Smark Out Moment

You might be confused by the above image, but no, this is not a review for Captain America (you can read my review of that here - cheap plug!). This is TNA's No Surrender pay-per-view, given the above logo because of the day they decided to have it on, September 11th, 2011. I usually make puns in the introduction that reference the themes or what's going on right now, but I don't think it would be particularly respectable to do that for a 9/11 thing, so my apologies to those that were looking forward to that. Instead, I'll just have to say that I hope that this ppv isn't so bad that I have to surrender and shut it off. (Quick, easy, lame joke? Yup).

PREDICTIONS: As always, don't bet your money on my TNA predictions. Jesse Sorensen, Mickie James, Kurt Angle, Mexican America, Austin Aries, Matt Morgan, Robert Roode, and Bully Ray would be my guesses at a glance, though I would not be surprised if Devon and Pope win their match, nor if Brian Kendrick retains, nor even if Mr. Anderson walks out with the title to face Roode at Bound for Glory, giving Angle a different match (and Sting a match with Hogan or something).

X-Division #1 Contendership: Kid Kash vs. Jesse Sorensen
Kash dominates early on. Sorensen gets some quick offense, primarily with a swinging neckbreaker. Kid Kash pushes the referee (Brian Hebner) who shoves him back. Kid Kash does a corkscrew moonsault (or at least tries) and misses, almost landing right on Jesse's head. Sorensen picks up the victory after what I'm assuming is his finisher, a vertical suplex of sorts.

WINNER: Jesse Sorensen via pinfall.
Meh, not great, not awful. Just meh. 5/10 type of match.

Backstage with Hulk Hogan and Kurt Angle
Angle asks why he's in Immortal if Hogan isn't protecting him, having a triple threat tonight. Hogan says he brought him in to be a heartbeat for Immortal, not to protect him.

Bound for Glory Series: James Storm vs. Bully Ray
As Borash points out, the only way Storm can win is if he gets Ray to submit and is victorious. Storm needs to be victorious if he wants to win, haha. The beginning of the match is Ray sticking himself under the ropes to make the ref send Storm back and not attack him. Storm chases after him outside of the ring. The fans start chanting "Pussy Ray", haha. Once the match actually starts, Storm puts Ray in a cross-armbreaker. Now they go back to wasting more time. Storm goes back to the armbreaker. Storm goes back to the armbreaker again. Thrilling match, TNA. Awesome job. Storm then puts Ray in a sharpshooter. Storm accidentally spits the beer in the ref's face, making it so he can't see when Ray is submitting. Storm gets disqualified because of it.

WINNER: Bully Ray via disqualification.
Lame.

Hemme congratulates Bully Ray who calls her a stupid bitch and tells her to get out of his face.

Knockouts Championship: Mickie James (c) vs. Winter
Mickie's dressed Wonder Woman-esque. (It's a good look for her). Love helps Winter reach the ropes when Mickie goes to pin her. She also tries to give Winter the belt to hit Mickie with, but the ref sees it ahead of time and takes it away from her. Then there's a bunch of mixups between the ref and Love/Winter. While the ref is distracted, Winter spits something in Mickie's face and pins her to win the title.

WINNER (and new Knockouts champion): Winter via pinfall.
Didn't like this match either, nor did I like the finish. Didn't they just do this?

Backstage with Gunner
Gunner says he's going to win. Bully Ray comes out and says the last thing Gunner wants is to face him in the finals.

Tag Team Championship: Mexican America (c) vs. Devon & D'angelo Dinero
The beginning of this match is awkward, as if nobody is on the same page. (It's not a train wreck though). Pope kisses Rosita. Rosita slaps him. He then picks her up by her hair and dangles her over the ring apron. That will win them some brownie points with man-on-woman abuse groups, haha. The good guy kisses the girl unprovoked, she slaps him back, and then he grabs her head? Jeez. Both teams are now in the ring for well over 2 minutes. Rosita and Sarita come in as well, and receive spankings for their trouble. Man, they're not redeeming themselves are they? More distractions. Sarita holds Pope's leg down and the pinfall leads to the tag champs retaining their belts.

