Bound For Glory 2006
Date: October 22, 2006
Location: Compuware Sports Arena, Plymouth Township, Michigan
Attendance: 3,600
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Don West

This is the biggest show of the year for TNA and they’re not in Orlando for once. The main event here is Sting vs. Jarrett because that’s what they decided it should be, despite the fans screaming for Joe for months. Joe is in a pointless Monster’s Ball match instead of anything important. I watched this show and remember thinking there was a chance that Joe could run in somehow but it didn’t happen. Also tonight Angle is the guest referee is in the main event because who needs to have the biggest acquisition the company has ever had wrestling on the biggest show of the year? Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about Henry Ford and how Detroit rose up because of people like him. It’s about following your dreams or something. The voiceover guy talks about how this is all about overcoming obstacles and achieving your dreams or whatever. As usual it goes way too long.

The set looks more like the old weekly PPV sets.

Battle Royal

This is officially the Kevin Nash Open Invitational X-Division Gauntlet Battle Royal. In other words, it’s a sixteen man Royal Rumble for only X-Division guys. Nash comes out in a suit with a bowling trophy. The first entrant is the debuting Austin Starr to face #2 Sonjay Dutt. Every sixty seconds someone else comes in. As usual it’s a regular match once we get down to two. The fans are split so Nash talks about being a legendary high flier.

Maverick Matt is in at #3. His minute has absolutely nothing happening so here’s Lethal in at #4. He speeds things up a bit and gets a chant in his name. Lethal and Dutt are semi-regular partners so they take over the match. Austin knocks Lethal down and does his strut. Nash: “I like this Starr guy. I hope he does better than Glacier.” A-1, not a small guy for the most part, is #5.

Spinebuster takes Lethal down and A-1 is told he can’t wrestle. Everyone is still in and here’s Zach Gowen at #6. He’s the one legged guy from WWE in 2004. He spends thirty seconds getting to the ring and we get a Johnny Ace reference for some reason. Nash: “You two dudes are dynamic.” Kaz is #7 as we still haven’t had an elimination. Matt and Kaz, former tag partners, throw out Dutt.

Sirelda, a REALLY weird looking chick that is another attempt to recreate Chyna, is #8 and she beats up various men. Starr kicks her low and A-1 hits a BIG clothesline to put her out. Kaz and Matt knock him out immediately as Shark Boy is #9. The fans love Sharky and nothing happens until Shelley, getting the pop of the night so far, comes in at #10. He spits water in Kaz’s face and the fans cheer for him even more.

D-Ray 3000 is #11. He’s a blaxploitation character who hung out with Shark Boy. They team up for a Bushwackers battering ram and throw out Matt. By my math we’ve had eleven entrants and four eliminations so far. #12 is Johnny Devine and he throws out Gowen in seconds. Elix Skipper is #13 and he takes down Shelley and Lethal on his entrance with a double clothesline. Kaz tries a springboard move like an idiot and Starr puts him out.

Short Sleeve Sampson, as in one of Hulk Hogan’s Micro Championship Wrestling guys, is #14. D-Ray and Shark Boy go out at the same time. Starr holds up the midget time after time over the ropes but won’t toss him. #15 is SCREAMIN NORMAN SMILEY!!! Smiley and Samson hit stereo Big Wiggles before Shelley throws Samson onto Shark Boy. Samson chases Slick Johnson around the ring until Petey Williams is the final entrant at #16.

Johnson comes into the ring and shoves Smiley and Skipper out despite not being in the match. Ok so we have Shelley, Devine, Williams, Lethal and Starr. Williams throws out Johnston to get rid of that stupidity. Williams charges at Petey and gets sent to the apron, only to hit his slingshot Codebreaker. There’s the Canadian Destroyer but Shelley throws Williams out. Starr dumps Devine and Shelley to get us down to a one on one match with Starr vs. Lethal for the win.

Lethal hits a quick release Dragon Suplex for two. He goes up but Austin knocks him down and hits the brainbuster for the win. The one on one part lasted maybe a minute.

Rating: C. This was what it was. Having the one minute intervals was a good idea because most of these people aren’t important enough to warrant two minutes without anyone new being put in there. The match itself probably ran longer than it should have to open the biggest show of the year, but it was fast paced enough to work I guess.

Post match Shelley yells at Nash while Starr gets his trophy.

We get a clip of LAX beating down AMW and Gail Kim taking the Border Toss.

AMW yells about LAX but tonight they’re in a fourway match which has nothing to do with LAX. Sure why not.

The Naturals vs. Team 3D vs. James Gang vs. America’s Most Wanted

The Naturals are the #1 contenders and managed by Shane Douglas. Why they’re not challenging for the titles tonight is beyond me but whatever. The James Gang is the New Age Outlaws. All of the teams other than AMW has something to say but nothing really gets said if you get what I mean. Harris vs. Stevens starts us off with Stevens speeding things up quickly. Harris dropkicks him into the corner so Ray can tag himself in.

One fall to a finish here. Ray beats up both members of AMW but BG tags himself in, resulting in a mirror image of the Flip Flop and Fly elbow. D-Von and Kip come in and slam each other into the mat. I’m barely able to keep up with this match as they’re coming in and out at will. Storm and Douglas go to the corner and Storm falls into the Tree of Woe. Harris climbs up and Stevens comes in for a four man Tower of Doom to take them all down, even with Storm still caught in the Tree.

Catatonic to BG is countered and he hits the Pumphandle Slam for two. Eye of the Storm takes down Stevens but D-Von takes him down, only to walk into a standing tornado DDT from Douglas. We’re in the parade of finishers here. Stevens sets for a superplex on D-Von but Bubba comes in to hit a Doomsday Device. What’s Up to Douglas and they set for the tables but Stevens makes the save. Natural Disaster (elevated Stunner) takes out D-Von for two. Stevens runs into Douglas and walks into the 3D for the pin.

Rating: D. What a mess! The James Gang and AMW fell into a black hole for the last two minutes of that and there’s no way to keep track of most of what was going on here. This would have been much better as an elimination match, but for all intents and purposes that’s what happened at the end anyway. Bad match with WAY too much stuff going on. Also does this make 3D the #1 contenders? They beat the Naturals who already were, but I doubt that’s what’s going on.

Shane Douglas comes back again post match and yells at the Naturals.

JB is outside Joe’s locker room but finds Jake Roberts instead. Roberts is refereeing the Monster’s Ball match for some reason. He doesn’t say much but I think he’s drunk. No real indication for why, but I figured I’d play the odds.

We recap the Monster’s Ball match. Joe stole the world title belt (See? It was right there) and Abyss agreed to go get it in exchange for the first title shot. Abyss got the belt but Raven and Brother Runt (Spike Dudley) beat Abyss up before he could deliver it to Cornette. This is what the hottest guy arguably in wrestling at this point was doing for the biggest show of the year. Not being in the world title match, but fighting Spike Dudley. This company deserved to be stuck in mediocrity like it always was.

Samoa Joe vs. Brother Runt vs. Raven vs. Abyss

This is Monster’s Ball which basically means hardcore. Jake Roberts is guest referee. This is also the third match in a row that isn’t a simple one on one or tag match. Everyone jumps Joe to start and knock him to the floor. Raven and Runt team up on Abyss with Runt being knocked to the outside. Runt brings in a chair and Raven hits his drop toehold on Abyss into the chair but Joe comes back in to make people care. Joe hits the Facewash on Raven but walks into a chokeslam.

Abyss runs over the ECW guys and throws Runt into the crowd from the ring to emulate Bigelow’s famous spot. Raven clotheslines Abyss to the floor and dives on him, which Abyss shrugs off without even leaving his feet. Joe hits a BIG corkscrew dive onto all three to put them all down while landing on his feet. Raven pops up and hits Joe with a Silence of the Lambs style mask of his.

They go up the ramp and Joe is knocked through a table off the ramp. Runt and Abyss climb up part of the set and Runt is chokeslammed onto a platform which doesn’t have much give at all. Something happens which results in Abyss landing on Runt but the camera is zoomed in on Roberts. The replay shows that it was kind of an elbow drop. Nice production work there guys.

Raven throws Joe through another table in a vain attempt to make us believe he won’t win. Is there a point to Roberts being referee at all here? He hasn’t done anything. Abyss gets two on Runt but Raven saves. Abyss drops an Earthquake splash down for two on Raven. Joe comes in to break up Shock Treatment by pounding on Abyss. He misses the backsplash but kicks Abyss low instead.

Powerslam onto a chair gets two. Raven drop toeholds Joe to the floor but Abyss knocks him down and loads up the tacks. Jake pulls out his bag but Raven jumps him and loads up a DDT on Jake. Abyss pours out the tacks but Joe pulls down the ropes to prevent Raven from going into the tacks via the Black Hole Slam. Joe knocks Abyss to his knees and hits the senton backsplash to put Abyss’ face into the tacks. Raven breaks up the choke but Jake DDTs him so that the MuscleBuster can give Joe the pin.

Rating: D. I know this is a sweeping statement, but this might be the most questionable choice in TNA history. Why in the world was Joe in this match? Jake added NOTHING here. He counted slow and I guess he didn’t hurt anything, but what difference did it make to have a guest referee? The match was your usual garbage but no one bought anyone but Joe having a chance here. Also did Runt fall into the same hole the James Gang and AMW fell into in the previous match?

Jake puts the snake on Raven post match.

Eric Young is panicking over possibly losing in the loser gets fired match. His opponent, Larry freaking Zbyszko, comes up and says he’s already got Young beaten.

We recap Larry vs. Young. Larry was a boss in the company but got corrupt and cost Eric a match for his job. Cornette reinstated him in a loser gets fired match. This is your first one on one match of the night and we’re over an hour into the show. Let that sink in for a minute.

Larry Zbyszko vs. Eric Young

The fans are totally behind Eric here. They want Larry fired so he stalls as usual. Eric points at Larry and the fans boo, then he point at himself and the fans cheer. No contact about a minute and a half in. They lock up and Larry hits the spinning back kick and the abdominal stretch. Eric reverses and the referee takes a shot. Eric Young vs. Larry Zbyszko is getting a referee bump. Larry pulls out a foreign object but gets hit low. Eric gets the object and hits Larry for the pin.

Rating: F. If you don’t get why this is an F, you’re on your own.

Video on Senshi accompanied by Mortal Kombat, which is sponsoring the show.

Here’s Jim Cornette to fill in some time. He can barely talk (I don’t know how to handle this) due to being sick so he sounds like he has a stable of horses in his voice. Cornette says he should be in intensive care but there was no way he was missing this. If Joe interferes in the main event tonight, he’s removed from the roster. That draws out Angle who wants to fight someone right now.

Kurt says he doesn’t need a buffer between himself and Joe…and here’s the fat Samoan himself. They start brawling on the floor but security makes the save. WHY IS THIS MATCH NOT ON THIS SHOW??? They both break through security and Joe shouts at Cornette to let him fight tonight. This company seriously made my head hurt at times.

We recap Senshi vs. Sabin. There’s no real story here, other than Sabin is the challenger. If there’s another story to it, the recap doesn’t mention it. I think it’s a rematch.

X-Division Title: Senshi vs. Chris Sabin

Joe has been ejected from the arena. Every time this story gets stupider the harder my head shakes. They fight over a lockup to start and both guys hit various forms of kicks which results in Senshi taking over. A big kick gets two. They slug it out and Sabin fires off some forearms but walks into a double boot in the corner for two. Senshi hooks a body scissors on the mat to slow things down.

That doesn’t last long so Senshi slams him for two. They chop it out and Senshi comes back with the kicks. They go into the corner and Sabin pounds on his back but Senshi stops him cold with a standing Liger Kick. Senshi tries to get a running start but Sabin takes him down with a springboard missile dropkick. Sabin kicks him to the floor and hits a great suicide dive to the outside. Back in Sabin hits a running enziguri and puts Senshi in the Tree of Woe (popular position tonight) and hits the hesitation dropkick for two.

Sabin loads up Cradle Shock but Senshi counters into a dragon sleeper, but it’s quickly broken. Another Liger Kick misses and Sabin hits a springboard DDT for two. These near falls are getting really close. They go to the corner with Senshi trying a rolling sunset flip but instead of covering he jumps to his feet and hits a standing double stomp for two. A springboard back kick gets the same.

Senshi misses a charge in the corner and Sabin hits a HUGE running boot to the face which might have knocked out a tooth. Cradle Shock gets two with the referee messing up his count and stopping a half second before the kickout happened. They go to the corner again with Senshi looking to superplex him, but instead he walks backwards on the middle rope to fire off some HARD kicks. Warrior’s Way gets a delayed two as Sabin gets his foot on the ropes. There’s a modified dragon sleeper but Sabin won’t tap. Senshi pulls back to fire off elbows to the head, but he stops for a second and Sabin rolls him up for the pin and the title.

Rating: A-. Good stuff here again as the X Division was on fire at this point. The idea here was them hitting each other with everything they had and getting bigger and bigger and then Sabin using a basic hold to get the pin and it worked very well. Sabin played off the fact that Senshi was going to be very intense and therefore he’d miss something easy like that. That’s psychology at work and it’s a rare thing to see in a match like this, but it worked here.

Christian cuts off JB and rants about Rhyno talking about growing up on the streets of Detroit, but no one cares about him. Christian gave Rhyno a concussion but that’s nothing compared to what’s coming to him tonight. He won’t get invited to Rhyno’s house for dinner this year, but it doesn’t matter because his aunt’s food sucked.

We recap Christian vs. Rhyno. They’re old friends but Christian lost the world title and snapped over it. Christian gave him a Conchairto which gave him a concussion, then he hit him in the head again with another chair. Tonight is Rhyno’s chance to get even.

Christian Cage vs. Rhyno

This is an 8 Mile Street Fight which should be good. Rhyno comes through the crowd and goes straight through the entrance to meet Christian in the parking lot. Christian gets slammed onto a car and thrown into whatever Rhyno can find to throw him into. They climb onto a zamboni machine and Rhyno gets in the driver’s seat. He drives the machine with Christian on top into the arena. Rhyno climbs up to pound on Christian who falls off the machine.

Christian gets away down by the ramp and picks up a fake street lamp, only to get it ripped out of his hands and rammed into his chest. This is total domination so far. Rhyno throws in four chairs and hits Christian with a street lamp before Christian can get to one of the chairs. He loads up the Gore but Christian takes his head off with a chair shot. Rhyno shrugs that off and they go into the crowd with Christian running away even more.

After ramming Christian into some hockey glass they go back to the ring and Rhyno sets up a table at ringside. Back inside and Rhyno suplexes him down and puts up another table in the corner. Christian picks up an 8 Mile Road street sign and CRACKS Rhyno in the head with it. This is the first breather Christian has had. He goes to the floor and pulls out a ladder as Rhyno is busted open and might have another concussion. Christian charges with the ladder but Rhyno drop toeholds him into the ladder.

DDT gets two for Christian and they’re both spent. Rhyno is gone from the concussion and a ladder shot to the head makes it even worse. Christian goes under the ring again and comes up with a straightjacket and another chair. Rhyno gets tied up in the jacket and Christian grabs a pair of chairs to set up the Conchairto but Rhyno moves. Using just his legs and his head he tries a comeback and manages to get Christian down. The referee unhooks the jacket and they fight to the apron in front of the table.

Rhyno PILEDRIVES HIM THROUGH THE TABLE to put both guys down again. THAT gets two so Rhyno loads up the Gore, but Christian moves to send him through the table. It gets two, as does an Unprettier onto the metal part of the broken table. With no idea what else to do, Christian piles up everything on top of Rhyno and hits about eight chair shots onto the pile to crush Rhyno, which FINALLY gets the pin.

Rating: B+. I don’t say this that often, but that was AWESOME. I’m not a fan of the street fights, but this one was really intense with a feeling that someone had to do something big to get the win. The piledriver was awesome, as were the kickouts from Rhyno. Christian finally just pounding the tar out of Rhyno with everything he had until Rhyno couldn’t move an inch was a great finish. Loved this.

Konnan rants about raising the violence tonight and how they’re not sorry for what they did to Gail. They fight Styles/Daniels for the titles in a cage tonight.

We recap the tag title match and the idea is that Konnan says that putting a cage up doesn’t matter because they’re used to borders. Daniels got kidnapped in a way and beaten down three on one. The idea is that LAX is this rapidly growing powerful team that has to be stopped before they become unstoppable. They’ve traded the titles a few times as well so this is the final blowoff match.

Tag Titles: LAX vs. Christopher Daniels/AJ Styles

Styles and Daniels are the champions. The champs run in and the brawl is on. Unfortunately they have to tag in this which really takes away the violence aspect of it. I wouldn’t bet on it lasting long though. AJ and Homicide start with the dropkick spot putting the murder inspired one down. Off to Daniels as the champions hit a combination clothesline/belly to back suplex for two.

Styles comes back in for a backbreaker for two. AJ gets sent into the cage and it’s off to Hernandez. Styles moves around quickly and manages a tag but gets sent into the cage anyway. Homicide’s torndado DDT is countered but SuperMex takes his head off with a clothesline. The challengers look like they’re setting for a Doomsday Device but Hernandez drops him backwards and Homicide hits a top rope elbow for two. Nice change of pace. AJ is busted but we didn’t get a shot of him until now.

Konnan slides in an object to Homicide which goes into Daniels’ head. It appears to be a fork but Hebner doesn’t see it. Off to Hernandez to give Daniels a neck rub. Homicide gets a bottle of tequila from somewhere and spits some into Daniels’ face. They go up top and Daniels hits a sitout hiptoss for two to break the momentum. There’s the tag to AJ who hits the backflip into the reverse DDT for two. Everything breaks down as you would expect it to and Daniels clotheslines Homicide over and over.

The champions go high low on Homicide and are firmly in control. Hernandez has his face rammed into the cage and AJ hits the Pele on Homicide for two. Now Homicide gets the fork put in his head. AJ has no problem with the referee seeing that but Homicide hid it earlier. Hernandez starts going on another rampage but walks into a Pele to put everyone down.

AJ goes to the top of the cage (I think you can only win by pin/submission), drawing a please don’t die chant. The others catch him and try a Tower of Doom but AJ can’t get into position so he stays on top. That’s good as I was legit scared of him taking that bump from there. Instead he hits a HUGE cross body to Hernandez off the cage for two. Homicide hits a cutter on AJ but walks into an STO from Daniels.

Hernandez runs over Christopher and goes to the top of the cage also. He misses his splash and if he’s still alive I’ll be stunned. Daniels tries the Angel’s Wings on Hernandez but Homicide got a coat hanger from Konnan to choke him out. Konnan gets it back and chokes him from outside the ring. Hernandez breaks up the Clash and the Gringo Killa gives LAX the titles back.

Rating: A-. Another great match here with them finally saying screw this tagging stuff and letting it all hang out there, which is what you’re supposed to do in a big match. That dive by AJ was incredible but for some reason, probably fear, Hernandez’s didn’t get much of a reaction at all. Still though, great match but somehow it isn’t as good as the Ultimate X match they had the month before.

We recap Sting vs. Jarrett which is like a year long feud with a ton of twists and turns in it. In short: IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN JOE. Joe beat Jarrett the previous month but that was just about revenge or honor or something. There’s no need for this to be Jarrett vs. Sting and the only people that wanted it to be are likely named Jarrett. Oh and Angle is guest referee. Sting hasn’t even been on TV for two months to make sure the match has even less build for it. Oh and it’s title vs. career.

NWA World Title: Sting vs. Jeff Jarrett

Oh wait Angle is guest enforcer. Sting’s big transformation after missing for two months: he has red tights. Tenay thinks the bat is a tribute to the Detroit Tigers. Someone smack him for me. I’m already annoyed enough that Joe isn’t in there but now I have to listen to Tenay’s stupid theories? After big match intros we’re finally ready to go. Feeling out process to start for some reason, after they’ve fought each other about a thousand times.

Jeff controls to start for no apparent reason, arm dragging and hip tossing Sting around with ease. Sting starts to Hulk Up…and Jeff throws him around again. Now Jeff drops him with one punch. Jeff dropkicks him to the floor and OH MY GOODNESS ARE YOU THIS FREAKING STUPID??? Why in the world would you have THE MOST BORING WORLD CHAMPION IN YEARS dominate one of the most charismatic wrestlers in history like this?

Back in Jarrett spits on him and Sting FINALLY takes over on him like he should have from the opening bell. Powerbomb of all things puts Jeff down and a clothesline puts him on the floor. Jeff shoves Angle who shoves right back and Sting starts hammering Jarrett outside. Sting gets whipped into the barricade but Jeff gets his chair taken away by Angle. They fight up the ramp with Sting hitting a suplex to keep Jeff down. Angle takes the chair from Sting too and Jeff’s chair shot takes Kurt out.

DDT on the ramp puts Sting down and Jeff hooks a sleeper back inside. Sting fights out of that and they screw up some spot involving Sting getting behind Jeff. Cross body puts both guys down. Angle comes in and hits the Slam on the referee so that it’s not a double countout. They slug it out and the Splash sets up the Death Drop for two. Stroke hits for two. Jeff tries a tombstone which Sting reverses into a dangerous looking one of his own.

Sting goes up so that Jeff can hit him low, but he can’t hit a Stroke off the top. Sting’s splash off the top hits knees and there’s the Figure Four. Sting turns it over so Jeff lets it go and hooks an ankle lock to taunt Kurt. It gets reversed and Jeff is sent to the floor so Sting gets the bat. Angle tries to stop him and Jeff gets the guitar. Jeff breaks it over Sting’s head…and Sting yells at him. Scorpion quickly ends this.

