TNA Sacrifice 2010 Review

TNA Sacrifice 2010
Sunday May 16th

Team 3D vs Beer Money Inc vs Motor City Machine Guns
A decent opening match. The crowd gave some decent pops and stayed involved. Tenay and Taz sold the psychology of the match well, complimenting the chaos and unpredictability of having 6 wrestlers in the ring. Robert Roode sold well all match and the Guns performed with a lot of energy and had some nice trademark spots. Sabin especially stood out, his mouth bloodied and back likely legitimately sore from some reckless bumps. Didn't expect the Guns to get the win, a nice surprise and I think they needed it to stay relevant. Beer Money and Team 3D are already over enough and don't need the rub. Still, the way Taz and Tenay were putting over Beer Money throughout the match, I'd expect a huge push for them in the near future, most likely a big face turn. Overall, a good match, nice energy, it kept the crowd hot, and I thought the outcome was smart.
Match Rating - **1/2

Global Championship Match
Orlando Jordan vs Rob Terry
A bit of a crowd killer. Terry certainly has a strong look, but he's still green and learning, that's pretty evident when you watch him awkwardly stomp around the ring. There was an attempt at ring psychology with Jordan working over the Freak's leg, but mostly the match seemed slow and crowd never really got involved. An abrupt finish to the match didn't help the already poor pacing of the match. I like how the worked leg played a part in the post match angle, but not really looking forward to seeing these two continue their feud for another month. The dichotamy of the 2 competitors works, but the in-ring product is likely to stink again.
Match Rating - **

X Division Title Match
Doug Williams vs Kazarian
A definite crowd killer, at least for the first 5 minutes or so. By the finish the crowd was into it, but they were right to yawn during the opening moments. The big corner powerbomb spot was a pretty rough looking bump by Kaz and was just what the match needed to get the crowd hyped up. Also liked how William worked over Kaz's neck after the bump, good psychology, but the match could have used another 5 minutes and a couple more big spots to really finish strong. It's the X division and the in-ring product should really stand out, impress the crowd, and push the limits. This match wasn't even close in those regards.
Match Rating - **

Knockout's World Title Match
Tara vs Madison Rayne
A better match than the two two preceding it in a lot of ways, this match at least had the crowd popping and in-ring work rate was pretty high. Really, this is just a statement about how solid of a worker Tara is and has been during her stay in TNA and she really went all out in terms of effort, including two moonsaults from the top-rope. The crowd gave Tara a nice ovation, but I thought TNA and the announcers could have put her over more and give her the credit she deserves for work with the fed. Still, a well worked Knockout's match.
Match Rating - **1/2

Tag Team Title Match
Kevin Nash & Scott Hall vs Ink Inc
The Band may over-the-hill and have some serious short comings in the ring, but they are still very over with the crowd, showing what a legit draw the nWo was in it's heyday. Not a big fan of the in-ring work of Jessie Neal or Shannon Moore, but they did a passable job of pulling out a watchable match with the two old stiffs. The finish wasn't anything amazing, but having the match push an angle is better than relying on the in-ring product in this case. Kept it short and sweet, smart move, and again having the crowd involved helped a lot.
Match Rating - **

Desmond Wolfe v Abyss
Not bad. Seemed a bit more like an Impact match than something deserving of a PPV though. Could have been much better, but at least kept the crowd involved with a nice energy and pace. Again, wished the match was given a bit more time, but Wolfe was on his game, best spots were because of him, and his look of shock after Abyss "Hulked-up" was priceless. The finish was creative and well played, plus the other thing this match had going for it was Chelsea. She's just SUPER hot!
Match Rating - **1/2

Mr. Anderson vs Jeff Hardy
Sloppy and a bit underwhelming. The match opened hot and there was a nice spot or two early, but as it went on both guys looked tired and things started to break down. Would have liked to see this match go outside the ring a bit more, or make use of their environment more, but mainly, there just wasn't enough tension or big moments. They didn't use Anderson's injured back enough in the match psychology, just something thrown in really to excuse Anderson for the loss. An awesome pre-match promo by Anderson was a good lead-in and the post-match angle was somewhat intriguing. Still, nothing too special here.
Match Rating - **

Jeff Jarrett vs Sting
After the pin, Tazz says "Oh, thank God it's over." and I couldn't have agreed more. Sting beats up bloodied Jarrett backstage, eventually into the ring for a quick pin. However, the only thing grotesque about this match was listening to Tenay annoyingly over-hyping the angle. Jarrett took 2 maybe 3 bumps during the whole "match" and Sting took none. They progressed the angle I guess, but just not a very entertaining or well done segment.
Match Rating - n/a

TNA World Heavyweight Title Match
AJ Styles vs Rob Van Damn
A decent main event. This match started out hot, they played up the crowd well, built some tension, had some big spots, Flair and official Earl Hebner had a heated showdown, then things started to slow down from there. After the first 5 minutes or so RVD was visibly fatigued and the pace of the match dropped a bit. They certainly picked things up towards the finish, but all the extra chaos with Jay Lethal and Flair outside just took the focus off the match and really stopped them from closing out in a solid fashion. In a lot of ways it made things predictable and anti-climactic, you could see the finish coming miles before it happened. A shame, these two need to really be given the freedom to put on a great match and it didn't quite happen here. Probably the best match of the night, but not good enough to give it 3 stars.
Match Rating - **1/2

Overall PPV Rating - **
Just a disappointing show as a whole. All the angles just got in the way of the wrestling, felt like I was just watching an episode of Impact. TNA's problem is they emphasize storyline, hype, and chaos over the thing that really counts and that's in-ring quality. You can write-up great angles all you want, but if you cant deliver a solid wrestling match when you're a pro wrestling company then you're not going to last long. Critics of the WWE may complain about its predictability, its PG rating, or its formulaic booking, but at least they can still deliver a good match occasionally on Raw or on PPV's. Since Bischoff and Hogan have taken over there has been a noticed absence in quality wrestling matches on TNA programming, something that used to be a strength of the company, but really that's been a trademark of Bischoff forever. They can do all the angles they want on TV, but when its PPV time they need to put on solid matches and pay-off the feuds. Not one match on the card worth watching again, none of the matches really got me excited or put me on the edge of my seat with tension. If you paid to see Sacrifice then that's a shame.