83 Weeks - TNA Lockdown 2010 [Show Notes] (Patreon)

TNA Lockdown 2010

Lockdown 2010 took place on April 18th from the Family Arena, in Saint Charles, Missouri. It drew 3,023.

This was the 6th Lockdown event. What's interesting about Lockdown, was that every match took place in a steel cage, hence the event name of “Lockdown” and that's how all of the previous Lockdowns took place. Also, this was the first Lockdown event out of the previous 5 to have a 4-sided cage.

Let's talk about that. TNA made themselves different by having the 4 sided ring which you and Hulk seemed to change to a traditional ring when you guys came in. Where did the idea for the 4-sided cage come from?

We haven't really talked much about your time in TNA before this show. You made your debut in the infamous January 4th, 2010 show when TNA attempted to recreate the famous Monday Night Wars, by going head-to-head with Raw. That idea didn't last very long.

However, at this point, you've been with TNA for about 4 months. Talk about what your experience in TNA was like up to that point. How were things going?

Looking back, is there anything that you would have handled differently in those first 4 months?

Let's get to some company news heading into Lockdown

There was an incident not long after you got there, between Awesome Kong and Bubba the Love Sponge.

This incident definitely got a lot of coverage. For those of you who aren't aware who Bubba the Love Sponge is, he was one of Hulk's guys at the time, a shock-jock type who had his own radio show in Tampa

First, other than Hulk wanting him there, why was he in TNA to begin with? How would his presence in TNA help the company overall?

It happened on January 18th, in Orlando. Here's what happened. 

Kong (Kia Stevens) punched Bubba the Love Sponge after the 1/18 taping in Orlando. Kong over the weekend had done a fund raising effort for Haitian earthquake victims which also included some other TNA talent. This was done on her own through her own publicist and I don’t believe was through TNA, although Dixie Carter is very sympathetic to that issue and ordered collection buckets for donations at all the tapings this week.

Bubba had written“Fuck Haiti,” and worse on Twitter, doing his shock jock radio personality looking for reaction, and then would argue with people calling him insensitive. He would say we need to take care of our own problems and when our country had catastrophes, did they help us? He also must have gone off during his radio show in a similar direction in his role as a shock jock. Needless to say, his timing and judgment of try to get attention backfired on him big time because he had tremendous heat within the company and was taken off television for the tapings.

The next morning, when Hogan came on his show, Hogan talked about how Kong “beat the hell” out of him last night. Bubba said he wasn’t going to talk about it but since Hogan brought it up, he said it was a “sucker punch.”

Bubba described the incident like this:

“She was wearing wrestling gear, and she came in on me and sucker punched me right on my left cheek, and I was like, what’s going on, then she came out (for) me again, hit me in the mouth, and she goes, `This is for Haiti. This is for Haiti.’ And I’m like, `What’s going on?’ Then she hits me again. Finally I put my left hand out and push her away from me, and she comes at me again, and I just cover up, because I cannot fight back on a woman. Not only will I be fired from TNA, which I probably am, but my radio career is gone if I take a woman out.”

Hogan then told him that after what had happened, if Bubba had punched her back, it would have been justified, but Bubba said the media spin would have been a killer for him.

Hogan said Kong should be fired immediately.

“It was so violent, you could have actually lost an eye, you could have had your teeth knocked out, but to give you your credo, you are the one who said, `No, don’t fire her.’”

Of course that aspect of it sounds just like a wrestling angle. Hogan himself even started pushing it like it was a wrestling angle, and Bubba said that was fine, but “You better not call it pro wrestling, you might as well put the cage up and make it MMA because I will not work (modern day code language for annoying angle that won’t draw money). I promise you that. You’re not going to embarrass me like that, and be that much of a loose cannon in this industry.”

Hogan then started talking about how in a real fight, Bubba would have killed her.

“She’s real good at throwing a sucker punch, but the way she was swinging at you, and everything, you could have shot right between her arms and knocked her out. It wouldn’t have been cool. There would be all kinds of heat. You did the right thing because you did not hit her back, and she was swinging wild and she’s out of her mind. You did the right thing, but at the end of the day, it comes back to you and me hanging out together. You know you’re going to get heat. I told you this a long time ago, but don’t put this one on me, because you stirred that up.”

