It’s that time again. The second biggest show of the year with all cage matches. Here you go.Roode vs. Storm – This is one of those matches that seems like you can’t screw up……….but this is TNA.  I’m not sure if they’re going to mess it up but they could.  I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt though and go with the obvious title change.

Lethal Lockdown – Keep this in mind: Garrett Bischoff is now in control of a world champion, a two time world champion, the hottest commodity in the company, and the most decorated man in the history of the company.  Let that sink in for a minute.  Anyway, I have to go with Garrett’s team.  There’s no reason for him to lose, and besides it lets us have him stand on top even more.  I have no interest in this match though because look at it on paper minus the Bischoffs.  Is there anyone on the heel team other than Ray that can stand up to any of the faces?  No, and that’s why the match isn’t interesting.  Also next year, cut thsi down to 8 people.  Ten is too many.

Kurt Angle vs. Jeff Hardy – This is Angle’s night usually as he has great match after great match at Lockdown.  I’ll take Hardy to win, but this is going to be good.  Angle said that he thinks it’ll be a masterpiece and as good as HHH vs. Undertaker, but then again Kurt thinks people still listen to him.

Tag Titles – I know this is blasphemy but I’m not interested in the Guns at all.  There’s nothing for them to accomplish with the titles anymore at all.  They’re one of the best teams in company history (not as good as Beer Money or AMW but they’re probably third), and there’s no reason for them to get the belts.  They probably will and there’s nothing wrong with them being champions, but there’s nothing left for them to do with the titles.  I’ll go with new champions but with very little confidence.

Morgan vs. Crimson – No way the streak ends here.  Not that it would matter if it did, but it doesn’t end here.  Crimson wins.

Knockouts – Gail has had the belt five months now.  Put it on Velvet already.

TV Title – It’s still D-Von vs. Robbie E.  Did you know this match was happening?  Tenay and Tazz didn’t.  Champion retains.

Thoughts/Predictions?

Monday Night Raw
Date: September 3, 2001
Location: Air Canada Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Attendance: 14,890
Commentators: Paul Heyman, Jim Ross

Another week closer to Unforgiven and to the best of my knowledge, nothing has been announced for the show yet. After the last two weeks being horribly uninteresting shows, hopefully things can bounce back a little bit tonight. The problem with the Alliance stuff at this point is they don’t know what to do next with it. The Alliance is here, they’ve won a few matches, WWF has won a few matches…..and then what? That question never seemed to get answered. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of last week where Austin stole the medals. On Smackdown he tried to run Angle over and then threw the medals in a river.

Undertaker vs. Test

They fight over who is stronger to start and Taker uses….my goodness he uses a hip toss and an armdrag. Now it’s an STF, which might be better than Cena’s. Test comes back with a clothesline and some elbows to the face. Side slam gets two as does a middle rope jumping back elbow. Test hooks a Russian legsweep but Taker comes back with a rolling leg lock which is quickly broken up. The fans chant for the Leafs as Taker hits a clothesline. He loads up the Last Ride but Steven Richards of all people runs in for the DQ.

Rating: C-. Not horrible here as it was nice to see Undertaker actually let someone else get in some offense for a change. The ending kind of sucked but I think it was to allow Richards to bring in Kronik to fight Kane/Undertaker. The stuff from Undertaker was pretty nice for a change, especially the armdrags and STF about five years before he became the MMA Cowboy of Death.

Test kicks Undertaker’s head off post match.

Christian says he’s looking forward to winning the title tonight. He’s talking to an usher or something like that when fans come up and say they’ve got front row seats. They’re happy to see Edge’s brother. Christian tells the usher to make sure they’re put in the nosebleed seats so they don’t mess up the pictures when he wins the WCW Title.

Richards says that he jumped Undertaker because Undertaker played a big role in disbanding the RTC. He wants a match with Undertaker on Smackdown.

Clips from the Wrestlemania press conference where the announcement was made that it’s coming to Toronto.

Regal is talking to Tajiri and tells him if he finds a partner tonight, he can have a #1 contenders match vs. the Dudleys. Big Show comes in and speaks Japanese, apparently because he’s Tajiri’s partner.

Austin and Debra get here and the Alliance is waiting for Austin with an ovation. They have a surprise for Austin later because they’re inspired by him throwing Angle’s medals in the river last week.

Dudley Boys vs. Tajiri/Big Show

This is for the #1 contendership for one of the sets of tag titles. Show runs them both over to start and it’s off to Tajiri to face D-Von. Tarantula gets a big pop. Bubba cheats and uses a hot shot on Tajiri to give the EVIL ones the advantage. Torrie comes down and gets in Tajiri/Show’s corner as Bubba drops elbows. Apparently this is for the shot at both sets of titles. Ok then. Tajiri kicks Bubba’s head off and it’s hot tag to Big Show. He cleans house but Tajiri accidentally shoots mist at him, allowing the 3D to pin Tajiri.

Rating: D. What was the point of this again? Was there no team that they could have thrown at the Dudleys to set this up? Sadly enough there isn’t because the division was on the verge of death at this point. Not much to see here but I’m sure the Torrie and Tajiri stuff is starting up soon.

Show runs over Torrie because he’s blind so he carries her off. The Dudleys put Tajiri through the table to a big pop. Show comes back out to make the save, despite Tajiri being dead for the most part.

Shane and Booker offer to help Christian win the title in exchange for the first shot. Christian seems cool with this.

The US Champion Kanyon (I had to remind myself since he never defends the thing) at WWF New York loves Austin and sounds like the Cowardly Lion.

Stephanie comes in to see Austin and Debra to tell them that the surprise is getting closer. Austin thinks Debra is scared that Kurt Angle might be coming. Stephanie assures her there’s no chance Angle will be here tonight. Debra gets him a beer and it fizzes a bit. Uh…ok?

Shawn Stasiak vs. Spike Dudley

Stasiak pounds him in the corner and powerslams him in front of a quiet crowd. Gorilla press gets almost no reaction and the beating continues. Spike gets tripped by Stacy which means nothing as Stasiak charges into a boot in the corner and the Dudley Dog gets the pin.

Molly beats up Stacy post match.

Christian gives Edge the KOTR trophy back and apologizes for being a jerk lately. He wants to win the title on his own tonight too.

Moppy has been kidnapped and Saturn has been given a ransom note asking for $100,000. He asks Hurricane for help and using some very questionable logic, Hurricane concludes that it’s Matt Hardy’s doing.

WCW World Title: Christian vs. The Rock

Shane is guest timekeeper and Booker is guest ring announcer. After Booker introduces himself and Shane, we’re ready to go. Booker distracts Rock and Christian jumps him to start. Shane gets in some shots on the floor and Rock is in trouble due to the numbers game. Rock gets it to one on one and hammers away but Christian kicks him right back down. Out to the floor again and Booker drops Rock on the belt on the table chest first.

Now Christian sends Rock into the table as Canada Power is in control. The reverse DDT onto the knee gets two. After a quick run on the floor Rock hits the Samoan Drop to put both guys down. Shane distracts the referee and Booker slides in the belt to Christian. Rock fights back and hits the belly to belly and a DDT for two. Spinebuster sets up the Sharpshooter but Shane interferes again. Rock drills him but Booker clotheslines him on the top and a reverse DDT gets a VERY close two. Rock throws Christian into Booker and the Rock Bottom retains the title.

Rating: C+. I liked this more than the Rhyno match last week but it was basically the same idea. Rock running through the WCW midcard is fine as they offer quick challenges to him without wasting something big like Booker vs. Rock. It’s clear that match or something similar is happening at Unforgiven, but naturally that’s not important enough to announce yet.

Rock tells Booker to just bring it and it’s on, but Shane jumps Rock and the beatdown commences. The APA makes the save.

Stephanie and Debra go into schoolgirl mode because the surprise is here.

Stephanie comes to the ring to make fun of Canada and their grammar issues. Also why would Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving? Is it because they want to be more like Americans? This comes off like a bad standup comedy bit. They shouldn’t celebrate Labor Day (today) either because they don’t do anything. Speaking of hard work, Stephanie brings out the hardest working man she knows: Austin.

The surprise is a new truck. Debra runs down all the features which takes WAY too long. One of them is the paint job. It’s black. That’s not exactly a feature. It also has a radio and mirrors. She’s really not that good at this. It has power steering and power brakes. Debra is talking about the words written on the tires. Just get to Angle destroying the thing already because you know that’s what this is building to. Debra invites Austin to come see the truck because she wants a ride.

Austin goes to the back and looks at the truck, including the leather which he really likes for some reason. He gets in the back of the truck and says he’s King of the World. FINALLY Kurt comes out of the back and hits Austin with a pipe, chains him up to something in the truck bed and speeds away in the truck.

Matt Hardy/Lita vs. Ivory/Hurricane

The guys start things off and Matt is so fired up that he gets put in position for a superplex. The fans chant for Hurricane as Ivory raises the roof. Men vs. women is cool here. Off to Lita who hits her headscissors but walks into a facejam for two. Off to the men and Matt can’t fire the crowd up at all. Ivory gets speared down but Saturn comes down to break up the middle rope legdrop. Eye of the Hurricane gets the quick pin. This was worthless.

Saturn beats up Hurricane post match.

Storm comes up to Christian and makes fun of him for losing. He makes fun of Toronto and Edge makes fun of Storm for various issues.

Debra does the first logical thing in the history of wrestling kidnappings and CALLS THE POLICE. The Alliance has a TV in their locker room and the truck pops up on it. Where is this feed supposed to be coming from? Austin is also blindfolded despite not being so when they left. Angle rants about the stolen medals and says this inspired him. Angle takes him to the edge of the bridge they’re on and Austin apologizes for throwing the medals away. Kurt lifts him onto the edge but doesn’t throw him. He says we need a higher bridge and it’s back to the driving.

Intercontinental Title: Lance Storm vs. Edge

Huge pop for Edge of course. Storm jumps him during his posing but Edge is ready for him. Storm comes back with an enziguri to send Edge to the floor. Springboard clothesline back inside gets two. Edge gets beaten on for a bit but comes back with clotheslines and a spinwheel kick. Edge-O-Matic gets two. Superkick and Edgecution are blocked and there’s the Maple Leaf. Edge finally makes the rope and Storm stays on the knee, but gets rolled up for Edge to retain.

Rating: C. This wasn’t bad at all. Canadians are good at having wrestling matches and this was no exception. To be fair Storm was trained by Stu so did you expect anything but quality? I like both of these guys though so that probably has something to do with it. Granted this was just a way to set up what comes next.

Christian comes out with a chair for the save and cracks Edge with it to turn heel. He adds a one man Conchairto, which I think is the debut of that move. Those were some great chair shots.

Rob Van Dam/Rhyno vs. Jeff Hardy/Chris Jericho

This is Jeff’s return after destroying himself and a table in a ladder match with RVD from two weeks ago on Smackdown. Rob and Chris start things off and a jumping enziguri puts Van Dam down and it’s off to Jeff. The fans chant at Hebner so the match doesn’t get much attention. Jeff pulls Rob off the top and does the legdrop between Rob’s legs. Rhyno and Chris fight so the Swanton gets no count. It also hurts Jeff’s ribs which is the call of the Rhyno who works the injury over.

The fans chant ECW as a belly to belly suplex looks to set up the Gore. Jeff moves and it’s hot tag to Jericho. Rhyno is sent to the floor and Rob counters the Walls. Chris dropkicks Rhyno off the apron and Rob knocks Jericho down and hits a standing moonsault. He tries a German suplex but Jericho rolls through for the pin, just like Edge did in the last match.

Rating: C-. This was more or less a shortened version of last week’s main event which wasn’t all that good. That being said, the only way to fit this massive roster on TV every week is with a tag team main event so there isn’t much of a shock there. Jericho and Van Dam faced each other at the PPV I believe in what was probably one of the best matches of the night.

Back to the American Kidnapping Hero who has found a higher bridge. Austin begs for a bit and Angle continues to be psycho. Angle says he’s going to make Austin think about it, which means we’ve got bills to pay so let’s take a break.

Back with Debra crying in the ring for Austin’s life. This is really bad stuff. Back to Angle and Austin with Austin showing those acting skills as he begs. The payoff for this is Angle demands a rematch at Unforgiven which he gets, and then shoves Austin into a kids’ swimming pool and steals the truck. Yeah seriously, that’s it. Quick question: WHERE DID HE HAVE THE POOL? Did he leave it on a bridge in Toronto for the last hour and no one moved it? That’s a stretch even for a wrestling storyline.

Overall Rating: C-. Well it was a little better but that’s still not saying much. The Christian turn was good and we FINALLY set up a match for Unforgiven, but at the same time it’s still not an interesting show given what they have to work with. That sums up the Alliance in a nutshell: they had everything and gave us nothing of note.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: August 27, 2001
Location: Van Andel Arena, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Attendance: 9,972
Commentators: Paul Heyman, Jim Ross

Back to 2001 now with us getting closer to Unforgiven. The main feud is still Angle vs. Austin with some Booker vs. Rock thrown in on the side. I barely remember the last one of these that I did which is probably because I haven’t done one in about a month. I remember them being just ok for the most part though which isn’t a good sign. Let’s get to it.

We open with a clip of Austin cheating to beat Jericho to keep the title on Thursday.

Rock defends against Rhyno tonight.

Here’s Shane to open things up. He talks about buying WCW about five months ago and doing it to own the most dominant brand in sports entertainment. The fans don’t really buy that but whatever. One of the things that came with WCW was its champion, Booker T. He was a champion you could be proud of, unlike the current WCW Champion The Rock. It’s all about the money and Rock as champion doesn’t make the money for WCW, because Rock has nothing to do with its history. Therefore, the next champion will be….Rhyno. Come on Shane you’re smarter than that.

