By Jeremy Maes, The DEJ Experience

The day is finally here. TNA infiltrates the Greenville, South Carolina area for their Against All Odds pay-per-view. As I wrote Thursday there has been very little penetration and exposure in the market for the show and TNA is resorting to desperate measures. As an update, TNA has sold just under 1600 seats for the show and they have instituted a buy one get one free promotion as well as giving out tickets, even the one hundred dollar tickets, to different businesses to disperse as they see fit.

It cannot be stressed enough what a disappointment TNA has been the last few months as far as promotion. They have their street teams in the area but they usually means a handful of people handing out fliers to strangers or, as they have with a coworker, placed door tags on select houses. This is a decent idea but TNA went about it the wrong way. On the door tags they have a bunch of the TNA Knockouts in skimpy clothes promoting TNA wrestling and the PPV.

Imagine coming home, being a good conservative Christian, which makes up a large portion of the populous and finding half naked women on a door tag with the initials TNA on it. Your first reaction will not be of the family friendly variety. So in a matter of seconds they have turned off a potential customer who will spread the word and inevitably turn off more customers. Having the TNA in ads on its own merit has never really presented a problem to me before. After seeing the door tag it does cause mixed feelings. It doesn’t really matter now since they are relatively established as a name brand so changing it cannot be much of a business sense. Knowing this, even if it isn’t apparent to TNA management, they need to be much more careful. They need to understand the markets they are trying to penetrate and build a business relationship.

All right enough of that. Since the PPV starts at 8:00 for the off site audience, see, it start at 7:30 on the tickets, its time for predictions. This includes the Abyss/Judas Mecias offsite match that the paying audience in attendance has to watch on television and will be portrayed as being run live.

All predications are done with no actual thought and with a healthy dash of mindless meandering.

Barbed Wire Massacre 2: Abyss vs. Judas Mesias
It’s a taped match that paying customer have to sit and watch. Combine that fact with all of the usual backstage skits and that is a lot of time devoted to watching a large TV screen in a half empty arena. For this, TNA is not getting favorable responses. This match has been recorded and I forget who wins. I am going to keep it that way so I can have a decent experience tonight.
Winner: Abyss

Eric Young vs. James Storm
Who the hell cares. You cannot judge something if you have no idea what it is.
Winner: no one, we all lose, especially James Storm

Knockouts Title Match: Awesome Kong vs. ODB
All right this match has some actual momentum behind it. Since Gail Kim went down with an injury it opened up the opportunity for TNA to give the Orlando fans what they want. So they inserted ODB in this match. TNA tried making ODB a heel but her goofiness won out and fans got behind her on television.

Kong comes in as the monster champion saddled with a talking head who can actually wrestle. Hopefully this will be given at least ten minutes, giving Kong and ODB an opportunity to make the Knockouts a distinct and superior women’s wrestling than the WWE Divas. If not hopefully there will be an opportunity to end the charade and have Cheerleader Melissa reveal herself and add yet another good worker to the division.
Winner: Amazing Kong

TNA Tag Team Title Match: Tomko & Styles vs. BG James & Bullet Bob Armstrong
this match just has too much going for it not to be good. BG James and Pops are on a roll and have defeated the top teams in……….s**t, never mind. Why this match is on PPV is beyond me. It isn’t cute, satisfying or fun. Someone must have realized this and added the Kip James comment of being behind them 100% or something. You know, so when he turns on them it will be heartfelt. Basically they have given AJ and Tomko, who are having issues now, a reason to keep the tag titles while forwarding the fact they are on the outs. This way they can work weeks of television over the tag team champions retaining despite their problems and inevitably have a winner take all match at the next PPV. This match is destined to have all sorts of interference by any of the following names and probably some in tandem; Kurt Angle, Christian Cage, Kip James, Roxie, Brad Armstrong, Tad Evans, Curry Man and Tiger Mask.
Winner: AJ and Tomko

Booker T vs. Robert Roode
Roode cut the best promo of his TNA career Thursday and now he needs to follow it up with his best performance in TNA ever. They have done a decent job with the build up and have painted Roode as a dick. He effectively addressed the issue I had with this program in his promo Thursday and Booker has handled his end very well. His statements apologizing to TNA management, ownership and the like was a good mood setter for the match. Booker has the opportunity to really push Roode ahead of his lethargic ring performances and cement him as a high level player; something Kurt Angle and Christian Cage could not do. The only logical way for this feud to end is with a Booker T victory. Roode doesn’t need to win. He needs to look good and push himself. If he doesn’t this will start the “Chirs Harrisizing” of Bobby Roode. Now if TNA wants yet another match out of these two, Sharmelle will get involved costing Booker T the match on accident. Also, expect major outside interference from Sharmelle, Traci Brooks, Payton Banks, Payton Manning, Eli Manning, Against Me and NOW.
Winner: Robert Roode

