OCC Aftermath: TNA No Surrender 2006

First let me say that all major websites report that the time is 9 PM for iMPACT starting 11/16 not as I believe I wrote in the live blog, 8 PM. I could've swore that's what I heard but I'll check the DVD later, but for me it actually is 8 PM as I am in the Central timezone.

Now lets look at this PPV now that it is as Ric says "In the books":



*Eric Young Vs. A-1. Well the crowd was at least in to Eric Young which made the match something I could tollerate taking place.

*Jay Lethal Vs. Petey Williams. If you read my live blog which you really should've otherwise why are you reading this? Anyway, if you read it you already know how I feel about this match.
This looked like it had Russo's finger prints all over it even if he had nothing to do with it. As I mentioned in my benchwarmers review I do not like fart jokes as a form of commedy. Williams and Lethal are capable of having a good match if you let them have a good match.
Now let me be clear here, I agree with Ric that you can have the best wrestling matches in the world but that ain't enough on its own. However, I would take a good match with no story behind it on a PPV over a match that was bad because it was bogged down by a stupid story any day of the week. I felt this could've been so much more but was buried under the crushing weight of a silly angle. Sound like any booker you know?

*Raven Vs. Abyss Vs. Runt. I hate these matches now. Between TNA doing 1 at the last PPV, a thumbtack match on iMPACT then a hangman's horror match a couple of weeks after that I'm sick of it. Add in that ECW does these matches too and its more than I want to see. If I had it my way, I wouldn't see another one of these in TNA for at least 6 months to a year. So expect one thursday.

*Triple Chance battle royal.
Lets see here:

1. A bunch of teams nobody cares about.
   
2. Telegraphing the ending by the fact that only 2 teams have a story ark.
   
3. Over-complicate the rules for no good reason at all.
   
4. Have everything be predictable in every way, not only did I guess the final outcome but I practically could've predicted the chain of command as far as tag eliminations went.

Add all those up and you get a pretty boring match that the fans weren't into seeing.
Later this week I am going to explain why it is that the Naturals symbolize every single thing wrong with TNA's story department in 1 small package. But not now because I still have typing fatigue.

At this point I was hating this show.

*Chris Sabin Vs. Senshi. If you read the live blog, you have my thoughts on this. It was a fun match until the duo of Lethis and Sonj-head came out. At least the fans let them know what they think of this stuff. First good match of the night in my view.

*Rhino Vs. Christian. I thought overall this was a fine match but if I'm spending $30 I want more than fine matches. Christian winning was the right thing to do as it keeps him strong for an eventual Sting showdown.

*Ultimate X, again to stroke his ego I'll say Ric called this one and the rest of us got it wrong. I really liked this match especially compared to some previous Ultimate X matches. The crowd was into the match, the feud was the best built up in TNA probably since the days of AMW vs. XXX and I hope they continue to do something with LAX.

*Samoa Joe Vs. Jeff Jarrett, regular OCC readers already know how stupid I think this was to set up. Anyone that read our preview also knows how I felt. I still feel the same way as I did before but at least TNA didn't make it worse.
I know one thing I thought they might do was have a ref bump and have Jarrett score a visual 3-count over Samoa Joe. That would have sent me in to a rant unseen by me since the first Raiders game of the season.

Now for the major announcements: I knew something was up when Cornette made the first one. By the way I liked Cornette's delivery on this. It shows me that even though Cornette probably wants to kill Russo, that he's still a professional and doing his job. With Jim Cornette's past you did have to wonder how that would go.

The time change. Well, I don't know how much this will mean at all. It kind of means more given the other half of the announcement than it would've on its own.

Kurt Angle coming to TNA wrestling. We will be talking about the magnitude of this one for awhile. Ric hinted at a lot of the discussion points at least the things that should be discussed. Is this really good for Angle? Is Angle healthy? May we have to watch a Kurt Angle tribute show sometime in the future. I'll post the press release in a second but there was a quote that jumped out at me as being frightening from the get-go.

Now, I'll play fantasy booker to show what I am thinking I'd do for the debut of Angle.

I'd have Kurt Angle come out and cut his promo. I'm here to kick ass, take ames and add to my legasy. I want to add the NWA title to my resume. Stuff like that.

At the mention of the NWA championship I would have Samoa Joe's music hit and have him start out towards the ring. Get people thinking they're going to see a Joe Vs. Angle contribution right off of the bat. Then I'd have Jeff Jarrett and possibly AMW attack Joe from behind and beat him down so we never find out at least on that night what Joe was coming out for even though we all know. Now, Angle sees this happening and is distracted by the fight in the isle when Abyss comes in from the otherside and lays Angle out with a blackhole slam. Then in future weeks have James Mitchell cut promos about how Abyss has been here he has been waiting and Angle isn't going to be taking his spot.

Let me know what you think of the early part of my fantasy booking idea. Do you like it, do you hate it, is it at least better than what Russo will do? What would you do differently?

As for the other questions as difficult as it may be, we are going to have to wait and see. I understand if some people are reserved about this and a little nervous, I understand because I am one of you. What will this mean for TNA in the grand cheme? I have no idea, Angle does have a fanbase and if Spike actually blitzes the hell out of a promotion of this then they might get some people to take notice that are WWE fans that wonder what will become of Angle.

Kurt Angle is not Christian. He is not Rhino. Yes, he was fired from WWE but I'm sure WWE would rather not have done it. Kurt Angle is not a mid-carder that was underutilized or at least believed to be by fans. This is Kurt Angle legitimate wrestling superstar. This isn't Sting, superstar of 10 years ago, Kurt Angle is a superstar today. This is the kind of guy that if he were NWA champion his first night in it wouldn't be nearly as bad as when they handed it to Christian (phenominally stupid absolutely but not as bad from a credibility standpoint). So this is a big deal, its a big deal because of those other concerns of Angle's but even without those concerns its a big deal.

We'll have to see where this one goes but it is interesting to note that TNA went from being a company nobody was talking about to 1 that has generated a lot of discussion for both good and bad this past week.

No Surrender the show started horribly in my view and got better peaking with Ultimate X and dropping only slightly for the main event and announcement. I can't recommend a replay because even though I thought Ultimate X was a great match, you need more than that in this day and age.

UFC was obviously the better show this weekend.

Now, I'm tired of typing. 2 days of live blogging a DVD and 2 PPVs is quite exhausting. Tomorrow might be a light posting day.

I hope you enjoyed the coverage of UFC and TNA from this weekend.