(2023 Update: Hey, kids. This was uploaded last year and published in a brutally incomplete format. Sorry, my bad. So I went back and fleshed this out to feel more “complete.”)
TNA Sacrifice 2007 is a rather interesting show with some bit of backstory and in order to understand the significance of this show as well as my wanting to check it out, we need to bring up a bit of history beforehand.
The company known today as Impact Wrestling began life in 2002 as NWA-TNA and it was, at the time, the flagship promotion of the then-fledging National Wrestling Alliance. Once the major name in professional wrestling, it was relegated to an afterthought once World Championship Wrestling (formerly Jim Crockett Promotions before being bought out by Turner) seceded the NWA in 93 and pretty much buried after Shane Douglas tossed his newly won NWA title to the ground in ’94. And while it got some exposure on WWF television and especially on some UFC shows with Dan Severn as NWA champion, the brand pretty much floundered.
The Jarretts – Jeff and Jerry – were looking to start a new promotion and decided to pursue a partnership with the NWA that would feature the World and Tag-team titles on their new program. So from its conception in 2002, TNA was a member – perhaps its most notable member – of the National Wrestling Alliance before parting ways in 2004. Despite no longer being a member, TNA were still able to use the NWA titles for a couple more years.
In 2007, on the morning of the day in which TNA would air their Sacrifice PPV, then-NWA president (I Don’t Remember And Really, It Doesn’t Matter) decided to sever all ties with TNA, citing TNA’s refusal to have the NWA World and Tag-team champions defend the titles in other NWA promotions… which is funny because TNA was the only thing that gave NWA any semblance of national exposure and nobody cared about them in any event. And as a result, NWA had stripped reigning World champion Christian Cage and reigning Tag champions the Dudley Boyz of their titles, with the World title being the contested in a multi-person tournament called Reclaiming The Gold, which included a number of notable independent stars including Bryan Danielson, and the man who would eventually win the title, future WWE General Manager “Scrap Iron” Adam Pearce.
Meanwhile, TNA was business as usual; as far as they were concerned, Christian Cage was still the World Champion and the Dudleyz (now Team 3D) were still the tag champs. They just weren’t going to use the NWA branding, even though they still possessed the physical NWA belts. However, a couple nights later, TNA would subsequent introduce new TNA championship belts and we proceed to go along on our merry way.
Well, sort of…
X-Division Chris Sabin defeated Sonjay Dutt & Jay Lethal to retain the title in a pretty fast-paced and fairly enjoyable opening contest, which is the standard norm for these X-Division matches. Sabin would eventually pair up with Alex Shelly to form the MCMGs, Jay Lethal would find his calling as a Macho Man impersonator, and Sonjay Dutt would continue to find gainful employment. Good enough for me. After the match, Dutt and Lethal would go at it some more before savior of the X-Division Kevin Nash would come along to break it up, only to get kicked in the leg by Dutt. Nash swears vengeance. I need to go back and watch those Nash segments with Shelly because I remember those being funny.
Robert Roode defeated Jeff Jarrett in a surprisingly good match. So the deal is that Jarrett had been MIA since losing the World title to Sting at BFG 2006 and was being brought back as Eric Young’s special friend in his ever continuing feud with Robert Roode… as far as I can surmise. Take away all the excess – the run-ins from Tracy and Young, the gimmicks outside – and you’ve got a perfectly acceptable little wrestling match.
Christopher Daniels (wearing a Sting mask for some reason and even the announcers have no clue what the deal with that is, so they’re no help) defeated Rhino with a baseball bat… even though it’s supposed to be a straight wrestling match. I mean… it was fine. Daniels is a good worker and Rhino is no slouch, either. It was a fun romp, I was entertained enough… eh.
So earlier in the night, Doug Basham and Damaja (the former Basham Brothers) beat up BG and Kip James (the former/future New Age Outlaws) with BG Road Dogg being sent to the local medical facility hospital, so it’s Billy Gunn against Doug and Danny Basham and it goes about as well as you expect. Billy tries but ultimately succumb to Basham Power… oh, and the whole deal with this match is that Roadie and Billy are dicks to Christy Hemme because she’s a girl or something… and while modern society would pit these guys as misogynist heels that you’d want to see get their comeuppance, in TNA circa 2007, they’re the good guys. God bless Vince Russo and his hate boner against booking women properly.
Chris Harris defeated James Storm in a Texas Death Match. Basically anything goes and after a pinfall, you have a ten count to recover or else you lose. Basically, these guys were a successful tag team until they broke out and now they hate each other and feuding and stuff. Long story short, they have a Texas Death Match and is a fantastic brawl from start to finish. The big ol’ hoss fight of two big fuckers beating the fuck out of each other.
Jerry Lynn defeated Alex Shelley, Senshi (Low Ki – why did they change his name?), and Tiger Mask IV in a MOVES match. If you like MOVES, this is the match for you. After that, Shelley and Sabin beat up Lynn for a bit before BOB BACKLUND (yes, THAT BOB MOTHERFUCKING BACKLUND) runs in to scare off the younguns… really? We went from the New Age Outlaws getting their asses kicked by the Basham Brothers to fifty something year old BOB BACKLUND making the big comeback… hey, if it were today and someone like 60+ year old BILLY GUNN is making the save, people would cheer it out. (And to be fair, Billy still looks good today.) But in 2007 TNA, we’re like “What the fuck?” God bless Jim Cornette and his love for vintage wrestling figures that most of the younger audience have no clue who they are.
World Tag-Team Champions TEAM 3D defeated LAX and Scott Steiner & Tomko to retain the titles in a perfectly acceptable triple threat match. That’s all I got for this, folks.
Samoa Joe defeated AJ Styles… I have no idea what AJ Styles is doing at this point; he comes across as a bit of a goof and not the loveable kind of goof that gave us fun moments like #BeatUpJohnCena, but the kind that has you wondering who wrote this shit and why are they allowed to live? Anyway, it’s another fine match between the two in a series of them because Joe and AJ always worked well together, but you sort of have to wonder what TNA was trying to do with AJ all these years. All this time you could have prepped him for being a major star in your promotion down the line and instead, you book him in so much silly shit that he’d eventually move on to another company and be a big star there. I wish I could say things have changed with the current IMPACT Wrestling days, but… eh…
The match between Not-NWA World Champion Christian Cage, Kurt Angle, and Sting ended in a clusterfuck finish that saw Sting tapping out to Kurt Angle’s ankle lock while scoring the pinfall on Christian Cage… but somehow, Angle is the one who won the title here… though that decision wouldn’t stick as the next Impact would see the title declared vacant and contested at the next PPV, which I believe is Slammiversary. However, the one thing that is certain is that Christian Cage did NOT retain the Not-NWA World title. Also, this match lasted a little over ten minutes and felt like something that you’d book for a random episode of Impact to build to next week’s episode, not the main event of a PPV event that people paid money to watch.
Despite some questionable finishes and circumstances surrounding the main event, I found Sacrifice 2007 to be a pretty good show, overall. The Harris/Storm Death Match was the cream of the crop and the rest of the show was at the very least, entertaining enough. I don’t think TNA was harmed by the loss of the NWA branding – if anything, NWA needed TNA to maintain any sort of relevancy than the other way around and once that relationship faded, did anyone really give a shit about NWA until Billy Corgan made the move to buy it?
So yeah, a perfectly fine PPV outing from TNA circa 2007. They do exist, kids.
dtm666 