It's taken me months to work through them, but here's the second half of the Jeff Jarrett King of the Mountain set. The set ends with a few bonus matches from the early days of Jarrett's career, which is a nice touch.
Jeff Jarrett vs Monty Brown
They give this a really nice build-up for a TV match. Love the way the opening moments shows Brown countering each Jarrett attempt to out-wrestle him with sheer power. Brown has injured ribs though, so JJ takes advantage of an opening to ram Brown's ribs into the guard rail on the outside. Back inside, Jarrett continues to focus his attack on these ribs. It also gives Jarrett a way to logically stop Brown's comeback attempts, jamming his shoulder into the ribs as Monty runs the ropes. Brown fires back with a nice butterfly suplex. A swank running powerslam gets two, before Brown hits a big powerbomb for two. Brown no-sells a guitar shot to a HUGE pop and a Stroke only gets two. Brown nails the Pounce on JJ, but has to battle off some Scott Hall interference (with another Pounce) which allows JJ to nail two chair shots for the win. Really good TV match, where they protected Brown and, if anything, made him look more invincible.
Jeff Jarrett vs Kevin Nash
Jarrett is banned from using the guitar here, otherwise he loses his title. Jarrett launches himself around the ring early on, bumping big for Nash and feeding himself to big shots. Jarrett wisely goes to Nash's legs to try and chop him down to size, but this doesn't last too long before Nash is beating him on the outside. They end up brawling around the Impact Zone, including Nash throwing JJ into the catering table. Nash looks pretty driven here, which is nice to see. Jarrett turns the tide and grabs a CELLO to attack Nash with. Absolute genius. JJ goes right for the knee here, as there seems to be no DQ with Jarrett closing the cello case around Nash's leg. I like the logic of JJ going to the legs, firstly to take away the height advantage of Nash, but also as Jarrett uses a figure-four as a finisher, which he locks on. Nash comes back with a few power moves, but Jarrett can regain control with one blow to the injured leg. The ref gets bumped before Nash powerbombs Jarrett onto the cello (nice touch) before Billy Gunn runs in a nails Nash with a chairshot for two. Sean Waltman comes out to destroy Jarrett with a bronco buster and the X-Factor, but this only gets two. BG James stops Gunn from hitting Nash with the title belt, but this again only gets two. Stroke gets two. As overbooked as this is, the false finishes are very effective. A low blow and another Stroke gets the win for Jarrett. Kevin Nash was motivated here, and the result was maybe his best match in years.
Jeff Jarrett vs Rhino
Crowd is hot for Rhino here. Jarrett tries to work over the arm of Rhino early, but Rhino powers out of an armbar, then hits a suprising plancha outside the ring. We gets some brawling in the crowd, which is Rhino's domain, so he dominates. Lovely overhead shot on the ramp as Rhino batters JJ with punches. This is a nice change from some of the other Jarrett matches, as Rhino is a machine he can't outfight, so he's going to have to find another way to take over. He does this by luring Rhino to a high scaffold before hitting him with a chair to send him crashing off through a table. However, he keeps trying to fight Rhino outside the ring, and Rhino is soon able to re-establish control, goring JJ through a table down the entrance ramp. Team Canada comes out to beat Rhino up, hurliing him down the entry tunnel to try and give Jarrett the countout victory. Spinebuster gets a very close two. Token ref bump as Rudy Charles gets gored leads to more Team Canada interference. JJ guitarshot only gets two. The appearance of Jackie Gayda of all people leads to Rhino hitting a gore for two. Finally, the final run in comes from Scott D'Amore, who nails Rhino with a hockey stick. This leads to JJ hitting a Stroke from the second rope onto some chairs for the win. Started brilliantly, but more overbooking lead to this becoming painfully predictable again.
Jeff Jarrett, Abyss & America's Most Wanted vs Rhino, Ron Killings & Team 3D
Shockingly, this starts with a huge brawl all over the Impact zone. Things are kept just the right side of chaotic. We finally get into the ring, with Jarrett's heel team taking over following an Abyss chokeslam on Ray. This advantage doesn't last long, as Ray and Rhino soon batter both AMW members. Gail Kim prevents a gore on Rhino, leading to Tenay rather ungallantly yelling for Rhino to "GET HER!!". Thankfully, Abyss stops Rhino piledriving her with a big boot to take control. Strange to think people thought Chris Harris would be the breakout star of AMW, as even here James Storm looks far more comfortable and polished in the ring. The heel team keep control on Rhino, albeit not in a particularly interesting manner, before miscommunication between AMW member leads t the hot tag to Killings. Killings has the most energy and explosive offence on the team, so he's a good choice for the role. Chaos ensues, with finishers, interference from Gail Kim and Jackie Gayda, Harris getting handcuffed to a turnbuckle and ref bumps, before Jarrett hits the Stroke on Truth to end a match that lagged in the middle, but was terrific by the end.
Jeff Jarrett, Scott Steiner & America's Most Wanted vs Sting, AJ Styles, Ron Killings & Rhino
I always found the TNA Lethal Lockdown matches to be a bit of a mess, so it'll be interesting to see how this goes. At least the heels won the coin toss here, which they didn't always do, stupidly. Styles and Chris Harris start, and Harris looks a lot better than he did in the singles match vs Jarrett on the earlier discs. He looks more confident and more fluid as a worker. AJ splashing Harris into the cage repeatedly is pretty fun. Ref Earl Hebner decides to count a pinfall after a Styles Clash, so Harris is forced to kick out. Storm is out next, and AJ dropkicks the cage door, missing Storm, but wiping out Gail Kim. Rhino evens the numbers up and he comes in firing on all cylinders. He's the perfect choice for two minutes of fired up offence to pop the crowd before the next heel comes out. Jarrett is next, and he gets met by Styles and Rhino outside the cage, which is smart of them as it cuts off the numbers game. However, once in the cage, it's 3-on-2 and the heels dominate. Killings is next out and we get a crazy tower of doom spot with AJ taking the highest bump from the cage top. Steiner is out last to pick up the remains in his TNA debut. It's suplexes all round for the face team. It strikes me that TNA were much smarter in their choice of debut match for Steiner than the WWE were - the last entrant in a multi-man match versus working a 20 minute main event style match. Sting enters last as the cage roof gets lowered down. Love Sting stacking up all four heels in the corner for a pair of Stinger Splashes. I like the touch that the weapons don't become available until all the men are in the match as it adds something new to the match at that point. Styles and Storm end up on top of the roof, where Styles hits a splash from the lighting rig to put Storm through a table. Great spot. In the ring, we get a string of finishers, before Harris nails Sting with some handcuffs and locks on a Scorpion Deathlock. His cockiness backfires, as Sting counters his own finisher and locks in his own for the tapout. Ok, that was a whole heap of fun.
Jeff Jarrett & Scott Steiner vs Sting & Samoa Joe
This is from the period where Joe was the most over guy in TNA, and on the verge of a face turn. Sting dominates both heels to start, looking energised and nailing a double top-rope clothesline. The air of anticipation when Joe tags in to face Steiner is palpable. Their section together is pretty great, with Joe taking Steiner's offence, but looking more angered than hurt. Jarrett gets a bit cocky after nailing a few moves on Joe, but he gets planted when attempting to charge into the corner. Sting tags in and looks so energetic, really motivated and in great shape, but gets caught by the heels double-teaming. The heat segment on Sting is pretty brief, but the Joe hot-tag is awesome, as Jarrett and Steiner both make Joe look unstoppable. A JJ lowblow allows him to hit the Stroke on Joe for two, but a top rope version is blocked by Joe, and the musclebuster gets the win. A bit brief, but a fun tag match, with the heel team putting Joe over as a killer.
Jeff Jarrett vs Christian Cage vs Sting vs Abyss vs Ron Killings
Another King of the Mountain match, with Cage the defending champion. We get some early dives, with Christian, Truth and Sting(!) all leaping to the outside. Sting takes out Jarrett with a Stinger Splash, then lets Truth pin him with a missile dropkick. They're working a story of Sting only being focused on stopping Jarrett winning. Cage soon pins Abyss with a roll up. Released from the penalty box, Jarrett goes after Cage with real abandon outside the ring, before teaming with Abyss to set up a stack of tables outside the ring. Hmm. He then takes advantage of an opening to hit the Stroke on Truth onto the guard railings to get himself a pin. With Truth in the penalty box, Sting/Abyss and Cage/Jarrett pair off to fight in the crowd. Truth gets released and, with everyone in the crowd, has to blatantly waste time when faced with an obvious opportunity to win the match. Earl Hebner gets bumped, before Abyss tires of working for Jarrett and hits a Black Hole Slam on him to send JJ back to the penalty box. However, as he cimbs the ladder, Sting pushes him off it onto the stack of tables outside the ring. Sting locks a Scorpion Deathlock on Cage, but releases it when he realises Jarrett is making an attempt to climb the ladder. Sting gives the belt to Cage, in order to stop JJ winning the match, but Larry Zybysco gives Cage a low blow. Sting hurls Larry out and nails the Scorpion Deathdrop on JJ, but with no ref to count he has to use Earl Hebner's limp hand to give himself the three count. Sting and Cage fight on top of the ladder over who gets to win the title, before Earl Hebner, of all people, turns heel and pushes the ladder over to give Jarrett the win (in a hailstorm of garbage). At the end, Jim Cornette appears to take the belt off Jarrett, which is a bit of a cliffhanger for a DVD that wont get resolved. Better than the first KotM match on the set, as the big spots were set up better and there was a better overall story.
Jeff Jarrett vs Samoa Joe
This is a "fans revenge" match, with 18 fans at ringside with straps to whip the competitors. Brilliantly, JJ comes to the ring with several layers of clothes on as protection. Joe pretty much obliterates JJ to start, but Jarrett just avoids falling to the floor for a whipping. They wisely build up to the whip spots as Jarrett keeps managing to avoid landing outside, before eventually he hits and takes a whipping. JJ throws Joe out, and hilariously no-one hits Joe. Jarrett manages to get himself a strap, which he uses to wear out Joe, which is a nice way to give him the momentum without making Joe look weak. Joe manages to fire back and takes Jarrett's tops off before sending him to the floor. You get a really great sound of leather repeatedly hitting JJ's skin. Joe ties Jarrett to the top rope, and the fans swarm in to take free shots on Jarrett. JJ goes for the guitar, but Joe ducks and locks in a Kokina Clutch. Jarrett only just makes the ropes. Ref bump leads to a Stroke onto the guitar for just 2. Top rope Stroke is blocked, and Joe nails a musclebuster for the win. Fun match.
Jeff Jarrett vs Sting
Sting has put his career on the line here, so no surprises for guessing who wins. Kurt Angle is ringside as special enforcer. Jarrett is one step ahead of Sting in the early going, which they play up on commentary as ring-rust on Sting's part. However, JJ spitting in Sting's face backfires, as it only causes Sting to get angry and wail away on him. They brawl outside the ring, though both guys act like idiots at points by ignoring their opponent to get into a face-to-face with Angle. Action back in the ring is fine, though marred by a little sloppiness by Sting. We look to be heading to a double countout after a mid-ring collision, but Angle gives Rudy Charles the Angleslam on 9, and takes over as ref to ensure a winner. Both guys are suddenly perfectly healthy after this happens, and Sting gets 2 on the Scorpion Deathdrop. Jarrett then gets 2 on the Stroke. Sting tries to splash Jarrett, but gets only knees, primarily because his torso lands nowhere near Jarrett's body. Jarrett gets an anklelock on Sting, possibly proving his MMA credentials years before he bragged about them. JJ nails Sting with a guitar, only for Sting to no-sell and lock on a Scorpion Deathlock for the win. Felt a bit too short and sloppy for a PPV main event.
Jeff Jarrett, Sting, Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe & Rhyno vs Christian Cage, Tomko, AJ Styles, Scott Steiner & Abyss
Jarrett has turned face in time for his return to enter this Lethal Lockdown match. Whoever gets the pin earns a title shot against Cage. We start with Styles and Angle. They showed the JJ return angle where he interfered in a match to give his team the entry advantage, but they explain on commentary that this had been reversed by Jim Cornette, so the heels have the edge. Styles dominates after Angle runs headfirst into the cage, but manages to pop off an Angleslam just in time for the entry of Abyss. AJ wisely lets Abyss work Angle over. Rhyno comes in to even the numbers up, and looks pretty good with bursts of power offence. Tomko is next in and he helps to bloody up Rhino. The two minute intervals don't really give enough time to build up any sense of peril for the faces, shown by Joe coming in next and just killing everyone. Joe looks terrific on offence here. Angle gives Tomko 5 German suplexes just because. Steiner takes over when he gets in, and it's getting a little predictable that we get two minutes of uninterrupted offence from each new guy, who then turns straight to defence when a new wrestler comes in. Steiner hits a top-rope Frankensteiner on Rhino, which is an awesome display. Sting comes in, two minutes of reasonable looking offence from him. They do hit a mental looking tower of doom spot, which is pretty great. Christian comes in, but he gets dominated by Sting. Even Don West picks up on Cage being the first person not to clean house. Jarrett is the last man in, with his guitar collapsing on his way to the ring. The lid comes down, and Jarrett throws weapons to his team-mates. Nice touch to show that he can be trusted after his turn. Styles and Angle climb to the roof of the cage, which doesn't bode well. There's some pretty fun brawling spots at this point, with Rhino managing to gore Tomko through the cage door being a highlight. Tacks end upin the ring, and Cage gets chokeslammed into them. At this point, Angle punches AJ off the roof of the bloody cage, landing onto men at ringside. Mental spot. Abyss fills a guitar with tacks (of course he does) but the cruel hand of irony means that Jarrett gets hold of it and nails him with it. JJ completes his face turn by beseeching Sting to cover Abyss for the win to get the title shot. Started slow, but it got spectacular by the end.
Jeff Jarrett vs Kurt Angle
This is Jarrett's first match back after taking time off due to the death of his wife. Mick Foley is the ringside enforcer. Jarrett has been of for two years at this point, so the crux of the story is seeing how Jarrett can fare after so much time off. He works over Angle on the outside, but he launches into a strut back inside the ring and gets his head taken off with a clothesline. They seem to be building this up as a match of survival for Jarrett, as Angle tries to ground Jarrett with JJ getting a few hope spots due to Angle's over-enthusiasm. An Angle corner charge meets only the steel post, but Angle comes back with a slick belly-to-belly suplex. Jarrett has to use his experience to keep in there with Angle, and a little trip leads to a figure-four for Jarrett. Angle gets his own submission locked on with the Anklelock, cruelly pulling JJ away just as he gets to the ropes. I like the use of JJ's selling here, with Angle pouncing to Angleslam him whilst Jarrett is pulling himself up to his feet. Only gets a two, and the leg injury from the figure four means he takes too long getting to the top for moonsault, which he misses. A ref bump leads to the Stroke, which only gets two with Mick Foley counting. Foley tries to stop Angle using a chair, but gets levelled with it instead, and Angle also nails JJ with it. Foley ain't too happy with that, so he gives Angle the mandible claw. Jarrett nails Angle with a guitar and Foley counts three for the feelgood win. Loved this.
Buddy Landell & Bill Dundee vs David Johnson & Jim Jamison
This is Jarrett's first TV appearance, as he's the referee for the contest. This is pretty much pure squash, with the heels even throwing Johnson into his corner to let him make a tag. Landell is particularly vicious pumelling Jamison in the corner. Dundee slams Jamison on the concrete floor just because he can. Landell picks up the win with an elbow. Landell beats up Jarrett after the match, and Jerry Jarrett gets taken out trying for the save. Jeff gets a few fired-up blows in, before another wrestler makes the save.