Cue Rock who says he knows the history of the WCW Title and how it traces back to Frank Gotch (it doesn’t), Lou Thesz (kind of), Ricky Steamboat and Ric Flair. Rock also knows what the title has come to: Diamond Dallas Page, Booker T, the guy from Scream 2, the maid from the Jeffersons and so on. It’s like Stephanie: everyone gets a turn. Now though the title means something and the Rock will be the most electrifying WCW Champion of all time.

Rock knows he’ll be defending against Rhyno later tonight, but how about right now he comes down there and gives Shane a shot right now? Shane does the Just Bring It hand sign so here comes Rocky. Naturally it’s a trap as Rhyno comes in and Gores Rock to get an advantage later tonight.

Austin has a bad arm which Debra is trying to tend to. As he yells at her, RVD and Raven come in. They have a Hardcore Title match later and since it’s Alliance vs. Alliance they want Austin’s blessing. Instead Austin puts them in the main event instead of him and a mystery partner against Jericho/Angle.

Undertaker vs. Albert

They slug it out and Taker reverses an Irish whip to take over. Old School hits and he does his still bad cross armbreaker. Taker has to stop to chase X-Pac around like it’s 1999 and walks into a shot with the Cruiserweight Title. That gets X-Pac an evil glare so Albert jumps Taker but can’t hit whatever the chokebomb was called at this point. Oh it’s the BaldoBomb. Thanks Paul. Anyway it’s countered into the chokeslam for the pin by Taker.

Rating: D. Taker was in a bad BAD funk at this point and by funk I mean he sucked for about three years. He wouldn’t sell ANYTHING for anyone other than a giant, which is why Kronik was brought in for one of the worst matches in recorded history. This match did nothing for Albert, but that might be for the best.

Shane Helms talks about superheroes before his match with Matt. Ok then.

European Title: Hurricane vs. Matt Hardy

This is the debut of the Hurricane superhero character but he has hip hop music still. Matt looks shocked but he clotheslines Hurricane down quickly. Superkick by Helms sets up a top rope cross body for two. There’s a Russian legsweep by Matt and Hurricane is in trouble. The middle rope leg gets two. A cross body misses for Matt and here’s Ivory to hit Lita in the knee with a pipe. She hits Matt as well, allowing Hurricane to hit the Eye of the Hurricane to steal the pin and the title. This was really quick.

Angle ignores Michael Cole so Cole follows him anyway. Angle finds Raven and gives him a big old beating, putting him in an ankle lock before screaming that RVD needs a new partner.

After a break, here’s the EXACT SAME SEGMENT IN FULL. Good grief.

Lita gets her knee looked at when Raven comes in to get attention as well. The trainer says Raven can’t wrestle so Shawn Stasiak pops in to offer his services to take his place. Austin calls him selfish but gives him the shot anyway. Stasiak leaves so Austin yells at Raven for making him go out there tonight. Austin hits him in the ankle because he’s that kind of guy. I guess Matt and Lita were just watching in the back.

Edge is having a soda when Hugh Morrus comes in to make fun of his fake name. Edge points out how stupid that is and thinks his name should he Hugh Suck. Christian comes in and somehow gets Hugh an IC Title match tonight.

We get a clip of whatever Smackdown Test joined the Alliance on and cost the APA the tag titles.

Test vs. Bradshaw

Brawl to start of course and Bradshaw takes over, hitting a DDT. Shane is at ringside and offers a distraction to let Test take over. Full nelson slam puts Bradshaw down and Test pounds away. Bradshaw tries the Clothesline but Test hits a sidewalk slam to put him right back down. The flying elbow misses and Bradshaw powerslams him for two.

Test tries a cross body into the corner so that Bradshaw can hit the fallaway slam to put him back down. Shane gets up on the apron but Bradshaw sends Test into him for two. Farrooq chases Shane but gets taken down by Test. Bradshaw chases him back in and walks into the big boot for the pin.

Rating: C. This was a MUCH better match than you would have expected. It’s a good example of a match where two power guys didn’t try to be anything more than two power guys, which usually results in an ok match. The interference was a bit overdone but it’s 2001 WWF after all so what else was to be expected? Good match and I was rather surprised by it.

Austin is yelling about Angle attacking Raven when RVD comes in. He thinks Austin did it so that he could team with RVD which would be perfect. RVD says he’ll carry the whole match. Debra likes the idea but Austin doesn’t think so. He’ll get back to RVD on that.

Stasiak is stalking Angle and gets Stacy to help him.

WCW World Title: The Rock vs. Rhyno

They start in the aisle and Rhyno Gores him almost immediately to hurt the ribs again. That gets a quick two in the ring as does a standing powerslam. Rock launches him over the top to give himself a breather. He can’t follow up though because of the ribs so Rhyno throws on a bearhug. This goes on for over a minute which is quite a bearhug. Rock finally punches out of it and hits a Samoan Drop to put both guys down.

A shoulder to the ribs puts Rock right back down as this has been one sided. Suplex gets two. Rock comes back with that belly to belly throw of his and both guys are down again. Back up and the jumping clothesline and DDT get two on Rhyno. A clothesline puts Rock down but he nips up and hits a spinebuster as Shane comes out. A low blow puts Rock down and here’s the APA to chase Shane off. Gore misses and the Rock Bottom retains the title.

Rating: C+. This was a very basic power man vs. injured ribs match and it worked quite well. This is something that is completely missing from Raw and Smackdown today: a main event guy against a midcarder with the champion having some trouble but nothing horrible. They had a pretty good match and you don’t waste anything big on it. Why is that so hard to grasp today?

Stasiak has put a bucket of rancid milk over the door to fall on Angle when he comes through the door. It’ll blind him and Stasiak will beat him up. And Debra comes in instead. COMEDY!

Austin blames Angle for what happened.

Intercontinental Title: Edge vs. Hugh Morrus

Christian sits in on commentary. Morrus takes him into the corner to start and splashes him to take over. Edge comes back with a drop toehold and a cradle for two. Jackknife cover gets two but Hugh grabs a powerslam for two. Elbow drop gets the same. Suplex puts Edge down and Morrus keeps telling Edge to say it. No idea what that means but Morrus never made a lot of sense. Top rope elbow misses and Edge comes back with clotheslines and a spinwheel kick. Edge-O-Matic gets two but Morrus flapjacks him down. He loads up the moonsault but Christian pops up and hits him for the DQ. Uh….ok?

Rating: D+. Nothing to see here at all. This wouldn’t lead anywhere for Morrus but I guess it furthers the Christian and Edge split, which wouldn’t happen for over another month. The match was nothing of note at all as Morrus was about as low on the Alliance pole as you could possibly be, which made the ending here pretty clear.

Booker is mad at Rock for stealing the title so here’s a clip of the midget from last week. We get a clip from earlier today with Show doing a Booker impression. To put it mildly, it’s REALLY bad.

Stephanie and Jericho run into each other in the back. She says Y2J is five minutes ago and it’s all about RVD now. Jericho says she should be saying H-O-E. This was stupid too.

Big Show vs. Booker T

Booker tries a quick spin kick which is caught and powerbombed with ease. Show throws him around and chops Booker in the corner but the Alley-Oop is countered. Booker superkicks him and hits the ax kick and here’s the Spinarooni. Show sets up the chokeslam but Booker distracts the referee and kicks Show low. That doesn’t do much and they go to the floor but Show’s knee goes into the steps and Booker hits him with a chair for the quick DQ. What was this supposed to accomplish? Getting Booker revenge? That’s fine but have him get a win and put him over Big Show, not this.

Chris Jericho/Kurt Angle vs. Rob Van Dam/???

Austin comes out but not in wrestling gear. There’s a mystery partner and that partner is….Taz. Well that’s kind of a letdown. Angle stomps on RVD in the corner and they’re starting I think. RVD takes him down with a kick and it’s off to Taz. Angle cross bodies him down and here’s Jericho. The Alliance takes over but Jericho manages a Breakdown (Skull Crushing Finale) on RVD for two.

Rob gets in another kick (no, really) and goes up, but Jericho makes the stop and superplexes him for two. Taz comes in to hit his crossface shots to the face which he dedicates to Austin. Heyman compares Austin to John Wayne and says Austin is the better American, almost starting a war between New York and Oklahoma. Rob hooks a chinlock but Jericho escapes and rolls him up for two.

Rolling Thunder gets two and it’s back to Taz who almost allows the tag to Angle. Van Dam hits his spinning legdrop and it’s back to the chinlock for a few seconds. Sunset flip gets two for the Canadian but Rob kicks him down again. Split legged moonsault hits knees though and there’s the tag to Angle. The Alliance takes him down with relative ease and Van Dam hits the Frog Splash but Taz only gets two off of it. Jericho puts Van Dam in the Walls on the floor but Austin breaks it up. In the ring Angle escapes the Tazmission and the Angle Slam ends this.

Rating: C. This was a main event tag match to the letter. Not a great match or anything but for what it was this was fine. It helps to set up the Austin being a hunted man angle, especially with the post match stuff. It also furthers Taz having issues with the Alliance which didn’t go much of anywhere but it happened.

Austin beats up Angle post match and steals his medals. JR freaks out to end the show.

Overall Rating: D. This didn’t work for me for the most part. There’s some good stuff in it, but it felt like the show was spinning its wheels for the majority of the time. I don’t know what this is supposed to do and Unforgiven hasn’t even been mentioned yet. The Alliance was about two and a half months away from dying but it seems like they’re on life support by this point. Weak show.

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No Way Out 2001
Date: February 25, 2001
Location: Thomas & Mack Center, Las Vegas, Nevada
Attendance: 15, 223
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

This is a more or less forgotten show in WWF history which is a shame because it really is a good one. The problem it has is that it’s stuck between a great Rumble and the best PPV of all time. This is most certainly a two match show as there are only two that I remember at all and only two that mean anything. The first is Angle vs. Rock for the title, and I think you know how that’s going to go.

The other match, and the reason I get this requested a lot, is why this show is so popular. It’s Austin vs. HHH in a 2 out of three falls match. The first is a regular match, the second is a street fight and the third is a cage match. This is Austin’s first major one on one match since his neck surgery so we’re really seeing if he’s back. HHH is the guy that was behind his attack so this is a huge revenge match. It’s been called the best match of Austin’s career and there may be something to that. That would include the I Quit match, so let’s get to it.

The opening video is about the two matches. At least they’re not pretending to be something they’re not here.

Hardcore Title: Big Show vs. Raven

Raven has the belt and the better music here. He brings his own weapons as was his custom. Raven’s ninja (Tori, a girl, in a black suit) jumps Show on the ramp and it goes nowhere as you would expect. Show is in his one piece women’s swimsuit here and I still hate it. Show misses a splash against the post and is rocked.

Raven jumps on his back which works about as well as every diet Show goes on. The required fire extinguisher is used by the bird man. Ross suggests a blunt object to the head. And now a popcorn vendor is jumping Raven. He looks like Elroy Jetson and Show more or less kills him (It’s Crash). Show beats up Raven and Blackman and Holly come out to beat up Show.

Billy Gunn slips in from behind and messes up a Fameasser on Raven to steal the title. Naturally he sticks around instead of RUNNING, resulting in taking a Sidewinder, which is his old finishing move in the Smoking Guns. Show clears the ring and Raven steals the title back. Crash gets two but a chokeslam onto a trashcan gets the title. Oh and Molly and the Ninja came down and fought too. Show beats Billy up as he leaves for fun.

Rating: C. This wasn’t supposed to be serious and it wasn’t. This was just a fun little match and sequence that was designed to make things comedic. Show vs. Kane vs. Raven would be the Hardcore Title match at Mania and was far better, but it’s a different kind of match. This was fine though.

Angle gets here and is still a happy go lucky jerk who can be awesome in the ring.

Benoit and Eddie are with Lillian. They say only the title matters tonight.

Intercontinental Title: Chris Jericho vs. X-Pac vs. Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Benoit

Jericho took the title from Benoit at the Rumble. He also put Pac out with an injury as well as Eddie. So there are your reasons for people to be in there. The Radicalz jump the ring and it’s immediately on. Pac vs. Benoit and Eddie vs. Jericho to start. One fall to a finish here. Everybody gets in the ring and it’s a big slugout.

Benoit and Eddie team up but Benoit tries to steal the win with the Crossface on X-Pac. Jericho takes forever to break it up but just makes it. Frog Splash to Pac for two. Bronco Buster on Benoit doesn’t hit as Jericho kicks his head off. The Radicalz slug it out to a big reaction. Benoit covers Eddie and Jericho covers Pac but both get two.

We get down to Benoit and Jericho for a bit which is probably the most entertaining combination here. Liontamer goes on but Eddie comes in for the save. He winds up in them instead. Ok make that Pac is in them. Justin Credible of all people runs out for the save and Benoit hits a Dragon Suplex for two. Pac and Credible beat up Benoit with a double superkick.

Lionsault gets two on Eddie as Pac gets a low blow and X Factor on Jericho. Very fast paced and exciting stuff here. Crossface on Pac but Eddie with a SWEET running front flip neckbreaker to break it up. Swan Dive to Eddie’s arm and then Benoit gets his head kicked off by Pac. Jericho slides in from nowhere and steals the pin to retain on X-Pac. Sweet match.

Rating: B+. This was great stuff as everyone was flying all over the place and stealing covers and breaking up pins. Jericho coming in to steal the pin made sense as he was probably the most impressive guy out there. It was a great match which was high impact and incredibly fast paced. The guys got to show off and it worked like a charm. Very good match.

HHH is getting taped up for the match.

Regal is with Vince who tells him to do the right thing in the Stephanie vs. Trish match. He has no idea what that is.

We recap Trish vs. Stephanie. This is in the middle of the Vince wants a divorce and Linda is in a sanitarium and Trish is screwing Vince and Stephanie hates Trish and wants to be the top girl in the company angle. I can’t stand those simple and basic angles that are a dime a dozen.

Busta Rhymes is at WWF New York, as is Test. He wants the girls to beat each other to death.

