Unbreakable Revisited: A Review in Review
So this is my second shot at being an online wrestling critic of some note. My previous attempt came as part of a DVDVR-esque weeklyish collection of reviews put out by members of the late, lamented Happy Wrestling Land message board. It lasted precisely zero issues, falling apart before the entire board just kinda died off. To the best of my knowledge everyone involved in that project save for Spunk and Patrick are dead. But anyway, the point is that I'm still counting it as a wrestling critic gig because I actually had a review written for the first issue that was never put out, and now that I've got a new gig, I find that I still have it saved on a flashdisk. It was written in the Fall of 2005, and so I figure it's really outdated, especially since it's a review of TNA's "Unbreakable" PPV, and TNA is a promotion that my feelings for have changed rather sharply over the last year and a half. So to celebrate this occasion, I thought I'd dust it off and see if I couldn't try to square the cautiously optimistic S.L.L. of '05 with the bitterly cynical S.L.L. of '07. For the first time ever on the internets, here's the debut review that wasn't but I guess now kinda is, with director commentary about what I fucked up on.
TNA "Unbreakable" PPV
Orlando, FL - Impact Zone - 9/11/05
A Review by Steven L. Lerner
So far, so good.
I'm really not sure how it happened. Somehow, this promotion has been booked by Vince Russo, been built around Jeff Jarrett as it's top star, has made some of the most boneheaded programming decisions in modern wrestling history, and has done so with perhaps the goofiest name ever for a wresting promotion. In spite of doing almost everything wrong that they possibly could have over the last three-odd years, not only are they still here, they have a regular time slot on a widely distributed cable network, they're receiving positive reviews from the smart mark crowd, and Dixie Carter has just announced the company has broken even for the first time in it's history. I'm assuming the cause of all of this has something to do with gumption and elbow grease. That and the inverse ratio of TNA's popularity to Jeff Jarrett's screen time. Either way, it got me interested enough to actually buy this PPV.
LOL @ TNA breaking even. My Samoa Joe fandom must've been blinding me to reality. Obviously, Vince Russo's most recent tenure as booker pretty easily disproved that "inverse ratio of TNA's popularity to Jeff Jarrett's screen time" bit. One of the big things that stand out to me from this review is how quick I was to jump on the "Jarrett sucks" bandwagon, when in hindsight, I really should've known better. Actually, I should clarify that. I don't think I ever really felt that Jarrett sucked, just that he didn't merit a spot as the centerpiece of a promotion. I always really felt that any complaints people had about Jarrett would go away if he was brought down to an upper midcard spot. But the point is I bash Jarrett a lot in this piece, and it was unwarranted to a large extent. Also, in hindsight, it's really obvious that TNA's continued success has fuck all to do with gumption and elbow grease, and everything to do with Vince Russo's remarkable ability to fail his way to the top.
"This event is dedicated to the Unbreakable spirit of the American people." Word.
Pretty much, yeah.
"This is TNA: the new face of professional wrestling." Because when you think of the new face of professional wrestling, you think of Kevin Nash.
Man, I had no idea at the time that Nash was going to end up being the company's best long-term investment. I was waaaaaay off on this one.
Opening video package is narrated by a guy doing a Howard Cosell impression, who uses the word "smashmouth" as a noun.
Why did anyone ever think that David Sahadi was good at this shit? This didn't have the TNA Griot babbling about a new era of gladiators or whatever. Maybe that kind of overwrought verbal masturbation was what sold people on this stuff. People praising Sahadi when they really mean to be praising the Griot makes sense to me.
3 Live Kru (The Truth, Konnan, & B.G. James) vs. The Diamonds in the Rough (Simon Diamond, David Young, & Elix Skipper)
The Diamonds in the Rough is probably the most preposterous gimmick I've seen in a while. Elix Skipper was a prominent figure in the X-Division and Tag Titles scene for a while. David Young wasn't much in TNA, but was a big star in the NWA's most prominent territory of the past few years, has a decent look, and a credible power offense that would make him a solid midcard hand in any promotion in the world. Simon Diamond is the guy you bring in when you really need an ECW alumnus, but all the good ones are in jail. By what standard does Diamond qualify to be the "coach" to "turn around the careers" of Skipper and Young? In any work of fiction, you need some kind of internal logic and consistency so that you can have certain fakey stuff be believable while other stuff is not. I can deal with the internal logic of B.G. James being a young, cool kid from the street. I can't deal with the lesser member of a tag team with Johnny Swinger being in any kind of a position to give people advice. Konnan's opening spiel! Road Dogg's opening spiel! Together at last! Match is solid southern tag fare. Diamond manages to irritate me by doing the Dark Agents slap to Skipper to inspire him. Again, I can buy Akitoshi Saito doing it to Masao Inoue to remind him that he's facing Misawa and Ogawa for the GHC Tag Team Titles. I don't buy Diamond doing it to Skipper to fire him up for lesser New Age Outlaw, lesser Filthy Animal, and lesser partner of lesser New Age Outlaw. Konnan makes me happy by countering The Matrix into an inverted DDT, before hitting the Random Task Driver '05 and the K-Factor to take the win. Better than you would expect from this bunch. Not actually good, but better than you'd expect.
