Superbrawl 1997
Date: February 23, 1997
Location: Cow Palace, San Francisco, California
Attendance: 13,324
Commentators: Dusty Rhodes, Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

I had a request to do Uncensored 97 and since I have every show from Beach Blast 93 through Souled Out 97 and there’s one show in between Souled Out and Uncensored, I figured I’d do that one show (Superbrawl) and then Uncensored. Wow that was a long sentence. Anyway the main event here is Hogan vs. Piper for the title because for absolutely no apparent reason, Starrcade was non-title. Let’s get to it.

We open in Alcatraz. As in inside the closed prison with Piper in a cell. Apparently he’s escaping to go to the arena to face Hogan. How much do you think this cost them to make? He had these videos playing for a long time so his shirt is in tatters and all that jazz. He gets on a sail boat and shouts at the city. That’s WCW for you.

We recap Malenko vs. Syxx. The idea is that Syxx has been stealing belts that don’t belong to him such as Eddie’s US Title and Dean’s Cruiserweight Title.

Cruiserweight Title: Syxx vs. Dean Malenko

Syxx has the belt itself but Dean is champion. There’s a huge space between the entrance and the aisle. Dean is all ticked off to start and hits a leg lariat for two but pulls Syxx up. Brainbuster gets two. Powerslam gets the same as this has been one sided for the first few minutes. Syxx gets caught in the Tree of Woe as this aggressive Dean is kind of cool. Doesn’t suit him at all but it’s kind of cool.

Cloverleaf doesn’t work so a cross body sends both guys to the floor. Back in the ring and Syxx finally gets a kick to the face to take Dean down. Syxx hits that three kick combination of his in the corner to set up a Bronco Buster. We hear about Barry Bonds coming to San Francisco which doesn’t mean much but the match is going kind of slowly and I need something to talk about.

Sleeper goes on for a bit as Malenko counters with a belly to back for two. Dean’s neck is messed up so Bobby suggests neckbreakers or piledrivers. Syxx goes with a brainbuster instead and follows with a guillotine legdrop for two. Love that move. Back to the sleeper as we talk about Hogan and Piper now and how everyone is concerned about Piper. Dean throws on a sleeper for irony I guess but they ram into each other and down they go.

The announcers debate trains for awhile and how they crash which is annoying as my grandmother is currently heading to Washington via train. Syxx gets crotched on the top but reverses a belly to back off the top into a cross body to put Dean down. Syxx goes for the belt and Eddie IMMEDIATELY sprints out to stop him. Tug of war winds up sending the belt into Dean’s head for the pin and the NWO’s third title.

Rating: C. Pretty good match here which set up Eddie vs. Dean later I think. This was fine with the Cruiserweight formula of mat based guy (well kind of) being a heel vs. the fast paced guy (again kind of) being the face. Nothing very good here and not the best choice for an opener but I’ve seen far worse before.

DDP has a match with someone in the NWO tonight but doesn’t know against who so he runs down the list of the possible opponents. Gene thinks Buff Bagwell and what do you know he gets word that it’s him.

Konnan/La Parka/Villano IV vs. Ciclope/Super Calo/Juventud Guerrera

Not sure if this is trios rules or just a regular match. Calo’s team is the face team. Villano vs. Ciclope to start us off as we talk about Ray Stevens who passed away about 10 months earlier. Villano apparently means villain which is named after a character that all the Villanos’ father played in an El Santo movie back in the 50s. These guys are a bit bigger than most luchadores but it doesn’t matter as we’re off to Konnan and Juvy.

Rolling clothesline puts Guerrera down but a springboard dropkick changes momentum. And never mind as Konnan remembers he’s the real star here and beats up everyone to bring in Parka to face Calo. It’s moving too fast here to really keep track of it. Calo sends him to the floor and hits a slingshot Swanton. Parka puts him in a chair as selling is completely forgotten here and crashes into him.

Villano vs. Ciclope again as we’ve started all over apparently. Ciclope TOTALLY botches a moonsault to the floor as he veers to the left and lands hard. Off to Parka vs. Juvy with Parka hitting what we would call a Whisper in the Wind. Slingshot rana by Juvy gets two. Villano and Konnan get what was supposed to be a Doomsday Device on Juvy and follow it with a double leglock.

Everyone goes in and it was a six man submission hold/pin attempt at the same time. Everything breaks down and they all get tossed around with Konnan and Villano left standing. They do a four person leg hold called the Star and Parka puts Juvy in a surfboard in the middle. Triple suicide dive by the faces with Juvy completely missing Konnan but he tried. Back in the ring Konnan gets two on a Power Drop (Razor’s Edge into a sitout powerbomb) but they call it three despite Juvy’s arm being up maybe a second early.

Rating: C. Well that was something. I have no idea what it was but it was something. This was just another random Mexican Cruiserweight match which wasn’t very good but they were trying to pop the fans a bit. Not enough dives to make the fans care but it definitely got your attention. Not sure if that’s a good thing or not though.

TV Title: Rey Mysterio vs. Prince Iaukea

WCW put their midcard title on a Samoan by beating a blueblood just after Rocky Maivia did in the WWF. No reason given why Iaukea, who meant nothing, popped up to become a champion but I’m sure it wasn’t copying WWF. Not at all. Rey is still young and awesome here with both knees intact. Technical stuff to start with no one being able to get an extended advantage.

The Prince misses a springboard shot but gets a kick to the face for two. Off to the floor as Dusty talks about becoming a king. Bobby wants to know what he’s a prince of, suggesting Omaha. Big dive by Iaukea takes Rey down on the floor and he takes over. The fans get distracted by something in the audience as he hits a suplex on Rey and we hit the chinlock.

Iaukea is more or less the default heel because only an idiot (or Russo) would try to make Rey a heel. Prince tries to come off the top but gets caught by a dropkick and a rana takes Iaukea to the floor. In a SICK bump, Rey lays him on the floor and gets a running dive through the ropes with a front flip to land on Iaukea (not a Swanton but more of a back splash).

Back in the ring and a spinwheel kick and falling moonsault (he stood on the top and dropped down onto the rope for the moonsault) get two for Rey. The Prince comes back with what would become known as an Angle Slam off the top as Regal, the former champion, comes down. They botch a top rope rana so they try a modified version of it. Regal pulls Rey down and his face goes into the apron, allowing Prince to pin him. He didn’t see Regal drop him on the apron.

Rating: C. Not bad here and the reason for Regal is Rey distracted Regal on Nitro to cost Regal the title. Not much of a match as the third straight cruiserweight style match got a bit tiring. Iaukea went nowhere after losing the title while Rey would go on to become Rey Mysterio. Always cool to see two different paths like this here.

Iaukea tries to give Rey the belt when he figures out Regal cheated but Rey doesn’t want it. So no one wants to be champion? I’ve heard of worse ways to kill a belt.

The Giant talks about how the Outsiders like to play mind games but tonight it’s his game at his speed. He has a handicap match later since Luger is hurt.

Buff Bagwell vs. Diamond Dallas Page

DDP is in the middle of the push of a lifetime by being the first guy to turn down the NWO so this could have been a stuffed panda in an NWO shirt and DDP would have fit in perfectly. Page isn’t quite the People’s Champion yet as he still has the cigar but it’s shaping up quickly. Very slow start as Page his some basic stuff, including a neckbreaker that Bagwell would use as a regular move in a few years.

Out to the floor as Bagwell gets a shot in and Dusty talks about various rambling things. Bagwell hasn’t been heel that long at this point so he doesn’t have his stuff down yet. Small package gets two for Page but he walks into a clothesline to take him down. The referee gets in Bagwell’s face in a funny bit. Discus clothesline and both guys are down. Heenan sounds drunk again.

Here comes the comeback as Bagwell is just a step above a jobber so it’s not much of a comeback. Helicopter bomb gets two even though it would be a propeller that didn’t spin that much. Diamond Cutter doesn’t work as Bagwell hits his Fisherman’s suplex finisher but wants the referee to count Page out for ten instead of covering him.

When that of course fails he tries a neckbreaker which is reversed into a Diamond Cutter to bring the crowd straight to its feet. And here’s the NWO G-Team of Mr. Wallstreet, Nick Patrick and Syxx for the save. Page actually runs from them because nothing spells fear like IRS and a referee. Page wins by DQ because we can’t have Buff Bagwell get pinned to hurt his credibility right?

Rating: D+. Just a match really with nothing of note going on. DDP could have realistically challenged any NWO person at this point so Bagwell was just the opponent of the night for him. The ending is pretty freaking stupid as the fans wanted to see Page win with the Diamond Cutter and it’s not like this was against Hogan. It’s against a lackey and a new one at that. What’s the point?

US Title: Chris Jericho vs. Eddie Guerrero

Gee think this will be good? The graphic says TV Title because WCW is stupid. Eddie is champion here and Jericho is still relatively unknown here having debuted in August but only doing random cruiserweight stuff. Let’s give him a shot at the second biggest title in the company on PPV! Tony says the wrong year for the first Superbrawl (it was 91).

Technical stuff to start and Eddie works on the legs a bit. Dusty rambles a lot and after we talk about the new generation we better talk about Hogan and Piper again. Crowd is DEAD because this is just a random title match with no particular rhyme or reason. Test of strength doesn’t prove anything and more technical stuff follows. Very back and forth match with no one getting an advantage.

Spinebuster sets up the Liontamer which doesn’t have a name yet and the announcers criticize it because they don’t get it yet. Off to a chinlock as Jericho has been winning for the majority of the match. Eddie is a bit off because he cost Dean the title earlier. Jericho gets a backbreaker on him which is more or less a torture rack. He drops down into another backbreaker for two.

They speed things up a bit and Jericho misses a cross body out of the corner and Eddie gets a powerbomb for two. Brainbuster looks to set up the frog splash but he rolls through it and Jericho gets a NICE release German to put both guys down. Things slow down a bit now and Eddie reverses a bunch of stuff before an overhead belly to belly gets two for Jericho. Eddie gets crotched on the top and a springboard dropkick puts him on the floor so Jericho can hit a pescado.

Back in Eddie catches him in an atomic drop as Chris comes off the top. They both try kicks (drop for Eddie, spinwheel for Jericho) and Jericho might have hurt his knee. They collide again and we’re both down again. Powerslam gets two for Jericho. Suplex reversal gets two for Eddie but he walks into a superkick and La Magistrol for two. Jericho counters a tornado DDT into a northern lights suplex for two. We get a reversal sequence and Eddie comes out with a sunset flip for the surprise pin.

Rating: B. Very good match here which is exactly what you would expect. Both guys worked very hard out there and I’d be shocked if this isn’t the runaway match of the night. That being said, neither guy would get anything out of it as Eddie dropped the title a month later and Jericho wouldn’t do anything until June when he won the Cruiserweight Title and was in that division for like a year.

Faces of Fear vs. Harlem Heat vs. Public Enemy

This was supposed to be a four corners match with the Steiners but the Outsiders and Syxx ran their car off the road to injure them, filmed it, and AIRED IT ON NITRO. Naturally the Steiners said let us win the titles in a match instead of, you know, PROSECUTING THEM AS FELONS! This isn’t for the #1 contender spot because the Steiners aren’t in it if that makes sense.

Rocco Rock is bald now. Rock and Barbarian start us off. Powerslam gets two for the Samoan/Tongan/stereotype of the island monster. Stevie comes in and Rock gets beaten up a bit more. Grunge comes in and Heat takes him down with ease. Booker gets the axe kick for two on Grunge. Dusty is of course losing his mind over everything here and won’t shut up.

