Slammiversary 2006
Date: June 18, 2006
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 900
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Don West

It’s the anniversary show again with the main event therefore being the King of the Mountain match. It’s Christian defending this year and since Jeff Jarrett is in it, I think you know what’s going down here. Tonight we also have the debut of the new face of TNA management in the form of Jim Cornette. Other than that there isn’t much else to talk about so let’s get to it.

The opening video is about the King of the Mountain match which is almost always at least interesting. We hear from all five people in the match tonight, all of whom say that they’re going to win and that it’s their time. Jarrett thinks Sting and Christian are going to explode and he’ll be able to step in and take the title.

Team 3D vs. James Gang

This is called a Bingo Hall Brawl. There aren’t intros or anything like that as they’re fighting in the tunnel before we have time for any. This is an open challenge of some kind but the story isn’t really explained. Billy and Ray have a chair duel, resulting in BG James interfering and letting Billy crack Ray with the chair for two. D-Von makes the save and the Dudleys hit the reverse neckbreaker for two.

They brawl into the crowd and over into the LAX area which causes LAX to beat up both teams for some reason. Ray sets up a piece of barricade across a pair of chairs at ringside. BG dives off the steps and over the rail to take out D-Von but Ray blasts him in the head for his efforts. They all go into the crowd and Billy blasts both Dudleys with a trashcan lid. Ray is back at ringside and throws in a trashcan full of weapons.

Everyone is in the ring now and Ray finds….a bra? He chokes Kip (Billy) with it before pulling out the cheese grater. That goes over Kip’s head and we’ve got blood. D-Von and BG hit each other with trashcans and everyone goes down. Team 3D loads up What’s Up but BG gets up a trashcan lid to block the head. Billy hits a Fameasser to Ray onto a trashcan for two.

The fans think this awesome and while that might be a stretch, it’s certainly not that bad. Billy goes for some punches in the corner but he gets caught in a Doomsday Device for two as BG makes the save. Now the fans want tables which of course get loaded up. The fans want fire too but that’s a bit too much to ask apparently. Instead they have to settle for a 3D for Kip through the table for the pin.

Rating: C+. Solid opener here as the fans were way into the violence here, which is what the point of an opener is. The fans think it was awesome and again I think that’s too much of a stretch, but the match was certainly good for what it was supposed to be. Naturally it was because of something WWE was doing at the time (restarting ECW) but that goes with the territory.

Post match Ray rips the WWE, saying that’s how it’s done.

We run down the rest of the card which is something I’ve never gotten.

Jeff Jarrett talks about overcoming the eyes time after time in his life and how that’s what he’s going to do tonight as well, just like Joe Montana or Reggie Jackson or Michael Jordan. Jarrett lists off everyone else in the match and talks about how he’s going to overcome them as well. Larry Z pops up and says Jarrett won’t like who the new face of TNA management is going to be.

We recap Rhyno vs. the Canadians. This is fallout from Abyss beating Rhyno because of the Canadians. Rhyno challenges Bobby Roode and any member of Team Canada that he chose. Naturally he picked Coach D’Amore. For some reason this gets the music video treatment.

Scott D’Amore/Bobby Roode vs. Rhyno

D’Amore runs his mouth about being better than Rhyno pre-match. He tells Roode to stand back and let D’Amore do all of the work here. Uh….k? Here’s Rhyno and D’Amore runs up the other ramp which is funny for some reason. Roode runs as well so we can stall before we start. D’Amore is already blown up after running that far so Roode has to start. The Canadians have to tag here.

Rhyno chases Roode to the floor but gets distracted by D’Amore, allowing Roode to clothesline him in the back of the head to take over. Back in and D’Amore does jumping jacks. Rhyno gets up but Roode hits him again before Rhyno can kill the Coach. Off to Roode who rams him into the buckle for two. D’Amore gets in some more cheap shots but almost gets caught in a piledriver. Roode makes I think the third save in five minutes and comes in legally.

Scratch that as the Coach comes back in to drop a leg. This has been pretty boring so far and I don’t see it getting any better by the end of the match. Roode comes in again to continue the wide array of stomping we’ve got going on. Rhyno snaps off a belly to belly but gets put right back down for more stomping. D’Amore takes off his shirt and goes up for the moonsault but Rhyno moves. Roode comes off the top but jumps into a punch. D’Amore hits Rhyno with the hockey stick but for some reason he tries to put him in a Death Valley Driver. A spinebuster and the Gore pin D’Amore.

Rating: D-. What a boring match. Nothing happened here and the offense by the Canadians was terribly uninteresting. The Gore to the fat guy (who wasn’t that fat really) was kind of cool to see but other than that, there was nothing at all to see here. Rhyno was in a limbo at this point and would be that way for a few more months.

Samoa Joe isn’t worried about Scott Steiner tonight.

Senshi vs. Shark Boy vs. Alex Shelley vs. Sonjay Dutt vs. Petey Williams vs. Jay Lethal

Elimination rules and the winner gets a title match this week on Impact. In what is probably a good thing, people have to tag here so there are only two people in the ring at once. Shark Boy and Petey get us going with Sharky grabbing the arm to start. Petey escapes and tries the Tree of Woe O Canada deal but Shark Boy bites his way out of it. They head out to the floor where nothing happens so Shark Boy tags in Lethal. This is before he’s Black Machismo so he’s just a 20 year old guy who is talented.

Jay works on the back and things speed up a bit. Petey hits a knee to the ribs and dropkicks the knee out. Off to Senshi who chops away, only to get chopped right back. A dropkick gets one for Lethal. Senshi comes back with the kicks before tagging in Shelley to a good reaction. He hooks a necktie choke and bends Lethal over the his knees. Lethal backflips out of it but Shelley backflips out of that and hits a kind of Backstabber to put Jay back down.

Jay gets in a low dropkick and it’s off to Dutt to start the flips. A standing swanton followed by a standing moonsault gets two. Dutt goes up top, only to get crotched by Shelley, who follows that up by dragging the crotch along the top rope for some rope burns. Alex stays on Dutt but taunts Sharky. This draws everyone in and it’s a triple suplex in a fairly cool looking spot. We get down to Dutt vs. Shark Boy with the masked man hitting a slingshot splash for two.

The Dead Sea drop is countered so he hits a regular neckbreaker instead. Shark Boy tries a top rope elbow but crashes, allowing Dutt to hit a standing shooting star to eliminate Shark Boy. Shelley vs. Dutt now and it’s a loud enziguri to Dutt. Dutt no sells that and hits a neckbreaker to put Shelley down. Dutt goes up but gets launched onto the middle rope, where Lethal tags himself in.

Lethal comes in with a springboard dropkick to Alex but Shelley comes back very quickly. A brainbuster looks to set up a swanton bomb but Jay avoids it and eliminates Shelley with a dragon suplex. Everyone comes in now and Senshi is sent to the floor. Petey hits a slingshot rana to the outside so Lethal dives onto the Canadian. Dutt hits a huge moonsault press onto all three to put all four down.

It’s Lethal vs. Petey in the ring with Jay kicking Petey’s head off. Petey shrugs that off and kills Lethal with the Destroyer to get us down to three. Dutt comes back in as it’s him, Senshi and Petey to go. Senshi and Williams team up on Dutt for a bit but Williams accidentally drills the bald guy in the face. An enziguri gets two for Dutt on Williams as Petey is in trouble. Senshi comes in and clotheslines Williams down because he’s not a nice guy.

Senshi goes up but Petey stops him, starting a fight on the top. Williams tries the Destroyer off the top but Senshi hangs on. Dutt takes Williams down and the Warrior’s Way gets us down to Senshi vs. Dutt. Both guys go up again and Dutt hits a rana to take Senshi down. A low dropkick gets two as does a floatover DDT. Senshi takes him down and hits a standing Warrior’s Way (double stomp) for two. Dutt trips him down and goes up top but his 450 hits knees. A HUGE running dropkick puts Dutt down and Senshi puts him in the Tree of Woe. The Warrior’s Way from that position is more than enough for the pin.

Rating: B-. This was your usual mindless X-Division match and that’s fine. This ate up almost half an hour and it was certainly entertaining. Senshi was the new hot thing in the division so putting him over like this was certainly the right idea. There isn’t much to say here as this was exactly what you would expect from this kind of a match, but it was pretty good.

Shelley is with Nash and apologizes for the loss, but he thinks there were knives and guns involved. Nash isn’t worried about his X-Division match tonight with Sabin. Today is Father’s Day and he talks some trash about Sabin’s papa.

We recap Nash vs. Sabin which is part of the Paparazzi Productions feud, which I still don’t think anyone involved could actually explain to you. Nash talked about how he was going to take over the X-Division, making Sabin stand up for its defense. This feud didn’t make a ton of sense but it was pretty funny.

Kevin Nash vs. Chris Sabin

Nash hits a hard knee to the ribs and Sabin goes flying. A pair of elbows miss and Sabin goes for the knees. So this is your basic small guy vs. giant match isn’t it? Sabin comes back with some fast strikes and Nash bails to the floor. He calls out Shelley for backup and we continue the stalling. Nash takes over again and pounds Sabin down into the corner, allowing Shelley to take the turnbuckle off. Sabin goes up for a middle rope dropkick, getting two.

He tries the Cradle Shock and you can join me in rolling your eyes if you like. That injures Sabin’s back so Nash bends Chris over his knee. The Jackknife is countered into a seated senton for two. Sabin loads up Cradle Shock again but this time Shelley grabs Nash’s foot to break it up. That ticks Sabin off so he dives onto Shelley for good guy revenge. Back in and a dropkick gets two on the big guy as does a guillotine legdrop. After another distraction by Shelley, Nash gets up, hits the big boot and Jackknifes Sabin for the pin.

Rating: D. This was another dull match that didn’t really accomplish anything. Sabin was more of an annoyance to Nash rather than a credible opponent, which doesn’t help the division at all. That being said, it lets Nash brag some more which is the right idea at the end of the day. I still do wish the story made any kind of sense though.

AMW says they’re not worried about Daniels and Styles tonight. They laugh off the notion that they’re disrespecting the titles because they’re the best thing that’s ever happened to the titles. Storm says sorry about your luck.

We recap the tag title match. Daniels and Styles have had the titles won time after time but AMW cheated to win the title each time. Tonight it’s the last chance and the challengers say they have a way to keep Gail out of things.

Tag Titles: Christopher Daniels/AJ Styles vs. America’s Most Wanted

AMW has the titles of course. Gail is looking great in all white tonight. Storm hides something behind the steps before the match starts. Styles and Storm start us off, which is a potential PPV main event today. Storm takes him down with a shoulder block so Styles starts jumping around to take over. There’s the dropdown dropkick and Storm is in trouble. The challengers start tagging in and out quickly as they work over Storm’s arm.

It’s off to Harris vs. Daniels for a battle of arm control. Daniels gets him down and steps on the head of Harris just to be evil, although in a friendly way of course. Storm comes in and we get some homosexually suggestive positions as a result. AMW gets sent to the floor and Styles hits a huge flip dive over the top to take them both down. Daniels brings Storm back in for a slingshot elbow drop for a delayed two.

Back to Styles and the perfect double teaming begins. Styles slides through Harris’ legs to ram his face into the apron. Styles goes back in to face the legal Storm but everything breaks down on the floor. Gail gets involved out there and AMW takes over again. AJ tries to use the barricade as a launch pad but Storm takes the legs out and sends AJ’s chest into the steel.

Back in and it’s Storm vs. Styles before a quick tag brings Harris back in. With Harris doing nothing he brings Storm back in for some kicks to the head for two. Back to the Wildcat who chokes away. I’m starting to get why Storm was the successful one after the team broke up. AJ gets spun around and almost makes a tag out of it, only to get caught in a spinning mat slam by Storm.

Styles counters the reverse tornado DDT and hits the Pele to put both guys down. There’s the double tag and Daniels speeds things up. The slingshot moonsault gets two on Harris as Storm messes up his save. A Blue Thunder Bomb puts Harris down but Gail makes the save. Sirelda, a Chyna wannabe, makes her debut and lays out Gail.

Back to the match, AMW tries a double team move off the top but AJ makes the save, allowing Daniels to hook a victory roll for two. Storm throws in a chair for Harris to blast Daniels to two. Hot tag brings in AJ with the springboard forearm followed by a pumphandle gutbuster. Spinal Tap misses and Harris blasts AJ in the face with the brass knuckles.

Daniels makes the save and AJ hits a slingshot splash for two. Back to Daniels but Angel’s Wings is broken up. The Last Call is blocked by a low blow and Angel’s Wings hits the second time but Harris elbows the referee. Storm brings in the beer bottle but it hits Harris in the head. A frog splash from AJ followed by the BME gives the Dream Team the titles.

Rating: B-. Another good match here and it would start a pretty solid reign for the new champions. AMW would slowly slip into a funk and be broken up by the end of the year. AJ and Daniels were a solid team though and they had some awesome matches against LAX, which was the whole idea of putting them together in the first place.

Sting says he’s been around for awhile and he knows how to multitask. If he has the chance to get the title, he’ll take it but more importantly, he wants to keep the title away from Jarrett.

Tenay is in the ring and we get a video of the first four years of TNA. Tenay brings out the new face of TNA management: Jim Cornette. Cornette praises TNA and says how great the tag title match was. He’s here for Panda Energy and to protect their investment and won’t back down. Somehow that took almost ten minutes.

Scott Steiner isn’t worried about Joe.

We recap Samoa Joe vs. Scott Steiner. This isn’t the time with the machete either. Joe is undefeated here and Steiner wants to break the “half breed’s” streak. Joe debuted a year ago at Slammiversary and he’ll be undefeated for a year after tonight. This is the Joe that had an attitude and a chip on his shoulder and you knew he was going to run over anyone that he faced.

Scott Steiner vs. Samoa Joe

Joe is the X Champion here if that means anything. Steiner grabs the arm to start and easily flips Joe over. They go to the mat but Joe pulls guard (I’ve been watching some MMA lately) and Steiner lets him up. Steiner hiptosses him over and poses so Joe spits in his face. Joe gets all fired up and lays in the chops and kicks to take over. Scott snaps off a release belly to belly and takes over again.

Joe takes him down into the corner and we get the Facewash. Steiner thinks he can hide on the floor but the suicide elbow sends him into the barricade. Back in and Steiner clotheslines him down and we get the push-up elbow. Another belly to belly puts Joe down, followed by a powerbomb but Joe grabs a triangle choke. He can’t keep it on all the way though due to the suplex and powerbomb hurting his neck.

Joe snaps off right hands in the corner but charges into a release Rock Bottom, which is one of Joe’s moves. They go to the floor and up towards the stage with Steiner picking up a chair. Naturally that winds up going upside his own head but Steiner shrugs it off and puts Joe against the post and cracks his head with the chair. The referee says they have a ten count to get in for some reason. Steiner cracks him with the chair again and gets nine.

Back in and Joe fires off the palm strikes to take over. An atomic drop sets up the running big boot followed by the senton backsplash for no cover. Now Steiner charges into the release Rock Bottom. A slam attempt by Steiner is countered into a Blue Thunder Bomb for two. Steiner comes back with some clotheslines but gets caught in the Clutch. Steiner fights up and breaks the hold then does it again, the second time with a low blow. A half nelson suplex puts Joe down. The Recliner is countered into an electric chair position and Steiner charges into a powerslam for the surprise pin.

Rating: C+. This was a pretty good power match as Joe gets another win over a big enough name. That’s all you need to do at times and it was another good building block for him. He wouldn’t really do anything for way too long which is where they screwed up with him, but it was TNA so they weren’t going to be considered geniuses back then.

Christian, the world champion, says that he’ll be the first champion to retain in the King of the Mountain match. If he had a dime for every time someone said he would lose, he’d have at least 51 dimes. The NWA World Title is like a drug and tonight he’s going to keep it from Jarrett.

We recap the world title match, which is really just based on qualifying matches.

NWA World Title: Christian Cage vs. Ron Killings vs. Jeff Jarrett vs. Sting vs. Abyss

King of the Mountain, which has some complicated rules. It’s a reverse ladder match, meaning you have to hang the title above the ring to win it. However to be eligible to do that, you have to gain a fall over someone else. If you pin or submit someone, they go to the penalty box for two minutes. After the big match intros we’re ready to go.

Big brawl to start with only Truth and Jarrett left in the ring. Christian gets back in and dances with Truth for some reason, getting himself punched in the face for his efforts. It’s Christian vs. Jarrett in the ring at the moment but they quickly go to the floor with the Canadian diving onto Jeff. The other three go into the ring and Abyss’ double chokeslam attempt is broken up.

Truth knocks Abyss to the floor and hits a huge dive to take everyone down. Sting goes tot he top of the penalty box and dives on all of them because he’s just that awesome. Sting vs. Jarrett in the ring now and Jarrett gets hit with the splash, followed by a missile dropkick from Truth, who gets the pin. Sting stood back and let him get the pin. Truth is now eligible and Jarrett is in the box for two minutes.

There are two tables set up next to the box. Truth tries to bring in a ladder but Christian launches it into his face for a two count. Abyss gets into the ring and sets for a gorilla press on Christian but Cage slips down the back and rolls Abyss up to become eligible as well. Jarrett gets out about two seconds after Abyss goes in so we’ve got four active people now with Christian and Truth both eligible.

Truth gets slammed by Sting and Jarrett crushes Christian with the ladder on the floor. Something that might have been the Death Drop on Truth gets two and Abyss is freed. He throws Christian into the barricade and now there are four tables in a 2×2 stack on the floor. Everyone but Christian is in the ring now with the good guys taking over. Sting and Abyss knock each other to the floor and Jarrett Strokes Truth off the apron into the barricade for the pin to become eligible.

The four people left fight into the crowd and Sting cracks Abyss with a chair to the head and then does it again. Christian tries to throw Jeff over the end of the balcony but Jeff fights back to prevent death. Sting throws Abyss into a wall as Christian and Jeff are back at ringside. Abyss throws Sting into the same wall as earlier and Truth is out of the box. There’s no one near him so…let’s look at the crowd.

Killings grabs the ladder and goes up but he takes forever but Abyss makes the save. Everyone is in the ring now and Jarrett/Abyss beat on everyone else with a ladder. Truth gets launched to the floor but Sting and Christian dropkick the ladder into the evil ones. Christian crushes Jarrett between the ladder but Abyss makes the save, sending both guys out to the floor in the process.

Truth goes up again but Abyss shoves him off again. The ladder swings back and falls on Hebner so there’s no referee. Jarrett goes for the title but Abyss objects and hits the Black Hole Slam. A second referee comes out to count the pin, meaning only Sting isn’t eligible. In a TERRIBLY contrived spot, Abyss sets the ladder next to the ropes, only for Sting to shove him through the four tables.

Christian and Sting stare each other down and they slug it out. A Stinger Splash hits and he puts on the Scorpion but Jarrett comes out of the box early. He hits Sting with the belt and loads up the guitar shot, only for Christian to steal the guitar. The Death Drop puts Jarrett down and he puts the Scorpion on Jarrett, telling Sting to go up. Larry Z hits Christian low and gets drilled by Sting.

Another Death Drop puts Jarrett back down but there’s no referee to count. Sting does the Austin thing and slaps the mat three times with Hebner’s hand. Sting goes up but Christian stops him. EARL HEBNER shoves the ladder over as Jarrett goes up and hangs the belt (he never went into the box) to win in a Montreal angle. Larry even gets Earl out of there to complete the stupidity.

Rating: B. Other than the STUPID ending, I liked it. Montreal is easily the most controversial moment in wrestling history and is probably the most famous ending to a show ever. I personally hate it because we’re nearly FIFTEEN YEARS LATER and I still have to sit through reenactments of it. The match was pretty fun, but Jarrett winning was just a way to set up Sting vs. Jarrett again.

Post match another referee steals the belt from Jarrett and gives it to Cornette to end the show.

Overall Rating: B-. This show worked for the most part, although there were some weak matches in there as well. There’s more good than bad though which is all that matters at the end of the day. This was a hit or miss time for TNA but you could see the great elements they could have in there with guys like AJ and Daniels and Joe, but that usually goes without saying. Good show here though.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Sacrifice 2006
Date: May 14, 2006
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 900
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Don West

Another show here in Orlando with Christian as the world champion. Tonight he defends against Abyss in a Full Metal Mayhem match, which is the TNA version of a TLC match. Abyss took the belt itself at Lockdown even though Christian is still champion. Other than that it’s another chapter in the Sting vs. Jarrett saga, in this case Sting/Joe vs. Jarrett/Steiner. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about how everyone has troubles in their lives and how everyone has to make sacrifices.

We open up with a scoreboard update for the World X Cup. This is one of those things that I never quite got into but a lot of people loved. The idea is that you have four teams of four X guys competing in a round robin style tournament for national supremacy. America has five points, Mexico has two points and Japan and Canada have zero each. This is the last match of the second round and I guess it’s for one point.

World X Cup Second Round: Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Petey Williams

Actually this is worth three points. Petey takes him to the mat and the fans are all over him. To be fair he’s fighting a legend so it’s understandable. I think they botch an elbow drop spot as Liger dropped the elbow but Williams took over anyway. A headscissors puts Liger to the apron but he low bridges Williams to the floor. Liger adds a huge dive to take over again.

Team Japan acts all evil and pounds on Petey on the floor. Back into the ring and Liger hooks the surfboard which is one of his signature holds. He drops Petey down into a dragon sleeper and now the annoying fans have to do the dueling chants. A frog splash by Liger hits knees and Petey hits a spinwheel kick to put Liger down again.

Liger tries a palm thrust but walks into an enziguri and tornado DDT for two. Petey loads up the Destroyer but Jushin comes back with a palm thrust and the Liger Bomb for two. A member of Team Japan interferes with a low blow. Liger follows with the Crash Thunder Buster (wheelbarrow facejam) for the pin.

Rating: C+. This was pretty good and a solid choice for an opener. Liger is one of the few guys from Japan that people actually know a bit here in America so his appearances are actually worth something. Having people go out there and just saying they’re from Japan or Mexico or wherever doesn’t really mean anything. Liger could still go in his late 30s or early 40s so this worked pretty well.

The PPV froze at the end of the match. Such is life in TNA.

Updated World X Cup Standings:

America – 5

Japan – 3

Mexico – 2

Canada – 0

We’ll be back to this later on.

We run down the card for the rest of the show.

AMW with Jackie (Gayda) and Gail say they’re not worried about tonight. Jackie is here against her will. Storm threatens Jackie to not cost them anything tonight. The girls are barred from ringside. Jackie says she’s pregnant and Gail fires her.

We recap AMW vs. Styles/Daniels. The idea is that AMW is the undefeatable team so a dream team has been put together to fight them. They already had one match but Gail cheated to keep the belts on AMW.

Tag Titles: America’s Most Wanted vs. Christopher Daniels/AJ Styles

Styles and Daniels jump the champions to start and Daniels/Harris go to the floor so AJ can hit the dropdown dropkick on the Cowboy. Daniels comes in and we’re ready to go. He takes Storm down and cranks on the arm but it’s off to Harris who runs Daniels over. The challengers double team Storm and Harris’ full nelson slam is countered into a bridging Indian Deathlock with a chinlock but the Cowboy makes the save.

Styles comes in legally now and the challengers tag in and out quickly to work on the arm. AMW finally starts cheating and get Daniels into the corner to take over. The champs cheat like true heel champions would do with choking and face pulling before Harris hooks a chinlock. A back elbow gets two on the Fallen Angel. Daniels counters an Irish whip to send Storm’s shoulder into the post and it’s hot tag to AJ.

AJ speeds things way up with his headscissors but Storm makes the save. Daniels gets tagged back in for some reason and we get a Tower of Doom with Daniels on top. Oh scratch that as he shoves the Tower down and hits a top rope cross body for two on Harris. I wish AMW would have their names on their trunks because when their backs are to the camera it’s very hard to tell them apart.

Daniels throws Harris into the crowd and AJ dives from the top rope over the barrier and onto Harris. The match kind of breaks down a bit and everyone is on the floor. A fan has a box of cereal for some reason. Back in and Daniels breaks up the Death Sentence before putting Harris into a fireman’s carry. AJ hits the Pele before the DVD hits to kill Harris dead. BME misses but the Last Call does as well. Harris hits his spear to take Daniels down for two.