Rating: C-. Not much here as it seemed like they didn’t know if they wanted to do an old school Sting match or an Attitude Era style brawl. Either one would have been ok but mixing them really didn’t work. At the end of the day, no one wanted to see Sting get the title again because we had seen it before and the fans were all behind Joe. Naturally since this is the NWA, they don’t care what the fans want and go with the old guys instead. The match wasn’t anything that good either.

Sting celebrates to end the show.

Overall Rating: B. As it is, this is a good show. With an ending the the fans wanted to see, it would be one of the best TNA shows ever. Sting’s title reign wound up meaning jack as he lost the title four weeks later to Abyss, a guy Joe beat in the Monster’s Ball earlier tonight. Joe wouldn’t the title for another 18 months because we needed to go through FOUR Angle reigns and a long Christian reign that no one wanted to see. This is also around the time that TNA’s hot streak started to die off. What a coincidence no? Anyway, very good show that could have been excellent if TNA would actually pay attention.

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Genesis 2006
Date: November 19, 2006
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 900
Commentators: Don West, Mike Tenay

We just looked at the rematch of Joe vs. Angle, so now let’s look at the original. That’s the main event obviously, in Angle’s TNA debut match. As I said in the previous show, this isn’t something that makes you think big show. What’s even stupider is that Angle was at the previous show, Bound For Glory, as a guest referee while Joe had a pointless Monster’s Ball match. Then again this is TNA so logic is pretty much thrown out. Let’s get to it.

The opening video talks about how it’s a new age, comparing this to the first steps on the moon. Now we have opera music. It’s all about Angle vs. Joe of course with a little bit about the world title match and even some about LAX. They’re on the poster so they do need some coverage. As always, this video goes on WAY too long, running almost three and a half minutes. Dave Penzer being heard we’ve fifteen seconds from going live is a nice touch.

Kazarian/Maverick Matt/Johnny Devine vs. Voodoo Kin Mafia

The three guys that would become Seretonin are in their new look now but have only been talking about their redeemer who would later be revealed as Raven. The Mafia is now at WAR with WWE. Tenay flat out says they’re going after Vince and it would only get worse. The fans chant that DX sucks. Anyway, Roadie, the guy only famous for being in DX, starts off with Matt.

BG (Road Dogg) gets taken into the corner and the heels alternate on him to take over. They tease the white shirt wearing Kip to allow more triple teaming. They’re flying through this match so it’s not going to last long. BG gets in a shot and hot tags Kip. Kip cleans house and uses a Pedigree as Tenay talks about the War. Devine jumps off the top but gets caught in the cobra clutch slam for the pin.

Rating: D+. Nothing to see here but anything that furthers this idiotic angel isn’t a good thing. As I said in the Turning Point review, I have no idea what they thought they were proving with this thing, but it would result in them “invading” a house show which they claimed was the same thing as DX invading WCW in 1998.

BG says the ground war begins on Thursday. Tenay: “I know where I’m going to be Thursday night! Watching Impact on TV!” These jokes write themselves.

We run down the rest of the card in TNA tradition.

Kaz and Matt bring back Devine whose head is now covered. And here’s Raven in a white suit. West sounds like he’s seeing a bluejay in a park. Devine gets on his knees so he can be beaten with a kendo stick.

Shane Douglas and the Naturals talk about beating up Team 3D and putting them through a table. Tonight they’re facing….Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt.

The Naturals vs. Sonjay Dutt/Jay Lethal

The X guys have Jerry Lynn with them. The Naturals are Chase Stevens and Andy Douglas for those of you unfamiliar, which is probably a lot of you. They shout about Team 3D for most of the match. Stevens tries what would have been an AWESOME sunset bomb to the floor but Lethal saves himself. The Naturals are rammed together and sent to the floor so the X guys hit stereo dives to take them out.

Back inside and the smaller guys hit some incredibly fast paced double teaming on Stevens who plays the heel in peril. There’s a rarity for you. Off to Douglas (no relation to Shane) who hits Lethal low to take over. Off to a seated abdominal stretch on Lethal. Back up and a jumping knee to the face puts Lethal down for two.

Stevens comes in and stops Jay’s comeback with a wheelbarrow suplex for two. Hot tag to Dutt and he speeds things way up. What was supposed to be a seated senton hits Douglas and Lethal hits the Lethal Combination for two on Chase. Shane interferes so that a missile dropkick/powerbomb combo can get the pin. The powerbomb was awkward but it worked.

Rating: C-. The match was fine but I have no idea what the point of it was. The Naturals talked about Team 3D for awhile but they were nowhere in sight, so what was the point of the reference? Shouldn’t the return of Team 3D happen here for the beatdown after this match happened on Impact? I don’t get it but whatever. Also, it’s better than a bikini contest. Not a bad match, just not interesting.

LAX rants about Petey Williams stopping the flag burning on Impact. Konnan goes on an anti-military rant for some reason and says no one can stop them from burning a flag tonight because they have rights.

We recap Daniels vs. Sabin. Daniels is the honorable champion, Sabin is the whiny punk challenger. That’s about it.

Daniels says that he and AJ are cool after Daniels took the title from him on Thursday.

X-Division Title: Chris Sabin vs. Christopher Daniels

This is Daniels’ first defense. Sabin slaps him in the face a few times to get on Daniels’ nerves. Daniels grabs a wristlock and Sabin spins out of it but winds up slapping the champ again. Daniels tries the same thing but with a right hand instead of a slap, but Sabin blocks it and pokes Daniels in the eyes. The match turns into a fast paced gymnastics routine resulting in Sabin bailing to the floor.

Back in it’s another counter routine, resulting in Daniels having his foot on the back of Sabin’s head and driving it into the mat. Daniels tries a sunset flip but when he goes for the shoulder to the ribs to set it up, Sabin kicks him in the face and dropkicks him to the floor. A double ax to the floor has the champ in trouble. This is a chess match with neither guy being able to get an extended advantage.

Sabin drops him throat first over the barricade which gets two back in. I think we have our first advantage here. A running one footed dropkick to the back of a seated Daniels’ head gets two. Off to a nerve hold and Daniels rubs Sabin’s hand in a manner that needs a bad romance song. The champion tries a spinning springboard cross body but Sabin ducks. West compares Sabin to Kobe Bryant for some reason. The analogy of raw talent followed by attitude makes sense, but I don’t remember Bryant ever choking Kevin Garnett over the middle rope with his knee.

Sabin puts him in the Tree of Woe and hits a hesitation dropkick. Now he throws in some chairs while telling West to shut his mouth. Here’s Styles to pull out the chairs and tick Sabin off. With Daniels still in the Tree of Woe, Sabin tries a baseball slide but Daniels pulls himself up in a situp. Sabin slides to the floor and Daniels comes off the top with a HUGE dive to take Sabin out.

STO puts Sabin down and he puts Sabin up on the top. A kind of sitout slam off the top gets two. Release Rock Bottom looks to set up the BME but Sabin kicks him in the head to break the momentum. A springboard DDT gets two for Sabin. I can’t say Chris because it might get a bit confusing so I’m sorry for constantly using the same two names. Roaring Elbow misses for Sabin and Daniels hits a running enziguri.

He tries a rana but gets caught in a sitout powerbomb for two. Sabin goes up for another DDT but jumps into a Death Valley Driver. BME hits but only gets two. Angel’s Wings is countered and Sabin hits a dragon screw leg whip. Cradle Shock is countered into a crucifix for two. Sabin loads up something that looks like the start of a Razor’s Edge but Daniels rolls out of it and hooks Sabin’s feet for the rollup pin.

Rating: A-. I don’t usually like Daniels matches but I was WAY into this one. The long running string of counters and both guys knowing each other so well was really working for me. Sabin could fly with the best of them and that’s what he did here. Styles coming out didn’t really need to happen but it only lasted about ten seconds so it wasn’t a huge deal. Really good match here and maybe the best Daniels match I’ve ever seen.

Jerry Lynn comes out post match to demand Sabin shake Daniels’ hand but it’s not happening. Ok yes it is….and there’s the Cradle Shock out of it instead.

We get a clip from Paparazzi Productions where Shelley and Starr say they can give Nash at least 90% out there tonight. Nash says if they follow him, they could have careers like those of Don Kernoodle, George South, Reno Riggins, Lazer Tron, Nelson Royal, George Scott, Porkchop Cash and Italian Stallion. Funny stuff but it probably went over the head of most of the audience.

Paparazzi Productions vs. Ron Killings/Lance Hoyt

No idea why this match is happening but it’s probably something like a squash match with some extra time. Nash is on commentary and talks about defending his X Title in Japan last night after messing up a 375 but winning anyway. Truth and Shelley start things off. They go to a test of strength with Shelley taking the hands down to the mat and stomping on Truth’s fingers.

Killings comes back with his gyrations so Shelley imitates Rick Rude right back at him. Off to Starr who dances some more. This needs to get going. Truth misses a charge and Aries (Starr) dances again. Truth hits the first big move in the four minutes this match has been running in the form of a powerslam. Off to Big Lance for some double teaming. Big boot gets two. One armed flapjack puts Austin down.

Hoyt loads up a moonsault but Shelley breaks it up and Lance is put in the Tree of Woe. With Truth trying to come in and distracting the referee, the Paparazzi hit a double neckbreaker while Hoyt is still upside down. Shelly holds the knees down so Starr can hit a slingshot hilo for two. They work on the knee for a bit and a slingshot corkscrew splash gets two.

Shelley comes in and does the jump into the boots spot (missing the feet almost entirely) and there’s the tag to Truth. The fans aren’t all that thrilled here. Truth causes heel miscommunication and hits his suplex into a Stunner spot for two on Shelley. Hoyt comes back in for a modified What’s Up (appropriate no?) and everything breaks down. Hoyt loads up a DVD but the Paparazzi take out the knee. Starr tries a suicide dive to Truth who is on the concrete. Shelley frog splashes the knee and calls for the camera. The delay lets Hoyt roll him up for the pin.

Rating: D+. The match wasn’t bad but there was too much dancing for my taste. I don’t know if this was supposed to be a comedy match that just wasn’t funny or what but it didn’t really work. It wasn’t all that bad, but again I don’t think the real idea of what they were going for with Nash and the X guys ever made much sense.

We recap Christian vs. AJ. Christian debuted a year ago at this show and has never been pinned or submitted despite losing the world title. The loss in King of the Mountain made him turn heel. AJ got tired of his whining so here’s a match between them.

Christian says he doesn’t make mistakes and talks about AJ jumping him during the preshow because AJ needs an advantage to have a chance. Christian faces his challengers like a man and JB rolls his eyes. Cage doesn’t like that but cuts himself off from yelling. AJ is #1 on Christian’s hit list and we hear about how awesome Christian has been lately.

Christian Cage vs. AJ Styles

I miss Christian’s ridiculous costumes. AJ is looking extra jacked here for some reason. The fans are split as you would expect. They lock up and roll around the ropes as they jockey for position. They fight over control on the mat now using technical stuff which is always fun to see. Since no one can really get an advantage there, AJ slaps him in the face. AJ does the drop down into the dropkick and Christian is getting frustrated.

Christian shoulder blocks him down and it’s a stalemate. The crowd is extra loud for this one. Now AJ runs him over with a shoulder of his own for two. The fans chant CLB and Christian takes over a bit, using an elbow and some chops. Full nelson attempt fails and the Unprettier gets the same result. AJ sets for the Clash but Christian bails to the floor. He goes for a chair but Slick Johnson stops him.

Back in AJ hits a flapjack for two as things speed up. Christian heads to the floor again to slow things down but AJ hits a huge dive to take him out. His legs hit the railing as well though with a sick sound. Back inside that gets two and Styles is wincing from the leg. Christian slides back outside again and gets kicked into the barricade, but as AJ tries a slingshot dive, Christian hooks his feet to send AJ crashing legs first into the apron and shift momentum.

Off to a chinlock with Christian’s knee in AJ’s back, followed by the reverse DDT into a backbreaker for two. I’m not sure why he’s working on the back instead of the knee. Back to the chinlock and Christian puts him on the mat. AJ does the always cool nipup into the rana for two. He misses a splash in the corner though and walks into a belly to back suplex for two. Back to the chinlock but AJ elbows up and hits the fireman’s carry flip onto the knee.

A Low Down misses and both guys are down. Now Christian goes up but AJ snaps off a rana to put both guys down again. They slap it out and AJ starts his comeback. Dropkick sets up a knee drop for two. The springboard into the DDT gets two and Styles goes up. He jumps over Christian but runs into a spear for two. Unprettier and Styles Clash are both countered but the Pele connects for two. AJ tries a springboard rana but gets caught in a powerbomb for a pair of twos. Christian throws in a chair but Daniels runs out to pull it out. It’s a tug of war and AJ tries a sunset flip, but Christian drops down onto him for the pin.

Rating: B. This was a pretty solid match and the ending played into the angle from earlier and also would further the angle that AJ was going into around this time. Christian basically got a clean win here as the chair had been dropped by the time the cover happened. As usual, at the end of the day just putting on a good wrestling match is the best thing you can do.

Daniels and AJ almost get into a fight but the X guys and Rhyno come out. Rhyno wants a mic and says that he and Christian used to be friends but started fighting, and it started just like this. He wants a handshake but AJ says if he needs a psychiatrist, he’ll call Dr. Phil.

AMW says they’re not worried about LAX and says that Gail Kim is a tough mamacita. LAX wants to burn a flag and AMW isn’t cool with that. Gail looks REALLY good in blue. Storm says a lot of racist things and their match is up next.

We recap the tag title match which is what I just explained.

Tag Titles: LAX vs. America’s Most Wanted

LAX has the titles. Konnan says TNA and Cornette can’t stop him from burning the flag tonight or there’s going to be a lawsuit. AMW jumps them and the brawl starts on the floor. I think the match has started but I’m not really sure. AMW double teams Homicide in the ring and throws him on top of Hernandez on the floor. Things settle down with Harris vs. Hernandez. Harris pounds him down but can’t hang with the power so it’s off to Homicide.

Hernandez comes back in very quickly and hooks a one arm chinlock. The champs tag very quickly as Homicide chops on Harris so Hernandez can choke him on the floor. Off to a Homicide chinlock which sounds like police jargon. Harris comes back with a spinebuster and both guys are down. Storm (looking really strange without the beard) starts a USA chant before he gets the hot tag.

Hernandez throws him over the top but Storm skins the cat and comes back with a headscissors. James has to fight both of them at once and Harris saves him from the Border Toss. Harris comes in and hits something like a hybrid between a Thesz Press and a shoulder block to take SuperMex down. Suplex gets two. Homicide runs in for a tornado DDT to take Harris down.

Storm comes in but I don’t think there was a tag. That brazen cheater. AMW loads up the Death Sentence but Hernandez makes the save. He goes up top and grabs Harris by the throat, throwing him over his head in a choking belly to belly superplex for two. Hernandez hits a powerbomb to set up a Homicide frog splash for two.

Gringo Killa is escaped and AMW hits something like a Hart Attack for two. Enziguri from Storm to Hernandez and Harris adds a top rope clothesline to take the big guy down. Death Sentence hits but Konnan has the referee. Homicide comes in with the blowtorch for the flag to the back of Storm’s head for the pin to retain the titles.

Rating: B-. This was much more of a brawl than a match and based on the story, that’s what it should have been. AMW wasn’t going to be around much longer but they were still a name, so having them put over the hot new team of LAX was probably the best thing they could have been used for. Fun stuff here.

Post match LAX goes to beat up Gail but Petey Williams comes out for the save as AMW gets back up. Jim Cornette comes out and says the titles are stripped. That would be overturned and the belts would be returned on Thursday. The title reign was considered one continuous run. Since this is Cornette, it takes a few minutes to get through that, including a big patriotism speech. The fans HATE this decision too. If they don’t give up the belts by Thursday, they’re fired.

Mitchell says he’s going to send Abyss into Sting’s mind to break his will.

We recap the world title match. Sting won the title from Jarrett last month and promised to bring honor to the title, because that’s what Sting does. Abyss is on a monster rampage through the company and it’s up to Sting to stop him. The Monster won the Fight for the Right tournament, which very well may have been the dumbest idea in TNA history. It’s better that you don’t know, but it involved a battle royal where you got in the ring, then got out of the ring, then had a regular match, triple threats and a singles match, including a title match in there somewhere I believe.

Mike says Sting has the decided experience advantage. How is that a decision? It’s fact.

NWA World Title: Sting vs. Abyss

Mitchell, Abyss’ manager, has stolen Sting’s bat to show how personal this is. Sting is actually in regular tights here instead of his usual garb. He jumps Abyss before the big match intros and hits him with the bat to send him to the outside. They go into the crowd and Sting sends him into the wall. All champion so far. Back to ringside and AS ALWAYS, Sting’s splash to an opponent laying on the railing misses.

Abyss hits him in the back with a chair and sets up a table next to the stage. Make that two tables and a pair of conveniently placed barbed wire boards. Sting fights back on the ramp and they brawl back to ringside. They haven’t been in the ring yet at all other than about 10 seconds. Now they get in and Abyss hooks a neck crank. Sting fights him off and hits a pair of Stinger Splashes before going for the knee.

Sting goes up and knocks a charging Abyss down, followed up by a top rope splash for two. Abyss gets up a big boot and Mitchell hands him the belt. Sting avoids the shot and here’s the Scorpion. Abyss makes the rope and Sting grabs the belt, only to walk into a Black Hole Slam for two. A chokeslam is broken up but the referee gets bumped. Abyss gets the bag of tacks but Sting gets the bat. A bat shot takes Abyss down and the Death Drop should get the pin but Mitchell pulls the referee to the floor.

Now Sting gets the bag of tacks and pours them out, but because this is a wrestling match he gets chokeslammed down onto them for two. Sting Hulks Up and drop toeholds Abyss face first into the tacks. He hooks the WORST Scorpion ever and Abyss taps but Mitchell has the referee. Mitchell goes into the Scorpion and the guys head to the floor. Sting hits Abyss with the chair and then wraps the repel cord (why is that there?) around Abyss’ leg. He pulls the cord up to hang Abyss upside down so he can beat him with a chair while Abyss is defenseless, including one to the face. I really don’t need to see Abyss’ underwear.

Sting lets him down and they go up the ramp towards the boards on the table. The referee yells at Sting and gets clotheslined….AND THAT’S A DQ. Not the HANGING OF ABYSS AND BEATING HIM WITH A CHAIR, not chokeslamming Sting onto tacks (still in his back), not the bat, but THAT? Oh and the title changes hands on a DQ in TNA, which I don’t think has been mentioned in years but that’s the rule. It never happened before or again that I remember, but it’s the rule.

Rating: D+. What a MESS. As I said, the ending was completely insane and while the title change makes sense, THAT’S WHY THEY DQ HIM??? Not for throwing Abyss through the tables like Sting did, but for hitting a referee? Also, great way to make the monster look like a monster here. I get what they were going for with Sting losing his vow of honor and all that, but man the execution didn’t work.

Abyss is unconscious but gets the belt anyway.

We recap the Angle vs. Joe feud, which is Angle coming in and wanting the best. He headbutted Joe and busted him open to establish this match. Angle was a guest referee at BFG because Jarrett had to be the world champion at the biggest show of the year. Joe jumped Angle at that show. Oh and this isn’t Angle’s first TNA match, as he faced Abyss on a special two hour show. The idea is that Joe is the best in TNA and undefeated. This could have been a long built match, but I can kind of see the idea here. I don’t agree with it, but I can see it.

Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe

The fans immediately chant this is awesome, which is kind of annoying. Feeling out process to start and Kurt goes straight for the ankle. Joe blocks the hold pretty easily and pounds him down onto the ropes. Kurt snaps off the belly to belly and clotheslines Joe to the outside. Joe grabs him in a powerbomb position, pulls him to the outside and swings him into the barricade.

Back in Angle misses a charge, hitting the post shoulder first. Out to the floor and Joe hits the suicide elbow before sending Angle into the steps. Pretty one sided so far. Kurt’s all nice and busted now. That’s a good thing too as he had a big annoying bandage on his head before that. Joe goes right for the cut and rips away at it. Powerslam gets two. Angle gets in some uppercuts but walks into a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker for two.

Kurt’s head is flowing very solid here. Joe loads up the MuscleBuster but Kurt comes back with a front facelock into a tornado DDT, getting two. They slug it out and Joe misses a charge, setting up the Rolling Germans. He tries to release the last one but drops him on his face instead. That gets two and Kurt is all fired up. Joe armdrags his way out of the Slam and hits the MuscleBuster for two.

Angle rolls out of the Clutch and hits the Slam for a very quick two. There go the straps and he hooks the ankle lock. Joe rolls through but can’t break the hold. He pulls Angle down into the Clutch and Kurt is in trouble, but he manages to grab the foot and hook the ankle lock again. The fans are WAY into this. Joe rolls out to send Kurt into the middle rope, but he walks into another Olympic Slam. Kurt puts the straps back up so he can take them back down. Oh MAN he’s serious here. Angle hooks the ankle lock with the grapevine and Joe has to tap.

Rating: B. That’s it? Don’t get me wrong the match was good but this was only about thirteen and a half minutes. Why in the world would you make this match run that short? There are over six minutes left in the show and they cut it that short? It couldn’t be Kurt’s cardio as he was a full time guy less than six months earlier. Good match, but WAY too short.

Joe grabs a mic and says Angle was the better man today. He says if Angle is half the man he thinks he is, Kurt will give him a rematch. Joe sticks out his hand but Angle walks away. Joe says we’ll have to do this the hard way.

West and Tenay talk for a few minutes to end the show.