Regal tries to talk to Trish but she has someone to slap.

Stephanie looks AWESOME in her outfit here.

Ad for WWF the Music Volume 5. Wow that sounds forever ago.

Trish Stratus vs. Stephanie McMahon

Trish is curvy with a gorgeous face at this point. She has no talent as far as we know in the ring so Stephanie is probably the ring general in this match. She has the awesome old school HHH music though so I can’t complain. It’s nice to see one of the girls in a t-shirt though instead of their traditional stuff. Spear and a slap fight start us off.

We’re in the crowd in like a minute as this is a big fight. Stephanie dives off the barricade with a big punch to the chest. Granted it’s hard to miss so there we are. Bulldog by Trish but it means nothing yet so it only gets two. They do the smart thing here and don’t try to make this into a wrestling match, opting instead for a fight. Water gets involved, making Lawler freak out.

Trish with wet hair and a wet chest: win. A powerbomb from Stephanie gets two and down come Trish’s shorts for a spanking. Trish in a thong wins also. The girls both go down (lucky) as does the referee. Cue Regal, who puts Trish on top (works for me) but then saves Stephanie from getting pinned since he doesn’t know what the right thing is. Trish slaps him so he takes her down with a neckbreaker for the pin.

Rating: B-. This is considering who was in there and the level of their talent. It’s no classic, but considering who was in there, this was AWESOME. They didn’t bother trying to have a match and just beat each other up, which was without a doubt the right way to go. Trish would of course get FAR better, but this was pretty good considering what they had to work with. Regal saving us from the attempt at a finishing sequence was a nice break too.

Vince is mad at Regal for what he just did. Vince/Stephanie vs. Trish/Vince tomorrow, which I think led to the Vince’s Club.

Ad for Mania, which is made of awesome. If you cut it’s arm off and looked down at it, the part that has blood it in would say AWESOME.

We recap HHH vs. Austin, if you need it. In short, HHH paid off Rikishi to run over Austin so he had to take a year off. They hate each other in general also if they need any additional reasons. Like I said, I doubt you need an explanation on this one. If you do, why are you reading this? There was a very clever thing done by HHH: After they signed the contract, Vince had said if they touched each other before No Way Out, Austin would lose his title shot at Mania and HHH would be suspended for six months. Austin signed and HHH blasted him. Vince said what are you doing? HHH only signed the first H. Austin beat up Stephanie and HHH beat up JR the previous week.

Cole, with his stupid blonde highlights, gets a blank stare from Austin.

Steve Austin vs. HHH

First is a regular match, second is street fight, third is cage. MASSIVE pop for Austin, but the crowd has been white hot all night. I’m surprised that this is in the middle of the card but you know it’s going to get some time. Maybe they want to do this so the crowd isn’t spent at the end? Naturally it’s a slugfest to start. Mudhole is stomped 30 seconds in. Big old AUSTIN chant as he dominates early on.

Modified hot shot to take down Austin though as this is fast paced for the most part. Pedigree is blocked into a DDT on the arm which I need to learn the name of. We head to the floor as Austin works the arm. This is a regular match but Austin ramming HHH’s arm into a post about 6 times is perfectly fine? HHH can’t do the Pedigree because of his arm, which is SELLING! Simply shaking your arm is passable, but having it prevent you from doing your moves is SELLING.

Thesz Press and Austin is dominant so far. HHH gets his foot up when Austin is coming off the ropes, but for once Austin actually has his arms up to look like he’s doing a move. I hate when people just jump into it for the sake of jumping into it. Neckbreaker takes HHH down but it doesn’t do much due to the weak arm.

HHH goes after the knee which is Austin’s weak point as well. He goes for the leg into the post thing but Austin counters and HHH and the nose of doom hit the post. Back to the knee as HHH takes over with a figure four. Austin gets out and does a nice move where he gets HHH n the mat and beats on him with his leg. Cooler than it sounds. Thesz Press and the elbow get two.

Everyone counters everything and we slug it out. HHH gets a kick to the knee and goes to the middle rope. He jumps into the boot though and Austin hits the Stunner for the completely clean pinfall.

No rest period between falls and we’re right back at it again. It’s a street fight now and we hit the floor. Austin’s knee is ok I guess as he hits some suplexes on the floor. Monitor connects with HHH’s head and apparently it’s broken. Naturally we head into the crowd and it’s all Austin. Back in the ring and Austin destroys HHH Rock-Style with a chair.

After nearly murdering HHH we head back to the floor where Austin finds a 2×4 wrapped in barbed wire for no apparent reason. A low blows allows HHH to blast him in the face with it though and Austin is bleeding. HHH sets for the Pedigree on the table but Austin counters and sends him through the other table which EXPLODES. Awesome stuff so far if you can’t tell.

Back in the ring a bell shot (Austin brought it in earlier) gets two for HHH. This is a war with both guys hitting all these big shots out of desperation. Back to the neck with a neckbreaker onto the chair for two. Backdrop by Austin sends HHH free falling over the top. Cool looking drop. More weapons stuff on the floor but the intensity and selling is making it work.

You can barely hear Lawler here as his mic is messed up or something. HHH finds a sledgehammer and Lawler accuses JR for putting it there. Back in the ring again and a Stunner is blocked by a sledgehammer shot to Austin’s head. Pedigree follows that and thankfully that ties us up at 1-1. I would have rolled my eyes very heavily if Austin had kicked out of that.

The cage is lowered as we get a quick break. It’s been about 30 minutes so far and nothing but awesome. Austin is more or less dead and eats the cage again. HHH gets the barbed wire 2×4 and rips Austin’s face open a bit more with it. The sledgehammer and at least one chair are also in there with them. Make that two chairs, one of which saves Austin as he blasts HHH in the head with it.

HHH gets it in the face (I would have thought that would have been Stephanie but whatever) for a long time but gets a DDT out of desperation onto the chair but it only gets two. The crowd is a bit silent but it’s pretty clear that the fans know nothing is going to end without something huge. Austin comes back and goes OFF on HHH who just collapses face first out of the corner.

Game tries to bale but he Austin makes two saves, culminating with an old school slam off the top rope. Stunner is blocked but the Pedigree hits for TWO. The place erupts on the kickout and HHH is shocked. Another is blocked and HHH gets hit with a slingshot into the cage. Stunner hits and both guys are out. After the break Austin covers for two as this is awesome. HHH gets the hammer and Austin gets the 2×4. Both swing with everything they’ve got and connect, but HHH falls on Austin for the pin. I think I need a cigarette.

Rating: A+. Without question, this is awesome. Any of the three falls is great to say the least and the ending was perfect. Both guys are protected but not in a way that makes it look like they’re being protected. HHH got lucky and won it, as Lawler says that it’s not fair to say either guy really won. Just an absolute WAR with these two beating the living tar out of each other and making the crowd love every minute of it. With 40 minutes of these two beating each other to death, how is it not a perfect match?

Austin stuns HHH afterwards for fun.

On Smackdown, the RTC tried to beat up Kat so Lawler made the save, setting up a match tonight.

Stevie gives the RTC a pep talk.

Kat has a shirt on and nothing else. She wanted to be allowed to wear less than that on TV.

Jerry Lawler vs. Steven Richards

Tazz does commentary in Lawler’s place. He’s still a wrestler so this is a new thing for him. He’s a bit like his normal commentating self but not all the way yet. Lawler makes a full entrance despite being at the commentary desk not 2 minutes ago. We see a clip of the RTC stopping the (XFL’s) Las Vegas Outlaws cheerleaders last night. RTC was a parody of the Parents Television Council who got on Vince every 9 seconds for something he did.

This is the walking definition of a catch your breath match as the fans need something worthless to bridge the gap from the war they just saw to the last two matches. Lawler expands his offense from just punches by adding in rapid fire punches. This is why it’s great to have someone like Lawler around: you can throw him in there for something like this and you know he’s going to at least be passable, especially since he only wrestles like twice a year so his expectations are very low.

Kat and Ivory go at it for a bit but the distraction allows Richards to take over. Richards misses a splash in the corner and Lawler takes over for a bit. Apparently if he wins Kat gets to be naked. Ivory comes in and Teddy Long takes FOREVER to get rid of her. Kat tries to hit Richards with Ivory’s belt but she nails Lawler by mistake for the pin. Kat has to join RTC now, but she was released in like two weeks, resulting in Lawler quitting. They were married at the time.

Rating: D. This was pretty weak but at the same time it was about as good as it was going to get. It was on the level of a pretty bad TV match but like I said this was designed to just fill in about 10 minutes so that the fans could breathe a bit. Nothing special at all but it did its job I guess.

We recap the tag title stuff which is another three way feud. Edge and Christian gave Kane a Conchairto on Monday night.

Taker says a lot of basic stuff.

Chyna’s book is popular. Random to say the least.

Tag Titles: Undertaker/Kane vs. Edge/Christian vs. Dudley Boyz

This is a tables match but not elimination style. Uh sure. The Brothers go after Edge and Christian in the aisle but stop when the Dudleys come out and corner them. Dudleys are champions here. The Canadians hide and it’s on early. It’s a massive brawl of course. Tazz is still on commentary here. The table HHH went through is still just in pieces on the floor which is funny for some reason as it always is.

The Dudleys are down and the Brothers beat up the Canadians. The champs make the save from a double powerbomb but Bubba slips on a chair and falls on his back. For the first time we get in the ring and Bubba gets his crotch stepped on. What’s up to Edge makes up for that though. This is just a big mess of course but it’s fun. Taker and Kane stop the getting of tables and Christian hits Unprettier on Bubba in the ring.

Stereo powerslams by the big men and then they both go up. Taker goes airborne which isn’t something you see that often really. We get some near endings but a bunch of saves are made including a low blow to Taker. A pair of chokeslams hit but there aren’t any tables. The Dudleys get chokeslammed too and the Brothers stand very tall.

They set for stereo powerbombs but Rikishi and Haku waddle down to stop it and brawl with the monsters. Have we ever had a generation without an evil Samoan team? For some reason Vince thought these Samoans would be a good choice for a team, even though Haku wasn’t Samoan. The monsters all go up the ramp to tick off the crowd. 3D on Christian ends it.

Rating: C+. Just a fun match here but somehow this was supposed to set up monsters vs. monsters, even though the ethnic monsters were gone very soon. This wasn’t much but it definitely wasn’t bad. The constant double teaming got pretty stupid after awhile but it wasn’t horrible. Passable match for what it was, but with TLC 2 next month, it’s hard to stay underwhelmed.

We recap Rock vs. Angle. Rock beat Big Show to get the shot. That’s it. Rock says tick tock a lot also.

Rock says the same stuff we heard in the video package.

WWF Title: The Rock vs. Kurt Angle

It’s pretty much one sided as to who is going to win here and even Ross and Tazz acknowledge it. Long staredown to start and we’re on. The straps are down before we even start as we hear about him using some hold called an ankle lock. Rock hits a jumping Russian leg sweep for two. Ankle lock goes on about a minute in but Rock makes the ropes. These two always have had good chemistry together so this should be solid stuff.

A pair of belly to bellies but Rock almost gets dropped on his head the first time. He clearly tucks his head more on the second one so at least he can learn on the fly. Sharpshooter goes on and Angle is in trouble. This is very fast paced so far. A belly to back suplex from Kurt but he didn’t spin slightly so it’s not the Angle Slam. Second rope suplex gets two for Rock.

I’m not sure if I like Rock’s DDT or not. He does it oddly for some reason. And here’s Big Show for no apparent reason. Chokeslams for everyone including the referee. Show’s music plays him out as I expect us to cut to a commercial or something. Angle covers Rock but there’s no referee. He pops Angle with the title as there’s another referee. What a heelish thing to do but Angle gets up anyway.

Ankle lock out of nowhere and Angle drops some nice cursing in there. Rock gets the counter and initiates his ending sequence. The elbow gets two to a huge reaction as everyone thought it was over. Rock Bottom is blocked and there’s the Olympic Slam for two and a freaking ROAR. Rock starts his punches but Angle kicks him in the ankle in a nice counter.

Angle gets rammed into the buckle chest first and walks into the Rock Bottom for….two? Angle did not move at all and the announcers sound very confused. The referee seemingly just stopped counting instead of doing the three. Either that was a botch or there’s something I’m missing here. The fans boo the heck out of it as Rock picks him up and hits another Rock Bottom for the clean pin. That had to be a botch on the first one.

Rating: B. Solid match here, but the Big Show thing was just totally pointless. The ending was just weird though as that had to be a botch though as it just made no sense at all. These two always worked well together and this was no exception. Solid match and definitely worthy of a main event on a PPV.

Overall Rating: A. This was an AWESOME show with two great matches and only one that wasn’t much, which was 5 minutes long. This was one of the best periods for the company and you can see why right here. They know they’re on top of the world and all roads lead to Houston and Wrestlemania, which is the undisputed crowning moment for the company. Great show and highly worth checking out from top to bottom.

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Impact Wrestling
Date: April 5, 2012
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz

This is a different kind of show as I have no idea what’s coming here. Due to the WWE being in Orlando this week, the only recappers that care enough about Impact were at Raw and Smackdown, so there aren’t any spoilers coming in this week. It’s kind of a nice change of pace and I’m curious to see what happens when I don’t know what to expect. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of last week’s ending with Hogan becoming the new GM.

The roster is around ringside and here’s Hulk to address them. He thanks Sting for having his back and talks about meeting with creative earlier today. There’s going to be a lot of new stuff coming up but first of all, let’s talk about Lockdown. Hogan makes Morgan vs. Crimson and it ends there. As for the Knockouts, there’s a Knockouts Championship Challenge to determine the #1 contender, whatever that means.

