Smark Out Moment

I surrender already. Though a lot of people are completely missing from this card, and it's headlined by all babyfaces in the title tournament, on paper it looks like a somewhat decent set of matches. Whether or not they'll deliver is a whole different thing..

BLIND PREDICTIONS: If Kurt Angle doesn't walk out the champion, I'll be surprised, unless they just ignore the whole retirement side of it, which they might have already forgotten about. My guess is the finals are Angle versus Anderson. The Motor City Machine Guns should by all means retain their titles and I can't see why they would drop them, especially to Generation Me. I'm expecting Dreamer to beat Styles, as foolish as that sounds. Sting and Kevin Nash over Joe and Jarrett. Doug Williams retains over Sabu. Abyss should beat Rhino. Velvet Sky over Madison Rayne.


TNA Tag Team Championship: The Motor City Machine Guns (c) vs. Generation Me
Because of an injury to Desmond Wolfe, Generation Me is replacing London Brawling. That's a shame, as I'd have preferred LB vs. MCMG. As always, it's a good idea to start off the ppv with the the guns since they're a good bang at the beginning to pump you up. This is no different so far, with lots of fast-paced action. The story they're trying to say in this match is that Generation Me has been complaining backstage that they aren't getting a proper shot. Despite not being the team built up for challenging the MCMG, they're still letting Generation Me put up a fight, rather than just getting squashed, which is good. In fact, there was a very close 2 and a half count which, if it had been done later on in the match, could've temporarily fooled me. Everyone's flying around and I've lost track of who are the legal guys. This should really be a double DQ as all four of them are in the ring over 10 seconds, but oh well. The Guns hit a couple superkicks and Sabin pins Jeremy after the Skull & Bones.

WINNERS: The Motor City Machine Guns via pinfall.
As always, this was an enjoyable match. The MCMG are the most consistently good performers in TNA. I don't remember the last ppv match they've had that I disliked.

After the match, Generation Me attacks the guns. Heel turn complete. Shelley is DDT'ed on the outside, so the medics come out, while Generation Me laughs on the ramp.

X-Division Championship: Douglas Williams (c) vs. Sabu
As with normal Williams matches, he tries to keep it grounded while his opponent tries to take more risks. Sabu pulls a table out, but Williams stops that before he can fully set things up outside the ring. Sabu goes for a hurricanrana from the top rope, but botches it and they both basically just fall to the mat. Sabu picks up a chair which, of course, would be a DQ if he used it (similar to the table). Sabu sets the chair up near the ropes like normal, instead, and slightly botches a springboard moonsault. Williams oversells (in Ric Flair fashion) a DDT from Sabu. Sabu uses the chair and lunges himself at Williams in the corner, so Hebner folds it up and throws it away, and Sabu goes right over to set it back up again. Taz loses track that it's the same chair and seems to think that there are multiple ones "falling from the sky". Williams goes to the outside and Hebner tries to prevent Sabu from using the chair to launch himself over to the outside. Sabu ignores it, runs, botches the jump, then does a normal flip over the edge. He tries again a few seconds later and Williams moves, so Sabu just lands into the table. A distraction later and Williams nails Sabu with the belt and picks up the pin.

WINNER: Douglas Williams via pinfall.
Glad to see Williams retain.

Backstage with Anderson
Anderson basically says that he doesn't care if The Pope doesn't trust him. He's going to win the match. All the normal stuff you usually hear in backstage segments.

Velvet Sky vs. Madison Rayne
Should I skip the normal comments about how hot these women are? Despite how in virtually every regard, I'm going to defend the WWE against TNA, there's no argument whatsoever in the Beautiful People vs. LayCool fiasco. TBP win hands down and it isn't even close. The crowd starts to chant "masturbation" (hahaha). Tara breaks up a count and is about to hit Velvet with the motorcycle helmet, but Angelina stops her. Sky then gets the pinfall on Rayne with a DDT.

WINNER: Velvet Sky via pinfall.

Backstage with Jeff Hardy
Jeff claims that he's going to win it in honor of the injured RVD, seeing as how he didn't really lose the title.

Abyss vs. Rhino
Rhino goes after Abyss before he even gets to the ring and they start brawling outside. Falls count anywhere, so naturally (and as they should) they start heading out to the backstage areas. Typical stuff happens. Heads ramming into stuff and so forth, before they come back to the general ringside locale. Abyss goes through a plywood section of the stage with surprisingly little impact. For the second time in the match, a cameraman gets knocked down. Rhino comes crashing through the opposite side of the stage with the same small impact as when Abyss did it. Abyss pulls off a section of the guard rail from the ringside area and sets it up in the corner of the ring for future usage. Rhino goes for a Gore but Abyss chokeslams him into a trash can instead. He hits it later on after Abyss had went outside to get Janice and took forever, but only gets a two-count. The same applies to a Black Hole Slam that follows it from Abyss. Abyss double checks the security barricade in the corner and when Rhino goes for another Gore, he misses, hitting that instead. Abyss hits another Black Hole Slam and gets the win.

WINNER: Abyss via pinfall.
Using a section of the security guard rail is a little different, so thumbs up for that, but the rest of the match was cookie-cutter and not very exciting in my mind, but I'm sure others loved it.

