Post by Ll3yd on Feb 19, 2004 5:03:07 GMT -5
Report by Dave Meltzer:
To give credit where it's due, during the pre-taped pre-game show featuring Scott Hudson, obviously done last week, he mentioned Joanie Laurer numerous times. The credit goes to several times, they ran a scrawl saying that Laurer would not be appearing on the show.
With Mike Tenay and Jeremy Borash fired, we had Scott Hudson doing the pre-game solo and working with Don West doing the broadcast. This moved Terry Taylor to interviewer.
1. Jerry Lynn & Elix Skipper & Sonjay Dutt & Chris Sabin beat Jason Cross & Jimmy Rave & Roderick Strong & Shark Boy in 7:10. Very strong opener. It was your fast paced and big move match, but that's what people want out of X matches. Dutt and Strong did some really cool stuff together. To me, Strong earned himself a chance with this performance. Strong and Dutt did flip dives. Sabin did an insane springboard dropkick. Dutt did a Dragon rana. At the end, Lynn was selling his shoulder, as his shoulder took a beating from the slow-mo from Juventud Guerrera's finisher last week. But he came back and gutted through it, pinning Cross with the cradle piledriver.
To categorize the guys who made the hottest show of the year back as prelim guys, Jarrett showed up and sent them scattering after clocking Lynn with a guitar shot. He told Lynn he was fired and that Skipper is now the captain of Team TNA. Jarrett did the first of his many promos, referring both Don Callis and Thomas T., who weren't there. He said everyone on the roster wants to be the man, but nobody in the company can carry his jock.
2. Michael "Do you know who I'm related to" Shane pinned Ron Killings in 6:52. Pretty decent match. Killings power bombed Traci off the top rope. Shane Douglas attacked Konnan upstairs in the Spanish announcers booth. This led to B.G. leaving the U.S. booth for the Asylum's Mexican embassy. Shane did a drop toe hold to Killings, whose head hit Traci's Bob Orton Jr. like cast. When Killings got up, he got the sweet chin music.
David Young didn't want to team with Glenn Gilbert against ICP because he's afraid of clowns. It's a swerve, he actually didn't want to job to musicians. Kid Kash wasn't afraid of clowns, so he's the partner.
3. El Leon & Dustin Rhodes beat Kevin Northcutt & Joe Legend in 9:00 when Leon pinned Legend with a rock bottom. Scott Hudson called it a uranage, which pretty much is also correct. Rhodes was in most of the way selling. Good psychology but crowd wasn't much into it. Rhodes & Leon came across flat.
Jarrett hit Legend with a guitar for doing the job, and told Northcutt he'd have to make a choice. Northcutt walked away from Legend. That's the first tag team that broke up tonight.
Playing Fair with Jonny was next. Pretty much a bomb. He had his neck in a collar from A.J. Styles, and arm in a sling from Simon Diamond. He cut a long promo on Joanie Laurer. He spent so much time on running her down, saying which is bigger, HHH's nose or Joanie's Adam's Apple and stuff, that I figured they made up. Then I was told they just didn't have any idea for what he should do, so, he did what he did. He said he was going to sue Diamond, Styles and Brian Urlacher for doing the worst impersonation of Andy Kaufman, or something like that. Styles came out and was about to pound him again, when The Monster Abyss showed up.
4. Styles beat Abyss via DQ in 9:53. Well, they didn't defend the belts. Instead, because they can't get along, they had a match for both belts. These two have had some good matches but this wasn't one of them. Jarrett, as if we hadn't seen enough of him, interfered for the DQ. The tag titles were so important that it was never said the status of them. Actually, they never said Styles won via DQ either. Jarrett gave Styles the stroke. Styles was supposed to go through a table and boy was that ugly. the first time, he was slammed on the end of the table, instead of the middle, so it didn't break. Even beginning indie wrestlers know you slam guys in the middle of the table. Abyss came off the ropes but before he destroyed Styles, but table leg gave way he was falling and Abyss went flying on him. Someone could have gotten hurt on that one.
5. ICP beat Gilberti & Kash in 5:30 when ref Mike Posey shoved Kash, who had been harassing him, into a sunset flip by Shaggy for the pin. The crowd was filled with Juggalos who were chanting ICP all night long. It's not like this was a good match, but crowd heat was tremendous for everything. Shaggy did a moonsault again, just to reinforce to everyone who didn't see Tough Enough why we shouldn't be impressed by that move. Young came out to confront his fears. I guess, he's just like Eddy Guerrero standing up to his demons. 2 Tuff Tony attacked him.
