September is the month that TNA has had a long standing tradition of unveiling a “Huge Announcement” at their PPV No Surrender for 3 straight years. With each announcement, TNA has delivered some huge news that has one way, shape, or form changed the company. Taking a look at the last few years as an example, TNA continues the tradition well into the 2007 No Surrender PPV.
- 2005 - Rhino makes his TNA debut goring Raven
- 2006 - IMPACT goes Primetime and the Signing of Kurt Angle
- 2007- IMPACT expands to 2 hours on Thursday nights
Our opening contest is for the TNA World Tag Team Titles, champions Kurt Angle & Sting vs. Team Pacman – Ron “The Truth” Killings & Pacman Jones.
This match wasn’t that great and with wrestling PPV’s you want to start the show off with a very hot opener, except with Kurt Angle having to defend 3 titles in one night it left TNA no choice but to have this sloppy match at the beginning. What made this so sloppy is that Pacman is not allowed to wrestle, so it’s always going to be Killings vs. 2 other guys which makes it very unbelievable. TNA should have added a 3rd member here to Team Pacman like they did with 3LK and XXX, it would have worked wonders. My idea, get rid of Kip James and bring in BG James as the 3rd member, he worked well with Killings.
Karen Angle comes out and fake slaps herself making it look like Sting hit her, so once Angle tags Sting in the ring and he sees her on the floor………Angle gets pissed which causes him to run back into the ring and Angle Slam Sting. This allows Pacman to pin Sting so they could pickup the win and the tag team titles. I was happy that this match was the first match since it allows to get the “DUD” of the night out of the way immediately.
Up next we have Rhino vs. James Storm II. I haven’t been that big of a fan of this feud, but both guys have done one hell of a job really making this feel believable. From the promos 2 months ago all the way to the James Storm videos on IMPACT these last few weeks, the intensity is there. Both guys are workhorses, especially Rhino. When you see Rhino in the ring, you can always expect some kind of brawl or mayhem to ensue during his matches. The first few minutes even before the bell rang was a brawl outside of the ring between the two. Rhino picks up the win here tonight after he GORES Storm through a table….then a GORE to Jackie occurs for all her troubles.
Robert Roode w/Ms. Brooks vs. Kazarian is our 3rd match of the evening. This match is runner up for match of the night in my book as both men delivered the goods tonight. Roode reminds me so much of a mix of Lex Luger and Mr. Perfect. What made this match so enjoyable was all the back and forth action in the ring and the near pinfalls by Kazarian. Brooks tries to interfere for Roode, but she ends up throwing the handcuffs outside the ring. Roode wins the match with the “payoff”, and I wouldn’t mind a rematch between the two sometime down the road.
TNA is on a roll tonight with 2 good matches in a row and it is time for our “X” division match, TNA “X” Division Champion Kurt Angle vs. “Black Machismo” Jay Lethal. This match had a lot of reversals by Lethal on Angle’s many attempts to get the Angle Slam and Angle Lock. Everytime Lethal would try to bring in his “X” style on Angle, Angle would find a way to overpower him. The win would come for Lethal when Angle tries to put on an Angle Lock that Lethal reverses for the pin and the win for the title. I like Jay Lethal, but this gimmick really needs to go as it’s not doing nothing to propel Lethal’s character forward. We see Petey Williams, Sharkboy, and Sonjay Dutt come out to celebrate with Lethal.
That streak ends of having 3 good matches in a row to be ruined by Wildcat Chris Harris vs. Black Reign. It is a real shame that this match didn’t deliver yet again this month. Last month we had Reign beat the crap out of Harris the entire match, and now this month we have a DUD of a match. Rhodes brings the knife thing and a cage with a rat to the ring. Both guys are good wrestlers, but I feel their styles just don’t mix well against each other. This crowd in Orlando is so screwed up that they have no clue who to cheer for as they root for both guys. Talk about killing any momentum that a match could have. We do get a little bit of blood during the match as Harris busts Rhodes open. Harris ends up getting the pin with a roll-up, what the fuck is up with TNA and these roll-up pins. This goes down as the worst match of the night, yes, even worse than the tag team title match. Even better, at the end Dustin gets himself unlocked from the cuffs and attacks Harris with the rat. LOL! Sorry TNA, but this Black Reign character might be better suited for the WWE where they can make it look more realistic.
