Welcome to another week of H&S where we’re here as long as TNA is. You’re free to insert a joke there. Write me up with questions, comments and everything else at trevor@thebalrogslair.com, I appreciate it.
Wednesday’s show was a taped special with the “TNA Asylum” turning into a NASA exhibit at the Nashville State Fair. Is TNA able to keep the momentum they’ve had going into next week’s very important week is the question. The answer is yes. This was the best taped American wrestling PPV I’ve seen in awhile. Since this was a wrestling based special, I’m going to review the show a bit differently, but the normal style will be back in two weeks.
Mad Mikey over Lazz, who’s doing the Adrian Adonis gimmick, making Mikey mad. Brilliant. Really that’s original…. Frankie Kazarian over Shane Michaels (Michael Shane)…. Chris Sabin over Jerry Lynn… Teddy Hart over Jonny Storm. Hart was good in his debut matches, but even in this atmosphere, he was way too spotty of a wrestler and at least a minute and a half of cutting had to be done because of mistakes. He has potential. For some reason he was dressed up like a white UC Berkeley student struggling with his identity and thinking he’s black. I hope he doesn’t “step it up a notch” though, if you catch my drift… Juventud Guerrera over Nosawa. Fans into the match and liked Guerrera a lot…. Semi finals. Sabin over Kazarian in a rematch to a match they’ve done a lot in recent weeks…. Juventud Guerrera over Teddy Hart in another pretty good match. Finals. Sabin over Guerrera in the best match of the night that you would be well-served catching…. I had pretty low expectations of the war games “Wednesday, Bloody Wednesday” but the match, which saw Jeff Jarrett, James Storm, Chris Harris, Raven, and D’Lo Brown over Aj Styles, Simon Diamond, Johnny Swinger, Shane Douglas, and Christopher Daniels when Jarrett went over Daniels, was a very good main event. It started with Daniels and Jarrett going three minutes and the rules, especially in terms of time limits (new person in every 90 seconds), helped to keep the match exciting and to the point.
Show value: $10. The company still has its problems, but it’s nit-picky at this point to discuss them as long as they keep the crap that we’ve seen in the past, and a lot of the stuff we’re seeing from WWE now, off the show. Another great week, really, even with the different format for one night. Sabin/Guerrera was the best match on the show, ending a tournament full of flying and diving and twisting on a very appropriate serious note, the shortest match of the year candidate all year. I used to think of Chris Sabin as a Milquetoast competitor with a good look and I admit I was wrong because he pulled it out tonight without being carried by Guerrera quite honestly. It’s a shame that TNA management is leaning towards not bring Guerrera back, he’d be an asset. Amidst all the jokes and everything and whatever you want to say, he delivered. The main event also delivered above expectations and the wrestling was tremendous throughout the program.
Antonio Peña, AAA promoter will be in Nashville this week for talent trade negotiations with the Jarrett family. This is extremely good for the company as the company needs to expand with their Hispanic talent. NWA:TNA has also been in negotiations with Puerto Rico’s IWA promotion, according to this week’s Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter (subscriptions@pwtorch.com). Apparently, the video game company that is very close to putting a TNA game out is EA Sports.
TNA has taken a huge step forward this past week, handing out contracts at the last live show to be signed and returned 9/17 and while there are typical concerns that may stunt how quickly deals are worked out, the contracts send a message that TNA is planning for their long-term future (indicating a stronger management feeling about their prospects). The change in philosophies, with numerous positive and negative benefits in the long-run, comes shortly after Paul London and Alexis Laree were signed away from the company, and a few months after the loss of Zachary Gowen, all to WWE.
Rash crap was late this week, but what’s important was, well nothing really but when I started that sentence I figured there would be by the time I got to the end. Borash thanks TNA for giving him freedom with his column. Coincidentally, it’s the only wrestling-related thing on the Internet that TNA management doesn’t read. He links everybody to a column by Marc Donmoyer, who writes for the Pro Wrestling Torch website and a good column on why to order the one-cent show. I’m still waiting for a good one on why not to, but it will never come. Borash says a huge lineup is going to be set for the 9/17 show. He says that his “…close personal friend Dick Van Patten called and assured me that I am not a name dropper.” He’s off to pee in the woods. He won’t be back next week because I plan to kill him.
