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411’s TNA Hardcore Justice Report 8.07.11
411’s HARDCORE JUSTICE REPORT 08.07.11
Championship Roll Call:
TNA WORLD TITLE: Sting
TNA TV TITLE: Eric Young
TNA X-DIVISION TITLE: Brian Kendrick
TNA KNOCKOUTS TITLE: Mickie James
TNA TAG TEAM TITLES: Beer Money
TNA KNOCKOUTS TAG TEAM TITLES: Tara & Miss Tessmacher
Don’t look now but it’s that time of the month again. No not the visit from creepy Aunt Flo and her spooky fish, but time for another pay per view offering from TNA Wrestling! We’re hot (or atleast lukewarm) off the heels of a very good Destination X PPV that did a good deal to focus on and push the X-Division again, but now we’re onto the real mettle test as the focus is back on the entire roster this month with the Hardcore Justice PPV. Last year this show brought TNA one of it’s best PPV buyrates ever based solely on ECW nostalgia, but this year they’re decided to just rely on their own roster without rehashing old nostalgia, for better or worse. On paper the card doesn’t particularly look stacked, no, but several of these match-ups actually have me quite intrigued and I think we could be in store for a few surprisingly good matches tonight, so make sure to keep refreshing the page and stay tuned to 411 for all the live updates on tonight’s show as it happens, with some added analysis thrown in for good measure. Lets get hardcore baby.
August 7th, 2011
Impact Wrestling Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 1,400 +/-
We open the show with your typical pre-show intro package, focusing mainly on the Sting vs. Kurt Angle title match tonight and it’s apparent implications for the future of the company. Nothing to see here, just your usual TNA video package.
Your hosts are Mike Tenay and Taz
TNA X-Division Title Match
Brian Kendrick © vs. Austin Aries vs. Alex Shelley
Kendrick has new funky-tastic music to go alongside his goofy parachute pants, while Aries and Shelley both come out with their serious business faces on. All three men are cautious to start but it’s not long it breaks down to the babyfaces (Shelley & Kendrick) teaming up on the heel (Aries). Aries keeps getting tossed out while Shelley and Kendrick try to do the friendly-competition wrestling thing, but of course Aries keeps breaking them up. Lots of confusion in the early going it seems (not the good kind). Shelley tries rolling up Kendrick behind Aries back to no avail. Aries hits a big dive onto the floor to take out both Kendrick and Shelley. Back inside, Shelley tries a crossface on Kendrick, but he quickly gets a rope break. Aries tries to intervene again but gets superkicked out to the floor. Shelley goes to the top rope and Kendrick tries to take him off, but Shelley knocks him back to the mat and then hits a big frog splash on him. Shelley tries for a figure four on Kendrick, but Aries quickly makes his way back into the ring to break it up. He hits Shelley with the brainbuster, but out of nowhere Kendrick suddenly hits the Sliced Bread on him on-top of Shelley and pins Shelley to retain the X-Division title at 12:58.
Winner: Brian Kendrick @ 12:58
Rating: *** – This was a solid way to kick off the show and was your typically fun, spotty X-Division opener but this was pretty damn underwhelming considering who was in there and the excellent four-way contract match at last month’s show. Good opener, but a bit below what you probably might expect out of these three.
We cut to backstage where Jeremy Borash is with Miss Tessmacher and Tara. He asks them about their match against Rosita and Sarita tonight, and they both sound confident that they’ll leave tonight with the Knockout tag team titles (those things still exist?)
TNA Knockout Tag Team Title Match
Tara/Miss Tessmacher © vs. Rosita/Sarita
Hold onto your seats kids because things are about to get rough, as this is obviously going to be a match of the year candidate in the making. Okay not really. Rosita and Tara start us off and it’s pretty ugly from the start (the wrestling, not the ladies). Tara tosses her around like a rag doll a bit and Rosita quickly tags out to Sarita who gets the same treatment. Lots of quick tags for both teams with Tara dominating over both of her opponents early before Tessmacher tags in and gets to play the babyface in peril for a bit. The heels double-team Tessmacher (that sounds a lot more perverse than it probably should) for a bit more, isolating her in their corner until finally she’s able to escape their hands and get the hot tag to Tara. She cleans house on both ladies but quickly is overpowered herself by their double-team antics. Tessmacher sort of just gets out of Tara’s way and Tara winds up hitting Rosita with the Widow’s Peak to retain the belts at 6:12.
Winners: Tara/Miss Tessmacher @ 6:12
Rating: * – Again, just your standard knockout tag team fare here that you see every week on Impact. Things were pretty hairy while Tessmacher was doing her heat segment, but things got a bit better once Tara got in and started tossing everyone around. Bad match obviously though.
