TNA No Surrender 2007

Date: September 9, 2007

Location: Orlando, Florida (TNA Impact! Zone)

Announcers: Mike Tenay and Don West

The Setup

After winning all the titles in the promotion at the last PPV, the promotion followed with a show where Kurt Angle defended all three titles, climaxing with a world title defense against Abyss in the main event. 

The Business

The show was reported to have 17,000 PPV buys, the second-lowest in the promotion for 2007. As well as Angle did as a draw on PPV in different instances for TNA, the idea of him wrestling three times didn’t move the needle with the audience. That’s not surprising given how poorly tournaments normally do on PPVs. 

The Results

TNA World Tag Team Title Match: Team Pacman (Adam Jones and Ron Killings) def. Kurt Angle (C) and Sting (C) in 5:30 *1/2

Rhino def. James Storm in 13:20 **3/4 

Robert Roode def. Kaz in 13:50 ***1/4 

TNA X Division Title Match: Jay Lethal def. Kurt Angle (C) in 12:30 ***1/2

Chris Harris def. Black Reign in 5:30 1/2* 

Tag Team Gauntlet Match: A.J. Styles and Tomko def. The Motor City Machine Guns (Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin) in 25:50 **3/4

Christian Cage def. Samoa Joe by disqualification in 15:15 ***

TNA World Heavyweight Title Match: Kurt Angle (C) def. Abyss in 19:30 ***1/4 

Notable Happenings

Jim Mitchell cut a promo on the video wall after the main event, promising revenge on Abyss, and then he was sucked under the ring—WWF-lite bullshit. More on that later. 

Samoa Joe snapped in his match and started attacking security, officials, and X Division wrestlers, including Jay Lethal, who just beat Kurt Angle. Jim Cornette came out with Matt Morgan and calmed Joe down, while teasing Joe-Morgan down the line. The lame DQ finish hurt the match overall. 

Lethal’s X Division title win was a really strong match, and he got it with a roll-up, making it Angle’s second title loss of the night. The match was strong, but any rub Lethal was supposed to get quickly disappeared when Joe threw him out of the ring like common household trash. 

Angle’s first loss was in the opener, when he teamed with Sting and lost the tag titles to Ron Killings and Pacman Jones. Karen Angle came down and got involved, ending with Sting accidentally smacking her. Angle got pissed and gave Sting an Angle slam, leaving Team Pacman as the new tag champs. This was an absolutely atrocious way to use Pacman Jones, and lord knows Russo’s poor batting average with DV angles. 

Rhino beating Storm finally ended the “real-life substance problems” feud. Thank goodness. 

The tag title gauntlet battle royal didn’t work for me, but I’m also admittedly not a huge fan of the match format. I feel like it went on too long, and I didn’t like the way they just lined up the smaller wrestlers as fodder for the bigger guys overall, especially since the big guys weren’t that impressive. Once it got down to the final two teams, the match was excellent and made me wish we had gotten a straight tag between those four instead. 

After the horrible Harris/Black Reign match, Harries bloodied Reign, and then Reigns fought back, ending with him letting his rat run along the body and face of Harris. Harris, who was supposed to be selling, covered his mouth when the rodent came close to his lips. The crowd didn’t care about any of it because this feud was fucking abysmally awful. 

The Best, The Worst, The Underrated 

The Best: I would say Angle deserves this honor for the last two title matches, and for working three times. 

The Worst: You can easily put the Chris Harris vs. Black Reign match on here by itself, but I’m going with Black Reign on his own. I love Dustin Rhodes as a performer. He was awesome as the Natural starting, had multiple entertaining stints in the WWF/E as Goldust, and has had some good moments in AEW. But he wasn’t in good health or a good mental space as Black Reign, and everything about that gimmick to the fucking gear and rat was atrocious professional wrestling. 

The Underrated: AJ & Tomko vs. The Machineguns. The bout was hidden by one of Russo’s tropes, a gauntlet battle royal, but the tease made me badly want to see a full tag match between these two teams. 

Backstage Notes

The PacMan Jones involvement was a disaster because he wasn’t allowed to take any physical moves under his NFL contract. So, of course, yes, they put the tag titles on this man. The other wrestlers were reportedly very upset that Packan was getting this spot in the company with all his restrictions, which, of course, makes sense. 

The person pulling Abyss under the ring would later be revealed as Judas Mesias (Ricky Banderas), a death match-style wrestler who would allow Abyss to work his style. He was brought in as James Mitchell’s “son” to combat Abyss and complete the latter’s babyface turn. I’m sure Jim Cornette loved this idea. 

Rating: 6.0/10.0

This show has some typical TNA bullshit from the era, but the work was generally good throughout. Nothing was a blowaway match, but we got fewer stupid match stips to drag down the quality of the work. 

The Video

Available on TNA+