Hogan calls out Eric Bischoff but Flair says he’s not here. Flair says no one tells him anything so Hogan says get Eric here. Here’s Roode who says he’s right on time. Roode says that his only obligation is Lockdown so he’s out of here. Hogan says hang on a minute and calls Anderson into the ring. He makes Roode vs. Anderson tonight because it’s what the people want. As for Angle, he won’t be wrestling Hardy at Lockdown. That draws booing, so he’s wrestling Hardy tonight. Actually RIGHT NOW! As in after a break!

Jeff Hardy vs. Kurt Angle

Hardy hooks an armbar to start and Kurt has some issues breaking it. Instead of wrestling he goes to the eyes but Hardy whips off a headscissors to send Kurt to the floor. There’s a slingshot dropkick and they brawl to the outside. Kurt is busted open. Kurt pounds Jeff down and we take a break. Back with Jeff hitting a great Whisper in the Wind to put both guys down. Twist is countered into the Rolling Germans with Kurt trapping Jeff’s left arm.

Jeff comes back with a Twisting Stunner but as he sets for the Swanton, Kurt runs the corner and hits the belly to belly. There’s the ankle lock but Jeff counters and hits a mule kick to put Angle down. Kurt grabs the referee to prevent the Swanton and tries to get Jeff to jump into a low blow but it’s avoided. Twist is countered again and Angle goes to the floor where he takes the countout at 12:54.

Rating: B-. This was getting good until the ending. I’d bet money on the rematch happening in ten days anyway (namely because I saw the rematch being made before I wrote this rating) because the idea of making people pay to see the match is a stupid idea in wrestling right? Good match until the bad ending.

Hogan runs into Angle in the back and makes the rematch for Lockdown in ten days. I give up.

Flair gets Eric on the phone and says get here.

Ray is trending apparently and says he’ll be the next world champion. He’s going to take care of Aries next.

Ray is in the ring and says he’s eaten chicken wings bigger than Aries. Here’s the X Champion who quiets the crowd down and the blasts Ray with the mic. He pounds Ray in the corner and the beating is on. He goes for ten punches in the corner but Ray hits a HUGE powerbomb out of the corner.

Joseph Park is looking in catering for Abyss. No luck again. He needs to find someone soon.

AJ is praising Storm when Storm pops up. Storm has to have a match tonight and he wants it to be with the best. Storm vs. AJ later. Geez think they’re stacking this show enough?

Mickie James vs. Winter vs. Tara vs. Angelina Love vs. Madison Rayne vs. Velvet Sky

I think this is one fall. Angelina and Madison start and everyone runs in to break up the pins. Mickie replaces Madison and gets two off a neckbreaker. Side slam gets the same for Angelina. Velvet tags herself in and hits a low dropkick. Rayne and Love get in an argument as Tara comes in. The spinning side slam gets two and it’s off to Mickie vs. Velvet. Madison knocks Mickie down before she gets in and we go to the parade of finishers which culminates with Velvet hitting In Yo Face on Mickie for the pin at 7:08.

Rating: D+. I know I’m underrating these most of the time but I don’t care about women’s wrestling most of the time. Nothing to see here but at least they’re getting back to Velvet who is the most popular of the Knockouts. I don’t think Winter was ever in the match which is sad as I love that pale British thing.

Anderson says he’ll beat Roode when the champ and his security come in.

Storm and Hardy were at some country music awards.

Off to Eric Young’s bachelor party. They have suckers, non-alcoholic beer and a fantasy baseball draft. ODB comes in with alcohol and chicken wings. This goes nowhere.

James Storm vs. AJ Styles

Feeling out process for the first few minutes of the match. They fight over headlocks and AJ keeps looking for the kick. AJ takes it to the mat and goes for the leg but Storm runs. Did Styles add a submission that I don’t remember? Styles is sent to the corner and Storm hits a running enziguri from the apron. He goes up but AJ hits an enziguri of his own. AJ goes up but gets caught in a wicked Eye of the Storm for two. He tries the Closing Time but AJ blocks it and tries a figure four. That gets him nowhere so Styles tries the backflip into the reverse DDT, only for Storm to duck and kick AJ’s head off for the pin at 6:38.

Rating: C+. Pretty good match here and that was an AWESOME superkick. The look on Styles’ face after he gets up is great as he looks like he got hit by a bus. This is what Storm needs before the main event at Lockdown: clean wins over big names. AJ isn’t going to get a main event push anytime soon so have him put people over like this.

Storm wants Roode in the ring next week.

Hogan tells Sting to take the time to get healthy because he needs Sting.

Storm celebrates with Montgomery Gentry, a country act. He leaves and Roode/security come up and the champ spits water at them.

Motorcity Machineguns vs. Mexican America

Here’s their big return. Shelley and Anarquia start things off with the Guns controlling early. Sabin comes in as does Hernandez. The speed takes over with a bulldog for two and it’s back to Shelley for some more double teaming. Shelley’s tornado DDT is broken up but we get quick heel miscommunication. The Guns speed things up and finish with Skull and Bones at 4:19.

Rating: C. This was just a squash as the Guns were clearly never in any danger. The thing is I don’t know what they’re supposed to do other than a feud with Joe and Magnus, as the division is about two teams deep at this point. They’re still fun to watch but there’s no Beer Money to feud with. I’m glad they’re back though.

Bischoff gets here and Flair whines about Hogan.

Back from a break and Hulk is in the ring, calling out Eric. Eric talks about how no one would predict that this would happen in the year 2012: Bischoff vs. Hogan. Eric says there are a lot of differences between the two of them but the big one is Hogan isn’t a leader. Hogan isn’t a leader of men like Eric is.

Hulk makes Team Garrett vs. Team Eric at Lockdown in Lethal Lockdown. Oh sweet merciful goodness he’s captaining the team for the namesake match at the second biggest show of the year. If Eric’s team wins, Garrett is off the roster forever. If Garrett’s team wins, Eric is gone….and he can never use the Eric Bischoff name again. How exactly can he do that? I mean….it’s his name.

Video on Storm training.

Mr. Anderson vs. Bobby Roode

Unless there’s an overrun which there hasn’t been in months, this is going to be a pretty short match. The security gets thrown out before the match and Anderson jumps Roode in the aisle. Anderson takes over quickly but the champ takes him down. We’re told that next week there’s a best of three series for the man advantage in Lethal Lockdown.

Roode runs his mouth about being the champ and walks into a powerslam for two. Fisherman’s suplex is countered as is Anderson’s neckbreaker. There goes the referee and Anderson hits the rolling fireman’s carry slam. Roode steals a beer from what appeared to be an 8 year old’s hands and the bottle goes across Anderson’s head for the pin at 4:11.

Rating: C. I’m trying to get over that kid. Seriously he looked like he was 11 at oldest. The match was nothing special but given just over four minutes there was only so much that they could do. Not much to see to it and the post match stuff doesn’t really mean much. Anderson is in the main event jobber role now which is about where he belongs.

Hogan and Storm come out post match and Hogan reverses the decision. Roode doesn’t seem to care.

Overall Rating: C+. This was a significantly better show than the last two, but I don’t like what it looks like they’re doing. It looks like they’re stacking the TV shows to get the TV ratings up which is fine short term but it’s a bad idea for the long term. I’m not wild on Hogan as GM but if we get rid of Bischoff in two weeks I’m good. This was a good show for the most part, but I’m not sure I like where things are heading.

Results
Jeff Hardy b. Kurt Angle via countout
Velvet Sky b. Angelina Love, Mickie James, Winter, Madison Rayne and Tara – In Yo Face to James
James Storm b. AJ Styles – Last Call
Motor City Machineguns b. Mexican America – Skull and Bones to Anarquia
Mr. Anderson b. Bobby Roode via DQ when Roode hit Anderson with a beer bottle

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

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

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

The set looks more like the old weekly PPV sets.

Battle Royal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jake puts the snake on Raven post match.

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

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

Larry Zbyszko vs. Eric Young

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

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

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

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

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

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

X-Division Title: Senshi vs. Chris Sabin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christian Cage vs. Rhyno

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tag Titles: LAX vs. Christopher Daniels/AJ Styles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NWA World Title: Sting vs. Jeff Jarrett

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sting celebrates to end the show.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Naturals vs. Sonjay Dutt/Jay Lethal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

X-Division Title: Chris Sabin vs. Christopher Daniels

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paparazzi Productions vs. Ron Killings/Lance Hoyt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christian Cage vs. AJ Styles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tag Titles: LAX vs. America’s Most Wanted

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NWA World Title: Sting vs. Abyss

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

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

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

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

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

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

Abyss is unconscious but gets the belt anyway.

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

Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

X-Division Title: Chris Sabin vs. Christopher Daniels

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AJ Styles vs. Rhyno

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

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

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

AJ dances on the ramp.

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

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

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

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

LAX vs. American’s Most Wanted

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

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

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

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

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

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

Video on Samoa Joe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Wrestlemania 22
Date: April 2, 2006
Location: Allstate Arena, Chicago, Illinois
Attendance: 17,159
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Tazz
America The Beautiful: Michelle Williams

Now this is an interesting show. We’re now fully into what I guess you would call the modern era of both the company and Mania. Cena is the dominant world champion, Orton was his evil self, Taker’s Streak is at full power and Shawn is his Christian self. This show is much like 19: it’s solid, but easily forgettable for some reason. The wrestling is good but at the same time nothing jumps off the page at you.

This is also Kurt Angle’s more or less swan song in WWE as far as major angles go. He was drafted to ECW a few months later and after that did little to anything of note until his release and arrival in TNA. Jeff Hardy was about four months away from his comeback. The card looks somewhere between good and better than good so let’s get to it.

An added factor to this show is that I went to the follow up Raw exclusive PPV, Backlash, the next month. Since I remember it fairly well, I’ll be able to throw in some post show stuff leading up to Backlash.

After America the Beautiful it’s the standard history package to start with I Dare You by Shinedown playing which is a very good song here. The recap videos are something that WWE has always done very well. I don’t remember much of this buildup as it was three years ago but the packages help a lot. The theme song here is Big Time which is a bad pop song. Wrestlemania is supposed to have a freaking ROCK song with it, not a bad pop song.

A video runs us through the main matches and I have to think of the stupid Rey main event tour. Also tonight it’s Cena vs. HHH and Shawn vs. Vince. This is one of the weaker Manias as far as cards go if you didn’t get that.
Raw Tag Titles: Big Show/Kane vs. Carlito/Chris Masters

This was around the time that the two giants were just crushing everyone in their paths with reckless abandon. Carlito and Masters were two young guys that weren’t quite thrown together to face them here. As usual the Chicago crowd is white hot. Kane and Show come out together and weigh over 800lbs. How in the world is Kane the lightweight on a team?

Masters vs. Kane to start us off here. This is the first time in seven years that the titles have been defended at Mania in a traditional tag match. That’s kind of pathetic when you think about it. Show comes in and drills Masters a bit. Big chop in the corner makes people say WOO even though it’s a different kind of chop than Flair threw.

Show slams him and steps on the chest of Masters who tags out to Carlito. The Puerto Rican tries a wristlock and is promptly lifted up into the air and crotched with ease. Show launches Carlito onto Masters on the floor. Kane throws out a clothesline to both but lands between them resulting in a massive THUD on the floor but is up first. Total and complete dominance so far.

Somehow the challengers got the buckle off and Carlito dropkicks Show’s knee to send Show’s head into the buckle. Off to Masters now but like idiots they try a double suplex and get launched for their troubles. Kane comes in and a huge backdrop takes down Carlito.

Carlito gets a boot up and that more or less ends his offense. Masters manages to get the Masterlock on Kane but Show kicks him in the face to break it. Backstabber to Kane but Carlito walks into a chokeslam. Masters saves but Kane gets up. There’s no end to these guys. Chokeslam to Carlito ends this.

Rating: D+. It wasn’t a classic but it wasn’t supposed to be. This was little more than a glorified squash and that’s just fine for an opener. Both teams would be split up within a month though as the heels argued over who cost them the match here, leading to the Backlash opener which the newly face Carlito would win with a Backstabber. Kane and Show would lose the tag titles to the fraking Spirit Squad of all people and Kane would begin to go insane.

They began a weird tweener vs. face feud where Kane’s voice would play throughout the arena as somehow not only could we hear his thoughts but they were wired around the arena. It tied in somehow to Kane’s See No Evil movie, but it was still pretty bad. It culminated with a fake Kane, apparently from Kane’s past, beating Kane at Vengeance. It made no sense and was a total waste of about three months.

Masters and Carlito argue post match with the fans supporting Carlito.

Shawn says he doesn’t regret telling Vince that Vince needed to grow up because it was the truth. He talks about how he’s always stealing the show at Mania but not to expect a five star classic out of HBK. Tonight is about violence because tonight it’s Vince that needs to pray as tonight Vince is enduring his own personal nightmare. Wow Shawn cursed. That’s a rare one.
Money in the Bank

Matt Hardy, Shelton Benjamin, Finlay, Ric Flair, Lashley, Rob Van Dam
Lillian in that dress with the cut down to her stomach made me lose consciousness for a bit there. Shelton is IC Champion here so no defense of it again. All four commentators are talking here. Van Dam is pretty clearly the most popular guy here. Lashley is a freaking beast. Flair comes out last because I guess he’s the most exciting one with a ladder? That pink robe kind of makes me think he’s not very extreme.

This is only the second of the matches so there isn’t really a track record. RVD chant to start as Lashley destroys everyone with power. Matt brings in the first ladder but Van Dam hits a baseball slide to stop it from coming in and dives on the ladder onto Hardy. No one is in the ring at the moment until Finlay vs. Shelton goes on there. Shelton hammers him with a ladder which is set up in front of the ropes like a ramp. Shelton gets a running start and hits a big flip off of it onto everyone not named Flair.

Finlay and Flair go up but the ladder isn’t in the right place for Flair. Matt goes up and suplexes the young 57 year old down. Flair is in agony and the referee throws up the X for him. Hey, did you know he broke his back in a plane crash in the 70s? Didn’t know if the first million or so times we told you that got it through or not. RVD drops Shelton onto the ladder but misses Rolling Thunder on it. There are only five people in there still at the moment.

