Title: Rise of the Fallen Angel
SEGMENT #1:The Fallen Angel is back and Ric Flair is angry
So last week on Impact, Christopher Daniels made his return to TNA. They still have him titled as “Daniels” which completely kills any possible marketability he has going forward in the company. Anyway, he cuts a promo talking about how despite whether he and AJ were friends or foes, they always had each other’s backs. That makes sense in the case of the latter. He wants to be on Fortune’s side at Lockdown. Before Fortune can respond, Immortal of Ric Flair/Bully Ray/Matt Hardy/Abyss comes out. Flair insults Daniels calling him a nobody in the business. Daniels talks about how the NETWORK wants him there. Hogan and Bischoff come out and make Daniels vs. Bully Ray official for tonight. Immortal and Fortune (Four) start brawling to end the segment.
We see Anderson walking around backstage with a note seemingly from Sting. This starts a trend of very bad segments throughout the night.
SEGMENT #2: Tommy Dreamer & Devon vs. Anarquia & Hernandez
Match Result: Hernandez pinned Devon following a chairshot from Anarquia in two minutes.
Fun fact #1: Tommy Dreamer still has EV2.0 in his titantron. Fun fact #2: Hernandez is the one person in his group to not have a name ending in -ia. So I guess Matt Morgan is now friends with Tommy Dreamer? Makes enough sense to me! Just a rather pointless match meant to continue the feud. Anarquia used a chair to hit Devon allowing Hernandez to get the pin and Matt Morgan came out for the save. Mike Tenay had me bursting out laughing by saying something along the lines of “Finally, these two will meet in a cage at Lockdown!” when they already had a cage match last July and wrestled at least five or six other times besides that match.
We see Angelina getting drugged by Winter backstage. I love how helpful the camermen in TNA are.
SEGMENT #3: Samoa Joe vs. Murphy
Match Result: Samoa Joe makes Murphy tap in under a minute.
For the record, Murphy is the one WITHOUT the TV title. Pope was on commentary for this match as well. Not much to say here besides a way to attempt to make Joe look good after tripping over the bad booking of this feud.
Mr. Anderson is still getting notes from Sting backstage.
SEGMENT #4: TNA Knockouts Ladies Tag Team Championship Match – Sarita & Rosita (C) vs. the Beautiful People
Match Result: Rosita pinned Velvet after Angelina pinned Sky.
The tag team champions did not even get entrances. Amazing. Even more amazing is Angelina’s acting in this segment, as seen here.
Much like almost every segment on this show, largely just boring filler meant to continue the feud. The Beautiful People had it won until Winter commanded Angelina to attack. Somehow, I feel like this feud will end up with Velvet telling Angelina, “I wish I knew how to quit you.” As of now, this is the one recurring feud that does NOT have a match for Lockdown as well, yet it still eats up a large portion of the TV time.
Anderson is STILL backstage looking for Sting and he bumps into Eric Young and Orlando Jordan who tell him to look in the rafters. You know, the SAME PLACE THAT STING HAS HID FOR THE LAST FOURTEEN YEARS. OJ then tells Anderson that he likes Anderson’s whole asshole thing. GET IT? HE’S BISEXUAL WHICH MEANS HE ONLY LOVES MEN! LAUGH!
SEGMENT #5: RVD beats up Anderson….forever
So Anderson is in the rafters looking for Sting and we see someone in a trench coat about to attack Anderson…and it is RVD. I guess he wanted to wear Sting’s coat for no reason? He attacks Anderson with a pipe. This beatdown lasted an eternity. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t still going on while you read this review. After hitting him with a pipe, he puts RVD in a headscissors…because he was not killed already by the pipe. Terrible beatdown segment that lasted much longer than it should have.
SEGMENT #6: Sting and RVD make-up
Here, Sting is in the ring and RVD comes out and apologizes to Sting for beating up RVD for so long on his debut over a year ago. I just noticed that it has been a year since RVD won the belt. Oof. They ramble and ramble and Hogan and Bischoff come out and say it is RVD vs. Sting in the MAIN EVENT tonight (signed during the middle of the show. Brilliant!)
Backstage, we see Madison Rayne yelling at Tara to drive her somewhere, or else Tara will go back to scrubbing toilets. OK then.
SEGMENT #7:Generation Me/Robbie E vs. Brian Kendrick/Chris Sabin/Suicide
Match Result: Kendrick pinned Jeremy after an elevated DDT on Jeremy by Max in almost five minutes.
