Monday Nitro #138
Date: May 25, 1998
Location: Roberts Memorial Stadium, Evansville, Indiana
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone, Larry Zbyszko

We’re still getting closer to the Great American Bash and the main story is still which side will Sting pick. In other words, we’re almost in the same place we were at this time last year expect now Sting can talk. We’ve also got Hogan/Hart vs. Savage/Piper for the big showdown tag match which isn’t the most thrilling prospect in the world. Let’s get to it.

It’s Memorial Day, meaning this is the two year anniversary of Hall jumping the guardrail.

We open with the Nitro Girls as Tony brags about this being three hours again. Oh freaking joy.

The main event tonight is Sting/Luger vs. Giant/NWO Sting. This is supposed to beat Austin vs. Vince/Dude Love mind you.

We get clips of the end of last week’s show as well as Thunder, showing that Sting isn’t with the Giant. The NWO Sting came out to fool no one on Thunder and attack Luger. The announcers act like NWO Sting is a new idea for reasons of general incompetence.

Opening sequence.

Here’s Raven to call out Mortis, promising to send him running for his mother’s care. This brings him to Saturn, who has been Raven’s friend since childhood. Raven drove him to school when Saturn was too poor to afford a car and was there when Sheila broke his heart in the eleventh grade. Raven is willing to do anything to keep Saturn’s friendship, including firing the Flock. He fires every one of them and DDTs Lodi when he protests. Raven gets on his knees and begs/demands that Saturn come back.

Glacier says he’s great and wants to fight Saturn over the superkick. He created the kick and can destroy it. This somehow takes almost a minute and a half.

More Nitro Girls.

The announcers talk about Booker vs. Benoit having a best of seven series for the TV Title shot at the Bash. This leads to a video of Stevie Ray returning last week and telling Booker to stand his ground.

TV Title: Fit Finlay vs. Mike Enos

We’re only about half an hour into the show for the first match so at least they’re not wasting time or anything. Finlay forearms him in the chest to start before taking Enos to the mat in a chinlock about thirty seconds into the match. A knee to the face gets two for Fit and he slams Enos’ chest into the apron.

Back in and Finlay pounds away even more but gets clotheslined down to a surprising pop. Enos drops him throat first on the top rope for two but Finlay comes back with the rolling senton. Mike comes back with a fallaway slam for two but they botch the heck out of a powerslam with Finlay landing on Enos’ legs. Enos is grabbing his leg so Finlay hits a quick Tombstone to retain.

Rating: D+. Enos showed some fire out there until the horrible blown spot at the end. I’m not sure why the fans were cheering for him but maybe they’re just sick of Finlay on TV every week? Anyway this was just your typical TV Title match, meaning it was nothing worth seeing but filled in five minutes well enough.

CALL THE HOTLINE!

Glacier vs. Saturn

Glacier kicks away at the ribs and sweeps Saturn’s legs out to give us a standoff. Saturn takes Glacier’s legs out just as easily so Glacier comes back with chops to the ribs. A hook kick to the jaw puts Glacier down and it’s off to a headlock. Glacier comes back with a big boot to the jaw but Saturn sends him into the corner for rapid fire kicks.

The fans are into Saturn here but Glacier kicks him in the face again. A spinwheel kick puts Chilly McBoring down and here’s Raven at ringside, drawing a RAVEN SUCKS chant. Saturn’s top rope splash hits knees and here’s Hammer to beat up Raven. Hammer gets on the apron but gets kicked down by Glacier, allowing Saturn to hit the Death Valley Driver for the pin.

Rating: D. These battles of martial arts are getting less and less interesting every single time. The key difference with Saturn though is he used it as part of his offense while guys like Glacier and Miller used nothing but martial arts, making them one note characters. Saturn on the other hand wound up rubbing elbows with Benoit and Guerrero in the WWF while the other two were barely heard from again.

Raven DDTs Hammer on the floor.

We see Savage accepting Piper’s offer to team up at the Bash.

Here are Vincent, Brian Adams and Vincent with something to say. Giant does Hall’s Hey Yo and asks the fans to shut up so he can make his point. He calls Nash a coward and wants to face him right here tonight, one on one. After being called out about three times, here’s Nash who doesn’t look intimidated at all. He’s alone tonight and says he’d love to take care of Hogan’s three fluff boys.

Nash punches down the lackeys but a stalemate with Giant allows them to get back up for the beatdown. This brings out Lex Luger along with the rest of the Wolfpack. Konnan takes off his shirt and throws it to Luger who puts it on to the biggest pop he’s gotten this year. So who is left as a top WCW guy? Sting and Piper?

Hour #2 begins with the first mention of the NWO turning two tonight.

Chris Jericho vs. El Dandy

Jericho goes right at Dandy as he gets in the ring and drop toeholds him into a side roll for two before getting caught in something resembling a spinebuster. Dandy misses a missile dropkick and gets caught in the Liontamer for the win in about 60 seconds.

Post match Jericho demands that the fat JJ Dillon put down the pizza and come out here to address some concerns. Jericho babbles on for awhile and demands to be reinstated as Cruiserweight Champion. JJ talks about contract terms but doesn’t exactly cover what Jericho was asking about. He’s not going to overrule anything though until Jericho shows him some kind of a precedent. Jericho freaks out as usual.

We look at Luger joining the Wolfpack again.

Konnan vs. La Parka

La Parka does his dance so Konnan chops away, only to get clotheslined down for two. Konnan avoids a dropkick in the corner and drop toeholds La Parka into the middle buckle. Another clothesline puts Konnan down on the floor and a big dive from the top is kind of blocked to put both guys down. Back in and La Parka dives into a pair of boots to the face and Konnan scores with an X Factor. The 187 sets up the Tequila Sunrise and La Parka taps. Short match and nothing special.

More Nitro Girls.

We get a home video from Mortis who says that Mortis is dead and he’s now known as Kanyon. He talks about the imitation of Tommy Dreamer’s chair shot heard round the world at Slamboree and calls it the chair shot heard round the world. Kanyon says he can get to Raven at anytime.

Here’s Roddy Piper for the insane speech of the week. Gene doesn’t think Piper and Savage can get along as a team but Piper calls Savage a Village People throwback and says they have to get along. The one good thing about standing next to Savage: you never look like you’re having a bad hair day. Piper won’t be singing Y-M-C-A at the Bash so here are Savage and Liz to protest. They yell at each other a lot and Savage rants about Piper screwing up at Slamboree, drawing a RuPaul reference from Piper.

They’re about to agree to work together when Bret Hart comes out and says this is a big collusion between himself and Piper. He claims that Roddy came to him before the PPV and wanted to screw Savage over and reverse the decision later. Bret says he owes Piper one and leaves so Savage is ready to fight Piper right now. Piper says let’s fight and then says that Bret is lying through his teeth. He’ll fight Savage after the tag match at the PPV but they have to work together to get through that. Savage seems to agree.

Heenan joins commentary.

Juventud Guerrera vs. Kidman

They slug it out to start and run the ropes with Kidman catching him in a sitout spinebuster to take over. Kidman charges into some boots in the corner and gets taken down with a hard clothesline. Juvy rips off Kidman’s shirt and chops away before snapping off a great looking headscissors. They head to the floor with Guerrera hitting a sweet dive to the floor to put both guys down.

They head back in but Lodi grabs Juvy’s leg, allowing Kidman to hit a quick X Factor for two. Kidman gets more aggressive than he has in months and stomps away in the corner. A great looking (there’s a lot of that going around in this match) dropkick puts Juvy down and we hit a quick chinlock to give the guys a breather. Back up and Kidman hits another wicked clothesline to take Guerrera down.

A slingshot legdrop gets two on Juvy but Kidman yells at the referee, allowing Juvy to hit a clothesline of his own. Kidman comes back with an elbow to the jaw for two and a reverse suplex puts Juvy on the apron but he gets up top for a flying spinwheel kick for a close two. The fans are WAY into this. Kidman comes back with a powerbomb into a faceplant for two more and a release German suplex puts Juvy down again. Kidman goes up but Juvy dropkicks him out of the air, setting up the Juvy Driver and the 450 for the pin.

Rating: B. GREAT match here and the best match Nitro has had in months. These two were beating the tar out of each other and hitting everything they could in a ten minute span. This is the kind of stuff that you can put out there and offer an actual alternative to what Raw was doing at the time. Instead of having old people talk, have two guys in their early 20s and tear the house down. That’s senseless though, right?

More Nitro Girls.

Nitro Party video.

The announcers talk about what’s happened so far tonight, focusing on Luger’s jump.

We recap Brian Adams attacking Rick Steiner, putting him out for several months. Apparently Scott Steiner is looking for acting roles in Hollywood.

Ultimo Dragon vs. Eddie Guerrero

Chavo is now Eddie’s willing lapdog, which is what Eddie had been wanting from the beginning. However now that he has it, Eddie seems almost scared of his nephew. Chavo gets on the mic and says that this is his match because that’s how Eddie works. He tells Eddie to slap him and tries to start an Eddie chant. Eddie finally gives in and lets Chavo have the match.

Ultimo Dragon vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Chavo makes sure to fold up the Eddie shirt before we can get going. A headlock doesn’t get Chavo anywhere so Dragon comes back with the kicks and the corner headstand. Dragon hooks a stump puller and then a modified Koji Clutch to torture Chavo a bit and send him out to the floor.

Back in and Dragon fires off some kicks to the back but Chavo breaks up the top rope hurricanrana. Guerrero tries to suplex Dragon back in but Eddie hooks his nephew’s leg. Dragon can’t get the Dragon Sleeper so Chavo chokes him on the ropes, bragging to Eddie that he’s cheating to win. The tornado DDT ends Dragon, giving Chavo his biggest win ever.

Rating: C-. This was more angle than match but it’s one of the best angles WCW has ging right now. Chavo has grown from a generic cruiserweight guy into an interesting character who is getting some wins. It’s going to be interesting to see how Eddie deals with the monster he created, meaning the story is a good one. It’s very much a Frankenstein story, which has worked for hundreds of years so why not in WCW?

Post match JJ comes out and makes Eddie vs. Chavo at the Bash.

Hour #3 begins.

Cruiserweight Title: Lenny Lane vs. Dean Malenko

Lane makes sure to oil up on the way to the ring. He shoves Dean away and admires his own abs. Very little action in the first minute until Dean takes over with a headlock. That goes nowhere either so Lane takes him to the corner and stomps him down a bit. Dean does the same to Lenny but gets bulldogged down for two. We hit the chinlock on the champion before Dean fights up and elbows Lane in the face. Lane tries a sunset flip and is easily countered into the Cloverleaf to retain the title.

Rating: D+. This didn’t work for me for the most part with Dean sleepwalking through the match and Lane not being able to get them anywhere yet. To be fair though Malenko has had some great performances for months now so he’s allowed to have an off night every now and then.

US Title: Goldberg vs. Johnny Attitude

Attitude imitates Goldberg on the way to the ring for the only interesting part of the match. Goldberg is now standing in the pyro for the entrance to start a trademark. Typical Goldberg match makes him 90-0.

Chris Benoit vs. Booker T

Match #1 in the best of seven series for the TV Title shot. Benoit takes him into the corner but Booker fires off right hands and backdrops Benoit down. A running forearm puts Benoit on the floor but he catches Booker coming out after him. Back in and Booker spins out of a wristlock and kicks Chris in the face for two.

Benoit comes back by dropping Booker ribs first over the top rope before stomping away and elbowing Booker down. The snap suplex gets two and Benoit hits the chinlock. Some knees to the back set up another chinlock on Booker before Benoit throws him down like a heel would. Booker gets thrown into the corner and we hit chinlock #3.

Benoit slams him down but misses the Swan Dive to put both guys down. Cue Finlay to ringside as Booker flapjacks Benoit down. Chris avoids a bunch of kicks but can’t get the German suplex. Booker comes back with the ax kick but misses the Harlem Hangover. Back up and Benoit snaps on the Crossface to go up 1-0.

Rating: B-. This took time to get going but it was rocking by the end. Benoit and Booker trading bombs for five minutes after spending five minutes on dull chinlocks is fine with me and if I have to watch seven matches of them so be it. Really fun match here as Nitro hits an unprecedented two great matches.

We get pyro and music for the main event.

The announcers talk about Luger joining the Wolfpack.

Lex Luger/Sting vs. NWO Sting/Giant

The NWO Sting is knocked to the floor before the bell and it’s Luger/Sting double teaming the Giant. A running clothesline in the corner and a Stinger Splash send the big man to the floor as this is one sided so far. NWO Sting goes in to start against the real version and gets in a single elbow to drop Sting. That’s the extent of NWO Sting’s offense as Sting pops up and destroys the fake before bringing in Luger for some clotheslines.

A cheap shot from Giant lets NWO Sting take over as the fans are all over Giant here. Off to Giant for a loud chop in the corner and a head knocker (picture a powerbomb stance but Giant jumps in the air to crush the back of Luger’s head). Back to NWO Sting who misses a Stinger Splash, allowing for the hot tag off to Sting. A quick Stinger Splash and the Death Drop are enough to pin the fake guy.

Rating: D+. All things considered, this wasn’t horrible. What else are you going to expect with former tag team champions in a glorified handicap match? At this point the match is just a backdrop for the NWO drama with Sting about to pick one of the NWO’s to join because who hasn’t done that yet?

Post match here’s the Wolfpack with an extra shirt. Sting bails for a second before coming back in. He holds up the shirt and looks intrigued but doesn’t put it on as we go off the air.

Overall Rating: C+. This is the kind of show that Nitro needed. We had a nice blend of good wrestling and drama with a cliffhanger to end the show. It still doesn’t need to be three hours long, but the balancing of drama and action has been severely lacking for months now. Granted having two awesome matches helped things out too.

 

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Bound For Glory 2009
Date: October 18, 2009
Location: Bren Events Center, Irvine, California
Attendance: 2,400
Commentators: Taz, Mike Tenay

Since we’re 5 days from THE BIGGEST TNA SHOW EVER I figured a show was called for. This is from about a year ago and it’s AJ’s trial by fire more or less. He won the title at No Surrender but needs to beat Sting to solidify his reign. Other than that this card looks ok but it also looks like a run of the mill TNA PPV. We’re in California here which is a new thing for the company. However, they’re at about 40% full so it’s not exactly something to write home about. Let’s get to it.

This is TNA’s biggest show of the year so they have a theme song here. Also this is 9 days before Hogan and Bischoff signed. Everyone talks about how important this show is to them. They’re trying to make it seem big if nothing else so points for that. Oh and it might be Sting’s last match. Yeah right.

Some guy named Zakk Wylde plays the national anthem.

X–Division Title: Chris Sabin vs. Alex Shelley vs. Amazing Red vs. Suicide vs. Daniels vs. Homicide

This is Ultimate X and the Guns got in by winning a tag match earlier. Suicide is played by Kaz here. Dinero was supposed to be in this too but had a legit family emergency. Red has Don West with him. This is Red’s first Ultimate X match. That’s rather surprising. And there’s a rather scary close up of Homicide. Red and Suicide (how did he and Homicide never team together?) go to the floor as the spots begin.

Daniels stops a huge dive by Red to kill the crowd. Daniels has won four straight of these matches apparently. Red hits a SWEET Rana off the top to Daniels to the floor, taking out about 3 other people. The Guns take over with some of their awesome team stuff. No real attempts at going for the belt until Homicide heads up there. Suicide trumps Homicide though and everyone crashes.

This turns into the Guns vs. everyone else as Daniels takes a missile dropkick Doomsday Device. Everything goes insane again and you can’t really follow much of anything. Homicide, a heel here, goes up but Daniels stops him. Daniels and Sabin play a little chicken but both crash as well. SICK tornado DDT by Sabin. Red gets a leaping Downward Spiral to take out Daniels as this has been rather fun.

There’s the required Tower of Doom spot that never gets old with the big move being Suicide hitting a moonsault on Daniels. To give you an idea, Suicide was on the top rope. Red got behind him for a German. Red was powerbombed off by Sabin. Red suplexed Suicide off and Suicide flipped into a moonsault press onto Daniels. Ok so onto is a stretch but you get the concept.

The crowd isn’t really feeling this outside of big spots, which isn’t great but it’s also not horrible. They know their chants though I suppose. Best Moonsault Ever to Sabin. Daniels, Suicide and Red go up to the top of the structure, as in 7 feet about the X, getting a please don’t die chant. They’re above the height of being on top of the Cell. Daniels almost falls as this is terrifying.

