The show kicks off with an X-Division six-man, The Motor City Machine Guns teaming with Abdul Bashir (Shawn Daivari) to take on Eric Young, Consequences Creed (Xavier Woods), and Jay Lethal (in his "Black Machismo" gear). Creed is the star of the early going, his offense looking excellent. When the heels take over, Shelley hits an awesome running knee off the apron and they work to cut the ring in half but end up arguing with each other a bit and nearly costing themselves the match. Lethal gets the hot tag and takes out everyone before nearly finishing off Bashir with a dropkick. The Guns trip him up, which leads to a big double-dive from Young and Creed and then another nearfall for the babyfaces. Lethal attempts his big elbow drop but is cut off by Shelley, who then delivers a devastating brainbuster. Shelley goes to the top but Creed stops him and then, moments later, bulldogs him from the top into Lethal's finisher. We get another nearfall and the match basically falls apart as everyone starts hitting big moves, flying all over the place, double-teams galore, its all good stuff (though I wouldn't necessarily consider it worthy of the "This is Awesome" chant that erupts). As good as some of the sequences are, there's also some noticeable moments of overt cooperation and the match goes at least 2-3 minutes too long. The finish doesn't make much sense either as the referee costs Bashir the match for no real reason (if Bashir had been messing with the ref at various points in the match, it would've really helped). (3/5)
Abyss and Dr. Stevie Richards join Daffney as she makes her way down the aisle to take on Taylor Wilde in what I believe was the first ever Women's Monsters' Ball match. The "wrestling" in this match isn't great as Daffney and Wilde aren't necessarily the smoothest workers, but the real problem here is that this match is super short and, though there are a few good weapon shots and the finish itself is a nasty bump, they could've and should've been given more time to build towards it. After the match, Daffney and Richards attempt to beat down Wilde and have Abyss toss her into some thumbtacks, but Abyss hesitates as Wilde's best friend Lauren comes in to try to stop him. She gets shoved down by Richards, which leads Abyss to chokeslamming Richards into the tacks. As a segment, the crowd was into it and Abyss and Richards were good in their roles, but the match itself was not long enough. (1.5/5)
Next up - Christopher Daniels vs. Suicide. The story coming into this match is that everyone believed it was Daniels under the Suicide mask because he needed a loophole to return to TNA after being "fired" in December 2007 (he would compete throughout 2008 under the Curry Man gimmick and was then "fired" again 2008). By the way, the fact that Daniels "won" the pink slip in the first two Feast or Fired matches is great. But then Daniels and Suicide started appearing together. Unsatisfied and believing all of this to be a big conspiracy, Don West is insufferable on commentary during this match. Speaking of West, compared to his work in the previous few shows I've reviewed, he has gone full heel mode at this point and it does not make for better announcing. I can understand TNA Creative wanting to have a heel commentator as this was a tried-and-true formula, but Don West isn't a good enough performer - because being a heel commentator means putting on a performance - to pull it off. In this match he is particularly awful as he repeatedly refers to the action as a "performance" and argues that Daniels and Suicide are just putting on a convincing "fake" match...which is a path one really shouldn't go down when discussing any wrestling match. Anyway, this match is meh. At times it is really slow and, surprisingly, Daniels and Suicide (Kaz) botch what seemed like an attempt at a piledriver spot at one point. The majority of the match is heatless because neither guy has a clear alignment and, while his in-ring work is routinely crisp, Daniels had zero gimmick here to help him connect to the crowd in any way. I also really disliked the closing stretch as Suicide got taken out by a pretty weak Alex Shelley move and oversold it and then we got an extra 5 minutes tagged onto the match - which led to a time-limit draw and Suicide retaining the championship because Daniels didn't want to win the title "the wrong way." This was a real disappointment because one would've thought Daniels and Kaz capable of something much better. (1.5/5)
