wrestling / TV Reports
Tremendous Tirades: TNA One Night Only – World Cup II
Introduction
As a reminder, this will not be another traditional recap, but instead it will be a mash up of the Rs, Instant Analysis and my usual Twitter ramblings I would do during the shows; completely uncensored and as the ideas flow unfiltered to the old keyboard. Remember, this is a review; and I am here to review the show. As always, I encourage discussion and even disagreement, just do so in a respectful manner. I will be doing the review for Raw and most PPVs and iPPVs going forward.
TNA One Night Only – World Cup II
OFFICIAL RESULTS
~ Team Eric Young: Eric Young, Bully Ray, Eddie Edwards, Gunner and ODB
~ Team Kurt Angle: Kurt Angle, Davey Richards, Sanada, Mr. Anderson, Madison Rayne
~ Team EC3: Ethan Carter III, Jessie Godderz, Robbie E, Magnus, Gail Kim
~ Team Bobby Roode: Bobby Roode, James Storm, Kenny King, Samuel Shaw, Angelina Love
Team Young’s Eddie Edwards vs. Team Roode’s James Storm: After the overly long drafting process, it was a relief to finally get to the in ring action. Overall this ended up being a great choice for an opener, they worked well together, kept a good pace, and the crowd was into them the entire time. They needed to do well here because that open was so cold and did not allow for any momentum to be gained. Storm can still go, although he doesn’t get the chance to as of late (not sure if he is just being given a break for his new angle or if he is injured) but it was nice to see him motivated and working hard. Edwards also looked good, and worked like he had been having matches with Storm for years, a credit to both men. Edwards won clean after countering a superkick into a roll up.
Team EC3’s Gail Kim vs. Team Angle’s Madison Rayne: Gail and Madison have worked together a lot, so at the very least, this should be good. Lots of solid counter wrestling and countering of each other’s moves, playing off their past, which was appreciated. This ended up being a fun match, but the finish came off a bit flat. Rayne missed a spear and in what appeared to be slow motion, hit the steel post because she missed the spear like, five feet away from the corner. She appeared to not be sure what to do, but slowly ran into the corner and hit the post. Kim his eat defeat and then won clean, which is great, but the finish came off flat and hurt the match. Overall this was your typical Kim vs. Rayne outing, in a good way. If the finish is cleaner, I go a bit higher with my rating.
Team EC3’s The BroMans (Jessie Godderz and Robbie E) vs. Team Angle’s Mr. Anderson and Sanada: They did some comedy with Jessie, Robbie and DJ’s DJ booth. Then Sanada danced like a fucking goof mid-match as Anderson took over the DJ booth. Ion got involved to stop a moonsault from Sanada, and the BroMans took control with a poor heat segment and then a luke warm tag to Anderson. Ion used the laptop on Anderson so he team could win. The BroMans, who are the regular team and former champions, rightfully won here. It made sense, but this was a pretty damn bad eight minutes overall.
Team Young’s Eric Young vs. Team Roode’s Bobby Roode: Both guys are really good professional wrestlers, and have worked together and against each other for years in TNA. They had a good match this past week on Impact, so I am expecting good things here. Unlike the recent Impact match, Roode is heel here, which in some ways could make it better due to the clear roles and fan interaction. The Impact Zone fans love both guys so much that we ended up with the mixed chants anyway, but at least they were into the action most of the time. Overall this was a cleanly worked, well laid out wrestling match. Nothing too crazy, and it never hit that next gear, but overall I enjoyed it because they work so well together. Young won clean with the piledriver.
Team Angle’s Kurt Angle vs. Team EC3’s Magnus: It feels weird watching Angle wrestle because he’s been out for so long. Angle was banged up here, and sporting the big knee brace, but was able to still work at a good pace. The match was solid; the crowd wasn’t into it as much as usual, and it felt like a top of the hour TV match. Working enough to make sure it’s good, but also just not doing much to make it memorable. Angle wins clean with the Angle slam, I like clean finishes.
Team Roode’s Angelina Love (with Velvet Sky) vs. Team Young’s ODB: This is another set of competitors that have worked a lot over the years, so in theory this should be good. Sky did some distractions to give Love the advantage, because they’re heels and don’t play by the rules. They then all ran around the ring, including referee Earl Hebner who looked like he was about to have a heart attack. Comedy ensued, ODB rubbed Hebner’s face in her tits, and he Flair flopped. After the comedy we had some actual wrestling, and Love won when Sky distracted ODB. Too much bullshit in here. The crowd is slowly losing interest in the show; they are simply not into things as they were earlier in the night. The show has largely been fine, but personally I am waiting for a great match and haven’t gotten it yet. Team Roode finally gets on the board.
