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TNA No Surrender PPV
September 9, 2007
Orlando, Fla. at Universal Studios
Report by Dan Wilkenfeld, PWTorch contributor

(1) Team Pacman defeated Kurt Angle & Sting:

Mini-recap: Throughout the match, Pacman refuses to tag in for no obvious reason. They should really just acknowledge his contract situation and find some way to work it into the plot. Incidentally, we only know he waved off the first tag from commentary, as the camera at the time was getting a reaction shot from Angle. This was something of a running theme throughout the night, as key points went unseen because the camera was getting a reaction shot from someone. The real story of the match was Karen Angle faking getting slapped by Sting, which angered Kurt enough to turn on his own partner. Angle hit the Olympic Slam on the icon, which for some unknown reason kept him down long enough to get covered by accidentally-tagged-in Jones.

Reaction: This match raised a lot of questions, which hopefully they're planning to answer in coming weeks. Why wouldn't Jones tag in willingly? Why would Karen Angle fake an injury when it would inevitably result in costing her husband a title? The likely explanation is that she was so threatened by Kurt siding with Sting last week on Impact that she wanted to break up the team just to get Sting out of their lives. I'm not sure I like the idea of turning Karen into some sort of insecure raging bitch, and I worry that it might eventually lead to Angle having to turn "face" against her. That's a worry for another time though, and I'll give TNA some benefit of the doubt regarding their long-term plans. The match itself was a decent sports-entertainment segment, if not actually much of a match.

(2) Rhino defeated James Storm:

Mini-recap: This was a pretty intense fight, with about five minutes of brawling on the outside before they even rang the bell. Highlights include James Storm reversing a Rhino Driver with some sort of top rope Diamond Cutter onto a chair and the traditional Gore through a table to end the match. After the match Rhino gives Storm a beer enema and Gores Jackie Mora.

Reaction: I thought this match was a lot of fun. I'd also like to note that, as predicted in my PPV preview, they do seem to be ignoring one of Rhino and Storm's previous encounters (the first one). I assume that means that we will be getting a "rubber-match" next month, which I'm looking forward to greatly.

We get a recap of Team Pacman winning the gold. There's really no reason for recaps on TV I'm paying to see of other TV I've already paid to see. Maybe this was there because the actual pinfall was unobserved because the camera was getting a reaction shot from Karen Angle.

Sting ambushes Kurt in the back, and Cornette sends Sting and Karen Angle back to their hotels. Much to my extreme shock, neither is seen again for the rest of the night.

(3) Robert Roode defeated Kaz:

Mini-recap: The story of the match is Ms. Brooks cheering for and trying to help Kaz. If this is a trap, it's an abnormally elaborate one, as she acted happy for Kaz even when he wasn't looking and might have cost Roode the match. At one point, she hid a chain Roode had brought and successfully prevented him from using it. Highlights of the match include a suplex that takes both men over the top rope, Kaz stopping in mid-jump when Roode uses Ms. Brooks as a Saddam Hussein style human shield, and some sort of wicked behind the back piledriver (not seen the first time because the camera was getting a reaction shot of Ms. Brooks), and a slingshot DDT. The finish comes when Kaz misses a leg drop and gets nailed with a Fisherman's Suplex.

Reaction: Kaz brought his A-game again—apparently he only really shines on PPV. Roode kept up fairly well, and the Ms. Brooks story was relatively well done. This match was better than I expected it would be, and makes me moderately interested to see the inevitable rematch. Commentary was abnormally on-point tonight in bringing out possible plot points, as in this match Don West brought up how tricky Ms. Brooks and Karen Angle have been in the past, and how we shouldn't rush to jump to conclusions about what she's really after.

Jay Lethal is in the back with Crystal, and is moderately amusing as he confuses his current match with confrontations with Ricky Steamboat, Jake Roberts, and others. Nash comes in and tells Lethal that Angle has too much on his plate, so Black Machismo should just take a dive. Nash is priceless as ever, but the segment is hurt by sound issues that make it hard to hear what he was saying.

(4) Black Machismo Jay Lethal defeated Kurt Angle:

Mini-recap: Angle comes out looking like he just wants to put Lethal away quickly and gradually becomes frustrated at his failure to do so. Black Machismo keeps getting in cool hope spots to break up an otherwise continuous beat down by Kurt Angle. At one point, he actually hits his finisher (a Lethal Combo followed by a Macho Man elbow drop), Angle kicks out. Throughout the match he keeps going for quick roll ups, but Angle always escapes at 2. Finally Angle locks in the Angle lock, only to have Lethal roll through and pick up the three count.

Reaction: Whoa. The match was awesome, and the finish was completely unexpected. I picked Lethal to win the match, but it never seriously occurred to me till about halfway through that they might let him do it clean. I think this is just fantastic booking—every once in a while, even the best wrestler should drop a random match cleanly to make it seem like anything can happen. Don West referred to it as the biggest upset in TNA history; while that is surely hyperbole, I can't off the top of my head think of a counter-example. The finish alone wins this match of the night—and not for lack of competition.

Borash interviews Black Reign Dustin Rhodes in the back. Apparently Mr. Rhodes now has a pet rat. Huh.

