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TNA No Surrender PPV Preview: Wilkenfeld's Where they've been, where they're going

VKM vs. LAX vs. Motor City Machine Guns vs. XXX vs Styles & Tomko vs. Raven & Havoc vs. Sonjay Dutt & Petey Williams vs. Eric Young & Shark Boy vs. Lance Hoyt & Jimmy Rave

Ten Team Gauntlet to become #1 Contenders for the Tag Team Championship

Where We've Been:

TNA seems to be trying to rebuild its secondary titles before moving to two hours and this match was prompted a couple weeks ago when VKM declared their desire for new competition. The "build-up" has been non-existent, but with this much talent in the ring they're probably not going for a well-worked psychological match up anyway. This one should be loads of fun, especially if it's given a decent amount of time and VKM is nowhere near the final two.

Where We're Going:

Both of the teams in the tag title match are brand new, so neither has any feuds to continue with anyone from this match. That forces us to do this the old-fashioned way and figure out who's in line for a push. Sonjay Dutt & Petey Williams and Eric Young & Shark Boy are both too random to win, and Raven hasn't won a match since 1986. VKM has no business near the top anymore, but TNA doesn't seem to have realized that yet. If it were me I would go with LAX due to their extreme in-ring awesomeness or Styles & Tomko for having as much personality as everyone else in the ring put together. Hopefully this is not when they pull the trigger on a Tomko face turn, as I don't think he's quite ready. I don't know the score on Jimmy Rave, so I don't know if he's in for an immediate push to the top.

Prediction:

LAX. If they're going to start having long tag matches on Impact, this is the team you want with the titles.

Black Reign vs. Wildcat Chris Harris

No DQ

WWB:

This feud started when Black Reign attacked Chris Harris at Victory Road because…um, yeah. He's crazy? They did have a bit of history together when Dustin Rhodes was a cowboy and teamed with AMW, but I don't recall it ever having been that big a deal. There might be a perfectly logical reason for why they're feuding, but if there is, TNA hasn't really bothered to mention it yet. This match is no holds barred because Black Reign got himself disqualified to end the last one.

WWG:

When match two of a series is in September, I assume they're going to do match 3 as some sort of blow-off at their big PPV in October (see: Christian-Rhyno, LAX-Styles & Daniels). I'm not looking forward to it.

Prediction: Black Reign. If they want an excuse for a third match, they need to split the victories.

Kaz vs. Robert Roode

WWB:

This feud has centered on Roode getting repeatedly fed up with Ms. Brooks. Kaz made the save a couple of weeks ago and proceeded to plant her with a peck on the cheek, and we have ourselves a match. What's somewhat interesting about this feud is that it's extremely similar to both Roode vs. Eric Young in its early stages and the Angles vs. Samoa Joe at Hard Justice. A man gets angry at a woman, and some face comes to make the save. In both cases, the woman stuck by her man in what turned out to be a trap for the gullible face. Are we finally due for a woman turning on her heel beau?

WWG:

My initial thought was that this wasn't the time for Ms. Brooks to turn on her man, because Kaz doesn't have enough personality for it to believable. On the other hand, Kaz has plenty of in-ring ability, and so his lack of personality might mean that it's a great idea to give him a valet. Also, there is some history between these two as a result of Kaz's alliance a few years back with Ms. Brooks's then boyfriend Matt Bentley, so it would make a certain amount of sense. The idea of a Ms. Brooks face turn is growing on me, especially since with TNA's anti-anti-woman violence policy she'll never really get her comeuppance as a heel.

Prediction: Kaz, off a Ms. Brooks face turn.

Rhino vs. James Storm

WWB:

This is actually the most built up feud on the card. It started a few months ago when Storm ended a match by pouring beer all over Rhino. The Man-Beast went ballistic and started smashing things. It was later revealed that as a recovering alcoholic, Rhino was enraged at being forced to taste alcohol against his will. This of course spurred Storm to go out of his way to mock Rhino and continue to try to pour beer down his throat. I have to say that this is one of the more original grounds for a feud I can remember seeing in a while. The last several weeks have had some skits of mixed quality with James Storm searching for Rhino in bars and an AA meeting. Storm won a match at Victory Road, and beat the living daylights out of Rhino in a bar room brawl.

WWG:

This one's tricky, as the numbers don't work out right. If Storm wins, Rhino gets buried with three straight losses. If Rhino wins, the feud continues but October would be the fourth match in the series, which would not traditionally be a feud ending number. Still, there's no way they'll want to build up two totally new feuds for these guys in the next month, so I'm thinking we'll be seeing this again at Bound For Glory, probably with some whacky stipulation attached. Also they might just ignore one of the previous two matches and claim that a win for Rhino evens things up (last year they claimed Styles & Daniels and LAX were tied going in to BFG, when Styles & Daniels were actually up 2-1).