It’s Storm vs. Daniels legally now but Daniels hits a double clothesline to bring in Styles. AJ goes up high with a double clothesline of his own but he charges into a boot from Storm. AJ loads up a superplex but Harris makes the save, resulting in a Doomsday Device into a reverse tornado DDT by Storm for two. That looked awesome.

Daniels comes back in for the save and the challengers hit a BME/Frog Splash combo for two on Storm. Styles tries the Clash but the Cowboy escapes with a low blow and the superkick for two. Angel’s Wings hits Storm for two as Harris makes the save. This is getting awesome. Daniels, Harris and the referee get knocked to the floor and something falls from the rafters into the ring. It’s a nightstick and Gail Kim is seen in the rafters. AJ hits the Clash on Storm but Harris blasts him in the back of the head with the nightstick for the pin to retain.

Rating: B+. This was getting awesome at the end but we had to have Gail Kim interfere to end the thing. This would set up another match at Slammiversary which wasn’t as good but it gave us the title change which we needed. Still though, this was the old school idea of putting four guys out there and giving them fifteen minutes to have a great match. As usual, it worked.

Larry Z is with A-1 and says that all of his problems are because of Raven. A-1 is going to take out Raven for him tonight. A-1 has no idea what’s going on and thinks Larry’s name is Barry. He leaves and Slick Johnson comes in and says we’re going to find out who the face of TNA management is next month. Larry has no idea who it’s going to be but Johnson says he knows. He suggests it’ll be Piper but that’s just a joke. It might be Vince Russo but that’s also a joke. The third joke is Ultimate Warrior. I think we get it by this point. Johnson still won’t tell.

We recap the Larry Z vs. Raven feud which has gone on forever. Larry was told that someone was going to be the new face of TNA management on the same day that his biggest rival, Raven, was reinstated. Team Canada offered A-1 to take Raven out for some reason.

Raven vs. A-1

Larry sits in a chair in the ring before the match starts. Larry gets in his face so A-1 hits Raven with said chair to get an early advantage. A-1 rams him into the corner a bunch of times as Larry sits in on commentary. They head to the floor and A-1 rams him into the post a few times to stay on the back. Raven’s back goes into the barricade as the beating on that thing continues.

Back into the ring and A-1 fires off shoulders in the corner. A corner splash/forearm puts Raven down again as we’re still waiting on Bird Boy’s first offense. A-1 kicks him down but Raven FINALLY gets in some right hands in the corner. A clothesline out of the corner buts A-1 down and he fires off some kicks. An Edge-O-Matic puts Raven down but Larry’s distraction lets A-1 get in a cheap shot. A charge misses and the Raven Effect gets the pin.

Rating: D. This was a really dull match, but that could be said about almost any match in this Raven vs. Larry feud. It just kept going on and on with nothing ever really being accomplished. We got matches like Raven vs. Kanyon out of it which didn’t make anyone interested in the match or anything like that, but who cares about stuff like that?

Larry calls Raven back to the ring and they have a weak brawl.

Jarrett and Steiner say Sting hasn’t one-uped them but rather the opposite. Jarrett says that Sting is desperate for picking Joe as his partner when Joe isn’t trustworthy. Steiner says that Sting’s mistake will result in pain.

We recap Rhyno vs. Roode. Team Canada cost Rhyno a match with Abyss for some reason that isn’t quite explained here. Rhyno has vowed to go through all of the Canadians to get to Coach D’Amore.

Bobby Roode vs. Rhyno

The is power vs. power and they fight over a lockup to start. A shoulder block puts Roode on the floor but Rhyno doesn’t follow up. Roode comes back in and slaps Rhyno in the face, which gets him punched and backdropped for his troubles. They go to the floor for a slugout which goes to Roode. Back in and Rhyno goes to the middle rope but a disitraction by the Coach lets Roode knock Rhyno to the floor.

Back in and Bobby pounds away at the Man Beast’s head before choking away a bit. Neckbreaker gets two. There’s the Hennig neck snap for the same result and it’s off to a neck crank. The jingoistic fans chant USA so Roode hits a belly to back suplex and a middle rope kneedrop for two. Off to a chinlock which stays on the neck. Like any good stupid heel, Roode slaps Rhyno in the face a few times which fires Rhyno up.

Roode takes him right back down by sending him into the corner and it’s back to the chinlock. Rhyno fights out of it and speeds things up, running over Roode with clotheslines and elbows to the face. A spinebuster gets two for Rhyno and Roode goes to the apron. He goes up top but gets superplexed back down for a close two.

Roode comes back with a spinebuster of his own and it’s hockey stick time. Since that gets taken away, Roode has to settle for getting two boots into the face of a charging Rhyno. The Northern Lariat is countered into a belly to belly but D’Amore gets in a hockey stick shot so that the Lariat can hit for the pin.

Rating: D+. This wasn’t bad but it was pretty boring. I never quite got the point of the feud between Rhyno and the Canadians but it didn’t last long. It was more like a way to bridge the gap from Rhyno being world champion to his next big feud, which would wind up being Christian Cage. Still though, nothing great here but Roode would get much better over time.

Team 3D talks about how you always remember where you were when big things happen (this leads to an argument about OJ Simpson but we’ll skip that). Ray remembers being in Hartford, Connecticut in 2000 and winning their first WWE Tag Titles after beating the New Age Outlaws. Tonight it happens again.

We recap Team 3D vs. the James Gang. The argument is that the match six years ago ended with a pipe shot and also about the Dudleys getting big in a bingo hall while the Outlaws were headlining MSG.

Team 3D vs. James Gang

Roadie says that he isn’t a mark so he doesn’t remember his wins and losses. Ok then. Kip and D-Von start us off with D-Von hitting a jumping clothesline for two. With nothing of note in the first minute and a half, it’s off to Ray vs. BG. They trade armdrags and no one can really get a distinct advantage. BG fires off an armdrag and dropkick to send Ray into the corner. He yells at Ray about being fat so Ray hits a dropkick of his own to shock BG.

They trade the dancing punches and both hit their big punches at the same time. If this is supposed to be some big and epic clash of legends it really isn’t working. D-Von pulls BG out to the floor and crotches him on the post before coming in legally. D-Von beats on BG for a bit before it’s back to Bubba for a neckbreaker, getting two. Off to a chinlock as BG is in some serious trouble. Ray misses a charge in the corner and BG clotheslines D-Von down.

Hot (I guess?) tag brings in Kip who cleans house. He hits a Stinger Splash on Bubba and everything breaks down. The James Gang is in control but Bubba throws Kip over the top and out to the floor. Doomsday Device gets two on BG and the double neckbreaker gets the same on Kip. Fameasser to D-Von misses but BG brings in a pipe like the one mentioned in the match in 2000. A shot to the back of D-Von is enough to end this.

Rating: D+. Was this supposed to be some big battle? It was ok I guess but it felt like they were going on pure reputation rather than actually having a good match. It wasn’t a bad match or anything but I don’t get if this was supposed to be a big and great match or a revenge match or what. Either way, it was just ok at best.

Mitchell says Christian has nothing to live for other than the world title, and tonight Abyss is taking that from him too. Abyss is going to take the title in the match that Christian is best known for. Mitchell will make sure to come visit Christian in the morgue.

We see the ending of the Liger vs. Petey match because the feed went out earlier. That’s nice of them.

The newest Knockout, Christy Hemme, comes out to present the World X Cup to the winning team.

World X Cup Final Round: Gauntlet Match

All sixteen participants in the match are in this. It’s a two minute starting period followed by one minute intervals after that. It’s over the top rope eliminations until we get down to one on one when it becomes a singles match. The teams that make it to the final match receive two points apiece and the winner of the match gets an extra three. If the two finalists are from the same team, their team receives seven points and automatically wins the tournament. In the event of a tie, the captains will face each other in a singles match….on Impact.

We start with Minoru Tanaka (Japan) and Puma (Mexico). Tanaka offers a handshake to start but as Puma shakes it, Tanaka Mists him to take over. A springboard missile dropkick puts Tanaka down and an enziguri staggers him. Tanaka gets in a suplex but covers out of instinct. #3 is Petey Williams (Canada) and he joins forces with Minoru to double team Puma. That lasts a good 20 seconds before Petey turns on Puma.

#4 is Chris Sabin (USA) and things speed up again. Sabin whips all three guys into the corner but only hits Tanaka with a forearm. A double clothesline takes the other two down and Hiroki Goto (Japan) is #5. He hits a spin kick to take down Sabin and teams up with his teammate to clean house. #6 is Incognito (Mexico) who seems to wrestle in slow motion. He knocks Petey to the floor and hits a suicide dive but neither guy went over the top so everyone is still in. Before I forget, Incognito is currently known as Hunico in WWE.

#7 is Johnny Devine (Canada) and he puts Incognito down in the corner for some running knees. #8 is Sonjay Dutt (USA) to continue the pattern the entries have taken. All eight are still in at the moment. The Americans double team Williams but Devine makes the save. And never mind as Dutt snaps off an inverted rana to send him flying. In at #9 is Black Tiger (Japan) and he runs over Dutt very quickly.

Tiger hooks an ankle lock on Williams but Devine makes the save. Magno is #10 (Mexico) and he comes in with some springboard flips. It’s impossible to tell what’s going on as there are too many people in the ring at the moment. Eric Young (Canada) is #11 as two people go through the ropes, as in not being eliminated. We get a LOUD Eric chant as we’re told that Incognito and Dutt are both out with Dutt having an injured ankle.

#12 is Alex Shelley (USA) and house is cleaned. He hits a complicated double team move on the Canadians and a spin kick Devine. Sabin and Devine go out in a big rush of offense as Liger (Japan) is #13 and the final member of Team Japan. Magno charges into a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker from Liger and they go to the top rope. Liger gets superplexed down and Shocker (Mexico) is #14. Magno charges at someone and is backdropped out.

Black Tiger goes up top but gets powerbombed down and eliminated as we see Tyson Dux (Canada) in at #15. Dux sends Puma to the apron but he gets back in. Shelley throws out Goto and Jay Lethal (USA) is #16 and the final entrant. By my count we have eight people left: Young, Minoru, Shelley, Lethal, Puma, Dux, Liger, Shocker and Williams. Lethal dropkicks Minoru out. That leaves Japan with just Liger.

Shocker charges at Dux and gets monkey flipped to the floor. Dux and Young go at Liger and get palm strikes to the chest for their efforts. They combine to eliminate Liger, eliminating Japan entirely from the gauntlet and the competition. Lethal immediately puts Young out and we’re down to five: Dux, Lethal, Shelley, Williams and Puma. There goes Dux and we’re down to four. The Americans double team Williams but Shelley misses a charging knee to eliminate himself. Lethal goes to the apron but jumps back in, right into a spin kick from Puma to get us down to two.

Puma hits a fast brainbuster and remember that it’s now a regular one on one match. The Canadian Destroyer hits out of NOWHERE and the Canadians in the form of Williams wins, meaning it’s Williams vs. Sabin for the Cup on Impact (Sabin would win the match and the Cup).

Rating: B-. That’s as high as I can possibly go with this. The match wasn’t bad at all but it’s the walking definition of throw A LOT of stuff out there and have them do flips and dives with the hope that the crowd likes it. I don’t really know what else there is to say about this. I don’t see the need in having it go over to Impact and not ending it here, but I guess it gave them something else to do on Thursday. Not a bad match, but it was only going to be able to be so good if that makes sense.

Post match Kevin Nash comes out and Jackknifes Puma to show what he’s going to do to the X-Division. He brags about how Puma got in no offense on him and says a medium big man can beat an X-Division guy any day. Size does matter you see.

Samoa Joe says he doesn’t need to be Sting’s friend to beat up Steiner and Jarrett.

We recap the tag match. Basically Steiner is Jarrett’s top flunkie and they offered Sting a tag match. There was this stupid game show thing with guys like Rick Steiner, Lex Luger and I think Buff Bagwell being partners that Jarrett/Steiner turned down. It wound up being Samoa Joe. See, THIS is how you push someone: put them in the main event or tip feuds and have them seem like they belong there.

Scott Steiner/Jeff Jarrett vs. Sting/Samoa Joe

Jarrett and Sting get us going after some stalling. Sting takes him to the mat and rams his head into the mat in a simple yet effective move. Steiner comes in and charges into a big boot and a Vader Bomb of all things. Sting moves to send a cheating Jarrett into Steiner before taking them both down with a double clothesline off the top. Off to Joe for the showdown with Steiner.

They stare each other down and Joe pie faces him. Joe pounds him into the corner but gets suplexed down which seems to shock him. They slug it out in the corner but Steiner takes his head off with a clothesline. The elbow sets up the pushups which ticks Joe off enough that he fires off forearms and an enziguri to slow Steiner down. Jarrett hits a knee to the Samoan’s back and Joe is in trouble.

Jeff comes in legally and struts a lot but he charges into the release Rock Bottom. Off to Sting who cleans house and powerbombs Jarrett down for two. He loads up the Death Drop but has to put Jarrett in an STO of all things. The Scorpion on Steiner is broken up as is one on Steiner. Jarrett DDTs him down and Steiner hits a belly to belly for two. Jarrett comes back in and uses a Garvin Stomp followed by a front facelock. Riveting stuff from Double J there.

Sting fights up and gets the tag but Steiner has the referee. The classics always work. Speaking of the classics, the guys collide and Sting’s head falls onto Steiner’s balls. Double tag brings in Joe and Jarrett and the snap powerslam gets two on Jeff very quickly. Joe cleans house on Scott and hits the backsplash for two. He runs over both guys at once with a double clothesline and everything breaks down.

Joe throws both guys into the same corner followed by Joe hitting a leg lariat to take them both out. The Stinger Splash hits but the second sends Sting over the top to the floor. The Stroke hits Joe but he takes too long to cover, only getting two. Sting beats up Steiner on the floor as Jarrett tries the middle rope Stroke. Joe punches out of it and the MuscleBuster gets the pin.

Rating: C+. This was your usual main event tag match and it wasn’t half bad. Joe getting the win was fine but at the same time he never got near the world title picture this year, which made little sense after he beat Jarrett again on PPV when Jarrett was world champion. This would be the main event feud that ran all summer and it was pretty decent, although I still didn’t like the way it ended.

Joe finally shakes Sting’s hand post match.

Joe leaves and Steiner blasts Sting with a chair. Joe doesn’t see it but he should have been able to hear it, although he doesn’t turn around. Instead he keeps walking and lets Sting get beaten down. Sting takes a guitar shot which Joe hears. He turns around and looks at Steiner and Jarrett standing tall, then walks away. A bunch of guys run out for the save, including the James Gang and Daniels plus others.

We recap the world title match, which is Full Metal Mayhem. Nothing is said here so I guess there’s no point in recapping it.

Christian says simply stealing a title belt doesn’t make you a champion.

NWA World Title: Abyss vs. Christian

This is basically a TLC match and Christian is defending. Christian immediately takes him down but can’t overcome the power soon afterwords. Abyss goes for a ladder but Christian dropkicks it back into his face. Back into the ring and Abyss throws him to the apron, only to have the ladder see-sawed into his face. They head to the floor with Christian pounding away on Abyss’ head.

Out into the crowd and they go to that wall that the people in every big TNA brawl fight to. They head back into the ring and the ladder is set up in the corner. Abyss misses a splash onto said ladder so Christian puts it up in front of the challenger. He tries a charge at the ladder but Abyss throws it back at him, knocking Christian down. Abyss wedges a chair between the ropes, and due to the law of wrestling #1, goes crashing into it for his trouble.

Christian goes up and gets his hand on the belt but Abyss makes a pretty easy save. They fight over a German onto the ladder but after neither can get it to go, it’s Christian that is sent crashing into the ladder. Abyss goes outside and sets up a pair of tables next to the ring. Now there’s a table set up in the ring as well but Christian gets in a boot to the ribs to break things up.

Abyss puts him on the ladder but misses a cross body kind of move onto the climbing instrument. A frog splash onto the ladder misses but so does a chain shot against the post. Christian chokes him with the chain but gets flipped through one of the tables at ringside. Abyss goes up but Christian makes the save with a chair. They both fall off the ladder with Christian hitting the top rope. Abyss lays out the tacks but walks into an Unprettier onto the ladder. Mitchell takes a Rock Bottom into the tacks and Abyss is put on the table. He has a chance to go for the belt but drops a frog splash through Abyss, then grabs the title.

Rating: B-. This was ok but it never hit the level that a lot of these matches hit. This felt like something you would see on a TV show, meaning that while it was good there was nothing above the usual level of violence or carnage. For a B level main event it was fine, but it’s absolutely nothing you’d ever want to see a second time unless you were completely obsessed with Christian or something.

Overall Rating: C-. This show was really nothing that great. If I was watching it live I likely would have said it wasn’t bad but I would have been a bit disappointed. By no means is it a bad show but there’s nothing on it worth going out of your way to see. This was before TNA really hit its stride so for the time, this was a pretty good show. It hasn’t really aged that well, but in just over six years it can only age so much anyway. Overall not bad, but it’s just ok at best.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Final Resolution 2006
Date: January 15, 2006
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 900
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Don West

This is another of those shows where not a ton happens but it’s supposed to be a big deal. Sting is back tonight and it’s in the form of a tag match. This didn’t work when Rock came back at Survivor Series and it’s not likely to work for me here. Other than that there isn’t much here because the main event guys are all in the main event. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about how Sting is coming. Jarrett and Brown say it’s 2006 so it doesn’t mean as much as it used to. There had been signs that he was coming back and he finally did at the beginning of the year. The main event is Sting/Christian vs. Jarrett/Brown.

Alex Shelley/Austin Aries/Roderick Strong vs. Chris Sabin/Sonjay Dutt/Matt Bentley

Recipe for this match: take six fast paced guys and give them ten minutes to pop the crowd. Sabin and Shelley get things going. Chris is freshly blonde here and things speed up to start. Sabin takes him to the mat and hits a pair of kicks to the back. Dutt comes in and Sabin powerbombs him down onto Alex for two. Shelley bites Dutt’s thumb to escape and it’s off to Strong.

I’ve always been a fan of Strong but the more I see of him the less interesting he comes off as. That’s saying a lot as he never was anything of note in the first place, but there’s just NOTHING there. Dutt spins around a lot and it’s off to Bentley to work on the arm. Traci is looking very bouncy tonight which is never a bad thing. Aries comes in and gets suplexed right down for two.

Dutt tries his rope walk but Aries crotches him as the heels take over. The heels hit a sick triple team top rope double stomp (only Shelley stomped) on Dutt as Dave Hebner is here watching things. Aries comes in and hits a springboard knee to the back for two. Dutt is sent to the floor as Jerry Lynn is also here watching. He’s an agent at this point but he inspired a lot of these guys.

Shelley comes in and hooks a Rings of Saturn with a leg trap. That’s not normal human bending by Dutt. Back to Strong who slugs Dutt down but Sonjay hooks a tornado DDT for the tag to Sabin. A standing rana takes down the freshly tagged in Shelley. We go to the Tree of Woe and Sabin hits a pair of dropkicks. Sabin takes down all three guys at once but Shelley escapes Cradle Shock.

Bentley drops a top rope elbow on Alex as everything breaks down. Strong hits an Irish Curse on Bentley but Sonjay takes him down. Aries breaks up the Hindu Press but he goes to the floor where Sabin dives onto him. Strong breaks up Bentley’s superkick and Traci gets on the apron. Bentley superkicks Strong down but it allows Shelley to roll Matt up for the pin.

Rating: C. This wasn’t their best match but it was fine with the dives and such. There was nothing of note here though as we had seen most of this stuff before. All six guys were moving well out there and the dives were good, but the ending was pretty weak with no big move or spot for it. Still though, nothing wrong with this and it was fine for what they were going for.

We recap the split of 4 Live Kru and the fallout after that. Konnan is the one that went insane because of Kip James having to force his way in because Kip has nothing to do without BG James. It’s almost like he’s a guy that got over in a tag team but had no ability to get over on his own. Konnan beat up BG’s dad because he’s a bit nuts.

Diamonds in the Rough vs. James Gang

It’s Elix Skipper/David Young and this is the return match for the James Gang. BG and Skipper start things off. Skipper shoves him down and it’s a very slow start. Skipper suplexes BG over and works on the arm for a second. BG comes back with the dancing punches and shaking knee drop for two. David and Kip come in for a few collisions that go nowhere.

The Diamonds try some double teaming but get caught in a double Japanese armdrag by Kip. They get sent to the floor and the Gang beats on them on the floor. The fans chant for the Outlaws but BG walks into a spinebuster from Young for no cover. There’s a reason the guy lost like 86 matches in a row. Skipper pounds on BG for a bit before it’s back to Young who covers, only to have Kip distract the referee. David misses a moonsault and it’s hot tag to Kip. Skipper clotheslines him down and everything breaks down. Young breaks up the pumphandle slam but Kip hits the cobra clutch slam for the pin on Elix.

Rating: D. You know there’s a running theme with these New Age Outlaws matches: they’re not that good. These guys were never known for their in ring work and it’s pretty clear why. The matches just aren’t any good with the action being generic the whole way through. There was nothing to this and it was a horrible return for the James Gang or whatever they’re called this month.

Daniels says Joe hasn’t gotten to him yet and tonight it’s about what they both believe in. Joe believes no one in the X-Division can stand up to him. Daniels believes there’s a big difference between unbeatable and unbeaten.

AJ Styles vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

This is a match for the sake of a match. Tanahashi is basically the superman of NJPW at the moment (2012) and he’s a rising star at this point (2006). AJ is Mr. TNA for 2005. Remember that as it’ll come into play later. Feeling out process to start as they head to the mat. That goes nowhere so the fans chant for both guys. AJ gets armdragged down as Tenay talks about the history of Japanese guys in America.

They trade armdrags and Tanahashi takes over with an armbar. AJ is like screw that and dropkicks him to the floor. He sets for a dive but Tanahashi moves. AJ catches himself on the apron and we stop for some staring. Back in and Styles drops a knee for two. Tanahashi hits a release German for the same. Off to an abdominal stretch so Tenay can list off Tanahashi’s wins so we can have a reason to think something of him.

Styles gets caught in a sleeper and then its dragon cousin. A dragon sleeper swing gets two. That looked awesome. A middle rope elbow misses and Styles hits an enziguri to put both guys down. Tanahashi escapes a brainbuster but for some reason he puts AJ on the apron. There’s the springboard forearm for two. Hiroshi gets a knee up in the corner and hits a full nelson slam for two.

AJ misses a spin kick and Tanahashi takes him down with an enziguri. Tanahashi tries a belly to back superplex but AJ counters into a crossbody while in mid-air. Shannon Moore runs in with AJ’s plaque but it hits Tanahashi by mistake. AJ Pele’s him down and hits the Styles Clash on Tanahashi for the pin.

Rating: B-. Good match here but the ending holds it down a lot. Moore was doing his punk thing at this point and they put him with Styles for a few weeks until everyone realized that no one cared about Shannon Moore. The match was going really well as Tanahashi really is good, but again there’s no story to the match so it’s hard to care about it at all.

Moore steals the plaque again.

We recap Raven vs. Larry Z which went on forever. Raven won the world title but then he got screwed out of the title at a house show in Canada. Larry refused to grant him a rematch so Larry kept trying to make Raven retire. Raven has a mystery opponent tonight.

Raven says that Larry is an idiot and says he wants the title back. Someone is getting hurt tonight and Larry better pray that it’s Raven.

Sean Waltman vs. Raven

This is Raven’s Rules and if Raven loses he’s fired, but if he wins he gets a title match. Raven shoves his shopping cart into Waltman’s ribs and chases after Larry. They head into the ring and Waltman gets in a kendo stick shot as Larry watches from the floor. They hit each other with trashcan parts at the same time to put both guys down. Raven is busted open but goes after Larry again. Larry’s security holds Bird Boy back so Waltman can dive on him to take over again.

Sean rams the cart into Raven a few times and they go up the ramp. Raven grabs a trashcan lid to blast Waltman in the head to take over. Waltman gets put in the shopping cart and shoved off the stage in a big crash. Back to ringside and Raven pulls out a table. There’s a ladder in there too but the referee goes down. Raven hits the DDT but there’s no referee to count the pin. Larry comes in for a very slow two.