Jeff Jarrett vs Tony Falk
This is Jeff's debut in-ring. Falk levels the smaller JJ to start, and throws Jarrett through the ropes. This is his big mistake, as JJ comes in with a sunset flip to win. Afterwards, Landell and Dundee come back and beat the tar out of Jarrett. Jos Le Duc makes the save for Jeff.
Jeff Jarrett vs Hector Guerrero
Jarrett's hair has grown out a bit here. JJ wears Hector out with a headlock, causing him to flop to the mat. Jarrett maintains control, albeit not in a particularly exciting way. Plenty of armdrags. Hector takes over with a punch to the eye, and retains control with some cheap shots to Jarrett. Nice double-underhook suplex gets two for Hector. German suplex gets two. JJ looks good with his comeback, being a bit more fired up than his earlier offensive spell. Jarrett levels Guerrero with a 5lb bag of flower to give Guerrero the DQ win. Got pretty good by the end.
Jeff Jarrett vs Jerry Lawler
This is for the CWA title, held by Lawler. JJ shows great fire, recovering from a hiptoss to level Lawler with a clothesline. Jarrett locks a headscissors on Lawler and brilliantly stops an escape attempt by ramming Lawler's head into the mat. Great height on a Thesz press gets two for Jarrett. They hit mutual dropkicks, before a crossbody by Jarrett takes out both Lawler and the ref. This lets Dundee nail Jarrett with a loaded fist to give Jarrett the win.
Jeff Jarrett & Bill Dundee vs Gary Young & Cactus Jack
Jarrett and Dundee are now teaming up, might not have hurt to give a little pointer as to why they're now friends. Jarrett is noticably improving with each appearance, and looks great taking care of Young. A lithe Jack takes an insane bump on a missed corner charge, flying out to the floor. The heels take over on Jarrett after a Cactus knee to the back, but the heat section doesn't last long, with the tag to Dundee made moments later. It all breaks down and manager Downtown Bruno nails Dundee as he pins Young to give the faces the win. Pretty good fun.
Saturday, 8 March 2014
Sunday, 23 February 2014
CZW Cage of Death IV (2002)
As stated before, I was a massive CZW a decade ago. While the likes of Bryan Danielson, Low Ki and Samoa Joe were the big indy stars of the day, the Messiah, Trent Acid and Adam Flash were amongst my favourite wrestlers. Pretty much every EWR game I played at the time would feature the Messiah as world champ, with the Backseat Boys as tag champs. Of course, I'm pretty aware now that I wasn't really with the majority on this, so it's going to be interesting to see how this 11 year old show has aged.
Before we get to the opening match, which is the titular Cage of Death match between John Zandig and Lobo, we get a hilarious video where Zandig gets massacred by Lobo and his cronies. They kidnap him in a lorry, hurl him through barbed wire boards and even hang him from hooks through his skin. Lovely. This apparently means Zandig wont be making it to the match, but unsurprisingly, he still comes to the ring, wearing the same bloody rags he got beaten up in a few hours earlier.
Zandig Vs Lobo
We excitingly start off with a load of promos where fun stuff like legality of contracts and double-double crosses take place. To cut a long story short, Lobo has to face Zandig in the cage for the ownership of CZW, with the winner being decided by grabbing a contract hanging from the ceiling. Despite being a bloody mess who we saw getting killed earlier, Zandig totally dominates, with Lobo thrown into the electrified cage within a minute. I do quite like a Falcon Arrow onto a cactus by Zandig. Lobo finally gets a period of offence, but soon Zandig fires back and powerbombs Lobo into a table and drops another plant on him. Zandig sets up a table and a plane of glass over it before both decide to climb to the top of the cage to grab the contract. I was about to sarcastically comment how obvious it was that one of them would get thrown from the top through this table, but FUCKING HELL!! Lobo hits a death valley driver from the top of the cage through two tables OUTSIDE the ring. Absolutely mental. Though the impact of this is kinda ruined as they're back on their feet brawling again within a minute. Zandig puts Lobo on a table outside the ring, then drops an elbow on him from the top of the cage. No attempt to grab the contract. They both climb the cage, and Zandig press slams Lobo from the top through the glass table from earlier before grabbing the contract to win. Absolutely no attempt to tell a coherent story, and some of the brawling was a bit weak, but when they hit the big spots, they really went for it.
Rockin' Rebel, Greg Matthews, "Doomsday" Danny Rose, Chris Cash & GQ vs Chris Stylz, Ian Knoxx, Derek Frazier, Jon Dahmer & Adam Flash
Wrestlers in this match I was convinced 10 years ago would go on to become big stars: Knoxx and Matthews. I was an idiot. This is an elimination match, so expect this to be a bit of a clusterfuck. A few early dives are pretty fun, especially Flash diving onto everyone into the aisleway. Some of the early exchanges with Frazier taking on Cash, Rebel and Matthews are pretty fun, before Matthews pins Frazier with a Snow Plow. Rebel takes out Stylz with a fireball to the eyes and a huge legdrop to make it 5 on 3. Flash takes Matthews out with a top rope facebuster to help the numbers. Flash falls victim to the numbers game as Rose and Rebel team up to eliminate him, with a Rose death valley driver followed by a Rebel legdrop for the pin. Flash decides he's not leaving yet and levels Rebel with a chairshot whilst Dahmer comes in and nails Rose with a lariat allowing Dahmer to pin both men simultaneously. Weak section. Knoxx looks really good here, and it's a shame injuries caught up with him to the extent they did. GQ manages to maintain his one-botch-per-match average by missing a top rope stomp to Dahmer's head. Things break down and Dahmer hits GQ with the Move of 1000 Maniacs to eliminate him. Despite being down 2-to-1, Cash manages to eliminate his two larger opponents, hitting a top rope Cash Flo on Knoxx and a facebuster on Dahmer to be the sole survivor. CZW were clearly looking to give Cash a big push, and he looked really impressive here.
Z-Barr vs Rick Feinberg & the Hurricane Kid
Feinberg was CZW's very subtle parody of the RoH owner Rob Feinstein, a flamboyant camp character, whose ring music was Abba's "Dancing Queen". The commentary seems to suggest that this match is the result of a romantic interlude in a truck between Feinberg and Barr. Obviously. Feinberg and Kid dominate to start, but essentially they're comedy jobbers and Barr soon takes over. Decent tope by Barr takes both down. Feinberg kisses Barr midring, so Barr destroys him with some weak offence. Everything here is slow and telegraphed as the crowd starts to turn on the match. Barr dominates a bit more, before pinning Feinberg with the Donkey Punch. Not very good.
Nick Berk vs Josh Prohibition
This is a submission match. I like both guys, with some reservations, so this should be decent. They trade a few holds, before Prohibition ups the tempo with a suicide dive. The commentators talk up a previous Berk neck injury as Prohibition locks on an Indian deathock. Prohibition keeps on the neck, both with holds and impact offence. Berk hooks on a nice reverse cattle mutilation. A seated guillotine by JP keeps the offence focused on Berk's neck. In an odd spot, Prohibtion hits the Straight Edge and goes for a futile pin. This gives Berk time to recover and lock on a Scorpion. Prohibition nails Berk with brass knucks and locks in a surfboard half-nelson called the Path of Resistance, but Ian Knoxx comes out to distract him, based on a "boozing vs teetotal" feud. This gives Berk time to fire back with a powerbomb, and lock in a Texas2K2 Cloverleaf for the tap. Prohibition really carried this match, as his offence was focused on one body part and made sense due to Berk's known injury. In contrast, Berk just locked on some submission holds without bodypart focus. This was ok, but should've been better.
M-Dogg 20 vs Sonjay Dutt vs Ruckus
The winner of this match becomes the no.1 contender to Trent Acid's CZW Jr Heavyweight title. If this is anything but a spotfest, I'll be shocked. Some of M-Dogg's early stuff looks a bit sloppy, though in fairness they run through a series of reversals that looks super-slick before throwing Dutt from the ring. M-Dogg nails the first bit of offence that actually looks hurty by catching Dutt in midair and ramming him into the turnbuckles. Dogg also hits an awesome highspot, by diving onto his two opponents outside the ring with a huge number of twists. A subsequent Dutt dive is both less impressive and manages to barely hit his opponents. Dogg gets the next swank highspot by getting elevated up a pillar, climbing further up then diving 12ft onto his opponents. A slightly clumsy Tower of Doom spot doesn't come off as well as you suspect they'd intended. M-Dogg tries an overly complicated double DDT that looks like shit. Chris Cash comes out to interfere, but gets beaten up by all 3 competitors, thus totally taking the shine off his big win from earlier. They spend about 3 minutes destroying Cash before getting back to the match. Dutt picks up the win by reversing another overly complex M-Dogg move into a pin and grabbing the tights to win. Frustrating match, which was really fun in places, then boneheadedly awful in others.
The H8 Club vs Chris Hero & B-Boy
Hero cuts a pre-match promo, declaring himself IWA-MS through and through. Man, I forgot how intimidating the H8 Club looked. Hero does a great job schticking it up in fear of Nate Hatred. I always liked Hatred, he always came across as a dominant beast and wrestled like a monster should. The H8 Club pretty much beat the shit out of Hero to start. It takes B-Boy coming in and dropkicking Hatred's leg to give them an advantage. This doesn't last long as Hatred takes his head off with a clothesline. B-Boy finally gets a prolonged period of offence after hitting a twisting neckbreaker on Nick Gage. Hero's cravate-plex on Gage is pretty choice. B-Boy is pretty stiff on offence, and Gage seems happy to take it, so this period of offence is plenty fun, before Gage nails a brainbuster on B-Boy. Hatred just kills guys on the hot tag, blitzing Hero with chairshots. They pancake Hero on a flat table on the floor, which absolutely has to suck. B-Boy gets a very close two after a Shining Wizard on Gage. Decapitator by Hatred turns B-Boy inside out and gets the win. After the match, the H8 Club continue to kill Hero whilst B-Boy leaves him to die. Quite fun, they certainly presented B-Boy as the stronger link of the team here, and it's always enjoyable watching the H8 Club kills guys.
The Backseat Boys vs Ric Blade & "Sick" Nick Mondo
We open with a lengthy sequence of reversals that almost feels like a dance routine, before the face team of Mondo and Blade hit stereo dives on the Backseats. Weaponry is swiftly brought into the ring and a ladder is balanced over two chairs, which Acid puts Blade through with a Blue Thunder Driver. Trent goes to hit a tornado DDT on Mondo onto a ladder, but Mondo reverses into a Northern Lights suplex onto the same ladder. The Backseats remain one step ahead, playing up their tag team familiarity, hurling Blade into another ladder in the corner. They split up, Kashmere and Blade fighting in the crowd as Acid and Mondo stay in the ring. Apparently this is Blade's first match back in 18 months, so obviously putting him into a TLC match makes perfect sense. He's also the worst wrestler in the match, all milky strikes and average flips. Everyone else at least looks like they're hurting their opponents. Splitting up has hurt the Backseats, as both faces take control and they reunite to set up the Backseats on tables next to the balcony, with a ladder drapped over both of them. Blade and Mondo then hit stereo moonsaults on the ladder/Backseats/table sandwich. Unsurprisingly, the faces look in worse shape after that. Back in the ring, they've learnt nothing, hitting dives from the top rope onto another ladder sandwiching the Backseats and AGAIN hurting themselves. Blade hits a legdrop from the top of what must be a 15ft high ladder onto Kashmere, which only gets two. Trent Acid has recovered in this time and takes Blade out, giving the Backseats time to double team Mondo, then both diving through a Ric Blade-covered table. Kashmere puts a ladder round his neck, Terry Funk style, but Mondo stomps on the ladder in a nasty looking bump. The match ends with Mondo getting thrown through a ringside table and the Backseats sandwich Blade in a ladder to win. Spotty as all Hell, but ridiculously entertaining, and the story of the Backseats dominating in a team environment, but suffering when separated, made total sense. The faces were too daredevil to survive, taking bumps even when on offence, and the Backseats were able to hold out longer.
Justice Pain vs the Messiah
Both hold gold here, with Messiah holding the Iron Man title whilst competing for Pain's world title. This is apparently under Iron Man rules, which essentially means anything goes. Messiah is one step ahead of Pain in the opening minutes, until Pain suplexes him into the turnbuckles. I like Pain catching Messiah mid-leapfrog and slamming him down. Messiah is able to come back with a killer tornado DDT. They end up outside the ring, and the logic of booking another hardcore brawl right after the tag TLC is pretty odd. Messiah goes for a cannonball off the apron, but misses and lands on a non-breaking table. Swanky neck-snap on the floor by Pain. Blockbuster gets two in the ring, and Pain is looking pretty good here. His movement and execution is great. He also takes a killer bump as he flies into the guardrail off an Irish whip. They blow a Pain dropkick into a chair, so Pain levels Messiah with a chairshot for two. Insane bump as Pain stands on the apron and Messiah throws himself at him, sending both men onto a pile of chairs on the floor. Nick Gage comes in for a totally pointless run-in, nailing both guys with big moves, though he does helpfully pour a bag of thumbtacks on the canvas. Messiah hits a cutter on Pain onto the tacks for two. The Fall From Grace (running burning hammer) onto the tacks only gets two. Pain gets the Pain Thriller (barely on the tacks) for two. A top rope superplex by Messiah onto the tacks gets a more direct hit, but only gets two. After all that, the Messiah is finally able to pick up the win...with a crucifix. Well, I suppose he's the right man to have perfected that move. Decent main event fight, this is probably the best I've seen Pain look.
Before we get to the opening match, which is the titular Cage of Death match between John Zandig and Lobo, we get a hilarious video where Zandig gets massacred by Lobo and his cronies. They kidnap him in a lorry, hurl him through barbed wire boards and even hang him from hooks through his skin. Lovely. This apparently means Zandig wont be making it to the match, but unsurprisingly, he still comes to the ring, wearing the same bloody rags he got beaten up in a few hours earlier.
Zandig Vs Lobo
We excitingly start off with a load of promos where fun stuff like legality of contracts and double-double crosses take place. To cut a long story short, Lobo has to face Zandig in the cage for the ownership of CZW, with the winner being decided by grabbing a contract hanging from the ceiling. Despite being a bloody mess who we saw getting killed earlier, Zandig totally dominates, with Lobo thrown into the electrified cage within a minute. I do quite like a Falcon Arrow onto a cactus by Zandig. Lobo finally gets a period of offence, but soon Zandig fires back and powerbombs Lobo into a table and drops another plant on him. Zandig sets up a table and a plane of glass over it before both decide to climb to the top of the cage to grab the contract. I was about to sarcastically comment how obvious it was that one of them would get thrown from the top through this table, but FUCKING HELL!! Lobo hits a death valley driver from the top of the cage through two tables OUTSIDE the ring. Absolutely mental. Though the impact of this is kinda ruined as they're back on their feet brawling again within a minute. Zandig puts Lobo on a table outside the ring, then drops an elbow on him from the top of the cage. No attempt to grab the contract. They both climb the cage, and Zandig press slams Lobo from the top through the glass table from earlier before grabbing the contract to win. Absolutely no attempt to tell a coherent story, and some of the brawling was a bit weak, but when they hit the big spots, they really went for it.
