TNA “Lockdown 2011” DVD Review
TNA Wrestling
Review by: Josh Boutwell of Wrestleview.com
Every year there is one PPV I, personally, look forward to more than any other. No, it’s not WrestleMania nor Bound For Glory. Every year I look forward to TNA’s “Lockdown” PPV more than any other, the only all-Steel Cage PPV in wrestling. TNA has released the special 2-disc DVD of this year’s event this week.
Obviously I don’t need to go match by match here, but 2011’s Lockdown featured the annual X-Division Xscape Match featuring Generation Me, Robbie E, Suicide, Chris Sabin of Motor City Machine Guns, Amazing Red, Jay Lethal in his final TNA appearance, and Brian Kendrick, the Steel Cage 3-Way Dance between Sting, Mr. Anderson, & Rob Van Dam for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, the brutal 2/3 Falls Steel Cage Match between Kurt Angle & Jeff Jarrett in their blood feud, the ultra violent Lethal Lockdown Match pitting Fortune against Immortal in what was one of the better Lethal Lockdown’s in TNA’s history with a special appearance from AJ Styles. The full match listing and content is at the bottom of the review.
The first disc is the PPV event in full. The picture is in wide screen and the quality is excellent as it should be. What’s interesting to look at, is I actually pulled out my copy of TNA’s first “Lockdown” event from 2005, and back then all of TNA’s PPV DVD’s were 2-disc. The reason was that they simply couldn’t get the full PPV to fit on one DVD and keep the good picture quality for whatever reason. The picture quality and just overall look from then and now is night and day.
The 2nd disc includes several bonus features. The first bonus here is TNA’s “Before the Bell” Special for Lockdown. The “Before the Bell” online exclusive specials always do an extremely well at selling the PPV and features (as always) exclusive comments from the wrestlers about the matches, and on Lockdown’s they really did a GREAT job at selling the brutality of Steel Cage Matches, especially Lethal Lockdown. I’ve thought for a long time that if SpikeTV would air these specials every month, the Thursday before the PPV after Impact Wrestling it would do a great job for them in selling the upcoming PPV. Including these in their DVD releases is a great addition.
The next feature are post-match interviews with the wrestlers after their matches. The first interview is with Mickie James who puts over her Title win, followed by Samoa Joe talking about the Steel Cage is his “home” and comments on his success inside the cage. Joe calls himself the “Terror of TNA.” TNA’s doctor “Dr. Tim” comments on the injuries suffered tonight and shows off the stitches on Jeff Jarrett’s head. He mentions that Jarrett may have broken ribs and Jarrett sells his injuries and talks about his feud with Angle. Kurt also sells his injuries and is shown icing both his neck and shoulder. He gives the reason why he went for the Moonsault off the cage rather than climb down (he says he saw Gunner at the bottom and it was either go down and get annihilated by a chair or punish Jarrett more) and points out that he barely caught Jeff and may have hurt himself more. Fortune brags about their win and AJ wants to go celebrate. RVD talks about his loss for the World Title and says he refused Hogan’s offer to use the weapon and says he maybe should have used it, but he says there was no way he was going to join Immortal. He says he didn’t want to win that way and he doesn’t need it. As Sting is leaving the arena he says his mission on taking out Immortal is still moving forward and he says he wants to take on everybody.
The next feature is footage from the Lockdown Fan Interaction in Cincinnati which saw the wrestlers meeting the fans, signing autographs, taking pictures with the fans, and a part where the fans can take pictures with wrestlers in front of a section of the steel cage which would be used the next night. Various wrestlers talk about fan interaction with SoCal Val as well as their matches at Lockdown.
The final bonus feature is a special Music Video which mashes highlights from Lockdown up with a song called “Sticks & Bricks” by Heavy Metal group A Day To Remember.
Overall, this is another excellent PPV-DVD release from TNA with great picture quality and some fun bonus features (especially the post-match interviews & Before the Bell special).
MATCH LISTING:
1) TNA X-Division Title #1 Contenders Xscape Steel Cage Match: Max Buck vs. Jeremy Buck vs. Jay Lethal vs. Chris Sabin vs. Amazing Red vs. Robbie E vs. Suicide vs. Brian Kendrick
2) TNA Tag Titles #1 Contenders 4-Corners Contenders Steel Cage Match: British Invasion vs. Crimson & Scott Steiner vs. Ink, Inc. vs. Eric Young & Orlando Jordan
3) TNA Knockouts Title vs. Hair Steel Cage Match: Madison Rayne (c) vs. Mickie James
4) Steel Cage Match: Samoa Joe vs. The Pope
5) Steel Cage Match: Hernandez vs. Matt Morgan
6) 2/3 Falls Steel Cage Match: Kurt Angle vs. Jeff Jarrett
7) TNA World Title 3-Way Dance Steel Cage Match: Sting (c) vs. Mr. Anderson vs. Rob Van Dam
8) Lethal Lockdown Steel Cage Match: Fortune (Christopher Daniels, Beer Money, & Kazarian) vs. Immortal (Ric Flair, Bully Ray, Abyss, & Matt Hardy)
BONUS CONTENT:
1) TNA Lockdown “Before The Bell” Special
2) Post-Match Interviews
3) Footage from the Lockdown Fan-InterAction event
4) A special Music Video