TNA Lockdown Hitlist: Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle, Lethal Lockdown match with Team Cage vs. Team Christian, B.G. James vs. Kip James

TNA Lockdown Hits

Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe: A very good match. Angle was as intense as I've ever seen him and he totally made the match. Don't get me wrong, Joe was great, but Angle was dictating the pace and was more aggressive than ever. I enjoyed the MMA elements of the match and I'd like to see more of it in the future. They didn't go overboard by featuring rounds and it's a good thing that the rumored idea of taking down the ropes never came to fruition. Had they taken it too far, they would have upset fans who tuned in expecting to see a pro wrestling match. I'll have a lot more to say about this match and Joe's title win in the Dot Net Podcast later today.

Lethal Lockdown match between Team Cage and Team Tomko: Christian Cage was the star of this match. He took the early beating, he took the bump off the cage to the floor, he hit the big cross-body block off the top of the cage, and he was one two wrestlers who took the insane bump off the ladder and through a table on top of the cage. Honestly, though, I could have done without that last spot. It was just too dangerous.

The big bump was ultimately tamer than Shelton Benjamin's insane bump at WrestleMania 24, but the height involved made it unnecessarily risky and I really hope they don't set out to top themselves next year. The finish surprised me in that they built up James Storm by having him attack Sting on the live show, only to have him lose to Sting a week later and then drop this match for his team. For that matter, the idea of Rhino scoring the pin for his team also seemed odd. More on that in a minute.

Gail Kim and ODB vs. Awesome Kong and Raisha Saeed: I'm giving the match a borderline "Hit" simply because it was one of the better matches on the show. The problem I had with this match is that I expected to see Kong and instead watched Saeed work the bulk of the match for her team. Viewers wanted to see how she would wrestle with the burka and they wanted to see the manager get her ass kicked, but I don't know if anyone really wanted to see her hold her own with the babyfaces. She proved that she's a talented wrestler, but what's the point if she's playing the manager role? And, really, what was the point of this match? Gail and Kim didn't get the better of Kong. They simply proved that they could defeat her manager. How is that supposed to get viewers excited for their future matches against Kong? All of that said, hats off to Kim for that awesome top rope huracanrana on Saeed. Great move.

TNA Lockdown Misses

Too many people on the show: By my count, there were 48 wrestlers involved in eight matches. I'm not suggesting that TNA needs to fire anyone, but I am saying that they need to cut back on the number of wrestlers they cram onto their pay-per-views. Some of these matches just felt like the creative staff was going out of their way to get everybody on the show. Can we just get back to singles matches and standard tag team matches? I don't mind the occasional triple threat or four-way match, but they should happen infrequently enough that they come across as special rather than the norm.

Booker T and Sharmell vs. Robert Roode and Payton Banks: A clunker. I wrote after the Angle vs. Booker match that appeared in the Impact main event slot that Booker relies on the same spots regardless of the situation and this match proves my point. He's working against his biggest rival—the guy who punched his wife—yet he still busts out the tired ass Spinaroonie. Worse yet, Booker sold for the match and then tagged in his wife, who plowed through the heels and scored the quick pin. It's time for the blowoff match between Booker and Roode, and I really hope they keep the women at ringside for that one.

B.G. James vs. Kip James: A lousy match and a post-match attack that everyone other than B.G., Mike Tenay, and Don West saw coming a mile away.

Matt Morgan: TNA went out of their way to put the focus on him heading into the pay-per-view, yet he really didn't stand out in any way during the match. That's not a knock on him as much as it is on the way the match was structured. There really should have been a showcase spot where he entered the match and dominated the heels. I'm also surprised that he didn't get the pin for his team. Did they give Rhino the pin just to surprise people? There are times when giving the fans what they expect isn't such a bad thing. They didn't damage Morgan during this match, but they didn't keep his momentum going either.