The SmarK Rant For NWA-TNA – July 2 2003

The SmarK Rant for NWA-TNA, July 2 2003

– Man, I tell ya, this was such an exciting and eventful episode that I had to wait a full day and play some EWR 4.0 just to calm myself down enough to write the rant without having a heart attack at reliving the adrenaline rush of watching the show. Or not.

– Live from Nashville, TN.

– Your hosts are Mike Tenay & Don West.

– Shane Douglas starts out in the ring (with a Raven shirt) and again brings up the NWA title thing from 1994. NO ONE CARES. It was supposed to be a “Clockwork Orange” match against Raven, but he’s not here. That’s okay – listening to Shane Douglas bitch about 1994 and Shawn Michaels every interview is like that scene in Clockwork Orange where they tape his eyes open and torture him. Shane wants to declare himself the winner by default (That’s GOTTA be an inside joke) but Raven’s lapdog CM Punk comes out to take his place instead…

– Shane Douglas v. CM Punk. Punk gets a leg lariat and a northern lights suplex with a chair to start. Douglas takes him into the corner, but gets backdropped. Shane bails off a kick, and Punk follows with a sloppy suicide dive. Douglas looks horrible, by the way, although he’s been carrying himself like a star since getting here. Shane eats can, but whiplashes Punk on the floor. They brawl outside, and back in Shane hits him with another garbage can on the way in. I’d point out that doing this stuff in the opening match really dilutes the Hard 10 match later on, but that’s really the least of the problems with that match. Douglas stomps him and chokes away, but Punk comes back with a jawbreaker and a crossbody using a chair. I guess Punk is the new Sick Boy, where he substitutes chairs for springboards. CM (Chair Man?) chops away and an elbow gets two. High knee and backbreaker get two. Shane goes low and finds a set of brass knuckles, but Punk uses a chair for two. The knux and BELLY TO BELLY OF DEATH finish for Douglas, however, at 5:58. Punk was bumping his ass off trying to get something out of Shane. *1/2 Jim Mitchell comes out and “throws fire”, but his flash paper doesn’t light. That happens to a lot of guys his age. So really Punk was selling a REALLY bad paper cut.

– Jeff Jarrett joins us, but Russo assures him again that there will be no rematch. GOOD. Just Joe E. Legend attacks out of the crowd and brawls with Jeff, as time stands still. In fact, I’m writing this nearly 24 hours after the fact and I think the brawl just wrapped up a few minutes ago. Legend is looking like Al Snow now, by the way, for the three of you who remember him from the WWF when he had short hair. So anyway, the brawl goes ON and ON until they end up in the ring and Legend misses a legdrop, allowing Jarrett to get the figure-four. Apparently, Tenay informs me, the crowd is chanting for Jarrett at this point. Hmm, must be something wrong with all 6 of my speakers, I’ll have to have them checked sometime. AJ Styles comes in to attack Jarrett while he’s busy with the figure-four, and gives him the Styles Clash. Styles & Legend tape him to the ropes and Russo uses his WIFFLE BAT OF PAIN to inflict those dreaded internal injuries where you’re spitting up blood but can’t quite pinpoint which internal organ is ruptured. I believe the medical term is “Shamrockitis”, and symptoms are a compulsion to bite down on condoms full of fake blood and a tendency to get your assed handed to you by Tito Ortiz. Oh, and still no rematch.

– NWA tag title: America’s Most Wanted v. Sonny Siaki & David Young. Why Vince hasn’t stolen AMW yet is beyond me. Harris & Siaki exchange hammerlocks to start, and Harris grabs a headlock. They work off that for a bit. Siaki gets a crossbody for two. Harris gets his own for two, and grabs an armbar. AMW double-team Siaki and gets the double-backbreaker, and Storm gets two. Young comes in and misses a charge, and Storm slams him for two. Harris atomic drop into a Storm legsweep gets two. Siaki nails Storm behind the ref’s back in an awkward spot, and Storm is YOUR face in peril. Suplex gets two. Young comes in and gets powerslammed, however. The discussions between West & Tenay about how the match will be over if Young gets his spinebuster are just about the dumbest things to come out someone not named Scotsman. It’d be like Tazz & Cole talking about a backbreaker being a sure finish or something. Hot tag Harris. Backdrop for Young, and it gets two. Siaki pumphandles Storm for two. Harris & Siaki slug it out, and Harris walks into the dreaded SPINEBUSTER OF DEATH for two. Well, there goes that sure finish. Sideslam gets two for Storm. He superkicks Young to set up the Death Sentence at 8:52. Everything was there and they went through the motions of a tag match well enough, but it didn’t click. **

– A video package positions Elix Skipper as a single.