Waltman gets a belt from somewhere and pops Raven with it to take over. Bronco Buster on the ladder misses and Raven gets two. Raven sets up the table and the ladder for a DDT off the ladder. Well at least that’s what he was planning but Larry grabs his foot. Pac hits an X-Factor off the ladder through the table for the pin. Raven had his foot on the rope but Larry counted anyway despite seeing it.

Rating: C. Nothing to see here but it had some fun brawling spots. The ending looked good and it got Raven off of TV, which I believe was due to a legit medical condition he had. The shopping cart stuff was good and Raven sold like a madman as usual, so I can’t complain much here. Just like the six man though, there’s nothing new here which is what holds it back.

Larry gloats post match. Raven leaves very sadly.

Ron Killings says he has two of the fastest wins ever over Bobby Roode and he’s going to do it again tonight. Konnan comes up and wants to know why Killings won’t call him back. Killings isn’t happy with him but Konnan says think about it.

Raven leaves the building and Larry gives him his bag. Jackie Gayda comes up and SWEET GOODNESS those things are huge. She implies Larry screwed her over too but won’t say over what.

Bobby Roode vs. Ron Killings

Killings beat Roode twice in about 40 seconds so Roode jumped him and won the third match. This is the fourth in the series. Truth grabs a very fast rollup for two which scares Roode to death. He tries it again and gets another two so Roode heads to the floor. Back in and Roode hooks a hammerlock which is quickly broken up. Roode bridges into a backslide for one followed by a pinfall reversal sequence which results in a standoff.

Roode goes to the floor again so Truth dives on him to speed things up a bit. Truth goes after D’Amore and gets rammed into the post for his troubles. Back into the ring and there’s an abdominal stretch by the Canadian. D’Amore does what any good manager would do and offers a hockey stick to help with the hold. The hold is broken so Killings grabs another rollup for two. Roode hits a running knee lift and then a reverse bearhug on the mat. Killings escapes and hits a top rope missile dropkick to put both guys down.

Truth comes back again with his dancing punches and a spinning forearm for two. The splits into the side kick gets another two. Roode breaks up a superplex and hits a top rope cross body for two. Killings may have a bad arm. Konnan comes out for no apparent reason and the distraction lets Roode hit the Northern Lariat for the pin.

Rating: D+. When your whole match is based around the idea that one of the guys might get a rollup for a pin and that’s the majority of his offense, you’re going to have to pull off something special to have a good match. This didn’t do that at all really and it felt like something that belonged on Impact. That was one of the major issues with TNA back in the day: they weren’t quite ready to have full three hour PPVs due to only having an hour a week of TV, so a lot of the matches on the PPVs didn’t have a ton of story to them, such as this one.

Konnan (in a Boston Bruins jersey for some reason) says to listen to him instead of the people. Cue BG James but Homicide runs in to help Konnan beat him down. Killings walks away. Kip comes out to clear the ring before he can do their hair.

Mitchell says Sting arriving means that the war begins tonight. Rhyno will be going into battle with Abyss but he’s too distracted to beat the monster. There was something going on with Rhyno’s daughter at this point but it isn’t really made clear here.

We recap Rhyno vs. Abyss. Basically Rhyno was feuding with Team Canada when D’Amore made a deal with Mitchell for Abyss’ protection. I’d assume it was in exchange for money but it was never specifically said.

Rhyno vs. Abyss

Rhyno goes right after him on the floor and the fight starts fast. They head inside, only for Abyss to get clotheslined back to the floor. Rhyno slingshots out onto Abyss but Abyss shrugs it off and pounds him down. Abyss hits him with a chair a few times and wedges the chair in the ropes back inside. To my great shock, Abyss doesn’t wind up going into it, thus violating a wrestling law. A quick neck crank gets Abyss nowhere but a big boot gets him two. So the big boot is better than a neck crank. Got it.

Back to the crank as the match slows WAY down. Rhyno fights out of it and hits a bad TKO to escape. A few chair shots to the head stagger Abyss and another one puts him down. Mitchell hooks the leg to avoid the Gore and Abyss clocks Rhyno with the chain for two. Black Hole Slam is countered into a spinebuster for two. Rhyno tries the Rhyno Driver (middle rope piledriver) but Mitchell interferes again. A chokeslam is broken up but the Black Hole Slam onto the chair gets the pin.

Rating: D+. Not much here as this felt like it was about five minutes instead of the nearly ten that it got. This wasn’t a No DQ match or anything like that, but for some reason the referee didn’t seem to mind. Rhyno had absolutely nothing to do after he got out of the title picture so let’s just let him do hardcore stuff I guess.

Shane talks about how the Dudleys went through the fires of various companies, in case you forgot they were there. Bubba lists off various teams that are great, all of whom have held the NWA tag titles I believe. D-Von says don’t screw with us.

We recap AMW vs. Team 3D. In short, the Dudleys have held all tag titles but the NWA versions, so they’re here to get them. AMW gave Team 3D a huge beatdown a few weeks ago so this is also about revenge.

Tag Titles: America’s Most Wanted vs. Team 3D

We get big match intros and we’re ready to go. D-Von and Storm get things going in what would be a very different match today. Storm takes him down to the mat with a headlock but gets hiptossed and dropkicked down. Harris jumps D-Von from behind and the champs take over. Scratch that as D-Von hits a double clothesline to take over again. Off to Ray as things speed up. One thing you can never say about Ray is that he’s dull. The guy knows how to keep people fired up.

Harris clotheslines Ray down for two and it’s a standoff. They go to the corner and Ray fires off his chops. The middle rope backsplash misses (duh) and it’s back to Storm. Ray is like screw that and cleans house before bringing D-Von back in. A spinebuster gets two on Storm, and What’s Up Cowboy? The Dudleys go for a table because disqualifications mean jack in this company, but AMW dropkicks it into their faces.

Harris takes D-Von down with some tape to the throat and it’s off to Storm for a chinlock. Back to Harris but he gets sent into the post shoulder first. Hot tag brings in Ray and house is cleaned. Side slam gets two on Harris and heel miscommunication lets Ray hit a DDT for two on Wildcat. Everything breaks down and AMW hits a modified Hart Attack for two o Ray. They loads up the Death Sentence but D-Von makes the save.

Ray returns the favor by breaking up a superplex and the Doomsday Device gets two as well. Harris makes the save and gets two on Ray off a big boot. Storm grabs a chair but accidentally clocks Harris into the reverse 3D for two. Bubba shoves Storm off the top through a table and a rollup gets a VERY close two on Harris. Gail hands (not slips, hands while in the ring) Harris powder but Ray knocks it into the referee’s eyes. 3D gets the pin and the titles, but remember that the referee is blind.

Rating: B. This was getting good at the end, but that powder looks like Instant Dusty to me. TNA did a good job at pushing its tag teams at this point and making them seem to be like something that actually mattered. This was a good example of that as the fans were wanting to see the title change here, and that’s what they got.

Oh of course it isn’t, as the Canadians come in, beat up the Dudleys and put Harris on top of Ray as the referee gets his vision back, calling the win for AMW. I’m sure ALL FOUR CANADIANS DESTROYING THE DUDLEYS didn’t shake the ring or anything at all either right? Dusty Finish as you likely saw coming.

Jarrett and Brown say that they’ll win tonight because Christian and Sting both think they’re going to be the savior of TNA. Brown says the time is up on Sting and he has to come to the Serengeti. Brown was way more engaging here.

We recap Daniels vs. Joe. Joe came in and took over the X-Division and destroyed Daniels, badly injuring him. Tonight Daniels wants respect, revenge and the title. See how easy it can be?

X-Division Title: Samoa Joe vs. Christopher Daniels

Joe is champion if that doesn’t come through some how. Daniels has to use speed here and Joe misses a charge. He flies around as fast as he can and takes Joe down with a pair of ranas. A dropkick misses though and Joe gets him in the corner. Daniels tries a side roll but Joe hooks a freaky Rings of Saturn kind of hold on Daniels. Christopher makes the rope but Joe walks out of the way of a Lionsault press. I’ve always loved when Joe did that.

Joe drops a knee for two which is a lot more when you’re his size. Daniels gets an elbow up in the corner but walks into a powerslam to put him right back down. A Codebreaker out of nowhere puts Joe down, followed by an STO and the slingshot moonsault for two. A Death Valley Driver (good one too) out of the corner gets two. Joe powerbombs him half to death for two, followed by a triangle choke into an STF.

Daniels escapes so Joe pounds him on the head in the corner. Daniels tries to powerbomb him out but Joe ranas him and kills Daniels with a clothesline for two. Joe is getting frustrated and charges into a release Rock Bottom and the BME for two. Joe goes to the floor and Daniels BLASTS him in the face with a kick. A slingshot elbow to the floor hits Joe but it hurts Daniels too. Daniels throws Joe back in but gets kicked right back out.

The champ sets up a chair on the floor and it’s the Ole Kick. Remember that Daniels had a bad concussion a few weeks before that. Daniels is busted open now and Joe stomps away at the bad head. Here’s AJ to play cheerleader but it just makes Joe hammer away even more in the corner. Daniels comes back with palm shots and forearms but Daniels can’t stay on his feet.

A running enziguri gives Joe control again and he follows it up with a Punk knee in the corner. There’s the MuscleBuster and the Clutch but Daniels gets his foot on the rope to stun Joe. Joe brings in the chair and hits another MuscleBuster on the chair. The fans want him to do it again, because they’re evil people. Joe hits two punt style kicks to the head and then drives in knees. AJ finally throws in a towel to end this.

Rating: B+. This was more about story than the match but the match itself was good too. There was a poster for Summerslam 1993 with a picture of Yokozuna and the tagline: “Somebody has to stop him.” That’s what TNA had here with Joe as no one could beat him and the question became who was going to finally be able to beat him. That wouldn’t be for nearly another year but dang it was awesome at the time. Good stuff here as I was getting into the beating at the end.

We recap the main event. The idea is that Jarrett is evil and Sting/Christian want to stop him. This would go on for like 10 months so tonight is the first step.

Christian says he’s someone you can trust and you can call his brother or Chris Jericho and ask them if you don’t believe him. “On second thought, that’s a bad idea.” He says he’ll win the world title soon, which is true.

Monty Brown/Jeff Jarrett vs. Sting/Christian Cage

Sting has different music here and it’s not working nearly as well. Brown and Christian start things out as the fans chant for….Christian instead of Sting. Ok then. A quick rollup gets two for the Canadian and it’s quickly off to Jarrett. Christian makes fun of the strut and Jarrett makes sure to block a tag. Christian gets one anyway and Jarrett stalls. They lock up and do some very basic stuff before Sting dropkicks him to the floor.

Back in and Sting blocks a ram into the buckle and bulldogs Jarrett down. Brown gets one of his own and Christian tags himself in. A Gail distraction lets Jarrett hit Christian low and toss him to the floor. Gail adds a rana on the floor so that Monty can drop Christian on the rail. Back in and Christian is in trouble as we get to the main part of the match. Jarrett and Brown take turns on him for a bit until Jarrett puts on a front facelock.

We get the classic “referee misses the tag” and it’s back to Brown for some two counts. Brown sends him to the apron but Christian bites his way out of a superplex. There’s the frog splash but Christian can’t cover immediately so it only gets two. Jarrett breaks up the tag and Sting has to chase him away. The heels bring in chairs but their Conchairto misses and Christian hits a double DDT to take them both down.

There’s the hot tag to Sting and he cleans house. Stinger Splash hits Jarrett but Brown takes out the referee with a missed clothesline. The Deathlock goes on Jarrett and he taps but there’s no referee. In a cool counter, Brown hits a fallaway slam on Christian into Sting to break it up.

Sting and Christian almost get in a fight due to the title belt but they make up in about 8 seconds and clean house. Team Canada runs in but Sting and Christian hit Death Drops to take them out. Christian jumps Brown as Jarrett hits a belt shot on Sting for two. Sting Hulks Up but both he and Christian miss Stinger Splashes. Sting crushes the guitar with the bat and the Death Drop pins Jarrett.

Rating: C+. Not bad here but the ending was a little more overdone than it needed to be. It did need to be overbooked but not that much I wouldn’t think. This would be the start of a VERY long story with Sting leaving immediately after this until he came back as Steve Borden for one night and then back as Sting on a full time basis. He would go after Jarrett and things would go from there until Angle arrived. This was fine for what it was though.

Christian leaves Sting alone in the ring with the bat so he can have the spotlight to end the show.

Overall Rating: C. This wasn’t one of their best shows ever. For some reason the main event and Sting returning was the #1 moment in TNA’s first ten years which is baffling. At the end of the day, it’s just nothing that great. I get that Sting coming back to wrestling is a big deal…..but he had been in TNA before. He had four matches in 2003, so this wasn’t all that big of a deal. As for the rest of the show, it’s just ok. It’s not bad, it’s not great, but it was ok so we’ll go with right in the middle.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Destination X 2012
Date: July 8, 2012
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Jeremy Borash

This is a rare bit for me as I’m watching the replay instead of the live broadcast due to having to take care of some stuff. This is the X-Division show which will have a series of four matches followed by an Ultimate X match between the winners for the title. Also we have Aries vs. Roode for the world title. This has the potential to be awesome or horrible and all points in between so let’s get to it.

The opening video is pretty awesome with the X-Division being spolighted, until they talk about Ultimate X. Scratch that, because it isn’t Ultimate X. It’s #Ultimate X. I don’t use Twitter and therefore I am SICK of seeing a hashtag in front of everything. Just getting something trending doesn’t make you cool, no matter what WWE wants you to believe. It looks silly and if Twitter dies in a few years, these videos are going to look ridiculous. The rest of the video is good though, focusing on Roode vs. Aries.

JB is on commentary instead of Tazz. That’s strange.

Rubix vs. Mason Andrews vs. Lars Only vs. Dakota Darsow

The winner of this gets the last spot in the tournament. Rubix is Chikara’s Jigsaw and Mason Andrews is PWG’s Scorpio Sky. The two of them start off fast and we get a good sequence, resulting in Andrews being sent to the floo. Rubix headscissors Only down before heading to the floor. Lars and Darsow go at it and this isn’t going to be pretty. Only takes over with some armdrags but Darsow hits a knee to the chest and some legdrops for two. Rubix pops in with a top rope cross body on Darsow for two as things stay fast paced to start. Darsow comes back with a falcon arrow for two as everyone is in the ring again.

Only and Darsow head to the floor while the two competent guys go at it in the ring. Andrews hits a huge dive over the top to take out both guys, followed by a flippier dive from Rubix to all three of them. Back in and Andrews grabs a Fujiwara Armbar on Rubix as Kid Kash, the guy who gets the winner, watches in the back. Geez that guy is still kicking around? Only takes all three down again and gets two on Rubix. Darsow is sent to the floor and Andrews charges into the boot of Andrews.

Dakota crotches Lars and we get the Tower of Doom for two on Only. Rubix pops back in with a Coast to Coast dropkick for another two, this time on Darsow. The fans seem completely behind Rubix here. Everyone takes their shots at each other as things speed up again. Only escapes a fireman’s carry from Andrews but a jumping knee misses. Andrews hits a TKO on Only to advance.

Rating: C+. This was a flipping showcase and there’s nothing wrong with that as an opener. Rubix or Andrews were clearly the right choices here so I’m fine with having Andrews take this one. It’s not a classic or anything but for an eight and a half minute opener to an X-Division show, there wasn’t much wrong here.

X-Division Title Tournament Semi-Finals: Mason Andrews vs. Kid Kash

This starts immediately and Kash jumps Andrews from behind, sending him to the floor. Andrews gets sent into the post and is in trouble early. Back in for some punches as we’re told that Kash has to have security around him all the time, because you just don’t know what he’ll do. Well those 40 year old kids are hard to predict. Andrews’ comeback is quickly taken down and it’s time for kicks from Kash.

A kind of powerslam gets two on Andrews as does a middle rope elbow. This has been total dominance so far, but not the good kind of dominance like Ryback. This is the “why am I supposed to care about Kid freaking Kash?” kind of dominance. Kash fires off more kicks and works on the arm a bit. Back to the floor again with Kash yelling at a fan. That’s the extent of the “action” out there so it’s back inside for a Kash moonsault which hits knees.

Andrews makes his comeback with some clotheslines and a missile dropkick for two. A running knee to the face gets the same and we get a pinfall reversal sequence minus any actual pinfall attempts. The Moneymaker (double underhook piledriver) is countered and Andrews rolls him up for the pin.

Rating: D. I really didn’t like this, although that likely has a lot to do with me not liking Kid Kash at all. He doesn’t interest me at all and I don’t care for his insane guy that could snap at any moment character. Andrews is good in the ring but he’s a bit plain. To be fair though, this was his third match in TNA so it’s hard to complain much here. Andrews has potential though.

Joe says that he picks Aries in the main event. His strategy tonight is to get to the world title through the BFG Series. Angle is nothing more than a means to that end.

Time to look at some tweets because that’s what wrestling is really about anymore.

X-Division Title Tournament Semi-Finals: Douglas Williams vs. Kenny King

Williams still has a job? King is the top story of the week as he’s out of ROH due to jumping to TNA on Thursday. King takes him to the mat to start with a headscissors as the announcers talk about him being a male stripper. That’s not quite as interesting as him being a female stripper but it’s good enough to fill in some time on the mics I guess. Williams is fine on the mat and wraps up King’s legs to take over.

King grabs a few rollups for two and it’s a standoff. The fans are being King here which isn’t really that surprising. Douglas fires off right hands to the face so King heads to the floor. Williams goes after him but King goes into the ring and dives out with a dive to take over. Back in and they head to the mat again with King grabbing a headlock. Williams takes him right back down with a hammerlock. This is fun stuff so far.

They fight over an armbar with King in control for a few seconds. Williams takes him down again and hooks a camel clutch which is quickly broken. Douglas pounds away in the corner but Rolling Chaos Theory (a sick rolling German suplex out of the corner) is broken up. King comes back with an atomic drop and an enziguri to put both guys down. Kenny hits a bit spinwheel kick for two and a spinebuster gets the same. Williams goes up and knocks Kenny to the floor in a big crash. Douglas drops a knee to King to keep King down, just not enough for a countout.

The crowd is quiet here, which is why the Impact Zone sucks: they have bad taste. This has been a good back and forth match and it gets even better with King hitting a springboard Blockbuster for two. They go back to the corner and King shoves Williams off this time. Just like on Impact, King hits the reverse F5 for the pin to advance. That’s the right choice.

Rating: B. I was really enjoying this and both guys were working well out there. Williams is a guy that can be used to make anyone look good, which makes me wonder why he’s hardly ever on TV. They’re smart to push King here, even if he doesn’t win the title, as he is coming over from another company. If you want more people to come there, you need to make them think they’ll be rewarded for it.

Daniels says tonight is about a beating. He’s done well the past year as he’s standing here as a champion unlike AJ. Daniels talks about AJ using Clair and Dixie to get where he is and then he ran away. Based on that, he knows there’s no way AJ is winning a last man standing match.

X-Division Title Tournament Semi-Finals: Sonjay Dutt vs. Rashad Cameron

Cameron is indy guy Sabian. I missed that before. They speed things up to start and it’s a fast standoff. Dutt pounds on the afro and dropkicks Cameron down for two. Sonjay is sent to the floor where Cameron hits a big flip dive to take over. That gets two back in the ring and Dutt snaps off a rana. Out to the floor and Cameron slams Dutt into the apron to break up what probably would have been a moonsault of some kind.

Back in and Cameron gets two again off the counter. He starts to get frustrated so it’s off to a bodyscissors to give him a chance to breathe. Dutt escapes and sends Cameron into the ropes in 619 position before dropping a leg across the back of his neck. A springboard splash gets two and things speed up again.

They trade armdrags and Cameron hits a headscissors off the top. They head to the mat and it’s Cameron hooking a cross armbreaker to take over. Sonjay escapes that too and grabs Cameron in Diamond Cutter position but backflips into a reverse DDT. Dutt goes up and hits the moonsault stomp for the pin to advance.

Rating: C+. That finisher of Dutt’s is incredible. Cameron has some charisma to him and would work well as a heel in the newly refurbished X-Division. This was a solid enough match that ate up about nine minutes which was exactly what these qualifying matches needed to do: hold the fort until we get to the bigger stuff later on tonight. Good match here.

We talk about Jesse Sorensen a bit and how he got hurt. This is followed by a video on Sorensen who says that he barely remembers any of this. The doctor says Jesse should be able to get back in the ring eventually. He hopes to make a full recovery. Good video to have on a show like this.

Sorensen is here and talks about how he remembers being taken out of the arena with the fans chanting his name. It’s those same chants that made him able to come out here again, because this is what God put him on the earth to do. After a lot of cheering, Sorensen says that he hopes Ion wins the title tonight so that Sorensen can take it from him and cash in next year to become World Heavyweight Champion.

X-Division Title Tournament Semi-Finals: Zema Ion vs. Flip Cassanova

Ion stares down Sorensen as he comes through the curtain. That could be an incredible moment when they have their match. Hopefully this match is short though as Cassanova was downright dangerous on Impact. Ion kicks him in the head to start and clotheslines Flip down. Ion misses a clothesline and Cassanova sends him to the floor, followed by a flip dive.

That gets Cassanova nowhere so Ion pounds him right back down. Cassanova gets sent to the floor for a baseball slide to send him down again. Back in and Flip kicks Ion down and hits a namesake moonsault for two. The flip dive that he won with on Impact misses here and Ion ends this with a modified Gory Bomb.

Rating: D+. This was just a step above a squash. Now hopefully we never see Cassanova and his dangerous self for a LONG time. He didn’t have the chance to screw much stuff here and for the sake of Ion, that’s a very good thing. Ion looked decent here, which is about how he’s looked the entire time he’s been around: not bad but nothing great.

Sonjay, King and Andrews say they’ll win. Roode comes in and yells at them because it’s his moment, not theirs.

Bound For Glory Series: Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe

Angle is far higher up the rankings due to making Pope tap out at a house show. Joe fires off some kicks but Kurt ducks and they head to the corner. Joe hits a shoulder block but Angle rolls out of the Clutch. Angle rolls him down again and it’s a standoff. Kurt takes him down in a front facelock but Joe powers him into the corner and fires off right hands. Joe hits the Facewash and Angle is in trouble.

Angle gets knocked to the floor and there’s the suicide elbow. As they head back in, Kurt kicks Joe in the chest and stomps him down in the corner. Joe comes right back and sends Angle into the opposite corner and hits an enziguri, but the MuscleBuster is broken up by a headbutt. Kurt pulls off a middle rope dropkick and both guys are down. He puts Joe in a chinlock followed by the overhead belly to belly.

There’s a small cut on Angle’s forehead. Off to another chinlock by Kurt, this time while sitting on Joe’s back. Joe counters that and goes up, only to have Angle run the ropes. Kurt gets shoved off though and Joe hits a middle rope leg lariat for two. A big boot puts Angle down and a backsplash gets two. A snap powerslam gets a third two count for Joe and it’s off to an armbar. Kurt blocks most of it and counters into the ankle lock.

Joe quickly breaks that, only to get caught in Rolling Germans. This has been pretty awesome so far and it’s getting better now. Another MuscleBuster is broken up and there’s the ankle lock again. Joe rolls out of that one as well and Angle charges into the release Rock Bottom out of the corner. This time the MuscleBuster hits, although he dropped Angle on his back instead of the usual head.

That gets two and Angle grabs the ankle lock again. Joe needs to work on his facials as he looks annoyed rather than in pain. Either way he spins around and counters into the Clutch. Angle stays in that for a good while but fights up and hits the Angle Slam for two. There go the straps and you know it’s serious now. Another Angle Slam is countered into another Clutch and Angle is in trouble. He doesn’t tap but the referee calls for the bell.

Rating: B+. I was really getting into this and I stayed in it the whole way through. The legacy these two have against each other is enough for a story which is a good place to be in. I liked this better than almost any of their other matches, which is a surprise as I wasn’t expecting anything near this. Also Joe winning is a very nice surprise and hopefully a sign that he’s on the verge of becoming a bigger player again.

That puts Joe in first place in the Series.

We recap this chapter of Styles vs. Daniels. Daniels claimed that AJ had an affair with Dixie Carter but it turned out that nothing was happening and that Dixie and AJ were covering for a girl named Clair who was in rehab. Daniels then claimed that AJ slept with Clair when she was unconscious and is the father of her unborn baby. I’m still not wild on this angle.

