Darkshot77's thoughts on Lockdown 2012
This was the first PPV I have watched in months, TNA or WWE. In fact this is the first wrestling I have watched in months. I have always enjoyed the Lockdown PPV. Last night was no exception. But there were many things that detracted from the show as a whole. Before my Match by match breakdown, lest talk about some general issues.
#1 The Production Value. This is a continual issue with TNA PPV's. As a avid Botchamania subscriber, I have seen on many occasions where replays, video packages and bullet points are either played at the wrong time, incompletely, or with missing sound. Now everyone has a few tech problems once in a while, for TNA PPV's it is consistent. To their credit, last night was much better than it has been, but there was a minor issue on the replay after the Angle/Hardy match. Also TNA has done a much better job at not taping their wrestlers obviously blading. While there production value has improved as of late, it still has its issues, and until those are fixed it will always look second rate.
#2 The venue. My guess is that they were under code to not use any pyro. So that is understandable. But Nashville Municipal Auditorium, just flat out sucked. It looked too small for them to do their show in. so they were not allowed the luxuries to make their show look professional. And the crows was bad, there were times that people came out to complete silence, although Kaz is not very interesting to begin with. But they did not pop for anything. It looked like it was filled with people that honesty thought it would be an Indy show, and that is what it felt like. And because of the crowd I think a lot of the wrestler seemed out of their element. I am not going to blame TNA for selecting a bad venue, it just turned out that way.
#3 Title Changes. The fact that there was none of them did not bother me, because all of them made sense except for Gail Kim. Velvet should have won the title. Guns should not have won after coming back from injury, Roode winning fit, and no one cares about the TV or KO's tag titles so it did not really even matter.
Now for the match by match breakdown:
Lethal Lockdown: This was actually was pretty good. All of the actual wrestlers on the inside performed very very well, though the action was hard to see at times. Mr. Anderson performing his mic drop taunt to bring the roof down was classic. And the spot where he hit the rolling fireman's carry slam with Bully ray onto Christopher Daniels, was probably my favorite spot of the match. My only issue with the match was how long the ending took. it seemed like Eric was beating Garrett for a solid minuet or more. I think Garrett missed his cue, but as a side note, Eric sold that guitar shot exceptionally well.
Guns vs Joe and Magnus: Another good match. Some great spots especially when Joe hit a senton on Shelly with Sabin still on his back. And Sabin power bombing Joe also was great. All in all a great sold tag team match.
As Morgan was giving his promo I was about to comment on how he does not give good promos. But his promo was very good. He threatened to make crimson his redheaded prison bitch, I loved it.
Gail Kim vs Velvet Sky: TNA has a knack of dragging things out longer than they need to be. They have been pushing velvet sky a sthe face of their division, this was her rematch for the title, she really needed to win here. The top rope sunset flip power bomb was legit. And after a spot like that, ending the match in a roll up kind killed the momentum.
Crimson vs Morgan: Oh wait I forgot about Devon and Robbie E, but so did you. Decent match between the two, they really have good chemistry. But it was nothing spectacular.
Kurt Angle vs Jeff Hardy: Fantastic match with great spots. These two put it all in the ring. Angle kicking out of 2 swantons, Jeff of the top of the cage. This match was fantastic and both men looked great. This was PPV quality match. And for a secondary main event it deleivered on so may levels.
ODB and EY vs Sarita and Rosita: The entire point of this match was to provide a break between the two main events and to give the fans some service by have ODB and EY come out in Predators jerseys. Which the crowd didnt even pop for. I popped more for the jerseys, and I am not even from Nashville. But when ODB threw Rosita on to Sarita and EY counted the pin, that was classic.
Bobby Roode vs James Storm: Match of the freaking night. These guys have what is called chemistry. Rood and Storm work so well together it is amazing. from pre-bell to bell, this match told a fantastic story. You could feel that these men did not like each other and wanted to beat the ever loving hell out of one another. This was a great match one of the best matches I have seen in a long long time. The only gripe I have is that they gave away the ending at the start of the match by moving the stairs for what seemed to be no reason. But the ending made sense and will help continue a great feud.
This was a well executed PPV on the part of TNA that was dragged down by the insanely dull crowd. I greatly enjoyed Lockdown and I am glad I watched it.
Final rating: 8/10
