- Kurt Angle's charges have been dismissed in the Rhaka Khan situation. She says she'll re-file, so we'll see if anything happens with that.
- Sojo Bolt has been let go because they "have nothing for her." She may come back in the future. She was not the best worker or anything, but I liked her alright and she had a cool name. (And she's better than Lacey Von Erich -- but so was Rhaka Khan).
- Abyss has a blog. I...guess it's in character? Abyss is kind of a doofus.
-----
Super Dave Osborne is here! You may know him better as Marty Funkhouser from Curb Your Enthusiasm or Larry Mittleman from Arrested Development. I used to see him on a show called Bizarre back in the '80s. Did you know that he's Albert Brooks' brother? I still find that weird. Anyway, Mick Foley appeared on one skit in his upcoming show Super Dave's Spike-Tacular, so Mick's returning the favor by letting Dave book one match tonight.
Abyss vs. Dr. Stevie: Daffney is out with Stevie, and she has no cast -- so did she break an arm or not? She is wearing a tiny, sparkly green top hat, which, again, baffles me. Okay, if Stevie loses this match, he's out of TNA forever. That result wouldn't actually surprise me, since Stevie is totally disposable -- his only role in the company is feuding with Abyss, and Abyss has to move on sooner or later.
Abyss comes on strong and gets a couple of two counts until Stevie rakes the eyes and connects with the Steviekick for a two count of his own. BLACK HOLE SLAM and -- the lights go out. Both guys are down when they come back on -- no, Stevie is able to crawl over -- there's the pin and Stevie saves his job.
Daff slides a chair into the ring, and Mick Foley -- at the announce table -- decides he's seen enough and heads in for the save. Lights go out again! Suddenly the ring is illuminated -- by RAVEN THROWING FIRE IN FOLEY'S FACE! Nice visual. Lights come back on in time for Raven to drill Foley with the Evenflow DDT. I think we've just booked an upcoming tag match, here.
Alissa Flash vs. Traci Brooks: Flash goes after Brooks' right arm, leading to Mike Tenay saying, "well, we've never mentioned this before, because Traci didn't want us to say anything, but -- Traci's been handicapped in that arm since birth!" Wait, Traci didn't want you to mention it? You're a DICK, Mike Tenay!
Taz thinks that Flash is crossing a line going after the arm, which seems totally idiotic to me. You can't say, "I'm going to be a wrestler, but you guys have to all agree not to go after my arm, 'kay?" (Wikipedia says she had Erb's palsy as an infant, by the way, and has "impaired function" to this date.)
So anyway, Flash wins with an armbar -- ON THE HANDICAPPED ARM! NO! But Brooks attacks her and knocks her out of the ring after the bell. What happened to Hamada?
"Black Machismo" Jay Lethal vs. Jim "THE ANVIL" Neidhart: Here's the first participant in Machismo's "Legends" challenge -- Neidhart's dressed in the pink and black and he has a HUGE EPIC GUT. Holy cow, it's like he's Marshall Bell and Gabriel Iglesias is Kuato. He also hobbles pretty bad. It's...sad.
Lethal basically runs rings around him until Neidhart catches a crossbody attempt and slams Lethal down -- that's his finisher! -- and there's the pin. What the hell.
I thought this would be a fun run of matches with Lethal beating decrepit senior citizens, but I guess it's going to be a series of humiliating losses instead -- maybe until Hulk Hogan gets here and teaches Lethal a valuable lesson about being himself.
Bobby Lashley is backstage and gets called to the production truck where we see Scott Steiner on one of the screens, live from Bobby & Kristal's hotel lobby. Bobby runs to the parking lot and drives off, followed by a cameraman.
Super Dave Osborne and Jeremy Borash are worried about Foley, who's en route to the hospital with his FACE BURNED OFF. They decide to book an awesome X Division match in Mick's honor.
The Beautiful People & Awesome Kong vs. Sarita, Taylor Wilde, ODB & and Tara: Lacey Von Erich continues to be awful. In other news, ODB has started doing the Bronco Buster, which name Tenay conflates with "Carpet Muncher," thereby dubbing the move the "Bronco Muncher." Wow. It's like his #1 priority these days is making Taz giggle.
Anyway, eventually Kong KILLS Wilde with the Implant Buster, leading to Taz speculating as to whether Wilde has implants or not as the pin is counted. You know, with all TNA's talk of Knockouts being actual athletes and all, it'd be nice if they showed them a little respect on commentary, but I think it's actually gotten worse since Taz's arrival.
Bobby arrives at the hotel and bursts into his room -- Kristal is fine -- is that a stroller? -- and then Scott Steiner attacks Bobby from behind and BEATS HIM WITH A STEEL PIPE.
Kurt Angle is out and starts cutting a promo against Desmond Wolfe -- who appears on the video screen to rebut. Angle keeps trying to respond but Wolfe won't acknowledge his presence -- you can see the gears turn in Angle's head as he realizes that Wolfe's appearance is pre-taped, and he realizes that that means that Wolfe is probably right behind him -- sure enough, Wolfe's ambush fails and Kurt starts whomping him. Wolfe's voice continues on in the background as Wolfe suddenly grabs a DDT -- and then adds a chairshot upside Kurt's head (forearm) to boot! That's four times in a row that Wolfe has totally laid Angle out.
The Motor City Machine Guns & Amazing Red vs. World Elite (Kiyoshi, Abdul Bashir, and Homicide: Super Dave is out for commentary -- he has no idea what's going on, but he still manages to mark out for Red, who nails some nice kicks and a spinning barrel roll to the outside onto Kiyoshi. Homicide breaks out Mick Foley's barb wire bat which he stole from Mick's office (that's racist!), but the "tough" security guys come out to drag him away (which they've been doing a lot lately -- I wouldn't be surprised to see a match or two come out of that). MCMG win with a nice neckbreaker/crossbody combo on Bashir.
Team 3D and Rhino are out -- Brother Ray says he's been thinking about it a lot, and he's come to the conclusion that Rhino's right -- there is a conspiracy afoot to force the veterans out of TNA! But guys like Matt Morgan and Hernandez aren't going to get their way -- Team 3D and Rhino are going to "hold them down" forever.
This brings out Matt Morgan and Hernandez -- turns out they're all in a 6-man tag match at Turning Point -- but Morgan and Hernandez don't have a partner! Doesn't matter, Morgan says -- they don't need one. But then D'Angelo Dinero's theme music hits -- the Pope is out to add himself to the match! Ostensibly, this is a face turn. Morgan and Hernandez seem totally befuddled by this turn of events.
Beer Money Inc. vs. The British Invasion: The British Invasion has had their suspension cut off and are being forced to fight Beer Money with the stipulation that if Beer Money wins, they get put into the Tag Team Title match at Turning Point. Nice little match -- these guys work well together. It feels to me like TNA's tag teams are really focusing on bringing in more double-team moves -- every tag match someone does something new, like Beer Money's clothesline/backstabber combo tonight. Beer Money wins, pinning Brutus Magnus with the DWI. (I'm a little sad about this because MCMG just became the third wheels in the title match.)
Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles: Solid but brief. Daniels comes out to "help" Styles, distracting Styles and allowing Joe to lock in the Coquina Clutch until AJ passes out. Daniels is amused by this, and we get a closeup of his smirking face to end the show.
Better than last week but the matches were still way too short and inconsequential.
--K
(edited by Karlos the Jackal on 13.11.09 0253) Last 5 movies seen: The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) ** - The Creature from the Black Lagoon ***1/2 - Sita Sings the Blues *** - Medicine for Melancholy *** - Zombieland ****
This show was TERRIBLE. Lethal jobbing to Jim F'n Neidhart, AJ Styles beeing booked as the weakest champion since Abyss, their guest host not knowing what the Hell is going on, Dixie Carter's big stupid speech getting more hype than the PPV, Beer Money being added to the MCMG's match for no reason...Angle/Wolfe continues to rock, and Elijah's face turn was welcome, but aside from that, blecch.
Oh, and Mick? Was leaving WWE and pissing off Vince McMahon REALLY worth it in order to have a tag team feud with Stevie Richards and Raven? The guy's slipping into obscurity in a way not seen since Scott Steiner quietly faded out of his WWE run.
Only saw about a half hour. Turned it on just in time to see Neidhart's completely sucky clothesline on Lethal, and then when he pulled his straps around after the match and showed his gut with pride. Just......wow. I really like the Beautiful People's entrance. Yummmmmmmmmy. Actually, I think this Knockout's match was far and above any WWE Divas match I've seen lately (not including Mickie or Beth's matches). Speaking of sucky stuff, Steiner's whacking of the steel pipe on Lashely was horrible. Seriously, it was like he swung the pipe around in slow mo and just simply laid the pipe on him. Oooooh, hope he doesn't bruise from that. Other than that, leave it to BPP to go after the ladeez. "YOUR KIDS HAVE MY EYES!" THAT made me laugh. Turned it off after Angle's beatdown. I have to admit, it WAS kind of weird to hear Desmond's voice over the PA while he was right there getting beat down/beating down Angle.