– Meantime, Kid Kash bribes Big Scary Dude with candy bars (maybe it’s Tammy Sytch?) and dubs him The Abyss.

– Erik Watts v. The Abyss. Wait a sec, which is which? Oh yeah, Erik Watts is ABYSMAL, sorry, got them confused. They brawl from the back and Watts gets dropped on the railing. Into the ring, Abyss gets a corner splash and a torture rack drop, which the crowd likes. This guy’s gonna be a huge star in the WWE, bet money on it. That gets two. He stops on Erik’s face (kudos!) and gets a backbreaker, but misses a charge. Watts fights back, but runs into an elbow. He gets a big boot to fight back, and a powerslam for two. Chokeslam gets two. It’s so weird seeing Erik Watts adjusting from being a passable mat wrestler in his young days to being a god-awful power wrestler now that he’s a veteran. Does the world REALLY need another tall guy with nice hair doing chokeslams? Isn’t there some sort of federal law against cloning Bryan Adams? Ref is bumped, which was the last thing this match needed. Kash of course runs in to distract Watts. Abyss goes up (which probably would have blown the roof off the place) but Watts powerbombs him off and he gets two. Watts pounds Kash, but Abyss finishes with the Bossman Slam for the pin at 5:12. If Abyss can work a decent match with someone better than dropkick boy, he’ll be in the WWE and getting a huge push by the end of the year. ј*

– Mike Tenay sits down with Sting. He talks about his early life in California and how there wasn’t any wrestling on TV in the early 80s. Now, I lived in Canada in the early 80s, where most cable systems consisted of 15 channels if you were lucky, and even then there was 6-10 hours of wrestling a week. You could hardly flip channels on the weekend without running into a WWF show. I cannot imagine a portion of California in 1985, unless he lived in the desert, where he wouldn’t have at least had a chance to casually watch wrestling. Anyway, nothing else of note here.

– We stop to recap the Jarrett attack, as if anyone cares. Call me if he’s dead, so I can prepare for him topping HHH by rising from the grave to regain the NWA title next month.

– Video package on Lynn v. Credible, which runs about as long as both matches combined.

– Chain match: Justin Credible v. Jerry Lynn. They’re connected at the neck, so it’s really a dog collar match, but suck is suck no matter what it’s dressed up as, no? As a rule, I hate any match where the guys are chained or tethered together. If you really want to amuse me, hook them up with those explosive bracelets like in Suicide Squad where their arm blows off if they get more than 20 feet away from each other. That’d spice up the buyrate. Remember, it’s only fun and games until someone loses a limb, and then it’s fucking hilarious. Anyway, I have to take issue with this being a Russian chain match in the first place. I mean, what’s the connection? Justin Credible looks like Vladimir Petrov after cycling off the roids, sure, but other than that there’s no Russians here. It’d be like WCW booking Hogan and Flair to have an Indian strap match. Oh wait, they already did that, too. Pinfall or submission here, no silly corner touching. Lynn attacks to start and attaches the collar, and sends Justin into the turnbuckle. Justin stomps him and tries his powerbomb out of the corner, but Lynn gets something that I guess was supposed to be a headscissors and they end up on the floor. Lynn pulls him into the post and Justin blades, but it’s girly, Kevin Nash cut. Lynn bites at it, but Justin pulls him into the apron and pounds him. Back in, Lynn chokes with the chain (what is he, housebreaking him?), and that gets two. Justin comes back with the inverted DDT, and faceplants him. That gets two. He tosses Jerry and hangs him with the chain. Back in, Lynn with a neckbreaker and a pair of clotheslines to come back. Tornado DDT gets two. Lynn hammers away in the corner, but Justin superkicks him for two. Lynn slides under and goes low with the chain, and then hogties him for the pin at 7:08. Another big disappointment. *1/2

– Meantime, Frankie Kazarian petitions for an X title shot, but AJ Styles intervenes and offers a shot at the big belt instead.

