TNA No Surrender 2014
KNOCKOUTS #1 CONTENDERSHIP BATTLE ROYALE- DUD!
Taz and Tenay tell us that Rebel used to be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader… which would mean that, in kayfabe, she quit being a Cowboys’ cheerleader to go work at a carnival. That seems like a very backwards career path. Or maybe they fired her over her creepy incestuous relationship with Knux. Yeah. We’ll go with that one.
Havok really needs to lose the blinking lights on her Bane mask. They look SO stupid.
They did by far the worst ROAR! spot I have ever seen with Havok (although I think most of the blame goes to the other women for not being close enough to her and not bumping well for it).
They had Havok eliminate the two babyfaces first, so we were left with no one to root for at the end. Anyone with ANY booking competence would have had Taryn be the last one left against Havok, but when have â€"booking competence†and â€"TNA†ever gone together? Certainly not since they took the book away from Scott D’Amore to give it back to Russo… which was about EIGHT YEARS AGO!
If they are pushing Havok as a monster, it would have made sense to give her all of the eliminations, but they randomly let Rebel have one. Unfortunately, the timing worked out so that while Rebel and The Beautiful People were doing their spots, Havok was just standing around with staring into the crowd, with her back completely turned to the action, and she remained this way until the other women had finished their spot.
The stuff with Velvet and Havok at the end wasn’t bad. It was enough to save them from a negative rating, but not enough to make it anything more than a dud. Even if Taryn had been in that spot, it probably wouldn’t have been more than a dud.
Gail Kim appears in the October issue of Flex Magazine, and TNA wanted to inform everyone of this. So how did they do it? During this match, Tenay yelled at Taz â€"would you put that magazine down!†and then Taz proceeded to explain what it was that he was reading. Again: TAZ WAS READING A MAGAZINE INSTEAD OF WATCHING THIS #1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH! ARE tHEY MENTALLY DEFICIENT?!
SHAW & GUNNER BACKSTAGE- the conversation starts with Shaw, who just a few months ago was I a mental institution because he was a psychopath obsessed with a girl he went out on a date with (and he was in there because he lost a wrestling match, but don’t even get me started on that), refusing to go see a psychiatrist. Gunner says â€"okay.†Then he suggests that Shaw take another girl out on a date. WHAT THE F*CK?!
Shaw declines to do so. When Gunner asks why, Shaw tells him â€"my mind is fixated on someone else. Let’s just put it that way.†Even if Gunner is too dumb to figure out who the â€"someone else†in question is, just that phrase should have set off some alarms in his head that Shaw might soon be a danger to someone again.
MVP & KENNY KING CALL OUT CHRIS MELENDEZ-
MVP and Kenny are both in their gear, which is strange for guy that normally wear nice clothes for teir promo segments. MVP quickly says that Lashley will destroy Roode tonight, then he calls out Chris Melendez. Melendez is also wearing his gear. Hmm… I wonder where this will be going?
They want Melendez to join their group and carry their bags. Meledez doesn’t want to. He wants to climb the ladder the right way and not be a suck-up. Kenny calls Melendez â€"peg-leg,†and offers to have a match against him. Boy. It sure was lucky that they decided to come out in their gear, isn’t it?
CHRIS MELENDEZ vs. KENNY KING (w/MVP)- 2/10
The match was short, but I liked what they did here. King took most of the match, but Melendez got the win via roll-up. Not a roll-up because Kenny was distracted or being cocky, but a clean roll-up as a reversal to Kenny’s attempt at the Royal Flush (or whatever they are calling it in TNA).
The thing with the way that TNA introduced Melendez is that while he is a great human-interest story, he’s not a great wrestling story because he has already completed his journey. He said he wanted to be a pro-wrestler. He trained hard, and despite his physical handicap, he has succeeded. To have him show up and just squash someone like he did with a Zema Ion last week doesn’t really do anything for anyone because the story is him wanting to overcome the handicap and become a wrestler… which he already did.
The first feeling that pops into my head any time Melendez takes any sort of bump is worry: specifically worry that his prosthetic might break (I don’t think I have ever seen Zach Gowen wrestle with his prosthetic on). To have him struggle to get victories plays into this worry, as the longer he takes punishment, the worse this worry gets. Having him slowly pick up some momentum over time allows us to see the story of Melendez overcoming his handicap to become a pro wrestler, rather than just the result of that story.
Then again, not knowing how much time they have left, I can understand TNA trying to capitalize on him as much as possible as quickly as possible.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Kenny jumped Melendez and cut an AWESOME heel promo. This got FANTASTIC heat. Ken Anderson then showed up to chase Kenny and MVP away.
ROODE-LASHLEY VIDEO PACKAGE- great.