Saying that Killings was in any way lesser than Billy Gunn was a really baseless insult, and I probably just wrote it to make that joke work. Also, the line really should have been "Simon Diamond is the guy you bring in when you really need an ECW alumnus, but all the good ones are in jail or dead". At this point, unemployed ECW alumnus are really lucky to be in jail. But everything I said about the Diamonds in the Rough gimmick holds true. Maybe the crowd wouldn't know or care about David Young's main event run in NWA Wildside, but he was a muscular dude who beat on people. It shouldn't have been that hard to make people care about him. And Skipper wasn't good or anything, but he was established in TNA by that point. Now both of those guys are gone. Fucking TNA thought they weren't cut out to be on their roster. TNA is the company that made a big deal later on in this very show about Matt Bentley announcing that he wouldn't jump to the WWE. This is the company that gives steady work to Lance Hoyt. LANCE HOYT. Lance Hoyt is good enough for the TNA roster, but not Primetime or The Messiah of the Spinebuster? Yeah, great job "turning their careers around", Simon. I mean, the "crappy wrestlers careers are rejuvanated by wise mentor" angle never works out well, but in TNA, it really seems to be a kiss of death. That was basically the original concept for The Acolytes, and it didn't quite work out, but they still got a million chances after that before Simmons got old and retired and Bradshaw got the right gimmick and had greatness beaten into him by Eddie Guerrero. Simon Diamond and Shane Douglas turned their charges' careers around so they were facing the exit, and none of them save maybe for Skipper were more useless than Lance Hoyt.
Even putting real life aside, Simon's on-screen attempts at inspiring his followers were comical at best. At least Shane Douglas had a legacy. Not a really good one, but at least a bullshit one that they could con their fans with. What's Simon's legacy? I think when I wrote this, it didn't occur to me that Simon Diamond was the former Lance Diamond. I factored David Young's Wildside success into my case for him, I probably should factor in Lance Diamond winning the second Super 8 tournament, too. You could use the logic that Wildside was at least an NWA affiliate, while ECWA wasn't, but realistically, TNA fans probably would be more likely to know about the Super 8 than Wildside. The flipside of that is that those fans probably didn't give a shit about the Super 8 until 2001 when Low-Ki won and effectively started the new wave of U.S. indy wrestling. And really, it wasn't long after that that ROH came along, and they (along with, to a lesser extent, TNA itself) rendered the Super 8 obsolete. So even factoring all of the Lance Diamond stuff in, it boils down to him being the winner of an obsolete tournament from before it even became notable in the first place. And that's assuming people watching know all of this. I've actually seen Lance Diamond matches, and I don't take him seriously. Why should casual fans? His rep isn't even good enough for the brainwashed TNApes. If they gave the gimmick to Ace Darling, would anyone notice?
But to the TNA riff-raf, Simon Diamond was a midcarder in ECW at a time when ECW was made up entirely of midcarders. Scotty Anton and "The Clap" were bigger stars in that scene than Diamond. Did he even get an offer from the WWE when they re-started WCW? Fucking Roadkill is still in OVW. Angry Amish Roadkill is more of a believable "wise mentor" figure than Diamond. How low do you have to go to find the guys who could benefit from the wise words of Simon Diamond? Chilly Willy? Chris Chetti? Angel of Da Baldies? Simon slaps Elix Skipper in this match like he's Inoki transfering his Toukon power to someone, and it just comes off as sad and confusing. Who's going to buy Simon Diamond as Inoki? I didn't even buy him as Akitoshi Saito firing up Masao Inoue. In a way, the long-term booking of this angle was actually pretty sensible. Two successful wrestlers are taken under the wing of a "wise Mentor" who really isn't, their careers fall apart, and they get fired. That's the kind of worked shoot angle that Russo would never dream of running, because it's too logical for his tastes, and it's still a stupid idea overall, but for a meaningles angle that hurts everyone involved, it was executed perfectly.
Either way, Konnan countering The Matrix into an inverted DDT was a pretty cool spot. Konnan's last few years in the ring were pretty good. He's no Pierroth, but he did a fine job of turning up the volume in spite of his extremely broken down body. And of course, this all led to the 4LK split, which was the only really compelling angle TNA ran while I was watching it regularly aside from Jarrett trying to bring Sting out of seclusion and The Dudley's chasing AMW the first time. I mean, they fucked up the blowoff for all of those feuds pretty badly, but still, that was pretty much the only compelling stuff they were running at the time. I'm a smark by definition, and TNA's inability to produce matches I want to see will prevent them from making me a fan. But I like sports entertainment, I like goofy schtick, I like angles as long as they're DONE WELL. The knee-jerk defense that Russo and his supporters use to dismiss his critics is that they're smarks who only care about workrate, and who don't realize that most fans don't care about that, and only care about "entertainment". Putting aside the fact that I find good matches to be entertaining (I wouldn't like them if they weren't), I find good angles to be entertaining, good interviews to be entertaining, and have criticized promotions for lacking those things. Problem with Russo isn't that he focuses on extraneous non-wrestling stuff. Proplem is his extraneous non-wrestling stuff is crap. Scott D'Amore wasn't a drastically better booker than Vince Russo was, but he did create a few angles I cared about and enjoyed watching. For a guy who dismisses the notion that fans want anything shy of "entertainment", Russo sure isn't very good at creating it.
They show a pre-show segment where Monty Brown, Jeff Jarrett, and Jeff Hardy all make challenges for the NWA World Title at Bound for Glory. Of course, this is all negated a week later when Jarrett wins the belt in Canada and Nash is given the first title shot. Oops.
I shouldn't have really held this against them. Anyone who started watching with the TNA show wouldn't have known about this, and anyone who had been watching before then wouldn't have cared. Then again, a month later, Nash would have a convenient heart problem, so maybe it wouldn't have been a bad idea to run Jarrett/Brown regardless.