Rockin' Rebel, Greg Matthews, "Doomsday" Danny Rose, Chris Cash & GQ vs Chris Stylz, Ian Knoxx, Derek Frazier, Jon Dahmer & Adam Flash
Wrestlers in this match I was convinced 10 years ago would go on to become big stars: Knoxx and Matthews. I was an idiot. This is an elimination match, so expect this to be a bit of a clusterfuck. A few early dives are pretty fun, especially Flash diving onto everyone into the aisleway. Some of the early exchanges with Frazier taking on Cash, Rebel and Matthews are pretty fun, before Matthews pins Frazier with a Snow Plow. Rebel takes out Stylz with a fireball to the eyes and a huge legdrop to make it 5 on 3. Flash takes Matthews out with a top rope facebuster to help the numbers. Flash falls victim to the numbers game as Rose and Rebel team up to eliminate him, with a Rose death valley driver followed by a Rebel legdrop for the pin. Flash decides he's not leaving yet and levels Rebel with a chairshot whilst Dahmer comes in and nails Rose with a lariat allowing Dahmer to pin both men simultaneously. Weak section. Knoxx looks really good here, and it's a shame injuries caught up with him to the extent they did. GQ manages to maintain his one-botch-per-match average by missing a top rope stomp to Dahmer's head. Things break down and Dahmer hits GQ with the Move of 1000 Maniacs to eliminate him. Despite being down 2-to-1, Cash manages to eliminate his two larger opponents, hitting a top rope Cash Flo on Knoxx and a facebuster on Dahmer to be the sole survivor. CZW were clearly looking to give Cash a big push, and he looked really impressive here.
Z-Barr vs Rick Feinberg & the Hurricane Kid
Feinberg was CZW's very subtle parody of the RoH owner Rob Feinstein, a flamboyant camp character, whose ring music was Abba's "Dancing Queen". The commentary seems to suggest that this match is the result of a romantic interlude in a truck between Feinberg and Barr. Obviously. Feinberg and Kid dominate to start, but essentially they're comedy jobbers and Barr soon takes over. Decent tope by Barr takes both down. Feinberg kisses Barr midring, so Barr destroys him with some weak offence. Everything here is slow and telegraphed as the crowd starts to turn on the match. Barr dominates a bit more, before pinning Feinberg with the Donkey Punch. Not very good.
Nick Berk vs Josh Prohibition
This is a submission match. I like both guys, with some reservations, so this should be decent. They trade a few holds, before Prohibition ups the tempo with a suicide dive. The commentators talk up a previous Berk neck injury as Prohibition locks on an Indian deathock. Prohibition keeps on the neck, both with holds and impact offence. Berk hooks on a nice reverse cattle mutilation. A seated guillotine by JP keeps the offence focused on Berk's neck. In an odd spot, Prohibtion hits the Straight Edge and goes for a futile pin. This gives Berk time to recover and lock on a Scorpion. Prohibition nails Berk with brass knucks and locks in a surfboard half-nelson called the Path of Resistance, but Ian Knoxx comes out to distract him, based on a "boozing vs teetotal" feud. This gives Berk time to fire back with a powerbomb, and lock in a Texas2K2 Cloverleaf for the tap. Prohibition really carried this match, as his offence was focused on one body part and made sense due to Berk's known injury. In contrast, Berk just locked on some submission holds without bodypart focus. This was ok, but should've been better.
M-Dogg 20 vs Sonjay Dutt vs Ruckus
The winner of this match becomes the no.1 contender to Trent Acid's CZW Jr Heavyweight title. If this is anything but a spotfest, I'll be shocked. Some of M-Dogg's early stuff looks a bit sloppy, though in fairness they run through a series of reversals that looks super-slick before throwing Dutt from the ring. M-Dogg nails the first bit of offence that actually looks hurty by catching Dutt in midair and ramming him into the turnbuckles. Dogg also hits an awesome highspot, by diving onto his two opponents outside the ring with a huge number of twists. A subsequent Dutt dive is both less impressive and manages to barely hit his opponents. Dogg gets the next swank highspot by getting elevated up a pillar, climbing further up then diving 12ft onto his opponents. A slightly clumsy Tower of Doom spot doesn't come off as well as you suspect they'd intended. M-Dogg tries an overly complicated double DDT that looks like shit. Chris Cash comes out to interfere, but gets beaten up by all 3 competitors, thus totally taking the shine off his big win from earlier. They spend about 3 minutes destroying Cash before getting back to the match. Dutt picks up the win by reversing another overly complex M-Dogg move into a pin and grabbing the tights to win. Frustrating match, which was really fun in places, then boneheadedly awful in others.
The H8 Club vs Chris Hero & B-Boy
Hero cuts a pre-match promo, declaring himself IWA-MS through and through. Man, I forgot how intimidating the H8 Club looked. Hero does a great job schticking it up in fear of Nate Hatred. I always liked Hatred, he always came across as a dominant beast and wrestled like a monster should. The H8 Club pretty much beat the shit out of Hero to start. It takes B-Boy coming in and dropkicking Hatred's leg to give them an advantage. This doesn't last long as Hatred takes his head off with a clothesline. B-Boy finally gets a prolonged period of offence after hitting a twisting neckbreaker on Nick Gage. Hero's cravate-plex on Gage is pretty choice. B-Boy is pretty stiff on offence, and Gage seems happy to take it, so this period of offence is plenty fun, before Gage nails a brainbuster on B-Boy. Hatred just kills guys on the hot tag, blitzing Hero with chairshots. They pancake Hero on a flat table on the floor, which absolutely has to suck. B-Boy gets a very close two after a Shining Wizard on Gage. Decapitator by Hatred turns B-Boy inside out and gets the win. After the match, the H8 Club continue to kill Hero whilst B-Boy leaves him to die. Quite fun, they certainly presented B-Boy as the stronger link of the team here, and it's always enjoyable watching the H8 Club kills guys.
The Backseat Boys vs Ric Blade & "Sick" Nick Mondo
We open with a lengthy sequence of reversals that almost feels like a dance routine, before the face team of Mondo and Blade hit stereo dives on the Backseats. Weaponry is swiftly brought into the ring and a ladder is balanced over two chairs, which Acid puts Blade through with a Blue Thunder Driver. Trent goes to hit a tornado DDT on Mondo onto a ladder, but Mondo reverses into a Northern Lights suplex onto the same ladder. The Backseats remain one step ahead, playing up their tag team familiarity, hurling Blade into another ladder in the corner. They split up, Kashmere and Blade fighting in the crowd as Acid and Mondo stay in the ring. Apparently this is Blade's first match back in 18 months, so obviously putting him into a TLC match makes perfect sense. He's also the worst wrestler in the match, all milky strikes and average flips. Everyone else at least looks like they're hurting their opponents. Splitting up has hurt the Backseats, as both faces take control and they reunite to set up the Backseats on tables next to the balcony, with a ladder drapped over both of them. Blade and Mondo then hit stereo moonsaults on the ladder/Backseats/table sandwich. Unsurprisingly, the faces look in worse shape after that. Back in the ring, they've learnt nothing, hitting dives from the top rope onto another ladder sandwiching the Backseats and AGAIN hurting themselves. Blade hits a legdrop from the top of what must be a 15ft high ladder onto Kashmere, which only gets two. Trent Acid has recovered in this time and takes Blade out, giving the Backseats time to double team Mondo, then both diving through a Ric Blade-covered table. Kashmere puts a ladder round his neck, Terry Funk style, but Mondo stomps on the ladder in a nasty looking bump. The match ends with Mondo getting thrown through a ringside table and the Backseats sandwich Blade in a ladder to win. Spotty as all Hell, but ridiculously entertaining, and the story of the Backseats dominating in a team environment, but suffering when separated, made total sense. The faces were too daredevil to survive, taking bumps even when on offence, and the Backseats were able to hold out longer.
Justice Pain vs the Messiah
Both hold gold here, with Messiah holding the Iron Man title whilst competing for Pain's world title. This is apparently under Iron Man rules, which essentially means anything goes. Messiah is one step ahead of Pain in the opening minutes, until Pain suplexes him into the turnbuckles. I like Pain catching Messiah mid-leapfrog and slamming him down. Messiah is able to come back with a killer tornado DDT. They end up outside the ring, and the logic of booking another hardcore brawl right after the tag TLC is pretty odd. Messiah goes for a cannonball off the apron, but misses and lands on a non-breaking table. Swanky neck-snap on the floor by Pain. Blockbuster gets two in the ring, and Pain is looking pretty good here. His movement and execution is great. He also takes a killer bump as he flies into the guardrail off an Irish whip. They blow a Pain dropkick into a chair, so Pain levels Messiah with a chairshot for two. Insane bump as Pain stands on the apron and Messiah throws himself at him, sending both men onto a pile of chairs on the floor. Nick Gage comes in for a totally pointless run-in, nailing both guys with big moves, though he does helpfully pour a bag of thumbtacks on the canvas. Messiah hits a cutter on Pain onto the tacks for two. The Fall From Grace (running burning hammer) onto the tacks only gets two. Pain gets the Pain Thriller (barely on the tacks) for two. A top rope superplex by Messiah onto the tacks gets a more direct hit, but only gets two. After all that, the Messiah is finally able to pick up the win...with a crucifix. Well, I suppose he's the right man to have perfected that move. Decent main event fight, this is probably the best I've seen Pain look.
Sunday, 2 February 2014
All Star Wrestling 14/03/2001
This is a show I bought from IVP Videos, which is being sold there under the title "Best of the UK V.55". It's handheld footage from an All Star show in Plymouth from 13 years ago, and had an interesting enough line up to convince me to check it out. It also comes with bonus matches at the end, which is nice
Legend of Doom vs Mustafa the Turk
LoD is Johnny South in his Road Warrior tribute/rip-off gimmick. Mustafa, bless him, is a generic "evil foreigner" heel. Mustafa dominates to start, before LoD sends him from the ring with a series of clotheslines. South grabs Mustafa's leg out from under him, toppling the big man like a tree, which gets a nice pop, and some brawling in the crowd also gets a good reaction. They work a rest hold into the match, and already South is selling more than the real LoD normally would. A missed avalanche in the corner sees Mustafa take a big spill to the floor, and back inside LoD nails a second-rope clothesline to pick up the win. Perfectly decent wrestling.
American Avalanche vs David Sierra
It's PN News vs the Cuban Assassin in a battle of former WCW stars. Sierra is accompanied by his manager Fantasy, and the camcorder zooms RIGHT IN on her breasts as they approach the ring. Sigh. Sierra attacks from behind, but makes the mistake of attacking the vast stomach of Avalanche. Avalanche keeps it simple, whilst working in crowdpleasing spots like holding onto a headlock when Sierra tries to fire him into the ropes. The headlock is held a tad too long though, and they bizarrely do the arm dropping spot on Sierra, who managed to get his arm up on two, despite being heel. Big bump is taken over top as Avalanche missed his namesake move in the corner. A 2nd rope cannonball senton misses, but AA gets fired up by the "belly" chants. An Avalanche DDT puts both men down, they then do a double clothesline spot to keep them down longer. Sierra tries using his Cuban flag on Avalanche, which the ref prevents, and the distraction lets AA hit a standing avalanche for the win. Not one to remember.
Marty Jannetty vs Totoru
Man, we certainly didn't get Marty Jannetty when I went to an All Star show 2 years after this. Totoru is a masked chap, allegedly from Thailand, in Super Dragon-esque pyjamas who trips as he comes into the ring. After Totoru spends ages stalling, he suckers Jannetty into posing on the turnbuckle, then attacks him. After Jannetty gets the upper hand, Totoru exits the ring and stalls for even longer. Jannetty dominates, throwing Totoru from the ring with a sunset flip, where he gets bullied by kids. For some reason, Totoru's trousers fall down, just fucking awful "comedy". Totoru gets back in the ring, and in the process of pulling himself to his feet, he pulls ref trousers down. Oh, hilarious. At this point, the ring announcer announces that 10 minutes have gone by, 10 minutes where we've seen barely any fucking wrestling. Jannetty misses a corner charge, giving Totoru his only offensive flurry, where he repeatedly whips Marty to the corner. Marty even cracks out the 360 degree clothesline spell, which is wasted on a load like Totoru. This lasts barely a minute, before Jannetty reverses a backdrop into a facebuster for three. A steaming sack of shit.
Chad Malenko vs Jonny Storm
You may know Malenko better as Chad Collyer, so this has the chance of being decent. Hilariously, he still has the initials "CC" on his trunks. Malenko tries to get a "USA" chant going for some easy heat. Nice little mat sequence gets us warmed up. I love the simple touches, where Storm asks the crowd if he should wrench Malenko's arm again, while Malenko shakes his head. They work a nice sequence of counters and reversals, which ends with Storm on top, which must seem like manna from the Gods for this crowd after some of the earlier toss on this show. Malenko takes control and slows things down with a chinlock. He sends Storm high into the air with a massive flapjack. This is being worked very simply, like a good TV match, with Storm getting a few hope spots on his comebacks before Malenko cuts him off. Makes sense, as this isn't a crowd that wants long indy-style matches (which these guys could certainly do). Top rope rana and a moonsault press by Storm gets a good reaction from the crowd. The end comes as Malenko blocks a second top rope rana and hits a tornado DDT for the win. Really enjoyed this.
James Mason & the Legend of Doom vs Hollywood Blonde & Bad Brad the Nasty Boy
Poor James Mason must feel left out at not getting an early 90's tag gimmick to work here. Couldn't he have been "the Natural Disaster" James Mason or something? This is a tables match. No idea who are portraying the heels, but Blonde looks like Brian Pillman playing at being Curt Hennig. The match starts and Bad Brad can hardly bump on an armdrag. Bodes well. Blonde at least looks competent, but Brad is working lighter than a feather. A brief heat spell sees a hot tag to Mason, and he looks top drawer here, hitting a sweet flipping senton. He gets caught by a Blonde DDT though to become face-in-peril. Blonde works in some nice heel spots on the apron, while his useless partner distracts the ref. Mason gets his comeback from out of nowhere, almost as if he just decided that Brad was too shit to keep selling for. The faces clean house, as the crowd start getting excited about seeing a table spot. It soon comes, as Mason blocks a top rope superplex attempt by the Blonde to put him through a table. The fact that this was still fun despite Bad Brad being utter shit is a testament to the work of the other three.
The crowd disperses as the MC offers photo opportunites with the Cuban Assassin and the camera zooms in on his manager's backside. So classy.
The two bonus matches at the end comes from an All Star show in Bristol from 22/2/01.
Jonny Storm vs Chad Malenko
This was filmed 3 weeks prior to the other match, so it'll be interesting if they just had a stock touring match. Seemingly not, as Malenko stomps the shit out of Storm in the corner to start. No mat work, just the more muscular Malenko hammering away on Storm. Storm sends him packing with some dropkicks, playing up his speed advantage. There is a mat section after this, but it's nice to see they mixed it up a little bit. They're definately working some different bits into this match, with Malenko doing a nice little showboat by running round whilst holding a delayed vertical suplex. Malenko keeps control on Jonny, with a nice single leg crab and an STF. Jonny's comeback here includes a nice rana in the middle of the ring, but Malenko catches him leaping off the top for another rana and plants him with a powerbomb for three. Another good bout between these two.
The Barbarian vs American Avalanche
This is joined in progress. I'd have fucking loved to have seen the Barbarian in action when I went to All Star. Barbarian is busy nailing AA with a chair as we come in. He misses a diving headbutt and a DDT puts him down, totally going against all wrestling has taught me about him having a hard head. Avalanche splashes a chair onto Barbarian for two. A chairshot to the head gets the win for Avalanche. Short and sweet.