Overall Rating: B. For a traditional B-level show, this was a really good show. There’s some weak stuff in there but the majority of the big matches worked (odd DQ decisions aside). It wasn’t the home run main event they were hoping for but it was good enough and set up two rematches. This is definitely one of their better shows and is probably worth checking out. Good show.

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Turning Point 2006
Date: December 10, 2006
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 900
Commentators: Don West, Mike Tenay

Wrestlemania is over so it’s time to go back to TNA land. This is the final PPV of 2006 but as usual I’ll be going backwards for the next few shows. The main event here is Angle vs. Joe II after they hotshotted the first match in their series, which we’ll get to next time. The other main event is Abyss defending the world title against Sting and Christian, which I think is the same match that happened next month at Final Resolution. Let’s get to it.

The opening video….is a puppet show? I think it’s supposed to be Christmas themed but it’s really weird and turns into a highlight reel of the feuds. It’s 2006 so TNA didn’t have this down yet. Now there’s a fire extinguisher putting the video out. Ok then.

Senshi vs. Alex Shelley vs. Sonjay Dutt vs. Austin Starr vs. Jay Lethal

This is the opening match of the Paparazzi Championship Series which is something that I don’t think anyone really got the definitive idea behind. This is an elimination match and Nash, the guy who started the whole thing, is on commentary. Starr is Aries with longer hair. Nash talks about bringing Jerry Lynn into the X-Division back in Mexico City in 61. Only two in the ring at a time and Lethal starts vs. Shelley.

Shelley crawls on his knees as Tenay explains the PCS as best as he can. Shelley goes into the ropes and gets the rope kicked into him. He tries to show the wound to Starr who isn’t that interested. The winner of this gets 5 Series points, the runner up gets 4 and so on down the line. Shelley takes him to the mat and tags in Starr who gets dropkicked. Lethal tags in Dutt who elbows him down for two.

Alex comes in again and takes over for a bit, only to get punched down by Lethal. Dutt and Lethal are a semi-regular tag team so the chemistry makes sense. Nash accuses Dutt of being on steroids in a funny bit. Dutt walks the ropes but Starr crotches him from the apron. Nash: “What do you think feels worse: that or a paper cut?” Senshi comes in and is SERIOUS. He’s the wild card in this as he’s not affiliated with either “team”.

Dutt sends him to the floor and sets for a dive but Starr takes his head off with a clothesline. Starr sets for a dive to the floor but Shelley tags himself in and they yell at each other. Lethal dives on Senshi as they argue and the heel team decides on stereo suicide dives, but Shelley stops so Starr can dive alone. Back in Dutt DDTs Shelley for two. Nash talks about winning silver in the 68 Olympics in two man synchronized swimming as Dutt DDTs Shelley and puts him in the camel clutch for the submission.

Down to four now and Jay comes in to fight his partner. Dutt runs to the ropes and Senshi tags himself in. Lethal doesn’t see it so Senshi can kick his head off for the pin to get rid of Lethal. Off to Starr with the Pendulum Elbow. Jumping elbow gets two. Senshi comes in and fires off a bunch of kicks for two on Dutt. It’s basically a handicap match at this point. Dutt avoids a charge in the corner and hits a missile dropkick for two on Starr.

He takes Senshi down as well and a Lionsault gets two on Starr. There’s the camel clutch to Starr but Senshi makes the save. Brainbuster is countered and Dutt gets some two counts, but the second brainbuster attempt works, setting up the 450 to pin Dutt. Down to two now and they slug it out. Senshi hits a springboard enziguri for two. Starr escapes a move called the Crusher and loads up the 450 but Shelley comes out for a distraction. Senshi rolls up Starr for the pin.

Rating: C+. Not bad here as all five guys were pretty good. There’s nothing great in the whole thing but it was entertaining enough. The PCS thing went on for awhile and got funny after awhile, but I don’t think it ever really accomplished anything. I guess it was a BCS parody, but it went on WAY too long.

Eric Young is worried about his bikini contest with Tracy. JB tells Eric to man up.

We recap the Roode vs. Young feud. Roode wants the fans to love him so he wants to sign Young to work for him.

Time for the bikini contest. Brooks looks good, Eric wears a t-shirt with a bikini on it. Roode protests so Eric takes the shirt off to reveal Spongebob boxer briefs. Those don’t count so he takes those off to reveal a Spongebob Speedo. WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS??? Young wins and Roode jumps him. Roode yells at Brooks, telling her to do whatever it takes to sign Young or she’ll be the one that gets fired.

We go to the back where the interviewer is going to talk to “Michael Hickenbottom and Paul Levesque”, known as Dumb to the Extreme. Big Fat Oily Guy comes up to visit them. I HATE this stuff. It’s not funny, it’s not original, and NO ONE BUYS IT. But that didn’t stop TNA from doing this for MONTHS.

Quick recap of the X-Title match. It’s Sabin vs. Daniels with Lynn as referee. Lynn mentored Sabin and now is worried about what he’s created.

X-Division Title: Chris Sabin vs. Christopher Daniels

This is the second match and we’re 40 minutes into this show. But hey, we got SPONGEBOB! Jerry Lynn is guest referee and was disrespected by Sabin lately. Feeling out process to start and Sabin controls with a headlock. There’s no hair to grab to cheat so he grabs the ear. Daniels speeds things up and takes him to the mat with an armbar. He rams Sabin’s face into the mat a few times for good measure.

Suplex sets up a slingshot moonsault for two. Sabin counters with an amateur based stomp to the foot and a drop toehold to put Daniels in 619 position. A springboard missile dropkick puts Daniels on the floor as the challenger is in control. They go to the ramp with Daniels having his back worked over. Back in the ring Daniels is sat down in the ring and Sabin hits a running single boot to the back of the head. Cool move. It was like a one footed dropkick.

Off to a neck crank which Daniels breaks pretty quickly and hooks a backslide for two. The fans chant for the Fallen Angel but Sabin chokes him between the ropes. Legdrop to the back of the neck gets two. We get a dueling chant which is about 95/5 in favor of Daniels. STO gets the champ a break and he pounds away. Tilt-a-whirl backbreaker gets two. Out to the floor again and Sabin goes back first into the barricade.

Something like a baseball slide puts Sabin down and Daniels drops an elbow from the top to the floor for two. Back in Sabin dropkicks him down and hits a pretty sweet springboard tornado DDT for two. Daniels comes back with a Blue Thunder Bomb for two. A Death Valley Driver gets two. Downward Spiral sets up a Koji Clutch but Sabin gets a rope. Release Rock Bottom sets up the BME and it’s over.

Rating: B-. I was getting into this more during the end, but Daniels dominated him at the end and took some of the drama out of it. Good match though and Sabin was always good for a watch in his solo stuff. Daniels against someone other than AJ is ALWAYS an upgrade and the fans were into him a lot here.

Lynn demands that Sabin shake Daniels’ hand but when Sabin won’t do it, Daniels gets in Lynn’s face and earns himself a slap for some reason. This feud went on for a good while.

We run down the rest of the card almost an hour into a show.

Here’s Cornette for an announcement of some sort. He brings out some baseball players, one of whom has a book. One of the EVIL players rips some pages out of it, until Lance Hoyt makes the save. This drew a loud WE WANT WRESTLING chant.

We recap AJ vs. Rhyno, which was the start of AJ’s heel turn and subsequent dive into being a clueless schmuck. Rhyno had said he was trying to help him and AJ didn’t like it.

Rhyno says he sees selfishness in AJ, which he used to see in himself. AJ jumps him during the promo and we lose the camera so we go to a shot of the crowd. Ok now they’re brawling outside. Their match is next but this is just pre-match brawling. They head into the arena with Rhyno throwing him into a wall as they brawl in the crowd. AJ comes back and pounds away but Rhyno punches him down the steps. This is what we call padding because there are only six matches plus the bikini deal, so they don’t have enough wrestling to fill in a three hour show. AJ tries a charge but gets backdropped to ringside. Hey a bell.

AJ Styles vs. Rhyno

AJ pounds on him and whips him into the corner so hard he rolls forward. Off to a surfboard hold and AJ does his drop down into a dropkick sequence. Styles knocks Rhyno to the floor but won’t dive on him because the fans would like it too much. Instead he slides to the floor and tries a springboard off the barricade, only to jump into a belly to belly onto the concrete. Back in a spinebuster kills AJ for two.

They slug it out and we finally hear about how this is about AJ growing up poor and wanting to shake that mantle off himself, which Rhyno can relate to but AJ didn’t want his help. Rhyno throws him to the floor and AJ hurts his knee. The match stops now as the medics take a look at AJ. He says he can finish but the knee buckles. The referee goes to make the match stoppage announcement…and Styles rolls in rolls Rhyno up for the pin.

Rating: C+. This was going really well until the stoppage in the middle of it for the knee injury. The fans thought it was awesome and while I’m not sure I agree with that, it was certainly a good match but the run time (seven and a half minutes, with two or so being spent on the injury) hurts it a lot. Still pretty fun though.

AJ dances on the ramp.

More stupid DX nonsense with “Vince” here. This actually makes my eyes roll.

Rhyno and AJ brawl even more. This filler stuff is REALLY getting annoying.

We recap the flag match, which is American’s Most Wanted vs. AMW for national supremacy I think. LAX points out that they’re American citizens with the right to burn a flag, which AMW doesn’t care for.

LAX says they’ll win and get to hang their flag and have the Mexican national anthem played.

LAX vs. American’s Most Wanted

LAX has the tag titles but this is FOR HONOR. You win by hanging your country’s flag, even though both teams come in with the other’s flag. But EVEN THAT is overly complicated because the flags are already hanging in the corners. I think you have to steal the others’ flag and replace the one in your corner with that one. Brawl to start but Gail Kim, AMW’s chick, hits a GREAT moonsault to the floor to take out LAX. Storm goes for the American flag, which I guess is how you win.

James gets put in the Tree of Woe but Homicide can’t drive a chair into his face. Harris won’t free him though as he needs to dive on Hernandez. Yeah apparently you have to steal your own flag (as in the one that represents your country, not the own flag you brought with you, so it’s your flag but not YOUR flag) and put it in the corner that’s designated yours’. There’s a ladder involved for some reason, despite the fact that you could stand on the top rope and get the flag.

LAX is dominating as Homicide hits Three Amigos for a big reaction. Gail offers a distraction and Harris superplexes Homicide down. Hernandez pulls down the Mexican flag and now we’re told that you have to hang the flag above the ring like it’s in a ladder match. Could this be any more overly complicated? Well yeah actually it could but it’s pretty annoying. Gringo Killa is loaded up but Gail comes in and ranas Homicide. You know the good guys are pretty big cheaters in this match.

Now Gail, the Canadian-Korean, takes the American Flag but gets stopped by the Cuban most famous for his success in America as a Mexican import. Now Petey freaking Williams, who is in the middle of this somehow, comes in to try a Destroyer on Konnan but Hernandez makes the save. SuperMex dives onto Storm but mostly misses. Harris and Homicide go up and start to hang the flag but Storm comes up with a beer bottle. He breaks it over the head of Homicide but the glass gets in Homicide’s eyes, allowing Hernandez to come in and hang the flag to win.

Rating: D+. The match was ok, but SWEET GOODNESS did they overly complicate things here. There were three run-ins and they didn’t bother to explain what in the world Petey had to do with this. This match was just ok but the overbooking really hurt things. If they’re this short on time, why in the world are they leaving these matches at like ten minutes?

Gail yells at Storm post match. Konnan brags about winning and says this is about having class. The Mexican national anthem is played and we just kind of sit here and listen to it. That’s all it is for about two minutes. LAX stands there saluting while the Mexican national anthem plays. Like I said, there’s filler and then there’s this show. This is ridiculous.

Video on Samoa Joe.

Storm rants about Chris Harris quitting instead of really being hurt. This would be their split. Storm wants an apology by Thursday.

Here’s the Voodoo Kin Mafia to waste even more time. The announcers say this is for, and I quote, “The next really bad skit in their series.” They’re dressed like “Shawn and HHH”. After doing the DX intro, they bring out “cheerleaders”, with Tenay and Mike saying spirit more time than should be legally allowed. They bring out Fat Oily Guy for a dance and that’s it. Oh wait, no it’s not because Road Dogg wants to talk.

He says that sometimes people have issues differentiating between parody and reality TV. “Surprise surprise, we’re not Hickenbottom and Levesque.” Yes they’re actually saying this. They claim that Vince is mad about the parodies they’ve been doing which I don’t buy for a second, but this is TNA so who cares? They claim this is like when they went to WCW in Atlanta and then going to a house show.

This is REAL remember. The fans chant SCREW YOU VINCE and this is freaking stupid. Now they’re talking about Vince’s balls and issue a million dollar challenge: they offer Vince a million dollars to have a fight (“no angles, no spots, no finish”) with Vince’s two guys, meaning Shawn and HHH. If Vince doesn’t accept, he’s gutless. They’re FINALLY done after spending ten minutes on this nonsense.

This was one of the DUMBEST segments I’ve seen in years. TNA is so obsessed with catching WWE and making them look stupid that they have no idea how bad it makes them look. Yes, Shawn and HHH were reunited as DX at this point and had a pretty goofy feud with Vince and Shane over the summer. And you know what? IT DREW RATINGS AND MONEY. Road Dogg and Billy Gunn are standing in a ring complaining about them stomping on DX’s legacy, as if ANYONE has cared about the New Age Outlaws in the past 6 years prior to this show. There’s a reason you’re in some minor league people.

Second, they would wind up claiming victory when no one showed up for their challenge (the same night as a WWE PPV). Do they honestly think ANYONE cares about this nonsense? Did TNA really believe they were going to get fans, as in the smarks they cater to, to believe that Shawn Michaels and HHH or Vince McMahon were going to appear on a show that at this point was pure minor league level stuff? Is that what I’m watching a PPV to see? A “shoot challenge” from a couple of washed up has-beens?

Third, why in the world are we wasting PPV time on it? This show is already WAY short on wrestling, with tons of brawls and segments already because this company can’t manage to put on seven matches. There are six matches on this card, one of which goes past fifteen minutes. Based on what I can find, this show has about SEVENTY FIVE MINUTES of wrestling on it, with the whole broadcast running about 170 minutes.

That translates out to about 44% of the show being used on wrestling. Think about that. We’re getting an hour and fifteen minutes of wrestling, but we have time for a bikini contest, two brawls, this nonsense, and who knows what else. This is a great example of why no one took this company seriously for years and why a lot of people still don’t.

We recap the world title match. Sting wants Abyss to be his own man and calls him Chris, Mitchell says Abyss is an animal, Christian is involved because you can’t have a title match without there being three people in it more than two straight months.

Christian says he’ll get the title back while Sting and Abyss are having their soap opera. Tomko knows what Abyss’ secret is too.

NWA World Title: Christian Cage vs. Sting vs. Abyss

Abyss beat Sting for the title last month by DQ, in I think the only time that rule (which to be fair was established as a regular rule but has since been taken away) ever came into play. Tomko and Abyss stare it down before the match but nothing comes of it. Sting fights them both to start and sends Abyss out to the floor. Christian gets thrown out there too so Sting dives onto both of them. The guy will do some big spots when asked to.

Tomko throws Sting into the steps and Christian takes over for a bit. He goes back inside and runs into the champion who throws him around like a monster is supposed to. A corner splash puts Christian down and Sting is back in. Total control for Abyss at the moment as he stomps on Sting. Christian ducks a charge though and hits a tornado DDT for two. The Canadian goes after the knee of Abyss and knocks Sting to the floor.

Abyss tries a gorilla press but Christian escapes and gets to the corner. That doesn’t work that well as Abyss tries to load up a superplex but Sting comes in to make it a Tower of Doom. Stinger Splash to Abyss and Sting shrugs off some Christian chops. Stinger Splash to both guys in the same corner but Christian goes to the eyes to break up the Scorpion. Rollup gets two for Sting on Abyss. Abyss gets knocked to the floor and Tomko kicks him in the face. Unprettier is countered and Sting hooks the Scorpion. Sting, ever the idiot, goes after Mitchel and lets the hold go. That guy never learns.

Tomko throws in the belt but Sting avoids the shot and slingshots Christian into Abyss to keep the champion on the floor. Death Drop gets two as Tomko pulls the referee out. Tomko comes in to stomp Sting but Abyss jumps him. A clothesline puts Tomko on the floor and Abyss throws Christian over the top to the outside. Here comes a chokeslam to Sting but Mitchell wants to throw in tacks.

The fans chant for Chris (Abyss, not Christian) and he doesn’t want to use the tacks. He pours the tacks out but tries to chokeslam Christian instead, only to have Tomko kick his head off. Abyss gets kicked into the tacks and Sting tries to talk to him. Since this isn’t overbooked enough, Christian brings in a chair to pop Sting and a Black Hole Slam lets Abyss retain. They were trying to pull the referee out again there.

Rating: D+. This is where TNA loses me again. It’s a Russo problem more than anything else: there’s a decent match in there somewhere, but you can’t find it because of all the other stuff. We had in a 12 minute match, tacks, a chair, a ref bump, an attempted ref bump, a psychological therapy session, Tomko interfering, Mitchell interfering, and maiming. Why can’t it be three guys fighting for a title? Why is that such a bad thing? TNA comes off like it has a severe inferiority complex so it throws all this other stuff out there because it’s ashamed of what their regular product looks like. This was a good example of that.

Angle says this is the last match he’ll have with Joe. After tonight everyone will know he’s the best.

Angle talks about wrestling a guy from Iran and losing because he never thought he’d see him again. They did have a rematch though, in the gold medal match. Joe deserves a rematch. No one has ever hurt Angle like Joe did and Joe wants to hurt him again. The back and forth verbal servicing goes on for a few minutes, because Heaven forbid two people in TNA don’t like each other or don’t spend five minutes praising the other first.

Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle

The fans chant you tapped out at Joe, because they turn on their favorites at the drop of a hat. Now they say Joe’s Gonna Kill You. Now they’re split. This crowd needs therapy. They go to the corner quickly and then Angle takes him down with a wristlock. Kurt tries a half crab which goes nowhere. Joe comes back with a short arm clothesline and chops in the corner, followed by punches and kicks.

Angle starts to come back but gets backdropped over the top to the floor. Joe follows him to the outside and they slug it out, only to have Angle take over and hit a dive to the floor. Joe gets his head rammed into the steps a few times HARD. Angle goes inside but Joe is like screw that and comes back, only to get stomped down again. They go to the mat and Joe grabs a keylock.

Angle counters that and sends Joe into the steel cable in the corner to take over. Belly to belly stops a brief Joe comeback. Off to a body vice and Angle is in control. That doesn’t last long as Joe comes back with right hands and a release German suplex to put both guys down. Angle counters the Clutch and it’s Rolling German times. There’s the ankle lock but Joe rolls through. Angle rolls through the MuscleBuster into an ankle lock and Joe is in trouble.

Joe rolls out of it again but Angle immediately comes back with the Slam for two. Ankle lock goes on but Joe rolls around well enough that he pulls Angle into the Clutch. Angle counters THAT into the ankle lock. Joe does the same counter he did before into the Clutch again and Kurt is in trouble. THAT gets countered into the ankle lock with the grapevine.

Joe makes the rope which puts him in a short list of people that have escaped the grapevine. Angle changes up to going for a pin, in this case off a belly to belly superplex. Joe counters the Slam and down goes the referee. Joe hooks the Clutch again and Angle taps but there’s no referee. He goes to get the referee and Angle kicks him low. Angle goes to the floor and gets a chair but it hits the rope and bounces into Angle’s face. Joe pulls him into the Clutch and Angle taps for the win.

Rating: B+. Was there any need for the chair ending? Really? Either way it doesn’t mean much but Angle tapped like he should have so it doesn’t matter. This was a good match though and they had the crowd going really strongly by the end. The problem here though is that this is the second match and it happened at Turning Point after the first one at Genesis. It falls a little lower based on that. Still very good though and a great main event.

We take a long look at the match we just saw.

Overall Rating: D. The main event really is good and is worth checking out, but that’s really all that saves this show from being really bad. The problem here is that there are so many things standing in the way of it being a passable show. Stuff like the Voodoo Kin Mafia stuff and the TON of stalling and six matches on the whole card really makes this show look bad. More importantly than that though, it makes the company look like they have no idea what they’re doing and it makes them look like they’re incapable of filling up a three hour show. That’s a really bad sign, but at least they would improve…eventually.

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Victory Road 2012
Date: March 17, 2012
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz

Welcome to the latest TNA filler PPV, Victory Road. That’s what’s plagued this show’s build: nothing on it is going to mean anything after tonight. It’s just a stop on the way to Lockdown, which has a few benefits actually. First of all, there aren’t any expectations for this show because none of it really matters. Second, sometimes it’s ok to not have a major main event every time as it makes the bigger main events seem more important. This has some potential to be good so let’s get to it.

We open with clips from last week’s Impact of Roode telling Sting that the business has passed him by and then Sting snapping.

Tenay and Taz talk about the show a bit and tell everyone to talk to them on Twitter. How about they just call the show instead?

Here’s Ray to open the show. He had said online that he was going to hold the show hostage. The idiot fans start a We Want D-Von chant. Ray says he’s trending worldwide because he’s taking this show over. The show isn’t continuing unless his match with Storm is a #1 contender match. Send referees, send security, send the police, he doesn’t care. Instead here’s Storm to say Ray has chicken legs. Storm says the #1 contendership is up for grabs RIGHT NOW.

James Storm vs. Bully Ray

So what was the point in having Ray come out there and talk for five minutes? The fans chant chicken legs and Ray beats Storm down into the corner. He goes for the beer, has a drink and walks into the Last Call for the pin at 1:08. Storm had legit ankle surgery this week which I’d bet is why the match wasn’t even a match. Storm only hit one move the entire time.

