This is only the second time I've gotten TNA, the first being back when it started last June. The combination of a crappy PPV and a crappy Raw made me a bit more disposed to try it out than usual.
So ... Jarrett gets handcuffed, beaten up by four guys with weapons, kicks out of his opponent's finisher twice, and STILL wins? Shit, Triple H only wishes he had that kind of booking power. That (and the occasional inane bit like the dancing girl feud) aside, though, I enjoyed the show. The wrestling was definitely better than most of what I saw on Monday night, albeit with sloppy spots -- the one where Chris Sabin wiped out was frightening, but they covered it well enough and he seemed to be okay afterward. The D'lo/Styles vs. Siaki/Young match was terrific, especially that Sky-High/3D combo move.
Doesn't mean I'm a TNA convert -- the lack of closed captioning is a major stumbling block for me -- but I'll definitely pay closer attention in the future.
"next to of course god america i love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh say can you see by the dawn's early my country tis of centuries come and go and are no more what of it we should worry in every language even deafanddumb thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry by jingo by gee by gosh by gum why talk of beauty what could be more beaut- iful than these heroic happy dead who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter they did not stop to think they died instead then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"
It's getting glaringly obvious that Jeff Jarrett is becoming just as bad as Triple H. This match made Raven look like a total loser and was horribly overbooked. This should have been the night Jarrett finally dropped the belt, especially with no other potential challengers on the horizon. With the creative team down to Russo and Jeff Jarrett, there may be no sign of a new champion coming anytime soon.
The rest of the show was pretty good, but right now I just can't get past the bad signs I'm seeing because of the main event. That's P-Double O-C-H-I-E!
You know it won't be long now. May God help us all!
This is the first TNA show I've ordered in awhile but I usually download it from the newsgroups. I figured I'd stop being cheap for once.
Poor Jeff. Nothing worse then a never was, who thinks he was, but he wasn't. You know what I mean.
Jeff's a solid wrestler and decent heel but he doesn't have the charisma necessary to hook me into his programs especially as a face Stone Cold imitation.
Raven would have been a good choice to be made a strong heel champion for a little while to transition to a fresh babyface champion like AJ Styles.
I wish that Daniels/Lynn match would've gotten a good 15 minutes. Everytime I see Christopher Daniels, I'm amazed he's not given a more major push. The guy is an incredible worker with a unique persona and he's really good on the mic, too.
Amazing Red really needs to work on his whole look. He still looks like a teenage backyard wrestler that raided Nova's old closet.
Why are they wasting money on PERRY SATURN? You can add The Harris Nazi's to that but they've got dirty pictures of Jeff and Russo.
I have to agree with the criticism, for much the same reason I hated the HHH win at WM. This was the most and best built up match in TNA history. This was for all intents and purposes the WM for the first year of the company. And on the big day, the big moment never happened. Had they perhaps subbed Jeff Hardy into Sabu's place, it would have left less of a bad taste in the mouth with the idea that we saw something major happen at least. Instead we got Sabu who is a shell of himself, and Jarrett holding on against all odds again. Sadly, much like Raw, the main event picture has taken a beating. He beat Styles, he beat D-Lo, he beat Raven, he beat Killings...I'm not sure who's left. Watts? Gilberti? Konnan? Lynn? Red? I'm going to hold off on going into full-bore HHH-level criticism until I see what happens next week. Maybe this is building to something, maybe they have someone in the wings (Hardy, Sting, Luger) who they want to build to even more than Raven. But I do have a bad feeling tonight off this.
"It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it." - Robert E. Lee
Whoa, whoa, whoa here. I'm as big a Raven mark as there is, but he did not need the belt. Furthermore, I'm glad he didn't win the belt. His storyline concerns his allegiance to either SEX or The Extreme Revolution (or is it Team Extreme).
Jarrett didn't even hold the NWA-TNA title for most of TNA's existence. He's not reaching HHH levels yet. Besides, unlike HHH, Jeff can still wrestle good enough to deserve the belt. TNA needs to build a champion that doesn't lose his belt every other week. I like the Jarrett reign, and I hope it continues.
And how about the future opponents for the title? We have a heel (Killings), a tweener (AJ Styles), and a face (D-Lo Brown). All with a grudge against Jarrett. This works better than having them run after Raven (who again has his own problems to worry about).