Bubba talked about how that night at TV, so many of the wrestlers were giving him dirty looks (over the Haiti comments). Hogan then claimed that he heard Vince Russo put her up to attacking him, but Bubba said he didn’t believe it. Hogan said, “It’s true. I heard it.” Hogan started telling Bubba he should come to the tapings and knock Russo out, and Bubba again thought Russo had nothing to do with it.

“He did, I’m telling you as your friend, I wouldn’t lie to you,” said Hogan. That has its comedy.

“Hogan, I love you to death, but you’re the biggest worker, you’re talking something that really did happen and trying to make an angle. Hogan then told Bubba to sucker punch Russo. Hogan and Bubba later had an argument where Bubba knocked Hogan for a lack of leadership for letting it happen and doing nothing about it. Later Bubba had Jeff Jarrett on and they argued as well.

Talk about what happened

Awesome Kong said of it - So when someone comes into the locker room and disrespects all the hard-working wrestlers and is speaking like a wrestler as if he earned the right to speak as such, that rubbed me the wrong way. My manager had just died like 48 hours before I was doing a fundraiser for the earthquake in Haiti. I hadn’t slept in literally 48 hours. And so, you know when you get to the point where it’s like, ‘You know what? F that.’ It got to that point.

So we had a physical altercation, and I was like, ‘You know what? I’m just done with everything.’ They wanted to turn it into a storyline and I’m like, ‘I’m not turning it into a storyline with that man, I’m not — no! I’m not putting that over at all!'”

Meltzer reported - Kia Stevens (Awesome Kong) filed a lawsuit against Todd “Bubba the Love Sponge” Clem in Hillsborough County Court, claiming she was threatened by Clem, 43, over the phone. Clem, a well known shock jock on Sirius satellite radio as well as on several radio stations in Florida, denies the charge.

On 3/1, Stevens, 32, who as Kong held the company’s Knockout tag team titles with Hamada, wrote on Twitter thanking the company and Dixie Carter for wishing her the best in her future endeavors.

TNA officials at the time were unaware that Stevens had left the company. She had given notice shortly after her attack on Bubba, but wrestled one match with Hamada as her partner for Xplosion at the most recent television tapings after not going to Europe as scheduled. Kong and Hamada have a history together, as both feuded over the WWWA women’s title in 2004.

Stevens claimed she received a phone call at 5:08 a.m. on 2/10 from a blocked number, recognized the voice as Clem, who she alleged threatened to “sucker punch her until she stopped breathing,” and said, “You’ll be dead like all those other n      in Haiti, you fat black bitch.”

Stevens said she called AT&T, which refused to identify the number. AT&T is also listed as a defendant in the lawsuit, which demands the phone company release records on who made the call. She said the caller identified himself as Bubba the Love Sponge, and threatened to come to her house. She said he also said, “What d’ya think about that, Monkey Kong? What? Those big fat Jimmy Walker lips ain’t talking shit now, huh?”

Clem responded, saying, “This morning I was made aware of allegations made in a petition for a full bill of discovery by Ms. Kia Stevens, a professional wrestler with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. The allegations in this petition are 100% false. To be clear, everything contained in this petition is not true. Ms. Stevens attributing outrageous racist statements and physical threats to me is disgusting.”

“We can prove without any doubt the allegations made in this petition are false. First, Ms. Stevens claims that she was called on the air at 5:08 a.m. on 2/10. We are not even on the air until 6 a.m. Eastern time. We have phone records and eye witnesses that account for my every movement that day from 4:50 a.m. forward. No call was made to Ms. Stevens at all.”

“We will be pursuing all legal remedies available to us in the State of Florida to fight these deliberately malicious allegations.”

He briefly mentioned the incident on his radio show, saying he was thinking of suing Stevens for her 1/18 attack on him, as well as suing TNA for providing unsafe working conditions. He said at that time he was done with TNA because he believes they didn’t handle the situation properly and would sue them even though he’s friends with Hulk Hogan.

Meltzer reported at the beginning of March - Eric Bischoff has changed his tune on Chris Jericho. On his facebook, he said, “During a radio interview, I was asked which current WWE wrestlers I would like to have in TNA, and in addition to John Cena and Randy Orton, I mentioned Chris Jericho and spent a good amount of time putting Chris over as one of the most entertaining performers on the WWE roster. One of the radio personalities then asked me why Chris left WCW back in 98 or 99. My response was that, during that time I didn’t feel that Chris was ready for a title reign, but Chris did. 