Legend of Doom vs Mustafa the Turk
LoD is Johnny South in his Road Warrior tribute/rip-off gimmick. Mustafa, bless him, is a generic "evil foreigner" heel. Mustafa dominates to start, before LoD sends him from the ring with a series of clotheslines. South grabs Mustafa's leg out from under him, toppling the big man like a tree, which gets a nice pop, and some brawling in the crowd also gets a good reaction. They work a rest hold into the match, and already South is selling more than the real LoD normally would. A missed avalanche in the corner sees Mustafa take a big spill to the floor, and back inside LoD nails a second-rope clothesline to pick up the win. Perfectly decent wrestling.
American Avalanche vs David Sierra
It's PN News vs the Cuban Assassin in a battle of former WCW stars. Sierra is accompanied by his manager Fantasy, and the camcorder zooms RIGHT IN on her breasts as they approach the ring. Sigh. Sierra attacks from behind, but makes the mistake of attacking the vast stomach of Avalanche. Avalanche keeps it simple, whilst working in crowdpleasing spots like holding onto a headlock when Sierra tries to fire him into the ropes. The headlock is held a tad too long though, and they bizarrely do the arm dropping spot on Sierra, who managed to get his arm up on two, despite being heel. Big bump is taken over top as Avalanche missed his namesake move in the corner. A 2nd rope cannonball senton misses, but AA gets fired up by the "belly" chants. An Avalanche DDT puts both men down, they then do a double clothesline spot to keep them down longer. Sierra tries using his Cuban flag on Avalanche, which the ref prevents, and the distraction lets AA hit a standing avalanche for the win. Not one to remember.
Marty Jannetty vs Totoru
Man, we certainly didn't get Marty Jannetty when I went to an All Star show 2 years after this. Totoru is a masked chap, allegedly from Thailand, in Super Dragon-esque pyjamas who trips as he comes into the ring. After Totoru spends ages stalling, he suckers Jannetty into posing on the turnbuckle, then attacks him. After Jannetty gets the upper hand, Totoru exits the ring and stalls for even longer. Jannetty dominates, throwing Totoru from the ring with a sunset flip, where he gets bullied by kids. For some reason, Totoru's trousers fall down, just fucking awful "comedy". Totoru gets back in the ring, and in the process of pulling himself to his feet, he pulls ref trousers down. Oh, hilarious. At this point, the ring announcer announces that 10 minutes have gone by, 10 minutes where we've seen barely any fucking wrestling. Jannetty misses a corner charge, giving Totoru his only offensive flurry, where he repeatedly whips Marty to the corner. Marty even cracks out the 360 degree clothesline spell, which is wasted on a load like Totoru. This lasts barely a minute, before Jannetty reverses a backdrop into a facebuster for three. A steaming sack of shit.
Chad Malenko vs Jonny Storm
You may know Malenko better as Chad Collyer, so this has the chance of being decent. Hilariously, he still has the initials "CC" on his trunks. Malenko tries to get a "USA" chant going for some easy heat. Nice little mat sequence gets us warmed up. I love the simple touches, where Storm asks the crowd if he should wrench Malenko's arm again, while Malenko shakes his head. They work a nice sequence of counters and reversals, which ends with Storm on top, which must seem like manna from the Gods for this crowd after some of the earlier toss on this show. Malenko takes control and slows things down with a chinlock. He sends Storm high into the air with a massive flapjack. This is being worked very simply, like a good TV match, with Storm getting a few hope spots on his comebacks before Malenko cuts him off. Makes sense, as this isn't a crowd that wants long indy-style matches (which these guys could certainly do). Top rope rana and a moonsault press by Storm gets a good reaction from the crowd. The end comes as Malenko blocks a second top rope rana and hits a tornado DDT for the win. Really enjoyed this.
James Mason & the Legend of Doom vs Hollywood Blonde & Bad Brad the Nasty Boy
Poor James Mason must feel left out at not getting an early 90's tag gimmick to work here. Couldn't he have been "the Natural Disaster" James Mason or something? This is a tables match. No idea who are portraying the heels, but Blonde looks like Brian Pillman playing at being Curt Hennig. The match starts and Bad Brad can hardly bump on an armdrag. Bodes well. Blonde at least looks competent, but Brad is working lighter than a feather. A brief heat spell sees a hot tag to Mason, and he looks top drawer here, hitting a sweet flipping senton. He gets caught by a Blonde DDT though to become face-in-peril. Blonde works in some nice heel spots on the apron, while his useless partner distracts the ref. Mason gets his comeback from out of nowhere, almost as if he just decided that Brad was too shit to keep selling for. The faces clean house, as the crowd start getting excited about seeing a table spot. It soon comes, as Mason blocks a top rope superplex attempt by the Blonde to put him through a table. The fact that this was still fun despite Bad Brad being utter shit is a testament to the work of the other three.
The crowd disperses as the MC offers photo opportunites with the Cuban Assassin and the camera zooms in on his manager's backside. So classy.
The two bonus matches at the end comes from an All Star show in Bristol from 22/2/01.
Jonny Storm vs Chad Malenko
This was filmed 3 weeks prior to the other match, so it'll be interesting if they just had a stock touring match. Seemingly not, as Malenko stomps the shit out of Storm in the corner to start. No mat work, just the more muscular Malenko hammering away on Storm. Storm sends him packing with some dropkicks, playing up his speed advantage. There is a mat section after this, but it's nice to see they mixed it up a little bit. They're definately working some different bits into this match, with Malenko doing a nice little showboat by running round whilst holding a delayed vertical suplex. Malenko keeps control on Jonny, with a nice single leg crab and an STF. Jonny's comeback here includes a nice rana in the middle of the ring, but Malenko catches him leaping off the top for another rana and plants him with a powerbomb for three. Another good bout between these two.
The Barbarian vs American Avalanche
This is joined in progress. I'd have fucking loved to have seen the Barbarian in action when I went to All Star. Barbarian is busy nailing AA with a chair as we come in. He misses a diving headbutt and a DDT puts him down, totally going against all wrestling has taught me about him having a hard head. Avalanche splashes a chair onto Barbarian for two. A chairshot to the head gets the win for Avalanche. Short and sweet.
Wednesday, 29 January 2014
Triple X Wrestling: Clusterfuck III
Arriving at Club M in Coventry for this show, we were treated to something a bit different before the wrestling started...stand-up comedy. After an opening set I arrived midway through (which was fun, though I didn't catch the name of the guy doing it), we got regular Triple X ring announcer Omer Ibrahim recounting stories of his wrestling days, the highlight of which involved a rather horrible training drill involving a rear waistlock... With the crowd suitably warmed up, the action began.
Keiron Young vs Dave Mercy
So we kicked off with two guys I've not seen before. Young bills himself as the "Indy Guy", whilst Dave Mercy is the delightfully named "Sleazy Bastard". And what a sleazy bastard he was, grinding his way to the ring to the sound of "Bump & Grind". With his posh voice, pervy moustache and yellow singlet hanging down to his waist, Mercy was perversely entertaining. He used a lot of sexual spots, going for the pinfall with his crotch over Young's face and choking him with the straps of the singlet, as if to pull it down. Young looked decent, if a touch inexperienced, and he hit a few nice kick combos to Mercy. The ringwork here maybe wasn't perfect, but this was a lot of goofy fun. Mercy won with a roll-up, which meant he qualified for the Clusterfuck match later.
Devilman vs Wild Boar
This title match was a bit of a slow burner, with the opening moments based around DM grounding the Boar with a headlock. Things started to heat up however, with Boar looking good on offence. What I love about Wild Boar is how everything he does looks designed to inflict pain, especially how he clawed at DM's face during holds. He also seems happy to hurl himself with reckless abandon towards his opponents, with a dive from the ring being particularly choice. Devilman looked good in his comebacks, and looked set to make the Boar tap with a crossface. Boar got a couple of nearfalls towards the end, but Devilman was able to pick up the win to retain the title.
Clusterfuck III - Damian Dunne vs Chris Brookes vs Tyler Bate vs Terry Seddon vs Big Grizzly vs Local Jobber #2 vs Scott Grimm vs Scotty Essex vs Dave Mercy vs Eddie Dennis
The Clusterfuck match follows the same format as the Royal Rumble, except that, upon reaching the final four, it becomes a fatal fourway match, with the winner here becoming the no. 1 contender for the Triple X title.
This was a whole heap of fun. I wont try and recap everything that happened as, frankly, my memory isn't that good, but there were plenty of highlights. Tyler Bate has adapted his gimmick, fully embracing the "tiny Gotch" chants to portray himself as a throwback to the black-trunked grapplers of the early 20th century. With a dapper moustache and a smattering of aeroplane spins throughout the match, he made this new character work. His semi-reunion with former Slapdash Tagteam partner Chris Brookes ("he's a bit of a cunt") was one of the fun running themes throughout the match. Also impressing here was Big Grizzly. The first time I saw him back in July he was a competent, but green, big man. Here, he looked great, levelling opponents with Samoan drops, a proper good spinebuster and two massive cannonballs in the corner, which put cult hero Local Jobber #2 out of action (of which more later). Damian Dunne, who was the first entry, provided a good base for the match, as he's able to work well with everyone on the roster, and his elimination of Grizzly was a nice bit of payback for his loss to the big man back in August.
Dave Mercy returned, having qualified for entry with his earlier win, and got thrown out straight away. The other newcomer in the match was "Mr Reem" Scotty Essex, who riled up the crowd as soon as he came out. He didn't really get a chance to show much, but did take a big bump for a Bate deadlift German suplex which was impressive, so hopefully he'll get a chance to impress in the future. We got down to a final four of Dunne, Dennis, Bate and Brookes, but before a winning pinfall could take place, it was revealed that Local Jobber #2 had never been eliminated. Dunne hit him with a quick springboard codebreaker, but Dennis swiftly threw Dunne over the top rope and pinned Jobber to win the match and a title shot at Devilman next show. There was never a dull moment here, and it felt better laid out than last years match.
"Flash" Morgan Webster vs Mark Andrews
The stipulation here was that Webster would get a contract with Triple X if he beat Andrews. Webster has been running rampant in the past 12 month, interferring in matches and specifically targetting Andrews, but this was his first actual match since Clusterfuck 2 last year. The result of this build is that the crowd absolutely HATED Webster, who kept the heat up with his antics throughout the match. This also meant that we saw a slightly more aggressive side to Andrews, but without him shortchanging the crowd on his ever impressive aerial skills. Webster looked more impressive here than he did 12 months earlier (in a reasonable match against Eddie Dennis), and was clearly revelling in the heat from the crowd. A good, if slightly short, match ended with Webster taking advantage of a distracted ref to crack Andrews in the head with his scooter helmet for the win.
The Henchmen vs The Hunter Brothers
This was a tables match, and ended up being a pretty fantastic brawl around Club M. The Henchmen pretty much destroyed the Hunters to start, but the Hunters' gameplan of surviving and then isolating one Henchman was pretty smart. The first fall went to the Hunters on Jim Diehard, as a top rope superplex attempt was cut off and the brothers hit a double powerbomb from the second rope through a table. This put Diehard out of commission for a while, and let the Hunters concentrate on Benton Destruction. I loved Benton pulling down the straps of his singlet before trying to ward off both Hunters. The Hunters set up a table near the bar area, but by this time Diehard had recovered, and a resurgent Henchmen powerbombed one Hunter off the stairs through a table in an insane bump to even things up. Back in the ring, there was a ref bump before the remaining Hunter got thrown through a table, but his brother returned and levelled both Henchmen with chairshots, leaving Destruction lying in the broken remains of the table. A recovering ref called for the bell to give the Hunters the cheap win. Really fun brawl here, with the Hunters bumping and stooging magnificently, and all four men putting in a good effort.
Zack Sabre Jr vs Pete Dunne
Going into this match, I had high hopes. ZSJ was part of two of the best matches I saw live last year (vs Mark Andrews for Triple X, and vs Tommy End for Southside), whilst Dunne has been a constant highpoint of the Triple X shows I've been to over the past year. Yet somehow, this match still surpassed expectations. All the matwork here was excellent, and it always felt like it was leading somewhere, instead of being matwork for the sake of matwork. There were nice little touches throughout, like Sabre simply letting go of Dunne's leg when he could tell Pete was about to try and counter a hold, or the way he tried to keep his legs moving when sat in a prone position to try and stop Dunne grabbing one of them. As is often his gameplan, Zack went on the attack on Pete's left arm to soften him up for an armbar, and both his attack plan and Dunne's selling of the injury were terrific. I loved the fact Dunne kept protecting his arm, even whilst on offence. Whilst the result was never really in doubt, it was kept competitive, with a few moments where it looked like Dunne might win. In the end, ZSJ picked up the win with a Dragon suplex, but it's fair to say this was a stormer. Possibly the best match I've seen in person.
Keiron Young vs Dave Mercy
So we kicked off with two guys I've not seen before. Young bills himself as the "Indy Guy", whilst Dave Mercy is the delightfully named "Sleazy Bastard". And what a sleazy bastard he was, grinding his way to the ring to the sound of "Bump & Grind". With his posh voice, pervy moustache and yellow singlet hanging down to his waist, Mercy was perversely entertaining. He used a lot of sexual spots, going for the pinfall with his crotch over Young's face and choking him with the straps of the singlet, as if to pull it down. Young looked decent, if a touch inexperienced, and he hit a few nice kick combos to Mercy. The ringwork here maybe wasn't perfect, but this was a lot of goofy fun. Mercy won with a roll-up, which meant he qualified for the Clusterfuck match later.
Devilman vs Wild Boar
This title match was a bit of a slow burner, with the opening moments based around DM grounding the Boar with a headlock. Things started to heat up however, with Boar looking good on offence. What I love about Wild Boar is how everything he does looks designed to inflict pain, especially how he clawed at DM's face during holds. He also seems happy to hurl himself with reckless abandon towards his opponents, with a dive from the ring being particularly choice. Devilman looked good in his comebacks, and looked set to make the Boar tap with a crossface. Boar got a couple of nearfalls towards the end, but Devilman was able to pick up the win to retain the title.
Clusterfuck III - Damian Dunne vs Chris Brookes vs Tyler Bate vs Terry Seddon vs Big Grizzly vs Local Jobber #2 vs Scott Grimm vs Scotty Essex vs Dave Mercy vs Eddie Dennis
The Clusterfuck match follows the same format as the Royal Rumble, except that, upon reaching the final four, it becomes a fatal fourway match, with the winner here becoming the no. 1 contender for the Triple X title.
This was a whole heap of fun. I wont try and recap everything that happened as, frankly, my memory isn't that good, but there were plenty of highlights. Tyler Bate has adapted his gimmick, fully embracing the "tiny Gotch" chants to portray himself as a throwback to the black-trunked grapplers of the early 20th century. With a dapper moustache and a smattering of aeroplane spins throughout the match, he made this new character work. His semi-reunion with former Slapdash Tagteam partner Chris Brookes ("he's a bit of a cunt") was one of the fun running themes throughout the match. Also impressing here was Big Grizzly. The first time I saw him back in July he was a competent, but green, big man. Here, he looked great, levelling opponents with Samoan drops, a proper good spinebuster and two massive cannonballs in the corner, which put cult hero Local Jobber #2 out of action (of which more later). Damian Dunne, who was the first entry, provided a good base for the match, as he's able to work well with everyone on the roster, and his elimination of Grizzly was a nice bit of payback for his loss to the big man back in August.