Booker gets a side slam and a Spinarooni to set up the Harlem Side Kick to take Grunge down. Meng comes in and beats on Booker a lot, including hitting a dropkick of all things. Clubberin commences and Booker is in trouble. Belly to belly superplex gets two for Barbarian. Meng hits a Piledriver on Booker for two. The Islanders hit their signature powerbomb combo for two and everything breaks down. Public Enemy hits a double team move off the top with no tag whatsoever and the referee is like whatever and gets the pin on Barbarian. Sure why not.

Rating: D-. So this was a bad match with nothing on the line and the ending was completely against tag team rules. Well of course it was. And this made it to PPV. Having Tony remind us that even though Public Enemy won a big tag team match but ARE NOT #1 contenders really points out how stupid this was.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Steve McMichael

Mongo is a Horseman and if Jarrett wins, he gets to be the fifth Horseman, which would be Benoit, Flair, Anderson, Mongo and Jarrett. This is when Jarrett had long hair, country music and not a shred of credibility. Flair and Anderson are out with injuries at this point so this is more or less an attempt to build up a new generation. Also Debra is in the middle of all this.

Someone keeps ringing a cowbell at ringside. Jarrett gets a hiptoss and struts a bit. Powerslam gets no cover for Mongo. Debra stops Mongo and here comes Jarrett. Out to the floor again and it’s all Mongo. Terribly boring stuff here as Jarrett has no heat and Mongo isn’t anything good at all. It would be about a year and a half before Jarrett got anything resembling credibility which seemed to happen when he cut his hair.

Lots of choking and slow moving stuff here like walking around. Sleeper by Mongo and Jarrett gets a suplex to escape. Debra isn’t sure who to help. Cross body gets two for Jarrett and the referee goes down on the kickout. Mongo wants his briefcase but Debra says no, throwing it over his head so Jarrett can clock Mongo with it and become a Horseman.

Rating: D. This is one of those matches that is technically ok but at the same time there was nothing going on. They were in slow motion almost all the time and the stakes meant nothing as no one bought either guy as a Horseman. Weak match overall and of course they feuded forever, eventually over the US Title.

Chris Benoit vs. Kevin Sullivan

This is a death match which means street fight. Jackie is with Sullivan and Woman is with Benoit. The chicks will be strapped together for no apparent reason. These two feuded FOREVER and it never particularly went anywhere other than giving us one or two great matches and then the guys trying to redo the matches over and over again which never worked. This would be (I think/hope) the final one.

Both pairs start brawling and it’s a nice pop for that surprisingly. The women are the focus here of course as Benoit and Sullivan have the most basic match you can have that is still classified as pro wrestling. They’re suplexing each other, as in butterfly/regular varieties, in a DEATH match. Woman crotches Sullivan with the strap and the girls get unattached. Benoit gets hung, which I guess you could call foreshadowing?

Dusty freaks out because a woman is doing something so this is turned into a total joke. The girls beat on the guys as I want this to end very badly. The guys watch the girls then wake up and beat on each other. The girls get left in the ring as the guys fight up the aisle. It’s split screen time because WCW enjoys doing that for some reason.

The guys fight into the back and we’re on one screen now. They throw stuff at each other and it’s time to go back into the arena after about a minute or so. The referee, ever the genius, stayed with the girls instead of going to the back where a pin could have happened. Back in the ring and Benoit gets caught in the Tree of Woe, which is one of Sullivan’s finishers.

Woman saves and Benoit pops up to piledrive Sullivan. Jackie doesn’t hit Woman but she falls down anyway. It’s table time which wasn’t a well known wrestling thing yet so it was still a fairly big deal. Sullivan goes on the table, Jackie gets on top of him for the sake of protection, Benoit is like screw it and dives on both of them, the table doesn’t break, Sullivan is pinned under the table.

Rating: D. Terribly boring stuff here as this was a DEATH match and it was a comedy match. No idea what they thought the appeal to this would be but it didn’t work in the slightest. This feud was straight up played already so they kept going with it for months and months on end. Weak match, feud sucked, wasn’t funny.

LONG post match stuff sees everyone in the back not known as a wrestler comes out to help them and everyone goes out on a stretcher. Eats up like 6 minutes. Naturally Dusty says Hogan and Piper could end up like this. Can you imagine either of them either coming off the top or going through a table? Give me a break. Woman doesn’t look bad with her hair pulled back.

Tag Titles: Outsiders vs. The Giant

Ok so there’s a backstory here. Giant and Luger are partners but Luger has a broken hand/arm and couldn’t get a doctor’s clearance in time so Giant has to go this alone. Syxx is with the champs. Hall starts off here with the idea being to tick Giant off. Hall hammers away which seems to just be getting him in trouble. One armed slam by Giant and it’s off to Nash. This was the teased match for an entire year which didn’t happen until the following January because Nash didn’t want to job to Giant.

Giant gets a dropkick to send Nash to the floor and manhandles him with ease, including ramming him into the post. Elbow gets two back in the ring. Nash gets in a shot with the Cruiserweight Title and Hall adds what was supposed to be a bulldog but Hall manages to wind up behind Giant, making it more like a Zig Zag.

Basically this is 3-1 and that’s about what was expected. Nash misses the running pelvis to the head with Giant on the middle rope in a 619 position. That move REALLY needs a name. Off to Hall again who hammers away in the corner. Giant fights them off as Syxx comes in and slips the belt to Hall who drops Giant with it. Nash manages to powerbomb Giant in a cool spot as somehow we haven’t had a DQ yet.

Here’s Luger with a cast on to clean house. He Racks Nash who hurt his back on the powerbomb. That rings a bell for a submission somehow but wait, Nash wasn’t legal. Therefore Giant (illegal) chokeslams Hall, the legal man, and pins him for the definitive pin. Naturally this was overturned the next night on Nitro for literally no reason other than “that wasn’t legal” but it was a stupid moment so I can forgive it.

Rating: D+. Match was junk for the most part but that powerbomb was indeed awesome. Nash vs. Giant would FINALLY get blown off 11 months later because WCW saw no problem with Nash screwing over a PPV audience at Starrcade. Anyway, this was more stupid stuff that meant nothing if you were paying attention but it’s WCW so there you go.

We really have to do the main event now don’t we?

WCW World Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Roddy Piper

WCW didn’t do video packages at all and it took a bit to get used to it. Ok so Piper debuted at Halloween Havoc because a mere four years since he meant anything were seen as nothing I guess. Piper got to set up the contract at Starrcade so for some reason he made it non-title. Piper then went to Alcatraz for a week because WCW thought we would care. Piper has said he’s not WCW for whatever reason but it’s not like anyone cares again. Let’s get this over with.

Piper is of course covered in a dirty shirt which is full of holes as they actually tried to make us believe he was in a closed prison for a week. Hogan stalls, apparently channeling his inner Memphis. Piper chases him in the aisle and goes after his eye for no apparent reason back in the ring. There’s a low blow as this isn’t going to be wrestling is it?

Total brawl of course and Piper no sells a low blow. NWO people come out and Piper beats them up like Sting, Luger, Savage and Giant couldn’t because he’s old I guess. Piper no sells everything and brawls, using eye pokes (nyuk nyuk nyuk), punches, biting and choking. Hogan gets crotched on the top to add to the “comedy” of this match I’m guessing.

Here come Sting and Savage, who were hanging out at the time. Savage leaves Sting there but Sting stops him. Hogan finally gets a shot in as Savage is chilling on the floor. The fans LOUDLY cheer for Sting as Hogan gets two. Sting just leaves as Hogan beats on Piper. At this time it wasn’t clear whose side Sting was on so this was normal for him. Bear hug by Hogan as we see that Savage has lightning bolts on his clothes just like Hogan. Gee, foreshadowing much?

Another low blow sets up the sleeper by Piper and out of absolutely nowhere we’re done. It’s as abrupt as it sounds. And then after Piper’s hand is raised, Savage pulls Hogan’s feet under the ropes even though the referee could see the 10 inches plus between the feet and the ropes. Savage slips something on Hogan’s hand, Piper gets drilled, Savage is in the NWO and Hogan keeps the title while no one really gets what’s going on at all. The idea is Savage was thrown out of WCW so it was NWO or nothing else.

Rating: F. The match sucked as neither guy could move in the slightest so they were put in back to back PPV main events. The ending is completely stupid as no one got what was going on and it’s designed to make Hogan look even weaker than before. Terrible main event and one of the worst ever. Tony not mentioning Savage pulling him under the ropes after the match doesn’t help either as we saw Savage pull him.

Piper gets beaten down post match and it’s a huge moment or something because Piper was the big savior I guess. Beating ends the show.

Overall Rating: D. There’s some watchable stuff on here but the pacing really hurt this show. They had all their exciting matches at the beginning so after the Guerrero/Jericho match they had nothing else they could go with to pick the crowd up. Not the worst WCW show ever, but nothing worth seeing at all because it’s more NWO dominance as they get stronger with Savage now. Another weak show.

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Hard Justice 2006
Date: August 13, 2006
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 900
Commentators: Don West, Mike Tenay

This is at the other end of the spectrum for TNA as the next show in 2005 was Unbreakable and that’s the last TNA show I’m going to be doing. The show looks very different now and in a good way for the most part I think. The main event here is Jarrett vs. Sting for the title (shocking) and there’s also AJ/Daniels vs. LAX which is usually good. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about how good and evil are eternal rivals which is what they’re trying to push Jarrett vs. Sting as. They’ve feuded on and off over the years but eternal rivals? No. Just no. What this has to do with justice is beyond me.

Eric Young vs. Johnny Devine

Johnny is part of Paparazzi Productions. This is when Eric is all paranoid about getting fired so he’s trying to get all the fans he can behind him, meaning he’s got a parade of people after him chanting DON’T FIRE ERIC! Devine says Eric is going to choke under the pressure. Eric knocks him back and then gives him a hug as we get going. Devine punches him down and drops a few knees to the head.

We get a pretty sweet move as Devine is sent into the corner and tries to jump over Eric off the bottom rope but instead shifts in mid air into a reverse DDT. Then things get interesting as a legitimate fire breaks out in the rafters and the ring fills up with fire extinguisher spray. You can see the flames through the fog which is a little scary.

Devine suplexes him down and misses a springboard moonsault. The idiot fans chant “You can’t see us.” Eric gets a good powerbomb as the smoke is clearing out. Top rope elbow gets two. A sunset flip by Eric is countered but he gets Devine in a wheelbarrow position and flips him into a neckbreker for the pin.

Rating: C. All things considered, this wasn’t bad. Young had become a hit with the fans at this point as the paranoid guy that everyone loved, as opposed to now when he’s done the same schtick for over a year without ever really changing anything. The fire extinguisher stuff wasn’t their fault and to their credit they kept right at it which was impressive.

Earl Hebner runs out and chokes Mark Johnson for some reason. He’s mad about being fired and says that if he’s going down, Jarrett’s going down with him. Ok then.

We run down the rest of the card.

We see Jarrett arriving earlier with his second, Scott Steiner. Sting and Christian got here earlier today too.

We recap the four way tag match which is AMW, the James Gang, the Naturals and Bentley/Kazarian which I think is a #1 contenders match. I don’t think this needs much of a recap. All of them want the titles and have been fighting over who should get it.

First though we have to replace the mat because of all of the fire extinguisher stuff on it. What’s the right word for that anyway? Foam? Spray? Anyway Don and Mike talk about the fourway to fill in time.