– Mike Sanders v. Shark Boy. I really like Shark Boy as a character, but I don’t think he’s got the chops in the ring to back up the gimmick. Sanders attacks to start and tries for the mask, but SB slugs back. Side legsweep, but he stalls instead of covering. He gets a pair of dropkicks and an armdrag. He works on the arm, but gets hotshotted and Mike sidekicks him for two. Straight kick and we hit the chinlock. Shark Boy escapes, but Sanders gets a neckbreaker. Shark with his own for two. He goes up with a crossbody, which Sanders rolls through for two. Shark goes back up, but Sanders slams him off, and Shark Boy reverses to a cradle for the pin at 4:02. I vaguely recall Sanders being an okay worker in WCW, but perhaps the 3 years since then has not been kind to him, because he fucking sucked here. *

– Meantime, DX 2.0 makes fun of various pictures from last week’s show. They’ve got the right idea, but they need better material. And as much as I detest Konnan as a worker, the WWE is nuts for not picking him up and taking a run at the young Hispanic demographic with him, because there’s a million kids out there who talk and dress just like him. Just look at how well Rey Mysterio got over with that same group.

– Tracy & Nurse Veronica come out to complain about lack of competition or something, so the TNA dancers come out for a fight, but security pulls them apart. Guess Russo was getting blown by them and had to put them on TV.

– Hard 10 Finals: Sandman v. New Jack. New Jack has his trusty staple gun, but as they continue making up the rules as they go along, apparently it’s not an official weapon. I gave up trying to follow the logic after that Devon Storm match. Jack hammers him to start and staples him, which of course doesn’t count. Dammit, this is AMERICA, if a man wants to bring a staple gun to a fight, it should COUNT. People went to Iraq and DIED for my right to bring a staple gun to a fight. Well, okay, I’m not American, but New Jack is. Sandman uses a trashcan to go up 1-0. outside, Sandman uses the edge of a lid to draw blood, and Jack chairs him to tie it up. A can makes it 2-1. Sandman gets a kendo stick for 2 points, and it’s 3-2. Jack with a lid and it’s 3-3. Chair and it’s 4-3. Sandman canes him for 4-4. They exchange shots and it’s 5-5. Out into the crowd and they head up the stage, where Sandman chairs him to make it 6-5. I can’t take this suspense! Another one for 7-5. New Jack steals it to make it 7-6. Again, and it’s 7-7, but he charges like a moron and gets backdropped off the balcony and through a table to give Sandman the win, 12-7, at 5:00 or so. Not one of New Jack’s better balcony dives. Ѕ*

– Next week: Negro Casas & Shocker.

– NWA World title: AJ Styles v. Frankie Kazarian. I’m sure Gorilla Monsoon would call this a main event in any arena in the country. I’m all for pushing new guys, but GEEZ. Styles gives a clean break to start off a lockup, and they trade wristlocks. AJ armdrags him down a couple of times, but Kazarian dropkicks him and gets a clothesline and springboard legdrop for two. AJ dumps him, but Kazarian comes in with a DDT for two. AJ bails and regroups, but Kazarian brings him in with a headscissors. AJ uses the ref to distract him, and clips him to take over. Neckbreaker and a suplex into a neckbreaker, and Styles gets a kneedrop off those. He does seem to enjoy those neckbreakers, doesn’t he? AJ misses a charge, but kicks Kazarian off the apron. He looks to follow him out, but fakes the highspot instead. Back in, brainbuster gets two. AJ knees him down, and gets a dropkick for two. Styles Clash is reversed, but Styles gets a leg lariat for two. He tosses Kazarian and pounds him on the floor, and they land back in, where Kazarian gets a rollup for two. AJ kicks him down again for two. We hit the chinlock, but Kazarian fights out. AJ gets two. They collide on a crossbody, and Chris Sabin runs in to hit a backbreaker on Kazarian. That gets two for AJ. Styles misses a charge and Kazarian comes back, but AJ goes up. He crotches him down again, but now Trinity runs in and takes Kazarian down. AJ tries a missile dropkick, but Kazarian catches him with his own coming down. Trinity hits AJ with a rana, by mistake, and they doa super-sloppy reversal sequence off each finisher that ends with a Kazarian DDT thing for two. He fights off Sabin with a suicide dive, and back in with a rana, but AJ reverses to a horrid Styles Clash that nearly kills Kazarian at 13:24. Never got off the ground, and all the interference just brought it down further. ** Russo of course has to get the last shot, nailing Kazarian with the foam bat (I mean, it’s pretty obvious when you can hear the sound of foam hitting flesh) but D-Lo cleans house. Next week, it’s D-Lo v. Styles & Russo or D-Lo & a mystery partner v. Styles & Russo or D-Lo v. Styles or something.

The Bottom Line:

Completely boring show that missed on all fronts, and while I appreciate the effort to swing things to the wrestling side, putting Erik Watts out there for 10 minutes is counterproductive to that goal. If you skipped this one, don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything.