TNA Hard Justice 2007

August 12, 2007

Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida

Announcers: Don West and Mike Tenay

The Setup

Angle came in with the TNA world title and IWGP title, and Joe was the X division champ, TNA tag champ, and all belts were on the line. This would have been the fourth singles match between the two in less than a year of being in the same company. 

The Business

It’s the Impact Zone, so free tickets. The show did 26,000 PPV buys, the lowest of the first four Angle-Joe matches, but still higher than any other PPV in 2007 outside of their January match and BFG. Even with all the titles on the line, meaning it thee was the most at stake in any of their matches, it still came in last. 

The Results

Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt def. Chris Sabin, Alex Shelley, and Triple X in 15:50 ****

Kaz def. Raven in 5:41 *1/4

James Storm def. Rhino in 13:15 *1/2 

The Latin American Exchange def. The Voodoo Kin Mafia in 5:50 *

Robert Roode def. Eric Young in 9:31 **3/4 

Chris Harris def. Black Reign in 4:50 *

The Steiner Brothers def. Team 3D in 11:00 *3/4

Abyss, Andrew Martin, and Sting def. Christian Cage, A.J. Styles, and Tomko in 10:51 *1/4 

Kurt Angle (C) def. Samoa Joe (C) in 18:34 **1/2 

Notable Happenings

The event featured the TNA debut of NFL star Adam “Pacman” Jones. He had a back-and-forth with Ron Killings that ended in nothing, and not only was Pacman not a strong promo, but Killings couldn’t do anything to make it any better. The whole deal was that Pacman wasn’t allowed any physical contact, so they had local guys dressed in shirts that said “police” to keep the two separate. Later in the show, they showed Pac-Man being stretchered out by a mystery attacker. All of this sucked. 

Karen Angle was at ringside with a “new boyfriend” to distract Kurt, but they reunited when she turned on Joe in the main event. Fuck, this was stupid. The ol’ oxymoron “obvious swerve” from Vince Russo. 

Due to winning the pinfall in the cage match, Abyss got a world title shot at the next PPV. The match itself was convoluted and wasn’t very good. 

The Rhino-Storm match had decent action, but saw Rhino relapse by drinking. He kept chugging during the match, and Storm ended up destroying him, including with a concerto. This was depressing and sad at the end. Fucking Russo and his alcoholism storylines. 

I thought the three-way tag was awesome, but they had a perfect finish with XXX winning, and kept going until Lethal and Sonjay won with a small package. Honestly, XXX could have used the win, and they could have built something with the Machineguns down the road. Still, the match was awesome.

Eric Young was supposed to get tarred and feathered after losing, but he did it to Traci instead. Cornette and Dutch were both helping with booking, but if I had to guess who pitched this stip, I’d guess Cornette. 

The Steiners and 3D worked hard, even if the match could be a little clumsy. Scott did a couple of Frankensteins off the top rope to the surprise of everyone, and the crowd loved him for it.

Black Reign attacked Harris with a spike during the match for the DQ. Dustin beat him pretty badly, drawing blood early. Poor Dustin looked terrible, and they set this up for more matches. Harris was dead already as a singles.

Best, Worst, and Most Underrated of the Night

Best: XXX. The Daniels and Low Ki version was a tremendous selection for the match, and it showed. 

Worst: Everything Pacman Jones. He was only on the show because he kept getting into trouble; he wasn’t good in this context, and they teased him throughout. This was all awful. 

Most Underrated: Young vs. Roode. The stip was stupid, but a good match between the two on a show that needed one. 

Backstage Notes

According to Jeff Jarrett’s recent Dark Side of the Ring, Karen and Kurt were already broken up in real life by this point. Awkward.

The rumor going around was that Pacman Jones got $25k per appearance. They got no real return on that investment at all.

Rating: 3.0/10

The wrestling wasn’t strong enough (aside from the opener) to significantly improve all the stupid shit on this show. Joe and Angle had their worst PPV match yet, largely because it was built around Karen Angle and an obvious swerve. Russo would book these months-long feuds with multiple silly gimmick matches until you didn’t want to see the feuds at all anymore.