Dave Mercy returned, having qualified for entry with his earlier win, and got thrown out straight away. The other newcomer in the match was "Mr Reem" Scotty Essex, who riled up the crowd as soon as he came out. He didn't really get a chance to show much, but did take a big bump for a Bate deadlift German suplex which was impressive, so hopefully he'll get a chance to impress in the future. We got down to a final four of Dunne, Dennis, Bate and Brookes, but before a winning pinfall could take place, it was revealed that Local Jobber #2 had never been eliminated. Dunne hit him with a quick springboard codebreaker, but Dennis swiftly threw Dunne over the top rope and pinned Jobber to win the match and a title shot at Devilman next show. There was never a dull moment here, and it felt better laid out than last years match.
"Flash" Morgan Webster vs Mark Andrews
The stipulation here was that Webster would get a contract with Triple X if he beat Andrews. Webster has been running rampant in the past 12 month, interferring in matches and specifically targetting Andrews, but this was his first actual match since Clusterfuck 2 last year. The result of this build is that the crowd absolutely HATED Webster, who kept the heat up with his antics throughout the match. This also meant that we saw a slightly more aggressive side to Andrews, but without him shortchanging the crowd on his ever impressive aerial skills. Webster looked more impressive here than he did 12 months earlier (in a reasonable match against Eddie Dennis), and was clearly revelling in the heat from the crowd. A good, if slightly short, match ended with Webster taking advantage of a distracted ref to crack Andrews in the head with his scooter helmet for the win.
The Henchmen vs The Hunter Brothers
This was a tables match, and ended up being a pretty fantastic brawl around Club M. The Henchmen pretty much destroyed the Hunters to start, but the Hunters' gameplan of surviving and then isolating one Henchman was pretty smart. The first fall went to the Hunters on Jim Diehard, as a top rope superplex attempt was cut off and the brothers hit a double powerbomb from the second rope through a table. This put Diehard out of commission for a while, and let the Hunters concentrate on Benton Destruction. I loved Benton pulling down the straps of his singlet before trying to ward off both Hunters. The Hunters set up a table near the bar area, but by this time Diehard had recovered, and a resurgent Henchmen powerbombed one Hunter off the stairs through a table in an insane bump to even things up. Back in the ring, there was a ref bump before the remaining Hunter got thrown through a table, but his brother returned and levelled both Henchmen with chairshots, leaving Destruction lying in the broken remains of the table. A recovering ref called for the bell to give the Hunters the cheap win. Really fun brawl here, with the Hunters bumping and stooging magnificently, and all four men putting in a good effort.
Zack Sabre Jr vs Pete Dunne
Going into this match, I had high hopes. ZSJ was part of two of the best matches I saw live last year (vs Mark Andrews for Triple X, and vs Tommy End for Southside), whilst Dunne has been a constant highpoint of the Triple X shows I've been to over the past year. Yet somehow, this match still surpassed expectations. All the matwork here was excellent, and it always felt like it was leading somewhere, instead of being matwork for the sake of matwork. There were nice little touches throughout, like Sabre simply letting go of Dunne's leg when he could tell Pete was about to try and counter a hold, or the way he tried to keep his legs moving when sat in a prone position to try and stop Dunne grabbing one of them. As is often his gameplan, Zack went on the attack on Pete's left arm to soften him up for an armbar, and both his attack plan and Dunne's selling of the injury were terrific. I loved the fact Dunne kept protecting his arm, even whilst on offence. Whilst the result was never really in doubt, it was kept competitive, with a few moments where it looked like Dunne might win. In the end, ZSJ picked up the win with a Dragon suplex, but it's fair to say this was a stormer. Possibly the best match I've seen in person.
Sunday, 5 January 2014
Jeff Jarrett: King of the Mountain (Disks 1 & 2)
Lovefilm have sent me more random wrestling, this time in the form of the TNA Jeff Jarrett collection, the 4 disk "King of the Mountain" set. As the disks come through one-by-one, I thought it best to split the review over two posts, for fear of having one huge dull post of Jeff Jarrett matches. Hopefully it'll be far more palatable in two parts.
Gauntlet For The Gold
For some reason, we have to endure some country singer called Toby Keith singing some terrible flag-waving anthem before Jarrett interrupts him, making him a face in my eyes. Buff Bagwell is first out to challenge Jarrett, and he really obviously makes sure Jarrett lands on the apron on an elimination attempt. JJ soon throws him out before Lash LeRoux comes out. Jarrett beats the Hell out of him inside and out the ring, and hurls him out too. Norman Smiley fares little better. We clip to Scott Hall's entrance, and he nails Jarrett with the Razor's Edge. The country singer comes back and suplexes Jarrett and eliminates him from the gauntlet. Not really JJ's finest moment.
Jeff Jarrett vs Scott Hall
This is a stretcher match. They brawl on the outside to start. Back in the ring, Hall hits the SOS slam, before JJ escapes to the outside. This leads to more backstage brawling, including JJ knocking Jerry Lynn over in the changing rooms. It's been all Hall so far. They brawl all around the arena, but not in that "dragging your opponent round" way that I hate, but it feels like JJ just trying to escape. Hall seems preoccupied with the stretcher, which costs him as Jarrett baseball slides it into his gut. JJ uses it as a weapon to take over. The section with the two brawling with the stretcher is pretty fun, with Jarrett bumping big for Hall. Hall gets the Edge, but Ron Killings pulls the ref out and hits a scissors kick on Hall, which only gets two. Jerry Lynn now runs in and splashes JJ, paying off the backstage shove earlier. All Hell breaks loose, as AJ Styles, the Harris Brothers, the Disciples of the New Church and Monty Brown all end up fighting outside the ring until we're just left with Hall and JJ. The overbooking continues as Hall accidentally downs referee Scott Armstrong with the stretcher, JJ goes for a chair, which Ricky Steamboat prevents him using. Hall goes for the same chair, and again Steamboat tries to stop him using it, but this distraction allows JJ to hit the Stroke, which lands Hall headfirst onto the chair. Really fun at first, but my word the overbooking made this a mess at the end.
Jeff Jarrett vs Ron "The Truth" Killings
Jarrett is now face, and taking on Killings for the NWA title. Love the big-match build up they give the match with Jeremy Borash's introductions. Truth tries to provoke JJ early on, but the second he takes his eye off Jarrett, he gets planted and the veteran takes over on him. A low blow gives Truth control. Killings is loads of fun as a heel, throwing in little things like arrogantly thrusting his crotch with Jarrett on his shoulder before powerslamming him. His shit-eating grin is also fantastic. It's interesting to see the structure here, as the heel is in total control, even ducking an enzuigiri to lock on a figure-four, which is Jarrett's own move. Love West and Tenay putting over the reversal, highlighting that JJ would know best how to reverse his move. The ref takes a stray blow to the eye, and while Jarrett tends to him, Truth throws a chair into the ring. JJ is wiser than him though, so grabs the chair first and levels Truth with it for a close two. Great sequence. They trade nearfalls, with JJ getting his foot on the rope for a facefirst suplex and Truth kicking out of a Stroke. In frustration, they start brawling outside, and Jarrett gets a pretty good face of blood. Nice highspot as Truth splashes JJ through a table from the balcony. Truth just lets himself fall like a sack of spuds, which looks like it hurts more. In the ring, a ref bump is followed by both guys clashing heads and all three are down. Mr Wrestling III comes in and levels Truth with a guitar to give JJ the NWA title. Mr Wrestling unmasks, leading to possibly the greatest line of Tenay's career: "Oh shit, it's Vince Russo!"
Christopher Daniels, Low Ki, Elix Skipper & Vince Russo vs The Road Warriors, Dusty Rhodes & Jeff Jarrett
Second great Tenay line of the disk as he expresses fury at Borash announcing Russo as a former WCW champion. Fun mix of teams here. Predictably, the heels end up pinballing for the face team, and predictably, it's plenty of fun. After Jarrett, Animal is probably in the best shape for the face team, so he spends a bit of time in the ring. He hits a great sitout powerbomb on Low Ki. Hawk looks less good, falling over hitting a big boot and getting minimal air on a dropkick. Jarrett ends up as face-in-peril, largely because he's the only one who can bump much. Triple X work a fun heat section on Jarrett, with false tags and distractions to ensure that the Warriors and Dusty don't get in the ring. Eventually, JJ gets the hot tag to Dusty, who cleans house with bionic elbows. He tries to lure Russo into the ring, but as he does, Mr Wrestling IV enters and nails Rhodes with a chain. This allows Skipper to pin Dusty, before Mr Wrestling unmasks as Nikita Koloff. Wisely worked, with the healthy guys carrying the action. Not great, but fun
Jeff Jarrett vs AJ Styles
Love the start of this match, with both being pretty equal on the mat, so JJ levels Styles with a clothesline, showing the experience advantage. Styles manages to use his speed advantage to level JJ with a quick dropkick, but isn't able to retain the advantage, and Jarrett sends Styles from the ring after his own mid-ring dropkick. This is followed by a Jarrett pescado. Styles finally has control after whipping Jarrett into the ring barriers. As before, Styles gets too cocky, playing to the crowd and this allows Jarrett back into the match with a huge sitout powerbomb. Larry Z appears at ringside and begins to help Styles, grabbing JJ's leg on a top rope suplex attempt which allows Styles to hit a huge sunset flip powerbomb for two. Z nails Jarrett with brass knucks, which also gets two, but I love how Jarrett barely manages to lift his shoulder rather than a normal kickout. Z gets kicked out of ringside, but we then get a ref bump, meaning the Stroke only gets two for Jarrett. Another bump allows the Harris Brothers to hit an H-Bomb on Jarrett, but they get driven off by the unlikely pairing of Dusty Rhodes and Vader. By the time the ref returns, Styles only gets two. Styles Clash only gets two. Now fucking Sonny Siaki enters, hitting two Siakilypses's on Jarrett, but Styles attacks HIM and sends him from the ring. This distraction allows Jarrett to recover and hit a second-rope Stroke to win. Another potentially fun match that went to Hell at the end through overbooking.
Jeff Jarrett vs Raven
I'm going to cheat here, and just reuse the blurb I wrote for this match back in January
This was the bigest match in TNA history at the time. Raven goes for a pin from a shoulderblock right away, which is the kind of thing I love: just trying an unexpected lucky pin to win the title. Raven initially outwrestles Jarrett, so JJ sends him from the ring with a flurry of punches, a nice reversal of their wrestling styles. Jarrett wins the brawl outside the ring, so Alexis Laree distracts the ref to allow Julio Deniro the chance to interfere. This backfires, as he nails Raven with a chair by accident. Jarrett hits a pescado to eliminate Alexis and Julio, but this gives Raven time to recover and hit one on Jarrett. They fight in the ring as both men are busted open, and Raven manages to retain control, using a sleeper to try and take advantage of JJ's bloodloss. Jarrett manages to break and hit a desperation cutter and both get up in time for a flurry of moves in the ring. Raven nails JJ with a flash superkick for two. Raven manages to kick out of the Stroke at 2. Jarrett does the same following the Evenflow. They roll to the floor, where Jarrett is able to nail an elbow through a table. Back in the ring, we get a ref bump as both men low-blow each other. Suddenly all Hell breaks loose, as the New Church start fighting the Harris Brother outside the ring, and a squadron of ECW guys (Sandman, New Jack, Credible, Saturn) enter the ring to destroy JJ, handcuffing him and superkicking two chairs into his head with a conchairto. The lights go out, leading to Sabu being in the ring, nailing Raven with a chair and taking out all the ECW guys with a plancha. Raven manages to knock himself out by hitting the chair on the top rope when Jarrett moves, leading to a hopeful two count for JJ. Raven undoes the handcuffs and hits the Evenflow for two, but Jarrett reverses another to hit the Stroke for the win. Overbooked, but incredibly fun. It built up nicely to a chaotic conclusion, and Jarrett looked great as the face overcoming the odds.
Jeff Jarrett & Sting vs AJ Styles & Sean Waltman
This was Sting's first TNA match. Things break down early, and Sting nearly gets Styles in the Deathlock in the first few minutes. Waltman wrestles the whole match in a shellsuit and gets put in a figure-four early on by Jarrett. Love the fact he sells the Hell out of this as he works the apron. Jarrett is briefly face-in-peril before the hot tag to Sting, and the crowd goes nuts for him. A pair of Stinger Splashes down the heels, before Waltman is able to nail Sting with a bat during the Deathlock on Styles. I love the fact that Styles cockily tries his own Deathlock, which Sting is able to break after a while. As is becoming a running theme, more mental overbooking takes place, with a ref bump followed by Vince Russo nailing Jarrett with a bat, Raven and Shane Douglas interfering and eventually Jarrett hitting a second rope Stroke on Styles to win. This was decent enough.
Jeff Jarrett vs AJ Styles
Stupid as it sounds, Styles has restyled his hair which makes him look far more impressive than in the first Jarrett match. Things are heated to start, as AJ clotheslines JJ into the crowd, then dives out with an immense tope into the crowd. In the ring, however, Jarrett starts to take over, cutting off a few Styles attacks, which gets played as his experience edge on commentary. I also love TNA having various wrestlers in the crowd or on the ramp to put over how important the match is, as they scout the world title match. There is a growing feeling of one-upmanship, as neither guy is able to get a sustained advantage. Instead, their familiarity with each other means they're more aware of what to expect from their opponent. JJ has to use a ringside distraction to nail AJ with a chairshot, which only gets two. AJ also kicks out of a Stroke onto the chair (in full view of the ref now), but a belt shot gets the job done. Another good match between these two, but still short of the blockbuster you feel they could have.
Jeff Jarrett vs Jim Duggan
Duggan is defending Hulk Hogan's honour following the Jarrett/Hogan New Japan angle. I feel this may be a real test of how good JJ is. Jarrett goes on the assault from the blindside to start, but soon Duggan takes over with clotheslines and pounds him outside. Good to see him fired up. He even nails JJ with a chokeslam in the ring. The 3-point stance downs JJ again, but Don Callis (rightly) stops Duggan using his 2x4. The distraction lets Jarrett use his guitar to pick up the win. Jarrett gave Duggan loads here, and this was the best Hacksaw had looked in years. Rick Steiner attacks JJ from behind, which somehow leads to another match...
Jeff Jarrett vs Rick Steiner
They brawl pretty ferociously in the crowd, with JJ nailing some killer chair shots, before they get into the ring. Steiner nails a few big suplexes, but JJ drags the ref into the path of a top rope bulldog before nailing a guitar shot for the DQ. Not much of a match, but pretty fun.
Jeff Jarrett vs Chris Harris
They really go for an epic build to this match, even highlighting Harris' family at ringside. Crowd is hot for a Harris title win. Jarrett plays up his experience edge, and I love him slipping out of a third armdrag and yelling "he ain't ready" at the crowd. JJ goes outside and yells "he ain't ready" at everyone at ringside, and back in Harris seems to be proving him right. His offense looks a little hesitant, like he's trying to remember what to do midmove. He has a hot run on the offensive, but it feels like it's more due to JJ bumping for him. JJ takes control after Harris crashes and burns on an attempted rail dive. Jarrett locks on the figure-four, which helps rally the crowd behind Harris. Harris comes back with more low-impact offence, though a dive from the top rope to the outside over the guardrail looks great. Decent top-rope elbow by Harris gets two. Harris bizarrely spears the ref (played by the commentators as being disorientated, but it just looked odd). Some hijinks occur involving chairs, before a Catatonic only gets two. James Storm interjects to superkick JJ, but Raven pulls the ref out, giving Jarrett time to hit a guitarshot for the win. Harris was green, but willing, and Jarrett put together a match where both guys looked good.