Now we recap Sting’s career in TNA. He came back in January of 2006, had a tag match and said he was gone. Jarrett said he didn’t think Sting was gone so he sent the Pararazzi to film Sting at home, which ticked Sting off. He came back as Steve Borden to beat up Jarrett and then a month later as Sting. Steiner came in the next month to beat up Sting so Sting brought in Joe to beat up Jarrett but for some reason they switched his friend to Christian and sent Joe to the midcard again. Jarrett got the title back at Slammiversary and this would all set up tonight.

We come back to a sign saying technical difficulties, please stand by.

Here’s the same Sting video that just aired.

Tenay and Borash are in the back and we’re told that the fire marshall has evacuated the building and are testing everything before we continue the PPV. We look at the fire breaking out in the opening match. West comes in and says the people are being allowed back in now. To be clear, this isn’t something that can be held against TNA. It was an accident and who knows whose call it was that the building had to be cleared out. That could be building policy, local or state law or maybe even something else.

Tenay and West hype up the rest of the card to fill in more time. Eric Young comes up and wants to make sure that he’s not being blamed for the fire. Monty Brown says he’s going to blaze everyone in his triple threat match. This is about as good as they’re going to get for filling time which is ok. Also points to Brown and Tenay for doing this on the fly. It drags on too long and Brown runs out of insults. The fans are coming back in as Tenay helps Brown out by saying the winner could get a possible title match. Shane Douglas comes up to complain about life in general. His team is with him and he talks about them a bit at the end.

JB is with Alex Shelley who is replacing Kevin Nash in the X-Division match tonight. Nash has a bad neck apparently. Devine wheels in Nash in a wheelchair and a neckbrace. Nash tells Shelley to go to war and takes the brace off to give Shelley his dog tags. As little sense as this whole angle would wind up making, it was pretty funny.

Alex Shelley vs. Chris Sabin

The winner is #1 contender to the X Title. Feeling out process to start and it’s exactly what you would expect from the Guns in a singles match against each other. Shelley charges into a boot in the corner and Sabin hits a missile dropkick for two. Sabin loads up a Jackknife and does the Wolfpac sign before hitting the powerbomb. Shelley comes back with a bulldog and a Lionsault for two.

Sabin sends him to the floor and hits a suicide dive to take both guys down. Back in the ring and Sabin goes off with the kicks, followed by a springboard guillotine legdrop for two. Sabin loads up a tornado DDT but Shelley comes back with a middle rope atomic drop. Into a modified crossface but Sabin makes the rope.

Sabin gets Shelley into the Tree of Woe and hits the hesitation dropkick followed by a freaky spinning DDT for two. Sabin loads up something in the corner but Alex rolls off the corner and rolls forward into a Backstabber off the middle rope. Cool. Shellshock gets two and Nash puts a chair in the ring. Sliced Bread onto the chair is countered and Sabin kicks it into Shelley’s face. Cradle Shock gets the pin.

Rating: B-. As you would expect, these two put on an entertaining match. It’s easy to see why these two would be put together as a team because they compliment each other so well. The Nash stuff was part of a bigger story which I’m still not sure I get all of but it was entertaining which makes it ok.

Mitchell and Abyss aren’t worried about Brother Runt and say he’s doomed. Runt has been listening to Raven apparently and Raven has been telling Runt fairy tales.

We recap Runt vs. Abyss. The Dudleys had left for awhile to heal up and told Runt to stay out of trouble. Naturally he picked a fight with Abyss because that’s the kind of thing Runt does.

In case it wasn’t mentioned earlier, the four way tag match is canceled. The announcers haven’t said that yet but I don’t have time to wait on them.

Abyss vs. Brother Runt

Runt has a mohawk and looks like Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, which Tenay and West keep calling Taxi. Runt is no Judd Hirsch. He starts fast with forearms and a headbutt to the ribs but Abyss kicks him down and throws him over the top and into about the third row. On the floor Runt comes back with a Dudley Dog onto the barricade. Raven is watching from somewhere. Runt throws in some chairs but Abyss wedges the first one between the ropes. Runt’s head goes into the chair for Abyss to take over.

Abyss splashes him in the corner as Raven is still watching, apparently from next to the stage. Abyss loads up a superplex but Runt gets in a shot with Abyss’ chain to knock him to the ring. Acid Drop (Dudley Dog, same thing) gets two. The referee goes down and Abyss gets his bag of tacks. Abyss rubs Runt’s face into the tacks and stomps on the back of Runt’s head, sending it into the tacks. Ok that’s not bad. Runt comes back but gets gorilla pressed onto the tacks. Black Hole Slam onto the tacks ends this.

Rating: D. Was there a point to this? I’ve never gotten the appeal of Runt challenging whatever monster there is but I suppose it was to set up Raven vs. Abyss later on. Abyss threw him around all match long and then beat him up with the tacks in some decent looking violence. Pretty boring match though.

Rhyno says he was looking for Joe and Brown during the confusion earlier. He’s here to destroy both of them no matter where he needs to go.

We recap Rhyno vs. Joe vs. Brown. Rhyno was offered a contract with the new ECW but he turned it down. He threw out an open contract for a fight at Hard Justice which was accepted by Joe and Brown. It’s falls count anywhere which is going to be stretched to mean hardcore.

Samoa Joe vs. Monty Brown vs. Rhyno

Big brawl to start and Brown is sent to the floor where Rhyno dives on him. Joe dives on both of them and stands tall. Brown brings in a trashcan but Joe takes it from him. In a cool sequence he hits Brown in the back with the can and with Brown bent over, Joe punts it into Brown’s face. Joe gets sent into the crowd and Rhyno follows him with a kendo stick. They go over to that wall that you always see in the Impact Zone but Brown dives onto both of them to take over.

Rhyno and Joe ram each other into the wall enough times to crack it and boards are falling off of it. Brown beats on Joe with said boards before Rhyno takes Brown up above the wall. Joe pops up with a crutch and then a chair to the back of both of them. He superkicks Brown back a bit and they stumble further into the crowd. Joe poses long enough for Rhyno to hit him in the head with a trashcan lid.

Brown comes in with one of his own but gets suplexed by Rhyno for his troubles. There’s a suplex for Joe but he blocks the Gore. A suplex gets two on Rhyno for Brown. Rhyno knocks Brown upside the head again and pulls some more weapons from under the ring. They go into the ring with Joe still down. As I say that, Joe comes back in and cleans house on Brown, hitting a backsplash for two.

Joe goes off on Rhyno but walks into a spinebuster onto a chair. They go to the corner with Rhyno looking for a superplex. Joe pulls him down with a sunset bomb onto the chair for two. Brown is back in now and takes Joe to the floor. He loads up a table but can’t suplex Joe off the ramp through the table. Instead he hits a swinging neckbreaker on Joe on the stage. Rhyno runs in with a trashcan lid shot to both of them. There’s a table set up off the stage but Rhyno misses a Gore off the stage and crashes through it. Brown goes down to pin him but walks into an STO off the ramp through the table by Joe for the pin.

Rating: A-. That’s probably high but DANG this was a wild brawl. They didn’t stop for over thirteen minutes and some of those weapon shots were HARD, especially the ones with the trashcan lid by Rhyno. Joe would keep running through everyone and wouldn’t lose until December to this Angle dude. He would beat Jarrett (non-title of course) next month. Brown would have one more match until he left for WWE.

Larry Z says Earl Hebner has been thrown out. He says he had nothing to do with the controversy at Slammiversary. Mark Johnson comes in and wants an explanation but Larry says it was Johnson’s fault.

We recap Gail vs. Sirelda. Sirelda is the lastest Chyna wannabe who beat up Gail on behalf of AJ and Daniels, so tonight it’s girl vs. whatever Sirelda is.

Sirelda vs. Gail Kim

Gail is looking great tonight. She jumps Sirelda to start but gets powered into a corner and slammed ala Ultimate Warrior. Sirelda loads up a chokeslam but Kim easily escapes. She guillotines Sirelda on the top rope and a knee drop gets two. The fourway tag is officially announced as canceled. There’s a Tarantula from Gail but her high cross body misses. A bad looking World’s Strongest Slam gets two and Sirelda loads up a superplex. Gail knocks her back and hits a bad Blockbuster for the pin.

Rating: D-. This was really bad but Gail looked smoking out there so I’ll give it some points for that. Sirelda wasn’t around long and given how awful she was in this match I’m not really surprised by that. Nothing to see here and I think this ended the mini feud between these two. If it didn’t then it should have.

Scott Steiner goes on a semi-famous rant, talking about how Christian is a surprise as Sting’s backup. That’s strange because Scott Steiner is from a highly educated university and has to dumb himself down for these fans.

We recap the X Title match which is Senshi defending against Williams who won a five way and Lethal who is in the match because he tried hard in a match against Jarrett.

Senshi vs. Jay Lethal vs. Petey Williams

Williams knocks Lethal to the floor and follows him out with a rana off the apron. Senshi dives out to the floor, takes out both guys and lands on his feet. It’s Lethal vs. Senshi at the moment. Williams comes back in and walks into a Liger Kick from Senshi. Lethal back up now but he misses a moonsault out of the corner. Senshi shoves Lethal into Williams and Williams kicks Lethal down.

Petey puts Lethal in the Tree of Woe and does the O Canada spot. Senshi kicks Williams down and loads up the Warrior’s Way but Lethal comes back in for the save. Lethal’s superplex is broken up and Senshi dives onto Williams. Lethal stays up there and dropkicks both guys down, drawing a Lethal chant from the crowd. Both guys are slammed by Jay and he hits stereo low dropkicks to the face.

Lethal’s slide through Senshi’s legs for a sunset flip attempt is broken up by a kick and they all try to roll each other up. Jay gutwrench suplexes Senshi down but gets caught in a Sharpshooter by Williams. Senshi breaks that up with a kick to Petey for two but gets caught in a release German for two from Lethal. Swan Dive to Petey misses and there’s the Canadian Destroyer to Lethal. Senshi kicks Williams down and pins Lethal to retain.

Rating: B-. Another good three way here as they had some great counters in there at the end. Senshi was a guy that I’ve always found uninteresting and Williams only had one move and Lethal was pretty dull without the Savage stuff, but they combined for a decent match here. I think Sabin would take the title off Senshi.

Konnan says LAX’s revolution continues tonight. Daniels and Styles are handpicked champions and LAX won’t stand for that.

We recap LAX vs. Styles/Daniels. It’s pretty much exactly what I just explained: LAX is leading the Latin revolution against TNA and they’re starting by taking the tag titles.

Tag Titles: LAX vs. Christopher Daniels/AJ Styles

Daniels and Hernandez start things off and it’s power vs. striking. Daniels escapes a suplex and hits a headscissors followed by a leg lariat to send Hernandez to the floor. Off to Styles vs. Homicide and Tenay is WAY too excited about it. They trade armdrags and slug it out with rights to the head. Homicide snaps off a rana but AJ nips up into one of his own to send Homicide out to the floor.

Hernandez tries to come in but the champs double team him out to the floor. It’s back to Styles vs. Homicide now but a Hernandez distraction allows Homicide to hit a neckbreaker for two. SuperMex comes in legally now and hooks onto AJ’s head with a neck crank. Back to Homicide for a chinlock of his own. AJ tries to set for a springboard but Hernandez breaks that up. Homicide hits a tope con hilo through the ropes to take AJ out again.

Daniels tries to come in but it just allows Konnan to get in more offense. Hernandez gets the tag and chokes a bit before it’s back to Homicide. AJ comes back with a front suplex to drape Homicide over the top rope which is good for the tag. Daniels cleans house on both challengers, hitting a combination bulldog/enziguri. Split legged moonsault gets two. Homicide goes to the floor but Daniels drops down on him as well. Hernandez dives over the top to take them both out but AJ hits a HUGE off the top rope shooting star to take everyone out.

