TNA Against All Odds 2007

TNA Against All Odds 2007 (2/11/2007)- Orlando, FL

PRE-SHOW:
CHRISTY, LETICIA, AND CORNETTE SEGMENT- bad.
We are backstage in Cornette’s office to find out who Christy will be wrestling in her TNA debut tonight. Cornette treats her desire to be �"treated equally” to the male wrestlers with such off-handedness that he might as well have told her �"don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” Cornette makes fun of Christy’s voice then, just to be a dick, decides to not tell her who her opponent will be. To round this whole stupid thing out, her decides to tell her that she will be wrestling in a tuxedo match. So the babyface authority figure has decided to become a sexist for no real reason.
For even more fun, Tenay just brushes this off. To recap:
First, there were no hints at all of sexism in the company. Then Christy cut a promo complaining about sexism. After Christy’s promo, sexism seems to be running rampant. THIS COMPANY IS SO F*CKING BACKWARDS! Either that, or the angle is that TNA decided that the best way to respond to a bogus allegation of sexual discrimination was to start discriminating based on sex. That’s some smart corporate policy for you.

SONJAY DUTT & JAY LETHAL vs. SEROTONIN (Johnny Devine & Kazarian) (w/Maverick Matt)- 4.5/10
Holy sh*t. Serotonin actually won! It doesn’t matter, of course, because Raven comes out and decides to beat them all anyway. Tenay uses the word �"bizarre” to described Serotonin no less than SIX TIMES in this short match. Tenay completely brushes off the fact that Maverick Matt interfered to get the win, because fair play isn’t really important.

ALEX SHELLEY, JB, & KEVIN NASH BACKSTAGE- Apparently Alex Shelley got footage of Eric Young and Traci boinking. He decided to drag JB along into a bathroom where Kevin Nash was urinating in order to tell both of them at the same time. Nash suggests they get all of the boys together and get some beer so they can watch it, and he and Shelley head off (after Nash has finished peeing, obviously). After they leave, Bob Backlund runs into the bathroom and asks JB is they were talking about �"pornography”… and with the way Bob said it, you could tell that he was absolutely outraged at the thought.
When we cut back to the announcers, Tenay says that he thought that Raven beating Serotonin after their victory was weird, but he finds this Bob Backlund appearance even weirder. Yeah. Apparently Tenay finds it more odd and worthy of comment that an old-timey guy like Bob Backlund would think that porn is immoral than the fact that one TNA employee secretly taped two others having sex, and a fourth is now setting up a viewing party backstage.
JAMES MITCHELL PROMO- f*cking awesome, as always. Good interplay between Mitchell and Abyss, too.

STEINER & TOMKO ARRIVE AT THE ARENA. They are arguing. A lot. After Tomko angrily walked off, Steiner randomly shouted �"I’m hungry!” That made me laugh.

As Don West is running down the card and making the plea for people to buy the PPV, Team 3-D come out and grab the mic from him. They decide that they don’t want to wait for the PPV to start and demand that LAX come out for their match right now. So TNA then launched into a minute and a half long video package to end the pre-show while 3-D presumably just stood there.
Wait… no. Apparently they didn’t just stand there. At some point between the end of Brother Ray’s promo and the end of the forty second video package at the start of the PPV proper, they decided to reset the table that Brother Ray had angrily kicked over.

MAIN SHOW:

LITTLE ITALY STREET FIGHT: Team 3-D vs. LAX-
So apparently Brother Ray cut a promo on Impact in which he promised that he and Devon would beat LAX �"from the strip club to the café to the back alley.” Because of this, some F*CKING MORON decided that, for this match, they would have some trash can’s on the ramp, some nice little café style tables in the ring, complete with tables cloths and flowers on them, and that outside of the ring, they would have cage dancers in bikinis. You know… so they can literally beat them �"from the strip club to the café.” And it’s not like the cages with te dancer sin them were on the stage in the far corner. They were right at ringside, obstructing the view of the fans. I would love to be able to call this the dumbest thing on this show (and it was pretty dumb), but this is a Russo-booked TNA show with Mike Tenay as the babyface announcer, so I’ll be surprised if it makes the top thirty.
The reason for the gimmick match was that LAX had attempted to murder Brother Ray’s uncle or cousin or something. (LAX did this in retaliation for Team 3-D injuring Konnan by shooting him in the leg with a sniper rifle. I swear to G-d that was the angle. We never saw it happen, but that is what Tenay had told us on Impact. Though 3-D are still the babyfaces because I think the sniper attack was in retaliation for LAX attacking Spike or something). Anyway, now that Brother Ray finally has his chance for vengeance against the men who tried to murder his cousin… he decides to take some time out in the middle of the match to get a lap dance from the two dancers. WHAT THE F*CK?!
During this lap dance, Homicide came up from behind and started choking Brother Ray. One of the strippers ran away in fear… but the other one was totally unfazed by this. She just kept on dancing like this sort of thing happens all the time. Maybe she is one of the strippers from that Falls Count Anywhere match Punk and Homicide had in FIP where the brawled into a strip club. Either way, if you are going to do a spot like this, MAKE SURE THE GIRLS KNOW TO SELL IT (which, by the, is the reason that Punk shouted �"YOU’RE A WHORE!” at the stripper in the FIP match: she was totally no-selling this fight going on two feet from her when she was supposed to be running away).
This was just one blemish in a great hardcore match, but it really took me out of the match for a bit.