Jeff Jarrett vs Chris Harris vs AJ Styles vs Raven vs Ron Killings
This is the first King of the Mountain match. Quick run through of rules - to win, you must climb a ladder and hang the title belt on a hook. However, you must qualify to do this by pinning someone. The pinned wrestler spends 2 minutes locked in a cage. There is carnage to start with guys brawling all over the shot, before AJ dives over the penalty box onto three of the wrestlers. Love Jarrett coming over to try and pin them all in order to be eligible to hang the belt. Also, I like the fact we aren't getting "Survivor Series" pinfalls, where guys are pinned on clotheslines and the like. Indeed, AJ gets the first pin on JJ after a Styles Clash and a few choice exchanges. Harris gets the next pin with a spear on Raven. Truth pins Harris following a scissors kick (complete with Harris telegraphing it for ages by dropping the belt and being hilariously unable to pick it up again). I do like the way that Raven and Jarrett spend their time in the cage together plotting, so when both are released, they dominate AJ and Truth. I also love Raven waiting outside the cage so he can assault Harris as soon as he's released. Harris gets pinned by Raven after again telegraphing hanging up the belt for ages before getting a facefull of powder and an Evenflow. JJ hits the Stroke on Truth off the apron onto the steel railing for the final pinfall, so now all are eligible.
AJ pins Jarrett with a roll-up, so he has to go into the cage again, which I'd not even considered, and adds a nice element to the match.Styles then takes the nuttiest bump of the match, getting pushed off the ladder onto the cage. Raven and Harris soon fall through tables, so you know the end is night. Indeed, Truth climbs the ladder, only for a released Jarrett to hit him with a guitar and hang the title to win. In a hilarious twist, the hook has fallen down, so Jarrett has to fix the hook before winning the match. Really enjoyable match, with the ridiculous stipulations actually helping the quality.
Gauntlet For The Gold Match
Hernandez (representling Jarrett's short-lived Elite Guard faction) and Ron Killings are the first two entrants. Little happens until fellow Elite Guard member Onyx enters to help overwhelm Truth. There is only a minute between entrants, so there is barely enough time for anything of consequence to happen before Jarrett comes in. For some reason, the three men don't eliminate Killings before Konnan comes in, despite them having Killings in real trouble. There is a nice legdrop by Truth to both Onyx and Hernandez before Chad Collyer is entrant #6. BG James enters and there have been no eliminations yet. Ken Shamrock enters just as Konnan is thrown out and looks great attacking the Elite Guard. He's added a lot of needed energy here. He also destroys James and Truth. Everyone realises how deadly Shamrock is and team up to eliminate him. Shamrock's mental fit at this is magnificent. In the melee, Onyx and Collyer get hurled out, before James and Hernandez get rid of each other. The resulting Truth/Jarrett match is pretty short and with the members of the Elite Guard and 3LK outside the ring, you're just waiting for the interference. The predictable melee ensues and Shamrock returns to swerve us all by leveling Truth with a guitar to gift Jarrett the win. Rather dull, bar the Shamrock section, not sure why this is included.
Jeff Jarrett vs Jeff Hardy
This was the ladder match main event of Victory Road 2004, the first 3hr TNA PPV. Man, no subtle build here, as Jarrett is getting hurled into ladders less than a minute in. I dig Hardy using the ladder as a vice to crush the ribs of Jarrett. Hardy, despite having taken no offence, does the slow, "I'm in pain" climb of the ladder three minutes in. Jarrett goes on the offensive, and I appreciate the fact that both guys so far have only used offence that hurts their opponents and not done any moves that will cause themselves pain as well. Wrestling smart. Indeed, the first move of this ilk is Hardy dropkicking Jarrett, who is climbing for the belt, to stop him grabbing the title. Of course, Hardy follows this with a Swanton onto JJ on a ladder, but he IS an idiot daredevil, so it's ok. Scott Hall comes in to give him the Edge off the ladder, but JJ is too injured to capitalize. Hardy see-saws the ladder into Jarrett's face in a killer looking spot. Hardy brings out an enormous ladder and decides to climb it from the floor, which ends with both men falling from the ladder to the ramp. No reason given for either men to be climbing up out there mind. Back in, they botch a sunset flip powerbomb off the ladder and hit a slightly better one from the apron to the floor. More Scott Hall interference leads to a rubbish Hall bump off a Twist of Fate. Jarrett is climbing for the title, when Kevin Nash comes out, apparently on Hardy's side. However, it was all another twist, as he hand's guitars to Hall and JJ, and all three nail Hardy (who is now on the ladder) with guitar shots to gift Jarrett the win. The twist would probably have worked better if Jarrett wasn't about to win before Nash arrived. There were a few decent moments buried deep in some terrible spots.
Gauntlet For The Gold
For some reason, we have to endure some country singer called Toby Keith singing some terrible flag-waving anthem before Jarrett interrupts him, making him a face in my eyes. Buff Bagwell is first out to challenge Jarrett, and he really obviously makes sure Jarrett lands on the apron on an elimination attempt. JJ soon throws him out before Lash LeRoux comes out. Jarrett beats the Hell out of him inside and out the ring, and hurls him out too. Norman Smiley fares little better. We clip to Scott Hall's entrance, and he nails Jarrett with the Razor's Edge. The country singer comes back and suplexes Jarrett and eliminates him from the gauntlet. Not really JJ's finest moment.
Jeff Jarrett vs Scott Hall
This is a stretcher match. They brawl on the outside to start. Back in the ring, Hall hits the SOS slam, before JJ escapes to the outside. This leads to more backstage brawling, including JJ knocking Jerry Lynn over in the changing rooms. It's been all Hall so far. They brawl all around the arena, but not in that "dragging your opponent round" way that I hate, but it feels like JJ just trying to escape. Hall seems preoccupied with the stretcher, which costs him as Jarrett baseball slides it into his gut. JJ uses it as a weapon to take over. The section with the two brawling with the stretcher is pretty fun, with Jarrett bumping big for Hall. Hall gets the Edge, but Ron Killings pulls the ref out and hits a scissors kick on Hall, which only gets two. Jerry Lynn now runs in and splashes JJ, paying off the backstage shove earlier. All Hell breaks loose, as AJ Styles, the Harris Brothers, the Disciples of the New Church and Monty Brown all end up fighting outside the ring until we're just left with Hall and JJ. The overbooking continues as Hall accidentally downs referee Scott Armstrong with the stretcher, JJ goes for a chair, which Ricky Steamboat prevents him using. Hall goes for the same chair, and again Steamboat tries to stop him using it, but this distraction allows JJ to hit the Stroke, which lands Hall headfirst onto the chair. Really fun at first, but my word the overbooking made this a mess at the end.
Jeff Jarrett vs Ron "The Truth" Killings
Jarrett is now face, and taking on Killings for the NWA title. Love the big-match build up they give the match with Jeremy Borash's introductions. Truth tries to provoke JJ early on, but the second he takes his eye off Jarrett, he gets planted and the veteran takes over on him. A low blow gives Truth control. Killings is loads of fun as a heel, throwing in little things like arrogantly thrusting his crotch with Jarrett on his shoulder before powerslamming him. His shit-eating grin is also fantastic. It's interesting to see the structure here, as the heel is in total control, even ducking an enzuigiri to lock on a figure-four, which is Jarrett's own move. Love West and Tenay putting over the reversal, highlighting that JJ would know best how to reverse his move. The ref takes a stray blow to the eye, and while Jarrett tends to him, Truth throws a chair into the ring. JJ is wiser than him though, so grabs the chair first and levels Truth with it for a close two. Great sequence. They trade nearfalls, with JJ getting his foot on the rope for a facefirst suplex and Truth kicking out of a Stroke. In frustration, they start brawling outside, and Jarrett gets a pretty good face of blood. Nice highspot as Truth splashes JJ through a table from the balcony. Truth just lets himself fall like a sack of spuds, which looks like it hurts more. In the ring, a ref bump is followed by both guys clashing heads and all three are down. Mr Wrestling III comes in and levels Truth with a guitar to give JJ the NWA title. Mr Wrestling unmasks, leading to possibly the greatest line of Tenay's career: "Oh shit, it's Vince Russo!"
Christopher Daniels, Low Ki, Elix Skipper & Vince Russo vs The Road Warriors, Dusty Rhodes & Jeff Jarrett
Second great Tenay line of the disk as he expresses fury at Borash announcing Russo as a former WCW champion. Fun mix of teams here. Predictably, the heels end up pinballing for the face team, and predictably, it's plenty of fun. After Jarrett, Animal is probably in the best shape for the face team, so he spends a bit of time in the ring. He hits a great sitout powerbomb on Low Ki. Hawk looks less good, falling over hitting a big boot and getting minimal air on a dropkick. Jarrett ends up as face-in-peril, largely because he's the only one who can bump much. Triple X work a fun heat section on Jarrett, with false tags and distractions to ensure that the Warriors and Dusty don't get in the ring. Eventually, JJ gets the hot tag to Dusty, who cleans house with bionic elbows. He tries to lure Russo into the ring, but as he does, Mr Wrestling IV enters and nails Rhodes with a chain. This allows Skipper to pin Dusty, before Mr Wrestling unmasks as Nikita Koloff. Wisely worked, with the healthy guys carrying the action. Not great, but fun
Jeff Jarrett vs AJ Styles
Love the start of this match, with both being pretty equal on the mat, so JJ levels Styles with a clothesline, showing the experience advantage. Styles manages to use his speed advantage to level JJ with a quick dropkick, but isn't able to retain the advantage, and Jarrett sends Styles from the ring after his own mid-ring dropkick. This is followed by a Jarrett pescado. Styles finally has control after whipping Jarrett into the ring barriers. As before, Styles gets too cocky, playing to the crowd and this allows Jarrett back into the match with a huge sitout powerbomb. Larry Z appears at ringside and begins to help Styles, grabbing JJ's leg on a top rope suplex attempt which allows Styles to hit a huge sunset flip powerbomb for two. Z nails Jarrett with brass knucks, which also gets two, but I love how Jarrett barely manages to lift his shoulder rather than a normal kickout. Z gets kicked out of ringside, but we then get a ref bump, meaning the Stroke only gets two for Jarrett. Another bump allows the Harris Brothers to hit an H-Bomb on Jarrett, but they get driven off by the unlikely pairing of Dusty Rhodes and Vader. By the time the ref returns, Styles only gets two. Styles Clash only gets two. Now fucking Sonny Siaki enters, hitting two Siakilypses's on Jarrett, but Styles attacks HIM and sends him from the ring. This distraction allows Jarrett to recover and hit a second-rope Stroke to win. Another potentially fun match that went to Hell at the end through overbooking.
Jeff Jarrett vs Raven
I'm going to cheat here, and just reuse the blurb I wrote for this match back in January
This was the bigest match in TNA history at the time. Raven goes for a pin from a shoulderblock right away, which is the kind of thing I love: just trying an unexpected lucky pin to win the title. Raven initially outwrestles Jarrett, so JJ sends him from the ring with a flurry of punches, a nice reversal of their wrestling styles. Jarrett wins the brawl outside the ring, so Alexis Laree distracts the ref to allow Julio Deniro the chance to interfere. This backfires, as he nails Raven with a chair by accident. Jarrett hits a pescado to eliminate Alexis and Julio, but this gives Raven time to recover and hit one on Jarrett. They fight in the ring as both men are busted open, and Raven manages to retain control, using a sleeper to try and take advantage of JJ's bloodloss. Jarrett manages to break and hit a desperation cutter and both get up in time for a flurry of moves in the ring. Raven nails JJ with a flash superkick for two. Raven manages to kick out of the Stroke at 2. Jarrett does the same following the Evenflow. They roll to the floor, where Jarrett is able to nail an elbow through a table. Back in the ring, we get a ref bump as both men low-blow each other. Suddenly all Hell breaks loose, as the New Church start fighting the Harris Brother outside the ring, and a squadron of ECW guys (Sandman, New Jack, Credible, Saturn) enter the ring to destroy JJ, handcuffing him and superkicking two chairs into his head with a conchairto. The lights go out, leading to Sabu being in the ring, nailing Raven with a chair and taking out all the ECW guys with a plancha. Raven manages to knock himself out by hitting the chair on the top rope when Jarrett moves, leading to a hopeful two count for JJ. Raven undoes the handcuffs and hits the Evenflow for two, but Jarrett reverses another to hit the Stroke for the win. Overbooked, but incredibly fun. It built up nicely to a chaotic conclusion, and Jarrett looked great as the face overcoming the odds.
Jeff Jarrett & Sting vs AJ Styles & Sean Waltman
This was Sting's first TNA match. Things break down early, and Sting nearly gets Styles in the Deathlock in the first few minutes. Waltman wrestles the whole match in a shellsuit and gets put in a figure-four early on by Jarrett. Love the fact he sells the Hell out of this as he works the apron. Jarrett is briefly face-in-peril before the hot tag to Sting, and the crowd goes nuts for him. A pair of Stinger Splashes down the heels, before Waltman is able to nail Sting with a bat during the Deathlock on Styles. I love the fact that Styles cockily tries his own Deathlock, which Sting is able to break after a while. As is becoming a running theme, more mental overbooking takes place, with a ref bump followed by Vince Russo nailing Jarrett with a bat, Raven and Shane Douglas interfering and eventually Jarrett hitting a second rope Stroke on Styles to win. This was decent enough.
Jeff Jarrett vs AJ Styles
Stupid as it sounds, Styles has restyled his hair which makes him look far more impressive than in the first Jarrett match. Things are heated to start, as AJ clotheslines JJ into the crowd, then dives out with an immense tope into the crowd. In the ring, however, Jarrett starts to take over, cutting off a few Styles attacks, which gets played as his experience edge on commentary. I also love TNA having various wrestlers in the crowd or on the ramp to put over how important the match is, as they scout the world title match. There is a growing feeling of one-upmanship, as neither guy is able to get a sustained advantage. Instead, their familiarity with each other means they're more aware of what to expect from their opponent. JJ has to use a ringside distraction to nail AJ with a chairshot, which only gets two. AJ also kicks out of a Stroke onto the chair (in full view of the ref now), but a belt shot gets the job done. Another good match between these two, but still short of the blockbuster you feel they could have.
Jeff Jarrett vs Jim Duggan
Duggan is defending Hulk Hogan's honour following the Jarrett/Hogan New Japan angle. I feel this may be a real test of how good JJ is. Jarrett goes on the assault from the blindside to start, but soon Duggan takes over with clotheslines and pounds him outside. Good to see him fired up. He even nails JJ with a chokeslam in the ring. The 3-point stance downs JJ again, but Don Callis (rightly) stops Duggan using his 2x4. The distraction lets Jarrett use his guitar to pick up the win. Jarrett gave Duggan loads here, and this was the best Hacksaw had looked in years. Rick Steiner attacks JJ from behind, which somehow leads to another match...
Jeff Jarrett vs Rick Steiner
They brawl pretty ferociously in the crowd, with JJ nailing some killer chair shots, before they get into the ring. Steiner nails a few big suplexes, but JJ drags the ref into the path of a top rope bulldog before nailing a guitar shot for the DQ. Not much of a match, but pretty fun.