Keep in mind we had a very strong hwt roster with top names like Sting, Goldberg, Nash, Hall, Hogan, Luger, Bret Hart and others. It was then reported on the Internet that I said Chris wasn’t hwt championship level talent. Chris is having fun taking shots at me for a comment I really didn’t make, but that’s cool, it’s not the first time and it won’t be the last. For the record, I think Chris is one of the top talents in WWE.” Actually, what Bischoff said after Hogan praised Jericho, Bischoff said that he was good but that he doesn’t see Jericho as heavyweight championship material, and neither does Vince McMahon. 

Bischoff also claimed Hogan was offered the Mickey Rourke role in “The Wrestler.” “Hogan did turn down the role. It was offered to him by one of my agents at William Morris Agency when they repped my company.”. . Hogan has some affiliation with a group called Micro Championship Wrestling, which is a touring midget wrestling troupe. This wouldn’t be the same group that Spike has ordered a few TV shows from, as that group was Puppet and Teo, who were used in the Nashville days of TNA. 

This group’s big star is Meatball, who was the 300 pound obese midget who TNA used once. They are taping a pilot on 3/4 in Nashville at the Impact Zone and Bischoff and Jason Hervey are looking at shopping the pilot around. But Hogan is cutting promos for the group. 

Around this time, Rob Van Dam came to TNA. Talk about how that came to be

It's been said that when you planned on buying WCW in 2001, you wanted to bring RVD in as one of the top stars. It's also been said that an agreement had been made between you two for that to happen. Is that true?

Sean Morley left TNA in March. He wrote on his facebook page, "Yes, folks, I am through with TNA as I want to wrestle in Mexico. I was going to perform in both TNA and CMLL, but now the switch to Mondays for TNA and the fact TNA had nothing solid yet, Mexico, here I come." 

Why didn't your former Chief of Staff stay very long in TNA?

On the March 8th Impact, we saw Hulk Hogan & Ric Flair wrestle each other in a tag match. It was Hulk & Abyss vs Flair & AJ Styles.

This was Ric's first match since his retirement a few years earlier at WrestleMania, when he lost to Shawn Michaels. Whose idea was it for him to wrestle here, and how did he feel about it?

Shawn Michaels commented on Ric wrestling to the Baltimore Sun - He did call me. He called me once to let me know he was going to do the Hogan match in Australia. He wanted to know if it was okay and I of course told him that it was. Then he called me again when he was going to sign with TNA and asked the same thing. There’s nothing you can say. 

I certainly don’t have what it takes to look at someone and say, `Don’t go make a living.’ I told him that, for me, nothing can take away that special moment. 

Anything after that...I feel for him, but I’m certainly not angry or disappointed or anything. I would like to think that Ric probably would have liked that to have been his last match, too. The fact that it couldn’t be, I understand. 

Those are circumstances that I certainly can’t control. One of the things you have to understand is that if you’re going to be a friend of Ric’s, you sort of know that there’s some baggage that comes along with that. Certainly the older I get, the more I’m learning about conditional situations, the difference between that and unconditional friendship and unconditional love. 

All those types of things we can talk about, but it’s a whole other thing to put them into action. I do my best to put thm into action. I want what’s best for Ric, even if Ric might not always be aware of what that is, I still want that for him. Nothing will take away from that moment. It’s still truly special. I still wear my watch every day

RVD also made his unadvertised TNA debut on the March 8th Impact & pinned Sting in 9 seconds.

RVD did an interview where he said Booker T was the one who recommended to him to go to TNA. Booker told him he was leaving over a problem with the writing but recommended RVD go there anyway. Booker told him he'd have stayed if there wasn't a problem with the writer. 

RVD said Vince Russo called him a year earlier to join the Main Event Mafia and he didn't think it was a good fit. 

