Without mentioning names, following TNA’s No Surrender PPV I heard a few grunts of discontent.

Obviously, this is nothing new for anyone experiencing a TNA PPV (check out the booking of AJ Styles in a match so rubbish people headed for the toilets… that‘s AJ Styles!) . However, what was unique, was the reasoning behind such soiled panties.

The Falls Count Anywhere match between perennial beast Awesome Kong and drunkard ODB, has left itself wide open to a batch of negative reviews. Upon seeing this, I was baffled, as I’ve been a fan of their series, and wondered, what could have gone wrong? Was it really “sloppy”, “dangerous”, and “unnecessary”? This is what I made of the encounter.

ODB vs. Awesome Kong (Falls Count Anywhere)

Saeed attacks ODB in the aisle, as she makes her way to the ring. ODB takes her down, slapping the nards off her until Kong interrupts. Once in the ring, Kong picks her prey apart with some trademark moves, but goes for a splash too soon. ODB rolls to the outside, nabbing a table. Bit too soon for that in my opinion, but it doesn’t come into play yet.

The action spills back to the outside, and they brawl into the crowd, where ODB hit’s a couple of weak shots with a bin. Kong retaliates, and they struggle to the entrance ramp, where ODB takes a Scoop Slam. West mutters incessantly on commentary, and I feel my ear-drums attempting suicide. They scoot back to ringside, and engage in the usual shenanigans. ODB brings a chair into the ring, and goads Kong into charging head-first into it. The table is set-up, and they tease a Powerbomb, which ODB avoids. Crowd are really into this. Kong goes up top, but is caught by ODB, who struggles, then Power-bombs her on to the table! I say on to, because somehow, Kong doesn’t break the table. Instead, it falls over, and she bounces to the mat, neck-first. Looked frightening, but more so for ODB, who looks in pain and somewhat out of it afterwards.

They lie in a crumpled heap briefly. Kong kicks out of the ensuing pinfall attempt, and ODB is pulled to the outside by Saeed, but she whips her into the guardrail.

ODB goes to the top, but Kong catches her in a goozle, which ODB counters into a Small Package. A moment later, Kong nails a stiff Backfist. Ouch, that sounded nasty. Kong retrieves another table, but with her back turned, ODB takes a swig from her hip-flask, then spits it in Kong’s face. She charges at Kong, who then hit’s a Spine-buster type slam, through the table. Nice spot, and it’s enough to give Kong the win!

I thought this was a good encounter, as a whole. Sloppy at times, but more so after it became obvious that ODB was suffering and in discomfort following the Powerbomb spot. She seemed to be winded, and maybe suffering pains in her hand/wrist. It was laid out pretty well, and they did stuff that was intense, rather than crazy. However, nothing about it was in any way out of the ordinary for a bout of it‘s type, except of course, that it featured two women.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

This was a properly built-up rivalry, not just hardcore thrown out there for the sake of it. It also wasn’t of the often laughable standard of the old-school WWE Hardcore title matches. This was more serious, and a straight-forward, edgy brawl. Was it perfect? No, far from it in fact. Aside from the slip ups, they didn’t seem to have enough time at the beginning to build the intensity, to the point where you wanted to see them batter each other with weapons shots. Thus, as I mentioned, they went straight into attempting to use props. However, it could also be said that this fitted in with the storyline, and in ODB knowing she had to go out there, and gain whatever advantage was necessary as soon as possible.

Never, when a bout has been built up, and led to a similar “extreme” situation, involving men, have I witnessed criticism for it being “too dangerous” (unless of course, it was a wild stunt match, involving death-defying spots). Here, we’re talking about a good, ol’ fashioned brawl, with a few, almost Masato Tanaka inspired moments. Is that too risky for women?

Had that Fall’s Count Anywhere bout been between two men, they would have praised for their effort, even with the execution not always being there. It certainly wouldn’t have been inferred that they couldn’t handle the risk, and shouldn’t have bothered.

If the men are free to do it, without the criticism of their intent behind doing it, then so are the ladies. I can’t fathom being in TNA and telling the women for months to have as good a match as possible, then once the feud takes it’s next logical step, asking them to tone it down. Aside from the Powerbomb on the Table, they didn’t attempt anything outlandish, or even anything as risky as an average, competitive pro-wrestling bout. Remember, RVD broke his leg doing a Baseball Slide…

We tear apart women’s wrestling in the WWE (for good reason), and we praise TNA’s Knockouts Division, but we can’t watch when they take things one step further? Something doesn’t add up.

A commendable effort, I’d say. Think this was risky? Check out Bull Nakano and Aja Kong in a Cage. Ouch.

Thanks for taking the time to check this out. I welcome any and all feedback and I can be contacted at www.myspace.com/michaelwrestlingetc or simply by emailing me at Michael@ifight365.com. I look forward to hearing from you, and will be back soon!

Michael Campbell