Lashley goes up very slowly of course but Shelton runs up only to get popped in the head. Shelton fights him off but can’t get a sunset bomb to take him down. Matt and Finlay help him out and down goes Lashley finally. Another big RVD chant starts up. Matt takes over on offense but when he puts a ladder in front of Finlay to charge at him Finlay throws the ladder at him for a FREAKING OW MAN moment.

Here comes Flair because he hasn’t been on camera for almost five minutes. Did he need to be oiled or something? Since the ring is empty he sets up a ladder but is stopped by Matt. Flair chops some people away and touches the case. Finlay pops up with the club that no one can spell and takes Flair down. The case is swinging though so Shelton is able to stop him or at least slow him down.

Shelton knocks him down and tries to go up but Lashley shoves it down. Van Dam hasn’t been seen in a good while. Oh there he is with a chair on the top. He jumps off and dropkicks the chair into the ladder and everyone is down. Hardy, the idiot that he is, sets up a ladder in the corner. Oh instead he’s doing a signature move instead of trying to win. What a shock.

He goes up and gets a hand on it, drawing a ton of boos. Finlay makes the save and we’re told he’s not a ladder specialist. Dude you go up. How hard can it be? Side Effect to Finlay off the ladder takes down Finlay, Hardy and the ladder. Van Dam climbs the ladder in the corner and drops a regular splash on Finlay. It’s good that he didn’t do the Five Star version as he would have killed himself.

In one of my all time favorite spots, Van Dam goes up top but Shelton springboards from the apron to the top rope to the ladder to catch Van Dam. That’s simply incredible and beats everything I’ve ever seen. Matt puts up another ladder but he and Shelton go down. Van Dam is alone and is like dude that’s awesome and wins the match by pulling down the case. He would win the title in June but lose it in three weeks due to getting high with Sabu.

Rating: B. Solid stuff here of course but WAY too short to be a great match. This was less than twelve and a half minutes long to give you an idea of how short it was. This was good but at the same time they needed more to it. Also with only Lashley and Van Dam being legit contenders out there it was a bit weaker than last year. Good match though.

Josh Matthews, with a lot of hair, is with Gene Okerlund who has no hair. Orton interrupts and says he’ll win the title tonight. Batista pops up and says he’s returning soon, which is true. Just three short months later he did return.

It’s time for the Hall of Fame class to come out. Bret Hart isn’t here which is understandable I guess. The rest is Mean Gene, Sensational Sherri, Tony Atlas (they’re all accompanied by Divas here if that means anything), Verne Gagne, William “Refrigerator” Perry (he couldn’t get a suit for this?) the Blackjacks, Eddie Guerrero (represented by Vickie who wasn’t a TV character yet) and of course Bret who isn’t here.

United States Title: John Bradshaw Layfield vs. Chris Benoit
No real storyline here as it’s really just JBL challenging him for the belt. In a really cool looking visual, the entrance ramp rises up like a garage and JBL’s limo drives out of it. Good lord Jillian Hall looks amazingly hot as a cowgirl. JBL has a hand injury here. JBL grabs a headlock to start and takes Benoit down with a shoulder. Benoit tries the Crossface out of nowhere but can’t lock it in.

Instead Chris settles for some hard chops in the corner. Out to the floor and JBL hides behind Jillian to take over. Benoit tries to chop back so JBL KICKS HIM IN THE FACE. Why mess with what works? Rolling Germans by Benoit must have JBL wanting to throw out some Nazi salutes. Benoit goes but get crotched. Eh with all those steroids in him the balls didn’t feel anything. JBL does Eddie’s dance to draw big heat and hits a superplex for two.

In a stat that I find almost impossible to believe, Cole says that only 5 matches in Mania history have ended in submission. I had to stop the match and go back to check on that. I found 7: Angle vs. HBK (21), Benoit vs. HBK vs. HHH (20), Rick Martel vs. Koko B. Ware (6), Steve Austin vs. Savio Vega (12-sleeper) Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin (13-Austin never tapped so I’m not sure if that counts), Roddy Piper vs. Adrian Adonis (3-sleeper) and Bret Hart vs. Bob Backlund (11).

Even with Cole being wrong, that’s still amazing. 7 in the first 21 shows meaning just one every three years. That’s either really impressive or really bad. Anyway JBL dances a bit more and hits Three Amigos. Benoit counters the third one but gets kicked in the face for two for his troubles. Off to a chinlock by JBL as things slow down a bit.

Benoit fights back and does Three Amigos of his own with Cole saying “this is how it’s done”, despite Benoit getting up differently than Eddie did. JBL did the same thing Eddie did. Flying headbutt by Benoit gets a long two. Clothesline from JBL misses but JBL grabs the referee to avoid the suplex. Clothesline attempt #2 is caught into the Crossface but JBL casually rolls him over and grabs the rope for the title. That’s the ending? Really?

Rating: D+. Seriously, that’s all there is here? The ending was flat out terrible. It made no sense at all and came from nowhere. JBL literally wasn’t in the Crossface for two seconds, and I timed it, before he rolled out. This match felt like it didn’t have a beginning and started at about 5 minutes in if that makes sense. Really not that good at all.

We recap the hardcore match between Edge vs. Mick Foley. Now this is the match this show is remembered for and with good reason. The story is that Edge stole the WWE Title from Cena using his MITB contract. Foley was the referee for some reason during the rematch, won by Cena. Edge of course says it was biased officiating. That leads to Edge challenging Foley, but Foley saying it’s hardcore. We get this.
Edge vs. Mick Foley
Joey Styles is on commentary here as he dang well should be. Lita looks INSANELY hot here with the Edge vest, bra and jeans. Good freaking lord. Edge has a ball bat with him. Edge’s facial expressions as Foley comes to the ring makes this match already. That’s his best asset and always has been. When he gets in a big match, Edge’s face is just amazing. Foley has his (blue) flannel shirt on so you know he’s serious here.

Styles actually analyzes Foley’s choice of flannel which is a bit odd. Styles really is a great choice for commentary here as his voice just fits this. Edge swings away with the bat almost immediately which gets him nowhere. Tree of Woe by Edge early as Foley drops an elbow on him. Edge gets a shot in and has Lita hand him a cookie sheet.

These shots are LOUD. Foley takes a street sign to the head and rubs hit stomach. Do the sheets smell like cookies? Edge hits the spear after maybe two minutes and is writhing in pain from it. Foley gets up and rips off the blue flannel to reveal a belt made of barbed wire and the RED FLANNEL SHIRT!!! Foley whips him with the barbed wire and Edge is bleeding from the arm.

Edge is now tied up in the rope and the crowd pops for it. Foley hits the floor and finds Barbie, the barbed wire baseball bat. Lita comes in for the save by jumping on Foley’s back (seriously is there anyone she won’t hit on?) so Foley is like screw it and we get a Cactus Clothesline to the floor. That and a neckbreaker outside both get two.

It appears Foley has become Cactus Jack but when he tries a running knee into Edge into the steps he gets hip blocked into the steps which looked awful. Again the knees go into the steps. Does anyone wonder why Foley can barely walk anymore? Chair time by Edge. Sorry that there aren’t many jokes in this but there’s not much to make fun of. Edge hits the floor again and busts out a table.

Foley rolls off before Edge can put him through it so instead he just rams him into the steel of the ramp. That sound made me cringe. Back in the ring now and Edge has…oh dang it he has lighter fluid. He pours it on Foley but Mick is able to get a Piledriver to save his own life. Using a cookie sheet instead of a second chair Edge almost takes a Conchairto. He manages to get up and give Foley a DDT (not) on the cookie sheet.

Edge with Barbie now (is Lita Ken?) and he hammers Foley with it to draw blood. A bulldog onto Barbie gets two. Out to the floor goes Edge and he finds a bag of tacks. Oh dear. Apparently he had a bunch of weapons hidden underneath the stairs. Foley manages to reverse though and suplexes Edge onto the tacks. Considering Edge wasn’t wearing a shirt that was awesome.

Here’s Socko but Foley wraps it in barbed wire. Claw to Lita as well and now Foley has Barbie (make sure to use protection since Edge already had her). Edge takes a shot to the head and is busted open as well. Oh man he’s cut BAD. Foley, the nice guy that he is, rips the barbed wire deeper into the skin of our Canadian villain.

Foley finds the lighter fluid and holds it up like a treasure in a Zelda game. The table gets soaked in it and yep they light it on fire. In the famous spot from this show, Edge dives through the ropes and spears Foley into the flaming table, burning both men in the process. The pin is academic.

Rating: A. They wanted to make Edge look awesome and they certainly did it here. Foley looked great too as once in awhile he can break out a great match and that’s what he did here. This was exactly what they needed and was enough to let Edge get back into the main event. Great match and the Mania moment that both guys were looking for. In true WWE style, they would be partners weeks later.

Foley gets a standing ovation to leave.
Booker and Sharmell are in the back and Sharmell is freaking over Boogeyman. Booker says he’s not a freak magnet. He then runs into Pirate Paul Burchill and then Ted DiBiase and Eugene doing the basketball thing as I mark out. The basketball thing was where DiBiase would say that if a guy could bounce a basketball 100 times in a row he would give them 1000 dollars.

On about 97 he would kick it away. He laughs and offers Booker a chance at it, saying everybody’s got a price for the Million Dollar Man. Seriously people, go look up his old stuff. In my opinion, he is still the greatest heel that ever lived. One more note about the basketball trick, back in the 80s, a young man from Battle Creek, Michigan named Rob was swindled by DiBiase. He eventually changed his name to Rob Van Dam.

He also finds Snitsky licking Mae Young’s toes and Goldust dressed as Oprah. I love these kinds of segments. Goldie says Booker has to accept the freak in him to beat the Boogeyman. There’s talk of worms in mouths and in a place that Booker is angry over having Goldust whisper to him. DiBiase’s laugh takes us off.

Ad for Backlash. Hey I was there!

We see some sweepstakes winners that no one cares about.

Joe Theisman and Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child are here.

Booker T/Sharmell vs. Boogeyman

The idea here is Booker keeps faking injuries to get out of matches and is threatened with being fired if he doesn’t wrestle. He was found out anyway and here’s your result. Oh and they’re both terrified of Boogey. Yes Booker, a five time world champion, is terrified of the Boogeyman. Booker wants Sharmell to start us off. It’s weird to hear Cole as a normal announcer at this point.

Booker comes in and hammers away. This is about what you would expect: Booker pounds away, it doesn’t work, Boogey dances a lot and Booker still can’t hurt him. Book End hits and Boogeyman gets up at two. Booker is sent into the post and Boogeyman pulls out a pocket full of worms. He has a snack and Sharmell tries to hit Boogey with his staff. She gets kissed by a mouth full of worms and runs. Chokebomb ends this with Boogeyman winning.

Rating: F. If I need to explain this, you’re an idiot. Did Booker get caught screwing Stephanie while giving TNA inside information and choking out Vince at the same time or something?

We recap Trish vs. Mickie. In short, Mickie was psycho and wanted Trish. This involved seeing Trish sans clothes and kissing her. I think they dressed up as each other a few times also. Trish finally has enough and Mickie loses it. Trish has been champion for like a year at this point so the title change was long overdue. Watching this video, the build to this was pretty awesome.
Women’s Title: Trish Stratus vs. Mickie James

The main perk here would be their looks. Mickie would wear these really loose skirts which would often fly into the air. To the shock of no one, Trish looks incredible. It’s so ridiculous to see how far the Divas have fallen today. These girls have personality and are interesting and I want to see them fight after what felt like a somewhat epic storyline built around them.

Trish goes right after her and gets a Thesz Press to take her down. Big chop puts Mickie down. Trish knocks Mickie down into the splits and then kicks her in the head. Out to the floor and the Chick Kick hits the post to set the story for this match. Mickie works the knee because she’s intelligent despite being psycho.

She DDTs the leg for two as the fans are almost ALL behind Mickie here. Lots of knee work here which is the main thing involved in Trish’s finishers. She pulls Trish’s hair and slams Trish’s face into the mat in a painful looking move. Mickie jumps onto the leg and spins around, looking for praise.

Mickie is mixing up her offense on the leg between holds and strikes to it. See, THAT is important. It makes things far more interesting as instead of just sitting around with one thing we get a variety. She puts a leg bar on but Trish wraps her legs around Mickie’s head and gets a headscissors out of it. That was rather good actually.

They slug it out a bit more with neither girl having a real advantage. Mickie goes up but Trish catches her in the Stratusphere. Mickie counters that though and drapes the leg over the top rope again which gets two. Half crab is rolled up into a small package which gives us two and a great body shot. Mickie goes up again but is caught by a sitout powerbomb for two.

Trish hammers away and the Matrish avoids a kick of some sort. She sets for Startusfaction but Mickie rubs Trish’s crotch to break it up and then licks the hand that was down there. See, little things like that get the gimmick over. They set for the ending which is Mickie using the Stratusfaction but Mickie TOTALLY misses the rope and botches the heck out of it. A weak kick to the head ends it instead. JR’s line of THE NUTJOB HAS WON THE TITLE sums this up perfectly.

Rating: B. This would have been an A if not for the finish. I’m not sure which is better: the tiny outfits and how sexy both were in them or the fact that this was really a great match. The botch at the end almost kills this though, but aside from that it’s great and one of the best women’s matches I’ve ever seen. More importantly than anything though: I cared about it because there was an interesting storyline with developed characters. DO THAT MORE OFTEN!
All four McMahons are in the back and they pray. What do you really expect here?

Undertaker vs. Mark Henry

This match came about after Henry was for some reason pushed as top heel on Smackdown, feuding with Angle for the title. Angle beat him clean at the Rumble and then Taker had Angle beat for the title on Smackdown but Henry attacked the dead man. Taker than challenged Henry to a Casket Match for some reason and we get this. No buildup video for this either as they’re not even trying to convince us the Streak is in jeopardy. Henry is of course not afraid of the dark.