Even with those things, Impact drew its lowest rating of the year, an 0.98 rating and 1.36 million viewers to Raw 3.38 rating and 5.10 million viewers 

The following week didn't go any better for you guys. Steve Austin hosted Raw & we saw the Bret Hart & Vince McMahon contract signing for their match at WrestleMania

Raw did a 3.70 rating and 5.60 million viewers (Males 18-49 at 3.03–up from 2.90; 1.52 viewers per home), to Impact’s 0.84 rating and 1.07 million viewers (Males 18-34 at 0.63, down 32%, and 35-49 and 0.84, down 19% 

In early April, you guys moved to 8pm on Monday and it helped a little bit.

On your first show moving to 8 on April 5th, TNA did a 0.85 rating and 1.20 million viewers, while WWE fell to its lowest rating of the year with a 3.17 rating and 4.62 million viewers (down 916,000 viewers, or 17%, from the prior show). 

A week later, TNA debuted TNA Reaction. The debut at 7 p.m. did a 0.25 rating and 279,000 viewers. 

Meltzer reported - They have hired a consulting firm to look at their TV viewing, ratings and why the numbers have gone down, by interviewing fans. And yes, this is just like WCW used to do, when they would do extensive surveys of fans, and then do the opposite of what the surveys suggested because they were so indoctrinated into one view of wrestling that when viewers told them they wanted something completely different, they ignored the results. 

Interesting note, Meltzer reported - Hulk Hogan may be doing a weekly TNA preview show at 7 p.m. Monday nights on Howard Stern 101 in Sirius radio called “Hulk Hogan Uncensored.” Hopefully the show will be better than the PPV it’s named after. The one thing noted is that on the night of the live show, when they are scrambling to put the show together, feverishly rewriting things, that Hogan will be busy doing a radio show. This will be going head-to-head with the new TNA Reaction show at 7 p.m. on Spike as a lead-in 

What ended up happening with that?

Meltzer reported - Vince McMahon used his pat line about TNA this past week when doing an interview with Acorn-online where he said TNA was not competition (even though WWE’s internal documents when it comes to tracking competition tracks UFC, which they also claim is not competition, TNA, and Monday Night Football during the season). “We’re in a different business,” he said about TNA. “We’re in the entertainment business and they’re in the pro wrasslin business. It’s different markets. 

When they moved to Monday nights, they threw the kitchen sink at us and only did a fraction of our audience. It doesn’t speak well for the type of product they’re trying to present with the tawdry, blood-soaked action. I don’t think that’s what the culture wants these days.” Dixie Carter responded by taking it was an honor to be called tawdry by the king of tawdry. 

Eric Bischoff responded to being called tawdry, noting that when he worked for McMahon, McMahon scripted angles where he made out with Vince’s wife and with Vince’s daughter, and also had to introduce segments called Hot Lesbian Action that they at first tried to market before it wasn’t successful in the ratings and it was stopped. 

It is amusing to see Vince play Eric, who was saying the same things in late 1998 and 1999 about how Vince going in the risque direction was going to alienate the audience (which at that time, the opposite happened) and sponsors (which did happen just a few months after he said that). Bischoff also brought up Raw doing such a low rating the week before Mania and how UFC is kicking WWE’s ass in PPVs. 

Meltzer reported - Consequences Creed, real name Austin Watson, 23, was released this past week. He may have been the youngest male wrestler in the promotion. He started working indies while in college and graduated with two degrees from Furman University in 2008 while working with TNA. 

He got a break at the 2007 Bound for Glory show where Ron Killings & Pacman Jones were to defend their tag team titles, but the Tennessee Titans wouldn’t allow Jones to do anything much in the ring. TNA heavily promoted Jones in Atlanta, where he grew up. Creed was the replacement and impressed most, getting himself a contract. He started in early 2008, and was a tag team partner with Jay Lethal as the team Lethal Consequences. Lethal was being broken out as a single, and Creed hadn’t been by the new regime. 

Things ended up working out good for Consequences Creed, as he'd become Xavier Woods, in WWE.

Chris Klucsaritis, known as Chris Kanyon in wrestling passed away on April 2nd, 2010. You of course worked with Chris for many years in WCW. Do you have any stories or memories about him that you'd like to share?

Meltzer reported- Vince Russo has said he’s going to take a break from writing but will stay with the company and move to Nashville as noted last week. He will give some input but doesn’t want to be head writer.  This was his doing as he’s been citing burnout for a few weeks. 