Daniels thankfully drops down as does Suicide. Red is laying on top as the Guns go for the traditional way. Suicide and Daniels go down and Daniels lands on his head. Tazz half kayfabe shouts CHECK HIM, and I couldn’t agree more. Red drops down and gets the belt. I’m legit worried about Daniels after that fall. Don West comes out to celebrate.

Rating: B. I was trying to figure out if it should be minus or plus but this is fine. I’ve never been wild on having big gimmick matches like this to open the show. I get having an X match here but not the big gimmick matches like these. Save these for the middle of the card where the crowd needs a boost. Still though this was solid and the spots were great. Daniels’ fall was scary though. Fun match and did exactly its job though.

Lauren is with the Beautiful People, who are getting the Knockouts Tag Title shot tonight. The belts are like a month old here and Velvet is ridiculously hot as the evil chick. This is Lacey, Velvet and Madison if you’re not sure.

Taylor and Sarita, the champions, say they’ll keep the belts. Sarita insults them in Spanish and it’s fun to be able to understand it.

Tenay and Taz run down the card. I never get this.

Knockout Tag Titles: Beautiful People vs. Taylor Wilde/Sarita

Velvet and Madison here. Lacey makes out with the referee and is allowed to stay at ringside. Hebner comes out and throws her out anyway. We botch an armdrag to start as Taylor just kind of falls down. Ah now things are a bit better. Typical match of the genre but Sarita hits a NICE missile dropkick to Velvet. Taylor gets a German into a bridge for the pin.

Rating: D+. Just a quickie to have the new titles on the show. This wasn’t anything bad and nothing too offensive, but dang these belts would get meaningless very fast. They need to just drop them already and get some fresh blood in the division. Allegedly Mickie is on the way so that should help a lot.

We recap the Legends Title feud which is Eric Young leading World Elite and wanting the title which Nash holds. This was just an awkwardly put together feud and it never clicked at all. Oh and there’s a World Elite vs. Mafia feud with a bounty on Young’s head or something. Like I said it just never clicked at all.

Nash and Young might have an alliance. Young talks a lot and Nash just kind of says whatever.

Legends Title: Kevin Nash vs. Eric Young vs. Hernandez

Nash has the title here if I forgot to mention that. Hernandez went from being the hottest thing in the world to this. In a year the Legends Title went from Legends to Global to TV. Hernandez, still in the khaki shorts here, beats up both guys to start us off. BIG shoulder block puts Young on the floor. This is basically Hernandez beats up two guys until we get to the conflict between the heels match.

Solid heat on Young. Match is far from that though. And there’s the issue between the heels as Young insists it was just instinct. Hernandez hits a pretty weak missile dropkick to Nash as this is just a boring match. It’s not really horrible but it’s just totally not interesting at all. Big dive by Super Mex to try to make this more interesting.

This has zero flow to it at all and it’s hurting badly. Young hits a big elbow on Hernandez and pulls Nash’s straps down. He sets for the Jackknife and Young rams Hernandez’s head into Nash’s balls for the pin. Pay no attention to Nash’s shoulder being WAY up.

Rating: D-. Not a bad match exactly but just not interesting at all. This was a weird one as they were trying but the styles just totally did not mesh. Like I said it’s not horrible but it’s just there. No flow or story being told really and while the ending was somewhat creative it just never amounted to anything and didn’t work at all.

The teams in the tag title match are arguing but Douglas Williams says worry about Team 3D. And hey there’s a Wrestlemania reference. There’s a Full Metal Mayhem match tonight which they say is the same as a TLC match.

IWGP Tag Titles/TNA Tag Titles: Beer Money vs. British Invasion vs. Team 3D vs. Main Event Mafia

Since this is TNA they can manage to screw up a TLC match. Both tag titles are on the line here and any team can win any of them. The Mafia, Steiner and Booker, are TNA tag champions and the Invasion are the IWGP champions. The thing was that TNA decided that since EVERYONE watches Japanese tag wrestling that there was nothing wrong with having two sets of tag titles because these other belts are SO famous. I really hated this idea, as in far more than most TNA ideas which should tell you a lot.

Thankfully soon after this TNA would WAKE UP and realize no one cared about the IWGP belts because THIS ISN’T JAPAN. Big brawl to start while Beer Money hides in the corner which is smart. We get into the heart of why I hate this immediately as Taz and Tenay talk about how prestigious the IWGP belts are. That’s all well and good but there’s one flaw: your belts are supposed to be the top titles. If they weren’t you wouldn’t call them WORLD tag titles. It was like TNA was saying “yeah we’re a big deal but we pale in comparison to Japan.” I hated it.

Steiner and D-Von go off to fight and it’s a big mess that’s hard to call. I wouldn’t have put two big multi-man climb up to get an object matches on one show but I get what they were thinking here. Ton of weapons go everywhere and of course there isn’t much in the way of flow but there isn’t supposed to be here. DWI for Booker. Steiner busts out the corner Frankensteiner which is nothing like the original one but is an easier way to avoid having to do the harder spot.

Booker might be legit hurt. Steiner does nothing but suplexes, showing his level of awesomeness. Steiner goes up after the TNA belts (at least he didn’t go for the others first) but the ladder is too short and he gets shoved off. Booker has a stretcher brought out for him as Steiner takes What’s Up. Eh with that many steroids in him he probably didn’t feel a thing.

The Brits bring in tables as Booker is wheeled out. Dudleys just END the English dudes with chair shots. And the guitar player from earlier gets a chair shot on Magnus. Williams goes through a table in the ring as we’re in the “everyone but three people lay down while the three guys do spots” and D-Von hits What’s Up on Williams. BIG Table chant. Double chokeslams (from the Dudleys?) put Beer Money down and through tables.

Steiner pops back up and brings in a ladder. And then he falls off a ladder thanks to 3D. The team not the move. The Dudleys go up at the same time like idiots and here’s Rhyno of all people, since you know 8 people in one match aren’t enough, and blasts them with chairs but not before D-Von gets the IWGP Titles down.

Beer Money and the Brits both go up, resulting in a bad looking suplex on Magnus from both guys. Beer Money has an open shot but has to do their taunt first. Storm gets some beer and then a front flip powerbomb to take Magnus out again. Cool looking spot. Roode is about to get the TNA belts but Rob Terry of the British Invasion comes down to throw him through a table and help Magnus get the belt to end it.

Rating: B. Another fun match much like Ultimate X earlier. There were a lot of people here and I think too many teams. That and having two sets of tag titles made this a bit too much of a mess and the lack of a huge spot kind of slowed it down from being great. That being said this was a fun match and did the job it was supposed to do: get the crowd going. It’s not up to the levels of the great TLC matches but it was good. I still wish they didn’t have two multi-man grab the title matches at one show though but what can you do?

Recap of the Knockouts Title match which more or less is just a three way feud with nothing special to it at all.

Knockouts Title: Tara vs. ODB vs. Awesome Kong

ODB has beaten both of them already so we’ll just do it one more time I guess. Should be noted that this is the 5th match on the card, the fifth title match and the fifth match that isn’t a standard one on one or tag match. Think they’re overdoing anything here? Tara’s legs are awesome if nothing else. I never got the appeal of the ODB character at all.

Kong jumps both girls immediately but Tara goes right for her. And so much for that theory as Kong just crushes them. Middle rope splash misses both of them though and we get the rather sexy shirt rip off from Tara. She’d wear these tiny shorts and a Tapout shirt which she’d rip off to more or less reveal a half shirt. The faces fight over who gets the pin as it’s pure formula stuff here but FAR better than the Legends Title match.

Tara hooks the Tarantula but Kong makes the save, which isn’t really a save as you can’t get a submission there but you get the point. Tara gets into it with some fan that might be legit but I’m not sure. Upon further review it was Randy Couture’s wife who had wanted to do an MMA fight with Tara. All planned but TNA messed up the shot and didn’t see it. Why does this not surprise me?

Back in the ring Kong hits the middle rope splash on ODB, covering the entire front row in silicone. It gets two though as Tara makes the save. Implant Buster gets two as ODB kicks out on her own. Saed comes out and throws in a chair but Kong says no. She goes for a powerbomb on ODB and Saed slides the chair in again but ODB reverses into a face plant to the chair for the pin. Nice ending.

Rating: C-. Not a great match or anything but FAR better than the other one. There was a story and flow here rather than in the Legends match where nothing had any purpose it seemed. Everything worked here and while it’s not great it’s certainly watchable. Not bad here and definitely ok.

Morgan says tonight is personal and business.

Samoa Joe vs. Bobby Lashley

Hey look it’s another non-traditional one on one match as this is a submission match. Joe is in the Mafia here and Lashley is the MMA guy so this actually makes sense for once from a gimmick match perspective. Lashley has taped up ribs for some reason. Ah ok Rhyno jumped him on Impact. And yet he’s fighting Joe here. Well of course he is.

Joe might be a bit slimmer here but it’s hard to tell as the tattoo on his face takes away from his face a bit. Naturally we get the JOE’S GONNA KILL YOU chant because he’s a heel. Lashley hits a SICK spinebuster and goes after the arm. The problem with wrestling today is that with the advent of MMA and how fast people tap to holds it’s a BIG stretch to have people survive like 30 seconds in arm bars and leg locks.

Suicide dive to take out Lashley as Joe is far more popular than he’s supposed to be. Joe works the ribs as we’re told about the work he’s done on Lashley’s ribs recently. Thanks for talking about that in his entrance rather than Rhyno there guys. Abdominal stretch goes on as Taz is actually helpful here with his submission knowledge. Quick powerslam by Joe as he’s wildly over here.

Lashley blocks part of an armbar and gets some ground and pound in to HUGE boos. A full nelson slam from Lashley takes Joe down and we’re back to even. Lashley is REALLY bad on offense with some of the worst strikes I’ve ever seen. Joe thankfully takes over and beats the tar out of him. And then Lashley gets an STO (reverse stroke for you non-WM 2000 and No Mercy fans) into a side choke for the win. Joe blacked out or something.

Rating: D. They were trying for the MMA thing here and it just didn’t work in the slightest really. Lashley was just not that good at making what he’s capable of really doing look fake if that makes sense. This just didn’t work for me at all as it came off as sloppy and Lashley trying to get one big move in which he did. I’m not an MMA guy so I’m the wrong audience I guess, but this didn’t work at all for me.

Foley talks about fighting Abyss and makes limited sense. Apparently he doesn’t want Abyss to overshadow him and Abyss is going to have to earn it. Ah ok Foley wanted to make him his protégé and them beat the heck out of him just because I guess. Foley is heel here and we actually get a reference to Abyss being world champion. It’s Monster’s Ball also and if Abyss uses tacks he’s disqualified or something.

Mick Foley vs. Abyss

Stevie Richards is referee and is the doctor again. LOUD pyro for Abyss. Foley jumps him on the ramp and is all casual about hitting him with the barbed wire bat. I like that. I’m reading his book at the moment and haven’t gotten to this part if it’s in there. Almost immediately Foley goes up the set, climbing a tower. Abyss follows and gets knocked through part of the ramp.

Foley climbs down as Stevie says Abyss is done. Foley gets a running start and drives the bat into Abyss as he’s still in that hole in the ramp/stage. Foley, the face, of course gets cheered. Stevie is the cheerleader dude here as the match just kind of stops until Abyss climbs through the stage. We have a barded wire board from somewhere and he makes a platform with it between the guard rail and the ring.

And there’s another board that’s just like the first. Double armed DDT to Abyss to the board. Richards beats up Abyss too because EVERYONE loved that angle. Foley gets a bat shot into Abyss’ arm to open it up. His head is busted too. Foley goes into the wire board now then Abyss does the same. Make that a sandwich as the other is under him. Naturally it only gets two.

Foley busts out the tacks and Abyss sets to chokeslam him onto them but he’s not allowed. Down goes Stevie and here’s Daffney to give Foley a freaking Taser. And just to make it more stupid it explodes as Foley jabs him with it. They TOTALLY botch it as Abyss misses his kickout and Foley gets three and Abyss raises his shoulder at what would have been four so the referee says he kicked out anyway.

Crowd totally boos that out of the building as Stevie pulls the referee out when Abyss goes for the pin. Daffney goes through the platform they made earlier to get a HOLY CRAP chant. Stevie tries to beat up Abyss and goes into the tacks for his trouble sans shirt. Chokeslam for Foley and we get the Over the Edge 98 finish as Abyss slams Richards’ hand down for the pin.

Rating: C-. Totally violent but overbooked. Also the botch messed things completely up as it was clearly three and everyone knew it. These matches are fine once in awhile but does it really prove anything? This was a far cry from the Edge or Orton matches and it just didn’t work that well for me. Granted I’m not a fan of hardcore so it’s not my style anyway.

Angle says he’s awesome and that he had AJ beat but the time limit ran out.

Basically Angle stung Morgan along to get his help in winning various matches then screwed him over to make Morgan a ticked off monster that was suddenly awesome. Then he got dropped down to a midcard team with Hernandez for his efforts because Hogan came in and liked Abyss more, but that’s a bit later on. Oh and Morgan more or less cost Angle the title at No Surrender. Oh and Dixie Carter has to say something for no apparent reason other than she’s Dixie Carter.

Matt Morgan vs. Kurt Angle

This is the semi-main event on the show, we have 45 minutes of TV time left, and this is the first standard one on one match on the card. Also this has a fifteen minute time limit. Dude seriously? Say it’s got an hour or something as you know it’s only going fifteen but dude that’s the time limit a TV Title match with PN News and Steve Austin in 1991 would get.

Angle is still the leader of the Main Event Mafia here and has never won at Bound For Glory. The dueling chants begin immediately as Angle, the leader of the top heel stable in the company, is over here. TNA fans even in other cities are annoying. Morgan controls with power early as he’s getting to show off here. He goes to the top and hits about as good of a cross body as you would expect from a guy that big and who doesn’t go to the top that often.

Angle goes for the legs to take down Morgan. Figure four goes on and Morgan’s leg is almost on Angle’s face. Taz actually OFFERS SOME INSIGHT by saying that since Angle’s legs are shorter and Matt’s are longer it’s easier for Angle to get extra leverage. Well gosh, Taz worked a similar style to Angle, so this is almost like…HIM BEING AN EXPERT ON THE SUBJECT!!! WHAT A CONCEPT!

One of the guys from Boys to Men is here. TNA needs to either upgrade their celebrities or not have them acknowledged. Also, PICK A BETTER TIME TO SHOW THEM! You know, like during an entrance, not when Matt breaks a hold. Fall away slam hits Angle and his leg seems fine now. Chokeslam gets two. Hellevator is blocked into Rolling Germans from Angle.

Angle Slam, say it with me, gets two. Straps go down and the cheers go up and there’s the ankle lock. It doesn’t work but Angle counters a powerbomb into the ankle lock. Hellevator gets two. Yeah these finishers are kind of not working so far. Ankle lock is the counter to a tombstone and Morgan gets out again. Big clothesline gets two for Morgan. Loud Morgan sucks chant starts up for no apparent reason.

Morgan goes up and does it slowly which you don’t do against Angle. The running suplex isn’t great but it works. Angle Slam and a Frog Splash of all things (good one too) get two. Taz says this is his evolution into a star. That’s rather amusing. And Angle gets a victory roll for the pin. There was no more build than that. The match just kind of ended. They shake hands after the match with nothing screwy about it.

Rating: B-. Good match but not a classic/career making match like they were looking for I don’t think. The idea was to stretch Angle to a degree where he could barely win and I never got that impression here. It was definitely a solid match but it just never got to the level that they wanted it to I don’t think. You can’t say it failed to make Morgan as Hogan arriving changed everything including Morgan.

TNA World Title: Sting vs. AJ Styles

You’ll see a huge difference in the main event here than you would at most other shows from this company recently. There isn’t much of a story here. AJ was going to leave the business, Sting gave him an awesome pep talk, AJ won the title but felt he owed Sting a title shot and wanted the respect. Basic booking and a match between two guys that are solid in ring wrestlers. What an idea.

Also, how much does it say that in a year AJ has gone from main event to feuding with Tommy Dreamer? This is the awesome AJ as well, as in pre Flair and when he was the best in the world. They shake hands to start us off which is nice to see. In the last three years Sting has been 3-0 at Bound For Glory with three straight world title wins. That’s rather impressive.

Feeling out process to start of course. Long one too as we’re at about 3 minutes of it now. AJ controls early and gets a knee drop for two. Sting sends him to the floor and then holds the ropes open for him. They’re doing a slow build here but there isn’t a ton of time left in the show to do that with really. Sting takes over with a backdrop as that somethow might be the biggest move done so far. It’s not bad mind you, just a different kind of match.