Everyone is down until AJ gets up and throws Homicide back in. A faceplant gets two because AJ gets up to take out Hernandez. Daniels is back up and a double team cross body gets two on Homicide. LAX hits a kind of Steiner Bulldog for two on Daniels. Homicide sets for a tornado DDT but AJ blocks it until Hernandez comes over for the Tower of Doom. AJ gets up and hits the moonsault into the DDT for two on SuperMex. Everyone is down and AJ hits the Pele on Hernandez. Release Rock Bottom puts Daniels down but Konnan crotches Styles. LAX sets for double finishers but the champions escape and hit High Low to retain on Homicide.

Rating: B. These two teams had some excellent chemistry together and their future matches would get even better. This won feud of the year in TNA I think and I certainly can understand why. Daniels is always tolerable when he’s not facing AJ so this was a much more enjoyable performance from him.

Christian says he thinks Jarrett started the fire to get out of his match. He’s not going anywhere and tonight, Jarrett loses the title. As for Steiner, he can come after Christian anytime. Sting gets the title tonight to cut the cancer out of TNA.

We get a shortened version of the Sting vs. Jarrett video from earlier.

NWA World Title: Sting vs. Jeff Jarrett

Christian and Steiner are the respective seconds. We almost get in a fight with the big match intros but after them we’re ready to go. The fans chant steroids at Steiner. Feeling out process to start but Sting quickly goes for the Scorpion twice in less than a minute. Out to the floor and Jeff is thrown over the announce table. Sting hits him with a fan. As in a cooling machine, not a person.

They’re in the crowd now as is the custom for a Sting main event match. All Sting so far. Sting throws Jarrett back into the ring after an extended crowd beating but as the the referee (one of three) is with Christian, Steiner hits Sting in the knee with a chair and suplexes Christian. Jeff goes right for the knee and Sting is in trouble. There’s the Figure Four and of course it’s on the wrong leg.

Jarrett makes the eternal mistake of slapping Sting which lets Sting turn the hold over and eventually make a rope. They slug it out and Sting isn’t selling the knee. Stinger Splash misses but the Stroke is countered into the Death Drop for two as Steiner pulls the referee out. Christian goes after Roidzilla with a chair but gets ejected for trying to use it. A regular splash from Sting gets knees to put him down.

Steiner throws in the belt and distracts the referee but Christian trips him up and throws the belt to Sting. Jarrett is clocked but Steiner’s distraction lets Jarrett recover and put his foot on the ropes. They collide and Steiner hits Sting with a chair, knocking his head into Jarrett’s crotch. Christian and Steiner get in the ring for a fight but Steiner is thrown out. Wasn’t Christian ejected? Either way he hits Jarrett with the chair and is ejected again as a result.

Steiner is in the ring behind the referee but doesn’t actually do anything. Now he gets ejected as well so it’s FINALLY even. Sting and Jarrett are both getting up but Sting misses a dropkick. Jarrett hooks the Scorpion on Sting but Sting Hulks Up and powers out of it. Scorpion to Jarrett but Jeff makes the rope. Stinger Splash hits the referee and Jarrett hits the Stroke, but there’s no one to count. Cue Steiner again with a guitar but Christian comes in with the bat. He cleans house with it but turns on Sting as he comes off the top, hitting him with the guitar. Jarrett gets the easy pin to end the show.

Rating: C. WAY overbooked here as almost all Jarrett vs. Sting matches wind up being. How hard can it possibly be to have Jarrett vs. Sting? I mean….IT’S JEFF JARRETT VS. STING. Do you think they can have a good match on their own? This might as well have been a tag match and it didn’t set up Christian vs. Sting for some reason. Instead we got Joe vs. Jarrett next month and Sting vs. Jarrett again at BFG.

Overall Rating: B-. This show was a bit of a mess, but it was a fun mess. The fire messed up a lot of stuff but it happened early enough in the show that it didn’t change much (other than the promos which mentioned it all night). There were some good matches here and the main event, while overbooked beyond all need, was entertaining enough and let Christian do his obvious turn. Pretty good show but it had some holes in it.

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Monday Nitro #74
Date: February 10, 1997
Location: Jacksonville Municipal Coliseum, Jacksonville, Florida
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay, Bobby Heenan, Larry Zbyszko

After last week we have our two biggest matches for Superbrawl and we have this plus one more Nitro before we get to the PPV. It’s hard to say what’s going to happen here as they have a lot set for the PPV so it’ll likely just be promos for that. I say it’s hard to say because there would be a very strange set of promos by Piper before it, which I’m sure will get a few comments out of me. Let’s get to it.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Dean Malenko

Before the match Dean talks (?!?!) to Syxx, challenging him to a match anywhere anytime. This is non-title I believe. Eddie wraps him up to start after a quick headscissors. Dean takes the arm but gets headscissored back down. Dean comes back with a powerslam for two and takes over. Eddie tilt-a-whirls him down for two.

Time for the chinlock and then they hit the mat for a move that no one is sure as to what it was. It might have been a submission but I have no idea who it was on. Dean hits a release German for two and a tombstone as Syxx comes out. He clocks Penzer and steals the US Title. Eddie chases and gets counted out.

Rating: C+. It’s Eddie vs. Dean. Were you expecting anything other than a good match here? They were flying all over the place and put on a clinic out there while they could, but the ending really brought it down. Then again it’s advancing an angle so I can’t complain as much as I do when it’s the same things over and over.

Here’s DDT with a chair. He sits down in the middle of the ring and says that there’s a bullseye on his forehead. Here’s here to make a statement: he’s tired of running and if something is going to happen, let it happen right now. Here come Sting and Savage to the ring and they circle him. Savage hits the chair with the bat and Page jumps up. They shove him back with the bat and Sting pulls his back to swing it but stops. Page doesn’t leave and Sting hands him his bat. Savage and Sting turn their backs but Page doesn’t move. Savage and Sting leave.

Konnan vs. Bobby Eaton

Konnan hits a quick dropkick and shrugs off Eaton’s right hands. Seated dropkick sets up the 187 for a very quick pin.

We get a clip of Luger getting attacked last week.

Lex Luger vs. Ron Powers

Eric comes out and says not so fast because Luger isn’t medically cleared to wrestle because of a big cast on his left hand. Lex has the rest of the show to get him a medical release or he’s out of SuperBrawl. Lex leaves and Giant comes up behind Bischoff.

The Giant vs. Ron Powers

Giant throws him around and hits the chokeslam for the pin at about a minute and a half.

Giant says he’ll have a partner at SuperBrawl in the form of Lex Luger because Luger is the only one that would trust him. Luger comes out and says nothing will stop him from going for the titles.

The rest of the NWO gets here. Actually it’s just the Outsiders and Bubba. Bubba wants DDP at SuperBrawl.

High Voltage vs. Steiner Brothers

Scott and Rage get us going as Tony talks about a fatal fourway match which would never take place. Harlem Heat, another team that is scheduled for that match, is out watching. Rage clips Scott’s knee but gets caught in a powerslam coming off the top. Gorilla press brings in Rick and the Faces of Fear are watching too. Kaos is in to face Rick and the Public Enemy is here too. Malenko vs. Syxx will happen at the PPV as well. Rick works the arm for a bit and it’s back to Scott. High Voltage cheats to take over but Scott won’t sell any of that. Rage’s springboard is caught in a Rick powerbomb and the Bulldog gets the pin.

Rating: C-. Just a step above a squash here but it was fine to give the Steiners some momentum going into the PPV. High Voltage was a good jobbing team like they were used as here so I can’t complain much in that regard. Having the other teams come out was a nice touch as well.

Here’s the NWO for their regular takeover of the broadcast desk. It’s Hall, Nash and Eric on commentary with Syxx and Nick Patrick behind them. Eric brings out Randy Anderson with his kids to beg for his job. Bischoff gets in one of his greatest lines ever with “Kids, will you please tell your daddy…..THAT HE’S STILL FIRED!” Next week Anderson can wrestle Patrick for his job. Anderson’s wife says no because that’s against what his doctors said. His doctors told a referee that he can’t wrestle?

Outsiders vs. The Extreme

This is the same team that the Outsiders killed a few weeks ago. The Outsiders jump them in the aisle and this lasts about a minute and a half. A Torture Rack (in a fireman’s carry position) by Nash gets the submission.

Syxx interviews the Outsiders post match with Nash talking about how a giant is a goon according to the dictionary. Hall says Nash is a cool giant, not a dorky giant.

Hour #2 begins with the usual announcers.

TV Title: Rey Mysterio vs. Steven Regal

Regal takes the arm to start and it’s time for some chain wrestling. They both fight over the arm but Regal casually picks him up and hits a backbreaker to take over. Rey comes back with a springboard missile dropkick and Regal is in trouble. Steven gets in a quick thumb to the eye and a European Uppercut to take over. There are the knees to the face and Regal is dominating. Rey manages a dropkick to put him on the floor but walks into a guillotine to keep the advantage with the champion. They trade some very fast rollups for two each and Rey has him cradled as the bell rings at 6:54 for the time limit draw.

Rating: C. I know wrestling isn’t great at keeping time, but less than seven minutes? That has to be a botch of some sort because that was off by about three minutes if Tony’s statement of a ten minute time limit is correct. They were starting to click at the end too which makes the ending all the stranger.

Kevin Sullivan vs. Maverick Wild

Wild has what would become Mongo’s music. Sullivan jumps him immediately and knocks him to the floor, where Jackie beats him up. Wild gets thrown out there again and beaten up one more time with Heenan freaking out. Tenay actually mentions the Women’s Title. Tree of Woe and double stomp end the squash quick. This was more about Jackie than the match.

Sullivan cuts off the interview post match and talks to Nancy and Chris. He talks about being in bed last night and getting a call from someone named Paulie and saying that the deal is falling through. A bunch of people have told him to do his job which makes Sullivan talk about the difference between a community and a neighborhood. He implies that if Woman tries to use a weapon on Jackie, there will be punishment. The girls are going to be strapped together at the PPV. Jackie says the same thing.

Some Jacksonville Jaguar is here.

LONG recap of the ending of Nitro last week, and by that I mean they SHOW THE WHOLE THING, with Tony doing a voiceover. There are no cuts in this and it eats up like 8 minutes. I guess we’ve just found the rest of the TV Title match.

Hugh Morrus vs. Alex Wright

Morrus pounds him down in the corner and Wright comes back with kicks and punches. Wright’s spinwheel kick takes Morrus to the floor and Wright hits a big dive to take him down. A charge misses for Hugh and they botch a missile dropkick spot badly. Morrus powerbombs him and the moonsault gets the pin. I think this was cut short.

Chavo Guerrero/Jeff Jarrett vs. Chris Benoit/Steve McMichael

That’s an odd pairing. Benoit and Chavo start things off with Chavo speeding things way up. Off to Jarrett and they take Benoit down pretty quickly. Benoit hits the buckle chest first and Jarrett puts him down with a belly to back suplex. Mongo hits him in the back to a BIG reaction and gets the tag to an even bigger one. Weird crowd man. Powerslam gets two and it’s back to Benoit. Jeff hits a picture perfect dropkick and tags Chavo back in. Chavo erupts and beats up the Horsemen by himself, hitting a moonsault for two on Benoit. Debra won’t let Jarrett get back in and Mongo kills Chavo with a tombstone for the pin.