Roderick Strong vs. Austin Aries
Hearing former HSN pitchman Don West go on PPV and name drop Ring of Honor is one of the stranger things I've heard recently. West is actually a pretty solid color guy. He seems to actually know what he's talking about for the most part, and does a good job getting over the simple psychology of the match: these guys are stablemates in Ring of Honor, but they're about to start getting national TV exposure in TNA, so they both need to impress the management with a strong showing here. It's not terribly deep, and neither is this match, but it's just as solid. Basic mat wrestling to start before Strong starts making with the backwork, hitting a backbreaker and holding on to press slam Aries back first into the turnbuckle in a really hurty spot. Aries starts to make a comeback, but Strong cuts him off with a nice dropkick. Then we get the chops, and by this point it's apparent that the match is structured to show off Strong's...er...strong points for those who haven't seen him before, which seems like the smart thing to do with this match. Aries uses the strike exchange to hit his lefty forearms and a swank pair of lefty lariats to regain control of the match. Roderick gets this wacky Angle Slam into a backbreaker, and hits a gigantic gutbuster and a really sweet Yakuza kick for a nearfall. He tries for a Boston crab, but Aries blocks it, so he hits a slingshot instead. His tequila sunrise attempt is countered into a go-behind, as Aries dropkicks him into the turnbuckle and forgets his back hurts long enough to hit the Brainbuster and a 450 splash for the win. Aggravating brainbuster aside, Aries is a guy I largely like, but rag on because his work lacks a sense of structure needed to take him to the upper tier of great workers. That wasn't a problem here. Not a great match, but a very good one that served it's function perfectly, giving Aries the strong win going into the Spike TV show and making Strong look like a legit contender in defeat.
When I wrote this, I don't think I was really up-to-date with my ROH watching. Aires having his act together had squat to do with TNA, because he apparently had his shit in gear by summer '05, and was really the guy holding together C.M. Punk's title win.
The only thing about this review that I regret more than all the shots at Jarrett were all the shots I didn't take at Mike Tenay. Part of the reason that I find Don West so easy to like in spite of his flaws is how genuine his feelings are. It was reported a couple months back that the TNA booking crew had a meeting that Don sat in on, and they were reading some negative feedback one of their PPVs got on the Observer website. All of the wrestling guys were deep in denial over it, but that's expected. I'm used to wrestling people lying to themselves about the merit of their works. I mean, WCW's been out of business for six years now, and Vince Russo STILL thinks that giving David Arquette the WCW Title was a good idea. But Don West also thought the comments were crazy, and actually went so far as to claim that they must've been the writings of a WWE shill. Wrestling is a carny business, and it's one where the people working in it often get worked by their own cons. Them getting conned by their own routine isn't surprising. Home shopping TV shows seem like a carny business, too, but one where the conmen are more self-aware. I'm sure Don West sold a lot of stuff that he genuinely thought was cool, but I figured to a large extent, his enthusiasm was a show he put on. I assumed he was a really convincing salesman more than a guy who was genuinely amped up about Ken Griffey Jr. rookie cards. But apparently he is legitimately excited by TNA, so his over-the-top enthusiasm for what he's calling is really convincing not because he's putting on a great show, but because he really, honestly thinks Petey Williams and his sick flip piledriver are the most awesome things ever. And it's especially easy to see when contrasted with the commentary of Mike Tenay, who can barely contain his hatred for TNA's audience and the world in general. I mean, I never really thought that having crappy taste in pro wrestling would actually benefit your performance in it, but there you go.
Monty Brown and Kip James have tension backstage. Kip is angry about Brown's challenge to Jarrett. Brown is angry about Kip's green velvet trunks. Oh wait, that's just how I felt.
Brown: "APOLLO! LANCE HOYT! YOU WIL FEEL...THE POOOOOUUUUUNCE!"
James: "MIKE CAMPBELL...AIN'T GOT SHIT...ON ME!!!!"
Mike Campbell was a Happy Wrestling Land regular who was beloved for wearing purple pajama pants. He didn't really do anything of interest other than that, and like most of the guys from HWL, has disappeared off of the face of the earth.
Lance Hoyt & Apollo vs. Monty Brown & Kip James
This match has the odd psychology of Brown and Kip having heel miscommunication, while Brown simultaneously works face-in-peril (heel-in-peril?). It also contains Lance Hoyt, the largely annoying big man who's over huge at the Impact Zone allegedly because he buys drinks for a lot of the regular fans. How carny can you get? Hoyt throws punches like the Rock, winding up like Michelle Pfeiffer in "Married to the Mob" while poor Monty has to stand there like an idiot. He also has a tattoo on his lower back - which no man should ever have - and doesn't know how to properly take an Irish whip into the corner. He's the shittiest guy in a match featuring Billy Gunn, so I don't see any other way a crowd could get behind him without booze being plied on them. Kip tags himself in and throws actual good punches to reclaim the advantage for his team. We get the double knockdown and double hot tag, and Apollo is perfectly fine as house afire. Brown posts Hoyt on the outside, and holds Apollo in the ropes for Kip, but Apollo dodges and Kip nails the heel miscommunication punch on Brown, setting up an Apollo superkick for a nearfall. Brown tosses Kip out of the ring and gets THE POUNCE!!! for a win. This was good enough that I can forgive the fact that Lance Hoyt was in it. Not sure when Billy Gunn learned to work, but he was looking pretty good his last month or two in the WWE, and he looked fine here. Brown has a future if TNA doesn't muck things up for him. Apollo exists. Lance Hoyt does too, unfortunately.
