Sunday, 20 May 2012

TNA Sacrifice 2012 Review

TNA Sacrifice took place last Sunday at the Impact Wrestling Zone in Orlando, Florida. Last month's PPV, Lockdown, was a pretty good event. Will this event in that same vein? Let's take a look.

The event starts with the Tag Team Championship match as Kazarian and Christopher Daniels challenge Samoa Joe and Magnus. During the match, Magnus gets worn down by Daniels and Kazarian. He gets the hot tag to Joe, who destroys his opponents. He then tags in Magnus and gets hit with a jumping DDT from Kazarian. Daniels attempts the Best Moonsault Ever but he misses and Joe and Magnus do their snapmare/flying elbow finisher. Luckily for Daniels, Kazarian pulls Magnus off. Magnus then gets hit with a slam type move to get Daniels and Kazarian the win, making them the new Tag Team Champions. This was an enjoyable match and a good way to start the PPV. I feel sorry for Magnus and Samoa Joe as I enjoyed them as a team. However, TNA seem to be flip-flopping them between heels and faces recently so it might be best for them to lose the Titles and give them to Kazarian and Christopher Daniels. That way, they can be used to develop the feud between them and AJ Styles.
Winners: Kazarian and Christopher Daniels                                      Predictions: 0 for 1

Brooke Tessmacher challenges Gail Kim for the Knockouts Championship. Brooke attempts to do Kim’s finisher, Eat Defeat, a couple of times early on. Kim starts to show her dominance before Brooke makes a comeback and hits a flying elbow drop. This only gets a 2 count, shocking Brooke. Kim goes for Eat Defeat, but Brooke reverses it into an Eat Defeat herself, sending Kim out of the ring. Kim eventually gets the win by pinning Brooke and using the ropes for leverage. This was a decent match and I was pleasantly surprised by Brooke’s ability. I know people might moan about Kim cheating to win. However, this is the first time that she didn’t have her lackey Madison Rayne to help and it looked like that Kim had to cheat to win because Brooke almost beat her. Hopefully, we get a rematch for Slamminversay but I can’t see it.
Winner: Gail Kim                                                                                Predictions: 1 for 2

Next Devon is challenged by both Robbie E and Robbie T in what is supposed to be a triple threat match for the TV Championship. Devon sends Robbie T out of the ring and starts to beat up Robbie E. Robbie T helps Robbie E get the advantage. Devon makes a brief comeback but Robbie T hits him with a running powerslam and covers Devon. Robbie T must have forgot that he was supposed to help Robbie E win the TV Championship because Robbie E stops the referee from counting then has an argument with Robbie T about it. Devon takes advantage of the situation and knees Robbie T into Robbie E then rolls up Robbie T for the victory. While the match wasn’t anything special, I thought it told a good story with Robbie T helping Robbie E out then forgetting about that when he covers Devon.
Winner: Devon                                                                                Predictions: 2 for 3

Next Mr Anderson takes on Jeff Hardy. As expected, the match was good between the two with a lot of back and forth before Hardy hits Anderson with the Mic Check. Anderson then hits the Twist of Fate, getting a 2 count. The finish was when Anderson reverses a move by Hardy into a pin attempt and the referee Earl Hebner counts to 3 even though Hardy kicked out. By the look on his face, I’m guessing that Anderson wasn’t supposed to win. I understand that mistakes can be made by referees; WWE referee Jack Doan botched the ending of a match involving CM Punk being one example. Despite that, the fact that the botch was done a) by the most experienced referee in professional wrestling and b) at a Pay-Per-View doesn’t make it look good. Plus, I lost my prediction because of a botch. Thanks Earl, you dick.
Winner: Mr Anderson                                                                       Predictions: 2 for 4

Next the Undefeated Crimson issues an open challenge and then gets the referee to ring the bell and start counting. Ok...I would assume that you need an opponent in order to do that. Although, it would explain how Goldberg got to 173-0 in 1998. Anyway, ODB arrives to accept the challenge but she’s stopped by Eric Young who accepts the challenge herself. During the match, ODB tries to get involved and Crimson pushes her down and Crimson pushes her down and mocks her. This pisses off Young who proceeds to beat the crap out of Crimson. Young checks on ODB and Crimson takes advantage, knocking Young into ODB then hits the Red Sky to get the victory. The match wasn’t anything special but it was fun.
Winner: Crimson                                                                                 Predictions: N/A

Bully Ray takes on Austin Aries (the best thing in TNA right now) in what could be a really good match. For most of the match, Ray was dominant in the match after he kicked Aries off the top turnbuckle to the floor, which must have hurt. Ray did a solo 3-D, which looked pretty awesome then was continually slapping Aries, only for Aries to ask for more. Ray grabs his chain and Joseph Parks (brother of Chris, you know, Abyss) tries to stop him. While Ray and Parks are altercating outside the ring, Aries hits a suicide dive. Then, back in the ring, Aries hits a Brainbuster to get a 2 count. Ray tries a powerbomb but Aries gets out of it and hits the Last Chancery, making Ray tap out. This match was really good and it was good to see Aries in the upper mid card level. All we need is for him to get screwed out of the X-Division Championship and then he can challenge for another title.
Winner: Austin Aries                                                                            Predictions: 3 for 5

The penultimate match is between Kurt Angle and AJ Styles. The story going into this match was a bit unusual in that Kazarian and Christopher Daniels are interfering in recent matches between Angle and Styles and Angle is getting pissed off at them about it. The match was a pure wrestling match, which is what you get with an Angle match and that is one of the main reasons why I would love to see him back in the WWE. Anyway, there were a lot of near falls with Angle Slams and Styles Clashes. The end comes when Kazarian and Daniels do a chop block on AJ and Angle hits the Angle Slam followed by an Ankle Lock to get the win. Afterwards, Kazarian and Daniels attack Styles but Angle helps Styles out to get rid of them. It’s quite interesting to see where they go from here. I prefer Angle as a bad guy but this has the potential to be a good feud between them with Angle allying with Styles because they have mutual enemies in Kazarian and Daniels.
Winner: Kurt Angle                                                                             Predictions: 4 for 6

The main event is a ladder match with Rob Van Dam challenging Bobby Roode for the TNA World Championship. Even though, RVD is probably the most predictable wrestler ever, I do enjoy his matches and this is no exception. Overall, it’s not the best ladder match in the world but it’s still fun to watch. The end comes when RVD climbs a ladder  but Roode kicks him off into a steel chair. RVD tries to kick the ladder away from Roode; however, Roode pulls down the belt in the process to get the victory. I’m torn about the finish. I wanted Roode to win as I think that Storm will be the next Champion. However, we seem to go from Roode cheating to win to his opponent inadvertently giving Roode the win. I don’t see the harm in Roode winning clean on PPV. I know that he sometimes wins clean on Impact. However, that is in front of not only a free TV audience (As a Brit, I’m assuming that Spike is free on cable/satellite) but a free arena audience as well. I sometimes feel that Roode has not always portrayed as a strong Champion which is similar to how I felt about Daniel Bryan when he was World Heavyweight Champion. Anyway, I’ll write about that another time. Well done to Bobby Roode for retaining the TNA World Championship.
Winner: Bobby Roode                                                                      Predictions: 5 for 7

I thought this was a decent event. I have always thought that TNA had decent wrestling but sometimes, very questionable creative and back stage decisions. Sacrifice has 5 decent matches and 3 good matches. So far, I still think that Lockdown has been the best TNA PPV this year. The question is, will TNA continue to improve in their next PPV, Slamminversary?

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