2005 is here and thank fuck Randy Savage had a falling out with Jarrett and won’t be competing for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship tonight.
As always we have a wonderful opening video package, hyping up the night to come. It does a great job putting their young guys over and highlights Team Canada vs. AMW for the NWA World Tag Team Championship, Petey Williams vs. AJ Styles vs. Chris Sabin for X Division Championship in a fucking Ultimate X Match, and Monty Brown vs. Kevin Nash vs. Diamond Dallas Page where the winner will face Jeff Jarrett for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship as the marquee matchups tonight. Sounds like a hell of a card to me.
Just like last month, there’s an ongoing angle happening throughout the show where Johnny Fairplay, Traci Brooks and Trinity are doing some kind of scavenger hunt type shit to decide who gets to be director of authority Dusty Rhodes’ assistant. It’s basically a play on Johnny Fairplay’s Survivor history. And it kinda sucks. But surprisingly, Fairplay proves to be sort of funny in these skits.
First match on this show is a six man tag match with Daniels, Michael Shane and Frankie Kazarian taking on 3 Live Kru. I think I said previously that Triple X should’ve gone on to be one of TNA’s all-time tag teams after their amazing match with AMW last month, but here we are a month on and they’ve already gone their separate ways.
Coincidentally, Daniels is teaming with Kazarian, who he would go on to form an all-time TNA tag team with many years later. As far as the match, it really isn’t anything worth seeking out. The X Division guys do most of the work but 3 Live Kru win. Understandable since they’re pretty over.
Next match is Elix Skipper vs. Sonjay Dutt. Props to Tenay and West once again putting over both competitors and selling the importance of the X Division. There’s a TNA chant early in this one, as Sonjay Dutt shows off his acrobatic ability. The fans stay hot although things get quite a bit slower as the match goes on and honestly… this isn’t as fluid of a match as I expected. Elix Skipper wins with a dope ass tilt-a-whirl uranage type thing.
In the back, Kevin Nash says since both he and Diamond Dallas Page are old as dirt, they should work together to take out The Alpha Male and then fight between each other to decide who gets to face Jarrett. DDP says he stands on his own but he doesn’t necessarily tell him no either.
Next up is Dustin Rhodes vs. Kid Kash. Kid Kash is just being disrespectful to everyone, including Dusty and Dustin himself. So, Dustin is looking to shut him up. Dustin first came in to TNA in early 2004 but there was a long absence there before he came back in December 2004 and got into this storyline. Kid Kash uses a cover version of “Walk” by Pantera for his theme. And he’s not the only guy on the roster using a cover or remix of a popular song. At this same time, Scott Hall’s theme is a cover of “Those Shoes” by The Eagles, Kevin Nash’s is “Still D.R.E”, DDP's is of course “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Monty Brown’s is “Down With The Sickness”. And those are just the ones I noticed.
Anyways, this is a pretty old school match. Kid Kash fakes a knee injury early to get the upper hand. He then attacks Rhodes’ knee for the majority of the match to the point where Dustin can barely stand. Kash nearly puts him out with a sleeper but Rhodes weathers the storm. Later on, Rhodes hits an atomic drop but since he used his bad knee, he collapses down in pain. I thought that was a solid spot. Kash keeps trying to do everything he can and eventually gets in the referee’s face and shoves him. The ref shoves him back though and Kash can’t believe it. Kash returns his focus to Dustin and shoots him off the ropes, but Dustin hits him with a running bulldog on the way back to get the win. Kind of a flat ending but I thought it was a really well worked match by two intelligent vets.
We get a video package previewing the triple threat elimination match later tonight, recapping how things have gotten here. Basically Dusty Rhodes chose all these guys for this match. Nash was chosen because he’s aligned with Jarrett and Dusty knew he could drive a wedge between them if he put Nash in the title hunt. And he succeeded in doing so. So he’s basically destroyed The Kings of Wrestling only about two months into their existence. Meanwhile DDP is just the do-good face we know and love. He wants to win the title because of the tradition associated with the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Then there’s Monty Brown. Of everyone who has ever wrestled in TNA, Monty Brown is probably the guy they missed the boat on the worst. He has star written all over him and he’s one of the only heavyweights on the whole roster who isn’t associated with another company. What a shame.
