Welcome back to Headlines & Scrutiny, our TBL report covering news and doing reviews of TNA and now Ring of Honor. I’m glad to be back writing the report, and I hope that all of you (whether you are new to TBL and to the report or returning) enjoy the report. As always, send your questions, concerns, feedback, and what you’d like to see in this space to trevor@thebalrogslair.com or thunnicutt@aol.com and I will get back to you posthaste.
Before we get into all the current stuff, I encourage you to visit the H&S archives, in which there are past PPV reviews, a ton of quite in-depth columns on TNA news and headlines and their situation, and Hogan, and Luger, and Brian Urlacher, and NASCAR, and all that good stuff. There is also a complete review of the year 2003, and perspectives on TNA’s first full year in the business. Within the next several weeks, we’ll be getting into those perspectives and how they’ve changed from that point until now, as with Impact TNA has opened up a new door in their ongoing saga. Without further ado, let’s jump into the current topics, as there is a lot going on in the world of TNA and Ring of Honor that we will be keeping you abreast on.
Our top story today is the announcement that the “hardcore legend” Mick Foley has been signed by Ring Of Honor and will be debuting with the promotion on their September 11th show in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The announcement was made Saturday at the ROH show in Elizabeth (results later in the report). ROH has announced that the details as to Foley’s involvement will be announced within the next few weeks, all of which you can read about here.
UPCOMING ROH SHOWS:
*Death Before Dishonor pt.1 – 7/23 in Wauwatosa (Milwaukee), WI
*Death Before Dishonor pt.2 – 7/24 in Chicago Ridge, IL
*8/7 in Philadephia, PA
*8/28 in Braintree (Boston), MA
*9/11 in Elizabeth, NJ
For the upcoming shows, 7/23 will have Samoa Joe vs. Homicide for the World title; CM Punk and Colt Cabana vs. The Briscoes (2/3 falls); Low Ki and Rocky Romero vs. Dan Maff and B.J. Whitmer; Doug Williams vs. Alex Shelley for the pure title with Steamboat as referee; Austin Aries Roderick Strong and Jack Evans vs. Matt Stryker, John Walters, and Jimmy Jacobs; and Ace Steel vs. Trent Acid vs. Matt Sydal vs. Delirious.
7/24 has Samoa Joe vs. Colt Cabana for the title if Joe retains; CM Punk and Ace Steel vs. Dan Maff and B.J. Whitmer; Austin Aries vs. Doug Williams if Williams retains with Steamboat as referee; Homicide vs. Jay Briscoe; Low Ki vs. Mark Briscoe; Jimmy Jacobs vs. Alex Shelley; Matt Stryker and John Walters vs. Roderick Strong and Jack Evans; Trent Acid vs. Danny Daniels vs. Delirious vs. The Great Kazushi vs. Shawn Daivari vs. Matt Sydal; and Rocky Romero vs. Chad Collyer.
Last Wednesday TNA on PPV:
A. Big Vito over J.C. Wolf
B. Monty Brown over Scott Fowler
C. D-Ray 3000 and Shark Boy over Sebastian and Delirious
1. Michael Shane over A.J. Styles in 11:11 in A.J.’s first of two challenges (and great matches) of the night. The gimmick here is that Shane and Kazarian, who had a great feud for the X title awhile back, have now joined forces to remove A.J. Styles, who just a little more than a month ago rejoined the X Division. In his last, and infamous, interview that Kid Kash had before being released (although people have said it’s a work), Kash complained about how TNA only marketed a few select people, and named A.J. among them. But just seeing A.J., you would be stupid not to market him. Hopefully he will be allowed to grow and bloom as a wrestler, because he’s a very entertaining worker. Shane I’ve also liked. Finish saw A.J. lose as he crashed his knee into the guard rail, which he sold to a T. The match was stopped, but it was non-title so Shane gets a shot in the future.
