Falls Count Anywhere

12-13-05 (continued) (TNA PPV and Smackdown)

Barb Wire? That's not Pamela Anderson...

Sabu took on Abyss in a match that I really wanted to hate. Sabu did all sorts of crazy spots with the barbed wire. Sabu whails on Abyss all sorts of ways, though he misses a shot with a barbed wire baseball bat and it gets tangled in the ropes. James Mitchell hands over a barbed wire covered chair and Sabu uses it well. After Sabu hit a great plancha onto Abyss, he brings in a barbed wire covered board and uses it as a weapon, finally winning when he splashes Abyss while the board is on top of him. Decent match. Better than most Barbed Wire Matches.

Alex Shelley and Roderick Strong lost to Austin Aries and Matt Bentley in a match that I missed a lot of. It had a very hot finish, especially when everyone was busting out all the big moves for near-falls. Sadly, this only got 8 minutes, so my bathroom break, which I thought would bring me back just as they really got going, brought me in just as the finish was starting to flow.

Chris Kanyon took on Raven in a match that you knew that Raven was going to win with the DDT (in this case after a PowerBomb on a chair). Kanyon, who can’t go by that in TNA, was called Chris K. He wasn’t as fluid as he was in the last run in the WWE, but he was pretty good, even missing a moonsault. It was short, but it went far better than it could have.

Team Canada beat 4 Live Cru. I have little to say about this one. It was pretty basic and we didn’t get to see the Canadian Destroyer. Konnan turned on Kip James and leveled him with a chair so that Roode could get the pin. I was not impressed because 4 Live Cru only does exactly as much as is required.

The Diamonds in the Rough lost to Sonjay Dutt, Dale Torborg and Chris Sabin. This was the blow-off on the angle that was made to get them on ESPN and it worked as that. AJ interfered and that basically allowed Sabin to hit Cradle Shock and Dutt to get the Hindu Press. This might actually help Dutt get over.

Monty Brown and Christian Cage had a match that was slightly better than I had expected, but it was also not to the level that they would have liked out of these too. They basically work some smart spots, like Christian coming off and crossbodying Monty, who caught him and then turned it into a Press Slam, but Christian escaped. Eventually, Christian went to the top and came off with a Crossbody to the floor. Lots of back and forth, with Christian looking OK, but far from what he could do with a real worker. A Nice Tornado DDT led to a Frog Splash, but Monty got back up and gave Christian an AlphaBomb, but that led to a Full Nelson, which Christian got out of and that let Christian throw him into an exposed turnbuckle and then hit the Unprettier for the win. Not a bad match, but not great and it was the quality of the match that would really determine how far these two would go towards being the NWA champion.

Team 3D beat America’s Most Wanted in a Tables match. Again, I missed a good deal of it due to a bathroom break, but it was a good brawl and it might have been my favourite match so far, but it was way short.

Beefcake...beeeeeefcaaaaaaake...

Samoa Joe and AJ Styles may end up like Flair and Steamboat, having great matches over a long period of time in the highlights of their careers. This was an exceptional match. AJ starts fast and hard, but Joe gets in a suplex. They trade stiff work for a while and Joe kicks the hell out of AJ. Samoa Joe just throws around AJ, using the size difference for a while, which works really well. Joe got a great PowerBomb onto AJ, then went for a pin and AJ kicked out. This led to a One-Legged Boston Crab that ended up with AJ escaping. AJ hits a great Asai DDT, and Joe then hits a beautiful lariat and in the end, gets the Kokina Clutch for the Submission win. This was an amazing match. Joe then nails AJ with the belt that he just won and Chris Daniels runs in and he goes at it with Samoa Joe until security breaks it up. Good stuff. There was no way the NWA Title match could compete.

They didn’t go as long as the X-Division match, but Rhino got predictably pinned by Jeff Jarrett. It was an OK match, in fact I’d say it was better than most of the Jarrett matches of late, but really, I was burned out by the Style-Joe match. It wasn’t great enough to make me forget that Jarrett holds the committee on a string, basically, and that means he’s winning with the Stroke almost every time. Rhino will now linger at the middle of the card for a while before floundering like he did in the WWE. That’s kinda sad.

Then, the highlight. The lights went out and the Sting symbol flew (I wonder how they’ll justify using that when the WWE owns WCW trademarks) and Sting's boots and bat and trenchcoat ended up on a chair in the ring. Well, he’s back, and that’ll probably end up making TNA hotter for a while, but it’s not a long-term way of making them a hot promotion.

NEWS
There’s not too much, but I did read that Ring of Honor, the hottest Indy promotion in the US, is actually managing to work in the black…or at least break even. That’s a very rare thing, for a promotion to manage at even break-even pace. That’s a lucky thing and I hope they’ll expand a bit. Maybe come out my way. Yeah, that would be sweet.

RAW

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Chris Garcia