All images courtesy Impact Wrestling
TNA/Impact Wrestling has now entered its second year of only running four PPVs. Lockdown is the annual event where every single match on the PPV is contested within the confines of a 15 foot high steel cage. But wait, there’s more! Not only is every match contested within the confines of a 15 foot high steel cage, there are gimmick matches on top of that! A Last Man Standing Match, and a Lethal Lockdown (War Games) style match for control of the company! NOW how much would you pay?!
Six Man Tag: Bad Influence & Chris Sabin vs. The Great Muta, Sanada, & Nakanoue – The significance of this match is it is Muta’s first in ring appearance on US Soil in quite some time. TNA has been developing a working relationship with Muta’s Wrestle-1 promotion in Japan. According to Impact Wrestling’s Roster Page Sanada is the X-Division champion, though Aries clearly had the belt last week.
Prediction: A guy the caliber of Muta wasn’t brought in to job in a barely announced undercard match. His team gets the win, but expect Sanada to get featured heavily.
ECIII Open Challenge – After injuring Kurt Angle last week (or was it six weeks ago?…) ECIII was left without a PPV opponent, so he has issued an open challenge via Twitter.
Prediction – I don’t expect any big surprise. The most we may get is “Willow” since Hardy is already on the card.
Manik vs. Tigre Uno – Simply a match announced to introduce Tiger One. Nothing much, though I am interested to see what Tigre can do.
Prediction: Tigre Uno gets Victory Uno.
Mr. Anderson vs. Samuel Shaw – Mr. Shaw has been trying to win the love of Christy Hemme by doing perfectly rational things like kidnapping her and keeping a life size dummy in her likeness. Mr. Anderson has been sticking up for Christy by doing perfectly rational things like posing ans Christy in the makeup room to lure Shaw in for an attack.
Prediction: It seems a little early for Shaw to go down, so he either cheats to win, or blatantly lowblows Anderson.
Last Man Standing: Gunner vs. James Storm – Gunner has been getting a respectable push lately, having held the tag titles with Storm, and getting a World Title Shot a few weeks back. Storm laid it on pretty thick after losing to Gunner about how much he liked and respected Gunner. If you’ve been watching wrestling for more than a few months, you probably know what happened next. Storm turned on Gunner, preventing him from winning the World Title. These two had met before in singles matches, so this is definitely a big chapter in the feud.
Prediction: Again, the story is still developing, and it’s too early in my opinion for Gunner to get retribution on Storm. Storm has only just turned, and Gunner has already beaten him a few times. Storm smacks Gunner with a beer bottle and superkicks him for the win.
Knockouts Title: Madison Rayne(c) vs. Gail Kim – Madison has been feuding with Kim ever since her return a couple months ago. Gail has enlisted the help of Lei’D Tapa to do her dirty work. Think AJ and Tamina, but better. This has lead to the two trading some falls in tag matches.
Prediction: Madison comes out on top, and ready to take the challenge of the powerhouse Lei’D Tapa.
Lethal Lockdown: Team Dixie (Bobby Roode, The BroMans, & Austin Aries) vs. Team MVP (MVP, The Wolves, & Jeff Hardy) – In the obligatory War Games style matchup, two teams of four face off. It starts with one man from each side, with another one entering every few minutes. Winning team gets full control “of wrestling operations”. Team Dixie won the advantage when Bobby Roode beat Davey Richards on last week’s Impact. This means one member from Team Dixie will enter before a member of Team MVP can, thus giving Team Dixie the numbers advantage throughout the course of most of the match. Miraculously, this happens with the villainous side almost every time this match is done.
Prediction: Unlike the undercard heels, Dixie in charge has run its course. I believe even the TNA braintrust has seen that people do not want to see Dixie on TV as an authority figure. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t have authority figures soaking up time and we could get back to a wrestling focused wrestling show. While I don’t think we’ll get that, we will get a victorious Team MVP and the phasing out of the Dixie character.
World Title: Magnus(c) vs. Samoa Joe – This match actually has a pretty good story behind it, especially for those that remember these two are former tag champions. Magnus is the overrated champion who always has interference to win his matches. Joe has been on an absolute tear, decimating everything in his path. This match will be contended under “Joe’s Rules”, which mean submission or knockout only.
Prediction: Again, Magnus has only had the title for a couple months, and losing it in his first PPV defense would seriously damage his credibility. The most interesting scenario for me is to have Magnus now have to genuinely fight his own battle. He may have to use foreign objects to do it, but Magnus finds a way to knock out Joe and keep the title.
TNA has a pretty good promo video for the two main events, if you have the 30 minutes to spare.
As usual we will be tweeting about the show at our Twitter @a1wpodcast starting at 8PM ET. Join us if you can!
