Lockdown Delivers Huge Os & A Massive NO

Over the past month, I had said numerous times that TNA needed last night's pay-per-view, Lockdown, to be huge in order to keep themselves off of their own death bed (wow, even I found that pun to be in bad taste).

And save for the finish of the main event, they did. Given what they had to work with, TNA did almost everything right last night.

I know that there were still really lame stips attached to some of the matches, and there were some things on this card that could have been booked better. But for the sake of this article, I'm going to overlook the way that the booking was done. We're going to skip over how we got to this card, and instead focus on what TNA did with the card they had to work with.

First of all, thank you TNA for finally realizing what the pre-show was for. Take your lamest match and throw it on there! Nobody wants to waste a minute of the three hours they paid out the ass for to see Voodoo Kin Mafia! It was a short match, and it was over and out of our memories well before the opening pyro even went off.

The Xscape match was the curtain jerker. However, to call men the ilk of Sonjay Dutt, Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin and Jay Lethal "curtain jerkers" is disrespectful. These men put on one hell of a match. It had high spots, it had athleticism and it had suspense - this match was a blockbuster of a curtain jerker.

Sabin retained the title after beating Lethal out of the cage, which surprised me. I thought they were going to put the title on Lethal following his recent push. Hopefully fans will be treated to a Sabin VS. Lethal match for Sacrifice, because it's not like we've got a lot else to look forward to there. I'll get to that later.

Robert Roode VS. Petey Williams was next. TNA's next "hot star that never will be" got the win in a match that I felt was excellent, but far too short. Young did make an appearance, but did not turn heel like I had originally predicted. Shit happens though. Take it in, O-sters, this will be the last pay-per-view appearance for either of these two guys for quite some time.

Gail Kim VS. Jackie Moore sucked. The fans clearly did not care about this match. Nor should they have. I, at least, give TNA credit for putting this match in a low spot on the card. Kim won, for those of you who were curious.

Senshi VS. Austin Starr was a solid, entertaining match. These two men showed that they are every bit deserving of the pushes that they got stripped of in 2006. My only complaint about the bout is that the finish was weak. A roll-up is never a good finish for a pay-per-view match. Especially when the the other guy just hit a friggin' 450!

The next match was Chris Harris VS. James Storm. As expected, this match was the laugher of the night. A blindfold match, in and of itself, is a useless stipulation. The fans shit on this match hard, as well they should have. Half of this match was spent with two guys blindly stumbling around in the ring, and the other half was spent with the two guys trying to keep their hoods on. Alriiiiiiiiight. Exciting stuff right there.

The ending of "my mask accidentally slipped off so as long as I can see you I'm going to kick your head off" was pointless, unentertaining and predictable. (Isn't that what I said was going to happen in my predictions article?).

I have officially changed my mind on Christopher Daniels' new gimmick. Who gives a fuck what it is if he puts out matches like the one last night?! Much like we all had forecasted, Jerry Lynn VS. Christopher Daniels was dope. It was a sick match between two huge smark favorites. A technical masterpiece which showed two guys who can both put on high spots and wrestle.

I popped for all the reversals and false finishes. If it were a little longer, I would have called this match of the night, but I can't. I'll explain why momentarily.

Next was the "Electric Cage" match. I had mixed emotions about this match going in, but figured that I'd ride it out and see what would happen. The match exceeded my expectations.

First off, I always have to pop when I hear those "Fire Russo" chants that they had tonight during this match. And, as always, Hernandez and Homicide provided their fair share of O's in this match. These two guys represent, and as much as I loved having them as the tag champs, I don't mind having them lose to Team 3D. It doesn't make sense storyline-wise, but most TNA fans are smarks anyway and couldn't care less.

Finally, the main event. It was the match of the night, but it was not by any means flawless. Remember that huge "NO" mentioned in the title of this article? Well, here it is.

Throughout the course of the pre-show and the entire event, backstage segments were repeatedly shown involving Kurt Angle and the various members of his team. And all of them centered around Jeff Jarrett. For as long as this match has been built up, and for all of the feuds intertwined in this match (most of which have gone on for far too long), for someone to sneak in the back door the Thursday before Lockdown and suddenly become the focal point of this event is asinine.

The main event quickly became the Jeff Jarrett show, which is one of only two things I can take away from it.

Say what you will about how this match came to be, or about the feuds involved in it, or about the shoddy booking in the months prior to this culminating match. This match was great. It featured great technical wrestlers, great brawlers, and great high-flyers putting on a clinic of what they can do. Seriously, when's the last time we've seen Big Poppa Pump hit a good Frankensteiner, or seen Angle hit five suplexes?

I was a bit confused as to why Team Cage was given the numbers advantage (since according to what happened on "iMPACT!", Angle's team was supposed to have that -maybe I wasn't paying attention and missed something last night, anybody know?), but that didn't bother me because this match brought what a main event match should.

There is a part two to that massive "NO", however. Sting winning the match by pinning Abyss? Go toss a salad. Sting has no business being near the world title when Styles, Angle and Joe are not. What made it worse is the way it happened. Let me paint the picture for you...

Abyss fills a guitar with tacks. Jeff Jarrett picks it up, and, in a moment of poetic irony, slams it over the head of Abyss. He then stands there and lets Sting cover Abyss. Not only does he allow it, he tells Sting to do it! So now we have Sting VS. Christian Cage for the championship at Sacrifice, and Sting is being backed by his newfound good buddy, Jeff Jarrett, who wants to see Sting take the title off of Cage.

Doesn't this sound like the same build-up they used for last year's Hard Justice pay-per-view, except the same guys in different positions? I am not looking forward to the main event next month at all. They should have let Angle get the win instead of having him brawl with AJ outside of the cage.

All things considered, this event was immeasurably (is that a real word?) better than any other TNA pay-per-view this year. Almost no run-ins, only two matches which featured cheesy, over-the-top gimmick stipulations, and the wrestlers in the matches put on a good show. Big Daddy and Dan-e-o, you guys jumped ship at the wrong time. Lockdown easily gets an "O" from me.

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