I finally did it right. I finally ordered a TNA show that was not worse than the previous week's show. I thought the show was excellent, as almost nothing disappointed. Even the Lollipop mess was decent as a meaningless T and A filler between the excellent wrestling. Kudos to TNA for living up to the hype this time.
The Hurricane main eventing a Raw show? See, the WWE is listening to the 'Net. Well, they're listening to me anyways. Look for the next push to go to Molly.
I thought it was a good show -- I did feel a little deflated by the ending. I tend to agree with spf here.
I was also rooting for Shark Boy in the 4-way -- he'd be a fun guy to give a little push to, I think -- just to see what happens.
Where is the S.A.T., anyway?
fuel -- yeah, Slash is Wolfie. I agree with you about the Harris Boyz, but at the same time -- I don't really mind them at the level they're at now: filling out the tag tram division, acting as enforcers, not really getting a push towards the belts. Saturn I have a certain amount of affection for dating back to WCW -- I'd rather have him around than New Jack, Credible, OR Sandman.
I wasn't much on the ending either. I thought Raven should have got the strap. If anything adds a little more spice to "whch faction does Raven side with" angle. Personally of all the factions he most fits with the New Church- he could a lot for that group.
I would like to second fuelinjected's cries for a Christopher Daniels push. He is great on the stick, great in the ring, and has an interesting character.
Overall it was another good solid show- much better than anything the WWE has going on right now.
EDIT: just a little cleaning up
(edited by Ffej on 1.5.03 0809) WIENER OF THE DAY! July 6, 2002!
Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion. For instance, let's say you're an astronaut on the moon and you fear that your partner has been turned into Dracula. The next time he goes out for the moon pieces, wham!, you just slam the door behind him and blast off. He might call you on the radio and say he's not Dracula, but you just say, "Think again, bat man."
Rudy Charles being unable to unlock the cuffs (to the point where RAVEN had to do it) was WCW-level embarrassing, but those kind of things seem to happen a lot. I think my favourite was when Tenay threw it to a Goldy Locks interview right after the opening tag match, trying to give the impression that it was happening live, only to have that illusion completely shattered by the presence of the Harris Brothers (who had just been competing) in the background. On the plus side, at least Tenay didn't try to insult my intelligence after it happened, admitting that what we'd seen was actually taped earlier when they came back to him for his show intro.
I don't know if anybody else is watching both shows, but is Raven basically using the exact same promo in MLW as in TNA, only changing in Jerry Lynn's name for Jeff Jarretts? That's pretty lazy!
Seeing Sabu was another "gosh, MLW and TNA are just the same show - and they're both trying WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too hard to be a warmed-over ECW clone" moment.
I missed the show last night, but I heard Konnan and Killings made some good comments and dissed Coachman. What did they say?
" Seeing these wrestling managers walking around with their big guts or their big breasts or their big mouths gave us hop that someday, we too could be part of the show, even if we weren't 6'5" with expletives tattooed on the back of our necks. Plus, anyone getting paid thousands of dollars to stand around in neon suits yelling 'KILL HIM!' towards the ring was certainly a profession to look forward to." http://www.x-entertainment.com/messages/559.html
I did see it, fortunately, and I'll keep my reply simple. If this match was overbooked, then I can definitely see Raven demand a rematch next week or something like that in a NO-DQ match. That would be better. He should've won, based on the simple fact that his promos are still strong and strong heel champs are just as important to a promotion as face champs. I think Raven could easily spark more interest in TNA as a whole if he won.
I'm not saying Jarrett should have lost the belt, because I don't follow TNA closely enough to know about his title history. I am saying that seeing him take everything short of a bullet to the chest and still go over was ridiculous. At least Triple H "only" kicked out of two finishers at Wrestlemania.
"next to of course god america i love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh say can you see by the dawn's early my country tis of centuries come and go and are no more what of it we should worry in every language even deafanddumb thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry by jingo by gee by gosh by gum why talk of beauty what could be more beaut- iful than these heroic happy dead who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter they did not stop to think they died instead then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"
I think I'd have been more comfortable with Jarrett going over if the Sabu run-in had led directly to the finish. That way, Raven could have someone to feud with as he works his way back up to the title. As it stands, Sabu just seemed like a minor annoyance, and Raven is left with no real grudge. They seem to have a lot invested in Raven. I don't think this the end for him.
