TNA Lockdown 2005

To commemorate the recent news of the highly-desired, long-overdue, better-late-than never, name change of TNA to GFW, I finally have my first TNA/GFW DVD review of the inaugural Lockdown PPV back in 2005. For those not familiar with TNA/GFW (Global Force Wrestling) , it has been around since 2002 a year after WCW was bought out by WWE. Essentially all in-and-out of the ring WCW talent that was not picked up by WWE came together with a number of indy wrestlers to form Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. TNA since has went on to acquire a lot of star indy wrestlers and a good chunk of wrestlers who ran their course or who got lost in the shuffle in WWE. TNA’s first two years on the air were kind of hard to track down since their shows were only available as weekly PPVs for $10 each week.

Lockdown took place in April 2005. TNA was just several weeks away from winding down their first year of their flagship TV show, iMpact! (I will now reference ‘iMpact!’ as ‘Impact’ for convenience sake) on FSN. I loved Impact in this era from 2004-07. It was then on at an oddball time of 4pm on Fridays on Fox Sports Net back then because TNA bit their teeth and took the only major cable deal they could get so they could get their foot in the door to more viewers and off weekly PPVs. Lockdown was TNA’s third or fourth traditional monthly PPV at this point. TNA had a roster size comparable to WWE at the time, but only an hour timeslot to work with for the first few years of iMpact so TNA branded the show ‘the one hour adrenaline rush.’ All matches had 10-minute time limits with a ‘Fox Box’ at the top of the screen to keep track of time and who was in the ring so that made it have a nice sports-like feel. Since TNA tried to cram so many wrestlers in each week, there were a lot of quick cuts during and immediately after matches to other backstage skirmishes or interviews so each piece of talent could get their camera time in each week. It was pure nonstop chaos each week, for better or worse.

In April 2005, good ‘ol Dusty Rhodes was the commissioner of TNA, and he was the mastermind behind the Lockdown concept where every match on the PPV would take place in a cage. It did not matter if it was the main event, a semi-main, the mid-card or opening acts, all matches would be in the ‘six sides of steel.’ For those unaware, TNA has primarily used a six-sided ring throughout its existence. I recall this lead to all kinds of crazy outcomes in matches to make them try and stand out from the rest of the cage matches on the card. Sometimes this lead to crazy spots and weaponry getting involved, or sometimes to outrageous gimmicks and interference that took away more from the bout than it added. It is because of the unique gimmick and unpredictable nature of a Lockdown PPV and the fact I never saw one before in its entirety I decided to kick off my venture to review every Lockdown PPV TNA/GFW has released on DVD from 2005-2014.

The first ever Lockdown match had unforeseen dire consequences. In what was supposed to be a no-frills tag encounter between Chris Candido & Lance Hoyt against Apollo & Sonny Siaki a freak botched landing in the opening minute lead to Candido legit breaking his leg and getting stretchered out mid-match. The wrestlers improvised and Siaki pinned Hoyt minutes later with a top rope splash. Several days later, a post-surgery blood clot led to the untimely passing of Chris Candido. They did tape one more episode of Impact before his passing where Candido was a manager for his tag team buddies, the Naturals, and Candido assisted them in winning the tag titles from America’s Most Wanted in the closing moments of Candido’s last on-screen moment being him celebrating the title change, immediately followed with an ‘in memory’ image of his passing. I vividly recall watching that moment back then and just being in a different headspace upon learning the news. Props to TNA for including that tag title match along with a couple other Candido moments in his TNA run as bonus features on this DVD.

Back on track, I am a big fan of Mr. Glorious and current NXT champion, Bobby Roode. Well, he was a TNA mainstay for over a decade and you can see him here representing the villainous Team Canada faction against Dustin Rhodes in a ‘2-out-of 3 falls, Prince of Darkness Deathmatch.’ This was a No DQ match where if a third fall were to transpire, it would happen with both wrestlers being blindfolded. Sure enough, there was a third fall and both Roode and Rhodes did their best to top the Jake Roberts/Rick Martel Wrestlemania VII classic. We are still several years away from the CTE/Concussion controversies leading to safety changes in football and wrestling, and this is first of several matches that made rampant use of unprotected chairshots to the head, and is how Dustin Rhodes won the match in the final fall. I have to admit, it was kind of shocking to see that kind of chairshot several years after both TNA/GFW and WWE has banned them.

The next match would be an annual Lockdown tradition, the ‘Xscape Match.’ It featured stars from the X-Division, which is essentially WCW’s cruiserweight division, but with no weight limit to make room for the occasional bigger competitor also capable of high-flying moves that most Cruiserweights are associated for. This match featured Matt Bentley, Sonjay Dutt, Chris Sabin and Shocker. It is a Fatal 4-Way Tag Elimination match, but when it comes down to the final two competitors, the rules change into a WWF-style ‘escape to win’ cage match. The finish here came down to Chris Sabin and Shocker in a photo-finish to escape, with Shocker’s feet barely touching the floor first in an entertaining high-flying affair start to finish.

The next bout saw Jeff Hardy take on Raven in a tables match in a bout that would be my match of the night. That is kind of surprising to say since both Hardy and Raven washed out of WWE at this point in their careers, but both found new success in TNA. Raven gets busted open, and Hardy misses a Swanton through a table off the top of the cage in my pick for spot of the night because of how effortless Hardy made that daring move seem. Raven would later stack four tables together, only to see them used against him as Hardy would drive Raven through them with a leg drop from the top of the cage to the delight of a raucous crowd for the victory.