Aries answers Twitter questions. A fan wants to know when he’ll get to main event a show. Eric Bischoff comes in and tells JB to leave. JB: “Do you have any authority around here anymore?” Eric: “I can take you out so get out of here.” Is this tied into those comments Bischoff made on Twitter this week? Nothing of note is said here other than Aries is the main event no matter when he’s on the show.

Austin Aries vs. Zema Ion

Aries is the longest reigning champion in history and Ion won a match by DQ on Impact recently. James Storm is trending worldwide on Twitter. Geez you can’t escape it in any wrestling company anymore. The fans seem split so they start with a gymnastics routine resulting in Aries stealing the hairspray and laying on the top rope ala Shawn. Brainbuster is escaped and Ion is knocked to the floor off the top.

The suicide dive takes Ion down so Aries grabs a phone and tweets. Oh give me a break. Dropkick to the back gets two for the champ. Ion gets knocked to the apron and manages to guillotine Aries and take over. Tazz reads the tweet from Aries because that’s what you watch wrestling for: Twitter updates. Ion hits a corkscrew crossbody off the middle rope for two.

Zema pounds on him for awhile and tries Aries’ pendulum elbow with no success. Aries comes back with an atomic drop and pounds him into the corner. Ion loads the hairspray into his tights but is knocked down by a spinning forearm smash. Aries hits a knee crusher into a belly to belly followed by the pendulum elbow for two.

Ion gets knocked into the corner and does the old switch move of grabbing the title but as the referee takes it out, he pulls out the hairspray which goes into Aries’ eyes for two. Ion tries a superplex but Aries counters into a sunset bomb to put both guys down. Aries is still mostly blind. Not that it matters as he hits the brainbuster and rolls into the Last Chancery for the tap out at 11:04.

Rating: B-. Aries is a de facto face now due to pure crowd support but it’s going to be interesting to see what they do with him. He’s outgrown the X Division which is why the weight limit addition has been a bad thing for it. He’s going to have to move up soon though because there’s no point to him fighting these low level X guys anymore.

Tazz reads another tweet.

The Motorcity Machineguns are coming back soon.

We recap the tag title feud. The idea here is that Morgan and Crimson are champions but they started arguing over who should get the win and it resulted in them losing the titles. They won the right to a rematch here tonight and they’ve promised to put their differences aside.

Tag Titles: Samoa Joe/Magnus vs. Crimson/Matt Morgan

After TNA’s Powerpoint about the match we’re ready to go. Joe’s has a mowhawk now. Morgan and Crimson almost get into a fight over who should start. TWITTER UPDATE: Austin Aries is trending. Crimson and Magnus start and Magnus takes him down with a clothesline. Off to Joe to a big pop and he pounds Crimson down before quickly tagging Magnus back in.

Crimson goes to the corner but won’t tag. Instead he goes to the floor to get a breath and comes back in with a snapmare and clothesline. Off to a chinlock with Magnus in trouble. The idea here is that Crimson wants to do everything himself because he doesn’t need Morgan’s help. The fans chant that they want Morgan. Keep in mind that they wanted D-Von earlier so how much can they be trusted?

Spinebuster plants Magnus for two. Crimson hooks his cravate but Magnus fights out of it. He beats Crimson down well enough to make the tag but Crimson still won’t tag out. Joe snaps off punches so Crimson goes up and dives at Joe, who does the always cool step aside. Joe sends him to the corner and Morgan shoves Crimson out of the way and tags himself in. Morgan cleans house but Crimson tags himself back in after about thirty seconds.

Morgan tags himself back in and Crimson walks out. The champs destroy Morgan with double team combos (including a big boot that missed by about 9 inches to the left). Crimson says he’s the winner of this team so Morgan tries to fight alone. He manages to take the champs down but Crimson spears Morgan, allowing the champions to hit their finisher, resulting in the pin by Magnus at 10:12.

Rating: C. The match was a backdrop for an angle more than anything else which is ok. Crimson turning heel was something they almost had to do because his run could only go so long without focusing more on the winning streak. There isn’t much to say about the match but it wasn’t bad or anything.

During the replays we hear more Tweets.

JB apologizes for the Bischoff incident from earlier and asks Roode a question from Twitter about his main events at tonight’s show and then Lockdown. Sting’s career ends tonight and then at Lockdown….we’re not sure what’s going to happen because Storm pops up. He doesn’t want a match. He wants a fight and he wants it right now.

Taz and Tenay debate hashtags. Seriously, that’s what we’ve gotten to tonight.

TV Title: Robbie E vs. ???

This is another open challenge because we don’t have time to get the TV Title on TV since Garrett Bischoff needs to get his five minutes every week. Robbie says that there’s no open challenge tonight because everyone is afraid of him. The fans want RVD. Oh apparently the invitational is going to happen tonight but now fans can take him up on it. They go around the ring and Robbie makes fun of fans, including three overweight women. He asks Val, but says they’ll be “wrestling” later. Big Rob says she’s not on the list. This goes on forever. The open challenge is officially canceled so they’re going to pose instead. We have a challenger.

TV Title: Robbie E vs. D-Von

Yes, this is what’s on PPV. He comes through the crowd for some reason. Robbie backs off so Brian Hebner says we’re doing this. D-Von is in street clothes. There’s another Tweet. One man flapjack puts Robbie down and a clothesline puts him on the floor. Matt Morgan is trending. Robbie tries to get a chair but BROOKE HOGAN stops him. I kid you not, she’s in the front row and grabbed the chair from him. Back in and D-Von runs him over with clotheslines and shoulder blocks. A splash in the corner sets up a clothesline for two. A spinebuster gives D-Von the title at 3:02. Just retire the title. Now.

Rating: F. D-Von Dudley is a singles champion. Never mind that it’s 2012. D-Von freaking Dudley is a singles champion. That doesn’t need any more explanation. Oh and Brooke Hogan was involved in this. They did fire Russo didn’t they? I mean….D-VON JUST WON A TITLE. With the roster they have, they pick him? Who thinks that’s a good idea?

Dixie says Slammiversary is going to be in Dallas/Fort Worth. She’ll be ringside for the main event tonight.

We recap Gail vs. Madison. They were friends, then they started fighting, then Madison snuck into a battle royal to become #1 contender, then they lost the tag titles and here’s the match.

Knockouts Title: Madison Rayne vs. Gail Kim

Madison’s looking good as always. D-Von is the #1 trend worldwide. It’s true: 2012 is the apocalypse. Very slow match to start with Madison in control. She chokes in the corner as Taz reads tweets. Gail takes the knee out but Madison pops up so they can slug it out. Gail hits a middle rope cross body and a missile dropkick for two each. This is going nowhere. Gail tries to use the tights but gets two. Taz misreads a Twitter handle and Tenay cracks up. It wasn’t funny but then again Twitter handles shouldn’t be read here. Eat Defeat is avoided but the second attempt works at 7:07. I can’t believe I had that little to say in seven minutes.

Rating: D. This was nothing. Madison looked good but that’s about it. This show has been pretty awful so far as the constant Twitter references are really taking me out of the show. This is worse than even WWE with that stuff. The match had no heat at all, probably because everyone was in shock at the previous match.

It’s 9:22 and we have three matches left.

JB is with Daniels and Kaz and asks something he heard about on Twitter recently: why has his attitude changed? Before he can answer, Daniels says he runs the show here. In a nice bit of continuity, Daniels has tape under his eye from the cut Anderson gave him “last week”.

We recap AJ/Anderson vs. Daniels/Kaz. In chapter 19874 of Daniels vs. AJ, Kaz has apparently been coerced or brainwashed into going against AJ. Daniels thinks maybe the problem is with AJ instead of everyone else. Styles says he’s not going to associate with friends anymore, so he brought in Anderson to help him.

Christopher Daniels/Kazarian vs. Mr. Anderson/AJ Styles

As is the custom, we update Twitter before we get the match going. Anderson and Kaz start Anderson throws him around the ring and it’s off to AJ quickly. Daniels comes in to meet him and they fight over a headlock. They run each other over and AJ hooks an armdrag to grab an armbar. Dixie Carter is in the front row with the host of some Spike show called Repo Games. He’ll be at Impact also. Ten points if they bring in Barry Darsow for a showdown.

Anderson and AJ pinball Daniels back and forth with right hands. Everything breaks down and Kaz and Daniels are thrown into each other. Anderson drops elbows on Daniels and it’s AJ vs. Daniels once things calm down. AJ hits a spinning delayed vertical suplex for two. Back to Anderson but Daniels gets in a knee so he can tag. Kaz gets thrown down quickly and Styles comes back in. The tags are very fast.

An elbow puts AJ onto the floor and Daniels takes over. Daniels hooks an abdominal stretch and AJ is in trouble. A boot to the face keeps him down, so LET’S READ TWEETS! This is ridiculous. The show is already bad but this is making it unbearable. Daniels stays on the ribs but when he and Kaz try to double team, AJ manages to clothesline Daniels and Pele Kaz to put them both down. Hot tag to Anderson who cleans house. Mic Check to Kaz is broken up and Daniels hits an STO to take him down. Springboard clothesline takes Kaz down and everything breaks down.

In a SWEET counter, AJ tries the moonsault into the DDT but Daniels drops to his back and puts his feet in the air so that AJ slams his face into them. Daniels and Anderson go to the floor after AJ makes a blind tag. AJ tries a springboard sunset flip but Kaz counters into the Fade to Black, but AJ rolls through into the Styles Clash for the pin at 13:58.

Rating: C+. The decent match made the show better, but this show has really taken its toll on me. AJ vs. Daniels is a feud that I’m tired of. They’ve feuded literally for years on and off and AJ always comes out on top, which makes things pretty boring at the end of the day. Pretty good match though.

Angle is in the back and says hi to his son. Usually he doesn’t let him watch violence, but Angle wants his son Cody to see his son hero get destroyed. He talks about the things he’s going to do to Jeff with a sick happiness in his voice. Tonight, Jeff gets an Extreme Makeover. See, this was what you call a promo. No Twitter questions were needed, and it actually got me thinking about the match. Why is that the first one of these tonight?

We recap Angle vs. Hardy. Angle cost him the world title because his son likes Jeff Hardy too much so he’s going to beat Hardy up for it.

Jeff Hardy vs. Kurt Angle

Hardy goes around the ring to shake hands and hug fans, including hugging Brooke. The fans are somewhat split but Hardy is getting louder chants. Their match a year and a half ago at No Surrender was awesome so maybe this can be good too. Feeling out process to start and Kurt bails to the floor. With that, this is officially longer than Jeff’s Victory Road match last year. Back inside and Jeff runs him out again. They have a lot of time left in the show so they’re probably stalling a bit.

Back in and Kurt takes it to the mat with a chinlock. Jeff counters so Kurt elbows him in the face. Kurt takes a knee to the gut and seemed to land awkwardly. He seems ok though. Hardy comes out of the corner with a headscissors to send Kurt to the outside. Hardy controls out there but back inside Kurt pounds him down in the corner. Twitter stuff. Hardy comes back with the legdrop between the legs and a dropkick for two.

Out to the floor again and Hardy rams Kurt’s head into a chair. Kurt tries to ram him into the steps but Hardy reverses and it’s Kurt that crashes. Jeff sets up the steps for Poetry in Motion but crashes into the barricade. And they wonder why he’s addicted to painkillers. Jeff’s tailbone hit the barricade and Kurt goes after him. He gets two inside and hits a suplex for two. Off to a rear chinlock.

Jeff fights up but walks into a belly to belly to put him right back down. Hardy gets his feet up in the corner and a clothesline to put Kurt down. They get back up and Jeff throws punches to set up the Whisper in the Wind for two. Twist of Fate is countered into Rolling Germans, four in this case. Angle Slam is countered into the Twisting Stunner but Angle runs the corner to counter the Swanton with the belly to belly.

Kurt hooks the ankle lock but Jeff kicks off after a few seconds. Angle misses a charge and hits the post and a Twist of Fate gets two. Angle rolls to the outside and Hardy rams his head into the steps a few times. There goes the shirt and he loads up the Swanton but Kurt gets the knees up. Angle Slam gets two. Kurt has a cut over his left eye. He chokes Jeff with one of the sleeves that Hardy wears but another Slam is countered into Twist #3. Both guys are down. Back up and the mule kick puts Kurt down. Swanton hits but Jeff covers sloppily, allowing Kurt to roll him up and grab the rope for the pin (Jeff’s shoulder was up) at 19:45.

Rating: B. I’ve said this a lot of times but it’s still true: a lot of the time, the solution to your problems is to have a good wrestling match. This started slow but they got into Kurt’s formula which is guaranteed to be at least good. The ending sets up a rematch, likely as captains of the Lethal Lockdown teams next month. Match of the night by far.

We recap the show to fill in more time.

Roode vs. Sting is now falls count anywhere, no DQ.

Jeremy gives us a long Twitter update and asks Sting a question. He says he’s tired of Facebooking and Tweeting so it’s time to wrestle.

We recap the main event, which is Sting tormenting Roode, which Roode says is because Sting is jealous of Roode.

Sting vs. Bobby Roode

Non-title and no holds barred. After some big match intros we’re ready to go. This is just no holds barred, despite them saying falls count anywhere earlier. Do those go together now? Sting starts off fast and beats the champion down pretty easily. He hits a lot of clotheslines and knocks Roode to the floor. They fight up the ramp (which means Sting beats the tar out of him) and then back to ringside to send Roode into the steps.

The fans chant “over here” so Sting beats him up wherever chants the loudest. Roode manages to send him into the post but Sting counters a chair shot. Roode goes into the barricade and Sting knocks him into the crowd. Back to ringside and Sting takes a thumb to the eye. The champ rams Sting’s leg into the post and Sting is in trouble. Roode stays on the knee for a few minutes while Taz reads a Tweet from an 85 year old grandmother.

It’s figure four time but Sting rolls over after about a minute. Roode continues to channel his inner Flair and chops at Sting, which just like Flair’s, don’t work at all on him. Now Sting goes after the knees and after a superplex, it’s Scorpion time. Roode makes the rope and comes back with a spear for two. The champ brings in a chair and sets for either a powerbomb or piledriver but Sting backdrops him to the apron. Sting tries a Death Drop onto the chair but he rams his own head into the chair. Roode wakes up and covers for the pin at 16:50.

Rating: C+. The ending brought this down a bit. Sting matches have a really bad habit of ending out of nowhere. This also really doesn’t help Roode because Roode lucks out again. Roode needed to go over strong here but instead he looks like he got lucky to win the match over a part time wrestler. That’s not good, again. Has he won a major match on his own merits since he’s been champion? Sting is great in this role as part time wrestler and as a special attraction as he can still do well enough out there.

Post match it’s time for the big evil angle. Roode gets the chair and yells at Dixie, then pulls her over the railing and into the ring. Sting makes the save but once he turns to check on Dixie, Roode hits him with the chair. Roode gets some duck tape and ties Sting to the bottom ropes. He goes to hit Sting with the chair but Dixie is untying him. Roode gets in her face and yells at her, rubbing her face for some reason. He yells at her…and that’s it. He doesn’t hit her, he doesn’t shove her, nothing. This would have been more effective, except NO ONE CARES ABOUT DIXIE CARTER!

Overall Rating: D+. The last 50 minutes of the show brought it up A LOT, but earlier on the show was absolutely dreadful. The in ring work earlier was ok to bad, but the point of this show was the Twitter. They went WAY too far with that nonsense where even the wrestlers weren’t answering the questions. It got stupid and was really taking away from the show, which was just ok anyway. On top of that, we had Storm cut short (not their fault) and D-Von winning a title. I still can’t get over that. Anyway, bad show but the last part helped it. They’re probably lucky that non many people were watching tonight though.

Results
James Storm b. Bully Ray – Last Call
Austin Aries b. Zema Ion – Last Chancery
Samoa Joe/Magnus b. Matt Morgan/Crimson – Middle Rope Elbow To Morgan
D-Von b. Robbie E – Spinebuster
AJ Styles/Mr. Anderson b. Christopher Daniels/Kazarian – Styles Clash to Kazarian
Kurt Angle b. Jeff Hardy – Pin while holding the rope
Robert Roode b. Sting – Pin after Sting hit his head on a chair

It’s official: the apocalypse is upon us.

Hard Justice 2005
Date: May 15, 2005
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 775
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Don West

Final PPV in this three show set as we have AJ in the main event as he should have been most of this year. We also have a celebrity guest referee for that main event in the form of MMA legend Tito Ortiz. I can live with celebrities if they’re, you know, actual celebrities. Also on this card we have a twenty man Gauntlet For The Gold for the #1 contendership which should be dull. Let’s get to it.

We open the show with a ten bell salute to Chris Candido who died following a freak accent at the previous PPV. He broke his leg and somehow it messed up the blood flow. I don’t remember it exactly.

The opening video is about how war is human nature.

Team Canada vs. Apollo/Sonny Siaki

Apollo is a Puerto Rican guy I think. This is Williams/Young instead of Roode/Young. Siaki is a Samoan but not related to the famous Samoan family. The Canadians jump them to start but get knocked to the floor just as fast. We officially start with Apollo vs. Williams. Off to Siaki quickly who speeds things up. Neckbreaker gets two on Young. The non-Canadians hit one of the biggest backdrops I’ve ever seen on Young.

D’Amore screams at the announcers about something. That distracts Apollo and the Canadians take over. Elbow gets two for Young. Apollo manages to get in a knee lift which is enough to bring in both Siaki and Williams. Powerslam gets two on Williams. D’Amore hooks the foot of Siaki on a suplex attempt but it only gets two. Apollo spears Young down but he gets caught in a pretty awful looking top rope rana by Williams. With everything falling apart, A-1 (another Canadian) runs in and Jackhammers Siaki so Williams can steal the pin.

Rating: C. This was fine for an opener but the match itself was nothing of note. Apollo and Siaki both looked great but they didn’t have much going for them other than that. Apollo went back to Puerto Rico soon and was a much bigger deal. Siaki wasn’t around much longer, at least not in anything important.

Ortiz, AJ and Jarrett all arrived earlier today.

Matt Bentley/Trinity vs. Chris Sabin/Traci

Tenay calls a mixed tag a very unique match in professional wrestling. Has he never watched Wrestlemania 6? These are two rivalries that were joined into one match. Michael Shane has changed his name back to Matt Bentley again too. The genders can mix here but we start with the girls. Trinity slaps her and it’s time for a chase scene. I think Traci is on the good guys’ team but I really don’t know.

They exchange small packages for about 15 seconds until Traci gets the advantage. Monkey flip puts Trinity down for two. Off to the guys even though I don’t think Sabin was tagged in. Cradle Shock is countered as is Bentley’s superkick. Trinity interferes and Shane suplexes him off the top. Trinity trips Sabin again as we’re waiting on the hot tag to Traci. This might not be the best formulated plan.

Sabin fires off some elbows but Bentley pulls him back down by the hair. After a chinlock by Bentley, Sabin comes back with an elbow and tries a tornado DDT. Bentley escapes that but a BIG enziguri puts Bentley down. Double tags bring in the girls and Traci cleans house. She tries something off the top but Trinity shoves her to the floor. They fight up the ramp and Trinity slams her. The guys have been forgotten it appears. Oh here’s Sabin to clothesline Bentley. Trinity hits a top rope rana on Sabin, drawing a Lita chant. Traci low blows Sabin and Bentley superkicks Trinity. Another one to Sabin gets the pin.

Rating: C-. Not great here and while the ending was surprising, that doesn’t mean I really care about it. Traci and trinity feuded for the better part of eternity and it never really had a definitive conclusion that I remember. This wasn’t bad but it pretty much came and went with whatever the new development was in the story.

Ad for Slammiversary.

Team Canada says they’re back. D’Amore gets in a great jab at the Orlando fans: “You’ve got a Samoan and a Puerto Rican in there against two Canadians and the idiots chant USA.” They plug their chances in the Gauntlet for the Gold tonight. Roode is the first entrant. They see the name of the second entrant and say it’s like sending a one legged man into a butt kicking contest.

Dusty meets with Tito Ortiz and tells him to call things down the line but if he needs to take matters into his own hands, don’t hesitate.

Jeff Hardy isn’t here (legit no show, he was suspended soon after) so Raven says he doesn’t care who his replacement is. He wants to maim someone. Raven knows his opponent but they keep censoring his name.

Raven vs. ???

This is a Clockwork Orange House of Fun match, which means there are a bunch of weapons and one side of a cage. West says the opponent is Sean Waltman before the entrances. So why censor it a few seconds ago? Waltman comes from the other side of the arena to jump Raven from behind. He pulls down a trashcan and knocks Raven to the outside with it. Raven is busted open early.

Waltman uses Raven’s drop toehold into the trashcan but the can is used to break up the Bronco Buster. Out to the floor and Raven digs into the forehead in an attempt to cut Waltman open. He rakes the head across the steel and Waltman is indeed busted. Raven gets a pair of trashcan lids and alternates with shots from both arms. Raven is cut bad. Waltman sends Raven into a can out of desperation.

Raven grabs the ankle (which is a recurring move for him it seems) but Sean escapes and hits the Bronco Buster this time. Out to the floor and it’s table time. Waltman puts him on the table and climbs up onto the post (squeezing between two of the things holding up weapons) and hits a flip dive through Raven through the table. Back in Raven hits a DDT out of nowhere for two. You know for a finisher, that move doesn’t finish all that often.

Raven runs him up the ramp and throws Waltman off of it, sending him through a table. It’s falls count anywhere apparently and Raven gets two. Back at ringside and Raven finds handcuffs, another recurring thing in this company’s early PPV days. He cuffs Waltman to the post and beats him with a kendo stick.