Rating: B-. For a three and a half minute match this was pretty fun stuff. Jarrett can throw a mean dropkick and Chavo’s were good as well. Also Mongo killed him dead with that tombstone, which was pretty much the only move Mongo could do competently. Good little match here, which is what happens with talented people.

All of the Horsemen come to the ring post match for their meeting of the week. Anderson talks about everyone getting weapons and Flair steals a foam Horsemen hand from a fan. Arn warns Sullivan and Jarrett to stay away from the ladies. Flair says the Horsemen are united. Benoit is ready for Sullivan.

Mongo insults the fans after everyone else seems to be a face. Mongo gets on Debra about the Jarrett thing and Debra thinks Jeff should be a Horseman. She’s so upset she hasn’t been able to shop for a week. Mongo says they’ll have a match and if Jarrett wins he’s a Horseman. Debra says she’s not a gossip and you didn’t hear this from her, but Sullivan and Jackie aren’t good people. Debra is reaching Michael Cole levels of annoying at this point.

Time for Hogan and Piper to close the show. It’s Piper first and he talks about his family. Hogan pops up and it’s split screen time. Hogan hasn’t said anything yet as Piper goes on about how he was supposed to be going home to his family. He’s seen Hogan on the screen now and starts to ramble. Piper talks about how he’s having to break his promise to his son and Hogan says he doesn’t care. He talks about how the footage from Starrcade was doctored and Piper goes off, talking about OJ Simpson or something. That’s enough to make Hogan mad and Piper storms off to end the show.

Overall Rating: B. Good wrestling, they added a lot of stuff to the show and they hyped up what they already had. What more can you ask for from a show? Well less Debra and someone that can tell time would be a start but still this show worked pretty well. These shows have been getting a lot better lately and hopefully that sticks better than I remember it doing. Good show this week.

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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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Impact Wrestling
Date: March 29, 2012
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz

I really hope this is an improvement over last week’s less than stellar effort. The main story is probably going to be Hogan being convinced to take the GM job which we all know that he’s going to take. Hopefully they have more time for Storm this week as he got pushed aside for Hogan and Garrett last week, which is ridiculous but such is life in TNA. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of last week with Dixie, Sting and Hogan making a decision about the GM spot.

Dixie says she’s given Hogan a week to think about it and hopefully she’ll know some more tonight.

Here’s Roode with additional security this week. Wasn’t he not supposed to be seen until Lockdown according to his lawyer? Roode says you all better respect him because without him, this company is nothing. At Victory Road, Roode accomplished his goal and proved that he’s better than Sting ever was. As for Dixie, if she wants to stick her nose into the champ’s business, she’ll get what’s coming to her. As for what the lawyer said last week, it only has to do with him wrestling.

The security is here for Storm’s benefit, not his own. When you’re the champ, you don’t need any luck. That brings out Storm who makes fun of the mall cops. Storm goes after Roode but Bully Ray runs out to deck Storm. Storm gets in one shot and Ray runs. Cowboy tries the superkick but Roode runs. Storm says he wants both Roode and Ray tonight and the champ says ok.

Gail gives Madison a tiara/crown. She’s the queen again.

Velvet Sky vs. Madison Rayne

Madison jumps her during the entrance and Tazz has nothing to say. How in the world did he fall from a tough miserable man to Pigeon Man? Madison takes over to start but Velvet gets in a boot to set up a basement dropkick for two. Madison gets in a few shots and a slam but Velvet comes back with a “spear”. A “bulldog” puts Rayne down the sitout Pedigree (apparently called In Yo Face) ends this at 2:58.

Velvet says she’s coming to get her Knockouts’ Title back.

Ray doesn’t like getting chummy with Roode for tonight.

We go to what looks like a park where Hogan and Dixie’s meeting is recorded. Hogan takes some of the blame for the whole going crazy and taking over the company. This goes on for a few minutes and basically is Hogan saying I used to be great but I don’t know if I’m right for it anymore. Dixie says we need you and begs him a bit because that’s what you have to do with Hulk. The end result: they’ll talk more in the arena tonight. This ran about five minutes which we’ll never get back.

We recap Crimson and Morgan’s breakup. They fight next.

Angle says no rematch for Hardy because Hardy is a crybaby. If Hardy gets a win over Mr. Anderson tonight, he can have his rematch.

We get ready for Crimson vs. Morgan but here’s Austin Aries to interrupt. He says he’s got a problem right now and that problem is called Bully Ray. Ray interrupted him in a title defense last week and that’s not ok. Aries’ balls are as big as Ray’s calves. He respects a guy like James Storm who stands up for himself, so if Storm wants a partner tonight, Aries would love to help him out.

Matt Morgan vs. Crimson

They’re brawling in the aisle as we come back from a break. Into the ring they go with Morgan pounding down onto the head of the Red Enthusiast. Crimson makes a comeback and they head to the floor. Back inside with Crimson in control but Morgan comes back with some rights….and there’s a spinebuster to put him right back down for two. Crimson misses a spear in the corner and Morgan takes over, but they brawl to the floor and it’s a double countout at 3:48.

Rating: C-. What exactly were you expecting here? This has been going to Lockdown the entire time and everyone has known it. The match there won’t be bad and I really hope they don’t blow the winning streak (as lame as it is) on Morgan. Not much to see here but some of Crimson’s power stuff wasn’t bad. He needs to talk more though.

They brawl out of the arena.

Joseph Park goes to look for Abyss info in the technical truck. Apparently he (Joseph) used to play college football.

Mr. Anderson vs. Jeff Hardy

If Hardy wins he gets a shot at Angle at Lockdown. The Guns are back next week apparently. Feeling out process to start with no one having a clear advantage. The announcers have to talk about the Bischoffs because this is TNA after all. Now a shift to talking about Hogan. Jeff hits his double leg between Anderson’s legs for two but Anderson comes back with elbow drops.

He calls for the Mic Check but Jeff elbows out. Twist of Fate is countered and they ram heads with Jeff falling to the floor. And here’s Kurt to jump Hardy. He hadn’t done it yet when I typed that. It was just that obvious. Low blow and a post shot before Jeff is sent back in and the Mic Check ends this at 4:27.

Rating: D+. Nothing of note here because of the ending but it couldn’t have been more obvious that they were doing that. Angle vs. Hardy will happen at the PPV I’m sure, maybe in Lethal Lockdown. Either way, nothing match as they wanted to keep both guys looking strong which is understandable.

Here’s the debut of Longnecks and Rednecks, Storm’s music video. It’s set in a bar and has some clips of Storm in TNA.

ODB and Eric plan the wedding. This is annoying. Eric wants to wear the dress. ODB finally gives up and fires the good looking blonde wedding planner. They’re going to get married three days before Lockdown inside the cage. That’s in two weeks.

Here’s Eric with yet another challenge for Garrett. Eric talks about how great he is and how he has a contract that says he can get TV time whenever he wants. Every day he makes a checklist of what he wants to accomplish. On his recent list, he’s wanted to get rid of Sting as GM, get Dixie to find a less competent GM, and increase his personal wealth, all of which he’s done. However, he can’t get rid of his son, so he calls Garrett out right now.

Eric says that Garrett has a chance to leave with his health, because at Lockdown Eric wants to see him face Gunner again. Garrett can walk away right now though, but Garrett grabs the mic and calls Eric a jerk. He’s not going anywhere and putting him in a cage is a dumb idea.

Video on Storm training out in the country. He talks about how Roode broke up Beer Money and how the fans want him to take Roode out.

Hogan arrives at 10:30.

Bully Ray/Bobby Roode vs. Austin Aries/James Storm

Aries and Ray start but after Ray runs his mouth for awhile he bails. Storm tries to tag himself in to face Roode but the champ runs. Aries takes Roode down and we take a break as he wants the Bully. Back with Aries getting what he wants as the announcers talk about Hogan’s decision. Aries takes Ray to the mat and makes him look like a fool before chilling in the corner. He pounds on Ray but charges into a big old boot.

We get into standard tag team match formula with the heels pounding on Austin with double teaming tactics. Aries elbow Roode down and takes out Ray with a missile dropkick. There’s the hot tag as Storm cleans house. Roode is caught but Ray makes the save. Closing Time hits Ray and Roode spits beer in his face, allowing the Last Call to hit for the pin at 12:22.

Rating: C-. I wasn’t all that impressed here. Most of the match was Aries getting beaten on until we got down to the ending. Still though, Storm isn’t getting much time to show off which isn’t a great idea as he’s been the hottest thing in the company for months now. Not a terrible match, but nothing we haven’t seen a dozen times.

Here’s Dixie to bring out Hogan for the big decision. She believes in Hogan and wants him to take the position. Is it the one he demonstrated in his sex tape? Hogan says he doesn’t really want to do it because of what happened with Immortal, but here’s Sting to keep up the begging and worship of Hogan, because that’s what this company is all about. Oh and he brings out half the faces with him (D-Von doesn’t even bring his belt with him). All the big name faces are there: AJ, Storm, Anderson, Morgan, Hardy…..and Garrett of course.

Sting kisses up to Hogan and says take it already. Hogan wants to make sure it’s a clean slate and wants a guarantee that Sting will ALWAYS have his back. Sting wants to make sure that it’ll be the Eye of the Tiger Hogan. He says he’ll have Hulk’s back and Hogan takes the job, of course. Gee that was such a big sacrifice for him. Hogan celebrates with the rest of the good guys to end the show.

Overall Rating: D+. This was a step up over last week’s show but I really don’t like the way TNA seems to be going. It seems that they’re going more towards the idea of talking and drama rather than wrestling (9 matches combined in two weeks) and focusing more on Bischoff and Hogan. Tonight they didn’t go two minutes without talking about Hogan’s decision and that’s not good when they’re coming up on the second biggest show of the year. It wasn’t a bad show by any means, but I don’t like the way things seem to be going.

Results
Velvet Sky b. Madison Rayne – In Yo Face
Matt Morgan vs. Crimson went to a double countout
Mr. Anderson b. Jeff Hardy – Mic Check
James Storm/Austin Aries b. Bully Ray/Bobby Roode – Last Call to Ray

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Great American Bash 1998
Date: June 14, 1998
Location: Baltimore Arena, Baltimore, Maryland
Attendance: 12,810
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Mike Tenay

By the law of common sense, this HAS to be better than Road Wild. The main event is Sting vs. Giant for control of the tag titles since Giant joined the Black and White. The rest of the card at least looks ok and far better than the abomination that was Road Wild. I just finished that show if it wasn’t that clear. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is shots of the big names and shots of patriotic things like flags and eagles.

Tony declares that the people in the tag match tonight are the four best in the world today: Hogan, Hart, Savage and Piper. I’ll let the jokes make themselves there.

Gene talks about the main event to fill in some time. Sting has joined the Wolfpack so they have to have the match for later tonight. They’re the WCW/NWO Tag Titles now too.

Now the announcers talk to waste time. The fans want Goldberg.

Here’s a clip from Thursday where Bret hit Booker with a chair to cost Booker a match in the Best of Seven series. Benoit didn’t want it that way so he gave the match away via DQ. That was the seventh match but Booker didn’t want the win that way. Instead they’ll have an eighth match tonight and the winner gets Finlay for the TV Title tonight. Yeah that’s what this whole thing is for.

Chris Benoit vs. Booker T

The winner gets the title match later tonight. The opening bell rings 9:40 into the show.
Benoit snaps off an armdrag to start and Booker retaliates with a hiptoss. Oh and there’s a chance Benoit might want to join the NWO but he’s never said yes. Benoit gets in a shot and Booker heads to the floor. He has a bad knee due to a previous match with Benoit. Down to the mat for a bit and things are continuing to be slow.

