willing to take. He flies off and misses, putting himself through a table. That allows Team 3D to toss Homicide into the cage. Dutch: BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! The 3D finishes at 15:38. This is a case where they would have been better off just doing the cage match. The electrified cage didn’t really stop them from doing anything that they would have done normally (besides have a good match), and the “electrocutions” were laughable. D-Von’s sick bladejob was lost in the stipulations. **1/2

Lethal Lockdown: Team Angle vs. Team Cage (w/James Mitchell).
Harley Race is your special gatekeeper. Angle sucks up to the crowd by wearing a St. Louis Cardinals jersey. He and AJ start, and Angle turns Styles into his bitch. He misses a charge and goes right into the cage, though. AJ takes over for a bit before stopping to jaw with the fans. Angle pops up and hits the Angleslam as Abyss comes in. AJ lets Abyss take the advantage and then shoves him aside. See, his entire team hates him, and the only reason he’s on their team is because Mitchell brought out his mother one night, which is significant because years ago Abyss took the fall when she shot her abusive husband. Not at all Russo. Not at all. Actually, I probably got that feud all wrong because I was only passively paying attention. Rhino is next and turns the tide for a while. Tomko and his bad-ass Killer Bees tights come in next. It’s getting kind of crowded, which makes me think they should have taken a page out of Ring of Honor’s book and done a Steel Cage Warfare-style match where you could eliminate people. Joe comes in and kills people, as per his chant. The Musclebuster puts AJ down, and Angle hits ROLLING GERMANS on Tomko. Steiner comes in next and tosses people around like ragdolls, including Samoa Joe, impressively enough. FRANKENSTEINER ON RHINO! Sting comes in, and they work in the Tower of Doom car-wreck spot. You know Jarrett is the real star, though, because he gets the Undertaker “lights out” entrance. His pop is, shall we say, non-existent, probably because everyone knows better than to trust him. Either that or they remember his last face run. He wisely crawls up and tosses the weapons to his own team. That’s a cool strategic move. AJ and Angle crawl up to the roof of the cage for a slugfest. Mitchell slips Abyss some thumb tacks and gets knocked into next week by Race. Rhino gores Tomko through the cage door! Holy crap! Then, just as Tomko staggers to his feet, Joe comes barreling through with a suicida. Abyss tries to chokeslam Sting and Jarrett on the tacks, but they escape and double chokeslam Christian on the tacks! Angle and AJ are back up again. They slug it out, and Angle sends AJ flying off the top of the cage to the pile of wrestlers that had collected. CRAZY! That leaves Abyss, Jarrett and Sting as the only conscious guys in the ring. Abyss dumps the tacks inside the guitar and tells Jarrett to grab it. Why Abyss didn’t just use the guitar, I don’t know. It’s not like it’s Excalibur or anything. Jarrett picks up the guitar, waits for Sting to turn his back and…tells Sting to get out of the way so he can BLAST Abyss with it. Then, in the ultimate act of selflessness, Jarrett offers Sting the pin instead of taking it himself. Sting picks up the win and the title shot at 28:05. Not that it’s going to win “Angle of the Year” or anything, but this was significantly better than anything on the card. It was more subtle and nuanced without falling into the “what does this all mean?” cliché. Everyone distrusted Jarrett but Kurt Angle, but when Jarrett did the right thing, we learned that it was Angle who didn’t have the purest motives. The match itself was good, but not on the level of War Games from years past. Mostly, it was three memorable spots and a non-turn. ***1/2

The 411: I won’t go so far as to say the main event saved the show, but it kept it from being the laughingstock of a PPV that it had been to that point. Most of the matches were either sub par or actively stupid. The bigger problem is with the week-to-week booking that uses these midcard matches as a backdrop for an angle rather than using the angles to build the matches so that when the PPV comes around, the fans are conditioned to ignore the matches unless someone tries to kill himself.

Thumbs down for “Lockdown 2007”

J.D. Dunn