I don't know if getting a WWE gig after TNA lost interest in him really counts as "TNA mucking things up for him". If it does, you might argue that TNA mucking things up for him will save his career in the long run. I once wrote around this time that TNA needed to book heavily around Joe and Monty because they were the only "home-grown" heavyweight names they had with real company ace potential. Two years later, Brown is gone and Joe has been beaten into indifference. I mean, Marcus Cor Von vs. John Cena would be way more interesting to me than anything they could do with him in TNA, and would be a feud with the potential to draw big, but from an objective standpoint, TNA is still run by a bunch of apes if they thought they could afford to drop Monty. And yet, Lance Hoyt is still employed.
Traci interviews Team Canada. Between this show and the first two iMPACT! shows, TNA seems to being doing a good job of keeping backstage promos short and to the point. I mean, this interview wasn't anything special, but at least it wasn't anything special for two minutes instead of twenty.
Well, they re-hired Vince Russo, so it's not like this was going to last. To be fair to Vince, Impact had a pretty fair amount of unbearably long backstage segments before he came on board. Really, pretty much every skit from the "Jackie Gayda has a secret" angle were unwatchable, and any interview conducted by Jeremy Borash is too long by definition.
Chris Sabin vs. Petey Williams
Sabin flips, flops, flies, and generally exposes the business until Williams dodges a top-rope plancha and splats him into the guardrail to take control. Williams has an extended control segment that forces me to take a coffee break so I don't pass out. Williams gets ragged on by some people for having a goofy finisher. I don't see it that way. The Canadian Destroyer isn't that much more unrealistic than your average hurricanrana. But it's the only thing he has. I'm just sitting through this, waiting for something to happen so that I can actually write something about this match besides rote play-by-play. The best I've got is his sub-Rock sharpshooter. Seeing as how that's now the official move of Canada, you'd think the Canadian could actually apply it reasonably well. Guys from Memphis always have good punches. New Japan Dojo grads can usually throw a mean dropkick and apply a decent Boston crab. OVW alumni can inject copious amounts of HGH into their bodies with the best of them. If you can't apply even a reasonably good-looking sharpshooter, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to take you seriously as captain of Team Canada. So yeah, Williams has an extended control segment despite having no interesting offense aside from his finisher. Williams bronco busts himself crotch-first into the second turnbuckle, allowing Sabin to hit a really boss looking crucifix powerbomb into the opposite turnbuckles. Sabin tries for the Cradle Shock, rams Williams' head into the turnbuckle a few times to get him to let go of the ropes, but has to release it when Williams gouges his eyes. This blinds Sabin, causing him to almost Cradle Shock the ref, but realizes his mistake and lets him down, officially making him the smartest man in wrestling today. He walks into a kick, and Williams sets him up for the Canadian Destroyer, but Sabin counters it into a Cradle Shock for the win. Williams was on offense for almost the entire match, and he didn't even use his one good offensive move. Awful, awful match. Sabin is limited, but has his moments, even here. Williams is just wretched, probably worse than Lance Hoyt. Matt Bentley makes his return post-match, laying out both guys and demanding an Ultimate X match and Bound for Glory. Take that for what you will.
The good news is that TNA would only run this match again 200,000,000 times after this. I think one of them was even good!
How anyone defends Petey as a good worker is beyond me. I hate Chris Sabin less than a lot of people, but Williams is irredeemable. Who's defending him at this point? He's not really a spot machine. He's not a MOVES~! guy outside of his finisher. His execution is crap. He's got jack for psychology. He's not really charismatic. The man has a finisher and NOTHING. Is that enough for some people?
No DQ Match:
Sabu vs. Abyss
James Mitchell's hair is threatening to over take his micwork as his most impressive asset as a manager. He also seems to have some minor booking power, as he turns the match into a No DQ affair on the fly during the opening interview. Surely this will reflect poorly on Larry Zbysko's tenure as commissioner. Or not. What does reflect poorly on TNA - aside from usage of one of wrestling's most illogical clich?s - is their decision to match up two guys who both use knock-offs of "Kashmir" as their theme music. Say what you will about Sabu, his willingness to take the most idiotic of bumps - even after all these years - can still be endearing. This match is pretty aimless brawling until Abyss overhead belly-to-belly suplexes Sabu through a table on the outside. Having not seen a lot of recent Sabu, I don't know if he's smartened up a bit, but in this match he seems to be building extended segments around the setting up and performing of elaborate garbage spots. Traditionally, the one of the big "Sabu match" flaws has been the haphazard execution of these spots, the traditional example being an opponent having to be knocked out cold while Sabu finds a table, sets it up, puts the opponent on it, climbs to the top rope, etc. In this match, elaborate garbage spots are built as active segments. In the previously mentioned segment, Sabu had Abyss down on the outside. Sabu began to set up a table, which had a leg break in the process. Abyss recovers, and waylays Sabu from behind. Abyss sets up another table, this one standing properly. Sabu recovers, and brawls back into the ring with Abyss. Sabu gets the upper hand, and Abyss gets tied up in the ropes. Sabu charges, and gets thrown overhead through the tables. Instead of a passive spot that lets Sabu show how darn hardcore he is, he instead gets to show it in the context of an active struggle, letting it blend in with the match as a whole. The match wasn't much more than average, but reasonably likable stuff if you're into garbage wrestling.
I've come to terms with the fact that wrestling theme music is a dead artform, but you think they could at least try.