After the match, the heels destroyed Posey. I don't know where ICP went. Young gave him a spinebuster. They kept beating on him until Simon Diamond & Johnny Swinger made the save. It should be pointed out that earlier in the show, Gilberti said he's reveal which one of the two signed with Jarrett. Diamond did a promo earlier asking Swinger again. Swinger was very fidgety. Since this is TNA, you'd think that means Diamond is the one who did it, but it was a double swerve. Diamond looked at the paper of signatures and saw Swinger's name. Swinger jumped him and all the heels did a number on Diamond. Don Harris and the black shirt guys made the save.
6. Raven & Terry Funk beat Julio Dinero & C.M. Punk in 7:14. Raven came out with the old Raven gear. He later said he was going back to his roots. Funk bladed immediately. Funk can't do much physically, but this was one of those bouts where he did enough little things like Funk that the crowd got really into the match and set up Raven's hot tag. Funk also brought out of retirement the old rolling cradle, which Hudson identified as Abe Jacobs' old kiwi roll. Raven DDT'd Dinero for the pin. Jim Mitchell came out with a taser gun. He went to stun Raven, but Funk made the supreme sacrifice and took the bullet and was laid out. Well, that's it for Funk.
Scott D'Amore was mad, saying the Americans always choke in reference to them losing on their home court. The next taped PPV is 3/10, which means two weeks of great dark matches coming up. It's Team Canada, captained by Teddy Hart and managed by D'Amore, with no other names said (probably Harry Smith, Jack Evans and another guy) against Team AAA for the America's Cup.
7. Jarrett pinned Chris Harris in 11:18. This match couldn't follow the previous two in the eyes of the live crowd. By the way, Bill Apter was there, but there were no presentations of awards on the PPV. Harris threw too many punches, which is the weakness in his game. In fact, that was much of his offense since this was a brawl. When he got back to wrestling, the bout got a lot better. Ref Rudy Charles was in a quandary. Yes, he was Earl Hebner, right in front of everyone. Harris used the catatonic, but before Charles could count three, Kash was on the apron telling him if he counted three, he was fired. So he stopped at two. Harris did a legdrop off the top. Same story. Jarrett then nailed Harris with a belt shot. Charles was about to call for the DQ, but was warned he'd be fired, so instead counted three.
But there will be no more shenanigans. Mike Tenay showed up and said he has a new best friend. And he's also been rehired as lead announcer. The new Director of Authority is Vince Russo.
Next week's show:
Raven & Sabu vs. Dinero & Punk
Abyss vs. Styles with not one, but four tables
Konnan & Killings & James vs. Traci & Shane & Douglas
But if you live in Nashville, you'll get to see a hot undercard taping most likely.
To give credit where it's due, during the pre-taped pre-game show featuring Scott Hudson, obviously done last week, he mentioned Joanie Laurer numerous times. The credit goes to several times, they ran a scrawl saying that Laurer would not be appearing on the show.
With Mike Tenay and Jeremy Borash fired, we had Scott Hudson doing the pre-game solo and working with Don West doing the broadcast. This moved Terry Taylor to interviewer.
1. Jerry Lynn & Elix Skipper & Sonjay Dutt & Chris Sabin beat Jason Cross & Jimmy Rave & Roderick Strong & Shark Boy in 7:10. Very strong opener. It was your fast paced and big move match, but that's what people want out of X matches. Dutt and Strong did some really cool stuff together. To me, Strong earned himself a chance with this performance. Strong and Dutt did flip dives. Sabin did an insane springboard dropkick. Dutt did a Dragon rana. At the end, Lynn was selling his shoulder, as his shoulder took a beating from the slow-mo from Juventud Guerrera's finisher last week. But he came back and gutted through it, pinning Cross with the cradle piledriver.
To categorize the guys who made the hottest show of the year back as prelim guys, Jarrett showed up and sent them scattering after clocking Lynn with a guitar shot. He told Lynn he was fired and that Skipper is now the captain of Team TNA. Jarrett did the first of his many promos, referring both Don Callis and Thomas T., who weren't there. He said everyone on the roster wants to be the man, but nobody in the company can carry his jock.
2. Michael "Do you know who I'm related to" Shane pinned Ron Killings in 6:52. Pretty decent match. Killings power bombed Traci off the top rope. Shane Douglas attacked Konnan upstairs in the Spanish announcers booth. This led to B.G. leaving the U.S. booth for the Asylum's Mexican embassy. Shane did a drop toe hold to Killings, whose head hit Traci's Bob Orton Jr. like cast. When Killings got up, he got the sweet chin music.
David Young didn't want to team with Glenn Gilbert against ICP because he's afraid of clowns. It's a swerve, he actually didn't want to job to musicians. Kid Kash wasn't afraid of clowns, so he's the partner.
3. El Leon & Dustin Rhodes beat Kevin Northcutt & Joe Legend in 9:00 when Leon pinned Legend with a rock bottom. Scott Hudson called it a uranage, which pretty much is also correct. Rhodes was in most of the way selling. Good psychology but crowd wasn't much into it. Rhodes & Leon came across flat.
