Falls Count Anywhere

11-20-06

Love it and leave it. That's my motto.

TNA Troubles
There’s good news and bad news. TNA put on a helluva show last Thursday, including two exceptional TV matches. The problem? It scored a 1.0 rating in prime time. This was their big Prime Time chance and I wouldn’t say they blew it, but people just weren’t watching.

And they gave away a lot on the show. Kurt Angle’s first match was there and that could have been another PPV with a slightly higher (and likely quite a bit higher) buyrate. The match against Abyss was really good, classic Angle though with slightly few bumps. Abyss took Triple Germans, the first two were kinda sloppy, the final one Abyss took like a Superstar! It was really cool.

The match ended when Angle got Abyss to tap clean to the AnkleLock. Kurt was more over than any wrestler ever in the history of TNA. The crowd was non-stop for him. After the match, Samoa Joe attacked and was made into a full-fledged heel. Again, not a bad idea. Joe and Abyss teamed up against Angle until Sting came. Joe finished off Kurt himself. Great angle, but too soon. Joe vs. Kurt + six more months of them being kept apart is really big money.

The Christian Cage vs. Rhino Barbed Wire cage match was also really good. Rhino is underrated in my eyes, and Cage is always good. This was violent and bloody and wonderful. The highlight for me was Rhino reversing an Unprettier and giving Christian the TKO. That was awesome. Rhino hit the Gore and that sent Christian through the cage to the outside. This had great heat, including some delightful ‘This is Awesome’ chants. And indeed… it was AWESOME!

Jay Lethal was offered up to Samoa Joe. Joe slaughtered him, though Jay got a little offense. Afterwords, Joe wouldn’t let go of the Kokina Klutch, which Sonjay Dutt to give him the Little Star Press, though Joe then took it out on him too.

Chris Daniels won the X-Division title by pinning Chris Sabin in a match where AJ Styles was the third. I didn’t get to see all of it, but what I did see was really good.

That’s all I saw. I’m saying that TNA needs to nearly double the rating if they’re gonna stay in Prime Time.

I didn’t see SmackDown!, there was James Bond to be seen!

Oh. I'm sorry. He said AnGLE...

TNA Genesis in Very Brief
My Net Source hooked me up with vids of three matches from Genesis. The first was the Christopher Daniels vs. Chris Sabin match that I really enjoyed. Daniels is just so good and the way they’ve handled him, even when he comes out on the losing end of a feud, is always very smart. Chris Sabin is a great wrestler and the less they give him as far as storyline the better. Just let the guy go out there and wrestle and I love him. Solid match with the best moment being a running boot to the face that just looked brutally great. I’d say this was a good start.

Abyss beat Sting to become the NWA World Heavyweight Champion. This was a good match, but I HATED the ending. Sting started by hitting a tope. That’s right, 48 year old Sting did an out of ring dive just like he did in the match that first caught people’s attention: the six-man match at the 1987 Starrcade. This was mostly a brawl, which has to be expected with Abyss involved, but the match held together OK. The biggest problem was they ended the match in a DQ and, according to TNA rules, the title can change hands on a DQ! This was a crap ending. If they wanted to give the belt to Abyss, don’t have it done with some crap old school rule. They should have gone with a pin or submission. It really wouldn’t have hurt Sting at all.

The match of the year will be an easy choice for me. Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle. There’s no question. Kurt always seems to rise to the occasion and Joe is Joe. This was a match with untold intensity and beautiful work. Everything seemed to flow beautifully and the styles meshed so nicely.

Match of the Year!

I still think they went too early with this one, but the result was so wonderful. It reminded me of Kurt vs. Benoit at its best. The crowd was hot for the whole thing. There were a couple of different little stories, the best of which came at the ending. There was the segment where the two of them kept blocking the other’s finishers, including a triangle choke out of a MuscleBuster.

The finish was Kurt hitting an Olympic Slam and then putting on the Ankle Lock, which Joe managed to escape and then put on the Kokina Clutch. That led to Angle rereversing things into the Ankle Lock, but Joe escaped it and then Angle hit the Olympic Slam again and that led to him putting the Ankle Lock on again and that led to Kurt sitting down and that led Joe to top out.

That’s right, Samoa Joe tapped.

I had a couple of thoughts on this finish. One, it was perfect, and having Joe tap was a surprise as I was expecting them to go to some sort of draw, but having a clean finish was the right choice looking at the whole thing. The fact that Kurt won means that Joe should either go on to the feud that’ll lead him to the NWA Championship, which will then lead to real prestige for the title when Kurt and Joe meet for the belt. That’ll be big, but it would have been bigger if it would have been the first meeting. Still, great match and my Match of the Year, no question.

I’ll be back next Thursday with a full week’s worth of news and reviews.

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Chris Garcia