TNABaddboi

Joe would still get the title that way. DQ in TNA means Nuuuuuuuuu champ. Id like to hold off Joe's title reign untill Slamiversary. I don't think anything in the build has suggested that Joe's getting the belt Sunday, though with Russo, you never can really tell. If I were a betting man though, I'd say he's going to win the KotM at Slammiversary, because I'm sure they'll do a tag match at LockDown.

Or maybe it says that your badass babyface has no quit in him, even when he's hopelessly outnumbered. I don't think getting laid out by 4 heels 2 weeks before a title shot weakens Joe, especially when he gets revenge the next week by choking the champ out. Joe actually gets the hard sell going in, looking like he can make Christian tap, which leads me believe that Christian's retaining at the ppv. But still, I don't see how the heel beatdown is nearly as dumb as you're making it out to be. If you want to have beef with the Christian-Joe build, and I do, it's that they've have completely allowed it to be overshadowed by Steiner-Angle and they have completely been underwhelming in building up the fact that Joe is finally getting the shot he was desperate enough to steal the title for last year. If I were booking it, he'd have won a 30 minute battle royale on PPV instead of being the enforcer in Angle's title shot and it would be THE reason to buy Destination X. It almost seems like they don't trust Joe to draw, so they're offsetting his shot with the names battling in a double main event. I don't think they should put him the slot if they're not going to do it all the way. It's one thing when they do it with Abyss, because they're not planning to build the company around him. But this match should be Joe's arrival. And it's not. It's another match Christian is going to cheat to win, which will be fine in the long run I guess, as long its the beginning of a long feud that ends with Christian eating a musclebuster, but I suspect its not.

Well, if they intend to have Tomko involved in their main event scene, which they clearly do by associating him with their world champion, then they can't very well treat him like the jobber that WWE did. Jobbers have played bigger roles in other companies since the beginning of time. I'm not saying Tomko should be world champion or should be squashing "homegrown" wrestlers, I'm just saying that him beating Joe after inference and then beating him down 3 on 1 isn't the worst thing that's happened to Joe's character. That would be his still nameless girlfriend from a few months back... The nature of the LockDown pay per view, which is intended to draw on the basis of the cage match instead of a title match on top, is that the top storylines mingle this time of year. This is the 3rd year they've had the PPV, and this is the third year the top heels have aligned long enough for gang warfare with the top faces. It's a byproduct of the marking of the event, kinda like WWE putting the title on a heel almost every fall and giving the hot face a title shot on Raw in November that is his "last shot at the title," unless of course he wins the Rumble. Even when they had a title match at the show last year, it wasn't the main event. So Joe and Abyss crossing paths now doesn't bother me as much as say if we were building to Joe and Christian's BFG blow off.

Well it looks like they're repeated the Joe-Angle build for Steiner-Angle, because it worked so well the first time. It seems like the storyline reason for Abyss attacking Joe is because Joe got in his face before the match and told him to be a man. I think the real reason, though, is that they're building toward to Lethal LockDown when Abyss will team up with the Christian Coalition (I'm so glad they finally gave them that name, btw) against Joe, Angle, Sting and another face. I'd say Rhino would get that last spot, but it looks like LD will be when he finally beats AJ, so maybe Daniels or Killings goes there. I agree. There seems to be this feeling here that anytime Joe loses, its the worst thing ever, simply because he's Joe. I agreed with the argument for him needing to go over Angle in the first match instead of the second, but I don't see how in the grand scheme of things, this tainted loss will hurt Joe. If Tomko had beat him clean, or ended his streak by making him tap out like Angle did, I'd be up in arms too. But I really think this will build heat on his chase of Christian, and will lead to a big pop when he wins the King of the Mountain in Nashville. Unless of course, they're saving that spot for Jarrett. In that case, God help us!

Preview: Two gimmick matches in a one-hour show?! We'll see how it plays out on TV, but this seems like it would be a lot even in a 2 hour broadcast. Hopefully they continue the trend of having more action inside the ring.

I think they just slowed it down.

It sounded like they remixed it last night.

The good thing about these house shows they're running now is that they won't be able to blame somebody not being over on "overexposure" in Orlando. I think the reactions in Detroit and Philly last year, Birmingham last month and wherever they're going this year, are going to be more interesting than the Impact Zone, because it will show how these characters are coming off on TV. It was fascinating watching Eric Young work the BFG crowd last year. Even though I liked him, I assumed he was over like Lance Hoyt was over, but he had that Detroit crowd in the palm of his hands for a match against Larry friggin' Z.

With how much they're talking about AJ running from Rhino, we're obviously headed for them one-on-one at LockDown. The questions are A) will anybody care? and B) will they finally give Rhino a win that matters? LAX's entrance is still bad ass, btw....

