TNA Sacrifice 2007

Date: 05/13/2007

Location: Orlando, Florida — TNA Impact Zone

Announcers: Mike Tenay & Don West

The Setup

Vince Russo was writing the shows, and Kurt Angle had been a babyface for about seven whole months, so it was time to make him a tweener to eventually turn him heel. He was being extra dickish to Sting and called him a clown. That’s deep. Christian and Sting had the same roles. 

The Business

The show did an atrocious 21,000 buys, ranking tenth out of the twelve 2007 TNA PPVs. Christian-Angle in February was only a hair above this show at 23,000, so I think it’s fair to say the fans weren’t into watching Angle chase the title. Man, how the fuck does your PPV business drop under those circumstances? 

Results/Ratings 

-TNA X Division Title Match: Chris Sabin (c) def. Jay Lethal & Sonjay Dutt — 13:00 ****

-Robert Roode (w/ Ms. Brooks) def. Jeff Jarrett — 11:21 ***1/2 

-Christopher Daniels def. Rhino — 10:01 **1/2 

-Handicap Match: Basham & Damaja (w/ Christy Hemme) def. Kip James — 4:26 * 

-Texas Death Match: Chris Harris def. James Storm — 17:14 ****1/4 

-Four-Way X Division Match: Jerry Lynn def. Tiger Mask IV, Alex Shelley & Senshi — 10:43 **3/4 

-TNA World Tag Team Title Match: Team 3D (Brother Ray & Brother Devon) (c) def. Scott Steiner & Tomko and LAX (Homicide & Hernandez) — 12:38 **

-Samoa Joe def. A.J. Styles — 12:48 ***1/4 

-NWA World Heavyweight Title Three-Way Match: Kurt Angle def. Christian Cage (c) & Sting — 10:45 **1/2 

Snap Bumps

-Angle made Sting tap as Sting was pinning Christian simultaneously in the finish of the main event. Angle celebrated with the title afterward, which I guess means he won. For the record, the ref who counted Christian’s shoulders looked like he finished before Sting tapped to the ankle lock. This was so incredibly fucking stupid and sucked the air out of the crowd and the match. No one really knew how to react. It was a good match before then, but a little rushed due to running out of PPV time, but the overbooked dickhead finish hurt it badly. 

-The X Division opener and the Texas Death match were easily the two best matches. The X Division match got a lot of time, and they made a lot of big moves and nearfalls at the end with some great timing. Everyone was so crisp in that match. I didn’t like Sabin’s cheap rollup win because it feels like a finish they overused with him, but it was still an excellent match. 

-The Texas Death Match was a fantastic, bloody brawl, concluding poetically with Chris Harris and Storm going for beer bottle shots at the same time and Harris landing first. The juice came early, and Storm looked the goriest by a wide margin. 

-Another shit match thrown into the whole VKM vs. Christy Hemme storyline. How this kept going is beyond me. 

-The four-way X division match was pretty good, but Tiger Mask was featured too much, and Jerry Lynn’s win was a mistake. This whole 2007 run of his was extremely meh. He was being portrayed as a returning legend when it began, but he was just a midcard wrestler having pretty good matches by this point. His win got zero crowd response. 

-Alex Shelley is still the most over guy in the X division, and they didn’t do nearly enough with him. They were building to the Machineguns but got almost nothing from him as a singles wrestler. 

-Joe and Angle had a good match, but not one of their best by any stretch. They likely also ran into some time issues, as it was very short by their standards. 

-Rick Steiner came into the ring and helped Scott clear the ring of Tomko after the tag titles match. They did the old Steiners spot, where Rick ran around in a circle and got in between Scott’s legs. Only the difference in speed in 2007 was extremely noticeable. In short, Rick looked old AF. They were building to the Steiners vs. Team 3D “dream match” at Slammiversary. 

-Rhyno worked another X Division heel in an okay match. His work as a babyface in this run has been extremely underwhelming so far. 

-They continued building to Daniels vs. Sting with Daniels dressed as Sting. Yawn. 

-Team 3D has been extremely average in 2007, as was the T3D vs. LAX feud, which could gladly go away at this point. 

-The Jarrett vs. Roode match with Jarrett as a babyface was a lot of fun. They did some of the old TNA Jarrett main event, even overbooking on the second match of the show, but everything worked. Eric Young was so fucking over in this feud. 

The Verdict 

The show’s overall quality made it an easy thumbs up, but the atrocious booking in the main event finish hurt it a lot. The crowd was hot primarily throughout the night, and they just sat silently as if trying to do long division in their heads. Harris vs. Storm was a tremendous blowoff to a feud that wasn’t the best, leading to the ending. The X Division title match was a good example of what the division was at its best. This was easily their best PPV of 2007 thus far.