Well, TNA has finally got their acts together and put out some DVDs in Australia and they're quite cheap. I'd heard about the legendary match where Samoa Joe finally defeated Kurt Angle to win the TNA World Title so I paid my $12 and took home this fun little show.
TNA is one of those promotions that you can enjoy occasionally, but if you watched all the time you'd go crazy with all the silly stipulations, nonsensical swerves and bizarre characters, but when they play it straight, as they did with the main event here, they put on some quality matches and usually get better buyrates too, which should tell them something.
Things started off with one of those headache inducing stipulation matches. How's this: you throw six guys into a cage in a no DQ elimination match, but once you get down to the final two, you can win by climbing out of the thing. Can't complain too much because it worked, Christopher Daniels, now known as Curry Man did a cool spot, and Black Machismo Jay Lethal pulled out the win, uncuffing himself and diving out of the cage door while the evil Johhny Devine was climbing out of the cage.
Next up Billy Gunn (Kip James) lost to Road Dogg (BG James) and then beat him up in a short, nothing match.
Roxxi Laveaux pinned Angelina Love in another logic bending stipulation match to become Queen of the Cage. All participants start off outside the cage and the first two in get to have No.1 contender's match. Not a great way to get people to buy PPVs I wouldn't have thought.
Next up we had the cuffed in cage match. Another stipulation. Look, seeing it in isolation it's fun, but you can see why people who watch this stuff every week get annoyed. This was entertaining. There are six tag teams in the match and the only way to win is to cuff both members of all opposing teams to the cell wall. We had a pretty cool moment with Super Eric coming back to the ring to win the match for him and Kaz, but I'm not even going to try to describe this.
Next we had Awesome Kong and Raisha Saeed take on Gail Kim with ODB and show us that TNA does do women's matches better than anyone. This was a fun, fast paced, absorbing contest with some great high spots. Massively better than the WWE women's matches.
Then we have the negative side of employing a bunch of women with two useless ones in the next mixed tag match as Booker T and Queen Sharmell defeated Robert Roode and Payton Banks. End of that story.
Our penultimate match was another fun stipulation match as Christian Cage, Sting, Rhyno, Kevin Nash and Matt Morgan defeated Tomko, AJ Styles, Team 3d and James Storm. This was a chaotic match with a crazy spot as Styles and Cage were thrown off a ladder and through a table on top of the cage. Rhyno won the match by gore-ing someone. No idea what the hell that was, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't entertaining.
And now we come to the main event, which was one of the best wrestling matches I've ever seen. Probably not in my top ten, but it effectively mixed MMA and pure pro wrestling in an entertaining and absorbing, well executed contest. Joe won clean, which is rare for a TNA PPV and both men put in huge efforts. They probably overdid some of the reversals near the end, the crowd were expecting the Joe win to come a little earlier, they delayed it and that hurt the crowd reaction, which was still enormous.
All in all a good show. A few too many confusing stipulations for me to become a regular DVD buyer, but I love Sting so I'll look out for Bound For Glory IV and Turning Point. A good, entertaining show overall.
TNA is one of those promotions that you can enjoy occasionally, but if you watched all the time you'd go crazy with all the silly stipulations, nonsensical swerves and bizarre characters, but when they play it straight, as they did with the main event here, they put on some quality matches and usually get better buyrates too, which should tell them something.
Things started off with one of those headache inducing stipulation matches. How's this: you throw six guys into a cage in a no DQ elimination match, but once you get down to the final two, you can win by climbing out of the thing. Can't complain too much because it worked, Christopher Daniels, now known as Curry Man did a cool spot, and Black Machismo Jay Lethal pulled out the win, uncuffing himself and diving out of the cage door while the evil Johhny Devine was climbing out of the cage.
Next up Billy Gunn (Kip James) lost to Road Dogg (BG James) and then beat him up in a short, nothing match.
Roxxi Laveaux pinned Angelina Love in another logic bending stipulation match to become Queen of the Cage. All participants start off outside the cage and the first two in get to have No.1 contender's match. Not a great way to get people to buy PPVs I wouldn't have thought.
Next up we had the cuffed in cage match. Another stipulation. Look, seeing it in isolation it's fun, but you can see why people who watch this stuff every week get annoyed. This was entertaining. There are six tag teams in the match and the only way to win is to cuff both members of all opposing teams to the cell wall. We had a pretty cool moment with Super Eric coming back to the ring to win the match for him and Kaz, but I'm not even going to try to describe this.
Next we had Awesome Kong and Raisha Saeed take on Gail Kim with ODB and show us that TNA does do women's matches better than anyone. This was a fun, fast paced, absorbing contest with some great high spots. Massively better than the WWE women's matches.
Then we have the negative side of employing a bunch of women with two useless ones in the next mixed tag match as Booker T and Queen Sharmell defeated Robert Roode and Payton Banks. End of that story.
Our penultimate match was another fun stipulation match as Christian Cage, Sting, Rhyno, Kevin Nash and Matt Morgan defeated Tomko, AJ Styles, Team 3d and James Storm. This was a chaotic match with a crazy spot as Styles and Cage were thrown off a ladder and through a table on top of the cage. Rhyno won the match by gore-ing someone. No idea what the hell that was, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't entertaining.
And now we come to the main event, which was one of the best wrestling matches I've ever seen. Probably not in my top ten, but it effectively mixed MMA and pure pro wrestling in an entertaining and absorbing, well executed contest. Joe won clean, which is rare for a TNA PPV and both men put in huge efforts. They probably overdid some of the reversals near the end, the crowd were expecting the Joe win to come a little earlier, they delayed it and that hurt the crowd reaction, which was still enormous.
All in all a good show. A few too many confusing stipulations for me to become a regular DVD buyer, but I love Sting so I'll look out for Bound For Glory IV and Turning Point. A good, entertaining show overall.
