My Thoughts on Lockdown

I had the opportunity to watch Lockdown last night, and as promised, I am going to offer some thoughts and observations about the event. There were a lot of high notes from the pay-per-view, but for every high note there were several downers that pretty much ruined the event as a whole.

Lockdown was first and foremost all about Samoa Joe finally rising to the occasion and winning the TNA World Championship. There was a little doubt in my mind that Joe would come up short, as I’m sure a lot of people were given the fact that TNA loves to swerve its fans. However, Joe didn’t only defeat Angle, but defeated him cleanly as well, which made the win mean even more for Joe.

On the other hand, I wasn’t a big fan of the MMA style match the two had and thought that it was one of the weaker matches these two have been in against each other. I may be an old-school fan, but I would much rather watch pro wrestling than mixed martial arts and when I put down money for a wrestling pay-per-view, I want to see wrestling. If the match was announced as a MMA match, then I would be more open to the idea, but if I really wanted to see an MMA fight, I would either order a MMA pay-per-view or watch one of their shows.

So, please, make sure Kurt Angle works inside of a TNA ring with his usual singlet and wrestling boots from now on.

The Lethal Lockdown was also a lot of fun to watch, but it had its points that brought it down. For example, why exactly were James Storm and Matt Morgan added to that match? Sure, the traditional Lethal Lockdown match has five men on each side, but TNA made such a big deal about adding them, and what did they do?

From what I was able to see, Matt Morgan didn’t do anything spectacular in the match and James Storm pushed down the ladder in an unnecessary risky high spot and took the fall for his team. If you are going to add so fresh talent into a big, high profile event such as this, why are they not given some time to shine?

As usual, the X Division Xscape match held its own and opened the show nicely. The X Division is in a sad state from what it was just a couple of years ago, but even with the vast array of gimmicks in this match, there is no denying that they all have talent. However, I couldn’t help but scratch my head when I saw Sonjay Dutt cheering on Jay Lethal after being eliminated and going as far as helping him win the match at the end. Please, tell me that this is all going somewhere and soon.

Aside from those matches, the rest of the show was forgettable in my mind. I was really expecting more from the mixed tag team match between Booker T & Sharmell against Robert Roode and Payton Banks. Booker and Roode have had some great moments in and out of the ring that having the women involved in this match wasn’t entirely necessary. In fact, having them in the match was probably the wrong thing to do.

They have already taken part in a mixed tag team match that they should be beyond that right now. The best thing for them would be to settle their differences in a cage match, however, much like Roode’s feud with Eric Young, the feud is going to wear out its welcome before the it finally comes to an end.

As I am on the subject of huge let downs, the BG James/Kip James match wasn’t anything to write home about either. Seeing as these two should know each other very well, it shouldn’t be hard to have a decent match between them. At the house show in Spencer, IA, these two fought each other in a match that went a little over five minutes. At Lockdown, these two fought each other in a cage in a match that went a little over five minutes. BG even won with the same rollup. To sum it up, it was a match worthy of Impact, not Lockdown.

The rest of the card seemed to be thrown on there and it came across that way in the matches. I did like the fact, though, that they decided to allow the tag team and Queen of the Cage winners to have a title shot for winning their respective matches. What I don’t like, however, is that the LAX have to share their tag team title shot with Eric Young & Kaz. The LAX won a shot at the last pay-per-view and should have their own shots at the titles, much like Eric Young & Kaz should have.

As I stated earlier, Lockdown was Samoa Joe’s show and was built on that. Seeing Joe finally defeat Kurt Angle and win the TNA World Championship was worth the price of the pay-per-view alone, but aside from that match and the Lethal Lockdown match, which had no implications to speak of, it was a rather uneventful night. I was expecting a lot more from Lockdown and it really failed to deliver.

On the bright side, it was a step up from Destination X.