Jarrett hit Legend with a guitar for doing the job, and told Northcutt he'd have to make a choice. Northcutt walked away from Legend. That's the first tag team that broke up tonight.
Playing Fair with Jonny was next. Pretty much a bomb. He had his neck in a collar from A.J. Styles, and arm in a sling from Simon Diamond. He cut a long promo on Joanie Laurer. He spent so much time on running her down, saying which is bigger, HHH's nose or Joanie's Adam's Apple and stuff, that I figured they made up. Then I was told they just didn't have any idea for what he should do, so, he did what he did. He said he was going to sue Diamond, Styles and Brian Urlacher for doing the worst impersonation of Andy Kaufman, or something like that. Styles came out and was about to pound him again, when The Monster Abyss showed up.
4. Styles beat Abyss via DQ in 9:53. Well, they didn't defend the belts. Instead, because they can't get along, they had a match for both belts. These two have had some good matches but this wasn't one of them. Jarrett, as if we hadn't seen enough of him, interfered for the DQ. The tag titles were so important that it was never said the status of them. Actually, they never said Styles won via DQ either. Jarrett gave Styles the stroke. Styles was supposed to go through a table and boy was that ugly. the first time, he was slammed on the end of the table, instead of the middle, so it didn't break. Even beginning indie wrestlers know you slam guys in the middle of the table. Abyss came off the ropes but before he destroyed Styles, but table leg gave way he was falling and Abyss went flying on him. Someone could have gotten hurt on that one.
5. ICP beat Gilberti & Kash in 5:30 when ref Mike Posey shoved Kash, who had been harassing him, into a sunset flip by Shaggy for the pin. The crowd was filled with Juggalos who were chanting ICP all night long. It's not like this was a good match, but crowd heat was tremendous for everything. Shaggy did a moonsault again, just to reinforce to everyone who didn't see Tough Enough why we shouldn't be impressed by that move. Young came out to confront his fears. I guess, he's just like Eddy Guerrero standing up to his demons. 2 Tuff Tony attacked him.
After the match, the heels destroyed Posey. I don't know where ICP went. Young gave him a spinebuster. They kept beating on him until Simon Diamond & Johnny Swinger made the save. It should be pointed out that earlier in the show, Gilberti said he's reveal which one of the two signed with Jarrett. Diamond did a promo earlier asking Swinger again. Swinger was very fidgety. Since this is TNA, you'd think that means Diamond is the one who did it, but it was a double swerve. Diamond looked at the paper of signatures and saw Swinger's name. Swinger jumped him and all the heels did a number on Diamond. Don Harris and the black shirt guys made the save.
6. Raven & Terry Funk beat Julio Dinero & C.M. Punk in 7:14. Raven came out with the old Raven gear. He later said he was going back to his roots. Funk bladed immediately. Funk can't do much physically, but this was one of those bouts where he did enough little things like Funk that the crowd got really into the match and set up Raven's hot tag. Funk also brought out of retirement the old rolling cradle, which Hudson identified as Abe Jacobs' old kiwi roll. Raven DDT'd Dinero for the pin. Jim Mitchell came out with a taser gun. He went to stun Raven, but Funk made the supreme sacrifice and took the bullet and was laid out. Well, that's it for Funk.
Scott D'Amore was mad, saying the Americans always choke in reference to them losing on their home court. The next taped PPV is 3/10, which means two weeks of great dark matches coming up. It's Team Canada, captained by Teddy Hart and managed by D'Amore, with no other names said (probably Harry Smith, Jack Evans and another guy) against Team AAA for the America's Cup.
7. Jarrett pinned Chris Harris in 11:18. This match couldn't follow the previous two in the eyes of the live crowd. By the way, Bill Apter was there, but there were no presentations of awards on the PPV. Harris threw too many punches, which is the weakness in his game. In fact, that was much of his offense since this was a brawl. When he got back to wrestling, the bout got a lot better. Ref Rudy Charles was in a quandary. Yes, he was Earl Hebner, right in front of everyone. Harris used the catatonic, but before Charles could count three, Kash was on the apron telling him if he counted three, he was fired. So he stopped at two. Harris did a legdrop off the top. Same story. Jarrett then nailed Harris with a belt shot. Charles was about to call for the DQ, but was warned he'd be fired, so instead counted three.
But there will be no more shenanigans. Mike Tenay showed up and said he has a new best friend. And he's also been rehired as lead announcer. The new Director of Authority is Vince Russo.
Next week's show:
Raven & Sabu vs. Dinero & Punk
Abyss vs. Styles with not one, but four tables
Konnan & Killings & James vs. Traci & Shane & Douglas
But if you live in Nashville, you'll get to see a hot undercard taping most likely.