Ah there we go as AJ goes for a big dive off the apron but Sting moves and AJ eats steel. Stinger Splash hits steel also and the guardrail is bent a bit. Sting gets a tombstone for two in the ring. Springboard Forearm (my favorite move in TNA) gets two. A series of counters leads to the Death Drop hitting. Sting’s leg is over AJ but there’s no count. Splash sets up another Death Drop for two.

Scorpion Deathlock goes on and it’s one of the best ones I’ve ever seen Sting do. They slug it out and Sting Hulks Up. We head to the corner and AJ gets a Pele and a springboard splash….for the pin? Uh…yeah I guess he does. That ending was TOTALLY anti-climactic as Sting was making his comeback and going all superhuman and then AJ just beat him. I was really getting into this and then it just ended. Odd.

Rating: B. Solid match that would have been classified as great until the ending which just did not work. AJ should have gotten the clean pin and he did but this match was BEGGING for another 5-8 minutes. I don’t get why they just ended the show that fast as we have five minutes left in the video so it’s not like they were lacking for time. I don’t get it but the match we got was rather good.

AJ calls Sting back to the ring (after the first microphone doesn’t work) and says this is his time. The fans chant please don’t go as this was possibly his retirement match which obviously didn’t happen but the idea was nice anyway. Also they never said it was his retirement match either so it’s in no way false advertisement whatsoever.

Sting says this is about AJ but if he’s going to lose he’s glad he lost to someone like AJ, putting him over huge. The fans chant one more year and Sting says he’s not sure if he was going to retire or not and says this isn’t kayfabe but that some of the stuff fans have said to him have made him wanting to stay forever. And then his music plays as I guess we’re out of time? Odd ending where things seemed rush.

Overall Rating: B. I rather liked this show actually and thought it came off pretty well. This is another excellent example of what TNA is capable of when they just go out there and wrestle. Hogan and Bischoff coming in have really hurt this company’s product as instead of just in ring work where this show is strong we now have everything being about swerves and angles with wrestling being a far backseat.

 

I’d love watching Impact if it was stuff like this, but it’s changed for the worse. Hey though, we have Hogan now so everything is all well and good right? Good show this year though.

 

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Impact
Date: October 14, 2010
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Taz
Episode Title: THEY Have Arrived!!!

Well this is it. After four days of waiting we can finally get to the explanation from Jeff as to WHY he did what he did. This is something that is very important because you have the entire THEY angle riding on it. The importance of this show can’t be overblown as we begin the next chapter in TNA’s history.

The opening is likely to be about Jeff and THEY as well as set up the fairly obvious RVD vs. Jeff match, although I could see them postponing that one if need be. I’d also be interested in knowing how much actual wrestling we’ll have tonight but we’ll see. Let’s get to it.

We of course open with the recap of the ending of Bound For Glory.

Dixie’s attorney is here and as everyone thought we’re told that Dixie signed the contracts but they weren’t the ones she thought they were.

Hogan (still on crutches) and Bischoff are here to a MASSIVE pyro display. Of course Hogan is acting just like he did as a face. Tenay explains that Hogan and Bischoff now have the majority share of TNA….despite the fact that the attorney never said that.

Naturally Hogan gets a big face reaction with like two signs against him in the whole audience. Oh wait three fat chicks are booing. Well there’s a Hogan sucks chant so there’s something I suppose. Hogan wants Dixie here now. Apparently she promised him everything, much like Ted Turner did in 96. Hogan gets a text or something as he has his phone out and is messing with it.

Here we go: the explanation. It started with Abyss apparently and the Hall of Fame ring. Bischoff and Hogan knew why he randomly turned on Hogan. We bring him out and Hogan declares Abyss his son. THEY’RE HERE! Ok now that my pizzas are here we can get back. What did you think I meant by they?

None of the fans believed Abyss but they are now in control. The fans want RVD. Abyss follows them as Hogan and Bischoff’s soldier now. Hogan declares that Abyss with live forever and is now immortal. I think The Immortals might be the name. Eric brings out Jarrett. Wait was there an actual explanation in there for abyss? If there was I missed it.

Yeah this was no real surprise: he wanted control of his company back. I think that was the easiest of all to understand. And here’s FOURTUNE! Ok this just got good.

Flair talks to Hogan and says that Fourtune runs this company, not Hogan. LOUD Fourtune chant. One of them have to leave apparently. Hogan suggest him vs. Flair and it’s…..not on as they hug. Flair bows down to Hogan and it’s a massive Hogan orgy more or less. The explanation here makes sense though as Fourtune was mad at Dixie for bringing in EV. That actually makes sense. We get a reference to Flair’s five former ex wives and here comes Jeff!

No face paint here either. The fans think Jeff sold out. You can barely see the ropes with so many guys in there with him. He didn’t sell out but sold in. He blames the fans and doesn’t care about popularity. The fans drove him to this because he did everything with all those injuries for what?

And now it’s on to RVD. He’s the whole F’N reason Abyss took RVD out because RVD had to be gone for this to work. They are Immortal. Sting and Nash are watching in the back. Eric and Hogan offer them spots on the team. We go to a break 22 minutes into the show with them coming to the ring.

Security escorts Dixie….somewhere.

Nash and Sting come out and Sting is in street clothes which isn’t something you see that often. Tenay is already annoying. Eric says this is about money and all that jazz. Nash whispers to Sting and says this is perfect for him because it’s always been about money and him in his career. He’s gotten wiser though and quotes the Bible of all things, saying gray hair is a sign of wisdom. He’s passing on the money and if THEY want to run the company into the ground, they can do it without him. I’m surprised.

Sting says this isn’t what he came here for and says he’s here because he loves TNA. He’s shouting the whole time mind you. Sting points to Hogan, Bischoff and Flair (I think) and says this is a no win situation, turning them down. Allegedly both of these guys are leaving TNA with Nash being permanent and Sting possibly being permanent. Bischoff says they can come back anytime. Hogan’s music plays the segment to an end at 9:32.

We cut to the back where Sting and Nash leave but Pope isn’t happy with it. They offer him a place in the car out with them but he’s staying to fight the fight which they’re cool with. Dixie comes up to them and says they can’t leave her. Sting says what everyone thought: if she had listened this wouldn’t be happening. She says he was cryptic. Dixie, he sent crows down at the NWO to demand a title match one night. He’s a weird guy.

Hogan and Bischoff come up to Dixie and she slaps the heck out of Bischoff. She tells Hogan to look her in the eye and tell her he didn’t screw her. He says we’ll talk about this in HIS office as we go to another break.

In the office we have MORE talking. Bischoff smokes a cigar and Hogan flat out tells her that he screwed her out of the company. This is a big Hogan ego trip of course. Hogan and Bischoff both say this is their company. Hogan has had enough and so has Dixie. She tells her security guards to get rid of them but they work for Hogan too. Dixie’s husband SURGE gets knocked out and we take ANOTHER break.

Some hot chick in a BMW shows up. And we’re just not going to talk about this at all. Ok then. Ah ok it’s the Jersey Short chick.

Madison comes out with a referee as I’m guessing this is going to be about Tara. She yells about how Tara has HER title. She wants a match RIGHT NOW. Here’s Tara, looking GOOD. Madison says they had a deal and apparently we’re getting a match….at 9:50pm.

Knockouts Title: Tara vs. Madison Rayne

And Tara lays down so Madison can pin her. I kid you not.

Madison celebrates and here’s Mickie to talk some more. She wants a title shot RIGHT NOW but Madison sends Tara after her. Mickie sends her running and stares her down.

J-Woww from Jersey Shore comes in and talks to the Beautiful People. Apparently she’s an honorary BP tonight.

Back from break and they’re still looking for Cookie. This results in Eric Young freaking out about J-Woww. Jordan comes up and nothing of note happens.

And here’s Angle for MORE talking. No music, no intro, nothing like that. He talks about how he’s all banged up but wants to know why Hogan and Bischoff screwed him before he officially retires. Angle says what we all expected him to say: he didn’t win but he didn’t get pinned either. Cue Jarrett’s music and here he is.

Jarrett more or less calls bull on what Angle is saying. He takes a jab at Angle being an ex-husband (the real meaning being that Jarrett literally married Angle’s wife and not in kayfabe). Angle says he put TNA on the map. Uh, not quite Kurt. He says Jarrett held down everyone but couldn’t hold Angle down.

Kurt Angle, the man that held the tag titles, X-Division and World titles at the same time is talking about holding others down. Jarrett says taking Angle’s career meant more than destroying his life. Angle goes for him and the security guards take him down and handcuff him. The beatdown is on. Uh, Joe anyone?

TAZ of all people comes out of the broadcast booth and calls off Jarrett and says that he has a censored up (censored of course) neck. Old school Taz chant takes us to another break.

70 minutes in, 6 seconds of “wrestling.”

Joe talks (shocking isn’t it) about Jarrett on a tape from Monday, still in Daytona. He’s coming for Jarrett of course.

GOOD NIGHT IT’S A MATCH! And it’s Abyss. Oh joy.

Abyss vs. Samoa Joe

Yeah they’re officially called Immortal. Well ok then. Joe beats the tar out of him first and beats him into the corner. Chokeslam takes him down and Joe is in trouble. He goes to get a chair but Joe hits a suicide dive into the chair which more or less didn’t hit Abyss’s head at all but he stays down anyway. Sure why not? Bell to the head and we’re done in two minutes. No rating. RVD comes down for the save.

Wait, why didn’t Joe come down and massacre Jeff like 5 minutes ago?

Hey look RVD wants to talk. It’s about Hardy which makes sense. Jeff pops up on the screen and says it was an illusion as he brought RVD as close to him as he could and then destroyed him. Well ok so he told Abyss to destroy him. Hardy says he’s the Anti-Christ of wrestling. WOW.

Bischoff comes out and says if RVD wants Hardy at Turning Point he has to beat Anderson tonight, winner gets the shot.

Back from a break Tessmacher is propositioned by Bischoff for “a meeting later at his place”. He snaps on her and calls her easy. Bischoff knows about Nash and Pope apparently. She’s fired from the Knockouts authority job and can either wrestle or leave. Anderson comes up and declares Bischoff a douchebag and squeezes his hand really hard saying that Bischoff won’t win this war.

D’Angeol Dinero vs. Fourtune

Yep it’s 1 vs. 5 here. Morgan and Flair aren’t in this. Total dominance here of course but it’s better than more talking I suppose. AJ misses the Pele and kicks Kaz which Pope gets two off of. DWI hits him and Kaz gets the pin. Another short match so no grade.

Ad for Turning Point where Angle is named specifically as being there. Nice one guys.

Here’s The Shore to get on my nerves and be booed out of the building. They point out that this is on at the same time as Jersey Shore because that’s how TNA works. Cue up the Beautiful People and J-Woww. Cookie and J-Woww argue as usual and Cookie says go back to the hole you came from. You know, the same one she’s from. Catfight, Shore bails. 15k for a minute long segment and an EY joke.

We recap things to kill time so we can run over into ReAction as always.

Mr. Anderson vs. Rob Van Dam

No mic time for Anderson here as he’s ticked. The bell rings at about 11pm as we just HAD to have a commercial as RVD made his entrance. Make that 11:01. Naturally to see the main event of Impact you have to watch ReAction. So would that mean the winner got the win on Impact or ReAction? Winner gets Hardy at the PPV mind you.

Basic stuff to start as Van Dam hits a moonsault off the apron to kick Anderson in the head, which might have been how he injured his head and Impact is OVER! And now REACTION has started and we didn’t miss a thing and it serves no purpose but screw that who cares? If you want to see the Impact main event, don’t watch Impact!

After I have a psychotic episode over the stupidity of some of the things this company does, it’s still a boring match. Rolling Thunder is countered into a fireman’s carry and the split legged moonsault gets two. Five Star eats knees and both guys are down. And here’s Bischoff to screw us over. He tells the referee to come with him and here’s Hardy, holding his ribs with a chair.

Chair to RVD. Chair to Anderson. Pillmanizer on the arm of Anderson. Anderson curses a lot and rolls to the floor. That’s your ending by the way.

Rating: D+. Match was pretty weak due to the crowd knowing the ridiculous ending was coming. This match never really got off the ground or anything but it could have been worse. The guys knew the ending was coming and clearly didn’t get going until the very end as they were just going through the motions. Nothing bad really, but nothing particularly good.

Overall Rating: D+. This is a VERY subjective grade to put it mildly. This show can be looked at their get out of jail free card. It was the first show after their biggest show ever and a huge angle. The show as a stand alone show was atrocious. However, this was a show where a lot of talking was actually required.

The explanations that they gave needed to be done. I can understand that and I’m mostly ok with it. However there comes a point where you need some wrestling to get you through a show. Having the show revolve around one angle is fine and makes sense, but you really need some wrestling to go with it. As was said in the LD, even a 4 minute throw away match would have helped tremendously. One or two of those thrown in somewhere and this show goes WAY up.

As for doing what needed to be done tonight, they got a lot out of the way. Jarrett, Dixie, Hogan and Bischoff are all explained. Nash and Sting are written off TV, Pope has a new thing to do, Anderson’s loyalty is pretty clear and RVD and Joe will fight on their own. Hardy was explained but to say it felt rushed is an understatement. Abyss wasn’t explained at all but did we really need to hear about him? All you really get from that is the beginning of the story and we can live without that.

This show did explain some things and kind of got things going for the angle, but at the same time this is showing signs of turning into one massive soap opera much like the NWO angle. The problem with that is back then you had some amazing matches on the side to compliment the drama. You’re not getting that in the first week.

That being said, it’s the first week and I can understand a ton of talking here. However if this is now the status quo, there are REAL problems for this company. This was kind of a disappointment but to say it was horrible isn’t fair. They got through a lot tonight, but what scares me are the weeks to come. There has to be some wrestling out there, and I’m not seeing it here so far. I’m neither thrilled nor optimistic, but I’m also not convinced this is bad. Definitely interested in next week’s offering, but I’ll be less lenient on it to say the least.

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Saturday Night’s Main Event 28
Date: October 13, 1990
Location: Toledo Sports Arena, Toledo, Ohio
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Roddy Piper

This is just after Summerslam 90 where Hogan made his triumphant return. He has his big match tonight teaming with Tugboat against Rhythm and Blues. Other than that there’s just Sgt. Slaughter being evil and beating up Koko B. Ware. There just isn’t much on this card as we’re in a transitional show to an extent as we’re waiting on a new top heel to come up. Let’s get to it.

It’s Oktoberfest. We get to hear the production guy saying we’re on the air. Oh dear. Piper shows up in lederhosen.

I still love that theme song.

Demolition says they’re going to beat up the LOD.

The LOD say Demolition doesn’t scare them. This is interspersed with Oktoberfest jokes. Warrior, their partner, pops up. Yeah I have no idea what he said.

Ultimate Warrior/Legion of Doomvs. Demolition

Has there ever been a better collection of theme music in one match? The LOD cost Demolition the tag belts and Warrior is there….uh because. This would be a Survivor Series match in a month with Hennig and Tornado joining them. Piper points this out. We get a shot of Dustin Rhodes in the crowd. Keep that in mind as it’ll come into play later on. Warrior comes in and just destroys people.

The splash misses Axe though and he’s Smash. Demolition was more or less worthless by this point and would get squashed at Mania and be done. Hawk comes in and just wipes them out. You can see the crushing of them beginning. He continues the trend of beating all of Demolition by himself. Everybody comes in and brawls but Smash is more or less dead and gets caught by the splash for the pin. This was domination in every sense of the word.

Rating: D. Just not interesting at all as Demolition was made to look like a bunch of jobbers here. I don’t think anyone ever bought them anymore once the LOD showed up. Not the worst match ever, but a little challenge would have been nice.

We go to the Oktoberfest celebration and a lot of wrestlers are there. Alfred Hayes is talking about beer with a German guy.

Randy Savage vs. Dusty Rhodes

This is a rematch from Summerslam. Savage wanted a shot at Warrior and DiBiase was about to feud with Rhodes. Dusty looks like a freaking moron, wearing a big black shirt with red polka dots. Now remember, Dustin is in the front row. After about three minutes of NOTHING interesting, Ted DiBiase is in the front row.

He starts paying people off so he can have the whole front row to himself. I get images of Cartman from the episode where he gets his own theme park here. Dustin of course isn’t for sale and stays in his seat. This just isn’t interesting. Savage can’t slam Dusty. That’s just funny.

He’s a power guy according to a lot of you. DiBiase and Virgil jump and beat the living heck out of him, which is about as clean cut of a definition of assault and battery as you could ask for but we’ll ignore that for storyline purposes. Rhodes goes to save his son and gets counted out. This led to a tag match at the Rumble which was Dusty’s last WWF match.

