TNA No Surrender 2012

TNA No Surrender 2012

September 2012 - Orlando, FL

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into this event, Austin Aries was the TNA World Heavyweight Champion, Zema Ion was the X-Division Champion, Miss Tessmacher was the Knockouts Champion, Eric Young and ODB were the recognized Knockouts Tag Team Champions, the TNA Tag Team Champions were Bad Influence (Frankie Kazarian and Christopher Daniels), and Devon was the TNA Television Champion.

No Surrender 2012 kicked off with the first of two semi-finals matches from the Bound For Glory Series. I was under the impression that the Series was based on a point system, so I'm not sure why it would also need to go into a tournament final but whatever...Samoa Joe vs. Jeff Hardy was the opening contest with Joe coming in a bit bruised-up after an attack from his former tag team partner, Magnus. Not a terrible match, but Joe had lost much of his aura over the years and Hardy was also in a bit of a lull after failing to win the title against Bobby Roode in the months before this. Maybe if you were a regular TNA viewer there was suspense around this match or a feeling that both guys had momentum coming in? I'll admit to watching these shows in a bit of a vacuum but neither guy seemed to "pop" off the screen with much energy. (2.5/5)

The second of the two semi-finals matches followed as Bully Ray took on James Storm. Bully Ray had plenty of heat with the crowd as the audience chanted "D-Von's Better" early on and cheered for every offensive flurry that came from the Cowboy. I'm not a fan of either guy so I wasn't super into this, but I wouldn't necessarily say it was outright bad or sloppy - just boring and unremarkable. Bobby Roode ends up costing Storm the match by hitting him in the head with a beer bottle after two ref bumps. I would've preferred to see Storm win just because Storm/Hardy feels like a fresher finals, but I understand the decision to go with Bully here so that the tournament final will have a face/heel dynamic. (2/5)

Tara challenged Brooke Tessmacher in a match that went under 7 minutes but was actually pretty darn good for its runtime. Fast-paced, action-packed, and even some innovative, hard-hitting offense out of Tara. I'm not sure Tessmacher had the ability to work a longer match with more shifts in momentum and less is always more when it comes to adding "dialogue" into a match (in this case, Tessmacher screaming at Tara that she's supposed to be her friend while Tara, correctly, shouts back that this is a title match) so keeping it short was probably the right idea. (2.5/5)

The next "match" was an unofficial one and more of a "segment" as TNA World Champion, Austin Aries, called out "The Armbreaker" of the Aces and Eights stable. Watching the video package before the angle, I thought Hogan was out of the company by this point, but he was still around. Anyway...The Armbreaker is a big dude, but Aries manages to get him up for the Brainbuster. As he wasn't presented as the leader of the mysterious stable, I wouldn't say its a "burial," but it certainly isn't the best "debut." When the rest of the Aces and the TNA locker room run out to brawl, Jeff Hardy gets sent into the post shoulder-first and the announcers question whether he'll be able to recover in time for his match against Bully Ray. Not a bad segment.

Zema Ion defended the TNA X-Division Championship against Sonjay Dutt in the next match. Dutt and Ion had been feuding since Ion won the title at the previous show's Ultimate X match. I wasn't watching the weekly TV at the time so I don't know how much they played up Dutt vying for his first ever X-Division Championship but this match may have benefitted from making that story an even bigger part of the build as this match lacked "heat" despite good effort and good performances from both competitors. At various points, the announcers turn their attention to Hulk Hogan calling for the cops to "lockdown" the show in an effort to catch the Aces and Eights after the last segment rather than calling the action (at one point we cut away from the match completely to show what's going on with the Hulkster). Not a bad match, but not a match that it seemed like anyone in the audience really cared about aside from perfunctory pops for the high-flying. (2.5/5)

Rob Van Dam took on Magnus (Nick Aldis) in the next match. This was another solid match that didn't seem to have a ton of heat and seemed to be all about Magnus showing that he could hang with a former TNA (and WWE) World Champion. There weren't any glaring botches or anything, but this just wasn't interesting or creative and felt more like a "TV match" than something deserving of a PPV. (2.5/5)

The TNA Tag Team Championships were on the line next as Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian defended the straps against Kurt Angle and AJ Styles. This was the culmination of the historically reviled Claire Lynch storyline. I'll give some credit to TNA's Creative Team who most likely recognized how awful this whole story was but were smart enough to at least add Kurt Angle to the max so that the matches were guaranteed to work as long as you just completely ignored the actual reason these two sides were fighting. I think I may have enjoyed the match they had on the previous PPV better despite reading that many fans thought this was the superior match. To me, they were both good-not-great. The chemistry is clearly there and the crowd is more into this match than anything since the Aces and Eights segment. Kazarian took an unreal Angle Slam/Overhead Suplex from the top rope at one point. Styles does most of the work for his team, though, as Angle came into this match with a legitimate leg injury. (3/5)

Main event time...or is it? Bully Ray cuts a promo about the Aces & Eights before making his way to the ring for the finals of the Bound for Glory Series. Jeff Hardy's music plays but he doesn't come out as he was injured earlier in the show. Hulk Hogan shows up and tells Bully that Hardy will compete...but the match will have to wait till the next episode of Impact. I'm guessing Hogan's comment was designed to piss of the fans and make them rally behind Hardy even more but it didn't really work because it put the heat on Hogan and not on Bully, who should've been demanding a forfeit. Anyway, the third time's the charm and Hardy comes out, bandaged up. Because he and Bully had probably wrestled a hundred times before this, they have good chemistry and deliver a decent match that goes under 13 minutes but Bully certainly doesn't come out of it looking strong. I'm not sure why they didn't pull the trigger on Bully here as he was at his peak and Hardy being attacked earlier in the show gave him an easy "out" for a clean loss. (2.5/5)

Credit where its due, by this point, TNA's roster was good enough to carry a show into being watchable if unremarkable. There's nothing on this show that stands out as especially offensive or outright bad, but there's also nothing on this show that is worth seeking out or even all that good. Everything, save for the Tag Team Championship match (which still isn't great), is just okay at best. With a right-down-the-middle Kwang Score of 2.5-out-of-5 but not a single great match to outweigh the general tediousness, this falls into the category of...

FINAL RATING - High Risk Maneuver