Christopher Daniels vs. AJ Styles

Last Man Standing here. Daniels immediately stalls on the floor which goes on long enough to tick AJ off. Styles chases him out and back into the ring, where Daniels spits in his face. Styles chases him to the floor again and they finally get going. It’s a slugout won by Daniels but Styles sends him into the barricade to take over. Back into the ring and AJ snaps off that gorgeous dropkick to take over.

Daniels begs off so Styles stomps on his hand. A suplex puts Daniels into the corner but he comes back with chops. Daniels head fakes Styles out of the corner and drills him in the face to take AJ down. Chris throws in a chair but pulls AJ to the floor first. That doesn’t last long so they head back in with Styles missing a springboard corner dive using the chair to launch at Daniels. Daniels hits the release Rock Bottom onto the chair but AJ is back up almost immediately.

They head to the floor again and Daniels yells at some fans. Fan: “Do a BME Daniels!” Daniels: “I did one on your mom last night.” AJ is busted open and Daniels pounds away at the skull. Daniels suplexes him on the floor but AJ comes back with some chops. Not that they matter as Styles charges into a big boot and they head back inside. Styles gets in a shot and loads up the springboard forearm, but he hits the chair, driving it into Daniels’ face.

Both guys are down now with Daniels on the floor and Styles in the ring. AJ is up first and sends Daniels head first into the steps on the floor. Now Daniels is busted too so AJ blasts him in the head. Daniels starts backing up the ramp and they go to the stage. Styles gets a running start but they clothesline each other. There haven’t been many counts in this so far. AJ wins a slugout with a Pele but tells the referee not to count because he’s not done.

Daniels breaks up a Styles Clash with a backdrop on the stage. AJ gets up on a piece of the stage and hits the moonsault into the reverse DDT for a seven count but as the count is going on, Kaz comes out and shoves Styles off the stage and out to the floor. AJ makes it up by nine so Daniels finds a table under the ring. Daniels loads up the Angel’s Wings off the stage through the table but AJ escapes and shoves Kaz off the stage. Another Pele puts Daniels down so AJ picks him up and hits the Clash off the ramp and through the table. Daniels is out for the ten while AJ is up at 9 and down at 11, but it’s good for the win.

Rating: B. Another good and solid match here, bad storyline aside. This is a feud that has been done to death for years now but we got a good match here. It never quite hit a level that would make it great, but the ending move was good enough to make it a solid entry in the never ending series. Hopefully this ends it for at least a few months, because it’s never going to end forever.

We get some tweets from various people, some of whom are TNA people.

Aries dominates an online poll with 71% saying he wins the title.

Aries says he’s looking forward to the Ultimate X match, but the division is in his rear view mirror. Instead he’ll be looking ahead and he sees Bobby Roode. He says Roode wins his matches with belt shots but Aries wins them with brainbusters and tonight he’ll prove that he’s the best in the world.

We recap the semi-final matches from earlier in the night.

X-Division Title: Mason Andrews vs. Kenny King vs. Sonjay Dutt vs. Zema Ion

It’s Ultimate X and the title is vacant coming in. Ion puts in some hairspray and goes for a quick win, only to be brought down just as quickly. He runs to the corner but dives at the three guys instead. That goes just as badly as Ion dives into three dropkicks at the same time. Things start speeding up and Dutt is the only one left. He goes up but King breaks it up. Ion breaks up the breaking up and it’s Andrews vs. Ion at the moment.

King comes back in and counters an Andrews DDT by suplexing him into Ion who was in the Tree of Woe. King and Dutt slug it out on the apron and a cartwheel kick knocks Dutt to the floor. Kenny goes for the belt but Dutt takes him down with a springboard dropkick. Dutt fires off a standing shooting star but hits his arm on the rope in the process. Keep that in mind. Ion makes a run for the belt but Andrews and King make the save. The two saviors go to the corner and Andrews suplexes King down.

Dutt is being takes out of the match because of his arm/elbow/shoulder. Ion goes for the belt but gets brought down into an atomic drop from Andrews. King and Ion go to the floor with Andrews hitting a flip dive over the top to take both guys down. Andrews goes for the title but King hits a springboard spear to take him down in a good looking spot.

Here’s Dutt again, after having his arm/elbow/shoulder being popped back into place. King and Andrews go for the belt but they knock each other down. Ion and Dutt go up top onto the structure which makes my fear of heights cringe. They slug it out up there and slip down onto the cables, but Ion sprays Sonjay with the hairspray. That knocks Dutt down and Ion wins the title.

Rating: B-. This was pretty good and I can live with Ion as the champion. Unfortunately his main feud is going to be months away as Sorensen isn’t going to be ready for a long time. As for now that, he’s ok I guess but King probably would have been the best choice. Still though, decent match and a solid performance from Dutt as he worked through injury. That’s probably the first feud too, which should be good.

Ion dedicates this to all of his haters and all of his critics. He also dedicates it to his greatest inspiration: Jesse Sorensen. Ion says he’s pretty now and all that jazz. This should have been an awesome heel promo but these two IDIOTS will not stop chanting “transition”. We get it: you’re smarks, you think you know something, and you got on TV. Nice job of distracting the audience and making the new champion look like less of the focus than you are. People like that get on my nerves and they’ll probably be so happy with what they did because that’s the highlight of their year.

We recap Aries vs. Roode. Aries has dominated the X-Division for almost a year now but he’s no longer satisfied with it. Now he wants to be world champion, but he agreed to give up the title in exchange for a guaranteed title match here, which is going to be the tradition every year for this show.

TNA World Title: Austin Aries vs. Bobby Roode

Feeling out process to start without a lot of offense either way. After about a minute and twenty seconds they lock up and Roode grabs the arm. Aries grabs the arm to counter but gets run over. They’re still in slow mode and that’s fine. A rolling cradle gets two for Aries and he hooks an STF. They hit the mat and Roode slaps him in the back of his head a few times. Now Aries takes him down to the mat and hits a slingshot tope for two.

Roode hooks a headscissors on the mat which is quickly broken up and they head outside. Aries hits a top rope ax handle to the floor but his missile dropkick misses back inside and Roode takes over. Roode hooks a chinlock but a knee drop misses. Aries fires off with kicks and tries the Last Chancery but it doesn’t go on right. Roode goes to the floor but avoids the suicide dive, sending Aries into the barricade.

Roode hooks a bodyscissors back in the ring followed by a hard whip into the corner. He talks a lot of trash to the downed Aries and hits a combination F5/Samoan Drop for two. Off to a body vice on the mat and Aries is cut on the nose. Aries makes a comeback and fires off forearms and chops in the corner. They slug it out and a discus forearm puts Roode down. A clothesline puts Roode on the floor and there’s the suicide dive which connects this time.

This time the missile dropkick hits as well but Aries charges into a powerslam out of the corner. Aries comes back again and tries the Last Chancery again, but Roode is pretty bad at selling it. Roode counters into a Crossface but Aries counters right back into the Chancery. Aries gets in another shot to the head and goes up for the 450, but Roode moves. Aries rolls through it anyway but walks into the spinebuster for two.

The champion sends him shoulder first into the post and goes back to the Crossface. That stays on for a long time but Aries makes the rope. Roode is frustrated now so he grabs the belt, only to have it taken away by the referee. That allows the champ to hit a low blow for two. Roode argues with the referee and gets shoved into the corner, allowing Aries to hit the corner dropkick.

Aries tries the brainbuster but Roode escapes and the ref is bumped. Roode hits a belt shot for a VERY close two. The fisherman’s suplex is countered into a small package for two and Aries punts Roode in the head. He grabs the brainbuster out of nowhere for the pin and the title in a huge shocker.

Rating: B+. Another good match to close the show here, but the point of this was in the surprise. This felt like a big moment and it was the right call to pull the trigger here. This show was designed around the X-Division and having the longest reigning champion win the world title here was the right way to make the X Title look like it can be something comparable to the world title. Good match too.

Aries celebrates with confetti to end the show.

Overall Rating: A-. This was another great PPV from the boys in Orlando. This didn’t feel as big as Slammiversary but for a B show, this was very solid. The main event was a great touch with Aries winning the title. Even if it’s a month long reign it got the job done and that’s all that counts at the moment. Very solid show here with some excellent matches and a show long theme. Good stuff again.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Against All Odds 2006
Date: February 12, 2006
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 775
Commentators: Don West, Mike Tenay

We’re back to Orlando as we finish off this company’s PPV series with this set of three shows. The main event here is Christian getting his first world title match against Jarrett, which is probably the best option they had at the moment. We also have Daniels vs. AJ vs. Joe because this is TNA and that’s how we roll around here. Other than that the card looks pretty interesting, so let’s get to it.

Christian arrived earlier.

Coach D’Amore and Eric Young were there waiting when Jeff got there. They have a tape about Jackie Gayda, the contents of which were never revealed. Eric Young doesn’t think Sting is really gone. The Coach yells at him.

The opening video is about Christian coming here to be in on the new thing. Tonight is his shot. Jarrett doesn’t think Christian deserves a shot and that he’s a midcarder getting this show because Sting bailed on TNA.

Austin Aries/Roderick Strong vs. The Naturals

Good choice for an opener. This is a rematch from Impact where the artificials (as in not naturals) cheated to win. It’s a brawl to start but the Naturals hit stereo atomic drops and clotheslines to take over. Let’s see if I can remember which Natural is which for once. Aries and I think Douglas start until it’s off to Stevens. It’s so strange to see Aries getting destroyed like this. The fans chant for him but he gets double teamed down for two.

Dang it Tenay say which Natural is which already! Stevens (I think) hits a Downward Spiral for two and it’s off to Douglas. Douglas throws Aries into Strong which sends them both to the floor. Stevens hits a Shooting Star off the top to take everyone out. That was awesome looking but the fans don’t seem to care for some reason. I think Aries hurt his knee on that. Stevens goes back in, only to slide to the floor and take out Strong. That allows Aries to hit the suicide dive and yeah he’s limping.

Back in and Stevens gets double teamed with some punches. Strong stays in and it’s time for a backbreaker. Strong is called the Messiah of the Backbreaker so that might explain why I thought you needed to know that move. Back to Aries who keeps Steven on the mat in a nice move. Chase (Stevens. The other is Andy Douglas) hits a jawbreaker on Strong but can’t get to Douglas. Aries hits the dropkick in the corner for two and the knee seems fine.

A bottom rope elbow gets the same and it’s off to Strong. Aries comes in quickly but he goes up (with the knee looking shaky again) and gets crotched. There’s the hot tag to Douglas who hits a jumping high knee to Strong. A rana out of the corner gets two on Aries. Douglas holds Austin up for a powerbomb forever, allowing Strong to chop block him to break it up.

Aries and Strong hit a clothesline/German combo for two on Douglas. A dropkick from Aries gets the same as everything breaks down. The Naturals load up the Natural Disaster but Strong makes the save. Aries tries the rollup with the rope grab that won them the first match but the referee breaks it up. Natural Disaster (elevated Stunner) gets the pin on Aries.

Rating: B-. This was perfectly fine for an opener. It was fast paced with some nice high spots and a good finish that tied back into the match that set it up. I don’t get why the fans didn’t care, but I guess it was because the teams don’t matter much. That being said, screw them because this was a solid opener and I was getting into it at the end.

We run down the rest of the card as is the custom for TNA.

Larry insists that the best man will win the main event tonight.

AMW says they’ll keep the titles over Sabin/Dutt. Team Canada is there too and Gail is forced to apologize to Coach D’Amore for saying Coach couldn’t get the Jackie tape. Larry is there too for some reason and says that if “anyone interferes in the main event, they’re fired.” Remember that line.

Alex Shelley vs. Matt Bentley vs. Jay Lethal vs. Petey Williams

One fall to a finish here. Bentley has Traci with him and we get the eternally stupid Bentley Bounce. Can we just watch Traci bounce instead? Bentley and Williams start things off as the fans chant for Lethal. It’s a feeling out process to start with Williams taking over. He goes to do the O Canada deal but Traci offers a curvy distraction. Lethal and Shelley come in and the fans get loud for the first time tonight.

We get a gymnastics routine resulting in them both trying dropkicks at the same time. They chop it out and Lethal hits a dropkick to the back of the head for two. A modified northern lights suplex gets the same for Jay as Shelley tags out with his foot. I guess that doesn’t count so Alex hooks a modified Koji Clutch on jay to take over. Shelley hits a slingshot hilo for two on Jay but Williams tags himself in to face Lethal.

Petey hits a dropkick to the back and slams Jay down. Off to a camel clutch but Shelley comes in to argue about Williams getting the win. That allows Jay to tag in Bentley as this is coming off more like a tag match than a fourway. Bentley cleans house but gets crotched by Petey. A Tower of Doom is broken up and Lethal grabs a bridging German for two on Shelley, but Bentley drops a top rope elbow to break it up. Williams counters a suplex and hits a rolling neckbreaker for two on Bentley.

Lethal comes back in and goes off on Shelley but Alex gets a drop toehold to break it up. Bentley comes back in and things speed WAY up as he and Shelley do a too fast to call sequence. Jackie Gayda comes out and goes after Shelley (Shelley filmed the tape that has been brought up multiple times tonight). She beats him up in the aisle as Bentley backdrops out of the Canadian Destroyer. Lethal dives on Bentley and steals the pin while he’s still down.

Rating: C+. This was fine but after we already saw one match similar to this, there wasn’t as much interest in seeing another one. Still though it was fine and a good use of about ten minutes. Also the fans were into Lethal which is more than can be said for anyone in the opener, save for Aries when he did the suicide dive. Decent match here but nothing that I’ll remember in about ten minutes.

Rhyno says he grew up in Detroit, the murder capital of the world. If he can survive that, he can survive Mitchell and Abyss. Larry comes up and says don’t interfere in the main event. Rhyno says spread your word yourself.

We get a video narrated by Truth who says mistrust led to the split of the Kru. Konnan wants him to join LAX despite not being Latino. LAX beat up BG James’ papa and tonight there’s a tag match for revenge. This gets a music video treatment for some reason.

James Gang vs. LAX

This is Homicide and Machete, a mostly indy wrestler who is most famous for being on this team and wrestling in Puerto Rico. Konnan says he beat up Bob Armstrong because BG did something wrong. The James Gang is of course the New Age Outlaws. LAX including Konnan jumps the James Gang before Kip can do his thing. BG and Kip (seriously, WHO PICKED THE NAME KIP?) send them to the floor and LAX caucuses.

Tenay tries to explain the name changes (although we were never told how Bob Armstrong’s son is named BG James) as Homicide starts with Kip. They stare each other down and then botch a tilt-a-whirl slam from Kip. I think Homicide was distracted by the ponytails. Off to BG for some dancing punches on the tagged in Machete, getting two. Kip comes back in and gets chopped back as well as having his Cobra Clutch slam broken up by Homicide.

Kip gets sent to the floor and Konnan sends him into the barricade to give LAX control. Back in and Homicide charges into a boot but Konnan cheats again to keep the advantage with LAX. Kip gets a clothesline and there’s the tag to BG with zero reaction at all. Everything breaks down and BG hits the pumphandle slam on Homicide out of nowhere for the pin. This wasn’t even six minutes total.

Rating: D. I’m not sure what the point of this was. The match was short and not that good, and it didn’t really accomplish anything. The ending had no build and the match had no heat at all, so I’m not sure what it accomplished. The James Gang just didn’t work at all in TNA as they were basically trying to be the Outlaws, but they were older and it didn’t work anymore.

LAX beats up the James Gang until 66 year old Bob Armstrong comes in for the save.

Slick Johnson goes to see Larry (who has Dave Hebner with him). They argue about who should be referee.

Tag Titles: America’s Most Wanted vs. Sonjay Dutt/Chris Sabin

Sabin and Dutt won some tournament to win this shot. Sabin might have an ankle injury coming into this. Dutt and Storm start and the fans want the Cowboy killed. Dutt starts with his usual flipping offense and a cross body for two. Sabin comes in with some of the same double team offense that he and Shelley would use as the Guns. Sabin gets in a kick to the ribs of Storm but Harris trips him up and wraps the bad ankle/leg around the post.

AMW starts in on the leg and it’s off to Harris. He takes off the knee wrap and puts on a leg lock. Sabin gets up and tries to fight out of the champions’ corner, only to be taken right back down by the leg. Storm comes back in with a chinlock and a Backstabber for two. Back to Harris as the leg work continues. The referee checks on Sabin’s knee but Storm jumps him anyway.

Sabin misses an enziguri and kicks Storm off so he can make the hot tag. Off to Sonjay who speeds things way up. A rana and low dropkick get two on Storm. A springboard double dropkick puts the champs down as does a springboard moonsault press for no cover. Sabin saves Sonjay from a Hart Attack and Dutt counters the Catatonic into a sloppy rollup for two. The champs bring in a chair and Sabin hits a tornado DDT on Harris onto said chair. A springboard splash by Dutt gets two on Harris but Storm puts the knee into the barricade. Hindu Press misses and the Last Call sets up the Death Sentence to retain.

Rating: C. This was pure formula and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. The division was kind of weak at this point as Team 3D was busy fighting some incarnation of Team Canada so AMW needed some opponents tonight. Sabin was the guy you called when you needed a filler for a match on the card and he filled that role very well.

Post match AMW cuffs Dutt to the ropes but Sabin makes the save with a chair.

Jarrett says the pressure is on Christian, not him. Monty Brown comes up and gets cut off by the champ. Jarrett demands respect because Brown is going to say the same thing he always says. They shake hands and say they have a deal.

We recap Rhyno vs. Abyss. This is falls count anywhere and they’re fighting because that’s what these guys did around that time. There never was a real reason for these matches other than proving who the toughest was. The video basically says they’re here to fight and that they’ll both win.

Rhyno vs. Abyss

Rhyno charges into the ring and we’re ready to go. They head to the floor quickly due to a Rhyno clothesline and it’s time to hit the crowd. In a funny bit, Rhyno tries to dive off the apron over the railing and onto Abyss but he realizes that would be a good chance of dying so he dives off the barricade instead. Abyss takes over and throws him into that wooden wall that is always used in brawls.

They head back to ringside and Rhyno grabs a trashcan full of your usual weapons. Abyss gets in a series of Singapore cane shots as the fans do that stupid OH ABYSS chant from this period. Rhyno is busted open but comes back with some trashcan lid shots. He finds a trophy and baseball bat, but instead of crushing Abyss’ skull, he puts the trophy between Abyss’ legs and hits the trophy with the bat.

They head to the floor and Abyss counters a suplex into one of his own on the ramp. Abyss sets up some tables next to the stage so you can guess what the finish to this is going to be. Abyss pokes him with a pipe or something to keep Rhyno down and sets up the third of four tables. He loads up a powerbomb but Rhyno escapes. Rhyno sets for the Gore but Abyss big boots him to the floor.

They head into the back and find a parade float and a car. Abyss finds a ball bat but Rhyno knocks it away and takes it back into the arena. Back at ringside and Rhyno throws a table into the ring. Mitchell hands Abyss a staple gun and it gets fired into Rhyno’s head. Abyss brings in ANOTHER table to go along with the one Rhyno set up in the corner. This one is set up regularly in the ring, but Rhyno comes back with a belly to belly.

Rhyno tries the Gore but charges into a chokeslam through the table for two. Mitchell hands in a bag of tacks but Rhyno gores him into the corner for another two count. With no more weapons to use in the ring they head up into the audience again and get to the end of the bleachers. Abyss throws Rhyno through the wall and kicks his way through the rest of it. Rhyno goes low to break up a chokeslam off the bleachers and hits the Gore through the previously set up stack of tables. Abyss is left somewhere in the carnage and Rhyno gets the academic pin.

Rating: B. There was nothing new here, but sometimes there’s nothing wrong with having two big guys break a lot of stuff. That’s what they did here and it worked well. This is Abyss’ bread and butter and Rhyno isn’t too shabby at it either. Good stuff here with the ending being a nice big spot. Can’t ask for much more than that.

Joe says he may not adhere to the Code of the X-Division or whatever but it doesn’t matter. Daniels and AJ aren’t fighting for friends and family tonight, but rather against him, which is much worse.

Rhyno and Abyss are helped up.

We recap the X Title match. The idea is that AJ and Daniels are the old guard when Joe came in and ran through everyone to take the title. He destroyed Daniels and left him bloodied, so tonight it’s a threeway. Daniels didn’t like being saved by AJ so they’re at odds. Joe says it’s all about the title and not being friends or anything like that.

X-Division Title: Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels

Joe is defending and brings out two towels: one with Daniels’ blood on it and a clean one for AJ’s. Nice touch. Daniels and AJ jump Joe but Daniels jumps AJ to take over. Joe runs over the Fallen Angel and hits a knee drop but he walks into a slam from Styles. This is very fast paced so far. AJ dropkicks them both but can’t suplex Joe. Instead the champ hits a SICK release Gordbuster to Styles to take over again.

Daniels comes back in and monkey flips AJ into a rana position on Joe, but Joe counters into a Boston Crab. AJ and Joe go to the floor but Joe slaps a charging Daniels to break up his dive. AJ sends Joe into the barricade and hooks the bridging Indian Deathlock on Daniels back inside. Joe finally breaks it up and hooks the STF on Styles. Daniels grabs a Koji Clutch on Joe at the same time but everyone breaks it a few seconds later.

Daniels’ slingshot elbow gets two on Styles but Joe runs Daniels over and hits the Facewash. This is VERY fast paced so far. AJ charges at the champ but gets caught in the release Rock Bottom. While Joe is busy with Daniels on the apron, AJ charges at Joe but hits Daniels instead. Joe dives onto both of them to keep control and we head back inside. AJ sweeps the champ’s legs and Daniels hits a knee to send Joe to the floor.

A quick rollup gets two for AJ and Joe is back in. Daniels gets suplexed down and Joe hits a leg lariat for two on Styles. A running boot to Daniels’ face and a backsplash get two for Joe. Snap powerslam gets the same results with the same people. A cross armbreaker is quickly broken up by Daniels getting to the ropes so Joe tries the MuscleBuster instead. Styles kicks Joe in the head to break it up but he walks into a Downward Spiral by Daniels.

Daniels hits a release German out of nowhere on Joe followed by a release Rock Bottom. The BME only gets two and Joe was out closer to two than three. Daniels tries Angel’s Wings but AJ dives over him and tries the Clash but Daniels blocks it. Joe clotheslines Daniels down for two but Styles escapes the Buster.

It’s clotheslines all around from Styles and one of them gets two on Daniels. A spinning torture rack powerbomb gets two on Chris and the backflip DDT gets the same on Joe. Daniels breaks up a Clash attempt on Joe before hitting a DVD on Joe of his own. Styles goes up but Daniels distracts him. Joe nails Daniels and hits the Buster to retain and stay undefeated.

Rating: B+. Not as good as Unbreakable but that’s an unfair standard to hold them too in a rematch. Still though, very good stuff here with all three guys nailing it and working hard and fast. This is one of those combinations that almost always works, but this was back when it was still pretty fresh, making it much more interesting.

We recap Team 3D vs. Team Canada. Team 3D has been destroyed by almost all of the heels so far, but Team Canada cost them the titles last month. The fans got to vote for who they wanted Team 3D to face so here’s the obvious match.

Team 3D says they’re mad and if ticking them off was an Olympic sport, Team Canada would have a gold medal. Ray talks about how all of the fans want Team Canada’s blood all over the arena and various places the Canadian flag can go.

Team 3D vs. Team Canada

It’s Roode/Young. Team 3D run in from behind to get an early advantage. It’s a brawl on the floor to start with the Dudleys in full control. Ray backdrops Roode onto the ramp and dents it in the process. Young gets chopped from the floor up to the apron by Ray. We get down to Ray vs. Roode in the ring and they’re the official starters. Ray hits a wicked release German suplex on Roode and it’s off to Eric and D-Von.

A side slam/legdrop combo gets two on Young but Roode low bridges D-Von to give the Canadians control. The cut that D-Von had on his head coming in is busted open again and the Canadians hammer away on it. There’s blood on the Tag Team of the Year plaque that the Dudleys won last night. Off to a chinlock as Roode shouts ASK HIM. Is that a Canadian thing?