The tag titles were up for grabs next with the team of America’s Most Wanted (Chris Harris & James Storm) defending their gold against Team Canada’s Eric Young & Petey Williams. I am smiling right now realizing how far all four of these guys would evolve throughout their TNA runs, but we will get there in forthcoming Lockdown reviews. For now, Young & Williams are evil Canadians, and AMW are good ‘ol butt-kickin’ cowboys. Match has a nice story with Storm getting jumped outside early on and Harris having to fend for himself 2-on-1 for awhile. There is a nice finish here with a failed powder-toss spot that lead to Petey Williams getting pinned following AMW delivering their ‘Death Sentence’ finisher. The X Division title was at stake next with Christopher Daniels defending against his former tag partner, Elix Skipper. The video package preceding it was a nice refresher of their rivalry and was a good reason for the hot crowd and intensity between the two in this match. Skipper got a nice splash off the top of the cage, but ultimately it was Daniels who got the win with his Angel’s Wings finisher in another good X division match.

The Lethal Lockdown followed, and it is essentially TNA’s version of War Games/Elimination Chamber with two teams of three squaring off. It starts one-on-one for five minutes, and then another competitor would enter every two minutes. After the final entrant is in, the team that scores the first fall is declared the winner. This match saw TNA champ, Jeff Jarrett teaming up with Monty Brown & Kip James (who was new to TNA at the time and fresh off renaming his character of ‘The Outlaw’ because of how close it resembled his old WWE Tag Team name) against Sean Waltman, Diamond Dallas Page and Kevin Nash. In a twisting shock, Nash was injured on match day, and got replaced last minute by BG James, aka The Road Dogg. I have no idea what was going through BG’s head, but on his way to the ring he brought a bedpan and clocked the cameraman with it for no apparent reason, and in the highlight of the night would proceed to clock the ref on the head with the bedpan. To top that, when most normal refs would be incapacitated indefinitely after a spot like that, this pudgy, scrawny TNA ref would get up and shake off the weapon attack within 60 seconds, just in time to make the surprise pinfall count when Sean Waltman would pull off a victory roll on Monty Brown that he botched mere seconds earlier. Brown would be the third person to bleed of the night so far. Like most War Games/Elimination Chamber style matches, this was another chaotic match that kept me on my toes to see who would come out next. Throw in the TNA-X-Factor of surprise weapon spots, and refs that no-sell and it made for a one-of-a-kind encounter TNA is only capable of delivering.

The main event saw AJ Styles face off against Abyss. For those unaware, Abyss is another TNA veteran still with the promotion today that I look forward to covering his unique evolution throughout the years with. I always considered him a hybrid of Mankind and Kane, and he always had a unique lust for weapon spots that usually went against him. For fans of AJ Styles today unfamiliar with his 12 years of TNA work, if you thought he is killer in the ring today, you should have seen him back in 2005 where he moved with the grace of a young Rey Mysterio and it seemed like AJ was capable of damn near anything in the ring. After brawling all over the arena for awhile, the two eventually clash in the ring where Abyss busts out the thumb tacks, but only to see them used against him when AJ would deliver a Styles Clash on top of them(!). AJ would follow that up with a sunset-flip off the top of the cage onto the tacks (!!) for the awesome finish to end the first Lockdown PPV.

Random final thoughts on the show: It was fun seeing Dusty with a couple of the TNA ‘Knockouts’ (TNA’s term for ‘Divas’) backstage as he drew names out of a hat to determine the order of the Lethal Lockdown entry. Shane Douglas was retired from wrestling at this point of his career and was the innocuous backstage interviewer which I did not mind him in. One constant in TNA’s history is there usually being a few botched camera angles on each show with them missing a key move/moment in a match, and sure enough that happened tonight.

I forgot to mention this took place at the Universal Studios lot in Orlando, FL where TNA has recorded a majority of their shows since 2004. It is the same arena where WCW use to tape their old syndicated Worldwide show for about a decade. I always thought TNA did an admirable job at getting the most out of that recording studio and making it come off with good production effects and clever camera angles to give it as close to a big-arena vibe as they could on their budget. Aside from a half hour of assorted Chris Candido extras, there is another half hour of extras on the DVD primarily consisting of quick preshow interviews and alternate camera angles of the primary spots of the night.

Thanks for sticking with me on this debut Lockdown blog. Apologies for the length, but I felt obligated to include a little TNA/GFW history at the beginning for those who are not that familiar with the promotion. Like I said at the beginning, TNA released these on DVD through 2014, but Lockdown specials after that moved to premiering on cable as Impact specials and thus have not been released on video. I will try and knock one of these out every several months, so stay tuned for the next installment later!

Past Wrestling Blogs

Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2
Best of Monday Nitro Volume 3
Biggest Knuckleheads
Bobby The Brain Heenan
Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes
DDP: Positively Living
Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials
ECW Unreleased: Vol 1
ECW Unreleased: Vol 2
ECW Unreleased: Vol 3
For All Mankind
Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection
Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story
Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman
Legends of Mid South Wrestling
Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story
Memphis Heat
OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History
OMG Vol 3: Top 50 Incidents in ECW History
Owen: Hart of Gold
RoH Supercard of Honor V
RoH Supercard of Honor VI
RoH Supercard of Honor VII
RoH Supercard of Honor VIII
RoH Supercard of Honor IX
RoH Supercard of Honor X
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Sting: Into the Light
Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder
Top 50 Superstars of All Time
Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season
True Giants
Ultimate Fan Pack: Roman Reigns
Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe
Warrior Week on WWE Network
Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition
Wrestlemania 28
Wrestlemania 29
Wrestlemania 30
Wrestlemania 31
Wrestlemania 32
The Wrestler (2008)
Wrestling Road Diaries Too
Wrestling Road Diaries Three: Funny Equals Money
Wrestlings Greatest Factions
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2016
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2016
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2017