Rating: D. This was an angle rather than a match. They were just killing time in the ring until the angle could get going. There just wasn’t much at all going on here, but at the same time this was just to set up DiBiase vs. Rhodes so that’s fine.

Tugboat and Hogan say their usual stuff. Hogan dances. Yeah. They want Earthquake and Bravo. They want to know what’s going to happen when Hogan and Tugboat Bavarian Cream Rhythm and Blues. Oh dear.

The Bushwackers are making cheese. It turns into cutting cheese jokes. Alfred still won’t talk as he’s telling stories to the German guy.

Rhythm and Blues vs. Hulk Hogan/Tugboat

Rhythm and Blues are Honky Tonk Man and Greg Valentine in a dumb tag team. Tugboat is here because he got the people to try to make Hogan feel better when he got hurt. Do you ever feel sorry for Fred Ottman? Can we buy this guy a decent gimmick? Not even a good one but a decent one? This goes exactly how you would expect it to: Hogan destroys them by himself and they bail.

This is about as weak of a match as you could ask for. Naturally Tugboat gets caught by a Valentine axe handle which he sells like a hatchet to the head. Vince says that Tugboat is beached. You know, like a whale. The Blowhole Kid dodges some elbows and gets Hogan in to clean house. Hogan goes for the legdrop but here come Earthquake and Bravo.

They don’t get to the ring or anything though. Back to the match after a commercial, Tugboat takes a guitar to the back for the DQ. Here comes your monster heel and it’s a big beatdown. Tugboat is off somewhere in search of a Twinkie. Tugboad FINALLY realizes he’s at work and pops Quake with the guitar to send them running.

Rating: D+. Again, just more of an angle than a match as no one cared about who won or lost here. This was just to set up more Survivor Series stuff which is fine I suppose, but at the same time I wish they could have had a better way of doing it. Not sure what that way would have been though.

It’s time for a sausage stuffing contest and Gene says Genius is a master of it and is in the sausage stuffing hall of fame. Gay jokes were easier in the early 90s I guess. It’s Hacksaw and the Hart Foundation vs. Fuji and the Orient Express. Who would believe that Bret would have a title today? It’s the most you can do in a minute. Gene says we’re getting down to the short strokes. It goes like 45 seconds and there’s no winner. Hayes is still telling jokes to the German guy.

Intercontinental Title: Texas Tornado vs. Haku

I think this happened at Mania also. I love how at this point taking a match on ten days’ notice is a huge deal. Now you get matches on hours or even minutes notice. This is really short as Haku goes to the nerve hold early on but shifts to a sleeper. Tornado comes back and hits the Claw and the Tornado Punch to retain.

Rating: N/A. Just a way to make his title reign seem legit before he dropped it back to Hennig soon enough. I think it was in December or so.

Hogan and Tugboat make sailing jokes and talk about how his ribs are.

Sgt. Slaughter vs. Koko B. Ware

I wonder how this is going to go. Slaughter just became a major heel at this time and we were in Desert Storm at the moment. You could always kind of tell that Piper hated this angle and supported the troops. Koko starts off kind of hot then realizes he’s Koko and gets beaten on.

He makes the short comeback but takes a hotshot and actually just drives his knuckles into the side of Koko’s head. It’s the dumbest looking finisher I’ve ever seen but it works. Then in a cool moment as Slaughter is waving the Iraqi flag, Stars and Stripes Forever kicks on and Nikolai Volkoff is waving the American flag. Awesome visual if nothing else.

Rating: D-. More dullness as I want this show to end. Koko continued his tradition of jobbing like there was no tomorrow. Slaughter wound up being world champion out of this so there you go.

Neidhart and Slick have a bit of a dance off. And now there’s a food fight. Hayes still isn’t paying attention.

Warrior says he doesn’t like Sherri for slapping him and that he’ll fight Savage.

Savage and Sherri say Savage will be champion again.

Hayes yells at Gene and gets pied.

Allegedly the next SNME would be just after Survivor Series. That didn’t happen. Ah apparently it did but it was The Main Event and on a Friday. That makes sense I guess.

Overall Rating: F-. Just boring beyond belief with nothing of note and nothing being any good. This was a weird cross between a buildup show and a transitional show but neither worked. Probably the worst one yet which is saying a lot. Terrible show with nothing worth seeing.

 

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Bound For Glory 2008
Date: October 12, 2008
Location: Sears Center, Hoffman Estates, Illinois
Attendance: 5,000
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Don West

It’s another installment in the biggest series there is for TNA, this time from two years ago. The main event is Sting vs. Joe for the title. We’re 9 days away from the debut of the Main Event Mafia so things are kind of in flux at this point. Other than that there is some decent stuff here, including Jarrett vs. Angle. I guess some things never change. This is an ok looking card on paper. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about Chicago and the gangster theme they have tonight. The basic idea of the Mafia is there but they haven’t officially been made yet.

Steel Asylum

The winner gets a title shot later. There are ten men in this: Jay Lethal, Sonjay Dutt, Chris Sabin, Alex Shelley, Curry Man, Shark Boy, Super Eric, Petey Williams, Johnny Devine and Jimmy Rave. This is during the Prince Justice Brotherhood mini-era so I wouldn’t expect anything of quality. You have to climb to the top to escape. The winner gets an X Title shot later on at some undesignated date.

Naturally with 10 guys in there it’s almost impossible to keep track of what is going on. This turns into a mini-handicap match between the Guns and the Prince Justice Brotherhood and given that Eric is the best of the three characters, this is more or less one sided. Now we get a ton of running clotheslines, as in like 15, on various people.

The Guns get a triple suplex on the Brotherhood which at least makes sense from a friendship perspective. This is also during the Lethal/Dutt feud which means we get some shots of Val at her absolute hottest which is saying a lot. This is the living definition of a spot fest as there is no story or anything which is because there are WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE.

This match would work with like 5 people in it. That would work very well but it’s TNA so let’s just double everything because that’s not going to hurt a thing right? There’s a referee on top also which works to an extent but at the same time it makes me think “really?” Everyone busts out finishers as we crank it up a bit.

The Guns take over almost completely and I think they’re heels at this point. Sliced Bread is countered into the Destroyer from Williams. Double Stunner from Shark Boy (Stone Cold that is) on Sabin and Williams as we bust out more finishers including a botched Divine Intervention (over the shoulder Piledriver) on Rave. Curry Man shows off some surprising strength with a gorilla press on Dutt where he throws him into the corner.

He goes up but Lethal and Dutt make the save. In a cool looking spot, Lethal and Dutt hang upside down just by their ankles and slug it out. Translation: Lethal beats the heck out of him but you get the concept. Lethal climbs out on his own to end it as apparently everyone else is taking a nap.

Rating: C+. These matches are hard to grade because there’s really no form of flow or stories to them. The best you can do is grade the spots and the ending and in this match both of those were pretty good so this is an ok grade. It’s not a great match or anything really close to it due to the WAY too high amount of people in it, but what can you do about that I guess? Decent match and decent opener though.

We run down the card. Can someone explain this to me? Why do we need to waste time on this?

We go to Cornette’s office where he’s WAY too happy about it being Bound For Glory. Foley, who is brand new here comes in and Cornette tries to get him to come to Impact when they’re live in Vegas. The Beautiful People come in to complain about M&Ms. This is funny stuff with Foley vs. them.

Recap of Beautiful People vs. the three random people they’re fighting.

ODB/Rhaka Khan/Rhyno vs. Beautiful People/Cute Kip

Traci Brooks is referee here and comes out to a cover of Rag Doll by Aerosmith. Just Skye and Love at this point. This is a Bimbo Brawl apparently. You know because 6 person tag is just too hard to say I guess. Kip gets in the face of a Detroit Tiger who is in Chicago just because I guess. ODB and Velvet start us off.

West tries to convince us that Rhyno and Kip are very similar physically. And people wonder why he was replaced. Genders can intertwine here apparently. Basically the Beautiful People keep trying to get various shots in, none of which work. Everyone keeps hiding from Khan other than Kip. Both of them go for chokeslams. She grabs his balls as this is going absolutely nowhere.

Khan is really bad in the ring to put it mildly. Why does ODB think she’s hot? Makeup box to ODB’s head sends her to the floor. ODB spanks herself to get fired up for…a tag. Thankfully the guys come in as the girls just aren’t that good at this point. Fameasser is blocked as Rhyno just stands up and Gores Kip to end it.

Rating: F+. And that’s only for Velvet. This was just boring as all goodness with six minutes of the girls doing nothing, leaving Rhyno as the best person in there. Let that sink in for a bit. Just a bad match that never did anything at all of note. At least it was short I guess.

Consequences Creed says Bashir needs to leave if he hates America so much.

X–Division Title: Consequence Creed vs. Sheik Abdul Bashir

We spend like a minute introducing some army sergeant after Bashir is introduced. I get that these people are cool, but why does TNA insist on giving them lots of camera time so often? It’s cool that he’s here, but did he need a full entrance to be the ring announcers for Creed? Creed is billed as the great American challengers I guess. He looks like Apollo Creed from Rocky if that means anything.

Tenay gets way too excited for America here, especially when Bashir is from Minnesota. Brawling on the floor now which gets Sheik two in the ring. The fans do the standard xenophobic chant. Basic match here for the most part. I don’t know if it’s the online video I’m watching or what, but the ring looks huge. Sleeper goes on and Creed is in trouble. Since this is after 1987 though and not a Ziggler match, the hold doesn’t work.

Creed makes his comeback and hits a few moves for two. He hits a jaw breaker and nips up before heading to the top. It takes too long though and the crotch is bruised. A top rope rana gets two and then Bashir gets a rollup and grabs the rope for the pin. Are you kidding me???

Rating: D. Nothing that special here but the ending just completely ends any chance this had of being a good match. You build this dude up as awesome and have the whole army thing going on, and then he loses at the biggest show of the year? Eric Young would win the title two months later. For the life of me I do not get the booking idea here. Do we really need to have the evil foreigner keep the belt here? I mean dude….REALLY?

Foley is with JB, telling his some story about the Cell match. And here are Saed and Kong to see Cornette. Apparently Foley is in charge. The Rock is referenced somehow and this is kind of pointless. Foley suggests a visit from Yerple The Clown, who he calls. I love Foley.

We recap the Knockouts Title match, of which there isn’t much of a story at all. There are two challengers for Taylor Wilde and that’s it.

Knockouts Title: Taylor Wilde vs. Awesome Kong vs. Roxxi

Roxxi is in these ugly red plad pants. She would get much better looking with a bit more hair and as a blonde. She and Taylor take out Kong and then go at it themselves. A rollup on Kong gets two for Taylor but Roxxi saves. She then gets her head knocked off by Kong. This isn’t much here but they’re moving out there. These Press off the top gets two for Roxxi.

Kong gets a cross body on Roxxi and gets crushed. Implant Buster gets two as Taylor makes the save. Both small girls are down and Kong goes up top. Taylor kicks her off and after a brief scuffle a German suplex gets the pin to retain for Taylor.

Rating: D. Total Impact match here with like five minutes of stuff here and nothing of note. Taylor should have probably defended one on one with Kong here but that’s neither here nor there I guess. The Beautiful People would rise up as the new contenders soon enough but this wasn’t much at all. Weak match.

AJ comes in to talk to Foley and welcomes him. The Dudleys come in and run down AJ for no apparent reason other than they’re jerks. There are a bunch of masks on the wall for some reason. Bubba is in Foley’s flannel shirt so he gets jokes from Foley. And of course we get ECW and WWE references. Foley gets on them for constantly talking about winning 20 tag titles. Cornette gets back and says nothing of note.

Tag Titles: Matt Morgan/Abyss vs. Beer Money vs. Team 3D vs. LAX

This is Monster’s Ball and Beer Money have the belts. Steve McMichael of all people is the guest referee. He looks OLD too. The intros here are freaking ridiculous. Basically this is a four way street fight/hardcore match but I’m not sure if the pins have to be in the ring or not. WAY too many people in the ring here.

You know at this point, is Mongo the most successful singles wrestler in there? Ah that’s right Abyss is a former world champion. Not that we’re ever told that anymore or anything though. Bunch of high spots including a tope con hilo from Homicide. We break out the weapons and its really nothing special at all. Homicide has a fork for no apparent reason and stabs D-Von’s head with it.

Abyss is on his anti-weapons thing here. Cheese grater comes out as I feel like I’m on Emeril or something. That doesn’t sound bad actually as I’m a bit hungry. Bubba suplexes Hernandez from the middle rope and the fans want tables. Blockbuster by Roode which makes me smile a bit. Total weapons thing starts up here as Mongo steals the tacks from Storm.

Mongo is FAT. We get a football sequence complete with helmet and football and Beer Money goes down of course. Morgan does a big dive to the floor to take out a bunch of people. This is such a huge mess. Johnny Devine comes out and pops Abyss with a kendo stick a few times. Table and lighter fluid are brought in on the stage. Abyss goes through it off a double chokeslam from the Dudleys.

Homicide in control now. I’ve never seen this ring genius or whatever that he’s supposed to be. Sweet goodness Mongo counts slow. Sit out powerbomb by Hernandez gets two. Elevated Gringo Cutter gets two due to Jackie getting the save. Apparently the Dudleys and Morgan have like died or something. Ah there’s Morgan. Border Toss to Morgan as Bubba brings in a table.

Supermex makes the save for Homicide though as this is probably getting close to the end. Mongo helps lay out the tacks on the table and Hernandez hits a 3D on the table on the tacks but Beer Money runs in to steal the pin.

Rating: B-. It certainly was violent, but it was just a big long weapons match. This is the longest match of the night, getting over twenty minutes. Mongo hurt this a lot as he counted so slowly that it appeared that he was shortchanging everyone with the cadence of his counts. This was pretty good but at the same time it was nothing we hadn’t seen before. Also having 8 guys out there was just too much. Still fun though.

Recap of Booker vs. Christian vs. AJ. This is about respect apparently and is more or less the groundwork for the rise of the Mafia.

Booker T vs. Christian Cage vs. AJ Styles

This is a three way WAR apparently. Booker and AJ start while Christian just kind of lets them. That’s rather smart. AJ takes care of this by setting for the forearm but in a perfect movement, backflips into a moonsault instead. If he hadn’t floated over Christian and more or less crashed it would have been even better. Booker vs. Christian now after a briefcase shot from Booker. On Impact he would reveal the Legends Title inside the case.

Booker misses a clothesline and kind of falls down, allowing Christian to hit/walk into a double clothesline. AJ pops up again and hits the springboard forearm to Booker. He gets to show off here with an insane move as he leapfrogs Booker and while in the air backflips over Christian so Christian and Booker collide. All Styles here as he’s just completely awesome at this point.

Axe kick misses and AJ gets a cross armbreaker of all things. I’ve never seen him use that before. Book End gets two. And now, we break dance. Christian hits the jumping elbow from the middle rope (called a forearm by the genius known as Tenay). AJ backflips out of a suplex and in one motion hits a Pele on Booker. He’s absolutely stealing the show here.

Tower of Doom is blocked but AJ misses Spiral Tap. Everyone is down and we go to the corner now off a slingshot. We set up another Tower of Doom spot but AJ fights out of it. He gets caught in a slightly modified Unprettier off the middle rope. Top rope axe kick ends Christian though as Booker gets the pin.

Rating: B-. AJ absolutely stole the show here, blowing everyone away with his insane spots and moving out there. The problem here again became that we had to have people lay around again and the triple man spots didn’t work that well. Still though they kept this moving well enough that it came off rather well. AJ again was the best thing here though.

We recap Jarrett vs. Angle. It’s more or less the same feud but Angle doesn’t like Foley being called a huge acquisition. Foley is the enforcer here which means he stands outside and does nothing of note until the very end.

Kurt is with Lauren (good night she’s gorgeous) and says this isn’t one on one.

Jeff breaks down in tears to talk about what he’s going through at the moment. There is WAY too much emphasis on his daughters here.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Kurt Angle

This is Jeff’s first match in two years and we’re told about his little girls every 9 seconds of course. Angle flips Foley off almost immediately. He’s on the floor for the majority of this match as he’s just an enforcer. Who he’s enforcing against or what he’s enforcing are anyone’s guess but that’s a constant question in wrestling. Big THANK YOU JEFF chant.

Feeling out process to start as Angle tries to embarrass Jeff. I think 2005 did that about as well as possible Kurt. Angle dominates on the mat of course which is what I think everyone expected. He hits a European Uppercut in the corner which is called a German by West because he’s a stupid man. Jarrett hits a pescado to take Angle down on the floor.