Eric hooks a camel clutch, followed by a top rope knee from Roode, followed by a top rope elbow from Young, all for two. Back to the camel clutch, this time from Roode and now from Young. The Canadians are tagging in and out very fast. We get the Arn Anderson drop down onto the knees to give D-Von a breather and the hot tag to Ray.

Ray comes in with a cross body off the top (!) to take out both Canadians. House is cleaned and a side slam gets two on Young. A flapjack gets two on Ray and Roode misses a hockey stick shot. A low blow hits though and there’s the stick shot. Eric only gets two off that and then walks into the Lariat from Roode as Ray ducks. 3D pins Young.

Rating: D+. Nothing to see here as from what I can tell the blood part of the angle was set up last night. Good enough to pass I guess but for the life of me I have no idea why the Dudleys didn’t get their titles for so long. The match was decent enough I guess but there was nothing that was required viewing at all.

AMW comes in to beat down the Dudleys and they almost put Ray through a table, but Ron Killings comes in for the save and puts Young through the table instead.

After a recap of the show so far, Christian asks everyone how they’re feeling tonight. He’s nervous tonight because the culmination of a 12 year career is tonight. Tonight everything is answered: was it smart to leave WWE? Is Christian just a midcarder? Has Jarrett passed his white jeans phase? After all the cliches are over, Christian will leave as world champion because that’s how he rolls. Really good promo here from Christian.

We recap the world title match, which is pretty much summed up by Christian’s promo.

NWA World Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Christian Cage

Zbyszko and Hebner are here. That would be Dave Hebner as Earl will be refereeing. Total references to Montreal in the first minute: 4. Jarrett is defending of course. Gail is looking good too. Feeling out process to start with Christian getting a pair of twos off a pair of shoulders. Jarrett takes him to the mat and slaps him in the back of the head to get on the challenger’s nerves.

A sunset flip out of the corner gets two for Christian so Jeff heads to the apron. They both wind up out there and Christian hits a reverse DDT onto the apron to take over. Christian tries a big dive but lands on the barricade. Jeff slams him into the barricade and Christian is in big trouble. They head over to the announce table and the beating continues, followed by a slingshot into the table. This has all of the old TNA brawling favorites in it.

Back into the ring and Jarrett hooks a chinlock but Christian breaks it in seconds. And never mind as Jeff hot shots him onto the top rope. Hebner gets involved because he’s Earl Hebner and since he did something eight and a half years ago, he has to do something here. To be fair he did stuff like that before Montreal but get over it already. Gail snakes in for a rana that gets two for Jarrett.

Christian comes back with a powerbomb out of nowhere and hooks a figure four. Jarrett makes the rope so Christian yells at Hebner some more, allowing Jarrett to hit an enziguri. Jeff hooks a Sharpshooter and my head begins to hurt. Christian breaks the awful looking Sharpshooter and puts on one of his own (again with the freaking Montreal stuff!) but Jeff breaks it pretty quickly. Christian gets sent into the corner on the counter and both guys are down.

The challenger wins a slugout and runs Jarrett over a few times. Tornado DDT gets two. Jarrett slides through Christian’s legs and hits Earl’s ankle to take him down. Gail interferes again (wasn’t there some rule about anyone that interferes is FIRED?) and Jeff hits a top rope Stroke, but there’s no referee. Jarrett pounds away but walks into the Unprettier. Slick Johnson slides in to count two as everything starts going nuts as it is known to do in TNA main events.

Johnson (thankfully in full pants here) tells Gail to get down as Earl is unconscious despite being hit in the ankle and not in the, you know, head. Jeff hits Christian low so Jeff hits the referee before there can be a DQ. Why would you do that? Gail throws in a chair but Christian dropkicks it into Jarrett’s face. No referee so Christian chases Gail a bit. That gets him a guitar shot to the head which gets two. Another Gail rana attempt is countered into a powerbomb and the Stroke is countered into the Unprettier to give Christian the pin and the title.

Rating: C. You know usually I would list off the things that we had to sit through to get to the title change, but SWEET GOODNESS MAN there were too many things to remember here. This was a total mess which somehow had plot holes in it. On top of everything, WHERE WAS LARRY? He was there to open the show but he was gone for this. That makes no sense. Anyway, WAY overbooked and not even that good in the first place.

Fans fill the ring to end the show.

Overall Rating: B. This was a solid show with almost nothing being truly bad. The James Gang match was bad but it wasn’t even six minutes long. This was somewhere between a major show and a B level show but it was still good stuff overall. TNA was on a roll at this point and Christian coming over and becoming world champion was a part of that. Good show here.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

TNA Weekly PPV #3
Date: July 3, 2002
Location: Nashville Municipal Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee
Commentators: Don West, Mike Tenay, Ed Ferrara

We’re into the home city of the company for the next few years now and we’re going to get our first title defense too. We’re also getting tag champions tonight in the form of a one night tournament. Also if that’s not enough tag team wrestling for you, we’ve got the official main event: Scott Hall/Brian Christopher vs. Jeff Jarrett/K-Krush. Let’s get to it.

As the announcers talk, the NWA President, a big fat balding guy, comes up and says some people are coming to TNA. He has a trophy which is to welcome TNA to the NWA. He’s been in Japan and next week, a guy named Omori is getting a world title match.

NWA World Tag Team Title Tournament First Round: James Storm/Chris Harris vs. The Johnsons

Oh geez it’s the Johnsons. They’re named Dick and Rod and we’ll say Rod starts with Harris. Harris speeds things up and hits some armdrags followed by a Thesz Press to take over. Off to Storm who hits a headscissors to put Rod down. The Johnsons start cheating and hit a double powerbomb on Storm to take over.

A suplex puts Storm down and a double shoulder block gets two. We’ll say Dick jumps into a boot and Storm superkicks him down. There’s the hot tag to Harris who cleans house. He spears Rod down but his cross body gets caught. Storm dropkicks Harris’ back so that he falls on Rod for the pin to advance.

Rating: D+. Nothing special here but you could see the talent in the team that would become known as AMW. At the end of the day here though, they were a one note joke written by a five year old. There’s only so much credibility you can give to a match like this one. The ending was good though and that dropkick was pretty awesome looking.

Post match the Johnsons’ manager Mortimer Plumtree yells at them and gets a chokeslam for his efforts.

Here’s Scott Hall who says Hey Yo but here’s Jarrett for a rebuttal. Jarrett says no one wants to hear Hall talk so get out. They’re about to brawl but the fat guy President says go away. Jarrett says he’ll wait for the main event. As he backs away, K-Krush sneaks in and beats down Hall. Scratch the beats down line and replace it with “gets caught in a fallaway slam and is clotheslined to the floor”.

Harris and Storm have been attacked and there’s blood everywhere.

Anthony Ingram vs. Monty Brown

After Brown says he wants Shamrock, the squashing commences. After a powerslam the Alpha Bomb (starts in a slam position but Brown swings him into the air and powerbombs him down) gets the pin. Brown has what sounds like Abyss’ old music.

Goldilocks can’t find the NWA President. Two blonde guys haven’t either. A midget named Puppet says he’ll do the interview instead. He wants a fight against a Hollywood famous short person. Next.

NWA World Tag Team Title Tournament First Round: Rainbow Express vs. Apolo/Buff Bagwell

Before the match, Buff and Apolo say nothing of note. Bruce and Bagwell get us going with Buff controlling early. He slams Bruce down and hits a Vader Bomb for two. Here’s Alicia for some reason as it’s off to Lenny. Alicia (Ryan Shamrock) goes over to Ed Ferrara and gives him money. Apolo hits something on Bruce for two. No idea what it was as we were looking at Alicia, which to be fair is a better idea.

Apolo chops away at Lenny and hits an elbow to the face to take him down. Bruce gets involved and Lenny hits a running DDT for two to take over. Bruce gets tagged in via a kiss to the hand and they do the World’s Greatest Tag Team jump over the back onto the other guy’s back spot. Lenny drops an elbow for two but walks into a full nelson slam to put both guys down. Hot tag brings in Bagwell and his offense looks pretty awful. Buff and Lenny collide and roll to the floor as Apolo superkicks Bruce down. TKO looks to finish but Lenny makes the save. A Blockbuster puts Bruce down but Lenny superkicks Buff for the pin.

Rating: D. Nothing to see here again. The Express are supposed to be interesting because they’re gay or whatever, but it’s not working at all. Bagwell keeps getting blamed for posing and showboating too much here which I guess is the story, but who in the world would be interested in Buff Bagwell in 2002? Nothing to see here.

Buff talks to himself so Ferrara gets a mic. Bagwell says he’s Marcus, not Buff and he wants to go home. Ok then.

Here’s Shamrock for a chat. He doesn’t care about Monty Brown because Brown has only had one match and now he wants a title shot. Correct me if I’m wrong but hasn’t Shamrock only had one match at this point? Tonight he’s got Malice and then a Japanese guys next week. After that, maybe it’s time for Monty Brown. We cut to Mitchell in the crowd who says that Shamrock will have his hands full with Malice tonight and Shamrock will never make it to Omori and Monty. The lights go out and when they come up, Shamrock is down and Malice is standing over Shamrock.

Jerry Lynn comes up to Bill Behrens and asks if he can get in the tournament in Harris/Storm’s place if he can find a partner. Behrens sends him away because he doesn’t have time right now.

Puppet vs. Todd Stone

Little people time. Puppet yells about midgets before the match. This is a hardcore match apparently. Puppet hits him with a kendo stick as he gets in, followed by a trashcan shot to the head. Stone gets the trashcan put over his head and Puppet pounds on it with the stick. A horrible TKO into the can gets the pin for Puppet. This match exists and that’s as kind as I can be to it.

Puppet hits the referee with the stick post match. Borash gets a shot too. Even Don West gets hit.

Shamrock is being looked at.

We recap Francine and the lingerie battle royal last week.

Miss TNA: Taylor Vaughn vs. Francine

Vaughn is defending. Francine whips her with a belt like she did to Ferrara last week. Vaughn gets the belt and chokes away. This is thrown out in less than a minute.

Ferrara holds Francine’s hand up as she won but she puts his hand on her breast. That gets him a beating with the belt.

Here’s Hermie Sadler, a NASCAR driver, with his pit crew. K-Krush comes out and says no one around here like NASCAR. Sadler gets in his face and the two of them are having a match next week. West says 500 million people like NASCAR. I’d like to see some stats behind that.

NWA World Title: Ken Shamrock vs. Malice

Malice is more famous as The Wall in WCW. I probably should have mentioned that earlier. Shamrock is all banged up but he comes in anyway, only to get beaten down almost immediately. Shamrock gets knocked down to the floor and Malice stomps him against the railing. Back in and Shamrock gets draped over the top rope and Malice hammers away. Ken grabs the arm into a quick armbar but Malice powers him right back down.

Malice sends him to the floor and puts on a dragon sleeper which is quickly broken. As they’re coming back in Shamrock grabs a bad ankle lock but Malice makes the rope. A pair of release belly to back suplexes put Shamrock down but a regular suplex is blocked. Shamrock snaps off a suplex of his own and the belly to belly out of nowhere retains the title.

Rating: D. Malice looked good here but the ending sucked. It basically cut the legs out from under Malice because all of that offense he put in couldn’t slow the champ down and then a pair of suplexes are enough for a pin? I didn’t like this for the most part and it didn’t do anyone any favors at all. This would be the end of Malice’s time around the title.

X-Division Title: David Young vs. AJ Styles

AJ is listed as being from Atlanta here instead of Gainesville. Young jumps the champ from behind but AJ speeds things up and dropkicks Young down. A rana puts Young on the floor and AJ kind of botches a flip dive, with his legs hitting the apron on the way down. Back in the ring that gets two but a second springboard attempt is countered, sending AJ’s throat into the top rope.

Young follows up with an Asai Moonsault which gets two back in the ring. The spinebuster is blocked as is a German suplex by Styles flips. Bobcat is on her phone now as the match isn’t interesting enough to her. Young sends AJ back first into the corner for two. A crucifix gets two for Styles but Young takes out his knee and hits an enziguri for two. After a quick chinlock a powerslam gets two for David.

A brainbuster only gets two but Styles’ kickouts are getting weaker and weaker. Back to the chinlock but Styles fights out of it again and superkicks Young down for two. The moonsault into the reverse DDT gets another two count. AJ tries to speed things up again but walks into a spinebuster for two. That looked great too. Young puts him on the top rope for a top rope rana, but AJ blocks it in mid air and hits the Styles Clash off the middle rope to retain.

Rating: B. I was really digging this one as AJ in 2002 was incredible. Young wasn’t much but he had a good spinebuster and could do some other stuff decently. This was basically an AJ showcase match and that’s what it should be. The X-Division was a way to show off fast paced matches and they did that well here. Very good match.

Post match Bobcat gets in the ring to dance but gets shoved by AJ. That’s pretty heelish.

Goldie is with the Rainbow Express, who doesn’t like her hair. Joel Gertner hits on her and says the Express gets the titles because they don’t have anyone to fight. Gertner rhymes a lot and kisses her.

NWA World Tag Team Titles: Rainbow Express vs. ???/???

The NWA rules that they must have another match, so the opponents are AJ Styles/Jerry Lynn. The Express jumps them as they come in and the unnamed team is in trouble early. Lynn sends them to the floor and hits a slingshot dive followed by a corkscrew dive from Styles. Jerry and Lenny officially start and it’s time for gyrations. Lynn sends him into the corner and Bruce comes in illegally for some homosexual themed spots.

Lenny takes over and it’s off to Bruce via a kiss to the hand, freaking West out. Lynn is sent to the apron and he hits a legdrop to the back of a charging Bruce’s head to take over. Off to AJ who hits a spinwheel kick for two as West praises him nonstop. Back to Lynn who gets two off a bulldog. Back to Lenny who avoids a dropkick and puts on the Liontamer (screw the Tiger Tamer) while shouting to ASK HIM. AJ breaks it up with a clothesline and Bruce comes in sans tag.

Lenny comes back in quickly and a long delayed vertical suplex gets a sexual cover for two. West’s anti-gay shouting is kind of funny. Lynn comes back with a sunset flip out of the corner for two on Bruce and Bruce does the same for the same result. Bruce hooks a chinlock and then a headscissors to keep Lynn on the mat. Lynn escapes a powerbomb but Bruce escapes the Cradle Piledriver, only for Bruce to escape into a rollup for two.

Lynn DDTs Bruce down and both guys are dazed. Hot tag brings in AJ to face Lenny and things speed up. Everything breaks down and Lenny hits a Skull Crushing Finale on Styles for two. Cradle Piledriver takes Lenny down followed by Bruce and Jerry going to the floor. Spiral Tap to Lenny gives Lynn and Styles the titles.

Rating: C+. This was pretty good although it culminates one of the worst “tournaments” I’ve ever seen. The story works well as AJ beat Lynn last week and now they’re partners with AJ still holding the X Title. That would be the big feud for the next few weeks, although I’m not sure why, as AJ beat Lynn twice in a row last week. Yeah Lynn won once, but that still puts AJ up 2-1. The match was pretty good though.

The NWA President has been tied up in the back and has FU painted on his stomach. You know Cena had debuted about a week before this. I think I smell a conspiracy.

We recap Christopher vs. Krush last week which set up the tag match this week.

Scott Hall/Brian Christopher vs. K-Krush/Jeff Jarrett

It’s a brawl to start and all four head into the crowd. Hall and Jarrett head into the dancer’s cage as Christopher and Krush get in the ring. Hall knocks Jarrett onto the announce table as the Hip Hop Drop misses for Christopher. Scott comes into the ring and chokeslams Krush but Jeff is back in quickly. There haven’t been any tags at all yet. We finally get started with Hall vs. Jarrett and the good guys (Hall/Christopher) take over quickly.

Hall clotheslines Jarrett into the corner and it’s off to Brian who dances a bit too much and crotches himself in the corner. Off to Hall who is sent into Christopher while Christopher is on the apron before Hall collides with Jarrett. Jeff brings in Krush with a top rope dropkick but no cover. They badly mess up the spinning forearm as Krush lands on Hall’s back and Hall waits a few seconds before he falls. That looked pretty bad.

Back to Jeff for a cross body off the top but Hall rolls through for two. Jarrett hooks a sleeper and Hall reverses into a quick one of his own. Jarrett suplexes him down but can’t follow up. Christopher leaves the corner for some reason to yell at the referee, meaning Hall has no one to tag. Krush comes in with an ax kick and it’s off to a chinlock which is positioned so that Hall can stand up and hit an electric chair drop.

That gets followed up by a clothesline and it’s hot tag time, but Christopher won’t tag. Hall cleans house on his own including a punch to Christopher. Hall pulls Brian into the ring and beats him up too followed by an Outsider’s Edge to Krush. The referee went down in there somewhere. Brian breaks up an Edge on Jarrett and the Stroke pins Hall.

Rating: C-. This was the standard main event tag team match and it was nothing of note at all. At the end of the day, Grandmaster Sexay/Scott Hall vs. Jeff Jarrett/R-Truth isn’t a match that grabs me. There wasn’t much of a reason for this match to happen and it certainly wasn’t a big fight that we were dying to see. It wasn’t bad though and it sets up the main event feud for awhile.

Jarrett says he’s beaten Hall for years and he’s done it again here. Hall gets hit in the head with a trophy. Jarrett says he won’t get screwed again. The stretcher Hall is on is turned over to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. This was better than last week’s show overall as they cut out some of the nonsense but the main event was nowhere near the level of the one from last week. These earlier shows for the company were very dull at times and this was no exception, but you can see things starting to shape up a bit better. With only three shows done so far, that’s a good sign.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

TNA Weekly PPV #2
Date: June 26, 2002
Location: Von Braun Center, Huntsville, Alabama
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Ed Ferrara, Don West

So now that I’m done with all of the regular three hour PPVs for all of the companies, I figured I should start doing the two hour TNA shows as well. There are 111 of them and I’ve already knocked off one, so we’ve got 110 to go. Last week we crowned a new world champion in the form of Ken Shamrock. That means we need a first X Division Champion, which is what we’re doing tonight. Let’s get to it.

Here’s the first weekly PPV in case you’ve never read it:

We open with a recap from last week with Jackie Fargo making Jarrett be the first entrant in the gauntlet match for the world title. Shamrock was in the gauntlet and Scott Hall debuted too. Shamrock wound up winning the title after Jarrett was eliminated by country singer Toby Keith. Jarrett went off and beat up everyone post match and Fargo made Hall vs. Jarrett for tonight.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Scott Hall

Toby Keith and Jackie Fargo come out with Hall. Hall looks decent here, despite having been fired by WWF a few weeks before this. We stall to start before Jarrett does his walk up the back and slaps to the back of Hall’s head. Hall takes Jarrett down with some right hands and catches a cross body in a fallaway slam. A clothesline puts Jarrett on the floor and Jeff runs from the singer.

Back in and Jeff cleans house with punches and dropkicks, followed by the running crotch attack while Hall is in 619 position. Jarrett puts on a sleeper and we go to a LONG shot of the crowd for some reason. Hall fights up to a knee and puts on a sleeper of his own, which is a signature sequence of Hall’s.

A suplex to Hall puts both guys down but it only gets two for Jeff. Hall comes back with a bunch of clotheslines for two of his own. He loads up the Edge but K-Krush (R-Truth) breaks it up. Brian Christopher chases him off which would set up a future tag match. Jarrett loads up the Stroke but Keith low blows him, followed by a double clothesline from Keith and Hall for the pin.

Rating: D+. This was a kick and punch match for the most part but it was fun to see Hall looking decent for once. It’s a shame that he screwed up so much over the years given the natural ability that was there. Jarrett would obviously move on to a lot more stuff in the company while Hall would be gone before Halloween.

We recap last week’s preview of this week’s lingerie battle royal. To clarify, we’re recapping previews of things that haven’t happened yet. The match is for the title of Miss TNA and the preview wound up being about ECW as two of their former chicks were in there.

Cheex vs. Frank Parker

Cheex is an ENORMOUS man, listed at 400lbs but likely closer to 600. This is the only match either guy ever had in TNA. The tag match between Christopher/Hall vs. Truth/Jarrett is announced and that’s the highlight of the match. Cheex is basically Rikishi and does the same kind of gimmick he did, minus being Samoan, having charisma, or any form of talent. Some decent looking chick (Apparently Ryan Shamrock, called Alicia) is talking to Jeremy Borash which is apparently about a payoff from last week. Cheex wins a squash with a splash.

We’ll have new tag champions next week via a tournament.

We recap K-Krush vs. Brian Christopher which is about NASCAR drivers because that’s what wrestling fans want to hear about. Well to be fair this is in Alabama.

K-Krush vs. Brian Christopher

They keep swapping between calling his Brian Christopher and Brian Lawler. Christopher does his Too Cool dance to the ring and the NASCAR guys with him look at him like the idiot he looks like. Krush is the evil one here which I doubt was clear coming into this. He jumps Christopher to start but Brian comes back with a neckbreaker. A bulldog out of the corner gets two for Brian but a second results in him getting crotched on the middle rope.

Krush suplexes him down to take over again, getting a delayed two in the process. He does the backflip into the splits into the side kick spot that he uses today for two. Off to a chinlock as this is going nowhere. Brian fights up, I guess doing what you would call Cooling Up. An enziguri puts Krush down as does a Stunner but Krush hits an atomic drop to put him down. The NASCAR guys shake the ropes to crotch Krush and he falls right into position for the guillotine legdrop from Christopher for the pin.

Rating: D. This felt like a random match between two former WWF guys, and that’s not something interesting. At the end of the day, why in the world am I supposed to care about the guy best known as K-Kwik yells at some NASCAR drivers? Christopher without his Too Cool partners isn’t interesting either, at least not outside of Memphis. Nothing to see here.

Miss TNA: Lingerie Battle Royal

Taylor Vaughn, Alexis Laree, Elektra, Erin, Francine, Miss Joni, Miss Sasha, Shannon, Teresa Tyler

Borash gets the names completely wrong, really hammering home how inept these guys were to start. Everyone is in white pants and shirts here. You’re eliminated by being stripped and I think that’s the only way. I have no idea who most of these chicks are but one of them trips coming to the ring. That’s Erin apparently. Various people have their clothes taken off, they look decent in lingerie, Francine cries after being eliminated, Ferrara feels her up and gets hit low for it, the final two are Vaughn and Elektra with Vaughn winning. This is four and a half minutes of my life I’ll never get back. No rating as it wasn’t wrestling.

Oh and Francine strips Vaughn.

Apolo says nothing because Bobcat and David Young interrupt Goldilocks while she’s interviewing him. Bobcat yells at her and Goldilocks says cut the interview.

Apolo vs. David Young

Young keeps ramming into Apolo but he also keeps bouncing off. Apolo hits a tilt-a-whirl slam and an overhead belly to belly to send Young to the floor. Apolo dives onto him as the camera stays on Bobcat, who is hitting on Borash. Young works on the arm in the ring as we watch Bobcat seduce Borash. Back in the whole match portion of this part of the show, Young suplexes Apolo for two and we hit a chinlock. That doesn’t last long as Apolo hits a springboard tornado DDT. A spinebuster puts Apolo down but Young looks at Bobcat. Apolo superkicks him down and hits a TKO for the pin.

Rating: F+. I feel bad for the wrestlers here because the main problem with this match was the Bobcat nonsense. They cut over to her at least eight times in a five and a half minute match. This was nothing good either way though as both guys were rather dull. I’ve always liked Apolo for some reason though so we’ll give it just slightly above a total failure.

Joel Gertner of all people does the ring introductions for the next match. He doesn’t have the neck brace and is far skinnier than I remember him, but he can still rhyme. Apparently he’s the manager of the Rainbow Express. They’re gay and he’s not, but who cares. Gertner gets on a moderate high horse and says it’s ok that they’re gay because they’re awesome.

Rainbow Express vs. The Dups

Rainbow Express is Lenny and Bruce, meaning Lenny Lane and Kwee Wee from WCW. The Dups are Bo and Stan. Say their names in your head and you’ll get it. We cut to the back and the Dups say they won’t wrestle these alternative lifestyle people. Bill Behrens goes up to two guys in jeans who are going to replace them.

Rainbow Express vs. James Storm/Chris Harris

If you don’t recognize the names, this would be the debut of the team that would become known as America’s Most Wanted, who would be the most successful team in TNA history. The Express jumps the replacements but Storm and Harris clean house, knocking both guys to the floor. Storm and Lenny get things going and Storm charges into a boot in the corner. Lenny hits a bad looking tornado DDT to Storm and it’s off to Bruce.

