Review: TNA Sacrifice 2010

So, with my drunken and incoherent ramble over The Clown’s predictions late last night, I figured it was time to write a more considered review.



The first thing I need to say about Sacrifice is that two things completely sucked: the crowd and Tazz’s announcing. I’m usually a fan of Tazz’s commentaries, but, man, he was seriously off his game this time. For most of the PPV, the crowd were flat; they didn’t seem to give a shit about the matches. Maybe this is because the PPV was in the Impact Zone, or maybe it’s because TNA management hadn’t spent much time building up any of the matches for people to really give a shit about who wins or loses. Also, it seems that JB has been promoted to ring announcer...

First up we had the number one contenders’ match for the tag team titles between Motor City Machine Guns, Beer Money and 3D. It wasn’t the greatest match I’ve seen these guys in, the Dudleys were kept out of it for most the match so it seemed like MCMG versus Beer Money. The crowd were flat until the final moment of the match when Sabin got the pin on Brother Ray.

Next up was the Global Championship between Roid Terry and Orlando Jordan. The build up to this match was centred around that bi-sexual gimmick, which as The Clown pointed out, is just daft. What came out of this match was the real feeling that Terry really can’t wrestle for shit and that Jordan is actually a decent performer and doesn’t need to go for the Goldust angle. Terry won with what Tazz described as “a spine-buster like move” – looked like a choke slam to me. Considering Terry is basically a crapper version of Batista, this match wasn’t that bad. Jordan’s move-set is pretty old-skool and it’s nice to see a good old fashioned leg-drop every now and again. TNA really need to get rid of Rob Terry; the guy’s a fucking joke. It’s probably for the best that TNA did away with the ‘gay’ angle, but if you’re going to build up a storyline into a match you should at least carry it on. Knowing TNA, the O-Zone will be back on Thursday and Jordan will come out looking like he’s been the spunk mop in a brothel.

After the match, we cut to a backstage promo which shows the Dudleys in their locker room licking their wounds. Ink Inc. (eugh, that name) go in and the Dudleys wish them luck and warn them that the Band might take their gripe with the Dudleys out on them. Neal say that they don’t need luck and they’ll take care of the Band for them. This pisses of Bubba, and after Ink Inc. leaves he rants to Devon about lack of respect, blah blah.

The third match of the evening was Kazarian versus Doug Williams for the X-Division title. I love the fact that this angle was written by an Icelandic volcano, but it was a pretty decent angle nonetheless. I was looking forward to this match because not only are Kazarian and Williams two of TNA’s most underrated stars, they also have two of the best finishers in the company. The match was pretty decent but was spoilt by a flat crowd and poor commentary; Tazz’s piss-poor announcing was saved by Taney’s wit, when he said something like “Kaz took a year out of the business and everyone thought it would be career suicide” – geddit? Suicide? Kaz was Suicide, he didn’t really leave. Geddit? The match worked really well with the angle of Williams hating the high-risk style of the X-Division and saw Kazarian going to work with some good, solid, technical wrestling. It was Williams who resorted to a high-risk move, going of the top rope and smacking Kaz’s face into the entrance ramp. I don’t know if this was done on purpose, but this was a nice subtle tough which added some complexity and hypocrisy to Williams’ character. There were some pretty cool moves in the match including a brain-buster variation and of course his Chaos Theory for the win. I would have liked to have seen Kaz’s fucked up backwards piledriver thing, but no such luck. I think Kazarian may be the only X-Division title holder to not actually have possession of the belt.

Next up was for the Knockout’s Championship between Tara and Madison Rayne, with Tara putting her career on the line if she didn’t win. It was no secret that her contract was up, so it was a bit of a pointless match. The Knockout division used to be pretty interesting as far as women’s wrestling goes. With characters like Hamada, Roxxi, Awesome Kong, Alisa Flash, etc. The Knockouts Division wasn’t the joke it is today. To my reckoning, this may have been Madison’s first one-on-one match on TV in TNA (which is a good feat for a single’s title holder!) The match stunk, and you could see that Tara was trying to make it look like a good match. Poor Tara. The crowd were in particularly bad form, especially for a career match; they didn’t seem to give a shit when she was pinned. It was only when Tara was being escorted away by security that a few chants of “thank you Tara” started up. Poor Tara; her last match and it was awful.

Next we had a short promo of Eric Young with Band. It seems that Eric Young may have his tongue firmly embedded into his cheek in this promo. He says something along the lines of “look at the players in TNA, nothing but wannabes and has-beens. I am the only one cool enough to hang out with the Band.” This made me laugh so hard I nearly popped a shit. Eric Young sounds like some geeky kid in primary school who’s been allowed to hang out with the cool kids... hahahaha! Because Hall and Nash are pretty old and can either, hardly walk, or are too fat to do much cardio-vascular stuff, Nash announced that the Band held the title, not just Hall and Nash. So, like the Fabulous Freebirds, any combination could defend the title at any given time. I glad that go cleared up.