Spending a lot of time on the mat here which is probably an attempt to balance out the lack of cardio that Jeff likely has. We get some dueling chants as Jeff fights out of a chinlock. Someone needs to win with one of those once just for the pure shock value of it. Angle’s shoulder hits the post and Jarrett is too spent to do anything about it.

Jarrett starts a comeback but can’t finish him. He goes for a middle rope suplex but Angle blocks and tries a belly to belly to the floor. Since that would more or less kill Jarrett, Angle gets a top rope suplex instead. A nice counter sets up the figure four and Angle is in trouble. Foley has done absolutely nothing in the nearly fifteen minutes we’ve been going so far.

Rolling Germans have Jarret in trouble. Ankle Lock is on and Jeff is about to tap. Angle Slam gets two and a moonsault misses. According to Tenay the figure four is the reason the moonsault missed. I’m pretty sure it was actually Jeff rolling out of the way but what do I know? Stroke gets two but the referee is out so Foley counts two.

Kurt goes to get a chair and Foley says no way. Yes let’s tell one of the most intense men in the history of the sport that hates your guts not to use a chair he has in his hands. Foley gets his skull caved in for the 150th time which he should get a set of steak knives for I think. Chair to Jarrett gets two as Foley stops it. Socko to Kurt and a guitar shot ends it with Foley making the count.

Rating: B. Solid for the most part here and considering that it was Jeff’s first match in so long, this was pretty good. Foley didn’t need to be there like at all but it fit in with the story so I can live with that. Tenay SHOUTS at Jeff’s kids in Nashville that they all love them and this was for you. WOW yeah that wasn’t overkill at all Mikey.

Recap of Sting vs. Joe which is about Sting being the old guard and Joe not respecting him. Announcer: Sting paved the way for men like Joe. Sting: I paved the way for you Joe! This was actually well set up for the Mafia angle.

We get a video about Sting as he’s on the way to the ring. The tale of the tape thing listed him as 6’3 and this lists him as 6’2. Little things like those are what makes us say TNA is a stupid looking company. I know it’s not a big deal, but it’s something that shouldn’t have been screwed up. It makes them look sloppy which is not good at all.

Video on Joe says nothing of note. He’s the heel by default here.

TNA World Title: Sting vs. Samoa Joe

We get their weights for the third time in four minutes in the big match intros. Also I love that JB says standing in the corner to my left when he’s pacing from corner to corner. Joe is ready to go. Joe puts him on the floor seconds into this with a backdrop. Suicide dive with the elbow and Sting is in trouble early.

We’re out into the crowd and it’s more or less even. They go up near the top of the arena as it’s nothing but punches and chops so far. Joe gets a running start from a luxury box and jumps over the guard rail with a dropkick and crashes on the stairs. That was very awesome. The fat apparently kept his back safe though as we head back to the ring. No rematches no matter what apparently either.

They’ve been in the stands for like four minutes out of the six this has been going on. They were in the ring about 5 seconds literally. Sting with a cross body off the hockey boards to take Joe out which was cool looking too. Joe is bleeding from the nose and it might be broken. Sting gets the little Stingers crotched on the boards and an Ole Kick puts him down. You don’t kick a guy when his balls are in need of repair! It’s got to be illegal in some way.

FINALLY we go back to the ring and, get ready for it, WE GO INSIDE IT! This has been going like 8 minutes and we’ve been in the ring all of 15 seconds. Not a fan of that style more often than not. The fans are behind Joe now as I guess the TNA crowd thing is like a virus. Muscle Buster is blocked by a freaking jumping tornado DDT out of the corner and a Frog Splash for Sting gets two. I haven’t seen him use that in YEARS.

Joe gets a powerbomb into an STF as they’re moving very fast out there. Off into a crossface as he channels his inner Benoit. Ok make that the Rings of Saturn. This is like something out of a video game. Sting steals the Muscle Buster which Joe no sells completely. Wait why? It’s not like it’s a move you can learn the block for. You get dropped on your head which isn’t something you pop up from.

Sting matches the idiocy by popping up after a Scorpion Death Drop. See, it’s not like they even got covers. Both guys were up before the other one. If either of those moves end the match then the grade is dropping BIG time. You don’t no sell getting dropped on your freaking head! Joe getting booed a bit now as this really is a split crowd.

Joe has a thing going on at this point where he would win by TKO or knockout since he would beat the people and the referee would count them out which is how he beat Booker at Victory Road. He gets to 8 here on Sting but keeps pounding on him. And here’s Kevin Nash. Well of course he’s here. It’s a major match so we have to have more old people in it.

Sting goes for the bat but Nash steals it from him. He had been the mentor to Joe for like ever so it fits to have him out there. Again though, just because it fits doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea. Referee jumps out of the way of Sting so Nash pops him with the bat. Scorpion Death Drop ends this.

Rating: C. Not bad here but it didn’t really feel like a mega match. It was barely discussed all night which kind of made it feel less important. There was far more emphasis on the Jarrett/Angle match which I think is something I complained about when I watched this live. Sting winning set up the Mafia angle even more so for once this was a good idea. TNA tends to like setting up groups after their big PPV and this is no exception. Decent match.

Overall Rating: B-. This show was ok. It’s nothing great but there was nothing too terribly bad. It’s not a classic and it didn’t really feel like the biggest show of the year, but there’s enough stuff here to make it better than average. The Angle/Jarrett match was built up too highly I think and it overshadowed the main event, but then again it’s a better match. This worked and it set the stage for the Mafia’s dominance so yeah I’d think this was good for a major show.

 

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Bound For Glory 2007
Date: October 14, 2007
Location: Gwinnett Center, Duluth, Georgia
Attendance: 4,000
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Don West

Well doing more BFG isn’t intentional but it’s better than no show. TNA shows are rather hard to find so this is all I’ve got at the moment. Again it’s the biggest show of the year and in this case the main event is Sting vs. Angle. Anyone else noticing a pattern of these shows? There’s a weak Monster’s Ball match and the rest looks completely unspectacular if there has ever been an unspectacular major show. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is just a generic thing about being the next immortal icon and they use Hogan’s name. I give up. Angle is defending tonight if I forgot to mention that. I know I did but it sounds a bit better than I didn’t feel like typing it. I’m filling in space here if you didn’t get that.

Triple X vs. LAX

Senshi (Low Ki/Kaval) and Elix Skipper representing Triple X here. This is Ultimate X and for the #1 contender spot. Think that’s enough Xs in this match? XXX goes for the X almost immediately but LAX (see what I mean?) makes the save and it’s a big brawl to start. These matches are hard to call for the most part as they’re pretty all over the place. With just four guys though it’s far easier to do.

It’s so weird seeing Kaval out there over three years ago like this. Homicide gets a chance to make a run but Senshi makes the save. Both teams are pretty much just beating each other up here to wear them down (wouldn’t that cancel the beating up part?) so they can go up (I guess that gives up the advantage again) and pull the X down (are you getting my boredom here?)

Homicide gets his signature tope con hilo to take out Senshi. Hernandez goes up and JUMPS halfway across the cables and almost gets there that way. That guy is freaking scary. A lot of near grabs for both teams here but LAX is clearly the more dominant team here. Skipper goes all the way up to the top of the structure and hits a MASSIVE cross body to Homicide in the ring.

In a cool looking spot, Skipper and Homicide both do the look up at the ceiling crawl and hit a double neckbreaker to bring the other guy down. That was a new one. I’m not a fan of that overhead shot. Granted that might be the constant camera cuts that TNA is obsessed with. In a painful and STUPID looking spot, Homicide is put in the Tree of Woe as Senshi does the Warrior’s Way onto him.

If you’re Homicide, WHY WOULD YOU SIT UP? You know his finisher is the double stomp so why would you give him the right positioning for it? Mike Tenay says we’re in the ATL. My head hurts again. Skipper stops Hernandez from diving over the ropes which would have been cool to see. Border Toss by Hernandez to send Skipper flying to the other two guys on the floor. Hernandez gets the X with ease just afterwards.

Rating: B-. Bunch of big spots in there which were nice and the match worked pretty well. Hernandez is shown off as the mega star of the team which makes sense as he’s by far the bigger deal. This was a pretty good match but as usual with these matches it would help to have them be for the titles rather than a shot at a later date at said titles. But Pacman Jones is a tag champion at this point so we can’t have that match. Such is TNA.

We see Angle and Karen getting here earlier separately and at different times. Nash gets here too.

Running down of the card wastes some time.

Christian cuts off Tomko and AJ to talk about not being in the Fight for the Right Tournament. He should be in it and due to Joe he isn’t. AJ is happy to be home. He’s an idiot here. Tomko is actually serious.

Fight For the Right Tournament Stage One: Reverse Battle Royal

Dang it. Ok so this one might just hold the record for most ridiculous TNA concept. This is the beginning of a HUGE #1 contenders tournament. The winner of this match is the #1 seed in said tournament, which he would wind up losing anyway, making this COMPLETELY POINTLESS.

Anyway there are 16 people in this and you start on the floor. The first eight to get into the ring make it to part two. When those eight are in there’s a battle royal. When there are two left in the ring, they have a one on one match and the winner is the #1 seed. The other seeds are determined in the order you were eliminated.

Somehow this is slightly less complicated than the previous year’s tournament where the winner of the battle royal advanced to the finals and 6 other guys had qualifying matches to set up a triple threat where the winner met the battle royal winner to get a title shot. And people wonder why this company is loathed by so many people.

ANYWAY, the 16 people are Jimmy Rave, Lance Hoyt (Vance Archer), Havok (Johnny Devine), Shark Boy, Petey Williams, Kaz, Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin, Sonjay Dutt, Kip James, BG James, James Storm, Eric Young, Robert Roode, Chris Harris and Junior Fatu (Rikishi, who was there like a week).

Fatu gets in first. This is so stupid. I know there are issues with getting ring time in this company but this is ridiculous. Kaz and Roode are in. Shelley is in fourth. Hoyt accidentally drops Young in and there’s Sabin. Hoyt goes in seventh and Storm just beats Harris in to give us the 8th guy. Let’s get this over with. Young puts Storm out seconds in, making him the #8 seed in the tournament. Naturally he would win his first round match as he had to do the least wrestling, making it easier on him. See what I mean by flaws in the system?

Young goes after Rikishi who was supposed to be a huge deal I guess. He chokeslams Roode and stacks up four people in the corner for the splash. Stinkface to Hoyt as this is boring. The Andre treatment takes care of him though. He would make the semi-finals of the tournament and then leave the company.

The Guns go nuts with an insane double submission on Roode and Young. They move Young’s legs so he has an Indian Deathlock on Roode before putting a crossface on Roode and an abdominal stretch on Young. It doesn’t accomplish anything but it looks awesome. Think of it as a Divas match.

Shelley is gone. Kaz hits his slingshot DDT on Sabin and then dumps him too. We’re down to Hoyt, Kaz, Roode and Young. Kaz is out as well. Hoyt like an idiot goes for a moonsault and gets thrown out because he’s a freaking idiot. The final two….ok make that three as Sabin is still in there I guess, are Sabin, Roode and Young. And scratch Sabin….who apparently is Sabin as they apparently misspoke earlier. I give up. Roode vs. Young is the final.

Roode is a power guy still here and isn’t in a tag team. The tournament sets up Sabin vs. Shelley which is of course good but means nothing compared to them in the X Title final years later. These two had been feuding and were stablemates years ago. And then Young rolls up Roode in a small package to end it. Young would lose to Storm in the first round and Kaz would beat Christian to win the tournament.

Rating: F+. This was perhaps the most overdone match in history. Seriously, is it that hard to have a battle royal to determine who the #1 contender is? Couldn’t they just have a tournament with a random draw? Apparently not as they decided to just combine them and throw in a one on one match too. This is what we mean by overbooking. You don’t have to do a big complicated thing when a simple thing would work fine and in this case much better. Stupid match and VERY stupid concept.

We recap AJ/Tomko vs. Team Pacman. In other words, a man that was banned from the NFL for being involved in a shooting that paralyzed a man is a tag team champion in TNA. To his credit he bought 1500 tickets to the show and gave them away as prizes to kids in Atlanta schools who got good grades and had good conduct.

Ron Killings, as in R-Truth, says that the NFL has stopped Pacman from wrestling so they have a replacement named Consequences Creed. Pacman talks like an idiot about going for a ride or something.

Karen and Kurt argue even more.

Tag Titles: Team Pacman vs. AJ Styles/Tomko

Keep in mind Team Pacman doesn’t actually have Pacman in this. Creed is the guy that dressed like Apollo Creed and is named for Truth and Consequences. AJ and Creed start us off here. Creed hits a forearm in the corner and that’s about all he’s got as far as interesting stuff goes. He’s cool to watch to a degree but at the end of the day he’s a guy dressed up like a fictional character with a stupid name.

Truth vs. Tomko now. Tomko is an IWGP tag champion at this point. Thanks for again informing us about things that have zero to do with TNA. Truth is doing the exact same stuff he does today in WWE. This is a rather boring match as it’s pretty clear that Pacman is losing here as he can’t wrestle so the appeal is gone. Granted that would imply it was there in the first place so take that for what it’s worth.

Everything breaks down and we get a big melee. AJ gets thrown into the corner and is down. Truth vs. Tomko at the moment. Pacman tries to get involved and is just annoying. Creed takes Tomko out but AJ hits a BIG shooting star to the floor and wipes out all the non whites in this thing. Pacman pulls out a bunch of money and throws it in the air so what when Truth gets a rollup Hebner picks up the money instead of counting. AJ and Tomko hit their double team finisher for the titles on Truth.

Rating: D. Just boring as all belief here with zero drama. Thankfully Pacman was gone after this as no one liked him and he made TNA look freaking stupid. This was just idiotic and such a waste of talent like AJ and even Truth just wasting him like this. Pacman was a waste of money and a total eye rolling moment who didn’t ever get to wrestle due to the NFL. At least this was the end of him for the most part.

Karen whines even more and says Angle keeps the title tonight because it’s the money. She goes up to Kevin who is hitting on some blonde. She tries to get Nash to talk to Kurt which doesn’t work. Oh and there’s the required Scott Hall reference.

We recap Daniels vs. Lethal where Lethal is defending. He’s Black Machismo here too.

X-Division Title: Jay Lethal vs. Christopher Daniels

Lethal won the title beating Angle who had all three titles including both tag belts and had three title matches at one PPV. You know, because he wanted to help the young guys. And now we talk about the Angles and Sting for later tonight. Nice slingshot rana by Lethal and a WEAK suicide dive hits Daniels on the floor. Their hands touched and that’s about it.

They’re having some weird issues with making contact with each other. They’re doing this very odd style here and not much is going on here. Lethal gets a crucifix for two. They’re just kind of doing moves out there with nothing special going on at all. Daniels can’t beat him and starts to snap which is an old standard for wrestling but it usually works and is here kind of.

Top rope rana by Daniels is shoved off. The big elbow misses too though and Daniels gets two off of the miss. They’re clearly almost at the end here and the fans think it’s awesome. No, it really isn’t. Lethal gets the Lethal Combination (backbreaker and Downward Spiral) off the top for the pin to retain. Cool ending to a weak match.

Rating: C-. This just didn’t do it for me at all. It was ok at best but it just came off as uneventful. I have never gotten the appeal of Daniels or his style whatsoever. They had this weird non chemistry going and it wasn’t working for me. Not a horrible match but at the same time it didn’t do much.

The Steiners talk about Team 3D. They’re actually doing this. Rick looks AWFUL.

The recap talks about how Scott got very sick and was literally on his deathbed in Puerto Rico but came back as a face. He can’t have a wrestling match so we get a 2/3 tables match.

Steiner Brothers vs. Team 3D

They point out that the Steiners now reside in Atlanta to HAMMER in the face push. Big brawl to start as you have to get two table put throughs out of three to win this. Well it’s better than a regular table match. I’m not sure how but it prevents winning on a fluke I guess. Rick thankfully is in a shirt as we get the Steiner pose. The Dudleys try to leave and that goes nowhere.

Beer to the face of D-Von as they’re in the crowd. Granted this isn’t so much a waste of time as you can go through a table anywhere. Big brawl in the stands where not a lot is going on as there are no tables in sight. Scott and Bubba are brawling as are the other pair. There’s the first table brought in but it’s not set up yet. We’re back around the ring now.

In the ring now and Rick goes through one on a 3D. Scott is on the floor and there aren’t any eliminations it seems which I like better. Scott fights out of a super bomb and hits a Frankensteiner where he does nothing and Bubba has to jump for the flip, hitting the back of his head on the edge, more or less breaking through the table with his neck. FREAKING OW MAN.