Prediction: Rhino. They can't really afford to make Rhino a jobber.

Samoa Joe vs. Christian Cage

WWB:

This match is basically spill-over from the main event. Christian Cage had the poor fortune to bump into Joe the Impact after Joe had lost to Angle. Joe, in a fairly grumpy mood, proceeded to brain Christian with a chair and cost him a number one contenders match against Abyss. Since then, Christian's been hunting Joe, culminating with a Con-Chair-To to one of his Samoan fire-twirlers on this past week's Impact. Joe did not seem happy. Overall, they've done a reasonably good job building up this feud in relatively little time.

WWG:

Either man could really afford a loss without being any farther from the main event picture. Still, they have made a big deal over the past couple of weeks of the fact that Christian has not been pinned or made to submit since he arrived in TNA (apparently his being pinned as part of a complicated finish at Sacrifice didn't count). I assume they won't want to end that "streak" till the absolutely have to, which makes Joe slightly more expendable.

Prediction: Christian Cage. I think his streak has at least one more month left on it—if I had to guess, I'd say that it has exactly one month left on it.

Kurt Angle (c) vs. Black Machismo Jay Lethal

X-Division Championship match

WWB:

The stories behind the last three matches on the card are all basically the same. Kurt Angle has all the gold, but is generally a jerk, so Cornette's making him defend it all. Lethal earned his shot by pinning then #1 contender Christopher Daniels in a tag match at Hard Justice and then winning the title shot from him on Impact. He had a cup of coffee with the title before it was folded into the main event picture three months ago.

WWG:

If TNA is going to reinvigorate the X Division, Angle belongs nowhere near it. He's not fast like Styles or brutal like Joe—there's really very little "X" about him. As the last X Division Champion before the combined main events at the last two PPV's, Lethal is the logical choice to start the X Division renaissance.

Prediction: Lethal. They need to get the belt off Angle, and Lethal's in the right place at the right time.

Kurt Angle & Sting (c) vs. Pacman Jones & Ron "The Truth" Killings

Tag Team Championship match

WWB:

Angle won both tag titles at Hard Justice, and Sting won the right to be his partner at a fatal four way match two weeks ago. The two have shown some uneasiness as a team, with Sting in particular not taking a liking to Angle's wife. Meanwhile, The Truth and Pacman aligned because of their "similar backgrounds" (as near as we can tell, that means that they're both black, and Pacman needed someone who could carry a team on his own) and were able to convince Cornette that a tag title match would be good for ratings.

WWG:

Again, the titles have to be taken off Kurt Angle in order to reinvigorate a forgotten division, but a tag team where one of the members is contractually obligated not to wrestle (Pacman is still having legal issues with the NFL) does not seem like the obvious answer. The real question in this match is whether they're going to have Sting and Angle explode right away—it seems like they have to eventually, but it loses a bit of its dramatic edge if their "team" only lasts two weeks. The other big question is whether Sting vs. Angle (possibly with Abyss involved) is the Bound For Glory main event next month, in which case they have got to move quickly. Right now I'm going to tentatively assume the answer to both questions is yes.

Prediction: Team Pacman. Sting and Angle can't coexist.

Kurt Angle vs. Abyss

World Championship match

WWB:

We haven't really been much of anywhere here. Abyss won a number one contenders match last month at Hard Justice, and defended his shot against Christian Cage on the following Impact. Angle jumped him after the match, but has otherwise had relatively little interaction with the monster. Abyss got a clean pinfall win over Angle this on this past week's impact after a fairly dominating performance. The other story is Abyss's face turn, after months of Sting's tireless efforts to bring him out from under James Mitchell's thumb. Mitchell, in the meanwhile, has returned with a new monster of his own, and clearly has his sights set on vengeance against his previous monster.

WWG:

There's no way Abyss goes into the biggest event of the year as a champion, particularly not as a face—TNA seems to like having a big heel drop the belt at Bound For Glory. Moreover, he seems to have unfinished business with Mitchell, and possibly with Sting. Angle's going into BFG as champion. Also, if they wanted Abyss to win here I doubt they would have given him the win this past week.

Prediction: Angle. This is actually the easiest call of the night. In fact, it's so easy I wonder if they're going to pull a switch just to mess with jerks like me—something they did by letting Abyss win the title the first time last November. That doesn't seem likely though.

Also on the show, TNA has said they'll have a "big announcement". Presumably the news is that they're getting a second hour. Last year at this time, however, they moved to primetime and got Kurt Angle, so to make this seem like a big deal I think they'll need to put a little more on it. If they don't have a big signing to announce I'm guessing Jarrett might be coming back for a bit.

That's all for today. Enjoy the show!

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