So onto the tag team title match between the Band and Ink Inc. Contrary to what Nash had hinted at only moments before, it was actually Hall and Nash who waddled and limped to the ring, leaving EY backstage presumably to look after Hall and Nash’s grandkids or something. Unsurprisingly, this match was another stinker. Both Nash and Hall look so slow and bumbly in the ring, it’s not even funny anymore. The ref got knocked out, EY came out with a kendo stick. There was a bit of a kerfuffle. Brother Ray came out and interfered, beating on Jesse Neal. The Band retained the titles. Yawn.

Next we had the Ring vs Chelsea match between Abyssmal (geddit?) and Desmond Wolfe. Now, I didn’t realise that TNA condone white slavery, but clearly they do, as the stipulation if Wolfe lost was that Chelsea would become Abyss’s slave for 30 days in a boring Beauty and the Beast style set-up. Abyss looked pretty funny waddling around the ring with Wolfe. It must have been difficult for Wolfe going up against such a lame competitor. The match began with Wolfe being attacked on the ramp by Abyss while Chelsea sat watching from a throne (don’t ask, I don’t know). Again Tazz was coming out this some lame lines, though I nearly wet myself when he said that Chelsea “probably wants to throw up in her own mouth” – seriously, Tazz, what the fuck? So with Chelsea tasting bile in the back of her throat, Abyss choke slams Wolfe. Chelsea distracted Abyss and threw some brass knuckles into the ring. Wolfe smacked Abyss in the head and he goes down quicker than your mother for a can of cider. Wolfe goes in for the pin and Abyss gets up. This is where the match got fucking stupid. Abyss started Hulking up, Wolfe kept hitting Abyss, but for some reason he was immune to its effects. Abyss took Wolfe up for a Black Hole Slam for the pin. Victorious, Abyss spoke to Chelsea and spit went flying from his mouth onto her face and onto the camera lens; it was fucking disgusting. Poor Chelsea.

Next up we have Anderson and Hardy. I can’t actually remember what these guys are feuding about, but Anderson cut one of the best promos I’ve seen all year. I was literally laughing out loud, lol. I love it when small things in promos catch on. Getting the crowd chanting “I’m an asshole” was brilliant. I’m looking forward to seeing how this will work on TV. Will Spike censor the crowd every time this chant starts? I hope so, it will be like listing to the audio equivalent of a strobe light. This was probably the first time in the evening that the crowd started to get into the show, which made for better viewing and made for better in-ring performances. The match started with Anderson grounding Hardy for the first few minutes; there’s some pretty decent wrestling going on, but nothing even close to the level of Anderson and Angle at Lockdown. The match starts to step up when Hardy uses a chair to catapult himself towards Anderson in a textbook Sabu style dive over the top rope. Both competitors pulled out their usual signature moves, with Hardy doing a Swanton Bomb from the top rope for the win. The match ended with what could possibly be a double turn: Anderson held offered a handshake to Hardy, who refused and left him standing in centre of the ring.

We then cut to a promo with AJ Styles, who tells Christie that “these are dark times for TNA” – indeed they are, indeed they are. Poignantly we are now ready for one of the most pointless matches of the evening. I didn’t give a shit about this match, TNA hadn’t even bothered to build it up and the announcing was just awful throughout. “Why Sting? Why?” The match itself lasted for less than a minute and was really just a pre-match brawl in which Jarrett showed us his best Ric Flair impression by bleeding everywhere with that crazy bright red blood that only wrestlers seem to have running through their veins. Once they finally get in the ring, Sting does a Scorpion Death Drop and gets the pin-fall. Why Sting? Why? Sting continues his beat down and puts Jarrett’s shoulders between the ring steps and a baseball bat and stomps a couple of times. It is at this point that Hogan rushes out and, erm, does fuck all, but this ends the beat down. Why Sting? Why? Why didn’t Sting end on a high at Bound for Glory? Why Sting? Why?

Finally, we come to the main event. On paper, this is a dream match for me: AJ Styles versus Rob Van Dam. This match had some great moments, but I found it quite boring on the whole. The match was very slow to start with lots of posturing and stalling by both parties. At every opportunity during the match, RVD stood in the ring doing that arm thing in time with his name. Enough already! Flair came down to ringside only to be flanked by Lethal who gets him with some chops and a Figure Four Leglock. This was the best bit of the match. RVD did his Frog Splash and won, retaining the title and being a boring champion for at least another month... good to see Lethal in a main event though!