Jeff Jarrett vs Chris Harris
They really go for an epic build to this match, even highlighting Harris' family at ringside. Crowd is hot for a Harris title win. Jarrett plays up his experience edge, and I love him slipping out of a third armdrag and yelling "he ain't ready" at the crowd. JJ goes outside and yells "he ain't ready" at everyone at ringside, and back in Harris seems to be proving him right. His offense looks a little hesitant, like he's trying to remember what to do midmove. He has a hot run on the offensive, but it feels like it's more due to JJ bumping for him. JJ takes control after Harris crashes and burns on an attempted rail dive. Jarrett locks on the figure-four, which helps rally the crowd behind Harris. Harris comes back with more low-impact offence, though a dive from the top rope to the outside over the guardrail looks great. Decent top-rope elbow by Harris gets two. Harris bizarrely spears the ref (played by the commentators as being disorientated, but it just looked odd). Some hijinks occur involving chairs, before a Catatonic only gets two. James Storm interjects to superkick JJ, but Raven pulls the ref out, giving Jarrett time to hit a guitarshot for the win. Harris was green, but willing, and Jarrett put together a match where both guys looked good.
Jeff Jarrett vs Chris Harris vs AJ Styles vs Raven vs Ron Killings
This is the first King of the Mountain match. Quick run through of rules - to win, you must climb a ladder and hang the title belt on a hook. However, you must qualify to do this by pinning someone. The pinned wrestler spends 2 minutes locked in a cage. There is carnage to start with guys brawling all over the shot, before AJ dives over the penalty box onto three of the wrestlers. Love Jarrett coming over to try and pin them all in order to be eligible to hang the belt. Also, I like the fact we aren't getting "Survivor Series" pinfalls, where guys are pinned on clotheslines and the like. Indeed, AJ gets the first pin on JJ after a Styles Clash and a few choice exchanges. Harris gets the next pin with a spear on Raven. Truth pins Harris following a scissors kick (complete with Harris telegraphing it for ages by dropping the belt and being hilariously unable to pick it up again). I do like the way that Raven and Jarrett spend their time in the cage together plotting, so when both are released, they dominate AJ and Truth. I also love Raven waiting outside the cage so he can assault Harris as soon as he's released. Harris gets pinned by Raven after again telegraphing hanging up the belt for ages before getting a facefull of powder and an Evenflow. JJ hits the Stroke on Truth off the apron onto the steel railing for the final pinfall, so now all are eligible.
AJ pins Jarrett with a roll-up, so he has to go into the cage again, which I'd not even considered, and adds a nice element to the match.Styles then takes the nuttiest bump of the match, getting pushed off the ladder onto the cage. Raven and Harris soon fall through tables, so you know the end is night. Indeed, Truth climbs the ladder, only for a released Jarrett to hit him with a guitar and hang the title to win. In a hilarious twist, the hook has fallen down, so Jarrett has to fix the hook before winning the match. Really enjoyable match, with the ridiculous stipulations actually helping the quality.
Gauntlet For The Gold Match
Hernandez (representling Jarrett's short-lived Elite Guard faction) and Ron Killings are the first two entrants. Little happens until fellow Elite Guard member Onyx enters to help overwhelm Truth. There is only a minute between entrants, so there is barely enough time for anything of consequence to happen before Jarrett comes in. For some reason, the three men don't eliminate Killings before Konnan comes in, despite them having Killings in real trouble. There is a nice legdrop by Truth to both Onyx and Hernandez before Chad Collyer is entrant #6. BG James enters and there have been no eliminations yet. Ken Shamrock enters just as Konnan is thrown out and looks great attacking the Elite Guard. He's added a lot of needed energy here. He also destroys James and Truth. Everyone realises how deadly Shamrock is and team up to eliminate him. Shamrock's mental fit at this is magnificent. In the melee, Onyx and Collyer get hurled out, before James and Hernandez get rid of each other. The resulting Truth/Jarrett match is pretty short and with the members of the Elite Guard and 3LK outside the ring, you're just waiting for the interference. The predictable melee ensues and Shamrock returns to swerve us all by leveling Truth with a guitar to gift Jarrett the win. Rather dull, bar the Shamrock section, not sure why this is included.
Jeff Jarrett vs Jeff Hardy
This was the ladder match main event of Victory Road 2004, the first 3hr TNA PPV. Man, no subtle build here, as Jarrett is getting hurled into ladders less than a minute in. I dig Hardy using the ladder as a vice to crush the ribs of Jarrett. Hardy, despite having taken no offence, does the slow, "I'm in pain" climb of the ladder three minutes in. Jarrett goes on the offensive, and I appreciate the fact that both guys so far have only used offence that hurts their opponents and not done any moves that will cause themselves pain as well. Wrestling smart. Indeed, the first move of this ilk is Hardy dropkicking Jarrett, who is climbing for the belt, to stop him grabbing the title. Of course, Hardy follows this with a Swanton onto JJ on a ladder, but he IS an idiot daredevil, so it's ok. Scott Hall comes in to give him the Edge off the ladder, but JJ is too injured to capitalize. Hardy see-saws the ladder into Jarrett's face in a killer looking spot. Hardy brings out an enormous ladder and decides to climb it from the floor, which ends with both men falling from the ladder to the ramp. No reason given for either men to be climbing up out there mind. Back in, they botch a sunset flip powerbomb off the ladder and hit a slightly better one from the apron to the floor. More Scott Hall interference leads to a rubbish Hall bump off a Twist of Fate. Jarrett is climbing for the title, when Kevin Nash comes out, apparently on Hardy's side. However, it was all another twist, as he hand's guitars to Hall and JJ, and all three nail Hardy (who is now on the ladder) with guitar shots to gift Jarrett the win. The twist would probably have worked better if Jarrett wasn't about to win before Nash arrived. There were a few decent moments buried deep in some terrible spots.
Wednesday, 1 January 2014
TNA Hard Justice 2007
Having not done as much writing on the pro-wrestling as I'd have liked last year, it's nice to get this one published early for the year. I got this from Lovefilm as a random show, so looking forward to seeing how well it's aged
Jay Lethal & Sonjay Dutt vs the Motor City Machineguns vs Christopher Daniels & Senshi
Only two men are allowed in the ring at any time.This is a prime example of the hot opener, with all the offence looking super slick and fun enough to pop the crowd. Lethal ends up as face-in-peril and I love the way the Guns and Triple X have to rely on blind tags to get in the match, keeps it realistic that they wouldn't just tag each other in. Daniels shows a bit of character by posing whilst standing on Lethal's back as he's drapped across the middle turnbuckle. Dutt gets the hot tag, but the Guns just decide to come in too. At this juncture, it turns into a spotfest, so they don't try to pretend there are rules. I like Shelley locking an abdominal stretch on Dutt outside, as it means it makes sense for him to be there when Lethal levels him with a suicide dive. Rad dive sequence ends with Dutt nailing a swanky top rope Asai moonsault on everyone. Even Skipper gets involved, taking advantage of a distracted Earl Hebner to nail the ropewalk rana on Sabin. We get a lovely combo of moves by Dutt and Lethal on Daniels, which culminates in a standing Shooting Star Press by Dutt for two. After everyone gets in the ring, nailing spot after spot, Lethal picks up the win...with a small package on Daniels. Really fun opener, maybe not one you'll remember in a weeks time, but super enjoyable and it sent the crowd wild. Job done.
Raven vs Kaz
Kaz left Serotonin to set this up. It's pretty fun to start with, as Kaz nails all three members with a kendo stick, and the other Serotonin members bump like loons for it. Havok tries to take Kaz out with a huge dive, but nails everyone BUT Kaz. In ring, Raven hits a victory roll(!) for two 2. Kaz takes an insane bump on a kneelift, as it sends him over top rope. Raven seems pretty slow here, taking his sweet lazy time between moves. There is some dissension in the ranks as Raven shows his anger with Martyr, after he accidentally takes out Havok when aiming for Kaz with a superkick. Kaz hits a massive clothesline to send himself, Raven and Martyr over the rope, which followed by a nutty rana off the apron on Havok. Kaz is doing everything he can here to get over. Kaz reverses the Evenflow to nail a dropkick to the face to win. Decent enough, certainly put Kaz over huge.
Rhino vs James Storm
This is a bar-room brawl, instigated by Storm taunting Rhino's past addictions to alcohol. This is pretty good to start, though the mass slugfest in the crowd makes it hard to see what is happening. Thankfully, they soon get to Storm's silly looking "bar" set up by the ring, where Rhino pretty swiftly gives into his addictions and necks a beer. No willpower there. This causes Rhino to just explode, as he levels Storm with crutch and a barstool. Next, he backdrops Storm onto the bar as West and Tenay lament Rhino falling off the wagon. To hammer home the point, he opens a bottle of vodka and has a big swig. Storm is just getting massacred, as this is all Rhino. Maybe Rhino should have got pissed more often, could have been world champion. Jackie Moore saves and Rhino is briefly slowed down by being thrown out of ring onto a ladder. He fires back with an ace snap belly-to-belly suplex, though he is starting to show subtle signs of being drunk. A moment of hesitation causes Rhino to gore a table as the Cowboy moves, which gets two for Storm. Storm clobbers Rhino with a one man conchairto, then smashes a beer bottle over his head for three. Interesting booking, which started with Storm getting destroyed, but Rhino giving into his demos ultimately cost him the match. Really nasty brawl too.
Voodoo Kin Mafia vs LAX
This is from the odd period where Roxxi was added to the act as a voodoo practicioner, as if this linked to BG and Kip James in anyway bar their McMahon-baiting name. VKM use a combination of their smarts and strength to dominate Homicide early. Nice release Northern Lights by Kip James is the highlight of their offence. The heat section on Homicide is pretty brief, and whilst Hernandez shows good energy on his hot tag, a face of powder from Roxxi lets Kip hit a Fameasser for the win. However, Hector Guerrero comes into the ring to show the ref the powder on the ring apron, and Homicide wins with a rollup on Kip. Short and inoffensive.
Eric Young vs Bobby Roode
This is an Ultimate Humiliation match, with the loser getting tarred and feathered. They show a promo video beforehand, where Roode already tarred-and-feathered EY on an episode of Impact, so that seems odd. EY gets a brief flurry of offence, before a distraction by Ms Brooks lets Roode level him outside the ring. Roode's dominance of Young is pretty fun, Roode being pretty explosive on offence and EY bumping nicely for him. Young also has a natural connection with the crowd, which helps him earn sympathy. Love Roode lowering his kneepad before hitting a kneedrop from the 2nd rope. EY has some surprisingly crisp punches and shows some real strength to hoist both Roode and Brooks onto his shoulders for an attempted DVD. Some Brooks distraction and a pair of brass knucks give the win to Roode, after a pretty fun match.
Postmatch sees Gail Kim make the save for EY, and Ms Brooks ends up tarred and feathered. Special word to the kick to the Roode bollocks by EY - Christ!
Chris Harris vs Black Reign
In 2014, Dustin Rhodes is one of the best workers on the planet. In 2007, he was substantially porkier and wrestling in a Poundland Goldust costume. It's no surprise to learn that he wasn't so impressive. I do enjoy his outsmarting Harris by coming out of the other entrance ramp and attacking from behind (Harris must be some kind of idiot, as he wait ages for Reign before the blindside attack). As you'd expect, Reign still has impressive punches and him wailing away does look pretty great, with the satisfying sound of fist on skin. Harris is busted open and has had zero offence, as Dustin takes out two referees. The idea here is pretty cool, but the execution, especially the outfit, is lacking somewhat. Harris wins by DQ after attacking the third ref, but looks nothing like a winner after getting cuffed to the ropes and attacked by Black Reign's spiked weapon. I admit, I liked this more than I expected too, especially how vicious Dustin was, but the cheapness of his look ruined the effect.
The Steiner Brothers vs Team 3D
This is the match I've been looking forward to most on the show. No matter that these two teams are past their best, this is TNA bringing a proper tag team dream match to life. Looking at Brother Ray here, it's remarkable how much he slimmed down for his current role as Bully Ray, as he was huge. Though a bit slower and a bit bulkier than their prime, the Steiners still are able to throw 3D around early. The turnaround comes when Ray grabs Scott by the arm and yanks his recently injured shoulder over the ropes. 3D wisely focus their offence on this injury, with the livid purple scar acting like a target. The heat section is actually a bit short, but I did love the fresh Rick hitting suplexes on both Team 3D members. Scott joins in with a top rope belly-to-belly on Devon. 3D get two after a Doomsday Device on Scott, but it's a top-rope Frankensteiner on Devon that brings the crowd to it's feet. The top rope Steiner Bulldog on Devon gets the win. A bit sloppy in places, but a total crowdpleaser of a match.
Christian Cage, AJ Styles & Tomko vs Sting, Abyss & "The Punisher" Andrew Martin
Martin is better known as Test. The winner of the pinfall gets a world title shot, and the match is held in a cage with barbed wire around the top. To add to the overbooking, you can't get pinned unless you are bleeding. Christian's Coalition attack Abyss before his partners can emerge, but Martin and Sting (arriving after the lights go out) make the save. We get some average brawling outside the cage to start, then the Coalition lock Sting outside the cage to leave it 2-on-3. Cage attacks Abyss with some glass to make him bleed. The Coalition dominate in the ring, but Sting climbs the cage with wire cutters and is able to get in past the barbed wire. Styles and Cage nailing Abyss with dual frog splashes was pretty cool. Cage, like a beautiful coward, escapes the cage through the gap Sting created, leaving his team 2-on-3 down. Styles is swiftly Black Hole Slammed onto the broken glass by Abyss for the win. Pretty pedestrian affair, and not particularly violent for all the hype about the violence.
Kurt Angle vs Samoa Joe
This is for Joe's X Division and tag titles, as well as Angle's IWGP and TNA titles. Joe looks to be in great shape here, and I dug the ceremonial Samoan dancers he had for his entrance. The story here is that Kurt is upset that Karen Angle has left him, and his mind isn't on wrestling. Joe dominates early, and Kurt isn't helped by Karen arriving at ringside with a new beau. Joe is confident and remains one step ahead of Angle: when Kurt pulls the straps of his singlet down to stop Joe pulling it, Joe pulls it down even further on a sunset flip to expose Angle's backside. The facewash on Kurt looked brutal. I also love Joe reversing an Angle German suplex into a sickening release version of his own. The height Joe gets on his leaping enzuigiri whilst Angle is on the top rope is impressive too. It's ridiculous how good he used to be when in shape and motivated. Angle looks a step behind him at all times here, though that may be due to the story of the match. Joe is able to reverse every big move Kurt goes for, until an Angle Slam gets two. Kurt hasn't gotten much offence in at this point, so it doesn't feel like a ruined finisher. Joe only getting two on a musclebuster feels less defendable, however. An anklelock/Kokina Clutch reversal series feels a little forced. A ref bump leads to Angle tapping to the clutch with no consequence, before Karen "shockingly" passes Kurt a chair to level Joe with and consolidate all the titles. This was decent rather than good, as it felt a bit laboured due to the angle, and the ending was both predictable and made Joe look like a fool.