Booker hits a hard elbow to the face for two and slams him down, getting the first advantage. Benoit comes back with a dragon screw leg whip to work on the bad knee. Belly to back gets two. Benoit hooks a chinlock but Booker elbows out of it. That doesn’t last long as Benoit chops him right back down, followed by a snap suplex for two. A belly to back is countered into a cross body for two.

Benoit keeps control and it’s time for a chinlock again. Booker gets up again but Chris knees him in the ribs to take him right back down. A front suplex puts Booker on the top rope. Benoit hits a hard clothesline for a pair of twos and now he’s getting frustrated. Back to the chinlock again and then a surfboard submission. Booker fights out of that and hits a powerslam.

Booker goes up but takes too much time, resulting in his cross body hitting the mat. Crossface attempt fails as Booker makes the rope. Now back to the chinlock for the fourth time. Does he realize he’s Chris Benoit? Booker fights up, probably due to the amount of practice he’s had so far in this match, and hits an enziguri followed by a spinebuster for two. Pancake sets up the Spinarooni but the missile dropkick is countered by a crotching. Superplex puts both guys down but Benoit can’t cover.

Instead he goes with the rolling Germans but hits a dragon (full nelson) suplex for the final one which only gets two. The crowd reaction says they thought it was over. Swan Dive hits but again he can’t cover. A delayed cover gets two, but then Booker pops up, hits a pair of side kicks and the missile dropkick for the pin to win the series. REALLY anti-climactic ending.

Rating: C. The match was ok but man was it underwhelming. The knee wound up meaning nothing at all and the ending comes out of nowhere with almost no comeback by Booker. Benoit controlled about 90% of the match, but the chinlocks were distracting. When’s the last time you remember four rest holds out of Benoit? Decent match but this should have been a lot more.

Chavo says Eddie wants to fight him but Lee Marshall disagrees.

Kanyon vs. Saturn

Saturn is in the Flock still. A guy dressed in Kanyon’s old Mortis attire (it’s known that they’re the same person at this point) comes out of the entrance until Kanyon himself comes through the crowd and jumps Saturn to start. Ok not so much jump him but wait for Saturn to turn around and make the whole thing pointless. Swinging neckbreaker gets two for Kanyon. Kanyon puts him in an electric chair position but drops Saturn forward for two.

Here’s the Flock but Kanyon knocks all of them around with ease. Saturn is sent to the floor which winds up going nowhere. Kanyon sets for something but Lodi distracts him, allowing for Riggs, Kidman and Horace to triple team him. Not that it matters to Saturn who dives over the top onto all three of them. Nick Patrick ejects everyone other than Lodi I believe. Kanyon is sent into the barricade and Saturn is in control. Saturn hits a move that I’ve seen Kanyon use before, as he suplexes Kanyon back in from the apron while standing on the middle rope.

Back in Saturn hooks an ankle lock and then a hold that resembles Cattle Mutilation but has half of the normal grip for that and a half nelson at the same time. Cattle Mutilation looks a lot better. A springboard clothesline puts both guys on the floor with I think Kanyon taking the worse of it. Saturn brings in a chair, prompting this from Tony: “Is this Raven’s Rules? We haven’t heard anything about that.” To anyone watching along with me, press rewind for about seven minutes and twenty seconds, to the part where Tony says: “Saturn coming to the ring for this next match, which is under Raven’s Rules we understand.” Moving on.

The chair is used as a springboard to set up a dropkick in the corner ala Poetry in Motion. There’s Sabu’s Triple Jump Moonsault to fill the moves stolen from ECW quota of the night. In a cool counter, Saturn tries a slingshot shoulder block but Kanyon counters into a northern lights suplex for two. Saturn comes back with a swinging neckbreaker for two of his own. Time for a chinlock and the fans aren’t pleased. A belly to back gets two for Kanyon and a Stun Gun puts Saturn down but Kanyon can’t follow up.

They do a weird backslide move where Saturn is sat out and gets two out of it. Rings of Saturn is transitioned into a two count somehow. They’re trying some different stuff here and it’s really not working. Fireman’s carry into a pancake gets two as does a torture rack neckbreaker. Downward Spiral is countered into a half nelson suplex by Saturn, getting two. Saturn’s Death Valley Driver is countered but he KILLS Kanyon with a superkick. Saturn does seem like he knows what he wants to do.

They both go up and both get crotched and fall to the floor. The Mortis from earlier in the match comes in and make that two of them. The smaller one hits the taller one and this is getting goofy now. They fight to the floor as Saturn jumps into a Downward Spiral which gets the pin for Kanyon.

Rating: D+. This was a really strange match. They were trying to be different I think and while they accomplished that, it wasn’t exactly good stuff. A lot of it looked like they weren’t sure what they were doing and it came off as kind of sloppy. Also at 15 minutes, this was too long. Not an awful match, but they overthought it and that brought things way down.

The smaller Mortis is unmasked as Raven, who DDTs Kanyon on the floor. I’d assume the much taller one was Reese. Raven gets on the mic and yells at Saturn for losing and has the Flock beat him down. Saturn fights them off because most of them suck.

We recap Malenko vs. Jericho. Malenko won a title shot in disguise as Ciclope and then the title later on that night but Malenko had to surrender the title. Jericho didn’t get it back because we have to have a rematch with Malenko vs. Jericho tonight.

Cruiserweight Title: Chris Jericho vs. Dean Malenko

Title is vacant coming in. Jericho is announced as being from Calgary here which is a new one for him. They double clothesline each other to start but both pop up with Jericho spin kicking him down. Malenko goes crazy and pounds on Chris in the corner. That’s a new one for him. Jericho comes back with a shoulder block and some shadow boxing with the referee. Liontamer is easily countered and Dean hits a suplex for two.

Off to a surfboard submission and Jericho screams like a girly man. Jericho gets out and is caught in the Tree of Woe but Dean’s baseball slide misses. Out to the floor and Jericho hits a pescado. He pounds away on Dean and both guys are looking fired up here. Suplex sets up the posing cover for two. Off to a sleeper by Chris but Dean counters into one of his own. Jericho counters that with a belly to back for two.

Lionsault misses and Dean hits a leg lariat into a cradle for two. Tony says we’re ten to fifteen minutes into the match but it’s more like eight. Knee to the head of Jericho gets two. Dean takes him to the corner and sets for the top rope gutbuster but Jericho counters into a fast rana to put both guys down. Jericho gets a very delayed two. Dean counters a powerbomb but Jericho rolls him into the Liontamer. Ok more like the Walls of Jericho but same idea. Dean gets the ropes and Jericho is furious. He threatens to hit the referee but the power of Billy Silverman stops that.

Jericho takes him to the corner and counters a headscissors atttempt into an Alabama Slam. Dean counters a Liontamer attempt into the Texas Cloverleaf for a BIG pop. Jericho makes the rope to make the crowd get sad again. The butterfly suplex into the backbreaker puts Dean back down and Jericho slaps him. He shouts that Dean is nothing like Dean’s dead father and Malenko snaps. They go to the floor and Dean hits Jericho with a chair for the DQ to give Jericho the title (which wasn’t announced until tomorrow night because WCW likes to screw its paying customers).

Rating: C+. This was a pretty decent match which picked up a lot near the end. Dean would never get a singles title in WCW again while Jericho would go on to be wasted in the midcard until he jumped to the WWF a little over a year later. Pretty good match but it was based on emotion and the title changing hands on a DQ was stupid.

They brawl to the parking lot and get near the traffic where Jericho has to avoid being hit by a car. He runs into a building across the street as we try to figure out who the champion is.

Eddie says Grandma Guerrero doesn’t want them to fight and starts crying about it.

The announcers think Jericho should be champion but we’ll get a ruling tomorrow I guess.

Video on Juventud Guerrera who never gives up. It’s him walking around set to very slow Latin music.

Juventud Guerrera vs. Reese

Reese is 7’2. That would be the extent of his list of talents. He also played Yeti at Halloween Havoc 1995. The idea here is that Juvy needs to prove himself again after losing his mask. The announcers are STILL talking about Jericho. No contact for the first minute as the Jericho chatting continues. WE GET IT ALREADY. Reese throws him around but Jericho keeps charging. Reese goes to the floor and Juvy dives at him, getting caught and rammed into the post.

Juvy says bring it on even more and crotches him on the top rope coming in. He fires off kicks at Reese’s knees and jumps up into a choke off the top. Reese shrugs all that off and bends Juvy over his knee in a backbreaker. He spends a few minutes destroying Juvy and throws on a bearhug. Juvy finally hits a low blow to slow Reese down but Reese drops to his knees so he can punch Juvy in the face. Reese suplexes him down but Juvy is up at 9. Reese goes to get a chair but the referee pulls it away. Van Hammer, former Flock member, comes out and hits him with it so Juvy can hit an AWFUL rana for the pin. Shoulder was up too.

Rating: F. What in the world was the point of this? Juvy is supposed to be some new man that never quits. Yeah that’s true, but he’s also a man that was getting killed until Van Hammer came in to save him. This match was REALLY boring and could have been accomplished in about four minutes instead of the nine that it got.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Chavo is a little psycho here. Heenan: “You know I asked Grandma Guerrero what she thought of this match.” Tony: “What did she say?” Heenan: “I don’t know, I don’t speak Spanish.” The idea here is that since Chavo is nuts, Eddie is afraid of him and doesn’t want to fight him. Chavo slaps him in the face and Eddie is fired up now. Eddie chops away and Chavo does the same.

They go to the mat and Eddie pounds away as this becomes a brawl. Chavo misses a splash in the corner and Eddie does the spinning face grind with his boot. Now Chavo launches Eddie over him and onto the corner. Leave it to WCW to make sure that two of the best wrestlers in the company have a brawl instead of a wrestling match. Chavo goes to the floor and Eddie kicks the rope into his crotch on the way back in.

They exchange control over the arm and Chavo goes to the top. He flips forward but Eddie moves out of the way. Chavo lands on his feet and runs to the other corner to hit a moonsault press for two. SWEET. Eddie sends him to the floor and into the steps. Back inside a brainbuster puts Chavo down and Eddie slaps him. That wakes Chavo up again and he snaps, resulting in him going off and it’s time for a chase scene. Back in Eddie rams into Chavo’s knee to take him down and it’s figure four time.

For some reason Chavo doesn’t reach two feet to his left and grab the rope. Well to be fair he’s crazy. The hold finally is broken up by Eddie and it’s back to the knee. Now the Gory Stretch which is appropriate here. Chavo escapes again but the knee gives out and Eddie hits a regular dropkick to take over again. Now off to a camel clutch for some reason. Oh for the love of…..YOU’RE GUERREROS!!! FREAKING JUMP OFF SOMETHING ALREADY!!!

Now an over the shoulder backbreaker. Are you kidding me? He spins that into something like an Eye of the Storm and we get a LOUD We Want Flair chant. Chavo takes over again and does the Eddie chest slap thing. He loads up a Frog Splash but Eddie crotches him. Eddie’s Frog Splash misses and both guys are down. Tornado DDT is countered by sending Chavo to the floor, but he comes back in with a springboard tornado DDT for the pin.

Rating: D. Allow me to reiterate: YOU’RE GUERREROS. This was ridiculous as the whole thing was dull, much like the rest of the show has been. There’s just too going on tonight that is pure boring. At the end of the day, there are way too many talented guys out there being boring. Gee, I wonder if that’s a coincidence: the talented guys get time and they all keep it in slow. I think I smell a Bischoff.