He wants a submission but Waltman says to hit him harder. Dusty comes back and frees Waltman and he can kick the chair that Raven had back into his face. Now he hits the alternating lid shots and beats Raven with the stick. Waltman staple guns Raven’s head but Raven manages to throw him through the cage wall and fall on top for the pin.

Rating: B-. Better brawling match than you would expect here but the big problem was the lack of a feud for this to go off of. That’s not their fault of course as Waltman was a substitute so I’m certainly not going to hold that one against them. Much better match than I was expecting as Waltman proves again that he can go with the smaller guys much better than the large one.

Tito gives AJ some instructions, as in basic rules of the match. They shake hands.

We recap the 3 Live Kru vs. Outlaw feud. Outlaw is Billy Gunn who is apparently trying to break up the Kru. Monty Brown recently turned on DDP so let’s have a tag match. This resulted in a bunch of problems in the Kru, mainly over the possibility that BG is going to bail on the Kru and reform the New Age Outlaws.

Page has a message from BG James, saying he’s not here. Truth pops up and says he’ll be Page’s partner.

Ron Killings/Diamond Dallas Page vs. Monty Brown/Kip James

Page starts with Brown and there’s not much going on in the first minute. Rollup gets one for Page. Nothing has happened in the first minute or so. Well nothing of note that is. Off to Outlaw who wants Killings. Wait is his name Outlaw or Kip James? We’ll go with Kip James. Killings knocks him around and hits a headscissors to send James to the corner. Kip comes back with a tilt-a-whirl slam and I think we have our face in peril.

Brown hits a running knee to his back and Killings is in trouble. Back to James who gets two off a running forearm. We hit the chinlock so Page plays cheerleader. Truth hits a leg lariat out of nowhere and makes a diving tag. Discus lariat takes Brown down and another does the same to James. Helicopter Bomb gets two on Brown as James makes the save. DDP and truth keep up the offense until Phi Delta Slam (big fat guys) run in for the beating on Page. DDP Diamond Cuts one and crotches the other before Cutting him off the top. Cutter for James but Brown Pounces him for the pin.

Rating: D+. HOW WAS THAT NOT A DQ??? Two more guys came in and beat up Page but there’s not a DQ in there? I’d love to be a referee just to see how messed up my mind becomes. It must be better than any other drug you could ever have. Not a great match but that’s par for the course with these filler tag matches.

The Naturals say they were shocked by Candido’s death and they owe their titles to him. They don’t want to go into specifics about their feelings though. He taught them how to be a great team and how to be winners.

Tag Titles: The Naturals vs. America’s Most Wanted

The Naturals are one of the most generic looking teams you’ll ever find so I’ll do my best to tell them apart. They’re defending here and have never lost to AMW with the titles on the line. The champs come out with Candido’s signature yellow towel. The fans chant for Candido to start. If the ending wasn’t obvious already, it better be now. Storm starts with I think Chase Stevens (the other is Andy Douglas).

La Majistral gets two for Stevens. Storm controls on the mat with an armbar and it’s off to Harris. Ok so Stevens is the blonde. Got it. Stevens gets two off a facejam on Storm. Middle rope sunset flip gets two for Storm as does a hard kick to the chest. Bulldog gets two for Harris. Harris clotheslines Douglas to the floor and everything breaks down out there. AMW seems to have the advantage.

Never mind as Storm misses a dive and lands on the railing. He manages to counter a whip to send Stevens upside own into the railing. A suplex on the ramp puts Stevens down again. Douglas takes a slingshot into the post and it’s one advantage per team at the moment. Douglas goes shoulder first into the post as does Storm. Now Harris’ shoulder goes into the post. Hopefully they get a cut of the shoulder surgery fees.

A fan holds up a chair for Storm to whip Stevens into. Did I warp back to ECW? Douglas hits Harris in the ribs with a chair but it’s still not a DQ. They haven’t been in the ring for almost five minutes. The Naturals are both in control and Harris is sent back in with Douglas. They’re not legal but who cares? Harris comes out of nowhere with a right hand and a clothesline in the corner.

The Naturals have a two on one advantage now but Storm comes back in for the Eye of the Storm on Stevens. Everyone gets up and we go to the corner for a pretty low level Tower of Doom. The idea of tagging has been completely forgotten here. Catatonic is countered into an FU by Stevens for two. Storm breaks up Natural Disaster and superkicks Stevens. They load up the Death Sentence but Harris gets shoved off the top, allowing Stevens to roll up Storm and put his feet on the ropes for the pin.

Rating: C+. The match was fun but the lack of tagging so early got kind of old. I’ve seen worst though and AMW was always worth looking at. They were starting to slip at this point though and would turn heel soon if my memory serves me right. This was nothing great though and I don’t think anyone cared about the Naturals.

Tito Ortiz beats up an annoying security guard and talks to Jeff. Everything is cool apparently.

We recap the X Title match. Shocker won an Xscape match at Lockdown and then had to win another one to get the shot against Daniels tonight. He says he’ll win the title for Mexico.

X-Division Title: Shocker vs. Christopher Daniels

Feeling out process to start with Daniels having a slight advantage. They head to the apron and Shocker hits a headscissors to take Daniels to the floor, followed by a suicide dive. Back in Daniels takes over and hooks a very quick Koji Clutch. Shocker comes back with a lot of chops and some clotheslines. Frog splash gets two.

Daniels plays possum and hits a Downward Spiral to get momentum back again. BME is overshot so he settles for a split legged moonsault which gets two. Shocker hits a low dropkick to the face of Daniels and the champ is in trouble again. Shocker goes up but Daniels nails him and tries a superplex.

That gets countered into a SICK looking gordbuster with Daniels landing straight on his head. Off to an STF but Daniels bites the hand to escape. Now Shocker tries a superplex but Daniels counters into Angel’s Wings off the top to retain. Cool ending and thankfully he didn’t kick out like the announcers implied he might.

Rating: C+. I wasn’t wild on this, again mainly due to a lack of story. This was something that WCW did a lot back in the day: bring in a foreign guy and say he’s one of the best in whatever country then have the champion beat him. It’s cool to bring in international talent but at the same time, those names are just names to people who aren’t familiar with wrestling in that country. Decent match with a cool ending though.

Video on the Gauntlet For The Gold, which is a Royal Rumble style match but in the end the final two have a singles match for the win. Abyss won the final spot (#20) on Impact.

Gauntlet For The Gold

Roode is #1 and the surprise entrant Zach Gowen is #2. Get the joke from earlier now? Roode steals the prosthetic leg. West: “Put it back!” but Gowen comes back with one footed dropkicks and a reverse DDT. Eric Young comes in at #3. The intervals are only a minute long which includes their time coming to the ring. Remember at this point it’s over the top to eliminate people.

Roode gets a pretty evil one legged giant swing on Gowen. Cassidy Riley is #4. Ok now the clock doesn’t start until he gets to the ring. He helps against the Canadians and Gowen hits a leg lariat on Roode. Here’s Skipper at #5 and the clock is under Young rules again. Skipper takes a lariat from Roode but hits a nice moonsault to take him down. The ring is getting a little full now so everyone has something to do.

Shark Boy comes in at #6 to a nice reaction. Thank goodness he’s not Stone Cold yet. He won a match on the preshow to get in. Sharky hits a neckbreaker on Young but Gowen takes him down. Shark Boy bites Gowen hard enough that Gowen goes out. So we have our first elimination. #7 is another Canadian in the form of A-1, the big power guy. He cleans house with clotheslines and stomps on Riley.

#8 is Chris Sabin. In a Matrix style move, he sets for a tornado DDT on Young but with his feet in the air, he kicks EVERYONE ELSE in the chest in a big circle before hitting the DDT. That was cool. Petey Williams is #9 to put the Canadians at full strength. He tries a Destroyer on Sharky but gets backdropped to the apron. Shark Boy goes after him and is eliminated by A-1. Eric puts out Riley to get some people out of the ring.

Sonny Siaki is #10 and he goes after the Canadians. Skipper gets REALLY stupid and tries to walk the ropes. Roode is like boy you’re stupid and clotheslines him out. Lance Hoyt is #11 and he has his own cheering section. Young is easily tossed out by Hoyt and Team Canada is down to three. Sabin can’t get Williams out and Bentley is #12. He superkicks Hoyt but is taken out by Sabin who goes out at the same time. They fight on the floor as the Canadians put out Siaki.

Here’s Jerelle Clark at #13. He’s just an X-Division guy. There are five people in at the moment: Roode, A-1, Williams, Clark and Hoyt. The Canadians help Williams on a Destroyer to put Clark out. Mikey Batts is #14 and he fires off some kicks to take down the Canadians. He’s another X-Division guy. He and Hoyt team up on Canada as The Outlaw Kip James is #15.

A HUGE cobra clutch slam kills Batts and the fans want to see it again. #16 is Trytan but Hoyt hits a big boot before Trytan even gets in. Batts is gone. Trytan is chokeslamming everyone in sight and hits a spinebuster on Hoyt. Ron Killings is #17 and gets powerslammed very quickly. As Trytan poses, all three Canadians team up to throw him out.

Apollo is #18 and he cleans house. He and Kip chop it out but Apollo charges and is low bridged out. BG James is #19 but the Canadians break up the staredown between the Outlaws. Hoyt kicks Roode out but Roode helps A-1 to get rid of Hoyt. The Outlaws team up on Petey and A-1, tossing them both out. Abyss comes in at #20 and knocks both Outlaws out to get us down to the final two.

So it’s Truth vs. Abyss for the shot and it’s a regular one on one match, meaning over the top doesn’t mean anything anymore. Abyss throws him to the floor anyway and tries to hit him with a chair but it’s taken away by the referee. Back inside now and Abyss pounds on Killings in the corner. Truth speeds things up and hits a leg lariat and a headbutt for two. Abyss gets a big boot and brings in the chain but that gets taken away.

Instead he’ll use a chair because the referee takes forever to put the chain in the corner. Truth gets the chair and hits Abyss twice in the head for two. We actually get a ref bump in this match. Is this really needed? Truth checks on him and walks into a chokeslam onto the chair for a very delayed two. Abyss tries to Earthquake down onto the chair onto Killings but Truth crotches him on the chair instead. Not that it matters though as Killings jumps into the Black Hole Slam and it’s over.

Rating: C+. This wasn’t a horrible battle royal and the one minute intervals keep things moving fast enough. I’m not sure how much I like the one on one match at the end but it’s not a terrible idea I guess. Still though, like most non-Rumbles, this wasn’t a very interesting battle royal. Not awful though.

We recap the main event which is based around the idea of AJ being a once in a generation athlete while Jarrett is the old guard. AJ beat Abyss to get this shot. Tito Ortiz is the referee.

NWA World Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. AJ Styles

Tito Ortiz is guest referee. Jarrett has been champion almost a year at this point. As is customary in wrestling, the previous title reigns of the challenger are only brushed over. They fight over a lockup to start and Tito breaks things up when they get to the ropes. Feeling out process to start as they’re treating this like a huge match. AJ speeds things up which of course gives him the advantage.

Jarrett slides to the floor which is a good idea for him as it slows the match down a lot. Back in and Jeff throws right hands. Jeff tells Tito that they were forearms. That’s so Memphis and it’s a great way to get heat on you. AJ kicks him down and hits a knee drop for two. Jarrett goes for the knee but can’t do a lot of damage on it as Styles fights back. Jeff kicks the knee out again and hooks the Figure Four.

Tenay talks about how Jeff’s strategy is to go after the leg early. He doesn’t think there will be a submission here but it’s going to slow AJ down for later on. And THAT IS WHAT A COMMENTATOR SHOULD BE DOING!!! Not talking about pigeons, but giving us some insight. That’s not something a lot of people would pick up on so Tenay gave some analysis. Why is that never done anymore?

AJ turns it over but is skeptical about coming off the top due to the bad knee. Instead of a dive he hits a tornado DDT and hits a discus clothesline (that’s a popular move in TNA) to send Jarrett to the floor. AJ jumps to the apron but Jeff takes the knee out again. Ortiz counts but Jeff keeps breaking it up. Tito grabs Jeff by the throat and shoves him to the corner.

They head to the floor again and Jeff gets the guitar. Tito says yeah try it and AJ steals the guitar. Tito won’t let AJ use it either so Styles slams it on the ground to break it. AJ pounds away on Jeff and we go back in. There’s the springboard forearm and a spin kick, followed by the moonsault into the reverse DDT for two. AJ tries a rana but gets caught in a powerbomb for two.

They trade some counters until AJ gets two off a backslide and small package. AJ tries the Pele but can’t quite get it so it’s more like a knee to Jeff’s face. Stroke is countered so Jeff hits a Styles Clash to Styles for two. AJ fights back and tries one of his own but here’s Monty Brown. He accidentally Pounces Jeff but Tito is throwing Brown out. A second referee comes out but Tito won’t let him count. Jeff hits AJ low and loads up a superplex but Tito pulls him down for the low blow. Jeff shoves Tito and gets knocked out so that the Spiral Tap can give Styles the title.

Rating: B-. It was good but certainly not great. It’s hard not to look at this with hindsight but you kind of have to. AJ would lose the title at the next PPV and wouldn’t win it back for over four years. Jarrett would get the world title back in a few months until Christian debuted and took the title to end the year.

A big celebration ends the show.

Overall Rating: B. This was a pretty solid show with a big moment to end it. There’s nothing bad on here and it would have seemed like it set up AJ’s next challenger (that wouldn’t be Abyss) and there was nothing really bad. It’s no classic or anything, but if you’re looking for an ok TNA PPV to watch, this isn’t a bad choice.

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Against All Odds 2005
Date: February 13, 2005
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 775
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Don West

We jump ahead a few months here as I did Final Resolution a long time ago. Tonight we have AJ vs. Daniels (See, I wasn’t kidding when I said they had been feuding for years) in an Iron Man match for the X Title. Also it’s Jarrett vs. Nash for the world title which I’m sure will be as good as the cage match two months ago right? Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about seizing the now or some philosophical jazz like that. It goes on for like three minutes though and my mind wanders.

If Jarrett uses the guitar in the main event he loses the title.

Shane Douglas goes looking for Jarrett and finds his dressing room. Larry Zbyszko walks out of it and there’s some legal battle between Dusty and someone else.

Scott Hudson is outside his locker room and says this is about the Kings of Wrestling. Seriously, that stable was around for like a month and two months later we’re still fighting over it? Hudson talks about Nash’s Longest Yard movie and there’s nothing here.

Petey Williams vs. Elix Skipper

Gymnastics routine to start with Skipper missing a spin kick but hitting a dropkick to send Williams to the outside. Williams takes over with nefarious means and sends Skipper to the floor. D’Amore hits Elix and hurts his own hand in the process. Williams hits his slingshot rana to the floor. There’s O Canada on the crotch and Petey hits his suplex sequence (vertical into a belly to back) for two.

Skipper uses a Matrix move to avoid a middle rope clothesline. Petey goes up but is supleed off the top and both guys are down. It was butterfly style if you’re curious. Skipper drapes him across the top and hits a top rope legdrop to the back of the head for two. Petey spins into his Russian legsweep for two. A rana is countered and Petey hits a tornado DDT. He loads up the Destroyer but Skipper backdrops out of it. Pinfall reversal sequence goes nowhere so Petey goes up. He tries to jump into the Destroyer but gets caught in Emerald Flosion for the pin.

Rating: D+. They were totally off in this and it wasn’t that great of a match. I don’t know if the chemistry was just off or what but it didn’t click at all here. I think Skipper works better as a heel than as a face and also a lot better when he doesn’t have to be the guy carrying the match. It wasn’t awful but it’s got nothing on the X matches from Turning Point.

Shazarian (yes that’s their name. Matt Bentley changed his name to Michael Shane in the last two months) watched a 3 Live Kru workout with a racecar driver named Jeff Hammond to set up this match.

Kazarian/Michael Shane vs. BG James/Jeff Hammond

Yeah, the old racer is wrestling here. He’d be about 49 or 50 here. BG makes some bad racing jokes before the match. Wait…according to what I can find, Hammond is a CREW CHIEF. He isn’t even a driver! Anyway, BG and Shane start us off. No wait Hammond wants to fight. Hammond grabs a wristlock and thankfully tags off to a wrestler. The non-X Division guys work over Shane and BG does most of the work.

BG takes Shane down and drops a knee on him for two. Kaz knocks him to the floor and hits a huge dive to take over. He hits a slingshot dropkick in the corner ala Hardy and Shazarian double teams BG. Neckbreaker gets two. Hammond comes in and can’t do anything BECAUSE HE ISN’T A WRESTLER. BG is knocked to the floor and Shane superkicks Kaz by mistake. Hammond drops an elbow for the pin. Screw this.

Rating: F. The match sucked, the guy isn’t even a driver, but his name is on TV so five people might know who he is. Twelve days later Kaz left TNA and signed a developmental deal with WWE. GEE, I WONDER WHY HE WOULD WANT TO DO THAT??? When the best thing you can say about a match is that it was short, that’s a bad sign.

Dusty, the Director of Authority, talks to Traci and Trinity about some lawsuit. A lawyer comes up with Larry Z and they say they have a paper Dusty can sign to get rid of the guitar means Jarrett loses the title. If Dusty doesn’t sign it, he’ll be evicted.

We recap Raven vs. Dustin Rhodes. Raven broke the fingers of some jobber he beat up until Dustin made the save. Raven went after him as a result. Dustin says Shucky Ducky Quack Quack in the video package.

Raven vs. Dustin Rhodes

It’s Cowboy Dustin here so he’s pretty boring. They slug it out like two old guys on a show in a promotion that isn’t being watched by many people while being there for a paycheck. Raven hits a discus clothesline and works on Dustin’s leg. Now it’s an ankle lock but Dustin comes up and fights back. He hits an atomic drop and punches in the corner but the bulldog is broken up. Dustin goes up but Raven superkicks him in the testicles.

Dustin punches him off the top and tries an elbow. At least he had one up as he did the jump into the boot spot. DDT is countered and Dustin uses a superkick (HUH?) for two. Raven grabs the ankle lock again but Dustin rolls through. It’s presumed Raven went outside but but we just see Dustin rolling around on the mat. Back to the ankle but Dustin grabs one of his own. Raven rolls through and cradles Dustin with a foot on the ropes for the pin.

Rating: F. Oh just……..NO. This was horrible in about 19 different kinds of ways. First and foremost, Dustin Rhodes used a superkick and an ankle lock. Think about that for a few minutes. Second, NO ONE cared in this at all. The match was awful and one of the worst I’ve seen in a very long time.

Raven beats him up even more post match and ties him in a straightjacket. For the love of bad rematches….please….no. Raven beats on him for awhile until Cassidy Riley, the guy that Raven hurt, makes the save. And that fails too as he gets DDTed. Security finally makes the save.

There go the lights and we get a voiceover talking about a lost soul. Oh it’s Trytan. He wound up being an alien or something like that. He had a ship. Trytan debuts on Impact this week.

We recap the tag title match. AMW is facing Kid Kash and Lance Hoyt. Kid Kash is here because he has to annoy me once a year.

Tag Titles: America’s Most Wanted vs. Kid Kash/Lance Hoyt

Storm and Kash start things off. They trade hammerlocks to start and fast twos and we get a standoff. Off to Hoyt and Harris who immediately start brawling. Everything breaks down and AMW picks up Kash and throws him at Hoyt. That doesn’t work so in a funny bit they pick up Hoyt and throw him at Kash to send him to the floor. Cute spot. Back in Hoyt slams Kash onto Storm for two.

Hoyt comes in and hits a huge chokebomb for two on Storm. James is playing Ricky Morton here if that wasn’t clear. Off to Kash who launches a frog splash but it eats knees. Both he and Storm try cross bodies and they’re down. Harris comes in and destroys Hoyt. It’s so strange to see Harris in great shape. Kash hits a sweet rana after running the corner. Storm is back up and hits the Eye of the Storm on Kash. He tries a reverse tornado DDT out of the corner on Hoyt but Lance counters.

In a move I’ve never seen before, Hoyt hits a side slam off the top for two. That looked awesome actually. That’s a great lesson: when all else fails, make the move from the top and it looks better. Storm takes Hoyt down and Harris hits a top rope elbow for two. Kash brings in a title belt but as the referee takes it out, Kash hits Harris with the other belt for two. Now Kash brings in handcuffs but Harris cuffs him up. Death Sentence to Hoyt keeps the titles on AMW.

Rating: C+. This started slow but got better at the end. When you take guys like Hoyt and Kash and get an entertaining match out of them, that’s a sign of a good team. Then again AMW is probably the best team ever in TNA, and yes I’m including them over Beer Money. This was better than I expected.

A limo gets here but security won’t let Shane see who’s in it.

We recap Hardy vs. Abyss. Uh….they fight a lot and use weapons all the time so let’s make it Full Metal Mayhem, meaning everything made of metal is legal.

Abyss vs. Jeff Hardy

Winner is #1 contender. This is a ladder match, but since it’s TNA, THAT’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR THEM!!! There are two envelopes above the ring. One has nothing and one has the world title contract. My goodness, if you want to have a ladder match or a TLC match then have a TLC match. Do you really have to have something like this where one is fake? Is that REALLY needed?

Jeff slugs away to start and hits a dropkick. Hardy hits the legdrop between the legs and goes out to grab some chairs. Abyss goes to the floor so Hardy slides in and hits Poetry in Motion over the top. Hardy charges at Abyss and gets caught in a slam. Hardy escapes though and cracks Abyss in the head with a chair. Jeff gets a running start and uses a chair as a springboard. Abyss cracks him over the head with the chair to bring him out of the air. And people wonder why he’s a drug addict.

