I’m drooling. Seriously. As I type this I’m
drooling. Why? Because it’s the TNA 2-hour prime
time special on Spike TV!!! Not only that, but I will
be joined in hour-2 by special guest “The First
Lady of Insanity” Mallory Mahling as she gives
me her thoughts. How could this be any better??
Boo-yah, here we go!!!
***
The crowd is hyped as Mike Tenay welcomes us to a very
special Impact. We then go to an absolutely fantastic
video package featuring the many famous faces that have
graced TNA over the years (Harley Race, Terry Funk, Hulk
Hogan, Sting, Randy Savage, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash)
and then pushed the new, young talent (ex: AJ Styles,
Monty Brown) and the current ex-WWE talent (i.e. Rhino,
Jeff Jarrett, and Team 3-D). Extremely well done. What
a fantastic way to promote TNA to new viewers.
(1) Lance Hoyt, Jeff Hardy & Sabu beat The
Diamonds in The Rough (Simon Diamond, David Young, and
Elix “Please Use Me Better” Skipper).
Diamond & Hoyt start things off. Hoyt goes for his
“big boot” early but misses terribly. Young
& Hardy end up tagging in next. A “Hardy”
chant breaks out. Sabu & Skipper tag in next and Sabu’s
brutalized by a double-team slam by Young and Skipper.
Sabu tags out to Hoyt and soon all six men are battling
each other. Hardy hits the swanton on Skipper and it’s
a very quick victory.
Abyss enters the ring after the match and gives Sabu
a Black Hole Slam until Hardy & Hoyt come to Sabu’s
aid.
Thoughts:
Meh…not the best choice of matches to use when introducing
Impact to a (possibly) much bigger and newer audience
than TNA is used to. As a fan I know that there’s
a LOT better matches to come. As a new fan? I might be
seeing what’s on CSI during the commercial.
Rating: 4/10
Simply not good enough in any way to be any higher.
Commercial
Video package airs for the Genesis PPV.
Shane Douglas interviews Jeff Jarrett backstage. Jarrett
basically set up his rematch as a “win the NWA title
or get fired” match…even though that’s
all in his head. Well shit…that pretty much gives
the ending away right there, doesn’t it? Good promo,
though. I’ve got zero problem with Jarrett on the
mic as long as he’s not in the ring pulling a Triple
H 20-minute snoozefest.
Monty Brown interrupts the interview to tell Jarrett
that he deserves the next title shot. He wishes Jarrett
good luck because he wants to be the one that beats Jarrett
for the NWA title.
Good segment.
Mike Tenay and Don West are then given some face-time
as they run down the night’s card.
(2) Monty Brown pinned Brian Gamble after hitting
the Pounce three times.
Pure squash. After the first Pounce, the crowd chanted
“one more time”. Brown ended up setting Gamble
up and hitting the Pounce again. The crowd started chanting
“one more time”…umm…one more time.
Brown hit him a third time and got the easy win.
Thoughts:
The match definitely puts Brown over as a monster, but
does little to show that he’s worthy of a title
shot.
Rating: 4/10
Not quite what I had in mind thus far. But I’ve
got zero worries about the rest of the card.
Video package for Rhino airs that tries to put over “the
NWA champion that was a mid-carder before the last PPV.”
Commercial
Video package airs to promote the X Division. Simply
glorious.
(3) Austin Aries, Sonjay Dutt, & X Division
champion AJ Styles defeated Christopher Daniels, Alex
Shelley, & Samoa Joe.
Was that me…or did I hear a part of Joe’s
ROH entrance theme music in his TNA entrance?
Shelley and Aries start things off in a nod to their
ROH Generation Next vs. The Embassy feud. Competing “Austin
Aries” and “Alex Shelley” chants break
out early and the crowd in already excited.
GOD I love watching Aries. He hits his twisting splash
over the top rope on Shelley and then hits his beautiful
elbow-drop. Dutt tags in and hits his “sprinkler”
elbowdrop. He then hits the “sprinkler” from
the top rope. I don’t like it…but the crowd
seems to.
In tags Samoa Joe and he immediately begins kicking the
crap out of Dutt. Crowd is into Joe and chants his name
as he hits a couple of running knees to Dutt’s head.
The crowd then chants for the “Ole Ole” kick
when Daniels blind-tags him and comes in himself. A “Fallen
Angel” chant breaks out. Dutt whips a hurricarana
out of nowhere and he tags out to Styles. I absolutely
love watching Styles/Daniels and could watch them wrestle
all night long.
Joe then blind tags Daniels and enters the ring to “Joe
Joe” chants. Styles puts a deathlock onto Joe, while
Dutt puts an Octopus submission onto Shelley, while Aries
places a submission move of his own on Daniels! Wow. Hard
to keep track of the action while the crowd chants “TNA”
in approval.