Jay Lethal & Sonjay Dutt vs the Motor City Machineguns vs Christopher Daniels & Senshi
Only two men are allowed in the ring at any time.This is a prime example of the hot opener, with all the offence looking super slick and fun enough to pop the crowd. Lethal ends up as face-in-peril and I love the way the Guns and Triple X have to rely on blind tags to get in the match, keeps it realistic that they wouldn't just tag each other in. Daniels shows a bit of character by posing whilst standing on Lethal's back as he's drapped across the middle turnbuckle. Dutt gets the hot tag, but the Guns just decide to come in too. At this juncture, it turns into a spotfest, so they don't try to pretend there are rules. I like Shelley locking an abdominal stretch on Dutt outside, as it means it makes sense for him to be there when Lethal levels him with a suicide dive. Rad dive sequence ends with Dutt nailing a swanky top rope Asai moonsault on everyone. Even Skipper gets involved, taking advantage of a distracted Earl Hebner to nail the ropewalk rana on Sabin. We get a lovely combo of moves by Dutt and Lethal on Daniels, which culminates in a standing Shooting Star Press by Dutt for two. After everyone gets in the ring, nailing spot after spot, Lethal picks up the win...with a small package on Daniels. Really fun opener, maybe not one you'll remember in a weeks time, but super enjoyable and it sent the crowd wild. Job done.
Raven vs Kaz
Kaz left Serotonin to set this up. It's pretty fun to start with, as Kaz nails all three members with a kendo stick, and the other Serotonin members bump like loons for it. Havok tries to take Kaz out with a huge dive, but nails everyone BUT Kaz. In ring, Raven hits a victory roll(!) for two 2. Kaz takes an insane bump on a kneelift, as it sends him over top rope. Raven seems pretty slow here, taking his sweet lazy time between moves. There is some dissension in the ranks as Raven shows his anger with Martyr, after he accidentally takes out Havok when aiming for Kaz with a superkick. Kaz hits a massive clothesline to send himself, Raven and Martyr over the rope, which followed by a nutty rana off the apron on Havok. Kaz is doing everything he can here to get over. Kaz reverses the Evenflow to nail a dropkick to the face to win. Decent enough, certainly put Kaz over huge.
Rhino vs James Storm
This is a bar-room brawl, instigated by Storm taunting Rhino's past addictions to alcohol. This is pretty good to start, though the mass slugfest in the crowd makes it hard to see what is happening. Thankfully, they soon get to Storm's silly looking "bar" set up by the ring, where Rhino pretty swiftly gives into his addictions and necks a beer. No willpower there. This causes Rhino to just explode, as he levels Storm with crutch and a barstool. Next, he backdrops Storm onto the bar as West and Tenay lament Rhino falling off the wagon. To hammer home the point, he opens a bottle of vodka and has a big swig. Storm is just getting massacred, as this is all Rhino. Maybe Rhino should have got pissed more often, could have been world champion. Jackie Moore saves and Rhino is briefly slowed down by being thrown out of ring onto a ladder. He fires back with an ace snap belly-to-belly suplex, though he is starting to show subtle signs of being drunk. A moment of hesitation causes Rhino to gore a table as the Cowboy moves, which gets two for Storm. Storm clobbers Rhino with a one man conchairto, then smashes a beer bottle over his head for three. Interesting booking, which started with Storm getting destroyed, but Rhino giving into his demos ultimately cost him the match. Really nasty brawl too.
Voodoo Kin Mafia vs LAX
This is from the odd period where Roxxi was added to the act as a voodoo practicioner, as if this linked to BG and Kip James in anyway bar their McMahon-baiting name. VKM use a combination of their smarts and strength to dominate Homicide early. Nice release Northern Lights by Kip James is the highlight of their offence. The heat section on Homicide is pretty brief, and whilst Hernandez shows good energy on his hot tag, a face of powder from Roxxi lets Kip hit a Fameasser for the win. However, Hector Guerrero comes into the ring to show the ref the powder on the ring apron, and Homicide wins with a rollup on Kip. Short and inoffensive.
Eric Young vs Bobby Roode
This is an Ultimate Humiliation match, with the loser getting tarred and feathered. They show a promo video beforehand, where Roode already tarred-and-feathered EY on an episode of Impact, so that seems odd. EY gets a brief flurry of offence, before a distraction by Ms Brooks lets Roode level him outside the ring. Roode's dominance of Young is pretty fun, Roode being pretty explosive on offence and EY bumping nicely for him. Young also has a natural connection with the crowd, which helps him earn sympathy. Love Roode lowering his kneepad before hitting a kneedrop from the 2nd rope. EY has some surprisingly crisp punches and shows some real strength to hoist both Roode and Brooks onto his shoulders for an attempted DVD. Some Brooks distraction and a pair of brass knucks give the win to Roode, after a pretty fun match.
Postmatch sees Gail Kim make the save for EY, and Ms Brooks ends up tarred and feathered. Special word to the kick to the Roode bollocks by EY - Christ!
Chris Harris vs Black Reign
In 2014, Dustin Rhodes is one of the best workers on the planet. In 2007, he was substantially porkier and wrestling in a Poundland Goldust costume. It's no surprise to learn that he wasn't so impressive. I do enjoy his outsmarting Harris by coming out of the other entrance ramp and attacking from behind (Harris must be some kind of idiot, as he wait ages for Reign before the blindside attack). As you'd expect, Reign still has impressive punches and him wailing away does look pretty great, with the satisfying sound of fist on skin. Harris is busted open and has had zero offence, as Dustin takes out two referees. The idea here is pretty cool, but the execution, especially the outfit, is lacking somewhat. Harris wins by DQ after attacking the third ref, but looks nothing like a winner after getting cuffed to the ropes and attacked by Black Reign's spiked weapon. I admit, I liked this more than I expected too, especially how vicious Dustin was, but the cheapness of his look ruined the effect.
The Steiner Brothers vs Team 3D
This is the match I've been looking forward to most on the show. No matter that these two teams are past their best, this is TNA bringing a proper tag team dream match to life. Looking at Brother Ray here, it's remarkable how much he slimmed down for his current role as Bully Ray, as he was huge. Though a bit slower and a bit bulkier than their prime, the Steiners still are able to throw 3D around early. The turnaround comes when Ray grabs Scott by the arm and yanks his recently injured shoulder over the ropes. 3D wisely focus their offence on this injury, with the livid purple scar acting like a target. The heat section is actually a bit short, but I did love the fresh Rick hitting suplexes on both Team 3D members. Scott joins in with a top rope belly-to-belly on Devon. 3D get two after a Doomsday Device on Scott, but it's a top-rope Frankensteiner on Devon that brings the crowd to it's feet. The top rope Steiner Bulldog on Devon gets the win. A bit sloppy in places, but a total crowdpleaser of a match.
Christian Cage, AJ Styles & Tomko vs Sting, Abyss & "The Punisher" Andrew Martin
Martin is better known as Test. The winner of the pinfall gets a world title shot, and the match is held in a cage with barbed wire around the top. To add to the overbooking, you can't get pinned unless you are bleeding. Christian's Coalition attack Abyss before his partners can emerge, but Martin and Sting (arriving after the lights go out) make the save. We get some average brawling outside the cage to start, then the Coalition lock Sting outside the cage to leave it 2-on-3. Cage attacks Abyss with some glass to make him bleed. The Coalition dominate in the ring, but Sting climbs the cage with wire cutters and is able to get in past the barbed wire. Styles and Cage nailing Abyss with dual frog splashes was pretty cool. Cage, like a beautiful coward, escapes the cage through the gap Sting created, leaving his team 2-on-3 down. Styles is swiftly Black Hole Slammed onto the broken glass by Abyss for the win. Pretty pedestrian affair, and not particularly violent for all the hype about the violence.
Kurt Angle vs Samoa Joe
This is for Joe's X Division and tag titles, as well as Angle's IWGP and TNA titles. Joe looks to be in great shape here, and I dug the ceremonial Samoan dancers he had for his entrance. The story here is that Kurt is upset that Karen Angle has left him, and his mind isn't on wrestling. Joe dominates early, and Kurt isn't helped by Karen arriving at ringside with a new beau. Joe is confident and remains one step ahead of Angle: when Kurt pulls the straps of his singlet down to stop Joe pulling it, Joe pulls it down even further on a sunset flip to expose Angle's backside. The facewash on Kurt looked brutal. I also love Joe reversing an Angle German suplex into a sickening release version of his own. The height Joe gets on his leaping enzuigiri whilst Angle is on the top rope is impressive too. It's ridiculous how good he used to be when in shape and motivated. Angle looks a step behind him at all times here, though that may be due to the story of the match. Joe is able to reverse every big move Kurt goes for, until an Angle Slam gets two. Kurt hasn't gotten much offence in at this point, so it doesn't feel like a ruined finisher. Joe only getting two on a musclebuster feels less defendable, however. An anklelock/Kokina Clutch reversal series feels a little forced. A ref bump leads to Angle tapping to the clutch with no consequence, before Karen "shockingly" passes Kurt a chair to level Joe with and consolidate all the titles. This was decent rather than good, as it felt a bit laboured due to the angle, and the ending was both predictable and made Joe look like a fool.
The Top 10 Reviewed Matches of 2013
Here's the annual list of the ten best matches reviewed on the blog in 2013. Though I've not published as much as I'd like to this year, there is still a good blend of stuff here, I feel. A bit of BritWres, some classic WWF, some puro and an 80's territories tag match. All stuff I've watched and loved this year. Here's to a great 2014
10. Kaz vs Volador Jr vs Daivari vs Naruki Doi (TNA World X Cup 2008)
This was the final of the World X Cup in an Ultimate X match with all to play for. All four guys looked really good here, with the booking possibly making Kaz look better in defeat than if he'd won.
9. Ernie Ladd & Butch Reed vs Brickhouse Brown & Master Gee (The Best of Ernie Ladd)
Really fun tag match, with the bigger, surly heels dominating against the energetic face team. Brown and Gee looked great here, and the heel tactics of their opponents provided a nice structure for the match.
8. Stixx vs Kevin Steen (Southside Wrestling Supershow)
Great brawl between two hard-working big men. They went all over the venue and, on a card featuring a whole host of big names from TV, stole the whole show.
7. Masato Yoshino, Milano Collection AT & Puma vs Doug Williams, Tyson Dux & Alex Koslov vs Rey Buccanero, Ultimo Guerrero & Averno vs the Motor City Machineguns & Curry Man (TNA World X Cup 2008)
As the saying goes, "If you're going to do a spotfest, make it a good one". Just an insane elimination match that provided massive entertainment from start to finish.
6. Tyler Bate vs Joe Coffey (Triple X Wrestling The Nov 24th Show)
Bate is a star on the rise for sure, and this match with Joe Coffey was excellent. Coffey came with a great reputation that he lived up to, with both guys putting in some neat matwork and some stiff brawling.
5. Zack Sabre Jr vs Tommy End (Southside Wrestling Menace II Society III)
ZSJ is my standout BritWres performer of the year, and our loss is Japan's gain in view of his recent tag title victory. This WXW title match with Tommy End was spectacular, two guys just trying to break the other one down.
4. Cody Rhodes & Goldust vs Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns (WWE Battleground)
The WWE's recent emphasis on tag wrestling has provided a load of great matches this year. This one, with the backstory of the Rhodes' fighting for their jobs and Dusty providing ringside support, is the pick of the bunch.
3. Ronnie Garvin vs Greg "The Hammer" Valentine (WWF Royal Rumble 1990)
Not the kind of match you'd expect in 1990's WWF. These two were clearly both more than happy to wail away on each other, and there was a fun story to the match as well. Really loved this.
2. Fritz Von Erich vs Giant Baba (The Best of the Von Erichs Vol 1)
Filmed in glorious black-and-white, this match is very much an example of how you can do more with less. Most of Fritz's offence involved claw attempts, but the way he put together those attempts, and the way he carried himself, made him a massive threat, which only made Baba look better in victory.
1. Zack Sabre Jr vs Mark Andrews (Triple X Wrestling XXXstravaganza)
So, for the second year in a row, a BritWres match tops the list, and this one was a real belter. I'd never been to a Triple X show before this year, but having caught all the 2013 shows I can honestly say they've been my most enjoyable times of watching live wrestling. Amidst all the fun of wrestling zombies, local jobbers and pornstars, you also get consistently good wrestling matches. Here we had the highflier (Andrews) taking on the more experienced stiff mat-wrestler (ZSJ), and they gelled brilliantly. Though Zack was often in control, there were some great hope spots for Andrews, and an ending that showed how much of a threat he'd been. Looking forward to seeing more great things from both guys in 2014.
10. Kaz vs Volador Jr vs Daivari vs Naruki Doi (TNA World X Cup 2008)
This was the final of the World X Cup in an Ultimate X match with all to play for. All four guys looked really good here, with the booking possibly making Kaz look better in defeat than if he'd won.
9. Ernie Ladd & Butch Reed vs Brickhouse Brown & Master Gee (The Best of Ernie Ladd)
Really fun tag match, with the bigger, surly heels dominating against the energetic face team. Brown and Gee looked great here, and the heel tactics of their opponents provided a nice structure for the match.
8. Stixx vs Kevin Steen (Southside Wrestling Supershow)
Great brawl between two hard-working big men. They went all over the venue and, on a card featuring a whole host of big names from TV, stole the whole show.
7. Masato Yoshino, Milano Collection AT & Puma vs Doug Williams, Tyson Dux & Alex Koslov vs Rey Buccanero, Ultimo Guerrero & Averno vs the Motor City Machineguns & Curry Man (TNA World X Cup 2008)
As the saying goes, "If you're going to do a spotfest, make it a good one". Just an insane elimination match that provided massive entertainment from start to finish.
6. Tyler Bate vs Joe Coffey (Triple X Wrestling The Nov 24th Show)
Bate is a star on the rise for sure, and this match with Joe Coffey was excellent. Coffey came with a great reputation that he lived up to, with both guys putting in some neat matwork and some stiff brawling.
5. Zack Sabre Jr vs Tommy End (Southside Wrestling Menace II Society III)
ZSJ is my standout BritWres performer of the year, and our loss is Japan's gain in view of his recent tag title victory. This WXW title match with Tommy End was spectacular, two guys just trying to break the other one down.
4. Cody Rhodes & Goldust vs Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns (WWE Battleground)
The WWE's recent emphasis on tag wrestling has provided a load of great matches this year. This one, with the backstory of the Rhodes' fighting for their jobs and Dusty providing ringside support, is the pick of the bunch.
3. Ronnie Garvin vs Greg "The Hammer" Valentine (WWF Royal Rumble 1990)
Not the kind of match you'd expect in 1990's WWF. These two were clearly both more than happy to wail away on each other, and there was a fun story to the match as well. Really loved this.
2. Fritz Von Erich vs Giant Baba (The Best of the Von Erichs Vol 1)
Filmed in glorious black-and-white, this match is very much an example of how you can do more with less. Most of Fritz's offence involved claw attempts, but the way he put together those attempts, and the way he carried himself, made him a massive threat, which only made Baba look better in victory.
1. Zack Sabre Jr vs Mark Andrews (Triple X Wrestling XXXstravaganza)
So, for the second year in a row, a BritWres match tops the list, and this one was a real belter. I'd never been to a Triple X show before this year, but having caught all the 2013 shows I can honestly say they've been my most enjoyable times of watching live wrestling. Amidst all the fun of wrestling zombies, local jobbers and pornstars, you also get consistently good wrestling matches. Here we had the highflier (Andrews) taking on the more experienced stiff mat-wrestler (ZSJ), and they gelled brilliantly. Though Zack was often in control, there were some great hope spots for Andrews, and an ending that showed how much of a threat he'd been. Looking forward to seeing more great things from both guys in 2014.
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