Next up is a skippable brawl between Raven and Erik Watts. Erik Watts sucks. And yet he wins with a chokeslam. Yikes. After the match Raven cuts a promo asking for Watts’ forgiveness, but it’s a SWERVE BRO and Raven ends up just bashing him with a trash can to knock him off the stage. The fans end up chanting for Raven who is definitely supposed to be a heel. They shoulda put my boy Raven over.
Next is Scott Hall vs. Jeff Hardy with Roddy Piper as the special referee. I mean holy shit, what a cast of characters.
It’s a minor miracle that all three of these guys actually showed up at the event.
Before the match starts, Piper frisks Hall and pulls a bunch of foreign objects out of his Elvis suit, which was pretty funny. Then Hall turns the tables and frisks Piper, finding handcuffs in his pocket. That was actually a really good bit. Crazy to think that Jeff Hardy would be a multiple time world champion in TNA and WWE and Hall never won the big one in WWE, TNA or WCW. The match is pretty one sided honestly, with Hardy getting in most of the offense. Hall doesn’t do a whole lot, other than bicker with Piper and play to the crowd. Hardy wins after Piper pokes Hall in the eyes, allowing Jeff to hit Hall with a Twist of Fate (which Hall sells amazingly) and a Swanton Bomb. Overall a good match.
Hardy then cuts a really awkward promo saying he’s going to start kicking some ass around here, starting with Jarrett. Piper then declares Hardy is the next World Heavyweight Champion. From behind comes Abyss for unexplained reasons and he wipes out Hardy and Piper. I remember Hardy and Abyss having a Monster’s Ball Match or something of that nature, so if that’s coming up soon, I’m looking forward to it.
Now we’ve reached the number one contender’s triple threat match. Honestly this match is all about Monty Brown. Tenay and West spend the whole match talking about Brown’s history and how good he is. They even say that becoming an NFL player was just a means for him to break into wrestling which is a pretty damn bold claim because I SERIOUSLY doubt anyone becomes a professional athlete with the intent to leverage that to break into wrestling. I would bet almost anything on that. Anyways, DDP and Nash do end up working together for the most part, until DDP with the SWERVE BRO throws Nash over the top rope, which apparently is enough to eliminate him. Nash, by the way, is in full Guard Engleheart mode at this point in time appearance-wise. DDP is able to hit Brown with the Diamond Cutter but Nash pulls him off of Brown to save the match. Brown dominates the rest of the match after that and finishes DDP with The Pounce! So-so match.
Next up is the first championship match of the evening, as America’s Most Wanted challenge Team Canada in the form of Bobby Roode and Eric Young. Scott D’Amore tries to stall for Team Canada but AMW aren’t waiting around and end up attacking them on the ramp to start the fight. Somehow Eric Young ends up with a big ass knot on his forehead. Looks wicked. A majority of the match is Team Canada dominating James Storm, which reminded me that Chris Harris was always painted as the leader of the team. He was the guy that would get the hot tags and I think they tried to give him a stronger singles push after AMW ended if I remember correctly. Funny how things work out, as Chris Harris would end up being the only guy in this match NOT to win the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. Who woulda guessed? Anyways, Storm does make the hot tag and Harris whoops ass. AMW handcuffs D’Amore to the Ultimate X rig to keep him from interfering. Johnny Devine shows up though and smashes a hockey stick over Storm’s back. Despite that, Storm is able to kick out. AMW hit Roode with a suplex/powerbomb combo but Roode kicks out (although it looks like the ref did count 3). Devine tries to slide a chair in, but Harris intercepts it. Roode hits him with a lariat from behind though, which causes Harris to crash into the chair. Young goes for the cover, but Harris gets his foot on the rope. Young then reaches over the ropes to Devine who has his back turned, and Devine swings the chair up, thinking it’s one of the AMW guys. Devine bashes Young with the chair, and puts a thumb up to the camera, completely oblivious to what he just did. Harris makes the pin to win. Only when AMW’s theme starts playing does Devine turn around and realize what he’s done. This was a fucking great match. Strong four stars. AMW are on fire.
And holy hell, now it’s time for the Ultimate X match.