Chris Harris deserves better if you ask me and so far this singles push for him has resulted in nothing positive. We might see an Americas Most Wanted reunion tour faster than we think.
One of the highlights of the night is a Tag Team Gauntlet match for the Number 1 Contendership to the TNA World Tag Team Titles. TNA usually hosts about 2-3 Gauntlet matches a year, either on IMPACT! or a PPV. This Gauntlet was rather interesting as we had 10 tag teams involved equaling 20 competitors. The Gauntlet started off with AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels, and every 60 seconds we had a different competitor enter the match until the last 2 competitors remaining in the ring would be rejoined by their tag team partners and there would be a traditional tag team match. The tag teams involved were, AJ Styles & Tomko, XXX, Motor City Machine Guns, Petey Williams & Sonjay Dutt, Team 3D, Lance Hoyt & Jimmy Rave, Raven & Havok, VKM, Eric Young & Sharkboy, and LAX. This turned out to be a fairly good and very fun battle royal and I’m surprised that it didn’t turn out to be a trainwreck with so many make shift tag teams. We have Shelley and Styles as the final two competitors, which signals for our tag team match.
#1 Contenders to the TNA Tag Team Titles Match - A.J. Styles & Tomko vs. Motor City Machineguns. Both these teams meshed together very well and it goes to show how much of an established tag team MCMG’s are from their days in ROH. MCMG do such a great job double teaming Styles/Tomko. This turned out to be a very good match and our winners are Tomko and Styles after AJ score the pinfall.
Up next, we have Samoa Joe vs. Christian Cage in what has been building up to be one of TNA’s larger feuds between two of their top main-event guys. Both men are very brutal with each other and the action goes back and forth a lot throughout the match. We see finisher attempts galore by both but to no success until Joe starts getting really pissed and then he beats up Rudy Charles. We have another ref come out, then the security guards, and even a few “X” stars that get themselves all beaten up for their troubles by Samoa Joe as he continues to beat down Christian. Samoa Joe gets the nice DQ for putting his hands on the referee. Eventually Matt Morgan and Jim Cornette come out to stop Samoa Joe.
In what should have been one of the top matches of the evening, we get character development for Samoa Joe. I like the mean streak that they are giving him again like when he first came to TNA, but must we sacrifice a match for something that could have been done on IMPACT.
Its time for our No Surrender 2007 huge announcement………..TNA IMPACT is going to 2 hours and Don West is having his 15th orgasm of the night.
TNA World Heavyweight Champion Kurt Angle vs. Abyss is the main event of the night. This match wasn’t too bad, but I think what hurt it the most was Abyss not selling properly made him look Superman. I’m surprised that we didn’t see any glass or thumbtacks from Abyss, I guess Angle has it in his contract that he can’t be around that kind of stuff. The end came when Angle took off Abyss’s boot and started working on the ankle to put him in the Angle lock for the win. Angle got to walk out with one title as we build towards Bound For Glory. Abyss wasn’t so lucky, Mitchell appeared on the screen which distracted him as Judas Mecias was cutting a hole in the ring apron from underneath……………….he grabs Abyss and pulls him under the ring Undertaker style.
The Final Word
No Surrender was a good PPV this year with 2 very bad matches which were awarded with my “DUD” award. The tag title match and Reign vs. Harris I really could have done without. I still feel like TNA should have had Jimmy Rave make his TNA return against another “X” star one on one and not as a part of a make-shift team.
I was a little bit disappointed in Christian Cage vs. Samoa Joe since it was used for more of a character development purposes than anything else. This match could have really stolen the show. I really hope that both Storm/Rhino and Harris/Reign have seen their conclusion, another match-up with any of these feuds at BFG and I’ll poke my own eyes out.
7.5 (10)