JB INTERVIEWS AUSTIN STARR- He starts to cut a promo on Senshi, but Bob Backlund runs through the background so Starr cuts a promo on him, then walks off. Backlund then cut a promo on Starr. Are they building up a feud between Austin Starr and Bob Backlund.

AUSTIN STARR vs. SENSHI- 6.5/10
The referee ordered for the bell to be rung at a point when both men’s backs were turned to each other. Stupid… but at least he is being fair.
Short, but the finish worked well for a match that got this much time. Starr used the Crossface Chickenwing. He lost in a close call, though, and snapped after the match, demanding that it be restarted. He threatened to sit in the middle of the ring until someone restarted the match. Bob Backlund came out and told him to get out of the ring. Starr slapped Backlund in the face, so Backlund put him in the Crossface Chickenwing and drags him all the way to the back. Great stuff!

JB INTERVIEWS CHRISTIAN- He doesn’t even get a single word out before Tomko storms into the locker room to bitch about Steiner. Then Steiner comes in and refuses to work with Tomko because Tomko won’t do menial tasks for him. Steiner storms off, then Christian orders Tomko to go apologize to him. So the World Title match is being built around whether or not Christian’s two guys on the outside will be able to work together and whether or not Joe will turn on Kurt. Here’s an idea: Why not build the world title match around the two guys in the match both wanting to be champion, rather than the allegiance of three guys who aren’t in the match!

VIDEO PACKAGE ON �"THE HISTORY OF CHRISTY HEMME IN TNA”- Christy has only been in TNA for ten months now, so of course this video package only focused on the last month, completely ignoring the first nine. We got clips of Christy overacting about this idiotic attempt at an feminism angle and Kip James calling her a slut. The video package did a decent job creating sympathy for Christy (if her overacting didn’t kill it for you, that is), but it made you want to see her get revenge on Kip James, not wrestle some random woman in a Tuxedo match.

TUXEDO MATCH: Christy Hemme vs. The Big Fat Oily Guy- DUD!
So even after VKM promised us that at the last PPV that we were done with this sh*t, they are now having the Big Fat Oily Guy from Stamford, CT wrestle a match. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that the minute the bell rang, �"FIRE RUSSO!” chants started.
So... independent of everything else, the first minute of this was actually pretty perfect. Christy was a fiery babyface and dominated the match. You really wanted to see her just win in a quick and convincing fashion. Then they killed everything by having Christy lose her pants, which caused the crowd to pop huge, showing us that, like management, the fans also don’t seem to give a sh*t about Christy’s social crusade (neither do Mike and Don, who objectified Christy throughout the match). Then, because that wasn’t ruining it enough, they had to have Christy resort to a blow blow to get the win. So what this angle is telling us is that we are supposed to root for Christy and support equality for women… unless there is the possibility of a hot chick getting naked. And while women might be equal to men, they aren’t that equal because the trained wrestler Christy Hemme had to resort to an illegal tactic to win the match.

AFTERMATH- these people have no idea how to book an angle!
Christy grabs a mic and begins yelling. Kip James then comes out and mocks Christy’s victory. Then he says �"let me show you what these people came to see!” and rips her shirt open, revealing her underclothes… resulting in one of the loudest pops so far on the show, followed by Mike and Don making more objectifying comments. HOORAY FOR SEXISM!

ALEX SHELLEY’S SECRET FOOTAGE OF EY & TRACI- or not.
The only people at this backstage viewing party are Jay Lethal, Sonjay Dutt, Kevin Nash, Alex Shelley, and Leticia. All we saw here was Traci getting ready. Apparently she was in on this whole thing, and has, for some reason, enlisted Shelley to film her boinking EY in order to convince him to sign a contract with Robert Roode Inc.