I'm not a guy who's going to make big cry faces over the WWE firing Sabu, but when he left TNA, Abyss - in my mind - went from being a decent big man to being one of the shittiest wrestlers on TV almost overnight. And the one TNA show I'd seen before this was the one where Sabu got that really fun ladder match out of Malice. I guess it's easy to be a convincing monster when you've got Sabu to bounce around for you. It's not athletic bumping designed to be asthetically impressive. It's kinda like Cena's whiplash bumping, but really it's more like shoot bumping, as you get the sense that Sabu is actually killing himself with pretty much everything he does. Did we ever get Sabu vs. Khali? If given any sort of time at all, Sabu vs. Tyson Tomko would be a TNA match worth seeing.
The announcers wax philosophical about what a jerk Sean Waltman is for no-showing tonight. It's a legitimate gripe, but then one could also point out that they were dim enough to rehire Sean in the first place. At this point, that's not far removed from hiring Sid in terms of forehand knowledge about how flakey a guy is. And of course they're keeping him around, because disappearing for a few days before randomly showing up at the house of a complete stranger is truly a symbol of the unbreakable spirit of the American people.
They've since re-hired Vince Russo, which makes re-hiring Waltman look like hiring Cena.
Jeff Hardy vs. Bobby Roode
Jeff Hardy comes to the ring wearing a delicious candy coating that presumably melts in your mouth and not in your hand. By the way, if anyone out there knows why Jeff Hardy is a "charismatic enigma", or for that matter, what a "charismatic enigma" is, I'd be slightly interested to know. Though really, I'm probably better off not knowing. Not to mention that Hardy Boys fans are like the Chuck Pahalunik fans of the wrestling world, and spending even the slightest amount of time around one may cause your innards to corrode in a desperate attempt at escape. Roode is thoroughly vanilla, but fairly inoffensive. He looks good enough doing a heel control segment on Hardy in a Canadian Brad Bradley sort of way. Hardy blocks a suplex and ducks a clothesline, and Roode turns him around to...nail him with a Hadoken Fireball? Ah, Hardy was supposed to do a leg-catch enzuigiri but...didn't. Anyway, he regains awareness long enough to hit it, and it turns the tide in Jeff's favor. Jeff attempts the Swanton Bomb, but Petey Williams runs out and hooks his leg with a hockey stick to crotch Jeff on the top. Hardy and Roode fight over a superplex, which ends with Roode doing the Kurt Angle "pop up after a move and hit a top rope belly-to-belly" spot. Jeff manages to fight off the pair of Canadians, but Son of Jarrett shows up to bust up Hardy with the hockey stick, allowing Roode to score the win. Another acceptable match, goofy botched enzuigiri aside. Not sure it really needed two run-ins, though.
It's pretty weird how fast Jeff went from being less than useless here to being really, really good again now. I mean, I probably made a bigger deal out of the botched leg-catch enzuigiri than I really needed to, but he was terrible during this period of his career. Really looked as bad as anyone on this card - Petey, Hoyt, and Raven included - and now he's been in one of my favorite matches of the year with his brother against MNM at the Rumble, did his part in the only ladder match I've given a shit about in about six years at Armageddon, and has generally held his own in singles matches despite his sit-out gourdbuster '91. But here he stunk.
Bobby Roode was the competent one in this match, and even back then they were talking about how he would become a break-out superstar post-Team Canada. The problem, of course, is that he's really, really bland. His strengths are his tough guy look and his in-ring competence, which makes him ideally suited for a role as the enforcer of a stable. Maybe he could get by as a solo act if he had a manager to act as his mouthpiece. TNA is kind of set apart from the WWE by their abundance of managers and heavyweight tag teams. None of them are particularly good, but they're there. Roode being paired with a sufficiently charismatic tag team partner would be ideal. Barring that, pairing him with a manager to do the talking for him would suffice. It would stink, but it would be a step in the right direction. A sign that the guys behind this at least get how wrestling works. Instead, they gave him a T&A manager. Wrestling fans' standards are low enough that Traci Brooks can work effectively as T&A, but it really does nothing for Roode. If he had a big future ahead of him in '05, he sure doesn't seem to have one now.
The Naturals and AMW don't like each other. Natural A talks about AMW's "obsession with winning the belts", because it's real unusual for a wrestler to want to win a title. Then again, this was a Vince Russo booked promotion once.
See, THIS is why they got fired. This is the promo they should've cut when Russo came back, instead of all that stuff about Shane Douglas building them back up to be Tag Title contenders. Everybody knows titles aren't important. Obsession with winning titles in lieu of making "clever" drug jokes and trying to fuck your siblings is lot more heelish in a Russo promotion than a D'Amore one.
