They showed footage from earlier with people arriving at the show; the Main Event Mafia, minus Sting, entered via a Hummer stretch limousine, Team 3D came together in some form of pimp-mobile, and finally Sting arrived in a Lamborghini Diablo. The colour of it was a bit off, yellow and white, but it was still a gorgeous car and probably the prettiest thing we’ll see on this show. The Matches Alex Shelley defeated Eric Young to retain the X-Division title
Very good match to open things off with and it gives some hope that TNA will actually be putting an effort into making the X-Division seem worthwhile. Both men looked pretty good with Shelly hitting a lovely frog splash. Shelley won with a roll-up after sort of feigning injury. It was the exact same way he won the belt last month and made him look a bit weak. But a perfectly fine opener nonetheless. Scott Steiner defeated Petey Williams
Williams came out still dressed as a Steiner clone which completely baffled me. This was a really slow and boring match and Steiner’s antics towards the crowd were more interesting. It could be viewed as a borderline squash match as Steiner pretty much dominated.
After he won the match, Steiner beat up Williams more before Samoa Joe appeared on the big screen, not live in the arena, and mouthed off to him. Joe had a pretend tattoo on his face that makes him look like a cheap rip-off of the WWE wrestler Umaga. That is not good. TNA completely dropped the ball on Joe last year and he needs some serious rebuilding but that new look is not the way to go about it.
Magnus cut a promo before the match and I was pleasantly surprised as he spoke well enough. I was a little disappointed the opponent was Sabin; I was expecting a bigger name. The match was one of those throwaway contests but to his credit Magnus done pretty okay as he didn’t botch things and played a good heel. His finisher looks a bit weak but he could make something of himself if, and that’s a big if, TNA give him time and show a bit of faith in him.
At the start, there were a bit of unnecessary shenanigans whereby Kong’s associates came down with her before Jim Cornette shooed them away. Kong then squared off to Cornette and it was all a waste of time really, although hearing Mike Tenay saying Cornette was “goozled” almost made it worthwhile. No, I’ve not idea what he was on about either, but it was possibly the most sensible thing the commentators said all night. The match was pedestrian and a bit dull; Kong dominated, ODB had a small comeback, Kong then finished her with the Implant Buster. The problem they have now is that Kong has beaten all the babyfaces, so creative will have to do some thinking in order to come up with her next opponent.
This was rubbish, nothing more than filler. Booker won with the axe-kick after wife Sharmell tripped Sewell up. The fact that Booker needed help against a part-time wrestler made him look really, really weak.
A.J. Styles came out after and beat Booker up for a bit. He then and cut a rather whiny promo which took the entire sting out of his appearance. A pity really, although Booker/Styles gives some hope.
This was not a 'no holds barred' match as previously stipulated as the referee kept taking weapons away from both guys. That was rather lame and so the match was worse than expected. The ref took a bump for his troubles and then got hit in the head with a chair. Abyss won after a second Black Hole Slam when referee Slick Johnson ran down to make the cover. They fought in the crowd at the start which was cool but once they got into the ring it dragged big time. This feud will most likely continue for a while yet.
Beer Money came down to the ring on a motorised keg of beer name the ‘Boozer Cruiser’. Ha, nice. They looked really good in this match too as they dominated aside from the mandatory brief comeback from the challengers. Jacqueline got involved as expected but Storm hit Lethal in the head with his fist wrapped in chain to secure the victory. A really fine match even if the dodgy ending was a bit unnecessary.
Horrible main event, although the crowd seemed to eat it up big time which was rather unfortunate. Angle was heeling it up big time trying to pin Sting at every available opportunity. But he nor really Sting couldn’t get into their grooves due to their vastly inferior opponents. Mick Foley handed Sting the title at the end, so at least they are doing something right in getting Sting away from being a heel. He is probably in the middle at the minute or a ‘tweener’, but it seems they are finally moving things along.
When the first contest is the best of the night, then you know your show is going to be in trouble. This was yet another rubbish event that was pretty much devoid of any interesting matches and a lack of big names that were absent from action (Joe, Styles, Rhino, still no Christopher Daniels). Looking at the bigger picture, there is no progress being made by TNA, none whatsoever and I dare say that if they are at a stage where they are putting Team 3D in a PPV main event singles match then they are actually regressing as a promotion.
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