TNA: SACRIFICE 2006

Impact Zone
Orlando, FL
May 14th, 2006

NWA World Heavyweight Champion: Christian Cage (Since 2/12/2006)
TNA X-Division Champion: Samoa Joe (Since 4/10/2006)
NWA World Tag Team Champions: America’s Most Wanted (Since 10/11/2005)

So by this point, I was watching TNA weekly for about 7-8 months but I was never watching the PPVs. The only match I’ve ever seen on this show is the tag title match but I mean, I haven’t seen it in over a decade, so we’ll see how things go!

Super overdramatic TNA opening video to start, per usual, with a heavy subtext that somebody (or everybody) is gonna die (legit).

Match #1: Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Petey Williams [World X Cup Tournament - Second Round Match]
Maybe I was just blinded by the Destroyer, or maybe I just didn’t realize it, but someone at TNA was just insistent that Petey was on the level of or close to the level of some of these others legit studs they had on this roster, and I just don’t get it. He’s flippy BJ Whitmer. Liger is still awesome though. And he’s got his whole Team Japan squad with him of Black Tiger (Rocky), Goto and Minoru Tanaka. They do some basic exchanges and Liger gets to control the majority of this. He’s got some real solid back sentons and other acrobatic shit he pulls out. Petey makes a lackluster comeback and is building towards the Destroyer but Tiger distracts the ref and I think Goto gets in and attacks Petey from behind, allowing Liger to hit a front face slam for the win. 
**1/2

In the on going World X Cup, the standings are:

USA - 5 pts
JAP - 3 pts
MEX - 2 pts
CAN - 0 pts

Backstage, we get a shot of Sting’s locker room door, and then of Samoa Joe getting ready in the back. Main event is hyped. 

Jeremy Borash is with AMW, Gail & Jackie Gayda. Jackie’s crying and everyone keeps telling her to shut up. AMW put over their tag title defense and Borash finally asks Jackie why she’s crying. She blurts out that she’s pregnant. AMW leave pissed off, and Gail Kim says that everybody in Planet Jarrett hates her, so she’s fired. And that’s the end of Jackie Gayda in TNA. One of the weirdest, unsolved storylines of all time. 

Match #2: America’s Most Wanted (c) vs. Phenomenal Angels (Daniels/Styles) [NWA World Tag Team Championships]
In a shocker to probably absolutely nobody, this holds up and is still awesome. AMW, I feel, don’t get brought up enough as a great time because there’s obviously better teams from the 2000’s all across the globe but I don’t think that should diminish the work these guys did together. James Storm, specifically, is an awesome tag team wrestler. AJ & Daniels are a rarity for me because I usually hate the “two enemies become partners” bit but this works so well because they’re two of the best at this time and two of my favorite wrestlers ever. After the initial set of exchanges, AMW isolates Daniels and has a really good control segment all to build to an otherworldly hot tag by AJ. AJ hits an INSANE springboard flying forearm from the ring out into the fucking crowd on Storm. The match breaks down and the ref gets distracted on the floor, and out of nowhere a night stick just drops into the ring? The camera pans up and we see that Gail Kim was up in the rafters and dropped it down. I’m not sure I remember the reasoning behind this spot or the night stick? AJ doesn’t see it and hits Storm with the Styles Clash, but Harris grabs the stick and nails AJ with it before putting Storm on top of AJ to get the win.
Prior Rating: ***1/2
2024 Rating: ***1/2

Backstage, Jeremy Borash is with Larry Zbyszko and they recap the feud with Raven. Larry says all of these problems that Raven has in his life are all of his own doing and tonight will be no different. 

Match #3: Raven vs. A-1
Larry is there with A-1. This is bad. Beyond just A-1 being bad, this is the end for Raven really. He came out of the fed with some juice in 2003, but there’s nothing left in the tank here. He looks awful, his skill has just deteriorated beyond belief. It’s a bummer. He gets the win. Just moving on.
3/4*

Post match, Larry goes and tries to shake hands with Raven in the ring but they end up having a shitty brawl. 

Backstage, Borash is with Jarrett and Steiner to hype their match later. Jarrett talks about the really bad seg from Impact where Sting teased partnering with his old friends/WCW guys and kept listing their real life troubles with the law. So bad. Anyway, Jarrett says Sting didn’t choose any of them because they can’t handle TNA and he only picked Joe out of desperation. But Joe will turn on Sting, just like everyone else Sting has trusted in his career. 

Match #4: Bobby Roode vs. Rhino
This was certainly a match. Roode is good here but he’s not what he would be later on. 2006 Rhino is only a few notches above 2006 Raven at this point. It’s sad how he fell off the way he did because 99-01 Rhino felt like a new big star on the rise. And then lol nope. I dunno. I don’t think he ever fully recovered from that neck surgery and he wasn’t a good enough worker to adapt successfully to a varied style post surgery like Austin. I know that’s not a fair comparison but it’s the only one I had. Roode does some good work on Rhino’s neck, speaking of that, in his control segment. Rhino made his comeback and it was painfully bland and clunky. D’Amore sacrificed himself and took the Gore in lieu of Roode, and Roode hit the Northern Lariat on Rhino quickly to win.
**

Backstage, Borash is with Team 3D and they hype up the match with the Outlaws. I don’t care. I don’t care about post 2003 Dudley Boyz. At all. Fuck off. 