Big Vito, who is here because he’s long time friends with Russo but doesn’t offer a tremendous amount of anything, attacked Pat Kenney. Later in the show, Kenney did an interview about Vito and was attacked again by Vito. Haha. What a bitch. All Pat Kenney does is get beat up, and this time twice by the same guy. What kind of face is he? D-Lo Brown did a weird interview about not caring about wrestling because he has a daughter, which was more perplexing than Booker T trying to get heel heat off the fact that he hated Smackdown, which if anything would make him super babyface, especially at that time. He talked about the joys of changing diapers. Take note, because watch this turn up in WWE again down the line when Kane talks about his baby with Lita. Or maybe Jeff. Or Matt. David Young, Glenn Gilberti, and Johnny Swinger (the funny heels that always lose) were mad at Mike Posey and attacked him. He ran under the ring and came back to beat them up with a broom. Shark Boy (whose career was revitalized by the debut of Impact) and D-Ray 3000 (whose career owes a debt of gratitude to Jonny Fairplay for reasons I’d rather not get into again) made the save for Posey.
2. Abyss and Baby Bear Alex Shelley over Sabu and Sonjay Dutt in 8:17. Dutt and Shelley are great workers (and Abyss in the right environment is amazing). Sabu is Sabu. I think it says it all when one time he fell on a woman in the TNA audience and then remarked later that she took a better bump than he can. They had a mannequin with a turban appear after the lights went out, which was sold as Raven (who they said was returning) making fun of The Sheik. This is the best they can do for Raven? Dusty did a promo about Jeff Hardy. He’s coming next week.
3. Amazing Red, Chris Sabin, Christopher Daniels and Prime Time over Johnny Devine, Eric Young, Bobby Roode, and Petey Williams in 9:08. A match you would expect from these guys so good. Jarrett did another interview and he’s fast becoming Triple H, except we hope he isn’t sleeping with the bosses daughter. Well I guess the boss is Bob Carter, so TNA President Dixie Carter would be his daughter. Oh yes, none of you care. Anyway, back to what you do care about, the Jarrett interview. He was interrupted by Monty Brown, who in WWE would right now be called uppity and forced to job to Triple H and then Randy Orton. He says that it only takes one pounce for the title to change hands and challenged him. Brown is a perfect candidate for OVW as he has the right WWE look, a football background, and no in-ring talent (I’m not trying to be mean, but he’s bad) and could really benefit from some grooming.
4. Dusty Rhodes, Larry Zbyszko, Konnan, Ron Killings, and B.G. James over Jeff Jarrett, Ken Shamrock, Chad Collyer, Onyx, and Hotstuff Hernandez (The Elite Guard) in a guitar on a pole match in 7:58. The main event programs of late have been particularly underwhelming. Guitar on a pole—king of the mountain—the fake build over who would get the title between Killings and Jarrett—Zbyszko and Rhodes—the baffling Shamrock heel turn. You get the point. Shamrock is still going after the title, but seeing as he just turned into a heel assistant to champion Jarrett, that makes his road to the title a little more complicated. The match itself was better than it had any right to be. It didn’t last long, nor was it put in the main event spot, and was mostly brawling.
5. Kazarian over Styles in 9:39. Wow, the Jarrett match wasn’t in the main event, which is amazing. He wasn’t even near it. I’ve always been an advocate for TNA using the X-Division and Tag feuds in the main event and I think this was the perfect opportunity to do it, since the previous match was guaranteed not to be great and they should want to send paying customers home with a good match. This time they started with a great one and ended with another good one, making this a much better PPV than the last two. Still, it wasn’t good enough to overwhelm the fact that people don’t want to pay for this weekly. Anyway, good match. Very close competition towards the end. Shane and Traci came to ringside and interfered, and Shane ended up costing Styles the match. So Kazarian has a shot at the title as well.
6. Chris Harris and James Storm over Andy Douglas and Chase Stevens in a non-title doubler ladder match in 13:19. The stipulation is that they get a title shot next week. The match will be in the first in a six-sided cage.
This is the latest card for next Wednesday:
—The Naturals vs. America’s Most Wanted in a cage match for the tag titles
—Jeff Hardy
—an interview with “the suspended” Kid Kash
—No Disqualification: Sabu vs. Abyss
—Christopher Daniels and Primetime vs. Abismo Negro and Mr. Aguila
—Shark Boy, D-Ray 3000, and Mike Posey vs. Glenn Gilberti, Johnny Swinger, and David Young
And results from Impact on Fox Sports Network:
*Triple X def. Team Japan in 4:21.
*Sabu def. Alastair Ralphs in 6:35.
*Alex Shelley def. Roderick Strong in 4:15.