Abyss goes outside and grabs a table. He puts that one on top of the two outside so it’s like a pyramid. Jeff slides in a ladder while Abyss gets a fourth table. The match has just stopped dead to set this stuff up. Abyss didn’t hit Hardy between setting up the tables so I think Hardy just laid down and took a nap. Jeff gets up and slips going for Whisper in the Wind, regroups, and then misses Abyss.

They get into a tug of war over the ladder and Jeff dropkicks a chair into the “face”. Jeff sets up a teetertotter thing and slams it into Abyss’ “face”. Abyss backdrops Jeff over the top “through” a table. In other words Jeff’s feet went through it and his back hit the concrete clean. GEE, I WONDER WHY HE’S A DRUG ADDICT! Jeff pops up and they fight up the ramp and Abyss pulls out another table.

He puts it up at the stage but Hardy hits a Twist to slow Abyss down. Jeff climbs the set above the entrance and dives off with a Swanton. Back to the ring and Jeff pulls out the huge ladder. Jeff climbs up but grabs the wrong one. Abyss pulls Hardy down and throws him at the pile of tables. Not through them mind you, but at them. Hardy is up a few seconds later but Abyss wins the contract and the title shot.

Rating: D. See, this is why you have multiple people in your TLC matches. While two people are fighting, the third can set up tables and such. Here though there were LONG stretches where they were setting things up and then those things didn’t work for the most part. This didn’t work for the most part at all.

We recap Monty Brown/DDP vs. Team Canada. For some reason, Hall jumped Brown along with the Canadians until Page made the save. Hall is nowhere to be seen in the match.

Diamond Dallas Page/Monty Brown vs. Team Canada

Young and Roode here. Brown and Young start with the power game dominating. Roode makes the save to avoid the Pounce and the Canadians try a huddle. Brown pulls Young back in by one arm and it’s off to Page. Off to Roode who thinks the USA sucks. After some arm work it’s back to Brown as the dominance continues. Page hits a swinging neckbreaker for two.

Roode finally hits a clothesline to take over. Page fights out of the corner but can’t make the tag. He makes it about a minute later and Brown cleans house. This has been one sided so far for the most part. Young grabs a front facelock on Brown which doesn’t do much to him at all. Off to Page again with a lukewarm tag and house is cleaned again. Everything breaks down and the Pounce kills Roode. Diamond Cutter ends Young for the pin.

Rating: C. Pretty much a squash here but the fans were WAY into it so I can live with this. There’s something cool about seeing foreigners that are evil being beaten from one corner to another. Not a good match or anything but the crowd loved it and that’s what counts. This would be better suited at a TV show though.

Traci and Trinity tell the lawyer Dusty won’t sign.

We recap AJ vs. Daniels. Basically Daniels says he’s better than AJ even though AJ has the best resume ever in TNA. The result is an iron man match for AJ’s title.

X-Division Title: Christopher Daniels vs. AJ Styles

Thirty minute Iron Man match and Daniels is challenging. Daniels takes him to the mat in the opening minute and then they take the clock off. AJ dropkicks him to the floor and hits a rana over the top to take Daniels down. The match is just kind of going along for the opening parts, but that’s due to them pacing themselves for the half hour which makes perfect sense.

The clock comes back and we’re about six minutes in. AJ keeps up the arm work he’s been doing and Daniels heads to the floor. AJ hits a sliding dropkick and a big dive to take Daniels down. Daniels gets in some knees back in to take over. Ten minutes in now as you would think they’ll start speeding things up now.

AJ ribs are in trouble now. Daniels tries a backdrop but AJ kicks him in the face and hits a neckbreaker. There are no falls yet. A hard belly to back gets no cover for AJ at 17 minutes to go. AJ sets for a springboard something but Daniels blocks it. Daniels is knocked down and Styles tries a 450 but it eats knees. Angel’s Wings makes it 1-0 Fallen Angel. We hit fifteen minutes to go and Daniels hits a Codebreaker with 14 to go. It only gets two.

AJ tries a hip toss and Daniels counters into an abdominal stretch. Psychology at its most basic people and that’s all it needs to be. Twelve and a half to go as AJ hiptosses out of the stretch. He dives at Daniels but gets draped across the top rope. Styles busts out a Tajiri elbow to take Daniels down but Christopher gets up first. AJ hits the Death Valley Driver that lands on his own knee move that he does, getting two.

Springboard Forearm gets two with ten minutes left. Daniels hits AJ’s moonsault into the reverse DDT for two. Blue Thunder Bomb gets two. AJ tries a suplex but has to settle for the Pele. Both guys are down with eight minutes to go. AJ fires off forearms but walks into a Samoan Drop. BME misses and AJ hits the Angel’s Wings on Daniels with seven minutes left. The Clash is broken up and Daniels tries a suplex. AJ grabs a side roll and ties it up with six minutes.

Daniels is MAD and knocks AJ to the outside. AJ gets his head rammed into the post HARD. Oh yeah he’s busted and he better be after that shot. AJ is gone with four minutes left. Daniels kicks him in the head in the corner because he’s an evil man. Two and a half to go. STO gets two. Running knee gets two and we’re under 90 seconds. AJ is dead so Daniels can’t hit the Wings again. One minute to go. AJ gets a rush from somewhere but walks into a Downward Spiral and there’s a Koji Clutch at 40 seconds to go. AJ somehow hangs on and it’s a draw.

Rating: B. Like most Iron Man matches this took awhile to get going but it was still entertaining to put it mildly. As overdone as this is, the matches are usually pretty good. I don’t need to see it again, but at this point the match was still pretty fresh so I can live with this one more than I can their modern ones.

Daniels wants sudden death and the fat man says let’s do it.

A DDT kind of move puts AJ down for two and they go to the corner. Daniels tries a super rana but AJ shoves him off. AJ dives into one of his own but Daniels rolls through. AJ rolls through that and hits the Clash for the pin to retain. Overtime didn’t add anything to this.

Jarrett says by any means necessary tonight.

We recap the world title match. Nash and Jarrett were in the Kings of Wrestling and Nash said he wanted the title. Jarrett accused Nash of screwing WCW ten years ago. So Nash screwed WCW while he was WWF Champion? Jarrett says the title is his life, Nash says it means more money.

NWA World Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Kevin Nash

If Jeff uses the guitar, he loses the title. So a cello is ok but a guitar isn’t? The annoying chant of the match: Super Shredder. Nash controls with the power to start and throws Jeff pretty high across the ring. There are some knee lifts in the corner as well as the elbow smashes. Jeff goes for the knees but misses a charge in the corner. Nash clotheslines him out and mixes up his offense. I mean now he’s punching him on the floor.

Jeff hits some punches and back into the ring we go. Nash throws him right back over the top because he’s a better brawler than wrestler. There wasn’t any sarcasm in that statement. They go into the crowd and Jeff is in trouble. The food on the catering table is destroyed so Nash picks up the table and rams it into Jeff. Why don’t more people do that? They fins a chair and trade some shots with Nash in control.

Jarrett is busted open and they head back to ringside. Nash pulls back the mats at ringside but a Jackknife attempt is countered by a low blow. Jeff goes under the ring and pulls out a case. AND IT’S A CELLO! I WAS KIDDING!!!! I’ve never seen this match before and they actually did that. I’ve been watching too much TNA. Jeff slams the case on the knee of Nash and it’s time to go in for the kill.

After some cannonballs onto the knee here’s a not great Figure Four. Nash finally gets to the ropes but Jeff is right back onto the leg. Nash comes back up and uses his usual power arsenal. Jarrett escapes Snake Eyes and clips Nash. As he brings back in part of the cello he walks into a ball shot. Nash powerbombs him onto the cello but there’s no referee due to a bump.

Cue the man “formerly known as Billy Gunn in the WWE” to knock out Nash with a Fameasser. That only gets two. His shirt says “No introduction needed. You already know my name.” That translates to “We can’t come up with anything that won’t get us sued.” He comes back for more but the referee stops him, allowing Sean Waltman to hit a spinwheel kick, a Bronco Buster and an X Factor to Jeff for two. Billy comes back in with the belt but Road Dogg comes in to stop him. Nash takes Gunn out but walks into a belt shot…for two. Stroke gets two. A second Stroke finally gets the pin.

Rating: C-. Well other than the Cello, the three run-ins, the 6 low blows, the two ref bumps, the belt shot and the kicking out of finishers, this wasn’t too terrible! For the life of me though, Billy Gunn and X-Pac? Those are supposed to make me want to see the show again? There’s a reason they’re out of WWE you know. Anyway, this wasn’t horrible but it didn’t need to be 20 minutes, period.

Destination X ad ends the show.

Overall Rating: C. There’s some good stuff here but it’s a FAR cry from the Turning Point style stuff. This was focused on bigger names rather than the new guys. Now that’s ok on occasion, but it would become the norm for TNA over the years which isn’t a good thing. Nash would feud with Gunn for awhile while Jarrett moved onto Nash and then AJ, both in very short feuds. Not a terrible show but nothing worth watching for the most part.

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Turning Point 2004
Date: December 5, 2004
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 700
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Don West

This is the second ever three hour PPV from TNA so don’t expect much in the way of groundbreaking stuff. That being said, the main event is one of the most famous as well as scariest moments ever in TNA. Also to the best of my knowledge, this is Randy Savage’s last wrestling match ever. Let’s get to it.

Oh and I forgot: this is the DUMB angle where TNA sent guys to a WWE show with a bunch of gifts and filmed the WWE wrestlers talking and chatting with TNA guys. For some reason, this is SCANDALOUS and we see the tape tonight.

The opening video is about the six man main event with Hardy/Styles/Savage saying they love the business and the Kings of Wrestling (Hall/Nash/Jarrett) in Elvis suits saying it’s about them. This goes on way too long and has way too many Elvis jokes.

Vince and HHH impersonators say they’ll never allow the tape to air. Abyss comes up with balloons and Fake HHH runs from him. This could be a really long night.

Tag Titles: Ron Killings/BG James vs. Eric Young/Bobby Roode

3 Live Kru are the champions. They won the titles from the Canadians a month ago, making this a rematch. Young and BG get things going with Young being rammed into all of the buckles. Young tries to steal BG’s gyrating punches so the Kru hits their version of What’s Up. Here’s Roode to face Truth. Truth is a replacement for Konnan who is injured so this is under the Freebird Rule.

Truth hits his usual not-WWE stuff and gets two off a spinning kick. The Canadians double team Truth with a double backbreaker for two. They take over with Roode bringing Young back in. Young stomps on Truth in the corner but Truth won’t even sell it at all. He pulls himself up and hits a missile dropkick. No tag as it’s back to Roode. They try their own What’s Up but Truth escapes and makes the tag.

James knocks Roode to the outside and punches Young down. Roode comes back in and James gets two on him off a forearm. Young goes up but Truth hits the ax kick. Roode hits his spinebuster on James for a VERY close two. Roode sets for maybe a spear but the Kru hits a Hart Attack with a side kick instead of a clothesline. James loads up the pumphandle but Johnny Devine runs in and hits James in the back with a hockey stick so the Canadians can get the titles.

Rating: C-. Not terrible here and it was ok enough for an opener. It wasn’t particularly good and I didn’t care who won by the end. That’s a running problem for this era of TNA: the matches and feuds aren’t really compelling as they’re trying desperately to keep a show on and fill in three hours. There’s some ok stuff in here though so it’s certainly not a failure or anything.

Shane Douglas talks to the Director of Authority (GM/boss) Dusty Rhodes. Dusty says this is a huge night and that the Kings of Wrestling will get what’s coming to them. The fans are talking on the internet about Cookie Gate. Yeah it’s about the tape again.

We recap the X-Division 6 man. This involves Roddy Piper and Jimmy Snuka for some reason. Apparently Kash has been saying that Jimmy’s dive off the cage meant nothing while Sonjay’s team says don’t diss the Superfly. I’ve heard far worse reasons to have a feud.

Matt Bentley/Kazarian/Kid Kash vs. Sonny Siaki/Sonjay Dutt/Hector Garza

The beard doesn’t work on Kaz at all. Sonjay and Kash start us off with some mat wrestling. Hector comes in and it’s Bentley punching him. Garza was a guy that was supposed to get a big push in TNA, even pinning Scott Hall if I remember. Siaki vs. Kaz now as things speed up. Siaki and Sonjay team up for an assisted rana to Kaz. Traci distracts Sonjay so Kaz can hit a one armed DDT to give us our face in peril.

The heels work over Sonjay, mainly focusing on the arm. They do the whole lack of tag thing to bring Bentley in to crank on the arm even more. There’s a Stunner to the arm and the heels work on Dutt’s arm even more. They tag in and out and all take some shots at it. Kash sets for a hammerlock slam but rams the arm into the buckle instead. Dutt tries to fire back with right hands but Bentley takes him down by the arm.

Dutt is pulled back to the corner and Kaz comes in again and more arm work follows. Do any of them know a match ending arm submission? Dutt is sent to the ropes and manages to hit a miracle springboard rana and it’s hot tag to Garza. Garza hits a high moonsault on Kaz and everything breaks down. Garza backdrops Dutt 360 degrees over the top to the floor. Traci’s interference backfires and Garza gets the pin on Bentley with a corkscrew moonsault.

Rating: C+. Pretty fun tag match here with more of a classic story than a spotfest. That’s very nice for a change of pace and it worked well here. Dutt did well selling the arm and Garza looked like a big deal. Then he got busted for steroids (which to be fair were legal in Mexico) and hasn’t really appeared in America since.

Savage talks to Scott Hudson (seriously?) and says nothing of note.

Coach D’Amore says Petey will keep the title.

Video on the Serengeti Survival Match, which means hardcore I think. Monty Brown beat Abyss in a Monster’s Ball Match and then got a world title shot on Impact. Abyss jumped him before the match and the injuries cost him the title. There’s a focus on thumbtacks in this.

Monty Brown vs. Abyss

Abyss is the monster heel here and Brown has bad ribs. Brown wants to start it on the ramp and here we go. You can win by pin, submission or slamming the other person into tacks. Abyss rams him into the apron to work on the back. He pulls off the tape early on and Brown is in trouble. Abyss gets a table set up quickly and the fans want fire. Greedy freaks.

The table is set up in the corner and Abyss grabs a bag. The fans still want fire. Brown comes back with a clothesline and right hands. We’re in trouble now as Brown has used up about 50% of his offense in the first three minutes. Big boot gets two for Abyss. West calls Abyss cunning and very smart. And people wonder why he’s not announcing anymore. Abyss brings in a chair and hits him in the injured ribs with it. Why don’t heels ever have injured ribs? When you turn face do you sacrifice the strength in your ribs?

The chair is placed on Brown’s ribs and Abyss hits an Earthquake onto the chair for two. The fans chant to use the table. All Abyss at this point as he pounds on the ribs. The fans continue to get on my nerves by chanting various annoying things. Abyss sets for another Earthquake but Brown moves the chair to crotch Abyss. A chair to the head puts Abyss down and Brown hits a British Bulldog powerslam onto the chair.

The Pounce is countered into the Black Hole Slam for a delayed two. That’s not a move you often see kicked out of. Abyss wedges a chair between the turnbuckles and of course is rammed into it. The Pounce hits but it knocks Abyss to the floor. The delay results in it only getting a two count. Brown tries another Pounce but Abyss ducks, sending Brown head first into the table for two. Both guys get bags of tacks and OH SWEET MERCIFUL GOODNESS BROWN RIPS ABYSS’ SHIRT OFF!!! THEY’RE JIGGLING!!! Brown hits an Alabama Slam into the tacks and I need to go see a doctor.

Rating: C+. This was a fine lesson in hardcore wrestling. Here’s the idea: if the match is about the guys and the weapons are props, the match is usually better. When the match is about the weapons and the guys are props, the match is usually worse. This was about Abyss vs. Brown and the tacks and other stuff were there too, making for a much more entertaining match.

HHH and Vince break any tape they find, including Best of D-Ray 3000.

Mike and Don run down the rest of the card.

Pat Kenney/Johnny B. Badd vs. Glen Gilbertti/Johnny Swinger

Gilbertti and Swinger are known as the New York Connection. Great: Jacqueline is the referee. Kenney is kind of famous as Simon Diamond from ECW. He and Swinger were a tag team in ECW so there’s history there. There’s no story here that I can find so we’re in filler territory. Kenney and Swinger start as the fans chant Simon Diamond. Simon (screw it) fights off both of the NYC until Gilbertti is sent outside.

Off to Badd who looks really weird with short hair. The NYC double teams Simon to take over. Badd seems content to chill on the apron. It’s not a heel move or anything. He just doesn’t seem to care. Jackie breaks up some double teaming and Swinger gets two off a clothesline. They work on Simon’s back which was injured in the match somewhere. Simon hits a sitout spinebuster on Swinger which allows the tag to Badd. Both heels get knee lfits TKO to Glenn is broken up by Swinger. Gilbertti shoves Jackie and Stuns Badd but Jackie gets involved (of course) and slams Gilbertti. TKO by Badd ends this.

Rating: D. Imagine that: Jackie messes up a match. To be fair though the match was boring, mainly because there was no real story to this. The NYC were one of the leftovers from the older run of the company so they were brought along for about five minutes. This was nothing of note though and was pretty bad. To be fair though, it was just there to bridge us to the second half of the show.

The Kings of Wrestling (who have no relation to Hero and Castagnoli if you’re curious) put Savage (we couldn’t see him) into a car and send it off, presumably making it a handicap match later.

Recap of Raven vs. DDP. Raven wants to be world champion so DDP came in and hit him with Diamond Cutters to come out of retirement. Erik Watts is in this somehow too but his black hole of caring keeps me from looking up why.

Raven vs. Diamond Dallas Page

Watts sits in on commentary. That’s fine as long as he doesn’t wrestle. Page’s music is a complete ripoff of his WCW song. Page claims Raven has been living somewhere rent free so tonight Page is collecting. Ok then. Discus lariat puts Raven down. Page baseball slides Raven to the floor and they head into the crowd. This is Raven’s Rules apparently.

Page hits him with a trashcan and we head back to ringside. We had a ref bump in there somewhere so a replacement came out. Page tries the Cutter but Raven grabs the rope. He puts on some weird helmet he brought with him and rams it into Page almost like Juggernaut. Raven has a chair brought in and then facewashes DDP in the corner. Drop toehold onto the chair gets two.

Page gets up like it’s nothing and hammers away on Raven. Another discus clothesline sets up a regular clothesline but the Cutter is countered by a low blow. Rollup gets two. Another rollup gets two and we’ve got blood. A horrible bulldog gets two for Raven. Page belly to bellies him for two. Raven superkicks him down for two. There’s no flow to this at all as it’s more of a spotfest than the X match earlier.

Diamond Cutter only gets two and we’ve got druids. DDT kills Page but it only gets two. Raven calls in the druids but Watts comes in to stop them. Both get chokeslams and the druid is revealed to be wearing khaki shorts. Watts turns on Page and clotheslines him down. Cutter to Watts, Cutter to Raven, pin.

Rating: D. Bad match for the most part because these two don’t bother selling anything. And why should they? Raven didn’t have to in ECW because he hardly ever lost and Page didn’t have to because he was over 40 in WCW. The match was really boring as a result and I don’t think anyone cares. Watts’ turn didn’t mean anything either.

Vince and HHH complain about the lack of food. Traci comes in with milk and cookies and Vince yells at her, saying bring him Dusty.

We recap the X Title match. Sabin won an Ultimate X match and has countered the Destroyer a few times to get in Petey’s head.

X-Division Title: Petey Williams vs. Chris Sabin

They trade counters to start and the fans are split. Cradle Shock is countered and Petey is freaked out. They mess up a leapfrog and Petey hits his leg on Chris’ head. Standoff as Petey is getting frustrated. Springboard dropkick sends Petey to the outside again and he almost jumps into the Cradle Shock again. They head to the floor and Petey hits a sweet slingshot rana from the ring to the floor.

Sabin one ups that and release powerbombs Williams into the barricade. Then he heads into the crowd and dives over about three rows of fans to clothesline Petey. Sweet sequence! Petey gets in a shot though and D’Amore chokes Sabin while Petey has the referee. Back inside and Petey does the O Canada bit as he stands on Sabin’s crotch.

Standing tornado DDT gets two as well. Tenay rants about D’Amore as he’s known to do. Petey hits a few suplexes for two. He’s trying to prove that he’s not a one move wonder. The fans are still split. I think the guys are a bit tired as the match has slowed down a good bit. Petey goes up so Sabin runs the corner like Angle to suplex Williams down. So much for things slowing down I guess.

They slug it out and neither guy can do much. Other than the spinning enziguri by Sabin followed by the running powerbomb for two. Sabin gets caught in the Tree of Woe but pulls up to avoid a suicide dive, then hits a BIG plancha to take Williams out. This is REALLY good. Petey flips into a Russian legsweep for two. Destroyer is countered into the Cradle Shock which is countered by Petey into a Sharpshooter!

Sabin gets the rope and they go to the corner. Chris sets for what looks like a superplex but Petey tries a sunset bomb to counter. Sabin counters that and flips Petey backwards so that Petey’s face slams into the mat. That gets rolled through after the contact into a piledriver by Sabin for a VERY close two. Sabin tries the Cradle Shock but D’Amore gets on the apron. That lets Williams get brass knuckles to hit Sabin with for the pin to retain. That ending BLOWS after the match they were having!