Backstage Jeremy Borash gets a few words with the Pope D’Angelo Dinero about his BFG series match tonight against Devon. Pope talks about his respect for Devon and his family and claims he’s going to “do the right thing” tonight. A lot of good that did Mookie.
Bound For Glory Series Match
Pope D’Angelo Dinero vs. Devon
Matt Morgan comes out to join us for commentary on this BFG series match-up. Pope has a mic before the match begins and tells Devon that he respects him (he just tweeted it in fact). Pope talks about Devon being his big brother and goes to lay down on the mat for Devon so he can pin him without a fight, but Devon won’t have any of that obviously and tells him to get up and fight, so Dinero finally obliges and the match actually begins. Devon dominates early, slapping Dinero in the face and out-wrestling the more inexperienced Pope at every corner. Pope sells a pretty good beating from Devon for the first few minutes before getting some of his own offense in to take the upper hand. The fight spills out to the floor and Pope goes to wrap a chain around his fist, but Devon’s kids stop him. Back in the ring Devon is fired up and looks to pin Dinero but the Pope winds up rolling him out of nowhere for the clean pin and the win at 9:00.
Winner: Pope D’Angelo Dinero @ 9:00
Rating: ** – This was actually pretty solid for the short time it got. Devon has looked surprisingly motivated over the last few weeks and that continued here with the usually game Pope. Nothing you can’t see on Impact every week, but better than I was expecting.
Backstage Jeremy Borash is with Rob Van Dam to talk to him about his match against Crimson tonight. RVD says he’s going to win and take the number one spot in the BFG rankings tonight. Jerry Lynn suddenly walks up (does he just follow Rob around everywhere?) and tells Rob that he’s going to be in his corner tonight for his match.
TNA Knockouts Title Match
Mickie James © vs. Winter
Finally these two are squaring off for the KO title on PPV, as this was a feud I was hoping they’d book when both women came to the company. Angelina Love is by Winter’s side of course. Mickie is hot to start, dominating Winter in the early going with a flurry of forearms. It’s not long before Love is distracting James though and Winter is able to take the upper hand. She beats on Mickie for a bit like a good heel and James tries to mount a quick comeback, but again Love distracts her long enough for Winter to continue to control the match. Winter distracts the ref this time and Angelina attacks Mickie behind the ref’s back. Winter tries to pin her, but Mickie kicks out at two. She hits a tornado DDT off the top rope onto Winter and Love tries again to interfere, but this time Mickie cuts her off with a neckbreaker. Winter spits some kind of mist into Mickie’s eyes while the ref is distracted with Love however, and Winter winds up pinning Mickie to win the title at 8:54.
Winner: Winter @ 8:54
Rating: **1/4 – This was going pretty good actually until the constant interference and overbooking kicked in. These are two of the better workers in the Knockouts division so I was hoping for once they’d just let them actually “work”, but instead we got the usual antics and shenanigans and it dragged an otherwise above-average Knockouts match down unfortunately.
Once again we cut to backstage where Jeremy Borash asks Brian Kendrick about retaining his title earlier in the night, but before he can answer Austin Aries walks up and interrupts him. He complains about being double teamed the entire match and tells Kendrick that he’s not the real champion until he beats Aries one on one, which Kendrick laughs at and walks off.
Bound For Glory Series Match
Rob Van Dam vs. Crimson
RVD is accompanied by Jerry Lynn, while Crimson is accompanied by his usual terrible wrestling attire. Very even match in the first few minutes with both men exchanging blows and basic holds. RVD gains the upper hand pretty quickly and starts hitting some of his signature spots (the rolling thunder, leaping thrust kick off the top, etc). Crimson fights back with a few slams and gets some near falls of his own. He actually starts to look pretty impressive from here, tossing RVD around with ease with various different suplex combinations. RVD sends Crimson to the floor with a thrust kick, but before he can follow up on it Crimson wipes him out with a big lariat and tosses him back into the ring. Van Dam starts his comeback and actually hits the Five Star Frog Splash, but Crimson kicks out at two to everyone shock. He fights back with a spear on RVD and looks to set up for his Sky High powerbomb finisher, but suddenly Jerry Lynn hops into the ring to interfere and the referee calls for the bell, disqualifying Rob Van Dam and awarding the match to Crimson at ___.
Winner: Crimson @
Rating: **3/4 – This was going really well until the DQ finish, as Crimson got a chance to show off some more of his offense than he usually does here and he threw out some nice slam and suplex combinations. RVD bumped decently enough for him too and made him look pretty impressive, and having him kick out of the frog splash is a pretty big deal. I don’t like the finish because this a PPV, but it’s understandable given both men’s positions on the card. Pretty good match sullied by a DQ finish.