Four Way Elimination Match
for the NWA World Tag Team Titles
The Naturals © vs. America's Most Wanted vs. Alex Shelley & The Incredible Disappearing Waltman vs. Team Canada (Eric Young & A-1)
TNA does the NOAH thing of booking all the title matches for the end of the show, which warms my heart. Shelley is wrestling by himself tonight since Waltman had a poker game with Sid, Ultimate Warrior, & Tadao Yasuda. Jimmy Hart is referred to as a Hall of Famer, but off the top of my head I only know of him being in the WWE Hall. Weird little inferiority complex showing up there. Members of the Candido family are in the audience, presumably pulling for either the team Chris managed or the team that won the tournament named after him. The Naturals and AMW are big beefy white tag teams who I could imagine being successful in early 90's WWF feuding with The Natural Disasters and Money Inc.. The Impact Zone is small enough that you actually get to hear Jimmy Hart yelling over the megaphone, offering such sage advice as "Kick out!". As I've noted elsewhere, I tend to like four-ways with tag rules. When done right, you get a nice cross section of a company, and can advance (or at least illustrate) a couple of different programs. This isn't as good in that regard as most ROH Four Corner Survival matches, but three of these teams are tied up in the same feud, and Shelley's just trying not to get killed. Not that he does a very good job of it. Team Canada beats Shelley down for a while until Johnny Candido jumps the guardrail and gets tagged in so he can throw some laughable clotheslines and get pinned. So Alex Shelley has to wrestle by himself when his partner doesn't show up, and gets eliminated when someone who wasn't in the match got pinned. Truly a test for even the least breakable spirit of an American person. So now James Storm comes in and starts beating on A-1 until he's attacked from behind on the outside by Young. We get a Southern tag segment with Storm working face-in-peril against Team Canada, with The Naturals standing around on the apron trying not to get involved. It is the logical strategy for a multi-man elimination match, but then, that's why I prefer single elimination rules. Storm leapfrogs over a corner charge by Young and hits a superkick, taking Young down so he can tag in Chris Harris. Harris is a house afire, but burns out after A-1 breaks a hockey stick over his back while he was trying to do something of a suplex variety to Young. Young cradles him for a pin, and the champs attack. The Naturals' offense is a bit more dynamic than the other teams in this match, including Natural A doing a facebuster in Natural B's knee (B's knee! HAHAHAHA!). Team Canada tries to hang for the final stretch, but they're a stable of really bland white guys with really bland white offense, so I can't be bothered to care. On the other hand, I did manage to muster up enough interest in The Naturals to finally be able to tell them apart. Andy Douglas busts out a nice high knee during a truncated face-in-peril segment, and Chase Stevens throws nice punches during a truncated house afire segment. Team Canada tries something from a Doomsday Device position, but Jimmy Hart cheats to win by crotching Young on the top rope. The Naturals recover and hit the Natural Disaster to win, but could they hit it on the Natural Disasters? Tune in to Superstars next week to find out! Also, The Mountie! And the debut of Razor Ramon! This match was good, I guess. But really, you don't need to devote this much time to it. I've done it twice now and I feel like a bitter nub of my former self, reduced to making lame jokes about Bret Hart-era WWF. The Naturals are good, though. Keep an eye out for them. Next Saturday. Promotional considerations paid for by the following....
I think this is the only show I've seen from them where they booked all of the title matches last, so fuck that. I've also since found out the NWA started up their own Hall of Fame, the first class of which consisted solely of Jimmy Hart.
TNA paying tribute to the guy they carelessly murdered by giving his girlfriend a ham and having his brother make a fool out of himself on PPV probably isn't as low as any of the stuff the WWE did following Eddie's death, but it feels like it should be.
Man, The Naturals. They chose the worst possible time to get fired. Like I said earlier, one of the very few stylistic differences between TNA and WWE is TNA's decently sized roster of managers and heavyweight tag teams. None of the managers are any good, and most of the tag teams aren't good, but The Naturals were boss. Bound for Glory the next month had the recently dethroned Naturals taking on the recently throned/heel turned AMW in one of the hidden great matches of 2005. They were pretty consistently the most watchable guys in the promotion other than Samoa Joe, but they got de-pushed and Russo booking doesn't do any favors to anyone. I compared them to various early-90's WWF teams because I grew up watching that stuff, and it's a style that's pretty much died off since then, so when I saw The Naturals and AMW tie it up for the first time, that was my frame of reference. The WWE hasn't really had a solid division of heavyweight tag teams for some time, and that was maybe the one thing TNA had over the WWE. They still have the division, but the Dudleys at their career low-point, New Age Outlaws Mk. II, and a neutered Homicide isn't really going to impress me next to rejuvanated Hardy Boys and London & Kendrick. I mean, I like the Bashams and all, but they're really a poor substitute for The Naturals. And even with the WWE having some good tag teams, I can't really forsee them hiring The Naturals. Then again, I'd have thought it would be less likely that they'd hire Cassidy Reilly, and they almost signed Matt Bentley. They did sign Frankie Kazarian and Trytan. If those guys can get WWE contracts, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that The Naturals would. At the very least, I'd hope they show up in IWA:M-S in some capacity. Ian will take pretty much anyone.
See the first thirty minutes of Bound for Glory FREE! Not a bad promotional tactic, provided the first thirty minutes are Jarrett-FREE! I'm not sure I get the logic of having your Wrestlemania/Starrcade/Wrestling World show so soon after your major network premiere. Of course, I don't get the logic of building said show around a Jeff Jarrett/Kevin Nash match, so clearly logic isn't being taken into consideration.
Jarrett is better than a pre-show match. Jarrett/Nash was a stupid idea, but I really should give Jarrett more credit than that. Also, as we all learned from the Kurt Angle debacle, the more TNA people watch, the less likely they are to buy their PPVs, so maybe rolling out their big show so soon after they got the Spike show wasn't such a bad idea after all.
"The Franchise" Shane Douglas - at this point closer to Jack in the Box than McDonald's - interviews Rhino about the upcoming title match. Douglas talks about Rhino challenging for the "prestigious NWA World's Title". Not so extreme are you now, Shane? Rhino insults the WWE and threatens Raven while wobbling back and forth and making me seasick.
Seriously, fuck Shane Douglas. He may have been as bad of a backstage interviewer as Borash. And he was never remotely close to McDonald's, and I don't even like McDonald's that much.