Only one injury coming out of last week’s show which was James Storm who got hurt during the cool four man stack superplex/powerbomb spot in their match last week. He insisted on being in the Wargames match that aired this week. He had a minor concussion and neck strain and like a “real” wrestler (right Vince?), he wrestled through it. Low Ki suffered a broken jaw doing a match for the Zero One promotion.
NEXT WEEK
10 dollar satellite special. TNA has announced some of the matches that will be airing in part or in full on next week’s DirecTV championship match special (which I’ll try to get a review of for next week). The matches are: Gauntlet for the Gold (I believe they are talking about the one from the first show with Malice, WCW’s Wall, being put over huge); Ron “The Truth” Killings vs Jeff Jarrett; Jeff Jarrett vs Raven (the 4/30 match famous for being the first long-built masterpiece from TNA); Jeff Jarrett vs AJ Styles; Jeff Jarrett vs Raven vs AJ Styles; Triple X vs AJ Styles & D’Lo Brown (the underwhelming cage match); Jerry Lynn & Amazing Red vs Triple X; America’s Most Wanted vs New Church; Triple X vs America’s Most Wanted (good match and the great cage match). Plus announcements on Piper, who debuts when they go back live and on the upcoming hair vs. hair match between you know who.
One-cent special. The show is going to be all over iNDemand1 and iNDemand2 Wednesday so check listings. Considering the top 11 providers in the country, 70.32% of USA will have access to the show with that percentage getting bigger going down the list. Canadians are not being left out. The one-cent special is also going to be available on the two largest providers in Canada, Belle Express Vue and Viewers Choice – Canada. They are rolling out local ads in many more markets than usual this Monday during WWE RAW. We’ll talk about how that, the regional promotion during RAW, worked out next week. I got a notice a couple of weeks ago that my comment that they weren’t doing enough mainstream ads was out of line since the person had several in their market. That’s the case in a few markets, but I stand by what I said. They actually did try to get a national ad out through Spike TV but we’re banned, even though they were using the name of Dixie Carter’s Public Relations Company. Borash said this week that WWE has been taking out ads for local house shows, during the regional Xplosion shows.
New Jack did an interview with Get in the Ring radio and did not hold his tongue. Jack says he did drugs with Bam Bam Bigelow in the locker room. Hmmm. Jack says he isn’t above running someone over in the parking lot, if you catch his drift. This man really needs professional counseling. Jack has some problems with Blue Meanie (the fat blue guy you might remember from WWE a few years ago, he lost weight) because he keeps insulting him during the interview. He started doing the balcony bump when he needed some unique, and that’s what that was. Heyman apparently asked him to stop, but he didn’t, and nothing happened. New Jack says that he left TNA on good terms (he’s not a bad guy, just an untalented one). People were surprised that he went to Tennessee because he “kicked someone’s ass” and there was a warrant for his arrest. So he paid a fine. Isn’t America great? Jack complains that when he was brought in they didn’t do the superhero routine with him but instead they had him bump through a table. He says it isn’t racial and then says it is and he asks why “a brother is always the guy to look like an ass.” Well, New Jack, a brother is made to look like an ass when he has no talent and the only thing he can do well is bump through tables and cut his forehead up. He got in trouble for using a fork and staple gun in that horrible Hard-10 tournament. He feels as punishment they put him in the odd couple routine with Shark Boy but New Jack enjoyed it and it got over. Management told him not to use the s-word, ho, or grab your pee-pee in promos and Jack asked if there was anything else and they said no. Then on the night that they did the speech about toning things down when he said bitch and ass. Jarrett got rid of him. New Jack tells a story about being owed drug money by the Junkyard Dog and then punching him out. But he says he doesn’t sell drugs anymore. They played the new Randy Savage rap song that I’m afraid to listen to and New Jack threatens to throw up. Just don’t pull out that gun there, buddy. He said Dave Meltzer talks badly about him and he used to call him and leave a message about how he “felt” but then says that he’s just a reporter trying to do his job. O…K.
Next week TNA is, for iNDemand affiliates, the well-publicized one-cent special. On a personal note, I recommend it. DirecTV viewers will get a preview of an upcoming DVD featuring the best world title matches. If they’re smart, they’ll stick Aj/Raven in and that’s for the usual 10 dollar price. TNA goes back live after that show. The one-cent special will be reviewed here next week. Thank you for reading.
Matchmaker: Trevor Hunnicutt
trevor@thebalrogslair.com
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