Team EC3’s Ethan Carter III vs. Team Angle’s Davey Richards: Interesting match here, these guys work a very different style, but EC3’s slower and more bullying style can work well here. They did some old Flair/Heenan/Dillon cheating as EC3 worked an abdominal stretch and Spud reached in to give him leverage. EC3 and Spud work well because they’re like the old Warner Bros/ Chester and Spike cartoons, and I mean that in a complimentary way. Team EC3 takes the lead in the competition with his victory. This was a good back and forth match, both guys looked good and Spud’s involvement was minimal, but worked when used. Richards actually sold well for EC3’s offense and made it look more effective than at other times. EC3 won after Spud crotched Richards on the top rope. Richards came away looking good, he had EC3 beat, the heel had his minion interfere so that he could get the win, because EC3 and his team have vowed to do anything to win.
Team Young’s Bully Ray and Gunner vs. Team Roode’s Samuel Shaw and Kenny King : This was kind of all over the place, I like Gunner and Bully Ray, but things didn’t mesh well. Part of that was due to King’s style (which is hit and miss for me) and the other part was Shaw’s inexperience. The crowd was also not that into the match at all. This felt like an average, throw away TV match.
Elimination Tag: Team Young vs. Team EC3: They did lots of ass spanking comedy early, and I mean that just as it reads, they did comedy spots revolving around spanking the asses of Kim and ODB. Overall this was a good, but not great main event, which is a trend on these One Night Only shows. They ran through the eliminations and got down to Magnus vs. Young in around 16-minutes. EC3 got DQ’d with an intentional low blow, allowing Magnus to pick up the pieces for the win. Unfortunately for him, Young battled back against the odds and finished him off with the piledriver after 2-minutes of singles action. The order of elimination was Kim, ODB, Edwards, Jessie, Bully, Robbie, Gunner, EC3 and then Magnus. Young was the last man standing to score the World Cup victory for his team.
The Tirade
Overall this was a fine PPV, but not necessarily $15 of good. Part of it was that the show was hurt because it wasn’t really a “World Cup” event. This came across more as a “TNA Team Challenge Series,” which isn’t bad, but maybe should have been advertised as such. The other thing was that unlike some of the other PPVs, it lacked that great match to put it over the top. That’s not to say that there wasn’t good wrestling, there was, but it was far from great. The show ended early (45 past the hour) and taking into account the extra long drafting session, I feel that the should could have been laid out better, giving key matches a little longer. That, again, is a complaint I have had about these shows. I felt that the talent once again worked hard, but in my opinion aren’t given the chance to have great matches most of the time. If you’re a big TNA fan, you’ll likely enjoy the event because it has a lot of your favorites, but if you’re looking for great wrestling, this wasn’t the show for you.Show Rating: 6.9
As a reminder, I will be going by the 411 scale…
0 – 0.9: Torture
1 – 1.9: Extremely Horrendous
2 – 2.9: Very Bad
3 – 3.9: Bad
4 – 4.9: Poor
5 – 5.9: Not So Good
6 – 6.9: Average
7 – 7.9: Good
8 – 8.9:Very Good
9 – 9.9: Amazing
10: Virtually PerfectAs a reminder, this is not a basic “how good was the show” number like a TV show, as I have always felt that a PPV is very different from a regular show. I have always judged PPV on how they built to a match, the match quality, crowd reactions to matches and angles, the overall booking, how the PPV leads into the future, PPV price and so on and so forth. I have added this in here for an explanation since so many have asked, and I have previously discussed it on podcasts. I understand that this may seem different, but that is how I grade. Obviously your criteria may be different.
Larry Csonka is a Pisces and enjoys rolling at jiu jitsu class with Hotty McBrownbelt, cooking, long walks on the beach, Slingo and the occasional trip to Jack in the Box. He is married to a soulless ginger and has two beautiful daughters who are thankfully not soulless gingers; and is legally allowed to marry people in 35 states. He has been a wrestling fan since 1982 and has been writing for 411 since May 24th, 2004; contributing over 3,000 columns, TV reports and video reviews to the site.
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