And man, that blown spot by Sabin was something to behold! How many times do they show replays of blown spots?
One other thing. I know they're on PPV, and I know Russo's booking, but they could tone down the language just a tad. Hearing Dusty say bullsh*t is just weird.
I started watching late and haven't reviewed the tape yet to see the early part of the first hour but from what I hear, the D-Lo/Styles vs. Siaki/Young was great. I gotta see that. From what i've seen from David Young, he's a talented one.
Chris Sabin was pretty cool, i'm sure he had some jitters since...I THINK this was his first TNA PPV. He might've been on Xplosion a few times, i'm not sure. But the Futureshock was sweet as well as that spinning Rock Bottom into a backbreaker type move.
As for the main event, it was definitely Russoriffic, and although I wanted Raven to win, I feel fine now about the result. I don't think Jarrett is like HHH, Raven was not buried in this match and I don't think it's over between Raven and Jarrett.
After ordering TNA two weeks in a row, I may make it a ritual to catch at least one TNA show a month. I really like what i've seen. Also, in the dark match/Xplosion results, Shannon Ward (Daffney of WCW fame) showed up with Michael Shane as "Shark Girl"! I wouldn't mind seeing her appear on TNA regularly and maybe get some mixed tag matches against Julio & Alexis
Originally posted by Shem the PenmanThe D'lo/Styles vs. Siaki/Young match was terrific, especially that Sky-High/3D combo move.
Okay, I went back and watched this match on tape, as I missed the early part of the broadcast. This was a really fun tag match. One spot really bugged me, though: Styles hurracanrana-ing D-Lo onto their fallen opponent? I can understand the old tag team "slam your partner onto the other guy" spot, but this just looked stupid.
I hear there's been some major disagreements about how to book Jarrett. I'm pretty sure the idea of Jeff as a traditional world beating babyface is all Jerry, with the shadier sides being Russo. The Jarrett of last year was one of the most elastic characters ever, basically a face who acted almost completely like a heel. But now he's just completely boring, and he simply never had either that type of charisma nor that type of in ring awesomeness to be an HBK like pure babyface champion.
Russo booked him as a face who cheated, lied, manipulated and even had certain semi-racist undertones. He was paranoid and selfish and purely out for himself... and he was a huge babyface. That was the way to book Jarrett and I hope that Russo gets his way on that one.
I think associating Raven with ECW was a giveaway that they weren't going to put the strap on him. He's gonna feud with the ECW guys now I'd suggest and just get stuck in that throwback faction.
So the main event scene is in some trouble methingks. By the way, where do you download the shows from? What newsgroups?
Big O said: I hear there's been some major disagreements about how to book Jarrett. I'm pretty sure the idea of Jeff as a traditional world beating babyface is all Jerry, with the shadier sides being Russo.
Well, I heard that Jerry has "removed himself" from the creative side of things (411.com). Keeping in mind that is is all so much internet rumor, we'll see if and how Jeff's character shifts.
ShippeWreck: One spot really bugged me, though: Styles hurracanrana-ing D-Lo onto their fallen opponent? I can understand the old tag team "slam your partner onto the other guy" spot, but this just looked stupid.
Yeah, that was pretty dopey. I was amused but not elated.
Grubby: Chris Sabin was pretty cool, i'm sure he had some jitters since...I THINK this was his first TNA PPV. He might've been on Xplosion a few times, i'm not sure.
Chris Sabin was on once before, a couple of weeks ago, in an 8-man tag elimination match (maybe teaming w/ Johnny Storm?). He hit a couple of good looking spots and that was about it.
Shannon Ward (Daffney of WCW fame) showed up with Michael Shane as "Shark Girl"! I wouldn't mind seeing her appear on TNA regularly and maybe get some mixed tag matches against Julio & Alexis
YESSSSSS
Isaac: Posts: 98/111 I missed the show last night, but I heard Konnan and Killings made some good comments and dissed Coachman. What did they say?
Konnan was pointing out that there are no minorities in positions of power; there were no black owners, agents, presidents, announcers...Tenay said, "there is a black announcer -- WWE's Jonathan Coachman." Konnan: "I said BLACK."