Don West has to FREAK because Lenny kisses Bruce’s hand to tag. You know, because they’re gay and therefore evil. Harris gets a hot tag and cleans house but everything breaks down. Oh ok the hot tag wasn’t seen. Lenny suplexes Storm down as we hear about how the Express had to be in the closet for years because of WCW. Lenny hooks a Liontamer (called a Tiger Tamer here for no apparent reason) but Harris breaks things up. Everything breaks down and Harris gets two near falls on Lenny. The Express is rammed together and a rollup gets three on Lenny for the pin.

Rating: D-. This was another dull match in a series tonight. The stuff here with the Express being gay was about as forced as you could get and it became really uncomfortable at times. Also it’s very clear at this point that they have almost no idea how to fill in “two hours” (read as about 100 minutes) every week. Bad match here, but AMW would get about a million times better.

Here’s Ricky Steamboat to bring out the new world champion: Ken Shamrock. Steamboat lists off a bunch of names of former NWA Champions that Shamrock’s name now joins. Shamrock talks about being everywhere doing wrestling and MMA and in every one of them he’s risen to the top. Except WWF that is I guess.

Cue James Mitchell who says he’s on a mission from God (so no one can stop him). He means his own god that is, which is why the Disciples of the New Church are going to control the world title. Therefore, Mitchell challenges Shamrock to defend against Slash next week. Shamrock says let’s do it now, but the distraction lets Malice come in from behind and chokeslam the champ. Malice keeps choking him and security can’t pull him off.

We recap the opening match next week which was a six man X-Division tag. The match saw AJ Styles/Jerry Lynn/Low Ki vs. the Flying Elvises. Tonight the first X-Division Champion will be crowned from Styles, Lynn, Low Ki and Psicosis. Tonight it’s a round robin tournament for the belt, even though three of these four guys lost their match last week.

X Title: AJ Styles vs. Jerry Lynn vs. Low Ki vs. Psicosis

Yes it’s just the X Title here as this isn’t an official division at this point. Ok so from what I can tell, two people start it off and when one is pinned, someone else comes in. When you lose twice, you’re eliminated. That’s a pretty cool concept actually. Styles and Psicosis start things off with AJ taking over quickly. A superkick gets two but Psicosis hits an elbow to the face to take over. Guillotine legdrop gets two on Styles but he pops back up and hits the Clash for the first pin on Psicosis.

Low Ki comes in immediately and fires off kicks, but AJ nips up from the mat and ranas him down. That was AWESOME. Low Ki reverses a German and kicks AJ’s head off to take over again. The Clash is broken up and AJ is launched into the post. Low Ki goes up top and Germans AJ down into a dragon sleeper (nowhere near as smooth as it could have been). AJ grabs the rope to escape so Low Ki kicks Styles in the head again. Low Ki misses a BIG flip dive and AJ clotheslines his head off. A German suplex into a belly to back facebuster gets the pin on Low Ki to get Jerry Lynn in to face Styles.

Lynn immediately clotheslines AJ down and hits the Cradle Piledriver to give him his first loss. This took less than ten seconds.

Psicosis comes in with a missile dropkick to the back of Lynn’s head to take him down fast. They fight over a go behind until Lynn snapmares him down, followed by a headscissors. Lynn gets a boot up in the corner and a middle rope bulldog gets two. Psicosis sends him to the floor and hits a somersalt plancha to take Lynn out. Back in and a spinwheel kick off the top gets a close two. Ricky Steamboat is going to take over as referee once we get down to two. Psicosis goes up again but jumps into a dropkick. Lynn hits the Cradle Piledriver to eliminate Psicosis.

Low Ki is back in next and it’s time to kick. To recap it’s Lynn with zero losses and Styles/Lynn with one each. Low Ki kicks Jerry down and hits a Muta Elbow for two. Lynn gets up a boot in the corner but Low Ki kicks him in the face and ranas him off the top. Jerry rolls through that into a sunset flip for two and it’s time for more kicks. Lynn says bring it on and hits an enziguri to take Low Ki down. They slug it out and Lynn backdrops him to take over. Jerry goes to the apron and avoids a shoulder to the ribs so he can hit a kind of Fameasser.

Cradle Piledriver is broken up and Low Ki grabs an arm hold. Lynn counters into a HARD powerbomb for two and loads up a brainbuster. Low Ki counters into a fisherman’s buster but Lynn counters THAT into a DDT for no cover. Cradle Piledriver hits out of nowhere and it’s down to Styles vs. Lynn. Styles has to get two falls to win the title while Lynn only has to get one.

Styles runs in and hits a quick kick but the Clash is countered into a rana. A tilt-a-whirl backbreaker gets two for Jerry and both guys are down. Lynn is sent to the apron but his sunset flip only gets one. AJ pops up top and hits a springboard moonsault for two. Jerry snaps off a tornado DDT for a two count and they’re both down again. Styles hits a DDT of his own for two but he charges into a running Liger Bomb out of the corner for two for Jerry. Cradle Piledriver is countered into the Clash and it’s one fall apiece, meaning Steamboat takes over and it’s next fall wins the title.

Both guys are down for a bit before they head to the corner. We get a pinfall reversal sequence which would make Flair and appropriately enough Steamboat jealous. There are about ten near falls in a minute and they clothesline each other to put both guys down again. They head to the floor and Lynn hits a WICKED Irish Whip into the barricade to send Styles flying.

AJ is like screw the pain and hits the moonsault into the reverse DDT on the floor to take over again. Back inside and Jerry breaks up a springboard to hit an Elevated DDT for a VERY close two. Lynn loads up the Cradle Piledriver but AJ counters into a rana. The rana is countered into a powerbomb but Lynn rotates him further than that, sending AJ’s face into the mat in a SWEET move.

Both guys are down again but it’s Lynn up first. Another Cradle Piledriver is countered into an FU into a backbreaker for two for Styles. Lynn counters a suplex into a brainbuster for two of his own. There’s a sleeper but AJ escapes and goes up top, only to get crotched and superplexed for two for Jerry. Lynn loads him up top again but AJ shoves him off and Spiral Tap gives him his first of many X Division Titles.

Rating: A. This was AWESOME and a total star making performance for AJ. Matches like this one were the ones that got the company on the map (eventually) and this was excellent even ten years later. Lynn vs. AJ was the first big feud as they would go at it for months, over that title and another one eventually. Great stuff here and an actual new idea for a match.

We recap the match and recap the show to end things.

Overall Rating: D+. The majority of the grade here is for the main event, because everything before that was DREADFUL. It’s very clear that they have no idea what they’re doing for the most part, but they have enough for some flippy matches and a feud between the bigger named guys. Things would get better, but it would take a long time to get there. The main event is well worth seeing, but other than that there’s nothing here at all.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Turning Point 2005
Date: December 11, 2005
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 900
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Don West

It’s the final 2005 PPV and we go out with what should have been the main event last month: Jarrett vs. Rhyno for the title. Other than that we’ve got AJ vs. Joe and Christian vs. Monty in a #1 contender’s match. This is looking like a better card than Genesis, but to be fair that doesn’t really seem like it would take much effort. Let’s get to it.

Jeff Hardy no showed the pre-show, which would be the final straw for him. He wouldn’t appear on TNA TV for over four years.

The opening video is about barbed wire. Why they’re talking about an opening match in the opening video I’m not sure but whatever.

Abyss vs. Sabu

This is barbed wire massacre, which means the ropes are replaced by barbed wire, which Abyss is terrified of. Abyss stomps on the chair that Sabu tries to bring in with him, so Sabu gets a barbed wire ball bat to scare Abyss away. Sabu tries to drive him into the wire but settles for a chair shot instead. Another doesn’t put Abyss down so he launches himself off the chair into a powerbomb position.

That gets Abyss down but he launches Sabu into the wire which draws a big gasp from the crowd. Sabu comes back with some punches but his cross body is caught and Abyss drops him throat first onto the wire. Sabu has a spike of some sort which he jabs into the shoulder of the monster, drawing blood. He tries another move off the chair but launches himself into the wire AGAIN. Dude, IT ISN’T WORKING FOR YOU!

With Sabu still tied up in the wire, Abyss charges but gets caught in a drop toehold into the wire. A chair shot gets two for Sabu. Abyss shrugs that off and chokeslams him onto a chair for two. Mitchell throws in a barbed wire covered chair and for SOME REASON, he tries an Earthquake onto it. The wire goes into Abyss’ crotch and I cringe a bit. That chair goes onto Abyss’ head twice and down he goes.

Abyss rolls to the floor so Sabu hits a huge flip dive over the wire to take Abyss out. Sabu throws a barbed wire board into the ring but gets draped over the wire stomach first. Back inside now and Abyss sets for a chokeslam onto the board, but Sabu bites the fingers to escape. Sabu winds up being launched into the air and landing stomach first on the wire. Abyss brings in another wire covered board and puts it in the corner. Due to the laws of wrestling, his charge misses and he gets all stuck in the wire. Sabu kicks Abyss down onto the other board into a sandwich, then drops a leg onto the top board for the pin.

Rating: C-. I’m not sure what to call this. For the violence and shock value it was fine, but as far as wrestling goes there was nothing here. Thankfully this was the ending to this feud which went on for months on end. The ending spot was pretty awesome but most of this was just a total freak show. They had to do this first too because of the ropes, which is annoying but there was no way around that.

We run down the remaining card to fill in some time while the ropes are replaced.

Jarrett and AMW got here earlier today.

Rhyno arrives too.

The 4 (yes 4) Live Kru says they’re going to violate Team Canada tonight.

Abyss gets checked out.

Now we talk about the card again.

Alex Shelley/Roderick Strong vs. Matt Bentley/Austin Aries

Holy Generation Next. Aries and Shelley gets us going here. Aries takes him down with some headlocks and then runs up the corners twice, resulting in a back elbow. Back to the headlock now as the fans like Austin a bit more it seems. The brainbuster is countered by a bite to the hand and it’s off to Strong. Aries takes him down almost immediately and works on the arm. Bentley comes in to a surprisingly good reaction.

The heels get him down into the corner and work him over though, resulting in Traci slapping the mat. Bentley ranas his way out of trouble and gets two at the same time. Aries comes in with his corkscrew splash for two. Off to Shelley who takes Aries down and hits a Lionsault for two. The referee misses a tag to Bentley, allowing the heels to hit a double team neckbreaker for two.

Strong stays on Aries and loads up a belly to back superplex, only to get punched down. Another double team, this time with Strong holding him up for a missile dropkick, gets two on Aries. Aries counters the third double team and makes the tag this time. House is cleaned and Bentley gets two off a top rope elbow. Shelley gets in a kick but his tornado DDT is countered. Bentley hits a top rope senton backsplash for two on Shelley. Shelley gets sent to the floor in front of his camera, letting Bentley superkick Strong for the pin.

Rating: C+. Just another X Division tag match here. Strong would never really do anything in TNA, whereas Shelley would become a big tag team star and Aries would become a big X Division star, albeit about five years later. Bentley never really did much of note but he had a hot chick in Traci. The match was fine for a time filling match that meant nothing.

Monty Brown is talking to a doll that he calls Christian Cage. Shane Douglas interrupts him and says Christian is trying to leapfrog Monty for his spot. Monty says that won’t happen and Christian will feel the Pounce. Jarrett comes up and says that the win won’t mean anything so Monty should join him. This really doesn’t seem to go anywhere.

Raven vs. ???

Same deal as last month. Larry is in the ring again and says his schtick about the release or whatever. Raven says Larry is the answer to a trivia question that has never been asked. That’s pretty true. The opponent is Chris K, meaning Kanyon. Kanyon immediately gets in and takes Raven down and the brawl is on fast. He takes over to put Raven in early trouble, dropping a leg on Raven as his head is in the ropes.

Out to the floor but Kanyon’s dive hits barricade by accident and Raven gets back in first. Back in, Kanyon rides Raven down with a middle rope Fameasser for two, but the moonsault misses. Raven hooks an ankle lock which is broken pretty quickly. Two clotheslines put Kanyon down and a flying knee puts him on the floor. He tries to escape but Raven hiptosses him back down the steel. Raven is bleeding from the mouth. Back in and there’s a chair now for some reason. Bird Boy tries to punch it into Kanyon’s face but it just hurts his hand. Kanyon tries a rana but gets powerbombed onto the chair. Raven Effect and it’s over.

Rating: D. Nothing to see here for the most part as it was all about an angle rather than a match. I don’t get why they kept going with this as it was the same story for a few months in a row. Why Larry wanted Raven to leave isn’t really mentioned on these PPVs, but I’m sure it was explained on Impact somewhere which I can live with. Not a terrible match but it was short.

Raven and Larry get in a pull apart brawl post match.

Team Canada is worried about the lack of Roode. Petey tells Young to chill and hits him. D’Amore says chill, and then hits Eric himself. That was great. Jarrett comes up and says he’s worried about what management means by the face of TNA changing. D’Amore doesn’t know either but says they’ll get to the bottom of it by the end of the night. Roode (weren’t they worried about him not being there??) pops up, apparently just being out of frame, and says it’s ok.

Team Canada vs. 4 Live Kru

This is the FINAL blowoff match between these guys, thank goodness. Eric and Kip get us going but Eric needs to stall a bit first. Ok so it’s Roode starting for the Canadians. After about a minute we’re finally hooking up. We get about a minute of the most basic wrestling you’ll ever see. Arm drags, wristlocks and a slam. It’s fine and all but very basic. Off to Petey who is launched in and Konnan hits him with a shoe. What’s Up Petey.

Truth comes in now and speeds things up, taking Young down with a sidekick. Off to BG for all of the exact same moves they’ve done in the previous two matches between these teams. The dancing punches and shaky kneedrop get two. BG gets thrown into the corner and taken down by some apron interference. Roode puts him in the Tree of Woe and it’s O Canada time from Petey. James hits a double clothesline on Roode and Williams, allowing the tag to Gunn. Everything breaks down and Kip hits the Fameasser on Roode. A chair comes in and Konnan kills Kip with it so Roode can pin him.

Rating: D-. The match was technically fine, but for the life of me I don’t remember a more paint by numbers/going by the pure stereotypical formula match in a VERY long time. Either way, it finally ended this way too long feud and would also bring about the end of the Kru which had outlived its usefulness anyway.

Konnan hits BG with the chair too. He would form LAX soon after this while the Outlaws would reform as well. Truth would just kind of float around.

The Diamonds in the Rough are reading the paper and say that this isn’t about baseball. A New Age Outlaws chant is heard over this, meaning the Outlaws are getting up and leaving together I guess.

We recap the baseball feud. AJ Pierzynski (for the sake of this, he’ll be called AJ. For clarification, AJ Styles is not involved in this whatsoever, so don’t get confused) showed up on Impact to give TNA some gifts in exchange for some award, when the Diamonds come out to make fun of them. Dale Torborg (Demon in WCW) was brought in too along with AJ and they argued batting averages.

Oh one more thing: AJ had a manager teaching him how to manage: BOBBY THE FREAKING BRAIN HEENAN!!! He’s doing commentary, which saddens me to a degree as it’s after his throat surgery so he doesn’t have his signature voice. His wit is still there though, and most importantly he’s still alive to do commentary so it’s really a good thing, even if it doesn’t sound like it. Heenan looks older but good for the most part. He goes over to commentary and wants $5 to do it. Classic Heenan.

Diamonds in the Rough vs. Chris Sabin/Sonjay Dutt/Dale Torborg

Need a filler in 2005? Call Chris Sabin. Brain has been teaching AJ how to manage. Tenay: “What have you taught him?” Heenan: “How to lie, cheat, get everyone to dislike you, that sort of stuff.” Tenay: “Not how to trip people and use brass knuckles?” Heenan: “No I taught that to Steinbrenner.” Sabin and Skipper start us off as Heenan talks about his love of Chicago, his hometown.

Skipper tries to reverse out of a hammerlock by flipping out of it, but he winds up falling on his head as Sabin drops him. Sabin flips back into the ring and I have very little desire to watch this match. I’d much rather just listen to Heenan say things like this: Tenay: “How rabid were those fans in Chicago?” Heenan: “There was a lot of frothing.” Tenay: “I don’t mean that kind of rabid!” Heenan: “You never met the Wachowski Sisters.” Seriously, JUST LET HIM TALK!

Sabin and Young are in there now but it’s off to Dutt quickly. Trust me: the Heenan stuff is better than the match so you’re not missing much. Top rope legdrop gets two for Sonjay. Off to Torborg who is taller than anyone else in the match. He launches Sonjay over the top onto all of the Diamonds so AJ can chase them with the bat. West calls it a bat, but Tenay corrects him by calling it a foreign object. Tenay: “We’ll teach him eventually won’t we Bobby.” Heenan: “Uh probably not.”

Young hits a spinning slam on Dutt for two and it’s off to Simon who gets two as well. Skipper comes in to kick Dutt in the back for two. West talks about some singers and musicians in attendance here, resulting in Heenan asking if we’re on American Bandstand or at a wrestling match. Skipper tries a mat slam of some kind but drops Dutt on his face again. Spinebuster by Young gets two.

Sonjay hits a slingshot rana to send Young down and it’s off to Torborg. Heenan plugs TNA and does it like a master, telling people to go tell everyone else to watch it because it’s the best wrestling today. See how easy it is? Chokeslam gets two on Skipper and everything breaks down. Young is put into the Tree of Woe for a hesitation dropkick from Sabin.

Stereo dives by Sabin and Dutt take out two Diamonds but Simon hits Torborg low. A shin protector shot to the head of Torborg gets two as AJ pulls the referee out. Heenan intercedes for him, allowing AJ to get a home plate from Johnny Damon (baseball player in the audience) which he cracks Simon with. Cradle Shock and the Hindu Press get the pin.

Rating: C+. The match was just ok but the commentary was excellent. It’s amazing how great Heenan is at just starting up again and being absolutely excellent. He was hilarious and at the same time he PUT THE TALENT OVER. He sounded legitimately happy to be there too, which is a great thing. I had a blast with that and he’s still one of the best ever.

Post match the winning team gives AJ and Torborg (who is the strength coach for the White Sox) some TNA championship rings.

Christian says he hears the Peeps chanting his name. It’s called anticipation for Christian becoming #1 contender. Christian says he does things on his own terms, so tonight he’s going to the Serengeti and going Alpha Male hunting.

We recap Christian vs. Monty Brown. Basically it’s just Christian’s first big match and it’s a #1 contender’s match.

Christian Cage vs. Monty Brown

Officially this is just a Contender’s match, but screw that and add the #1 part to it. This isn’t Christian’s in ring debut for the company as he already beat Bobby Roode on Impact, but it’s his first big match. Monty shoves him around to start as you would expect him to. Christian is like screw the power stuff and fires away with right hands. Tenay talks about how you have to earn your title shots here instead of talking your way into them. Oh the irony (Look up the May 24, 2012 Impact for why that’s funny in case you’re reading this in like three years).

They head to the floor and Christian takes over with an uppercut before sending him into the barricade. Back in the gorilla press is escaped and Brown is sent to the floor again, this time followed by a huge dive. Back in again and Brown hot shots him before gorilla pressing him over the top and onto the floor with a thud. Monty teases throwing him into the barricade but throws him back inside instead for some reason.

Brown’s suplex is countered with some elbows but Christian walks into a belly to belly for two. The fans chant Alpha Female. Christian goes into the corner and is pulled out so hard that he rips the buckle off. Brown bends Christian’s back around the post on the floor but gets sent into the barricade to give Christian a break.

Back in and Christian pounds away with a bunch of right hands to take over. Tornado DDT gets two as does a rollup with his feet on the ropes. Christian goes up and after knocking Brown off, hits a frog splash for two. Brown comes back with the Alpha Bomb for two. Brown misses a charge and hits the exposed buckle and the Unprettier gets the pin.

Rating: C-. Brown didn’t do much but punch, kick and slam but it was ok enough. Christian did his usual stuff and that’s fine as the fans were really getting into him here. I like the Frog Splash better as a finisher for Christian and thankfully he’s been using that more often in his latest WWE run. Not a bad mathc or anything but it was pretty bland.

Team 3D says they want the NWA Tag Titles, but tonight it’s about revenge.

We recap Team 3D vs. AMW. AMW beat 3D down so now they’re back for revenge. It’s a tables match tonight, but it’s not for the titles for no apparent reason.

Team 3D vs. America’s Most Wanted

Both guys have to go through the table. Team 3D jumps them while the pyro is still going off and the fight starts fast. I don’t think there was a bell but who cares. It’s Storm vs. Ray on the stage and the other two at ringside. Harris and D-Von get in the ring and a delayed suplex puts D-Von down. Harris covers but it doesn’t count here of course. Storm comes in and walks into a double clothesline from D-Von who covers as well.

Ray pulls Harris to the floor and What’s Up Storm. Here’s the table but Harris breaks up the 3D. AMW tries to put D-Von through one but Ray makes the save this time. Storm and Ray go to the floor for some chopping as Harris puts D-Von on the table. He goes up but Ray makes the save. Ray loads up a superplex but Storm moves the table. Instead of, you know, not letting his partner get suplexed. No wonder they split up.

There’s a table next to the ring on the floor now. Storm gets launched to the floor but Ray throws him too far, missing the table completely. I think that was intentional. The table is set up in the ring again but Ray goes to the floor instead. Storm and Ray go into the ring but Ray gets hit low to break up whatever he was trying from the ropes. D-Von moves the table but Ray has to take the rana anyway. No wonder they split up.

Superkick puts D-Von down and AMW is in full control. The Dudleys come back very quickly and and put Storm through the table with AMW’s own move, the Death Sentence. Harris comes in with a chair and beats down both of them before heading out to the floor with D-Von. There’s a table up by the entrance too, and here’s Bubba. 3D through the table ends it clean.

Rating: D+. This was ok and there wasn’t anything all that great about it. It’s just a tables match which you’ve seen the Dudleys have about a thousand times. At the end of the day, they’re probably 50/50 in them so it’s not like this really means anything anymore. AMW wouldn’t lose the titles for months and it wasn’t to Team 3D, so this really didn’t do much other than set up a title match later.

We recap Styles vs. Joe. Joe turned on Daniels last month and annihilated him, hitting him with a MuscleBuster on a chair. AJ (Styles) took issue with this and said it was against the X-Division Code. Joe beat him up in the back and tonight, it’s revenge vs. title.

James Storm is helped to the back due to a possible neck injury. This might be legit. He’s sitting up though. He has to be helped out but he’s on his feet at least.

X-Division Title: Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles

AJ is defending and Joe is undefeated. They’ve fought before, I believe at Sacrifice. Joe has the bloody towel which is still awesome. AJ goes right at Joe as soon as the bell rings, knocking him into the corner where Joe is just covering up. AJ ducks his head though and Joe gets in a kick to the chest. The drop down dropkick knocks Joe silly though and the champ takes over again.

Joe misses a charge and for some reason they have a stalemate. AJ has that fire in his eyes here and that means this is going to be awesome. They chop it out and Joe fires of HARD kicks to take over. A running kick sends Styles to the floor and the fire is gone all of a sudden. AJ comes in first but can’t suplex Joe over the top. Instead he guillotines him on the top rope, sending Joe to the floor.

Joe pulls the feet out and spins him around in a powerbomb position to send Styles into the barricade. SICK impact. Styles gets sent into the barricade and a running boot sends AJ flying. Back in and AJ is knocked into the corner and a kick to the chest puts him down. Backsplash keeps Styles down and gets two. A chinlock runs through a few seconds and it’s Facewash time. AJ blocks one of them though and fires off some rights. That gets him nowhere though as Joe kicks him HARD in the face and Styles’ lights are out.

Styles is knocked to the apron but he manages a kind of enziguri but the springboard forearm is countered into a powerbomb into a Boston Crab and then a modified one with AJ’s legs in a powerbomb position. AJ kicks his way out of it and goes to the corner. Joe misses a charge and goes to the floor. The running Shooting Star dive (LOVE that move and it’s called the Fosburry Flop) takes Joe down. Springboard forearm to the back of the head gets two.