It’s tied up at one here as D-Von misses a splash. How was Steiner a world champion in WCW? I think you can count him as another example of a guy making money and getting as far as he did because WCW was in the place it was rather than his talent. Bubba whips Scott with a big leather belt as Rick has apparently disappeared.

Scott is put on a table and it just kind of collapses which doesn’t count as it’s not a guy being put through it which makes sense. Scott has his beard braided which looks very stupid. The Dudleys put him on another table and go for his injured throat. The Guns run down for the save. D-Von misses a chair shot and the Steiner Bulldog ends it.

Rating: D+. Well they were trying out there but it didn’t work that well. The two old teams going at it were supposed to comprise a dream match but it didn’t work. Why should I want to see either of these teams rather than the Guns who had a run in here? It’s more old guys that aren’t worth much doing their thing. That’s rarely a good thing and this was no exception. Having the 2/3 thing was a nice little twist though and it helped it a good deal.

We talk to the new Knockouts who were brought in for the first Knockouts Title match. There were five total: ODB, Talia Madison, Shelly Martinez and Angel Williams. Angel later added ina to her first name and Talia changed her name to Velvet Skye. The girls run away as Kong is behind JB and makes a scary face.

We get a weak recap which more or less is just a slideshow of the girls in the match.

Knockouts Title: Gauntlet Match

This is a ten girl match where you have a regular gauntlet but it’s over the top until we get to the final two. Yep we’re having two battle royals. Kong debuted at Impact so she’s brand new here. We start with Ms. Brooks and Jackie. Good night WHY DOES SHE ALWAYS STAY AROUND? No one cares about her at all and she was always there. Quit shaking your chest because NO ONE WANTS TO SEE THEM.

Brooks gets a big boot to the side of the head of the annoying one but gets caught in a German suplex. Shelly Martinez is in third. Oh…these girls can’t do much. Kong comes in fourth and it’s on. Kong takes like 40 seconds to get to the ring out of a minute.

ODB comes in fifth as Jackie puts out Brooks but Kong just goes off, getting rid of Jackie (GO KONG!) and Martinez. Angelina Love (Angel Williams at this point) has the music, the looks and the stage pose already as she’s 6th. Christy comes in and is still amazing looking Kong beats the tar out of her with a rack where Christy’s feet almost hit her head. A Batista Bomb hits as Gail Kim is eighth.

Everyone gangs up on Kong as the medics take out Christy to eliminate her for the most part. The three in the ring get rid of Kong whose shirt flies up as Talia Madison (Velvet Skye) is ninth. Roxxi who is a voodoo chick with hair at this point is last. Love apparently went out off camera so we have four left: Roxxi, ODB, Gail and Velvet.

Gail puts out Velvet as we get a GREAT shot of her. ODB is out also and we have our one on one match. Gail gets an insane looking submission hold on Roxxi which was like a sideways Octopus Hold. Gail looks sexy in those shorts to put it mildly. They really make her look good. Roxxi botches a jackknife pin for two. Gail hits Finlay’s Celtic Cross to end it and win the title.

Rating: C-. Again, is there a reason to mix things up like they did here that I’m just not getting? Why not have an actual tournament rather than this weird hybrid thing? It wasn’t bad I guess but at the same time this just didn’t work like they wanted it to. This could have been a lot better as a simple one on one match but this just didn’t do it for me like they wanted it to. Not horrible though.

Nash tries to talk to Angle who is just getting ready with about 45 minutes before the match starts. Great to see him preparing like that. Nash can’t get him to drop the match and he won’t have his back tonight. Again more old guys talking about stuff that doesn’t make sense.

We recap Joe vs. Christian which is about respect apparently. And naturally we have something thrown in there as Matt Morgan is the guest referee.

Christian Cage vs. Samoa Joe

Morgan is the bodyguard of Cornette so that’s why he’s here. Not sure if that makes sense but whatever. Christian is a heel here if you’re wondering and has never been pinned or tapped in the company. Joe gets the big Samoan entrance with the fire dancing as he had on occasion. Long feeling out process to start us off as Christian plays the cowardly heel perfectly.

Finally Joe gets his in the corner and gets a lot of Face Washes but misses the running boot. He hits what we would call the Rough Ryder off the middle rope for two. All Joe so far. Joe chops him on the back which is something you don’t often see. Christian appears to be out cold on the apron. Joe is like screw it and hits a big old suicide dive to almost end Christian. ALL Joe for the first five minutes.

Morgan of course has had nothing to say so far. Joe kicks Christian into the barrier which more or less explodes as Christian FINALLY gets a counter to hit a DDT onto the floor and Joe is in trouble. He fights out of everything but still winds up on his back. Christian misses the splash and they slug it out. I think they’re going for the epic encounter here but it’s really not clicking like they want it to.

Morgan won’t let Christian leave so Joe again is like forget this and hits the flying fat man spinning corkscrew plancha to crush Christian. THIS is the Joe that was the hottest thing in the world when Kurt showed up to challenge him. Clutch and Unprettier are both reversed and Joe gets a Buckle Bomb. Christian gets a powerbomb out of the corner with feet on the ropes for two. This is rapidly getting awesome.

Clutch is countered again and we head up to the corner. A headbutt sends Christian to the floor and Joe is down in the ring. And here’s Tomko because we have to overbook this. Tomko goes at it with Morgan so AJ can sneak down. He goes for the forearm but Morgan makes the save. Morgan chases both of them off with a chair but Christian gets a low blow and the Unprettier for two.

Christian hooks on the Clutch but it only gets two arm drops and here comes the fat man. Muscle Buster hits and there’s the Clutch from the master of it and Christian taps for his first clean loss in the company.

Rating: B+. I really liked this as it was a rather competitive match. Both guys were out there working hard and this looked like a match that belonged on the biggest show of the year. I really liked the lack of actual interference as it tends to taint a match like this. This came off very well and it came off like a major match should. Good match.

And now let’s make sure to forget about the two guys that just had the match of the night to talk about Nash and Sting more. Why is Nash getting like four segments here when he’s not even wrestling tonight? He talks to Sting whose son Angle pushed or something. Nash says Angle is all he has and that’s all he can do to get back to the spotlight as he’s too banged up. This is idiotic.

We have to have the Monster’s Ball recap now because it’s a tradition here. I’m REALLY not a fan of having this here now as it’s such a letdown after seeing a very good match like we just did. Don’t believe me that it’ll be weak? Look at the lineup.

Raven vs. Rhyno vs. Black Reign vs. Abyss

Yeah it’s just a bit hardcore match in between the two big wrestling matches. Don’t you love the way this company books things? It just sounds like a stupid match. We get going before Abyss is here and scratch that as he’s here now. Raven takes down Abyss and here come more of the weapons. Rhyno puts a trash can between Reign’s legs and hits it with a golf club.

This match really is taking me out of the show as all of a sudden the match comes off as uninteresting and totally unimportant. Granted it might feel like that because that’s the situation. Rhyno misses a Gore and goes through some kind of wall and Rhyno is in trouble. Raven is busted open and drops a big elbow off the balcony onto Abyss to put him through a table.

Basically it’s down to Reign and Abyss who is more or less dead. Ok scratch that as Raven is back. Shattered Dreams to Raven and they cut away from the impact. Abyss brings in the tacks/glass but Goldie blocks him. Rhyno is back in now as almost everyone is busted open. Gore to Reign but Raven knocks out everyone with weapon shots.

Raven busts out the bag of stuff and here’s James Mitchell to yell at Raven. There are the glass and the tacks and of course since Raven laid them out he winds up going into them, this time through the means of the Black Hole Slam. And now the match is over. I still don’t care at all.

Rating: D. It came, it happened, you know what to expect here, Abyss gains nothing and the other three still mean nothing. Take us to the main event to get me back into this show now.

We talk about how both have history in Atlanta. Sting it’s more from a company based in Atlanta but whatever. This is nothing special but it gives a theme to stuff though. No mention of the son though.

TNA World Title: Sting vs. Kurt Angle

I guess Nash couldn’t make it to the match. What do you mean he was never in this? He’s gotten more camera time than anyone else tonight so how can he not be in the match? Angle is defending remember. Not that it means anything for the most part but figured it needed to be pointed out. Bit match intros are still fun no matter how many times we’ve heard them.

Big heat on Angle so he’s got that going for him at least. They feel each other out to start. One time they need to feel each other up to start just for a change of pace. They trade arm work and Sting keeps offering clean breaks. Sting outwrestles him a bit and Angle hits the floor to clear his head. His hip might be a bit hurt. Lot of feeling out process here so far with no one really getting an advantage at all.

They hit the floor and Angle’s bald head hits the table. Angle’s shoulder hits the post but he manages to get a German to get out of the Death Drop. Another belly to belly puts Sting down. Double clothesline puts both guys down though and we wait for Nash. Sting wins a striking contest as they crank it up again. Sting hits a spinebuster (???) for two.

A pair of splashes hit and a bulldog puts Angle down. Sting, ever the idiot, doesn’t go for a finisher but rather goes up top against Kurt Angle. After he comes crashing down Angle gets the Slam countered and we hit the Rolling Germans for two. Ankle lock goes on but Sting gets a Bret Hart caliber counter to hook the Scorpion. That was AWESOME looking.

And here’s Karen to screw things up because we have to have more people in the main event than usual. Nash comes in and lays out Sting as Karen is taken out. Angle Slam hits for two as the Nash/Karen thing proves to be relatively pointless. A top rope Sting splash misses as Angle gets the knees up for two.

Kurt goes up and busts out a 450! He completely misses Sting as in his toes didn’t even hit Sting but who cares about that as it looked COOL! Ankle Lock goes on but Sting rolls him into Nash. And down goes the referee as Sting hits the Death Drop. Why do they have to overbook it???

Another referee comes out and Nash breaks it up again. Dang it go away! He comes in and beats up Sting so Sting beats up both of those two. Angle gets the bat but Sting hits him with it instead and crotches Nash. Death Drop FINALLY ends this. And then he lost the title back to Angle TWO DAYS later and Angle held it until April when Joe won it. Yep that’s TNA for you.

Rating: C+. This was good but definitely not great. The Nash and Karen stuff was just a waste of time. What did Nash add to this match at all? The overbooking hurt what was otherwise a good match. Sting winning to end Angle’s very long reign was the right choice, although having him lose it the Impact after the followup show was stupid. Although then again this is TNA. Decent match though but not great at all.

Overall Rating: D+. Well it’s not horrible. That’s about as high as I can give it though as there were parts on here that were just bad. The biggest issue I have here: there were FIVE gimmick matches out of nine total and you could argue that Joe vs. Christian was one as well given the enforcer. That’s just WAY too high and is bordering on a WWE gimmick PPV. There were good moments here but they’re outweighed by the bad which drags this down. Not the worst show ever but not a great one at all.

 

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Monday Night Raw
Date: October 14, 2013
Location: Scottrade Center, St. Louis, Missouri
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, John Bradshaw Layfield

The main story coming out of last week is Big Show knocking out HHH to end the show but not seeming all that upset at the prospect of losing his job or his house. Other than that we’re still without a WWE Champion because having no one hold it for two and a half months is fine. Shawn Michaels is scheduled for the show tonight so let’s get to it.

We open with Shawn Michaels with something to say. He thanks for everyone that voted for him last week to be the guest referee. It’s nice that not everyone forgot about old H-B-Shizzle (again his words, not mine). He’s made it well known that he has a history with both guys in the title match since he trained Daniel Bryan and has always liked him but never liked Randy Orton.

Shawn talks about being in the first HIAC match in this very building and that it made him glad he’s retired. What happened at Battleground and Night of Champions was a crock and it will not happen again. Shawn guarantees us a new WWE Champion which draws out hometown boy Orton.

Randy promises to make this sweet because he has a match up next. Orton was born and raised right here in St. Louis so he knows the people here better than Shawn. They’re not that bright but Orton can see right through Shawn. As great as Shawn was, Orton is just that much better and it eats Shawn up inside. Shawn: “Oh snap were you talking? I wasn’t even listening.”

Orton needs to leave Shawn alone and worry about Bryan, but Orton promises to hurt Daniel inside the Cell. Randy threatens Shawn if he tries to screw Orton over but Shawn threatens him with some Sweet Chin Music. Both guys try their finishers and Orton bails to the floor, only to be jumped by Miz, his opponent tonight. The match is after the break.

Randy Orton vs. The Miz

Back from a break with Miz firing off knees to the ribs but getting sent into the corner for a clothesline. Miz comes back with a clothesline of his own to send Randy to the floor but his baseball slide misses, allowing Orton to hit yet another clothesline. Miz is sent into the steps and back inside we get the Orton stomp for two. Off to a chinlock for a few seconds before Miz is sent over the top and out to the floor.

Randy can’t get the Elevated DDT though as Miz shoves him into the post before heading back inside. Some shots to the head have Randy in trouble and there’s the corner clothesline into the top rope ax handle. Orton rolls out of the Finale but tries the Figure Four….and here are the Wyatts. The distraction lets Orton snap off an RKO for the pin at 5:20.

Rating: D+. Lesson #1 in how to win a match: NEVER look to the stage. If there has been a more over used finish in the span of a few months it eludes me completely. That finish has to be done at least once a year. Other than that and clothesline abundance aside, this wasn’t too horrible with Miz having a bit of a fire to him.

Bray says that Miz is everything that he hates about this world. All of the glitz and glamor and red carpet and all that good stuff. Bray talks about us being stuck in the spider web of this moment and promises to take Miz down.

Fandango vs. Santino Marella

Naturally we start with a quick dance off before Fandango takes him down into a chinlock. A suplex sets up more dancing but Santino avoids something off the top. A jawbreaker of some sort puts Fandango down and Santino comes back with the usual. He loads up the Cobra but has to stop before almost hitting Summer Rae, allowing Fandango to roll him up for the pin at 2:30.

Paul Heyman asks Brad Maddox for more in the Ryback vs. Punk match. He says that Punk has made Maddox look ridiculous in this build up and thinks Punk should be punished. Heyman suggests Punk vs. Ryback/Axel in a handicap match but Maddox doesn’t think that’s very fair. Brad goes with a Beat the Clock challenge instead. Tonight it’s Ryback vs. Truth and Punk vs. Axel with the winner (either Heyman or Punk) getting to pick the stipulation for the PPV.

NXT wrestler Xavier Woods has started a petition to bring back Big Show. JBL spends the next fifteen seconds talking over Cole and ranting about how stupid a name Xavier Woods is and how Big Show should be fired.

Video on John Cena making a comeback.

Los Matadores vs. 3MB

It’s Slater/McIntyre here, in case you didn’t get the idea the first three times. Diego runs over McIntyre to start and hits a nice flying headscissors to send him out to the floor. Slater of course chases after the bull before taking over on Fernando back inside. The Band pounds away for a bit before allowing the hot tag off to Diego. The double Angle Slam is enough to take out Slater at 4:03.

Rating: D. I am so over these guys already and they’ve only been here two weeks. Have they even fought anyone other than 3MB in that span? Oh wait they beat Los Locales, meaning only four of their five matches have been with 3MB. I can’t picture these guys lasting much longer.

Post match Mahal takes the double finisher and Torito adds a springboard seated senton for good measure.

We recap Big Show’s antics last week.

Here are HHH and Stephanie for their big interview of the week. Stephanie talks about making a mistake but gets cut off by a YOU GOT KNOCKED OUT chant. She talks about bailing Big Show out one time too many and then he got fired. This was the last time too because Show is out of a job and they’re selling his house and pushing criminal charges.

As for HHH, he’s nowhere near as bad as the reports say. HHH is the Game ad you don’t get those names without earning them. HHH says he’s been the boss for two years now and did all that for the fans. He’s been trying to ensure that the WWE is here for years to come and knows what kind of punishment that brings. He talks about being pushed beyond his breaking point last week when he got knocked out and a Goat Face stood over him while the people chanted YES. That brings us to now and HHH is willing to be the bad guy. He’ll be that guy, but he’s going to do things that we’ve never seen before.

The fans chant YES even more and here’s Daniel Bryan to answer the call. Before he can say anything though, Alberto Del Rio jumps him from behind and knocks Bryan down the ramp. The low superkick keeps Bryan down and the McMahons make the obvious match of Del Rio vs. Bryan for later tonight.

Ryback vs. R-Truth

Beat the Clock match here so Truth immed heads to the floor. The chase is quickly on until Truth gets in some shots back inside. Truth gets a few near falls but Ryback finally slows him down and gets two off a clothesline. Ryback gets two off a backbreaker but continues o take his sweet time. We’re at four and a half minutes now and neither guy seems interested in finishing this up in a hurry. Truth pounds him down again and gets two off a missile dropkick. Not that it matters though as Ryback fights up and Shell Shocks Punk for the pin at 5:44.

