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Alone in my hotel room, I finally had a chance to soak it all in. Staring into the face of the big, shiny, gold TNA World Title belt, I reflected on a journey. From jumping off roofs to dropping The Elbow on Sting. Haha, TNA, you've all been had. Too easy. The crafty veteran who people said was broken down has another World Title run to his name.
-- Potential conclusion to the "Lockdown chapter" in Mick Foley's future TNA-themed book.

Mick Foley is your new TNA World Hvt. champion on Monday, April 20 heading into this week's TV taping for the build-up to the Sacrifice PPV next month. It should have been obvious this was happening.

Do you think Foley would have been writing a book on his journey to Lockdown if he wasn't going to win the TNA World Title? Can't hook readers if Foley simply lost the match and drifted into the TNA storyline obscurity.

No, Foley is smarter than that. Foley writing another book - this one chronicling the build-up to Lockdown - promised big things for TNA. Chance to have the letters "T-N-A" and the red TNA logo right smack-dab in front of millions of eyeballs in bookstores nationwide. What better way to get back at Papa Vince then forcing him to see the book cover at an airport newsstand on the way home from a WWE TV taping?

Oh, the glory of it. Mick Foley - TNA World champion. Congrats, Mick, despite being broken down in the ring and involved in a storyline with no chance to "pass the torch" to a younger star, TNA penciled you in for a World Title run.

Last night's PPV main event wasn't quite the embarrassment of Triple H vs. Randy Orton from April's "other wrestling PPV," but only because expectations weren't as high for Foley vs. Sting. At times, the match looked like a Legends of Wrestling PPV match.

The good thing about Foley as TNA champ is that he'll carry himself well on TV because his split-personality "character" is so dang entertaining.

He shouldn't wrestle on TV, though. It will only expose the con. It wouldn't be smart business for TNA to allow potential PPV buyers to see him struggle through a TV match. Maintaining the mystique and mystery of seeing The Mick wrestle on PPV is more important than using him in TV wrestling matches to build up a PPV. Let him talk people into ordering a PPV.

Moving along to other subjects, I liked how TNA tried to convince TV viewers to order the PPV to see a wild, rowdy, ECW-esque audience. It simply wasn't going to happen in a "corporate-friendly" building with a tame audience.

But, give TNA credit for convincing TV viewers that would happen. After listening to Team 3D make endless references to ECW during the TV build-up, Kurt Angle using ECW as a promotional tool in media interviews, and TNA bringing in Brother Runt and Balls Mahoney to bleed all over the place and take tons of chair shots for another payday, PPV buyers were convinced TNA Lockdown would be the second-coming of Paul Heyman's ECW.

Moving along part two, the top match on the card was clearly Team 3D vs. Beer Money. It wasn't anything different from your standard "run up and down the stairs in the Impact Zone without doing much of anything" type match, but it had a different vibe this month.

Credit to Robert Roode and James Storm for working hard. 3D did their signature spots from 15 years ago to involve the crowd, which was fine because the audience paid for a temporary time machine taking them back to 15 years ago, but the match felt fresh.

The teams made it work on Sunday, but now Ray & Devon are the new tag champs instead of a young, up-and-coming team. Perhaps Team 3D has another good run in them, but I can't take another month of endless "we're the greatest ever" promos. Or, for that matter, Mike Tenay's inevitable histrionics about Team 3D's accomplishment.

Moving along part three, the Lethal Lockdown match was just okay. Kevin Nash is right. The younger stars have to work around the older veterans. Only problem is that the match was slowed to a crawl and the audience did not react to Jeff Jarrett's life-changing, world-saving decision.

As I touched on earlier, I got the sense the crowd in Philadelphia was particularly casual and they perhaps did not understand or fully grasp the epic nature of Jarrett's decision. Maybe Jarrett should have stroked his goatee a little more in the pre-match promo or come to the ring with his hair ripped out after agonizing over the decision for two hours.

Or, it could simply be a case that the audience did not care about the conflict being resolved via Jarrett's decision. And for audience members who were not up-to-speed on Jarrett's life-changing decision, when he smashed Booker T with the guitar, the reaction was "okay, he was supposed to do that because Booker is on the other team, so what's the big deal?"

The Impact Zone might have reacted more for Jarrett's decision because the Orlando crowds were into his storyline, which was presented well on TV leading to Lockdown.

However, concluding this chapter of a TV storyline in front of casual fans outside of Orlando is asking for trouble. The lack of crowd reaction for Jarrett giving Booker a guitar shot instead of A.J. Styles should not have been surprising.

Where does TNA go from here? We'll find out on Thursday, but I'm sure the Main Event Mafia, Jarrett, and Mick Foley will let us know. In other words, throw the younger stars a few bones to keep them around and saying all the right things, but continue to build the company's top storylines around the "so 15 years ago" portion of the roster.

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