*Monty Brown def. Lex Lovett in 1:33.
*America’s Most Wanted def. Kazarian & Michael Shane by judge’s decision after time limit was reached.
TNA is definitely patterning Impact after a mix between Velocity and the old-school TV shows that used to have a main event between stars and the rest being people in development vs. enhancement talent. In the post-Monday night wars environment, that alone won’t work, and people will want more from an hour of TV. That’s easily supplemented by having good (perhaps not psychologically deep), fast wrestling that accomplishes the same purpose. They have scaled back on that and neither Brown nor Sabu can have those matches. Not to say the other matches weren’t very good because they were…. Secondly, the shows have not been ultimately effective in building to the PPV. The awful system and low-quality PPVs they have now is at fault. Lastly, Jeff Hammond is very good at what he does, but he seems really uncomfortable and out of his element with the TNA product. I hope he makes drastic improvement over the next few weeks.
TNA has struck a deal with ESPN Classics Canada, and like some of the other international deals they’ve done, will show the product from the beginning to build to the PPVs. I’d say that’s an interesting marketing plan. Starting August 8th it will air Wednesday’s two hours before the PPVs. TNA airs in Canada on Viewer’s Choice Canada.
Alex Shelley was signed by the company June 8th. The terms are not known. He will continue to work with Ring of Honor.
H2Wrestling and Ring of Honor are currently scheduled to run head-to-head in the Boston market on August 28th. Court Bauer, who promotes for H2W invited ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky to run a double-header and share a venue rather than competing. In the proposed scenario, ROH would run an afternoon show at 2 o’clock and H2W would run a night show at 7, purportedly due to transportation issues with Japanese wrestlers that are working the show. The Pro Wrestling Torch has reported that Bauer has offered Sapolsky “full use of the H2 ring, lighting, rented chairs, and any wrestlers who usually work the ROH shows but accepted bookings for H2 (instead).” No agreements or compromises have been reached of yet, and both sides are still not seeing eye to eye as far as who chose to run the same night as the other.
Ring of Honor results from last Saturday in Elizabeth, NJ:
Do Or Die III afternoon show (before 400 fans): Oman Tortuga and Diablo Santiago b Gabe Roach and Mike Foxx, Daizee Haze b Allison Danger, Tony Kozina b Angeldust, Dunn and Marcos b Don Juan and Jared Steel, Rainman b Shawn Daivari, Colt Cabana b Christopher Street Connection in a handicap match, Matt Sydal b Delirious, Joshua Masters NC Brian Gamble, Josh Daniels b B-Boy
Reborn: Completion (before 800): Roderick Strong and Jack Evans b Izzy and Dixie, Doug Williams won four-way over Jay Lethal, Nigel McGuiness and John Walters in a Pure title elimination when Williams pinned Lethal; Loc and DeVito b Masada and Danny Daniels in a weapons match for the Carnage Crew name, Alex Shelley won four-way over Austin Aries, Matt Stryker and C.M. Punk in a Pure title elimination when Shelley pinned Stryker, Dan Maff and B.J. Whitmer b Colt Cabana and Ace Steel in a falls count anywhere match with Maff pinning Steel in the balcony, Jimmy Rave b Trent Acid, Williams b Shelley to become the Pure champ; Ricky Steamboat destroyed C.M. Punk with chops and threatened him with the ring bell until Generation Next beat up Steamboat, and of course, Punk made the save. As Punk was being beaten down, Steamboat saved him. Crowd gave both a standing ovation. Samoa Joe and Mark and Jay Briscoe b Homicide and Ricky Reyes and Rocky Romero-DQ when Homicide was supposed to throw a fireball at Joe, miss and hit Jay, and it didn’t exactly happen that way, but Jay sold it. Homicide was beating on the Briscoes after until Low Ki ran in for the save, but then Low Ki turned on Joe with the ROH belt and they all beat down Joe. Low Ki talked about ROH going downhill since he left and referenced the “former boy touching owner.”
—results courtesy The Wrestling Observer and PWBTS
I have a blog up on the site at http://www.thebalrogslair.com/tnaroh/ which will be updated throughout the week and allow you to reply back on the board. I encourage you all to check that out.
Matchmaker
Trevor Hunnicutt
THunnicutt@aol.com
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