ANDERSON & MELENDEZ BACKSTAGE- good
TNA X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH: Samoa Joe(c) vs. Homicide-5.25/10
Good for the time it got, but it was too short. Cide worked over Joe’s head and neck, and they had a GREAT finish. It’s just a shame that they only got a few minutes.
POST-MATCH ANGLE- Sanada and Storm attack both guys and unveil the new Manik, who doesn’t look as stupid as he used to.
WOLVES PROMO- great
EY & BOBBY ROODE BACKSTAGE- EY was annoying, which I’m sure was the point, but it was still annoying.
TNA TAG TEAM TITLE SERIES LADDER MATCH: The Hardys(1) vs. Team 3-D(1) vs. The Wolves(0)- 8.25/10
Jeff Hardy took a few REALLY scary falls (especially that one at the end). I liked the story they told a lot. The team that worked together always controlled the action, and control rarely switched without BOTH guys on the team being part of taking it.
And all of the fans who chanted â€"WE WANT TABLES!†during a ladder match are morons.
BRAM vs. GUNNER- 3/10
Gunner hurt his leg and sold it well. Bram worked it over. Shaw came out because he was concerned, and eventually tried to interfere, but he inadvertently hit Gunner… right I front of the referee. There was no DQ. Bram dumped Shaw on the outside and then pinned Gunner… after the equivalent of a standard ref bump’s worth of damage.
GAIL KIM PROMO- decent babyface stuff
TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Bobby Lashley(c) (w/MVP & Kenny King) vs. Bobby Roode- 6/10
Pretty much the whole match was just signature move, then kick out or counter. Lashley worked over Roode’s midsection well, and the Roode Bomb to the outside spot was very good, but I didn’t like the spot where Lashley tried to hit Roode with the title belt. It felt very out of character for Lashley.
Lashley wins when Roode hurts his knee and thus can’t avoid the spear… so with just three shows left until BFG, we have no one who looks remotely like a credible challenger aside from the guy who just lost cleanly.
For next week’s show, they hype up some sort of big #1 contendership clusterf*ck including Abyss, who has lost all of his matches recently, MVP, who is Lashley’s stablemate, and has also lost of most of his matches recently, and Robbie f*cking E.
A disappointing show from TNA, saved from being a disaster by one awesome match.
We're three weeks about, and even wild speculation can't figure out what more than two or three of the matches at BFG might be.
Taz and Tenay tell us that Rebel used to be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader… which would mean that, in kayfabe, she quit being a Cowboys’ cheerleader to go work at a carnival. That seems like a very backwards career path. Or maybe they fired her over her creepy incestuous relationship with Knux. Yeah. We’ll go with that one.
Havok really needs to lose the blinking lights on her Bane mask. They look SO stupid.
They did by far the worst ROAR! spot I have ever seen with Havok (although I think most of the blame goes to the other women for not being close enough to her and not bumping well for it).
They had Havok eliminate the two babyfaces first, so we were left with no one to root for at the end. Anyone with ANY booking competence would have had Taryn be the last one left against Havok, but when have â€"booking competence†and â€"TNA†ever gone together? Certainly not since they took the book away from Scott D’Amore to give it back to Russo… which was about EIGHT YEARS AGO!
If they are pushing Havok as a monster, it would have made sense to give her all of the eliminations, but they randomly let Rebel have one. Unfortunately, the timing worked out so that while Rebel and The Beautiful People were doing their spots, Havok was just standing around with staring into the crowd, with her back completely turned to the action, and she remained this way until the other women had finished their spot.
The stuff with Velvet and Havok at the end wasn’t bad. It was enough to save them from a negative rating, but not enough to make it anything more than a dud. Even if Taryn had been in that spot, it probably wouldn’t have been more than a dud.
Gail Kim appears in the October issue of Flex Magazine, and TNA wanted to inform everyone of this. So how did they do it? During this match, Tenay yelled at Taz â€"would you put that magazine down!†and then Taz proceeded to explain what it was that he was reading. Again: TAZ WAS READING A MAGAZINE INSTEAD OF WATCHING THIS #1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH! ARE tHEY MENTALLY DEFICIENT?!
SHAW & GUNNER BACKSTAGE- the conversation starts with Shaw, who just a few months ago was I a mental institution because he was a psychopath obsessed with a girl he went out on a date with (and he was in there because he lost a wrestling match, but don’t even get me started on that), refusing to go see a psychiatrist. Gunner says â€"okay.†Then he suggests that Shaw take another girl out on a date. WHAT THE F*CK?!