Rating: D. This was an angle instead of a match which is fine, but it doesn’t make the match anything interesting. Odds are Punk wins the other match and sets the time so that he can get Heyman alone inside the Cell to finally finish this off, but that might be too simple for the writers on this show.

Stephanie runs into the Bellas in the back and gives Brie a wedding present: a match with someone to be named with AJ in the opponent’s corner.

Video on WWE 2K14.

Tons of Funk vs. Real Americans

Cesaro starts with Brodus and a slam puts Antonio down. Off to Tensai to run over Cesaro even more and drop an elbow on him for no cover. A nice monkey flip out of the corner puts Cesaro down but Swagger comes in with a chop block. We hit the chinlock for a bit on Tensai as the match slows way down all of a sudden. Tensai is taken to the corner for the Vader Bomb/double stomp combo for two before we’re right back into the chinlock.

The Americans takes turns on Tensai’s arm until Cesaro hits a great looking gutwrench suplex for two. That man is just scary strong. Tensai finally gets free for the tag off to Brodus but the fans don’t seem all that impressed. Brodus busts out a t-bone suplex of all things for two on Cesaro but Swagger makes the save. Cesaro is back in though and it’s the Neutalizer for the pin on Brodus at 5:30.

Rating: D+. The night of bad matches continue but the Cesaro stuff looked good for the most part. I have no idea why Swagger has to drag this team down so much and he’s trippling Cesaro by mere association at this point. Not much to this one but I’ve seen far worse before.

Post match Cesaro swings Tensai.

Breast cancer still sucks.

Tamina Snuka vs. Brie Bella

Nikki isn’t allowed at ringside but Tamina as AJ with her. Brie is all aggressive tonight and knocks AJ around before taking it out to the floor. Tamina gets in a shot to the ribs and takes it back inside for some shots to the ribs, only to be countered into something like AJ Styles’ Calf Killer.. Ropes are quickly grabbed and Tamina kicks her in the ribs to put Brie down again. We hit the chinlock for a bit before Brie is casually slammed down to the at. Back up and Brie gets up a boot in the corner and an off missile dropkick puts Tamina down. Brie picks up a bit but walks into a big boot out of nowhere for the pin at 4:36.

Rating: C-. For a Divas match this actually wasn’t half bad. Brie is still not a likeable person but she’s getting better in the ring and the little pink outfits don’t hurt anything either. I’m not sure I get the point in having her lose clean like this but maybe it means Brie leaves the title scene.

The beating continues post match with Tamina hitting a Superfly Splash and AJ hooking the Widow’s Peak.

Bryan goes to yell at Stephanie but she tell him to go look after his fiance.

Curtis Axel vs. CM Punk

Punk has to win in under 5:44. Punk quickly starts going for falls by elbowing Axel in the face and going for the cover. Axel comes back with shots to the head but gets caught by a cross body for two. We have under 3:30 to go and Axel puts on a front facelock. Punk comes back with his usual including the knee in the corner but the GTS is countered into a bad looking McGillicutter. Axel starts speeding things up as well, not seeming to realize that he doesn’t need to beat the clock. Punk gets a quick rollup for two with thirty seconds left before the high kick and the GTS connect for the pin at 5:33, meaning Punk gets to pick.

Rating: C+. This worked due to how fast it was but did we really need to have Punk beat the Intercontinental Champion clean in less than six minutes? The story had to go this way but there were other ways they could go to this point. Either way, it sets up the blowoff for the Punk vs. Heyman feud which probably needs to be wrapped up.

Post match Punk makes it Ryback/Heyman vs. Punk inside the Cell.

Daniel Bryan vs. Alberto Del Rio

Non-title of course. Daniel is aggressive to start but gets caught in a quick suplex and chinlock less than two minutes into the match. Bryan suplexes out of it and fires off the kicks, only to get caught in a Backstabber for two. Del Rio avoids a running dropkick in the corner and stomps away as we take a break. Back with Bryan missing the headbutt but almost getting the YES Lock, only to have Del Rio make the ropes. Del Rio comes back with a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker for two as he’s bleeding from the lip a bit.

Bryan explodes out of the corner with a clothesline but Del Rio hits a Codebreaker on the arm for two. A middle rope dropkick gets two for Del Rio and he avoids a charge, sending Bryan shoulder first into the post. The corner enziguri misses though and both guys are down. Bryan fires off the kicks to the chest and the running dropkick in the corner followed by the top rope hurricanrana for two.

Del Rio is kicked to the floor and hit by the FLYING GOAT. Back inside and the missile dropkick has Del Rio in trouble but here’s Orton on the big screen. He apologizes for what happened to Brie earlier but says he’ll go check on her. Orton goes into the trainer’s room and Brie can be heard screaming after the door shuts. Bryan gets rolled up for two but kicks Del Rio in the head and runs to the back for the countout at 16:29.

Rating: C+. The match was ok but this show is so far beyond saving at this point that it doesn’t matter. At least they didn’t do the same distraction leads to a pin sequence and they didn’t job the champion again. This Orton vs. Bryan feud is just not working though and I think everyone knows it.

Bryan runs into the trainer’s room and gets jumped as you would expect.

HHH and Stephanie make the main event No DQ.

Another video on Cena.

Tag Titles: Shield vs. Goldust/Cody Rhodes

No DQ here. The challengers take over to start and work over Rollins with Cody getting two off a dropkick. Reigns interferes with an elbow to Cody’s jaw and the champions take over. Roman stomps Cody down to the floor for two before bringing Rollins back in for some right hands to the head. We hit the armbar for a few moments before Cody comes back with an attempted Alabama Slam out of the corner. Rollins slides down the back but Cody dives into a tag off to Goldust.

Goldie can’t hit Shattered Dreams but settles for a bulldog out of the corner for two on Rollins. Seth ducks something like a cross body to send Goldust to the floor and us to a break. Back with Rollins cranking on the arm even more as Cody plays cheerleader on the apron. A backslide gets two for Goldust but Seth clotheslines him back down. Back to Reigns for a chinlock but Goldust fights up and comes out of the corner with a back elbow. Rollins breaks up the hot tag but dives into a powerslam to put both guys down.

Ambrose’s interference doesn’t stop Cody and the younger brother cleans house. Reigns is sent into the post but Cody only gets two. The moonsault press gets the same and a Disaster Kick knocks Dean out to the floor. A springboard missile dropkick puts Rollins down again but Reigns makes the save. Ambrose comes in to break up Cross Rhodes and the numbers catch up with the challengers.

They load up the TripleBomb but Goldust comes in with a chair for the save. He can’t keep Reigns down though and Roman gets the chair. A big chair shot misses and Goldust scores with a cross body, crushing the chair against Reigns’ chest. Cody tries a Disaster Kick off the steps but gets caught in a running powerbomb against the barricade. Goldust hits atomic drops on the tag champions and a Cactus Clothesline puts Goldust and Reigns on the floor but here’s Ambrose to jump the painted one.

The fans correctly say that this is awesome right before Reigns DESTROYS Goldust with a spear through the barricade. That looked AWESOME. Dean throws Cody and Reigns back into the ring but here’s Big Show through the crowd. Shield grabs chairs but Show cleans house anyway until only Reigns is left standing. Cody kicks Roman into the KO punch and Cody gets the pin and the titles at 19:15.

Rating: A-. Well that helped. This felt like Mankind beating the Rock for the title back in January of 1999 which is about as high of a compliment as I can give a match. This is the kind of moment that this story has been dying for since it started and just like the match at Battleground, it was built up through emotion and it worked like a charm. Great match.

Overall Rating: D+. This was one of the most boring episodes of Raw I can remember in a very long time. There are multiple problems to this whole cycle but first and foremost is that we already got the build up to these matches when we were getting ready for Battleground. The only changes to the title picture are that the match is inside the Cell and Brie Bella, which don’t make up for how uninteresting it is.

On top of that, the three hour issue is rearing its ugly head again. Look at some of the matches tonight like Santino vs. Fandango and the first two tag matches. They’re clearly just there to fill in time on the show and serve absolutely no other purpose. That’s not interesting TV, especially when the matches aren’t even that good. This was the fourth time we’ve seen 3MB vs. Los Matadores in two weeks. That’s how lazy the writing team has gotten, so why should I care about the matches either? Horribly dull show tonight, though the main event did help things a lot.

Results

Randy Orton b. The Miz – RKO

Fandango b. Santino Marella – Rollup

Los Matadores b. 3MB – Double Angle Slam to Slater

Ryback b. R-Truth – Shell Shock

Real Americans b. Tons of Funk – Neutralizer to Tensai

Tamina Snuka b. Brie Bella – Big Boot

CM Punk b. Curtis Axel – GTS

Alberto Del Rio b. Daniel Bryan via countout

Cody Rhodes/Goldust b. Shield – Cody pinned Reigns after a KO Punch from Big Show

 

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ECW on TNN
Date: March 17, 2000
Location: Asbury Park Convention Center, Asbury Park, New Jersey
Attendance: 2,300
Commentators: Joel Gertner, Joey Styles

It’s the show after Living Dangerously and a few things have changed. First and foremost, Super Crazy of all people won the TV Title, beating Rhyno in the finals. We also have new tag team champions with the Impact Players getting the belts back, putting us right back where we were before the fast title changes happened. The next PPV isn’t until May so we’ve got time to build to the next bad show. Let’s get to it.

We open with a brawl from some undetermined show with the Impact Players beating Nova and Chris Chetti to retain the titles. We only saw the last 75 seconds or so.

Opening sequence, but instead of the usual stuff we get a recap of the PPV.

RVD and Super Crazy are in the back with Rob saying Crazy is nice for carrying his belt. Crazy should get all the perks: limousine rides, champagne, green cards, all that good stuff. Just remember that Rob is coming back to get his title back.

Angel vs. Sandman

After about four minutes of intros and a break we have all of Da Baldies laying out Sandman so Angel can talk trash while beating on him. A cane shots from Skull gets two for Angel but Sandman throws him out to the floor. Sandman beats all of Da Baldies down and heads to the back for a piece of guardrail.

Angel gets crushed and we head back inside for more left hands from Sandman. The rail is set up in the corner but Angel comes back with more right hands, only to be sent into the rail in the corner. Sandman gets crotched on the rail but Vito accidentally hits Angel with the cane. Sandy pounds away on all of them and pins Angle after breaking the cane over his head.

Rating: D-. This was your usual ECW hardcore mess. The match wasn’t any good and to even call it a match is a big stretch. Sandman was popular though so the fans were into him which is the right idea. It doesn’t do New Jack any favors though as he’s fought Da Baldies for months now with no success.

Cyrus is sitting next to Rhyno and says this started as business but has become personal. He wants to kill off the ECW phenomenon and Rhyno says no one is safe.

Joel implies Cyrus and Rhyno are lovers.

Steve Corino is in the ring with Jack Victory and wants to know when he got heat with the office. He just wanted to be on TV once in awhile and doesn’t want his match tonight.

Steve Corino vs. New Jack

New Jack’s song begins and the beating is quickly on. This is one of those “matches” which involves nothing but weapons shots because New Jack doesn’t seem to know how to wrestle. Joel: “He’s beating Corino like a lapdancing midget at a funeral.” Joey: “What he said.” A guitar shot puts Corino down and draws in Jack Victory to try to save his buddy.

They head to the floor with New Jack taking over as they head towards the balcony. We take a break and come back with Victory strapped to a table as New Jack dives from the balcony to destroy everyone in sight. Back in and Rhyno runs in to Gore New Jack, giving Steve the pin.

Rating: N/A. Considering this was a four minute “match” which was mostly spent on a big balcony dive before someone not even involved in the match caused the end, what kind of a rating do you think I’m going to give it? I can’t stand New Jack as he’s completely against what wrestling is supposed to be. When you make Sandman look like a skilled grappler, something isn’t right.

Spike Dudley is out 9 months for knee surgery.

House show ads.

Raven talks about having his woman taken from him and tells Tommy to pretend life is a game of cards. The cards are finely blown glass and as they build trust, they turn over more and more cards. Then one day the cards are swept away and shattered, leaving both guys wanting the cards intact again. Didn’t they just want to play a game? The camera pan up to show Francine dressed like Raven and doing his pose and catchphrase.

ECW World Title: Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka

Awesome is defending. The referee does a weapons check but as soon as the bell rings Judge Jeff Jones throws in a chair. Tanaka grabs one of his own and we get the dueling chair spots until they cave each others’ heads in with chair shots. Tanaka hits a running forearm in the corner and a dropkick sends Awesome to the floor. Mike gets a boot up to knock a chair into Tanaka’s face and drops him ribs first over the barricade as we take a break.

Back with Tanaka dropping Awesome with a tornado DDT and getting two off a missile dropkick. Awesome grabs a quick chokebomb for a near fall of his own and a Batista Bomb gets the same. The Awesome Splash gets the third straight two count and it’s table time. Surprisingly enough Tanaka is put through it with no reversal before being rammed into the corner for two again.

Here’s another table because just one isn’t a title match in ECW. Tanaka breaks up an Awesome Splash through the table and superplexes the champion through the wood to put both guys down. There’s the Roaring Elbow to knock Awesome out but Jones has the referee. Cue Raven to lay out Tanaka and the referee with DDTs for no explained reasons. Tanaka is powerbombed through a table on the floor and here’s Tommy Dreamer for the save, only to get caught in a DDT as well. Dreamer is powerbombed through a table as well and the match is thrown out.

Rating: C. The match was fun as usual but we get the idea already: Tanaka and Awesome can beat the tar out of each other. The idea here is that Raven and Awesome are the latest evil partnership but we kind of got that idea when they won the tag titles. I’m just over this match already and I have no need to ever see it again.

Overall Rating: D. I can’t remember a company with a bigger divide between the main event and everything else. The main event stories take up the last third of the show and the rest of the episode was just random brawling with no stories to be seen anywhere. Nothing to see here, but this just felt like a wasted episode.

 

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The common theory I keep seeing is that Cena wins the title, thereby setting up a unification match down the line.  As usual, people are over thinking this.This isn’t to set up a unification match.  It’s a match and story to give Cena something to do that isn’t related to the main story.  If Cena enters that story, he takes the entire thing over and destroys all of the work put into Bryan.  You put Cena in the World Title feud and keep him away from everything else and everyone benefits.  The WHC gets a big boost, Del Rio gets a rub, Cena has something to do, Bryan and Orton and company don’t get overshadowed.

But no, it’s not likely building up to a unification match, at least not soon.

Judgment Day 2006
Date: May 21, 2006
Location: US Airways Center, Phoenix, Arizona
Attendance: 14,000
Commentators: Michael Cole, Tazz

 

Just looking at the card, this is a terribly boring show. This is in the period for the WWE where they were kind of searching for what their next big thing would be but it wasn’t there at all. Cena would win the world title for a year in the fall and ECW was just about to be resurrected. The main event here is Rey vs. JBL for the Smackdown Title. See what I’m up against? Let’s get to it.

 

The opening video is about accepting your fate and the judgment you will face when everything is done. Standard stuff for this show. Tonight is the final of the King of the Ring. I forgot about that. It’s Booker vs. Lashley.

 

The weird part about this show is that the theme song is This Fire Burns, which would be Punk’s music eventually but it means nothing here.

 

Smackdown Tag Titles: Paul London/Brian Kendrick vs. MNM

 

MNM have the titles here. Melina does her usual sexy entrance. MNM has lost 5 times in a row to Londrick. How in the world are they still champions then? Nice pop for the challengers. London vs. Nitro (Morrison) to start us off. London speeds things way up and the crowd is white hot. The challengers tag in and out very fast as they work the arm of Nitro.

 

Mercury comes in and finally takes over a bit. Shoulder block gets two for Kendrick. Londrick clears the ring and it’s high spot time. Mercury comes back in and avoids a big cross body to give MNM the advantage. Melina lets loose the screams. You can hear Morrison’s push dying with every one. She throws a head scissors on London for two.

 

We hit the chinlock as I guess the future straightedge masked man needs a breather. Collision puts both guys down and it’s a double tag to bring in Kendrick and Nitro. Snapshot to Kendrick (elevate DDT) gets two as London saves. Good thing the referee glared at him in between the 1 and 2 counts to make sure he made the save. Morrison throws a chinlock on Kendrick as we reset things again.

 

Delayed vertical suplex by Mercury gets two on Kendrick. It’s the old school style of “what do we have to do to beat this small man???” which is always good. Off to another chinlock as London plays cheerleader. I’d prefer Melina but I’ll take what I can get. Nitro poses on a cover for two and gets all ticked off. This would be similar to the AGGRESSIVE Morrison we saw a few weeks ago.