BASEBRAWL VIDEO PACKAGE- Wow. Lance Hoyt’s lack of charisma is quite apparent here.

BASEBRAWL MATCH: Dale Torborg (w/AJ Peirzynski) vs. Lance Hoyt (w/David Eckstein)- 2/10
That video package we just saw ended with Hoyt telling us that Johnny Damon was going to be on his side... so where the hell is Johnny Damon?
The heels cheat to win the match, but Eckstein convinces the ref to restart, based on the evidence of their being a chair in the ring. During this restart, the babyfaces immediately cheat to win. WHY?! Why not just have Hoyt pin the mother*cker CLEANLY?!
Just as the two teams eem ready to start swinging chairs at each other, we cut to the back for…

PAPPARAZZI PRODUCTIONS VIEWING PARTY, PART 2- kind of stupid, but I laughed at times.

MOTOR CITY CHAIN MATCH: AJ Styles vs. Rhino- 7.25/10
Apparently they are having �"Motor City” chain match here in… Orlando, Florida. The name might be dumb, but at least the gimmick makes sense in their feud, right? In their Last Man Standing match at the last PPV, AJ intentionally took a loss and rather than get up and get Gored, so now they are having a chain match so that AJ can’t run away. Pretty sound logic.
Well it’s not, because rather than a normal chain match, in this match there are also two poles. On one poll is a nightstick you can use as a weapon if you want to, and on the other pole is the key to unlock yourself from the chain. If you free yourself from the chain… what the hell is the point of it?
Despite this, they made fantastic use of all of the elements of this match, and aside from the spot where Hebner helped Rhino get the key, I loved this match. Great storytelling.

PAPPARAZZI PRODUCTIONS VIEWING PARTY, PART 3- bad.
AS everyone saw coming, Traci insists on EY signing the contract first, then runs away instead of sleeping with him. Then Bob Backlund shows up and rants like a crazy man.

TNA X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH: Chris Sabin(c) vs. Jerry Lynn- 7/10

We go backstage to outside Kurt Angle’s locker room. Is it to get an interview with the challenger for the NWA World Heavyweight Title? No. That would be silly. The only reason we are going back to Kurt’s locker room is to see Samoa Joe walk out of it.

EY, TRACI, & ROBERT ROODE SEGMENT- TV segment.
Roode started out by cutting what would have been a good heel promo on both EY and the fans, except that he started it off by calling EY �"worthless.” If he is so worthless, why have you been trying so hard to sign him for the past few months?
Roode dares EY to hit him, but warns him that if he does, he will be fired and sued. This wasn’t bad, but it really felt like something that should have been on TV rather than eating up PPV time.

CHRISTIAN PROMO- decent, other than the fact that he seems to think that Kurt won his gold medal in 1994. Then Cornette shows up just to remind us that the NWA World Heavyweight Title can change hands on a DQ.

JAMES STORM & JACKIE MOORE vs. PETEY WILLIAMS & GAIL KIM- 5.75/10
The aftermath was decent. Harris’ return got a pretty big pop, though, and that’s the important thing.

STING PROMO- very good, but the seriousness of it is undercut by the hilarious visual of Sting wearing an Abyss mask over his facepaint.

PRISON YARD MATCH: Sting vs. Abyss (w/James Mitchell)- 6.5/10
For this match they have gussied up the ring and ringside area with some big fences with barbed wire, barbed wire and red lights on the ringposts, and what are supposed to be guard towers and other crap. Because it’s a Prison Yard match. If some some reason, you didn’t get this (like, say, your IQ is under seventy), Mike Tenay was nice enough to explain it in the most obnoxiously basic way possible, making sure to point out every last �"prison yard” item. Mike then told us that TNA management just told him that this match would strart outside of the Impact Zone… so why is Abyss making his normal entrance TO THE RING? Sting, too, makes his entrance and then just walks outside to start the match.
You won this match by forcing your opponent into a cage in the middle of the ring (so basically it’s a standing casket match). The match itself was pretty good, and they did some crazy-looking hardcore stuff. Mitchell even got color. When was the last time you saw a manager get color? Sting beat Mitchell up after the match. Security tried to pull him off, but had a difficult time doing so.

JB INTERVIEWS KURT ANGLE- Some hypes up the world title match by talking about the world title! FINALLY!