It is nice to see that TNA remembered that Chris Sabin and Brian Kendrick are under contract. Pretty standard cruiserweight-type match. The main story of the match was the issues continuing between Max and Jeremy. Did they not have their match last week? Regardless, Max lays out Jeremy with a DDT off the ropes causing his team to lose. I really find it mindblowing that they are splitting the Bucks of all teams. Every other team could likely do OK from a split (The guns, beer money, etc.) but the bucks I do not see doing well at all. Like I said though, pretty decent match by Impact standards.
Backstage, Anderson decides it out with Hogan to work his way into the referee spot for the main event tonight. Maybe it is just Impact but I feel like we have seen this match a dozen times over.
SEGMENT #8: Mickie got ran over by a biker / Bully Ray vs. Christopher Daniels (Lumberjack Match)
Match Result: Ray pins Daniels after Daniels is hit by Hogan with a chain in over six minutes.
So we see Tara and Madison with their bike over Mickie James who is laid out on the ground. I guess we are to presume that Mickie was hit since they never actually showed any footage. We can get footage of the Kurt/Karen issue from last week but not have someone getting hit by a bike. Brilliant. Paramedics check on her.
During the show, Daniels/Ray was turned into a Lumberjack Match. The lumberjacks are the scraps of Immortal & Fortune. Largely a dull match, but that’s what you get with Bully Ray. Daniels had the match won following the BME but Flair pulled the referee out. Since it is TNA, this of course is not a DQ. Hogan came out while the ref was distracted and hit Daniels with the chain, setting up the fall. The lumberjacks served little to no purpose whatsoever until the very end. Considering that Daniels was a total jobber in his last 3 months in the company one year ago, having him get a legitimate win over someone credible would have been a good booking decision, but apparently that was not meant to be. Also, considering Hogan is clearly not going to wrestle, all of these shenanigans with him attacking the faces is rendered pointless since there is going to be no payoff for any of them beating him. But I digress, this was just a match to (once again) continue things heading towards Lockdown.
SEGMENT #9: Jeff Jarrett talks and Kurt Angle is this week’s Suicide
So Jeff Jarrett requested that the Steel Cage be setup to reference to Angle about his arrest (not his real life arrest, but his kayfabe one.) He mentions how the kids will not be visiting Kurt in prison since they need more of Jarrett in his life. Jeff calls out Karen to the ring, but Kurt’s music plays, and SUICIDE!~ COMES ALIVE!~ Kurt repels into the ring. The best part is the security crew finishes constructing the cage seconds after Kurt repels in. KURT MUST HAVE PAID THEM OFF. Karen comes running down the ramp and Jarrett quickly climbs out of the cage running away from Kurt. Well, if Jeff can do it that quickly, who wants to pay to see the match at the PPV? Regardless, this was probably the best segment on the show just because of Jarrett’s shenanigans but this feud needs to end (much like every feud going on in the company at this point.)
In the back, Kurt mentions how The Network (who want ratings and not buyrates) made an extra stipulation for the Lockdown match between him and Jeff. I wonder if it will have to do with the custody of the kids…
SEGMENT #9: Sting vs. Rob Van Dam (w/ Special Guest Ref: Mr. Anderson)
Match Result: RVD pins Sting in about three minutes.
Largely a pointless match. RVD and Sting were more or less jumping around for a couple of minutes before Sting got the advantage just to get laid out by Anderson with the Mic Check (BECAUSE HE’S AN ASSHOLE) setting up RVD to get the W with the Five Star Frog Splash. Anderson then laid out RVD after the match (BECAUSE HE’S AN ASSHOLE). Rob Terry and Murphy came out to put Anderson on their shoulders and Hogan comes out applauding. But WAIT!~ Anderson turns on Terry and Murphy and lays both of them out! (BECAUSE HE’S AN ASSHOLE). Hogan is not happy and cusses up a storm walking to the back.
OVERALL
Oof. Awfully boring show tonight with a lot of bad stuff to continue bad feuds. Lots of plodding stuff with two angles involving partners turning on each other and basically nothing new happening. It has a rather ironic title in “Rise of the Fallen Angel” when he ended up losing. Very pointless show top to bottom which is not exactly what you want going into one of your top shows of the year.
SEGMENT OF THE NIGHT
Angle/Jarrett Cage promo
WORST SEGMENT OF THE NIGHT
RVD beats up Anderson in the rafters
Splitting the Bucks is like a microcosm of TNA-when they do something, it’s always with the players that it makes the least sense to do it with.
Oh, and Hogan beating people up without wrestling is perfect for him-he gets to put himself over without giving back, only now he has a legitimate medical excuse.