The SmarK Rant For NWA-TNA – June 11 2003

The SmarK Rant for NWA-TNA – June 11, 2003

– Live from Nashville, TN.

– Your hosts are Mike Tenay & Don West.

– Meantime, D-Lo attacks Raven during his promo outside, and brawls with Julio Dinero into the arena. And we’re off…

– D-Lo Brown v. Julio Dinero. Brown slugs away to start, but misses a blind charge. He rebounds with a top rope rana and stops to deal with Alexis, but walks into a spinkick that misses by a MILE (and sells it anyway). Julio dropkicks him off the apron and they brawl outside and back in, but Alexis trips up D-Lo, allowing Julio to give him a neckbreaker between the ropes that puts him out. He follows with a tope con hilo and then sends Brown into the post with a chair wrapped around his neck. He guillotines him on the way in (with the kind of sloppy execution that WWE camera guys would cover for) and an STO gets two. Another neckbreaker variant gets two. Inverted DDT gets two. Julio chokes him out on the ropes, allowing shenanigans from Alexis, and a tornado DDT gets two. That’s apparently called the “Dream Theater”. Since when is Nashville a northern town? They collide for the double KO, but D-Lo makes the comeback with punches and a jawbreaker and dropkick that gets two. Alexis interferes again with a tornado DDT, which gives Julio two. Sky High finishes for D-Lo at 6:34. Pretty flat with Julio blowing stuff left and right. *1/2

– Mike Tenay brings out Glen Gilberti for an interview about last week’s loss to Jarrett. He doesn’t know why Russo turned on him. But he does know that Russo gave McMahon the idea to screw Bret Hart, gave Judy Bagwell a title, and put Viagra on a pole. Yeah, good thing there’s no women competing for the tag titles in THIS promotion. And of course David Arquette. In all fairness, Judy Bagwell was when Russo was still in the WWF. And I doubt anyone in the audience even remembers that stuff. Gilberti starts dying out there going on about Russo’s family and how he’s a pussy. Tag Jones finally does the run in and beats on Glen with his bat, but the HarriSS brothers pull him off. Trust Russo to book himself as a badass, and then try to act tough by beating up DISCO INFERNO. Might as well pick on midgets like 3 Minute Warning did…

– Meantime, Shark Boy and New Jack play Twister. No, really. Hilarity ensues. And hey, it’s Scott Hudson doing backstage interviews instead of Goldylocks! Why would he be slumming here when the WWE was offering him a full time job during the Invasion?

– X title: Chris Sabin v. Shark Boy. They exchange hammerlocks to start and criss-cross into a Shark Boy hiptoss that gets two. Sabin slugs him down, but Shark dropkicks him into a Russian legsweep and fistdrop. He dumps Sabin and tries to follow with something crossed between a dropkick and an Asai moonsault, but the result is that he doesn’t really hit either. Looked real bad. They brawl into the crowd, but Sabin hits him with a german suplex on the floor. Back in, a flying splash misses. Shark Boy makes the comeback with a Rube Goldberg bulldog that gets two. A facecrusher sends Sabin into the corner, where Shark Boy hammers on him and goes up. Missile dropkick gets two. Sabin gets his own facecrusher as the match just totally falls apart, and gets two. There’s nothing in the way of transitions here. Shark Boy gets a neckbreaker for two. He tries a rana, but Sabin reverses to yet another complex backbreaker variation with 18 twists. Doesn’t anyone know how to do SIMPLE stuff anymore? Shark Boy catches him with a Diamond Dust Driver (Masato Tanaka’s insane finisher, you may remember it from ECW) out of the corner, but only gets two. Sabin comes back with a fisherman’s buster for the pin at 6:19. Sabin tries to unmask him, so New Jack makes the save. *

– Konnan & Ron Killings v. The Harris Brothers. Killings get overpowered by Don to start, but he slugs back. Flying forearm gets two. Konnan comes in and gets pounded by Ron, but comes back with a single-arm DDT. Killings tags in and gets tripped up from the outside, putting the Harrrrisssesessss in charge. Ron gets a corner clothesline. Two! Three! He’s KILLING Killings! Okay, maybe not, I had to work in that gag somewhere. They work him over in the corner as Tenay talks about them being successful in every organization they’ve been in. Excepting the WWF, the only one that counts now, where they were colossal failures who were given multiple gimmicks and managers and never won the tag titles. Lots o’ choking drags things on longer. Killings finally gets an axe kick to slow up the Harris workrate machine and makes the hot tag to Konnan. Carpet muncher (the old nWo joke name for the X-Factor, for a couple of people who have asked) for Don and the faces double-team Ron with a clothesline, but Ron flapjacks Killings while Don & Konnan fight outside. BG James runs in with a chair and hits Ron, giving Killings the pin at 6:52. Really bad on all levels. DUD

– Mike Tenay interrogates Jeff Jarrett about the Russo situation. They’re not working together. Honest.