Mike Tenay runs down the tale of the tape, along with some bullet points on the match, which is always a nice touch.
Raven's Rules Match
for the NWA World Heavyweight Title
Raven © vs. Rhino
We make with the foreign objects shots early on, including Rhino getting busted open nice with a pizza cutter. They seem to be working the storyline of Raven being more familiar with this match type and thus having the advantage, though how a Raven's Rules match is so radically different than the standard rules of the promotion that Rhino was champion of is beyond me. The match almost immediately devolves into a sub-WWE Hardcore Title match, as Rhino picks up a "7500 pound" beer keg (courtesy Don West), and proceeds to hit Raven with it. The keg makes a sound like a steel drum and bounces when it hits the ground, so I guess that's the weight of the keg itself. Then again, there's more than one person on this show I can envision drinking 7500 lbs. of beer before they went on the air. On the plus side, Rhino has some good punches that I never really noticed before. He makes a comeback and they seem to be working the match as Raven the Weapon-User vs. Rhino the Striker, which is an interesting route to go with this. Rhino kicks a garbage can into Raven's face, and Raven is nice enough to hold it in place for him. Don West says that he held it "for protection". This probably isn't a spot you want to direct attention to, Don. Rhino misses a splash and lands on a chair, allowing Raven to brawl his way back to control. Raven sets up the drop toe hold into the chair, but Rhino charges and facebusts him hand-first into the chair. This is becoming real embarrassing real fast. Raven's follower Cassidy Reilly comes down, and the ref tries to eject him. The ref is too distracted trying to prevent a run-in in a match with no disqualifications to see that Raven is pinning Rhino. Don West sez, "This is brutal, folks!". On that, I agree. We're into the final run, and this can't end soon enough for me. Jeff Jarrett runs in (to the disinterest of the referee), and just sorta stares at Raven with the belt in his hand. Before he can decide whether or not he actually wants to hit him with it, Jeff Hardy runs in (ENOUGH ALREADY!!!!!!!!!) and swipes it away. Thoroughly distracted by Hardy's brightly colored plumage (for attracting mates), he falls prey to the Raven Effect. Rhino attempts one of his own on Raven, but Raven counters it. He hits the move himself, and mercifully, the match is over. Unless there's something particularly painful that I've blocked out of my memory, this is the worst match I've seen this year. I watched it so you won't have to. You can thank me later.
It's been a year-and-a-half. Anyone who I could've saved from watching this match has probably seen it already, and anyone who hasn't seen it isn't going to. I feel like I've failed, as this was a really horrendous match. I walked away from this thinking that Raven was the worst wrestler in the world. There was probably someone worse, and there was probably a worse match, but I'm not sure who or what that would be. The nonsensical overbooking here would be exceeded earlier this year by the Sting/Abyss title change, but this match still stands out in my mind as a disaster of epic proportions.
It does seem kind of obvious to me now that it was Lance Hoyt who emptied the 7500 lbs. of beer into the gullets of the Impact Zone audience members
Main Event:
Three Way Match
for the NWA X-Division Title
Christopher Daniels © vs. A.J. Styles vs. Samoa Joe
Well, at least they have their priorities straight in terms of main event placement. Samoa Joe main eventing a PPV for a nationally broadcast wrestling promotion makes me smile. Christopher Daniels' robe makes him easily the most fashionable man of the night. That thing is boss. The wrestlers get introduced in ring, which is another nice touch for big matches. Opening stretch of the match is built around Joe and Styles punking out Daniels so that they can wrestle each other instead. They open with the goofy comedy bit of Daniels yelling that nobody's gonna take his gold, so Styles and Joe bounce him back and forth with forearms. They take turns kicking him in the back ("let me show you how it's done...") before Daniels pops up and chews them out some more, only to be Totally Eliminated and taken out of the ring. One of the big stylistic flaws of three-ways that usually causes them to suck is the need for a wrestler to be unconscious on the floor for a long time while the other wrestlers have "their turn". This match doesn't do that, which would probably make it the best three-way in history. After Daniels is taken out, Styles and Joe start wrestling each other, but Daniels actually recovers reasonably quickly, and tries to get back into the match, at which point Styles and Joe knock him back out. Samoa Joe - who, if I haven't mentioned lately, is the best wrestler in the world - is monstrous as usual. He doesn't look particularly weaker against the juniors of the X-Division than he does against those of ROH or the rest of the US indy scene. He just lays into Styles with these kicks, and Jiminy Crickets, is it ever brutal. He busts out this gruesome overhead belly-to-belly that I don't remember seeing him use too often, and it just folds Styles up like an accordion. Styles dies for your pleasure a lot in this match. Daniels tosses him over the top rope and he just splats on the floor. With Styles dumped on the floor, Daniels now becomes a bigger part of the match, getting bursts of offense in on both opponents. As it is, they're only bursts since there really aren't any stretch runs in this match. But again, that's because everyone is moving in and out so fast, as opposed to the "my turn, your turn" extended control segments that plague most three-ways. Samoa Joe busts out KENTA's leaping Yakuza Kick and it's as great as you'd think it would be. Daniels and Styles do some of the flippity floppity stuff that everyone complains about on the outside. None of it hits, and they keep landing on their feet. So they decide to just punch each other in the face a bunch, and I'm trying to figure out when Styles learned to throw good punches. My train of thought is interrupted by Samoa Joe doing a FUCKING 280 LBS. TORNILLO