Taker gets the big entrance with the druids. Oh wait that’s just for the casket. Hey we do get a brief recap. I see why it didn’t get a full one. Daivari is Henry’s manager at this point but isn’t here. This would lead to the debut of Great Khali. Henry jumps Taker during his entrance, more or less sealing his fate. Taker gets a big boot and clothesline but can’t take Henry down.

Clothesline by Henry shifts momentum a bit. Can you believe that this is the same guy that was able to have classics with Shawn and then on the other hand you have Henry who had been there ten years at this point and has gotten worse after starting bad? If you can’t tell I’m trying to not have to talk about the match. Henry goes into the steps, Taker goes into the steps, Old School is blocked and the casket is open.

No one in the world thought Henry had a chance here and the fans are more or less accepting that. When Henry is on offense there’s no heat at all. Taker gets a boot to the shoulder and hammers away on it. Old School hits this time and Henry still won’t go down. Taker tries a Downward Spiral but is blocked, drawing a Henry Sucks chant.

Henry goes after Taker but misses, landing in the casket. Taker winds up in there also and they fight in there for a bit. Taker reaches up and chokes away as this is already needing to end. Back in the ring with Taker striking but he jumps into the World’s Strongest Slam for no cover as Henry isn’t that intelligent. Taker stands up in the casket and gets out rather easily.

Taker gets beaten down in the corner and then like the moron that he is, Henry climbs up to pound down punches. When do you see Taker try cross bodies or Henry do that? Not a fan of moves like those. Taker doesn’t get a Last Ride but more or less falls forward to put Henry down. Henry goes onto the casket so Taker dives over it to take him down. Tombstone in the ring and the ending is academic.

Rating: D. This was bad for one simple reason: there was no drama to it at all. Taker matches at Mania can work very well but at the same time there are matches where there’s no point to him being there, such as this one. I mean dude, Mark Henry? This was a joke and everyone knew it. Boring match and nothing happened at all.

There’s a Divas Lingerie show coming up or something.

We recap Shawn vs. Vince. There was a Raw in Montreal and Shawn apologized to the fans, who kind of accepted it. Vince comes out and laughs about it. Shawn says he needs to grow up, then throws a super kick at him, intentionally missing by as little a margin as he can. This launched a feud which mainly consisted of Vince trying to get Shawn hurt.

Marty Jannetty returned to try to help Shawn but was fired after something like two weeks. Shane faced Shawn on SNME in a street fight and they redid the Montreal finish. Somewhere in there Shawn was forced to kiss up to VInce. It was an ok feud but nothing great. The blowoff was supposed to be here, so let’s take a look. This was supposed to be Bret but he didn’t do it for four years.

Shawn Michaels vs. Vince McMahon

Shawn comes out first which is kind surprising. Vince is demonic according to JR as he comes out. McMahon is very proud of his physique and can you blame him? He has a framed cover of his Muscle and Fitness magazine at ringside which might as well have an X on the middle for the part that goes on his head. Shawn goes straight to the floor and we head to the tables quickly.

JR loses his headset which makes this match more enjoyable. Shawn grabs the framed cover and cracks it over Vince’s head. JR is completely one sided here because of Vince treating him badly over the years or something. The Spirit Squad hits the ring to make it 6-1. Who would have thought that Dolph Ziggler (Nicky!) would be a world champion before Shawn?

They hit their finisher which is where they all grab the other guy and throw him into the air as high as they can. Kenny misses a guillotine legdrop and Mikey grabs the bullhorn which is applied to the sides of their heads. Vince is able to recuperate during that time and hammers away a bit. Off comes the belt and the whipping begins.

Vince sets for Sweet Chin Music which is caught. Maybe he should have tuned up with a little Stand Back before he did that. Shawn fires away with the forearm and nip up so he can whip Vince a bit. Top rope elbow hits and it’s time to Tune Up the Band. Cue Shane with a kendo stick to crack Shawn in the head.

With Shane standing guard, Vince takes down his own pants. Yep it’s time for the kissing spot but Shawn gets his momentum back and sends Shane’s face into his dad. Shawn pulls handcuffs out of somewhere (Vince maybe?) and ties Shane to the rope. After doing Shane’s dance, Shawn beats the tar out of him with the stick.

Chair time and a HUGE shot puts Vince down. Shawn sets for chin music but stops as Vince collapses. Instead he hits the floor and pulls out a ladder. A shot to the head puts down Vince as I think you know what’s coming here. Vince is dripping blood here. Chin Music is stopped again as Vince is almost lifeless.

Shawn pulls out some garbage cans and a table. Shane is still cuffed mind you. The table is set up after a can shot. Shawn goes up the ladder with Vince on the table and then climbs down. He had a scary look on his face before he came down. Out to the floor again and it’s the BIG ladder. Lawler says it’s 30ft high, meaning Shawn is about 15 feet tall. Shawn fires a crotch chop from the ladder and drops the biggest elbow ever to kill Vince. Sweet Chin Music finally ends this with Vince just collapsing from it. The pin is academic of course.

Rating: C+. Well this was supposed to be a beating and that’s exactly what it was. Vince can take one heck of a beating when he has to and this was no exception. Shawn looked great here with the whole letting the old Shawn sneak in as his mind was being affected by Vince. Good beating but Vince had literally nothing for about 8 minutes at the end. Granted he wasn’t supposed to so that’s easily forgivable. Fun stuff but not great.

Vince flips off Shawn from the stretcher which is just classic.

WM 23 is coming to Detroit.

We recap the Smackdown World Title match. Angle is the champion. Rey won the Rumble in honor of Eddie Guerrero and last eliminated Randy Orton to win. Orton went insane heel by saying Eddie was burning and managed to get Rey vs. Orton at No Way Out for the Mania title shot. Orton won and Teddy just made it a triple threat because he could. You knew there would be a triple threat in there somehow. This gets the music video treatment tonight, set to I Dare You by Shinedown. Love that song.

Smackdown Title: Rey Mysterio vs. Kurt Angle vs. Randy Orton

POD plays Rey to the ring which is always awesome to see. This would be cool but Rey has a massive headdress on which I think is taller than he is. Dang it Rey does no one look at you before you go out there? Orton is cocky here and therefore awesome.

Kurt got the title when Batista was injured and Kurt won a battle royal. See, that’s the perk of having guys like him or Shawn. Got an injury? Need a totally credible main eventer to throw in there? How about Kurt Angle or Shawn Michaels as world champion? I think most people would be cool with that. I would be.

Orton jumps Kurt and the fight is on. Kurt is on the floor and Orton gets a dropkick on Rey for two. Angle gets back in and grabs a German on Orton. Then he suplexes both at once and Rey goes FLYING. That was awesome looking. Angle is all fired up here. Belly to belly to Orton as Kurt is killing it. Rey hammers away at baldie and the fans audibly boo. But it’s about EDDIE!!!

In a great spot, Orton is sitting on the ropes and Rey charges at Angle. Angle grabs him and launches him over Kurt’s head and Rey lands in a perfect rana on Orton for two. Angle suplexes Orton back into the ring and the fans are behind him. Rey gets a kick to Kurt’s head to take him down for two. The fans chant 619 and Rey gets a headscissors to Kurt who crawls into the 619 position like an idiot.

Ok maybe not so much of an idiot as Kurt grabs the ankle lock out of nowhere. Orton distracts the referee so the tapping by Rey isn’t seen. Kurt and Orton slug it out but I guess Kurt gets bored so he suplexes everyone in sight and hits the Angle Slam to Rey to the floor. Ankle lock to Orton and Kurt gets the grapevine. Rey pulls the referee out as Orton taps so Kurt has won twice in theory.

Kurt throws it on again but this time Rey drops the dime to break it up for two. Fans aren’t thrilled by that at all. Rey is sent into the post but Orton counters the Angle Slam and hits the RKO for two. Randy goes up so Kurt pops up the corner and gets the belly to belly. Rey botches the 619 then does it right.

Seated Senton gets two on Kurt. Orton kicks Kurt to the floor and gets a slick backbreaker into a neckbreaker for two on Rey. He sets for the RKO but Angle hits the Slam on him for two. Rey avoids the Slam and sends Kurt to the floor via an armdrag. 619 sets up the West Coast Pop to Orton to give Rey his first world title in less than ten minutes. Seriously, that’s it?

Rating: D+. Seriously, that’s it? The match was ok but for a world title match at Wrestlemania, that’s it? How many world title matches have you seen at Wrestlemania that don’t crack nine and a half minutes? The title reign was awful, namely due to him being booked like a joke but that’s another story. The match was ok but I thought it was clipped as it was so ridiculously short.

HHH and Cena are getting ready. The fans are clearly behind HHH here, openly booing Cena. Ross says most of the fans are traditional as he’s clearly out of stuff to talk about. Maybe a match ran short? LOUD Cena Sucks chant.

Torrie Wilson vs. Candice Michelle

This is a Playboy Pillow Fight and the reason they were stalling I guess. Candice is introduced from the wrong city. JR says the gate tonight is over $2 million dollars. That’s insane to say the least, especially considering this isn’t a stadium and has less than 20,000 people. Torrie’s music was recycled and is now used by Laycool. She has a freaking dog with her. Ross makes my head feel better by saying the next show is in Lexington. That made me smile.

These two had both been in Playboy. There’s a bed in the ring and pillows and all that jazz. You win by pin or submission. Do I need to explain what’s going on here? They’ve in evening gowns, they don’t stay on long, Torrie wins and they’re in very little clothing. We’re done. This got nearly 4 minutes. Yes, this got almost half as long as the world title match. This couldn’t have been added to that match perhaps? I guess not.

Rating: F. Long, dull, and a waste of my time.

We see some clips from the Wrestlemania press conference. Cena and HHH cut basic promos about being champion post show.

No real backstory here. Cena was champion and HHH won some worthless tournament.
Raw World Title: John Cena vs. HHH

HHH comes out looking like Conan’s mostly metrosexual brother. He’s wearing a fur pelt and a crown and a breastplate. He rises from a throne to play up the King of Kings bit. He looks absurd but at least after a few seconds we switch over to All About The Game which is a better song I think.

We then see…a newsreel about the Great Depression? Yes indeed, as we hear about the rise of Capone and organized crime in Chicago. The stage rises again as a 1930s era car comes out and fake gangsters armed with Tommy guns ride out. As a geek note, the one on camera side is clearly none other than CM Punk! Total mark out moment for me there as the gangsters surround the ring.

Even the fans are confused here. Cena’s music finally hits and he is booed out of the freaking building. He comes out in a black suit and fedora which would have been awesome had it not been for him wearing shorts and making the trench coat look like a bathrobe. He fires some blanks (honey it happens to a lot of guys I swear) and throws off the coat to reveal his t-shirt and the main event black shorts. We get the big match introductions which will never get old.

HHH is introduced as the Cerebral Assassin, the King of Kings, the Game, the 10 Time Champion. Cena is introduced as the Dr. of Thuganomics. They even get checked for weapons. That’s not something you see anymore. After a long staredown process they lock up and HHH grabs a headlock into a hammerlock. Technical stuff to start here.

Back to the arm stuff as we’re in a feeling out process here. The fans are all over Cena with a huge F YOU CENA chant. Cena tries an FU early but HHH reverses and DRILLS Cena with a right hand to take him down. Cena has to reset a bit as a HHH chant starts. The Game throws him to the floor as they definitely haven’t gotten going full speed yet.

HHH plays to the crowd but Cena sneaks up on him and hammers away. Back drop gets two. Fisherman’s Suplex with a floatover gets two also and we hit the chinlock. YOU CAN’T WRESTLE chant starts up which is just hilarious at this point. Cena throws him into the corner and HHH goes over the top and out to the floor. Out onto the aisle and HHH wants a Piledriver but is backdropped onto the steel instead.

Cena’s main offense has been the right hand and I can’t blame him at all for that. HHH fights back and chokes away. Out to the floor for a bit and Cena’s shoulder goes into the steps. Now why would HHH let the referee count? It’s giving Cena a chance to breathe and he won’t win the title that way. I guess you could argue it lets HHH rest.

Back in and HHH hits a suplex and Flair knee drop. Facebuster gets a big pop and a clothesline puts Cena down for two. HHH is covering after almost every move or two that he does which is a very nice thing for him to do. It makes him seem like he wants to win every time which is the idea. They slug it out but another neckbreaker takes Cena down for two.

Modified chinlock/neck vice goes on and Cena is in trouble. Cena fights up but walks into a sleeper. He hasn’t had a steady string of offense all match other than a brief one about 8 minutes ago. John fights out and takes HHH’s head off with a clothesline and both guys are down for a bit. Powerslam puts HHH down and Cena is in control.

Protoplex sets up the 5 Knuckle Shuffle. The shot of Cena looking at the crowd before he goes for it is great. HHH gets up and catches him in a spinebuster for a long two. Nice move there. Right back to the sleeper but Cena reverses quickly into the Shuffle which hits this time. He pumps the shoes and grabs the STFU out of nowhere.

In a nice show of strength though HHH crawls to the ropes and we’re not done yet. FU is reversed and the referee is crushed in the corner. HHH throws a low blow and hits both guys. Crotch chop to Cena as we have more DX foreshadowing. There’s the sledgehammer but Cena blocks it and hammers away (no pun intended) until a shot to the head takes him down. THAT somehow gets two.

Pedigree is reversed and here comes Cena. FU hits and gets two which results in an eruption from the crowd. Very good match here so far. Cena has no idea what else to do as both of his finishers have more or less failed. A splash of all things misses but the Pedigree is countered into another STFU and the referee checks the arm. HHH keeps it up (Stephanie says yay!) but then after almost a minute in the hold HHH taps and Cena keeps the title.