– Meantime, a masked man lays out Erik Watts in the back, presumably working for Kid Kash.

– Trinity & Goldylocks v. Kid Kash. Watts was supposed to be on the chick team (how apropos) but now it’s just 2-on-1. Trinity gets a sunset flip for two to start, and she slugs away. She puts her head down, however, and Kash gets a pair of neckbreakers. You know you’re watching wrestling when a chick puts her head down and the guy reacts by giving her a neckbreaker. Trinity fights back but walks into a slingshot suplex that gets two. Kash then changes things up with an Iron Claw (he must be reading my stuff) but Goldy charges in to break things up. Kash then applies the dreaded hold to Goldy, but she goes low to break it up and Trinity knocks him down with a high kick that gets two. Kash goes up but gets knocked down by Trinity. They do the powerbomb-reversal-rana spot off the top in favor of Trinity, but the masked guy runs in and sideslams Trinity for the pin at 5:01. Masked guy looks like Mark Canterbury, but he’s still retired last I heard. You can guess how good this was. Ѕ* for the highspot at the end.

– Meantime, Scott Hudson introduces Devon Storm as Sandman’s mystery opponent tonight. Whoopee. Guess the WWE tryout match didn’t pan out.

– Meantime, D-Lo gets thrown out of the building by security.

– Devon Storm v. Sandman. This is a Hard 10 match, of course. Storm slugs away in the corner to start and gets an elbow and legdrop, and grabs a kendo stick, but Sandman won’t let him in. He steals the stick and they fight over it, and Storm canes him 3-0. Sandman gets it back and takes the lead 4-3 with it, sending Storm to the floor in the process. Sonny Siaki brings them some weapons and gets in Sandman’s face, allowing Storm to moonsault him a couple of times. There’s no tactical advantage to doing wrestling moves in this match. He uses the stick to tie it up, though. He puts Sandman on a chair outside, and slingshots onto him, but it doesn’t count, so he just hits him with the chair instead to go up 5-4. Talk about punishing creativity. A fan happens to be carrying a ladder around with him (no, seriously) , and that gets involved. Garbage can lid puts Storm up 6-4, and he whips Sandman into the ladder but again no point. Sandman suplexes him on the ladder, and that’s somehow a point so it’s 6-5. A bulldog on the ladder ties it up. The logic here makes no sense. Sandman goes up but lands on the ladder. Storm uses a lid to go up 7-6, and a northern lights suplex onto a chair doesn’t count. I’d appeal this if I were Storm. He should have won the match by now. Sandman heads out to get rid of Siaki and then puts Storm onto the table, before climbing up the ladder and putting Storm through it to win at 6:46. Storm was screwed. I still like the concept, but they need better defined internal logic and the matches still suck. Ѕ*

– Tenay & West interrogate Lynn & Credible. Nothing exciting covered until Jerry Lynn says what we’ve all been thinking and accuses Justin of getting his push in ECW by butt-fucking Paul Heyman. And he didn’t even use a euphemism or anything. And you thought the Billy & Chuck gay wedding was tasteless. Things get heated and they brawl to end the segment.

– Meantime, Tracy hits on Scott Hudson.

– Asylum Alliance finals: David Young & Tracy v. Chris Harris & James Storm. Well, they’ve got matching tights now, but they look like a couple of generic midcarders without the gimmicks. Young slugs it out with Storm to start and ends up on the apron, where he gets superkicked off. Tracy soon follows him. They try a double-team plancha but Storms blows it bigtime, slipping off Harris’s back mid-move. Harris gets a delayed suplex for two and AMW works Young over in the corner while Tracy tries to use her boobs to distract them. They ignore the overwhelming power of the cleavage, however, until Elix Skipper interferes with a clothesline on Storm that turns the tide. Tracy comes in with some bad strikes, and then goes up with the Pie in the Sky, but misses a charge. Young comes in and superplexes Storm, however, for two. Storm comes back with a low kick and makes the hot tag to Harris, who cleans house on the heels and DDTs Young. AMW pauses to spank Tracy, but Young breaks it up. They set up for their version of the Vegomatic, but Skipper & Daniels distract Harris, allowing Young to get two on Storm. Harris recovers and spears Young for the pin at 6:40. Way too long, even at 6 minutes. ј* Tracy and the nurse take Young down with a chair afterward, which I guess gives us another “One heel v. two chicks” feud.

