Report by Dave Meltzer:
NWA TNA PPV report for 11/12
The show opened with a graphic honoring Mike Lockwood. At the open, they focused on a few fan signs honoring Lockwood and several wrestlers honored him at the show. Raven had “Crash” written on his stomach. C.M. Punk had it on the tape around his forearm and Ekmo had a T-shirt honoring him as well. Because he was working for the company at the time of his death, I wish they would have had Mike Tenay give a brief explanation, but this was far better than WWE did. “Better than WWE did” is a backhanded compliment.
1. It opened with a 10-man gauntlet match (Royal Rumble), where the winner and his partner would get a tag title match at Simon Diamond & Johnny Swinger next week. Opened with Chris Harris vs. B.G. James. Every minute, a new guy came in. Ron Killings ended up winning so he and James get the shot. Sonny Siaki was in third and tossed out immediately to set up another spot where Trinity was mad at him. Next in were Glenn Gilberti, David Young, C.M. Punk and James Storm. Gilberti was then eliminated. Ekmo was next in. Ekmo dumped Punk and Young. Julio Dinero was next in. Harris and James went over together. Killings was in. Dinero was next out. This left Storm, Killings and Ekmo. Storm and Killings were on their back, and as Ekmo came to squash them, they kicked up and he went over. As Young distracted the ref, Gilberti hit Storm was a lousy chair shot and Killings pinned him after a gordbuster in 13:01. It was okay.
Mike Tenay went to interview Jeff Jarrett, but Jarrett bullied him. Jarrett did a long promo about Hulk Hogan, about A.J. Styles being unable to hang in the main events (theme for the night, which was so weak because all it did was tell the fans that their biggest star wasn’t considered a real star in the big world and that the NWA title, which Styles held, doesn’t mean crap in the big world). Raven came out but Kevin Northcutt and Ryan Wilson laid him out and Raven juiced.
2. Christopher Daniels pinned Low Ki in 9:45 with a leg cradle. This was a great match, but it was more ROH style and the Nashville fans were kind of cold. In spots they chanted Low Ki and you could see they really liked the match. They didn’t pop big, but in fairness, they didn’t for much of the card. But this was the only match that was decent so in the other bouts, the lack of reaction seemed more natural based on what was going on in the ring. The two shook hands afterwards. Low Ki was awesome. X Ouellet came out and laid out Daniels after the match with a package piledriver while Low Ki just watched and didn’t help. Again they made it look like an X division star couldn’t hang for more than 30 seconds with just a random big guy.
3. Sonjay Dutt pinned Dr. Chad Collyer in 6:22 with a front rolling cradle. Dutt didn’t do much flying as Collyer kind of grounded him Malenko-style. Collyer looks facially a lot like Shane McMahon. X laid out Dutt after the match with a press powerslam on the entrance ramp. Dutt subbed for Chris Sabin, who they announced was injured by X last week. So next week it’s a three-way with Daniels, Dutt and X.
The Interrogators interviewed Erik Watts and Goldylocks. Watts was funny, particularly talking about Luger. Goldylocks didn’t seem to serve any purpose here. Watts made a crack that Goldylocks gives him oral, I mean moral support. She told Watts to get rid of Don Callis.
4. Abyss pinned Don Harris in 7:08 with the black hole slam after Harris went after Callis. Not as bad as it sounds as they had a good early brawl, and built it like two big men building to a choke slam, which Harris did before the distraction.
3 Live Kru were doing an interview when Harris & Storm came out. Harris & Storm said that if 3LK wins the tag titles, they went a shot.
5. Northcutt & Wilson beat Raven & Sandman in 7:48 when Joe Legend hit Sandman with a foreign object and Northcutt got the pin. Raven bled again. Even though Raven is the second most popular guy in the company behind Sting, people are not into this feud. The story is that Raven chose Sandman to be his partner instead of Julio or Punk. The heels went to handcuff Raven but Dinero and Punk ran in. They ended up getting beaten down as well until Watts made the save to set up a six-man next week. There was nothing here at all that made me want to watch it next week. It’s also a Clockwork Orange house of fun match.
6. Sting & A.J. Styles beat Lex Luger & Jeff Jarrett in 10:35. Luger has aged tremendously. He’s in better shape than he was in Europe, but couldn’t do much of anything. While people were clearly into the star power of the match, this didn’t have one-third the heat last week’s match had. The whole deal was Jarrett & Luger making fun of Styles, while the announcers tried to push the idea that Styles & Sting are the “dream team.” Almost the entire match saw Styles get worked over. Luger, who looks to be 285-290, didn’t sell a thing for Styles and fans hated it. You could see the story that Styles’ offense wasn’t working on :”big” Luger wasn’t one that they wanted to see and even though he pinned Luger at the end, he was more buried and the idea he wasn’t at their level was verified as opposed to proven wrong in fans’ eyes as he couldn’t hang and just got a fluke pin entirely set up by a real star. Finish saw Luger have Styles in the torture rack when Sting hit Luger with three bat shots and Styles rolled him up. They mentioned it was Luger’s first match since Elizabeth’s death, but basically didn’t touch any of the controversy. Abyss gave Styles a black hole slam when Styles was about to put Jarrett in the Styles clash. Raven attacked Jarrett as the show ended.