Rating: B+. This was AWESOME as they were countering everything and kept the pace going for at least eighty percent of the match. The ending is horrible though as they built up the match forever and then just stop it dead with a cheap ending. This got the crowd going strong for the two main events though and that’s why these guys are out there. Excellent match and if you give it a better ending it’s a classic.

A midget (Demo from Micro Championship Wrestling) beats up Vince for no apparent reason.

Recap of the Kings of Wrestling vs. Hardy/Styles/Savage. The Kings say they’re taking over and that’s about it. The other three guys say they’re fighting for TNA.

Jeff Hardy/AJ Styles/Randy Savage vs. Kings of Wrestling

Savage was kidnapped remember. The Kings come out to Elvis impersonator music and Elvis suits. AJ looks like he’s about 19 here. Jarrett is world champion. Hall looks almost human. AJ and Jarrett start us off. Bah I can’t say Jeff in this. AJ and the champ see who can get the bigger reactions from the crowd then do some technical stuff. A headscissors takes Jarrett down and a dropkick takes him down again.

Off to Hall. He and Nash are wrestling in those Elvis suits. Give me a break. Hall works on the arm so AJ takes the knees out to control. He wants Nash so Hall spits at him and makes the tag. AJ uses the speed again and dropkicks all three Kings down. Hardy is tagged in and dropkicks Hall and Jarrett down as things speed up. Slingshot dropkick by Hardy has Nash in trouble.

Nash gets in a big boot and Hardy is in trouble. Here’s the champ who beat Hardy last month at Victory Road. I always thought that was two or three months before this show. Jarrett hot shots him on the top rope and it’s time to strut. Back to Hall for a discus punch and chokeslam for two. Nash comes in for a sideslam which gets two also. Back to Hall who hooks the abdominal stretch. Nothing but trademark stuff from the Outsiders.

Hall hooks a modified STF but pulls on the hair instead of the neck. That has to hurt. Hardy gets his mule kick (catching Hall squarely in the hand) which is enough for the tag to AJ. Things speed up again and AJ cleans house. Moonsault into the reverse DDT gets two. Styles Clash to Jarrett is avoided and Nash breaks up the springboard forearm. Fallaway slam for two as we’re just waiting on Savage to make the big miracle appearance.

Nash hits the framed elbow (complete with Karate Elvis Action!) for two. Back to Jarrett and they work over the ribs which the Outsiders started on. Naturally this leads to the Figure Four LEG Lock but AJ rolls him up for two. Hall breaks up the tag and Nash hooks a bearhug. See, THAT makes sense. AJ makes the unseen tag and it’s back to Jarrett. They slug it out and both hit cross bodies to put them down.

AJ finally makes the tag to Hardy and house is cleaned. Stroke is countered into a Twist of Stunner and AJ adds a springboard cross body to Hall. Nash takes out the referee though as the numbers are catching up with them. Hardy goes up for the Swanton but Hall hits him with the guitar. Hardy falls forward onto Jarrett for the Swanton anyway but there’s no referee. Here’s Savage with a big old bald spot as is his custom. Naturally with everyone down he wants a tag and fires off right hands. All three of the Kings get caught in sleepers for some reason. Jarrett tries a sunset flip but Savage falls on him for the pin.

Rating: C-. The match was ok but the ending was HORRIBLE (again). Savage might have been out there 90 seconds. He would be gone the next day because he proposed a one month title reign for himself and said he’d drop it back to Jarrett the next month but it was vetoed. That’s his last match, which is a sad note to go out on.

Vince is loaded into an ambulance as HHH doesn’t know what to do without him.

Video on Final Resolution. I remember this video actually.

Here’s the tape that has been talked about all night. Shane Douglash, Traci (with cookies) and Abyss (with balloons) go to see…a bunch of blurry objects. Roadie and Ron Killings are there too. They steal some catering and the only body I recognize is I think Eddie Guerrero. Seriously you can’t see ANYTHING and they don’t say any names. These could be TNA dudes for all we know. That was it? Seriously? WE SPENT TWO AND A HALF HOURS BUILDING TO THAT??? Ok to be fair this was when TNA was nothing so it’s a bigger deal I guess. Rey was there too apparently but you couldn’t see him at all.

We recap XXX vs. AMW. This was the big tag feud in TNA as they’ve fought dozens of times but there hasn’t been a distinct winner to the whole thing. They’ve had cage matches before but they were in the four sided cage. AMW hit an awesome Death Sentence from the top of the cage to win that one. Now they’re having another cage match and the losing team has to split up forever.

America’s Most Wanted vs. Triple X

This is one of the things that TNA did that was indeed different: sometimes something other than the heavyweight title feud ended the show, which is definitely a good idea here. The six man was just ok but this was a great match. This is in a cage remember. AMW brings in handcuffs. That’s a signature thing for them and they’ll come into play later so remember that.

They have to tag here but I’ll give that ten minutes tops. Daniels and Storm start us off. Is there a significance to the tape that Daniels puts on his left shoulder that I’ve never gotten? I’ve always wondered that. Off to Daniels who kicks Storm in the back to take control. It breaks down quickly and AMW double teams Daniels. Off to Harris as Daniels is already busted open.

Skipper (XXX is Daniels/Elix Skipper if you weren’t sure on that one) gets his team the advantage and gives it back over to Daniels. He’s GUSHING already. Harris takes Skipper down and it’s back to Storm. Powerslam puts Daniels down. They load up the Death Sentence on Skipper but Daniels makes the save. Skipper pulls a towel back and handcuffs Harris to the post. West: “Oh what a dirty trick!” Yes, handcuffing your mortal enemy to a cage and making him defenseless is the same sort of thing you would hear on The Brady Bunch Don. Well called.

XXX double teams Storm and Daniels taunts Harris with the key. They drive the key into the head of Storm and hit a double team powerbomb/elbow combination for two. We get some heel miscommunication and Storm spears Daniels. There’s the key and Harris in free. That’s a nice twist on the hot tag because it’s basically the same thing. Harris cleans house and Storm is back up too.

I think everyone but Harris is bleeding. Triple X gets rammed into the cage multiple times but Skipper grabs a belly to belly to Harris. A suplex/cross body combo gets two. Hart Attack gets two on Skipper. Daniels hits a quick Downward Spiral to Storm and Harris goes into the steel. Harris is busted too. Death Sentence (AMW’s finisher) gets two on Harris who kicks out.

Skipper goes to the top of the cage (I don’t think you can win by escape) to Harris POWERBOMBS HIM OFF THE CAGE for two. FOR TWO. Angel’s Wings gets two for Daniels. Daniels goes up but Harris follows him. Now it’s time for the highlight reel moment to end all highlight reel moments in TNA. Skipper is sitting on another corner than Harris and TIGHTROPE WALKS THE EDGE OF THE CAGE AND HURRICANRANAS HARRIS TO THE MAT!!! WOW!

Daniels IMMEDIATELY drops an elbow off the top of the cage BUT IT GETS TWO. Daniels goes back up as we watch replays for a four man Tower of Doom. Daniels overrotates and lands on his face. Harris powerbombed Skipper who electric chaired Storm who suplexed Daniels. Everyone is pretty much dead but Skipper and Harris counter each others’ finishers. Everyone knocks everyone else down and Harris handcuffs Daniels to the cage in a nice play off what happened to him earlier. Last Call to Skipper and AMW pins him with XXX’s PowerPlex to split up XXX.

Rating: A+. What else did you expect me to give this? This match holds up incredibly well with the few moments from the cage walk to the Tower of Doom being as breathtaking as you’ll ever see. Absolutely awesome match and if you’re a fan of bloodbath cage matches that leave your jaw hanging open, find this right now because it’s excellent.

Overall Rating: B. There’s some bad stuff on here, but considering this is their second three hour PPV ever, this was incredible. Things slowed down a bit after this when it became about DDP and Nash and Jarrett, but they would pick it right back up with Lockdown in a few months. Very good show although it’s kind of hard to find. Check out the main event for sure though.

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Against All Odds 2012
Date: February 12, 2012
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Jeremy Borash

We’re back stateside again and I’m genuinely excited for the main event. With Russo officially out of creative now, things are looking up in TNA and it only took them ten years to get this far. The main event is Roode defending against Ray, Hardy and Storm in a four way which could actually go to any of them. That’s not something I’m used to in multi-man matches as you can almost always write off someone. Let’s get to it.

Hardy arrives to open the show.

We get a video of Hogan talking about how awesome TNA is. It’s followed by a video about the fourway.

Borash is in Tazz’s place. I can’t complain there.

Zema Ion vs. Jesse Sorensen

This is a #1 contenders match for the X-Title. Tazz has had a death in his family apparently. I’m sorry to hear that. Ion walks into a northern lights suplex and gets clotheslined outside. Sorensen ranas him to the floor to start and Ion steals the football that Jesse gave a fan. What a villain! Sorensen misses a baseball slide and Ion puts the football by the steps. Back in and a missile dropkick puts Jesse down.

Ion fires off a moonsault to the floor and his knees hit Sorensen right in the head. That gets a nine count but Ion breaks up the count for no apparent reason. The referee throws up an X and the match is over at 3:36. I’m not going to rate it because they only just got going when the injury occurred and I don’t think it’s fair to grade part of the opening to a match. It was ok though.

There’s a different ring announcer here also.

Christy is in the back with Roode who says that he always get things done and is still the champion. Hardy has had a bunch of chances but has always failed. Roode has beaten Storm time after time. He doesn’t get what Ray’s problem is. Roode can’t wait to laugh at Sting after he wins.

Here’s Robbie E who issued an open challenge earlier today. He has Big Rob with him and talks about the challenge. Anyone that wants a shot (not mentioned if the title is on the line or not) can come get it.

TV Title: Robbie E vs. Shannon Moore

…..REALLY? They have all these people on their roster that can’t get on TV at all and they pick Shannon Moore? Well at least it’s not Eric Young. Shannon armdrags Robbie around and Rob tries to take a walk. Robbie uses his usual basic offense as Moore tries to speed things up. JB talks about going clubbing with Robbie in Topeka, Kansas. Robbie knocks him through the ropes and into the barricade to take over. Back inside we hit the chinlock which is quickly broken.

Shannon keeps trying to go up but Robbie stays on him. Moore makes his comeback and a bulldog gets two. Out to the floor and an Asai Moonsault puts the champion down. Back in and I think Moore spits at Big Rob. Moonsault press misses and a clothesline gets two for the champ. Robbie goes up but gets crotched and a top rope rana gets a near fall. O’Connor Roll gets two but Robbie kicks out, sending Shannon into a right hand from Big Rob. An inverted DDT keeps the title on Robbie at 9:25.

Rating: C. This got a lot better as things sped up, but I could pop in a Best of Robbie E DVD if I ever need help sleeping. He’s so boring on offense and I have no idea why this was given ten minutes. I’d assume it has something to do with the time being short, but if not then they need help. This did improve as it went along though.

We recap the Knockouts Title feud. Tara won a triple threat and that’s about it.

Knockouts Title: Gail Kim vs. Tara

Tara takes over quickly to start with some snapmares by the hair. Gail gets sent to the apron but she pulls Tara down by the hair to take over. Big boot gets two. Gail hits a missile dropkick and Madison walks out on her. They’ve been having problems lately. Kim works on the knee which has been bothering Tara lately according to JB. There’s an Octopus Hold by Gail but Tara stumbles into the ropes.

Top rope rana puts Tara down but Gail doesn’t cover. That allows Tara to snap off a powerslam and both girls are down. Gail gets up first and tries another top rope rana but Tara backdrops her off and a moonsault off the top hits Gail. The landing hurt Tara’s knee again though. She loads up Widow’s Peak anyway but the knee gives out and Gail hits a knee crusher and Eat Defeat for the pin at approximately 7:00.

Rating: C. This was a decent match with a story being told in the knee injury of Tara. That’s far better than what I’m used to in women’s wrestling anymore so I’ll give this the benefit of the doubt. Also it had an Octopus Hold in it and that makes any match instantly better.

James Storm says he’s ready for Roode and it’ll be a big party when he wins the title.

Recap of the tag title match. Crimson/Morgan beat Magnus/Joe after the latter won the Wild Card tournament. The challengers won a kind of handicap match in England and then got beaten up in England, meaning the only time they’ve had success against the champions is in a two on one situation.

Tag Titles: Magnus/Samoa Joe vs. Crimson/Matt Morgan

Morgan and Joe start things off. Morgan shrugs off some shoulders to start and hits a shoulder of his own for two. Off to Crimson and Magnus with the power guy taking over. Back to Morgan and the champs double team a bit. Suplex gets two for Morgan and it’s Red Boy again. Magnus hits a clothesline to bring Joe back in as the challengers take over. A big boot to the shoulder by Magnus sets up a Joe backsplash for two.

There’s a chinlock by Magnus to Crimson as things slow down and we enter into a traditional formula. Crimson misses a right hand and Magnus suplexes him for two. Back to Joe who peppers Crimson in the corner with right hands. A big boot out of desperation put Joe down and there’s the double tag to give us Morgan vs. Magnus. The big man cleans house with knee lifts and a double clothesline.

He charges into a Magnus boot though, but it doesn’t seem to matter as a spinning slam into a Rock Bottom (I think Chris Harris called it the Catatonic) gets two. Magnus and Joe can’t hit their double team finisher but Crimson accidentally spears Morgan. Crimson is sent to the outside and the snapmare and elbow combination gives us new champions at 10:00.

Rating: C+. Pretty good tag match here and I’ll overlook the questionable booking for the sake of giving me something to like on this show. Nothing has been bad but this first hour has come and gone with nothing significantly above average at all. Joe getting a title is a nice sight though.

Bully Ray tells the feeble woman called Christy to go home. He has the number of all three guys and is in the best shape of his career.

X-Division Title: Austin Aries vs. Alex Shelley

Feeling out process to start as things begin quickly. Shelley pounds away with chops and strikes. The fans are split here as Shelley’s Sliced Bread attempt is countered with a shove. A clothesline puts Aries outside and he hides under the ring. He comes out from the other side and shoves Alex to the floor so he can hit the suicide dive. Back in now and the champ is in control.

Aries works on the shoulder of Alex. A kick to the shoulder gets two and we go to a neck crank. Pendulum Elbow misses and Shelley comes back with a clothesline. Sliced Bread is blocked again but Aries is rammed head first into the buckle. Aries heads to the floor to hide under the ring again but as he comes out, Shelley is waiting on him with a suicide dive. Back in Finlay’s Celtic Cross hits for two for the challenger.

Aries takes out the knee and hits the Pendulum Elbow. Not playing to the crowd and wasting time makes your offense more efficient. Who knew? He loads up the Brainbuster but Alex knees his way out of it. They fight to the apron and a Death Valley Driver to the apron nearly kills Shelley. That and a double ax from the apron gets two. 450 misses and Shelley hits Sliced Bread #2 for a VERY close two.

Aries fires off a bunch of knees to the face and hits the Brainbuster for another close two. Shelley fires off some kicks but can’t hit Sliced Bread again. The fans think this is awesome and I can’t really argue with them. Aries counters and hits another Brainbuster which sets up the Last Chancery to finally gets him the win via tap out at 15:11.

Rating: B. This is what the opener should have been a shorter version of. Having this match in the middle of the card is a good idea because the crowd was getting bored and needed something to fire them up. When all else fails, have two small guys go out there and fly everywhere with near falls. It’s tried and true and almost always works.

Hardy says his back is still hurt but he’ll be fine. Creatures, mount up.

We recap AJ vs. Kaz and the Daniels factor in a video that I think was used on Impact.

AJ Styles vs. Kazarian

Kaz is in a shirt which he tries to remove but Daniels says no. AJ controls with a headlock and rips the shirt off himself. They fight over the arm as the fans are all over Daniels. Kaz gets sent to the floor and AJ is in control. Backbreaker puts Kaz down as Styles is working on the back. A flying forearm puts Kaz on the floor for a minute but AJ gets it back inside to avoid Daniels.

A bridging Indian Deathlock with a facelock cranks on Kaz’s back even more. Kaz comes back and slams AJ down so that the spinning springboard legdrop (Wave of the Future maybe?) can get two. Spinwheel kick gets two. Now Kaz works on AJ’s back with a hard whip in and a jumping Russian Legsweep for two. Leg lariat gets the same. Kazarian hooks a double chicken wing on the mat but AJ fights up to his feet.

They slug it out and AJ takes over with a pair of clotheslines and an enziguri. Styles sets for an atomic drop but slams Kaz face first instead, getting two. Styles Clash and Fade to Black are both countered and Kaz hits a dropkick to regain control. AJ grabs a jawbreaker but can’t hit the Clash. Kaz kicks him to the apron and hits a slingshot DDT onto said apron as we hit the floor. Slingshot cutter gets two back in. This is getting good.

AJ is sat up on the top and Kaz hits a running superkick to almost send him to the floor. Kaz goes up for the Flux Capacitor (C4) but AJ knocks him down with a headbutt. Moonsault into the reverse DDT gets a very close two. AJ tries a suplex into a neckbreaker but Kaz reverses into a hard Downward Spiral to put everyone down. They go into a pinfall reversal sequence which gets two for both guys and ends with a Pele to put Kaz down. AJ is sent to the apron and loads up a springboard forearm but instead hits a gorgeous Asai Moonsault to take out Daniels. He tries to springboard at Kaz but jumps into Fade To Black for the pin at 18:37.

Rating: B. Can’t argue with this one either. AJ is always awesome to see when he has time and the ability to be himself. Kaz can do great stuff too, but I could do without Daniels ever being near AJ Styles again. At the end of the day, AJ is going to win the feud with him again, just as he has every time they’ve feuded.

Gunner and Bischoff are in the back and they have a towel for Hogan to throw in to save Garrett.

We recap Garrett vs. Gunner. Gunner was a killer for awhile until Garrett Bischoff beat him with the Nepotism Driver. Garrett got DDTed on the floor but came back with a new trainer: Hulk Hogan. Tonight it’s basically Hogan vs. Eric with Gunner and Garrett as their surrogates.

Gunner vs. Garrett Bischoff

Garrett comes out to Hulk’s music. Garrett controls to start with his usual stuff. He’s in the workout pants still. Gunner takes over for a few moments until Garrett hooks a backslide and front facelock. At this point he has less of a moveset than Andy from Tough Enough. Gunner pulls him into the middle buckle and takes over again.

The beating goes on for several minutes and there’s nothing to say. It’s a guy with experience and some ring skills beating on a guy who knows a total of about 5 moves. This is getting ten minutes on PPV in the second to last match on the card, making it longer than the tag team title match. Gunner works over the neck for the most part.

Eric gets in Garrett’s face so Hogan decks him. Gunner hits probably his fourth neckbreaker but on the next attempt Garrett grabs the rope. Hogan picks up the towel but Garrett says no. And then Gunner DDTs him for the pin at 11:57. Yes, it actually got that much time. Why does this surprise me?

Rating: F. There is no justification for this match to get this much time on a PPV. None. I can’t stand this story because it’s not about Garrett or Gunner. It’s about Hogan, just like it always is. Hogan isn’t putting anyone over, because that would make him look weak and Impact Wrestling is all about him and Bischoff. I know I sound like some whiny fan boy here but this has been old since it started and it’s just going to keep going. How many people can’t get time on a PPV so that Eric’s son can be out there and bore everyone to death?

Sting, in blue and white facepaint, says he’s the enforcer so that everyone is on their best behavior. It’s SHOWTIME!

Video on the main event. The idea is that Roode will do whatever it takes to keep the title and tonight he’s up against huge odds. Everyone talks about how much winning means to them.

TNA World Title: Bobby Roode vs. James Storm vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Bully Ray

Sting is the guest enforcer. This is the match I’ve really wanted to see and I don’t think there’s a wrong answer for a winner here. The match will be judged on how well it goes to get to the ending, which is a very rare situation. There’s a ton of time here too. Even after spending ten minutes on the intros, we have almost half an hour if needed. Ray cuts off Christy and does his own intro. Somehow he’s lost an inch from when he talked about himself earlier in the night. Hardy gets a CRAZY pop. I’m pretty sure this is one fall to a finish.

Roode wants to work with Ray but Ray just glares at him. Yeah it’s one fall. Roode keeps pitching his tag team idea but Ray walks to the floor and folds his arms. Hardy and Storm team up and play ping pong with Roode’s jaw. Sitout front suplex by Hardy sets up a neckbreaker by Storm for no cover. They invite Ray into the ring but he’s cool to chill on the floor. We get word that Sorensen has a neck injury and will undergo further tests.

Storm tries to steal a pin on Hardy but only gets two. Beer Money reunites for a bit for a double suplex on Hardy but there’s no union there. Ray comes in and beats on Hardy as Roode and Storm are on the floor. The fans chant D-Von’s Better at Ray. Superplex gets two on Hardy. Storm rams Roode into the steps but Ray kicks James through the ropes. Ray talks to Roode, saying he wants a spike piledriver. Hardy counters though and Storm is back in.

Hardy and Storm try a double superplex but Ray comes back and adds a powerbomb to make it a Tower of Doom with Roode taking the brunt of it. Ray tries to pin everyone and gets a bunch of twos. Bubba Bomb to Hardy is countered into the Twist to send Ray to the outside. Roode plants Hardy but Ray breaks up a spear attempt for some reason. Ray fires off a corner splash at Jeff but takes the referee out instead.

Bubba Bomb hits Hardy but there’s no referee. Sting tries to wake up Hebner as Ray FREAKS. Ray walks into the Twist but there’s still no referee. Roode spears Hardy down because main event guys have to use a minimum of two spears a year. The referee is back and the Last Call (perfect one) kills Roode. Ray makes the save by pulling the referee out. Storm dives to the floor and hits the poor referee again. Hardy hits the Twist on Roode in the ring and loads up the Swanton but Roode rolls away.