– Next week: Sting is here. I guess the WWE wants him to have a tryout before they give him a sweetheart deal and stick him on RAW every week. Hey, maybe Flair can turn on him 18 times next week, so it’ll be just like old times again.

– NWA World title: Jeff Jarrett v. Raven v. AJ Styles. AJ gets tossed to start, leaving Jarrett & Raven on their own. Styles charges back in, but gets armdragged by Raven and rolled up by Jarrett for two. Dropkick by Jarrett, but Styles gets a jawbreaker on him. Raven dumps him again and goes back to Jarrett, and they slug it out in dramatic fashion. That works well when the guys know how to punch effectively. They head out to brawl, but AJ heads back in and hits them with a tope con hilo. Raven gets sent into the railing, but AJ dives after him and hits it himself. Raven then uses AJ’s stairs and launches himself at Jarrett. Back in, Raven stomps a mudhole and then catches AJ coming off the top and catapults him into Jarrett. Styles rolls with it and hammers away on Jarrett, but gets powerbombed out of the corner by Jarrett. What a brilliant sequence. Raven hooks Jarrett in an STF, but Styles breaks it up. Styles finally hits his springboard inverted DDT clean on Jarrett, but it only gets two. Raven gets a rebound clothesline for two on Styles. Jarrett goes for the Stroke on Raven, but he reverses, and then AJ nails Raven with a chair anyway. They decide to go after Raven as a team, and hit him with a double suplex. They start working on the back, and Styles springboards in with a rana for two. Jarrett breaks it up, of course. Now they double-team him again, and this time Styles breaks it up. They now opt for a camel clutch/half crab double-team as Raven bleeds all over the place, but Styles gets fancy on top and accidentally hits Jarrett with a legdrop off the top. Everyone’s out. Raven comes back on both guys and superkicks Jarrett, and another clothesline on Styles sets up the kneelift. He sets up a chair for the DROP TOEHOLD OF DEATH on Jarrett, and then one for Styles which gets two. Jarrett makes the save. Jarrett gets whipped into Styles and Raven and Jarrett trade finishers until the Raven Effect gets two. A bleached Shane Douglas interferes and pulls Raven out of the match, however. He looked 50 years old. Styles clocks Jarrett with the belt, but stalls and decides to go up instead for a frog splash, but it gets two. Ah, Jarrett the superman. I think there’s something to that “JJJ” joke after all. Styles hammers him in the corner, but walks into an elbow and a whiplash slam that gets two. Jarrett tries a rana, but Styles blocks with a powerbomb that gets two. Styles tries a figure-four for whatever reason, but Jarrett shoves him off. Styles tries a sunset flip, but Jarrett rolls through, so AJ goes for the Styles Clash instead. Jarrett bumps the ref while blocking the move, and they head up, but Jarrett goes down first. Styles tries the springboard 450, but Jarrett gets the knees up. And now Russo comes in with a guitar, and yet another shocking swerve sees him hit Jarrett with the guitar. Styles Clash gives AJ the NWA World title at 13:58. All the interference would have been more effective if every undercard match didn’t feature run-ins, too, but it was a really good three-way and the crowd was way into AJ by the end. What’s with the exact same finish two weeks in a row, though? I guess three, because they showed a video package of Russo doing the same thing with Gilberti & Raven the week before. ***1/2 Jarrett challenges Styles to a rematch for the anniversary show next week, but AJ decides to check his schedule within 30 days instead. After consulting the brilliant evil genius Vince Russo, of course. So instead Jarrett challenges him to a tag match against himself and Sting.

The Bottom Line:

A good main event saves it somewhat, but that undercard was like something off of Nitro in 1999, with endless run-ins, bad wrestling between mismatched opponents, rambling interviews, and Vince Russo booking himself to look like Bruno Sammartino and the Grand Wizard combined.

This is the alternative?