Angelina Love defended her Knockouts Championship against Awesome Kong in the next match. I wasn't expecting much out of this contest, but it exceeded my expectations. As good as Kong is, she's not a miracle worker and really needs a very dynamic, athletic opponent to clash with her as the monster regardless of face/heel alignment. Love was not known as a strong in-ring performer but she brought really good energy and character work in this match and I liked the "little things" she did to try to capitalize on every possible advantage. Seeing her take a back drop onto the ramp was a bit rough considering that she clearly got concussed at Lockdown the month before. The screwy finish was fine, but Awesome Kong continuing to destroy Love during the post-match seemed a bit heavy-handed and arguably made Love too sympathetic. (2.5/5)
Samoa Joe took on Kevin Nash in the next bout. The Samoa Joe "Nation of Violence" gimmick is one of the weakest re-packagings in TNA history, though I do wonder how much of it was Joe's vision. What's weird is that Joe didn't necessarily need a refresh because there was nothing necessarily wrong about his presentation in 2008 aside from him no longer really being the focus of the World Championship scene and not having enough direction beyond wanting to get revenge on Kevin Nash, which was a bit of a creative dead-end because Nash was so clearly past his prime. Here, Joe does his thing and puts in effort and Nash tries his best to really make Joe come across as a killer (including getting some "color"), but it still feels like a flat match and not like the huge personal victory for Joe that it probably should've been. It also, oddly, ends with Joe attacking Nash during the post-match in a way that a heel might. (2/5)
Beer Money took on The British Invasion (Doug Williams and Brutus Magnus) in the next contest. Magnus hadn't debuted too long before this and was pushed like a big deal, but was too vanilla to stand out. Beer Money hadn't done much to turn babyface, but were definitely treated as such and even had Team 3D singing their praises on commentary. This was maybe slightly above average, but nothing revelatory. This didn't overstay its welcome but did seem a bit longer than its 11-minute runtime (most likely due to the pre-match video and promos and Team 3D getting an entrance to do commentary). (2.5/5)
The TNA Legends Championship was on the line next as Booker T challenged AJ Styles in an "I Quit" match. This was a bit underwhelming because "I Quit" matches, especially the ones we typically got in WWE at the time and to this day, usually start off as more technical and submission-based and then ramp up to become more like a "death match" or, in the WWE's case, involve lots of set pieces. This was much more straightforward and was more about two guys putting forth a ton of effort and energy to try to defeat the other. It was a battle of stamina and endurance and not necessarily about violence and, as it wore on, I did find myself wondering when it was going to escalate. The finish was very unfortunate as Kevin Nash's girlfriend Jenna threw in the towel to make it clear that Booker - nor Sharmell - were willing to quit. After 16 minutes of a respectable, honorable battle, this probably would be better remembered if Booker had been willing to just go ahead and give Styles the clean W. (2.5/5)
Main event time - Mick Foley vs. Sting vs. Kurt Angle vs. Jeff Jarrett in a fourway match with each man "sacrificing" something if they lose as Foley puts up his TNA World Championship, Sting puts up his career, Angle puts up his role as the Godfather of the Main Event Mafia, and Jeff Jarrett puts up his remaining stake in the company. Not a great match by any means, but not too terrible either. Foley takes a lengthy breather during the match by joining the commentary team. It's a good way to get heel heat but, as I wrote about in my Lockdown review, I feel like the heel character didn't work 100% in 2009 because Foley was always such a sympathetic guy and had been treated as such for a decade by this point. Angle is the best performer in this match, but its a bit too muddled at times for me. Sting practically disappears from the match at one point. I was surprised to read such positive reviews for this match over on Cagematch as I thought it was just so-so. (2.5/5)
Overall, Sacrifice 2009 isn't the worst TNA show I've watched. It might actually be one of their more consistent shows, only it is consistently just "okay." With an unremarkable Kwang Score of 2.25-out-of-5, it'd be impossible to recommend this match as a whole. In fact, you wouldn't be missing anything great if you turned it off after the opener.
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