I almost feel like they needed to throw a match in here between the tag match and this just to keep the fans from becoming exhausted. But then again, this is prime TNA right here. These fans have stamina. As I’ve touched on a bit before, all three of these guys are on fire at this point. Styles of course has already held the NWA World Heavyweight Title and is well established as one of the faces of the company. But Sabin and Williams are both pretty much at the peak of their popularity right now too so this is a huge match. And man, these guys fucking bring it. From the jump, it’s classic X Division action. They break it up a bit by having D’Amore get ejected, which takes up a minute or two and almost serves as a breather for everyone. In a fucking wild instant that I’m surprised isn’t used in more video packages, Petey Williams drops off the cables and hits a hurricanrana on Sabin off of AJ Styles’ shoulders.
Soon after comes a spot that would end up on all the video packages. Chris Sabin performs a springboard dropkick to AJ, who is hanging from the cable, causing AJ to do a crazy front flip and splat on the canvas.
Just simply amazing. After some more fighting, Sabin ends up doing a fucking running cross powerbomb on Petey Williams where he just yeets him into the middle turnbuckle. It looks brutal as all hell. Sabin and Williams then both climb up to the cables and end up having a tug of war at the top for the title. AJ Styles being the sneaky little slithery snake that he is jumps from the top rope and snatches the championship out of both of their hands to win. A creative though slightly cheap way to win the match. What a ride this one was.
Before we get to the main event, Jeff Jarrett encounters Kevin Nash in the hallway and they have to be pulled apart. Believe it or not, Kevin Nash would not interfere in the main event. Crazy right?
The main event is decent, just in terms of the action. They have a brawl that kind of spills all over the arena. The story here is how determined Brown is, and how Jarrett is unable to put him away. Towards the end of the match, Brown counters out of The Stroke and accidentally throws Jarrett into the referee. Of course you know that means Jarrett has to clock Brown with the guitar. He tries to pin but only gets two. So he gets a chair out next. Brown grabs Jarrett into an electric chair position, Jarrett smacks Brown with the chair and they both hit the mat. Jarrett tries another cover, but again he gets a two count. So now Jarrett grabs the title belt and uses that on Brown. YET AGAIN Monty Brown kicks out. And I should add that all this time, the referee is still selling the collision from earlier. Like, he’s selling while Jarrett is doing all this dirty shit, recovering to do the two counts, and then selling again to allow Jarrett to do the next dirty thing. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that before. Anyways, Brown is all fired up now after kicking out of the shot with the title belt and tries to hit The Pounce on Jarrett, but Jarrett moves and Brown takes out the referee. Sheesh… So Jarrett finds another guitar(!!!!!) but this time Brown wrangles the guitar from him and hits Jarrett with it. Sadly the referee is deceased in the ring so Brown has to wait for another to come down and by that time he only gets two. They do some weird spot to set up a Pounce, which allows Jarrett to grab an already broken guitar and hit Brown with it as he attempts his finisher. You may be thinking “but wait, isn’t there a second referee now?” and the answer is yes, but he’s got his back turned checking on the first referee. So Jarrett then hits three consecutive Strokes because Brown refuses to stay down and makes the pin to retain his championship.
This is going to sound crazy but I actually think the main event is pretty fun despite (or maybe even because of) the absolutely ludicrous overbooking. But, if you can’t tell by now, I was firmly on the Monty Brown bandwagon and to this day you will not convince me he wasn’t worthy of this championship. In all fairness this match was booked to make him look freakishly good, but at the end of the day, it’s still a loss for him. As much time as they spent putting him over all throughout this show, it really is perplexing they didn’t pull the trigger on him here and he would never get quite this close to the championship again. Shame.
I can confidently say that this was the best PPV so far. Every match on this card was passable, with the possible exception of Raven vs. Watts which just felt like it had no heat whatsoever. The skits with Rhodes, Fairplay, Traci and Trinity weren’t good necessarily, but they were an upgrade on the Cookiegate nonsense of last month. AMW vs. Team Canada and Sabin vs. Styles vs. Williams was just one hell of a combination. That’s a back-to-back that will be tough to beat. If Brown had gone over in the main event, I would probably be willing to go out on a limb and call this a likely show of the year candidate for TNA.
