411’s NWA: TNA Report 02.19.03

– Hey everybody. Let’s cut to the chase this week. I’m going to be using a new rating system for the matches because I think the star system is a little passй. I’ll be using the same grading system as my old report cards from elementary school:

E = Excellent (****+ match, really amazing stuff.)
G = Good (***-range, totally awesome match)
S = Satisfactory (**-range, solid outing)
N = Needs Improvement (*-range, room to improve)
U = Unsatisfactory (DUD and below, totally ugly piece of shit match)

The rating will be in parenthesis next to the winner of the match and the length.
e.g. Winner: Doink the Clown (12:52 – E)

Okay, enjoy!

– Show opens with a video montage of the triangle feud between A.J. Styles, Raven, and Jeff Jarrett. TNA has done more with Raven in three weeks than WWE did with him in well over two years.

– A.J. Styles arrives at the arena in a car along with Vince Russo. Speculation ensues.

– Live from the TNA Asylum.

– Your hosts are Mike Tenay and Don West.

– #1 Contenders Match: The Harris Twins vs. America’s Most Wanted
So this match is your basic slugfest to start, formula tag team match. The real epiphany comes during the middle portion where Heavy D and Big Ron were taking turns pounding on Wildcat. That epiphany was: Ron Harris isn’t a horrible wrestler. The piece of garbage in this team is none other than Don Harris. I guess their workrate didn’t translate into that whole identical twin thing. Ron wows me with an Exploder suplex and a nice Baldobomb and tags to Don and not much happens. Wildcat nails a random rollup for the quick pin.
Winner: America’s Most Wanted (7:02 – S)

– Vince Russo and Dusty Rhodes face off in the ring. Russo says Dusty is jealous of him because Dusty could never come up with a character like Goldust. Apparently, Russo was like a father to Dustin Runnels, something Dusty never was. The Harris Twins come to assault Russo when out of the crowd comes VADER!!!!!!!!! BOO-FUCKING-YAH! Vader pounds the holy hell out of the Twins. Russo challenges Vader and Rhodes to a tag team match next week and it’s Vader & Dusty Rhodes vs. The Harris Twins.

– Three-Way Dance: The SATs (w/ Konnan) vs. Jerry Lynn
Match is basically a handicap match. Konnan is on commentary as we get a glorified exhibition of The SATs moveset. Konnan was a great choice to lead this group as he‘s an encyclopedia of knowledge for the lucha style. Lynn comes back with a TKO on Joel Maximo for a near fall. Lynn attempts the Cradle of Filth but Jose won’t have any of that. The SATs go for the Spanish Fly but Lynn reverses it into a double top rope urinage slam. Lynn then executes the Cradle of Filth on Jose Maximo for the pinfall. Hot ending to a really good match there.
Winner: Jerry Lynn (5:30 – G)

– Raven cuts a promo on Sandman. Raven wants to humiliate Sandman for destroying Raven’s family. By Raven’s family he means Sandman’s wife and son. Raven is the greatest talker in the business today, period.

– The Gift comes out and unveils his latest character development. A fat Elvis impersonator known as Disgraceland.

– Disgraceland vs. Shark Boy
Disgraceland munches on a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich as he pounds on Shark Boy. Man, if this gimmick is meant to parody pre-Austin WWF, then it is absolutely brilliant. Sanders and Gift rule in their role as talent coordinators for Sports Entertainment Xtreme. Match is pretty bad, but I think it’s sort of supposed to be. Disgraceland counters the Dead Sea Driver with the Shake, Rattle, and Roll for the pinfall. Well, that was actually pretty funny if not a waste total waste of Shark Boy. Then again, his name is Shark Boy and that has jobber written all over it. Jorge Estrada attacks afterwards and gets the crap kicked out of him by Disgraceland, The Gift, and Mike Sanders. They take him to the bathroom where they dunk his head in a toilet.
Winner: Disgraceland (3:13 – U)