Rating: A-. Great match here and definitely Mania main event worthy, but the problem comes down to this doesn’t feel epic. It’s a great match but at the same time it looks like just another title defense for Cena. This would have been a lot better if HHH had come in with the title and Cena had taken it here, but at the same time this worked fine.

Overall Rating: B. If there was a rating between B- and B this would get it. The whole thing is good overall but there are some spots that make you shake your head. For instance the Booker match, the pillow fight thing, the World Heavyweight Championship match, the MITB being so short etc. It’s a good shot, but it’s nothing I’d want to see over and over. It’s good for a rainy day but that’s about it. Recommended but not incredibly highly.

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Wrestlemania 21
Date: April 3, 2005
Location: Staples Center, Los Angeles, California
Attendance: 20,193
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Tazz
America The Beautiful: Lillian Garcia

This show is probably considered to be the birth of the modern era of Wrestlemanias. We have Cena and Batista going after their first world titles, the debut of MITB and Randy Orton in a big match. There are some solid matches in here including some that boarder on classics, such as Shawn vs. Angle and Rey vs. Eddie.

This was the first show in a long time without Austin or Rock wrestling and it was up to the new guys to carry the company with the help of the veterans. You don’t hear much at all about this Mania, but that’s not what’s important. All that matters is how good the show is. How good is it? Let’s get to it.

Lillian is her usual stunning self singing America the Beautiful.

Before the first match there’s a montage of the Mania trailers. Since the show is in Hollywood this year that was the obvious theme: Wrestlemania Goes Hollywood. This resulted in an awesome set of fake trailers/movie scenes recreated by WWE guys. For instance there was Eugene as Forrest Gump, Undertaker as Dirty Harry, Cena and JBL as Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson from A Few God Men and a montage of people trying to do “You Talking to Me?” from Taxi Driver. This is set to Behind Those Eyes by 3 Doors Down, my favorite band, so this is great.

This leads to the debut of the final trailer which is debuting tonight: Steve Austin as Gladiator. These are really well done and definitely worth checking out. They’re like a minute or two long so they’re not too long to sit through or anything. Check them out.

The announcers welcome us to the show complete with Lawler in a tuxedo.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio

They’re the reigning Smackdown tag champions at this point, but they’ve been having some issues. This would be before the split and the ladder match for the custody of Rey’s son Dominic. Yeah it was stupid back then too. The idea here is that Eddie is doubting his skill and Rey keeps beating him in friendly matches. Eddie’s pop absolutely dwarfs Rey’s.

The set looks great here as it looks like they’re coming out from behind a curtain like an old TV show. They also cost each other victories on Smackdown so there are some recent issues also. Crowd is VERY hot. Eddie grabs an armbar and takes over early on. They hit the precision stuff until Eddie launches Rey over the top and out to the floor. Rey slides in and misses a 619 and we’re at a standoff.

Back in and they try a test of strength but Rey monkey flips Eddie over while holding the grip still. Both bridge out at the same time in a cool visual. Rey lands on his feet of something like a backdrop and another monkey flip lands Eddie in the ropes. Rey gets sent to the floor and Eddie adds a plancha to take over. Big Eddie chant starts up.

Suplex gets two for Eddie. Surfboard goes on and I still wonder how they do that. In something I’ve never seen other than in this match, Eddie almost gets pinned as his shoulders are on the mat while using the hold. STF by Eddie and Rey slaps the mat once. Shouldn’t that be a tap out? They get up and Rey gets an armdrag to counter what might have been a powerbomb.

Eddie hits the floor so Rey busts out a tope con giro to half kill both guys. Seated senton gets no cover but Rey runs into an elbow and it’s right back to Eddie’s control. One Amigo hits but the second is countered into a rollup for two. Another powerbomb attempt is countered into a headscissors but Rey can’t hit 619. Backbreaker by Eddie gets two.

There are the Three Amigos as Rey’s back is being destroyed. Frog Splash misses though and we’re back to even. Rey keeps adjusting his mask. Magistrol (and yes I know that’s likely the wrong spelling) gets two for Mysterio. They speed things up for a bit and there’s the 619. Rey tries West Coast Pop but Eddie FINALLY gets that powerbomb for two. And then Rey gets a rana and grabs the leg for the pin out of nowhere.

Rating: B-. Fine opener here but they never hit that gear that I think they were shooting for. Good match but out of these two you would expect more. Rey and the mask adjustments took a bit of steam out of this as he was doing it every 8 seconds. Eddie’s pops were very impressive so of course they turned him heel soon after this.

JBL and his Cabinet runs into HHH and Flair. Good thing that never went anywhere. Both say how great they are and HHH burns JBL by saying eventually someone will believe JBL if he keeps saying how great he is. Orlando Jordan gets a WOO for his troubles.

Adam Sandler and that waste of skin known as Rob Schnider are in the front row.

Chris Jericho vs. Chris Benoit vs. Christian vs. Edge vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. Kane

 

This is the debut of Money in the Bank, meaning this is the one that sets the standard. Jericho looks like a lumberjack with that beard. Benoit is Benoit. Christian is Pre-TNA so he has no chance here. Shelton is more or less at the peak of his awesomeness here and IC Champion. Edge is on the brink of greatness and Kane is Kane. If nothing else now I have the Waterproof Blonde version of Just Close Your Eyes in my head now. Oh and Christian has Tomko with him.

Edge is more or less freshly heel here but hasn’t established himself as a main event guy. He’s kind of going back and forth. In Kane’s entrance the ladders on the stage are lit on fire in a sweet visual. Everyone goes after Kane in the aisle which completely fails. Jericho blasts Christian with a ladder and it’s Shelton vs. Jericho in the ring at the moment.

The other two Canadians not named Christian get dropkicked off the apron by Jericho who adds a plancha to Edge. Christian dives onto all three of them and then Shelton dives on all five of them. Kane is like kid please and takes out everyone including Tomko with a big dive. Kane, the only one alive, goes for a ladder. Edge is in the ring and goes down as does Christian.

Jericho is able to dropkick the ladder into Kane and everyone is down for the most part. He destroys various people with said ladder and stands tall at least for a few seconds. Benoit grabs him while Jericho has the ladder and fires him with a German, sending the ladder flying through the air. He goes up but Kane tries a chokeslam. He gets caught in a Crossface for his troubles as does Edge. Kane breaks that one up with a ladder shot for no apparent reason.

Using the ladder, Kane kind of Pillmanizes Benoit’s arm. Edge takes Kane down as this is far too much at once to keep track of. Edge and Christian work together to take Kane down as Shelton is back in. Ladder in the corner with Edge slamming into it as he misses a spear. Stinger Splash onto it and him in a rare Sting reference.

Everyone goes up onto three different ladders and everyone comes crashing down. The T-Bone Exploder from Shelton to Edge was AWESOME looking. Jericho somehow gets up and turns some ladders over. He has to fight off Christian though and another ladder is set up as a ramp to the main one in the ring. Shelton debuts his signature spot to run up the ladder and take Jericho down with a clothesline.

Christian stops Shelton and then Kane starts going on. They botch a chokeslam over the top as Shelton gets his foot caught in the ropes. Tomko comes in to try and help Christian, even getting him all the way to the top. Kane is like screw that and shoves him off onto Tomko on the floor. Jericho slips trying to stop Kane and they both fall onto the top rope to put everyone down again.

Benoit sets a ladder up in a corner to launch himself off in a swan dive to half kill Kane. Ok poor choice of words there. Great visual on the wide shot though. He might have hurt his arm on that. Kane gets back up and they fight on the top of the ladder with Kane going flying off again. He’s taken a ton of bumps in this. Edge pops up out of nowhere with a chair to drill Benoit in the bad arm and pulls down the briefcase to win it.

Rating: A. Some of the spots in this are just insane, such as Shelton running the ladder. A BIG plus of this match having 6 people is we don’t have to have a bunch of bad injury selling on the ladder while waiting on people to be stopped. That’s the flaw with most ladder matches: you see people climbing a ladder at the rate of a snail.

In this case, that’s not a threat as there’s a total of 7 people counting Tomko. This is a mess, but a fun one. It launched Edge into the main event as he cashed in the contact for the title in January in a stunning event. Great showing, not a great wrestling match, but still fun.

Eugene is in the ring and saying how excited he is to be here. He talks about his favorite Mania moment, which is the midget army fighting Bundy at Mania 3. Muhammad Hassan, the best heel in forever in the company’s music hits. He’s mad about being left off the card and he beats up Eugene. That’s Sheik Abdul Bashir if you’re a TNA fan.

And then, in one of the biggest MARK OUT moments I’ve ever had, Real American hits. The place, in a word, explodes. Hogan slides in and the fans beat him down but Hogan is like boys please and it’s a very old school double noggin knocker. He beats the heck out of Hassan and tosses him out. Daivari the manager tries a chair shot and gets a finger in his face. There goes Daivari and the fans couldn’t eat this up any more if their lives depended on it. Let the posing begin! Hogan simply belongs at Wrestlemania. This led to Hogan/Shawn vs. those two.

We recap Taker vs. Orton. Not much to say here. Orton got thrown out of Evolution and HHH cut his legs out from under him so they threw him against Taker to give him something to do and play into the Legend Killer thing. Oh and Orton’s dad is in there somewhere too.

Undertaker vs. Randy Orton

This marks the modern incarnation of the Streak beginning as Orton challenges Taker for no reason other than to break the Streak. To me, that’s not good. It takes away some of the story as there’s nothing personal going on at first other than honor.

To some people it’s great and it leads to solid matches most of the time, but I just can’t get into them. Orton was a face but challenged Taker so he RKOed Stacy, who was I guess his girlfriend at the time to show how evil he was. His Dad showed up and started helping him and no one cared. As the Legend Killer, this fit Orton like a glove.

Taker gets his usual sweet entrance with druids and torches. Do you think they chant like that in the back at catering? HUGE pop for Taker. Taker floats to the ring with a ton of smoke in the aisle. I mean he’s coming down the aisle and his feet aren’t moving. Is there any reason he came out before Orton though? This is the pre-orange Orton that still had hair and not a ton of tattoos. Always liked this version a lot better. No papa with him for the entrance.

Orton tries to use speed to start and then slaps Taker. That seems like a bad idea to me. We hit a headlock by Taker but a dropkick takes him down for one. Feeling out period to start here. Taker drills him with a right hand and Orton’s nose might be messed up. Orton rolls him up out of the corner for two. RKO is blocked and Orton is shoved to the floor.

Apron legdrop to Orton has him in big trouble. Old School keeps him in said trouble. The running boot in the corner misses and Taker is sent to the floor. They slug it out and Orton takes him down with a clothesline for two. DDT by Taker gets two as we haven’t really had one guy dominating for a long time yet. Side slam for two. Taker hits the Snake Eyes but the running boot is blocked by a back elbow for two as well.

They slug it out again as the fans are all over Randy. Randy tries a clothesline but Taker rams into him so hard that Randy goes down for two. Dragon suplex goes on and Orton taps but since that’s not the finish so we keep going. Somehow he manages to roll through into a DDT for two. And we hit the chinlock which is called a rear naked choke by Cole in an attempt to try to sound smart.

Sleeper by Orton lasts about two seconds as Taker gets a suplex. Powerslam out of nowhere gets two for Randy. Then like A REALLY STUPID PERSON he goes to the corner for punches and stops for posing. The Last Ride doesn’t work but neither does the RKO. Taker tries another Last Ride but Taker drops him or something.

Bob Orton runs in with the cast and drills Taker but the referee is down due to the RKO counter. The very slow count gets two and a big reaction from the crowd. Taker sits up and isn’t happy. Big boots takes down Bob and here’s a chokeslam. In one of my favorite counters ever, Orton shifts in mid air and grabs a good looking RKO for two. Orton wants a tombstone and if you don’t know what’s coming at this point you just fail. The pin is academic.

Rating: B-. Good match for the most part but there were times where they looked a bit confused. Orton had that one great counter and other than that he didn’t get much out there. This is a match that needed about two minutes cut out of it to really make it a lot better. Still not that bad at all though.

We recap Trish vs. Christy Hemme. In short, Trish is champion and Christy is this year’s Playboy chick. She can’t wrestle to save her life but she has Lita training her. There’s nothing else to it beyond that.

Women’s Title: Trish Stratus vs. Christy Hemme

Well they’re all hot if nothing else. Lita is with Christy here as mentioned. Trish’s music sounds sped up a bit. The set is awesome here as it’s set up like an old school movie theater marquee with the name of the current match on the sign. Trish of course doesn’t take this seriously and it’s sloppy from the bell. The Playboy thing was really annoying as you had girls that couldn’t do anything challenging for the title. Mickie next year would prove how stupid this was.

The fans chant for Matt who was out of the company at this point. Trish misses a kick and Christy gets one of her own for two in a sexy cover. Christy does the splits out of the corner and gets two on a sunset flip. To the floor and Trish is barely breaking a sweat. She shoves Lita who has a bad knee and Christy gets a rollup for two.

Christy kicks away badly and adds in a reverse Twist of Fate which is the whole selling point of the match. Naturally it only gets two. Christy rolls her up and we botch that too as Trish doesn’t kick out in time so the referee stops counting despite Trish’s shoulders being down. Chick Kick ends this like a second later. Trish would hold the title until the next Mania.

Rating: F+. They looked good and that’s all this had going for it. This is one of those matches that doesn’t need much more of an explanation at all.

We recap Shawn vs. Angle. Angle was obsessed with winning the Rumble but Shawn eliminated him. This led to Angle talking about winning the medal in 96 but people talking about Shawn coming down from the rafters at Mania and being the best wrestler in the world. Basically it turned into a game of I’m better than you and they had the match at Mania. That’s about it.

Some celebrities are here.