Match #5: Team 3D vs. The James Gang
This is pig shit. This ain’t even pig shit, this is the mud that the pig shit sits in and becomes one with and then the pigs roll around in it and eat off it and then shit it out back onto the shit and mud cocktail they live on. I hate it so much. The Outlaws were cool as shit in 97-99 and it might be one of my favorite tag team runs ever. The Dudleys from 97-03 are one of the best teams of all time, in my opinion anyway, and I’ll always love them for that. But neither team had business in a wrestling ring at this point. I am willing to sacrifice the mostly cool early Bully Ray stuff if it means the Dudleys just retire after One Night Stand. I am not even going to bother recapping this. I should’ve chosen Double or Nothing 2019 when these two shows tied on the Twitter poll. The Outlaws win after using a lead pipe in a callback to No Way Out 2000. Great.
1/2*

Backstage, Sinister Minister is with an angry Abyss and he says some sp00ky stuff.

Christy Hemme comes sauntering out simply to kiss the World X Cup trophy because TNA hired her without a single idea to do with her since she wasn’t a wrestler and TNA is very dumb. One of the more pointless hires TNA made in this era.

So the next match has the chance to be a points grab in the World X Cup. This is more like a Royal Rumble or the Casino Gauntlet AEW just did as opposed to a typical gauntlet match. The two final men in the match each get 2 points for their team, and the winner gets 3 extra points. However, if the final two men are from the same country, that team gets 7 points and would most likely win the the whole thing.

Match #6: World X Cup Gauntlet Match
Match starts with Minoru Tanaka up against Puma (TJP). They have some pretty decent chemistry and put on a decent spot show for the crowd with the couple of minutes they’re given. Petey Williams is out 3rd because life sucks. He actively brings the match down each time he’s squaring off with one of the others. Chris Sabin’s out 4th and things pick up a teensy bit. And they get even better when Goto comes out 5th. Some really high paced stuff. Typical oh’s and ah’s but it’s a blast nonetheless. I’ve only seen modern Goto which is fine but he’s really crisp here in the mid 00’s. Incognito is out at 6th. Things slow a bit. Petey still sucks. Johnny Devine is out 7th because they’re determined to make this match as bad as possible whenever they can. He’s so bad. Him and A-1 were the reasons I could never fully get into Team Canada back in the day. I think it’s also why I had blinders on to Petey for a long while. Sonjay Dutt is out at 8th. Jesus Christ. Never got Sonjay. Everyone got mad at Nash’s comments on cruiserweights (before they did the incredible Paparazzi Productions stuff as a bit) but he honestly was at least 50% right and the proof is here in dudes like Sonjay Dutt. I hate to sound like a ROHbot in training but any flippy/high workrate indie guy that didn’t get used/used enough in ROH before/during their TNA run, I don’t trust. There’s a reason ROH didn’t book them a ton. Black Tiger is out at 9, this is Rocky Romero. He picks things back up a tad. And then Magno is out at 10 to bring things crashing back down to earth. No idea who he is but he’s sloppy as fuck. He literally slips and or falls on every thing he attempts. Eric Young comes out at 11, and this is back before we had to pretend he was a great worker so he does the comedy stuff and bumps like a maniac. Sonjay and Icognito tumble over and out together for the first eliminations and Sonjay appears to tweak his ankle pretty bad. But hey that’s two shitty dudes out of this. ALEX SHELLEY OUT AT 12, YEAH! Devine tosses out Sabin and in quick succession Shelley throws out Devine. Liger is out at 13, and things pick the fuck back up to what they were at the beginning. Shelley/Liger have SUCH a good exchange and Liger has taken this match over. He’s so good. Shocker is out at 14 to again bring this back down I guess. Liger throws Magno out while Shelley/Shocker have an okay exchange. Tyson Dux is out at 15 and almost simultaneously, Shocker eliminates Black Tiger. Goto stumbles off the top but Shelley kicks him and falls to the apron. Jay Lethal is out last at 16. Lethal almost immediately eliminates Goto. Shelley takes Shocker out. Team Canada has the most members left and they begin working together which is fun. They throw out Liger so then it becomes less fun and I am angry. Lethal answers by sending EY out and Shelley sends out Dux, but then Petey tosses out Lethal! It’s down to three with Petey, Shelley & Puma. They have some fun spots and work a little bit until Petey eliminates Puma. Shelley carries Petey through some decent stuff but it’s all mediocre on Petey’s end, which naturally means Petey wins the Canadian Destroyer. Some fun stuff sprinkled throughout. Even the bad stuff wasn’t out of this world awful. It’s half a royal rumble with flippy dudes so it’s hard to be truly shitty. Fuck it.
***ish

Nobody gets the full 7 points. So instead, the updated standings for the World X Cup are:

USA: 5 POINTS
CAN: 5 POINTS
MEX: 4 POINTS
JAP: 3 POINTS

BIG KEV IS HERE! Nash comes out and he DESTROYS Puma with a Jacknife to a huge pop. He grabs the mic and says that a mediocre big man will always beat the best small men, and he’s a pretty good big man. Size does matter. And then he poses. Fuck yeah, Paparazzi Productions.