SINGLES MATCH FOR THE NWA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE WITH SAMOA JOE AS THE UNOFFICIAL SPECIAL ENFORCER: Christian Cage(c) (w/Tomko) vs. Kurt Angle- 7.5/10
Joe’s position as �"unofficial enforcer” is so unofficial that he is advertised as being the �"unofficial enforcer” in all of the hype videos, graphics, and even listed as such on the match listing on the back of the DVD case. Despite this, he wasn’t out for the beginning of the match. Neither was Steiner, due to his earlier disagreement with Tomko. Right as the match started, a whole bunch of security guys ordered Tomko to go to the back. So there is no Steiner and no Tomko and no Joe out here… meaning that the elements that the match had been built around are all absent. WTF?!
Of course, with no heels who might want to interfere in the match being at ringside, Joe decides to come out a few minutes into the match. I guess he was just late or something? Either way, the situation we got was that, now that there isn’t really anything out of the ordinary to enforce, the special enforcer shows up at a time that would create a distraction. Later in the match, it would do just that, and Don pointed out to us how Joe’s mere presence was getting in Christian’s head. To recap, the babyface special enforcer whose purpose is to create a fair atmosphere for the match, is creating a situation that is actually unfair to the heel.

They have a pretty good match with Angle out wrestling Christian before Christian cut him off with an undetected low blow. Christian then got the heat and a nearfall before Kurt made his comeback. Once Kurt started to make his comeback (including seven straight German Suplexes), AJ Styles came out to distract him. Not Tomko. Not Steiner. AJ Styles. Joe came over and chased AJ up the ramp… and the camera was so focused on this that we missed Christian hitting Kurt with a chair, leading to another change in momentum.
Then things got Russo-rific. First we got a ref-bump that allowed Joe and Christian to interact, leading to Kurt getting a visual pin on Christian. Joe threw the ref into the ring, and apparently getting violently thrown into the ring completely revived the referee, who made the count with normal cadence, not selling anything, leading to a nearfall. Both men got up, and the VERY NEXT SPOT was a ducked clothesline into ANOTHER REF BUMP.
Then Tomko came out and attacked Joe from behind, but Kurt dealt with him without even being touched. Then Steiner came out and the same thing happened. Joe got into the ring both help Kurt and actually do his job the special enforcer… so Kurt decides to start arguing with him for no reason. They have a shoving match which leads to absolutely nothing because immediately decides to do a tope suicida onto Steiner and Tomko. Those three brawl away from the ring leaving Kurt and Christian alone. Kurt now makes Christian tap, but the ref is still down, so Christian hits Kurt with Steiner’s pipe, then revives the ref, hits the Unprettier and gets the win. Steiner and Tomko immediately run out to the ring and celebrate together with Christian (I guess they beat Joe up that quickly backstage). They did a great job with the false finishes, but the ref bumps just felt like overkill.

Overall, this was a decent show form TNA. There were a lot of very good matches on this show, but nothing really great aside from the main event. The main problem with it (aside from nothing really worth going out of your way to see) is that there is just some much sh*t going on that it really seems to get in the way.
Vince Russo had been back with TNA for about a few months now, and while there had been some wacky stuff on their PPVs, since then but this was the first time it really felt like it got out of hand. You had three different No DQ’s matches all with different goofy names. They gussied the ring up in decorations for two of them and the third was a combination of a chain match and double object on a pole match in which one of the objects on the pole was a key that allowed you to escape from the chain. We had a man facing a woman in a tuxedo match for no reason (other than the possibility that management is horribly kayfabe sexist), multi-part backstage skits, and of the four regular matches on the show, we had had exactly one clean finish. One of those dirty finishes, of course, was world title match, which built around the loyalties of the guys on the outside rather than the guys who were actually in the match, and that was done just to set up swerve after swerve. The whole thing just screamed �"VINCE RUSSO BOOKED THIS!” Not a good sign of the direction the company is going in.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Tenay- �"Senshi has amazed us with his ability to use his feet in such incredibly different modes of striking.”
HE HAS LOTS OF DIFFERENT KICKS! That’s all you have to say, Mike! Just say he has a �"versatile arsenal of kicks” or copy JR and say �"educated feet” or something NORMAL! You can actually hear Tenay pause before saying �"ability” and after saying �"feet,” as if he is trying to think up the most awkward and ridiculous way he can possibly say this.
2. After Sabin kicks the middle rope in Lynn’s groin while he is trying to get back into the ring, Tenay basically condones the cheating because Jerry Lynn is so experienced that he should have known to look out for that trick. He must have pictures of Dixie Carter or Jeff Jarrett engaging in highly inappropriate and/or illegal activity. It’s the only way someone so incompetent could possibly have kept a job this long.