That takes us to the Lockdown pay per view

The show featured a couple of title changes, as noted previously, with Douglas Williams stripped of his X title, which only served to cheapen that title, and Madison Rayne becoming singles Knockouts champion in a tag team match, although worrying about taking the Knockouts title seriously is silly to begin with.

Sean Waltman no-showed, said to be over a licensing issue with the state of Missouri. Taz talked like he was done with the company, but the next night on TV he said that he had found out Waltman had told Dixie Carter ahead of time and she approved of his missing the show. Waltman was back at TV two nights later.

They also announced Bischoff wasn’t there, but that was to build for the angle at the end of the show where he turned back babyface. Given all the storyline work they had done in making him a totally vile heel, why they would turn him so early doesn’t appear to make much sense. But people who try and make sense out of TNA usually wind up with migraines and drinking problems.

Rob Van Dam pinned James Storm in 6:33 with a spin kick and frog splash in a match to determine whether Team Hogan or Team Flair would get the man advantage in the main event. Van Dam dropkicked the cage door into Storm’s face and rammed his head into the cage. At one point he draped Storm over the guard rail, climbed the cage and came off with a leg drop. Van Dam was bleeding before the match started. Storm was punching the cut and ripping at the cut. Storm used a jawbreaker, spit beer in Van Dam’s eyes and DDT’d Van Dam on his head. Crowd loved in and a good way to open the show. *** 

Hulk Hogan said that if Team Flair wins the main event, then he would leave TNA. Can you believe they did this stipulation for a match without even announcing it on television, and the only people who would have known would be the small numbers who already bought the show. Yeah, I know, you can easily believe it, and that’s the sad part. 

Homicide won an X Division escape the cage rules match in 4:59 over Chris Sabin, Alex Shelley and Brian Kendrick. Originally this was announced as the Machine Guns vs. Homicide & Kendrick in a tag match. It was changed to where the winner would become the third person in the X Division title match later. Kendrick bled right away. I think this was hard way. Homicide & Kendrick worked as a team the entire way, until Kendrick went for the Sliced Bread out of the corner, but Homicide double-crossed him and just climbed up and over the cage to win. Felt like a rushed TV match. *3/4 

Kevin Nash pinned Eric Young in 4:47. Young threw ref Andrew Thomas out of the way, allowing Nash to give Young a low blow. Young kicked out of a choke slam. Nash won throwing Young like a dart into the cage, and then pinning him with a power bomb. Young also bled from the dart throw. They were selling it like Young was really hurt, although by rolling him out of the ring, it was clear that he wasn’t. 

Nash then did a promo saying he would replace Waltman and team with Scott Hall against Team 3-D later in the show. *1/4 

Velvet Sky & Madison Rayne retained the Knockouts tag title and Rayne won the Knockouts singles title with a win over singles champ Angelina Love & Tara in 4:51. The stips were that if Tara & Love won, they’d take the tag title. If Sky & Rayne won, whoever got the pin would become Knockouts champion. Tara used the Widow’s peak on Rayne, but Sky saved her. Lacey Von Erich then hit Tara from outside the ring with a belt shot, allowing Rayne to get the pin. Love acted mad that Tara’s loss cost her the singles title, but then helped Tara up. Tara then turned heel on Love, throwing her into the cage. Crowd sort of booed Tara as she walked out. Bad match. ½* 

Kazarian won the vacant X title over Shannon Moore and Homicide in 9:09. Homicide took several bumps to the back of his head into the cage. Kazarian and Moore started working together early, but then would break up each others pins. Then Moore and Kazarian started going at it. The match was good enough that they turned from the crowd not caring at all to them chanting “This is awesome” in just a few minutes. The big spot was all three standing on the top rope and Homicide grabbed both and jumped off the top giving both guys super stunners.

He tried to pin both but they both kicked out. Taz remarked that Homicide had just opened a can of Whoop ass. Another cool spot had Kazarian cradling Homicide and trapping him, while using a Northern Lights suplex on Moore and doing bridging pins on both, but they kicked out. 