Roode brings the belt in but Sting pulls it away. They get in each others’ faces and Roode shoves him. Roode says hit me but Sting won’t do it. He spits at the Stinger and Sting accidentally hits Hardy with the belt. It’s Summerslam 97 all over again! Roode insists that Sting count but Sting takes forever…and he counts three for the pin at 15:14.

Rating: B-. Good match but it came off as a little underwhelming. The Against All Odds theme was a good idea, but Storm and Ray stayed down forever off moves that weren’t really anything of note. This also illustrates the main problem in the main event: it’s been focused on Sting vs. Roode rather than Roode vs. anyone else. That’s ok at times, but it’s going to have to end in a match between them and hopefully not in another Sting title reign.

Roode laughs a lot to end the show.

Overall Rating: B-. There was more good than bad here, but the bad parts were pretty bad. The second half minus Garrett vs. Gunner is a very solid effort and a good sign of what this company is capable of. The first hour looks like a total mess but I have to wonder how much their timing was thrown off by the injury. It’s a good show, but with some pretty decent sized adjustments it could have been very good.

Results
Zema Ion b. Jesse Sorensen via countout
Robbie E b. Shannon Moore – Inverted DDT
Gail Kim b. Tara – Eat Defeat
Samoa Joe/Magnus b. Matt Morgan/Crimson – Middle Rope Elbow To Morgan
Austin Aries b. Alex Shelley – Last Chancery
Kazarian b. AJ Styles – Fade To Black
Gunner b. Garrett Bischoff – DDT
Bobby Roode b. Bully Ray, Jeff Hardy and James Storm – Roode pinned Hardy after a belt shot from Sting

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Final Resolution 2007
Date: January 14, 2007
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 900
Commentators: Don West, Mike Tenay

We finish this trio of TNA as well as 2007 with this. This is a double main event for the most part with Sting defending in a triple threat match against Christian and Abyss as well as an iron man match with Angle vs. Joe in what was supposed to be their final showdown, with the winner getting a title shot next month. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about those matches, with audio from Muhammad Ali. Appropriately enough, this is being written on his 70th birthday. The iron man match gets way more focus than the title match, and I don’t think Christian was even in this.

AJ Styles vs. Rhyno

Last man standing but you have to get a pin before the count starts. AJ keeps stealing wins over Rhyno so somehow that means last man standing. Rhyno starts off fast and hammers away. This might be the PPV debut of AJ’s long tights. Rhyno busts out a tope and AJ is reeling early. AJ does his drop down into the dropkick spot. The fans seem split here. Rhyno Hulks Up and beats AJ back again.

AJ pulls the tape off his wrist but as Hebner throws it out, Rhyno takes a low blow. A springboard splash gets a pin and an eight count. AJ pounds him down but a charge results in Rhyno picking him up and dropping him onto the top rope snake eyes style. Out to the floor and AJ hits a flip dive. Quickly back into the ring and AJ gets two. AJ is the heel here but he’s still more popular than Rhyno.

AJ comes off the ropes with a forearm but jumps into a spinebuster for the pin. It only gets about seven. They circle each other and slug it out. Rhyno takes over and loads up a superplex but walks into a sunset bomb for two. TKO gets two for Rhyno. It’s Table Time but Styles manages to crotch Rhyno on the edge of it. Back in the springboard forearm only gets two.

Powerbomb puts AJ down but Rhyno walks into a Pele to put him down. A Gore out of nowhere kills AJ but Rhyno doesn’t cover. Another Gore kills him even deader for the pin and the ten count. That second one looked SICK. AJ could have gotten up but sat down to avoid a third Gore.

Rating: C+. Not bad but the going back and forth came a little too fast. You would see them go down and then be up seconds later. Also they didn’t get particularly violent at all, which makes me question why they went with this as the opener. It was good but you would expect more when you hear the words last man standing.

Rhyno says he’ll take Styles out tonight and chases AJ to the back.

West and Tenay run down the card.

Rhyno and AJ pop up on the stage and Rhyno piledrives him. He loads up a table and sets it up in front of the entrance tunnel but AJ avoids the shot and Rhyno crashes through the table.

We recap the X Title match. Lynn is the old guard, Daniels is champion and Sabin is the young gun. Past, present and future. A lot of these soundbytes from Lynn are the same ones they used for his singles match with Sabin next month.

Jerry Lynn says he’s not old and he’ll teach both of them something tonight.

X-Division Title: Chris Sabin vs. Jerry Lynn vs. Christopher Daniels

Daniels is champion here. I’ll give Lynn this: he does look good for a 43 year old man. Sabin gets beaten down by both guys so he hides on the ramp. Well as well as you can hide by being a pale professional wrestler in trunks hiding on a dark ramp. Back in and we get a triple crisscross. Ok that did look cool. Daniels takes over and knocks both of them down including knocking Sabin to the floor.

The champ puts a figure four headscissors onto Lynn on the middle rope, leaning out of the ring. Sabin uses the opening to kick his head off and takes over on Lynn. From what I understand, this is Lynn’s first match in TNA in about a year and a half. And someone he’s technically #1 contender to a title. Right. Anyway Daniels comes back in and goes Koji Clutch on Lynn but Sabin breaks it up.

Lynn gets sent to the floor as Sabin fires off some kicks to Daniels for two. He hooks a nerve hold on the champ and keeps Lynn on the floor once again. The fans say Lynn still has it despite him getting beaten up the whole time in this match so far. Daniels is put in the Tree of Woe and a hesitation dropkick gets two. All three back in now and the fans are way behind Jerry.

Speaking of Jerry he goes up and hits a foot into the chest of both guys. Headscissors all around and the fans are really into Lynn. He sets for the Cradle Piledriver but Daniels hits an Sto to stop him. Everyone is down again and Lynn goes after Sabin. Lynn sets for a bulldog off the middle rope but Daniels runs up and we get a low level Tower of Doom. BME gets two on Sabin. Sitout powerbomb gets the same for Lynn. Lynn and Daniels go at it and Lynn hits an inverted Emerald Flowsion for two. Cradle Piledriver puts Daniels down but Sabin grabs a rollup and tights on Lynn to win the title.

Rating: B-. I usually don’t like triple threats but this one worked very well for me. All three guys were moving out there and Daniels was doing enough other stuff to keep him from getting on my nerves. They flew around enough and the ending was hot enough to make it work and I liked this match a good deal.

Kevin Nash says that he’s looking forward to the PCS Finals and Bob Backlund, who had been referenced for months, debuts as the head judge for the contest. Nash talks about going up and down the road with Backlund and Backlund has no idea what he’s talking about. You can hear David Penzer in the background giving the crowd NFL scores. Backlund asks if the finalists have been tortured well enough. Nash talks about playing musical chairs with them and Backlund isn’t sure what to make of it. Nash leaves and Young pops up, talks about going shopping with JB, and says he voted for Backlund in 1995.

We recap the Paparazzi Championship Series. Basically it was NXT before NXT existed, with five lower midcard guys competing in things like limbo, pogo sticking, high card draw and so on. This was run by Kevin Nash who cracked jokes the entire time. Bob Backlund was mentioned about every five minutes. For the life of me, this might be the most out there storyline I’ve ever seen in TNA. Apparently it was to bring out the characters of the X-Division. Makes as much sense as anything else.

Paparazzi Championship Series Finals: Alex Shelley vs. Austin Starr

It’s a ten minute time limit and if there’s no winner in that time, we go to the judges. The judges are Samolian Joe (from Madagascar Championship Wrestling, very white), Big Fat Oily Guy and Bob Backlund. Oily Guy is in thong. They exchange wristlocks to start and then go to the mat. Nash claims 39,000 people saw him beat Backlund in MSG. He’s joking and got a chuckle out of me, talking about the hour long match they had.

Starr Hulks Up (Nash’s term) but Shelley takes his head off with a clothesline. The Oily Guy keeps oiling up. Sliced Bread is countered as they haven’t done much here. Shelley is sent to the floor and Starr hits a corkscrew plancha to take him out. Starr goes over and gives himself points on Samolian Joe’s card. Suicide Dive takes Starr out. They seem to only care about the judges instead of getting a pin.

Back in a Lionsault gets two for Shelley. Starr gets some water and spits it in Shelley’s face but can’t take over. We’re over seven minutes into this so you would expect them to pick it up. Sliced Bread is countered again and Starr goes up for the 450. Shelley crotches him though and hits a Backstabber to take over. Slingshot DDT gets two. We’re told there’s a minute left. Sliced Bread is countered into a reverse powerbomb (always thought that would make a great finisher) and Starr hooks a camel clutch with 15 seconds left. The time runs out with no submission.

Rating: C. Not bad here but it was clear that they were going to the judges for a comedy ending to it. The match wasn’t bad though so I can’t really complain about it. The ten minute time limit made it really clear but it wasn’t a bad match or anything. I could have done without the Oily Guy though.

The fans are behind Shelley. The judges hand in their cards. Samolian Joe says Starr, Oily Guy says Shelley, Backlund says this is about conditioning and gives Starr’s a score of 92 and Shelley’s a score of 95. In takedowns, Starr gets an 82 and Shelley gets a 95. Something about positions gets Starr a 90 and Alex Shelton gets an 85. As for pinning combinations, Starr gets a 10 and Shelley gets a 9. Proper match building: Starr 25, Shelley 25, and that’s the final verdict: a draw.

Nash calls for overtime and they speed things up. Shelley gets a nifty rollup for the pin after about 20 seconds. His prize: a bowling trophy. It made little to no sense, but it was very entertaining. Starr goes off on Nash and the other X guys that came out to celebrate hold him back. Starr says this isn’t why he’s here and he only respects Senshi. Senshi doesn’t go anywhere so Starr slaps him. Senshi takes him down and Starr bails. He shoves all of the judges and Backlund puts him in the crossface chickenwing.

We recap the Petey Williams vs. James Storm match. Storm turned heel last month and hit Harris in the face with a beer bottle, blinding him. Williams came out to stand up for Harris and let’s have a match as a result.

James Storm vs. Petey Williams

Gail is with Storm here but isn’t thrilled with it. Petey speeds things up to start and a dropkick sends Storm to the floor. A dive misses though and Storm takes over. The fans want the Cowboy dead. Powerbomb sets up the Eye of the Storm for two. Petey grabs a DDT out of nowhere to put both guys down. I’m a bit distracted by Gail’s awesome rack so I apologize for the lack of play by play here. Storm blocks the Destroyer and hits a reverse DDT to take over again. Petey gets in a shot but his sunset flip is countered. Slingshot Codebreaker gets two. Last Call misses but Storm rolls him up and grabs the rope for the pin.

Rating: D. Pretty worthless match here that belonged on Impact. Williams was kind of thrown in there and fit to an extent but he could have been anyone for the most part. It was short though so I can’t really complain about it that much. Plus Gail looked great in a skirt and bra.

Post match Williams gets cuffed to the ropes as Gail protests. Storm goes after Gail so she slaps him. He loads up the beer bottle but Gail hits him low and gets the bottle herself. And then that worthless bag of skin known as Jackie Moore debuts as Storm’s new chick. Gail takes the AMW finisher, the Death Sentence.

We get a video of the New Age Outlaws going to Connecticut to make fun of WWE. This went on for awhile and I don’t think anyone really cared. This is set to the Hardy Boys’ old music from the late 90s. The Outlaws put up 1,000,000 dollars for a match against any WWE team. Here they are (the Voodoo Kin Mafia or whatever) for the challenge. They declare victory over WWE for some reason.

They talk about chilling at Titan Towers and Vince did nothing. Then they went to a house show and bothered Paul Levesque (HHH) who did nothing. They do wish him well in healing his leg though. They went to San Antonio to find Michael Hickenbottom (HBK) but he was a no show. Then they put out the million dollar charity (first time I’ve heard that mentioned) challenge but Vince turned it down. It would have helped ratings apparently.

Roadie makes fun of Vince for letting Cena lose to Kevin Federline and the celebrity look-a-likes (Rosie and Trump I think) have a match. I have no idea what the point of this was. The booing that was heard turned into TNA chants. That’s actually true, and then they do stupid stuff like this because this is what you pay to see when you buy a TNA PPV: people talking about WWE. Roadie actually says that Vince insults people’s intelligence. I’d advice you to scroll up about a page or two and make your own jokes. The fans don’t seem to care here.

He says that this is like the Iraqis having purple fingers from voicing their opinions. Yeah, because picking a wrestling company when you can watch both without overlapping is like freedom to vote. The fans are led in a chorus of We’re Not Gonna Take It and that’s it. And no it isn’t because Christy Hemme is here. She cries about how Shawn/HHH and the Outlaws are debated about who the foundation of DX. I kid you not, she asks what about Chyna.

It’s about women like her and Lita and Trish and WHAT IS THE POINT WITH THIS??? Oh it’s the start of Hemme’s women power thing. She talks about how the women aren’t disposable and how she wants to wrestle. This is just awful. The fans chant WE WANT WRESTLING and Christy says she does too, then she proceeds to keep talking. She goes into her last tirade and the fans chant boring. This has been going on over ten minutes now.

Roadie says there’s a place for women in the business and sounds sympathetic. Billy says that Christy is a sl** (BIG pop) and tells her to go back to stripping. Girls are good for two things, prompting a suck it sign. Christy goes off on him again and slaps Kip (Billy) to finally end this. For some reason, this got about 15 minutes in total, or longer than every match on the card other than one tonight. And it led to Christy in a tuxedo match and managing a bunch of tag teams.

Team 3D says they’re ready for LAX. Runt (Spike) and Konnan have both been taken out for this match. Ray talks about the fans and how LAX has no idea how lucky they have it. They leave and Sting pops up, looking for Abyss. And that’s it.

We recap LAX vs. 3D. LAX has the titles, the Dudleys want them, Brother Runt and Konnan got beaten up. Runt is an alcoholic or something.

Tag Titles: LAX vs. Team 3D

D-Von vs. Hernandez gets us going. D-Von is played up as being just as strong as Hernandez here which is probably a stretch but I’ll go with it. Spinning elbow gets two. Off to Ray who chews on gum that Homicide spits out. Ray spits it back at him and that’s your pairing at the moment. The fans chant 187 as Homicide gets caught up in the power game. BIG Rock Bottom gets two. That looked awesome.

Off to D-Von who gets caught by Hernandez and a double team attack gets two. The spinning elbow takes Homicide down and it’s back to Ray. It’s been about 90% Dudleys at this point. Ray and Homicide go to the floor and Homicide gets killed. Does that make sense? Either way it’s off to SuperMex again. Off to a chinlock and the fans want tables. The LAX control doesn’t last long as D-Von beats them down again.

Splash misses for Hernandez and D-Von takes over (Ray: KILL HIM!) again. LAX gets caught by double teaming and Ray doesn’t seem to feel the need to get involved. He gets a tag a few seconds later and What’s Up Hernandez. 3D from 3D to Homicide and Hernandez is sent to the floor. And here’s Runt in a Santa suit, drunk off his Spike. He jumps off the top onto Homicide and that’s a DQ.

Rating: C-. Not a terrible match here and the ending was about the only way they could manage to keep the titles on LAX. This was pretty one sided the whole time so they couldn’t change the titles or having a regular ending without making one team look weak. Konnan being gone was fine for an explanation for the lack of cohesiveness from the champs. This was the first of five straight PPVs these two were against each other.

Joe says welcome to the ending Kurt. It’s personal now as it almost always is.

Recap of Joe vs. Angle. Joe was undefeated in TNA but Kurt showed up and in his first match, broke the streak. Joe won at the next PPV and this is the rubber match. They really could have built this up for a year at least but they did it in a month for some reason.

Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe

30 minute iron man match, winner gets the title shot next month. The fans are totally split here. They go to the corner to start and then to the mat after about a minute. Joe runs him over and Kurt hits the floor. Back in and they’re clearly pacing themselves here. Three minutes in and there’s more stalling by Kurt. Back in Kurt chokes away in the corner but Joe gets a running kick for two. Five minutes in.

Joe hooks something like a seated abdominal stretch and then a front facelock. Angle gets in a shot at Joe’s bad knee and hits a belly to belly suplex to take over. Off to a chinlock to eat up a few minutes. Joe gets up and hits a snap suplex and both guys are down at ten minutes in. Back up and Kurt gets sent to the floor. Elbow suicida mostly misses but they’re both down anyway.

Angle has a small cut on his head. Joe gets two and a powerslam but misses a charge. The American hits a German on the Samoan for two. Joe tries the MuscleBuster but Kurt rolls through. Joe rolls through that into the Clutch for a tap at just shy of 13:00 gone by. It’s 1-0 Joe. Things reset a bit but Kurt takes over with some right hands. Off to a chinlock and we hit the halfway point while in that hold.

Joe rolls through an Angle Slam and hits a running knee to the face for two. Angle picks the ankle though and Joe taps out with 13:57 to go to tie it up. Angle controls as the fans chant for Joe. Back to the chinlock but Angle shifts back into the ankle lock and Joe taps for the second time to make it 2-1 with about 11 minutes to go. Both guys are down again. Why Angle is tired I’m not quite sure but he is.

Angle pounds away in the corner with ten minutes left. Joe tries the MuscleBuster again but gets rolled up for two. Angle Slam gets the same. There go the straps and the ankle lock goes on again. Joe counters this time and this time the MuscleBuster ties us up at 7:40 to go. The fans think Joe’s Gonna Kill Him but Angle takes the knee out again. Back to the ankle lock with the grapevine but Angle goes to just a regular one instead. Joe kicks him off so Angle goes up. Kurt jumps off but into a suplex attempt. He rolls through though and takes a 3-2 lead over Joe at 5:19 to go.

Five minutes left. Angle starts stalling with four and a half minutes to go. Out to the floor and Angle is fine with chilling there for awhile. Four minutes left. Angle starts running but Joe’s leg keeps him from running. Back in and Joe is in trouble. Kurt charges into the corner and runs into a release Rock Bottom. Three minutes left. MuscleBuster is countered and Angle wraps the leg around the post. 2:30 to go.

They strike it out on the floor and back in with two minutes left. Joe hits a kick and Buster but Kurt gets his foot on the ropes. 90 seconds left. Both submissions are broken up and 60 seconds left. Joe tries the choke but Angle plays defense. 30 seconds left and Joe hooks an ankle lock on Kurt. There’s the grapevine but Kurt barely hangs on and tapes after the bell, managing to win.

Rating: B-. It was good but they never hit a high gear like they’re capable of. It had good drama at the end though which is really the best thing you can ask for. Keeping this at 30 minutes instead of an hour is a great idea and should be the norm for all Iron Man matches. Good match but these two are better at one fall stuff.

Sting says he’ll separate Abyss from his puppeteer tonight. Cue Mitchell and Abyss with the manager saying Sting is just as much of an animal as Abyss. Sting grabs Mitchell and says tonight Mitchell will be dancing with the devil.

We recap the world title match. Sting lost the title to Abyss via DQ at the last PPV so this is his rematch. As for Christian, he and Tomko know something about Abyss’ past and that Abyss was in prison for shooting his dad. Sting is trying to save Abyss from the dark side and almost did when Mitchell was gone, but Mitchell got him back recently.

NWA World Title: Sting vs. Abyss vs. Christian Cage

Elimination rules. Tomko will be locked in a small cage at ringside. Christian gets knocked down quickly so the others go at it. Abyss is champion here if that wasn’t clear. He gets knocked to the floor so Sting beats up Christian for awhile. Abyss pulls Sting to the floor and rams him into the cage. Now Cage is thrown around too. All Abyss at the moment. Christian gets in a shot and goes back inside with Abyss as Sting is still down.

Shock Treatment hits for two on the second attempt. Christian takes out the knee but jumps into a chokeslam for two. Tomko reaches through the cage and chokes Sting. Abyss hits the Black Hole Slam but the referee is yelling at Tomko. Christian guillotines Abyss on the ropes, right into a Death Drop from Sting and it’s one on one (despite a very clear shot of Abyss’ shoulder being up). Abyss chokes Sting before he leaves.

Christian uses the distraction for a missile dropkick for two. Off to a chinlock for a change of pace. Sting Hulks Up and gorilla presses the Canadian. Superplex puts both guys down and Sting can’t cover. Mitchell comes back down for no apparent reason. Sting hooks the Deathlock in the middle of the ring but Mitchell hits the guy holding the key and frees Tomko. Tomko runs in and hits a Rack Neckbreaker which is good for two.

Christian distracts the referee as Tomko comes in again. Sting knocks him to the floor as Abyss returns to beat Tomko up. Christian misses a belt shot and walks into an Unprettier from Sting for a VERY close two. Down goes the referee and Mitchell comes back in. Abyss is there too and Sting puts Mitchell in the Deathlock. Abyss I guess turns again, hitting Sting with a chain. A Frog Splash gives Christian the title.

Rating: C-. This didn’t really do it for me. It’s not bad, but MAN was it overdone at the end. Christian gets a world title out of it so the internet exploded, but at the same time the match was pretty boring. It just went too crazy at the end and the match felt like a trainwreck. Also it was pretty short, which didn’t help things.

Overall Rating: C-. It’s far better than Against All Odds, but this was a step off. The problem for the most part is that the main event feels like an afterthought, but it had to be given that Angle vs. Joe was the real main event. They kind of backed themselves into a corner with that, but given what they had it’s understandable. The other issue the title match had is that it felt very rushed. Gee, could it be because you spent FIFTEEN MINUTES ON A FREAKING CHRISTY HEMME SEGMENT??? Time management: it’s always been one of TNA’s biggest issues and it still is today. Ok show, nothing really memorable though.

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