They air a REALLY fucking good video package on the tag match. This must be when David Sahadi left WWE to join TNA. Because this is an awesome video that puts everyone over, including the story, and does a really good job selling Joe as a legit main event guy. Seek it out. 

Match #7: Jeff Jarrett & Scott Steiner vs. Sting & Samoa Joe
This was way better than I thought it was going to be. Sting is still very much Sting, Jarrett’s good, Steiner’s surprisingly good and Joe is fucking Joe. Jarrett & Steiner feed into all of the babyface offense so well. The heels get control segs on both Sting and Joe. Setting this up to be Joe’s first big heavyweight challenge in TNA was really smart booking, give the devil his due. There’s not too much to complain about here. It’s a solid 14 minutes or so. Everybody gets their shit in. One nasty moment was Sting putting Jarrett in the Scorpion, but Jeff didn’t roll fully, and Sting still sat to set the move in, and he accidentally created a super cool submission that someone should use (if they don’t already:

All hell breaks loose after Sting’s hot tag to Joe. Sting takes Steiner out. Jarrett gets Joe on the second rope and tries for a SUPER STROKE~ but Joe hops down and takes Jarrett’s head off with an enzuiguri. Jarrett falls back on the turnbuckle and Joe grabs him for the muscle buster to score a HUGE pinfall.
***1/4

If Joe wasn’t a made man before he is now. Can’t wait to see TNA totally not mess this up!

Post match, Joe and Sting slowly shake hands to tease that Joe might turn on him but instead Joe pulls him in and says thank you and Sting does the kliq point to Joe as he leaves. AND THEN STEINER NAILS STING IN THE HEAD WITH A CHAIR! Joe’s always up the ramp way and has his back turned and seems conflicted about going back as this is not his problem. The delay allows Jarrett to then hit Sting with the guitar too! Joe then slowly turns around and stares Jarrett and Steiner down — AND THEN LEAVES?! Wtf. That was dumb. The heels keep the work up on Sting til the Outlaws, Sabin, Daniels & Lethal chase them off. 

Hype video airs for the main event.

Borash interviews Christian backstage. This interview reminded me that Abyss stole the NWA Title after their match last month at Lockdown. He also talks about the stalking video angle they did. 

Really cool moment of the camera following Abyss through the backstage area to the tunnel. And dude fuck yeah Abyss’ classic theme. A top 5 TNA theme for me. 

In classic TNA fashion, the audio is fucked up because you can hear the Spanish announce team as loud as you can hear Tenay and DW. 

Match #8: Christian Cage (c) vs. Abyss [NWA World Heavyweight Championship / Full Metal Mayhem Match]
This was alright. Full Metal Mayhem is just TNA’s version of a TLC match, for those unaware. I think the issues with this are mostly based on the fact that they’re trying to do too much in too small of a space. The six sided ring is obviously shaped as it is and it cuts down the area in the ring, so you can’t do some of the spots you might normally do in a match like this without running a risk of severe injury. Not to mention, Christian is a great wrestler, but he’s not exactly a great athlete. I mean, he wasn’t really one of the guys doing the super high risk, pretty spots in those original TLC matches. And I get it, every promotion any of those six have been in has tried to recreate the magic of the original two TLC matches and usually failed horribly. But with this just being Christian against a largely uncreative Abyss, it doesn’t amount to too much on the spectacular side of the things. There are some fun spots. Christian chokes Abyss with his chain from the top rope and Abyss yanks Christian off the top through tables on the floor. Christian hits the Killswitch on Abyss onto a ladder. Mitchell takes an STO from Christian into thumbtacks to a HUGE spot. Finish comes when Abyss mysteriously rolls himself on a table as Christian is climbing the ladder. Christian is torn about finishing Abyss or guaranteeing himself a win. He ends up doing the frog splash off the ladder on to Abyss. That was dumb. Abyss getting on the table should’ve been a trap where Abyss moves or whatever. Idk. Christian then climbs the ladder again to get the belt. Anticlimactic. But it’s passable fun.
***ish

Post-match, Christian sits atop the ladder and poses with the belt to close the show. 

A very missable show. When I picked this for this weeks Retro Poll over on Twitter (@BQReviews), the card looked awesome on paper. But when ya watch it and really realize who’s in this show and what time this takes place in, it’s really a very weak show with 2 good matches that honestly you didn’t NEED to see. And I think that was one of TNA’s major problems. Russo booked them as a TV-first company like this was still the height of the Monday Night Wars, and it made some of their PPVs very missable.