Abyss repeats several times in his typical bad acting style "10/10/10, they're coming for you Dixie" and all that.

Kevin Nash & Sting vs. Jeff Jarrett & Samoa Joe
Does anybody else have a feeling that this match is pointless and the only thing that really matters is what happens afterward? Kind of a low energy match with nothing really interesting to point out. Sting's ruled out of it from Joe's rear naked choke.

WINNERS: Jeff Jarrett & Samoa Joe via submission.
Nothing happened during the match, before it, or after, to really talk about.

I-Quit Match: A.J. Styles vs. Tommy Dreamer
Styles takes his belt and goes behind the stage, most likely to jump Tommy in about 5 seco--yeah, but it doesn't work and Tommy sees it coming. The fans are at the very least equally supportive of Styles, if not more so than Dreamer. Styles "fishhooks" Dreamer's mouth, yet Dreamer doesn't just bite down on his fingers, for some reason. Styles pulls a FORK out of his kneepad, but isn't able to use it in any way. A "use the fork" chant breaks out later on in the match when it makes a reappearance, but once again, it isn't used, as Styles hits the Pele Kick. AJ tries to follow it up with a suicide dive but Dreamer smacks him with the kendo stick. He then uses the cane for a variation of a crossface until it breaks in half. AJ then finally uses the fork and "pokes him in the eye". Dreamer goes to the corner, clearly turning his back to the camera so he can blade. Styles then puts the fork over his eye, pretending to dig it in there but clearly not coming close to it, forcing him to quit.

WINNER: AJ Styles via a fork in the eye.
I'm too lazy to think of a proper "Forktune" joke.

TNA World Title Tournament [Semi-Final]: Kurt Angle vs. Jeff Hardy
I wonder why this isn't the main event. It's a bigger match than Anderson/Pope. Kurt Angle does a great Power Bomb to Jeff Hardy and it looks like it knocked the wind out of him, since Angle's stalling while the ref talks to Jeff. Jeff botches his normal kick in the corner (and the fans let him know we all saw it by chanting "you fucked up"). Angle suplexes Jeff off the top rope. He goes for the Angle Slam and Jeff counters into a Twist of Fate, which results in a two-count. Angle moves out of the way of a Swanton Bomb and hits the Angle Slam, but gets a two as well. Jeff moves out of the way when Angle goes for a moonsault, and then tries a Whisper in the Wind but totally botches it and doesn't come close to hitting Angle (which the fans respond to with boos). Jeff Swanton Bombs Angle on the outside. Both of them get into the ring just before being counted out. Angle kicks out of another Twist of Fate and JUST BARELY kicks out of another Swanton Bomb, and then yet another Swanton Bomb. The third attempt at a SB is met with Angle putting his knees up. Jeff then kicks out of an Angle Slam. Jeff gets out of two ankle locks. The score's basically even as far as withstanding finishers is concerned. Angle goes for another and while it looks like Jeff is about to tap, the bell rings and the time limit is supposedly expired. Out comes Eric Bischoff, who talks to Dixie ringside, and says they're adding another 5 minutes onto the clock. The match restarts and Angle starts working on Jeff's ankle. Angle Slam off the top rope, but Jeff kicks out. The 5 minutes expires when Jeff kicks out of a pinfall attempt (which looks like they were trying to plan on having the clock prevent the three-count, but the ref was too quick, forcing Jeff to put his shoulder up just in case). Another 5 minutes is added to the match. Jeff slams Angle into the steps a few times and the camera moves away to give him a chance to blade. Angle withstands a Boston Crab and then reverses it into another ankle lock, but the five minutes expires once more. The trainers come out to clean up Angle's head and Bischoff says that the physicians are declaring it a no-contest.

WINNER: N/A (draw)
Needless to say, great match. One of the best matches I've seen in TNA.

Backstage with The Pope
Burke stumbles quite a bit when cutting a promo about, per usual, how he's going to beat Anderson.

TNA World Title Tournament [Semi-Final]: Mr. Anderson vs. The Pope D'Angelo Dinero
This match is suffering quit a bit from following Angle/Hardy. It's coming off quite boring, sloppy, and uninspired. Nothing important to mention. Anderson wins with a Mic Check and tells Pope to give him back his "fucking elbow pad".

WINNER: Mr. Anderson via pinfall.
This is a tough thing to call. The previous match was so much better that it killed this match's chances of being interesting. But at the same time, do you really want to end a ppv on a draw?


People like to complain about my TNA reviews and claim that I support everything the WWE does and that I refuse to admit if anything TNA does is good. On the contrary, if you look at my SummerSlam review, I thought it was shit, and if you look above at this review, I give credit where credit is due. Angle/Hardy was very, very good. Didn't ignore that, did I? The overall match quality of this ppv wasn't atrocious, which means this ppv was better than normal and better than I expected, though a great deal of that goes to Angle/Hardy. That's not to say this isn't without its flaws, but when it comes down to it, nobody's going to talk about how bad Jarrett's tag match was or anything (and if you point it out, they'll probably say you're wrong anyway, because people like to think that if one match was awesome on the card, then the whole ppv was amazing). So all in all, better than I was expecting.