Moore moonsaulted Homicide but Kazarian saved. Finish saw Homicide go for the Gringo killa on Moore, but Kazarian broke it up. Kazarian then used the Takao Omori style backwards piledriver on Homicide for the pin. Kazarian didn’t get to leave with the belt because Williams still had the belt in the U.K. Really good. ***½ 

Team 3-D beat Kevin Nash & Scott Hall in 6:49 in a match changed at the last minute to a St. Louis street fight with falls counting anywhere. Yes, a falls count anywhere cage match. Isn’t that like a virgin porn star, a sober Scott Hall or a skinny Bubba Ray Dudley? Nevertheless, when Bubba came out and did a promo, and told the ref to leave the door of the cage open and have a falls count anywhere match, the place exploded. The actual plan here was, before they knew Waltman wasn’t coming, was to have Hall & Nash & Waltman vs. 3-D & Jesse Neal. They brawled on the ramp and Hall even took a backdrop on the ramp. 

They brawled in the crowd. Eventually Bubba was laid out on the floor, and Hall & Nash took Devon into the cage and locked the door behind them as they double-teamed him. Hall & Nash held the door shut so Bubba couldn’t get back in. Bubba got a chair and hit Nash in the hands with it. He then slammed the cage door on Nash and got in. They did a comeback, with the wazzup on Hall and then Devon got the table and they used the 3-D on Hall, allowing Devon to get the pin. *** 

Kurt Angle beat Mr. Anderson in 20:54. Rules here were that the only way you could win was to leave through the cage door, and Anderson had the keys to the cage since he won the ladder match on Impact. Angle looked the biggest he has in a long time. He was bleeding immediately and Anderson rubbed Angle’s blood all over his chest. Anderson was bleeding soon enough. Angle used a belly-to-belly superplex off the top rope. Angle used a belly-to-belly on the mat, and set up the Olympic slam, until Anderson countered with the Lambeau plunge. 

He went for the mic check, but Angle blocked and hit six straight German suplexes. This spot was awesome because Angle didn’t do one after the other like Chris Benoit, but took his time and made each one mean something. The crowd was going crazy at that point. Angle then went to the door, showing he could leave, but decided not to, and instead put on the ankle lock. 

Anderson escaped and hit the mic check finisher. He used his key to open the lock, but Angle got up and gave Anderson another Olympic slam. Angle got to the door, teased leaving, but instead, re-locked the lock. Angle then flipped off Anderson, and threw the key to the lock into the crowd. I hope that means they aren’t stuck in that cage forever. 

Anderson then tried to climb over the top, but Angle climbed after him. Angle was standing on the top rope in middle, and German suplexed Anderson back into the ring and Anderson landed badly on his shoulder. 

Angle climbed to the top of the cage and hit the moonsault. He landed badly and looked like he nearly killed himself. Angle unlocked the door and walked out, but before hitting the floor, Anderson flipped him off with both hands. Angle went back in, but Anderson nailed him with a low blow and mic check. Anderson started crawling and was just about out when Angle recovered, put on an ankle lock and pulled Anderson back into the ring. Anderson was tapping like crazy and the place went crazy, thinking he’d won, and couldn’t understand why it was still going.

So much for the stipulation of this match getting over on television. As Angle went to leave, Anderson was flipping him off again, but put Angle’s head into the cage and went to escape, but Angle started choking him with the chain that held the medals. After choking Anderson out, Angle spit in his face, stomped on his groin, and walked over him and outside the cage to win. Angle then gave a speech saying that he was going to take time off for a while to mentally regroup, and would return to win the world title. He’s opening a health food café in Pittsburgh this coming week called “Kurt Angle’s Foodies Café.” ****½ 

A.J. Styles pinned Pope D’Angelo Dinero in 13:32 to retain the TNA title. Ric Flair got a big pop coming out with Styles. Earl Hebner kicked him out of ringside before the match started. Flair and Hebner had a shoving match and Taz joked that Flair never comes off well in those. It was supposed to be a babyface move on Hebner’s part, but it backfired, with the fans chanting “We Want Flair.” That was hilarious. Good match, carried by Styles. They traded near falls. There were dueling chants late in the match. Styles used a Misawa forearm off the top. 