TNA officially announced their second road PPV. Here's their release: I like this. BFG showed how much TNA could benefit from a change of scenery once in a while. I think at the very least, BFG, LockDown and Slammiversary should be outside of Orlando to real separate them as the big shows. Anyone know how big the arena is?

I'm with you BPS. I live in Atlanta, so I probably won't be taking the trek to Detroit, but if they really do run Slammiversary in Nashville, I'm so there. I took the drive for the 2nd anniversary show and had a great time, even if the main event had Jarrett going over Killings. I actually thought about checking out their house show in Birmingham last month since that'd be a shorter drive for me, but I decided not to when they started talking about the possibility of the next PPV being in Nashville.

From Mike Johnson:

Here's the release from TNA: credit: PWTorch Both the special and the Thursday head-to-head will be VERY interesting....

I agree on both fronts, especially the second. Even if it took some getting used in 2004, it going on three years since they switched to six sides. It's definitely time to stop talking about whether they should have or not.

You're right about Kash. I'd forgotten about it, but he and Styles had a great series of matches over the X-title that were actually brawls because of how intense the feud was booked. Also, I'm not sure if it was 2004 for or not (but I think it was), but the Dutch era produced Chris Harris' chase for the title while James Storm was injured. They did a great job building him up, with Jarrett not taking him seriously because he was a tag team wrestler. I thought he could have been a break out star there if they would have had him go over Jarrett at the end in that cage match, but they got cold feet and stupidly booked AJ to start a one-month reign that night. We might not have gotten drunken James Storm out of the deal, but I think they could have still done a jealousy heel turn. I thought Harris' title chase was one of TNA's best booked ever (that and Raven's initial chase) and in both cases, they royally screwed up the payoff.

The Nashville crowd was great in the beginning, just like the Orlando crowd, but they got spoiled and would only pop for high spots after awhile, just like the Impact Zone. I think that's going to keep happening no matter what as long as they keep taping from the same place, which they have to do right now economically. I think Nashville would be hot if they got Slammiversary this year though, so go figure. With the number of comps they gave out in Nashville, I'd bet the non-wrestling fan ratio there wasn't that different than it is in Orlando. I went to the second anniversary show and there were plenty of people who only reacted to the "names" like Jeff Hardy, who debuted that night. And that show I went to had the six sided ring. I'm pretty sure that once Impact started they had a six sided ring on the shows from Nashville until they moved everything to Florida a few weeks later.

Preview: I'm actually going to miss this show because i'll be traveling, but it actually looks like it could be fun. I've always been a sucker for battle royales, and having one on Impact guarantees we'll have more than 10 mins of wrestling this week (and the fact that the other two matches are squashes). Watching how they book the eliminations will be interesting...

The card: I'm still on the fence about ordering this, but I figured I'd get the discussion started. I think the card has sleeper potential in a few matches that could be really good despite weak builds (Lynn-Sabin and 3D/LAX come to mind). I think the first hour or so will suck, with the basebrawl and Christi Hemme matches, but it should improve from there. Ironically, one of the things that would have made this a surefire order for me would have been a Senshi/Austin Starr match. They've been building to it for awhile and it would have been a nice bone to throw to people who like wrestling, especially on a card that doesn't involve Joe and Daniels in matches. I'm really surprised they didn't throw that in here. But one of the things I have to admit that I like about the card is that, other than the main, all the top matches feature homegrown talent feuding with names (3D-Lax, Sting-Abyss, Rhino-AJ). Say what you want about Russo, and I definitely think there's a lot to be said, but under the old regime, the top was filled with name-name matches (for three months, the top two feuds were Jarrett-Sting and Christian-Rhino). So yeah, I'm on the fence. I'll probably decide close to bell time. Who else is ordering? What do you guys expect to see?

Didn't they plug an Ultimate X during the special last night? Yes, but they showed a ladder match. Sorta. I was just wondering why they named Lynn the #1 Contender if they're going to do an UX at Destination X, which usually has at least 3 people in it.

Didn't they plug an Ultimate X during the special last night?

More from Mike Johnson:

From Mike Johnson:

From TNA: My first thought was that this would be a great way to start the supposed Joe mega push, but I get the feeling that they are going to want to save his title shot for one of the big PPVs. Since the main event at LockDown is normally a tag match, that means either Slammiversary or Bound for Glory. Which would mean he can't win this match. So who does?

Preview: Discuss:

The rest of the line-up, from TNA's site: I thought the street fight was well-done well I saw it, but I actually think the cage match from the 2 hour Impact was better. I know it wasn't a PPV match, but it went about 15 minutes and was PPV quality. And I only saw Angle/Joe I, so I can't compare it to the other matches, but I remember it being a good match that ended really abruptly.