TNA Lockdown 2007

Date: 04/15:2007

Location: St. Joseph, MO 

Announcers: Mike Tenay and Don West

The Setup 

This was the third annual all-cage match TNA event, which I used to call CageCade affectionately. It was headlined by Team Angle vs. Team Christian in a Lethal Lockdown. Jeff Jarrett had recently turned babyface, almost in a shoot-type storyline, where he was changing his ways and “giving back” to the younger wrestlers. How fucking Vince Russo was that? Most of the match revolved around whether or not all the babyfaces could trust Jarrett. 

The Business 

The report was that this show had 35,000 PPV buys, placing it third in 2007, only 1,000 buys behind Bound for Glory and Destination X that year. As detailed here before, the Lockdown shows were generally always a draw by TNA standards. 

Prowrestlinghistory has an attendance of 6,000 at the Family Arena, an 11,000-seat building. It beats the Impact Zone, and the crowd was into the show.

Results/Ratings

-X Division Title Xscape Match: Chris Sabin (c) def. Alex Shelley, Jay Lethal, Shark Boy & Sonjay Dutt to retain (15:50)  ***1/4

-Robert Roode def. Petey Williams in a Six Sides of Steel match (10:14) **1/4 

-Gail Kim def. Jacqueline Moore in a Six Sides of Steel match (7:14) **

-Senshi def. Austin Starr (Special Referee: Bob Backlund) in a Six Sides of Steel match (9:58)  **1/2

-James Storm def. Chris Harris in a Blindfold Six Sides of Steel match (9:50)  DUD 

-Christopher Daniels def. Jerry Lynn in a Six Sides of Steel match (13:22)  ***

-World Tag Team Title – Electrified Six Sides of Steel match: Team 3D (Brother Ray & Brother Devon) def. LAX (Homicide & Hernandez) (c) (15:38)  1/2*

-Lethal Lockdown Match (Special Enforcer: Harley Race): Team Angle (Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe, Rhino, Sting & Jeff Jarrett) def. Team Cage (Christian Cage, A.J. Styles, Scott Steiner, Abyss & Tomko) (28:06) ****

Snap Bumps 

-The main really got cooking once all ten men were in the match and the weapons were lowered from the top. Rhino speared Tomko through the door, leading to others fighting outside and AJ eventually being knocked off the cage’s roof by Angle. Christian took a double chokeslam from Jarrett and Sting onto the thumbtacks. Jarrett allowed Sting to pin Abyss after hitting him with a guitar, allowing Sting to get a future title shot and cementing Jarrett’s babyface turn. 

-Senshi and Starr continued their feud of matches well below what they’d have against each other somewhere else due to Backlund’s involvement/shitty booking.

-This was the first match between Storm and Harris after the AMW split, and the fans were chanting, “We want wrestling.” Good work. 

-Speaking of chants, there were more “Fire Russo” chants during the tag title semi-main. The two teams had bad chemistry, but the fans hated the booking and stipulations. The first time Hernandez gave Devon into the “electrified cage,” the lights flickered, there was a loud buzzing sound, and the crowd booed vociferously. Perhaps having Devon give a Doomsday Device within a minute probably didn’t help. The crowd was dead for most of the match, but at least popped when Hernandez jumped off the top of the cage and went through a table. 

-Speaking of coming off the top of the cage, we got 

-Petey Williams lost another so-so match against a guy he was setting up for another feud.

-Gail and Jackie were decent, but you’re also talking about two people who worked completely different styles.

-Daniels vs. Lynn was good, but the darker reboot of Daniels didn’t connect. 

-The fans really loved most of the X Division title match, but the “escape the cage” rules in the final two brought the match quality down. 

-Eric Young helped Petey in the match against Roode despite being in Roode’s corner, continuing their storyline of EY being forced to be in his corner. For a crowd that was often vocal this time about how much they hated Russo, they loved Eric in this storyline. 

The Verdict: Thumbs in the Middle 

This was a close one for me. I thought the main was great, but there were better War Games-style matches on shows that didn’t have the tag title or blindfold matches. The booking continues to hurt the quality of the shows and matches, but the undercard was mainly good to average matches.