TNA Lockdown Hits

Team 3D vs. Beer Money: This was easily the best match of the night and it's great to see TNA feature tag team wrestling as prominently as they do. Both teams worked hard and the live crowd had their expected love-fest with the adopted hometown heroes Team 3D. The thing I liked most about the match is that Beer Money got so much offense and actually came out of the match looking stronger despite the fact that Team 3D went over. Very entertaining match and I hope to see more from these two teams.

X Division opening match: The big flaw of the match is that I didn't take any of the contenders seriously. There's Suicide and everyone else in the division right now. Sure, the Machine Guns and Homicide are nice part-time additions to the X Division, but the X Division regulars don't mean anything. It's time for someone to give in and give Petey Williams a call. That said, fun dive off the top of the cage by Suicide to end the strong opening match.

Awesome Kong vs. Taylor Wilde vs. Angelina Love: A fun match while it lasted. The finish was a mess, but I'm happy they went with the Steve Austin vs. Owen Hart rollup given that it was obvious Wilde had suffered a concussion off the high cross body block from Wilde. Kong's big bump off the top rope was one of the real highlights of the night, and I like the idea of Love as champion with Kong plowing through the other Beautiful People while trying to get her hands on the new champ.

Motor City Machine Guns vs. LAX vs. No Limit: Another fun match. Honestly, I couldn't care less about the New Japan Jr. Tag Titles and I wasn't crazy about the idea of including them on this show when they already had the TNA Tag Titles vs. the IWGP Tag Titles featured so prominently later in the show, but I guess it didn't really hurt anything.

Overall show: A minor hit. I was more excited about this show than most TNA pay-per-views going in and I thought it was the best show they delivered since Bound For Glory. That said, the feedback has been overwhelmingly negative, so it's definitely possible that I enjoyed the show more than most. I will say that this was far from a home run show. The lighting was horrible, the audio was lousy to the point that you couldn't hear the live crowd clearly or Samoa Joe's mumbling, and the overall look and sound of the show was minor league.

TNA Lockdown Misses

Mick Foley vs. Sting: This was pretty much what I expected in terms of match quality with two old guys lumbering through a forgettable match. They both tried hard, but they just can't go like they used to. Foley as champion can be fun for a short period of time, but this company desperately needs to get the belt on someone who wrestles full-time and is capable of delivering consistently strong main event matches. These slow throwback main events are doing more harm than good for TNA. I don't mind watching the older wrestlers work the shows, but they don't belong in the main event matches anymore. The time has come to pass the torch. All the big names talk about passing the torch, so when is it going to happen?

Lethal Lockdown match: The big finish with Jarrett teasing a heel turn was lousy. No one cared. They did a decent job of building intrigue regarding Jarrett's loyalty on television only to deliver the predictable babyface move from Jarrett on pay-per-view. The match was decent, but no one cared about the finish. Worse yet, the damn guitar didn't break.

Abyss vs. Matt Morgan: I felt bad for Morgan when he worked through a shoulder injury for his first match with Abyss a couple months ago and wanted to see them get a second chance. They delivered a forgettable rematch and followed up with a lousy match last night. TNA has to know that Abyss being thrown onto tacks means nothing to the viewers watching at home because they see it so often. The appearance of Dr. Stevie was logical given that they were in Philadelphia, but the fact that the announcers played dumb and acted like they didn't have a clue that Dr. Stevie was Steven Richards was embarrassing and did even more damage to their credibility.

Mike Tenay and Don West: Please tell me they're not going to waste Taz's ability by making him an adviser to Samoa Joe rather than putting him in the broadcast booth. I don't want a three-man booth. Give us Tenay and Taz, and put West in the pitch man role backstage.

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