Pope used a diving head-butt off the top. Styles used the Pele kick and a backbreaker, followed by a 450 crossbody. Styles then climbed to the top of the cage but missed a dive off the top and Pope used a schoolboy for a good near fall. Pope also used a codebreaker. Pope went for the double knees in the corner, but Styles moved and Pope was “injured” Styles then got a pen from a camera man, jabbed it in Pope’s eye behind the refs back, and threw the pin into the audience. Styles got the in with the Styles clash. ***3/4 

Team Hogan of Abyss & Jeff Jarrett & Jeff Hardy & RVD beat Team Flair of Desmond Wolfe & Beer Money & Sting in 30:13. It started with Robert Roode vs. Abyss. Abyss was selling his hip, which was claimed to be from an angle last week where he was run over. RVD was next in. It took him 24 seconds of his 2:00 advantage period before he even got into the ring. Wolfe was in next. The 2:00 periods were too quick to build a story and you can’t get any momentum going. Jeff Jarrett, who didn’t seem very over, came in and . Van Dam was bleeding by this point from the cut in the first match. 

Wolfe tried to get the ring off Abyss’ fingers, because they’ve established that Chelsea wants the ring. James Storm was next in, spitting beer in Abyss’ eyes and then threw RVD into the cage. He was bleeding badly and Storm was biting the forehead. Hardy was supposed to come in next but all you saw was Hardy laid out on the floor and Sting standing over him with a bat. Sting came in and hit Jarrett, Abyss and RVD in the gut with a bat. Then the ceiling was lowered with weapons. The heels started wearing out the faces with garbage can shots and cookie sheets. Roode destroyed Abyss with garbage can lid shots. 

Then the faces all got garbage cans. Sting came back and hit everyone with the bat. Abyss dumped a ton of thumb tacks on the mat. People didn’t pop for that. He was about to choke slam Sting into the thumb tacks when Storm hit him with a beer bottle. Jeff Hardy had now recovered and ran in with a kendo stick, destroying all the heels with it. Jarrett broke a guitar on Wolfe’s head. RVD used a frog splash on Wolfe. Abyss choke slammed Sting onto the thumb tacks. Hardy and Beer Money all climbed the cage and started fighting on the top of the cage. Beer Money laid out Hardy with garbage can lid shots. 

They set up a table. Hardy then got the kendo stick and destroyed both and the stick. He gave Roode a twist of fate and put Storm on the table. He climbed up to the top of an eight foot ladder and a splash onto Storm through the table. At this point, everyone on the cage ceiling was laid out and everyone on the mat was laid out. Flair ran in and gave Abyss a low blow and started biting Abyss in the fingers, trying to get the ring off him. 

Taz tried to justify this by saying Flair really was a Hall of Famer while Abyss wasn’t. Why not put over WWE again?

Hogan ran out with a baseball bat for the save. Bischoff then hit the ring and stopped Hogan, saying he promised everyone not to get physical anymore. Bischoff then pulled out Brass Knux, teased giving them to Flair, but instead gave them to Hogan. Hogan hit Flair with them and Flair juiced heavy, staggered around, took his shirt off and took a bump into the thumb tacks. Hogan threw Flair into the cage three times. While Flair was selling, Abyss pinned Wolfe after a black hole slam. ***1/4

The next night on Impact, we saw a new World Champion crowned as Rob Van Dam defeated AJ Styles to win the World Title.

The show opened with RVD & Jeff Hardy in the ring both saying that they wanted a shot at the title. Hulk Hogan came out and gave a long speech about how the be-all and end-all is the world championship. It was decided that they'd wrestle each other and the winner would wrestle Styles later in the show for the title.

RVD pinned Hardy clean with the frog splash, at 13:29

Later in the show, RVD pinned Styles with the frog splash at 10:33 to win the World Title. 

After the match, there was a big confetti celebration, Hogan, yourself, Jeff Jarrett, Jeff Hardy, Team 3-D as well as Dixie Carter and agents Al Snow and Pat Kenney all came out as the show ended.

With this win, RVD won the WWE World Title, the ECW World Title and the TNA World Title 

Why was it decided to put the title on RVD here?

TNA LOCKDOWN PPV POLL RESULTS

• Thumbs up 63 (64.9%)
• Thumbs down 12 (12.4%)
• In the middle 22 (22.7%)

BEST MATCH POLL

Kurt Angle vs. Mr. Anderson 87

WORST MATCH POLL

Sky & Rayne vs. Love & Tara 40
Kevin Nash vs. Eric Young 28
Lethal Lockdown 11