Apparently TNA is using the same method to book pay-per-views now as WWE does. Yesterday, they had three matches announced on their web site. After last night’s Impact, it’s up to eight now, and the show’s on Sunday. Way to build the excitement there…

Anyway, there will be a TNA roundtable here next week to talk about some of the insane things TNA is doing lately around hiring Pacman Jones and practically giving Kurt Angle a wife-beater gimmick in spite of the Chris Benoit deal and how they are pretty much openly flaunting their dissatisfaction with Spike TV and Viacom. Come back and check it out.

By the way, Pacman Jones is supposed to be there on Sunday, and one hopes that there is a metal detector at the door so he doesn’t unload his Glock into the crowd or something. Maybe that’s the incentive for having the guy show up: “Come to TNA tonight, and you might see someone get capped and strippers get ‘rained’ on.”

So anyway, let’s get to the matches…

Triple X over the Motor City Machine Guns and Sonjay Dutt & “Black Machismo” Jay Lethal (Triple Threat Tag Match): This will probably be an awesome curtain jerker match that will blow most everything on the card away. With XXX reforming (thanks Google!), they need a good push to get going again. Otherwise, they will be this week’s version of Diamonds in the Rough.

Dustin Rhodes over “Wildcat” Chris Harris: Harris will eventually reign supreme in this feud, but they need to make Rhodes look strong at the outset to make this feud work. Otherwise, he will look like just another jobber to the stars. Word is that Dustin is also going to break out a “Platinum” gimmick similar to Goldust. TNA = WWE Jr.

VKM over LAX (Acronym Match): Okay, so I made that part up. Anyway, TNA hates the LAX now because they hate Konnan, and I guess the Old Age Outlaws need another win, so that’s my logic. Unfortunately, TNA doesn’t have much logic collectively, so maybe that’s not helping my picks.

Eric Young over Robert Roode (Humiliation Match): Just by seeing the stipulation, you know Roode is going to lose and Our Ms. Brooks will probably turn on him for beating her up over the past month. Both of these guys are wasted by continuing them in this pointless feud for the last 8 to 12 months (it seems like it’s been that long).

“Tennessee Cowboy” James Storm over Rhino (Barroom Brawl): Storm wins, no question. The stunt of holding this in a bar plays to Rhino’s strengths as a wrestler, so maybe he will really put Storm over so he can go on to some more meaningful singles feuds.

Team 3D over the Steiner Brothers: Is it me or did 3D turn heel without me knowing it? They’re much better as heels, IMHO. They need the rub from the Steiners more than the Steiners do, and I actually think this is a sleeper match that could turn into a sleeper feud over the next couple of months.

Sting, Abyss & Andrew Martin over Christian Cage, AJ Styles & Tomko (Doomsday Chamber of Blood Match): Is the object to strap your opponent into an electric chair? If you don’t know the rules, you have to make your opponent bleed before you can get a pinfall on them. The steel cage also had barbed wire around the top. Anyway, I’m sure Sting’s team will get the win so that Test can get the rub on his debut. It will be a very exciting match, I’m sure, with all these guys bleeding everywhere. </sarcasm>

Kurt Angle over Samoa Joe (Winner Takes All Match): This would have been a good stunt to pull after TNA got their new belts to build anticipation for seeing them, but not two months after the fact. Rumor has it that this is a way to unify the Heavyweight and X-Division titles so that the X-Division is no more. I think if that were true, then it’s an extraordinarily bad idea from both a wrestling perspective and a business perspective.

From the wrestling angle, it’s one of the few things that TNA has going for them that has some bit of mainstream publicity outside of the die-hard wrestling community (when you consider that they’ve marketed the heck out of it with toys, DVDs, and merchandising).

From a business angle, they probably dropped a grand to have that belt made just recently, and to throw it away like that would be ignorant. I’m sure that the storyline will have Angle winning all the belts and trying to unify them, and either Jim Cornette tells him he can’t unify the titles without his permission or the wife petitions to get half the belts in the divorce or something stupid like that. That seems to be the direction TNA is going with this, towards something outlandish. Apparently they’ve learned nothing from Vince McMahon wrestling God or “dying” in a limousine explosion.

By the way, I learned this week that Kurt Angle’s IWGP title that he’s carrying around is NOT the official championship belt. Wikipedia is your friend.

See you on Monday with results!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 10th, 2007 at 8:18 am and is filed under Russ Ray's Rasslin' Ring, The Russ, Wrestling. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.