– X Title Match: Kid Kash (w/ Trinity) vs. Paul London
One of my readers pointed out that Paul London looks like a young Eric Bischoff. That’s pretty dead-on. Kid Kash is the sixth X champion with Jerry Lynn, Low Ki, Syxx-Pac, Sonny Siaki, and A.J. Styles being the only other titleholders. Nice sequence starts it and it ends with a stand-off. The announcers explain that Jerry Lynn passed off the title shot he won last week to London in order to deal with Konnan’s lucha libre invasion. Action spills to the outside and Kash goes for the Smash Mouth but London catches the chair and tosses it right back into Kash’s face. Kash gets back in the ring and executes a great looking flip dive. Back in and Kash nails a great looking top rope sit out clothesline for two. London regains control of the match. We get a pinning sequence and a series of near falls. London uses a forward twisting neckbreaker for two. Kash springs to his feet and busts out with a hurracanrana for two. Backslide sequence is countered by Kash who absolutely SPIKES London with the Money Maker for the pin.
Winner and still X champion: Kid Kash (7:29 – G)

– Vince Russo has left the building as has left Sonny Siaki in charge. Mike Sanders has a match with “Jonah, that kid who lost Tough Enough 3” tonight.

– Mike Tenay sits down with the newest member of TNA, Jonah from Tough Enough 3. Jonah has apparently been training with Killer Kowalski. Does that guy train everyone who loses that show? Well, he did a good job with Nowinski.

– Mike Sanders vs. Jonah the Big Loser Who Didn’t Win Tough Enough 3
Sanders once again points out that Jonah is a total loser. Sanders offers Jonah a roll in the hay with some chick in exchange for joining S.E.X. Jonah, being the loser he is, turns it down and we got ourselves a match. Sanders dominates the match to start. Why is it that this Tough Enough kids take forever to get a decent pair of wrestling trunks? They always come out in their damn warm-ups pants for their first 20 matches. It took Maven like two months to stop wrestling in sneakers. If you want to be a wrestling, GET SOME TRUNKS AND BOOTS!! It’s common sense. Jonah makes a big comeback from Sanders’ onslaught of headlocks but is taken back down after a Shining Wizard. Sanders misses an Asai moonsault and hits some terrible clotheslines followed by a decent enough dropkick. The Generic Big Man Powerslam gets two. The blonde that Sanders offered up earlier gets on the apron and flashes Jonah allowing Sanders to hit something vaguely resembles a wrestling maneuver for the pin.
Winner: Mike Sanders (5:40 – N)

– Raven & Low Ki vs. The Sandman & Steve Corino
The match starts off in the crowd to the surprise of absolutely no one. Total brawl for a while. Match finally comes back to the ring and I decide to hit the stopwatch when the actual wrestling starts. I really don’t want to count all that brawling towards the actual match. Low Ki and Raven double-team Corino as The Sandman has been totally laid out at this point. Corino is bleeding all over the place at this point. Corino tags out to The Sandman and he brings the plunder. The Sandman nails the Singapore Leg Sweep for two but Raven runs in and executes the Evenflow DDT for the pin. I’m ignoring the big brawl at the beginning. But the wrestling portion of the match totally owned.
Winner: Raven & Low Ki (4:33 – G)

– NWA World Title Match: Jeff Jarrett vs. A.J. Styles
Okay, I don’t want to watch this match while try to simultaneously type so I’m going to put down the keyboard and go watch. Be right back, I swear. Okay, this is how it went down. The match started evenly with Jarrett using a ton of moves I’ve never seen him use including a plancha. The match is really fast paced and we don’t see restholds until about 10 minutes in and then it’s for less than a minute. Refs got repeatedly bumped and The Harris Twins attempted to interfere but were chased off by Vader and Dusty. The second time a ref was bumped, Sonny Siaki entered the ring and hit Jarrett with two consecutive Siakilypses. Styles didn’t take too kindly and attacked Siaki and hit him with the Styles Clash. As Styles got on the middle rope to taunt Siaki as he rolled out of the ring, Jarrett climbed the ropes and delivered the Stroke from the middle rope for the pinfall to retain the World title. Hell, I’ll even toss a star rating out there and go out on a limb and call this one a **** match. Really, really good stuff from Styles and Jarrett.
Winner and Still NWA World Champion: Jeff Jarrett (16:07 – E)

– The show closes with Vince Russo waiting for Jeff Jarrett at Jarrett’s home. Vince feels he needs to have a talk with Jeff, man-to-man.

– Excellent show towards the end there with GREAT work from Steve Corino, Low Ki, Raven, Styles, Jarrett, and even The Sandman. I marked out huge for the TNA debut of Vader and hopefully he’s still got enough gas in the tank to have a few decent matches. TNA is a promotion that keeps getting better and better with each week and their establishing a way more impressive upper card than WWE has in the last few months. Give me Raven and Styles over Steiner clubbing Triple H week in and week out.