We recap the making of the tag match later. Roddy said no one knows Savage so Savage got in his face. Piper says he’s not selling anything and they had a brawl. They’re teaming against Hogan and Hart later. How does that set it up? Who knows?

TV Title: Fit Finlay vs. Booker T

Remember what I said about talented people having boring matches? I haven’t seen this match perhaps ever, or at least in almost fourteen years. How much do you want to bet that this match is slow and boring? Booker has already had a sixteen minute match tonight so he’s tired coming in. Feeling out process to start and since no one cares about this match, the announcers talk about the tag title singles match later.

Booker sends him to the floor and hits a dive over the top to take Finlay down. Back in Finlay hits something like a spinebuster and off to some leg locks. Now a half crab. The leg work goes on for a few more minutes and MY GOODNESS DO SOMETHING INTERESTING!!! I’ll bet that the main event matches are all energetic and “fun” and I’d bet even more that the other guys were asked to be slow and boring, because they might show someone else up otherwise. I need something to rant about during this match because there’s only so much you can say about Finlay laying on Booker’s leg.

Mr. T. makes a brief comeback but takes a knee crusher to put him right back down. Out to the floor and Finlay wants to use a chair which isn’t allowed. Instead the leg goes into the post again. Back in Finlay Vader Bombs the knee and stomps on it some more until Booker decides to pop up and spin kick Finlay down. The fans think this is boring and I can’t argue at all. Powerslam sets up the ax kick as the knee is perfectly fine. Finlay puts him down but the Tombstone is countered. The champ misses a charge and a piledriver gvies Booker the title.

Rating: D. Technically this was fine as the whole thing was about the knee work, but then they just finished the match, which is something Booker would never do. This show is ridiculous with the boring matches and now it’s time for the “draws” to come into play. This can’t end well at all.

US Title: Goldberg vs. Konnan

Konnan is Wolfpack and has Hennig and Rude with him. Goldie is 99-0 at this point, meaning he’ll be 104-0 by tomorrow night and 110-0 by the Nitro after that. The cheering is so canned here it’s unreal. Konnan gets knocked to the floor in about a second and this isn’t going to go anywhere. A bad leglock puts K-Dawg down again, double leg takedown is called a spear, Jackhammer ends this. Total squash.

Hennig and Rude beat on Konnan post match and reveal Black and White shirts. Luger and Nash make the save.

Hollywood Hogan/Bret Hart vs. Roddy Piper/Randy Savage

How is this the third PPV I’ve done between here and February of 1999 and this is Bret’s first appearance? Hogan is world champion because it’s WCW. Why are these four fighting? Who knows? The only thing we got from WCW was Piper and Savage fighting, which doesn’t explain a thing. Stalling before we get going until it’s Piper vs. Hogan getting things going. After more stalling, Piper goes into Three Stooges mode and brings in Savage.

Tony praises Savage/Piper for their ability to make tags. Yeah that’s what they’ve reached. No ability to talk about Jericho now is there? Piper atomic drops Hogan back into their corner and the beating continues. Disciple hits Piper in the back with the belt to shift the momentum for the first time and it’s off to Hart. Bret and Hogan take turns punching Piper as you can tell that even these four aren’t interested at all.

Bret does his usual stuff and whips Piper in, resulting in Piper going into slow motion for a small package. Pipes tags Savage but it doesn’t count for some reason. That worked so well that they do the same thing again. Things break down a bit and Savage tries to bring in a chair, but instead of hitting Bret with it, he puts it over Piper’s stomach to prevent a headbutt from Bret. Savage gets the tag and the fans don’t move at all. Everything breaks down and Savage goes up but his knee gives out on an elbow attempt. Hogan wraps it around the post and Savage gives up to the Sharpshooter.

Rating: F. There’s no excuse for these four to be wrestling in one of the featured matches on PPV when you have this roster in the year 1998. None. These four are the “draws” right? Then why do you keep them on top while the company’s massive lead has died and WWF is in the lead? That would mean putting someone other than Hogan on top, and we just can’t have that right?

Gene comes in for a post match interview with the losers and a match breaks out.

Roddy Piper vs. Randy Savage

This was scheduled due to the loss apparently. Savage jumps him to start and this is as bad as you would expect it to be. Now he can hit the elbow but the knee is too hurt to cover him. Instead he punches the referee and Piper puts him in a figure four. A second referee runs in and Savage gives up AGAIN. This was like 90 seconds.

Someone smarter than I am, tell me what those two matches solved. What were they even fighting over? Why am I trying to figure WCW out anymore?

Tag Titles: Sting vs. The Giant

Winner gets both belts. Why are they fighting? Again, not explained. Giant is smoking on his way to the ring. Yeah that was their attempt to make him EXTREME. If Giant wins, he’s picking Disciple as his partner to be champions. I would say even WCW wasn’t that stupid, but I would be very wrong. Giant blows smoke in his face so Sting fights back and puts him on the top rope on his back for a splash. The second attempt eats boot and Sting is tossed to the floor.

Back in Sting runs the ropes and hits a cross body but Giant just stands there. Elbow drop hits Sting and YET AGAIN they walk around as slowly as possible. This is the main event too, so why in the world are they doing this here? Bear hug to Sting to further keep things boring. Sting dropkicks the knee out and hits two Stinger Splashes. There’s an easy slam but the Scorpion is easily broken up. Death Drop gets two. Death Drop gets two. Death Drop from the middle rope gets the pin.

Rating: F. This was the main event. It lasted seven minutes and was awful. Was this really the best they could come up with? Somehow, I think it was and that’s why you don’t see WCW around anymore: we don’t get the announcement of who Sting’s partner is as it was made the next night on Nitro. In other words, there was no need to pay for this show at all.

Overall Rating: F+. And yet somehow, it was still better than Road Wild. The problem here was that nothing was interesting at all. Everything was VERY slow paced and boring with nothing at all being even remotely good. With the card they have, this could have been a decent show, but instead they made sure it was in slow motion and that the two decisions that came out of the show weren’t revealed until Nitro, making this show show TOTALLY POINTLESS. Thank goodness I only have twelve of these things left. I can’t take any more than that.

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This seems like an appropriate topic with Wrestlemania being about two weeks away. This is something that is very important and can really make or break a company if not done right. Yet for some reason over the years, it’s very rarely been done right. On Rise and Fall of ECW, Heyman talked about Terry Funk wanting to get the next generation ready so that there was a business to pass on to them. That’s what we’re getting at today so let’s get to it.

Now first and foremost, there’s a BIG difference between giving someone a rub and passing the torch to someone else. Back in the 80s, Hogan tagged with a bunch of guys that were known names but didn’t become anything important until they were his best friend for a few months of house show tag matches. Then they’d be Hogan’s partner for awhile and they’d be bigger stars than ever before. That’s giving someone a rub.

Passing the torch means that you make someone the new big name in the company. We’ll get to examples of that later on, but the main idea is that someone is either leaving, is dropping down the card after being on top for a long while, or that the other person is going to be taking their place. To use the example from earlier, Hogan wasn’t going anywhere and wasn’t moving down the card. He was still top dog but the others were up higher than they were before. That’s an important difference.

On second thought, this was going to just be about passing the torch but I might as well cover rubs in here too. We’ll get to passing the torch first.

Let’s go back to the past as I’m known to do. The better example is probably King Jackie Fargo passing the torch to King Jerry Lawler but we’ll go with something actually in the last thirty years with Harley Race and Ric Flair. Now let’s take a good look at what put this together and why it was a true passing of the torch. There were a lot of factors that came together to make it work.

First of all, Flair was already a big name. He was a two time NWA World Champion and was well established as a top guy. This is important to passing the torch because if you want someone like Race to go out, this is how you do it: to a guy that has proven he can do something already. Otherwise you might need to go to someone else which makes the moment weaker.

Second, this was built up. It had a long and personal angle to it which resulted in real emotion. Race had put a $25,000 bounty on Flair’s head and it was cashed in, resulting in Flair being put out of action for months. He took care of the attackers and then came after Race to take the championship and get his revenge. It was an angle that people wanted to see get paid off which makes the match that much more interesting.

Third, the match was great. It’s a classic old school cage match with Race working him over and Flair making the comeback for the pin and the big moment. It was also in the main event of the first Starrcade, which at the time was the biggest card ever put together. Look at Cena vs. Rock this year: they’re having this match in the main event of Wrestlemania after a year of these two arguing and bickering. In short: take your time and make the match feel important.

Most importantly though, RACE LEFT. After this happened, Race was gone from the NWA spotlight. There was a three day title change in New Zealand but other than that, Race went back to the smaller territories and eventually on to the WWF. Now, that’s not to say that Race couldn’t have come back in a smaller role. If Race had come back in say a year or even six months it would have been fine, as long as he didn’t challenge for the title or feud with Flair. That’s one of the main things: Race didn’t try to come back against Flair. He had been defeated and was done.

There really aren’t that many of these moments to talk about in history, and since most of them have been done well there isn’t really a point to going through them one by one because they would all mostly say the same thing. The other few of note are the Fargo/Lawler one that I mentioned earlier, Austin vs. Michaels in 1998, HHH vs. Batista in 2005, and really those are all of the major ones.

Now let’s get to the problems that can come up when these rules are broken. This can also be called The Hogan Section.

Hogan has had a few chances to pass the torch onto someone else and both times he’s broken one of the aforementioned rules and caused the next person to not be able to do as well on top. We’ll start in 1990 at Wrestlemania 6. You could argue the first time was at #4 with Savage but the end result of that was ALWAYS Hogan vs. Savage for the title the next year so I can’t fault Hogan for that as it was part of a major angle instead of Hogan not going away. Anyone on to #6.

I don’t think anyone would argue that the main event of that show was designed to be a moment where Warrior became the top guy. However in short, Hogan didn’t leave. He stuck around in 1990 and feuded with Earthquake, taking all of the spotlight (as well as the top and most obvious feud for Warrior) from the new champion. The right thing would have been for Hogan to take AT LEAST a few months off and made a movie or whatever.

Instead he stuck around and therefore made Warrior look like a second rate guy, which made the main event of Wrestlemania completely pointless. Warrior was a failure as the top guy but there was never a real chance for him to be the top guy. Everyone thought that Hogan was still top dog and him simply not having the title wasn’t going to prove that wrong. Considering Warrior barely beat him, it didn’t really prove that Warrior was the top guy. Instead of passing the torch, Hogan basically gave Warrior the title for about 7 months and then got it back later. Good for him, bad for Warrior.

Jumping to WCW, we have the moment that was a big bullet to WCW in the Monday Night Wars. Sting FINALLY stopped Hogan and won the (nearly) year and a half long title reign and it should have been the end of an era in WCW. This is probably the biggest botch of one of these things ever. First of all, the match sucked for reasons that you can read elsewhere. Second, Sting didn’t get to even hold the physical title for two months, so how much do you think the fans cared by that point? Third, Sting officially won the title in February and Hogan had it back by mid-April. Sting is defeated, Hogan is champion AGAIN, and the fans are screwed over.

The third example of Hogan doing this would be in 1998 with Goldberg. Now to be fair this was probably much more about WCW than Hogan, but depending on what you believe about Hogan having creative control in the back, that could be a matter of debate. Also to Hogan’s credit, he lost the match clean (mostly) and never got his win back against Goldberg, which is a big help. However that being said, he got the title back in just a few months. There was WAY more to it than that, but at the end of the day, the problem was that Hogan had the title back about half a year later, Goldberg was defeated, and the fans were screwed over AGAIN. Sound familiar?