Kurt Angle vs. Shawn Michaels

 

Something tells me this will be a big better than the previous match. They have about 28 minutes to work with here, so do you really think it’s not going to be great? They stare each other down before the match starts and here we go. This in interpromotional and the referee is from Smackdown for no apparent reason. Shawn slaps him in the face and here we go.

Angle takes him to the mat and rides him with ease. The fans apparently think Shawn violated Bret. Odd choice of words indeed. I say odd a lot in these reviews. Shawn takes Kurt to the mat with a headlock and the fans chant for Angle. Angle suplexes out of it but Shawn holds on somehow. Dueling chants start up as that headlock has been on for awhile now. They have the time though so it’s perfectly fine.

The hold is broken for a bit and we go right back to it again. Angle gets a back elbow to escape but Shawn locks on a short arm scissors. Angle rolls backwards a few times to get two. See how important that is? He keeps working the whole time and it keeps the fans into things rather than just sitting around. We get the Davey Boy Smith counter to it but Shawn rolls through for two. Backslide for two and it’s back to the headlock by Shawn.

They slug it out in the corner with neither guy being able to get the advantage. Angle pulls the hair and grabs an ankle lock out of nowhere. It doesn’t last long as Shawn rolls through and a clothesline puts us both on the floor. They set up the announce table and fight for the move into it. Angle gets the Slam but instead of the table he rams Shawn’s back into the post out of the Slam position. That looked good.

Angle hammers away on the floor for a bit and we’re back into the ring. Suplex gets two and Angle locks on a body scissors. Shawn flips upside down in the corner and a sweet pair of belly to bellies gets two. Kurt locks on a modified camel clutch with a knee in the back to work it over even more. Shawn fights back and they slug it out until Shawn slaps Kurt. A big clothesline takes Shawn down for two. That looked great.

Angle can’t get a belly to belly off the top but the elbow misses too and Kurt never really loses control. There go the straps but the Angle Slam is reversed. Kurt is sent to the floor as Shawn takes over for a bit. Big crossbody to the floor and both guys are down. Shawn wants an Asai Moonsault but Angle jumps up for the attempted German off the apron which never hits. A low blow gets Shawn out of it and he gets his Asai crossbody which winds up being a splash onto the table which doesn’t break. Cool looking move and apparently the tables are reinforced.

They slug it out a bit more and Shawn gets the forearm. I think you know what follows that. Angle is bleeding from the mouth. Slam sets up the elbow and it’s time to tune up the band. What band is it anyway? The Electric Light Orchestra? Shawn finds out why it’s stupid to throw a kick at a guy whose finisher is the ankle lock and can’t roll through it. The rope is finally grabbed and Shawn is in big trouble.

Angle is all ticked off now but the Slam is reversed into a sunset flip which is reversed into another ankle lock which is reversed into a victory roll for two. Another attempt at Chin Music is reversed into the Slam for two. Angle puts the straps back on only to take them right back down. Ok then. Moonsault misses but it looked like Angle’s head slammed into Shawn’s back. Angle is clutching his wrist after the move and it might be hurt.

Shawn pulls himself to the top but can barely move so Angle runs up the corner and hits an Angle Slam from the top rope. Angle immediately covers and somehow only gets two! I’d have bet on that being the ending when I was watching this live. Angle grabs Shawn by the head and screams at him to tap out. Shawn uses all he’s got left for a huge Sweet Chin Music and down goes Angle again. THAT gets two and the fans are way into this.

With Shawn trying to get up as slowly as he’s moving, Angle grabs the ankle again and holds on throughout every roll Shawn tries. He almost gets the rope but Angle pulls him back to the middle again. There’s the grapevine and after Shawn probably setting the record for the longest time ever in the move, Shawn taps to add another classic to his Mania record.

Rating: A+. Oh come on were you expecting anything else? It’s Angle vs. Michaels at Wrestlemania with half an hour to work with. Total show stealing match with two of the best ever out there working themselves to death to have the best match they could. There would be a pair of rematches with Shawn winning at Vengeance and them tying in an iron man match on Raw. Great match and absolutely worth seeing.

We see another of the movie trailers, this one with Benoit, Jericho and Christian interrogating Stacy Keibler ala Basic Instinct. There’s implied HLA with Trish and lingerie pillow fights are mentioned. Way funnier than it sounds. Oh and Mae Young flashes her vagina to end it.

It’s RODDY PIPER! We have a Piper’s Pit here at Mania with special guest Stone Cold Steve Austin. Well this works….kind of. It sounds like it’s great on paper but at the same time, what in the world would they talk about? Piper thanks the fans for the Hall of Fame and talks about Mania a bit. Here’s Austin and the problem is obvious: there’s no reason Austin is here other than he’s Austin and it’s Wrestlemania. Therefore, they have nothing to talk about.

Austin is a rebel apparently. Yeah not for about 5 years Roddy. Piper slaps him and the fans aren’t sure what to do here. Austin of course slaps him right back and Piper likes him. The WHAT chants start up and Piper isn’t sure how to take them. I hate those things anyway. Piper was here when Mania didn’t have a number apparently and that’s still the same argument he’s been using for years. Austin has nothing on Piper as far as being a rebel.

Steve replies and this is just dragging. Piper stopped meaning anything about 12 years before this and only Piper seemed to not get that through his head. Of all people, Carlito comes out and both guys say it wasn’t their idea. This was supposed to be the way to put Carlito over and give him a huge push but it completely failed due to Carlito absolutely sucking. Piper isn’t cool with this and spits the apple at Carlito. Naturally there are Stunners all around and Austin stands tall. This was awful to say the least. Total and complete waste of 15 minutes.

We see the Taxi Driver trailer which was voted the best overall. Basically it’s the majority of the roster trying to do the “Are you talking to me” line which is rather funny indeed. Batista doesn’t get what he’s supposed to say and Big Show keeps ripping his jacket. Michael Cole as Travis Bickle has completely scarred me for life but overall it’s funny.

Ready for the biggest waste of time in company history? Here is it right here.

Big Show vs. Akebono

Who in the heck is Akebono? No one knew and no one cared. Show at the time was doing a weird thing where he was looking for a challenger so they found someone even bigger than Show to face him in a sumo match. They’re wearing the full sumo uniforms here and it’s really bad. No one could care less for this.

They stall forever as Cole and Tazz try desperately to make this work but it’s dead on arrival. The fans boo them crazily as they set to start and then pull up at least 3 times. It’s the two of them slapping each other’s chests. Show loses but of course his music plays as they leave. This lasted a minute or so bell to bell and almost ten minutes overall.

Rating: F. This was a total waste of time.

We recap the Smackdown World Title feud between Cena vs. JBL. JBL has held the title since the previous summer and people are sick of him. The idea of this is old school vs. new and the respect for tradition vs. change. Cena had made a spinner belt for the US Title which JBL wasn’t happy with. Cena is the rapper here still and here’s all street tough etc. He got the match by beating Angle at No Way Out. Cena couldn’t touch JBL but JBL managed to get some shots in to Cena on the last Smackdown.
Smackdown World Title: John Cena vs. John Bradshaw Layfield

 

JBL gets a police escort here to give him his big Mania entrance. JBL dollars rain from the ceiling in a cool bit. The Cabinet, JBL’s team, isn’t here. No special entrance for Cena here. A couple of guys with brooms have to clean the dollars out of the ring. Feeling out process to start with Cena taking JBL down with a shoulder. JBL does the same and takes over with power.

After more strikes from JBL a bad neckbreaker takes Cena down for no cover. The second one gets two as I don’t think they’ll end a match in two minutes. Well at least in theory they won’t. JBL hits a slingshot to put Cena’s throat in the bottom rope. They slug it out a bit with Cena getting some momentum together. Spinebuster takes care of that though and it’s back to JBL in control.

A third neckbeaker gets two. Short arm clothesline gets two. This is kind of dragging here. JBL hits a forearm to the back of Cena as it’s total dominance and has been the whole time. We got a moderate boring chant as we hit a sleeper. Cena gets a suplex to escape and it’s a double clothesline. Never mind though as JBL sends him to the floor and adds neckbreaker #4 to take Cena down again. This is on the verge of a squash.

Superplex back in the ring puts Cena down again and of course it’s for two. Cena gets a powerslam to fight back for the first time. Some clotheslines buy Cena time as does a shoulder block. Crowd is DEAD. Protoplex sets up the Five Knuckle Shuffle and the FU just like that gives Cena the title. In an approximately eleven and a half minute match, Cena was on offense for maybe 90 seconds.

Rating: D. Really? This was like a TV match that would main event Smackdown and it’s good for Cena’s first world title here? This needed to be rebooked and given about five more minutes plus about 8 more two counts. I have no idea what they were going for here but this was a major failure on almost all levels. No wonder Cena was panned for his first title reign.

 

We recap the Hall of Fame induction ceremony from last night which definitely centered around Hulk Hogan. Oh and Piper and some other people went in too. And then that ring would go to Abyss. I give up. Gene brings out the class to be presented to the crowd, eating up some more time that could have gone to Cena and JBL. If nothing else it’s fun to see the Divas all dressed up.

Michelle with her hair back and in a long black dress is something I could get used to. Taz calls Sheik the original Human Suplex Machine. Miss Jackie (Gayda that is) was so hot it’s scary. Maria as a blonde looked great. She’s more interesting than Bob Orton for sure. Jimmy Hart is still awesome. Stacy dancing to Hulk’s music and being on his arm is weird to see. That being said her trying to look beautiful in another long black dress works very well indeed. That’s about it. Most international class ever?

 

Mania 22 is going to be in Chicago.

We recap Batista vs. HHH. The idea here is a simple one. They were both in Evolution and then Batista got very hot and won the Rumble. This led to HHH saying he would get Batista to fight JBL to avoid having to face Big Dave because he had Batista around his finger. Batista heard this and turned face (which he more or less already was) leading to this.

Raw World Title: Batista vs. HHH

Ross and Lawler talk forever to let Motorhead get ready to play HHH to the ring. The singer more or less has no idea what the words are. HHH rises out of the floor like Angle does now. This is all happening before Batista’s entrance, making his look totally weak in comparison. Nice job Game. Batista still has his old school Evolution knockoff music here and no pyro so his machinegun thing looks idiotic.

Flair is with HHH here. We get the weapons check and the title being held up which is always cool. They fight over a tie up to start with neither guy being able to get much of an advantage. Almost two minutes in HHH grabs a headlock for the first offense of the match. He runs into a shoulder though and we chill for a bit. HHH runs him over but can’t get the Pedigree. Gorilla Press puts HHH down and Batista poses a bit.

Batista looks nervous here which makes sense. They’re going very slowly here but I guess they have the time. Backdrop to HHH but the Game gets a running knee to put him on the floor. Flair distracts Big Dave long enough to send Batista into the steps to take over again. HHH and Flair both choke away as we’re bordering on going through the motions here.

HHH works on the back and adds a suplex for two. More choking by Flair as this has been total dominance ala Cena vs. JBL. HHH hammers him down in the corner but Batista gets some punches to take back over a bit. And never mind as HHH uses a spinebuster. You know, that move that NO ONE ELSE IN THIS MATCH USES RIGHT??? Why in the world would HHH, the guy with like 9000 moves in his arsenal, use a freaking spinebuster that is going to make Batista’s look stupid by comparison?

Pedigree is blocked and the facebuster gets two. For no apparent reason HHH goes up top and tries a punch from up there but gets caught by a clothesline. Who is his mentor again? Did he sleep through that day in heel school? Batista gets a spinebuster for two but HHH gets a boot up in the corner to take him right back down.

Batista fires him over the top rope with pure power and we might finally have a shift in momentum. He follows the Game to the floor and is sent into the steps to once again give HHH momentum. Pedigree onto the steps is blocked into a slingshot into the post. Maybe NOW Batista can get some serious offense in. HHH is busted now. Batista hammers at the cut and momentum has completely shifted here.

All Animal here with Batista managing to hit a clothesline in the corner that puts HHH on his back which isn’t something you often see. Powerslam gets two. Out to the floor again as HHH is just trying to cover up. Down goes Flair but HHH grabs a chair due to the distraction. Since it’s a main event though, down goes the referee as he tries to steal it from the Game.

Back in the ring it’s a spinebuster for Flair who brings the belt in. Title to the face which draws huge heat. If that had gotten the pin they may have needed police to get him out of there. Naturally it only gets two and more or less that’s it. Spinebuster doesn’t hit as HHH gets a low blow. Pedigree can’t hit and Batista gets something resembling an Emerald Flosion to set up the Thumbs Down and the Batista Bomb ends this finally.

Rating: C-. HHH ruined this for me. Number one, Batista should come out first, get his massive pop, and THEN you have the big entrance for HHH as something like that is going to get a big pop no matter what. Next, Batista was built up as a monster coming into this match for nearly 5 months, and HHH beats the tar out of him for over half the match.

That makes me think that Batista hasn’t beaten anyone at all and once he faces someone solid he can’t do anything against them. Let Batista come in and beat up HHH, have HHH, the smarter wrestler, learn from what happened the first time around and counter Batista and THEN he beats him up and leads to the finish.

By doing this, it shows two things: it makes Batista seem legit as even HHH can’t stop his offense and then it makes HHH look smart as he was able to adapt his style to stop Batista, and everyone wins. Third, WHY WOULD HHH USE A SPINEBUSTER HERE???

He has like 40 moves in his arsenal and he uses the one that Batista is most known for. The ending was solid but that’s about it. Not the way to start a title reign for a guy that wrestles as a power guy at all. If this were Benoit or someone of that size and style, this would have been perfect.

Overall Rating: C+. This Mania suffers from the same symptom that every show since the brand split has suffered from: WAY too much filler that should have been on Raw or Smackdown. It’s a good show but at the same time the main events were just weak overall with neither new champion looking great at all. The right guys went over which helps a lot, but getting there didn’t work that well. Still a good show though.

Oh and see those trailers as they’re totally awesome.

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