(5) Chris Harris defeated Black Reign:

Mini-recap: Harris jumpstarts the match with a cross body block from the top rope to the outside. It was pretty much downhill from there, though not nearly as precipitously as I would have guessed. There's actually some decent wrestling buried underneath the stupid (Reign) and absent (Harris) gimmicks. The finish is just a small package out of nowhere. After the match, Harris tries to continue the beat-down, but it gets turned around and he ends up with a rat placed somewhat near his face (no, that's not a typo).

Reaction: The match itself was better than I had expected, which doesn't really say all that much. The post-match rat related shenanigans were just about exactly what I expected, which made me sad.

Crystal interviews Christian Cage in the back, and he questions why he's the bad guy when Joe started this. That's actually a fairly decent question. They make a point of referring to Joe's entourage as his family, which is a necessary bit of information for explaining his abnormal rage later. There's also a line in there about Samoans peeling bananas with their feet, which gets rolled eyes all around.

(6) A.J. Styles & Tomko defeated VKM, 3D, LAX, XXX, MCMG, Serotonin, Hoyt & Rave, Shark Boy & Eric Young, Sonjay Dutt & Petey Williams:

Mini-recap: The match started with AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels in the ring, and never really slowed down from there. Wrestlers entered every minute Royal Rumble style, and when two were left it became a standard tag match (what would have happened if the last two were from the same team?). 3D dominated most of the match, till they were both eliminated by Tomko. The final two teams were Styles & Tomko and the Motor City Machine Guns; Styles, who entered first and was never eliminated, scored the pinfall. There were too many cool spots to try to list them all here.

Reaction: This match could have been either a complete mess or a ton of fun—thankfully, some smart decisions about who lasted through the match and intra-match storylines made sure it was the latter. I think every single person in this match impressed me with their athleticism and ability (well, VKM at least didn't look bad), and it told some moderately decent stories as alliances formed and broke down. If any of the teams in this match had any meaningful feuds with each other coming in, this would probably have been match of the night. As it is, it came close. Interestingly, the crowd spent most of the match chanting for Shelley, even before he entered the ring. I enjoy the Guns, but maybe it's worth pushing him to an X Division Title sooner rather than later?

Joe is in the back, and he's really angry. It makes me look forward to him trying to crush Christian, which I suppose is the point.

(7) Christian Cage defeated Samoa Joe (via disqualification):

Mini-recap: The match is all Joe for the first five minutes, with the sort of brutal beat-down reminiscent of his early TNA squashes. The highlight of the match is Christian hitting an inverted DDT from the top rope, to a well earned "That was awesome!" chant. There is a nice subtle bit late in the match where Joe went for the rear naked choke, but Christian rolls over and gets his feet on the ropes. The nice part is that that is exactly how Christian beat Joe for the title in March, only this time the ref catches his cheating and the match continues. The finish comes when Joe refuses a rope break, and when the ref tries to force the issue Joe goes ballistic and nails him with a Samoan Drop. He then proceeds to take out a phalanx of security guards, at which point Don West hits the line of the night when he points out that "one thing they're doing wrong is they're going in one at a time." I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to help up notice that. Eventually, a second ref comes down to the ring and awards the match to Christian on a disqualification. After the match, Cornette comes down with Morgan and talks Joe down. Joe flicks them both off as they leave.

Reaction: This was a fine match, but honestly I expected a bit more than "fine" out of these two. I never felt like it really had a sense of flow between one move and the next, and Joe seemed to be moving a mite slower than usual. Maybe my expectations were unreasonable, but I expected this to be the show-stealer, and it wasn't. The crowd was evenly split between Joe and Christian, which says a lot about how Joe has been weakened over the last year or so.

In the back Borash is with Angle, who's in a bad mood. Nash tells him to chill out, but Angle doesn't take well to being given advice. Nash, reminding us that he can be serious every now and then, points out that he knows what he's talking about and that Kurt would do well not to cross him. This is good stuff.

Tenay's in the ring, and makes the announcement that TNA's going to two hours on October 4th, and that…nope, that's it. That's a bit disappointing.

Team Pacman is in the back, and happy. I'm not sure why this segment existed.

(8) Kurt Angle defeated Abyss:

Mini-recap: Hebner starts by declaring that there will be no outside interference, and I'm once again shocked to find that they're telling the truth. The match itself is an old school piece of psychology, with Angle picking apart Abyss's leg, and Abyss hitting a periodic power move before collapsing on his bad wheel. Midway through, Abyss kicks out of an Olympic Slam, and Angle returns the favor by kicking out of a Black Hole Slam. Eventually Angle removes Abyss's boot and locks in the Angle lock. Abyss almost gets to the rope twice, but is pulled away both times. Angle really cinches it in the middle of the ring, and after fighting valiantly for a minute or so Abyss has to top out.

Reaction: I'm honestly not sure what I think about this match, since it was so far from what I expected that I never really adjusted to what I was seeing. I assumed I'd get a sports-entertainment segment, with run-ins by Mitchell and his monster, probably some involvement from Karen Angle and/or Sting, and certainly some thumb tacks and broken glass. Instead, I got a match of the oldest of schools, with a body part slowly picked apart and a nice long story. I felt it was somewhat slow, but that could have been a function of my expecting a less methodical sort of match. Even given what I was looking for it was still pretty good, and I imagine that if I had set myself for a good long wrestling match it might have been very good.

After the match, Mitchell's monster cuts open the ring and pulls Abyss down beneath it. It was obviously somewhat hokey, but I still thought that it was a neat visual.

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