Originally posted by Amos CochranThis show was TERRIBLE.
I have to agree. I watched an entire episode of TNA this week for the first time in 3 years and I didn't like it.
Seriously, Mick Foley gets fire thrown in his face PLUS a patented Russo "rush to the hotel (after letting a few segments pass) to save my girl only to fall into a clever trap" angle. Both badly executed and underwhelming. Raven's comeback was eh, until he admitted he's a serial killer! (Or is he?! That's Russo's out for that.)
I couldn't be less interested in Matt Morgan. If he's the future, it's one I don't want to live in.
Jim Neidhart - UGH! He can barely walk. And why did he have to pull the straps down?!
I only stuck with the show to see the Styles vs. Joe main event and it hardly rocked my world.
On the plus side, I thought the Nigel McGuinness angle was generally well done. But Kurt Angle's suck up promo about Hulk Hogan's brilliance and wrestling genius was too much to swallow.
Haha how awesome would it be if this Lashley/Steiner feud ends up with Krystal turning? It'd certainly make all that hubbub about her "demeaning" WWE character look silly.
Did Steiner sneak into the hotel room or something? He came out of nowhere. HMMMMMM
Originally posted by Amos CochranThis show was TERRIBLE.
Seriously, Mick Foley gets fire thrown in his face PLUS a patented Russo "rush to the hotel (after letting a few segments pass) to save my girl only to fall into a clever trap" angle. Both badly executed and underwhelming. Raven's comeback was eh, until he admitted he's a serial killer! (Or is he?! That's Russo's out for that.)
I couldn't be less interested in Matt Morgan. If he's the future, it's one I don't want to live in.
I only stuck with the show to see the Styles vs. Joe main event and it hardly rocked my world.
On the plus side, I thought the Nigel McGuinness angle was generally well done. But Kurt Angle's suck up promo about Hulk Hogan's brilliance and wrestling genius was too much to swallow.
Morgan still has a way to go, but he has improved leaps and bounds over his WWE days. I like him, and think he can be the future, but I am not ready to crown him yet. Hernandez either.
The main event and Angle/Wolfe were the best parts of the show. They have really pushed Wolfe to the moon since his debut, but I doubt he will win at the PPV. Not that he has to after this kind of build, but if he does somehow get the win, I think he's made.
I know a lot of the wrestlers are being urged to toe the company line, and put over Hogan coming in as the greatest thing ever. But I don't doubt that there are some guys who really ARE excited about it. Angle may or may not be, but I don't think that everyone hates Hogan like the IWC would like us to believe.
"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
It may have been my TV, but did Neidhart somehow have "tone" to his Winnie the Pooh belly? I swear he had a six-pack on top of his massive eighth month of pregnancy stomach. If this leads to Lethal moving on from the Black Machismo gimmick, I'm for the lesser evil of him jobbing to the oldies.
I also came in on that match between Lethal and Neidhart. The women's match was really good. Lacey is uhh....... she's very tall. The childish demeaning sexual references about the Knockouts was annoying. I felt like I was watching an WWE Attitude era bra and panties match. I expected Lawler to start squealing about puppies soon. TNA knows better.
Beer Money thrown on the Tag Title match? Detroit will never get their heroes to wear gold. At least not the new generation.
Hey, wasn't their a ex-military guy Rhino was training some months back? Has he been let go already?
Originally posted by CruelAngel777Hey, wasn't their a ex-military guy Rhino was training some months back? Has he been let go already?
Jesse Neal. He's supposedly at 3D's wrestling school.
Here's his Twitter! It includes a link to this video which is apparently his entrance theme -- "check out whats waiting to be unleashed unto TNA!!" says Jesse. He's wearing ring gear in the video, so that's an improvement already.
--K
Last 5 movies seen: The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) ** - The Creature from the Black Lagoon ***1/2 - Sita Sings the Blues *** - Medicine for Melancholy *** - Zombieland ****
Oh, and Mick? Was leaving WWE and pissing off Vince McMahon REALLY worth it in order to have a tag team feud with Stevie Richards and Raven? The guy's slipping into obscurity in a way not seen since Scott Steiner quietly faded out of his WWE run.
Here's the real surprising thing about putting Foley in a 'Hey, we were in ECW 15 years ago' feud: Hogan vs. Foley, while a stylistic nightmare, is one of the few name matches that has never occurred. Seems like something to capitalize before one or both bail on the company.
" There's not a lot of networks that have the space open for WWE programming." Sorry, did USA have two completely dead hours on Monday nights? There's such things as re-scheduling and cancelling shows.