PLANCHA and taking them both out! Holy shit indeed! Samoa Joe starts murdering the fuck out of the two little guys. He attempts a Muscle Buster on Daniels, but Daniels rakes the eyes and Styles climbs up to start brawling with him. So, Joe takes lemons and makes hot fiery death by just hurling them both off onto the mat. He beats the shit out of them before hitting the Muscle Buster proper on Styles, but Daniels runs in to prevent the Choke. He attempts a belt shot, but Joe catches him and powerslams Daniels into the next dimension. Joe snatches away the belt, but the ref tries to get it away from him. Joe wins the tug of war, but allows Daniels the opening to enzuigiri the belt into his face, effectively taking him out for the time being. Daniels hits the Best Moonsault Ever on Styles, but Joe recovers just enough to break up the pin. Daniels hits him with the Last Rites, and sends him to the floor so he can finish off A.J.. Daniels sends Styles off of the ropes, but telegraphs a back body drop and Styles boots him in the face. A.J. leaps off of the ropes and hits that stupid moonsault inverted DDT for a nearfall. A Daniels superplex leaves both men down, and Joe makes his way back in for a pair of nearfalls. Joe charges Daniels, but Christopher dodges and Joe goes careening through the ropes to the floor. Daniels moves to end the match, and attempts the Angel's Wings on A.J., but Styles blocks it and counters into a pinning combination to become the FIVE-TIME, FIVE-TIME, FIVE-TIME, FIVE-TIME, FIVE-TIME NWA X-Division champion. Meltzer gave this *****, which is absurd, but this was still a great match. I've heard more than a few people say that the first half was good, but the second half not so much. I've seen this a couple of times now, and I'm really not sure where this is coming from. This match is actually pretty strong throughout. You'll all want to see this.
I stand by all of this. Granted, it's been two years since then, and there was a three-way on a SmackDown in November between Batista, Booker, and Finlay that I think has overtaken this in my mind as the best three-way ever. But the rest of this stands. A.J.'s punching shouldn't have been a surprise to me. He was a Georgia babyface. Georgia babyfaces throwing good punches shouldn't be a surprise to me. Styles has this rep as a flippy-floppy-sucky dude, and it blinds you to the fact that he's a Georgian first and foremost. Also, that rep is semi-undeserved regardless, but still, even with the flippy shit, he's a Georgian at heart. I shouldn't be shocked by his ability to mix it up with Daniels and Joe.
And now, I proudly present the return of...
The Food Based Rating System
Ah, my food based rating system. How I've missed you. Not that I'm likely to use you regularly again, but it is good to see you.
The Trophy Full of Steak-Ums goes to...
Samoa Joe. Like I said when I nominated the match over in the Best of 2005 thread, there's no way the main event would have been as good as it was if Joe wasn't there to reel Daniels and Styles in. His glorious beatdowns on both of them - tornillo plancha included - were the highlight of the night. This wasn't a MOTYC, but it was a joy to behold regardless. I would give Joe the lion's share of the credit for that. At this point, I would pay to see the man sing showtunes for three hours.
Absolutely true at the time. It's a shame the Joe backlash came around just in time for him to leave ROH, as it basically made the haters right to a large extent. Hard to care about him in TNA now. He doesn't seem to care much himself. His last few months in ROH and his match with Eddie Kingston tell me he's still got what it takes, but damned if he's gonna use it on TV.
The Iron Cup Full of Brunswick Stew goes to...
TNA Creative. Thanks for making the X-Division match the main and keeping Jarrett out of the ring, but did we need him to do two run-ins? Did the Tag Titles match have to be elimination style with the best working team staying out until the end? And why tease Brown/Jarrett/Hardy vs. Raven when you're gonna have Jarrett win the belt and have Kevin Nash become the first challenger? TNA suffers from having a booking team that still has a pretty even good idea/bad idea ratio. They're much better off than when it was leaning heavily towards bad ideas (it's first year or so of existence), but fortune rarely favors the OK.
The Iron Cup Full of Brunswick Stew was kinda nebulous. It was sort of a "middle of the road, but in a notable way" award, usually going to either someone who both did well and fucked up during a show, or a lesser wrestler who turned in a better than average performance, or a good wrestler who turned in a somewhat underwhelming performance. Again, didn't need to bash Jarrett here, and as it turned out, fortune has favored TNA despite them becoming far less than OK, so I guess I got that wrong.
And the No Soup for You Award goes to...
Everyone but Rhino and Cassidy Reilly who was involved in the Heavyweight Title match. Rhino actually tried. He wasn't good enough to carry this on his own, but he tried. Reilly was involved in a major logic gap, but he himself didn't do anything offensive and was gone almost as soon as he came. Everyone else - from Raven, to the ref, to the announcers, to the others who ran-in, to the propmaster who brainstormed the bouncing 7500 pound keg - should hang their heads in shame. Almost makes me glad Jeff Jarrett is the champ again. Almost.
Jarrett is a million times better than Raven. I don't know what my deal was there.
Aries vs. Strong and Hoyt/Apolo vs. Brown/James were good. The main event is worth going out of your way to check out. Nothing else here is really worth watching. TNA still has a lot of problems, and really isn't even close to being as good as SmackDown!. Still, for a company built around a roided up blonde guy of questionable talent who only gets pushed because he's related to the promoter, I'm digging this a lot more than RAW.
Unfortunately for them, RAW replaced their roided-up blonde guy with a less roided-up brown haired guy who's way better than any of the guys TNA replaced their roided-up blonde guy with. I think my review of the show holds up, but the promotion sure as hell didn't.
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