TNA Sacrifice 2011

So this is the show that's perhaps best known for being Chyna's first (and only) appearance in TNA Impact Wrestling before continuing with her porn career. That is, of course, assuming that you were even cognizant of the fact that Chyna, the former Ninth Wonder of the World and 2-time WWF Intercontinental champion, once made a brief return to North American pro wrestling with a very brief stint in TNA... because even though I have touched on the subject on this blog in the past, I had completely forgotten about this one until I was revisiting the old blog posts.

So here's the deal; this is a TNA PPV from 2011, which hasn't been a high point for the company and pretty much that whole era was what turned me off from the promotion once and for all. As such, I'm probably not going to be saying much in this regard considering I know very little about the proceedings and can only react to the show from a largely ignorant view.

But in any event... let's see how this show fares several years removed from when it last aired.




Mexican America defeated Ink Inc. One team of foreigners versus one team of tattoo'ed fellows... couldn't get into this one. At all. As a match, it's alright... but neither team really did it for me and I was just... meh.

Brian Kendrick defeated Robbie E. Don't care... next.

Knockouts champ Mickie James defeated Madison Rayne after Tara (Victoria) hit Rayne with a loaded Coal Miner's Glove to retain the title. Remember when TNA had better women's wrestling than WWE? Fucking hell, I missed out on those days. And the sad part is that you have two decent women (with another doing a run-in) in this match and this match still blew chunks. Too bad.

X-Division champion Kazarian defeated Max Buck with a Shining Wizard to retain the title in the first remotely entertaining match on the show. Man, thank you for this. I really needed this, bro.

Crimson defeated Abyss. Two big fuckers beating the fuck out of each should be entertaining and this kinda was. You know what? I'm okay with this.

TNA Tag-Team Champions Beer Money (James Storm & the future glorious Bobby Roode) defeated Matt Hardy and a man whom TNA claims is Chris Harris but looks like that Braden Walker fellow from WWECW to retain the titles. The story behind this match is that in the early years of TNA, James Storm and Chris Harris were a tag-team called America's Most Wanted and they were a rather successful tag team. Then Harris left TNA, got fat, and became Braden Walker in WWECW where he had a less than stellar but otherwise memorable career to mostly Wrestlecrap followers.

And so Braden Walker makes his TNA debut as Matt's party and he's pretty much the worst part of this match. He's a little slower, a little heavier, there's a couple botches that take me out of the match because I noticed these things. Usually, it takes someone pointing these things out to me for me to realize something is a botch, so when I notice these sorts of botches, then there's something wrong here. The only highlight is Matt bailing on Harris and Beer Money doing the old AMW Trash Compactor finisher on Harris to win. After this match was done, Harris was gone from TNA once more and never to be seen again.

Tommy Dreamer pinned AJ Styles in a No-DQ match that eventually degraded into a hardcore match and made me wonder why Tommy Dreamer was pinning AJ Styles in 2011. Come to think of it, why was Tommy Dreamer a major player in Impact Wrestling in 2018 when he has his own House Of Hardcore to tend to?

Kurt Angle & Chyna defeated Karen and Jeff Jarrett in a so-so match. It's mostly Kurt and Jeff doing all the work before Chyna gets the tag in to hit a couple moves and end it with an ankle lock, which is about the smartest thing you could've done with her considering how long she's been out of the game. I recall not reacting well to Chyna being the one who gets to pal up with Kurt, presumably because of her many problems beforehand. But I'd imagine if Chyna had stuck around for a little while longer, I would've been fine with her around. She got a decent reaction, she looked alright, did what little she did well enough. It could've worked.

And then Chyna signed a deal to do more porn movies and TNA cut ties with her soon after as a result. And even back then, long before this suddenly became a major point of controversy, I knew her chances of going into the WWE Hall Of Fame were going to be slim to none. Because if TOTAL NONSTOP ACTION - the company who signed Kurt Angle to a contract despite his deteriorating health as well as sign Jeff Hardy to a contract despite his legal troubles due to drug possession - wanted nothing to do with you because of your porn career, imagine a company like WWE who's trying to maintain this family friendly visage and god forbid we induct a PORN STAR into the very prestigious WWE Hall Of Fame. Never mind the fact that they've inducted murderers, drug addicts, wifebeaters, and racists into the Hall. And pray nobody looks up HHH's career and find him fucking a mannequin posing as a dead corpse.

Maybe Chyna should've followed Sunny's lead and gotten into the Hall Of Fame first and THEN go for the porn career. That would've been the safe bet... and maybe things would've turned out differently for her. Then again... who can say for sure how long Chyna would've lasted in TNA given her somewhat "unstable" lifestyle at the time, for lack of a softer term.

TNA World Champion Sting defeated Rob Van Dam despite interference from Mr. Anderson to retain the title. Eh... eh.... meh.

So, outside of Chyna's one TNA appearance as well as Braden Walker's one TNA appearance... Sacrifice 2011 did nothing for me. What a terrible show.