There are probably other example that I’m overlooking, but I think by now you more than get the idea. The WWF in 1990/1991 was in real business trouble and was even on the verge of going under for awhile. The WCW instances are times where the company took big hits because either they wouldn’t let people have the title or they wouldn’t let anyone get thrown out of the main event. The moral: bad things happen when you don’t change things when you need to.

Now onto the other topic that I wasn’t going to talk about here but it fits as well: rubs. As we’ve established, a rub is where someone is going to be sticking around but is going to bring someone else up the card by giving them some of their star power and making them look like a bigger deal. We’ll begin in the 80s, as I am known to do.

The perfect example of this is usually Flair and Sting from March 27, 1988 and there’s a good reason for that. Sting wasn’t a big time name like he is today. He was a guy that had been brought over from a regional company and was looking for his first big break in the national scene. The company knew he had talent but they needed a way to let the masses know that.

Enter Ric Flair, who in the words of Jim Cornette, made a career out of making other people look way better than they ever could have done on their own. So at the first Clash of the Champions, Sting fought Flair for the NWA Title and had him in the Scorpion when the bell rang and the time was up. Flair made Sting look AWESOME that night and Sting became a huge star because of it. Flair kept the title and would for a good while, but Sting was a major player all of a sudden. I think you get the idea.

There are dozens of other examples from history that I could go into, such as the tag teams that Hogan had which I mentioned earlier and Bret vs. Austin in 96/97, but you more than get the point by now. On the other hand, there are examples of times where bigger names lose matches, but the win doesn’t do a thing for the smaller name guy. Let’s take a look at a quick example.

I hate to do this again, but the best example is Hulk Hogan. In the year 2000, Hogan lost to Billy Kidman. What’s forgotten about this is that Hogan DOMINATED Kidman and Kidman won after Bischoff hit Hogan with a chair. The win didn’t do anything for Kidman because it didn’t look like he had a chance to beat Hogan in a fair fight. The same thing is true of instances like jobbers pinning big names, such as Brooklyn Brawler pinning HHH in the year 2000. Rock had a bit of a hand in that loss, but HHH still gets made fun of for it on occasion. Again, I think you get the idea.

So anyway, in short there are good ways and bad ways of passing the torch, and hopefully Rock does it with Cena at Wrestlemania. Rock is a guy who a victory over would still mean a lot and I just hope they don’t screw it up somehow. Rubs and passing the torch are very important things in wrestling, and if you don’t do them right they can turn out very badly indeed.

Impact Wrestling
Date: March 22, 2012
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz

We’re past Victory Road and not a lot has changed. Roode has finally put Sting away followed by a pretty strange post match attempted beatdown of Sting which resulted in Dixie Carter saving him. Other than that the interesting thing was Aries seemingly being turned face by the power of the crowd. That’s probably the right thing for him as it has meant huge pushes in the past. Let’s get to it.

We open with the ending to last Sunday’s PPV. Sting has a severe concussion apparently. Dixie is going to have something to say right after the opening sequence.

Here’s Dixie and great she’s crying. She talks about how Roode disrespects the company and the fans. Dixie goes on the rant about how she’s been talking to attorneys and management and she only has one option. Cue Sting because we can’t do anything in this company without holding a meeting. He says that firing Roode isn’t the answer isn’t a good idea because it means that Storm can’t get his revenge at Lockdown. The fans chant that they want revenge. Sting says the GM position isn’t working….and we go to a break.

Back with them still in the ring. Sting says that Dixie has put all of her faith into Sting and he did the best he could, but it’s not enough. At Victory Road, the company came alive and Sting can’t be both a part time GM and a part time wrestler. Due to the concussion, he has to go home for awhile and get better, and he’ll come back better. He’s going to come back as a full time wrestler. Sting steps down as GM but says he’s got the right man in mind to replace him: Hulk Hogan. Dixie cries even more but doesn’t say yes or no.

Ray is mad and is taking hostages tonight.

X-Division Title: Anthony Nese vs. Zema Ion vs. Kid Kash vs. Austin Aries

One fall to a finish. Ion tries a quick rollup but goes to the floor with the champ. Kash avoids a cross body by Nese but is thrown to the floor and is holding his ankle. Aries vs. Nese now and the champ is in trouble. Ion comes back in and Aries hits a combination DDT to Ion/Downward Spiral to Nese. Out to the floor and Aries hits the suicide dive to Ion. Ion hits the Sorensen Killer and Nese hits a moonsault plancha to take out all three guys. They bust out the Tower of Doom with Ion nearly getting killed by the powerbomb from Aries. And here’s Bully Ray to beat them all up and the match is thrown out at 4:35.

Rating: B-. Fun match but it was far more about being a collection of spots than an actual match. That was the point of it, but Aries really needs to lose the title and move up on the card. This match really did show that no one else in the division is anywhere near Aries’ level and once he gets out of it, the division is in big trouble.

Ray says that his name is in fact Bully Ray.

Mexican America has their lowrider towed by some guy from a Spike show about repossessing. He asks them trivia in order to get to keep their car. This is annoying. They only get 1/3 and lose the car. They say they’ll all win tag titles tonight and pay off the debt to keep the car.

Knockout Tag Titles: ODB/Eric Young vs. Rosita/Sarita

The wedding is April 12. Oh great. Eric and Rosita start us off but Eric tags out to ODB with no contact. She takes Rosita down and misses the Bronco Buster. Sarita comes in and doesn’t do much so it’s back to Rosita. She takes a kick in the chest and a “spear” to set up the tag to Young. He does some cartwheels and takes off his pants. The girls hit on Eric and ODB gets mad about it. ODB cleans house and hits the Bam on Rosita before asking where Eric’s ring is. He can’t produce it so she kisses him and puts Eric on top of Rosita for the pin at 4:20.

Rating: F. I hate it I hate it I hate it. I HATE this angle and we’re going to have to put up with it for the next freaking month because we need COMEDY on this show because there’s so much going on we can’t even get the TV Champion on the show already, but we need time to have Eric strip every week.

We recap Crimson and Morgan from Sunday. We cut to Crimson watching Morgan’s Direct Auto Insurance commercials and saying that he should have been in there but it was all about Morgan. Crimson says that then Morgan started dropping the ball in the ring so Crimson took out the trash on Sunday and he feels better now. He challenges Morgan to a match next week when Morgan pops in and the backstage brawl of the week begins.

Dixie doesn’t know what to do about Sting.

Hardy says Angle talked a lot of trash before the PPV and now Jeff wants him in a cage where ropes won’t matter. Joseph Park shows up and asks for any information about Abyss. Hardy doesn’t have any so Park gives him his card.

Video on Roode vs. Storm at Lockdown. This includes a retrospective of their careers in TNA, including a blink and you’ll miss it shot of CM Punk. Make that two blinks and you’ll miss it shots of Punk. Good video.

Here’s Storm in the ring to talk about right and wrong. It’s wrong that football is only 18 weeks a year. It’s wrong when two people work 40 hours a week and can’t take their kids on vacation because gas is $4.00 a gallon. It’s wrong what Roode did at the PPV so he’ll make it right at the PPV. Storm calls Roode out here right now so he can beat some right into him.

Instead he gets some guy in a suit who says his name is William Kelly and he’s Roode’s legal adviser. He has a statement from Roode which says Roode isn’t going to be around until Lockdown because that’s all he’s obligated to do and there’s an unsafe working environment. Ok now they’re flat out stealing from Smackdown. Roode suggests that Storm fight Daniels or Kaz tonight so Storm says he’ll fight both. Storm says he has a message for Roode. But the lawyer doesn’t have a pen. Instead, here’s a Last Call for the lawyer.

Angle says Hardy is crazy for wanting a rematch and is asked about Garrett surviving the five minute challenge. Garrett just happens to be walking by and Angle yells at him. There’s a three minute challenge tonight. Oh and Angle hates him.

Kurt Angle vs. Garrett Bischoff

Just a small observation: Christy Hemme can’t talk, but she looks GREAT in leather pants. This is a three minute challenge. They talk trash to start and Garrett gets shoved a few times. There’s a slap as they’re just standing there. One minute down. Garrett gets in some offense like a clothesline and flapjack plus that stupid falling Diamond Cutter that he does. Angle throws him to the floor and we have a minute to go. Garrett chills on the floor and plays keepaway. And here’s Gunner for the DQ at about 2:32.

Hardy makes the save.

The Guns are still coming back.

Tag Titles: Mexican America vs. Samoa Joe/Magnus

Mexican America still has jobs? Joe starts with Hernandez and pounds him down into the corner. Off to Magnus and the champions double team a bit, resulting in a Joe backsplash for two. SuperMex takes over on Magnus and hits a backbreaker for two. Anarquia comes in for all of two seconds before it’s back to Hernandez for a bearhug and jumping shoulder.

Hot tag brings in Joe who steps out of the way of a jumping Anarquia. Hernandez runs into the release Rock Bottom out of the corner. The Koquina Clutch puts Anarquia down but the girls distract the referee. The Repo Games guy comes back out and the referee STILL misses the tap so Hernandez breaks it up. Not that it matters as the finishing sequence from the champs pins Anarquia at 5:32.

Rating: D+. Pretty dull match here and the Repo Games guy was totally not needed. That didn’t add anything at all and I doubt more than two people in the arena had a clue who he was. I get that the Guns are coming back, but beating a bunch of teams we haven’t seen in months or teams that are thrown together isn’t going to make Magnus/Joe an interesting team to face them.

Hogan says he doesn’t know anything about being the new GM.

The Repo Games guy is back AGAIN and takes the car but has to duck a swing from Anarquia beforehand. Oh and he takes the girls who go willingly.

James Storm vs. Kazarian/Christopher Daniels

Daniels tries to jump Storm from the entrance which completely fails. Into the ring now and the heels don’t have to tag. There isn’t much to say here: they double team Storm for awhile but Storm comes back with the Last Call to Daniels to win in 3:15.

Rating: D. Whatever man. I get what they were going for here but this wasn’t interesting for the most part. Storm is still cool, but it’s a long way to get to Lockdown so he can win the title like he should have done months ago. I get that they had to have the title on Roode, but Storm has clearly been the hottest thing in the company for months. This was just a way to get Storm looking good.

Here are Sting and Dixie to do the GM thing. Sting says trust Hogan, Dixie says ok, Hogan comes out, Sting starts a Hogan chant, and we’re done.

Overall Rating: D. This was a pretty good sized step back for TNA. Let’s look at this show tonight. We had a title match ending in a run-in, we had a man defending a woman’s title, we had a three minute match ending with a run-in, we had a tag title match involving a run-in, we had a three minute handicap match. That’s not the most exciting wrestling in the world.

Then we get to the other annoying stuff: the booking of the show. There was WAY too much focus on Hogan/Sting/Dixie, but it was nowhere near as annoying as the focus on the Repo Games guy. What does that do to benefit TNA? He was in THREE SEGMENTS with Mexican America and in the end, HE DIDN’T EVEN TAKE THEIR CAR. Storm is awesome at this point but he comes off like the third most important thing on the show at best. That’s not good and this Hogan/Sting/Dixie thing isn’t ending soon. That’s not good and it’s a sign that they’re shifting focus away from what’s been working for the past few weeks.

Results
Austin Aries vs. Anthony Nese vs. Zema Ion vs. Kid Kash went to a no contest when Bully Ray interfered
Eric Young/ODB b. Rosita/Sarita – Young pinned Rosita after The Bam from ODB
Garrett Bischoff b. Kurt Angle via DQ when Gunner interfered
Samoa Joe/Magnus b. Mexican America – Middle Rope Elbow to Anarquia
James Storm b. Christopher Daniels/Kazarian – Last Call to Daniels

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