Aries hits a sick dropkick to Joe in the corner and quickly
dumps Shelley and Daniels to the outside. He then hits
a suicide dive through the middle ropes with success.
Joe, however, catches him and kicks Aries in the head…hard.
A quick “holy shit” chant breaks out before
he starts kicking the crap out of Aries. Daniels tags
in and tries to hit a running forearm onto Aries but ends
up hitting Joe by mistake instead.
Okay…we’re five minutes into the match and
I’m done recapping. I can’t do it anymore.
I’ve got to be a fan. The action is too fast and
furious to cover properly for you. HOLY SHIT!! Everybody
is hitting moves on each other and I’m sitting here
marking out like I was actually there. Shelley pushes
Aries off the top rope to the floor and then hits a dive
to the outside on top of him. A very loud “TNA”
chant breaks out. Wow.
Joe holds Styles for Daniels but Styles ducks. Daniels
holds Styles for Joe but Styles ducks again. Definitely
teasing dissension between Joe and Daniels. Shelley runs
in to jump Styles but is met with a Styles Clash. 1-2-3
and it’s over.
Holy shit…what a match.
Thoughts:
Fantastic freaking match…bottom line. Absolutely
great.
Rating: 9/10
If you missed this match, you missed greatness.
Mallory Mahling thoughts: “I
just saw Samoa Joe in action for the first time. Wow!
He definitely lives up to the hype.”
Jeff Jarrett promo airs.
Commercial
Backstage interview with Douglas and Rhino where Douglas
puts Rhino over for his NWA title win. Rhino talks about
dealing with obstacles, politics, and scumbags over the
last four years…interesting. Raven then interrupts
and claims Rhino stole his title.
Video package highlighting Team 3-D vs. AMW. Nicely done.
(4) Team 3-D defeated Team Canada's Eric Young
& Bobby Roode (w/ Coach D’Amore and A-1).
Devon and Young start the match off but Young quickly
tags out to Roode before anything happens in the ring.
The crowd sings the Star Spangled Banner to taunt Team
Canada, and then risks getting sued by Vince by chanting
how they want tables. Inside the ring, Team 3-D is dominating
until Roode throws Devon off the top rope. We quickly
fade to…
Commercial
We come back and Roode is taking it to Devon. Your basic
beat-down continues (including distracting the ref when
Devon was trying to make a tag) until Devon eventually
makes the hot tag to Ray. Ray comes in and begins dominating
both members of TC when a side-slam almost gets him a
3-count. Ray then hits a sick power-bomb on Young for
another 2-count as Roode breaks up the count.
All four men in the ring now as A-1 attempts to interfere
with a hockey stick. However, 3 Live Kru prevent that
from happening, then the 3-D is hit on Young for the victory.
Thoughts:
Pretty much a standard by-the-book tag match. That’s
not a slight at all, because I can’t remember the
last time in WWE I saw a good standard by-the-book tag
match.
Rating: 7/10
Mallory Mahling thoughts: It
was great to see the Dud...err...whatever it is Devon
and Bubba are allowed to call themselves these days...used
properly. They were wasted in WWE, only doing the "get
the tables" schtick, when they obviously have so
much more to offer.
Commercial
Promo airs for the Genesis PPV.
An awesome promo airs for the Ultimate X match…setting
up the next match.
(5) In an Ultimate X match, Petey Williams defeated
Matt Bentley and Chris Sabin.
I’m going to try and keep up with the action but
no promises. Here we go…
Sabin & Bentley team up early to start attacking
Williams. However, that doesn’t last long and soon
they are trading punches. Williams then shows he means
business by taking out both men and being the first to
go after the X. However, Sabin kicks him in the back and
Williams’ head smashes into the scaffolding. Superplex
by Bentley onto Sabin. Swinging neckbreaker off the top
rope by Bentley onto Sabin. “TNA” chant breaks
out.
Williams catches Bentley in the Tree of Woe, then stands
on Bentley’s crotch to pose and sing “O’
Canada”. Sabin then sets up Williams in the Tree
of Woe and dropkicks him a couple of times in the face
for fun.
Sabin dives to the outside onto Bentley while Williams
hits an over-the-top-rope hurricarana onto Sabin on the
floor. Wow. Great time for a…
Commercial
We’re back and Williams is climbing the cable towards
the X. Sabin quickly dropkicks Williams and they both
hit the mat hard. Bentley climbs the ropes but is powerbombed
to the mat by Williams. Sabin hits a reverse over-head
German suplex off the top rope onto Williams.