Shaw declines to do so. When Gunner asks why, Shaw tells him â€"my mind is fixated on someone else. Let’s just put it that way.†Even if Gunner is too dumb to figure out who the â€"someone else†in question is, just that phrase should have set off some alarms in his head that Shaw might soon be a danger to someone again.
MVP & KENNY KING CALL OUT CHRIS MELENDEZ-
MVP and Kenny are both in their gear, which is strange for guy that normally wear nice clothes for teir promo segments. MVP quickly says that Lashley will destroy Roode tonight, then he calls out Chris Melendez. Melendez is also wearing his gear. Hmm… I wonder where this will be going?
They want Melendez to join their group and carry their bags. Meledez doesn’t want to. He wants to climb the ladder the right way and not be a suck-up. Kenny calls Melendez â€"peg-leg,†and offers to have a match against him. Boy. It sure was lucky that they decided to come out in their gear, isn’t it?
CHRIS MELENDEZ vs. KENNY KING (w/MVP)- 2/10
The match was short, but I liked what they did here. King took most of the match, but Melendez got the win via roll-up. Not a roll-up because Kenny was distracted or being cocky, but a clean roll-up as a reversal to Kenny’s attempt at the Royal Flush (or whatever they are calling it in TNA).
The thing with the way that TNA introduced Melendez is that while he is a great human-interest story, he’s not a great wrestling story because he has already completed his journey. He said he wanted to be a pro-wrestler. He trained hard, and despite his physical handicap, he has succeeded. To have him show up and just squash someone like he did with a Zema Ion last week doesn’t really do anything for anyone because the story is him wanting to overcome the handicap and become a wrestler… which he already did.
The first feeling that pops into my head any time Melendez takes any sort of bump is worry: specifically worry that his prosthetic might break (I don’t think I have ever seen Zach Gowen wrestle with his prosthetic on). To have him struggle to get victories plays into this worry, as the longer he takes punishment, the worse this worry gets. Having him slowly pick up some momentum over time allows us to see the story of Melendez overcoming his handicap to become a pro wrestler, rather than just the result of that story.
Then again, not knowing how much time they have left, I can understand TNA trying to capitalize on him as much as possible as quickly as possible.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Kenny jumped Melendez and cut an AWESOME heel promo. This got FANTASTIC heat. Ken Anderson then showed up to chase Kenny and MVP away.
ROODE-LASHLEY VIDEO PACKAGE- great.
ANDERSON & MELENDEZ BACKSTAGE- good
TNA X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH: Samoa Joe(c) vs. Homicide-5.25/10
Good for the time it got, but it was too short. Cide worked over Joe’s head and neck, and they had a GREAT finish. It’s just a shame that they only got a few minutes.
POST-MATCH ANGLE- Sanada and Storm attack both guys and unveil the new Manik, who doesn’t look as stupid as he used to.
WOLVES PROMO- great
EY & BOBBY ROODE BACKSTAGE- EY was annoying, which I’m sure was the point, but it was still annoying.
TNA TAG TEAM TITLE SERIES LADDER MATCH: The Hardys(1) vs. Team 3-D(1) vs. The Wolves(0)- 8.25/10
Jeff Hardy took a few REALLY scary falls (especially that one at the end). I liked the story they told a lot. The team that worked together always controlled the action, and control rarely switched without BOTH guys on the team being part of taking it.
And all of the fans who chanted â€"WE WANT TABLES!†during a ladder match are morons.
BRAM vs. GUNNER- 3/10
Gunner hurt his leg and sold it well. Bram worked it over. Shaw came out because he was concerned, and eventually tried to interfere, but he inadvertently hit Gunner… right I front of the referee. There was no DQ. Bram dumped Shaw on the outside and then pinned Gunner… after the equivalent of a standard ref bump’s worth of damage.
GAIL KIM PROMO- decent babyface stuff
TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Bobby Lashley(c) (w/MVP & Kenny King) vs. Bobby Roode- 6/10
Pretty much the whole match was just signature move, then kick out or counter. Lashley worked over Roode’s midsection well, and the Roode Bomb to the outside spot was very good, but I didn’t like the spot where Lashley tried to hit Roode with the title belt. It felt very out of character for Lashley.
Lashley wins when Roode hurts his knee and thus can’t avoid the spear… so with just three shows left until BFG, we have no one who looks remotely like a credible challenger aside from the guy who just lost cleanly.
For next week’s show, they hype up some sort of big #1 contendership clusterf*ck including Abyss, who has lost all of his matches recently, MVP, who is Lashley’s stablemate, and has also lost of most of his matches recently, and Robbie f*cking E.
A disappointing show from TNA, saved from being a disaster by one awesome match.
We're three weeks about, and even wild speculation can't figure out what more than two or three of the matches at BFG might be.