Once again we cut to Jeremy Borash backstage, this time as he interviews the newest member of Immortal, Mr. Anderson. Anderson says that Immortal were missing one thing: an asshole (insert Bischoff/Hogan joke here). Anderson talks about shitting on people and then begins to make really lame fart noises with his mouth like a child as this promo is thankfully wrapped up quickly and we cut back to the ring. That was a shining example of how absolutely terrible Anderson has become in his promo work currently.
-COLIN TAGS OUT DUE TO AN EMERGENCY. Ladies and gentlemen I soundly, soundly apologize but as I’m typing this I’ve just been called by the local police to inform me that my sister was in a car accident. I’m heading over to the hospital right now as I’m the only one they knew to contact. I apologize profusely for the inconvenience this may cause our fine readers, our great Larry Csonka, and everyone here. Again, my apologies everyone. I’ll be back as soon as I can to finish this, but as you can tell, this is obviously something I can’t exactly put off. My uttermost apologies to everyone, especially Larry. Stay tuned as hopefully someone will be replacing me with the live coverage very shortly as I’ve just emailed him. My apologies again. — Colin Rinehart
-LARRY TAGGING IN!
-My PPV feed sucks tonight, mostly sound, so this will be very bare bones. My apologies.
-Colin plans to return later and offer a fuller recap of the last part of the PPV.
A.J. Styles & Kazarian & Christopher Daniels vs. Abyss & Gunner & Scott Steiner
Ok, I am jumping in late here, so bare with me. This was a really good match, which featured all the guys working hard. At the end, Gunner go to F-5 Styles off the apron onto a table on the floor, but Daniels blocked it. This led to Gunner tackling Daniels, and they both went through the table. Meanwhile, back in the ring, AJ Styles nailed a springboard kick on Abyss and got the pin.
Winner: Fortune @ 14:00
-After the match, Gunner and Steiner both yelled at Abyss about losing again, and Abyss acted sad and left the ring on his own. Also, Styles checked on Daniels as did Kaz.
-Jeremy Borash interviewed Bully Ray. He said that there is only room for one asshole in Immortal, and that it was him. He mentioned carrying Devon again for years, and noted that his mother and father made a mistake when they decided to have him. He also blamed Hogan and Bischoff for bringing Anderson into Immortal.
Mr. Anderson vs. Bully Ray
The match, what I saw, was ok, but again hard to judge. They did a lot of brawling, but they didn’t keep the crowd well. Anderson was going to use Bully Ray’s chain, but the ref stopped that. At one point, Anderson tried the kamikaze roll, but lost Ray and Anderson then collapsed. The finish saw Bully Ray low blow Anderson, and roll him up for the pin.
Winner: Bully Ray @ 10:00
-Hogan and Bischoff yell at Abyss. Bischoff says Abyss keeps letting them down, and that he dropped the ball destroying the X-Division. Bully Ray came to celebrate, but Hogan didn’t seem to want any part of it. Immortal then went to have a meeting, leaving Abyss out of the mix.
-Mexican America comes to the ring. Anarquia says that won’t let them drop the Mexican flag from the rafters anymore, so they have their own. He then says that he will make them hang the flag from now on.
TNA Tag Title Match: Beer Money © vs. Mexican America
Fine match here, as all of the guys worked really hard. The one downer here was that commentary kept playing up Storm’s back injury from Impact, but they never really used it in the match and Storm never really sold as if he was injured. Commentary kept mentioning it as if they were going to build a spot around it, but it never came. The finish saw Anarquia on the top rope, Roode shove him off and Storm superkick him on he way down, allowing the champions to retain the titles.
Winner: Beer Money @ 11:00
-Borash talks with Kurt Angle. He says that he will not lose tonight.
-Video package of the feud.
-Main event time.
TNA Title Match: Sting © vs. Kurt Angle
They did the slow feeling out process to begin, basically trying to give the match the big main event feel. Like many TNA main events, it spilled to the floor in the first five minutes, with Sting controlling most of the brawling early on. They worked hard, and it was a pretty good match as Angle always work on another level, but it was not a great Kurt Angle match. The end saw Angle going for an enzuigiri, but Sting ducked and Angle hit the ref with the kick. Hulk Hogan then came out with a chair, Angle took it away and then the SWERVE as Angle used it on Sting. He then hit the Angle Slam on the chair. Hogan acted surprised as Angle won the title.
Winner: AND NEW HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION Kurt Angle @15:00
-Again, apologies for the whole situation tonight, and thank you guys for reading and understanding. Colin, I hope your sister is ok buddy.