Joe’s release German is escaped into the moonsault DDT for two. Powerslam gets two for the Samoan. Joe fires off kicks and Styles says kick him harder. Joe does and AJ crumples up in the corner. AJ comes back again after some right hands and kicks Joe down. AJ’s mouth is busted but I think we’re in Rope-A-Dope land. He loads up the Clash but powerbombs Joe instead for two. That was impressive.

Styles’ eyes say “what more do I have to do” and Joe KILLS him with a clothesline. That only gets one and Joe looks stunned. A SICK double underhook powerbomb gets two for Joe and Styles screams at him. Joe hooks a standing Clutch but AJ escapes and hits the Pele for no cover. AJ takes him to the corner but has to escape a top rope MuscleBuster. Instead AJ pulls him to the mat and then hits the Clash…..for two. The champ tries an O’Connor Roll but gets caught in the Clutch and Styles passes out to give Joe the title for the first time.

Rating: B+. Styles may not bring out the best in Joe, but Joe brings out the best in Styles. This was telling a great story with Styles wanting to hold on as long as he could and tire Joe out but in the end, Joe was just too much for him. The match was great, but when they threw in Daniels it made things excellent. Very good match here though and the fire in Styles was great.

Joe helps AJ up and then lays him out with the belt. Security goes down and Joe gets a chair. He loads up the MuscleBuster but here’s Daniels for the save. Joe beats him down too, although Daniels wasn’t completely healed up yet so it’s not as bad.

We recap Rhyno vs. Jarrett. It’s the rubber match as Rhyno won the title at BFG and Jarrett won it back on Impact. The idea here is that Rhyno is going through a lot of personal issues and this is all he has.

Rhyno says he’ll always be a champion to everyone that loves him and he’ll win tonight.

NWA World Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Rhyno

Feeling out process to start and Jeff grabs a wristlock. That gets him nowhere as Rhyno runs him over for one. A dropkick gets the same for the champ and it’s off to a short arm scissors. The fans want Jarrett fired as Rhyno powers out of the hold and drops Jeff onto the top rope. Press slam is followed by Jarrett being draped over the top again. Out to the floor and Rhyno hits a dive out to the floor.

They head into the crowd with Rhyno in full control. He tries to suplex him off a wall but Jarrett knocks him down and onto the floor again. They head up towards the backstage and Jarrett is rammed into various metal objects, busting him open. Back to ringside and Jeff takes a chair shot to the shoulder and the back. Back to the backstage area and Rhyno loads up a table.

Rhyno takes him onto a scaffold but Jeff finds a chair to pop Rhyno with, sending him down through the table with a crash. Jeff takes him back to the ramp and goes for a suplex but Rhyno counters into one of his own. Rhyno goes to the back to get something and comes back with another table. He puts the table up against the ramp and Gores him “through” it, as I don’t think it actually broke but rather fell on top of the two of them.

With both guys down, JB gets on the mic and says both guys have until ten to get to the ring or it’s over. You know, like in a regular match. Team Canada comes out and beats down Rhyno some more and carries Jarrett back to the ring. Rhyno makes it back in anyway and is all fired up. A clothesline puts Jarrett down and the champ is reeling. The Canadians come in and are quickly dispatched.

Spinebuster gets two for the challenger. He goes up but Petey crotches him. So you can start that ten count thing but you can’t do anything about these guys? Superplex gets two for Jeff as does a TKO for Rhyno. The referee takes a shoulder block in the corner, which isn’t going to mean anything because he’s been useless. Stroke is countered and Rhyno loads up the Gore, only to have Roode come in.

He goes down as does A-1 but Roode gets up quickly and hits his Northern Lariat to Rhyno, getting two. There’s the guitar shot for two. Here comes Jackie Gayda who apparently has something on Jarrett. The distraction lets Rhyno Gore Jeff down for two. The challenger sets up two chairs and tries the Rhyno Driver through them, but D’Amore hits him with the hockey stick. A middle rope Stroke onto the chairs keeps the belt on Jeff.

Rating: B-. It was a pretty solid brawl here but the Canadians at the end got annoying quickly. Then again that’s the point, but this was the HHH formula 101 from 2003. Rhyno wasn’t going to get the title back and probably shouldn’t have, so I can’t really complain about the ending. For a B show main event title match, I can’t complain much here.

Post match the lights go out. After awhile, a Scorpion logo pops up on screen with what would become Sting’s music. A spotlight comes up and we see a chair with black boots in it, a trenchcoat around it and a bat leaning against it. Jarrett sees it and panics to end the show. Sting showed up on January 1 or whatever the first show of the year was.

Overall Rating: B-. This wasn’t bad. It’s a B level show to close out the year and there’s nothing wrong with what we got out of it. It sets up something for the new year and closes out some of the old stuff. There are some good matches here but some of the matches just fall flat. If you ever check this out, you won’t be completely disappointed, although there are much better shows to check out.

Remember to like this on Facebook and follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Genesis 2005
Date: November 13, 2005
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 900
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Don West

It’s the month after Bound For Glory and there are two things of note: there’s a major debut tonight, and Eddie Guerrero died earlier in the day. The main event tonight is a six man tag with Rhyno/Team 3D vs. Jarrett/AMW with no stipulations on it, which means I have no reason to care about it. I can’t stand matches like that but they tend to happen once in awhile. If this is half as good as BFG was I’ll be a little surprised. Let’s get to it.

The show is dedicated to Eddie Guerrero. Nothing wrong with that.

The opening video is about starting a new voyage and a new day and all over beginning things like that. There’s a lot of Clinton and Kennedy clips in there too. The main matches get some time too.

Raven vs. ???

This is more of Raven vs. Larry Z in a feud that no one cared about. Larry is in the ring and offers him a release again, which Raven can sign or face the opponent. Bird Boy gives him a double bird. Again we hear about some girl that might be controlling Raven, which I think would wind up being Daffney. The mystery opponent is P.J. Polaco, more commonly known as Justin Credible.

They have to call him the former Justin Credible because of legal issues. You get that a lot in TNA. Justin takes him into the corner to start and hits some forearms. Raven gets him down and pounds him down as we hear about Raven holding Justin down or something. I guess they mean in ECW, where Justin was pushed as a huge deal for YEARS. Justin (screw this PJ nonsense) comes back with a knee to the ribs and another one to take Raven down. He stomps on Raven in the ribs as Mike tries to tell us about a rivalry these two had for the Hardcore Title.

A baseball slide dropkick gets two for Credible. Out to the floor and Raven goes into the barricade. Off to a chinlock back in the ring as we hear about Raven’s history of having people fall under his control. Now it’s a dragon sleeper. A knee sends Raven to the floor and Justin finds a kendo stick. Cassidy Riley, a Raven follower/tribute guy, comes out but gets caned for his efforts. Raven takes over in the ring and catches a superkick into an ankle lock. Justin escapes and hits a bad DDT for two but walks into the Raven Effect for the pin.

Rating: D. Not much here but I’m no fan of Justin. Raven was hot in 2005 but man this Larry feud pulled him down through the floor. At the end of the day, it’s Larry Zbyszko, the man who can suck the life out of a crypt. Also, Justin and Raven really just worked together in ECW and had a brief feud in late 1999/early 2000 that not many people likely remember. Not the best opener to say the least.

We recap the Kru vs. Team Canada which mostly covers last month’s events. Kip is the guest referee in their hockey stick fight tonight. Konnan still doesn’t trust him.

The Kru talks about the surprise debut tonight (who isn’t mentioned by name here) and says that the rats are leaving the ship, meaning WWE. BG thinks Kip is cool but Konnan disagrees.

Team Canada vs. 3 Live Kru

It’s a hockey stick figdht, which means hockey stick on a pole but you have to be legal to grab it. So it’s a hockey stick on a pole match. Got it. This is A-1, Roode and Young. There are six total hockey sticks, one for each post. Sweet merciful corn on the cob can someone get Vince Russo some decaf? Kip James is guest referee. Team Canada tries to go and get the sticks before the match starts because no one is legal then, so we start with a brawl.

Kip tells Konnan to go to the corner and we get BG vs. Roode. Less than 30 seconds after we get settled, Eric (in headgear for some reason) climbs up and gets a stick. Kip takes it and breaks it over his knee then takes the headgear away. Ok then. Roode sends BG into the buckle and I can’t believe we’ve only had one stick grabbed in the first minute. BG comes back with the dancing punches and the shaky knee drop for two.

BG starts going up for a hockey stick but has a small nose bleed. There are SO many jokes. Tag to Truth who goes up but Roode saves the stick. Never mind as it comes down anyway and lands in the Kru’s corner. Leg lariat gets two on Roode. Off to Young who has about the same luck. Konnan comes in and puts his shoe on the end of the hockey stick. Egads this match gets stupider and stupider.

BG goes up for another stick but after he gets it, Roode electric chairs him down. A-1 comes in for some two counts. Kip has been neutral so far. Back to Young who gets two off a backbreaker. He goes to get a stick but BG knocks it out of Young’s hands and to the floor. Back to Young for a slug out but BG gets caught in a full nelson slam. Roode gets the fallen hockey stick but Truth disarms him.

Tag off to Truth and everything breaks down. Ax kick to A-1 but Roode hits the DVD and Young drops the elbow. Now it’s Konnan’s turn to clean house and he puts the Sunrise on Young but Roode saves. Another stick is brought down and it’s sword fighting time. The Kru takes over and it’s a double What’s Up onto two hockey sticks onto Young’s balls for the pin.

Rating: D. WOW this was overbooked. Seriously, six hockey sticks and a guest referee? Nothing to see here either as this feud would finally end the next month at Turning Point. The wrestling was pretty basic and Kip offered nothing at all to this. The point is that he can be trusted, but any referee could have done what he did here.

Kip gets to pound fists with Konnan as apparently they’re all cool.

Abyss and Mitchell are ready for that new talent acquisition. As for Sabu, the No DQ rule won’t bother Abyss and the barbed wire won’t bother him either. It’s opening Pandora’s Box and they crush an egg. This takes awhile to get through.

Tenay and West talk about the acquisition but don’t say who it is. The guy isn’t here yet.

We run down the rest of the card, 35 minutes into the show.

The Acquisition arrives and he’s coming to the arena. A countdown starts and it’s Christian Cage making his debut. Christian says the rumors are true but stops for Christian Cage chant. Jarrett and company are watching in the back and don’t like what they see. Christian says he’s not going to say the same thing every week and that he’s not here because he got fired. He made the jump on his own choice. WWE offered him a very large contract but he’s here because he loves wrestling.

He’s known to crack a joke or two, but he’s the best in the world today and that’s not a joke. He’s tired of politics and he wants to see wrestling reinvented. Last night he was watching Impact and it reminded him of when he showed up 8 years ago. Today there are still two companies, and just like back then, one is old and boring but now the young and hot one is TNA. He’s here to win the world title because that’s how he rolls.

Cue Scott D’Amore, the Team Canada coach. Roode comes out with him and D’Amore is very happy. He talks about some old times that Christian, himself, Adam, Jericho and Lance had when they went to Bret and Stu’s house. D’Amore says that if they unite with Jarrett’s team, they could rule this place. Christian has a question but Roode cuts him off and says Christian needs to realize the opportunity before him. Roode says we want an answer now but D’Amore tells him to chill. He throws Christian a Team Canada shirt and asks for an answer by the end of the night. Christian says he’ll think about it.

We recap the #1 contender’s match between Monty Brown and Jeff Hardy. Both are top guys and want a title shot. Brown issued an open challenge and Hardy took him up on it.

Monty Brown says that he’s not worried about Christian and calls him out to the Serengeti. Jeff Hardy can bring it too. They’ll both be Pounced.

Jeff Hardy vs. Monty Brown

Winner gets Jarrett at some point in the future. The fans are almost universally behind Hardy. Jawbreaker slows Brown down….then Hardy sticks his hands out and shouts before crawling on the ground. Brown grabs him into a fallaway slam to take over. Jeff avoids a charge and Monty goes to the floor, but Hardy’s baseball slide misses and he hits the steel. Brown throws him into the crowd and Jeff is in trouble.

Jeff walks on a barricade and dives onto Brown who was nice enough to stand there and let him. At least he’s polite. Back in and Jeff is almost immediately thrown back to the floor over the top. The fans are split but the fans are more in Hardy’s corner. Whisper in the Wind misses and Hardy is in trouble. A double clothesline hits and both guys go down. Now Whisper in the Wind works and Jeff starts his comeback. Legdrop between the legs makes Monty’s eyes bug out.

The Twist of Fate is countered into an Alpha Bomb attempt but Jeff counters into the reverse Twist of Fate, which of course West calls the same thing. Either way it only gets two. Jeff goes up for the Swanton but it only hits mat. Monty gets up and CRUSHES Jeff with the Pounce for the pin. Apparently this just moves Monty up in the rankings instead of giving him a title match. You know, because that’s SO much different than any regular match right?

Rating: D+. This wasn’t much for the most part. Jeff’s selling was great of course but Monty was pretty much just another power guy. He wasn’t bad or anything but not much aside from his finisher made him stand out or anything. Not a bad match or anything but it’s really just kind of there.

We recap the Elimination X match which is an X Division Survivor Series match. Daniels is a captain and calls his team the Ministry. The other team is called…..uh…..Not The Ministry I guess. Joe thinks he should be captain instead of Daniels.

The Ministry minus Joe wants to know where Joe is but Daniels says don’t worry about it.

Samoa Joe/Christopher Daniels/Alex Shelley/Roderick Strong vs. Chris Sabin/Austin Aries/Sonjay Dutt/Matt Bentley

The Ministry is pretty packed. Bentley has Traci with him. Aries looks really different minus the mustache. Strong vs. Bentley to start us off. This is standard Survivor Series rules. Strong controls with a quick headlock so Bentley does exactly the same thing. Off to Sonjay who flies around a lot in some standard spinny flips. Off to Shelley who looks way different as well. They go VERY fast, resulting in an STF by Shelley. It doesn’t get him anywhere but it looked good.

Shelley gets him into the corner and tags in Joe to a BIG reaction. Joe hits a bunch of Facewashes and a running one to take his head off. Dutt gets to the corner for a moonsault press but Joe walks away. Dutt faked him out though and hits the press for two. Joe responds by kicking his head off and hitting the backsplash. The crowd is eating Joe up and there’s a lot to eat there.

Daniels comes in but so does Aries, who takes him down with a flying body attack. With Daniels’ arm firmly controlled, it’s time for Sabin. I think he’s his team’s captain too. Captain or not, he hits some WICKED headscissors to have Daniels all spun around. Joe knees him in the back though and an STO puts Sabin down to take over for the Ministry. Off to a chinlock but Sabin fights up and kicks Daniels down.

Off to Aries who cleans house on Daniels and Strong. Strong counters the brainbuster and hits a Nightmare on Helm Street. Everything breaks down and Strong hits a rack into a backbreaker on Sabin. Bentley and Daniels head to the floor and the other six are all in now. Joe gets triple teamed and knocked to the floor and everyone on Bentley’s team other than Bentley hit stereo dives. Aries and Strong go back in and Aries hits the brainbuster followed by the 450 to eliminate Strong. Daniels comes in immediately and rolls up Aries with tights to tie it up. There weren’t ten full seconds between pins.

Dutt vs. Daniels now as it’s 3-3. Sonjay takes him down and drops a leg for two. Off to Bentley who doesn’t do as well, getting slowed down by a knee and allowing a tag to Shelley. Sabin comes in as well and hits a seated dropkick to the back of Shelley’s head for two. Sonjay comes back in and cleans house, knocking Joe and Daniels to the floor (with Joe leaving a HUGE sweat stain). Dutt cleans some more rooms of the house but Shelley hits what we would call White Noise and hooks a modified crossface for the tap out.

Shelley walks into a superkick from Bentley for a quick pin, leaving it as Daniels/Joe vs. Bentley/Sabin. Bentley suplexes Daniels down and brings in Sabin. Daniels gets put in the Tree of Woe and Sabin hits the hesitation dropkick for two. Off to Joe who gets dropkicked down but he pulls out a powerslam for two on Bentley. Joe misses a running knee smash in the corner and it’s off to Bentley and Daniels. Release Rock Bottom and the BME get two.

Daniels goes up again but Sabin comes in as well for a double superplex, but Joe makes it a Tower of Doom which really just hurts Daniels even more. Joe knocks Bentley into the corner and fires off some Facewashes. Bentley pops up out of nowhere and superkicks Joe down for two. He gets on Daniels’ shoulders but Joe pops him in the face, hits the MuscleBuster and the Clutch gets it down to two on one. Sabin has to fight off both of them so he hits a tornado DDT on Daniels and an enziguri on Joe at the same time. Sabin takes Joe down again but can’t Cradle Shock him. He escapes the MuscleBuster but Angel’s Wings end this.

Rating: B. I don’t get why they never did another one of these. It’s a perfect kind of match for a PPV as it ate up almost 25 minutes and we got some great action out of it. It’s no classic or anything, but it got the signature stuff out there on PPV. The teams were a little lopsided though and that hurt things a lot. Still quite good though.

Joe is mad at Daniels for getting the winning fall and kicks him down. He goes to the floor and CRACKS daniels with a chair and hits a MuscleBuster on him, followed by a second on the chair. This would basically be what turned Daniels face. He gets stretchered out and AJ watches, looking distraught.

Jarrett and AMW say they’re ready for anyone that TNA throws at them.

We recap Abyss vs. Sabu. The idea is that Sabu can’t beat him one on one but Abyss is terrified of barbed wire, so Sabu has a weapon to use.

Abyss vs. Sabu

No DQ. Abyss has a chair and his chain. Sabu of course has….nothing. He had his arm covered but when he pulled the towel off there was no barbed wire (there had been at an earlier show). Abyss bails to the floor and Sabu dives on him to take over early. Sabu sets up a table but Abyss takes over and sends him back in. Abyss beats on him VERY slowly as I’m assuming they have a lot of time here.

Sabu is bleeding from the nose. For some reason Abyss goes up, only to be ranaed down. Sabu sets up a chair but it goes upside his head for his efforts. Abyss wedges the chair between the ropes but due to the law of wrestling, he goes head first into it. Triple Jump Moonsault almost totally misses and it’s out to the floor (complete with an F Bomb from Sabu) where Abyss is driven through the table with a slingshot flipping legdrop.

Abyss gets up first and picks up his bag of tacks. As he’s laying them out though, Sabu pulls out a barbed wire chair. Mitchell pulls it away, but Sabu hits some clotheslines in an attempt to put Abyss into the tacks. Abyss is like screw that and chokeslams Sabu into the tacks but it only gets two. He loads up a Frog Splash but lands on tacks, which gets two for Sabu. Camel clutch goes on but Abyss makes a rope. Sabu gets the chair but Abyss knocks him down. Powerbomb onto the chair is countered by a Black Hole Slam onto the chair (FREAKING OW MAN!) gets the pin. Abyss wasn’t scared of it at all.

Rating: C-. It was very violent and the ending was sick, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen a million times before. Abyss being scared of the barbed wire went nowhere at all which didn’t help anything here. The match wasn’t that bad but it’s just another hardcore brawl with some sharp stuff involved.

We recap the X Title match which came about from Williams “winning” Ultimate X at the last PPV and then winning another one on Impact to make up for the botched ending last month.

AJ says he’s never seen eye to eye with Daniels but he respects him. Joe broke the unwritten X Division Code and AJ will deal with him. Oh and he’ll beat Petey.

X-Division Title: AJ Styles vs. Petey Williams

Feeling out process to start with AJ hooking a weird leg lock rollup for two. Styles does the drop down into the dropkick spot which is always good. A pair of kneedrops gets no cover. Petey countered the Clash attempt and gets to the apron. AJ knocks him off and hits a flip dive but lands on the barricade and bounces into the crowd. A-1 comes out and offers a distraction which goes nowhere.

Back to the apron and Petey tries a German off the apron but AJ hangs on to avoid a nasty case of death. And never mind as it actually works and AJ’s back goes into the barricade. FERAKING OW MAN!!! A-1 gets thrown out. Back in the ring a regular suplex gets two and it’s off to a bodyscissors. Styles fights out of that pretty quickly so Williams fires off some kicks to the ribs.

Petey misses a shoulder in the corner but as AJ tries a springboard, Petey drops him onto the ropes. A SWEET rana to the floor works on the back even more. Back inside now and it’s the Tree of Woe and O Canada. We reach a point that is so boring that we get a replay from the German off the apron from earlier in the match. Back to live action and AJ hits the Pele. He goes after the ribs with a series of gutbusters and now it’s Petey in trouble.

AJ’s flurry results in a Styles Clash attempt but Petey escapes and rolls him up for two. Styles comes back with a neckbreaker for the same. They trade rollups and chops and the Clash is countered again, this time into a DDT for two. The Destroyer is countered and it’s off to the Sharpshooter instead. As Styles goes for the rope, Petey hooks his arm to block the rope break. That was creative.

AJ gets there anyway and heads to the apron for the springboard forearm. Petey gets up first and heads to the corner but AJ enziguris him down. Petey tries a super Destroyer but AJ knocks him down. Styles sees Joe with a towel with Daniels’ blood on it and Williams crotches him. That gets him nowhere though as AJ hits the Clash from the middle rope for the pin to retain.

Rating: B-. Pretty good match here but it’s not AJ’s best stuff. It was very clear that AJ was going after Joe next so it was hard to believe that Petey was much of a threat to the belt here. Still though, this was good and the idea of who could hit their finisher first was a nice story for it. Good match but not great.

We recap the main event. Basically it’s Planet Jarrett vs. the top face tag team and the top face heavyweight. All I can say is thank goodness this was Rhyno instead of Nash. I don’t get why they had to take the title off of him so fast though. Let him keep it for a few months. Jarrett would beat him in a singles match at Turning Point anyway. This gets the music video treatment which isn’t bad.

The Dudleys and Rhyno say they’re ready. Why does that take a few minutes to get through?

Team 3D/Rhyno vs. America’s Most Wanted/Jeff Jarrett

Nothing on the line here, which is the kind of main event that I can’t stand. Team 3D comes out last instead of the guy that was world champion two weeks ago. Jarrett and AMW run into the crowd in different spots, apparently wanting to start out there. The Dudleys say cool and the bell rings as the ECW guys head into the crowd. It’s one of those brawls where you can’t see a thing.

Rhyno is beating on Jarrett near some empty seats and Ray throws Tenay’s chair at I think Storm. D-Von rams Harris into the Spanish Announce Table as Jarrett and Rhyno go WAY up high. A low blow knocks Rhyno down some stairs and Ray misses a chair shot which hits the post instead. We’re over six minutes into a fifteen minute match and they haven’t been in the ring together yet.

Storm misses a beer bottle shot and we’re FINALLY getting back to ringside together. D-Von hits Harris with the bell and Ray uses a cheese grater on Storm IN THE RING. Harris is busted now. Here’s a table but Harris moves it to keep Storm from going through it. The referee is totally cool with all this stuff. Ray takes a cheese grater to the balls. Rhyno is on the stage and hits Jarrett with a garbage can.

The table gets moved again to keep Harris safe and there’s a LOUD chair shot that we only hear. Rhyno drags a table up to the stage as we’re ten minutes into this match. Rhyno throws the table upside down and then piledrives Jarrett on the stage rather than on the table. The table gets set up in front of the tunnel and after he hits Storm, he charges….right into the superkick from Storm.

I think we have a normal match now with Storm vs. D-Von. It only took them 12 minutes. Catatonic is countered into a reverse inverted DDT for two. Storm comes in (no tag, the villain) for a reverse tornado DDT. Bubba Bomb gets two on Storm but the one to Jarrett is blocked with a low blow. Stroke gets two. Rhyno comes in from nowhere to Gore Jarrett but Harris pulls the referee out. AMW crotches Rhyno on the post and hits a double spinebuster on Ray. Hart Attack gets two on D-Von. Ray breaks up a Death Sentence through the table and a 3D pins Storm.

Rating: C. I have no idea what to call this. They were in the ring about 2 minutes out of nearly 16 so you can barely call this a match. As a fight it wasn’t bad, but at the end of the day, what does this mean? Team 3D wouldn’t get the titles until April of 2007 so it didn’t mean much for them. This was a throwaway main event but it certainly wasn’t boring.

Jarrett hits Rhyno with a guitar post match so the Dudleys set up a table. After getting a fresh one, Gail tries to hit Bubba low. Bubba blocks that and sets to powerbomb Gail through Jarrett through the table. Team Canada comes in for the save and puts D-Von on the table. Jarrett goes up top but Christian comes in with a chair.