Holy shit.
Bentley climbs the cable again and kicks Williams in
the head as he’s sitting on top of Sabin…resulting
in a hurricarana and Bentley falling to the ground. Williams
then is met by a superkick by Bentley who is then met
with a Cradle-shock by Sabin.
Sabin tries to climb the cables but has a hard time because
he is selling the arm injury sustained earlier in the
match. Williams then hits the Canadian Destroyer on Sabin…allowing
Bentley to climb the cable yet again.
D’Amore tries to interfere but is met by Tracy
Williams then faces off against Bentley on the cables,
kicks him in the groin, then grabs the X and wins a very
hard-fought victory.
Thoughts:
Very nicely done. A chocolate sundae of very hard-hitting,
innovative moves topped with a sprinkling of psychology.
Entertaining from beginning to end.
Rating: 8.5/10
Awesome match.
Mallory Mahling thoughts: TNA
couldn't have been given a better week to show their stuff.
While Raw gave us those exciting storylines involving
their announcers this week, TNA gave viewers that awesome
Ultimate X match--it was edge-of-the-seat exciting!
Backstage Team Canada is beating the hell out of 3 Live
Kru with hockey sticks.
Commercial
(6) Jeff Jarrett defeated Rhino to regain the
NWA heavyweight title.
A huge “Rhino” chant starts during introductions.
Having Jeremy Borash introduce everybody without any music
in the ring gives the match a “big time” feel
to it. I like it.
We’re told we’re about to go to our last
commercial of the night. And then we go…
Commercial
I’ll give these guys credit…there were no
five-minute chinlocks in this match…just a 30-second
bearhug. This, WWE, is how you can have two heavyweights
wrestle without having to slow things down to a crawl
in order to “slow things down”.
Rhino and Jarrett end up outside the ring and start fighting
through the crowd. The crowd is loving every minute of
this and is solidly behind Rhino. After planting Jarrett
on the announcer’s table, Rhino goes after a table.
As Rhino is about to set up Jarrett for a top-rope piledriver,
Gail Kim (sigh) runs down to interfere and Jarrett takes
advantage.
On the outside Jarrett begins dishing back to Rhino what
he was already on the receiving end of. Jarrett throws
Rhino back into the ring and the crowd tries to get him
back into things with a “Let’s go Rhino”
chant.
Jarrett slapped on both a bearhug (???) and a chinlock
on Rhino. The big thing to note is that both times the
rest hold only lasted 30 seconds. Kudos to both for not
milking the rest hold like most WWE wrestlers do.
Rhino began making his comeback and was getting the better
of Jarrett with a series of clotheslines and elbows. However,
Jarrett slaps on a figure-four leglock that Rhino quickly
reverses. Kim tries to interfere but is caught by Rhino.
Jarrett then tries to take advantage of the distraction
with a hook of the tights and his feet on the ropes for
two broken pin attempts.
Rhino gets a two-count on Jarrett and sets him up for
the Gore. The crowd is sensing the end but Jarrett moves
out of the way. While trying to clothesline Jarrett, Rhino
accidentally hits the referee. As he ducks a guitar-shot,
he then Gores Jarrett but the ref is nowhere to be found.
Rhino picks up the guitar as AMW runs to the ring. A
low blow by Jarrett puts Rhino down. Then AMW hits a Death
Sentence onto Rhino from the top rope through a table
on the outside. Wow. Jarrett hits the Stroke and we’ve
got Double J as your NWA champion once again.
Backstage, Team 3-D is shown handcuffed and bloodied
as Tenay shouts that AMW is definitely behind it.
The end.
Thoughts:
Again, I’m impressed that both Rhino and Jarrett
pretty much gave everything they had for this match without
taking long breaks of any kind. It was practically a non-stop
match and certainly wasn’t boring.
I’m probably one of the few who doesn’t have
a major issue with Jarrett being NWA champion. He shouldn’t
have lost it to Rhino in the first place. Jarrett winning
the title sets up a potential huge money-feud with him
and Monty Brown.
Rating: 7/10
Not a terrible match by any means.
Mallory Mahling thoughts: I'm
glad I resisted the urge to change the channel at the
first sight of Double J with his git-tar. It was a good
match, although Jarrett winning wasn't the outcome I was
hoping for.
Overall Show Rating: 8/10
***
Agree? Disagree? You can give your thoughts in two
ways. First, you can email me at ZAH@WorldWrestlingInsanity.com.
Secondly, you can come to the
Message Board and post your thoughts in the TNA Forum
or scroll down to the bottom of the page, and enter Zah’s
Pit. I’d love to hear from you.
L8R.
Buy
The Batman Begins 2 DVD Set