Traci Brooks vs. Payton Banks
This match suffers from having very little build up and a lack of logical animosity. They have never sufficiently explained why Payton has it in for Traci and why she is changing her look to mimic Traci Brooks. They have just again established her as a wrestler and have not established Payton banks as a wrestler in the least. This is a simple time filler but Robert Roode will interfere.
Winner: Payton Banks

Petey Williams vs. Scott Steiner
TNA finally gave Petey a gimmick and now he is fighting over a brief case that he doesn’t need nor want. He has a TNA Heavyweight title match guaranteed. They have never explained why he would be motivated to risk it and potentially get nothing in the end. Scott Steiner has been entertaining enough in this as he mumbles and stumbles n his promos. He is a kooky guy and it just comes out great in this. Scott doesn’t need the win but Petey needs a reason to care about winning and losing. It also can lead to Steiner taking him under his wing and form a new tag team. Steiner does fall in to the Team 3D problem of degrading the X-Division wrestlers by continually mocking their size and abilities. Because of this Scott really shouldn’t win really the winner of this hinges on the winner of the Street Fight for the fate of the X-Division.
Winner: Scott Steiner

Jay Lethal & The Guns vs. Team 3D & Devine
I have already written a bunch about this match and it’s build up. One thing that is lost in all of the personal issues is the fact no one elected he MCM and Lethal as the torchbearers for the X-Division. No one asked Sonjay how he feels being left out of the match. No one talked to Petey Williams, Shark Boy (thank god), Curry Man, Elix Skipper as well. Come to think of it, if that is all the X-Division has to offer, the Motor City machine Guns losing isn’t all that bad. Really unless there is a renewed push on the X-Division wrestlers being the more athletic and generally different wrestlers in TNA there is no reason to have the division. Losing it at this point isn’t a big deal. There is no emotional investment either way team 3D have generally proven their point by always coming out ahead in their altercations. Even if they lose, team 3D has damaged the wrestlers in the X-Division by showing them to be small, weak and easily beatable. Their loss tonight will be a fluke and they come out unscathed. The idea that they will not be able to fight in the X-Division based on the new weight restrictions is meaningless. They never mentioned the title in any interviews. So really, who cares who wins?
Winner: Jay Lethal and The Motor City Machine Guns

TNA World Title Match: Kurt Angle vs. Christian Cage w/Special Enforcer Samoa Joe
This match has so much going on with it that a clean finish is impossible. TNA does not have the creative minds to pull of a satisfying and strong finish with a match with a more focused issue let alone one with multiple issues.

The only issue that should be on display in this match is that of the TNA Heavyweight Title. In the weeks leading to the PPV it was narily mentioned by anyone involved other than Jim Cornette and he only mentioned while trying to sign Samoa Joe to a new contract. Most of the attention has been on AJ Styles thinking he is getting some from Karen Angle. Kurt Angle being mad at AJ because he is uncommitted to him solely. Christian is proud ok Tomko but still mad at AJ. Tomko just needs his space but no one will listen. Elsewhere in the Melrose Place condominiums, Samoa Joe and his old hippie friend are strong-arming management for more money but it keeps getting messed up. Then Matt “The Man” Morgan harshed their buzz and ruined one of the contract signings and then that old bald man broke it up the second time. How Samoa Joe is satisfied with all of this is beyond me. The match is going to include interference from all of the above and maybe even some others. Here is a list of potential suspects, Dixie Carter, Jeff Jarrett, Vince Russo, Dutch mantel (comedic of course), Jim Cornette (Yeah he supposedly isn’t in town, so what) , Bella the Dog, Hold For Swank, Brian Difrango and Wade Keller (It is a new era after all).
Winner: Kurt Angle

Jeremy Maes is the "J" in the DEJ Audio Experience, found at PWTorch.com. He has been doing this for some time now, long enough that he can’t remember the start date. His famous words for all listeners have never changed “Don’t follow my path son. Don’t follow my path.” Find him on the PWTorch.com VIP Message Board, or shoot him an e-mail at theaudioexperience@gmail.com

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