He unzips his jacket to reveal a Team Canada shirt. D’Amore hugs him and gets pulled into an Unprettier. Jarrett gets slammed off the top and takes a 3D through the table (with the Dudleys doing a double flapjack and Christian doing the cutter for some reason). Christian reveals a TNA shirt to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. This wasn’t a bad show at all but it wasn’t that memorable. Christian debuting is by far and away the biggest thing here, but other than that, nothing really happens here. No titles changed hands, partially because only one was defended. The main event should have just been Jarrett vs. Rhyno II and let Jeff get the belt back here. It’s not a bad show, but it’s not one that you would ever need to see again.

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Bound For Glory 2005
Date: October 23, 2005
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 900
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Don West

It’s the biggest show of the year (I think it was back then at least) and the main event is Nash vs. Jarrett. In theory at least, as Nash has come down with his latest life threatening illness and has to back out. Therefore we’re going to shuffle the card around and have a ten man Gauntlet for the Gold with the winner immediately getting a shot at Jarrett. There’s a celebrity guest referee for the main event in UFC legend Tito Ortiz. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about how this started a year ago at Victory Road and how hard they’ve all worked in the year since then. We actually see their voiceover guy who is a large black man. Tonight is their night.

Samoa Joe vs. Jushin Thunder Liger

Joe gets the full tribal entrance. Liger gets the streamers and offers a handshake but we cut to a shot of the NJPW owner so I don’t know if Joe shook it. The fans are behind Joe here and he runs Liger over a few times. Out to the floor and Liger takes over, hitting a big dive onto Joe. Back in Joe hits knees in the corner and the fans are split. A kick sets up a knee drop for two. Tenay talks about Monday Nitro as Joe hits a powerslam for two.

Now the fans are just chanting for Liger. I’m not sure why as Joe has been doing his usual stuff and isn’t acting like a heel or anything. Could it be because the fans change their minds faster than they can change a tire? Liger gets in a Liger Kick and hits a suplex for two. Considering the size difference that’s not bad. Frog Splash gets two. Liger’s palm thrust is avoided and Joe hits a kick to the head to take over. Joe’s superplex is countered into a powerbomb for two. A pair of palm thrusts get the same. Liger goes up but gets caught in the MuscleBuster and the Clutch ends this.

Rating: D+. That’s it? The match was ok but for something that they were building up as close to a dream match, I’d expect more than a seven minute match with Joe barely having to break a sweat. I’m glad that they brought in Liger who people at least know rather than some Japanese guy that about 1% of their audience could name. That’s a plus. The match was pretty lackluster though.

Clip from Fanfest this weekend. The fans saying they don’t want soap operas is amusing today.

We see two fans who won a contest and get to train at the NJPW Dojo before joining the Impact roster. I don’t recognize them.

Simon Diamond fires up the Diamonds in the Rough.

Diamonds in the Rough vs. Apolo/Sonny Siaki/Shark Boy

The Diamonds are Elix Skipper, David Young and Simon Diamond. Shark Boy and Diamond get us going. Diamond takes him down with some kicks and a clothesline for two. Sharky comes back but the Dead Sea Drop is countered. He bites the tights of Diamond and we’re in comedy match territory. Off to Skipper who is taken down almost immediately by a drop toehold. Things speed up a bit so it’s off to Apolo.

Apolo is more of a power guy and gets two off a Diamond Cutter. A spinning half nelson slam looks to get a pin but Diamond distracts the referee. Young comes in with some cheating and the Diamonds take over. Skipper stays in and hits a kind of spear for two. Apolo comes back with a one man 3D to put both of them down.

Double tag brings in Siaki and Young but everything breaks down. Apolo hits a TKO on Young (he LOVES Cutters apparently) and Shark Boy dives on Skipper. Young takes both of them out with a spinning dive and Apolo dives on everyone but Simon. Skipper and Siaki go inside and Elix throws Siaki to Young for the spinebuster and the pin.

Rating: D+. Just a six man here. Apolo was a guy that had some potential to him but he wound up going back to Puerto Rico (I think) soon after this. The Diamonds were a lower midcard heel team that never really went anywhere. This wasn’t much for the most part but fill in matches like this were regular for TNA in these days.

We get some clips from the pre-show, one of which being of an X-Division fourway and the other of Larry Z yelling at Raven, resulting in Rhyno yelling at Raven and goring him. This is about both of them wanting the world title shot later tonight.

Jarrett laughs about Nash having chest pains and says he doesn’t care who he faces tonight. Jeff either just got out of the shower or it’s about 200 degrees in the back. He says screw all of his potential opponents. Monty Brown comes in and wants Jeff to say screw him too. He can smell the fear in Jarrett. This goes on for awhile.

Lance Hoyt vs. Monty Brown

Hoyt fires off some shoulders to start and “hits” a flapjack (Brown rolled through it for some reason) and they head to the floor. Brown sends him into the steps and back inside but due to Monty yelling at the crowd, Hoyt hits a dive (literally bouncing off Brown as they hit the floor). Back in the ring and Monty chops away in the corner. Hoyt punches away in the same corner, and it’s punches > chops in this case. Brown is face first down on the mat but as Hoyt goes up, Brown is playing possum. Nice job.

Back to the floor and Monty suplexes him onto the mats. Back in, Hoyt hammers away but Brown throws him down with a belly to belly. Lance gets up and hits a big boot and his moonsault, which still can’t get a pin. I never remember that getting a win actually. Hoyt goes up but jumps into the Alpha Bomb (fallaway slam position but Brown throws them up into a powerbomb) for two. Hoyt hits either a Rock Bottom or a chokeslam for two. And never mind all that Hoyt offense because a Pounce ends it.

Rating: C. I kind of liked this actually. Brown was a power guy and he didn’t need to be anything more than that. On the other hand you have Hoyt who was agile and good, but for some reason they refused to let him beat anyone significant. This was a decent power match but again it really didn’t need to be on PPV. There was no reason given for this match happening that I caught either.

Quick video on Global Impact.

3 Live Kru says they’re together and will fight tonight. Billy Gunn pops up to offer his help to take out D’Amore. Truth likes the idea as does BG but Konnan says no and storms off.

3 Live Kru vs. Team Canada

It’s Roode, Young and A-1 here. Eric and Konnan get us going as Tenay gives us a history of the New Age Outlaws. Konnan speeds things up and counters a headscissors into an Alabama Slam. Roode tries to come in but only manages to get caught in a three man What’s Up. Roadie and Truth hit some punches and dance some more then stomp on Roode a bit.

It’s Roode vs. Truth now with a hip toss getting two for the rapper. The annoying fans are shouting/singing something. Now they’re chanting USA for the team with a Cuban on it. Kip James is sitting on the stage, drawing a New Age Outlaws chant. A-1 comes in to choke on Truth in the corner. Those dastardly Canadians double and even triple team and it’s off to Roode. Truth hits his spinning forearm and tags in Road Dogg who cleans Canadian house. Shaky knee gets two on Roode. In the calamity, D’Amore’s distraction lets Roode get in a hockey stick shot and Young pins BG.

Rating: D. These teams feuded FOREVER and it never seemed to end. It wound up being about the Outlaws and to be fair, that’s probably the best possible outcome. The Canadians would just kind of float around for awhile until I think they broke up right around June of 06. The Kru would break up soon enough after this.

Post match the Canadians hold Konnan for Billy to hit him with a chair but he beats up all of the Canadians with it. Konnan isn’t sure what to do now but the Kru celebrates despite losing.

Shane Douglas asks Larry Z who is getting the shot tonight. Larry says he has a lot of options but is waiting for a word from upper management.

We recap the #1 contender’s match for the X Title. It’s Ultimate X which Williams has had some success in. Bentley and Sabin are in there due to needing two more spots filled in here.

Petey Williams vs. Chris Sabin vs. Matt Bentley

Ultimate X, #1 contender’s match. Petey goes up but Sabin pulls him down and the faces (I think?) beat on him a bit. Williams counters a suplex from Sabin into one of his own but Bentley comes in with a kick to slow Petey down again. Wheelbarrow suplex puts Williams down again and Bentley goes up. Petey takes Matt down again but Traci’s (Bentley’s chick) rack distracts him. Matt goes up but Sabin pulls him down.

It’s Sabin vs. Bentley at the moment while D’Amore coaches Williams. Sabin picks Williams up and puts him in Razor’s Edge position, throwing him at Bentley in the corner. Sabin tries to climb but barely gets started before Bentley makes the save. We’re way too early in the match for a potential win anyway. Petey sends Bentley to the floor and hits a SWEET slingshot rana to put him down even further.

Everyone is back in now and Bentley hits a neckbreaker on Sabin and a cutter on Williams at the same time. Matt goes climbing but Sabin follows him and hooks a powerbomb to take both guys down in a painful looking move. Sabin gets caught in the Tree of Woe so Petey sings O Canada. Bentley pops up and dropkicks him off and out to the floor before going up. Sabin gets out of the Tree and shoves him down, before diving on both guys when the X was there for the grabbing because Sabin is an idiot.

Sabin goes up and Bentley dives at him with a shoulder block. That knocks Sabin down, but it knocks the X down as well. We more or less stop the match so that the crew can put the X up again with a ladder. The fans chant USE THE LADDER. Sabin and Bentley go up for the X but knock each other off. The X falls and Petey catches it, so TNA says screw the rules, Williams wins.

Rating: D+. The match was good, but there’s really no excuse for the ending. Put it up there again and have someone get it immediately or whatever, but COME ON. This was just freaking stupid and it makes the company look inept because they can’t get their own signature match right. Invest in some better tape guys.

We recap the tag title match. AMW interfered at a house show to get the title off of Raven and onto Jarrett again and then Jarrett helped AMW destroy Team 3D. Look up the funeral for Team 3D. It’s absolutely hilarious. AMW beat down the Naturals as well for the titles so tonight it’s about revenge as well as the belts for them.

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

I can never remember which one is Stevens and which one is Douglas. It’s a big brawl on the floor to start with the Naturals in control. Ok Douglas has the bandage on his head. Got it. Storm gets powerbombed into the railing which looked SICK. The challengers get Harris in the ring and beat him down in the corner. Storm is walking out on the match. The Naturals go back and get him because it’s about revenge more than the titles. I can live with that if it’s done right and it has been here.

We’re over three minutes into this and there has been no tagging or one on one in the ring at all so far. Harris gets choked by both Naturals on the floor until they get bored and Douglas goes after Storm. Gail finally does something and distracts Douglas, allowing Storm to send him into the Ultimate X structure. Douglas’ cut is busted open now. Five minuets in now and they’re in the ring but it’s still 2-1.

Ok it’s FINALLY Storm vs. Douglas. Eye of the Storm gets two and Harris comes in without a tag. Stevens comes in after Douglas was in trouble for about a minute. Douglas is bleeding pretty good though so that likely has something to do with it. A Naturals double team gets two on Storm. The move that would later be named the Last Call misses and Stevens hits a kick of his own for two.

Gail throws in some powder to Harris but Chase Stevens knocks it into the Wildcat’s face. Harris hits the Catatonic (spinning Rock Bottom, his finisher) on Storm. The Naturals hit the Death Sentence on Harris but it only gets two. Gail breaks up the Natural Disaster (double team elevated Stunner) so Douglas goes to the floor and grabs her by the hair. The distraction lets Harris handcuff Douglas to the barricade. Stevens his an enziguri on Storm but Harris busts a bottle over Stevens’ head and the Death Sentence retains the title.

Rating: B. WOW. This was only about ten minutes long but they flat out DO NOT STOP the whole time. It’s a wild brawl and I bought into the revenge that the Naturals were wanting the whole way. The biggest criticism of the Naturals is that they have no charisma, but man they were bringing it here and the match WORKED. Very good stuff. AMW would hold the titles for over eight months until the dream team of Styles and Daniels took them away.

We recap the Monster’s Ball feud. It’s Abyss vs. Rhyno vs. Sabu vs. Raven. This is when they still had the idea that each guy was held without food, water, light or human contact before the match. That was a bonus deal for these matches in the early days but it was dropped I think after this one.

James Mitchell says that Abyss (who is behind him despite the rule being that he has to be released right before the match) will be ready because he’s used to being put through torture.

Rhyno vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Sabu vs. Abyss

WHOA WHOA WHOA. Rhyno was at the preshow remember? So they can’t even get their own rules straight. This is Monster’s Ball, which means it’s a wild brawl where anything goes. The power guys jump Hardy to start but Sabu pelts the chair at Abyss to get him off. Rhyno gets knocked to the floor and Sabu dives onto him as Hardy dives at Abyss. This is falls count anywhere. Abyss gets knocked to the floor and Hardy dives on him too.

The announcers say that they were released when the PPV began this evening. That’s fine for Abyss, BUT RHYNO WAS ON THE FREAKING PRESHOW!. All four go into the crowd and Sabu’s eye is busted open. Jeff dives off a balcony and takes Abyss down. They all get back to ringside and Hardy and Abyss go back into the ring. Sabu tries a dive off the apron but Rhyno moves to send Sabu crashing onto the floor.

Whisper in the wind puts Abyss down but the Twist is countered into Shock Treatment which gets one for Sabu. Rhyno hits Abyss and Sabu with a chair and then hits Abyss again. Hardy uses Sabu as Matt for Poetry in Motion so Sabu beats him down. If someone tried to make me into Matt Hardy, I’d probably do the same. Now it’s Rhyno again with a kendo stick to kill everyone. The Gore is countered into a chokeslam onto a chair for two.

Hardy pulls out a ladder which winds up being rammed into his chest by Abyss. Abyss sets up a table near Hardy by the stage and then another next to it. Sabu sets one up between the ring and the barricade as a platform. Jeff chairs Abyss down and Sabu hits a triple jump dive through Rhyno and through the table. Hardy climbs up on top of the set and dives over the stage through Abyss through the table. If he went too short on that, he would literally be dead.

Back in the ring Sabu loads up the triple jump moonsault but Rhyno hits him with the stick to break it up. The fans think this is awesome. The Gore hits a chair in the corner and Sabu hits the triple jump moonsault for two. Abyss and Hardy crawl back to the ring with Abyss setting up a table in the corner. Sabu throws a chair at him but gets thrown to the floor and through a table for his trouble. Here come the tacks but Abyss gets Gored through the table. Hardy prevents a cover but walks into the Rhyno Driver (middle rope piledriver) for the pin.

Rating: B. This was another wild brawl and in this case it worked very well. That Swanton was absolutely incredible but at the same time REALLY scary. Rhyno looked good but the match was really a group effort. Much like the TLC matches, sometimes you just throw people out there and tell them to be violent and it works. That’s what happened here.

Larry says there’s a ten man Gauntlet For The Gold for the title match and the participants will all have competed earlier tonight. Shane thinks that’s unfair to Jarrett.

We recap the Iron Man match between Styles and Daniels that Styles won in overtime. Daniels said he could beat any three X Division guys that Styles picked in 15 minutes. The first two went down so the third was Styles which resulted in a brawl. The result: Iron Man II.

X-Division Title: AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels

AJ is defending and it has a thirty minute time limit under Iron Man rules. Daniels jumps AJ before the bell and we’re off quickly. He controls for the opening minute and they trade chops, won by AJ. A backbreaker puts Daniels down and onto the floor but Daniels blocks AJ’s dive. Daniels hits some palm strikes but Styles dropkicks him down. Back to the floor and Daniels is knocked into the crowd. AJ dives over the barricade and both guys are down.

They head back inside and AJ controls with a headlock. Five minutes in and the fans say both guys are awesome. The headlock stays on for a few minutes but you have to burn some time in a match like this. Daniels rolls out of it and hooks an armbar. AJ fights out of it and sends Daniels into a few corners. A hard kick puts Daniels down as it’s been almost all AJ so far.

Bridging Indian Deathlock goes on and Daniels is in big trouble, so he bited AJ’s hands to escape. Ten minutes in now. Daniels heads to the apron but AJ clotheslines him back into the ring. Springboard forearm is countered into a high collar suplex to put both guys down. Daniels takes over and twists AJ’s neck around a bit. That can’t feel good. A tilt-a-whirl backbreaker gets two and it’s off to a neck crank by Daniels.

AJ grabs a cradle out of nowhere for two and then another one for another two. Koji Clutch out of nowhere has AJ in trouble. AJ tries to power out of it but goes right back down. Another power out attempt works and AJ makes the rope. Slingshot moonsault gets two on the champion. We’re halfway through and it’s 0-0. AJ escapes a backbreaker and hits his moonsault into a reverse DDT.

Hammerlock belly to back suplex gets two as does a pumphandle gutbuster. That’s a new one. AJ tries a moonsault but gets caught in a Death Valley Driver for a very close two. Daniels puts him on the middle rope and flips him forward into a mat slam for two. AJ counters a neckbreaker into one of his own for a slightly delayed two. AJ tries the moonsault DDT again but gets caught in a spinning powerbomb for two. BME STILL doesn’t get a fall as it only gets a two count.

Ten minutes to go and AJ puts on a torture rack and then spins it out into a slam for two. AJ dives into the corner but Daniels moves and knocks Styles to the outside where he lands on the steps. A BIG suicide dive destroys AJ but Daniels can’t follow up due to exhaustion. As they come back in, AJ hits the Pele to knock Daniels back to the floor at 8 minutes to go. Another BIG flip dive takes Daniels out and both guys are down.

Seven minutes to go and both guys are down on the floor. As they get back in, Daniels blocks a suplex back inside and hits a belly to back suplex from the apron to the floor. That was pretty awesome, much like this match. Six minutes left and it’s still zero to zero. They’re both back in with five minutes to go. Scratch that as Daniels kicks AJ out of the ring before he was all the way in.

With about 4:25 to go they slug it out in the middle of the ring with AJ taking a slight advantage. Four minutes left. AJ has a big bruise on his leg. Small package gets two for the champion. Pele misses and Daniels rolls him up for two. AJ does the same and gets the same. Daniels hits a German suplex but AJ pops up and hits a discus lariat before collapsing. Under three minutes to go now.

AJ falls on top for two and we have two minutes left. Daniels channels his inner Piper and pokes AJ in the eye. That gets him nowhere because AJ gets to the apron and hits a springboard cross body for two despite a handful of tights. 90 seconds left and they trade forearms. The fans are split here. One minute to go and Daniels blocks a suplex. AJ kicks him in the head again but it only gets two. Daniels kicks him in the head but the Angel’s Wings are countered into a suplex for two. AJ hits the Clash with two seconds left for the only fall and the win. WOW that was a hot ending.

Rating: A. The only way to make this better would have been to say AJ loses the title in a tie. Still though, GREAT match here and pretty easily the best match I’ve ever seen these two have. That’s some pretty awesome timing too with AJ getting the pin literally with two seconds left. I know I complain about AJ and Daniels a lot, but back then it was great, with this being the best I’ve ever seen from them.

Gauntlet For The Gold

This is kind of like the Royal Rumble as everyone comes in after I think a minute and it’s over the top eliminations. The winner gets Jarrett immediately thereafter. Joe and Truth are the first two entrants. Oh ok these two go for two minutes and then every entrant is one minute. Got it. Truth dances for about 20 seconds to make fun of the Polynesian dance stuff earlier.

There’s no contact until 46 seconds in when Joe punches him in the face. Off to some Facewashes and the running boot. Truth pulls himself to the top and hits a Blockbuster. Downward Spiral puts Joe down and #3 is Sabu who can barely walk. He falls through the middle and bottom rope but has a chair. He BLASTS Truth with it and hits the triple jump moonsault on the same. Air Sabu hits Joe. Remember that there are only one minuet intervals from now on.

Joe throws the chair at Sabu’s legs and Lance Hoyt is in at #4. Joe no sells Hoyt’s punches but can’t no sell a big boot. Abyss is #5 who cleans house and has a staredown with Joe. They chop it out and Abyss grabs him for a chokeslam. Joe grabs HIM for a chokeslam, which is why Joe is awesome. And then Truth breaks it up because he likes to annoy me. Jeff Hardy is #6 and Sabu is busted open. No one has been eliminated yet.

Monty Brown is #7 and he’s limping for some reason. He Pounces Sabu and throws Hardy to the apron, but Hardy pulls him along with him to eliminate both guys. Abyss is almost out but he fights everyone off. #8 is Rhyno who also can barely walk. All of the Monster’s Ball people are in this. Rhyno easily clotheslines Hoyt out and we have five in and two still to go. Kip James (who didn’t wrestle earlier) is #9 and he cleans house. Fameasser to Abyss and AJ is somehow #10, meaning no Raven which is a surprise.

So we have Kip, AJ, Abyss, Joe, Sabu, Truth and Rhyno. AJ goes right after Abyss because he’s just that kind of guy. Apparently Sabu went out off camera somewhere so it’s down to six. Joe pounds on Kip and is the big crowd favorite. Things slow down a bit until AJ hits a big jumping kick to the head of I think Truth. Truth is put onto the apron but he hangs on. Kip charges like an idiot and goes out to get us down to five.

Pele puts Truth down and everyone is down. Abyss talks to Truth, calling him Ronnie. AJ throws Truth over but Kip holds him up from hitting the floor. And never mind as he goes out anyway. So it’s Rhyno, Abyss, AJ and Joe. There’s a solid tag match in there somewhere. AJ somehow explodes on Joe with forearms but gets caught in the choke next to the ropes. Abyss eliminates them both and apparently you win by over the top. Usually it’s a one on one match when it gets down to two. Gore to Abyss and Rhyno tosses him for the quick win.

Rating: C-. Considering that these guys had all fought tonight this wasn’t half bad. AJ had to be gassed after having to stop for about 10 minutes and then start up again. Raven belonged in there instead of freaking Billy Gunn but I think that was part of his feud with management so it made sense I guess. Still though, it was relatively short and the minute time limits weren’t so bad because there weren’t that many people in it.

NWA World Title: Rhyno vs. Jeff Jarrett

Tito Ortiz is guest referee. Jarrett brings out a casket for no apparent reason. He jumps Rhyno before the belt even comes off and hits a dropkick to put Rhyno down. Out to the floor and Rhyno gets rammed into the announce table and then the casket. Back in a top rope clothesline puts Rhyno down again. He’s had zero offense at all so far. Another top rope clothesline puts the challenger down again so Jeff goes up a third time. Rhyno catches him in chokeslam position but instead throws Jeff into the air and kicks him in the balls.

Gail Kim comes out as the Gore misses. Gail goes up but jumps into the arms of Tito. She tries to slap him so she gets placed on the apron. Guitar shot misses but the second one hits Rhyno square in the face. Rhyno is busted open but it only gets two. Jarrett yells at Ortiz and AMW comes out. There’s another guitar but Ortiz drills both members of AMW. Rhyno Gores Jarrett down and pins him out of nowhere in I think his second offensive move of the match.

Rating: C. The match was nothing great but at the same time, this was Rhyno’s third match of the night and second in a row, plus there was no story to the match but that’s certainly beyond TNA’s control in this case. The match only ran about six minutes and Tito didn’t have much to do with it but again I’m assuming it made more sense with Nash in there. All things considered, this wasn’t bad.

Post match AMW runs in to beat Rhyno down as Tito is gone. The 3 Live Kru runs down for the save so Team Canada comes in as well. The casket is brought into the ring and Rhyno takes another guitar shot to the head. They shut him into the casket and Jarrett holds up the belt. Team 3D returns and cleans house along with the Kru. Only Eric Young is left so he gets the 3D and gets thrown into the casket. Rhyno and company celebrate to end the show. This was a REALLY bad choice for an ending, but again I’m assuming it was for Nash where it would have made better sense. That being said, DON’T DO IT IN THIS CASE.

Overall Rating: B+. This worked really well overall and when you considered the ending of the show had to be completely rewritten because of Nash’s life threatening medical condition of the month, it was solid. Rhyno’s title reign wound up meaning nothing because he lost the title at the next taping, but for a nice surprise ending it worked pretty well.

The middle part of this show, as in from the tag titles through the Iron Man, is EXCELLENT and the opening part isn’t that bad. The Ultimate X match is solid other than the awful ending and the longest of the first four matches is 7:15 long so they hardly cripple the show. Very good show and I can see why people were so hyped about TNA at this point.

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