 

Chinlock #4 goes on as it’s pretty clear they got a bit too much time in this. Kendrick gets a reversal to send Mercury into Morrison and it’s hot tag London. After cleaning house he gets a dropsault to cover Nitro but Melina comes in and screams for the save. No touching, just stuff with the mouth. Works for me. They can’t get the suplex/hold the foot pin to work so Kendrick totally misses a huge dive and THUDS on the floor. Sick sound too. MNM tries some double teaming but HEEL MISCOMMUNICATION lets London get a jackknife pin on Mercury to give them small dudes the tag titles which they would hold about 11 months.

 

Rating: B. Good match here to be sure but the amount of resting hurt it. This would be a higher grade if Nitro or Mercury was a bit better in the ring but pretty good other than that. Nitro would get a lot better of course while Mercury just kind of floundered for a long time. Melina and the screaming was good too. Fun opener and the crowd was into it the whole time, which is the idea.

 

Melina blames Mercury post match and slaps him. The guys go at it and she kicks Mercury in the head. This is the end of the team I guess. The referee gets a swift kick in the balls too. The pull apart brawl goes on for awhile as Teddy Long goes down also.

 

We get a King of the Ring moment, which is Bret winning the 93 tournament, which I believe was his second.

 

Finlay vs. Chris Benoit

 

These two had a 20+ minute match on Smackdown in the quarterfinals where Finlay cheated to win. LOUD Benoit chant to start us off. They lock up and that is one of the more intense versions you’ll ever see with them heading to the floor without breaking the tieup. Back in the ring and they stare each other down with Benoit being aggressive as is his custom.

 

With the staredown still going on Benoit grabs the legs and tries the Sharpshooter in a nice attempt at a quick win. We hit the mat where Finlay gets to show off a bit which isn’t something you see often out of a brawler like him. We’re in the chinlock early but it’s been a decent opening so I can live with that. This is about technical stuff anyway as they’re moving around while on the mat in this now headlock. There’s a big difference between that and sitting there in a chinlock.

 

Finlay backs off to buy some time to solid heat. Benoit chops away and we hit the mat again with Finlay taking over. Finlay fires off a European uppercut into the back of Benoit. That’s a new one. Benoit slaps the tar out of Finlay, sending him down and here comes our favorite psycho. Knee lifts and chops all around as Benoit hammers him down. Backbreaker gets two.

 

Back to the grappling as this is going to be a long one. In a nice sequence, Benoit has a chinlock on but ever so slowly shifts the arm into position for the Crossface. Notice what he did there: he tried to make Finlay get caught in the hold rather than throwing it on. That’s thinking and showing that Benoit has strategy going for him at the same time. Very good sign there.

 

It’s still a chinlock with a mild arm trap as Finlay has figured it out. Benoit opts for a crucifix instead for two. Big clothesline by Finlay gets two. When Finlay is covering him he drives his knee into Benoit’s face. That has to hurt. Still on the mat now with Finlay grabbing Benoit’s wrists and putting his feet on Benoit’s head to pull back on the arms. The Canadian fights off the Irishman with some Germans. I had to get that in there somewhere.

 

Swan Dive misses according to the replay. On the regular shot of it I thought Finlay got caught but I was proven wrong. Mark your calendars for that as it won’t likely happen again. Dragon Screw Leg Whip looks to lock on the Sharpshooter but Finlay kicks him off. For no apparent reason Finlay hits the floor to get a chair but Benoit gets a baseball slide to drive the chair into him.

 

Back in and the Swan Dive hits this time for two. Benoit gets caught in a Bret chest to the corner shot and Finlay blasts him in the back of the head with a forearm/clothesline for two. Finlay works the neck which is somehow still not healed apparently. Granted it’s been two weeks since Edge had to retire so maybe this isn’t the right time to say that. Earthquake splash gets two.

 

This is a very physical and hard hitting match which is exactly what you would expect from these two. Finlay throws on a combination hammerlock/Dragon Sleeper which is a new one. I like seeing those new holds as you spend so much time looking at them and wondering how much they’re hurting that you forget they’re mainly rest holds. Another shot to the back of the head puts Chris right back down.

 

Benoit is like screw it and fires off forearms (note to ROH guys: FOLLOW THROUGH WITH THE STRIKES!!!) but Finlay goes back to the arm to keep control. We go to the neck again as this has been mostly Finlay. A slam is reversed and it’s Rolling Germans Part Deux the Sequel Resurrection Returns and all other bad titles for sequels. Out to the floor and Finlay grabs that club that I don’t even want to try to spell but Benoit counters with a German on the floor. And people wonder why his brain looked like it was put in a blender on frappe.

 

Back in for Three Amigos which means about ten suplexes so far for Finlay. He does the Eddie chest pat but Finlay knocks him to the floor when he tries for the headbutt again. Another shot to his head as it goes into the barricade this time too. Finlay throws him into the post shoulder first but Benoit counters into the Crossface and we’re done after a twenty plus minute FIGHT.

 

Rating: B+. If you like brawls with technical stuff mixed in, check this match out. This was an incredibly physical match that had psychology all over the place as Benoit kept firing back with insane offense when he was in trouble and at the end it was enough to get the tap out. Very fun stuff here and the amount of time helped it a lot. Very good match and I’d bet on it being the best we get all night.

 

We recap Jillian vs. Melina. Jillian got fired by JBL so Melina was all mean to her and they had a fight with makeup or something.

 

Jillian Hall vs. Melina

 

Jillian is just a hot blonde with a big chest at this point and isn’t yet a singer. Billy Graham is here. Nitro is here with Melina and then he gets thrown out before the bell. Thesz Press by Jillian who is oddly face here. Hennig neck snap to Melina and we hit the floor. All Jillian so far. And never mind as Melina sends her into the steps as I lose all thought as I see that skirt of hers.

 

To anyone expecting anything beyond a TV Divas match here, why in the world are you here? Body scissors by Melina followed by a head snap as I’m just looking at Jillian in the shorts at this point to pass the time. Jillian gets a sunset flip out of the corner despite Melina grabbing the rope for the pin. It’s over at least.

 

Rating: D-. Jillian was hot and Melina was in her Pocahontas gear here so I can’t really say it fails. Just a TV match.

 

Krystal, the backstage interviewer, tries to talk to Melina post match. She’s WAY too perky and you figure out the rest. Krystal beats her up anyway.

 

JBL, who is AMERICAN and US Champion here, says he’s awesome and does his usual I AM AMERICA promo. Chavo pops up to an ERUPTION (what the…..) and JBL yells at him about Eddie or something. Chavo says Viva La Raza and might as well be giving out money to the fans.

 

Another KOTR moment which is Austin winning the crown and igniting a new era with his post match promo.

 

Cruiserweight Title: Gregory Helms vs. Super Crazy

 

Helms is in the middle of his year plus title reign and this is just another title defense. Crazy is part of the Mexicools here so he’s on a lawn mower because….well just because. An Arizona Diamondback is here. We get a Smokey Robinson reference for no apparent reason at all. Jackknife cover gets two for Crazy as does another rollup. La Majistrol gets two.

 

Crazy sends him to the floor with a clothesline and sets for a dive. Nick Patrick stops it so Crazy uses him for a springboard to dive anyway. LET THE ECW CHANTS RING!!! And never mind as a hot shot gets two for Helms as does a neckbreaker. Remember that whole “this is just a TV match” from the previous match? That isn’t the case here. This is the very different LONG TV match.

 

Suplex by Crazy gets no cover as we go back to more holds on the mat. Off to the chinlock as we hear about Crazy winning a triple threat to get here. No word on opponents or anything but I guess they don’t matter. Rollup gets two for Crazy as the fans are mostly deceased. Elbow misses for the champion and Crazy fights back a bit. For a guy named SUPER CRAZY he’s really not that insane.

 

Missile dropkick gets two. Moonsault misses as does the Shining Wizard for the champion. Spinwheel kick gets two as we’re totally killing time here. Helms gets about his 8^th neckbreaker of the match for two. Helms finally gets a snake eyes and rollup with his feet on the ropes to end this.

 

Rating: D+. Rather boring match here as Super Crazy becomes the Scott Steiner of the Cruiserweights. What I mean by that is he used to be good and at this point he’s doing nothing but living off past glory with the same name and one or two of the same moves that are signature things. Nothing of note here at all and a rather weak match.

 

We recap Mark Henry vs. Kurt Angle. Henry is a monster heel here and has splashed Angle through a lot of tables to injure Kurt’s ribs.

 

Mark Henry vs. Kurt Angle

 

Henry sets up the announce table before Angle’s entrance. This was around the time that it was supposed to be Batista vs. Henry but Henry legit hurt Batista. Henry runs down the crowd and is really bad at it to say the least. Kurt takes over to start with a big rush of offense and we hit the mat which makes sense for Kurt to do so I can’t complain there at all.

 

Backdrop is countered by Angle into a sunset flip. Henry misses the drop down to Angle. I think it might have been a combination of him looking at Angle, yelling and then jumping as high as he could. Just a hunch though. To the floor and Angle tries a German through the table which doesn’t work of course.

 

Back in and it’s still almost all Kurt as he takes the leg out and throws on a hold. Tazz uses the eternally stupid line of “everybody is the same size on the mat.” No they’re not. Henry is still a lot bigger than Angle but he’s on the mat now. That doesn’t change the size difference. They get up and Kurt charges at him, only to get knocked down with ease.

 

Henry works on the back with various moves involving dropping down on the ribs with a lot of fatness. Kurt reverses the World’s Strongest Slam into a DDT though to reset things a bit. German sets up an Angle Slam which looked really bad as there was nothing special about it at all and it was really just a modified belly to back suplex. I mean it always is but this looked even worse.

 

World’s Strongest Slam hits but Kurt kicks out again. Henry, showing his offensive range, tries it again but gets reversed into the ankle lock. We hit the floor after a quick reversal and Henry sets for a splash on the table but Kurt rolls away. Henry instead splashes him against the post and wins by countout. Really?

 

Rating: D. Match was short and not very good on top of that. The ending made this a lot worse than it probably was but it saves both guys which helps a bit. Henry was just worthless though as he had no charisma and even less appeal. He was very boring but Vince kept giving him push after push for no apparent reason.

 

Post match Henry tries to splash him again but Kurt snaps and half kills Henry with a chair and the ankle lock w/grapevine. Angle Slam to the table but the table doesn’t break so Mark just falls off of it. BIG chair shot to the head and Henry goes crashing through the table.

 

Sharmell comes up to talk to Booker who likes the idea of being King. She lists off various kinds he’ll be better than such as Tut, Kong and Martin Luther.

 

Video on the King of the Ring, recapping who has been in so far etc.

 

King of the Ring: Booker T vs. Bobby Lashley

 

Booker beat Matt Hardy and got a bye to get here. Lashley beat Mark Henry and Finlay. Booker gets shoved down to start and they circle each other. I mean they circle each other A LOT. Lashley takes over with power shots and Booker can’t outmove him. A shoulder hits the post though and Lashley crashes to the floor. We go into the slowdown stuff here as Booker takes over on the arm.

 

Lashley fights back with a clothesline and stands around a lot. Sharmell interferes which gets them nowhere so they do it again and Booker takes over. Bookend gets a long two. This is rather boring stuff. Powerslam gets two for Lashley and the fans get WAY into it all of a sudden. Spinning heel kick sets up the axe kick for two. Lashley gets the spear but here’s Finlay with the club to Lashley’s head to let Booker hit the Bookend for the crown. He would win the title next.

 

Rating: D. I didn’t like this one at all for the most part. They felt like they were in the beginning of the match the entire time and it never worked for the most part. A D might be a bit low but at the same time I wasn’t thrilled with it in the slightest. It never got going at all and the whole thing was carried by Booker to say the least. At the time I never got the point of having Booker win but he was by far better at this point and in the long run it turned out to be the right move I think.

 

Booker is crowned which consists of him just throwing it on. Lashley spears him through the throne.

 

We recap Undertaker vs. Khali. Taker had been dominating and beat up Mark Henry so Daviari brought in Khali which was THE EXACT SAME THING they did in 1992 with Kamala, Giant Gonzalez and Harvey Whippleman. For no apparent reason they let Khali absolutely squash Rey in a non-title match. Khali beat up Taker and he disappeared, only to return tonight.

 

Great Khali vs. Undertaker

 

The gong gets a very solid pop as you would expect. Taker hammers away to start but gets nowhere at all. Scratch that as he gets sent to the floor. Khali tries the chop so Taker hammers away. And once again that gets him stuck on the floor. Nice job there dude. Cole turns into an Undertaker cheerleader as Taker gets a Stunner over the top.

 

You can tell this is a big match because Old School is countered. And of course, NO ONE has ever countered that before. I love revisionist history at time. Khali hammers away as well as he can, meaning this is really rather boring. Out to the floor again and Taker goes knees first into the steps. That looked painful beyond belief and people wonder why he wrestles like once a year anymore.

 

Back in and there’s the chop that killed Taker deader than dead before. Khali puts the foot on his chest and Taker kicks out. Of course he sits up and here comes Taker. Old School hits and Khali is staggering. Taker pounds away and hits the jumping clothesline to tie Khali up in the ropes. Fans are rapidly getting into this. Daivari gets up on the apron but the referee saves him. Khali gets untied and the chokeslam doesn’t work. A pair of chops sets up a boot to the head, allowing Khali to put his foot on Taker’s chest and get the clean pin. Now THAT is putting someone over.

 

Rating: D-. And the match sucked. Did you really expect anything else? The crowd is legit shocked as they probably should be. Khali was supposed to have various PPV matches with Taker but one time he was wellnessed and the second the company flat out said he wasn’t good enough to be on live PPV in a last man standing match so they had it on Smackdown with Taker of course winning. After that, he wound up as world champion so there we are.

 

Video/trailer for See No Evil, which was the movie Kane was in.

 

We recap JBL vs. Mysterio. Rey won the title at Mania and said he’ll fight anyone at anytime. WWE then promptly had Rey get crushed by Mark Henry, Kane and Khali. What a great way to get your champion over right? This was supposed to be a bully angle I think but it wasn’t anything interesting because at the end of the day it was JBL vs. Rey Mysterio for the world title and that simply wasn’t interesting for a main event.

 

Smackdown World Title: John Bradshaw Layfield vs. Rey Mysterio

 

JBL is US Champion here. The fans chant for Eddie because he’s facing JBL here. I mean, he’s the reason Rey won the title after all right? They stare each other down and JBL lifts Rey up and puts him on the corner. JBL takes over as this is pure power vs. speed. 619 is avoided and we hit the floor. Seated senton takes JBL down and a top rope cross body gets two back in the ring.

 

Ten punches in the corner as Rey continues the dominance. In a nice heelish move, Rey points to a fan, allowing Rey to hit a baseball slide to JBL’s baseballs. Dropkick puts Bradshaw back on the floor where he gets the big boot to put down Rey and take over. Rey’s wife is at ringside so the ending is pretty clear here. JBL’s knuckles are bloody from hammering on Rey so much.

 

JBL hits Three Amigos to really rub in the insults. Rey is busted also and gets kicked to the floor. Fall away slam on the floor as the bullying thing continues. He fires off some clotheslines but these are from purgatory I guess as they’re not finishing moves. Rey is bleeding badly. Rey gets up and fires back which gets him nowhere. Off to a sleeper/chinlock by Layfield which he lets go in exchange for a cover for two.

 

They hit the corner again but Bradshaw can’t get a top rope belly to back suplex. Moonsault press gets two and they’re both down. Rey tries a Bronco Buster but runs into a boot to his Pelotas. 619 hits out of nowhere but JBL pulls the referee in front of him and down he goes. BIG powerbomb but there’s no referee. Naturally that gets two so down goes that referee also. JBL gets a chair which is kicked into his face. 619 and Frog Splash keep the title on Rey. Chavo comes out for the celebration.

 

Rating: C+. Match was ok but there were no shocks in this at all. They just did their thing out there and while the match was ok we knew it wouldn’t be JBL that ended the reign. It’s better than most TV matches but it’s not much overall. Paint by numbers might be a good description of this but it was still pretty good.

 

Overall Rating: C-. There’s some ok stuff in this but at the same time the whole thing felt like a very b-list show. This is a show that could have been an In Your House back in the day and probably would have been a lot better off that way too. Not much of a show but they tried at least. Benoit vs. Finlay is good but not must see. Weak show overall and not worth seeing at all, but it’s nothing horrible.

 

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