WINNERS: Mexican America via pinfall.
Another match that wasn't God awful, but I wouldn't say it was necessarily good.

Backstage with Mr. Anderson
Anderson says he and Sting don't like each other but they both hate Immortal even more. Anderson keeps dragging on and on with this promo.

Samoa Joe vs. Matt Morgan
Taz tries to make a gym/Jim joke that completely goes flat. Joe and Matt are working rather well together (though the match has a slow pace which is removing a lot of their potential I think). Nothing particularly noteworthy happens, though.  Matt Morgan hits the Carbon Footprint and beats Samoa Joe.

WINNER:Matt Morgan via pinfall.
Not too bad.

Backstage with Bobby Roode
Roode says he'll make Gunner tap out and then he'll kick Bully Ray's fat ass. Storm says he was wishing it would be him against Roode but since he lost, he's rooting for Roode to go all the way.

Bound for Glory Series: Gunner vs. Bobby Roode
Crowd seems tired or just not into this match much. I was hoping that this would be the match of the night but it's basically just boring me. Roode gets the armbar on Gunner, but Gunner makes it to the ropes. Still a dead crowd. I don't know what it is but there's just something so stale and uninteresting about this. Roode eventually wins with a crossface.

WINNER: Bobby Roode via submission.
Boring and stagnant, which is a shame, as I like Roode and I was thinking he'd work well with Gunner and steal the show.

Eric Bischoff comes out to congratulate Roode. He says he's going to make Roode face Ray tonight.

Backstage with Austin Aries
Aries promotes himself and says none of Kendrick's weirdo tactics will matter cause he's the better athlete.

X-Division Championship: Brian Kendrick (c) vs. Austin Aries
Kind of an even match. Aries misses his pendulum elbow. Kendrick hits a suicide dive and follows it up with a missile dropkick. Kendrick goes for Sliced Bread and is tossed to the outside with a loud thud. Aries goes for a suicide dive of his own and misses, hitting the security barricade. Aries corkscrews out onto Kendrick and almost entirely misses. Kendrick suplexes Aries who lands very awkwardly on his neck. Aries hits a brainbuster, scores a pin and wins the title.

WINNER (and new X-Division champion): Austin Aries via pinfall.
Best match of the night so far.

Bound for Glory Finals: Bully Ray vs. Bobby Roode
Ray starts off by playing the same head games he did against Storm. Ray chops Roode who just eats it and flips him off. Roode locks a crossface in but Ray escapes. They do this for quite a while. Roode wins with a spinebuster.

WINNER (and #1 contender): Bobby Roode via pinfall.
It would have been a lot better if they didn't spend the majority of the match just chopping each other. The rest of the match was good.

Backstage with Rosita
Rosita apparently lost her father in the 9/11 attacks. Borash introduces her as her real name, not Rosita. She says her father, a wrestler, was her inspiration. She wants to thank everyone for all their support.

TNA Championship [Triple Threat Match]: Kurt Angle (c) vs. Sting vs. Mr. Anderson
Anderson and Sting double team Angle to start it off. Slow match, which is making me antsy for the pay-per-view to just end already. Angle gives a German suplex to Sting (who at the same time does it to Anderson). That was good. Angle hits three German suplexes on Anderson, then three on Sting. Sting puts the Scorpion Death Lock on Anderson. Angle breaks it up and hits Sting with an Angle Slam. Ankle Lock on Sting. Sting reverses it and throws Angle into Anderson who hits a Mic Check. There's a three-count but the ref says it was two. Sting goes to pin Anderson and the ref takes his time counting, just to make sure Angle can break it up. Hogan's outside and he sprays something in Sting's face. Angle capitalizes and pins Sting. Two matches where someone wins the match because someone was blind? Come on.

WINNER: Kurt Angle via pinfall.
Not as good as I was hoping it would be, and it seemed like the crowd wasn't even that into it either.